A Fire of Roses

by Melinda R. Cordell

  He smiled.

  That unfroze her.

  Gefjun picked up the herring platter and smashed him in the face with it.

  Papa Ostryg flung up his arms and fell backward to the floor, covered with fish.

  Everybody rose from the table, shocked faces turning to her.

  “What happened?” King Varinn demanded.

  Gefjun spat. “I am very sorry to have wasted this delicious fish on this criminal. But this sicko put his hands in his crotch and smiled at me. I have no intention of playing along.”

  King Varinn roared at Papa Ostryg. “I told you, no inappropriate behavior with her. Guards, kick him out of this place.”

  “I’ll bring your keep in fire to the ground,” Papa Ostryg shouted, shaking fish out of his beard as he tried to get up. “I’ll burn down the house of your parents, missy. I’ll cause all of you grief and agony.”

  “Guards, kick this miscreant out and follow him down the road for a few miles,” Varinn said. “Make sure that he leaves. He put my keep in danger last night, and now here he is, threatening me with fire and war. He is no longer welcome here.”

  “You won’t get any of my dragon eggs. I guarantee it,” he yelled as the guards dragged him away, leaving a trail of delicious fish. King Varinn’s wolfhounds came running from outside of the hall, picking up fish and following Papa Ostryg.

  Papa Ostryg was exceedingly wroth, spewing venom and yelling at the dogs. His voice echoed from down the hall until one of Varinn’s guards got up and shut the door.

  Gefjun sat, relieved. She’d heard of societies that protected nasty men and covered their evil deeds with silence. It must be terrible to live in one of those.

  Once Papa Ostryg was gone, she said, “With your permission, your majesty, I need to go back to Aesa and bring her a little food and make sure she’s okay. “

  “Go ahead,” Varinn said with a bow of his head. “I do believe I should have let you do this in the first place.” Then his smile vanished. “I should never have done business with that scoundrel. I apologize for all the pain he has caused you, and for the pain he’s caused that little girl. Go tend to her, with my blessing.”

  She bowed back, her hands shaking, and hurried upstairs with a little plate of food for Aesa and her cup of coffee, which she’d been too agitated to add milk to.

  Sóma nodded at her as she came in. “She’s still sleeping.”

  Sóma was sitting in the window seat, sewing. Gefjun wanted to look at her needlework because Sóma’s fingers were fast and her work was intricate. Gefjun loved sewing, which came in handy when giving people stitches.

  She stroked Aesa’s forehead, and Aesa’s eyes popped open. “Where’s Sissy?” she asked even before her eyes focused on Gefjun.

  “I don’t know,” Gefjun lied, “but I’m sure Finna’s okay, and I bet she’s trying to get to you right now.”

  Aesa sat up and rubbed her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “The king captured my ship. He likes me. But I like him, too.”

  “Nuh-uh. You can’t do that. You’re with Ostryg.”

  Gefjun’s felt the heat coming out of her face and looked down, embarrassed out of her skin. “Ostryg was … somebody … somebody killed him.”

  “Oh no, Juni,” Aesa said, putting her little hands on her arm.

  “He’s been killed. I don’t get to be with Ostryg any more,” she said.

  Gefjun couldn’t stop the tears. Aesa’s arms went around her, and then she was really crying. She hugged Aesa back. Little hands patted on Gefjun’s back.

  Then Aesa said, “I gotta go potty.”

  Gefjun laughed a little through her tears and showed Aesa where the chamber pot was. Then she gave Aesa her food. Sóma brought her some cool ginger water with honey, which Aesa really liked.

  It was time for Gefjun to head down to the prisoners and help fix the wounded. “I’ll be gone for part of the day, though I’ll be back in time for lunch. I’ll eat with you, okay?”

  Aesa sulked but nodded.

  “Sóma can take you for a walk out in the orchard and the garden and you can smell the pretty flowers.”

  Aesa glowered. “I want to stay with you.”

  Gefjun looked at Sóma and shrugged. “Do you want to go with me and Aesa to the prisoner’s bay? If she gets bored, or sick to her stomach, she could leave with you.”

  Sóma hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve found that the best thing to do is let the kid come along and figure things out for herself,” she said, picking up Aesa.

  “I already figured everything out,” Aesa assured her.

  “Well then,” Gefjun said.

  “I have to tell you that I’m not too good with the healing arts,” Sóma said.

  “Bring a little ginger water for yourself,” Gefjun prescribed. “You don’t have to help.”

  “I do not want to help,” Sóma said. “The very thought of blood makes me woozy.”

  “Oh!” Gefjun said, finally understanding what Sóma had been delicately tiptoeing around. “Then definitely do not go. It’s a lot of hard work,” she told Aesa. “Also it’s stinky.”

  Fortunately for Sóma, Aesa was profoundly uninterested in the healing arts as Gefjun practiced them. “You’re supposed to sing over them and make everybody well,” Aesa said.

  “If it worked that well, I’d do it,” she said. “But every person and wound is different, and the magic isn’t the best for that kind of specific work. Not for me, anyway. I haven’t figured out how to do a gigantic mass healing yet, sorry.”

  “I want to see the flowers,” Aesa said. “Can we go see the flowers?” Sóma, looking very much relieved, said they’d go to the orchard.

  “I very much respect what you do,” Sóma told Gefjun, “but I’d rather respect it from a great distance. Or else, to be quite blunt, I wouldn’t be able to stop throwing up.”

  “You’re fine. I’ve seen a number of strong, grown men with that exact same problem,” Gefjun said, and sent them along.

  Then she drank the rest of her coffee, picked up her medical bags, and headed down the steps, down the mountain, to the prisoners and her healing work.

  You know what you should do? Gefjun thought, addressing herself. You need to show Aesa where Finna is at. Let them be reunited.

  And then Gefjun exhaled gustily, a sigh that she was not going to analyze.

  A flutter of wings came in from an open window she was passing, and her puffin friend landed there, all black and white and orange. He gazed at her with his funny little clown eye.

  “Good morning,” Gefjun said to the puffin.

  His orange beak was full of little blue eels, which he offered to her.

  “Nah, I’m good,” she said.

  Together they went down the steps to tend to the prisoners, the puffin sitting on her shoulder, bolting down his eels. A fine picture they made! But Gefjun was perfectly okay with that.

  13

  A BARGAIN STRUCK

  Dyrfinna

  Dyrfinna didn’t get a wink of sleep in the old cat room where she was held prisoner. Though the cats were gone, enough of their fluff remained to keep her head full of snot.

  And, as usual, she was restless. Aesa was somewhere around this keep. Gefjun was, too—and who knew how she’d gotten into the king’s good graces. Dyrfinna’s ship with her crew were here—never mind that the queen no longer considered her their commander.

  At any rate, she’d made a promise to Aesa. So, though Dyrfinna was tired and her nose was stopped up, she attempted to climb the walls. At the very least, she could make her way up to the arrow slits higher up so she could look outside, get her bearings, and maybe find a way to signal somebody for help.

  She had made it halfway up the wall and was trying to search out the next chink in the wall, however microscopic, to take the next step up—when suddenly there came a knock at the door.

  “I’m busy,” Dyrfinna tried to call, but her vocal cords were paralyzed from
when Gefjun’s magic had silenced them yesterday.

  The door creaked open, and somebody sang a quick phrase of music.

  Oh no, Dyrfinna thought, because the music instantly bound her in every muscle.

  Unable to stop herself, she slid down the wall, hit the ground, and ignobly fell over.

  Steps came in. A guard said, “Ooh, I didn’t know you were trying to escape. Sorry about that.”

  That’s fine, no problem, Dyrfinna groaned inwardly. Never felt better.

  The guard sang a short phrase to unbind her, then waited as Dyrfinna slowly got to her feet. She felt tired and sore, and she probably should have gotten more sleep, instead of trying to find a way out. But she could sleep when she was dead.

  “Hold on,” Dyrfinna mouthed, since her voice still didn’t work. She pulled herself to her feet.

  “The king would like to talk to you,” the guard said politely.

  Probably a good thing that Dyrfinna couldn’t talk, after all.

  Two guards waited at the door and escorted her down the hall. They brought her to the throne room where King Varinn sat. The place still smelled like roses, and shutters were open, showing an amazing garden that Gefjun probably would have loved. Good for her, I suppose, Dyrfinna thought.

  She suspiciously eyed King Varinn on his throne. He gazed back in his robes of state with a crisp, tidy beard and sorrowful eyes.

  This was the man who had killed Thora, the queen’s daughter.

  King Varinn looked younger than she’d expected, with sad, dark eyes, as if he’d seen too many griefs already. But that might have been a ploy, too.

  Dyrfinna had known Thora for a few years, ever since her papa had become an ambassador. Thora loved the adventure of sword fighting though she didn’t like battles. She preferred to sing her stories and poems and listen to every bard that sang at her court, good or bad. A whimsical girl, Thora was shy, gentle as a lamb, though stubborn in many things concerning art and poetry.

  Dyrfinna thought of how excited the queen’s daughter had been to be meeting this man, how Thora’s hands shook in Dyrfinna’s when she was telling her about her upcoming trip.

  And she thought of how Thora returned home on a ship of state, dead.

  Then the queen had come to Varinn’s court, killed his oldest son in revenge, cooked his heart, and had served it to Varinn to eat. A revenge that was a little over the top, even if that son was a drunkard.

  All of this ran through Dyrfinna’s mind as she faced King Varinn.

  “Hello again, Dyrfinna,” he said.

  She nodded and bowed slightly.

  “Oh, could one of you take the speaking ban off her?” Varinn asked the three people who stood near him.

  A older woman, who Dyrfinna took was the court magician, nodded to Dyrfinna, who cleared her throat several times.

  In a gravelly voice, Dyrfinna said, “Thank you. Well met, your majesty.” She cleared her throat again. Filthy cats.

  King Varinn nodded to Dyrfinna. “I apologize for your … unconventional reception last night. Gefjun wanted to see you first. Otherwise we probably would have captured you and thrown you in with the other prisoners.”

  Dyrfinna straightened. “Sir, I came here because my little sister was kidnapped out of my mother’s home last night. I was able to pursue the kidnapper on a dragon, and he flew here to this place. Your majesty, I want my sister back, for I fear that you have not been hospitable to your guests in the past.”

  King Varinn’s eyebrow went up.

  “Tell me,” Dyrfinna said. “Is my little sister still here? Is she still alive? For if she is not ….”

  Dyrfinna dropped her hand to her sword—

  But her sword was not there.

  A pulse of alarm leapt through her. Gefjun had taken her sword last night, and by now it had been melted down. How could she have forgotten that?

  Fury glowed in her heart, but she set it aside.

  “I demand to see my little sister,” Dyrfinna continued. “Where is she?”

  “Your sister is in Gefjun’s care right now. She is fine. Gefjun took Aesa from Papa Ostryg as soon as he landed, and she dealt with him as he deserved for taking a child in the dead of night against her will.”

  Dyrfinna felt herself sag in relief. And she hoped that Gefjun had punched him. That girl never fooled around with punches.

  King Varinn’s face darkened. “Now, Dyrfinna of Skala, tell me this. Tell me exactly what the queen says of my hospitality. Tell me in detail, holding nothing back, about the ways she claims my hospitality is lacking.”

  Dyrfinna felt as if she’d taken a step into a hole that had not been there before. Stay calm, she told herself. Control. No good is going to come of this recital. “Your majesty, though I appreciate your willingness to hear hard truths, I hesitate to tell you what I know, as I fear you might retaliate against me.”

  King Varinn leaned forward. “Then I will tell you what was told to me. According to Gefjun, the queen claims that I killed her daughter. That she says my son was older than you, that he was a grown man of twenty-five years, and a drunkard. Is that what your so-called queen said to you?”

  Dyrfinna searched his face carefully, saw the pain and exhaustion in the lines of his brow, the droop of his eyes. She looked at the magician, the porter, who stood with him—on a level with him, she suddenly realized, for his throne was not elevated—and she saw the same grief reflected in their faces and postures as well.

  Tread carefully, Dyrfinna told herself.

  “That is what the queen told us, your majesty. The story is as Gefjun had said. We all believed her. But sir,” she said, searching Varinn’s face, “I have to say that you don’t look old enough to have had a son of that age…”

  He sat watching her, unspeaking, as if waiting for her to do the math.

  So she did. “Sir, unless your son was adopted, it doesn’t seem possible that your son was that old. You don’t look much older than twenty-five yourself.”

  “I am twenty-five years old,” Varinn said in a quiet voice.

  Dyrfinna looked at the king’s court. They gazed back at her, stony faced, even angry.

  The queen had lied to her? To her people?

  And then Dyrfinna’s eyes went wide. How old was that child? Because it had to have been a child. There was no way that the king’s son could be, in any way, an adult.

  If the rest of the story was true, the queen had killed a little boy, cooked his heart, and fed it to his father ….

  Dyrfinna could hardly draw breath to speak, but she gasped out, “Sir, what is the real story?”

  Terrible pain came over King Varinn’s face, and he tried to speak. After a long moment he said in a tight voice, “It is different than what she claimed.”

  Change the subject change the subject change the subject!

  “Sir, tell me, please, why my sister was kidnapped. Tell me how you plan to make it right to her and to me, for the nightmare she was put through last night.”

  “We had to deal harshly with Papa Ostryg,” Varinn said. “He wanted to bring you here, then took it upon himself to do so, without our permission. This left us in a terrible position. He had no right to do this.”

  “He wanted me to come here? But why?” she asked, gobsmacked.

  “He said he wanted to steal the orange emberdragon’s eggs. He said it was his right to steal those eggs because you wouldn’t share them with him.”

  Dyrfinna’s eyes flashed, indignant. “Those babies belong to nobody else but themselves. Your majesty, I made a sacred oath to the emberdragon to keep her eggs safe. If I went back upon my word, then I’m going to be burned to death for it in her white-hot flame. I explained this to Papa Ostryg, clear as day.”

  “You made an oath with a dragon?” King Varinn asked.

  “Well, yes.”

  “How? Dragons don’t talk.”

  “I surprised myself with a piece of powerful magic,” she said. “And now I can communicate with other dragons as a result
.”

  A murmur swept through King Varinn’s council.

  But Dyrfinna wasn’t through with her question. “So why did Papa Ostryg bring me here, to the enemy’s lair, just so he could get those dragon eggs?” she asked aloud. “Begging your pardon, sir. I’m interested in hearing your story, but I want to know, why?”

  “I’m told that you don’t have an army to fight for any more. I need a commander who is willing to throw her weight behind my cause.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I can,” said Dyrfinna.

  “You know the queen was lying to you about ….” King Varinn left the sentence hanging there. “After I saw you flying in for your little sister, I knew I needed a dragonrider of your experience. Every dragonrider of excellent caliber that I have here is already flying.”

  Dyrfinna paused. “Even if what the queen said was lies, sir, I cannot flip my loyalties in an eyeblink. I cannot raise my sword against my own people. Though I no longer have a sword,” she added ruefully. Thanks a lot, Gefjun.

  “But you can’t fight for the queen any more. They exiled you to a dragon isle to die. That makes it clear that they don’t want your services any longer.”

  She was half-willing to simply drop everything she’d ever fought for, all her lovely beliefs in honor and right living that she’d always lived by, just to turn to the king’s side and crush the queen’s commanders in battle.

  But the very thought made her ashamed of herself.

  Because she knew that her victories wouldn’t be paid for by the commanders—by her own father who had thrown her out on a dragon isle to die. Those victories would be paid for by the blood of the warriors who used to fight at her side, whose respect she had earned.

  “I cannot command your armies in the field,” she said sadly, “For then I’d be sentencing to death the warriors who used to fight with me. I can’t do that to them.”

  King Varinn opened one hand, palm up. “I can’t let an asset like you go. You are, by all accounts of my own dragonriders, a worthy opponent, a brilliant fighter, and hard to catch. I find it difficult to understand why your own commanders raised Sinkr over you, then kept letting him lead the army and navy into chaos and slaughter.”