After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  Her fingers pinched each other, up against her chest. “And… you have?”

  “Well, I suppose I’ve read a few, you know, where the followers of Tyr… or even Tyr Himself… well, they don’t always come out first, you know.”

  “Tyr Himself?” she said. “What blasphemy is this?”

  But something in the way she said it told me she wanted to know more about it, and she weren’t about to call the Officers on me.

  “You must’ve read the Lukasenna,” I said, making my voice sound reasonable.

  “Of course! Why, they made an opera of it, you know—just last year, before—before—”

  “Oh, sure enough, I did hear of it,” I said, quick as you please, for I’d no wish that she finish her sentence on account if it would lead her right into one of her fits. “But may I ask, how that opera told the story?”

  “Well, in the traditional way,” Leika said, and she took a step towards me, reaching a hand out to find the back of an armchair. She knew her way around the boudoir better’n any other part of the apartments, I reckoned, but it was still something to watch her do something like that. She eased her way round and sat, leaning back against the chair. “Luka interrupts a feast in Tyr’s hall, and he insults all the lesser Gods. Then Tyr takes him to task and finally throws him out.”

  “He never insulted Tyr, then?”

  “Of course not. How could he? What could he possibly say against Tyr?”

  “That he was a cuckold,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Your highness, if you’d like, I can probably find an older version of the edda and read it to you.”

  “I don’t understand!”

  “In the older version, it’s Alfódr’s hall, first off. And Luka does insult Tyr, sure enough, and calls him a cuckold. And it ain’t Tyr what makes him leave, it’s Alfódr.”

  “Alfódr?” she gasped, clutching at her neck like I was trying to choke her. “Alfódr, the senile God? The Blind God?”

  “Alfódr weren’t so much blind as one-eyed, you know,” I said, matter-of-fact.

  She blinked and scrunched up her eyes and covered them with her hands, but I noted she weren’t covering up her ears.

  “It’s possible you’ve not heard some older versions of many of the famous tales,” I suggested. Alfódr, senile. Is that what these new tales of Tyr said? It was a wonder Alfódr’d not laid waste to all these Tyrian bastards. Course, I’d found the Gods did little to intervene in the madness of their people. Except maybe to drive one of them a little more mad, in the form of giving a whore murderous rages. Then again, it had been some time since owt like that had happened, hadn’t it. Maybe I’d best come to terms with a truth I’d no taste for: that it never was Luka nor Freyja nor any other God spurring me on at all, but my own madness and hatred.

  While I thought on that happy idea Leika stewed in her own mental soup. Finally she said, “If there are such ‘older’ versions, I should know of them. I am, after all, the konungdis, and I must not shut my eyes, even to blasphemy.”

  “Quite right, your Majesty,” I said. “I’ll see to finding the books, starting tomorrow.”

  ~~~

  Course, I already had the books.

  I’d brung them all back with me when I went to get the Elga and it weren’t no easy feat, neither. But it helped to have a robot and an automobile with me, and that’s a fact. I’d no sure idea of what I’d do with them and I knew I’d get in trouble if anyone but the konungdis come across them in my room—her blindness meant an advantage there—but I couldn’t leave them behind, could I? So they were all stacked neat as you please under my little bed, a whole library of them.

  The following afternoon I read her about ten pages of the Lukasenna ’fore she started to pace and I reckoned I’d best stop there. After dinner, though, she wanted more. She’d not eaten a bite. I weren’t happy with it, but when Leika gets an idea in her head, there’s no knocking it out. So I read about a dozen pages more, the old verses and the interpretations what come with the book I had, from long before the Rise of Tyr. This time she never stood nor paced, just sat there listening, her face blank. And when I come to the end of a section, she stood and said, “Thank you, Ginna, that will be all,” and started for her bedroom. She stopped at the door, though, and turned a little ways back to me. “I’d like a different reading tomorrow,” she said. “Do you have any other books, or just that one?”

  “I have some others.”

  “About the lesser Gods?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “Very well. I’ll listen to one of them.”

  So the next day I read to her from the Myths of Njord, and then I read a chapter from a book I had what studied the history of the cult of Freyja. That one really struck her, and she wanted to know if I had other histories. Which, of course, I did. So for near to a week every afternoon and evening I read to her, and she listened, and the rest of the time everything was just as it had been. I’d no idea if my plan was working, or if she was on the verge of having me arrested, ’til I read to her about Greuta the Builder.

  “She was a konungdis?” Leika interrupted me, just when I was coming to the part about how Greuta tricked the merchants from the southern lands into giving her the right to trade with Kemet, which ’til that point had been a closed land.

  “Near to it,” I answered. “She was a dróttning.”

  Leika shook her head. “I’ve never heard that word before.”

  It weren’t often I knew a word someone like her didn’t. I was fair glad she’d not seen my face, for she’d have took me for insolent, I looked so shocked. But I held my tongue ’til I thought I could answer without making a duffer of myself. “A dróttning’s something like a konungdis, your Majesty, except whether she’s married or not, she’s the only ruler in the land.”

  Leika chewed this over for a bit and then said, “A bit like a konunger?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Sure enough, like a konunger, your highness. He’s the top, wife or no, and there’s no one what can question his rule.”

  Leika licked her lips. “Dróttning,” I heard her whisper.

  I went on with the reading, but it weren’t easy, keeping the smile from my mouth. She’d have heard it in my voice, don’t you know.

  ~~~

  Then Reister Sölbói come for a visit, and things changed again.

  He come in the afternoon, without an invitation, otherwise I’d not have been surprised, being that I’d have written it out to him. Leika weren’t put off by it, but then she’d been steadier of late. I liked to think that was on account of the books, but I’d no way to be sure.

  The robot announced Jarl Sölbói just as Leika and I were sitting down to read, and a moment later a tall, thin man with a sharp face and dark blue eyes come into the grand salon where Leika and I went to meet him. He bowed over Leika’s hand and it come to me that he weren’t the least surprised to find she was blind, so he must have been one of the inner circle for some time. I’d not heard owt about him the whole time I’d lived there, though.

  He wore his hair slicked and the usual black suit with a white shirt under, a night blue scarf at his neck, but he put me in mind of a raptor just the same. One summer Dag spotted a raptor in Holy Roots and took me to see him—must be near on twelve years ago—and I’ve never forgot him. Eyes like daggers, looking right at you, pinning you for his prey, sure enough.

  Once I seen that Leika was settled and the robots had the orders they needed and such, I excused myself, though I wanted more’n anything to stay on in the room and listen. There weren’t nowt for it, more’s the pity. I’d no way to spy, neither. I went into an office what lay two doors from the grand salon and kept my ears pricked best I could. But I never heard a word of what they said; not ’til the end, you mind. By then half the palace’d probably hear the konungdis, carrying on like she was. I rushed in but she waved me off and run out of the room towards her boudoir, leaving me alone with Jarl Sölbói.

  I
started to follow her, giving him a short nod, when he spoke.

  “So you’re Finnarún’s sewer rat,” he said, his voice hissing over the “s”s like a snake.

  I stopped in my tracks and faced him, but I’d no idea what to say to that, so I held my tongue.

  He took a step towards me and I made myself stand my ground, but I must say, as much as Group Leader Úlfketill failed to frighten me, Reister Sölbói made up for in spades. Those eyes stabbed into me and his mouth was a thin line you might mistake for a smile, only I never did.

  “She thinks she’s very clever, our Finnarún, doesn’t she?” he whispered as he moved closer. Soon we were close enough for a dance and his mouth was by my ear. “She thinks you’ll serve her well here. Well, I came to see you for myself, and now I’ll give you a piece of valuable advice.”

  I waited, still as a rock, my stomach turning itself inside out and making me wish I could sit down.

  “Disappear,” he said.

  I didn’t blink, didn’t look at him—just stared straight ahead over his shoulder.

  “You think I don’t know what you are, Ginna Alvör? You think I don’t know your origins? You’re nothing but a sewer whore, and you’re only here because Leika is mad as a dancing bear. Leave the city now, while you can. I’ll not warn you again.”

  He turned, sharp as a robot, and marched out of the salon and the apartments, leaving me standing there, still as a statue.

  He knew my name.

  He knew where I come from.

  How?

  It didn’t take much thought, really, to answer that question. He’d found out Finnarún brought me from Gaddi’s, and Gaddi’d spill everything he ever knew in exchange for gold. Gaddi knew quite a bit about me, more’s the pity. What Gaddi knew, I reckoned Sölbói knew.

  What of it? Why’d he care if Leika had a retired whore reading her mail?

  Next thing I knew, I was dropping into a chair, rubbing my face in my hands. He cared on account of Finnarún. She had her spies, and he had his, and they were fighting each other for an advantage with the konungdis, by the Eye. And I was Finnarún’s advantage.

  ~~~

  It come as no surprise, really, the first time Sölbói tried to kill me.

  Well, to be clear, I was surprised, for I’d no cause to think a lift might malfunction and send me crashing to my death, but once I thought on it for a short time, I’d no question in my mind who was responsible.

  I’m getting ahead of myself in the telling. It’s on account of something I’d rather forget, but there’s nowt for it. I’d best go back a bit.

  Leika was in a fair nasty state after Sölbói left. He’d known just what to say to send her into a fit, and a terrible one, at that. She was babbling, with no sense to her words, all about Raud Gríma, of course. I got her to bed and poured brandy down her throat best as I could, and when that weren’t enough I begun singing to her like I used to with Rokja to soothe her nightmares, especially when she had a fever, poor lamb. After a time Leika grabbed my arms and said, “Ginna! Ginna!”

  It was a relief that she knew me, so I said, “Your Highness, I’m here.”

  “Do you have a book?”

  I blinked a few times at that, but she was gripping my arms tight enough to bruise. It felt like metal robot fingers digging into my flesh, sure enough. “A book, your Highness?” I said.

  “About him. Do you have a book about him?”

  “Oh,” I said, and thought right away of the red one Ivarr’s given me. Course I had some others, too. “Yes, your Highness, I do.”

  Just like that all the fight went out of her, and she let go of my arms and collapsed into her bed. “Tomorrow,” she said, her voice exhausted. “Tomorrow, you will read it to me.”

  I’d not spent much time with the one Ivarr gave me, so I chose another I’d found two years ago, ’fore even Myadar Sölbói started wearing the disguise and making her mischief. Leika sat on a chaise, not lying down on it, you mind, just sitting like it was a normal-sized chair, and I took the armchair I liked the best, and I opened the book, what had a black cover with silver lettering on it, and read the title page.

  “A True Account of the Days of Raud Gríma, Highwayman and Hero.”

  I’d reckoned on this one being the best choice, being that, best as I could figure, it was written for children Rokja’s age; I should have known something was amiss when just hearing the title made a shudder pass through Leika like a cold wind’d hit her. But I read on.

  “In the days of the konunger now known as Radormer the Unwise, a masked hero on a black stallion thundered over the roads of Ódalnord, terrorizing the rich and defending the poor…”

  Leika stayed still, listening, and after a time she lay down on the chaise and closed her eyes. The story told of Raud Gríma’s many attacks on coaches and the like on the roads, and then it described a fair dark night when he took a wound and had to find a place to hide from the soldiers what hunted him. By that point I was paying more mind to the story than to the konungdis, but it’s my guess she started breathing faster soon’s Raud Gríma climbed over a wall to a jarl’s estate what’d been mentioned before on account of it had a lovely young jarldis living in it. Course you expect a story like that to take a certain turn, and this one weren’t no different. Sure enough, the only window open (what happened to have a trellis on the wall by it covered in easy-to-climb vines) was hers. Raud Gríma climbed the trellis though he’d taken a sword wound in his right arm, hopped over the stone balustrade, and let himself in through the door-sized double windows. Course the jarldis when she seen him had to faint, and he caught her, and right about then Leika started panting.

  And all of a sudden it come clear to me that her obsession with Raud Gríma weren’t just a matter of unreasonable fear.

  I’d paused in the reading and she twisted a bit in the chaise, her hands clasped against her chest, and she whispered, “Go on. Don’t stop.”

  Well, the book was meant for young readers and not much happened after the jarldis fainted other’n Raud Gríma laid her on her bed and hid in her closet. Soldiers come through and only seen a sleeping jarldis and never thought to look in the closets, so after they left Raud Gríma come out. Course the visiting soldiers’d made enough of a racket to wake the jarldis, and when Raud Gríma come out from hiding there was a tense moment when you thought maybe she’d scream and summon the guards, but sure enough, she’d fallen in love with him by then.

  I weren’t so lost in the story now but kept glancing up at the konungdis as I read to see her reactions, and it was plain from her flushed cheeks, her open mouth, and her fast breathing she was fair excited by the whole thing. I wondered if I ought to invent something for her in the scene, to have Raud Gríma “ravish” the willing jarldis, you know, something of the kind, but I’d no talent for imitating the wording of such an old book, and I knew she’d never believe it was anyone but me what invented such a passage.

  It was a strange thing, seeing her so hot, you understand. For one, I’ve been a whore since I was fourteen, and when a john gets excited that’s a piece of luck, for it means the whole transaction’ll go well and quick, which they don’t always do. So the whore in me was pleased as punch to see her breathing so fast and rubbing her hands against herself—she had’em tight against her chest, but I could tell she wanted to let’em go lower’n that. But another part of me weren’t so pleased, for it seemed a sure thing this was just another part of her madness, and her madness weren’t a thing I wanted to encourage.

  And another part of me what’d not known a tumble in weeks—not since that meeting with Finnarún—was fair excited to see Leika like that. You mustn’t think I was in love with her, mind. I was still in love with Finnarún. But Finnarún knew who I was when she sent me to Leika, and I had a fair idea she’s considered something like this might happen, so I left my armchair and knelt by Leika’s side.

  Luckily—or not, I suppose, for looking back I’ve no pride in what come next—there were a cou
ple of lines left in the book what’d suit the situation fine, describing the jarldis throwing herself in Raud Gríma’s arms, and a fair amount about how strong them arms were, and that sort of thing, and no mention of the sword wound at all anymore, and that’s a fact.

  I held the book in my left hand and read as I rested my right palm on her stomach. Leika gasped and her eyes flew open wide, but I just stroked her belly in a circle, light as you please. Her dress was short, like always, and made of a light silk what bunched under my hand. She started making whimpering noises, and I knew I had her.

  Even as I read and stroked Leika’s belly, my mind kept coming back to Finnarún, and how she must’ve known something like this would happen. I loved Finnarún, sure enough, but I weren’t so blind as I had been with Ótti. With Ótti I never seen how she used me to get the laudenum—not really. I knew she had her ways of getting what she wanted, but I thought she loved me all the same. It weren’t ’til that day she left, after what happened with the woman and the slashers, I come to see the truth of it. But having seen it, I’d not be so blind again. I knew Finnarún was using me. I knew she put me to work for the jarldis as some part of a plan of hers. She didn’t love me. Gaddi must’ve told her I was a whore same as he told Reister Sölbói. Finnarún had some idea I’d bed Leika sooner or later. This was part of her plan, I was sure of it.

  The certainty of it was a cutter, and it made me angry, too, but I still loved her, and I wanted to do what she needed me to do. It tore me up thinking she must’ve figured out she could ask me to do anything—she must have known I loved her and I’d go back to whoring for her, for what was this but more whoring? But she was right, after all. It’s who I was, and all I was good for.

  So I read the words slow as I could, widening the circles of my palm so’s soon enough I was pulling the hem of the dress up near to Leika’s waist and my hand brushed over the upper curve of her cunny, still clad in lacy underclothes. She moaned each time I touched it, and I took a risk and pushed my fingers under the waistband and down into the hot folds of her.