A Fire of Roses

by Melinda R. Cordell

  Then he shook his head and came back to himself. “What did you say? I’m sorry.”

  Ugh. “I said I probably shouldn’t be here.” Still bitter.

  He gazed at her for a moment, impassive. Then he unfolded his napkin. “Tell me about your patients among the prisoners. My guards said they were impressed by your hard work. Not all of them could watch, as a few of them didn’t have stomachs to withstand it.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “They need to get stronger.” She took a bite of meat. “I could help them.”

  “They could probably use that kind of help. You’d think they’d never seen war.”

  Her bitterness had eased away somewhat. You don’t need to bite Varinn’s head off, she reminded herself. Who am I here for, anyway? It’s those warriors down in the great chamber. It’s for my fellow townspeople. I need to heal the wounded and save my people from thralldom.

  “I’ll need to return to them today,” she said. “By rights, they should have a field hospital down below. There are a few people I’m particularly worried about, that need constant care. Ragnarok is one of them. I left several warriors instructions on their care, but if something goes gravely wrong, they won’t know what to do.”

  “I give you leave to do this work.”

  “Could you let the prisoners go?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “No. Why would I let your warriors go? They’d run right back into battle again. You know they would. Besides,” he said, lifting his drinking horn, “your queen has a number of my warriors as prisoners. If I let her prisoners go, she’d just laugh and keep my people imprisoned.” He drank deeply.

  “What about a covenant?” she asked. “They could all take a sacred oath to abstain from this fight until a year has passed.”

  Varinn shook his head, looking at his food, half eaten. “The idea is a good one, but what is the value of an oath to a woman who killed my son in … cold blood.” His great hands went over his face. “Oh, Absalom, I wish to God that I could have died for you.”

  A storm of grief.

  Then he took a deep shuddering breath and let it out.

  “Oh, no,” he said, his voice strained. “No. I do not think that I will exchange prisoners.”

  “I am sorry.” Gefjun said.

  “I will treat the prisoners as well as possible, but they are a burden on my people. Thank you for providing succor for their wounds.”

  “You’re welcome, your majesty.”

  “I’ll give you what supplies you need to do the work for the prisoners. Every man and woman you save could be one who returns home to their families.”

  “Thank you. I will check on the prisoners after we are finished here.”

  “Very well. I’ll send one of guards down with you to assist.”

  Then King Varinn’s eyebrows went up. “Gefjun. That reminds me of something. When you go down to check on the prisoners, I need you to ask them about something. Ask them about a ship that was … I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I’ve lost my mind,” he said with a sigh. “But I received an odd report about ships that were captured, not by my army, but by some lunatics in robes. They made the people go to sleep with some kind of powerful magic. Those robed people were talking about sacrificing the warriors on the ships to—”

  Gefjun startled. “—to undead dragons?” she asked, finishing his sentence.

  Varinn’s eyebrows went up again. “Yes! That’s it exactly. Do you know of them?”

  “Yes!” Gefjun said, surprised and flustered. “I was on one of those ships that they captured.”

  Varinn pushed his plate away and set his fork down into a bowl of soup, but he didn’t even notice. “You were?”

  “Who are those grey-robed people that attacked my ship? Do you know?” she asked.

  The king placed his arms on the table. “Please, tell me your story first. Then I’ll tell you what little I know.”

  She told him about the grey-cloaked people who had cast a powerful spell over her ship that had made everybody fall asleep on the deck—even the ones who had been full-on fighting. But how, for some reason, she stayed awake through the whole thing, though she could not move except to breathe. She told him how the leader of the group of the grey-cloaked people revealed herself as Nauma, whose army they’d fought in a ten-to-one battle and still managed to win.

  She also mentioned how Dyrfinna could have slain Nauma but didn’t manage to do it. “Something else she did wrong,” Gefjun said bitterly. “And now Nauma is running loose and killing children and trying to make dragon undead monsters.”

  “So this Nauma is the leader of these so-called child-killers.”

  “Yes. So these child-killers are also trying to steal shiploads of warriors now?”

  Varinn told her what Hedgehog had said, how these people were reportedly going to sacrifice people to raise dragons from the dead. He told her about the burial place upon a mountaintop where the dragons went to die, and how these people were probably targeting those areas.

  “Maybe we should go look for Nauma,” Gefjun said. “Or better yet, send some dragons up to one of those burial grounds and then lie in wait for Nauma and her henchmen, and burn them before they have a chance to do their evil work.”

  A servant came in and stirred the logs on the fire, added a new log, and sparks roiled up. Gefjun watched the fire moodily, wishing with all her heart that she’d been able to do something against Nauma while she was standing right in front of her.

  “I have my scouts out,” Varinn said. “Not many, though. My dragonfighters are stretched thin from fighting against your people.”

  “Yeah, about that. Could you call off the war? Then we could go after Nauma and her ilk. Sounds to me that’s more important than trying to fight our queen.”

  His face darkened. “How do you feel about the girl who killed your husband-to-be? No revenge necessary, right? Everything rosy between you two?”

  Gefjun felt the hot flush rise in her face and looked down at her fish.

  Varinn took a drink of mead. “Not to put too fine a point on it. I’m afraid the war will go on, whether I have the heart for it or not.”

  Too annoyed to speak, Gefjun took a bite of bread.

  Just then, loud laughter arose from outside the room. Several people were joking with each other, as if they were old friends catching up after not having seen each other for a while.

  Something about one of the voices reminded her of Ostryg. He had a voice like that. Hearing that voice brought back so many memories—echoes of things he’d said. She wanted to fill her ears with that voice, which eased her sufferings while it pulled at her heartstrings. If only…

  To her surprise, Varinn said quietly, “Why, I recognize that voice.” He set down his drinking horn and got to his feet.

  But then he threw the door open and broke into a broad smile. “I know you. Háthski! What a pleasure to see you again.”

  Suddenly, she realized why that voice was just like Ostryg’s.

  She put down her napkin and squinted. She couldn’t see him too well, but she would have known that voice anywhere. “Papa Ostryg? Háthski? Is that you?” she asked.

  In he swept, a rotund, red-faced man with wispy red hair who stopped and looked around the king’s room as if he owned it.

  In her younger days, back at home, she’d hated him for being so mean to Ostryg. One time he’d yelled at Ostryg for not having helped with a raiding party that had stolen everything from an old widow. Gefjun had turned on Papa Ostryg and scolded him for it. “If he doesn’t want to make an old widow destitute, that’s his business, you fat jackass!”

  Ostryg had gone white as a flower, and so had Papa Ostryg, his eyes fixed on her angry face. But then he’d thrown back his head and roared with laughter. “The shrew has quite the bite,” he said. She’d glared at him more, which only made him laugh harder. “Ach! I hope my son marries you, I truly do,” he added, wiping his eyes.

  He had always treated her with a kind of j
oking respect afterward. Ostryg hated him, but his papa always had a jolly word to say to Gefjun. And once, when Gefjun’s papa was trying to save up enough money to buy some new tools for his blacksmith’s shop, a small stack of gold coins had mysteriously appeared on his anvil overnight. The next morning, Papa Ostryg winked at her. It was odd, but maybe he cared a little bit for Ostryg. Though she agreed with Ostryg that the less she had to do with him, the better. He was still a dangerous man. Regardless, she could handle him.

  “Why, girlie,” he said, eyes twinkling when they met hers. “I was going to look for you among the prisoners.”

  “You were looking for me? But why? What are you doing here?” Gefjun laughed, her silvery laugh when she was out to charm people. It had always worked on him.

  She couldn’t help but stare at Papa Ostryg. There were so many elements of Ostryg’s face in his father’s face. And that voice, though gruff and sharp, reminded her enough of her lost husband’s she was willing to put up with a lot from the Pops.

  And apparently, so was Varinn. Because Papa Ostryg came forward to the table where she and Varinn were eating. He picked up a drinking horn and poured himself some of the king’s mead. Gefjun’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

  “Help yourself,” Varinn said, chuckling.

  “Ah, but I am dry,” said Papa Ostryg. “A valued guest am I, that I must find my own drink, a hot and dusty traveler, aye.”

  Varinn turned to his servant. “A drink for this rude scoundrel.”

  Gefjun wondered how Varinn knew Papa Ostryg. Probably through Papa’s crime ring. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he had a lot of people under his thumb. Did Varinn know this? Did he work with Háthski because of this knowledge, or in spite of it?

  The servant bowed. Varinn said to Papa Ostryg, “Come, Háthski, sit at this table.”

  “I’ll sit by the wee lass.” Papa Ostryg winked at her.

  “This chair will suit you just fine,” Varinn said, indicating a chair that was on the opposite side of the table. The king’s raised eyebrow brooked no argument. Papa Ostryg sat where he was told to.

  Gefjun felt more at ease. Keeping her face passive, she looked Papa Ostryg up and down. His clothes were very fine, with his ermine-tipped collar on his large cloak, a gigantic brooch pinning the cloak shut, silver in the shape of a dolphin with a brilliant ruby eye.

  “What business brings you here?” Varinn said, now jovial again, and a servant placed a generous drinking horn in Háthski’s hand.

  After a long swig, Ostryg smacked his lips. “Ah, a fine ale can restore the humor of many, even the strongest of men. Your majesty… and young lass,” he said nodding politely to Gefjun. “I have found some baby dragons. Or I should say, a mutual friend of ours has found some baby dragons,” he said, looking at Gefjun. “But she won’t share.”

  Gefjun was taken aback. “A mutual friend? Who?”

  “Why, girlie, who do ye think? Dyrfinna.”

  Her eyes widened.

  So, Dyrfinna had escaped the island after all.

  Relief at the news. Followed by hatred.

  How dare she survive? How dare she?

  Gefjun she curled her lip. “She’s not a friend.”

  “Yes, I too, share the same feeling,” he said, nodding at Gefjun. “This girl, Dyrfinna, of which I speak, had murdered my son, Juni’s sweetheart,” he explained to Varinn. “Dyrfinna was a good commander for the queen, but she got herself exiled for her most vindictive and petty act.”

  Gefjun snorted.

  “My condolences to you both,” said the king.

  “If Dyrfinna hadn’t been an idiot, the queen wouldn’t be losing all these ships to you as prisoners,” Gefjun said bitterly.

  “I’m fine with that,” Varinn said, nodding to her.

  “Naw, it’s Dyrfinna’s daddy that’s allowing all those captures,” Papa Ostryg told her. “But, to continue my story: Dyrfinna came back to Skala on a little orange hotshot dragon a little while ago and gave her a fine bull to eat. She told the dragon, ‘Come on back and get a bull for your babies too.’ She told it that. I heard her. How she got that little orange hotshot to be so trusting and sweet I’ll never know.”

  “Of course she would,” Gefjun said bitterly. “She always had a way with dragons.”

  “Aye, aye. Her papa was a dunderhead to think he could get out of paying the blood price for my son by dropping Miss Finna on a dragon isle. Sure. I’ll have an accountin’ with that man for it. But yer sweet little friend, when I came over to her house later, she plopped down on one knee pretty as ye please and gave me half her cow herd for to pay the blood price. Of course, I accepted.”

  Gefjun rolled her eyes. Stupid of Finna to pay Papa Ostryg anything, period.

  “I asked her about the dragon babes. She said I couldn’t have ’em. Said they weren’t ours’n to take. Said she made an agreement with the mama dragon.”

  Varinn looked astonished. “With the dragon?”

  “Aye. Those were the very words from her pretty lips. She knows the dragons are dying off. The one clutch of dragon babes in the whole entire world, and she wants to be Miss High Hat Sanctimonious. We need dragons. Everybody needs dragons. So I have come to offer them to ye.”

  Varinn gazed placidly at Papa Ostryg. After a long silence, he said, “Do you actually have these dragon babes?”

  Papa Ostryg flipped a little golden coin. “I can offer ye the girlie who says she is in charge of them.”

  Gefjun straightened. “You didn’t bring her here?”

  “Not yet. But I know a way to make Dyrfinna come straight here, though a thousand chains bound her.”

  Gefjun nodded politely. Right, she thought. That’ll be the day.

  “I need more than just a promise,” Varinn said.

  Papa Ostryg laced his fingers together over his belly. “I can provide, I can provide,” he said. Then he turned to Gefjun. “Now, lass, tell me about how Dyrfinna killed my son.”

  Gefjun’s blood ran hot and cold, and she looked at her food.

  “Finna always hated Ostryg,” she said, picking at the food on her plate. “He’d say something innocent, and she’d get all prickly about it. It didn’t matter. I mean, we used to be friends when we were kids, but sometimes you go out with other people, and you have to give the other person some space to do the things they want. But no. She had to hold a grudge about it as long as we’d been together, she always got annoyed with him. She’d tried to attack him with a sword once before then. That second time … she …”

  Gefjun swallowed and collected herself, her throat tight.

  King Varinn shook his head. “I can’t comment on her case,” he said. “From what I’ve been told, Dyrfinna was stripped of command and exiled for losing her head and killing one of those who were under her command. The fact that it was your betrothed only makes it worse.”

  Gefjun half-heartedly shrugged, but her heart was too low to reply.

  “To be exiled is not a choice made lightly but with much forethought,” Varinn said, though Gefjun raised her eyebrows briefly at that. “And her crime is a serious one. I don’t know if I’d want an element like that to lead my army, however good she is.”

  Gefjun sneered and looked down.

  “You used to be friends with her.”

  “Stop using that word. Those days are long over now,” she said.

  “Can you go back to those old days of your friendship and talk to me about what she was like then?”

  Gefjun snapped, “Look. I really don’t want to. I’m really not interested in supporting her, okay?” She collected herself again. “If it pleases Your Majesty,” she added.

  Varinn leaned back, nodding, but to her relief, he said nothing more.

  “If Dyrfinna’s running around, though, she’s going to find a way to break in and turn all yer prisoners loose,” Papa Ostryg said. “She’ll do that, just to get her crew out of captivity.”

  “Pssh,” Varinn said, waving his napkin at him. “You act as
if she’s some kind of goddess, breaking down doors and bursting chains asunder.”

  Gefjun shrugged at the same moment Papa Ostryg did. He smiled, she chuckled.

  “Aye,” he said. “Ye and I know that little wench. She may well be the goddess of battle, a Valkyrie in the flesh. Yer Majesty, ye haven’t seen her in action. We have. The queen’s commander has very stupidly chosen to throw her out. If ye can bring her over to yer side and explain your situation, ye’d stand to win the battles, win the war, and get yer revenge for what the queen has stolen from ye. Revenge for yer wife, revenge for yer wee babe.”

  “I don’t want to hear talk of that,” Varinn rumbled.

  “D’ye want to win? D’ye want to push that murderer down in the dust?” Papa Ostryg rumbled. “Queen Saehildr has lied about ye, aye, to all her people. Ye’re innocent as the driven snow, man, but that queen, she’s painted yer lad as an old drunkard who deserved to die.”

  “I said, enough. Or I will throw you out, sure as I’m alive.” Varinn’s fists clenched on the tabletop.

  A long pause, with Varinn clenching his teeth, looking toward the tabletop, Papa Ostryg sat silent but alert, like a fox waiting to see if he needed to run.

  Gefjun laid her hand on Varinn’s fist, then quietly sang her song. Sang it again.

  Varinn’s fists unclenched. “Thank you,” he said, gently gripping her hand in his. “Thank you. I apologize for my outburst.”

  Gefjun turned to Papa Ostryg, who was looking at their hands together with a gleam in his eye—which vanished when her eyes met his.

  “We are both grieving,” she said quietly. “Please respect that.”

  Papa Ostryg leaned back in his chair. “I propose to bring Dyrfinna to ye,” he said. “Then, while she’s trapped here, I’ll go and get those wee baby dragons for ye. If she’s here, ye can lock her up and keep her from breaking yer prisoners free. Or ye can hire her for yer army. It’s up to you.”

  “How do you propose to capture those wee baby dragons without Dyrfinna’s help?” King Varinn asked. “Many people have tried. Few have survived.”

  “I’m setting up a camp across the sea from the dragon’s isle, and we’ll be prepared to row there as swiftly as possible as soon as the dragon goes to Dyrfinna’s aid. We’ll capture those babes as soon as that dragon is out of sight, and we’ll bring ’em all to ye.”