by AJ Cooper
“My lord,” Hilda said, “if your honor would lend me ear, I must say that this man possesses a skill that would be of use to you. I beg of you, do not kill him; it would be like throwing away that pile of gold.”
“A skill?” Stenn asked. “What sort of skill?”
“He is trained by the Skalds’ College in Oskir,” Hilda said. “He is the best singer and lutist I have ever heard. He knows songs of joy and mirth that will get you through the worst of winter.”
“Joy? Mirth?” Stenn scoffed. “I prefer songs that frighten me and make my little sister weep: songs of darkness and endless winters… of rokahn, and giants, and spiders big as dogs… and the Ulfr of old.”
“I know many of those songs,” Brand said, his voice still trembling. “If it is darkness you want, I can fill all your idle hours.”
“We take him to a holding cell, and if his songs please me, I will let him live for a while until he outgrows his usefulness.” Stenn looked down at Hilda. “And if you are a competent assassin, as your crimes suggest, then I believe you won’t outgrow your own use for a while. I’ll keep you alive until my uncle Harald forces your execution.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By the time they reached Riverhall Keep, the snow flurries blinded them. Icy winds knifed through the air, burning through their fur coats with deadening cold. The sun was now a twinkling, fading glow against the sea and darkness was fast approaching. The darklings would soon fill the countryside, or perhaps now that they’d had their fill, would retreat back past the wooden wall—Brand could only hope.
They reached the gate of the keep. The guards were dressed in gold-colored armor, and had on linen overshirts bearing the Riverhall coat-of-arms: the golden image of a bear with his feet on either side of a river, set against a blue field.
“These two are my prisoners,” explained young Stenn. “Take them to the holding cells. Give them a little bit of slop, but not enough to spoil them.”
The guards silently nodded affirmation. They took Brand and Hilda’s swords from Stenn, then restrained them and led them into the fine stone rooms of Riverhall Keep.
The first thing Brand noticed was the temperature. The keep was well-heated and far more comfortable than White Wolf Keep. Only in King Sven’s royal palace did Brand remember being this comfortable, and that was earlier in the year when the winter had not yet begun.
On the way to the prison he could not help but notice the riches inside: golden urns, marble statues covered in ornate jewelry, and paintings with such rich colors they seemed to glow in the torchlight. The smell of roast boar tantalized Brand’s stomach, making him realize just how hungry he was.
The moment they entered the prison wing, everything changed. The fine stone turned rough-hewn and the tile floors became flagstone. A large dog with torn-up ears greeted them with a snarl. In the whole of the prison, there was only one torch, and the cells which Brand and Hilda were thrown into—although close to each other—were nearly pitch black.
The guards left. A few seconds later, a pale, fat-bellied man dressed in black arrived. He grinned, revealing the few yellow teeth he had, and said, “I’ll have your slop in a second. It’s wha’ the pigs eat down in the sty, but you can’t afford to be picky when you’re under my care.”
After one bite of the slop—a crude, pummeled-down mixture of every undesirable food-scrap the court threw away, from fat to guts and gizzards—Brand decided that starving was better than finishing his meal. Across the room, through iron bars, he could see that Hilda had finished hers. Their eyes met and she laughed.
“When you’ve been starving in the mossland and you’ve forced down raw squirrel guts without spewing them back out, you can eat anything,” Hilda said.
Brand stared at her in disbelief, and then they both burst out laughing, howling like wolves. Brand’s laughter turned to tears, and soon his face was red and wet. “It is nice to have a laugh during such a dark time… when my master is dead, and there is no food to warm my gullet… and I will be tortured in public for entertainment, then a sword finally thrust through my neck.” Brand’s tears turned back into laughter, and then a mixture of both. For a while it exorcised his fear and sadness. He wished he and Hilda shared a cell. He looked at her and realized her strength had made her pretty to him, despite her scars and age; she was more beautiful to him a young maiden. “If you were near to me, Hilda, I’d kiss you,” he said out loud. “I’d kiss you until you couldn’t breathe and your lips turned raw.”
“I am old,” Hilda said. “Old in body, but older in the soul; I would not let you kiss me. My childbearing years are near over and you are in the prime of life. I am old enough to be your mother. You deserve a beautiful lady young as yourself, healthy and scarce of years.”
“I’d kiss you just the same.”
The jailer shouted from the darkness. “I’ll make you both kiss my rump if you don’t shut up!”
Despite the crude retort, a lust for Hilda had flared up inside him. He had not been with a woman in a long, long time, and those two scars from the crude horse chieftain were more beautiful to him than a noblewoman’s fine white powder. Only now, separated by iron bars, did his feelings show. He laughed.
Hours passed in silence. Outside, the winds began howling, audible even through the thick stone. The cells grew chill, even in the well-heated keep. And the jailer came in and unlocked Brand’s door, but not Hilda’s. “The court wishes to see you,” he grunted.
Brand gave a passing glance to Hilda inside her cell. Then he left with the jailer.
The whole Riverhall family sat inside the court room. The floors were covered in bearskins and deerskins, and strange orange-and-black skins which Brand had never seen before. The windows were draped with purple silk. Colored paper lined the walls; gold leaf lined the window ledges; and every cup, bowl and utensil which the family used to eat was made of silver. The ostentatious display made Brand hate these people all the more.
Sitting on the throne was Harald, a coronet resting on his thin black hair. Sable lined the sleeves of his thick winter robe. Next to him was his wife, a blonde woman with her hair done into a bun.
Harald’s relatives sat around him on couches and the fur-cushioned floor. There were, perhaps, five children in his dark brood: Stenn, the only boy; and four little girls in dresses. There was one other older adult, not counting Harald and his wife: a woman with brown hair and blue eyes.
All their features were dark save Harald’s blonde wife. Perhaps these children belonged to Harald’s brother, as Stenn did. But Harald’s brother was not present.
“Greetings,” said Lord Harald. “My nephew says you are a skald, and trained at the Skalds’ College.”
“He does not lie,” Brand answered.
“I am a lover of music,” Harald said. “But first… you were caught trespassing in my wood. What were you doing there?”
I used to be idealistic, like you. I used to believe in honor.
“Going for a walk,” Brand lied.
“I know you are not telling the truth,” said Lord Harald. “It does not matter to me. What matters to me is that you can sing; I shall not put a musical talent to waste.”
“If you kill my friend, Hilda,” Brand said, “then I will not sing for you.”
“Then you will die!” Stenn snapped.
Harald motioned him to be silent. “We will keep her alive, then,” he said. “Do not listen to my nephew. He loves to see violence; he’s acquired the tastes of the portsmen. An earl’s first job is to be liked. If the people want to see executions, they will see it. And believe me, they want to.” He paused. “Now, skald, please sing me a song.”
“What kind would you like?”
Stenn interrupted. “Winter! Spiders! Rokahn and giants!”
Stenn’s mother—the brunette—glared at her son.
“My tastes stray to the dark as well,” said Lord Harald. “Please me, and I will let you have some boar and mead.”
Brand gave hi
s lute a few test strums. Then, swallowing his nervousness, he began playing the opening to Fell Winter and sang as best he could in the circumstances.
Men will abandon honor
Kin will turn against kin
Snow-age, dark-age, White Wolf-age
’til the Ulfr have their revenge
’til the Ulfr have their revenge
As he sang the last bit, young Stenn jumped about and clapped excitedly. “That was amazing!” he said. “Sing me one about trolls!”
The brown-haired woman—Stenn’s mother—frowned. “Calm down, Stenn,” she said. “This music is frightening Unna.” She clutched tight a little girl in pigtails who was obviously not frightened, then glared at Brand.
“Quiet, Lady Kenna. It is good to be scared on a cold winter’s night,” Harald said. “You have a good ear, and your voice is pleasing. Yet I do believe you need work.”
Brand was too worried about his safety to be insulted.
“I do think you can become a great skald, however,” Harald said. “And you may have a helping of boar and a stein of mead. Your friend, however, is a wanted criminal. You only broke the king’s seal and fled the earl’s service; she is a murderess, a thief, and more. She once whored herself to an earl’s man in Blackhelm Keep, then cut his throat and left with his coinpurse. She is dangerous and must be stopped. If I abided her here in this city I would be a terrible baron.”
“She is misunderstood!” Brand asserted. “A horse chief—one of the horse peoples—she was sent to him by her father, and she was raped.”
“Lord Dagnir Goldleaf is an ambitious man. He is sixty years old, and yet still devises ways to expand his house. His holdings are still small, his coffers still empty. Wise men have said, ‘The goal of a noble house is to bring all others under its submission.’ But I say bullocks.” Harald motioned to his family. “Neither I, nor the House Riverhall, wish to go war. We only wish to live, and live well.”
“And live well you do,” Brand said. “You have an excellent keep, excellent food, and an excellent city.”
“And yet, I do not live as well as I want,” Harald said and glanced out the window, his eyes filled with thought. He glanced back at Brand. “I am not a bad man. Some may say I am a coward, but I only want the people to like me. I want you to like me, Brand. I will not kill Hilda straightaway, though I regret that I must, and soon.”
That night, sleeping in his private room, he thought of Hilda and prayed to Vana that she might be saved.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He awoke in the middle of the night. Gunnar stood in the room, his chopped-up body crudely stitched back together, his axe in hand. His skin was silvery and the pupils of his eyes, dark red. “Why did you let her do that to me?” he said, his voice static and lifeless. “Why did you let her drag me out while I was still alive… struggling against her… taking me to the city park and then chopping off my legs and arms and hands and head? Why did you do that, my friend?”
Brand shrieked. “I am sorry, master. I thought the darklings took you. I thought they turned you into one of them. I thought—”
“Skalds,” Gunnar said. “Always thinking… always thinking of things other than their master, wi’ their heads in the clouds. Perhaps I’ll do to you what they did to me… chop up the legs, then the arms, and the hands, an’ save the head for last. Just like Hilda did to me, that dark-hearted wench.”
He kept walking closer to Brand, and Brand kept backing away, but he’d hit the wall soon. In a black cookpot, above the dying coals of the fire, was a knife. He grabbed the hilt and pulled it out against Gunnar.
“Would you kill your master, boy?” Gunnar said. “Would you cut out ’is heart. I thought the bond between warrior and skald went beyond death. I thought our loyalty was paramount and true.”
“You are not Gunnar!” Brand said. “You are one of the darklings! The dead who walk again. Your eyes are not the same… your skin is silver and strange.”
“If you do not believe me,” Gunnar said, “I’ll kill you, an’ I’ll cut you up.”
Brand charged him, surprising him, and knocked him down to the floor. He ran the knife hard against Gunnar’s throat. He sawed it down to the spinal bone. Gunnar’s body crumpled inward, then turned to gray powder, and then to nothing.
Brand awoke at first light. Sweat covered him, dripping down his neck and his arms and moistening his undershirt and tunic. The dream hung heavy over him. Or had it been a dream?
Two cooks were re-lighting the fireplace, evidently to cook the lord’s breakfast.
Brand shivered, thinking of that dream, and felt a mix of guilt and fear. “What are we having for breakfast?” he asked, more to get his mind off things than actual concern.
“Spicy beef and leek stew,” a cook said.
“May I give some to Hilda?”
“I suppose,” the other said, “if the lord baron agrees.”
Harald granted Brand’s request when he awoke.
Brand took Hilda the steaming hot bowl before he had even tasted his own. He pushed it through the openings of the iron bars.
“Thank you,” she said. “You are a good man. Any woman would be lucky to have you. But I am not that woman.”
“I want you, Hilda,” Brand said.
Hilda picked a wedge of beef out of the stew and chewed it down. She winced. “Have you had spice before? Has the hot pepper of the southerly peoples ever touched your tongue?”
“No,” Brand said.
“You will not like it at first,” Hilda said. “But the more you have it, the more you will enjoy it until you are like one of the southerners.”
“I will never be like the southerners—the soft, cowardly people in their luxurious cities, knowing nothing of honor.”
“Of all the towns in Badelgard, Andarr’s Port is the most southerly in culture,” Hilda said. “And of all the noble houses, the Riverhalls are the most southern and decadent. Remember this when you are their pet, and I am in chains.”
There was a hint of accusation and bitterness toward Brand in Hilda’s voice, and it tore at his heart.
Back in the throne room, the morning’s breakfast had just begun—and Brand’s tongue, just starting to burn from the spicy stew—when a man in a gray kirtle entered the hall.
“What is it, Eileff?” Harald said. “Couldn’t this have waited until after breakfast?”
“I’m afraid not, Your Honor,” he answered. “A horse has died in your stables… Silver, Lord Stenn’s stallion.”
“You sad excuse for an equerry!” Stenn screamed. “I’ll have you hanged, you whore’s son! I loved that stallion like a child.”
“What happened?” Harald said in a tone no less biting than his nephew. “Silver was healthy. Why did you let him die?”
Eileff’s face had grown pale. “I found him dead in the stables. I believe he died of terror.”
“How do you know that?” Harald said.
“It pains me to admit this,” said Eileff. “The horses went wild last night. Two managed to kick down their doors and escape.” He gulped. “Including your palfrey Thunderhoof, milord, and Lady Kenna’s gelding.”
“You bastard,” Lady Kenna hissed.
“Those were priceless easterly horses. We took great joy in riding them!” Harald shouted. “Where were you when all this happened?”
“I was in my house with a locked door,” Eileff said. “I was hiding from the strangers who came to the city last night. The ghosts…”
Brand admired Eileff’s bravery and truthfulness. He was an honorable man.
“Ghosts,” Harald said, and then laughed. “And now poor Silver is dead, and Thunderhoof is gone… all because my equerry was afraid of ghosts! Have you no shame? I once thought you were a brave man… but now you hid from ghosts and abandoned your post.” He jabbed a finger at Eileff. “Take him away. Off with his head, and give the people a good show.”
Ten gold-armored guards protected the throne. The two by Harald’s side grabbed E
ileff with their gloved hands.
“Promote Ennar, and scour the port for another junior equerry,” said Harald.
Eileff went along with the guards without a struggle. Sickness settled in Brand’s stomach as he realized just how easily he could share the equerry’s fate.
An hour after Eileff was dragged off to his fate—and long after Brand had finished his tongue-burning stew—another man entered. He wore the gold armor of Harald’s personal guardians and an overshirt bearing the Riverhall coat-of-arms.
“Lord Erik, Captain of the River Guard,” Harald intoned darkly. “Why must you bother me? Have I not fed the people their daily allotment of execution? Did Eileff not please them? If not, go find someone who stared improperly at a market stall.”
“Milord,” the watch captain said, and dropped to one knee. “Jannik son of Jannik, Protector of the Watchtower and court favorite of the Frostfall earl, has a request.”
Gooseflesh spread across Brand’s skin. He thought of running away.
“He has no family name. So he is common,” Harald said.
“He is a favorite of the earl,” the watch captain said.
“Very well. Speak,” Harald said.
“Jannik son of Jannik wants the woman, Hilda Summerleaf, whom we have in our custody. He wants her either as a prisoner, or as a severed head.”
“No!” Brand shouted.
Harald glanced at Brand. “Why does he want her?” he said, looking back at the watch captain. “How has she wronged Jannik?”
“He has made claims of treason, and of endangering the people of Badelgard,” said the watch captain.
“And if I refuse?” Harald said.
“Henrik, earl of White Wolf Keep, will come with an army and take her by force,” the watch captain explained.
“Perhaps,” said the blonde-haired queenly wife that sat next to Harald, “we should be brave, just this once. This woman is a dear friend of our beloved musician.” She smiled at Brand. “If Henrik comes, the High King will defend us with an army far greater than the earl’s. We are dependent to the king; but our jurisdiction over the port is close to sovereign.”
