The City Darkens (Raud Grima Book 1)

by Martin, Sophia

  Jarldis Agvidar sniffed. “Some of those degenerates, no doubt. Have they searched the Undergrunnsby for Raud Gríma? I’ll warrant he’s the ringleader.”

  Yellow-dress fluttered her hand some more. “That brute? Oh, by the Gods.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her blasphemy. Such expressions alluding to multiple deities were becoming more and more noticed in court, and more and more frowned upon. In this case, however, everyone was far too wrapped up in the story to react to the plural form.

  “And you say no one saw the face of the man who stole the truck?” Mother Tora said, glancing at me.

  “I can’t be certain,” the blue one said. “My son is only a Deputy Section Leader, after all—” A very high rank in Ódalnord’s military command—”and he did question the two that witnessed the robbery himself. But I suppose he could be mistaken—”

  The others twittered around her, reassuring her that they didn’t doubt her son’s facts, for fear she might deny them further details if she decided to take offense. I sipped tea and realized I was famished. I signaled Sveinn, who discreetly bowed his face near mine.

  “Cakes, please,” I said, and he disappeared.

  “What about the two injured men?” Mother Tora asked. Relief made me light-headed to know I had not killed either of them.

  “What about them?” the blue jarldis said.

  “Didn’t they see their attacker?” Mother Tora asked.

  “Well the one who woke up certainly didn’t,” the blue one answered, and my heart tightened.

  “The—the other didn’t wake?” I asked softly.

  “Not yet,” the blue jarldis said irritably. “And the physicians aren’t optimistic about him, either. I told my husband, you really must recruit men made of sterner stuff. One blow on the head, and the lad’s not likely to ever wake again? What nonsense.”

  The hunger in my belly turned to nausea. I considered excusing myself but I wanted to know if there was anything more. I sipped the tea, and it helped.

  “Did the fires do very much damage?” the yellow jarldis asked, looking pale. She must fear fire, I thought distractedly. Anything to avoid the image of the two men, lying at my feet the night before. Which one was it that might never wake?

  “I should say so. If all they wanted was a conflagration, why not burn down some of those horrid old fleapits in the Lavsektor?” the elderly jarldis said. “But no. They broke into parked automobiles on the streets and hurled flares—of all things!—into them.”

  “Flares?” Mother Tora echoed.

  “Military grade!” the blue one said. “They must have got a box of them in the back of the truck they stole.”

  An image of the crowd from the Undergrunnsby unpacking the boxes came to mind. How quickly the cans must have passed from one hand to the next, until everyone had several, until the first box was empty, and they opened the next. At some point they opened a box to find it full of flares instead of food. They must have been disappointed at first; but then they decided to pay me with them. Good for them.

  “These villains must be apprehended,” Jarldis Agvidar clucked, patting her forehead with a handkerchief. “This vandalism cannot be allowed to go unpunished! We can’t abide chaos in the capital!”

  No, I thought. Not when the capital belongs to Tyr, and not Luka. Well, that was about to change.

  I hid a smile with my cup, my appetite restored, and just as Sveinn reappeared. “Cake, anyone?” I offered, enjoying my living mask.

  ~~~

  “If I ever had any doubts about Galmr’s divine inspiration, this latest outrage would put them to rest,” Eiflar said as we lay diagonally across the huge bed, legs tangled together and with the satin top sheet. My back was exposed and he traced lines and symbols on the skin with the tip of his finger.

  “Oh?” I murmured, enjoying the tickling sensation, my face partially hidden in my arms.

  “Didn’t you hear about it today? They sank three pleasure boats, Myadar. It’s unconscionable. And that ridiculous Raud Gríma has robbed four more convoys in the last week.”

  Not so ridiculous, I thought, if he’s been successful. I dared not say it, however. Eiflar never suspected my close connection to Raud Gríma, but he might dislike it if I took the blackguard’s side, nevertheless.

  “The Deputy Section Leader says the last convoy he hit was moving weapons, exclusively,” Eiflar continued. Which meant my allies in the Undergrunnsby might do better than sinking pleasure boats in future.

  “Shocking, Majesty. And you relate this to High Vigja Galmr…?”

  Eiflar flopped on his back, the bed hardly stirring with his weight. “Well, he’s seen that Tyr requires a great sacrifice to fuel his rise—to drive his assumption of the responsibilities of the Dis, as it were. And Galmr says that in ancient times, vigjas always chose the weak and elderly for such sacrifices. Who is weaker than the degenerate poor, Myadar? Already they threaten the health of Ódalnord with their incessant breeding. It’s been a great concern of mine for some time. Now they dare to spread insurgency? The Tyrablót cannot come fast enough.”

  I shuddered and hoped he wouldn’t feel it; his words turned my stomach. How long could I continue to share Eiflar’s bed? His face and body were beautiful: his light blue eyes turned up at the corners like some fae creature, his hair shown in the light like polished gold, and the sculpted muscles of his body would gratify any sculptor needing a model for a statue of a god. But his heart was ugly and twisted with fanaticism and hatred. When he spoke like this, I had little difficulty imagining the moment when I would finally end his life.

  His logic was so terribly flawed. He despised the dwellers in the Undergrunnsby, and, to a lesser extent, the Lavsektor, for their “weakness” and “degeneracy,” but he feared them even more for the threat they posed. If they were truly weak, they would die out on their own and pose no threat to “healthy” and “virile” Ódalnordaners. In the “natural” system Galmr had set down in his Book of Tyr, only the strongest people should survive; it was the Law of Tyr. By that reasoning, if the poor of the Undergrunnsby and the Lavsektor were such a threat, it meant that they were stronger, didn’t it? So shouldn’t they succeed? I supposed Eiflar would say that perhaps they should, but that the question could only be determined when both sides fought to the death to do so. The survivors deserved to win, to dominate, because they were the strongest.

  It made my head hurt. There were so many important things in life, and strength hardly figured at all among my priorities. I supposed it was a hold-over from the Tyr that had existed before Galmr; as god of battle, strength and violence had always been important to Tyr. Perhaps Galmr’s interpretations really did represent the world as Tyr would have it, after all.

  But Tyr was not the only god. Galmr and Eiflar might hope to recreate reality to suit their ideals, but they could not force everyone to forget the others. If I had not had a role to play as Eiflar’s mistress, I might have chosen a tattoo like Kolorma’s. Hidden away on the edge of the curve of her lower back, over her tailbone, she had a Berkano, Frigga’s sacred double triangle, in green ink. My tattoo would have been different; an orange and red mask with serpents writhing through it, forming horns from the forehead—a depiction of Luka I thought particularly apt.

  However, I needed no tattoo to mark me a Lukan, chosen of the fiery father-of-lies. Ever since the night I’d appealed to the god, my hair, once honey-golden, was slowly turning flame-red. Tonight, Eiflar had remarked on it. I told him I was trying a new rinse.

  I had never been devout, but the evidence of my hair only served as confirmation of a suspicion that grew with every piece of luck I enjoyed. The Gods existed, and when it came to the rise of Tyr, they were displeased.

  Some time ago I might have trembled to think myself god-touched, and my shivering would have turned to shudders of panic at the idea that the god in question was dreaded Luka, betrayer of Baldr, mischief-maker and deceiver. Now, the identity fit me like the red mask of Raud Gríma. I wished Bal
dr no ill, of course, but rather I hoped instead to turn Luka’s malice toward Tyr, or at least the Tyr of Galmr’s vision. So far, that seemed to be working.

  My eyes fluttered open as I felt Eiflar’s hand move from my back over the curve of my bottom. I must have dozed as he continued ranting about the degenerates who would die at the Tyrablót. I had already warned those individuals who led the insurgents in the Undergrunnsby about the plan for the Tyrablót sacrifice. Nothing Eiflar said now provided me with any useful information. As his hand traveled, his words trailed off, and he set about asking me his usual questions. It had become a game, and one that Eiflar found arousing. Luckily for me, I had played his game so often, it aroused me as well.

  “What did you do that so upset my wife on the night she called you to her?”

  “I cannot say, majesty,” I answered, as I always did, my breath catching as his hand found tender, willing flesh in the cleft between my legs. He withdrew his hand and slapped my buttocks sharply.

  “Tell me, Myadar. I command it.”

  “With respect, Majesty, I dare not betray the secrets of the konungdis.”

  Eiflar imagined well enough what had transpired; I think he liked the mystery I fostered around the details of that night, however. The variations of what I might have done were endless, after all. To name the one act that truly happened would have been to extinguish the rest. He liked to ask about them, each in turn.

  “Did you touch her, Myadar? With your hand, like this?”

  He slipped a hand between my belly and the satin, sliding down and teasing.

  I panted, shaking my head not in denial but in refusal to answer.

  “Did you put your hand on her breast?” he whispered as he climbed between my legs and pressed his lips to my ear. His other hand pushed under my chest and grasped a breast, tightening on it. I felt his phallus pressing against me. He thrust, and entered. I gasped.

  “I cannot say, majesty,” I gasped as he began to move.

  “I am your sovereign, Myadar,” he hissed as his hips pushed against me. “How dare you refuse me?” His hands kept up their teasing as he went deeper with every lunge. I moaned, and then felt his movements accelerate, heard his breath grow ragged and uneven. My thoughts swam in confusion, troubled by the pleasure mixing with hatred in my mind. It was a storm that washed out any sense of time passing. At last, I let my own pleasure build to a crest, and cried out as it crashed over me in waves. His own voice blended with mine as he spent himself.

  As always, just for a minute or two, his body went loose and he buried his face against my skin, arms wrapping around me in the embrace of love and loneliness that betrayed his vulnerability. I felt tears well in my eyes, but then he released me, and I blinked them away.

  ~~~

  Eiflar always sent for me at night, often requiring that I present myself to the Purple Stairs at midnight, and while we sometimes both fell asleep after, it was never for very long. So the corridors of the palace, dimly lit in the earliest hours of the morning and rarely populated with courtiers or robots, had become familiar to me. My sleeping schedule had become a reflection of before, when I drank and attended soirées every night with Liut, only to stumble in at dawn and slumber past noon.

  On the nights I received no summons I crept out and donned the red mask. Just as Eiflar had said, I had struck several more convoys—a total now of seven. Five of the trucks had carried rations of various tins of food, and in some of those my beneficiaries had found a crate or two of other sorts of supplies, like the flares they’d made so much mischief with. One truck had carried other sorts of equipment: rope, spools of wire, tools like saws and hammers. This last one was the prize: guns and ammunition, even some incendiaries.

  I wasn’t satisfied with the efforts of the rebels I’d recruited so far. They were too cautious. I didn’t blame them, but if there was to be a revolution, they would have to take bigger risks. Maybe these weapons would inspire them.

  On the night following my most recent assignation with the konunger, I intended to take a great risk. I didn’t tell Kolorma my plan when we met that afternoon; I didn’t mistrust her, but she would have balked, so intent was she on my maintaining my role as konunger’s mistress.

  “Has he said anything else about the Tyrablót?” she asked as we walked, free of the palace for once, along the comfrey plants in stone planters outside the School of the Holy Hand. Because it meant we could speak more freely, she’d agreed to humor my desire to look on the building that held my son. I had my own reasons for seeking it out; I was afraid about tonight, though she didn’t know it. I was afraid that I would be caught, or worse, and that I’d never see Bersi again. But I’d made my decision—Alflétta continued to act as my aide and I owed him at least an attempt. Perhaps, with Luka’s blessing, I would succeed and pay him back for all the risks he was taking for me.

  “He always says the same things,” I said in answer to Kolorma’s question. “He’s almost rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the sacrifice. I gather he hopes to murder hundreds.”

  “Does he ever say how he intends to capture them all? Or when?”

  I shrugged. “He’ll send soldiers into the Undergrunnsby, Kolorma. How else? And he’ll do it right before the ceremony, for he hasn’t the means to imprison so many otherwise.”

  “But he hasn’t said so.”

  “No.”

  I ran my fingers over the leaves of a comfrey plant. The plant had tight green buds sprouting in bunches, but they were no longer in bloom. Had the plants somehow regressed? Were they going backwards, from bloom to bud to winter dormancy? I did not know what to make of it. My mind wandered, puzzling over the curious plants.

  Comfrey, if ingested regularly and in high doses, was poisonous. If I were feeding the konunger instead of bedding him, I might choose comfrey to do accomplish my deadly mission for me. But it was not a fast-acting poison; nothing I could boil down into a serum for the ring I wore. A pity. I would have enjoyed the irony of killing the konunger with Tyr’s sacred herb.

  “I think it will have to be then,” Kolorma said, her voice strange.

  I raised my eyes to her dark brown ones, questioning the meaning of her statement.

  “I’ve studied Galmr’s movements, his habits, the foods he eats, all of it. He’s always surrounded. He’s vigilant about his food, never eats anything but fresh eggs from the shell and boiled turnips. It’s like he knows someone will try to kill him,” she whispered. “It will have to happen at the Tyrablót. The only way I can conceive of reaching him is at a public event, when he’ll be exposed. Even then, I can’t figure out how to do it and survive.”

  My hand stilled in mid-stroke of the comfrey leaves. “Kolorma, you mustn’t sacrifice yourself.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she stared at me. “And why not?”

  I shook my head. “Because then why try to defeat them, if defeating them means we destroy ourselves? I won’t do it.” Even as the words left my mouth my heart thudded painfully against my chest. Wasn’t I risking destruction with tonight’s plan? Why ignore my own advice? Perhaps I should call it off.

  “I would die to restore Frigga,” Kolorma said, her cheeks coloring.

  “Frigga honors life, not death,” I countered.

  With a grunt of frustration, Kolorma waved a hand at me as if to dismiss the topic. “I haven’t puzzled it all out yet,” she said after a pause. “Perhaps I’ll find a way, still.”

  “But you plan for the Tyrablót, then?” I asked as we walked on.

  “Yes,” she said with a slow nod. “No matter what, I believe that’s when we must strike.”

  I mirrored her nod. “A public demonstration of the resistance of the faithful.”

  “We’ll show everyone that Tyr’s reign is over,” she said, “when Galmr and Eiflar die.”

  “Very well, then.”

  Kolorma slowed her pace and turned to face me. “You’re changing,” she said in a soft voice. “Soon you won’t be Myadar at all anymor
e.”

  I felt my stomach dip at her words. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She reached out, the tips of her fingers brushing my hair. “Myadar means ‘honey-hair.’ We shall have to call you ‘Eldihar,’ instead.”

  “Fire-hair,” I said.

  She dropped her hand. “Indeed.” Her eyebrows drew together. “Why is your hair changing to red, Myadar?”

  I shrugged, looking away from her.

  “They say that Luka had flaming hair. God of deception, of mischief. One might guess that someone engaged in as much trickery as you would perhaps devote herself to Luka,” Kolorma said.

  “Oh, do you think so?” I said, trying to keep a light tone.

  “Beware, Myadar,” Kolorma said. “Luka is powerful, but there’s a reason there’s no cult of vigjas honoring him.”

  With a sigh, I said, “And what reason is that?”

  Kolorma’s frown deepened and she put a hand on my forearm. Her touch sent a thrill through me I had not expected. “He’s the god of chaos and lies. Don’t you see? He might favor you now, and abandon you tomorrow.”

  Pulling away, I said, “I’ll take my chances.” I glanced up at the school building beyond its high stone wall.

  “Why don’t you go and visit him?” Kolorma asked gently.

  I cut my eyes to her. “I can’t,” I said. “I couldn’t. Visit him—see him, and not take him away from there? Leave him in that place? I cannot see him again until the day we abandon this city forever.”

  “May it come sooner than later,” Kolorma murmured.

  I agreed.

  ~~~

  Alflétta met me as he did now every night that I sent word. We stood together in the dark alley as I changed my clothes. He would remain there, unlike the first night, waiting for me to return so I could change back and he would come to the palace after me with the bag. We both knew the risk he took; he might be stopped leaving to meet me or on his way back to the palace, and what would they find in the bag? My costume, my tools. They would assume Alflétta was Raud Gríma, despite his age. They would give him a public execution—at the Tyrablót, no doubt. Eiflar would love that. But I would remain free to continue fostering the revolution. Raud Gríma would live on.