The Price of Blood and Honor

by Elizabeth Willey

  Fulgens scowled at him, but Prospero sprinkled sand in the firepan of his Summoning apparatus and the frown vanished from the Mirror of Visions, to be replaced by his own face. He turned away, out of humor for self-admiration, and took the lamp into the bedchamber, where Odile met him with her clouds of darkness and soft arms.

  In an in-between moment, Prince Gaston’s nap ended and he was sharp awake. Freia had moved, was moving, jerky, spasmodic motions.

  “Lass, Freia, how now,” he said to her. “Nay, don’t—thou’lt be cold.”

  “Cold now.”

  “Stay nigh me. Warmer.”

  “Papa?” Freia fought her head free and woozily looked at him, squinting in the candlelight and flameglow from the fire. Recognition came slowly to her, dazed as she was. “You … oh.”

  “I found thee i’ the snow. Thou’lt be right.”

  “No …” she moaned.

  He needed no strength to pull her back to him. “Aye. Stop thy thrashing, lass.”

  “Why …”

  “And let us not debate whys and wherefores and insofars now. Th’art half-frozen yet. There is naught to warm thee but me, small fire, and honey in wine.”

  Freia allowed herself to be embraced, shuddering. “Hungry,” she whispered.

  “I’ll bring thee some of that honey. There’s naught else.”

  It was better this way; she managed, with a steadying hand from Gaston, to drink from the cup. “Ech,” she said, swallowing.

  “I’d not have it in other circumstance,” he agreed. “Yet it warms.”

  “Mm. Just honey and water?”

  “Very well.” He mixed it for her, helped her drink it. “More?”

  Freia downed another cup of the honey-water. “ ’Nough.”

  “For now. More in a little while. Must keep thee fuelled.”

  “Rather not,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. “Cold …”

  Gaston began to move to get into the bed with her, but stopped himself. “I’ll seek clothing for thee, lass; those wet things won’t serve. Bide.”

  He tucked the blanket around her face and head and took a candle to other rooms, raiding linen-presses and pungent-scented chests and closets to turn up a few lawn smocks, stockings that had been abandoned rather than darned, and a long moth-raddled woollen dressing-gown. These he hung by the fire to heat before she put them on.

  “Art warm?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  “If ’tis not offensive to thee, I’ll warm thee again.” An awkward situation consciousness made: Gaston knew Freia disliked being touched at all, wincing from every hand, and he thought that to be bundled into bed so with a man must be wholly disagreeable to her.

  Freia cringed and whispered, “I’m cold.”

  He got her another warm drink and, by the time she had swallowed it, one of the smocks was warmed. Flimsy thing, serving decorum only; Gaston helped her don it because her arms and hands and legs were unresponsive and confused. He huddled into the bed with her. Freia held herself stiffly away at first until the wonderful heat he radiated became irresistible, and then she grafted herself to him. She shivered now, and Gaston kneaded her arms and hands to move the blood. Then he lay quietly again, and she was warmer and more alive-feeling than the near-corpse of the night before, if only through the tautness of her bony back.

  The next decision, Gaston thought, was how to move her, whither, and when. She was not strong enough to travel alone. He could wrap her in blankets and carry her on the saddle before him, he supposed; to be carried was less strenuous. And to what destination? His own, Montgard? To her father, Prospero, who would surely leave the city now that his son had bartered for his father’s liberty? On the other hand, there was her brother, the erratic sorcerer Dewar; could he be trusted to care for her? He had acted in her interest before; he seemed a generous soul and might be willing to take her in his charge while she mended.

  It was impossible to decide, not knowing what had brought her to this state.

  Freia relaxed into sleep for a while; Gaston, bored, slept also, and dreamt of Freia in a grey stone maze on a winter-blasted hillside of stones and thorns. He watched her from above, seeing the blind alleys she took and the open ways she bypassed, prevented by dream-paralysis from calling out assistance to her. Her hands and feet were bloody; her clothing, the gown she had worn when he found her in the snow, was torn and muddy. Freia knelt on sharp stones and ice, bending double, weeping, and he saw that the maze was contracting, the stones tumbling and sinking or fading, until there was only a high cold wall around her: a tomb.

  Gaston’s grief woke him; he did not like such dreams, which told him the obvious and offered no insight, only agitation. Freia was awake too. She stirred in the cocoon of blankets and looked up at him, knuckling her eyes.

  “Just a dream,” he said, for both of them. His head ached from oversleep, from the confined air of the room, from the tension of the dream.

  Freia nodded gravely. He studied her—she looked better, still pale but not so ghastly and wraithlike. Her eyes were still shadowy and her mouth had not a hint of a smile to it, only weary sorrow to bring the corners down and tighten its innate softness. The bruise was deep violet-black and bigger, her cheek swollen. Someone had laid a hard hand on her.

  “I’ll bring thee drink,” he told her. He had a cup of plain wine himself and mixed the honey into another of the heated wine with a little water. Freia downed it indifferently; he sat on the side of the bed and supported her wobbly hand on the cup. When she had drunk, she lay back and Gaston tucked the blankets around her again.

  “Well, lass. What shall I do with thee?”

  “Don’t care,” she replied, whispering. “Just leave me alone.”

  “Nay, that wouldn’t help,” he said gently. “I found thee on the road and brought thee to the Emperor’s hunting lodge; ’tis where we lie now. Wert nigh death.”

  “You should’ve left me.”

  “Freia, nay,” Gaston protested. “I could not—”

  “I’m too precious to just leave alone,” Freia muttered resentfully, and she turned her back to him, withdrawing into the blankets and curling into a ball.

  Gaston had been expecting a more welcoming answer from the lady he had thrice now picked up and patched up. He considered angles of attack and chose one. “Th’art precious, aye,” he said, moving close to her again. She didn’t pull away. “Freia. Tell me what’s passed. How cam’st thou on the road in the snow?” And, unspoken, he added, Why the sand and the seaweed in thy clothes, and wherefore thy disappearance from the Palace, and why so sad?

  “Don’t know,” she moaned. “Don’t remember …”

  “Thy father and brother sought thee,” he said. “They’re distressed.”

  “Hah.”

  Gaston insinuated his arm beneath her and turned her to face him. “Josquin inquired anxiously for thee—” he began.

  Freia’s small white fist shot up and hit him lightly on the nose, something so unexpected that he made no attempt to intercept it.

  Astonished, not so much pained, Gaston yelped, “Ow!”

  “I won’t go back,” Freia cried. “You won’t make me go back!” She bounced to sit against the stag-carved headboard and stared back at him, fists clenched and arms crossed, wildness in her eyes and voice.

  “Not ’gainst thy will, never, no,” Gaston said, rubbing his nose—unhurt, only startled. He should have guessed, he thought, that Josquin would have something to do with this: the marriage her father and his were bickering over would be as unpalatable to one as the other, for different reasons. Had she run away because of that and found greater ill? No jewelry—had she been robbed? “Freia,” he went on, “I’ve sought to help thee. Thou knowest that. I have never forced thee, have I? Never shaken thy will?”

  “No,” she admitted, and ducked her head. “Don’t—”

  “Nor shall I. I told thee,” Gaston said intently, leaving his surprised nose and putting his hands on her chill chee
ks, raising her face and leaning close to look into her eyes in the poor light, “that thou shouldst consider thyself under my protection, when we met and wert afraid, and I …” He did not say aloud what he had done, but she blinked, once, her eyes like stones set in marble looking into his: she knew, he knew. “By the Well,” Gaston went on more softly, “that promise is still binding on me, so that I shall not leave thee here in a barren wood in winter, and I shall not carry thee back to the Palace, and I shall not tell any soul I have met thee if that’s thy will. What I shall do is see thee safe, in good health, as happy as may be possible.”

  They regarded one another.

  “I’m sick of this,” Freia whispered at last, putting her hands on his and drawing them away, ducking her head again, “you don’t understand, how … how it is … I’m just a husk. I’m not really alive. Not real at all. I want to die. Don’t want it to go on.”

  “What makes it so bad, lass?” he asked, gently solicitous, cradling her cold hands in his warm palms.

  “Everything …”

  “Everything in Landuc,” he suggested astutely.

  She nodded. “Everything about me,” she added.

  “If th’art not in Landuc, ’twill be easier.”

  “He’ll drag me back again,” moaned Freia.

  “Prospero. Perhaps not.” Was it wise to tell her that her father thought she was dead already? “Thy father was sore troubled that thou wert nowhere found, lass. He tried to Summon thee, to bring thee to him, and failed, and feared thee beyond Summoning.”

  She covered her face.

  “Whither didst go?”

  “The sea,” she whispered. “I pushed the boat in the water and rowed, until the tide took it, and I just … it was all grey, everywhere … fog and water … I put the oars in and I left the boat.”

  Gaston closed his eyes, O Blessed Well, and looked again. The salt, the sand, the seaweed, the sodden clothes— He stroked her coarsened, tangled hair. “Freia,” he said, sadly, “what made thee do that?”

  “Hurts.” Freia’s tight whisper creaked and broke into tears.

  “What hurts so?” Josquin wasn’t that bad, thought Gaston, pained by her pain.

  “P-P-Prosp’ro,” she wept. “You don’ unders’and,” she added.

  Gaston did not. Prospero had been inscrutable of late; he had been plucking and sowing at a great rate and had had many affairs and plots ripening at once, among them his daughter’s arranged match with Josquin; he had taken blows from several quarters and borne them stoically. Yet he’d seemed devoted to the girl, taking her part and attending her.

  “You’re too good, too good t’me,” Freia hiccuped, and hugged him around his neck, as unexpected a favor as being hit on the nose.

  Gaston patted her back. She felt cold yet, so he pulled a blanket up over her shoulders, holding it there as he held her to his breast. It pleased him that she did not flinch from him now: he had her trust for that, at least. “A man of much business, thy father,” he murmured.

  “He hates me,” she said through tears. “D-d-doesn’t want me. He … Hurts so much …”

  Gaston couldn’t presume to contradict her. Prospero had seemed, to his eldest brother, uncomfortable with the sudden acquisition of a son—although Dewar was clearly of his father’s blood and uncannily like him—and that his daughter would dis-comfit him more deeply was all too likely. Particularly a daughter who had caused him to suffer heavy losses by being captured and used against him as Freia had. He must be fond of her, else he had not capitulated to free her; yet he might resent her and consider her an enemy partisan, though unwilling.

  “I just want to die, I’m so sick of it, so sick of it, being everybody’s anvil,” Freia keened softly, “hurts so much, it hurts so …”

  As when he had found her in the library, Gaston listened, murmuring, “Child, child, there, there,” and wondered what he was supposed to do. Then, it had been obvious: now, it was less apparent, but he recognized that the girl was hardly able to do anything herself, and that he had assumed responsibility for her welfare by caring about it.

  “… just want it to stop,” she sobbed raggedly.

  “Lass, lass. What befell to hurt thee so? Canst tell me?”

  “He said,” she began, and broke off. “They said,” she tried, and shook her head.

  “Breathe deep.”

  Obediently, she did.

  “Another.” Gaston felt her ribs move in his arms. “Now then.”

  “It was them,” she said, swallowing hard, “they started … Dewar and P-Prince Josquin. Dewar said.… I should meet him, not so publicly … I agreed … he hadn’t talked to me at all before … I didn’t want him and … so Dewar said … we could meet, just the three of us, in my apartments.”

  Dewar had the instincts of a courtier, thought Gaston. “Aye,” he said.

  “My … my head hurt … I couldn’t sleep all night … I was lying on the sofa and trying to rest when they came in, they were early, and I woke up, I didn’t know I was really awake. They didn’t see me, didn’t know I was there. They talked about me …” Freia had stopped weeping, but the grief in her voice was deep and raw. “Prince Josquin … said … he thought I was … bad … he said because I’m plain-looking, and common as dirt, and stupid as wood, then he said I never say anything in company, and I can’t do anything, and I drop things, and I’m awkward and … and stupid … I’m not clever,” Freia whispered. “I know I’m not clever like all of you are. He said I have no taste in clothes and that his father … said I was a fool and a nuisance … and he said his father was getting him back for not wanting women.”

  Oh, Josquin, thought Gaston, horrified. The prancing ass. To speak thus to her brother—

  She began crying again, catching her breath erratically. “Dewar said well, yes, I’m not … pretty, and he could’ve wished for a better sister having never met a woman in his life, and Josquin would have to make the best of me.… And he said, Prince Josquin said, he’d rather make the best of Dewar … and that he’d take me if he could have Dewar too … he s-said I’m c-common t-trash.… And Dewar laughed and said I’m wooden-headed.… I thought h-he l-l-liked m-m-me.… H-he s-said I’m beastly common … he s-said I’m m-made of dirt … other th-things … and the P-Prince … he t-told the P-Prince about G-Golias … he … he said he w-wouldn’t … I’m not b-b-beautiful, and I’m not clever, and I don’t know politics, and I can’t do anything, and I don’t know what to do with myself, I just w-want to go home and I can’t, can’t … it’s gone. Prince Josquin said then why fuss about G-Golias … I couldn’t move, I was so hurt and it … I wished I had a knife to let the pain out …”

  Gaston pictured it perfectly. The girl, hazed with headache, half-awake and then horrified; the two young men flirting and gossiping a few feet away, uninhibited and frank. He knew they were attracted to one another; the effect Dewar had had on Josquin in the war-camp had been obvious, and though Dewar had veiled his own lust, he had given Josquin hot looks enough, keeping the Prince Heir fretting on edge. But Freia common? No. Were Prospero her father, and he’d sworn he was to his own harm, she could be of the basest mother-stock and still be rich enough in birth for Josquin or any Prince of Landuc—and nobler than her brother. To tell her future husband of the rape—Gaston was appalled—it was a cad’s trick, knavish gossip.

  “I never wanted to be better,” Freia said, weeping harder, curling away from Gaston. “Don’t want to be, I’m not a princess, told him so, I know I’m not, and I’m not a l-l-lady.… Dewar said something, I don’t remember, and he said anyway, the marriage was an excuse to see Dewar. And he said they should have supper tonight. And Dewar said yes. I thought I’d be sick, I was so upset at what he said … what they said … he said … I was so ashamed … felt so, so bad. I don’t know what I did … I got up. I stood up and they turned and looked at me, they were startled—”

  Shocked to the heart, more likely, thought Gaston. Damned fools.

  “—I couldn�
�t speak, and then I said, You woke me, excuse me, and I ran out to find Papa. He couldn’t know, he couldn’t know how little … how hateful he’d be, that P-Prince.… I ran to his rooms and I ran in, and he was angry that I interrupted him; he—I did interrupt, he was talking to a lady in the bed-chamber. I don’t know what I was saying, I—I wanted to talk to him, I wanted him to tell me if it was true, if he made me like he made the others … dirt … stones … like Caliban … He was angry. He—he hit me and told me to leave and he would see me when he was ready, and I had no manners and … other things … He hit me,” she repeated. “He hit me. He never hit me, ever, all the years … all the time … on the island … I loved him s-so m-m-much …” Her left hand cupped her cheek, covering the mark Prospero’s hand had left.

  Gaston was disgusted. No wonder the girl was miserable. A fine morning’s work by all parties. If they had desired to drive her to her death surely there could not be a better way. Poor creature. He held her against him; she was on the verge of hysteria, and he made low hushing sounds and patted her back to calm her.

  “Why?” Freia wailed, muffled in Gaston’s shoulder. “I loved him so, I loved him so, and he … he made me wither inside and I’m nothing.… Why did he tell him that … Why did Papa … I don’t understand how someone who loved me so much could make me into so many pieces, and all of them hurt.…”

  “Lass,” said Gaston, “ah, lass. I do not know Prospero. I did long ago, but that was before he became what he is now. He changed, his sorcery hath changed him.”

  She shook with grief. Gaston rocked her and said nothing, thinking. He must get her out of Landuc entirely; his idea of bringing or sending her to Dewar would not serve. Since he had been riding to Montgard, he might as well take his niece with him. The place was quiet and healthful; the society was not demanding; there was no traffic from Landuc and no one would bother her there. Let Prospero and Dewar sit and study the wreckage a few crude words had caused. Now there would be more conflict, for Prospero had named the girl his heir and had renounced everything for himself, and there were treaties signed and sealed; Dewar had said he would not involve himself in such worldly matters. Yes, Prospero and Avril between them had set up a pretty house of cards, each trying to o’er-top the other’s flimsy plans, and Gaston felt sadly vindicated: he had warned Avril it would be best to stay out of such entanglements, to refrain from rubbing Prospero’s face in the muck.