“This went on for—oh, perhaps a month,” she continued, her voice dry and brittle. “He bedded me, of course. Many times. Gone, my virginity—but not my innocence, Myadar. I still had that, although I know it must be hard to believe. Yet he would not let me keep it—never, for that was the prize, after all… the prize that he and Finnarún sought. One night when we lay together in a thicket of cypress—there used to be parks, in the city—that night, she joined us.”
A great shudder passed through her body, and she bowed her head.
“I was—shocked,” she said, her voice becoming softer with each word. “And yet, when she touched me… I knew I did not love Liut, not as I had hoped. I—I shivered under her touch as I never had under his—I—lost myself to her, to both of them, and when it was over they—they laughed at me.”
I almost couldn’t hear the end of what she said, so quietly did the words come, but I saw where the story was going, and my heart ached for her, for young Kolorma, innocent and passionate, who learned that day that those she had trusted had used her as a toy.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my voice almost as quiet as hers.
She shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself.
“So you will understand,” she said, and the old hard edge was back in her voice again. “So when I show you what’s in that crypt, you’ll know why.”
A chill spread through me at that, and as she made her way to the door of the crypt, a gold key retrieved from her pocket, I hesitated to make my way after her. She stopped at the door and turned to me, waiting.
In trepidation, I followed.
Part 4: Myadar’s Summons
The door to the crypt opened, and I waited for my eyes to adjust to the deep darkness.
I felt rather than saw Kolorma beside me, and the sound of her breathing almost echoed against the stone—she was upset, but the shuddering breaths were the only clue. Otherwise, she remained like a statue, still and cold.
“Who’s there?” came a man’s panicked voice, and my stomach dropped.
It couldn’t be.
Kolorma moved then, her presence at my side giving way to emptiness.
“Who’s there?” the voice called again, all fear and desperation.
A match flared, and then an old-fashioned oil lamp illuminated the interior of the crypt with a warm, dim yellow glow. Kolorma shook out the match, and I followed her eyes—she glared sharply across the dark expanse of the stone room.
Iron brackets imbedded in the wall, linked to chains, raised questions as to the purpose of this crypt—surely no ancestors required living prisoners to keep them company. The chains hung taught, and ended in thick cuffs that had chaffed the skin of the man who hung from them to raw, bloody sores. The muscles of the man’s arms stood out from strain and the contrast added by grime and blood. He was naked from the waist up, and his hair, once so familiar to me for its rebellion against fashionable tonics, lay in wet curls against his forehead. He raised his face, and saw me.
“Myadar!” Liut gasped, and then his eyes flew over to Kolorma. He paused, and then turned his imploring stare to me again. “Myadar, I don’t know what she’s told you—she’s mad, you must know it—”
Liut was the one who looked mad, his muscles churning as he wrenched in the chains, trying to straighten despite obvious exhaustion.
“Myadar, my love, please help me, you must help me.”
At the word “love,” he must have seen me flinch.
“Myadar, surely you don’t believe her lies! You must know you are my only love? What has she told you? Never believe it—any of it—I am devoted to you—”
Something in my heart snapped.
“Devoted?” I breathed. “Gods save those you would betray then, Liut!”
His eyes widened, and he struggled against the chains, clearly wanting to reach his arms to me in supplication. Thwarted, he tried instead for an earnest look, knitting his brow as he leaned towards me. “Myadar, ever have I loved you—”
“Gods, I marvel that your tongue does not split here and now into a fork!” I spat. “I heard you, Liut. I heard you, plotting with Reister and Vaenn. Your charade is over. Look not to me for love or aid.”
His face fell, and he slumped in the chains, his knees buckling. “When?” he whispered.
For a moment, I did not understand the question.
“When?” he repeated. “When did you hear?”
I raised my chin, crossing my arms over my chest tightly. “What does it matter? I heard you. Deceiver. Betrayer. You can rot here for all I care.”
As I looked away, meaning to leave the crypt, I caught sight of Kolorma’s face. She was staring at Liut and smiling. Perhaps it was the darkness and the flickering lamp, but the smile was awful.
I glanced back at Liut. He sagged in his chains, his head hanging.
Had I really believed myself in love with this craven? And yet I still felt the ache in my heart—he was never who I had believed him to be. My heart ached for the man I’d lost when I discovered who he really was.
Taking the lamp from its hook, Kolorma took a few steps closer to Liut.
In a rush of clanking chains he lunged at her. I gasped in shock, so quickly did he move. Without flinching, Kolorma came to a stop a foot from farthest point he could reach—although after his initial rush he began to weep and let himself drop again.
“I thought to keep you here, dear Liut,” Kolorma said, raising the lantern so it cast its dim glow over him. “I thought to toy with you until I grew weary of you. And then? I do not know. No freedom would have come to you, of course. Not with the Conversion’s spread and your relationship with the konungdis.”
My eyes cut sharply to Liut again—the konungdis, as well? No doubt he played no games with her but those she set the rules for, I concluded. Liut was no fool.
Liut’s shuddering abated and he simply hung from his chains.
“But now I find I have need of you,” Kolorma said, her mouth twisting.
I eyed her, even as Liut’s head moved and he raised his face.
“Would you like to return to the capital, my sweet?” she asked, her mocking tone filling the crypt with bitterness.
Liut said nothing, but his chest heaved.
“You may, if you agree to my terms. And know, dear Liut, that I will kill you myself if you betray me.”
“Why would I do anything for you?” he whispered.
“Because it’s that or stay here. Have the pains started in your chest? Liten, who is something of a physician, has warned me that as you lose strength, you’ll have to hang from your arms, and sooner or later, that will have the most interesting effect,” Kolorma said, still smiling that awful smile. “You do seem fatigued, dear Liut. Have you been hanging from your arms very much? I hardly credit it as truth, but Liten insists that one can asphyxiate from hanging for one’s arms for too long—”
“Alright!” Liut barked. “What do you propose?”
Kolorma turned and looked at me, the smile leaving her mouth. “Nothing, yet.”
As she gave him her back, Liut began screaming at her, using every curse I had ever heard, and some I had not. I followed her out. After she shut the door and locked it, she leaned against it. She still held the lamp—she had left Liut screaming in darkness.
A tremor shook me. True, I hated him, but at that moment, I pitied him as well.
“It’s time you told me your plan,” I said to her.
~~~
Kolorma insisted on waiting until after we supped with Alflétta and Liten to reveal her idea to me. At last, we sat in one of the smaller salons as she smoked a clove and I fidgeted in my seat. Alflétta cited advancing age and fatigue and did not join us, and Liten soon excused himself, saying that he had much to do before tomorrow. I hardly watched him leave, so fixated was I on Kolorma’s face—my impatience to be off and closing in on rescuing Bersi had my blood beating in my ears.
“What I propose is this,” Kolorma said out of nowhere
, and I gripped the armrests of my chair. “Alflétta will fly us back to Helésey. I can’t—no one would turn a blind eye to a woman piloting an aeroplane, jöfurdis or not.”
I gave her a nod.
“We’ll take Liut with us. Your story will be that Liut decided to whisk you away at a moment’s notice to some romantic week in the country. It will cause a scandal, but no one will doubt it. Everyone knew you were lovers.”
How could they not? I’d acted such the besotted fool. “But Reister will know.”
“Reister is easily managed.”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Myadar, you have no gift for court intrigue,” Kolorma said with a frown. She sucked in some smoke, then released the languid plume of it from her mouth. “You’re fortunate you’ve me to help in that regard. Reister will be no trouble at all. You’ve two game pieces to play against him, of your choosing. Alflétta will remain in Helésey, and act as a witness should you wish to reveal that Reister’s… appetites, shall we say, are as ‘unnatural’ as the konunger feared. You need only tell Reister of your intent to reveal this to keep him in check. And failing that, you’ve knowledge of his wine smuggling. Liten will not return with us, I’m afraid, so you would have to convince the konunger or Galmr of Reister’s wine-running all on your own—but I believe you capable of that.”
Running a finger over my lips, I nodded. “And as you said before, simply warning Reister of my knowledge could be sufficient.”
“Quite.”
I returned to the plan Kolorma had begun to describe. “But Liut cannot be trusted.”
“Truer words have never been spoken,” Kolorma said.
“He’s sure to betray me at the first opportunity.”
“He would no doubt attempt to do so, yes,” Kolorma said, gazing at the glowing end of her clove. She turned her dark eyes to me. “We have a remedy for that, as well.”
“What is it?”
“That, my dear Myadar, I will refrain from telling you just yet. We’ve a visit to make in Helésey before we return to court, and that’s where you’ll have your answer.”
“You ask for a lot of faith.”
“Faith is what drives me,” Kolorma said. “Which brings me to your task.”
“I’ve already guessed it.”
“Oh?”
“You wish me to free all the imprisoned vigjadises.”
Kolorma tilted her head to the side. “Yes. But my hopes are not so narrow. Should you find a way into Grumflein, and free them, that would be one small victory—but where would they go?”
“Into the Undergrunnsby—and then, we would need ships, or aeroplanes, to smuggle them out.”
“Yes,” Kolorma nodded. “But after that what? Galmr continues calling for the end of all Gods but Tyr, and Eiflar-Konunger spreads his horrid Conversion far and wide. Where will we send the vigjadises, that they might escape it?”
“Asterlund.”
Kolorma’s brow knit, and she rested the clove in a crystal ashtray and leaned towards me. “You are from Asterlund, are you not, Myadar?”
The expression on her face alarmed me, and all I could do was nod.
Reaching out, she took my hand in both of hers. My heart began to hammer in my chest.
“Asterlund has Converted,” she said.
“That isn’t possible,” I said. “The konunger only just started sending troops out to the provinces—”
“He needed no troops in Asterlund, Myadar. They Converted before the coronation even took place. They did so willingly.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw the linden trees of Asterlund again—for so many days and nights, I had dreamt of returning home, of seeing those trees again as a sign of my freedom and my future with Bersi at my side. But how had I forgotten? Linden trees were sacred only to Tyr.
I rose from my chair and walked to the window, wrapping my arms around myself tightly. Outside in the darkness I could make out the dark lines of the hedge maze, and at its center, the crypt.
“What would you have me do?” I asked, my voice heavy with sorrow. My mind filled with images—the fields where I used to play with my siblings. The village where they held the Dísablót market and the other festivals for holidays. The old house where I had spent my childhood. The large ebony wardrobe with its lower drawer full of carved wooden soldiers and little wagons drawn by painted horses. None of that was truly gone—they had only Converted, they were not destroyed, after all. But now, all of those memories were closed to me forever. I hadn’t realized how I had hoped to see Bersi sitting on the cool flagstones of the house, playing with those old toys, until I realized he never would.
No answer came to my question, but after a moment, she stood at my side. “What I would ask of you is more than anyone should ever ask of another.”
I brought my eyes up slowly to her face. She met my gaze, and I saw compassion in the depths of her dark irises.
“Tell me,” I said.
She breathed in deeply, and turned her face from me, staring outside instead.
“We must kill them, Myadar. Galmr and Eiflar. We must murder them, and bring an end to the Conversion.”
My stomach twisted, and I hugged myself more tightly. Kill them. Murder them. How had I come to dwell in this new life of despair and violence?
“Would it be enough?” I asked after a pause. “Would none rise up to take their place?”
I watched her face as her brow furrowed. Had she not considered it? To me the court was a many-headed monster—Galmr and Eiflar represented only the largest heads, after all.
She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes.
I turned back to the window. “We must kill them, I agree. But it will not be enough. We must break the whole city. We must bring an end to the whole court.”
She turned troubled eyes to me. “But how?”
With a sigh, I met her gaze, a strength building within me. “I think I know.”
Kolorma stared at me, saying nothing.
“Raud Gríma,” I said.
She pressed her lips together.
“What it will take is a hero,” I said. “Raud Gríma, returned, fighting for the survival of those in the Lavsektor and the Undergrunnsby. What we need is a revolution.” Those people—who dared to paint upside down arrows on their walls—would overthrow Galmr’s new order. I only hoped that it wouldn’t also necessitate a martyr.
I would not be a martyr—I could not spend my life no matter the stakes, for I had Bersi to rescue. If anything ever happened to him, then, perhaps, I would be ready to die for this cause, but not before.
Her eyes never leaving my face, Kolorma considered my words. At last, she said, “What you propose would greatly complicate our movements in the city.”
“No more so than before—although I grant you that I must be more careful about lighting fires.”
With a bark of a laugh, Kolorma shook her head. “You have not asked how Liut came to be my most honored guest, Myadar.”
I frowned at her.
“I saw him following you. He witnessed you changing into your Raud Gríma attire, in the alley near the palace. Liten and I abducted him before he could track you further—I almost didn’t find you again after that.”
“Gods, was I blind to so many pursuers?” I exclaimed.
Kolorma shrugged. “If you wish to continue the charade, perhaps you must learn to look more often over your shoulder.”
My ears burned and I looked away, embarrassed. Indeed, I must admit I had no training in the art of spycraft. I would have to learn to hide my movements more carefully.
“So Liut knows my secret,” I muttered.
“Indeed, and if you do continue your forays into the city dressed as Raud Gríma, he has yet another arrow in his quiver, should he choose to turn on us,” Kolorma said.
I peered at her. “How certain are you of this remedy you mentioned? Can it truly cure Liut of his traitorous nature?”
“Cure it? No,” Kolorma said with a sma
ll smile. “Give him cause to resist it? That is my dearest hope.”
~~~
My thoughts ran over and over the many tangles in the skein of our plans the next day, as we made preparations for our departure that evening. In turned out that the work Liten had left us to do the night before involved cleaning Liut up to make him look presentable to the court. There was nothing to be done about his wrists, covered in sores and bruises as they were, although Liten applied some of his balms to the flesh. Liut would simply have to wear the longer shirt cuffs some courtiers found so charming.
I avoided speaking to Liut all day, leaving the room as he entered, busying myself with something or other if I could not escape his presence for some reason, and when we boarded the aeroplane together, I hoped to continue in this pattern. However, although the plane was larger than Kolorma’s Svala II, it still required that I sit opposite him, so close our knees almost touched. What didn’t make it easier is that we all wore court fashions again, so my knees were bare. My only consolation was that Kolorma sat beside me, and Liut appeared to be afraid of her—quite rightly, in my estimation.
Alflétta piloted the aeroplane, which resembled the Svala II with similar elliptical wings and retractable wheels. Kolorma and Alflétta spent the better part of ten minutes discussing its virtues—apparently it was the very newest model, and the fact that there was a door on either side of the passenger hold was unprecedented—and they would have continued had Liten not interrupted and all but ordered Alflétta into the cockpit. Liten embraced Kolorma and nodded to me, but paid no attention to his patient of the last twenty-four hours, Liut, as he exited the aircraft and walked away. After closing the door and locking it, Kolorma checked Liut and my straps and then sat next to me, tucking a small case beneath her seat and strapping herself in.
The City Darkens (Raud Grima Book 1) Page 24
