Once Upon a Quest

by Anthea Sharp

She opens her eyes. Birds call, insects buzz, and she hears small creatures moving in the undergrowth, but the forest is too empty without Tam.

  Will she ever see him again … and if she does, can she possibly make this right?

  * * *

  Tam does come again, a few days after her meeting with the elf woman. He has another container like the one with oatmeal hanging on Svinnr’s saddle. She sees him as she’s sweeping dust out of the tower.

  Without dismounting, he says gruffly, “I thought you would be running out of oats by now,” and hefts the container toward her. She accepts it, and he says, “I must go,” but his eyes don’t go off into the distance, they stay on her.

  “You never heard how I escaped,” she says.

  For a long moment he holds her eyes, and then he says, “I can stay for a while.”

  A few minutes later they’re on the second floor of the tower. The arrow slits beneath the eaves provide natural light. There’s no furniture, but it is the most comfortable place to sit in the small building. Legs hanging over into the floor below, mugs of nettle tea beside them both, Margarites begins.

  “My master, Julius, has had many slave girls since his wife died. About a year ago, one of the girls, Maelusa, gave birth to a baby girl.” Margarites can’t bring herself to tell some of the more painful memories of Maelusa—of the other girl telling her, it is better than being whipped, and I use it to soften him. Remember how you broke the bowl? I told him not to beat you, and he didn’t. Swallowing, she continues, “Julius was put out by her pregnancy. She was sick a lot, and he didn’t like having a ‘fat sow’ for a bedmate. So he took another girl, Caerusa, in her stead. The baby was born, and he wanted Maelusa’s attentions again …” She tilts her head. “I fed the baby, Philusa, goat’s milk, and watched her while Maelusa attended Julius. Philusa was beautiful … she …” Margarites’s breath catches, remembering how Philusa smelled like nothing, and how she smiled when she saw Margarites approach. Margarites tied her to her back while she worked in the kitchen, as though the baby were her own. And Philusa spent the hours sucking on her fingers, cooing and sleeping. She never got very big. “Caerusa got jealous. She thought Maelusa was getting all the master’s attention because of the baby. Philusa was a perfect little girl. You’d think the master would care something about his daughter, but he didn’t. Still Caerusa … I left Philusa in her basket and … Caerusa … she did something wicked …” Margarites can’t finish, can’t say what Caerusa did, how she took the one perfect thing in Margarites’s life and turned it ugly. In a whisper, Margarites finishes. “Lucipor saw her do it, and he reported it … Caerusa was put to death for murder.” The old slave had told his former master, Julius’s father, who had seen to it that Caerusa was punished. Sometimes, Margarites wonders if her master would have done anything if his father hadn’t forced the issue. He seemed more put out about losing his “spare girl” than about his own baby’s death. Maelusa never recovered, and died during their first Caledonian winter. Supposedly, it was pneumonia, but Margarites knows it was from a broken heart. Philusa was Maelusa’s “one great love.” Maybe she was Margarites’s greatest love, too.

  She’s not sure why she is telling him this. Is it because she wants him to realize she had to leave and had to kill?

  The world is blurry. It takes a moment for Margarites to realize her eyes are hot, and she is crying. “I’m not afraid of pregnancy or childbirth as much as I am afraid of the baby dying …” She blurts the words out before she’s even thought about it, but realizes they are true.

  “I would never—” Tam Lin says. He doesn’t finish the words, instead pressing his lips to her forehead. Margarites closes her eyes, feeling the fire she’d felt before slowly kindling within her. His lips press against her cheeks, her lips, and all the while he murmurs, “I would watch over you, I would not leave you, and if anyone …” His voice becomes a snarl she hasn’t heard since that first day. “I’d kill them.”

  It isn’t like her to trust someone, especially someone she’s known for such a short time. But she thinks of the men who’d chased her, of Svinnr leaping over her head, and the men who’d tried to capture her at the embankment. He’d shown no fear that she could see in either situation. But more than that, she thinks of the oatmeal he brought after she sent him away. There are men that don’t leave, men who love their wives until death. Julius’s brother doesn’t sleep with his slaves—they’ve told her he is devoted to his wife. The love between the man who runs the hot food shop near their former home in Rome and his wife is visible to the blind. And love isn’t just a thing that is for the free. She’s seen freed slave men buy the freedom of the women they love half a dozen times. She just … forgets … and certainly, never in a hundred years would she have thought someone like Tam Lin would be interested in her.

  His kisses have stopped. She wipes her eyes and forces herself to look up at him. He’s watching her, quietly, but there is a hardness in his eyes, a determined set to his jaw.

  “I know,” she whispers, and he pulls her into his arms. His armor is cold, but his skin is warm, and the fires heating beneath her skin are fever hot.

  * * *

  Margarites’s head is pillowed by Tam’s bare shoulder and their legs are a tangle. She wears nothing. He is wearing only a tight leather choker around his throat with a single silver bead and a longer necklace with a piece of polished bone carved into the shape of a hammer. The hammer charm comes from his homeland, the only thing from his past he’s managed to keep. The choker he says is from the elves and magically allows him to speak and understand any language. She thinks he’s telling the truth because when she tried to trick him by speaking in Greek, he wasn’t thrown for a second. However, in return for that trick, he is trying to tickle her, and failing, but making her grin despite herself.

  Sometimes, when Maelusa would “entertain” the master, Julius would fall asleep with his arm or leg across her chest. Julius would be put out if she left, or woke him, so Margarites would take water and food to her. She hated tiptoeing in and seeing Maelusa’s expression of patient disdain, and the master, who dominated her like a little boy with his favorite toy, snoring, oblivious beside her.

  Now Tam is “toying” with her, but she doesn’t feel like a toy. Being in love is more magical than self-lighting and extinguishing candles, elves, or wolves that lope away at sight of her, and being loved is more magical than that. He told her his real name, whispered to her the syllables as sharp and cold as an icicle. It’s the name the Elf Queen enslaved him with, and if Margarites chooses, she could give it to any elf in the forest, and they could compel him. She has resolved to forget it, but still treasure the memory of the telling. He is besotted, as much with her as she is with him. It seems impossible.

  Tam slips a finger behind her knee, and she squirms and giggles.

  “I’ve found the secret to your smile,” he says, and she catches his hand and gives him a threatening look. He just grins in response, his eyes soft. It’s strange, the way he is completely unguarded with her, and the way he is with his enemies—cold and armored. But the Romans and the local barbarians aren’t his true enemy. The true enemy is the queen. The “retreat” to Alfheim has been going on for a hundred years. It could go on for a hundred more, or the Elf Queen could take Tam away tomorrow.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

  “I haven’t told you how I escaped,” she says.

  His brow furrows. “I don’t want you to tell me if it makes you cry.”

  “I must tell you,” she says, and so she does. At the end she almost does cry. “I don’t know how that helps you,” she admits despairingly. “I didn’t plan it … I just didn’t let up.”

  “You seized the opportunity,” whispers Tam, leaning on an elbow. “And you didn’t let go of hope. Those are important lessons; I should not forget.”

  Margarites bites her lip. And yet … the only reason she really escaped was because of Tam’s intervention. She would have been captured
by the Romans, eaten by the wolves, and returned by the Caledonian tribesmen if it weren’t for him.

  Tam saved her. Who will save Tam?

  * * *

  Stalked

  “You’ve been gone five days! Five days!” Margarites cries, running from the tower.

  Dismounting from Svinnr, Tam says, “I know,” and gathers her into his arms. She beats his armored chest, past when her hands start to hurt.

  “I didn’t know if you were gone for good,” she says, tears falling from her eyes. And not knowing let loose the monsters of doubt in her mind. Maybe she is just a toy? Maybe he is married in the Elven hill …

  Rocking her gently, he whispers, “I know, I know.”

  Sometimes he gets angry at her doubts. “You think I’d marry an elf? They treat me like a dog!” He’ll shout, and then get very quiet, but he never storms out during those times, and they always make up before he leaves.

  She feels his body sagging against hers. Today he is too tired to be angry. “What happened?” she whispers.

  A bird calls. Tam releases a bone-weary breath. “A Roman incursion, but it has been taken care of.”

  They had come looking for her, she is sure of it. How he’s avoided telling the Elf Queen of her presence here, prompting their “incursions,” she can only wonder. She shivers, and not because of the cold—although it is late October, and chilly.

  “Come, let’s go in. It’s cold and you shouldn’t be out here. Neither of you.” His hand slinks down to her lower belly, and she glances up to see a smile on his face that is exhausted and ecstatic at once. “I can feel our baby growing now,” he whispers.

  “It’s too early to get too attached,” she warns him. Although it’s too late for her; she already is.

  “Mmmm …” he says, and pulls her to the tower. But she breaks away, reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a little cake made of oats and dried Alfheim apricots for Svinnr.

  Tam sighs as the giant horse’s lips brush her hand, but she defends her deed. “He brought me back to you.”

  As soon as the great horse is done, Tam pulls her into her cozy home.

  The tower has changed in the past few months. The bed now has an Elvish feather mattress on top of the ropes, sheets, and a quilt. In a dwarven trunk are animal skins for covers when it gets really cold. There is a rug on the floor from the hide of a giant white bear. There is a slightly too-tall-for-Margarites wooden table and chairs made by frost giants in the Iron Wood of Jotunheim—the land of frost, Tam says. Also from Jotunheim are matching fur lined boots, a cloak, mittens, and a hat—just the perfect size for a little frost giant girl, Tam says. He teases her about her height sometimes. She says it’s unfair to tease her about things she can’t help, and he always responds that she could have eaten the horses’ food and have been taller. He doesn’t tease her when she can’t bring herself to kill rabbits that get caught in her snares—they make cries that sound too much like a human baby.

  There are earthenware jars high as her hip that lean against the walls. Inside are hazelnuts, acorns leached of bitterness and dried, roots and tubers she’s gathered, dried fruits from Alfheim, dried salted cod-like fish from Jotunheim, and, of course, oatmeal. There’s also a covered jar on the table filled with butter and another of honey. In every window nook there are pots with fresh herbs growing in them. Even if she doesn’t set another snare, she’ll have enough food until spring.

  There is one more earthenware jar in the tower, but it resides under a loose stone near the oven. Inside are pieces of gold Tam has saved up from his time among the elves, a map, and his hammer charm. The map shows barbarian settlements where Svitjod traders come. They’ll hide her, he promises, and take her across the sea to be with his tribe. She thinks with Tam, she and the baby, together they might make the journey. Without him, she doubts it. She’s fairly certain he doesn’t believe it himself, but is touched that he has at least tried to plan.

  There is one more item on the first floor: a wooden rocking cradle that Tam made himself. It has strange beasts and gods carved into its sides based on the legends of Tam’s people: there is Jormander, the World Serpent, and the immortality-bestowing Apples of Idunn, Thor with his lightning hammer, and one-eyed Odin, All Father, ruler of the gods and all the people of the Nine Realms—even the elves. He’s even carved a flame as a symbol for Loki, God of Chaos, onto the side of the crib, even though he’ll someday bring about Ragnarok, the end of the world. They’ve both told each other stories of their different gods. They don’t talk about Tam’s being bound to the elves, or Margarites’s time as a slave.

  Tam gives the cradle a little tip, and smiles as it rocks smoothly on the stones.

  Margarites’s eyes travel around the tower’s single room. How can there be monsters of doubt within her, when she has so many luxuries around her? They’re all because of Tam.

  Turning to Margarites, Tam smiles mischievously and lifts his arms. “Help me with this armor?”

  He is so much different than everything she’s known, and her life now is perfect. She’s sure the dream will end soon. Stay in the dream, a greedy little voice whispers.

  She meets his eyes, and he raises an eyebrow. Biting her lip to keep from smiling, Margarites helps him take off his armor.

  The nightmare begins soon after.

  * * *

  Take My Monsters

  “Margarites … Margarites …”

  Margarites hears her name, but she can’t open her eyes. The feather down mattress is too soft, the quilt is too warm, and her pregnancy has left her exhausted. Julius called Maelusa lazy and negligent when she was in her first months of pregnancy. Tam has told Margarites that she isn’t lazy, it’s hard work making a baby, so hard he could never do it. It makes Margarites’s heart hurt for Maelusa, thinking of her short life with so little love, and it makes her arms reach for Tam. But he’s gone.

  The bed shakes, and she opens her eyes. The tower is bathed in candle light, but a shadow looms over her. The bed shakes again, and her eyes come into focus. Tam’s clutching the headboard, leaning over her like a vulture. He’s wearing all his armor but his helmet. Sweat beads his forehead. His eyes are unfocused.

  “Margarites … Margarites …”

  “You have to go so soon?” she cries in dismay. The proximity of the Romans has given him an excuse to stay away from his bed in the Elven fortress beneath the western hill. He isn’t supposed to have to go back …

  “I must go to Miles Cross. They’re leaving. They’re leaving forever. Odin the All Father himself has come to watch them depart,” Tam says, his voice an incantation.

  Margarites sits up. “What?”

  The headboard breaks in his hands, and the broken piece tumbles to the floor and cracks on the stones. Tam backs away from her slowly, and then more quickly, like a twig caught in a fast-moving current. His back hits the door with a terrible crack. His eyes lock with hers for an instant and he sinks toward the floor.

  “Fight it, Tam! Fight it!” Margarites cries, gathering the quilt around her, jumping from the bed and running toward him.

  She’s almost to him when he shouts, “Don’t touch me! I’ll hurt you if you try to stop me.”

  “No,” Margarites says. “You would never.”

  “I would,” he says. His eyes are red. His hands claw at his neck, as though he's being choked, and then, half sitting, half standing, back against the door, he groans and pushes backward. The door explodes open, and cold night air rushes in. Svinnr snorts and whinnies in the clearing. An instant later, Margarites is watching the horse’s haunches as it races into the forest toward Miles Cross, Tam upon him.

  Margarites is terrified, more than when she’d killed Julius and run for the hills. Her body goes cold, and she throws up for the first time in her pregnancy. Clutching her stomach, wiping away the bile, eyes hot, she looks back into the tower through blurry eyes. In the fog of tears, she sees the roses she picked the day she met Tam. She’d dried them and tied them to the headbo
ard. She remembers her haughty words, “They’re my roses. I picked them.”

  A few steps from the broken headboard lies Tam’s choker, the one that allows him to understand any language. Tam must have accidentally yanked it off while clawing at his neck, trying to resist the queen.

  Stomach still swimming, she dresses quickly without bothering to close the door. Slipping the choker around her own neck and grabbing an enchanted candle, she heads out into the night.

  * * *

  Branches tear at her cloak, she trips over roots, and Margarites has to pause once more because she loses her stomach. When she hears the sound of hoofbeats, her heart leaps. She pushes through the final barrier of thorn bushes, and her heart immediately falls. There are hundreds of horses and soldiers dressed in the same nearly invisible armor that Tam wears. Their helmets are all pulled low so she cannot see their faces. She looks toward the front of the line, and her eyes grow wide. At Miles Cross, she sees a line of men and women in finer silks than she has ever seen. They glow in the dark, casting light upon the warriors. But that isn’t what makes her breath catch. Just beyond what she can only presume is Elven royalty, the horses and their mounts are disappearing, as though they are walking behind a curtain. Beyond Miles Cross, the road is empty.

  Heart pounding, Margarites runs between the mounted warriors. “Tam!” she cries. “Tam!”

  No one attacks her—the mounted soldiers are oddly mute—but no one answers, either.

  Margarites runs between the silent lines toward Miles Cross, shouting for all she is worth. “Tam! Tam!”

  She hears ravens rawk above her, the choker around her neck vibrates, and a woman sings words that Margarites feels rather than understands. “What are you doing?” and “Seize her,” followed by quick boot steps on stone, but these sounds are like raindrops on a roof. She hears them, but she doesn’t listen to them—she can’t. Her breath is rasping in her ears, and her stomach feels like she will be sick again. She can only focus on not being trampled and looking for Tam Lin.