by Susan Wright
"What ho?" the man called out.
I forced myself to sit up again, though the world spun around. I could hardly see his face leaning over me. But to my everlasting gratitude, two olfs were hovering at his shoulders, sending out sparks of welcome. Their curiosity was like a warm burst of reassurance.
I smiled regardless of the ache in my head. The olfs didn’t flee from me despite the terror I had helped bring down on the people of Becksbury. "I’m so glad to see you," I murmured to them, sinking back down in the boat.
"I’ve not heard that before." The man let go of the heavy bag he was dragging across the sand. He spoke the Noromenn tongue, but his words were odd and slurred. "Are you sick?"
"I’m waiting for my . . . Lexander. He brought me here."
The man stood up, looking one way then another. "I don’t see anyone nearby."
"He’ll be back for me soon." I put my hand to my head, wondering if I should try to sit up again.
"I can’t leave you here," he declared. "Let me carry you up to the village."
I fended off his hands, though I could tell from the olfs that his intent was pure. "No, I must wait for Lexander."
But I was as weak as a kitten and couldn’t resist. He lifted me up from the boat as if I weighed nothing. "You’ll catch your death lying in the water, lass."
A shout went up and I recognized Lexander’s voice. "Unhand her!"
"That’s him," I said.
The man hastily laid me down on the sand. There was something wrong with my belly, which made sitting quite impossible. There was also a problem with my right leg, which sent sharp pangs into my groin.
Lexander appeared while the stranger backed off, taking the olfs with him. They were clearly avoiding Lexander.
"She smiled at me," the stranger said softly.
"Don’t worry," I told Lexander, wishing everything was not so blurry. "This man will help us."
Lexander looked over at the hulking, silent man. "Marja, are you sure?"
I whispered, "Ask him and see."
Lexander carried me gently, but even that was too much for me to bear. I woke next in a dark place, lying on a blanket. I could feel the prickles of straw beneath the ticking. My head was ringing and I was burning hot.
Then I realized Lexander was speaking to me. "Wake up and drink this, Marja. Remember what I told you about your body needing water."
I swallowed. Lexander sounded calmer, not so anxious and rushed. That was all I needed to know.
Then one morning the pain receded. There was still an ache in my head caused, I now discovered, by a tender lump above my ear. As I gingerly stretched my arms and legs, the sharpest pangs were now mostly caused by the stiffness of inactivity.
I rolled over and saw Lexander lying on a blanket on the ground. The fire behind him had burned to coals. His face was turned toward me, shadowed. The crude wooden walls were close around us and the ceiling was low.
Lexander was sleeping. I so rarely saw him asleep that I held very still, gazing at the strong lines of his smooth cheek and jaw. I longed to touch him, but I also wanted to savor the sight of him so utterly at peace.
He looked very different when he killed without hesitation, without remorse.
A slight sigh escaped me, and his eyes opened. He was instantly aware of everything around him. It was one of his inhuman traits, like his luminous amber eyes.
"You’re awake." He pushed himself up, his hand stroking the hair from my face. "Thank the gods, Marja, for I feared I would lose you."
I could hardly raise my hand. "Perhaps the Otherworld was calling, but I couldn’t leave you."
He bent his head to kiss my hand, cupping it with his own. He seemed to fear jostling me, for he was very careful.
"Where are we?" I asked, looking up at the baskets and bags hung from the low ceiling.
"Porter is letting us use his cot. He’s sleeping on his brother’s floor." Lexander got up to stir the fire and put on another log. "He would have given us food, too, if we had been in need. I’ve rewarded him handsomely for his aid."
"Porter?" The time since we had left Becksbury was oddly shadowed.
"The man who found you on the beach. His family are all glaziers. We were fortunate he was collecting sand that morning rather than firewood." Lexander checked a pot that was sitting next to the coals on the stone hearth, and then poured the heated water into a cup.
I remembered the man accompanied by two olfs. "He lifted me from the boat."
"Yes, we came ashore north of the river." Lexander sat down next to me on the bed. He held the cup. "I had intended to go south to the port town, where we could get passage to the Frankish lands, but Swegn and the currents prevailed, so we landed here."
He helped me sit up so I could drink. The liquid was thick with herbs and tasted nutty. I realized how much he had cared for me while I was ill.
"Thank you, Lexander," I murmured between sips.
He heard all that I intended in those words. "I could not let you go."
When I was finished, I felt so weak that it was a relief to lie back down. I watched Lexander move carefully about the tiny cot, preparing a meal and grinding up more herbs until I fell asleep again.
It wasn’t long before I pleaded to be taken outside. I needed to escape the narrow, smoke-stained walls. So Lexander carried me into the courtyard and laid me wrapped in a blanket on a pile of straw the glaziers used to pack their bottles.
It was a perfect, clear day before autumn turned to winter, when the air was pleased to recall summer. I breathed deep, glad that I had insisted on release.
Now I could see everything I had heard from inside the cot. The rhythmic thumping of the bellows beat through the glaziers’ compound, seeming to never cease. The heat rose with the clear smoke from the large clay furnace in the center of the yard. Orange and blue flickers through the air holes showed a fire that burned much hotter than any natural flame.
Porter was bent over, stoking the outdoor furnace to blast the quartz sand into glass. I knew it was him by the way the olfs gathered round. When he saw that Lexander had brought me out, he shucked his thick gloves and ran a hand over his hair. The strands looked more gray than muddy brown from the loose bits of ash.
"Good day, Porter." I smiled up at him, also acknowledging the olfs that hovered nearby.
Lexander was seated on a bench not far away, but he tilted his head to listen.
Porter seemed eager yet wary, as if accustomed to being rebuffed. "You are better now?" His words were slurred, perhaps because his upper lip was split in the middle like a cat’s mouth. If it was an injury, it had long ago healed.
"Yes, I’m sorry to have taken your bed for so long. I’ll soon give it back. Your hospitality has given me strength."
His smile was achingly sweet. " ’Tis not much, not near good enough, lass."
One of the olfs was darting at me, trying to snatch a thread that had come loose on the cuff of my tunic. The olf had a tiny face on a rather puffed-up head, which I thought was endearing. I pulled out a dark red thread and held it up. The olf plucked it from my fingers and sailed away with it.
Porter’s eyes widened. "Gift givers are always rewarded."
"You can see the olfs?" I asked.
"Oh, I think most people can, lass, but they don’t think on it much. That’s why they offer the pinch of sugar or salt as regular as their own meals, and lay out the wards to keep the mischief away."
I nodded. "So I’ve seen in my homeland."
Porter suddenly smiled. " ’Tis sure to be true everywhere. But I know only this—the olfs do brighten my day."
With that, he returned to the furnace. Most of the olfs went with him. They avoided the bench where Lexander sat, and I could tell they had not come into the cot because of him. It saddened me, but I was relieved they had no wish to avoid me.
I watched Porter work hard all day, cutting wood and pitching it into the bottom of the furnace with an expert eye. There was a brisk efficiency about t
he glass making. Inside a long shed, the two brothers used metal rods to blow the glass over the smaller hearths. They spun the molten globs, forming them into blue, green, and yellow bulbs. The bottles were cooled and stored on shelves until they were packed in crates filled with straw. Some of the olfs dived into the bottles, making them glow in brilliant colors. They delighted in leaping through the airholes, shooting through the furnace and out the top vents.
The olfs gathered round that evening when Porter opened the upper chamber of the furnace. He had transformed a pile of sparkling white sand into runnels of cloudy glass. While he collected the glass into a basket, the brothers retired to their houses at the end of the courtyard. I had heard their wives and children on the other side of the fence, tending the garden, pulling water from the well, and feeding the hens.
It was an ideal place for me to heal. The weather was mild, so I stayed outside as much as I could. It wasn’t long before I knew everyone’s name. They were artisans, much like my da. Their love of glass was infectious, but I needed little encouragement to admire the rows of brilliant bottles. Their invalid father took to hobbling over to my straw bed to talk about the craft, making the bottles in the air with his trembling, knobby hands.
Porter’s mouth was shaped such that he couldn’t blow through the pipe to form the glass. He did the hard work, carrying loads of firewood on his back morning and night, and hauling large bags of sand up the bluff from the beach. He pounded the dye to dust so his brothers could mix it with the remelted glass. I never heard Porter complain. He usually hummed to the olfs, going about his work. But occasionally I saw him stare at the bottles lit up by the playing olfs, and his expression was wistful.
One evening Porter came over and silently held something out. It was a globule of glass, a perfect oval, with swirls of white within. The bottom was slightly flattened and rough from the bricks it had rested on as it cooled.
"Ohh . . ." I exclaimed as he gave it to me. It felt slippery in my hand. "How beautiful!"
"The olfs carry off the tiny beads of glass," he explained. "But a big one like this doesn’t happen very often." He smiled shyly. "Keep it, lass."
I reclined back in the straw—I was still as weak as a baby and could barely rise from the cot with Lexander’s support. As Porter returned to the furnace, Lexander came over and sat down next to me. "It’s time we talked about what happened in Becksbury, Marja."
I pushed myself up. "Yes, it’s been preying on me, Lexander. We shouldn’t have left the slaves behind. Olvid should be here with us now, alive."
Lexander slowly nodded. "This is why you can’t come with me. You can’t accept what must be done to destroy the houses."
I stared at him. "Are you going to tie me up and run away again?"
"No." He shook his head. "I need you to understand why I have to go on alone."
"Go where?" I demanded. "We should return to Londinium to help those poor slaves."
"It’s too late. We’d never find them, Marja, and it’s more likely we’d be discovered by the bishop’s clerics. Do you think he’d hesitate to run you through with his sword? And me, as well. You can’t even consider it."
I heard the finality in his tone. Lexander would not go back. Perhaps it was too dangerous, but Olvid’s horrid death would haunt me forever. As would the fates of Matteus, Barissa, Rimbert, and the other slaves. I should have thought more of them, and less of simply following Lexander’s lead.
"Marja, you almost died," he pointed out. "You’re not strong enough for this, and I need to know that you’re not in danger. I need to know you’re not being beaten or raped. Is that too much to ask?"
"Someone could be raping Barissa right now. You didn’t even try to save her."
"Believe me, Barissa can take care of herself." His wry tone reminded me of the bite marks he had left on her neck. "I do feel sorry for those slaves, Marja. Ukerald was loathsome. But the important thing is that they aren’t suffering under him anymore."
"You gave me a chance to be free, Lexander. They deserved that chance, too."
Porter turned to look as my voice rang louder with determination. Lexander lifted me up and carried me back inside the cot to avoid the glazier’s curious gaze. He sat on the bed, cradling me in his lap.
"I can wait no longer for you to recover," he told me. "The ship from Stanbulin could reach Londinium any day. My name is too clearly tied to what happened there. I must act now before the training masters realize I was the cause of both catastrophes and warn the pleasure houses against me."
I didn’t want to let go of him. I thought if I just held on, he could not leave me behind. "You can’t go without me, Lexander. It’s not right. I’ll be able to travel soon. I can feel it."
"You can’t walk a dozen steps alone. Porter has promised to take care of you, and I have paid the glaziers well for it." Lexander tried to summon a smile. "Don’t tell me you’re not contented here. It’s the best place for you to winter while you fully recover. I’ll return in the spring, after I’ve destroyed a few more houses."
I wanted to rail at him, to make him see that the slaves needed my help.
But before I could protest, he touched my lips with his finger. Through his caress, I could feel him silently pleading with me, opening his sore heart to show me how much he loved me. He’d suffered untold agonies when I was tortured by his people.
But his touch revealed more than he realized: a dark, driving force buried deep inside of him, the thing that drove his killing rampage and excluded me at every turn.
I knew there was nothing I could say that would stop him.
He kissed the tears sliding down my cheek, holding me gently as if fearing how fragile I was. I had no desire to raise my lips to him.
"You deny me even a kiss?" Lexander asked, hurt by my rejection.
"I can’t bid you farewell," I cried. "You’re abandoning me, Lexander."
He laid me down on the bed, as tenderly as he always did. "This is a safe place for you to stay. I’ll return for you as soon as I can, Marja."
10
Lexander gave me one lingering look, and then left. At first I thought he was coming back, that I would have another chance to convince him before he finished making the arrangements for his departure. But through the open door I watched the shadows in the yard lengthen in growing dread.
A curious olf was playing with a bag left on the tiny hearthstone. When it plucked out a coin and darted off, giggling, I realized Lexander had left the purse behind for me. It must have come from the goods Drucelli had packed before Lexander had killed her. He had planned this well.
My tears of frustration burned through me. In that moment something inside of me died; in truth, I could trust no one. I had only myself to rely on.
I had failed Olvid and the others because I had let Lexander make all the decisions in Becksbury. I should have made sure the slaves would be safely whisked away when the bishop arrived. From now on nobody, not even Lexander, was going to stop me.
It took far too long to stagger through the glaziers’ compound to reach the top of the bluff. Once there, it was impossible for me to climb the trail down to the beach. I could barely see the village farther down the bluff, a cluster of peaked roofs behind a stone wall.
I waited for a long time, hoping Lexander would appear on the curve of beach below. But there was nothing but the wind and the fresh salty smell of the sea.
Porter eventually found me on the bluff and carried me back to the cot.
I could not leave my bed the next day because of my venture. But I concentrated on soaking up the healing glow from the olfs, and I drank the herb mixture Lexander had left for me every morning and evening. Porter brought me food and water at regular intervals, and supported me in walking about so I could get stronger.
All the while, I kept hoping Lexander would appear. It had happened too fast. He had run away rather than face me. Porter admitted that Lexander had asked if I could stay soon after we arrived. The glaziers’ welcoming
took on a new light when I realized they expected me to spend several moons with them.
I longed to return to Londinium to help Rimbert and the other slaves. But I had lain sick for so long that they were likely already scattered, bought by new masters or killed by the bishop once he realized they had been trained for seduction. There seemed little I could do to redeem my mistakes.
Lexander was surely going to Montplaire in the Frankish lands, where Drucelli had once been mistress. The only other house I knew of was in Veneto, somewhere in the Auldland. The Frankish lands were just across the strait, so that was my destination.
Porter soon brought word from the village that the long-awaited battle had taken place between King Swegn and the conqueror. The Noromenn had skirmished with the Frankish warriors in their boats just outside Londinium. On their retreat, Swegn’s men had raided the homesteads along the river, taking supplies. Much of what they stole belonged to Noromenn settlers, which didn’t help their cause. It was said the Noroships had departed for their cold northern homeland, and the conqueror was firmly in control of Danelaw at least for the winter.
Now I wouldn’t have to sneak through an armada of Noromenn to reach the port town south of the river. The glaziers didn’t own a boat, so I decided that the village was the best place to look for passage.
On market day when the glaziers prepared their bottles to be sold, I helped the eldest brother’s wife pack the bottles into crates filled with straw. She showed me the trick of how to properly cushion the glass so none would break. Her two sons were not yet old enough to be trusted with the bottles, but they hung about the cart, their eyes huge.
Porter’s brother, Daakon, came out to help us load the crates onto a handcart. Porter arrived smeared with black soot from cleaning the rendering oven. Daakon was wearing a fine tunic made of hunter-green wool with striped braies. He shook his head at his brother but didn’t bother to reprove him. My older brothers had given me that same look when I had returned dirty and unkempt after a long day in the fens.
