Tears stung my eyes to hear him use the tribal term he had used when first we spoke of love to one another in Sador. It meant you who have my heart beneath your heel.

I sat up to kiss him back, thinking with anguish of the chained bear. Rushton frowned when he drew back as if he had felt my grief. Then I thought of the link and wondered if he had. I reached out to touch his cheek and said huskily, ‘I wish we might stay here together for the whole day.’

The shadow passed from his eyes as I had known it would at these provocative words, and he gave a low incredulous laugh. ‘I wonder if you can possibly imagine how much I love you,’ he said, then he bade me sternly to lie down and behave so he could make himself respectable. I laughed as he got up, wrapped himself in his still damp coat and went out, letting in a gust of clean, cold, rain-damp air.

Somehow I fell into a light doze and woke only when Rushton, now dressed, knelt by me and gestured to a bowl of warmed water, soap and a towel he had set out on the hearth for me to bathe myself. He told me that he had brought in some more wood from the pile outside to replace what we had used, then he rose and went out again.

I got up and washed myself slowly, conscious that the rain was falling so lightly now and that it was only a matter of time before Ceirwan sought me out. I kept my mind firmly shielded, and noted that my body ached, but with a strangely pleasant ache. I fell to thinking of the night until the room grew cold enough for me to notice I had nearly let the fire go out. I dried myself, got a bit of wood and put it on the embers, and then I pulled on my underclothes, which Rushton must have hung on the mantel when he got up. They were still damp, and so were my trews, but my shirt was completely dry. I dressed and pulled on my boots, combed my hair as best I could with my fingers and braided it tightly.