After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  “Take me to bed, Ginna,” she breathed. So I lifted her in my arms—she was light as a child, don’t you know. As I lay her on her bed, she whispered, “Will you wear the mask?”

  “If you like,” I whispered back. “Just give me a moment.”

  The mask was in the black sack in an alley south of the palace, so I had to find a silk scarf and cut holes in it, quick as you please. I tied it round my face, covering all of it except for the openings for the eyes, and hurried back to her, wondering if by the time I got there she’d have recovered enough to send me away or even call for guards. Instead, I found her as I’d left her, lying on her side on the bed, looking small, the skin round her eyes red from crying. I wanted to stroke her hair and comfort her, but I knew she expected somewhat else from Raud Gríma.

  “I’m here,” I said, making my voice hard, though I never tried to lower it. I’d have felt a fool doing that, and I’d a sense she wanted me as a woman, Raud Gríma or no.

  “You’ve come for me at last?”

  “I have.”

  She rolled onto her back, reaching up her arms to me.

  Slow-like, I bent over her, bringing my face, what was covered in the silk, as close to hers as I could without touching it. The tips of her fingers touched the mask and she made a little choking noise and pulled them back. I’d tied the scarf loose enough so’s I could move my mouth well enough, and I pressed it to her throat. She arched her whole body and I grabbed her hips in my hands as she moaned. I dragged my mouth, and the silk what covered it, down over her body to her cunny. There I went to work as I’d not done since Ótti—for Finnarún never let me, more’s the pity. Leika cracked hard and fast right away, but I never let her stop crying out, for I kept at her even after, and begun touching the top of her cunny with my fingers even as I used my mouth lower down. After a time she cracked again.

  I backed off then, just stroking soft-like, letting her relax. She did, too, and I weren’t sure she would. I thought she might get upset like the first time, and want me to leave. But she didn’t. She rested into her pillows, her eyes half-closed.

  “He’d send me to Grumflein,” she said, real low, after some time’d passed.

  “He’d be wrong to,” I said. “Was a time no one’d send someone to Grumflein for what we just did.”

  “Before the Rise of Tyr,” she said.

  “Sure enough,” I agreed. “But maybe Tyr never meant for things to change the way they did when He rose. He was one of the Gods, once. One of many.”

  “Did you worship another, before you came to me?” she asked.

  It was a risky question. If I answered yes, she could send me to Grumflein or worse.

  “No,” I lied, thinking of the day I swore myself to Luka. Maybe I’d had true faith in Luka once, I’d not deny it. But it’d been long since he’d abandoned me, so I felt no remorse in denying him now.

  ~~~

  Neither Leika nor I noticed when Gullthewar’d not come back after escorting Áleifer and the others out of the royal apartments. He did return that evening, but the konungdis and I spent most of the afternoon in her rooms, so we never noticed the absence, more’s the pity.

  I wanted a bath following our unexpected tumble, and so I went back to my’n room and the little washroom what adjoined it. I run the water so’s it was fair deep, for I wanted a good soak. The water come out hot if you turned one of the two knobs on the wall, and I mixed in just a bit of cold. What a pleasure it was to have a hot bath—I’d never known the like ’fore moving to the palace, don’t you know. I climbed in and sunk into the water, closing my eyes and letting my mind run over what’d happened with Leika.

  I was fair certain that I’d a good chance of convincing her to favor Liniblaudr now. If she named him High Vigja maybe he’d put an end to some of the madness of Tyr’s Order. He’d already figured his ticket was propping up Leika’s rule, near as I could figure. He’d help her become dróttning, and if I could just help her stay as sane as possible, I might be able to influence her to put an end to the plans to invade wherever they were planning to invade… if I could just get a sense for who was pulling the strings of the army and navy, I might have a chance of convincing her to put them in Grumflein—

  Something pushed my head, hard, and water swirled over my face and into my nose. Right away I started thrashing, trying to bring my face up for air, and something else pushed my chest down as well.

  I snorted and struggled. Water choked me. My arm and hand hit the wall on the left, and the other struck something hard what leaned over me from the right.

  Panic rushed in my blood and I kicked my legs out, pushing against the wall, my arms hitting and then gripping what held me down—two arms. Metal.

  Red flooded my vision—blood, fear, rage.

  I wrenched the arms and erupted from the water, heaving in air and coughing at once.

  Gullthewar’s hands went for my throat.

  I slipped down in the tub, pain shooting through my left leg. Gold flashed as light reflected off the robot’s metal. I was still choking on the water what’d gone down into my lungs already. My hands, like claws, grappled with the robot’s arms, trying to keep his hands off my throat.

  The robot was strong—should’ve been stronger’n me, but I was still seeing red.

  I braced a foot against the side of the tub and the other on the other end. I got a good grip on one robot wrist and then wrapped the other hand round his neck. He grabbed for my throat with his free hand just as I yanked, hard as I could. And pulled his arm from its socket.

  Sparks crackled and I threw myself from the tub, landing hard on the tiled floor. Gullthewar lurched and reached for me again, but I kicked him with all my strength. On a normal day robots ain’t damaged by water, but with his arm pulled out it got all into his innards. There was a loud crackling and bright flashes, and then he lay dead in the tub.

  ~~~

  “So now you’re convinced it’s Vigja Áleifer?” Finnarún said, her arms crossed as she leaned against the edge of the desk in her parlor. She was wearing an ivory silk and lace gown what crossed over her breasts and brushed the floor at her feet, but I found I’d no real interest in what was under it at the moment.

  I’d not said a word about my encounter with Gullthewar to Leika. I’d only add to her fears, and I was fair certain she weren’t a target. Áleifer stood to gain nothing if Leika died, after all. Neither did Sölbói.

  “Unless it’s both of them,” I said.

  “Reister and Áleifer. Not likely.”

  “Not working together,” I said, though I seen no reason to doubt they might.

  “You think they each, independently of the other, decided to do away with you?”

  “You’re not suggesting I’m imagining things, are you?” I demanded. “Cause the lift being an accident is one thing. A robot trying to drown me is something else altogether. Someone wants me dead, Finnarún. There’s no mistake.”

  She pursed her lips. After a moment without speaking, she opened the desk drawer next to her right hip and pulled out a silver case and a lighter. I watched as she popped open the case and took out a ciggie. She offered the case to me and I waved it away. Plucking an ivory holder from the case as well, she mounted the ciggie in it.

  After lighting the ciggie she blew out a stream of smoke. “Very well. I can’t argue with that. It does seem that someone is attempting to murder you. Most distressing.”

  Not that she seemed all that distressed. Ice water in her veins, our Finnarún.

  That’s when I heard it. A sound what I’d not heard in so long, for a moment I couldn’t place it. I stared at her and it struck me her cheeks’d gone red. Finnarún, blushing?

  “What was that?” I asked, though by then my mind’d caught up and I knew what it was.

  “Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Ginna,” she said in a warning tone.

  “What in Hel is a baby doing here in your apartments?”

  She gave a frustrated sigh and begun p
acing. “It’s no concern of yours,” she said again.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you there, Jarldis,” I said, harsh-like. “I’m your ‘agent’ according to Sölbói, and there’s some what think that’s worth killing me over, I reckon. Seems about time I’d some inkling of what you’ve got planned. And it looks to me whatever it is has something to do with a baby. I’d like to know what.”

  “It’s my baby, if you must know.”

  “Your baby?”

  “That is correct.”

  I stood there feeling stupid for a moment or two. She’d not had a baby when I first moved in. That baby, by the sound of it, weren’t a newborn. You’d hear every newborn like they were in the next room when you lived in Mosstown, and no mistake. You’d get so you knew their cries—oh, there’s the hungry cry. There’s the angry cry. I’d heard so many babies over the years, I knew the difference ’tween a newborn and a baby of a few months. This one was a few months, at least.

  And of course it couldn’t be a newborn if it was hers, on account of she’d not been pregnant at all since I’d known her. So maybe she’d had it just a month or two ’fore she met me.

  Except I’d seen enough of her body to know that weren’t true.

  “That ain’t your baby,” I said at last.

  Finnarún narrowed her eyes at me, and the way her face was set she looked as hard as marble.

  “I will only say this once more, Ginna. And mark what I say. That is my baby. I had him four months ago, in the privacy of my estate. I left him when I came here, for with the invasion, I knew it would be too dangerous to bring him, but now I have at last had him returned to me. Mark it well. If I hear even a hint of a rumor that you’ve spoken otherwise, you will find yourself without a friend in the world.”

  If I’d had anything left of a hope that Finnarún was a friend of mine, much less a lover, it was gone now. My head fair spun as I left her apartments to return to Leika’s. A baby. What did Finnarún want with a baby? What part did I play in her plans? She’d no love for me. My own heart broke to face it, but I knew it for a hard truth.

  I needed to think. Somehow, if I’d some air, maybe, I’d come to understand everything what’d happened. It was all too much, and I had to sort it out somehow.

  Instead of taking the stairs up to Leika’s apartments, as I’d been doing since the lift crash, I took them down and followed the corridors out of the palace.

  ~~~

  The alley was dark as always and it took no time to change into the vest and mask. I strapped the dagger on first, its weight a small comfort, and pulled on the rest fast as you please. Then I found the nearest metal scaffold I could and climbed to the top of a roof, stepping easy as a cat along its edges and hopping over to the next. The night was cold and it weren’t the first time I’d cause to be grateful for what warmth the mask and vest lent. I needed the cold, though, for I’d some sharp thinking to do.

  First, there was Finnarún’s plan. It was the most important thing, at least as far as my’n fate was concerned. Whatever she was up to, I had to find out. What part did I play in it?

  I found my love for her had faded to a memory without more’n that first snap of a heartbreak. The last two times I’d seen her we never even had a tumble—not a kiss or a caress, and I’d no sense of loss now. It wore too heavy on me how she used me like she did, and let’s be honest. I’d not really loved anyone since Ótti, and Ótti was dead. Finnarún’d once reminded me of Ótti, but she never did no more, except maybe for the way she used me.

  The next building over weren’t too far for a jump, so I kept going, letting which buildings I could reach decide for me the way I’d go. I noticed more lights this time. There were people moving back to Helésey. They come on ships with the deliveries to Vígbúa, or to the docks in Hafsida and Nordhafsida, I supposed. Might be taking off the mask’d mean I’d find my way to talking to some of them, finding out what was going on in the provinces, but I’d no wish to take of the mask. I’d no wish to talk to anyone save to get the news, anyhow. It was better to be alone, though sometimes the cold and the stark lines of my situation combined to fuel the dread ’til it felt like I’d no breath left in my chest.

  After a time of following roofs ’til I’d gone halfway cross the Hársektor, I started getting an itchy feeling ’tween my shoulders like someone was watching me. No matter how hard I looked, though, I never seen a hint of anyone—not so much as a flash of light reflecting on a button. All the same, I figured I’d best turn round and go and have a look at the base. There was plenty more thinking to do but it weren’t a loss to see if owt new was happening there, and maybe I’d lose the itchy feeling. I climbed down a scaffold and run along the streets, crossing the wide Boulevard of the Arrow, what used to be the Boulevard of the Hanged God, only with the Rise of Tyr all references to other Gods got done away with, wouldn’t you know. Soon enough I was in Vígbúa, and I could climb to the roofs again.

  Finnarún’s plan was the most important, but I’d no idea what it was. I might have had a guess ’til I heard that baby cry. Whose baby was it? Why’d she want me to never say it weren’t hers? Finnarún weren’t the kind to want a baby so’s she could mother it. It made no sense to me.

  Then there was the question of who was trying to murder me. Having lost the itchy feeling of being watched, I wondered if maybe that’s why I’d felt it to start; knowing someone wanted to do me in weren’t no good for my nerves, and that’s a fact.

  I’d had no doubt it was Sölbói what wanted me dead, ’til Gullthewar tried to drown me in the bath. Áleifer’d been with Gullthewar last, and Áleifer weren’t pleased I’d interrupted his meeting with the konungdis. But to go so far as to fix the robot so’s he’d kill me? That seemed unlikely. It was no small trick, changing the job of a robot, from what I could tell. Leika had to send for a specialist she called a “programmer” when she wanted to change which tasks which robots in the household did. Who had access to a programmer what’d agree to make a robot into a killer? And send that robot into the konungdis’s apartments, no less. That’d be death to the programmer if the truth come out, and no mistake. And why go to the trouble just on account of my being something of a pest? I’d hardly done much else but cut their meeting short.

  Except bed the konungdis. Which was the third thing I had to think on. I’d no sense for whether it changed anything between me and Leika, for I’d not seen her since I left for Finnarún’s just a little while after Gullthewar tried to kill me. Would she destroy everything I owned ’fore I got back, as she’d done with my books the last time? But this hadn’t felt like last time, even though I’d worn a mask. Sure, she had her fear and desire for Raud Gríma, but she’d been stranger about it the first time. Leastways, I thought so—I’d sure fooled myself ’fore now about the intentions of women I was bedding, hadn’t I.

  I’d come to a roof what’d none close enough to jump to, so I climbed down using jutting stones meant to be decorative. I crept along the dark streets, staying off the main avenue what ran between Vígbúa and the Kaupsektor.

  Best to assume Leika’d pretend nowt’d happened, at best. At worst, I was out on my ear, or maybe sent to Grumflein. Somewhere in the middle lay the possibility of my room in shambles, and every piece of clothing I owned torn to bits.

  If she didn’t send me away it could only mean she wanted me in her bed more’n she wanted to pretend I’d never been there. Then the question was, how could I use my position to my best advantage? Since sending my sisters and Mum and Amma away, I wanted little enough for myself. In fact, I’d not thought on it for some time, and I’d no sense for what I wanted, if it was just a matter of my’n happiness. Once, I’d wanted Finnarún, sure enough, but I didn’t want her no more. I didn’t want Leika, not really. I had a mess of feelings for her—pity, admiration, and hope, mainly. Hope that she’d rise up and make herself a dróttning. Throw off the yoke of Tyr and bring back the rest of the Gods and Goddesses. Restore Helésey and Ódalnord to some
kind of sanity. Could I make that happen, just by bedding her? That seemed a far reach.

  I come to the foot of a building I favored for spying on the base, so I left off my thoughts and focused on the climb to the roof, seeing as how some of the rungs of the metal ladder I used were ripping slick with ice.

  At the top I looked out over the huge, enclosed base. They kept it well-lit, for which I thanked them, on account of most streets in the city weren’t lit at all no more and I’d never have seen a thing without their lights. It was fair late and not much went on that I could make out. After I waited for a while, a plane landed. I watched the door on the side of it open from a hinge on its base, like a jaw yawning. In the door were stairs what swung out to touch the ground. Officers stepped down the staircase it created. None of them looked familiar to me, which weren’t a great surprise, for though I’d lived in the palace for over two months now—the Dísablót’d come and gone, I realized with a shock—I’d not left Leika’s room other’n to see Finnarún or go out into the city, and I’d only ever met Officers when Leika’d sent me with her message. She got a note from time to time from Úlfketill by way of a report, always saying they searched and found nowt to suggest there was anyone living in any part of the sewers no more. Spraki’d escaped, I reckoned. I hoped so. I never liked him, but I never wished him ill.

  Satisfied the base weren’t in the midst of doing anything interesting, I climbed down and found the entrance to the old Undergrunnsby tunnels. It was a good deal faster traveling under the city’n over it, even with the tunnels still in bad shape from the bombings. I even took a detour to see if anyone was in the Machine. I knocked loud as I ever had when I got there, and no one answered. Gone, as I’d suspected.

  I come up in western Nordhafsida and made my way through the narrower streets to have a look at the docks. Then I went south, heading for Hafsida. Everything was going on as it had the last time I’d come by—no one ever slept round here, or turned off the lights, which made prowling about that much harder, more’s the pity. The clanging and whirring of metal on metal and saws cutting and the rest of it was a fair awful din, and the lights everywhere made it seem a strange time of day, neither night nor morning nor afternoon. The street was slick with oil and grease and there was always someone coming and going, trucks driving and smaller boats pulling up and getting unloaded or loaded, and the big ships in the harbor mostly built, waiting for their last parts so’s they could set out.