She understood now. She’d been trying to define herself by what she’d known, but she was something new.
She was Astrid of the North, a woman stronger than this world could fathom. She had survived the worst suffering they could conjure, and she had risen to claim royalty. She was a shieldmaiden. And she was a duchess. She was a warrior. And she was a wife. She was a lover. And she was a mother.
She made her way in every world, in every life, in every self.
Leofric reached into the carriage, and Astrid took his hand. When she leaned through the door, he caught her around the waist and lifted her out, setting her gently on the ground at his side.
She glared up at him. “I climb from a carriage. Not too big.”
Smiling at her vexed expression, Leofric set his hand on his wife’s swelling belly. She wasn’t big yet, it was true, but as the weather had warmed to true summer, she had finally begun to appear to be with child. He could scarcely keep his hands from her.
Better yet, she had begun to feel movement inside her: the quickening that Elfleda had foretold. The old woman had been right, it seemed. Often, he saw Astrid’s hand on her swell, as if she’d felt the life inside her. And often, she smiled. A tiny smile, only for herself and the child.
In the few weeks since they’d been wed, even before her belly had suddenly popped forward, Astrid had seemed different, in all the ways that Leofric had hoped. She was calmer and more open. Rather than merely answer questions his father or brother put to her, she initiated conversations. Though she’d resisted everything he’d offered her, now that she had it, she seemed to be finally finding her place here. She was making this world her home.
Even the child. He’d waited until a child had been her own choice, but her carrying had vexed her from the start, and he’d begun to worry that she would never be happy to bear his child, or love it. She still didn’t wish to talk about her carrying or to plan for the child, but those little moments he’d spied, those small, secret smiles, they gave him hope.
They spoke little about her life in her world; the memories pained her, and he was loath to remind her of what she’d lost. But she’d told him some about her kin, and knew they’d not been warm with her. He thought she worried whether she would know how to be warm with her own child.
He no longer worried. True, Astrid wasn’t warm in aspect. She rarely made shows of love or affection, and she was far more likely to scowl than to smile. But her emotions burned wild and deep inside her. She loved, and when she did, she loved fiercely. She would be a warrior mother, and her love would be a shield over their child.
Taking her hand, he led her away from the carriage. Her head swiveled to and fro, taking in the sights of this place he’d brought her to for the first time: Eldham, a town on the southern coast of the kingdom. Two trading ships were moored in Eldham Harbor at the same time, and a usually lively market town had taken on the manner of a carnival. Not only the traders offered their wares, but the people of the town and its environs as well. Entertainers and musicians appeared from far and wide, drawn by news of a great gathering of people with money in their purses.
Astrid had been restless since her belly had grown and she could no longer ride. She’d fought and fussed, insisting that she could ride, but he’d allowed her to push the point too far already. The whole castle had been up in arms at the sight of the new duchess, carrying the only of the next generation of the royal family, sitting a saddle as if she were a man and trotting off into the woods. That Leofric was at her side only increased the scandal, because he was being derelict in his duty to wife, child, family, and realm.
He’d fought that fight to win it, and he had. Since then, she’d been in poor humor again, but a mood different from the apathetic indolence she’d fallen into during the early days of her carrying, or the guarded quiet of the time just after her captivity. This was a fit of pique, and he was its target. Leofric vastly preferred her temper to her torpor. If pressed, he might even admit he enjoyed sparring with her.
Still, he preferred her good spirits most of all, so when word came of the traders, he suggested a trip to the south, where she’d not yet been. Market days could be dangerous—cutpurses and blackguards reveled in the crush of people—and it was highly irregular to escort a lady to market while she was with child, but Leofric had married a highly irregular woman. A woman who knew well the use of the blade she carried at her side. He would stay at her side at all times, and they would have an adventure.
So as not to draw particular attention, they’d taken the simplest carriage and were dressed plainly, he in normal leathers, and she in a light wool gown in the blue he loved best on her. It made her eyes seem like the sky shone through them. Their child had grown too much for her to wear her breeches with the split-skirt gowns she preferred, but she’d become used to wearing gowns and complained little about dressing now.
He smiled at her interest in the town and its chaotic offerings. They stopped at every cart, every table, every basket, every window, and the footman who followed after them was soon laden with all manner of new acquisitions, none of which they had need of. All before they were in sight of the harbor.
They stopped and watched a puppet show, and Astrid’s lovely face took on a glow of childlike wonder. He’d never seen such a look on her before, and his heart pulsed hard with love.
He leaned in and pressed his lips to her cheek, just at her ear. “Do you like this?”
“I never see before. How they make them move?”
“There are strings—you see?” He pointed, and she squinted.
“Ah. But how?”
“At the top of the strings, behind the curtain, men move the dolls. They act out stories. Those are puppets.”
“Puppets.” The people around them laughed and applauded, and Astrid moved her attention to the audience. “For make fun.”
He laughed. In her inexpert phrasing, she’d struck on the real truth of it. “Yes. They make fun.” Lifting her hand to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles. “Shall we go on?”
She nodded, but when he led her away, her head stayed turned to the puppet show until she couldn’t see it anymore.
As they finally arrived near the docks, where the real wares were on offer, the exotic treasures from far-off places, Astrid stopped and frowned at the ships. Noticing that they had his wife’s full attention, Leofric studied them, too. He wasn’t a seafaring man, and he knew little of seacraft. All he saw were the masts and furled sails of trading ships like any other. From what he could see of their hulls, he knew they were different from each other, but not in a way he’d be able to describe when he was no longer looking directly at them.
“What is it, Astrid?”
“I know that ship.”
Later, he would remember this moment and think that it was the one in which he might have changed the outcome. If he’d recognized the import of those four words. But when she said them, he was merely confused.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering him, she shook her hand free of his and stalked forward, her strides long and fast.
“Astrid!” He trotted to catch up with her, but the docks were crowded with sellers and buyers, and she blended quickly into the crush.
He knew real panic then. His wife, carrying his child, was alone on the docks, where all manner of bad men lurked.
“Astrid!” He pressed forward, trying to see her. She was taller than almost all the women, but not taller than most men. He was taller, however, and he peered over the heads of the people, trying to catch sight of her fair hair, braided prettily so that it laced across the back of her head. “Astrid!”
He caught up with her at the pier where the ship she’d been talking about was moored. Before she could walk to the gangway, he caught her arm. “Astrid!”
She stopped and turned to him. She was smiling. “I know this ship! The…kapten? I not know word.”
“Captain?” Their words were apparently similar.
“Ja. Captain. He my friend’s brother. This ship stop in my home. Make trade there.”
The first wave of dread washed over Leofric’s heart then. Did she mean to leave him? No. She wouldn’t leave him—she loved him, and she carried his child. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.
That worry so filled his head and heart that he could think of no other.
But he didn’t stop her from charging down the pier and stopping to speak to a rough-looking sailor at the end of the gangway. Leofric followed on her heels, wanting to keep her safe, and wanting to keep her with him.
The sailor showed obvious shock to have such a fine lady come up to him on her own. She spoke in her own language, and the man’s shock didn’t abate. But he nodded and called up to the ship, “Oi! Captain!”
Leofric looked up the gangway, trying to resist the urge to draw his shortsword from its scabbard.
A man with short, dark hair and beard and the ruddy skin that came of a life on the sea appeared at the top. He didn’t seem to recognize Astrid, but she very much recognized him. She went to the gangway and put her foot on it. Leofric grabbed her arm and pulled her back. When she tried to pull her arm free, he held on.
“Stay with me, Astrid.”
She frowned at him and turned back to the man, who was apparently the captain of this ship.
The man descended slowly, his brow furrowed. About halfway down, the furrow became gaping shock.
“Astrid?”
“Ja. Ja! Mihkel!” She spoke words in a different language entirely—one Leofric didn’t understand but was obviously not her own. The captain spoke back in the same language. And then Astrid yanked her arm free and ran up to meet her friend. The two embraced, and Leofric wanted to draw his sword more than ever.
When they stepped back, they spoke again in that especially foreign language. Astrid soon seemed agitated, even angry, and Leofric tried to understand her bearing rather than her words.
Then she wheeled around and turned a look of shocked fury on him.
“Astrid?” He went to her, his hand out, and she shrank away.
“What you do?” she asked. Her tone topped over with stunned accusation. With betrayal.
“I don’t know what you mean. I understand none of this.”
“You make me dead. For my people. They leave me.”
Now, too late, he understood the real danger. “Astrid, come. We’ll talk.”
The captain said something, and Astrid turned her head and considered him. She spoke again.
Leofric would have given much to know what they said.
Whatever it was, the conversation went on for a long time, and Leofric was helpless to act. Then Astrid nodded at the captain and walked down the gangway. When Leofric reached for her, she yanked her arm from his reach and stalked past him.
The captain watched her go, then turned to Leofric and said, in Leofric’s language, “Her people mourned the loss of her. They will not take lightly that she was your prisoner, no matter if you’ve put a crown on her head and a child in her belly.”
“Then do not tell them. Name your price.”
The captain didn’t answer. They stared at each other for a moment longer, and then he turned and walked back up the gangway. Leofric didn’t follow; he had more pressing concerns. Astrid had folded herself into the crowd again.
He went to find his wife. His wife. His.
~oOo~
While he was searching, at the point at which he’d grown truly frantic, one of the footmen found him and told him she was waiting at the carriage. It hadn’t occurred to him that she’d have simply returned there. He wasn’t sure whether he should feel hope that she had, but at least she wasn’t dead in the street—or standing on the trading ship, preparing to sail north.
He ran through the crowd back to the carriage. She sat inside it, staring out the far window.
“I was mad with worry, my love. I’m glad to see you safe.”
She didn’t answer or acknowledge him at all. When he tried to take her hand, she pulled away.
He sat across from her, feeling despondent and lost. “Astrid. Talk with me.”
They’d spoken about her time in the Black Walls, because he’d asked her questions and she’d answered them. But she’d never asked any questions of her own. By the time she had the words to do it, her attention seemed to have turned to the matters of the present, not the past—nor the future, for that matter.
Now, she must have had questions, and she had the words to make them known. But she only stared out the window, her hands slack in her lap.
He knocked on the carriage wall and got them moving back toward home.
~oOo~
The ride was hours long, and they’d sat in tense quiet all the way, even when they’d stopped to water the horses and take a meal. Astrid had taken on that silent stoicism that spoke of deep pain—this of the heart and not the body.
Knowing that she wouldn’t hear any word he might say, Leofric let her be quiet. He spent the ride lost in his own worries and pains.
About an hour or so from the castle, she finally spoke. “I not understand. I think and think, but I not see game.”
“My love? What game?”
“Your game. Your father. I not see why you play with me.”
He leaned forward, and she drew back. “I’m not playing with you, Astrid. I never have. What you see in me is truth.”
She shook her head. “Why you take me? There no questions. Only hurt. Always hurt. Why? You take me and you make so no one come. So you hurt me all you want. Keep me alive for hurting. Why?”
He gave her the answer he hoped she could understand. “Vengeance.”
Finally, she faced him straight on. “What for vengeance? How I earn that?”
“My sister. Dreda.” He’d told her that he had a younger sister who’d died, but nothing more than that. It had been too painful to talk about, and too fraught. But now there was no avoiding it. “She was only nine years old, and your people murdered her and defiled her.”
“No. No!”
“Yes. I held her body in my own arms. She was naked and bloody and torn apart, and she died worried that she’d been bad. That is why you were made to suffer. My father wanted you to carry the sins of your savage people.” His voice shook as he remembered the rending pain of Dreda’s death.
Her brow creased with confusion. “There only peasant girl.”
“That was Dreda. She often slipped into the woods to play. She was fascinated by your people and wanted to see. And you tore a little girl apart. Raped her bloody. Whether she was peasant or princess, only animals would do such a thing.”
“No.”
“Yes, Astrid. I never wanted what happened to you, but I understood it. Losing Dreda nearly killed my father. It nearly undid us all.”
“No. She not raped.”
“I saw her. She was bare. Her thighs and belly dripped with blood.” His fists clenched at the memory.
“No! I stop him! His blood! His!” She slammed her fists on her thighs. “I find Vidar on girl. We not take childs or rape, but Vidar angry. Village have no treasure. He want take what he find. Girl fight—hard. She hit him with rock. Make him bleed bad. He bash her head before I can stop. His breeches still closed. I put my blade on his throat and take him back. He judged by us all and go to death. We not hurt childs! I take his head! My blade give her justice!”
As he understood the import of all her angry words, garbled by an accent grown thick with stress, his guilt for her suffering grew until it was a thunder in his head. “Astrid. My God.”
“Your god cruel and petty! His priest watched all my hurt and…and…This why you took me? Why I lose all? Why my bones ache always and night too dark? This how you make vengeance? There no honor! You tell my people I dead and leave me alone to hurt! You take everything! You—you know I think they leave me! You say there trust and truth with us, but you make lies! You make me yours and know it all lie!”
“It’s not a lie! What’s be
tween you and me is not a lie! Astrid!” He couldn’t stand being across the carriage from her anymore. He knew she found calm when he held her. He leapt to the other side and grabbed her, trying to force her to let him hold her. To let him love her and comfort her and find a way to make sense of it all. To force her to forgive him yet again.
But she fought with all she had, kicking and biting and punching. Then, somehow in their violent tangle, she got hold of the dagger he’d given her for safety. She brandished it in his face, and he let her go and threw himself back against the seat.
“There no truth in this place. Only pretty words.”
Soul's Fire (The Northwomen Sagas Book 3) Page 26
