"Your skin is soft as the pelt of a baby rabbit," he said. "I could touch you forever."

He lifted a tress of her hair, which had come unbound in their frolics, and sifted the raven strands through his fingers. "And your hair is as dark as night. There are pretty girls in my village, but none of them have hair like yours. I have never seen hair this color—yellow and brown and russet, yes, but not black as moonless midnight."

She smiled, enjoying the brightness of his eyes as he looked at her, the feel of his hand, stroking her arm, sifting through her hair. Like her mother, she wore a tunic that was cut away on the right side, leaving no fabric to foul an arrow or slow the snap of a bowstring. The garment left her right breast bare, and she saw how his glance kept slipping to focus upon it.