by Patty Jansen
Johanna thought that she had been stupid and behaved like a spoilt child that day. She didn’t want to get married because marriage meant looking after a man who expected to be looked after, who expected a lady of the house who held tea parties and things like that.
Roald expected nothing of the sort. Apart from that one thing that would be unpleasant, she wasn’t even sure what he expected. He seemed to be happy for her to tell him what to do. He was happy cooking. He’d been happy chopping wood. Those things he did well and efficiently. It was the talking and relationship stuff he had trouble with.
When Johanna said nothing, Nellie prompted, “Mistress Johanna? In what way?”
Johanna turned to her in the fast-waning light. “I’ll protect the prince from people who only want money he doesn’t have. I want to make sure that our country and our royal family stay as they are. I’ll help Saarland overcome this evil and make it strong again. I will marry Roald.”
Chapter 18
* * *
NELLIE’S FATHER was a celebrant for the Church and Nellie knew the right components of a wedding ceremony. She went into an organising frenzy. She poked Loesie into moving the sloop into a part of the river where weeping willows trailed their branches in the water.
“We’ll make a nice feast out of the nicest food we have,” Nellie said. Never mind that Roald would have to cook it, while she insisted on turning a farm dress into a simple wedding dress with the aid of a sheet. Nellie might be clumsy, easily flustered and impractical, but her strength was that she knew about clothes and protocol and she loved that kind of thing.
She made a table on the deck from a crate covered with a horse blanket. She went on shore to cut sprays of wild parsley flowers which she fashioned into bouquets. She set out cups and candles on the table. It was all so surreal, and it was hard to comprehend that not far away an entire town had been destroyed and its inhabitants killed or driven away.
Johanna spent most of the day sitting on top of the hold covers watching Nellie, who was in her element and seemed to have found a shred of happiness to lift her from her misery.
* * *
They performed the ceremony on the rear deck of the barge in the waning light. Johanna wore the dress, which Nellie had made pretty with ruffles cut from one of the sheets and a necklace of flowers. Roald wore his royal jacket, which Nellie’s attempt to wash had only marginally improved. The crown and the staff were hopefully still in the broom cupboard in the palace, but he still had his rings, and his fingers, although quite slender, were thicker than hers. His seal.
Nellie slid the golden ring on Johanna’s index finger, the only finger it would fit. It felt heavy and cumbersome on her hand.
Roald stood stiff and wouldn’t look at anyone.
Johanna was scared, cold and miserable and shivered through most of it, but inside her, she felt a seed of pride. She held herself straight while Nellie spoke all the words she had heard her father say so many times.
She was nervous, too, and stumbled a few times.
Johanna did this for her country, for the freedom of Saardam. If the four of them were all that was left of the free kingdom, then the four of them would do their best to find other free people and liberate their country.
Johanna didn’t know that Roald understood much of Nellie’s words. He stared at the riverbank most of the time, and had to be prompted to make his reply.
“I do,” sounded like a death sentence coming from those lifeless lips.
They went inside the cabin, and ate some of the best sausages Johanna and Roald had collected from the farm, drank the wine from the captain’s cabin, but it was not until Nellie said that from now on Johanna and Roald should have the captain’s cabin, that it fully hit what she’d agreed to do. And she thought at that moment Roald understood, too. All of a sudden, she was overcome by the desire to scream at Nellie don’t leave me alone with him, but it was far too late. Nellie announced that she was tired and she and Loesie left.
Johanna stood there in the middle of the cabin, clamping her hands around her as Roald shut the door, and bolted it. No way out.
“We are married, now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He laughed, “Heheheheeee.” His eyes twinkled with mischief. “Now I can look.”
Johanna cringed, but there was really no way out, and the quicker this part was over and done with, the better.
Slowly she opened the buttons of her dress and pulled the fabric aside. He sat on the edge of the bed as she wrestled herself out of her dress. Watching. She was so nervous he could have knocked her over with a single finger. He just sat and watched, his eyes wide, as she hung up the dress and slid her underclothes off, first the underdress, and then the corset. The hooks came undone; her breasts hung free. His mouth fell open, like a little boy in a sweet store. She didn’t think he had seen a naked woman before.
With great effort, she had to force herself to cross to him. She slid the jacket off his shoulders. With a feeling of shame, she noticed that it was still not completely dry.
“Come.”
She had to force herself not to shudder. Her fingers trembled as she undid his shirt. His skin underneath was soft and quite tanned, completely without chest hair, and so skinny that his ribs were clearly visible. His nipples, dark brown and erect, lay flat against his chest. No man-boobs here. Apart from his tan, he didn’t look very healthy. How often did he forget to eat?
The trousers were harder to get off and not just because she was nervous or unfamiliar with the belt buckle and fastening. He bent over to stroke her naked shoulders very gingerly with the tips of his fingers, making goose bumps run down her back. His hands were cold.
The belt fell off and the trousers came down. He undid the string to his under pants. They fell, too, but remained suspended on a particular part of his anatomy. He grinned.
“I’m a man, see? I know what to do.”
She doubted it. She didn’t know herself. For all the flirting and the dancing she had done, the kiss from the Baron’s son was the closest she’d ever come to the marital bed and that bed loomed ever closer against the back wall of the cabin. The curtains fluttered with a draught.
She sat next to him on the edge of the mattress, the sheets soft under her naked skin.
He sat next to her and cupped her breast in his hand, a skinny, bony hand with large knuckles.
“It’s so soft.” His chest heaved with deep breaths. His eyes, wide and mad, were on the hair between her legs. “Hee hee heeee. I know what to do,” he said.
With one hand, he pushed her down in the mattress. Johanna forced herself to recline willingly. Best not to resist, lest he go into one of his aggressive moods. Blood roared in her ears.
With surprising agility, he jumped on her and pushed her back into the pillows. Naked skin met naked skin. His was clammy, and slick with sweat. He thrust his hips forward, hard, and his member poked painfully into a very sensitive spot. She couldn’t restrain a yelp.
“Ow!”
He ignored her and kept pushing, now rocking his hips. She tried spreading her legs, but he was all over the place, smearing slime on her inner thighs.
“Roald, stop. Stop!”
He did, which surprised her, his chest heaving.
“You’re hurting me.” She was shivering so much that her jaw threatened to seize up. “Maybe it’s better if you lie on your back.”
“All right.” He chuckled.
She clambered off the narrow bunk and waited, trying to get control of her shattered nerves while he settled himself. A wide grin spread across his face.
She stepped closer to the bed. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her. Johanna almost fell on top of him.
“Wait, calm down.”
She lifted her leg over him and crouched over him. This bunk sure wasn’t made for these types of acrobatics. “Here,” she whispered, while holding his member up. The tip glistered with slime. “Hold it like that.”
She
lowered herself, found the right spot. Breathed in deeply, pushed down. There was a sharp pain and tightness as he slid into her.
He gave a long moan, his head arched back into the pillow.
Well, that was it, she guessed. She was no longer a virgin. But what now? This wasn’t “it”, was it?
She slowly rocked her hips. He moaned again and gripped her thighs with white-knuckled hands, arched his back so he lifted her right off the mattress.
“Ow, ow. That’s hurts!”
But he was bucking and threshing like wild sea cow in a net and Johanna was being bounced about. She managed to get her knees under her, and lifted herself at the same time he arched his back. He slipped out of her.
“Wait, Roald.”
But he bucked and emitted a loud “Huuuuhhhh!” and something wet squirted over her right thigh.
He fell back onto the pillow. Johanna sat there, trembling, while she watched a glob of white slime trickle down her leg.
She guessed that was it, and it hadn’t quite gone where it was intended to go.
“That was good,” he said. “I want more.”
He stared up at the ceiling. His member had already gone limp. She didn’t think there would be ‘more’ tonight.
She was shivering so much she could barely lift herself from the bed. Her upper legs were a sticky mess and when she felt the sore spot between her legs, her finger came away covered in blood-streaked slime.
There was nothing in the cabin to wipe herself and she didn’t want to go outside like this. Nellie would . . .
Oh, Nellie.
The cabin faded in a haze of tears.
Johanna managed to get her underdress back on and lay down in the warm hollow in the mattress next to him. He was asleep in moments. Johanna cried into the pillow all night.
Chapter 19
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING she clambered from the bed sore and feeling dirty.
Roald was still asleep and she intended to leave him that way. What if he wanted to do it again? She didn’t think she could face that.
She wrestled herself into her other clothes and went on deck.
Nellie stood there, her hands crossed over her chest, while Loesie threw carrots at the sea cows.
Oh holy Triune. Not another fight.
“She wanted to disturb you.” Nellie glared at Loesie, who poked out her tongue.
“She could have knocked. I was awake.” Johanna found it hard to keep discomfort out of her voice. She couldn’t meet Nellie’s eyes. There were just too many questions hovering within. She would have heard Roald’s grunts last night.
“I wouldn’t let her disturb anyone on the morning after their wedding. The union between man and woman is holy—”
Johanna waved her to silence. Don’t talk nonsense, Nellie.
Tears threatened in her eyes.
Everything hurt, every step she took. In her mind, she still heard Roald give that horrible grunt when he spilled himself. That must have echoed all over the ship.
“Mistress Johanna? Are you all right? Do you want to sit down?”
Johanna glared at Nellie, her wide eyes, her pale face.
What did she think? That the future of the kingdom grew inside her? That she needed mollycoddling because of that? It couldn’t even be so, and what was worse, she would have to endure Roald’s attentions until it did. What did she know?
She wanted to laugh, and cry and slap her in the face.
“Don’t say that to me again.”
“Mistress Johanna?”
She whirled at her. “Stop calling me that. Call me Johanna, or call me nothing at all, instead of treating me like a. . . .” Her voice cracked.
Nellie shrank back, her chest heaving, and said nothing for a long time. Johanna stared out over the water, wiping stubborn tears from her cheeks.
“But Mi . . . er . . . Johanna, you are the queen now and I will treat you like that.” She dipped a curtsey and Johanna had an even greater desire to punch her in the face.
“Please, Nellie.”
Roald’s ring felt like a millstone on her hand. Like this, it was so visible, and it was too big for her. She took off her necklace, slid the ring off and threaded the necklace through. When she did it back up again, the ring hung between her breasts.
“It’s too big. I’m afraid I might lose it.”
Nellie nodded.
“Let’s just go and see what Loesie wants. If she wanted to disturb me, that means she has something to say.”
She went to the bow, but Loesie was no longer there. She stood on the riverbank, her hand on the trunk of a willow tree. People in these parts didn’t cut willows, and its branches trailed in the water. Soft green misted the pale wood. Spring came.
“Loesie?” Johanna called.
She looked up and gestured come.
The current had brought the boat right into shore. There was an old jetty here and they didn’t need the dinghy to clamber out, but the section where it joined up to the shore had collapsed. Johanna took off her shoes and waded through the water to the small sandy beach.
She joined Loesie at the tree trunk. Soft branches brushed over her head, and bees buzzed amongst the little furry balls that were the willow’s flowers.
“Anything here?” she asked.
Loesie took her hand and pulled it to the rough wood of the tree trunk.
The green riverbank faded. It was dusk, and a long procession of men on large horses followed the river downstream. Horses and spears and fur jerkins.
“Who are they?” she asked Loesie.
She shook her head. Ghghghgh. She pointed up the bank.
They left the shelter of the branches of the tree. Nellie had just come ashore and was wrestling her shoes back onto her feet.
“What’s going on?” she asked. Her cheeks were red and flustered. Brilliant sunlight brought out the greens and yellows of the meadow. The top of the riverbank led into an orchard, the trees full of white flowers.
Large daisies bloomed in the grass between the trees, and purple and pink flowers, so different from what Johanna had ever seen.
Nellie was the first one in the meadow. “Isn’t this pretty?” She already had a handful of flowers. “We can make you a more cheerful wedding bouquet.”
Johanna cringed. “Let’s be careful.” An orchard usually meant that there was a farmhouse nearby.
“I’m not doing any harm.” Nellie continued picking. “If I don’t pick flowers, they’re going to get eaten by those cows over there.”
The cows were grey-brown, very unlike the black and white ones that were common with farmers in Saarland. There was a group of four or five of them in the shade of a tree.
A rutted track led out of the orchard. It disappeared along a bend behind a mass of dark trees.
A pine forest.
A chill crept over Johanna’s back. She heard the voices in the wind whistling through the boughs. She felt the tingle of magic that tugged at her senses but showed her nothing because she didn’t have wind magic. “Maybe we should return to the Lady Sara.” Roald was there alone.
“In a moment. When I’ve got all the flowers I need.”
It was the first time that she had seen Nellie being her old self, so Johanna calmed her nerves and sat down in the grass. The scent of crushed herbs rose up to her. The sunlight was warm and comfortable, the meadow a kaleidoscope of cheerful colours. She was just making herself scared by thinking about magic. Likely there was nothing to be afraid of once you got used to the sounds of the forest.
She glanced at Loesie, but she had also sat down and stared into the distance with a dreamy look.
Guess a little rest was all right.
She lay back in the grass.
The next thing she knew, she woke up with the sound of a cow chomping on leaves.
What?
“Nellie, what . . .” She sat up with a jerk. Nellie lay behind her, her head resting on her elbow. Her eyes were closed and he
r chest moved in regular breaths. A bunch of wilted flowers lay next to her.
“Loesie?”
The field was empty. Loesie was nowhere to be seen.
Nellie opened her eyes. “Oh, pardon me, Mistress Johanna. I think I fell asleep.”
“We all fell asleep. The past few days have been tiring for all of us. I guess we earned the rest.”
“Look at my poor flowers! I must get some new ones.”
“We need to go back. I don’t know what Loesie and Roald have been up to, but they must be wondering where we are.”
Nellie looked disappointed, but didn’t protest.
They walked back over the hill, between the blooming apple trees. Then down the bank to the Lady Sara which lay bobbing peacefully, with the roaming lines of the sea cows attached. The animals were grazing on the bottom. Loesie was nowhere to be seen.
Johanna and Nellie waded through the water to the half-rotten and wobbly jetty.
When Johanna was halfway up the ladder to the deck, a dark silhouette appeared at the top. Someone that was not Roald, but a much bigger man with a ponytail.
She gasped but she had nowhere to go. Nellie was behind her and couldn’t go down quickly enough. Not only that, two more bandits waded towards them from the shore.
Nellie screamed.
The thug on the deck grabbed Johanna’s arm and yanked her up onto the deck. There were not one but three thugs on the deck—all of them bearded and with long-furred jerkins. Two wore ponytails; the third and biggest thug was bald. They laughed when their mate dumped Johanna onto the deck. Behind her, Nellie was struggling against the grip of one of the men who had come up behind them, screaming and kicking.
“Let us go. We’re free citizens of Saarland.” Johanna straightened herself and tried to sound impressive, as if . . . Roald. Where was Roald?
The men laughed and exchanged comments in a strange and harsh-sounding language. One of the men was tying Nellie’s hands up with a dirty rag. Nellie was still kicking at the man, and in response, he grabbed the front of her dress and thrust a hand down.
Nellie screamed.
