His cock began to stiffen, despite his blood loss.
What in Freya’s name am I thinking!
There was no future to be had with this woman. She and Benoia were fugitives, and he was taking them to face Lord Dahleven’s justice. That was all there could ever be between them. He hoped the Jarl would see that Benoia had only defended herself, but the girl had harmed the heir of a lord, a lord whose vote the Jarl needed at the upcoming Althing, the annual meeting of the Jarls and their lords. A man might think of his own daughter, sister, and wife facing assault and treat Benoia with compassion, but a Jarl who wanted to enfranchise all women in his province might think their needs outweighed those of a single girl.
Even worse, Benoia had used Elven magic.
Was doing so a violation of the Laws of Sanction? Aren didn’t know. Most would think so, even if it wasn’t. Lord Dahleven might have the support to make an unpopular decision, but would he spend it by deciding in favor of the foster-daughter of a Fey-marked woman? Shame twisted Aren’s gut. He hadn’t set out to deceive Annikke and Benoia, or himself, for that matter. Nevertheless, he’d led the women to believe the Jarl would be sympathetic to them, and though he might well be, Aren knew that sympathy wasn’t likely to translate to leniency for the girl.
Afternoon sun filtered through the trees, sparking light from Annikke’s hair. The magic of it couldn’t distract Aren from the miserable truth.
Taking Benoia back to Quartzholm was very probably going to bring grief to Annikke, and he couldn’t imagine she’d want anything to do with him after that. Worse, he’d be breaking his promise to Torlon. Again.
“Why are you staring at her like that?”
Benoia’s low challenge startled Aren into speaking the truth. “Because she’s beautiful.”
In a tone that wouldn’t be overheard, Benoia declared, “She’s more than beautiful. She’s honorable and compassionate.”
Aren smiled at Benoia’s fierce defense of her foster-mother. “I can see that. I wish my daughter had so devoted a mother.”
The young woman’s brow furrowed as she considered his answer. “You aren’t put off by her being Fey-marked?”
“Why should I be?” Aren replied in a similarly low voice. “She’s clearly not mad. And I’ve had dealings with the Elves myself, after all.”
“Then what are you going to do about it?” Rather than sounding like she was afraid he’d take advantage of her foster-mother, Benoia’s tone suggested impatience with his lack of action.
Taken aback, Aren asked, “What do you propose?”
Benoia shrugged. “Free me from my parole. Let me go, if not to Forsvaremur with Norva and Lord Vali, then somewhere else. I’ll be safe from Sveyn and his father, and your generosity will earn you Annikke’s gratitude.”
Aren wished his choice could be that simple and straightforward. The idea of letting Benoia go, and of having Annikke, warm and loving in his arms each night was tempting—and that seductive whisper scared him more than standing on the edge of a precipice. He owed his life to Torlon, and that debt preceded the oaths made to Lord Fender and the Jarl. He could do as Benoia asked, fulfill his promise to the Elf, and have Annikke.
Was this how Da broke his oath to his liege? By putting sentiment over duty?
Shame would follow his daughter for the rest of her life if he failed his duty to Lord Fender.
What would the Elves do if he helped others bring grief and harm to Benoia and Annikke? He had no idea, but he didn’t think they’d visit their wrath upon his family. Tandra would be safe—but what kind of man would he be if he allowed that to happen?
Aren huffed a bitter laugh. “An excellent argument, but for two small problems. One, Annikke might be grateful, but she’d leave with you, not cleave to me.”
Benoia bowed her head. “And what is the second?”
Freyr protect me. “My duty to Lord Dahleven will not allow it.”
Aren hoped he wasn’t trading shame for Elven retribution.
*
The sun was fully up when they set out for Quartzholm the next morning. Annikke was happy to see that Aren didn’t even have a limp.
He caught her staring as he tested his movement and smiled. “Nearly good as new, thanks to you.”
Annikke dropped her gaze, but it was too late. She was already blushing. “And Gaelon.”
“Aye.” Aren sounded resigned.
The Elves accompanied them to where the road escaped the forest, and put a temporary glamour on Aren’s pants so the blood stain wouldn’t draw attention.
“You still have your debt to pay,” Torlon reminded him.
“I well know it,” Aren replied.
Annikke shook her head and made a derisive noise. “How many times does he have to save my life before his debt is paid?”
Torlon kept staring into Aren’s eyes as he answered her. “As many times as necessary.”
As they approached the edge of the village that surrounded the wall around Quartzholm, the size of the place seemed to grow. This was far larger than Lord Tholvar’s manor. Annikke had never seen so many people in one place, not even on festival days in her village. She tried not to gape and stare as Aren led their group up one of the main thoroughfares through the town that spilled down the slope outside castle walls. All morning and through the afternoon, Annikke had tried to imagine what Quartzholm would be like, but even Aren’s description had not prepared her.
Rising high on the skirts of the mountain beyond, rose quartz walls rose dozens of feet above the granite curtain wall that separated the castle from the one and two story stone buildings of the village. Several people called out greetings to Aren as their group climbed the switch-backed avenue and he responded with a few words or a smile and a wave.
Finally they faced the massive gates that stood wide open like a giant maw waiting to swallow them.
Her foster daughter stopped and stood rigidly staring. Annikke took her hand. “Courage, sweetling. I’m with you.”
Benoia swallowed hard, and then lifted a brow at Annikke. “You only call me that when things are really bad.”
Annikke blinked. Was that true?
“It’s all right. I don’t need to hear it every day.” Benoia squeezed Annikke’s hand. “Your heart isn’t hidden.” She straightened her shoulders, and they continued through the gates into the courtyard.
The paved bailey was big enough to accommodate ten of the village marketplaces back home. From where she stood Annikke could see three towers punctuating the buttressed walls. Catwalks connected them near the top, and staircases ran up to each in between. More towers connected by arching spans marked the castle that seemed to grow out of the mountains. It loomed over them like a massive hammer about to fall.
A wide staircase led up to an entrance flanked by several guardsmen. Aren identified himself, and then introduced Lord Vali and Norva. “Lord Vali is in Emergence. Escort him to suitable rooms, summon a Healer and stirkedrikk, and let the Jarl know Lady Solveig’s son is our guest.”
Vali threw Annikke a wry glance as the guardsmen reacted with the exactly right level of concern. Annikke could see that neither he nor Aren noticed the glances at her hair, or the looks passing between the guards.
Aren waited until Lord Vali and Norva had disappeared within before saying, “This is Annikke Torrsonsdatter and Benoia Fornosdatter. They’ll also need appropriate lodging.”
Annikke watched the guard’s face turn hard, and her heart faltered.
“You captured the Fey-marked witch and her fledgling? Well done. We’ll take charge of them.” One of the guards grasped Annikke’s upper arm tightly while another pulled Benoia over to him with similar roughness. “Get yourself some food.”
“These women have given me their parole,” Aren objected, putting a restraining hand on the man’s arm. “Treat them with courtesy.”
The guard stiffened, and jerked free of Aren’s grasp with a sharp twist.
Annikke’s heart picked up speed. This wasn�
��t what Aren had said would happen. Too late, instinct urged her to flee. She took half a step away but the guard roughly jerked her back.
“Are you Fey-marked, too? These prisoners are dangerous and have a warrant sworn on them.”
A warrant?
The shock on Aren’s face told Annikke all she needed to know. He hadn’t lied to her, but that mattered little now. The Jarl had already made up his mind. Would he have them stripped of their Talents? Exiled? She should have let Benoia run instead of encouraging her to trust the Jarl’s justice.
“Sworn by who?” Aren demanded.
The guard answered with a disgusted sneer. “It’s none of my concern who brought the charges. I obey my captain’s orders and he obeys the Jarl. And the Jarl wants the prisoners detained until he sees fit to hear their case.”
A small spurt of hope diluted Annikke’s fear. At least Lord Dahleven still intends to hear Benoia’s side.
“When was that order given?”
“Yesterday.”
Annikke searched Aren’s face, wondering why that mattered. “What does this mean?”
Aren ran a hand over his beard. “The Jarl sent me to bring you in to give your account of what happened. When I left, Lord Tholvar had brought a complaint but a warrant hadn’t been sworn on you. Matters have progressed in the sevenday I’ve been gone.”
“Maybe the men who escaped came here and brought new accusations,” Benoia said.
“Enough chatter,” the first guard said. “Come with us.”
The guards marched Annikke and Benoia down a stair and through smooth stone hallways lit by glowlights. Annikke’s heart sank. The Jarl must be powerful if even his prison enjoyed the luxury of Talent generated light. What hope had she of persuading him of Benoia’s innocence, and her vulnerability to Sveyn’s unwanted attention, if he’d never known any himself?
Annikke heard Aren following but the guard gripping her arm hustled her and Benoia along briskly and she couldn’t turn to see him. The passage turned several times, until they came to a room with a table and chairs. Two men sat there, playing bones.
“What have we here?” one asked.
“Annikke Torsonsdatter and Benoia Fornosdatter. Warranted, both of them. They’re to be kept separate.”
Separate! Annikke turned to the guard who was still tightly clasping her upper arm. After all Benoia had been through, Annikke didn’t want her to be alone. “No! Please, put us together.”
One of the new guards laughed nastily. “Why? Are you two lovers like those Daughters of Freya? I could teach you better.”
Her escort pulled Annikke back from the leering guard and pushed her into the custody of his companion. Annikke clung to Benoia as the man who’d left marks on her arm turned to loom over the guard, but Aren was already in his face.
“Listen very closely,” Aren said in a voice as hard as the granite walls. “The Jarl does not tolerate abuse of prisoners, and Lord Fender takes great pleasure in disciplining those who do. Harm them at your peril.”
The guard lifted his nose. “You’re not my commander.”
Aren bared his teeth in a humorless grin. “No. I just play bones with him.”
The guard backed up a step, bumping into Annikke’s escort who stood just behind. “Fine. I was just making a joke. There’s no harm in that.” He shot a narrow-eyed glance at her and Benoia as if he blamed them for the set-down he’d just received. A chill shivered down Annikke’s spine. She didn’t want Benoia in this man’s care.
Her foster-daughter shook as she had after Sveyn’s attack, but the girl wasn’t weeping now. Anger burned in Benoia’s eyes. “The last man who tried to rape me got a shriveled cock for his trouble,” she snarled at the guard, “so don’t even think about it.”
“Benoia!” Annikke rebuked her foster-daughter out of habit, but she couldn’t keep a smile from the corner of her mouth as the man paled. It probably wasn’t wise to provoke someone like him, but she couldn’t bring herself to fault her foster-daughter.
The guards escorted them into a long hallway punctuated with metal doors. One of the guards took Benoia to the far end, while Annikke’s held open a door near their break room. They wouldn’t even be able to hear each other.
Annikke paused in the doorway of her cell. A sliver of light filtered down from a horizontal slot near the ceiling, giving just enough illumination to see how meager her accommodations were. The cell held only a narrow sleeping bench cut into the stone wall, covered with a thin straw mattress and a rough wool blanket. At least all appeared clean, even if a malodorous bucket sat in the corner.
This was what she’d counseled Benoia to come to Quartzholm for? This was the Jarl’s justice?
“Get in there.” The guard shoved her in and shut the solid iron door. It rang with finality as it locked behind her.
*
The guards stopped Aren from following them down the hallway to the cells. He wanted to defy them, but it would serve no purpose, so he forced himself to wait at the entry point. His gut churned as he watched the women being locked away, all the while trying to not imagine how Annikke’s worry for the girl must be weighing on her. He understood the woman well enough after only these few days to know that she wouldn’t be thinking of her own danger. Annikke was a truer mother to Benoia, even though they weren’t blood, than his daughter’s mother had been to her.
That alone was the source of his admiration for her. That and her willingness to expose her Elven gifts by healing him. It wasn’t because she was beautiful, or that he wanted her in his bed.
Annikke glanced back at him. Glowlights glinted on her hair. She took his breath away, even tired and bedraggled, with wisps of silver coming loose from her braid.
“Try not to worry,” he said, sounding lame to his own ears.
Her smile was weak, but she nodded.
Aren watched as the women who’d been in his charge were caged, and then turned on his heel and left.
Over the last several days he’d worried about becoming an Oathbreaker, about whether the Jarl would judge Benoia harshly for what, in Aren’s opinion, was her fully justified defense of self. On more than one occasion he’d been horrified by the close margin by which Annikke and her daughter had been kept from harm. He respected Annikke’s strength and caring, and saw more than a little of his daughter in Benoia. They should have been confined under watch in servants quarters, not in the gaol. That was generally used only for murderers and violent men who refused to give their parole. Lord Fender would never have allowed this.
Where is Lord Fender?
Aren stalked through the polished stone passages of the castle, unseeing. He’d managed to keep his word to both Lord Dahleven and Torlon, but only just barely. Annikke and Benoia were in Quartzholm and safe. Now all he had to do was keep them so.
Chapter Nineteen
Smells of dinner cooking wafted into the street from the cottages Aren passed on his way home. He looked forward to eating his mother’s stew and sleeping in his own bed again, but the pleasure of his anticipation was muted. Annikke and Benoia would be eating prisoner’s fare and sleeping in bleak cells.
Tandra looked up from the onions she was chopping as he entered. “Da! You’re back!” She jumped up to greet him as his mother turned to smile. Halfway across the room Tandra’s face assumed an expression of horror. “You’re hurt!”
“Summon a Healer!” his mother exclaimed. “Quick girl!”
Aren looked down at the front of his trews. The Elves’ glamour had faded and the stain now showed clearly that he’d lost a lot of blood. He caught his daughter by the arm before she ran out the door. “It’s all right. I’m not hurt.” He pulled first his daughter and then his mother into a big hug, rubbing their backs.
His mother pulled away first, her brows knitting as she glanced down at his recently mended pants. “There’s a tale here, clearly. But first you should bathe and change.”
“Aye,” Aren agreed.
A candlemark later Aren returned
from the public baths clean and freshly clothed. In the interest of keeping his mother and daughter from worrying, he told them a falsehood—that the blood staining his pants belonged to another man who’d tried to hurt Annikke. Then he diverted their attention by relating his rescue of Vali.
Tandra listened eagerly and wondered aloud if she might see the young lord before he returned to Forsvaremur. In return, she related all the goings on in the castle that she’d heard while he was gone.
Aren listened with only half an ear to his daughter’s account. It warmed his heart to be back home with his family, and Tandra’s happiness reassured him that his decision to uproot them all and bring them here to Quartzholm had been a good one. But as Aren watched his daughter wash the dishes, his thoughts kept straying to Annikke and Benoia. Annikke had sacrificed her home and come to Quartzholm with little choice in the matter, and she wasn’t enjoying her evening meal with Benoia or with much hope of a better future.
“Goodnight, Da.” Tandra kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you’re back.” Then she climbed into the loft where she slept.
For a few minutes he and his mother sat in silence except for the slight creak of her rocking chair. A summer breeze wafted through the open shutters, carrying wisps of domestic sounds from other cottages on the lane. He was home again with his family, but Aren couldn’t be restful. He stood and paced over to the still damp dishes, taking a towel to them instead of letting them air dry.
It wasn’t right that Annikke and Benoia should be treated so harshly, and had Lord Fender been in the castle he would not have allowed it. But even his commander couldn’t gainsay a warrant. The women were as safe as they could be in the gaol. Aren was sure the guard understood the risks of abusing them and would leave them alone. Yet safe or not, he knew Annikke was afraid for Benoia, and Aren had brought her into that fearful place.
DEBTS (Vinlanders' Saga Book 3) Page 13
