“Ginna, it’s okay. You’re safe.”
The gusts of breath started coming faster then, and I choked on them, tears filling my eyes, my shoulders working against the violence of the shudders racking my body. I turned then.
Sure enough, it was Ivarr.
He held a rifle, with a telescopic lens.
“You?” I breathed.
He stood in the doorway of a building—it was in fair good condition, one what’d survived the bombing, looked like—and he stared at me with them sad eyes.
“You did this?”
He never answered, but he’d no need, for I knew it was him.
“You’re the one murdering Officers?” I asked.
“Someone has to,” he said, simple-like.
Sobs broke from me then, and I’d no strength left in my legs, so I sank down to the street and watched my fingers spread out over the concrete, little rocks poking my palms.
The night was silent but for my sobs, and it sounded fair strange, just my awful choking noises and nowt else in the night air.
After a moment Ivarr’s feet come into view, and then he crouched at my side. I felt his hand hovering over my shoulder ’fore he finally lowered it to touch me.
“I’m sorry I frightened you.”
A laugh—painful though, you’d never expect it, but it was—come cutting out of my throat at that. He had frightened me, which weren’t something I’d have ever expected, but that weren’t why I was sobbing. It was ’cause Ivarr, sweet, gentle, sad Ivarr, was murdering Officers of Tyr.
And then, though I’d never planned it, I turned and buried my face in his chest, my arms wrapped round him, and I cried like a littl’un for something like ten minutes without a break. And it brought to mind when he’d had to comfort me like a baby before, and that just made me cry more. When I finally got some control back, I said, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
I blinked as I looked at him, and our faces were fair close, and he looked in my eyes steady-like.
“I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you either.”
I realized what I wanted more’n anything, more’n I’d ever wanted anything, mind, was to kiss Ivarr right then. And that’s when I realized I loved him. I probably always had. I’d loved Ótti, only this was different. And the realization of it near knocked me over, and I was crouching anyhow, and Ivarr had to steady me.
And I thought, Ginna-my-girl, you really are a right fool. Only you’d fall for the one man in all of Helésey what never showed an interest in your charms.
For all I knew Ivarr loved men. It’d explain how he’d never wanted to bed me, and yet be such a true friend. The anguish what welled up in my heart thinking that made me want to curl right up on the street and die.
All them thoughts rushed through my mind as Ivarr held my arms to keep me from tipping over, our faces close enough to touch but never coming no closer. My throat ached with wanting to kiss him.
You’re a fool, Ginna-girl. A right fool.
“Did you leave?” I asked at last. “You must’ve left. Did you hear what happened to Styrlakker and the others?”
Asking that was all it took to end the moment, and he stood, helping me up as well, brushing my dress a bit as he did. “I did leave,” he said. “I took one of Gaddi’s ships.”
“Without his permission?”
Ivarr gave me one of his sad smiles, then. “I figured he already had everything he could need. He wouldn’t miss one ship. It was a small one, anyway.”
I wiped my eyes with my hand and shivered as the wind picked up and cut through me like I’d not a stitch on.
Ivarr seen and off come his coat in less’n a beat, and he put it on my shoulders, bringing to mind the sweater he’d lent me that day we’d gone to the Temple of Freyja together. It felt like that’d happened years ago.
“I did hear about Styrlakker and the others,” he said, soft-like.
Slipping my arms into the coat’s sleeves, I said nothing.
“I went south,” he said after a long pause. I glanced at him, but I found looking at his face hurt almost as much as thinking of him had when I was sure I’d never see him again. Seemed a piece of irony, that.
“Did you,” I said, though I’d not really paid mind to his words.
“I met someone there,” he said. For a moment it come to me he’d seen Amma and Rokja, but then he said, “I’d like to introduce you to them,” and I knew that weren’t the case.
“Alright then,” I said, and followed him as he started down the avenue. We left behind us the corpses of the Officers, and I thought on how Leika would take the news of them, and me not being there when she did. She’d think I was dead too, I reckoned. I wondered if she’d hurt herself in her panic.
“I went to Gaddi,” Ivarr said. “When I first got back. He said some jarldis bought you from him.”
Gaddi, I thought but didn’t say, had a habit of talking to anyone and everyone about my business.
“I burned blue smoke for four days.”
That surprised me, and made my heart tighten. “When?” I asked.
“Just this last week. It’s been a few days since I stopped.”
When the murders started. When Leika confined me to the apartments. He’d burned the smoke. I never thought I’d see that blue smoke again.
“Are you the one—” I hesitated with the question. “Did you—did you kill all them Officers?”
“That had you just now?”
“No, I reckon you did kill all of them. I mean the others. The ones what’d been getting murdered these last two weeks.”
“Oh,” Ivarr said. He was walking a few steps ahead though there was room for me to catch up to his side. Only I weren’t sure about walking at his side right then. I’d no sense for what he thought of me anymore, and my own feelings were fair confused and painful. Seemed better to hang back. “Yeah. That was me.”
I must’ve made a noise or something what gave away how unhappy I was about that, for he stopped and turned to face me.
“We’re at war, Ginna. You can’t expect me to sit back and do nothing.”
“Them Officers were people’s kin, you know. Sons and brothers and such.”
He gave me a hard look. “And so were all the people they killed in the provinces, and here in the city. I suppose it’s okay to bomb a neighborhood full of kids and old people. Just not Officers of Tyr?”
“But what good does it do?” I asked, the words pulling themselves from me though the last thing I wanted to do was antagonize him. “There’s thousands of Officers. You can’t kill them all.”
“I’m not trying to kill them all.” He turned from me at that and started walking again, and I could tell in the set of his shoulders he was furious with me, so I kept my mouth shut though questions buzzed through my mind loud-like. What was he trying to do? Why’d he come back to Helésey? Just to start killing Officers? Who was he taking me to?
Course, all them questions got answered soon enough.
~~~
“Ginna Alvör, meet Myadar Sölbói.”
I can tell you I’d about a hundred things to say to her, and none of them would have made Amma proud of my manners. I stood still and stared at her, my mouth clamped shut.
She was wearing a pale blue cotton shirt with pearly buttons all down the front and smart collar. The sleeves were long, and she held her arms crossed in front of her as she looked me up and down. Her hair was the brightest shade of fiery red I’d ever seen, though of course I’d seen it ’fore now. They’d always said she was a ripping beauty, and I seen they were right. She was finer’n Finnarún Vaenn, and that was saying something.
Behind her stood a man with dark hair and olive skin. His beard had some gray in it.
“This is former radir, Hanif Dihauti,” Ivarr added.
“Really, Dúsi. It’s not like I’d ever say ‘former sailor Ivarr Dúsi,’ now would I? Or even ‘former merchant.’” The dark-haired man had an accent. He was a foreigner, I realized.
“Yes, well. It’s over a year since I was radir to the konunger, and I think it’s best if that title is forgotten, considering I’m one of the leaders of the resistance now, don’t you agree?” the dark-haired man said.
Ivarr cracked a half smile, but there was warmth in his eyes, so I knew he liked the man, sure enough.
I turned my attention back to Myadar Sölbói. She’d not moved. She leaned on the edge of a table in the apartment they’d taken over in a building in Midborghá, gazing at me without a blink, seemed like.
I raised my chin a bit as I gazed back.
“This is her?” she said after a few minutes of this. “The one you told us about?”
I glanced at Ivarr. He cut his eyes to me and nodded.
“She’s the one Jarldis Vaenn… bought from Gaddi,” he said.
The word “bought” made my stomach turn, and all at once I wished I’d never run into Ivarr. Maybe them novices’d have killed me. Maybe not. But I’d face a fight with seven Officers of Tyr ’fore feeling this shame, if I had my choice, wouldn’t you know.
Myadar stood up from the table and walked right up to me, coming within biting distance of my face. Wrath over how she’d left us all to pick up the pieces of her revenge roiled through me so’s I actually considered biting her, to tell the truth. And I’d no love for the way she was looking at me, neither.
“Tell me, Mær Alvör,” she said, using a title for an unmarried, lower class girl, which I suppose is what I was, though it come to me to tell her to just call me “whore” and have done with it, “have you been caring for a baby, these last few weeks?”
Now, of all the things I expected to hear from Myadar Sölbói, that ranks at the fair bottom of the list, don’t you know. I felt my jaw loosen and I stared at her like a stupid cow.
No one said a word, though, and I had a moment to collect my thoughts.
“That baby weren’t yours,” I said once I did.
Her eyebrows pulled together over blue eyes full of pain.
I gasped. “Yours? Yours and the konunger’s?”
“Did you see him?” she asked, her voice urgent. She grabbed my forearm, her fingers tighter’n the novices’d been.
“Just for a moment—though, no, I never seen him, only heard him—” I said.
The fingers dug deeper. “She lies!” Myadar said, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a snarl.
Ivarr stepped over and took hold of her wrist. “Ginna wouldn’t lie.”
“Well, now, it seems we all need to take a step back,” Dihauti said, joining our little circle of tension. He tugged on Myadar’s other arm ’til she released me. After another moment’s hesitation, she let Dihauti pull her a few steps away from me.
“You heard the baby?” Ivarr asked me, still standing close to my side.
I rubbed the skin of my arm where she’d gripped me. “I did. But I never seen him.”
Myadar’s glare was enough to make my skin feel like poor armor against her anger.
“How is that possible?” she demanded. “You’re living with her.”
Some of what was driving her come clear to me then. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, Jarldis,” I said. Her eyes flickered when I used the title. She weren’t the only one could imbue a word with more’n one meaning.
“You’re not living with her? With Jarldis Vaenn?” Ivarr said, and it seemed to me he was jumping in like he was on account of Myadar looked like she wanted to grab me again. Was he worried for my safety, or for hers? After all, last he’d spent time with me I was in the habit of slaughtering folk when I got angry. He didn’t know about the dread and the fear and how the rage weren’t such a master of me no more. Course, he’d gone ahead and killed them novices like he thought I’d not do it myself, hadn’t he? I wondered why.
“No,” I answered him. “I don’t live with Vaenn. I did for a while, some time ago, but not for more’n two months, I haven’t.”
“Why not? Where do you live now?” he asked.
If it’d just been me and Ivarr talking, I’d have told him the whole sorry story of my love for Finnarún and how she was using me. But I still had Myadar Sölbói staring at me like she was thinking of shaking me ’til my teeth come loose, and I’d no interest in sharing my private life with her.
“I’d rather not say, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It isn’t ‘all the same to me,’” Myadar said, acid-like. “My son has been taken from me—I don’t expect for you to have any inkling of what that’s like, Mær Alvör—”
That was too much.
“Oh, is that so?” I said, taking a step towards her. I could feel my eyebrows arching and my fingers curling into my palms. “You think you’re the only one what’s lost someone they love, I suppose? And what about those of us what’ve had to live in the city you wrecked and then left without a fair-the-well, I’d like to know?”
“You hold me responsible for the city’s ruin?”
I cocked my head to the side. “Yeah, actually, I’d say I do. If it weren’t for you leaving like you did, we might’ve had a leader for all the young men what joined the resistance you started. Instead, they all went wild or become bosses. The wild ones, we called’em slashers, don’t you know, on account of they took to slashing anyone what had the misfortunate of coming cross’em when they were bored, which was all the time. My friend Gram’s dead on account of them.”
“I’m sorry about your friend—”
I cut her off. “And then there’s the bosses. Held court in their parts of the city for some time, though without you to give them a common leader, they’d not work together for nothing. Except when they heard Leika was on her way, then they all banded together. You know what come of that?”
She blinked at me.
“That’s right. All dead. Every last one of’em, except them what sold the rest out to Leika and her own. And it weren’t just the bosses what died—their toadies did too, many of’em just ordinary folk. Shall I name them for you?”
She made a noise of protest, but I carried on.
“Dag. You’d have liked Dag. Everybody liked Dag—he loved trees, you see—he thought he’d be the city’s warden, if Styrlakker had his way. Course Styrlakker died too. And Ótti. Let’s not forget her. She was a right fool, Ótti was, but she never hurt a fly. And—”
“It’s war, you’ve lost friends, but my child—”
“And how about my sister, Rokja? You know how old she is, Jarldis? She’s twelve. I suppose that makes her old enough you’d not call her a child no more, only I do, see. I love her like she was my’n, and I’ll never see her again, did you know that? I sent her away on account of the invasion and the slashers and all of it.”
Myadar bit her lip, her eyebrows drawn together. She still managed to look pretty when she was distressed. I hated her for it. I think she could tell I did, too, for she turned away from me after a moment, giving Dihauti a look I weren’t sure how to interpret.
“Don’t talk to me about loss as if you’ve any inkling of what it’s really like,” I said, low-like, after a pause.
She’d turned from me but now she glanced at me over her shoulder. “You can’t really hold me responsible for all of that?”
I felt my mouth twist in contempt. “There’s others what share the blame, sure enough. But you started it. You started all of it, and then you turned tail like a dog and left us a right mess. And them what died, died on account of that mess, and no mistake.”
It felt good to say it. I’d not felt so strong in a long time. My blood rushed in my veins. It felt powerful to finally have my say, and to Myadar Sölbói herself, no less. I’d have spat at her feet, only I didn’t need to no more. I’d said all I wanted.
I suppose I’d expected Myadar to take it all on the chin, give me a cold stare, and carry on, but instead, she surprised me. Her shoulders slumped, and she took a step to the side, then leaned heavy-like on the b
ack of a wooden chair. After a moment she collapsed into the chair like she’d been stabbed. She dropped her face into her hands.
Dihauti crouched by her and begun whispering to her, his voice and body tense, but she shook her head, lowering her hands.
“I never considered what my actions might have wrought,” she said.
“You can’t possibly let this wench’s wild accusations upset you,” Dihauti exclaimed, straightening up.
Myadar shook her head again. “But she’s right, Hanif. I am responsible.”
“Nonsense. You didn’t bomb the city. You didn’t set wild young men against their own people—”
“But she did arm them,” Ivarr said. I looked at him in surprise, then back at the other two. They were both staring at him in shock. “It’s true,” he said. “She stole the weapons the slashers and bosses used after the city fell. She handed those weapons out.”
“And I suppose she pulled the triggers for them, as well!” Dihauti snapped.
Myadar’s wide eyes moved from Ivarr to me. I felt the contempt fading from my face, for it meant something to see her remorse.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I never thought of what might happen—”
“Please, you armed convicted murderers and freed them from Grumflein!” Ivarr exploded, and I stared at him, as shocked as the others. “It never occurred to you that they might hurt innocent people?”
Oh, Ivarr. What happened to your family? I wondered. It was the first time I’d ever thought to ask. I’d always assumed they died in the bombings, and not wanting to prod wounds with questions I thought I already knew the answers to, I’d not asked for more details.
“Everything Ginna said it true!” Ivarr continued. “You are responsible for all those deaths.”
Myadar stared at him, wordless, though I seen the muscles in her throat working as she swallowed, and her body shuddered as she breathed.
“Look here,” Dihauti said, but he weren’t near as sure of himself now. “It’s terrible, how bad things went after the Tyrablót, but it’s no use laying the blame on Myadar. She couldn’t have stopped those people—”
Myadar held up a hand, then got to her feet. “Thank you, Hanif. You are a true friend to defend me so, when it is clear they have the right of it.” Her blue eyes flicked from me to Ivarr and back again. “I know an apology won’t do a bit of good. No one could have apologized to me when I thought my son was dead—I’d have cut their throats if I could rather than hear it. I have not lost so many as you have.” Her eyes lingered on me, then moved to Ivarr, who glared back at her with more anger and hate than I’d ever thought him capable of. I thought of the Officers he’d killed, and I understood a bit better now.
After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2) Page 27