He neither demanded nor expected her to bring him food or furs or the hundred other tasks the Blackhand had set her to, and so he had no cause to curse her or hit her, nor did he. He was as much a mystery to her now as on the day Gutcrusher had handed her to him.
Enarla knew she was not the best bitch in the caves. Fat Andra was the oldest and the wisest of the shes, and she was with Balls, who knew her from the old days. She was always funny and clever and had a hundred tricks with words or her amazingly huge body to make a male want her, and she had been the Blackhand’s favorite. Ehnudra Who Bites was full of passion and lust, and she boasted of her lovemaking like it was a contest between her and her mate. Fat Andra and Ehnudra had occasionally come to blows over their rivalry for the attentions of the Blackhand. Azha the Fury was more of a force of nature than a she, full of passion and malice and cunning that even Ehnudra and Fat Andra were wary of.
But Enarla was a mouse. She’d been captured after her first heat by the Band of the Broken Spire, a band that had been wiped out a season later by the Redbloods, who were in turn destroyed the following year by the Bloodhands. Enarla had changed hands four times during her first heat, then twice during her second. All of her whelps had been taken from the teat and killed before her eyes, and this happened with all eight of her spawn from her first four heats. Her first five mates had beaten her terribly, and Garl the Fist, the chieftain of the Redbloods, had passed her around as a trophy to his six best warriors during her third heat, then killed the whelps that spawned from it.
By the time the Blackhand took her, she was already called Enarla the Quiet, for the spirit that is the best part of any fighting wench had been beaten out of her. Now once again she had been handed off to another, and Gutcrusher, the conqueror of the Bloodhands, had not even bothered to mount her when he triumphed. She might as well have been a used fur that he’d discovered among the treasures of the Blackhand.
She wanted her whelps to live. Desperate for it, she prayed to the Black God that Wolf would be the one ogre who would not take and kill her offspring. Almost she sympathized with Velsa, the Vesthan bitch who ran off with her single whelp before he could be killed by the Blackhand. Come to think of it, though, that whelp had turned out to be Gutcrusher, who was now the king.
She looked long and thoughtfully at Wolf, who remained to her a mystery.
When One-eye returned to the cavern he shared with Ehnudra Who Bites, word of the success of his plan had preceded him, and she pounced upon her fearless captain and threw him into the furs. She growled and bit and pleased him long into the night.
After a night spent in passion and in exultation over their mighty victory, Gutcrusher was awakened by the sound of his guards making challenge. He had changed things at the camp, and now no ogre dared to sleep while standing guard, on pain of his severe displeasure. He rolled from the bed he shared with the Fury, donned his armor while she muttered imprecations at him and walked to the entrance to the great cave complex. Moonhunter and Sharpfang stood beside the entrance, and between their spears they were detaining a large and strong-looking ogre, barely done with being a buck, who carried a stone-tipped spear.
“I am called Nightfear.” The ogre said uncertainly. “I have left the Mad River band and I seek the king. I would bend knee to him.”
“You have found him.” Gutcrusher replied, knowing that Nightfear would only be the first of many as his fame grew. “Welcome to the King’s Band.”
Chapter 56: Levin, Hrulthan’s Steading, Northern Sea
Levin’s first go with a Thimenian woman was full of surprises, and for a while he was afraid that he would not survive the experience. He had found Yset after leaving the D’Cadmouth thrall in his room, and she hadn’t been pleased.
“So, you dance with a woman to take a girl-child to bed? You Mortentians are very stupid, Ghoulslayer.” Her tone was haughty, but also half-joking, and Levin knew she hadn’t yet made up her mind about him.
“I danced with a goddess to capture a ransom.” He replied, bowing to her. “The girl is worth gold in my country, but nothing like the treasure I see before me. Also, a woman as lovely as you must have a man, and he must be deadly dangerous to have won you.”
“I have no man.” She said, and Levin was glad. “You talk pretty and you dance pretty. I might forgive you if you sing another song.” Yset’s eye’s sparkled with amusement.
“Done!” He exclaimed, then he walked purposefully over to the bored dulcimer player, handed him a silver mark, and begged him for an accompaniment, giving him the tune. This is what he sang:
“When I was a lad of fifteen years, my mother said to me,
‘don’t go to be a sailor son, don’t waste your life at sea.’
But I was a lad both strong and bold, and I would have my way
Oh mother dear, please have no fear, but I’m bound for Jagle Bay.
She said, ‘If ever you go to Jagle Bay, if ever you go to Jagle Bay,
If ever you go to Jagle Bay, you’ll nay come home again.
I took ship on a merchantman, we sailed the eastern sea
To fill the hold with furs and gold for rich men we would be
I swabbed the deck for half a share, to earn my daily keep
I made mate in a half a year, in cabin did I sleep
We said, ‘If ever we turn to Jagle Bay, if ever we turn to Jagle Bay
If ever we turn to Jagle Bay, ‘tis rich men we will be
In Araquesh and Hinterland, our ship was often seen
Tolrissa’s Horn and Sea of Gold, lay off our larboard beam
Where stars be strange and winter’s warm, we traded pearls for gold.
Treasures fine and richest wine lay in our glorious hold
We said, we’re coming home to Jagle Bay, we’re coming home to Jagle Bay,
We’re coming home to Jagle Bay, to never sail again
A western wind was howling and the sky turned black as night
A hard rain lashed our rigging and the whitecaps did us bite
We fought the wind abaft the beam, as ocean boiled and roared
The wind it cracked our jibbing tree, the bowsprit snapped the chord
And we prayed, if ever we come to Jagle Bay, if ever we come to Jagle Bay,
If ever we come to Jagle Bay, we’ll never sail again.
We foundered off of Hyndrant’s land the mainmast brake a’twain
Our brokeback hull was taking and my brothers bailed in vain
There in the deep we lie today, still toiling in the sea
Longing ever for Jagle Bay, our homeland nay to see.
For my mother’d said, ‘if ever you go to Jagle Bay, if ever you go to Jagle Bay
If ever you go to Jagle Bay, you’ll nay come home again.”
“Are all of your songs about men dying, then?” Yset demanded once Levin had finished. “First the poor lad who slept with the princess and now this poor lad, too?” A handful of half-drunk Vheradorans were sitting near, pretending not to hear the conversation, but several of them smiled.
Levin laughed. “I didn’t write the songs, girl. They’ve been sung in Tolrissa for a thousand years, most likely. Anyway, I sang you another song like you asked, the saddest one I know. Do you forgive me yet?”
“Yes, I forgive you, Ghoulslayer. And you killed that Borni dog, too.” She stopped and considered him, with her head tilted slightly. “Do you always kill so hard? His friends had to finish him. Or maybe it was because he offended?”
“Indeed.” Levin replied. “I saw them being rude to you, and I could not allow it. I don’t think they will be so discourteous in future.”
“Hmmph. Do you think I am some soft Mortentian girl that you must defend my honor?”
Levin smiled at her. “Soft?” He shook his head. “Maybe like the sea is soft when I am drowning in your blue eyes. Or maybe soft like the wind that capsizes your ship. No, you aren’t soft, Yset. I think you are as strong and proud and as beautiful as the Mother of Leviathans.”
“Oh, my.” She replied with half a grin, while some of the Vheradorans laughed openly and one even offered applause. “Are you a bard, then? You think I am empty headed and you can woo me with rhyme and verse?”
He shrugged. “I am inspired. Perhaps I have overstepped and made a fool of myself. If so, I apologize.” Several of the Vheradorans gawked at him in surprise when he stood and started to walk away, but then she touched his elbow, as he’d half-known she would.
“I didn’t say I wanted you to stop.” She said.
After another half an hour of talk she invited him to leave the mead hall, and together they went to a small cottage adjacent to one of the steading’s high walls. The night was cold and the sky glittered with the brilliance of a million stars. She invited him in and lit a fire, and they sat shivering for a while before the heat filled the single room and they were warm enough to talk. They were warm enough for other things, too, and they did them. She was passion and fire and ecstasy that felt as perilous as being in the fighting pit, and when they were done she looked at him judiciously.
“You dance well.” She said, after a moment. “You sing well and you fight well. I had thought to find something about you not to like, but you do this well, too.”
“You give me the heart of a Thimenian, girl.” He replied.
“Oh yes. I forgot to say that you are a poet, too. If you weren’t a Mortentian I think I would take you for husband.” She murmured sleepily. Then her eyes closed and he spent a few moments looking at her amazing form beneath the pale linen sheets. After a moment his eyes closed also and together they slept until noon.
By the time Levin D’root dragged his arrogant, self-centered, useless body back to the room he had imprisoned Limme D’Cadmouth in, she had fallen asleep in terror, awoken again in wrath, and then missed both breakfast and lunch. She had removed the handle of the leash from the bedpost where the impossible man had tied it, as if she were some kind of dog, and she had slept in his bed with a small knife beneath her pillow. Share his furs, indeed. She was trained in the use of the knife, and if not so deadly as Bansher, she could at least make an accounting of herself with a drunk and stupid pit-brawler from Root’s Bridge. She had determined to mark him and mark him good with the blade.
When he walked into the room, wearing the same rumpled clothing he’d had on the night before except that his chainmail was now rolled up under his arm, he awakened her again, for she had fallen asleep waiting to murder him. The fact that she had fallen asleep while waiting only made her angrier. She sat up in the bed and gave him her most withering look, the kind that had sent her servants scurrying with terror on the few occasions she had used it, all the time gripping the handle of the little knife, determined to defend her virtue, even if it cost her life.
“Oh, hello.” He said, scratching beneath his padded gambeson. As if he had forgotten all about her! “Have you had breakfast yet?”
Her eyes widened with fury, and she gave him the death glare again.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been in this room all morning?” He asked after a moment spent waiting for her answer, which she did not deign to give. “You know I didn’t lock the door or anything, right?” He had the audacity to sound amused.
“No.” She replied icily. “You did not tell me that.”
“It’s just like a tavern, girl.” He explained, sitting down on top of a small chest of drawers and facing her. “The doors lock from inside the rooms.” Then he looked at the bed, as if regretting the chance to sleep in it. “I guess we’d better get you something to eat. Something to wear, too. No offense, but that outfit doesn’t look any too clean. I suspect you’ll be wanting a longer dress or some pants or something.”
“And what must I do to earn my clothing?” She demanded.
He seemed baffled at the question. “Do?” Then his face cleared up and he ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh, right. You’re a thrall aren’t you? You could make the bed, I suppose. Maybe get some hot water up here so you can bathe properly. Then we can have a nice talk.”
“A nice talk.” She blinked, not understanding. Was that some sailor’s euphemism for taking her virtue?
“Aye.” His calm was maddening! “We need to figure out how to get you back to Mortentia, and I’d like to hear some details how a king’s eye wound up thrall to the Borni. Meantime, I’ve a light cloak you can borrow. Took it off of a Brizaki ship. It’s blue. Real satin, I think.” He dug about in his large canvas sailor’s duffel for a moment, retrieving a bundle and offering it to her.
She stood with quiet dignity and took the proffered cloak, noticing that it was indeed made of satin, thick, warm and beautifully embroidered with a floral design in silvery thread against a shimmering sky blue background. It was a gorgeous thing, obviously made for some noble’s use. He turned around without being asked, and she rid herself of the rancid Aulig loincloth, put on the cloak, then her flying jacket over it. She cleared her throat to get his attention.
“Ready?”
Without replying she handed him the handle of her leash. This was something He-Who-Kills-With-Knives had taught her that she must do, taught her with many a backhanded slap or punch to the stomach. On the first morning after her capture she had flatly refused to hand him the leash, and he had stripped her naked in front of the entire band, turned her over his knee, and spanked her with his bare hand until she wept. The men had laughed at her humiliation.
Limme thought her degradation wasn’t nearly as important to them as it was to her, for they probably beat their own wives publicly. The treatment doled out to the other thralls was much worse, and Limme had been horrified when one middle-aged farmwife from Dentin’s Mill had been nailed naked to a tree for failing to do as she was told. The poor woman hadn’t understood even the basic Tolrissan the Borni were using, and Limme had pleaded on her behalf, but the Borni had ignored her like they ignored the woman’s cries for mercy. She was still hanging there, and still alive, if barely, when they broke camp two days later. They had simply left her to die.
So she proffered Levin the leash without being asked.
He looked at her for a long moment, then he shook his head sadly, pulling a dagger from the scabbard at his belt. “For what your father has done I might kill you one day, Limme D’Cadmouth, but I’m not going to let you wear a leash. You’re a high born Mortentian lady, and I’ll have that collar off of you, too.” He cut her collar and threw it on the floor. She stared at it for a long moment before following him out of the room and down the stairs into the great and empty mead hall. She rubbed her neck in wonder while she followed him outside, feeling the dirty skin where the collar had set so long and weighed so heavily. Her eyes were watering, which had nothing to do with what he’d said or his unexpected kindness. It didn’t.
The sun felt good on her skin, but even in the fine cloak she felt dirty. A bath, Levin had said. She imagined the hot water and soap, but Levin was in a hurry. “Come on, little one.” He said, leading her across a slate paved street to a large wooden hall. “They’ve food here all the day.”
Half a dozen men sat at tables, served by three Thimenian giantesses, each as tall as a man with thick braids nearly to their waists. Four men in the heavy clothing of Thimenians called Levin over. “Ghoulslayer!” One man with orange hair and a curly orange beard called in passable Tolrissan. “Join us!”
Levin walked over, and Limme moved to stand behind him, another thing that she’d been taught among the Borni, but Levin turned and pulled out a chair for her. “None of that thrall business right now.” He said, then he turned and gestured toward the orange-haired man. “This is Ohtar son of Ohtar the Orange, and he climbed the Jagerhorn in midwinter.”
“Hello.” She nodded to the man, who grinned through a mouthful of boiled fish and cabbage. He nodded happily in reply.
“And this is Brito son of Brito. He killed a sea lion with a stone knife.” A dark-haired Thimenian with a thick moustache waved at her.
“Last but not least
, this is my good friend Kuljin Halfman. He is a Known Man in Khumenov.” Kuljin was beardless, handsome and fair, with blue eyes that caught the light in a strange way, making her wonder if perhaps he was an albino or something. He alone wore a hat. It was a leather cap with a curious forward brim that kept his strange eyes in shadows. None of the men were in armor, but they wore padded gambesons of the kind worn beneath chainmail or scale armor, and the gambesons were stained dark with sweat, and in some places blood.
“So this is the girl you killed the Borni for.” Kuljin’s Mortentian was nearly flawless, and his accent was charming. His gambeson was the cleanest looking of the lot, which only meant that it needed washing today, as opposed to last week. His long blond hair was gathered in a single braid. “I am pleased to meet you, Madam King’s Eye. I hope our good friend the Ghoulslayer hasn’t been too harsh with you.”
“He has been a gentleman.” Limme was forced to admit, as much as it pained her. “He was going to buy me some clothing, and …”
“Never mind that, girl.” Levin interrupted her, looking embarrassed, then he turned to Kuljin. “She is starving, Kuljin. I neglected to see her fed any breakfast, and we’ve missed lunch.”
“Not to worry, easily cured.” Kuljin answered, raising an arm to beckon to one of the serving girls, then pointing to her place at the table when he’d caught her attention. “Dainya, more boiled whitefish here, if you please. All she can eat.”
“And some bread.” Levin added. “For her and for me, both.”
Dark-haired Dainya gave him an appraising look. She had a generous mouth, broad shoulders and a high, soft bosom. “You’d better not let Yset catch you feeding her, Mortentian.” One of the other girls laughed out loud. “She’s got a sharp knife and a jealous heart. Until you leave with Jarlben she’s marked you as hers.”
“And you had better eat well.” Said one of the other girls, this one a redhead with a happy scatter of freckles across her nose and a narrow waist. “You’re going to need your strength.” All three girls laughed at this, as did Ohtar the Orange. Kuljin was grinning.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 65