Soul's Fire (The Northwomen Sagas Book 3)

by Susan Fanetti

  His sleepy mind only registered that he was the one out of place, not Astrid, when Elfleda’s wide-eyed, pinched-lipped face glared back at him. A compendium of judgment was written in every crease of the woman’s expression.

  “Good morning, Elfleda,” he said, affecting a regal tone.

  “Your Grace,” she responded with the barest possible curtsey. “If I disturb, I shall return later.”

  He sensed Astrid stir and sit up behind him.

  “No,” he said. “Come in and do your duty.”

  He enjoyed the look Elfleda gave him then—she’d heard the rebuke he hadn’t said and knew he meant to remind her of her place.

  He needed to be careful how he pressed Elfleda. She had power among the servants. Not only a healer, she had charge of the women who served the castle, the scullions and chambermaids alike, and were she to let any word slip about what happened in this room, Leofric and Astrid would find their circumstances deeply complicated. Especially after the day before.

  They were relying on the tight lips of too many people now. Once the story of the guard’s death was widely known—the story, Leofric hoped, that they had concocted—then attention would be drawn to this room. The people who knew the truth must have no reason to share it.

  The bed moved; Astrid had risen. He saw Elfleda turn a different look on her—protective, not censorious. Interesting. Despite Astrid’s recalcitrance and Elfleda’s complaints, the older woman had developed an interest in the ‘shameless barbarian.’

  He watched as Astrid, fully bare, went to Elfleda and put her hand on the healer’s arm. Elfleda flinched with surprise but didn’t pull away.

  “Tack. Thank. Elf-Elfleda. Thank.” Her tongue had trouble with the name, but not so much to be unclear.

  Wonderment overtook the judgment on Elfleda’s face, and Leofric thought he saw her eyes fill. She nodded and patted Astrid’s hand. “You’re welcome, dearie. It’ll be all right now, I think.”

  She shot a look at Leofric, and that one said that if he didn’t make sure it was all right, she’d find a way to make him sorry.

  He grinned back. Their secrets were safe with Elfleda—and, therefore, they were safe.

  Then the healer picked up the fresh bundle of folded clothes—she was nothing if not persistent—and held it out to Astrid. “Please, dearie. You must dress. It doesn’t do for a lady to be as you are.”

  Leofric knew that was too many words for Astrid to understand, but she understood enough. The gist—trying to get her to wear a dress she did not want.

  Instead of casting it away in a fit of pique this time, she turned to him. She patted her legs and spoke in her language. Then she heaved a sigh. “You. Like you.”

  He wished he could explain to her that his people—her people, now—felt differently about their bodies than she did. Bodies were to be kept private. Adam and Eve had been cast out of the Garden; they’d known their nakedness, and never since had bare bodies in public not been considered shameful.

  A woman’s body in particular. A woman in breeches was more than simply scandalous. A woman in breeches would be an outrage, an affront to God. A woman’s legs were for no one but her husband and her attendants.

  Or her lover, but such things were unspoken and unheard, and thus didn’t exist. In this world, so much of propriety was keeping secrets rather than keeping faith. It wasn’t the first time Leofric had had that thought.

  The artifice didn’t change the reality, however. Appearance mattered.

  “I’m sorry. There is no other way.” He got up. Elfleda gasped and turned away at his nakedness, which he hadn’t even noticed. Astrid’s nonchalance had affected him, it seemed. He grabbed his breeches and yanked them on. Astrid watched him. Then he went to her and took her hands.

  “If you wear that”—he pointed to the bundle of clothes Elfleda yet held—“We can go out there”—he pointed to the windows, bright with sunlight.

  She stared at the windows for a long time. Then she turned back to the clothes and Elfleda, who smiled and nodded like a mother encouraging her child.

  She turned to him, a question in her eyes. He could see that the dress meant something profound, that she would give up something crucial to her if she were to agree. But he saw no other…

  A ghost of an idea wisped through his mind. He needed time to think that out. For now, though, he squeezed her hands and said, “Please.”

  She studied him for a moment, her eyes narrow and keen, and then she blew out a slow breath and nodded.

  As she picked the bundle up from Elfleda’s relieved hands, her shoulders sagged. Leofric saw an unhappiness much deeper than some yards of woven fabric should delve.

  “I’ll let you dress. I must get to the residence before my father and brother break their fast. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and we’ll go outdoors today. Into the wood, if you’d like.”

  He was blathering, words she couldn’t possibly understand, but he wanted to reassure her, and he hated to leave. He wanted her to know. Finally, he kissed her cheek and said, “Soon.”

  She nodded as if she understood, and he tore himself away from her and dressed as quickly as he could.

  He had to get to his father and brother and manage the story of the dead guard and the warrior woman coming back to life.

  And he had to visit the Keeper of the Wardrobe as well.

  Astrid despised the clothes women in the castle wore. She didn’t understand how the women were able to work so encumbered. The sleeves were heavy and draped over the hands, the neck of the underdress bound at the throat, and the layers of skirts wound around the legs and made walking near impossible.

  She still refused to wear the head covering. The women of her people covered their heads, too, but that was a matter of efficiency. These head covers were heavy, like the wings of great birds hanging over their shoulders.

  She didn’t need many words of this ugly language to understand that these people believed that women bore shame like they bore breasts—because they bore breasts—and did all they could to cover them up.

  Except the rich ladies, who showed spans of their chest, between their shoulders. It was apparently only the common women who bore the shame, and likely bore it for the rich ones as well as for themselves.

  After Astrid had suffered in these cumbersome dresses for a few days, Elfleda brought her one of the rich gowns in fine silks. She’d hated that even more. It squeezed her bosom and belly and bound her arms. If she ever had cause to fight in this place, she’d first need to tear such a dress off and go at her foe bare.

  So she wore the rough-spun dresses in simple shades of brown and blue, and she braided her hair and tucked it up, making as little of it as she could, and Leofric pronounced it enough that she could be seen in this world.

  Not that she wanted to be seen among these people. They all stared at her when she walked past. And they whispered. In her boiled leathers, she would scarcely have noticed, but in these odd, uncomfortable clothes, with no axe or shield in her hands, she heard and saw it all. Even if she only understood a stray word here and there, she knew the meaning of those whispers and stares.

  They saw her as a beast tamed. And they saw Leofric as the one who’d tamed her. Her master.

  Perhaps he had tamed her—or the black place had, and Leofric had simply picked up what they’d left. She no longer knew who she was. What she had been, where she had come from, all of that was lost to her now. This world covered its women up and made them helpless. There were no shieldmaidens here, and she was nothing else.

  There was no place in this world from someone like her, and she had no other place.

  It was why she stayed in this room when Leofric wasn’t with her, though she was no longer under guard. There was nowhere for her to go, nowhere she understood.

  Every day, when Leofric came to lead her from her room and into his world, she walked tall and resolute through the castle, and the grounds, and finally out into the wood. Only then, when they were alon
e again and she was in a world she understood, trees and ground and sky that she could almost believe might be home, could she set away the sense that she was lost.

  In the wood, alone with Leofric, she found some ease.

  She trusted him. A voice in her mind told her to remember the game, to look for trouble and betrayal on the edges of her sight, but he was the only thing here Astrid felt like she understood. Even without words, he seemed to know what she needed, and even without words, she believed she understood his intention.

  He’d given himself up to her. Completely, on that first night. And then, while his face and neck swelled and his body purpled from the abuse she’d heaped on him, he’d treated her like a lover. Since then, he’d treated her always like a lover, and not only in bed. He touched her like a lover, even hooking her hand over his arm as they walked through the grounds, which seemed a scandalous thing, judging by the reactions of the people who saw them.

  Astrid had never had such a relationship with any man before. She’d never before felt what she felt for Leofric.

  She told herself to beware, to remember that it had been the king, Leofric’s father, who’d put her in the black place, and possibly even Leofric himself. She tried to force herself to remember the deep despair she’d felt, the overwhelming pain, and to remind herself that soft feelings for the one who’d brought her back into the light did not mean love.

  And yet, love was what she thought she felt. She felt it from him, in his touch, his look, his voice, and her heart returned the same feelings. It was love, or it was madness. Astrid had never felt either before.

  But each time he came into the room and smiled at her, her mind went quiet, and her heart and body clamored. Each moment she spent with him, she felt calmed.

  She didn’t know who she was, or who she might become, or if she would have the chance at all, but she did know that Leofric was someone important to her, and she believed that she was important to him as well.

  Perhaps she could learn to let that be enough. Perhaps she could find herself in his eyes.

  Perhaps that woman would be comfortable in this place, in these clothes, with her hands empty and soft.

  ~oOo~

  As Audie was clearing the morning tray, Elfleda came in with the day’s dress. Since Astrid had agreed to wear the clothes, the old woman brought in something new each day, and a fresh, flowing sleeping dress each night.

  Astrid enjoyed these two women, old and young. They did their work and made few demands, and they treated her like a person, not like a strange beast.

  They were as yet the only people, other than Leofric, that she had cause to try to speak to. Their way of speaking was much different from Leofric’s, thicker and broader, like the difference in accent between the people of Karlsa and of Geitland. The words were the same, but their sounds were little alike. It was not far different from learning two new languages at once.

  They’d always been kind enough, but once she’d tried their words, they’d become friendly. Elfleda treated her like a mother—not her mother, but the gentle kind that others seemed to have. Audie seemed still a little fearful, but her curiosity and kindness were strong and turned that fear to awe. Audie was the hardest to understand, however, so they communicated in pantomime still.

  Speaking this tongue had been a decision, and once Astrid had made it, she had few qualms about it. Wearing the clothes had been a concession, and that felt like a weakness. So she couldn’t resist pulling a face at the new bundle of clothes. These would be wool, she knew. The weather had cooled in the past days. Even heavier fabric to weigh her down.

  Elfleda, however, grinned broadly, showing a yellow smile missing two teeth. “Something special for you today, dearie.”

  Astrid frowned. She’d grown to like hearing herself called ‘dearie,’ but didn’t understand one of the words. “Special?” The middle of the word didn’t come out the way she’d heard it.

  “Special, aye. Means you’ll like it. Come see.” She walked to the bed and set the bundle down.

  It was wrapped in a piece of plain linen, and that was unusual. Normally, it was simply a neat stack of folded fabric. Elfleda began to open the linen, and Astrid went over to watch.

  There was leather. On top, there was leather. She reached out and brushed her hand over it. Not boiled; soft. So not armor. But leather nonetheless. She picked it up.

  Breeches. Gods, it was breeches! Astrid slapped her hand over her mouth to quash the odd sound coming from it.

  There was more leather—a chestpiece, or something like one. Small, and artful, and still soft, but a good leather with give. The color matched the breeches: a deep, rich brown, like fallen leaves.

  Under those glorious pieces was fabric, a lot of it, in a rich blue. It was different from the linens and wools she’d been wearing, or the silks she’d tried. She set her hand on it—it was wool, but so soft. Like Leofric’s chestpieces. What he called doublets.

  Elfleda picked that one up and shook it out. A gown. A fancy gown. The shine wore off Astrid’s wonder at her new clothes. But then the old woman took hold of the skirt and lifted a piece.

  It was split in front.

  Elfleda laid the gown on the bed, spread neatly, and took the breeches from Astrid’s hands. She set them on the dress, under the split, showing how to wear it. Then she closed the split. It didn’t show. She set the chestpiece on the dress as well.

  “His Grace had it made special for you, dearie.”

  Leofric had given her something she could wear and feel herself in, or at least a piece of who she’d been. He did know her—and he didn’t expect her to give up all of herself. He didn’t expect her to be tamed.

  “Special,” Astrid murmured and brushed her hands over the gown. “Special.”

  “Aye,” Elfleda said, smiling. “Well, let’s be getting you dressed, then.”

  ~oOo~

  There was a glass in the room. Astrid had never cared much for looking into a glass, except when she braided her hair in more than a single braid, but she couldn’t stop looking into this one.

  She’d let Elfleda braid her hair, and she’d done something almost like Astrid’s style but more elegant. The plaits were not so tight at the scalp and seemed to be woven together into a pattern at the back. She hadn’t been able to see that very well. But she could see her clothes.

  The gown was soft, the wool like a cloud, and the blue made her eyes seem like light shone from them. The leather chestpiece over it—Elfleda called it a corset—was snug, but not uncomfortably so, and it had a high neck at the back. An ornate design of curls and sweeps was tooled into the leather. The gown itself had no adornment and needed none. Its wide neckline filled in the V of the corset—for modesty, Elfleda had cooed.

  It was a word that seemed to have to do with women’s shame in this place, but nothing could taint Astrid’s pleasure at her new clothes.

  The breeches fit her like skin. How had he known the fit of her body? His hands, good as they were, could not have been so deft to know that. If Astrid had had enough of their words, she would have asked if Elfleda had had something to do with this gift.

  But she contented herself stalking around the room, feeling the leather over her legs, the wool of the gown swinging free and not catching around her calves.

  It would be disappointing to put the silly thin shoes on her feet, beneath the breeches, but she didn’t have boots. All of the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d been captured had been destroyed, she supposed.

  Pushing that thought away, she sighed at the little shoes.

  Before she could sit down and put the shoes on, the door opened, and her mind got quiet. Leofric stood there, looking as though his mind had gone quiet, too.

  He stood and stared, his mouth slack. Then he blinked and came in. As he closed the door, Astrid saw that he held a pair of black boots in his hand. They looked very much like his own, only smaller. Her size.

  Perhaps she could find her way in this place, if she had Le
ofric to guide her and to understand. Perhaps she could learn to be right in this place.

  It was love, not madness, she felt in her heart.

  A smile took over his slack features, and he crossed the room to her. “You are beautiful. So beautiful.” He took her chin in his hand and drew his thumb over her mouth. It was a common gesture he made. A lover’s touch.

  She knew the word beautiful, and she smiled. “Thank.” Remembering the proper phrasing, she repeated, “Thank you.” She patted her chest, feeling calm in the leather. “This me.”