Chapter Nine

Snow began falling softly as they loaded the sleigh. Claus glanced up into the sky and watched the lazy flakes float down, pristine and beautiful. He found enchantment in such a night, with the white snow lying quiet over the distant hills, and a new crescent moon playing peek-a-boo with the sheaves of cloud.

A moon like that, he thought solemnly, denoted a new beginning. Dared he hope?

He turned his eyes on the woman beside him and felt a rush of pure pleasure. She looked happy. Color stood bright in her cheeks and her eyes shone. His heart stuttered in his chest. What was a trip into the fathomless darkness, if it purchased that?

“Ready?” he asked, and lifted her easily into the sledge. Frost jumped up into her lap, and they both laughed.

She laughed with him.

Claus climbed in also and took the reins. The pony—a shaggy beast—was not so different from those back home. Mayhap he and his wife were not so different.

He chucked to the pony, and they started off, with her people and his men calling good wishes behind them.

“Which way, Missus?”

But she was already planning it out in her mind. “We will go out along the coast first, before the snow gets heavy, and then head inland. We should be able to visit them all and get home by morning.”

He nodded and stole a look at her where she sat beside him, the fur of her hood framing her face and Frost tucked under her chin. He had always thought her beautiful, but never more than this night when lit by gladness at this thing they did together.

At the first hut, he drew the pony to a halt and surveyed the scene. Such a humble place, and with evidence of all the outbuildings lying burned. He remembered sending squads of his men up along this very stretch of the shore to raid and destroy what they could. Had he thought then of any children lying within?

“They will not want to see me here,” he murmured.

“I will go.”

So he waited among the spinning snowflakes while she and Frost slipped in through the low doorway and left gifts for the children, and when she returned the sleigh moved on into the freezing night.

The same scene repeated again and again, so many times Claus lost count. But the extreme want he saw, the glimpses of poor rooms and children gathered to their parents’ sides, seared his heart and mind. And he knew he would never forget this demonstration of his wife’s kind generosity that seemed to make her more beautiful with each step she took.

Somewhere along the snowy way, and deep into the night, Claus asked for his own heart’s desire, sending the wish up into the white-feathered sky. Who listened? The great gods of the snowy north, whom he had followed all his days? Odin, who walked the world sharing his wisdom and teaching lessons? Ja, for Claus was learning now. At his father’s knee he had learned the benefit of taking, of using force to acquire the means for looking after those he loved. And though he had always enjoyed giving gifts, as well, he now tasted the deep enchantment of providing what was most needed, from a bountiful heart.

And if he, himself, might be granted but one thing? No need to wonder what that might be: only let her care for him somehow. That one miracle would he choose for his own.

At least she spoke to him now. Each time she returned from presenting her gifts she told him about what lay within.

“The bairn there is sore ill with fever; her mother did not know how she would feed her come the morn.”

Or, “The bairns awoke as I stood above their wee beds with the gifts in my hands. You should have seen their eyes light up.”

He need only see hers, and hear the joy in her voice, to feel complete.

And then, at the last stop, Claus had his miracle. He halted the sleigh as before, and his wife looked at him.

“Claus—come inside with me.”

The breath froze in his chest. Never before had she used his name, and never had he hoped to hear her speak it in that tone, warm and winning.

But he shook his head. “I will not be welcome there.” He saw now, in full, what his greed had done to these folk. He did not begin to believe this night’s work would make up for it.

She gazed deep into his eyes as they sat there amid the swirl of snowflakes. “But I would have you behold their happiness.” She laid her hand upon his arm. “Please.”

The first time ever she had reached for him, touched him of her own desire, and with such a look in her eyes. Claus’s heart convulsed in his chest. Could he deny her anything?

“Ja,” he said hoarsely. “Ja.”

And the folk inside the hut did not think to fear him after all. A woman it was, thin and worn, and an old man who appeared to be blind. Three children were tucked into the single bed against the wall, none surely above five.

Claus moved softly in the tiny place. Where was the woman’s husband? How did she manage without him?

His eyes marked the evidence of want everywhere. The shelves on the far wall lay nearly bare, and the fire burned on almost no fuel. The place felt cold even after the chill outside.

That anyone should live so hurt him—that he had contributed to their need hurt most of all.

Tinnie spoke to the woman and old man even as Claus stood looking into the faces of the sleeping children. Like little elves they looked, and as innocent as a new day.

“We have brought things you need. Food, a sack of grain, and some fancies, as well, for the bairns when they wake. We have a bundle of fuel for your fire, and more at my father’s dun for later. ’Tis nearly morning—we wish you and yours a happy Christmas.”

“It will be, now,” the woman replied, with tears trickling down her cheeks. “Bless you, Mistress.” She looked at Claus. “Bless you both.”

She does not know who I am, Claus thought—quite likely the man responsible for her husband’s death, if he fought against us. To her I am just someone with gifts in his arms, and snowflakes in his beard.

As he stood there marveling, Frost leaped up on the side of the bed and licked the cheek of the nearest child, a lass. She opened her eyes and saw Claus standing over her, his hair and beard all white.

Claus prepared himself for her wail of terror. Big as he was, and a stranger, he could not imagine her doing anything but take fright. But her eyes grew wide, and then turned merry. She reached out for him and smiled. A single word left her lips, one he did not understand.

Ah, and how to respond? Both Tinnie and the child’s mother looked at him, but it was into the child’s eyes he gazed as his heart melted.

He could not take her into his arms, but he remembered how he had tucked a few treasures inside his cloak, back on the ship. He drew forth the tiny figure of an elf carved from birch wood, a pastime of his on cold, winter nights, and placed it in the child’s hands.

Her smile became one of delight. Swiftly, he drew out two more toys, for her brothers, and laid them at the foot of the bed.

And the look in Tinnie’s eyes when he met them rewarded him for all.

He floated on air as they left the hut and returned to the sledge. He lifted Tinnie inside with loving hands.

“’Tis well,” she said, when Frost was safely in her lap. “That is the last. We did it all in one night!”

Claus gazed at the tiny hut. “What happened to the man of that place?” He was almost afraid to hear.

“Killed last year in the fighting.”

Grief swamped Claus, strong as the joy had been. “It is my fault. I did not think.”

“I can see that, Claus.” She leaned close to him, and in her eyes he saw every hope he had for the future. “But you have gone far, this night, to make up for it. Do you not believe in forgiveness?”

He believed in many things: Odin’s wisdom and the return of the spring. He believed in her.

Gravely, he returned, “Do you?”

“Aye, Claus, I do.” She leaned up and kissed him softly, her lips on his a single point of warmth in the darkness.

Had Claus not already given her his heart, it would have been lost then.

“And that child,” he asked, when she drew away from him, “what did she call me? I could not tell.”

Mischief danced in Tinnie’s eyes. “Father. She called you Father. Not so strange, really, since that is what you have been to all of them this night—their Father Christmas.”