Far After Gold by Jen Black Page A

of his belt pouch. Dry grass and kindling had been left ready for use and she watched him nurse a spark in a ball of grass and blow on it. He had the most attractive hands, long-fingered and shapely. When wisps of smoke turned to flame, he slid the ball gently beneath the kindling.
    Emer stepped outside onto wooden planking and could not help smiling. The hills rose on all sides, and the loch, as smooth as a sheet of silver, reflected them. She stared down through water so still and clear she could see each small round golden stone on the bottom. They glinted in the strengthening sunlight.
    When she turned back inside, Flane crouched over the fire holding a spill to a small soapstone lamp. He had removed his tunic. As the flame caught and flared, golden light glittered in his hair and smoothed his shoulders. She suddenly understood Katla’s feelings for him, and knew she wasn’t entirely immune herself.
    “What are you doing?” Even her voice sounded odd.
    “I’ve lit the fire. Now I’m lighting a lamp. Soon we’ll be able to see what we’re doing.” He blew out the spill and, still kneeling, reached up to place the glowing lamp on a convenient shelf.
    The breath left her lungs before she was ready for it. At full stretch, muscles and tendons slid beneath his skin and he was beautiful. “I can see that.” She sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “But why?”
    He looked round, blue eyes bright in the lamp glow. “Wouldn’t you like to wash in warm water?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “But we don’t have time, I know. But if we take the chill off the water, it will be much more pleasant.”
    “Oh.”
    “If you look in those jars, you’ll find soap.” He nodded towards a range of pottery jars in orderly ranks beside the wall. “But you probably remember them from your time with the women.”
    Anxious to have something to do, Emer marched across the room, stooped, lifted a lid at random, dipped a finger and rubbed the pale substance between finger and thumb. It was soap, but she pulled a face at the smell.
    He must have noticed her expression. “It’s a bit harsh, but it does the job. Some of the women bring their own soap. They like to perfume it.”
    “My mother used summer flowers and herbs.”
    A silence followed, and Emer turned. His hands stilled, his eyes lost focus and sadness crept into every line of his face. Did he see something beyond the hut and the fire? What moved in his thoughts? Memories of his mother, lost so long ago? He blinked, shook his head as if to clear it and the softness vanished as if it had never been. He handed her an empty beaker.
    “Since that’s all we have,” he nodded towards the soap jar, “we’ll use it. Put some in there.”
    “Are you going to use it, too?”
    “Of course.”
    He fed more sticks to his fire. Left to her own devices, Emer glanced round the small, pine-fragrant cabin. A few sheepskins lay folded in one corner, several three-legged stools stood in another and several bowls waited on shelves. “There are no towels.”
    “I’ll use my tunic to dry off. I could do with a clean one.”
    Emer remembered she had no clothes other than the ones she wore. “You have a clean tunic? Lucky you.”
    He registered her sarcasm in one swift, sharp glance.
    “Some of us,” she added, “have only the one garment to our name.” She shrugged. “We have to borrow a comb, too.”
    “Not anymore,” he said briefly added another stick to the fire.
    She wished he had not removed his tunic. The fire glow lit every curve of rib and shoulder, and followed the wonderful play of muscles. Emer grabbed one of the stools, sat on it and combed her hair for something to do. She glanced at him once or twice, but he seemed lost in thought.
    Her sarcasm had spoilt the friendly atmosphere between them. If she hadn’t been so sharp and objectionable, she might have cajoled a new gown out of him. When she considered her desertion of him last night and her rudeness this morning, she