by Ingrid Hahn
He cast a glance at Sigurd and found the same doubts in his cousin’s stony expression.
“What are we waiting for?” Ubbi still had his axe raised. The man snarled at the people on the other side of the empty divide. “Let’s have this done with.” Thorvald glanced to his other side.
Thorvald had little patience for Ubbi’s nonsense, but kept his voice level. “Now is not the time.”
Ubbi sneered. The limp wisps of hair still clinging to his greasy head were slicked back at the base, but flew free at the ends, especially about the ears and neck. “You’re turning into a daft old man.”
Thorvald held his ground, staring dead into the other man’s eyes without blinking, feeling every measure of his overbearing height. The contest of wills ended when Ubbi’s gaze fell. The display brought no satisfaction. Dominance over a man like Ubbi was not a point of pride. It was a given. It’d be a sad state of affairs if one such as Ubbi attempted to lead.
Ubbi might have had a curse on his tongue, but pressed his thin lips together—wisely, for once—and remained silent.
Thorvald glanced over the faces of the people and let his voice reverberate through the tense air. “You have until sunrise tomorrow to hand her over.” If they’d give her to him, they’d save themselves a lot of trouble—trouble he didn’t particularly care to give them. He’d do what he had to, though. Didn’t he always? “Or you know what we’ll have in store for you.”
Chapter Five
Alodie Speaks Her Mind
All the way back to the safety of the castle, Alodie didn’t drop the pretense. As befitting her assumed station, she glided gently over the earth, surrounded by the retinue. Her mind fixed on one problem: Did they really want the princess instead of gold? Why?
Passing the blacksmith’s hut, Alodie slowed, then stopped. The man’s wife, Oslafa, stood out of doors, her face contorted with anxiety. Four small children clung to her skirts. Two little girls and two little boys. An infant of about eight or nine months rested in her arms, miniature fists clutching the ties of her open dress as a red mouth suckled greedily at her breast. No doubt the poor wee thing sensed the mother’s agitation and needed comfort.
If she were the princess, Alodie would be responsible for the most vulnerable people who lived under the king’s protection. The burden was more than a thousand stones in a delicate basket woven of reeds. Her heart went heavy, her thoughts troubled.
Alodie had an unfortunate history with Oslafa’s husband. When he was still merely the blacksmith’s son, he’d wanted to marry Alodie.
She’d been sixteen. The perfect age to start a new life. Start a family. Her face was fair enough, but not out of the ordinary way. The way she threw herself into work, committing herself to be the best, had caught his notice.
They’d courted. On a late summer day after the harvest, when autumn was just beginning to color the first leaves, he’d asked her to be his, shy and happy, his face glowing. She’d almost said yes. Without family, there was nobody’s permission to seek but hers. They’d walked together a while, then sat under an oak. One thing had led to another and…
Afterward, uncertainty had begun to plague her. Unable to overcome her doubts, she’d made a difficult choice. Even though they’d…they’d done what they’d done, she hadn’t been able to marry him.
Reluctantly, terrified of making a mistake, she’d told him her decision. He’d listened in silence, turning his back to her when he realized what was coming. Then with a gruff, “very well, then,” he’d left. It was the last time words had passed between them.
Some months later, he’d married Oslafa. Alodie had always steered clear of them, never wanting his wife to guess that Alodie had been with the woman’s husband, even before he’d ever thought of Oslafa. When Alodie observed from a distance, they’d shone with love.
The oppression of having known a man outside of marriage had nearly sent Alodie to the convent. Not to take vows—without money or property, they wouldn’t have her as one of their own—but to be a servant to the nuns. In the end, though, even the weight of her sin hadn’t been able to make her leave the princess.
Alodie stopped and looked Oslafa in the face. “You need to get your family to safety.”
Oslafa’s hazel eyes filled with tears. She was about Alodie’s age, with light brown curls and a pretty scattering of freckles that made her appear younger. “And how am I supposed to accomplish that?”
The blacksmith pushed through the men and their makeshift weapons to put an arm around his wife. An accident at the forge had left the skin from wrist to elbow rippled and twisted, but it was minor. Merely superficial, and Alodie only knew because she’d seen. What was important was that he was probably the strongest man present.
“What are you talking to her about?” A smear of black soot marked his forehead and he spoke like an angry old bear might when feeling threatened.
Alodie swallowed. The last time she’d stared the man in the face, he’d been above her and inside of her. It was so many years ago, though. Why couldn’t she simply forget?
She rallied. There were far more dire concerns at hand. If the demons came to slaughter them, the children would be orphaned. Or killed. The possibility was very real. The thought made Alodie light in the head. “You need to leave—all of you. There is no telling what will happen.”
“Who do you think you are to say such things?” Cyneburga snapped in low tones, looking around nervously as if the demons could swoop down from any corner should she be too loud. “He must stay here and fight for us. Besides, you are not the princess. You’re a serving girl.”
Cyneburga said serving girl the way she might say festering wound.
The events of the morning had stripped away Alodie’s ability to hold her tongue and show deference. It was true that sending him away meant leaving them more vulnerable. But all she could see when she looked at Cyneburga was the woman hiding her pretty trinket so she wouldn’t have to surrender it to the demons.
Alodie glowered at Cyneburga and held her own. If there was right to be done, by God, she was going to do it. “He can’t do much for us against the demons, not by himself. But he can do everything for his own small ones.” Her tone was cooler and calmer than she felt. “Keeping him here to face certain death when he could save his children and live to continue protecting them would be unspeakably selfish.”
“Alodie is right.” The princess kept her voice almost too quiet to hear. She looked at the blacksmith. “Tell Eadric at the stables I’ve given you a horse and cart. Leave where the back woods meet the wall. Don’t bother with your belongings. The safety of the children is all that matters. Take others with you, if you can. Don’t return until you’re certain they’ve gone.”
Oslafa burst into tears, which made the little ones begin to wail loudly. The blacksmith hoisted the smallest girl against his broad chest. “Thank you, my lady.”
The words had been for the princess, of course, but after he spoke, he glanced toward Alodie and offered a slight nod.
Back in the hall, the princess resumed her place. Alodie was pushed aside. It was neither ruthless nor cruel. Merely the way of things. Here, she was a servant. The concerns at hand were too great to think about aught else.
Everyone crowded into the space and a long day of arguing began. The conversation was as interminable as the situation was impossible. The room lay under a thick blanket of suffocating tension. They needed the princess, now more than ever. Her upcoming marriage would secure an important alliance, which meant peace.
Or as much peace as could be guaranteed. Perhaps a better way of viewing the marriage was that it lowered the threat of war.
Men were speaking all at once.
“We can’t give her to them.”
“Of course not. It’s unthinkable.”
“They said they didn’t want treasure.”
“Those heath
en sons of dogs only want treasure. It’s a ploy to make us pay more.”
“What would the king do if he were here?”
“Yes, what of the king? Has a messenger been dispatched to him?”
“Yes, but he’s at least a week away. We won’t last until then.”
“If we last long enough, he’ll return and lead us all in battle. All we have to do is stall them.”
At that comment, Alodie couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was having pretended to be the princess that made her bold. Maybe it was having faced the demon leader. Nothing in the castle could be as frightening as him, especially not the face of rank stupidity. The experience bolstered her, like wrapping her protectively in pure steel. “If we stall long enough, all we’ll manage is to get the king and his men killed, too.”
The gathering went silent. The old advisors narrowed their rheumy eyes upon her, each of them looking like a hideous new kind of owl.
There had been no female voices in the conversation until she spoke.
Women were good enough to remain virgins, die martyrs, or go live in holy austerity wearing nothing but hair shirts. Those women could be venerated as saints. But contribute a thought or ask a question, and ninety-nine men out of a hundred would admonish her for stepping out of place.
Well, if the sagging, old limp-rodded donkeys didn’t like it that was no concern of hers.
“I don’t recall you having been invited into the conversation, serving girl.” He said girl as if there were no higher insult under heaven, although he lacked the contempt Cyneburga had applied to her earlier. The words came from one of the men who’d once strategically vied for the princess’s hand, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t have experience with overreaching. At least she spoke with a measure of reason instead of braying like an ass.
Alodie stepped forward. She would not hold her tongue now. “No invitation is needed if I’m trying to prevent needless slaughter.”
He curled his lip at her. “You might be wearing fine wool, but a frog in pearls is still a frog.”
A frog? She’d been called many things, but never a frog. The oddness made it all the easier to overlook. “You would be better served applying the originality of your insults to thinking about ridding the demons from our shores.”
“I don’t think I heard you correctly.” His dry tone said he had.
“Never mind. It’s more important to note that everyone is at stake here and everyone should have a say.”
“And what do you suggest we do?” He laid scorn in his voice thick as old honey. “Put the princess in their foul hands to save our own skins?”
Alodie narrowed her eyes. Was the speaker feigning pique or did he believe what he said? Did he merely want to be heard objecting to the idea of giving them the princess all the while planning to do exactly that? People were not to be trusted when their own lives were at stake.
She glanced helplessly at the princess, silently pleading with her to please understand that Alodie herself would die before she’d ever believe giving her to the demons was any kind of a solution. She’d sooner denounce God and sacrifice herself to the coldest recesses of hell.
But the princess didn’t seem distressed. Merely curious. She listened with rapt attention, betraying no signs of being anything other than engrossed. She must have been feeling something. Whatever her emotions might have been, she kept them skillfully hidden.
“All I’m suggesting…” The boldness that had recently wrapped steel bars around Alodie’s spine and made her reckless enough to speak up was gone again, and she was once again nothing but flesh, blood, and bone. Unprotected bone—all too easily broken. “Well, I mean, we need to find a way that doesn’t involve men dying.”
“That’s all the demons understand—blood and fighting.”
On that point, he was dead wrong. Alodie shook her head. “You’re forgetting gold.”
He aimed a condemning glance her way and his tone was heavily steeped in mocking disapproval. “You don’t understand what’s really going on here.”
“I understand that our existence is under threat as well as anyone.” The volume of her voice was rising.
He replied with oily smoothness. “But not how to preserve lives.”
Alodie’s mouth went dry. “I say we ought to see if they’ll take—”
“Are you suggesting we trifle with them instead of meeting their demands?”
“But we know they love silver and gold. That’s part of who those heathens are.” Her face was beginning to prickle uncomfortably. But she wasn’t ready to stop. If they didn’t want her to speak, too bad. “They want worldly goods more than anything.”
“And what happens when we make the offering and they cut us down where we stand for offending them?”
She said nothing, her throat tight, her tongue seeming swollen and heavy.
“Just like a girl.” The man sniffed. “Never thinking. Unless you have any real ideas, from now on, you need to stay out of things you don’t understand.”
Alodie burned from head to toe. In a way, the vile man was right. Maybe she should have held her tongue. But to call her a girl and dismiss her so caustically…that stung.
She stepped back into the shadows. She heard no more of the conversation. The aftershocks of humiliation were too great.
There had to be a way to purge the infestation without bloodshed, without death, and without giving them the princess. It went back to the original questions—why did they want her? What was their true aim?
The king was no friend of the demons, true enough. Who in their right mind could be?
Hours later, she lay sleepless in the black swaddle of her narrow bed. What she should have done was ask the beastly man where his so-called real ideas were. Not having any hadn’t stopped him from blathering on.
The fire to do something still burned brightly in her belly but kindled no ideas, plausible or otherwise.
The advisor’s question snaked around her head. Should we put the princess in their grubby hands to save our own skins? It’d practically been an accusation. Nothing had been more vexing in her life than those words echoing again and again. His voice was as grating the hundredth time as it had been the first.
If only she…
Alodie went still, eyes wide, heart pounding hard enough to wake the whole castle and village besides. Good, generous, magnificent God. The demons had no idea who the princess really was. For all they believed, Alodie was who they wanted.
A notion took swift hold in her mind. More of an image, really. A vision—a vision of herself going with them.
The shock of the idea rattled her so hard she could have been cold in her grave and experienced the quaking. She threw the covers over her head and curled into a tight ball.
She could never leave the only home she’d ever known. Not for treasure, wealth, anything. Never. But worldly goods held no value when the princess needed her.
Alodie squeezed her eyes shut. That was a lie. Or at least a stretch of the truth, meant to flatter her own vanity. Up till today, the princess hadn’t needed her; she’d needed the princess. That’s how it’d always been and how it should have stayed.
Today, everything had changed. For the first time, the princess did need her. Needed her to willingly place herself in demon hands. Hadn’t Alodie always told herself she’d do anything for those she loved? Whom did she love more than the princess?
Handing herself over to demons was certain death. But if one life saved so many others?
The logic didn’t work where the real princess was concerned. The princess was needed here. Alodie wasn’t.
The king was ineffectual. The people didn’t love him. Up until seven or eight years ago, more and more of the borders had been swallowed up by rivals. The princess hadn’t even come of age when she’d started applying her delicate finesse to form alliances. Attacks had ceas
ed. The borders held. The people owed nothing to their king, but everything to their princess. Without her, the kingdom would fall.
Without Alodie, the kingdom went on as before.
The whole thing was appallingly dangerous. Perhaps their assertion was a ploy. What if they didn’t want the princess but were playing a game to get them to hand over as much treasure as possible without a fight? If so, were they lazy or clever? And what would happen to her if she took them at their word, gave herself to them, only to find she’d been wrong?
How did one sift through truth and lies upon the tongues of godless heathens?
If the leader had been a man of the castle or village, it would be difficult to remember that the devil could wear pretty disguises. That he was a demon made it easier to doubt him, even if he did look the way he did.
Foolish. He was a demon. Anything from his mouth was as untrustworthy as the promise of a serpent.
What if she went to their camp and told them they could have her on the condition they left with the morning’s tide? What if she took a risk and won?
If she made such a choice, she could, for the first time in her life, be in charge of her own destiny. A heady rush of power accompanied the thought, which she quickly tried to quell. Throwing her life away to be eaten by demons was not powerful. If it were necessary, it was firmly in the territory of being a necessary evil.
Never mind. She’d find Cuthberht and take him into her confidence. He could translate for her, concealing her knowledge of the hateful demon language.
First, the chapel, though.
Stomach hollow, limbs shaky, and thoughts burdened, Alodie forced herself off her sleeping pallet. She grabbed the pouch containing her prayer beads. She brought them to her heart, squeezing them tightly as if she might bring forth bravery as easily as drawing juice from ripe berries. They were as hard and wooden as they ever were, so she continued to ready herself. When the rope and small leather sack was secured lightly about her waist, she crept through the chilly air and around the others—careful not to wake any who might be lucky enough to be asleep—and felt in the dark for the cloak hanging on a peg. Time was of the essence, but surely she could steal a few quiet moments to pray on the matter before doing anything rash.