And then I saw the black swaths. They marred field after field, drawing closer, denser, until no yellow remained, only black devastation. Someone had burned these lands. Just as that thought occurred to me, the plane passed over what had once been a town.
I knew, now, what Kolorma wished to show me, although why was yet unclear. The town’s buildings, so far below, were almost unrecognizable as such—had Kolorma not informed me that she wished to show me towns, would I have known them for what they were? The bombings had done this, no doubt. A town that once might have been very much like my own in Söllund now lay in charcoal ruins, burnt out, collapsed, and no doubt empty of people.
Kolorma did not circle it or tarry in any way, but kept flying ahead. The blackened fields gave way to patches of scorched trees, and then to healthy forest. Beyond that lay more fields, but these already had the marks seared by bombs and incendiaries. The next town was much like the first.
She showed me seven towns, all alike in their devastation, before the plane banked sharply and we turned to the left—north? I was unsure. No more burnt ruins lay below us, just another wood, a river, and then untilled yellowing meadows. As we flew, I saw patches of snow. North, indeed, then.
I found my heart no longer raced from fear or even joy of flying; instead it ached for those victims of the bombs. Even if someone survived the murder rained down upon them, with the fields ruined, what would they eat? Had anyone escaped? I tried not to think of the children, of the mothers, and how they had suffered, unprotected by Frigga or any other god, as the konunger spread his Conversion.
The aeroplane descended in altitude and I peered out of the glass, trying to see what lay up ahead, although the second cockpit in which I sat was blocked by the first, where Kolorma piloted. Soon, however, as the tops of trees came closer and eventually disappeared behind us, I knew we were landing. There had been no patch of trees near the hangar where we took off, however. We had not returned to the place from which we departed.
The plane thumped the ground with a surprisingly light touch, and then we rolled, the great propeller on the plane’s nose slowing to a stop as the plane itself did the same. I saw Kolorma slide back the glass over her cockpit, and I fumbled with mine. She stood on the wing, waiting, and once I freed myself from the straps, she gave me one leather-gloved hand and helped me climb out of the seat and onto the wing beside her. Together we jumped down, the landing jarring the muscles of my legs, still weak from days of inactivity.
“Come along,” she said, removing her hat and then the headset. She dropped the latter in the cockpit, then put the hat back on, as well as the goggles. I followed suit, worrying about why we would still be needing the helmet-like hat and protective eyewear.
Kolorma marched into a smaller version of the hangar we’d come from. Only three planes made a row inside. She ignored them, however, and strode directly to a motorcycle. I only knew what it was because Bondi, the baker’s son, had sent the townspeople into near-hysterics regularly with the noise his motorcycle made as he tore around town. I saw that unlike Bondi’s, this motorcycle had a little shelf behind the seat, no doubt for attaching a basket or something like that. I understood as Kolorma swung a leg over the machine that I would be sitting on the shelf behind her.
Gritting my teeth and wishing this day would end, I pretended to have no fear as I jogged up to the motorcycle and seated myself on the bracket, grateful for the sturdy fabric of my britches, which mitigated the discomfort of the unpadded metal somewhat. In a ripping engine roar, we barreled out of the hangar, and it wasn’t long before I felt I might as well have been sitting naked on the damned thing. As if for the sheer pleasure of adding to my misery, the clouds above saw fit to drizzle us with a chilling, light rain, which made it quite difficult to see clearly out of the tinted glass of the goggles.
The trip, mercifully, did not last very long, and we entered the wood we had flown over, passed through, and emerged on the other side to see a large parkland with a massive manor house looming over it. It made Liten’s holiday home and even my own house in Söllund look like country cottages. Kolorma drove without hesitation directly for it, and we finally came to a stop at the base of two winding columns of wide, mossy stone stairs that led to the grand doors of the manor. Having extricated myself from the machine, I hurriedly removed my goggles and hat, then puzzled over where to put them. Out of the corner of my eye I noted one of the doors at the top of the stairs swung open. Brushing myself off, I straightened and saw a man in a gray silk suit trotting down the left staircase to meet us.
Kolorma, already free of the machine as well as her goggles and hat, which hung on one handlebar, reached out both hands to greet the man. He grasped them in his, then pulled her close and kissed both of her cheeks.
“Jöfurdis, how divine to see you.”
“The pleasure is mine, Jarl Alflétta. May I present to you, Jarldis Sölbói-ungr.”
The man, whose light gray hair was combed back with tonic, yet not so severely as was common in the capital, released one of Kolorma’s hands and reached out to me. Uncertain, but determined not to embarrass Kolorma, I took it. He squeezed my hand warmly and then brought it to his lips, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Dropping my hand, he said, “Jarldis Sölbói, what a delight. I have made the rather intimate—and unfortunate—acquaintance of your husband.”
“‘Acquaintance’? Why, my dear jarl, I never thought to see the day that you would be so coy,” Kolorma said, her eyes sharp with teasing.
“Well, surely these aren’t matters to be discussed standing in the drizzle,” Alflétta said, his eyes glittering with amusement. “I know why you’re here, Jöfurdis. Shall we retire to the sitting room and discuss it over tea?”
~~~
“What you’re asking me to do, dear Jöfurdis, is nothing short of suicide,” Alflétta said cheerfully as he sipped tea from a nice old-fashioned porcelain cup not unlike those I used to have in Söllund. I stirred my own tea, trying to make sense of the allusions and hints the two of them made as they chatted in the most oblique fashion of some plan of Kolorma’s.
“Nonsense,” Kolorma said. “I’ve already promised I’ll shield you. Have you no faith in me at all?”
“These days having faith can be far more dangerous than not,” Alflétta answered.
Kolorma leaned towards him, her eyes smoldering with a dangerous light. “Come now, Alflétta. You can’t expect me to believe you’re really afraid of all those—what did you call them? ‘Dewdroppers and lollygaggers.’”
“I’m not afraid of them, I’m afraid of Galmr.”
I raised my eyebrows. That, at least, I understood.
Kolorma reached out and rested a hand on Alflétta’s arm. “I know it’s dangerous, my friend,” she said. “But I will not stand by and watch Galmr, Eiflar, and my sister destroy everything sacred to Frigga.”
“Ah, Frigga,” Alflétta said, using an embroidered napkin to dab his lips. “Yes, I suppose I shouldn’t wonder at your unending devotion to the goddess of clouds and sky, Jöfurdis.”
“And She is a patron to people like us,” Kolorma said, her eyes boring into him with an intensity that would have made me blush or shift in my seat. Alflétta merely gazed back at her sadly.
“Frigga’s legend says that she is attended to by many minor goddesses such as Helin and Fulla, Jarldis,” Alflétta said to me. “In the last hundred years each in the succession of high vigjadises of Frigga have all agreed that such relationships, if not themselves examples of feminine love, at the very least imply an acceptance of feminine love.” I felt heat rise in my cheeks and I knew not where to look. “Feminine love” was the phrase Liut had used to describe Vaenn’s attempt to seduce me. I could not turn my eyes to Kolorma. Alflétta had all but pointed a finger at her and declared her one of those who practiced such love. “However,” he continued, “while by association the love of a man for another man has enjoyed some measure of protection, I have never heard a high vigjadis declare it
to be a lifestyle condoned and sacred to the goddess.”
“Alflétta—” Kolorma began, but he held up a hand.
“And whether Frigga counts men like me among her sacred flock or not is actually completely irrelevant now, for Frigga holds no sway in the city anymore, Jöfurdis. Tyr’s law is the only law, and High Vigja Galmr has made Tyr’s dictates quite clear. My kind are to be imprisoned at the least. Probably exterminated.”
My eyes widened, and I dared to look at him then. A man who loved other men? I had never heard of it. And then something he had said when we first arrived returned to me, and I blurted, “You said you knew my husband intimately?”
Alflétta gave me a quick grin and a wink, and then he laughed at my face. “Yes, indeed, Jarldis. Perhaps you wondered why Reister had no interest in summoning you to court? Until recently, I mean. Until the rise of High Vigja Galmr and his pawn, Eiflar-Konunger, who no doubt mentioned to your dear spouse how very unnatural it was that he left his wife alone at his estate, and showed no interest in a mistress.”
My cup clattered into its saucer and I sat back in my seat as though struck.
Of course, now that I knew, it all made sense. Although Reister had come to my bed perhaps eight times over the years, each time he was drunk and seemed to take only the most bare and brief physical pleasure from it. And as soon as Bersi was conceived, he never came to me again. His hatred for me must stem in no small part from the coercion he was under to bring me to court. I regarded Alflétta with new interest. “Did he love you, then? Did he lose you to your estate because of the high vigja?”
Alflétta’s smile widened. He seemed impressed. “Not me, dear Jarldis,” he said. “My lover was taken from me and imprisoned, as far as I know.” His smile faded and he looked down at his hands. “I believe he languishes there still—unless they have killed him, or sent him to a work camp somewhere outside the city.” His eyes flicked back up to meet mine again. “No, Jarldis, Reister’s heart has ever been cold, although he used to have lovers, sure enough. I imagine with his appetites, he must be furious to have to abstain… unless he still satisfies his desires somehow in secret.”
I didn’t think so. Between the smuggling and managing me, I doubted Reister had time to pursue clandestine assignations. However, I could not be sure. But I had another question. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Jarldis Vaenn seems unafraid to pursue… her desires… quite openly, in the court.”
Kolorma snorted. “That’s because Vaenn beds the konunger, and sometimes the konungdis, as well. She’s quite a favorite.”
So Reister had not been wrong about that, it seemed.
I sat in silence for a few moments, allowing these revelations to settle in my mind. My companions appeared satisfied with remaining silent as well. Kolorma produced an onyx cigarette-holder and a clove, and Alflétta leaned towards her, a lighter’s flame ready. As the sweet, rich scent of cloves perfumed the air, I took a sip of tea and frowned.
“The Jöfurdis and Farmann Liten rescued me,” I said at last, and both Kolorma and Alflétta seemed startled. “They offered to help me escape, perhaps to Kemet.”
I met Alflétta’s blue eyes with my own.
“I cannot accept their most generous offer,” I said to him. “I’ve left someone behind in Helésey, and I must go back for him.”
A flush colored Alflétta’s cheeks. “I know what you would say—”
“I do not think you do,” I interrupted him. “For I do not think Jöfurdis Svida has shared what she intends to ask of me in payment for returning me safely to the city. I have my suspicions.”
Kolorma arched and eyebrow and sucked smoke from the tip of the cigarette-holder. Alflétta clasped his hands together tightly in his lap.
“You said your lover is imprisoned, and that you believe he is still in the city, is that not so?” I asked him.
His hands tightened, and he stared down at them, refusing to meet my eyes again.
“Jarl Alflétta, I have a proposition for you,” I said.
Slowly, he raised his gaze to mine. His eyes were watery with tears. “I cannot hope to save him,” he whispered. “I am too old—”
“Forgive me, Jarl, but you misunderstand me,” I said, raising my palm. “Jöfurdis Svida has some need for you. I propose that you agree to fill it. In return, I promise that I will do my utmost to locate your friend, and free him.”
~~~
Jarl Alflétta rode back in the aeroplane, sitting behind me in the second passenger seat. He showed no fear, and it was no wonder—Kolorma told me later that Alflétta was the one who taught her to fly.
As I watched the fields, streams, woods and glens pass beneath us, I considered what I knew of Kolorma’s motives and what likely she would ask of me. Because of the things she had said to try to convince Alflétta to come with us, I understood now why she had shown me the ruined villages. Kolorma was an acolyte of Frigga—and why not? Frigga was not just patron of marriage and children, but goddess of the sky. The light in Kolorma’s face when she looked at her aeroplane spoke more clearly than any words of her passion for flying. To watch Eiflar-Konunger and his cronies destroy the worship of Frigga was more than Kolorma could bear. It was not something I might have predicted—she seemed as jaded as the rest of the courtiers I had met, but I realized now that her bitter laughs and cynical smiles expressed her grief at the rise of Tyr, not simple world-weariness grown from years of court intrigue and emptiness.
And so I thought I knew, now, what she would ask of me. Hanif Dihauti told me of the vigjas and vigjadises imprisoned by the konunger, tortured in the hopes that they would validate the new order with Conversions of their own. Kolorma would ask me to don the costume of Raud Gríma, find them, and free them. What a task! Could I do it?
Perhaps. And if I could, I would be glad to. The thought of striking a blow against the corruption of Galmr’s new order was tantalizing. I might be able to do it, I reasoned, if I had some help.
What I still did not know was how Kolorma intended to return me to the court without risking my murder at Reister’s hands, to say nothing of the arrest that might well await me should suspicion over the identity of Raud Gríma have found its way to me.
Anxious that perhaps Kolorma had no inkling of the danger Reister, at least, caused, I thought to speak to her once we were safely landed. Kolorma had other plans, however.
“Come with me, Myadar,” she said, taking her leave of Alflétta and Liten, who had come to meet the plane, when she landed in the field behind his estate house. Tossing the leather hat and goggles into the cockpit above where we four stood, I rushed to catch up with her. She strode directly to the hedged-off garden on the west side of the house, entering the maze there.
Certain that if I did not hurry to her side I would lose her in the rows, I jogged until I found her turning a corner into the greenery. With one last burst of speed I arrived abreast of her, trying to hide that I was out of breath. For several moments she kept marching at the same fast pace, as if some whip drove her. I said nothing, merely concentrating on matching her speed. Abruptly, she stopped and turned to me, catching my arms just under the shoulders. I gasped, certain for an instant that she would kiss me. Her eyes softened and darkened. Her mouth parted.
Then she released me and took a step back.
“Myadar, you should know… that is, there is something I must tell you,” she said, pressing the back of her fingers to the side of her forehead and turning her eyes away from me.
I followed her gaze and saw that we had come to some opening in the maze with a stone hut—something like a crypt, I supposed—in the center of it.
Glancing back at her, I dared not speak, for fear that she would not go on with this new revelation.
Her eyes flicked to me again, and then back to the crypt.
“You aren’t the only one,” she said at last, her voice a sigh, filled with regret.
I waited for her to continue, but after a few moments I feared that she would not, so
I prompted, “…the only one?”
Pressing her lips together, she dropped her eyes and nodded. “Not the only one to have served—as Vaenn and Krigr’s plaything.”
I blinked rapidly, my hand grasping my blouse at the collar where it opened to my neck, as if closing it would cover nakedness. “I don’t know what you mean—”
Her eyes cut to me then, narrowed and angry. “Don’t deny it, Myadar. It will do no good to try to lie to me. I, who have experienced their arts for myself. Do you know how old I was, the first time I went to court, Myadar?”
I shook my head.
“I was nineteen. And those two devils were younger than I—in body, but not in spirit. They have been playing their games since they were ten—although I suppose the nature of the games changed.”
Watching her, I noted that her face had taken on a pallor in the failing light. Evening was coming, and soon we would stand in darkness. But I, for one, had no thought of moving from where I stood.
“Vaenn was seventeen and Krigr only fourteen, but each had perfected their strategies already. And there was I, silly little girl from my family’s country estate, come to the capital for the first time.” She turned her dark gaze on me then, the intensity of it pinning me in place like a butterfly. “You must understand, Myadar, that I already knew that I—that I would not love men as other girls did. But aside from that knowledge, I was quite innocent.”
Her eyes released me, and I breathed again, realizing only then that I had held my breath.
“It’s hard to imagine now. Courtiers become… experienced… so much earlier in the metropolis, but I led a sheltered life until my parents decided it was time to bring us to court, my siblings and I.”
She stared at the hedge nearest her, running her fingers over the stiff branches of leaves.
“Krigr approached me first, all lies and wheedling. All flattery and kindness. I fancied myself in love with him—a fourteen year old boy! But he was so sophisticated in a way I had never encountered in a youth before. And more than that… my feelings meant…” She glanced at me. “I was cured! Oh, of course this was long before the rise of Tyr—and just as Alflétta explained, feminine lovers were under the protection of Frigga. I was in no danger due to my feelings, but Liut offered—normalcy, unlike what I had thought my fate. I saw myself his wife, the mother of his babes, a respected jarldis at the court, known and loved by all.” She laughed, and it sounded like the breaking of a porcelain cup. I wanted to reach out to her, but I was afraid to touch her, afraid of how she might react.
The City Darkens (Raud Grima Book 1) Page 23