by Ingrid Hahn
People emerged from the houses scattered on the hillside and came down to the shoreline to await the ship. This was the most worrisome time for the wives and children and others left behind. While the ship was away, they could believe their loved ones remained safe. When a ship returned, they would finally learn their fate. Of those who had left, how many had already held their beloved friends and family in their arms for the last time?
The men secured the ship, while older fishermen—with their knuckles thick from a lifetime of pulling, tugging, and mending nets in frigid water—rushed down to help.
Thorvald was first to step off. The flexible oak boards of the dock bent under his weight. He reached back to help the princess out. Slowly, he walked up the planks. His legs were heavy. It was as if he walked toward death itself. Unable to flee from his fate, but not believing what he was living through.
A vow to a man is a vow to the gods.
A vow to a man is a vow to the gods.
A vow to a man is a vow to the gods.
The world seemed cold and vast. The hum of people and animals and the sea faded to a distant buzz because there, at the end of the dock, stood Jarl Erlendr.
Thorvald pushed one side of his cloak over his shoulder to reveal the place the golden ring used to circle his arm.
The jarl was tall, but not overburdened with mass. The bearskin he wore around his shoulders was calculated to make him appear bigger. An elaborate clasp of ornately fashioned silver clipped the two ends together. His men surrounded him. The ones he paid with treasure Thorvald had won. The men were big, with thick beards and musculature that suggested they counted oxen in their ancestry.
Around them all, warriors disembarked, returning to those they’d left behind.
In the crowd, Thorvald caught one face he’d been dreading. His aunt. Birna. Sigurd’s mother. She’d gone terribly pale. The expression she wore, like she knew what had happened to her son but couldn’t yet accept it, tore a gaping hole in his chest.
He was almost as sick about telling her what happened to her son as what he was about to do to the princess.
“Thorvald Longsword.” The jarl’s voice was flat. He glanced only briefly at Thorvald’s empty arm. “You’ve returned.”
“As you see.” Thorvald searched the jarl’s face for signs that the man was surprised to see him. Erlendr, however, was not one to give anything away.
His straight hair hung long about his shoulders. Every year, more and more strands of gray overtook the indifferent brown shade.
The princess stood behind him. Thorvald had been her protector from the first time he’d taken her into his arms in the house of her god. Now he had to surrender her to the man he hated most in the world.
Most in the world, excepting himself.
Seeing her, the jarl frowned. His eyes narrowed faintly, as if what he was seeing was not what he expected. “The daughter of my enemy.”
It wasn’t clear whether what he’d said was a statement or a question. Either way, he did not seem as pleased as a man ought to be, for having waited so many years. Which spoke to the idea that there might have been an alternative reason why the jarl had sent Thorvald away.
Thorvald turned. He stared at her a moment. Her eyes were huge, imploring him to explain himself. He looked away and nodded to Hrolf. “Take her to him.”
He’d spoken the words. He was delivering her as he’d promised. For this he’d be wholly a free man once again.
Then why did it feel as if a troll were ripping his heart to shreds, one layer of muscle at a time?
“What’s going on?” Her voice was shrill. Hrolf grabbed her by the arm and dragged her forward for Erlendr’s perusal.
After he’d looked her up and down, the jarl addressed Thorvald. “Not much of a beauty, is she?”
Startled by the unexpected pronouncement, Thorvald searched the princess’s face for what the jarl might be seeing. He found nothing. She was exactly what he’d picture when he envisioned the fairest light elf. Did scales cover the jarl’s eyes?
You don’t have to fight alone. Her words from last night had brewed bitterness in Thorvald’s heart. He could almost feel the way she’d reached up to stroke his face, her touch soft and caring. Everything he didn’t deserve. Everything that, after this, he would never deserve again.
A chilling emptiness hollowed his insides. Alone was exactly what he did not want to be. It’s what he was, though. What he’d always been, even with Sigurd. The secret of his father’s cowardice isolated him every day, every season, every year of his life.
The princess hadn’t looked at him since Hrolf dragged her before the jarl. “Why are we your enemy?”
Erlendr took a long time to respond. “You speak our language.”
She didn’t react, remaining silent, like she knew her way around a political debate.
“You’re too young to remember, I’m sure.” A light wind blew the end of the bearskin around the jarl’s calves. Rain began to patter on the water and dirt around them.
Before, Thorvald had always loved the smell of newly wet earth. In the face of what he was doing, there was nothing to like. Not when he was infested with self-loathing like worms writhing in rotting wood.
“I’ve heard the stories. We drove you out. And you waited this long to have your revenge?”
“I could have taken all your treasure any time I pleased. It would have hurt your father and your people. But not enough.”
“What you did hurt not only my father and my people. It also hurt me.”
“I suppose that is what you must think.”
Thorvald grabbed the princess before she could respond. He gave her a warning look. This was neither the time nor the place to run her tongue.
Malevolence shone from her eyes. “Do not touch me, demon.” Her voice rose and she tugged herself away. “I know what is happening here. You’re giving me to him.”
The jarl stepped between them. “Your role here is finished, Thorvald. The land is again yours. I wish you pleasure of it.” He sounded as if he wished anything but.
If it were only a matter of his land, it would have been different. Possibly. He could have considered walking away.
The jarl took hold of the princess. All of Thorvald’s protective instincts flared to life. A hot burst of rage pulsed through his veins and before he knew what he was about, Thorvald gripped the hilt of his sword.
Ozrik grabbed him. “Don’t.”
Jarl Erlendr’s gaze turned cold as an ice giant’s heart as he stared at where Thorvald had his hand. The men around the jarl were not heavily armed. But there was more than one with an axe that could be quickly stripped from his back at the mere implication of threat.
He didn’t blink when he lifted his eyes to stare dead at Thorvald. “You’re my greatest warrior. Have you forgotten?”
The threat held a potency nothing else could match. The secret they shared. The reason Thorvald had pledged his loyalty.
Right now, Thorvald could have sliced the man down where he stood. The secret of his father’s disgrace and the stain it left upon him, Thorvald, would have remained safe.
It would have been for nothing. The jarl’s men outnumbered him. No sooner would Thorvald have slaughtered Erlendr than he’d have been executed in turn, leaving the princess alone, and in far worse hands. Ozrik might try to fight beside Thorvald but they’d kill him, too. His secret would be safe and he’d be dead and who knew what would happen to the princess?
Rain pattered down upon the earth. The sky seemed darker. Heavier. The air around them crackled with the unspent rage pouring off Thorvald’s skin.
If violence was about to break out between the men, it was cut short when the princess lunged at Thorvald, fingers extended like claws. “How could you?”
One of the jarl’s servants grabbed her and tossed her over his shoulder. She bea
t his back with her fists and the group of them began shuffling off the dock.
The jarl was walking away. With the princess—the green cloak he had wrapped around her shoulders still tied around her neck.
Erlendr hadn’t suspected the reason for Thorvald’s distress. Or if he had, he chose to ignore it. Thorvald had never thought of the jarl as subtle before, but after the strange interaction, there seemed to be something else at play.
Shaking in the aftermath of what he’d done, Thorvald took heaving breaths, only barely aware of what he’d been about to do—cut Jarl Erlendr’s hand off for daring to touch her. The rain began to fall harder.
Thorvald might as well have had his stomach sliced open and his guts spilled there on the dock.
It was supposed to have been a simple transaction. Deliver the princess to the jarl. Get back his land. As easy as coming to market and trading bags of grain for a pair of shoes.
Except the princess was neither a bag of grain nor a pair of shoes.
Maybe it would have been better if they’d all died in that storm. Thorvald caught himself from murmuring the thought aloud. It bordered on cowardice. Besides, it wasn’t what he really believed.
The sky seemed to hear his thoughts and a low rumble of thunder sounded across the expanse. He looked up into the grayness, drops wetting his face.
What do I believe?
Did he know anymore? He thought he had.
Then he’d dragged the princess into his life. She’d changed everything he’d ever believed about who he was and what he wanted. How could one person have such a profound effect?
What he needed were options. Which were exactly what he did not have.
He slung his sack over his shoulder.
“You have your land now. That’s what you wanted. Come on.” Ozrik tugged him toward the shore where Sigurd’s mother waited, her lips white with fear.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Bath
Tossed once again over a demon’s shoulder, Alodie breathed heavily, heart pounding. In the stinging wake of having been handed over, she cursed him, again and again, no words strong enough to hold the poison of her hate. That bastard. That horrible, terrible, rotten-to-the-core, dog-loving demon.
She’d believed he’d cared about more than himself. Foolish. She had the sense of a flea for having believed otherwise.
Except worse. She’d been thinking with the parts between her legs instead of with her head. She’d let him touch her. It was disgusting. Degrading. Humiliating. And she’d wanted more—much more. How could she have ever thought she wanted him to do that to her? The next time she saw him, she was going to rip his eyes out.
The demon who carried Alodie away set her down atop the hill. Rain had turned the dirt path slick.
The jarl cast her a look. He had dark hair, as dark as hers, and light brown eyes. His severe features might have, in the glow of youth, once been appealing. He was pale. Yellowish, even. Like a corpse after a day and night of being laid out when all the blood had pooled at the back of the body. Skin stretched thin over his skull gave him the gaunt appearance of a man turned cold and sadistic with age.
And the way he stared at her… It was unnerving. Like he saw something in her face and was trying to determine what it was.
He waved a hand toward a few members of the retinue. “See her cleaned.”
Without another word, he turned the other way, demons trailing him.
Alodie stayed a moment, watching. She should have taken a better look at the men of a certain age to see if any of them sparked a long-buried memory. Any of the older ones could have been her father. If he was still alive. Maybe she’d see him. Or maybe he’d recognize her.
One more man whose eyes needed gashing out.
Inside one of their houses, a group of women stripped Alodie bare. Nearby, a great basin of water steamed beside glowing coals. The room was oppressively warm, and a light mist swirled in the damp air. It was narrow and dim, with plenty of activity while people attended to other chores. Wooden beams held up the pitched roof and the floor was dirt.
All in all, it was surprisingly complex and well maintained. The demons lived well, it seemed.
A woman took her hand and helped her into the water. Presumably they weren’t making a soup of her, but it was a little like being a leek tossed into a pot.
Alodie sank down into the water, her whole body relaxing. Oh, that wasn’t so terrible, was it? Who knew submerging one’s whole body could be so wonderful? Even the princess never did this. Maybe the idea of warming water came naturally to demons, eager to return to the hellfire that spawned them.
She let her eyes drift shut. Perhaps there were pleasures in hell after all. Previously, she hadn’t known enough to envision how these people might have lived. If pressed, she might have said in animal dung heaps or pits lined with their own filth.
Instead, they scrubbed her skin and carefully combed out the wet locks of her hair. Though they believed her to be the daughter of the jarl’s greatest enemy, Alodie couldn’t complain about how they treated her.
None of them spoke to her, though a constant chatter hummed around her as they talked to one another. Alodie, lazily trailing her fingers back and forth over the surface of the water, listened, understanding almost all of what they said. This one’s weaving was almost done and she was going to try something else when she started her new piece of cloth; another had an aunt whose sheep was limping; a woman with pale hair had a little boy who wouldn’t stop trying to ride the family sow.
It was almost as pleasant as the warm water, hearing the soothing domestic concerns after the long days aboard the ship with men.
When a woman entered holding a newborn no more than a few weeks old, all of them stopped what they were doing to huddle around the tiny creature and coo, stroking her cheeks and the tiny fingers with warm affection. It was a happily familiar sight. These…these people, they were…different from her. Yet the same in many ways.
Alodie looked away, splashing the steaming water gently and inhaling the gentle aroma of the herbs they’d put in to sweeten the smell.
As they dressed her, she stretched her limbs, taller and longer than she’d felt since before…
With the salt off her skin, the tangles out of her hair, and the water melting tension from her muscles like warm fat over a flame, she could almost remember who she was. If the demon leader came to her now, she might only scratch his eyes with a knife instead of ripping them right out of their sockets in a bloodthirsty haze.
They fed her a spiced dish of meat and gave her a berry wine to drink, the flavor not familiar enough to name.
A figure appeared at the door and called one of the women over where they spoke in low tones. Alodie might not have noticed, except the woman burst out suddenly, rushing from the doorway back over to the group. “Come, come. Outside. Come. They’re going to see Sigurd—”
She went on, but Alodie couldn’t catch the words. Sigurd, though, she did understand. Presumably there were more demons with that name than the one who’d died—his milk brother.
The narrow space emptied. Behind her, one of the dying embers popped. Alodie jumped.
She held a hand against her thumping heart and took a breath. Next to the door, her green cloak hung on a peg. The wool was damp, but that didn’t matter. She tossed it over her shoulders and wandered outside.
The rain had stopped and the clouds were parting. From behind the dark curtain shone a brilliant pale orange glow. The last moments of a dying day.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sigurd’s Mother
The weight of betrayal was a block of ice upon Thorvald’s shoulders. Because that’s what it was. Betrayal. Was this how his father had felt when he’d fled into the woods?
No, the comparison was invalid. Thorvald was nothing like that man. He didn’t run in fear. He knew his o
bligations and adhered to them. His vow to the jarl had cost him the princess. And had cost the princess far more.
Thorvald pulled free of Ozrik’s grasp and trudged forward toward Birna. Neither of them wiped away the rain falling on their faces. Grief seemed to intensify the years incised on her skin. In her younger days, her hair had fallen below her waist and had been shiny and smooth. It was still long, but had turned wild as more and more strands turned from pure gold to stark white. She wore simple, clean garments, with only oval brooches for decoration.
When they stepped from the dock to solid ground, Ozrik went toward the hall where the jarl and many of the warriors had gone.
She took Thorvald’s face in her hands and gazed up at him, eyes wet and shining with love.
“Children grow so quickly.” Her lip trembled. She swallowed and continued. “Before me is a full grown man, but every time I see you, I see the child I loved, and I want to pull you into my arms to protect you.” She laughed a little. “Not that you or Sigurd much wanted such things, two wild ones that you were.”
Most of the other people had cleared the shore, returning to their lives and leaving them alone.
Except for one. She was the only being who could have drawn Thorvald’s attention away from the reunion with his aunt. One glimpse of her and Thorvald’s blood froze.
The woman was a mass of brown blending into the landscape. And his focus was so intense on what lay ahead, he hadn’t seen her until she moved.
Old Ingerun. With what was perhaps the last vestiges of sight in her clouded eyes, she squinted at him. Hunched over upon herself, she was small the way a fox seems to people after a long winter of seeing only wolves.
It’d been years. She lived alone, deep in the woods, keeping a few goats for milk and meat, a few sheep for wool that she spun and wove, trading cloth and needle-bound socks for what her garden could not provide. For any price between a bowl of warm broth and a silver coin, depending on the status of the one seeking help, she sold herbs for any number of maladies.