Besides, if I’m not safe from assassins in my own walled gardens, I can’t expect to be safe anywhere. May as well have some fun in the market, considering I’m as good as a condemned prisoner. If I don’t get knifed, I’ll be wed to Chieftain Etainen. Spending my days being beaten by a Roman lapdog. This makes the knife-fetish assassins seem almost sweet, like they’re trying to do me a favor.
She clenched her fists, unable to continue joking about her bleak future. If the pirate refused to answer her pleas, all would be lost. No, Siegfried will come.
There was a loud bellow and that tightly-packed wall of people jostled and thrust each other aside to make way for the red-faced Roman. Freya froze as the Roman soldier plodded right for her, armor jangling. He was a tall man with streaks of gray along his temples, stark against the black of his hair. His thin lips were pursed and his jaw rigid as he grabbed someone very near Freya—the cutpurse. Her hood fell back, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful face, despite the goat dung from her unfortunate landing. The woman had full, pouting lips, long lashes, and brilliant sea-green eyes. Raven tresses spilled over her shoulders, down to her hips. Was the hair slightly askew? It appeared as if the woman’s part was diagonal, as if she were wearing a wig.
“I’ll teach you to steal,” the Roman said, waving his short sword.
“Like I’d steal any of this hideous trash, as if I—” The woman just stared at the Roman, her sea-green eyes glazing over. “I think I could teach you a few things.”
Without thinking, Freya leapt, throwing the woman away from the Roman. He started to follow them, but a loud neigh caught his attention. A streak of the purest white leapt over the heads of those nearby. Enbarr tossed his floor-length mane, hooves flashing as he pranced between the women and the Roman.
“Can’t the barbarian princess keep this beast under control?” the Roman demanded. Enbarr kicked over a vendor stall, sending fruit tumbling onto the rocks.
Freya and the other woman used the distraction to disappear into the throng. The loss of a hand seemed too harsh a punishment for theft. Besides, this woman was probably an assassin, not a thief.
“Freya,” a deep voice lowed through the crowd. Odilia.
Freya whirled about, seeing Odilia heading toward her. It was hard to miss that wide form clad in a silk toga with horizontal stripes. The possible assassin was nowhere in sight.
“I knew that was you. You need to be in the palace where it is safe. You need to be under guard.”
“Lady, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about? Are ya mad?” Freya stepped back, speaking again in a deep voice. “Look, lady, stop comin’ at me like some sort of mad cow. You’re scarin’ me.”
If Odilia were concerned about her safety, she wouldn’t be bellowing her name in a crowd of strangers. The woman might as well shout, “Assassins. Oh, unknown mysterious personages with knife fetishes trying to kill Freya. She’s right here. Ready your weapons.”
Freya ran again.
****
Siegfried sat, sipping on Trier wine. He unfolded the parchment that rested on his knee, a new missive from Swan, the one person from whom he was taking communication. His men were sharing some stale cheese, but he had no desire for food at the moment. He still had her first letter tucked into a pocket at his breast.
The letter, as they all were, was written in neat script, blurred only by liquid that had spilled. It smelled of vegetable soup and mead.
Hello, friend,
I hope this finds you well. Even more, I hope it finds you nearby and on your way to stop this wedding. I haven’t heard anything about you in a while, and I’m worried, even though I’m sure you’re too smart to be caught by Romans. Silly to worry, right?
I’m sitting alone as I write, wondering how Rome doesn’t seem to bother most people. Do they enjoy being searched and questioned? They’re even suspicious of us Remi, and we’re supposed to be their allies. I hate having to explain myself, especially considering the things I do completely defy explanation, or so I’ve been told. When I started freeing your supporters from prison, I thought there’d be more of them. I’d thought the ones who were in there for silly reasons might start supporting you after I freed them, but no. They’re content to distract themselves with new togas, the market, or their daily tasks. Until they do something “out of the ordinary” and end up in there again. A young man who talks to birds is there constantly; they think he’s talking to “pirates.”
Not everyone I see going into the dungeons is there when I go to let them out. I’m trying to find the documents—there are always documents for everything—that they’re being sold to Rome. But I don’t see them leaving in boats. Does that make sense to you? Is there some new torture device that makes people disappear?
Please be careful. For the last few months, since the new Gaul king, Vercingetorix, united most of the tribes in rebellion against Rome, the soldiers have been searching people’s quarters, ripping up mattresses, emptying chests, stealing nice things, etc. I was searched, too, about a sennight ago. They didn’t find anything of interest, but I later noticed I was missing a few undergarments. Where were their hands before they touched all that? Was it necessary for them to smell those items?
Attached, you’ll find more information about the wedding. Again, as always, thank you for what you do. Your actions give me the strength and courage to do what I do. I really wish I could do more. Sometimes, I’m so afraid that I don’t think I can keep doing this, but then I think of you and what you’ve done. Please take care of yourself.
Your friend always,
Swan
Siegfried folded the parchment into eighths and tossed it into the fire. Swan. He was going to avoid her as best he could. It pervaded the letters a little more each time, the sense that Swan had some sort of infatuation with him. The fact that she worried about him told him she would be another Julia, attempting to tame him, to make him quit piracy. At the very least, he would worry about her.
Why was he even considering Swan in such a light? Too long without a woman, Siegfried. Julia’s long been cold in her grave. Swan was the one who made you tell Julia no. Some woman you’ve never met told you what you meant to her, and you said no to marrying Julia. If what you did meant half as much to others as it does to Swan, we’d not have the Roman problem. But there’s still hope if there are people like her, isn’t there?
Stay away from her, Siegfried, so you can keep being there for people like her. She’ll support you, then try to tame you. You have a woman.
He sighed. His woman, the figurehead aboard his ship, the River Queen, was a somber-faced mermaid with blank eyes. His first mate, Dirk, had it made, telling Siegfried, “There’s a lass as serious as you and can be with you at sea.”
Baldwin had been right. But soon, Siegfried would have to deal with a Rome-loving princess who would not be nearly as seaworthy as his River Queen.
****
Freya didn’t stop running from the soldier until she saw trees before her. She had reached the Dark Wood. There was not a soul nearby with a knife to embed between her shoulder blades.
Unless I can’t see him. For all I know, the assassins’ base could be in the wood. What better place to hide? They might be waiting, hiding in hollowed out trees, breathing through reeds in streams, lurking under the cover of leaves.
She could not return to the marketplace. Odilia would be there, looking for her, unless she was already back at the palace, reporting to Freya’s parents. But did it matter? Freya would be married soon, Chieftain Etainen’s new bride, and then she might as well be dead.
Stop thinking that way. Siegfried will stop it.
She parted the boughs of a squat pine and knelt down, concealing herself in a tent of foliage so she might gather her bearings. The tree was at the top of a gentle downward slope that gradually grew steeper. If she ran out of here, she would probably fall. Her thoughts still raced, despite the quiet of the Dark Wood, broken only by the cries of birds.
Siegfried,
the one brave enough to stand up to Rome, robbing her ships, kidnapping senators for ransom, and all sorts of other delightful things that kept Freya awake at night, or at least kept her dreams and the tales she inked interesting.
Ulf’s report today was disturbing. Was it true that Siegfried ran? That he had burned Ostia? That was going a bit far. He’d always given what he stole from the Romans to the tribes—for free. He wouldn’t have burned Ostia after Pompey, the pirate-hating Roman general, had secured it. There were innocent people there, just like in the Cimbri lands. But if Siegfried hadn’t fled from the Romans, that could only mean one thing—he was dead or injured.
Tears pooled in her eyes. How could she so adore someone she’d never met? But she felt as if she knew him. Every hero she’d ever written about was based on him, standing up to Rome for the Germanic tribes for people who couldn’t do much besides talk and dream. Without Siegfried, what hope did she have? What hope did any of them have? She thought again of the old stories. Was this how those Beasts had felt? Restrained by their Marks, afraid? If she could kill now, if she had the ability to do it, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she do almost anything to live her life unhindered?
Freya glanced back toward the town at the sound of a woman cursing. She moved aside the curtains of needled pine limbs to better see. The cutpurse stalked toward the Dark Wood and yanked off a shoe with a broken heel. A very high heel.
“I am going to wring her neck. A broken shoe. Shit on my face. Unforgivable.” The woman was not pleased and was definitely looking for Freya.
Unless, unless people often send her into dung heaps. Sometimes weird things frequently happen to people, like me with falling down stairs.
When she heard Roman voices in the distance, she waited until the woman was close enough to her hiding place, then she grabbed her arm and pulled her into the needled bower.
“What are you doing?” the woman with a possible knife fetish asked, shoving at Freya’s arm. Freya held on all the tighter, so she wouldn’t fall.
“Simple,” Freya said. “If you’re trying to kill me, I—”
“You think I’m spending my time trying to kill you, a peasant?” The woman had stopped struggling and settled for glaring in outrage and disgust at Freya’s hand on her arm.
“You have a knife. You’re wearing a cloak. You’re following me. If I hold you in front of me, you can’t be behind my back.”
“Excuse me?”
“That, and I’m going to run into the wood, because of people following me, some of the same people following you. Do my enemies being your enemies make us friends?”
“No, and you—”
“Then, there’s the Leg Rule. Anything with more than four legs is bad, to be avoided at any cost.” She cast a fearful glance at the tree branches above. “There are definitely lots of things with more than four legs in the wood. You might be kind enough to remove one of those things from me, should one—”
The other woman snorted and glanced at a tree before she slapped something into Freya’s long bangs that had come loose from the kerchief she wore under her hood. Freya glanced up, seeing a small black shape that definitely had more than four legs—she didn’t even need to count. She shrieked, releasing the woman. Her legs became tangled in her cloak, and she tumbled forward, hitting her head on branches, twigs and nettles scraping her skin. She rolled and rolled downward.
She landed on her back at the bottom of the incline and opened her eyes. She was in a clearing, and it was wet. The forest floor was swampy here, and jagged ruins rose from black pools of water, making a circle of moss covered arches and smashed gray stones. Two women and one man stared down at her, but Freya couldn’t be bothered with them, not when black shapes still squirmed in her pale tresses
“Spiders, in my hair.” Both hood and kerchief had fallen off in her ignominious descent.
“Oh, seriously, stop,” the possible assassin said. “It’s a spider.”
“Princess,” the other woman said. “Calm down.” She had hair as black as the assassin’s. So did the man.
Still shaking from the spiders, Freya couldn’t comprehend how the assassin had beaten her to the bottom of the hill during that tumble. Confusion sent her thoughts careening wildly.
Princess? I suppose they recognize me. It couldn’t be helped.
Better assassins than spiders. But what if the assassins learn my fear and send assassin spiders? They have eight legs to hold knives, so they’d feasibly be able to use four or six, and probably poison-tipped, because they are spiders. Add in the knives in addition to the fangs, and I’m done. Now the possible assassin knows my fears, too. Oh, Freya, watch for the assassin spiders.
Freya offered no protest as the man took her hand and guided her to her feet. He persisted in hovering at her side once she had been safely seated on a moss-covered section of the crumbling stone.
The other woman produced a shell comb adorned with barnacles and began to pull it gently through Freya’s tresses. Freya closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of her mane being straightened and de-spidered. The man pressed a cool cloth to the scratches and cuts on her face. Goodness, these people must have had experience being servants.
At least I haven’t ended up with a knife protruding from any vitals. Unless…
What if these three are behind the whole plot? No. Why would they bother helping me only to kill me?
“Who are you? What is this place?” Freya tilted her head, studying the three strangers. They were all very beautiful, pale-skinned creatures. And the material of their clothing—she’d never seen the like. Oh, but she did want entire chests of it.
She glared at the assassin with the broken shoe. “Why did you put a spider in my hair?”
“That’s the princess, Morrigan?” The assassin snorted.
The other woman, Morrigan, held up a hand. She had dark eyes, so dark they appeared almost black. They matched the coiling black hair that fell to her waist. She was slender, the silver gown hiding very little. It was a simple article of clothing, but the material shimmered.
The man wore smooth, black breeches, tucked into shining black boots. A white tunic shimmered over his muscles. Clasped with gold medallions over his broad shoulders was a pale blue cape that matched his eyes. The cape was embroidered with gold thread, skillfully done in the shape of songbirds. No, he was no warrior. His soft hands rested on the glimmering strings of a gold lyre.
The assassin tossed off her cloak to reveal a much stranger garb. Fish scales? Fish scales in brighter shades than Freya had ever seen, pinks, greens, and shocking blues in a swirling pattern that centered at the woman’s large breasts. Clasped to her shoulders with small bits of coral were streams of sheer material in the same vibrant green that appeared in her dress. On her feet were a pair of gold sandals with insanely high heels. Well, one had a ridiculously high heel. The other was missing one.
“Fair Freya, I am Balder,” the man said with an elegant bow and flourish of his cape. “This woman wearing the scales of fish is Hedwig.”
“Balder? Hedwig?” Balder was a god, a son of Woden, king of the Germanic gods. Or, in Chiron’s texts, they were something else—fey. Not quite gods. “Like the bard god and the Sea Witch?” Freya asked.
“That’s what he just said,” Hedwig said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re a princess and wearing that, that…I’m not even touching that shit.”
“Um, you were actually the one wearing shit earlier,” Freya said.
“Freya, let yourself be at ease,” Balder said. “I know that being confined and trying to hide from assassins wearies the heart and taxes the soul.”
“Considering Hedwig was trying to find me and carrying a dagger…” Freya shrugged.
“Just how else am I supposed to encourage people to get out of my way?” Hedwig stomped her foot. There went the other heel. She frowned with disgust and retrieved it. “Morrigan, she’s here now. I found her, so I will be on my way.”
�
�No,” Morrigan said. “You are still needed. Freya is going to need your help.”
Balder pressed a skin into Freya’s hands, along with a hunk of yellow cheese. “This might help you relax.”
She bit into the cheese and followed it with a long swallow of whatever was in the wineskin. It was sweet. Too sweet, and it did weird things to her stomach. Freya had never liked overly sweet drinks, instead preferring the bitterness of ale.
I probably shouldn’t drink this. It could be poison. She spit out the sweet mead, already beginning to feel an odd tingling flow through her body.
“What’d you do?” she demanded. She moved to rise from where she was perched on the remnant of a stone wall, only she could not budge. Her body from the neck down had lost all feeling. Was she becoming a statue?
“I’m going to die, aren’t I? And this is going to be one of those slow, excruciating deaths. I’ll probably bleed out of all my orifices or watch the skin slowly rot from my bones yet feel like I am being burned alive. Or perhaps I won’t be able to breathe or scream. Did you put something in my food? What if I had a horrible reaction to it that made my face swell? Or worse, if my windpipe began to close up.”
“It is fey food,” Balder explained. “You needn’t trouble yourself over strange reactions to it. Well, not the sort that could shut your windpipe and cause your face to bloat.”
“So you’ve fed me fey foods and now you’re going to carry me away to make me your slave for all eternity in the land where no one ages. Chiron’s old legends were right? You are fey, not gods?” Had her Greek tutor known the truth of the gods all along?
“Freya, that is usually what happens, getting dragged to the Otherworld, humans becoming slaves,” Morrigan said. “But not to you.”
“Something worse?” Freya asked as Balder strode away. His movements were lithe and quick. Her gaze followed him until he was swallowed by the shadows of the trees.
“I’m getting sick of this,” Hedwig said. “Here is what you need to know. Those attempts on your life were made by Druids. Human Druids, not fey. We think that’s just the beginning, because someone fey had to have sent them. No one cares all that much for human Freya. They all think you just drink in the barracks with the soldiers. Even if some Roman has figured out you’re Swan, they still wouldn’t have sent Druids after you. But if they know who your parents are, there are a lot of reasons for the fey to want you dead.”
Siren Slave Page 2