I would simply have to make do with him.
And, I would have to look the best I could, and hold my head high, so that I at least kept my dignity, even if all else had been plundered.
I turned, meaning to collect my dress, and gasped when I saw Bluebeard leaning in the door.
“You move very quietly for a noble woman,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t know if I trust that.”
I bit back the response that rose in my throat. I was hardly the untrustworthy one since I was not the one who was going to be stealing him away today.
He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t speak.”
I was trying not to speak, but it was very hard to keep all my questions inside.
How long had he been standing there? Only long enough to watch me braid my hair or long enough to watch me washing myself, too? I tried to think back to how much skin might have been shown and I couldn’t remember. I’d thought I was alone. I dared not make that mistake again.
“Be that as it may,” he said with a strange, almost hungry look in his eye. “I will need to stop speaking to you when the sun rises, so I must remind you that if anyone asks, you should tell them that we consummated our marriage, or they will think this wedding was a sham.”
I felt my face heat at the thought of confirming that to anyone.
He paused, rubbing his short blue stubble with one hand. “I see you are of two minds about it. Well, there is still time.” His expression turned wolfish. “If you prefer not to lie about it, we can consummate it now, and then you can blush prettily about the truth instead of a lie. Does that suit you, wife?”
It did not suit me. At all.
Though I did find myself swallowing a lump in my throat that hadn’t been there a moment ago. This was the first time that a very beautiful man with his hair tousled from sleep and had lounged against a doorframe and suggested an intimate act to me. And it was the first time I’d been called ‘wife.’ It was a powerful word – a word that left little chills running up my legs.
I needed to remind myself that he was not human, that he had stolen – or perhaps bought – me as one might acquire livestock, that he had ridiculous rules about our lives together, that he had threatened the death of thousands if I disobeyed, and that he had likely killed the honorable man who had tried to defend me. That last part cleared my head admirably.
I shook my head and he smiled as if he’d just solved a problem and expected to be congratulated.
“Well then, that’s cleared up. Tell them I was a delight. Tell them I was a better lover than any you could have imagined.”
He seemed absolutely sincere about that. I felt my jaw dropping in shock. As if I would ever say any of that!
He turned and padded back into the room, and I realized his feet were also bare and that there was something strange about them. It almost looked as if the floor was mossy where he had stepped. Ridiculous.
He looked over his shoulder and called a parting shot. “Speak to my riddle, wife of mine. Or rather, don’t, but do contemplate it. What does the ship feel when the tide turns? What does the bird wish when the wind shifts? What does a man think when his fortunes reverse?”
He didn’t stay to wait for the reply, which was good, because I might have been tempted to answer with the only answer I could agree with right now – fear.
I shook my head and dressed quickly before any other dangerous offers were made to me.
But I couldn’t help but think that I was biting off more than I could possibly chew with this husband I’d acquired. Even if he didn’t kill me before the week was over – which he very well might – he may just break me and leave me in pieces.
I needed to wear my good sense like armor and keep a close watch.
True to his word, at the first ray of dawn, Bluebeard rose and bathed himself. He had none of my concern for modesty, and one glance at the bathroom told me to keep my back firmly to the door. I fed the fire in silence, trying very hard not to remember what I’d seen in the split second I’d noticed him in there. He was my husband, and I supposed there was no harm in looking, but he had also been very clear that he was my enemy and his sheer beauty was a weapon he could use against my maiden mind. I would not so easily fall into its trap.
I didn’t turn when he was done until he tapped me on the shoulder and smirked, waggling his eyebrows at me.
“I suppose we’re leaving now,” I said carefully, testing to be sure it was allowed and wouldn’t end in sudden bloodshed and rampage.
But he didn’t even acknowledge that, merely slipping on his boots and jacket as if I were a fly buzzing around his head. “I have a lot of questions. About things you said last night.”
Still nothing.
“Perhaps tonight you can tell me why you’ve had fifteen wives. It seems an inordinate number for one man to have, don’t you think? Are they still living? Am I to meet them?”
What had gotten a hold of me? It was a very bad idea to poke at the man who held my fate in his hands. And yet the longer he was silent, the bolder I felt.
“And if they are dead, did they all die of being around you? That doesn’t recommend your company.”
At that he looked up, fixing me with a devilish glare made all the more devilish by how the sunlight caught his nearly white cat’s eyes. I gasped and he leapt up, seized me by the throat, licked his lips, and hovered so close to me that for a moment I wasn’t sure if he was about to break my neck or kiss me. He released me suddenly and strode to the door, opening it so hard and fast that it hit the wall, bounced, and nearly smacked him on his smart behind.
Well, then. No more teasing about the wives, perhaps.
Unless he really bothered me.
I followed him out into the hall, where his men were already waiting. Two of them held my chest and the female one had a saddlebag in her hand. She was armored the same as the others, and for a moment I was envious of her thick armor and sharp sword. I could use a sword like that.
“Let’s see her things,” Bluebeard said briskly.
They opened my chest.
“What are you doing?” I asked. But, of course, he couldn’t respond to me. He just started throwing my plain dresses to one side and the pretty to the other. I had very few of either, but it made sense. If we were traveling by horseback, then we would need a light load.
“At least let me take the necessities,” I said, pushing past him to take a small woven bag of soaps and combs and other needed things from the chest and put it in the bottom of the bag. I added my handkerchiefs and reached for a plain shift.
He ripped it from my hand, snorting, and took a lace one from the chest instead. Something my mother had added to my chest, for reasons unknown to me.
“That’s impractical,” I objected. “There’s hardly enough there to keep me warm!”
He batted me backward and to my horror, shoved the lightest, fanciest dresses into the saddlebags, and threw the practical gowns aside.
“Wait! You’ve left all the useful ones.”
I scrambled for the warm woolen shifts, but he kicked them aside, tossing my fur-lined cloak to me. I caught it and put it on. At least it was warm as well as pretty. To my surprise, he added a book to my bag. A book of tales. One from our room last night that he had not chosen to burn. He did not choose a single practical item except a small mirror.
“Leave the rest,” he ordered his men. “My wife will ride on my mount with me.”
“I have a very good bay mare of my own,” I objected. “She is well suited to traveling and will be no bother.”
It was like he didn’t even notice my words. He strode past and his men fell in behind him as if they practiced walking down corridors together. His female warrior was no different. She didn’t even look twice at me as she snatched up my saddlebags.
I stood frozen in place until they stopped, waiting for me.
One of the Wittenbrand turned – a little too quickly for a human. “Will you come, or must you be carried, girl?”
<
br /> “My name is Izolda,” I said, clenching my fists at my sides.
He grinned a creepy grin, with those scars that cut up from his mouth, like the grin of a toad. “Must you be carried, Izolda? I have stolen many a mortal from this world. I can sling you over my shoulder and have you dreaming pink dreams and sighing purple sighs before we reach Wittenhame.”
In answer, I hurried to catch up to them. There would be nothing more undignified than being carried by them out the doors and through the city like an ill-tempered child. And I didn’t want to know anything about pink dreams or purple sighs.
If there were servants in the halls, they ducked out of the way before we reached them. I saw a streak of black dart into one door and a white apron edge into another, and both doors were quickly shut.
“There was only one welcome for us in this Hall,” Bluebeard said the third time it happened as one of his men put a hand to a sword hilt. “And it was the only welcome I required.”
And the only welcome that could doom me to losing my life, but we wouldn’t mention that.
He paused and his men paused with him in the empty, vaulted corridor. I looked up at the groin-vaulted ceiling. I still wasn’t used to the grandeur of this place. And perhaps I never would be, since I was unlikely to see it again.
Bluebeard looked to the man right beside him. “We are not all armed as we should be for the journey.”
His man looked curiously from one of them to the next, his brow wrinkling and with good reason. They were all very, very armed.
Swords hung strapped across backs or down the sides of their legs. One man had a small axe at the waist and another a quiver of silver arrows and a bow. Bluebeard had his own quiver and bow and a sleek sword at his waist. Their weapons – oddly enough – were made almost exclusively of a metal that shone like bronze. Little knives were strapped at the tops of boots or their hilts peeked teasingly out jacket cuffs. Not a mote of iron was on the lot of them.
And there was only one of us who was not armed.
“He means me,” I said after the silence stretched out. “I am not armed.”
“We don’t arm mortals. We never have,” the man closest to him said.
“We will arm this one,” Bluebeard said. “As soon as possible.”
His men frowned in a way that looked close to rebellion, but they touched the opposite shoulder with a hand, and it looked like a salute.
Interesting. So, he wouldn’t talk to me, but he was ... sort of caring for my needs. In the most ridiculous way possible. I could have used my chest of warm dresses – or even just one of those double-thick wool woven gowns. Instead, he’d tossed those, kept the lace, and now he was acquiring a weapon for me. He was a puzzle.
That paused my thinking.
He was a puzzle I was going to have to figure out if I had any hope of making my life last longer than the ride to his lands. That was my goal. I must pick this Wittenbrand apart and know him up and down.
It was the only way to survive this madness.
The king was waiting for us in the Gatehouse with most of his court arranged behind him and a line of palace guards in front of him.
I craned my neck, looking for my brothers and father, but I could not see them. Bluebeard whispered to one of his men and the man grabbed me roughly by the arm and pointed to a balcony above. My father and brothers were there – their chains removed but naked blades pointed at them from four guards.
I waved up at them and schooled my face to calm. They would prosper and be at peace – as long as I was wise and did not tempt them to action.
“The marriage has been completed?” the King asked, looking at me.
My cheeks flamed and my eyes widened. I was not sure what to say.
“It must be completed, by the Law of Marriage,” he insisted and behind him one of the girls tittered nervously.
A sinking feeling stabbed through me at that. But when Bluebeard’s eyes shot to the offender, his hand gripping the hilt of a sword, I raised a staying hand.
“All the Laws have been fulfilled, my King,” I said.
There was a growl behind me from my husband and one of Bluebeard’s men leaned in close. “No wife of my master calls a mortal their King.”
I swallowed, waiting for a tremor of fear to pass, and I was surprised to see that the king was doing the same thing.
“I do not know his given name,” I said cautiously, “nor have I the right to use it. What would be a proper mode of address?”
No one answered my question.
Without looking at me, Bluebeard met the King’s eyes and made a declaration.
“The agreement of the ages has been met. Peace will remain with you until we meet again. Do not forget the Laws.”
“We thank you,” the king said, and maybe his voice was a little breathy when he said it.
“Where is the sword?” Bluebeard asked with a frown.
“Sword?” the King asked, perplexed.
“The marriage sword, as is tradition the morning after a wedding. Where is hers?” Bluebeard looked around at everyone nearby with his brows drawn down and fury on his face.
The King snapped his fingers and one of his guards rushed forward. There was some whispering and then after a few minutes, a fine sword was produced in a silver-worked scabbard. The king tried to hand it to Bluebeard, but he scoffed.
“No, she gives it to me so that no knife may cut our bond. Do you not exchange swords in this barbarous mortal world?”
My husband was nearly shaking with some sort of pent-up emotion that I read as rage.
The King offered me the sword with an air of great care, and I offered it to Bluebeard just as gingerly.
He grunted in satisfaction, accepting the sword and scabbard and slipping off one of three belts he was wearing, adding the sword and scabbard to it.
He knelt before me so suddenly that I gasped, and in a moment, he was unbuckling a second sword from his waist – one the length of my forearm and made of that odd coppery metal. It was very finely made indeed. He wrapped his arms around me and as my face went hot – again! – he placed the belt around my hips and tightened it before buckling the sword on.
“It is done,” he declared to those around.
That was it and then he was striding through the gates and one of his band – the woman – was guiding me out behind him, and I couldn’t tell if she had my arm to guard me or to keep me from lingering. I shot one last look at my brothers and father on the balcony and then I was torn forward again, being hurried through the gatehouse and out to the mist beyond.
Oddly, it seemed as though Bluebeard’s men had formed a ring around me rather than him – as if it was my life they were guarding. I shook my head but then stopped. As ridiculous as that might seem, I was certain that it was fact. For some reason, I was valuable to them. And that they thought I was in some kind of danger.
“It shouldn’t be misty,” I said aloud. “Not after all that snow.”
No one listened to me. That was starting to be the new normal. Instead, Bluebeard gave a piercing whistle with his fingers in his mouth while one of his men spoke low and fervently to the gate guards. He came back with a pair of daggers on a man’s belt and handed them to Bluebeard, who – without any ceremony at all – turned and slipped his arms around me a second time.
I gasped and one of his eyebrows rose like he found me amusing. The belt slid around me, and he buckled it for me in the front. Even buckled on the tightest hole, it hung loosely over my hips. He made an irritated sound in the back of his throat, produced a knife from his sleeve, and cut a new hole for me before cinching the belt.
“Thank you,” I said, because what else did you say? I was very well armed indeed and almost half again as heavy as I’d been an hour ago.
Around me, there were looks of approval – as if I’d been undressed until this moment and someone had taken the time to clothe me decently.
And then I caught sight of our mounts.
They appeared thr
ough the mist blazing a bright white and shaking snow from their beards, their red eyes flashing. They were antlered elk. Massive ones – but they didn’t seem anything like the elk that we hunted in Northpeak. They were half again as tall, for starters. Their coats were the blue of my new husband’s beard and their antlers were inlaid with gold and silver. They were saddled and haltered, and I gasped as Bluebeard put his hands around my hips and threw me up onto the back of the nearest beast.
“The answer to your riddle,” I said, looking down at him, “is fear.”
He sucked in a breath, bit his lip for a moment as if something was bothering him and then leapt into the saddle behind me. Before I could catch my breath, we were off.
Chapter Nine
“Are we going to your home?” I asked, though I knew he would not answer me. In the deep fog, I had lost track of his followers and I could see nothing but fog and elk and the hands of my husband on the reins on either side of me. He rode with me pressed against him and if I tried to wiggle to create a space between us, he pressed me firmly back to him again.
“In the mortal world, we have stories of people stolen by the magic of the Wittenbrand. Stories of how they come back and they are never the same.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw there was a small yellow bird on his head. My eyes widened as four more landed on his shoulders and head.
“You seem to be very attractive to birds,” I said dryly. It was a worrisome characteristic for a man who reminded me so much of a cat.
He lifted a single brow in response and I could almost imagine him saying, “Just birds?” because that seemed to fit with the kind of person who had suggested I tell everyone at court what a delight a night with him had been for me.
I turned back around, trying to think. I was married to a man who either currently had or once had fifteen wives. I did not know his name or the names of his friends, the name of his court, or why he had such a penchant for human brides. I needed to know these things before I could decide what to do next.
There was no sound of the elk’s feet on the ground and it worried me that we seemed to have been riding in a straight line since we mounted. That should have taken us straight into the side of a building or the castle wall. But we’d been riding for hours with no breaks and no lifting of the fog. I had a very eerie feeling that magic was involved, and I didn’t like the idea of that at all.
Fly with the Arrow: A Bluebeard Inspired Fantasy (Bluebeard's Secret Book 1) Page 6