I prepared all day, and when evening fell, I was ready. The fire burned higher, the smoke sweeter from the mulberry branches we’d added. I’d fussed over the stew and added precious spices that made Maddox hum with pleasure as he tasted them. Candles burned in the corners of a wide square around the bed, and I’d strewn the bed with lavender.
“If we treat Ragnvald like a beast, perhaps he has no reason to be more,” I told Maddox. “I will treat him like a man.”
Lying on the bed, I waited, staring at the fire. I must have dozed, for when I woke, Ragnvald sat on a rock not twenty paces from where I slept.
Slowly, I sat up. “Good evening my lord.”
As before, he did not speak, but his eyes looked less sunken and he seemed less likely to bolt. I rose, moving carefully as if the smallest trem
