Robbergirl

by S T Gibson

  Robbergirl

  S.T. Gibson

  Copyright © 2019 S.T. Gibson

  All rights reserved.

  It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  Eminence Publishing

  stgibson.com

  ISBN-13: 9781795620031

  To the girls whose names I worshipfully pronounced to myself in secret: you helped make me. To the girls who love hard and loud no matter the consequences: I made this for you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am indebted to my fantastic team of sharp-eyed early readers, McKinley and Joan, who helped me find the vulnerability this book required. Similarly, I would be lost without the inimitable Kit Mayquist, who midwifed this book and played editor throughout the process. Together the three of you kept me focused, attentive to the story, and committed to doing my best work.

  I would be remiss not to thank Mr. Hans Christian Andersen, whose source material provided the backbone of this novel. The Snow Queen was a beloved companion through most of my childhood, and I hope that this book inspires others to seek it out and enjoy the gifts within its pages.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  ONE

  Helvig crouched silent and unseen in the branches of a pine tree, an arrow poised between the fingers of one hand and her shortbow gripped in the other. Her thick scarf and cap obscured her face almost completely, except for a sliver of sightline through which she watched the dirt road below.

  They had been out here for hours, rooting around for any signs of life on the deserted trade route. The heavy snowfall had deterred most of their usual fare from braving the elements. Merchants weren’t often willing to risk getting their wagons stuck in ice, and pleasure travelers were rare this far north even in the most temperate of seasons.

  Truth be told, Helvig had expected to spend another uneventful afternoon shivering in the trees, trying to keep up her men’s morale while her own mood plummeted with the temperatures. She hated looking down the barrel of failure, especially when there was little she could do to change her own luck.

  The lifestyle of a thief was decided largely by having the boldness to seize opportunities when they arose, and by having skill enough to escape those opportunities to tell the tale. But no amount of skill could produce unsuspecting travelers where there were none.

  A ripple of white caught Helvig’s eyes through the trees.

  At first, she thought it was one of the animals who grew winter coats to hide themselves in the snow, a hare maybe, or a fox. But then a figure stepped through the forest at the end of the road, and the ripple took the shape of a woman wearing a fine fur cloak. She travelled alone, without so much as a walking stick or scribbled instructions to guide her home. And she was walking Helvig’s direction.

  Fortune be praised. An easy target.

  The thief hissed down at the three men loitering in the bushes below. It was the sharp, wordless sound mothers used to corral children who squirmed too much in church. Branches cracked and leaves rustled as her men hunkered further down into their hiding places.

  Helvig had arranged them in a simple flank formation, so simple even they would be hard-pressed to break rank, and had ordered them to hide until the opportune time.

  She prayed they would remember "opportune time" meant once you could see the white of your quarry’s eyes, and not when they were still well down the road with plenty of room to tuck tail and run.

  Don’t ruin this for us, boys, she thought, and promised herself for the hundredth time that she wouldn't get involved unless absolutely necessary. They would never learn otherwise.

  The traveler approached at a meander, face obscured by her hood, hands tucked into cloak. Helvig sized her up, noting her slight statue and the delicate moccasins she wore, clearly intended for gentler weather. She was no peasant’s daughter.

  Helvig could practically smell the purse full of family money such a lady must be carrying, and her mouth watered.

  She waited until the woman was close enough to see the beaded embroidery on her shoes, and then she strung her bow tight. Her father had taught her the stealth of letting the noises of the forest swallow her own, and the creak of the bowstring blended seamlessly with the groan of trees bending under the weight of new snow.

  Now, she urged silently. Act now!

  Helvig’s three men set upon the stranger from the trees and roadside ditches, waving their shining knives at her. They whooped and shouted for her to stay right where she was, but she did not look tempted to run. She simply regarded them quietly from within her hood. Her pale hair hung heavy as hangman’s rope over her breasts in two thick plaits, fastened at the end with spherical baubles.

  The crow perched on her shoulder shook the dust from its feathers and gave a mournful cry.

  -kai!

  "Hand over your purses and parcels," Wilhelm growled. Helvig always placed him at the head of the pack because he towered well beyond six feet and had the thick accent of a Bavarian who had not yet acclimated to life in the north. The effect was an intimidating one, and usually enough to make merchants turn out their pockets. He was the oldest of the highwaymen, still young in the face but of the age when men started settling down and siring children.

  The traveler reached up to knuckle the crow under its chin. It wore two cuffs of gold around its tiny feet, and they clinked together when it shuffled on her shoulder. Helvig had never seen a tame crow before, but she tried not to let the oddity distract her.

  Why isn’t she screaming or begging for her life? Does she know something we don’t?

  "No tricks," Wilhelm said. Behind his back, the two younger boys glanced at each other warily. Helvig could have throttled them. Half of this business was being able to play the part correctly, and they didn’t seem interested in committing to their roles.

  The stranger pulled back her hood to reveal blue eyes and a maiden’s unlined face.

  Helvig almost lowered her bow. The traveler was no older than she was, just a slip of a girl wrapped in an oversized cloak. She had never seen a woman so young out on the roads alone.

  Pity stirred in her chest before she tamped it down.

  "I carry neither," the stranger said. Her voice was throaty and weathered, older-sounding than Helvig expected.

  Wilhelm suppressed a shudder. Someone, somewhere, must have walked over his grave. At least, Helvig hoped that was the case. She couldn’t afford him losing his nerve again.

  "Don’t be clever," Rasmus said. As usual, he wore a nose that had been broken many times and a tattered army coat that had seen more gallant use. The boy always sounded like he was on a stage, but at least he was getting the hang of what to say. Helvig had been his instructor in the fine art of thievery since they were both fifteen, and almost two years later he was still stubborn and slow on the uptake.

  The shoulders of the traveler’s fox cloak fell back to reveal her collarbones, stark with hunger, and a braid of herbs knotted around her neck. At the end of the necklace hung a small charm
inscribed with runes, ancient letters passed down to Swedes and Finns by their ancestors.

  "She’s a witch," Wilhelm hissed.

  The word rippled through the highwaymen faster than plague on the back of rats, jumping from one man to the next.

  Helvig gritted her teeth. She was losing them.

  "Ain’t been no witches since the hunts, if there ever were any," a scrawny, pox-faced boy snapped. Jakko was the youngest, all awkward angles and peach fuzz, and he was brandishing a dagger too large for him that was in sore need of sharpening. "Don’t go all soft-headed on us."

  The German shook his head, making the sign of the cross.

  "I knew of a woman in Augsburg. She stole men’s potency in dreams and made all the wet nurses in the village dry up. She made charms just like—"

  "Did she keep your cock on a tree in her backyard and walk it round the town square on a little chain, too? We’ve all heard the wives’ tales, Wilhelm; don’t be stupid."

  "You grab her then."

  The poxy boy blanched and shifted in his boots.

  "Why me, eh?"

  "She’s 100 pounds soaking wet, Jakko," Rasmus said. He looked like he was having great fun despite not being willing to take a step towards the girl himself. He had never been able to resist the siren call of other people’s misfortunes, and enjoyed watching it from afar. "Be a man about it!"

  Jakko took a faltering step towards the witch, then cast a glance back towards his comrades. Wilhelm motioned him on impatiently.

  The boy straightened his back and marched right up to the strange girl. No wavering, just like Helvig had taught him.

  "He said give over your purse, girl."

  He grasped her tight by the upper arm, and the crow squawked and took flight.

  In the space of a breath she had drawn a gleaming knife from inside her cloak and pressed it to his throat.

  Helvig’s breath caught, and her arrow strained to fly straight and true, but she didn’t fire. Not yet. Jakko had never learned the sense in waiting to act until the last possible moment. He always struck first, convinced everyone was out to get the better of him.

  Helvig paused long enough to note that the knife looked like it was better accustomed to slicing apples than slitting throats, and to realize that if the witch wanted Jakko dead, he would be bleeding out in the dirt already.

  The girl was bluffing, but only scarcely.

  If Helvig had not been the one responsible for keeping Jakko alive, she would have been impressed.

  "You will not keep me from my business, boy," the witch said. Her eyes, so placid moments before, had gone storm-dark. "Let me pass."

  Helvig spied the tiny tremor in the traveler’s hand.

  Not so accustomed to bloodletting after all, she thought. But no stranger to rough company, either.

  On the ground, the men grumbled, unsure if coming to Jakko’s aid was the most advantageous thing to do. Helvig watched them deliberate and chewed the inside of her mouth. One less thief alive meant one less slice of the spoils of divvy up, that was true, but you didn’t work these roads with a body day in and day out without becoming amicable with them, brotherly even.

  Still Rasmus, ever the coward, and Wilhelm, superstitious as a priest, shrank away. Jakko's blood wasn’t worth getting cursed by a witch nasty enough to survive the hunts of decades past, it appeared.

  Their idiocy was staggering. That girl was no more a witch than Helvig was a saint, but apparently all it took to convince her men was a little rune charm and some unnerving calm.

  "I’ll gut you," Jakko snarled, and twisted the girl’s arm hard enough to bruise. She showed him her teeth.

  "Let me go or I’ll curse you with the dropsy for the rest of your miserable life."

  She was buying time, with no intention of opening his throat right there in front of God and everyone, but the boys were too shaken up to see it.

  Jakko spit at her. She started muttering under her breath, dark guttural sounds in a language more fit for the dead than the living.

  Wilhelm, who had apparently seen enough of witches in his life to suffer any more, sheathed his knife and began to scuttle away with his hands raised in fearful deference. Chaos swirled among the men, and the sounds of angry, fearsome shouts echoed through the thickly-treed woods.

  Helvig groaned.

  "That’s enough," she said, clear and sharp as a gunshot. "Drop the knife."

  The witch looked up and spied the arrow poised over her heart. All the blood drained from her face, and Helvig smiled.

  Her knife fell from her hand.

  Jakko snatched up the knife and shoved the girl away like she was diseased. Returning the arrow to its quiver, Helvig dropped lightly from the tree. The men parted instinctively, allowing their leader through to the front of the raiding party.

  Helvig smacked Rasmus upside his head as she passed.

  "You could have done something," she said. "Anything would have been nice."

  Rasmus glowered at her.

  "Wilhelm panicked too!"

  Helvig pulled the thick scarf away from her mouth and spat out a long, curling tendril of chestnut hair.

  "Then you’re bigger fools than I gave you credit for, well done both of you."

  She jabbed a threatening finger in Wilhelm’s direction but let the issue lie. She would deal with them later.

  For now, she approached the stranger in their midst with decisive strides, stopping right in front of her face to show that she wasn’t intimidated by her gibberish incantations.

  The witch took a half-step back when Helvig encroached, suddenly wary. Pleased at the effect she had, Helvig tilted her head and smiled.

  "You must be a very powerful witch, to strike such fear into the hearts of my men," she said, crossing strong arms that were latticed over with the white ghosts of old wounds. Her voice was bawdy-bright and fearless. She had learned her bravado from men twice her size.

  "Your men?"

  They were as close as breath to one another now. Helvig was a little taller and more tanned from summers spent working in the sun, while the other girl was so pale it was almost alarming. Miniscule blue veins showed through her skin.

  "Can’t you tell? I’m a princess." The archer approximated a crude curtsy. Her upper hand had her feeling braggadocious. "Princess Helvig of the mongrel dogs and God-forsaken bastards, at your service."

  Rasmus let out a wheezing cackle, and his laughter was soon joined by the derisive snickers of the other two men. Helvig’s flippancy always emboldened them, even when they were up to their knees in trouble.

  "I’m afraid you’ve fallen in with some of the wickedest company in these woods," Helvig went on. She surveyed the girl’s large, deep-set eyes and her lovely thin mouth. As pretty as she was clever, up close. "But what’s it to a little finch, winged so far from home?"

  "I have business in the north," the witch repeated. She hadn’t shrunk away from Helvig outside of that first faltering step, and her voice was steady, but anxiety was building behind her eyes. Her sense of safety was April ice over a frozen lake; false, sheer, and unable to support her weight.

  How much pressure would it would take to shatter her security? Would the witch would cry then? Helvig had never seen anyone keep her head so long during an ambush.

  Helvig tugged off her cap, and a mane of tangled curls and knotted braids came tumbling out. She punched a little shape back into her hat and regarded the traveler with a squint.

  "There’s nothing north of these woods but Samiland and ice. I somehow doubt you’ve come to do trade with the reindeer herders, since you seem to be in possession of nothing worth selling."

  "I seek the queen."

  "Sweden has her queen, Charlotte. The north needs no other."

  The traveler ran her tongue over cracked lips and cast her gaze from the archer to the band of thieves and back again.

  "I’m looking for the Snow Queen."

  Helvig tipped her head back and laughed like a trumpet. The men beh
ind her guffawed and slapped their knees, and she shook her head at them as if to say pity the girl, she’s touched.

  But when she looked back at the cold-eyed girl standing before her unsmiling, uneasiness tapped a little rhythm against Helvig's ribs.

  "Come on, birdie," she said. "No need to lie to us. The Snow Queen is a fable. What’s your business in these woods?"

  "I told you."

  "Oh?" Helvig was just as intrigued by this digression as she was irritated. The wise thing to do would be to pat down the girl for her valuables, spook her soundly for good measure, and let her pass unharmed. But Helvig couldn’t fathom what circumstances could have possibly led to this chance meeting, and curiosity gnawed at her.

  "And what will you do when you find her?"

  "I’m going to kill her."

  The steel in the girl’s voice cut the knees out from any of the men’s laughter still rippling in the air.

  "Nothing good comes from meddling in the affairs of witches," Wilhelm said warily. Helvig shot him a black look. His superstition had nearly cost them their quarry, and she didn’t have the patience for it on a good day.

  "We don’t even know if she’s really a witch, idiot," Jakko said. "She’s just some stupid girl pulling fairy stories out of her ass. Snow Queen? Are we really supposed to believe that?"

  Helvig couldn’t believe that for once, rash Jakko was being the most reasonable out of all of them. Of course, he was right. Wilhelm had called her a witch without her ever having to claim the title, and she only hoped to save her own skin by playing along. Admittedly, it was sly.

  "You outta strip her, Helvig" Rasmus said, scrubbing the frostbitten tip of his crooked nose with the back of his mitten. "See if she’s got a witches’ teat. That’s how they suckle their familiars, you know. I bet that bird of hers is one of the devil’s own."

  "We could truss her up and throw her in the river," Jakko offered. "See if she floats."

  "Nah, I want to see her teat."

  "No one’s showing their teats," Helvig snapped. She never liked stories about witches. They usually ended with women humiliated and dead.