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Though dizzy and drunk on post-coital bliss, Athelstan nonetheless dressed quickly after the furtive tryst with his beloved. The evening meal still in full swing in the hall beyond this private chamber, it was unlikely anyone would come back here. Still, there was always a risk, particularly with Aslaug or the children, that someone might wander into this space and discover them in a position that neither could afford to be public knowledge.
Ragnar was slower to dress. He had been ever less circumspect of late about his feelings for his Christian friend and confidante and was forever skirting the edge of getting caught out. The flirty, uncomfortably public conversation they had just had before coming back here was evidence enough of that. "Do you have to get up?" he whined as he relaced his breeches.
Athelstan hesitated at the doorway. Ragnar lounged on the fur spread across the floor, his expression playful; almost seductive.
Athelstan cocked an eyebrow. "You want another go already?"
Ragnar shrugged. "Not necessarily. I just would like a little more private time with you before we have to go back out there and pretend to most everyone that we’ve not actually been doing what we just did."
Athelstan hesitated.
Ragnar beckoned with a hand. "Come. If anyone sees us, I will tell them you were using some special Christian medicine to help me attend to a sore muscle."
Athelstan giggled. "Is that what we should call it now? Not sure most Christians would think of it that way." Still, he headed back over and plopped down on the fur, sitting cross-legged next to the shirtless king.
"Much better," Ragnar said, draping an arm around his shoulders.
Athelstan longed for a closer embrace, and perhaps more of the deep, warm kisses they had just enjoyed, but contented himself with the minor contact.
"Looking forward to Wessex?" Ragnar asked, his fingers stroking Athelstan's shoulder.
"I am. To a degree."
"Want to see that Ecbert fellow again, hey?" Ragnar winked.
Athelstan made a face. "Not like that."
"I know. Though I suppose that is not for lack of effort on his part."
Athelstan shook his head. "No indeed. He never said as much, but sometimes, the way he looked at me or touched me, it was . . ."
"Yes?"
Athelstan smirked. "It was the same way you looked at me sometimes when you first brought me here."
"I suppose I was rather transparent," Ragnar admitted.
Athelstan snorted a laugh. "Actually propositioning me was transparent, yes."
"You never answered my question on that, by the way." Ragnar nudged him.
"Would I still say no?"
Ragnar nodded.
"It's a moot point, is it not? You are no longer with Lagertha." Athelstan fiddled with the straps on his boots.
"That didn't stop her from sharing a bed with Aslaug and me the night before we ambushed Horik. That was even their idea, actually." Ragnar smiled languidly with the memory.
"So you think Aslaug would accept you doing something like that without her?"
"Well . . ." Ragnar wrinkled his nose. "Probably not. And I guess I do not know whether Lagertha would still want that anyway."
Athelstan grinned. "That much I do know—sort of."
"Oh?" Ragnar's eyes lit up, and he leaned in. "What have you not told me?"
"Nothing big. The day we came back from Wessex last fall, we had a nice little conversation while you were attending to Rollo. She told me that were I ever to visit her in Hedeby, I was welcome to share her bed."
Ragnar rolled his eyes and flopped back on the floor. "Now that's just unfair," he protested.
"What? Jealous?" Athelstan teased.
Ragnar sat back up. "Of course."
"Of her, or me?"
"Both." Ragnar grumbled. "I will be perfectly honest and say that I very much enjoyed being with both of my wives—even though they were primarily focused on each other rather than me—but I did feel a distinct lack of another very important person. If I could have swapped you into Aslaug's place, I would have in an instant." He hung his head. "I would still do so now."
Athelstan stiffened somewhat. He knew that Ragnar's marriage was strained of late, but to hear him speak of her so callously still disquieted him. He hesitated for a moment, then finally spoke the question. "Do you still love her?"
Ragnar went quiet, and gnawed on a ragged fingernail. "I care for her," he finally said. "I . . . I'm not sure I have ever loved her."
"Not like you love Lagertha?" Athelstan suggested.
"Loved. Once." Ragnar shrugged. "A part of me still burns for her—and I would probably always agree to share her bed if she asked—but that is not the reason for my lack of feelings for Aslaug."
Athelstan fidgeted. "Is it me, then?"
Ragnar smiled gently, and brushed a lock of hair from Athelstan's eyes. "Yes and no," he said. "No, because I suspect I would have lost feelings for her eventually no matter what, but yes because now that I am with you, I have learned what it is to feel this way again, and it is something I have never felt with her."
"But she bore four of your children,” Athelstan felt compelled to remind him. “She nurses one still, and works very hard minding the others."
"Yes, and I am grateful to her for this. I love my sons—even Ivar—and I am proud that I will be leaving such a legacy with them." Ragnar rubbed his eyes. "Please do not think I am being ungrateful or insensitive to what she does for me and our sons, but I simply cannot muster the feelings for her that come so easily to me when I am with you."
Athelstan stared at the fire in the distance. "And does she know this?"
"She has not said as much, but yes. I think she does."
It made sense now, Athelstan considered. Aslaug's increasing emotional distance from him was out of jealousy—the very thing he had counted on being absent in order to assuage his guilt in loving a married man. He still occasionally felt twinges of shame for committing sodomy and fornication. Adding unequivocal adultery to that was going to make things even more painful. "So what do you plan to do?"
Ragnar frowned "Do? There is nothing I can do. My sons need their mother and I cannot exactly tell everyone that I am in love with another. Nothing has changed."
Everything has changed, Athelstan thought.
Ragnar switched topics. "So what did you tell her? Lagertha, I mean. What did you say to her proposition?"
Athelstan smiled again. "I told her I wasn't sure, which was the truth. She was disappointed, but accepted it."
Ragnar gaped. "Not sure? How could you not be sure?"
"Need I remind you that I have only been with a woman once?"
"Oh. Right. Thyri. That was only once?" Ragnar looked surprised.
Athelstan nodded. "She wanted to do it again, but I was in too foul of a mood after Uppsala. By the time I had begun to reconsider, the plague took her and that was that."
"But have you not considered other women? Surely there are some here who would be happy to oblige."
Athelstan shrugged. "None have interested me, I guess. I admit I do still find Lagertha very attractive, and part of me wonders what it would be like to be with her. I honestly remember little about my night with Thyri, and I am curious to perhaps explore a woman's body again. But as yet, I've just not been quite ready for that."
"Seems like Lagertha is!" Ragnar lightly punched his shoulder.
"Yes, well." He grinned. "Honestly, I am afraid I would be a terrible disappointment to her, with how little experience I have."
"You're hardly a disappointment to me—and were not even when you had no experience at all." Ragnar scoffed. "Besides. I doubt that would be a problem for her. She once confessed to me that she enjoyed being with younger or less experienced men. Said it was fun to break them in." He winked. Athelstan's eyes went wide, and Ragnar laughed. "But I understand. She does seem like a woman one would need to work up to."
Athelstan flushed. Then their previous topic of conversation came back to him, and he grew anxious again. "We should go back out and rejoin the others. They'll be wondering at your absence, at least." He rose, and started making for the door.
Ragnar made a disappointed sound, but began donning his shirt. "Go ahead of me. I'll be right behind you soon." He grinned. "I did say I would follow you, my John the Baptist."
"You did." Athelstan smiled over his shoulder. As he left the room, however, he remembered: For his loyalty to Jesus, John had lost his head.