Had we only arrived last night?
Perhaps pressing my luck, I said, “I suggested bringing you here because I thought it would help. I never meant for you to feel as if you were being sent away.”
“I know that.”
Did he? If he’d known, why had he blamed me?
Unlacing my dress, I slipped out of it and stood there in my shift. He turned away, went to the bed, sat, and pulled off his boots. Lying down fully clothed, he started to roll over with his face to the wall again.
Going to him, I took his arm and tried to gently pull him toward me.
“Kai,” I whispered, leaning in and touching my mouth to his.
Grabbing my shoulders, he held me away. “No,” he said. “I won’t have your pity.”
“Pity?”
“You don’t want me. How could you? You saved my life, so now you’re saddled with me, but I won’t ever ask anything more.”
My long weeks of patience came to an end.
“Do you plan to make us spend the rest of our lives like this?” My voice was loud enough to be heard outside the room, and I didn’t care. “To go on punishing both of us? You think I don’t want you? I ache for you! I can barely stand to be in the room without touching you.”
I took hold of his face, and he didn’t push me away. His eyes were searching mine, and I leaned down, kissing him again. “I ache for you,” I whispered.
To my wild relief, his hand was on the back of my head, and I felt the once-familiar pressure of his mouth on mine, almost hard enough to hurt but not quite.
He pushed me down beneath himself, and I reveled in the welcome feel of his weight and the careful strength in his hands.
“Kai.”
The days flowed past, one into the next. We spent most days on the water aboard the Iris. Sometimes, the men would take smaller boats and fish with long poles.
In the late afternoons, Kai and I walked the beach, so he could put more weight on his leg in the soft but heavy sand. Emily and Kieran often came with us, and occasionally, Uncle Andre.
One day, Kieran asked how the injury had happened, and Kai told him. Both Kieran and Emily’s eyes widened at the story. Kai lived in a very different world from their own.
But after several weeks of this, I began to notice a marked improvement in his limp.
One morning, I woke up to realize we’d been living in the cottage for over a month, and autumn was setting in. When Kai arose to get dressed, he walked from our bed to his travel chest, and I barely noticed him favoring his right leg.
There was a chill in the air. Summer had ended.
After breakfast, as we all stepped outside, Uncle Andre smelled the breeze. “Everyone should bring coats today. The weather may turn.”
Emily and I ran back inside to get all the coats.
That day, I think Uncle Andre simply wanted to be out on the sea. He told us not to bother with the nets and to enjoy the coming autumn.
Then he got out the largest fishing pole I’d ever seen. It was as thick as my wrist and sported a reel. When he stood by the rail and cast out the baited line, the pole stretched well out over the water. The line was almost as thick as twine
“This cooler weather is good for Scarlet-Fish to rise,” he explained.
“Scarlet-Fish?” Kai asked.
“Great fish as long as a man, with red scales. I only caught one once, and he managed to pull the pole out of my hands.”
“Are they a delicacy?”
“Gods no.” Uncle Andre laughed. “Their flesh tastes like ash, but there are more than a few nobles and rich merchants willing to pay a small fortune to mount one on a wall.”
Listening to this, I tried not to show disapproval. To me, it seemed a waste to kill such a creature only to use it as a wall decoration.
“What should I do today?” Kai asked.
Clearly, Uncle Andre was feeling lazy. “Go to the prow or the aftcastle with your wife and feel the wind in your face.”
With a wry smile, Kai led me up to the aftcastle. Kieran was at the wheel. We joined him up there, and I stood in front of Kai. He wrapped his arms around me, and we both tilted our heads back to feel the sea wind in our faces as my uncle had suggested.
I’d never loved anyone as I loved Kai, and in that moment, there was no place in the world I would rather have been. The morning passed swiftly, and just before midday the sky began to darken.
Kieran looked up. “Andre?”
My uncle looked up as well. “Turn us about.”
I knew he probably feared a storm coming, and it would be wise to head back in.
Watching Kieran turned the wheel, I wasn’t paying attention to anything going on down below until I heard Uncle Andre call out, “Whoa!”
With no idea to whom he was speaking, I looked down to see him gripping his pole with all his might. A great flash of red leaped up out of the water and dove back down.
Andre was jerked against the rail, hanging onto the pole with both hands, knuckles turning white.
“Kai!” he shouted.
Without hesitation, Kai jumped off the aftcastle and landed on both feet. His right leg held him as firmly as his left when he landed, and he ran the few steps to Andre, reaching forward and grabbing the pole up above Andre’s hands.
Both men heaved backward, and the muscles in Kai’s arms strained against his wool shirt. Andre let Kai hold the brunt of the fight while he wildly cranked the wheel until he could reel no more.
The great fish in the water leaped up again. I’d never seen anything so bright red. It was worthy of its name.
Kai and Andre heaved again. Then Andre cranked the reel.
“Don’t let it go!” Kieran called from the aftcastle.
I wasn’t fully aware how long this went on, but everyone forgot about lunch. Andre and Kai alternated between heaving and reeling . . . heaving and reeling, until at last the Scarlet-Fish was directly below the rail in the water. The two sailors came running and positioned themselves one on each side of pole. They cast a net down and used it to pull the great fish over the rail.
I watched it flopping on the deck, gasping until it went still. Its crimson scales were bright in the dark day. It was a beautiful creature, longer than a man, with a ridged fin down its back. Again, I regretted that it had died only to become a trophy.
Panting, Kai dropped to his knees.
Andre dropped beside him. “If you can do that, lad, you can do anything.”
At the look that washed over Kai’s face, I forgot the fish. Kai believed Andre. So did I.
That night in bed, Kai held me tightly and buried his face in the top of my hair. He’d been a little troubled all evening, and I wasn’t sure why.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you unhappy here?”
“No. You were right to bring us to this place, to these people. I’ve never known a life like this.”
I understood him well enough to guess what he was thinking. “But you miss home?”
He nodded. “This is a good life, a good home. But it’s someone else’s life and someone else’s home.”
“Should I write to your father? Ask if we can come back?”
“I think so.”