The Queen and Her Brook Horse

by Amalia Dillin

  So she told herself, still, when the days became weeks, and when she saw the stream sparkling and splashing, and turned from it, leaving her heart thick in her throat and her stomach roiling with despair. And when the weeks became months, too, and she began to think she saw the flash of Isolfur’s eyes in her son’s, at times, when she bounced him gently in her arms.

  “Forgive me,” she murmured into his golden hair, holding him close and hoping—praying—Isolfur might hear. “I have no choice.”

  She told herself it was for the best. For the safety of the boys, for her own, but a part of her hated that she could not give Isolfur this time with his sons. That they could not share it together as a family. And as the seasons turned, she told herself again, it was as it must be, necessary, and at least she did not lengthen the time she must spend apart from him by doubling or tripling the hours of her days. At least time passed as it ought again.

  But she still sat beside the window of her tower, busying herself with needlework, while her children slept, in conspicuous sight of the women Gunnar favored in his bed, that he might not question her loyalty, her faith in him. And if her eyes were drawn again and again to the stream beyond the walls, what of it? It could mean nothing to them.

  When time enough had passed, and Gunnar came again to her bed, she did what she must to keep his seed from rooting, and gave herself up meekly, wishing the whole time it was Isolfur who had come—but not too desperately, or too deeply, for if she imagined him in Gunnar’s place and so much as whispered his name…

  It was a half life, that much was clearer than ever before. With her heart and mind and spirit bound up in the bargain she had made with a brook horse she could not visit. A half life, but still living. Still true to her duty as queen of Gautar and princess of Hunaland. And it was with only half a heart that she fought still to love her growing, sturdy sons, to care for them as far as she was able. As Isolfur’s blood. Which made her all the more resentful.

  A year passed, and Signy was stretched so thin, she was not certain how she could survive another, walking this ever narrowing line between survival and desire. Waiting, waiting, waiting for Ragnar to take his too-clever eyes from her.

  “You will wean those boys from your breast,” Gunnar told her one night when he came to her, and found her raw and chapped where he preferred her soft. He twisted the sore, used tissue, making her cry out in pain. “The next child you give me will have a nurse, and pray to the Ancestors you have not ruined yourself already.”

  She let him have his pleasure, let him draw whimpers of pain from her throat and leave her throbbing. And when he rose from her bed and drew on his robe, she could not stop the words from slipping from her lips: “If you would let me go into the woods again with Frida, I can find the herbs I need for such healing.”

  He turned his head, not quite looking at her, only indicating that he had heard. “You leave this castle every day, walking Ancestors know where. Why should I care if you wander into the woods, protected by my men?”

  Signy licked her lips, sitting up then, and dared to press a little harder. “I would leave the boys with a nurse, the better to keep myself from drawing them to my breast when they cry, but I would not have the guards know what herbs I look for—should they tell their wives, of the whores they bed in the village, they would know at once what I was about. It is too private a thing, my lord, to let the whole kingdom know of the sad raw state of my breasts.”

  “No, I suppose that would not do, would it?” Gunnar grunted, his gaze sliding over her body. He pinched her nipple, half in malice, half in some strange gesture of affection, a smile twisting his lips when she stiffened. “Do not think this means you are free to run about the countryside as you did before. And should I hear you have defied Ragnar’s orders again—” His fingers turned cruel, and he twisted hard upon her tender flesh until she could not stop a strangled yelp from escaping. “You understand, I think, that I cannot be so forgiving of your defiance a second time. It will make me look weak before my men if I cannot even control my wife.”

  “Of course,” she gasped. “It will be as you say, my king.”

  He released her, and she fell back, covering herself at once before he reached for her again. But he had already turned his attention to his slippers, robe fastened tightly around his waist. Gunnar paused at the door. “And Signy?”

  Do not let him take it back. “Yes?”

  “I need princesses as well as princes, to marry off and strengthen our alliances. Once the boys are weaned, I will have you in my bed every night until you’ve ripened again.”

  “Of course,” she said again, fighting back her disappointment. She swallowed her disgust. “As many as you wish.”

  As long as she was free to call Isolfur, and as long as the children of her body were anyone’s but the king’s.

  His children would not have magic of their own, but that did not mean Isolfur could not work his. And so he had, during those long days and weeks and months, that endless year that Signy kept away. Through his sons, he watched her, waiting, wishing that they would learn to speak, and he might do more than simply wait and see.

  He might have rushed the days, but he was afraid he might miss some harm done, some urgent need, now that he could glimpse her life behind the castle walls. A year apart, a year watching her struggle, watching her wither like fruit left too long upon the vine, and every time she went outside, surrounded by guards. That much, he feared, was his own fault. For inspiring her eager heart, wanting her to come to him so soon after the birth. Perhaps if she had waited—if she had not rushed to bring him his sons, and fought with the thrice-cursed guard.

  He had been on the verge of seeking out Fossegrim for aid, some means by which he might access the castle without ensnaring himself as well, when he felt her call, the slide of her fingers through the water like the stroke of her hand upon his body. At last. At last she was free—for how long, he did not care. He did not even pause to check upon the children before he answered. Whatever he needed to know of them, of her, she would tell him herself, and at once.

  Signy was alone on the bank when he burst from the water, uncaring what her maid might see, and she threw herself against him, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her face in his mane and all but weeping.

  “I cannot live this way,” she breathed against his hide. “I cannot live with my heart left inside your cottage, beneath your lake, so far away.”

  He lipped at her hair, her sleeves and laces, nuzzling her warmth and breathing deep of her skin. She smelled of milk and the children, and beneath, soured musk and the sweat of another man. Isolfur blew out a breath, and pulled back, then pushed her hard with his nose toward his back. The longer they dallied here, the less time they would have.

  She pulled herself up more clumsily than she ought, as if she had lost the trick of it because it had been so long, and he turned back to the stream, leaving the castle behind. Sorely tempted, in that moment, never to return her to Gunnar at all.

  Perhaps she knew it, too, and that was why she had left the children behind. But for himself, he was not certain he cared. Once the boys were older, he could make use of them, work his magic through the blood they shared. They would be safe enough regardless, and the moment they mastered speech, they might be made to speak with his own voice. And he would give Signy children beneath the lake, instead. Another babe to care for that she need not share with anyone but him.

  She half-fell from his back when they reached the cottage, and he lost his hold upon her in surprise, which doused her in lake water before she made it through the door.

  “Impatient creature,” he chided, as she rang out her skirts and her hair on the stones before the fire. “Why did you not wait?”

  Signy shook her head, and he hung up her cloak, which had kept at least her backside dry. “You don’t know what it’s been like this last year. Gunnar only let me leave today
to save face—I’m forbidden to bring the children out without a guard, and he wants them weaned besides, so I had no choice but to leave them behind. And after last night… I felt unclean.”

  “Your sons are protected and safe,” he said. “It is you who I cannot seem to defend. You who should have come to me every day or three this past year, for your own protection.”

  “I could not risk it,” she said. “Even with your voice. Ragnar was too suspicious and if he’d had me followed—if I am followed even now—”

  He grunted, casting his senses out toward the stream. “Your maid waits for you, but there is no one else near as yet.”

  “Isolfur, he wants more children from me. Daughters now, in addition to his sons. And I want nothing to do with him at all. I thought it would protect us all, keep me from hating them, if they were yours but, it is as though I watch them through water. And perhaps it clears for a moment, when I see your eyes flashing in their small faces, and love bursts into my heart only to be washed away again in the next wave when your presence fades.”

  “The bargain,” he realized. “Because I hold your heart hostage. I did not think—at the time, it did not occur to me what it might mean for your children. Our children. It was only the king I wanted to cheat.”

  She looked up at him with too-bright eyes, damp from more than just lake water. “I cannot live this way, Isolfur. I thought I could. But all this year I felt stretched thin, brittle to the point of breaking. And if I shatter, what then?”

  “You must come to me,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “Leave the children and come. Or just—” he bit his tongue on the words. To ask her to stay when she was not free, when she could not know her own mind. Now was not the time. “You need not wait so long, to be stretched so thin.”

  “You say that as if it is a simple thing. As if every time I call to you I do not risk my life.”

  He dropped his hands, the words had burned him through her skin, and rubbed the sting from his fingertips, stepping back. “I am not unaware of the risks you take, Signy. That is why I would have you come. That I might renew what protections I am able to offer you. That you might be kept whole and sound of mind, to face whatever cruelty Gunnar springs upon you next.”

  She let out a breath, dropping her gaze. “It was a foolish bargain,” she said, as near to an apology as he supposed she might ever get. “I should never have agreed at all—never have let you persuade me to give up more of myself. I ought to have left then, or tried to.”

  “I would not have let you go so easily as that,” he told her. “And even if I had not taken your heart in the bargain, it would not have changed this. What stands between us, what binds us—it is not only magic, Signy.”

  “No,” she agreed, her voice soft. “But even so. Even so, I am still not so great a fool that I wish to die for it.”

  He laughed, hard and humorless, fear coiling around his heart, making the room suddenly cold. “I would do everything in my power to prevent it.”

  “And if I lived inside these walls, beneath your lake, I would have no fear of it at all.”

  But she didn’t. She couldn’t, yet. And that was what frustrated him most. To have all the power he needed at his fingertips and be unable to use it, unable to save her. He had never felt so keenly the cage of his cottage, the curse of his horse’s form. But then, he had never struck a bargain with a woman like Signy. Never allowed a woman to come and go as she must, in service to something greater than herself.

  He had never loved a woman so much that to be parted from her felt like losing half his heart.

  “Let the boys grow a little older, and I will work my will through the blood we share. They will protect you as I protect them, and you will be safe, Signy. As safe as I can make you.”

  “And in the meantime?” she asked.

  He sighed, brushing wisps of damp hair from her cheeks. “In the meantime you must do what you believe is best, and I will find a way to make the time we spend apart less difficult. Somehow.”

  It meant appealing to Fossegrim, after all. After he had seen Signy returned to her maid and her castle and her accursed king, and wearied by it, he made his way back, carefully, through the winding rivers of the Elvish lands to the old elf’s strange, half-buried cottage, calling him out with a shrill whinny.

  The curtain danced and then the door opened, and Fossegrim stood framed in the entrance, leaning on his stick. “Returned at last, I see. In your own time.”

  Isolfur shook his head, impatient, and lipped at the small scroll of parchment in his mane, where he’d tied it for the journey. This was not something he meant to leave to interpretation.

  Fossegrim grunted and made much of hobbling down the path from the house to the riverbank, where Isolfur stayed firm, hooves sinking into the soft mud—the last thing he needed was to be seen by some fool elf calling upon the old regent. Fossegrim plucked the parchment from his mane and unfurled it carefully, sniffing as he read.

  “I warned you, I believe, that this bargain of yours was unwise. Now you would risk your life and freedom as well as hers? And mine, if I read this right. Do you truly think these men will not recognize an elf upon your back?”

  Isolfur flicked an ear and rolled his eyes, staring him down.

  “Just because I’ve disguised myself as a peddler among orcs does not mean the same trick will work upon this king and his men. I am too old, besides, to go traipsing about beyond the mountain.”

  Again, Isolfur only stared. Fossegrim was old, that was true, but he was canny, and even brook horses knew that elves did not suffer much from age. Fossegrim’s performances were more about securing his freedom and privacy than anything else.

  “You overestimate my strength,” the elf grumped.

  Isolfur stamped the soft earth and swished his tail. They had an agreement, and if he had to drag the old elf by force into the water—

  “All right, all right,” Fossegrim snapped. “You’re not wrong about the bargain. Fool that I was, to set such vague terms. But there must be a better way. One which requires far less risk for both of us. Let me think on it awhile—” Isolfur snapped his teeth and Fossegrim sighed. “A short while, then. If I think of nothing within a sevenday, then I’ll do as you wish. But you must realize that even posing as a peddler’s faithful steed, you’re bound to be noticed. Once, maybe twice, we might trick them, but you’re just as likely to get yourself locked up in this fool king’s stables as an elf’s with this plan.”

  But it would be worth the risk. And at least in the king’s stables, he would be near to Signy. She would be near to him. All she need do is ride him out and they would both be freed.

  “You’re behaving like a fool for this woman,” Fossegrim grumbled. “But I suppose you know that too.”

  At first, she did not think twice about the gray-cloaked peddler, with his horse-drawn cart of oddities, when she glimpsed him out the window. But an out of place whicker made her look again, her heart skipping with want, however impossible it might be.

  A month since she’d last seen Isolfur. Since he’d promised her he would find some way that made the time spent apart easier on them both. A month spent seeing to her sons and submitting to Ragnar’s guarding, for of course Isolfur had healed her breasts, and without the excuse of hunting healing herbs and plants, she had no means by which to make herself free again. A month, and she was sure she imagined that it was Isolfur pulling the strange peddler’s cart.

  But when his hide shivered, shining bright and white as seafoam in the sun, she felt it echo down her spine. A moment later, he lifted his head, and despite the distance, she knew he met her eyes. She made a noise, uncertain if it were prompted by bone-deep fear or heart-wrenching joy, half-swallowed and strange.

  “Are you well, my lady?” Frida asked, her voice low. “A sip of wine, perhaps, to help clear your throat?”

  “Yes,” Si
gny agreed at once, conscious then of the eyes of the other women.

  Wives of those nobles who spent the majority of their time at Gunnar’s court, and daughters of those from farther afield who were as much hostages against their fathers’ loyalties as they were the king’s mistresses. Whether they realized it or not—and Signy was not certain they did, nor would she be the one to tell them. Better if they believed themselves his favorites, honored by his attentions rather than another means by which Gunnar exerted his control. They’d learn the awful truth the moment one of their father’s offended his king, and preparing oneself for what came after would do nothing at all to soften the blow. That much, she knew too well.

  She sipped from the cup Frida put in her hand, struggling to compose herself, but could not quite keep her attention from returning to the window, and Isolfur below. Frida followed her gaze, eyebrows rising. “A peddler!”

  “Hm?” Signy said, pretending disinterest.

  “Oh, my lady. His horse is a thing of beauty.”

  Signy swallowed, dropping her eyes. “Indeed he is.”

  And the old man was a fool to have brought him here, whatever the brook horse had promised him in exchange. Gunnar would covet Isolfur, almost certainly, and he would not hesitate to slit the man’s throat to have him.

  She shifted her gaze to the children, asleep in their baskets by the fire at their nurse’s feet. Likely they would sleep until supper, and even if they did not, Gunnar would be pleased to see Signy giving them up to another’s care for a time. He complained bitterly that she spoiled and cosseted them, and whether that was because she had not taken his seed again yet, or because he truly felt she would weaken his sons, she was not certain and did not mean to find out.

  But Isolfur had come. And he would not have put himself at risk without reason.

  “Frida, go speak to the peddler. Perhaps he has word from our family in the south. With a horse like that, he cannot have come to trade amongst the peasants, in any event.”