Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Grimr leaned forwards, talking quietly to him. “Not yet. First tell me, was it easier today?”

  The boy bit his lip and shook his head. “No. It wasn’t. You know it won’t be.”

  Grimr slumped again with a slight sigh. “I will never allow it, you know that, Knut. I have explained, and if necessary, I will explain again. But I will never change my mind. I will never allow it.” The boy stayed silent. He stood unmoving, shoulders weary. Finally Grimr lifted one hand. “Very well. You can go.” The boy turned abruptly, pivoting on his heel, and was quickly gone.

  The slaves began to drag out those snoring against the walls and hiccupping happily under the benches. Other slaves began to clean, re-tapping the barrels, packing the remaining food, cauldrons raised on their clanking chains, meat scraped from bone and added to the pots, animals kicked outside and the great fire doused.

  Throughout the busy emptying of the hall, Grimr sat still, watching Skarga. His scrutiny was, as usual, judgemental; he had repeatedly ordered her cup to be refilled and appeared to be waiting for her to reach a state of incoherence. Now as dizzy as a chicken chased in circles, she was aware of a strange and illogical disinterest in her fate. She was also increasingly tired and her eyes were shadow heavy. Once she rose, ready for bed, but Grimr shook his head and she sat again, obediently waiting.

  Finally the hall was all echoes and Aud came to bow before Grimr. “I’ll lock the door on my way out as usual, my lord. Shall I leave the dogs?”

  “Only Bram,” Grimr said. As Aud left, calling to the hounds, Grimr turned suddenly to Skarga. His breathing was a little faster. “Now,” he said immediately, “keep the wolf cape, but take off your clothes.”

  She lay afterwards against the support of his arm as he traced the old scars he had given her, gently fingering the patterns they made across her skin. In the many weeks of his lessons, in fighting and climbing, there had been a hundred cuts and bruises and these left a trail as a hunter might follow in the snow.

  She had been very drunk but she had not been drugged. This night was one she would remember, with a grinding headache, in the morning.

  It had been the festival which Grimr called his own, celebrated each year at his wish, commemorating when, after the humiliation inflicted and the victorious king’s departure back over the mountain, the young bard had slaughtered both his parents and taken lordship of all the lands surrounding. When, after surrendering to everything he asked of her, Skarga lay in the smoothness of his sheltering embrace, she had asked him and Grimr had told her. “It is the only winter festivity we celebrate here before Yula,” he answered her. “Now food will be scarce until spring, and that is a long way off in these mountainous places.”

  He seemed inclined to talk and he held her as a lover might. He had thrown off his cloak, sword and tunic and was stretched beside her on the dry rushes, at a little distance from the dying fire. The last flickering scarlet of the small flames reflected troll-like across his face and the shadows etched into the deep sunken lids, framing his eyes black. He had not fully undressed but his shirt was open and loose over his britches, the belt also discarded. Skarga was naked, but the wine had made that seem less important. “Did you hate them, then?” Skarga said. “Your parents? Did they teach cruelty too?”

  Grimr smiled. “Do you hope to understand me by my past? It’s woman’s naivety, to think that way. But yes, since it was never a secret. They knew I hated them.”

  Skarga nodded. “My father hates me too.”

  Caressing her breasts and the wide silver scar he had once made, his touch had been gentle. Now he squeezed, hurting her, though seemingly casual. When she whimpered, he took no notice. “They did not hate me,” he said. “They loved me.”

  Puzzled, she said, “Then it must have shocked them, when you killed them both.”

  He paused as if deciding not to answer, but then he said, “My father expected it, once I was strong enough to disarm him. His loving was never kind, as mine is not.”

  She paused, considering. “I think you were kind, sometimes, a little, tonight.”

  Grimr laughed. “I enjoy experiments. And you satisfy me. So I gave you the gift of pleasure, after first taking the pleasure of pain. I always reward those who please me, as I punish those who do not. I punished my father and my mother.”

  “Fathers are always strict with their sons. Survival through discipline. Doesn’t that have to be harsh? You’re strict with your – son.”

  He looked down at her. His eyes were part closed and his words drifted into a bard’s rhythms. “And as I am with you, when I teach you to fight. But it was their loving which was harsh. I was very small when they began their own experiments in loving, persistently, night after night. I was their only child and like you, I had few comparisons. I had a brother once, but he died and left me for my parents’ pleasure. So I learned to hate them. My father expected me to fight him one day, but he expected me to lose, which I did not. I never lose. My mother did not imagine I’d kill her, but I hated her more. I had her thrown alive into my father’s grave.”

  Skarga kept silent. It was girls who usually suffered their fathers’ drunken fumbles and she had never before heard of a boy child being used that way. But it was Grimr’s acquiescent admission that surprised her most, more than the nature of the confession. He had never divulged anything private to her before. Something suddenly occurred to her. She said, “Are you planning to kill me tomorrow?”

  He laid back, his head supported on the clasp of his linked hands. He gazed up at the grey haze of smoke under the thatch, pin lit by the few guttering candles that remained. “I don’t object,” he said softly, “to your distrust. It is natural, after all. But I have told you I plan to release you soon. I do not plan to release a corpse.” He closed his eyes and she hoped he might sleep, leaving her free to crawl to bed alone. Then he said, “Besides, I am growing to like you. I find you – restful. And useful.”

  She sat up, staring down at him. “Useful?” she whispered. “I’m not an animal.”

  He did not open his eyes, but smiled, blind. “Of course you are, foolish child,” he said. “It is no insult. You are flesh and blood, which is meat. If you were caught by wolves in the forest, they would see you as fodder, simply a means to staunch hunger for one more day. You are just another creature, the prey of the predator.”

  Skarga moved away a little, shifting further from the fire and from him. She said, “But you’re not a predator.”

  “Am I not?” He sat upright so suddenly that she nearly hopped up and ran. “Sit still,” he commanded. “I did not give you permission to move. I have not yet finished with you tonight. Now,” and he reached out and snapped his fingers around her wrist, dragging her closer. Then, one hand on her breast and the other pressing against her belly, he forced her flat to the ground and bent over her. He forced her legs apart and his fingers pushed inside her. “Do exactly as I tell you,” he said. “This time I want you a different way. It will hurt, as I intend it to, but if you bleed I will apply the ointment I used before, and afterwards I shall carry you to bed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  The snow had stopped in the night and lay thick, reflecting moonlight. It was early morning, but winter’s stealth disguised the day as night until it seemed half over.

  “Dress warm and wear your cape,” Grimr told her when he left for the hunt. “I want you outside, and waiting by the target when I return.”

  So she was outside, and waiting, the wolf pelt clenched tight between numbed fingers, stamping her boots, making scuffed scrapes in the flattened freeze. She wondered if she would be punished if she waited inside instead, in the empty hall’s sheltered warmth. When she first heard the crying, it being muffled, the sound falling dull against the surrounding ice, she wondered if one of the hounds had whelped, or a pup caught in a snow drift. Then she realised, standing very still, that it was a child. She went to look.

  She had seen few children on Grimr’s lands though some ac
companied their parents to the feasting, unruly brats who chased the goats and pigs. Others were subdued, bruised and cuffed, clinging quiet behind their mothers’ skirts. Then there was Grimr’s son, who claimed not to be Grimr’s son. When she went to look, she found it was him.

  The shock was momentarily stunning, for the child had wrapped himself in the shaggy brilliance of a huge white fur, a cape so like to Egil’s that she thought it must be the same. He had curled behind the southern wall of the longhouse where two slanting support posts created their own angle, a nook against the wind. He heard the crunch of her boots in the snow so had stopped crying when she saw him, but his nose was as pink and moist as a new born mouse, his eyes were aureole rimmed and his face streaked. The white fur enclosed him to the pout of his lower lip and his uneven breath burst in puffs of condensation. He glared at her, half blinded with tears. “Go away,” he said.

  Skarga stepped back; a conciliatory statement. “I won’t try to interfere. But I’m miserable too. So perhaps I understand.”

  The child’s voice slunk from angry to bleak. “Of course you don’t understand. You couldn’t.”

  She didn’t dare be explicit. “Perhaps I can. He hurts me too.”

  The boy looked up startled. “Yes I know he hurts you,” he said finally. “He likes to do that. He can’t help it. I’m sorry. But it’s not the same.”

  She thought he sounded considerably older than his years. Perhaps living with Grimr did that. “Well, I don’t know, and maybe you can’t know either. But I’m prepared to help if you let me.”

  Knut frowned, pausing. Then he shook his head. “You’re muddled,” he said, a little gruff. “It’s not the way you’re thinking. Not at all.” He waited a moment in silence, and said at last, “But thank you for wanting to be kind. Will you go away now, please.” His small fingers clutched the fur, disappearing into the deeper, finer white layer, almost as thick and soft as down. Skarga saw no blood stains. It was not Egil’s cape.

  She hesitated. “I looked after a boy once,” she said. “He didn’t look like you and he was several years older when he was – taken away. But I loved him very much. When he was unhappy, I was able to comfort him. So I know – something – about boys.”

  Knut stared. “Who killed him?” he asked abruptly. “Was it Grimr?”

  She was surprised. She hadn’t spoken about killing. “It wasn’t your father. Not directly.”

  The boy turned his head away. “Grimr isn’t my father,” he said to the sky.

  Encouraged, Skarga said, “My boy was ten. How old are you?”

  “I’m eight,” Knut said. “But think about the boy you lost, if you miss being motherly, not about me. I’m not part of your life, and you’ll be going away from here soon anyway.”

  She was surprised that he knew. “It’s a – beautiful cloak,” she said softly.

  The child’s expression changed immediately. He was suddenly furious. “Don’t talk about it,” he said. “Don’t even look at it. And don’t tell Grimr you’ve seen me with it. Don’t even think it. Go away. Leave me alone.”

  She turned, and left him.

  Grimr was waiting for her by the archery target. Although she had not been punctual, he was smiling. She took up her bow, and risked a question. “Do you have a wife somewhere?” she said. “Did you ever? Knut’s mother, for instance?”

  Grimr stared at her for a moment, frowning exactly as Knut had moments before. “I adopted Knut, though he is in fact my son,” he said. “But I am no female’s husband, and you will not be stabbed in the night by some jealous woman. Now, fit your first arrow.”

  The quiver he handed her was wooden, carved, lined with soft wool and inlaid with copper. She recognised it as one of his own, as were the arrows. Skarga gulped. “Real arrows,” she said faintly.

  “Real arrows indeed,” Grimr remarked. “It’s a shame there’s no real brain attached to your comments. Now, I’ve already supplied a superior bow. With these arrows, you should exhibit a greater skill. Aim for the top of the target between the eyes. Now, loose.”

  She walked the fifteen paces he allowed her from the wooden moose and retrieved her first arrow from below its snout. She had, at least, shot close. She said, “I’m improving, don’t you think?”

  “With improved tools,” he said, “I would expect improved performance.”

  “And you’re a good teacher,” she nodded, studiously premeditated. “For his age, in fact for any age, your son’s an exceptional archer.”

  She turned, notching the arrow again to the string. Grimr was silent. Then, behind her, quietly said, “Be very careful.”

  She mistook him. “I’m always careful, especially now, since these are your arrows.” She brought back her elbow, closing one eye, balancing the heel of her hand against her chin. “Not as skilled as Knut of course.” She adjusted her aim. “Did you adopt him as a baby? If he’s eight now, or at least, I suppose he is about -”

  The bow string sprang back and bit her fingers and her cheek as the arrow fell. Grimr’s hand came around her neck, his thumb forcing up her jaw from beneath, fingers in a smith’s pincers around her throat. She stumbled back and he held her there, very tight against him, one handed. She felt his breath hot, directly into her ear and his voice hissed. “The care I was advising you to take,” he said, “was not in your archery, but in your words. You will not interfere, in any way whatsoever, in my personal life, or in that of my son. Do you understand?”

  She grunted, panic stricken. She had no voice. Grimr did not release her.

  “I have permitted you licence,” he continued, “simply because I find your physical reactions to my games satisfying. You are the whore I take to my bed, and the bitch I play for my own diversion. But that is all. You are driftwood in my hands. I will break you or fashion you to my will, and I permit you no allowance for choice, for thought, or for identity. Do you understand?” She tried to answer, but was choking. She was too frightened to fight. He remained close behind her, one hand fast around her neck, the other now spread hard against her belly, forcing her buttocks back against his body. She felt the force at his crotch and the power of his arousal. His voice became softer, more easily conversational, as if the subject was casual, pleasant, even polite. “Several times I have warned you,” he said, “about the punishments I might inflict if you annoy me, but I have never yet seriously considered exercising them. I have never even whipped you.” Her passivity made him no less forceful. She began to struggle. Grimr’s hands tightened. “Even my use of your body has so far been unusually gentle,” he said. Skarga kicked back, catching his shin with the heel of her boot. He shoved the same leg up between hers, forcing her onto tiptoe, keeping her off balance. He was still talking. “Shall I tell you what I might do, what indeed I have done to others, should you entirely displease me?”

  She managed to shake her head, and for a fraction, he released the grip around her throat, allowing her to speak. She found her voice, but it was hoarse and painful. “You’ve told me already. You said you’d get your boy to whip me. And that’s vile and disgusting, to make a little boy do that. Why him, and not you?”

  There were some questions he was prepared to answer. “I am pleased you take my threats seriously, and remember them,” he said. “I would have ordered Knut to beat you, partly as training for his own manhood and as a lesson in how to flog a slave, partly because I would enjoy watching, and partly because with a shorter arm and less power, he would not injure you as severely as I would undoubtedly be tempted to do. But that situation is in the past. It would have been an exercise in teaching you obedience. What I am now contemplating is punishment. And that is something much more interesting.” Since surrender had not appeased him, Skarga fought. As his hold momentarily loosened so she twisted, pulling sharply away. Almost free, she reached both hands immediately for his face and stabbed up with her knee, aiming for his groin. He laughed, swung his head away from her nails, released her one instant and then caught her again, his arm ac
ross her ribs and hard under her breasts so she was winded, again unable to breathe. The other hand grabbed her own groin, forced up between her legs, lifting her from the ground. She flailed, scratching, grappling to release his hands. He said, very low into her ear, “You do not possess the power to hurt me, though in fact I have no objection to your trying. But I have the greatest objection to your trying to discover anything about my son. If you so much as mention his name again, I will instantly break your neck.” Skarga kicked back harder, first one heel, then the other. He did not even seem to feel it. “In the meantime,” he continued, “you’ve reminded me of several interesting practises which my relative fondness for you had made me discard. Now, tonight perhaps, I’ll reconsider, and teach you other skills than archery. Some you’ll find a little more difficult.” His expression seemed disinterested but Skarga was furiously aware of his intense excitement. Her squirming stimulated him, she stopped fighting abruptly. She stood very still and breathed very deeply. Grimr threw her bodily, and she tumbled in the snow, bruising her back. She kept her head down and did not meet his eyes. “Get indoors,” he said softly, “and stay in bed. You will take no food today. Tonight, when I call you, you will come into the hall unclothed, holding only the wolf skin.”

  Fear banished boredom, but not hunger. He had never refused her food before. She kept the closet door fast shut, closed her eyes within the silken darkness, could not sleep, but imagined nightmares.

  For that one night, she tried again to be meek. Because he enjoyed her courage and he enjoyed her defiance, though alert to what he considered wilful disobedience, Skarga again practised placid co-operation. She was terrified. She feared humiliation as much as pain and half expected the hall to hold an expectant audience, even the boy Knut. But the hall was empty when Grimr called her to it, and she came to him naked, her wolf cape first carefully spread beside the hearth.