Soul's Fire (The Northwomen Sagas Book 3)

by Susan Fanetti

  He blinked up at her, his jaw working like a fish as he sucked in garbled gasps of air.

  Moving with haste and care, she stripped him of his boots and breeches. She would have taken his chestpiece, too, but she couldn’t make out how it was fastened, so she grabbed the tunic Leofric had given her, and she dressed herself. She was smaller than she’d realized. The breeches were loose, and she had to draw the belt so tightly that the leather gathered in big clumps on her hips. The boots were too large and would make blisters quickly, but Astrid had learned a new level of pain in all things, and blisters were nothing.

  All that mattered was never going back to the black place. Not ever.

  She grabbed the man’s spear—it was heavy and she would never be able to throw it well, but she might use it in close combat.

  The man lay on the floor, still gasping, blinking at her, his body at an odd angle, now that she’d jostled it to undress him. It would be a mercy to stab him through the heart with his spear.

  She left him where he lay.

  ~oOo~

  The corridor was dark and plain. It reminded Astrid of the servants’ quarters in Estland. Now that she thought of it, though it had felt to her like the height of luxury after the black place, the room she’d been in was not nearly as elegant as her chambers in Estland, where there had been elaborate carpets and hangings, and furniture painted with gold, and other oddities of wealthy people.

  She was in this castle’s servants’ quarters, then. That was her best guess. And that was good, because the entrances and exits would be tucked away so the nobles wouldn’t have to see their own filth carried away.

  But servants rose early. She could not dally. Astrid ran, as quietly as she could, letting her natural sense of direction lead her.

  She came to an exterior door without meeting another soul, and she eased it open.

  The outdoors. The full world. Fresh air. Her heart sang.

  Reminding herself to stay calm and pay attention, she scanned the quiet grounds. A few men and women were out and about, and Astrid realized then that she would have been less noticeable if she’d worn the slave dress, with its stupid headpiece and flimsy shoes.

  But she wouldn’t have been able to move the way she needed to move.

  At any rate, it was too late now. The woods were just ahead, on the other side of the castle wall. There was a small door in the wall, a few yards to the right.

  Hoping the door would not be locked or watched, she ran.

  It was locked, but from the inside. There was no watch on it. Astrid slipped through the wall and found herself ten feet from dense woods.

  For days, she’d been drawing in her mind the map they’d used to plot their raid. She knew where they’d landed. She knew how long it had taken the soldiers to attack them from the time they’d overrun the little town. With those pieces of knowledge, Astrid guessed that she would find the shore if she went west, and if she moved quickly for most of a day.

  She turned in that direction and she ran.

  Would she find her friends still there?

  A tiny flutter in her heart hoped she would.

  ~oOo~

  The sun had moved well into the west before she finally found the camp. Exhaustion had turned her muscles to mush, and her knees shook with every step. But her aim had been true, and she’d never found herself circling in the unfamiliar forest. The sun had guided her all the day.

  The camp was gone. The bodies of several horses were scattered around the tent perimeter, rotting into puddles of viscera, and little else left but bone and clumps of hair. So much more time had passed than she’d thought.

  Burnt shards of the tent poles still stretched to the sky, and the spear fence jabbed out into the air at several points, but otherwise the camp was gone.

  Her friends were gone. She had known it would be true, and yet it made her heart ache.

  But grief wouldn’t come. Something in her mind blocked her from mourning her friends. A question she felt but couldn’t see.

  She stood in the center of the camp she’d helped stake and tried to understand what was wrong with what she saw.

  The horses. The horses were the only bodies. The soldiers were gone. So were the raiders.

  If this king’s men were the kind who would leave their horses to rot, would they bury their enemies?

  Or would they take their heads and leave the bodies to rot?

  She scanned the area more closely, forcing her legs to keep moving. She found an iron helm in the grass. A dented steel shield. An arm, rotted nearly to bone, but draped in mail.

  All soldiers’ leavings.

  There was nothing left inside the camp. Not a broken shield, not a scrap of fur or a mead horn.

  They had not been killed.

  They had left.

  They had left her behind.

  No. No. They wouldn’t. Leif would not have left her to the black place. Her friends would not have left her. If they had lived, they would have come for her. She saw in her mind Leif and Vali crashing through her cell door.

  She’d seen it. Again and again, she’d seen it. She’d cleaved to that vision. She’d known it would be true.

  She ran from the camp, toward the shore, careening through the tall grass and down the rise to the water.

  There were no burnt remnants of their skeids destroyed. There was no sign at all that four mighty raiding ships had come to this shore.

  They had sailed away.

  They had left her.

  Astrid’s knees gave up their fight, and she dropped to the rough sand.

  They had left her.

  She was alone.

  Dunstan had returned to court with his new countess, Winifred, and they joined the royal family for most meals, even in the private residence. The king seemed taken with the young girl, who was reserved and modest.

  Or simply shy and immature. She was very young.

  Only a few months past her first blood, and naïve. Possibly dull as well, though it was difficult to tell when so little came from her lips. On a morning when they broke their fast together, Leofric hid a smirk behind a mouthful of bread as he watched his friend try and fail to draw his bride into the table’s conversation.

  The marriage had been arranged with the king’s blessing for its suitability of alliance, not for the compatibility of the couple. Dunstan was nearly old enough to be her father and vastly more experienced in the ways of all things. Vastly less pious as well, except for the ways in which one must show piety.

  But the king doted on the young countess and found smiles and lightness for her. She was only six years older than Dreda had been and small enough of stature to seem younger than her age. Leofric thought the king was reminded of the daughter he’d lost. The reminder seemed to ease him and not cause him more grief, so Leofric and Eadric were glad to have the little mouse nearby.

  Dunstan, however, was frustrated and unhappy. Over ale the night before, they’d both bemoaned their woman troubles—Dunstan’s empty bed since his wedding night and the hurt he’d had no choice but to cause his young bride, and Leofric’s inability to win the Northern woman’s trust and cooperation. He’d been far more forthcoming with his friend about his failure than he had with his family, but he and Dunstan had always kept each other’s secrets.

  It mattered little, in any regard. The king wanted the woman brought to him soon. He wanted to see what progress was made in her healing and her usefulness. Leofric was all but out of time.

  He was, in truth, entirely out of time, because the woman would not yield. It made no difference whether the king summoned her this day or next week or next year. The result would be the same. She would be put to death.

  And he would not have learned even her name.

  Taking pity on his friend, and needing something to do himself to keep his mind off the woman in the servant’s quarters, Leofric inserted himself into a lull at the table and said, “Would you ride this morning, Dunstan?”

  His friend greeted t
he offer with a wide smile. “Yes, Your Grace, that sounds like a fine way to spend a morning while the sun is yet warm.”

  ~oOo~

  They were in the stables a short while later when Elfleda’s girl—Leofric couldn’t remember her name—ran up to them, nearly crashing into him as she tried to hurry and keep her head respectfully low.

  “Yer Grace!” she said, breathless.

  He knew already that it was trouble with the woman. Before he asked, he took her arm and pulled her away from his horse and the stable workers. “What is it?”

  “There’s…Elfleda asks…Will you come?”

  Dunstan was at his side. “Is there trouble?”

  “It seems there is,” he sighed. “If you would wait, we can ride out after I get this sorted.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  The refusal of his offer was on Leofric’s tongue, but the girl’s frantic eyes told him that there might be serious trouble, and he would not mind the support of his friend. So he nodded, and they followed after Elfleda’s girl.

  ~oOo~

  Leofric stared at the guard on the floor. Elfleda knelt at his side. She’d pulled linens from the bed to cover him, because he was all but bare below his waist. The odor in the air told that the man had soiled himself, but Elfleda seemed to have cleaned that up already.

  He was alive, but pale and grey, a sheen of perspiration coating his forehead and the skin above his lip. All he could do was blink and gasp.

  The woman had broken his neck and taken his boots and breeches. The rope she’d used to do it was still around his throat.

  Not a rope. Linen. She’d torn into strips the dress she reviled and made a rope of them.

  She’d run. She’d all but killed this man, a castle guardsman, and she’d escaped.

  On foot.

  “Your project is finished, Your Grace. The king will not give her more time after this.” Dunstan was at his side, also staring at the man.

  Leofric knew it was true, but it turned his stomach to acid. She’d done what any warrior would have done. She’d found a way to escape her captivity. Still weak, with no weapon but her own ingenuity, she’d bested a trained soldier and escaped. She was a marvel of will and perseverance.

  He didn’t want her to die.

  But she had proven beyond all doubt that she would be no use to the realm.

  Elfleda looked up. “There’s nothing I can do for him, Your Grace. He cannot seem to speak, but I don’t think he’s in pain.”

  “Why is he in this room? The guards are on strict orders not to cross this threshold.”

  No one answered, because no one could know. But he could guess. Perhaps she’d used her body; he’d seen the guards try to catch glimpses of her when they thought he wasn’t looking.

  She’d lured him in and overtaken him—a nearly-naked, battered woman against an armed guard.

  “His presence here is a breach of my order. He has no family, as I recall.”

  Elfleda’s face showed a silent diatribe of shock and dismay as she quickly and astutely grasped what he meant to do.

  Dunstan understood as well. “Your Grace, are you certain? Is your barbarian woman so important?”

  His barbarian woman. Yes, she was that—and it was the crux of all his feelings regarding her and every situation around her. She hadn’t left his thoughts since he’d gathered her up from the filthy cell floor, and she’d been a frequent presence before that, since the first day he’d gone into the Black Walls and watched his father watch her torment. Since he’d noted her determined silence against all manner of subjection.

  She was his.

  Though she wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t give him even her name, he remembered the feel of her trust and her need for him, and he had come to know her a little.

  And he thought he knew where’d she run to. The only place in their world she knew.

  Would she know how to get there?

  He answered his friend’s question by crouching down to the disabled guard’s side. Feeling Elfleda’s glaring disapprobation, Leofric wrapped his hands around the guard’s neck and finishing the job the woman had started. His woman.

  When the guard was dead, Leofric stared steadily into Elfleda’s eyes until the healing woman dropped her own. Then he said, “I killed him. Did I not, Elfleda?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” she muttered, staring at her hands.

  “When I confronted him for his dereliction of duty, he attacked, and I killed him. Is that not what happened, Elfleda?”

  A long pause. Leofric waited. Finally, in a voice much softer than her normal strident tone, she said, “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “The woman is in this room right now, is she not?”

  Elfleda looked up at that, her eyes wide with surprise. When she faced Leofric’s steady gaze, she nodded. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  He looked over his shoulder and gave her girl the same steady stare. “And you? What is your name?”

  The girl curtsied. “Audie, Yer Grace.”

  “Audie, do you understand what has happened in this room?”

  “Yes, Yer Grace. You wanna help the quiet lady, so yer gonna say the guard had at ‘er and then you when you stopped ‘im.”

  She was a smart one, little Audie. “And you will say so as well.”

  “Yes, Yer Grace. But…” she cut herself off.

  Leofric stood. “Ask your question.”

  She dipped a little curtsey again. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Yer Grace, but how can we say she’s here when she’s not? What if she’s roamin’ the halls lookin’ for trouble?”

  Smart indeed. But Leofric didn’t believe for a moment that the woman was still within the castle. She would have fled through the first door she found. “Leave that problem to me. For now, you and Elfleda will put the room to rights and leave it closed. Go on with the day as usual.” He turned to Dunstan. “I have an idea where she might have gone. Will you see to the guard—and be discreet? I don’t want the king to know anything at all is amiss until I have her back.”

  “I am yours to command, Your Grace. But Leofric—how will this matter? Can you save her? And why?”

  He didn’t have a way to say the answer, so he simply met his friend’s curious eyes and held them.

  After a moment, Dunstan’s expression changed. An understanding had dawned. “Oh, my dear friend. A child bride or a kitchen wench, either would be a preferable choice.”

  It didn’t matter. “Will you help me?”

  “Of course. Go find your wild woman.”

  ~oOo~

  As he ran to the stable, the warden of the dungeons stepped out from the shadow of an overhang. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Yer Grace,” he said, his voice stuffed and stunted by the leather band he wore where his nose had been. His words had been correct, but his attitude was devoid of all respect.

  Leofric drew up short and glared at the man. “What is it?”

  “If it’s the northern bitch yer seekin’, she ran out through the western wall. I’s on me way to alert the guard.”

  The woman had run hours before. If the warden had seen her run, he’d known then that there was trouble. He’d waited. Why?

  Because he’d been waiting for this—for him. He’d gambled that Leofric would go for her and not tell the king.

  “What is it you want?” he asked, cutting through to the crux of the thing.

  “Jus’ a token, Yer Grace. Fer me trouble.” He tapped the leather across his face.

  Leofric sighed and looked around the bailey. They had no one’s attention; the bustle of work left no time for wandering eyes and provided good cover as well. He nodded, then indicated that they should step into the shadows of the overhang. The warden grinned and moved back.

  When they were tucked into the corner, Leofric reached as if he meant to take his purse. Instead, he pulled his dagger and shoved it up into the soft meat of the man’s flabby chin.

  He watched until the warden gurgled his last breath. Then he used the man’s tun
ic to wipe the blood from his hands and his blade, and he left the body sagged in the corner. He returned to his purpose, going to the stable for his horse.

  A warden of the dungeons had a long list of enemies, and, for that reason, only men without families were chosen for the position. Leofric knew no one would mourn for him or even wonder who had done the people such a service.