The journey south had a different mood to the one that had taken place a few weeks before it, when we headed north. Gone was the happy expectation of seeing a long-lost friend, and of allowing the woman I came to love the same pleasure. Gone was the lazy warmth of Yule, always the least busy time of year, and all the attendant goodwill and closeness with the people.

Not that I was unhappy, heading south. I was just crowded. Crowded with thoughts, with worries and plans. A small gathering of ships would be leaving Eirik's camp before the next moon, returning across the gray winter seas to our homeland, summoning the Jarls and the warriors to an invasion unlike anything we had undertaken in the green isles before. As I cast my eyes over the water, looking for signs of incoming bad weather, I also took in my men. Young, strong, and smiling even in the cold wind. Before the next Yule, some of them would be dead. Perhaps many. It was my responsibility to see that they were ready, that they were hungry for the coming conquest. And what better way to train for combat than to engage in combat? The raids would need to picked up in pace.

And then there was her. My eyes fell upon her chestnut colored head even as I tried to keep them away. Seasick, she stood leaning over the shields that ran the length of the ship, pulling her hair off her face as the winds blew it repeatedly back. Whoever her people were, they were not the seafaring kind.

Or maybe her sickness was a mother's sickness? Maybe she already carried my son or my daughter there, within her belly? I wanted to go to her then, to wipe her mouth and offer her some comfort. But I didn't. It wasn't just because my men were without their own women, even as I told myself it was. Emma wasn't like the Northern women. She didn't seem to be like the East Anglian women, either. There was a steel inside her, like the blade of a sword. You can wrap a sword in lambskin, in shearling and furs. You can tie it with leathers and fasten spring flowers into the ties. But it is still, under the pretty, swaddling softness, a sword. The women I knew as a younger man didn't have that sharp edge sewn into them – or if they did, I had been too young and stupid to see it. Emma did. It was, I suspected, part of why I loved her. She seemed to know herself, to know what it was she wanted.

And yet it was also this that made me wary, that sent little flashes of uncertainty through my heart. The quick-witted little foreigner loved me. She needed me. She even looked up to me in that way that women do, their admiration filling men's chests with the bravado they need to carry out their duties. I caught her doing it all the time, even as she thought she hid it from me. But like the sword wrapped in soft leather and fur, I wasn't sure that she wasn't going to set aside her softness and slice me open.

I couldn't keep her against her will, she was plainly right about that. No woman of worth would submit to such a thing, and no woman of worth would be able to look with eyes unclouded by disappointment upon a man who needed to do such a thing.

"Jarl!"

I shook my head free of the thoughts of Emma and took notice of the rocky headland pushing out into the water, before directing the oars to carry the ship further out into the choppy sea.

* * *

We sailed for a day and a night and then part of a day again, with the wind against us. And after the camp had welcomed back its Jarl and a portion of its warriors, we all retreated to our roundhouses to sleep for many hours.

I awoke suddenly, in the darkness of night, and with a hollow in my belly. Had I eaten something rotten? No. It wasn't anything I had taken by mouth. It was the empty space on the furs beside me, an absence. Emma. I threw the furs off me and leapt to my feet, my heart beginning to pound.

"Emma!"

"Yes?"

Gods, she was right beside me, unseen in the dark. "Where – girl, what are you doing? Where have you –"

"Ragnar," she whispered, sliding in under the furs next to me so I could feel her body was cold from being out of bed for awhile. "I needed to relieve myself. Shhh. I'm back now. Go back to sleep."

I did go back to sleep, but only after locking one of my arms around her midsection and pulling her back against me.

When we woke, her head was on my chest and her hair falling over me. She turned her face up and studied me silently for a moment.

"What do you look at so intently?" I asked, twining my fingers through hers, luxuriating in her presence and anticipating the soft sighs I would soon be drawing from her lips.

"You," she told me. "You kept turning over in your sleep. Did you dream of the dogs in the forest again?"

"No," I replied. "I did not dream last night, girl. There is not room inside me for dreams right now, waking life is enough."

"Because of the invasion?"

I nodded and maneuvered her more fully onto me, pulling her thighs down on either side of my hips until her eyes closed just a little when she felt my excitement through her linens.

"Yes, Emma. Because of the invasion. There is so much to do, so many tasks to see to."

She put one hand on my chest and began to rock herself against me. "Why do you need to invade?" She asked, and my heart beat strong in my chest to hear the tone in her voice. "Don't you have enough room back in – back in the North?"

"We have plenty of room," I told her, drawing her under-dress up over her knees, and then her thighs. "Not all of it is good for crops, or fit for keeping animals. It is a natural thing for a people to expand, to conquer. It is right to wish to see your numbers multiply."

"Is it?" She gasped as she felt me between her legs and threw her head back when I pushed my hips up against her. "Is – is it?"

I put my hands on Emma's hips and turned her over, so she was suddenly underneath me, her eyes as wide open as her legs. And when I gave her what she wanted she made a little high-pitched noise that brought a twitch of pleasure to the full length of me. I bent down close to her face to kiss her neck and her soft cheeks and then her mouth.

"Do your people sue for peace at every opportunity?" I asked. "How do they survive? How do they hold off invaders if –"

"Ragnar!" Emma squeaked as I thrust down, hard. Watching her struggle to compose herself was as arousing a thing as I have ever seen. Her long fingers curled into the sheepskin she lay on and her mouth fell open. "I – where I come from we're – we're allies with the most powerful land there is. The most powerful there has ever...been...ohhh!"

The conversation was going to have to wait. Emma pushed herself up off the furs so I felt her body, her full breasts and her belly against me. Her kisses were weak with hunger, and the weakness in her own limbs was answered with a growing strength in my own, a heightening. I quickened my movements, guiding her like a ship on rough seas, showing her the way as she lay back underneath me, trusting that I was more than up to the task.

When she reached her peak, instead of burying her face in my shoulder or turning it to and fro as she lost herself, Emma looked at me. Her eyes held mine so I could see every flicker of sweetness, every little jolt and shudder written across them like the weather written on the sky. It brought me along very fast to see her that way, and when I could no longer hold back she held my face in her hands and took me in almost as a wife takes in a husband who is about to leave on a long journey.

I lay back when we were finished, panting on the furs and almost slipping back into sleep. Emma threw an arm over my chest and I ran my fingers up and down it from wrist to shoulder, over and over, marveling still at the flawlessness of her skin.

"Are you hungry?" She asked a short time later. "I will go to the feasting hall and bring back buttered bread and ale, we can take our breakfast in bed."

I reached out when she slipped out of bed, grabbing at her thighs, her buttocks, her belly and laughing as she protested. "Stop! I'll never get out of here if you don't keep your hands to yourself. And then you'll never get that bread and ale."

So I watched her dress, struggling to keep my eyes open, and then fell into a doze as soon as she was gone.

* * *

When I woke, I was confused. I was alone in the roundhouse, and the light coming through the skins was bright. How long had I been asleep? A quick glance around showed no plate of buttered bread, no cups of ale. I sat up and tried to orient myself in the day. It was much lighter than it should have been, if I'd only slept for a few minutes, and if Emma was still at the feasting hall to collect our breakfast.

I thought, then, of the way she'd looked at me when we were making love. That look in her eyes, as if I were about to leave for many moons. Perhaps she had been looking at me because she was about to leave?

"Fiske!" I shouted, as a feeling of dread seized my belly. How long had I slept? How stupid had I been to let her walk freely about the camp, to imagine that somehow it was the noble thing to do? "FISKE!"

A head poked through the leather flap – not Fiske – and I bellowed at the guard to find Fiske, and to find Emma, at once.

I threw on my dressings and ran out of the roundhouse, as a commotion started up outside, a reaction to my yelling.

"Where is she?" I shouted at the first man close enough to grab by the scruff of his neck. "WHERE IS SHE?!"

"Jarl, Jarl – "

Fiske. With Arva on his heels.

"We thought she was with you, Jarl," Arva said, as the small crowd gathered around me turned their heads to and fro, as if Emma must have been standing behind one of us, only temporarily hidden. "We thought she was in the round –"

"No! She left to find bread and ale for me, and she hasn't returned. I fear she's –"

Fiske didn't wait for me to finish my sentence. He turned and began to run in the direction of the feasting hall as the rest of the guards looked to me.

"Perhaps she's still there?" Arva suggested, and I found myself wanting desperately to believe her, even as something in the marrow of my bones told me not to. "If she went to fetch bread and ale, she will be back soon with bread and ale, won't she?"

But it was still too light, I still had the feeling that I had slept for longer than I intended after our morning exertions. And before I could snap at Arva, Fiske returned leading my horse by the reins and breathing heavily.

"She's not there, Jarl. She's – one of the cooking thralls said she thought she saw her earlier, walking outside the – outside the camp. I brought your horse, Jarl. The men and I will saddle ours and follow –"

But I didn't hear the rest of what Fiske was saying because I was already pulling myself up onto the horse and burying my heels in its sides, heading off towards the woods outside camp.

"We're right behind you!" One of my men shouted as I ducked under a branch and galloped down the path we had followed on our way back from the estate. My eyes roved over the land, not just looking for Emma but looking for signs of Emma – whatever those would be. There was a deep panic in my chest, unlike any I had ever experienced before, a fear not of death or injury but of loss.

She can't be gone. She can't be. She loves me. We'll find her somewhere silly, in the camp, fetching more pork from the storehouse.

Fiske and a couple of guards caught up with me later, after I'd covered more ground than Emma could have covered on foot between our encampment and the estate. And he didn't have to tell me they hadn't found her, because I could see it on his face.

"We should split up," I said, breathing hard. "You – you continue on this path, search the area around the ruined village. I'll go to the beach and look there. Take the guards with you."

The sound of the horses hooves filled my ears as we galloped back down towards the beach. I brought my mount to a half when we reached it, looking north and south, following the coastline with my eyes, seeking movement. None. Not north or south. A hot flash of fear and anger filled me. She would be whipped when I found her, for distressing her Jarl, for taking his mind away from important matters.

And even as I indulged myself in fantasies of how she would be punished, I could have wept for helplessness, and for the fact that I just knew she may already be gone for good. I turned the horse south and cantered along the path at the top of the beach, before coming to a path that led back into the woods. I followed it, intending to turn back to the north when possible and meet back up with my men, for a short distance and then something up ahead caught my eye. It was a windy, sunny day, and the sun cast moving shadows on the frosty ground as the wind tore at the bare tree branches. But I'd seen something. At least I thought I had. A flicker of linen, was it? Disappearing around a corner? I drove the horse to a gallop again and bellowed into the silent winter air:

"Emma? Emma! EMMA!"

And then I came to a stop once I had rounded the corner, pulling the horse up hard because I thought I'd heard something. And yes, I had. An animal – a pig, perhaps – was crashing through the undergrowth. I looked around, trying to locate the direction from which the sound came and realized the sound was too much to be one of the little red pigs the East Angles raised. A deer, then? No, the sound was too clumsy. It was her.

"EMMA!" I shouted again, dismounting my horse and sweeping the undergrowth blindly out of my way in the direction I thought the sounds were coming from "Emma I know you hear me! Stop this at once! I'm warning you, girl, I'll have you –"

And then there she was, not the length of one of our smallest ships away, her little face peering at me from behind a bush. I stumbled forward, yelling as my sword caught on the vegetation, my blood surging with the anticipation of getting my hands on her, of having her in my arms again. I looked down and spotted the hem of her tunic next to the ground. Thank the gods. Thank the gods.

And then when I went to thrust my hands into under the bush and drag her out, they clasped nothing but the cold air. I used my body to shove the undergrowth aside and stood, uncomprehending, as I looked down at... nothing.

There was nothing there. No sign of her. It was impossible. I turned, sweeping branches aside as my eyes darted from one spot to another. All to no avail. She wasn't there. I stood dead still to see if I could hear the sounds of movement again but there was nothing to hear, either. Just the wind in the woods and the horse's breathing.

But it couldn't be. I'd seen her. Her face. I'd seen her tunic almost within touching distance of my hand.

So where was she?

I began to lurch through the woods, kicking at stumps and ripping small bushes straight from the earth, raging and shouting Emma's name over and over. That's how Fiske knew where to find me. He followed me off the path and had to near shout my name directly into my ear to get me to listen.

"She was here!" I said, turning and taking him by the shoulders. "I saw her. I saw her face. She was right here!"