In stark contrast to Maralien's and Malthennior's dwelling, there was far more furniture in this hut. There were more comfortable-looking chairs and a far larger couch. Too, there was no evidence of offspring, though as he studied the gnarled and plain features of the woman he supposed to be Caraleen, he did not find this at all surprising.

'Sit down,' she said gruffly. 'Caraleen won't be but a minute or two.'

'And you are?'

The woman nodded her head slowly, as though understanding.

'They said you'd lost your memory. Still, at least you came back. Jand was beheaded, you say?'

'I said nothing,' Cormac said.

'I heard he had lost his head. Was that the way it was, then?'

'Jand was your man?'

'He was.'

'What will you do?'

'Find another man.'

'Where is Caraleen?'

'She will be back directly. She has been with Connacht, at the fortress.'

'Doing what, exactly?' Cormac demanded suspiciously. Whatever she was like, this Caraleen was supposed to be his woman.

'Doing? What do you think, doing?'

'I'm asking you, woman! What is your name, anyway?'

'Gundula.'

'What was she doing there?'

'Receiving news of you, of course.'

'Of me?'

'Rikyard summoned her to the fortress to inform her that you were safe and well, though there was talk of you making no sense when you spoke, and of the wound to your head.'

Cormac nodded.

'What are you doing here?'

'I came when first we heard that you had been ambushed at Altapunte.'

'You have a home of your own?'

'Of course! I will leave as soon as Caraleen returns.'

'I did not mean for you to leave on my account.'

'I cannot stay here. I have to plan my future.' Cormac smiled to himself, wondering how difficult it would be for the woman to secure another man with whom to spend the remaining years of her life, always supposing that a new man did not meet the same end as Jand.

Gundula stirred the food in the pot and a fresh burst of the aroma assailed his nostrils. Whatever his woman was like, and he had already fixed in his mind that she was going to be exactly like Gundula, he was going to enjoy the next meal. She went to the shuttered window and peered out, wiping her hands on her skirt.

'I see her now,' she said. 'I will leave you in peace. I wish you good fortune, warrior.'

'I wish you good fortune, Gundula.'

He was glad that she would be out of the hut by the time Caraleen entered, for whilst he had no idea how he was going to handle the situation when she recognised that he was not Reyniksen, the matter would surely be worse if he had two women to contend with, rather than just the one.

He watched Gundula walk off along the cliff trail, and then the door opened and in came Caraleen, dressed against the biting wind in furs which completely concealed her features and extremities. Savage and unpleasant as they were, they at least knew how to dress against the intense cold in this northern province.

She, not looking at Cormac, went to the hearth and satisfied herself that the meal was cooking satisfactorily. Cormac stood up and approached her hesitantly, preparing to grab her and silence her if she screamed. Caraleen went to the door, avoiding him, and began to remove her outer clothing.

'They told me to expect a different man,' she said in a husky whisper, and he was immediately struck by the beauty of her voice.

'Different in what fashion? Did they tell you that?'

'They said you rambled. You made no sense. You have apparently lost your memory.'

'That is true.'

She removed her hat, and he was amazed to see a cascade of beautiful long, waved golden hair, shining in the light of the oil lamp as she tossed her head to loosen the tresses after their confinement in the fur hood. Finally she removed her tunic, similar to his own, though considerably shorter, and turned to look at him, standing before him wearing a knee-length tunic with just two buttons, and a pair of soft ankle boots stained with the snow.

Cormac caught his breath. It was Maralien. There was no doubt whatsoever. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with large grey-green eyes and a small, snub nose, a generous mouth. Beneath the grey tunic he could see the swell of her young breasts, and guessed that she was no older than he. She approached him warily, avoiding his eye, for the other was obscured by the bandage, through which a small amount of blood had already begun to seep.

'You wasted little time. Trovistus said you would take another man almost straightway.'  She lowered her eyes and would not meet his gaze.

'I am Caraleen, Reyniksen's woman. I do not know what you are talking about.'

'Maralien, it is I, Cormac. Do you not recognise me?'

'I am Caraleen. I do not know that other name you said.'

'Maralien.....'

She held up her hand.

'I will not answer you if you do not call me by my given name. It is Caraleen.'

'I do not understand.....'

'You have received a blow to the head. You are confused. You are different.'

'How different am I, then?'

She ran her hand, small and soft, over his face, feeling the stubble, pausing at his lips with her fingertips. Then she turned away from him and went back to the hearth.

'Caraleen,' he said quietly, 'how different do you find me? Not too different, I trust?' His heart was hammering in his chest. He was sure that at any moment she would begin to scream, and her neighbours would begin to converge on her hut and take him away. By the light of the fire she was extraordinarily beautiful, the graceful sweep of her back as she squatted by the fire made him almost sorry that he was an enemy.

'How different?' she said.

'How different?'

'You are not Reyniksen,' she said, and got steadily and gracefully to her feet.

'And neither are you Caraleen,' he whispered, but she heard him not.

'Whoever you are, you are not Reyniksen,' Caraleen said.

'I do not understand.'

She stood before him, just an inch or so separating them, and peered up at his eye.

'I do not know who you are,' she said, abruptly. 'I have never seen you before in my life. You could be Korissian, but I suspect it is more likely that you are Walfenlander. If you have lost your memory, then you have my sympathy. But if they told you you were Reyniksen, then they told you wrong.'

'Caraleen.....'

'Who are you, really?'

Cormac hung his head, unable to comprehend what was going on in the head of this beautiful female standing before him.

'I am Cormac, son of the kjal of Walfen.'

She nodded.

'Then you should be their prisoner, or else you should be dead.'

'As I surely will be when you hand me over to them.'

She laughed, a pretty little laugh that made him smile.

'If you are Walfen, or Walfenlander, then I would not hand you over to them.'

'You would not?'

'No. I am no lover of Koriss. I was taken from my parents in Walfen a few days after my birth. I know I was Walfenlander. I could never betray you to them!'

Cormac gasped with relief. He sat back down, and she prepared a meal for them. All the while his eyes never left her, drinking in her beauty and the soft curved outlines of her body.

'How did you come to be Reyniksen's woman, then?' he asked.

'I have been brought up as Korissian,' she explained. 'When the time came I was given to him in exchange for some land or other. I had no choice in the matter. He was brutal. He raped me. I hated him. Eat your meal, and I will pour sulce for us.'

'I cannot believe my luck!' Cormac exclaimed. 'I killed the one man whose woman hates all Korissians and herself originates from my own country!'

'That would not have been uncommon, whoever you had killed. Tell me how it happened.'

He told her briefly how he had descended from the clifftop look-out post to find the garrison on fire and the men massacred, then hid until Jand and Reyniksen had appeared, and how he had killed one and sent the other packing, then hit upon the plan of going to Koriss to see if he could achieve anything against the invaders there.                

'You are very young to have attempted something like that,' she told him as she began to clear away the tin plates and eating irons.

'No younger than you, and look what you have been through already!' he retorted. 'You have already lost one man.....'

'I have nineteen summers,' she told him.

'And I twenty.'

'I should look at your head wound. The blood is still coming through.' Abruptly she began to remove the bandage, then mopped up the fresh blood with a soft wet cloth. As she stood over him, her cool, soft hands touching his forehead, her knees pressed against his. He tilted his head back as she instructed him, and his eyes came on a level with her breasts, swaying gently as she worked at he wound to prevent it from bleeding further. He could not help but notice that one of the tunic buttons was part way undone, and he could clearly see, beneath the grey cloth that she was naked at least from the waist upwards. Now and then as she moved her arms he caught a glimpse of her breast, and caught his breath. Finally she had done with him and declared her intention of leaving the wound uncovered for the fresh air to do its work. If it bled again, she told him, she would put on a fresh bandage.

Now he watched as she quickly and efficiently washed the plates and irons, and then joined him by the fire.

'What will you do now?' she asked.

'What do you wish to do?'  

'I meant what plans do you have? Will you go back to Altapunte to fight, or work as a spy here in Koriss, or what?'

'I do not know. I imagine they will judge me fit to fight, so how I will avoid it, I do not know.'

'There may be an alternative.'

'What is that?'

'We will talk about it in the morning.'

'What is wrong with now?'

Without answering him, she stood up and undid the two buttons of her tunic, letting it fall to the floor, standing before him totally naked, a single tress of hair covering the nipple of one breast. At her groin there was a soft down of golden curls. Cormac's eyes widened in appreciation of her, and he began to breathe hard.

She turned her back on him and walked slowly to the couch, pulled back the single cotton cover and sat down.

'Now is not the time for talking,' she said in a quiet whisper.

He stared at her, his mouth dry, then stood up, slowly removing his clothing, until he stood by the couch, naked. She lay on the couch looking up at him, then reached out and touched him with her forefinger, feeling him hard, and powerful. For a moment she traced the line of it with her finger, then her hand enclosed it, pulling him down onto the couch. She moved across to give him room and he slipped beneath the cover. His hands sought and found her breasts, firm, soft and smooth, delightfully rounded, the nipples already erect and hard against his hand. She lifted her leg and he slid into her, gently, so that the tip of him was resting just inside her, where she was wet, and warm. She slid her belly over onto his and lay full length on top of him, letting him glide into her slowly, controlling him with her muscles, rocking slowly backwards and forwards onto him, until all of him was inside her. Her lips brushed against his. Her breasts, squashed almost flat against his chest, smooth against his hair, his hands stroking her flanks, stroking her hair, anything and everything as he came alive in her, and she moved against him.

'I did not dream it could ever be like this,' he said, long after he had spent his seed inside her, and they lay clasped in each other's arms, their limbs entwined, her soft golden hair against his neck, her hand across his chest.

He turned her gently over, admiring and touching her buttocks, gloriously rounded and inviting. Then he slid down the couch and slipped into her again, cupping her breast beneath her arm.

'You said there may be an alternative,' Cormac said, much later. Again and again they had coupled, and each time it had been better than the last time. By now the first rays of a pale yellow dawn were creeping over the eastern mountains.

'There may. There are, in the hills, natives of Walfenland who were taken from their homes in previous raids by the Korissians. There is a kind of resistance against the militia. You could join them.'

'Where would I live?'

'By day you would live amongst them, in the hills, coming down from cover to strike against them, disappearing into the hills at dusk. At nightfall you can come here, to stay with me till morning.'

Cormac considered briefly.

'You know these people?'

Caraleen nodded eagerly.

'It was where I was, while you were waiting for me.'

'Gundula said you had been summoned to the fortress to see Connacht.'

'So I was. On my way I took food and drink to the men in the hills.'

'You could introduce me to them?'                      

'Of course!'

'I think it is an excellent plan! But will they not think it suspicious when they come to press me to fight for them, that I am no longer here?'

'I will think of something to tell them.'

'I would not want you to be put in any danger.'

'I can take care of myself.'

'I want to stay with you forever.'

Caraleen tossed her head back and laughed prettily.

'That is the lust in you talking! I mean nothing to you.'

'Of course you do!'

'I would guess that you have several women on Walfenland. I am not your first woman! Do not try to tell me that I am!'

'You are!'

She stared into his eyes, and for a brief second thought that she detected the truth in them. But it could not be, she decided. He had twenty summers. There was no way he could not have been with a woman in twenty summers, even if it was only a slave girl of his father's court.

'You are, Caraleen!' he muttered again, and at last she believed him, though he had come into her as naturally as had he been a lover of many years' experience.

'I do not understand. There must have been other women in your life!'

'There was a girl, Maralien,' he told her, carefully avoiding the need to accuse her of her past.

'Was she very beautiful?'

'She was. And so are you.'

She lowered her head.

'I have never been treated like this. To the Korissians I am just a plaything, a woman for them to foist one of their men onto. I cannot believe what has happened here tonight. I have never met anyone like you before.'

'I am not unusual,' Cormac said, but in truth he was, for the men of Walfenland, like all the men of Heraklion, treated their women with little respect, took them and used them when they wanted to. Cormac's experience of women was unique in this respect. He loved the feel of a woman's naked flesh against his, he had come to realise, but he could never force a woman to allow him to use her as he knew it should be. Even his father, Tiberis, used his mother as a thing of convenience and pleasure, and though she was herself of noble birth, she had been enslaved at the time Tiberis had taken the title of kjal of Walfenland. She knew her place, obeyed him in everything, and never forgot her enslavement.

'I do not believe that,' Caraleen said. 'You are the most unusual man I have known. Was I really your first?'

Cormac nodded, kissing her shoulder.