The Queen and Her Brook Horse

by Amalia Dillin

  “She will be yours, then,” he promised. Just a taste to begin, to remind her of what she had missed. “With your golden hair and brilliant eyes. Men will fall to their knees before her beauty and grace. Ogmund will be your comfort, attuned to you as Sigmund never will be, but our daughter—she will be your joy.”

  “You cannot promise so much,” she said, her lips curving in pleasure despite her objection. “You should not. Already, you’ve given me more than I ever dared dream of and I fear if I accept any gift beyond it, I will never rid myself of the debt.”

  “You’ll be rid of it the moment we are married,” he said. Nothing he had not said before, but always with Signy, it bore repeating. He loved her for it. That she did not grasp with greedy fingers for more, always more, too aware of what it might cost. “When our sons are grown and Gunnar is dead and you are truly mine and mine alone, bound by love instead of blood. We will have everything then. And everything that is mine will be yours by right.”

  “So long as I have you,” she said, pressing her face against his neck, her words tickling his skin. “That is all I’ll ever need.”

  Isolfur was true to his word, as he had always been, and by the following month, she was pregnant again. It was easy then, to retreat to her room after her mid-day walk with the boys and the meal shared with her ladies.

  “It must mean a girl,” she told Gunnar, when he made mention of her absences. “For I did not have this sickness when I carried your sons.”

  It pleased him to think so, and since she asked nothing of him and behaved with perfect modesty, he left her alone. Frida, however, had not been so easy to persuade.

  “You have not been right since that peddler came,” she’d said over their morning meal, taken privately. “And what happened that day—it is strange, Signy. He was strange.”

  “Any man from Hunaland would seem strange to us now,” she said, not untruthfully. “But I promise you, I’ve only taken your counsel at last. If I keep to my room, spend my days alone, neither Gunnar nor Ragnar can suspect me of plotting. So long as the boys are cared for, there is nothing else I must do. Nothing else that Gunnar wishes me to be, as his queen. I am not even permitted to gainsay the steward over what should be served in my own rooms to my own guests, never mind see to the running of this place.”

  Frida grimaced, no doubt recalling how easily she had provoked her new husband’s wrath—and for doing nothing but what she was trained to. But Gunnar had not wanted a wife capable of governing. He had wanted an ornament and a brood mare. So why should she not oblige him?

  “It isn’t like you to give in so easily,” her friend said softly, searching her face. “Even so.”

  “No,” Signy agreed. “But then I would not call any of this easy. And I wish to survive it, Frida. To survive him.”

  She let out a breath, then, understanding breaking across her features like the dawn. “Yes,” Frida said, grasping Signy’s hand, squeezing it tight. “Only tell me what you would have me do.”

  There was risk, still, of course. Isolfur could not sense what went on inside the castle beyond the reach of his own sons. He could not know if someone came to her room after she had passed through the mirror, and once his cottage door was closed behind her, they could hear nothing at all. She could command the women of her bower not to disturb her, demand that only Frida come to her room if she was needed. But should Gunnar send Ragnar to summon her, there would be little she could do to stop him, and the king himself would not hesitate to break down her door if he thought she willfully defied him.

  But with Isolfur’s voice, borrowed only briefly, she planted seeds. Her pregnancy exhausted her. She slept like the dead, even during the day. The child gave her fitful dreams, nightmares, and if she did not lock her door she would find herself pacing the corridors in her sleep, half-dressed. A few instances of such sleep-walking, manufactured with Frida’s help, had lent support to her claims. Neither Gunnar nor Ragnar wanted the queen wandering the castle at all hours of the night, and such restlessness explained her exhaustion during the day. Barring some crisis beyond anyone’s control, it seemed to be enough. And as the weeks turned to months, caution gave way to joyful days, and even more pleasant nights.

  Even after little Isabel was born, and Isolfur wove his spells of protection over her small, squirming form, it seemed as though they need not worry overmuch. Isolfur had not been wrong that Gunnar cared much less how she raised her daughter, and in the earliest weeks while she recovered from the birth, Signy brought her through the mirror despite her own objections. They would spend the afternoons with her in Isolfur’s large bed, watching her sleep and suckle, for with Isolfur’s healing touch, Gunnar need not know Signy fed her daughter from her own breast.

  “As beautiful as her mother,” Isolfur would say, dropping kisses upon both their brows. And she was certain, as she had not been before, that he thought of Isabel truly as his own. “She must learn to swim, this one. Even before she learns to walk we will teach her, for I will not have my daughter drown in a brook horse’s lake.”

  Signy laughed and let him take her in his arms. He could quiet her with a word, no matter how she fussed, and she’d long since given up on chiding him for it—especially when his voice brought such a smile to Isabel’s face. “As you are the only brook horse this side of the mountains, I doubt very much we need worry for her safety. But teach her, if you wish. Before she is old enough to remember how she learned.”

  “Hm,” he said, his jaw tightening at the reminder of how little time they had. “Can we not simply seal her tongue on the truth, until Gunnar is dead and buried?”

  Her heart ached, the thought more than tempting. “It would be unkind to her, my love. Too cruel to make her carry the weight of such a secret.”

  “When she is older, then,” Isolfur said. “After Gunnar has died, and we are free. I would have her know me, Signy. And I will not have her married off to some fool for Gunnar’s gain. Better she live her life alone than marry without love.”

  “Hush,” she soothed him gently, stroking his face. “Let her marry for her own reasons, whether it is love or something else. But do not curse her so. It is her right to make such a choice. Just as it was mine.”

  “And I have seen you suffer for it,” he replied. “Is it so wrong that I would wish to spare her that?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course it isn’t. But it is still her life to live, Isolfur. To spend as she sees fit. In service to others or herself, in search of happiness or simply peace. And look what my choice has brought me? Brought us both? If I had not married Gunnar, I would never have called to you.”

  “I cannot bring myself to deny any of us that.” He met her eyes, his expression softening. “Not for anything in the world.”

  Nor would she.

  But of course after the birth, she could not keep on as she had before, spending all her days locked away. Isabel had to be shown off among the nobles, proof of the king’s continued virility, though she had not the look of him at all—as Isolfur had promised, Isabel was her daughter, and nothing of Gunnar looked back at her from that small face. But because she did not have the look of anyone else but her mother, no one seemed to find it odd at all.

  After she had recovered fully, there were other demands too. Gunnar wanting what he had been denied, demanding she come to his bed or come to hers, to get another child on her as soon as he might. She was not even certain he took much pleasure in it, beyond the possession of her as a prize. For he sneered at the softness of her belly, where it had once been flat and firm, and curled his lip at her milk-heavy breasts.

  “Bind them,” he commanded her after the sixth month, for though she did not suffer from chapped and broken skin, she could hardly hide the milk with which she still nourished her daughter against his wishes. “The witch-women say that the sooner your milk dries up, the sooner you’ll quicken.”

  She murmured
a demure agreement, for there was little else she could do, naked before him. But her eyes slipped to the mirror, and she might have said anything if it would only make him leave. Gunnar followed her gaze and snorted, seeing himself reflected and perhaps some glimpse of her longing.

  “Is that what this is?” he asked, squeezing her full breast until she writhed in pain. “You missed having me between your thighs, but cannot bring yourself to say it? So instead you keep milk in your breasts and my seed from catching, so I must come to you, night after night?”

  “I—” But what could she say? She could not deny it. Claim she had no desire for her husband at all, and he would never forgive her. “Please, Gunnar—”

  He slapped her, hard, across her chest, and she jolted, tears slipping unbidden from her eyes though she strangled the cry. “Bind them,” he snarled. “And stop wasting my time.”

  He had her then, a second time, as he had not in years. But he was not kind. And he laughed when she wept, taking pleasure in her humiliation, too.

  She did not go to Isolfur that night, too sore and too tired, and too afraid of his response when he saw the hollowness in her eyes and the mess of soured milk upon her skin—for Gunnar had taken extra care to spill it, that she might not be tempted to take her baby to her breast after he’d gone.

  Signy curled herself up in her damp and filthy bed and cried herself into sleep, instead.

  She smelled wrong when he saw her again, and not only from the milk that leaked from her bound and tender breasts, but something else, too, beneath it. He drew her a bath, for she looked like a wilted flower that had seen too much sun, and ignoring her unvoiced objections, helped her to undress.

  “You did not bring Isabel,” he said carefully, unspooling the wrapping from around her chest. She had not spoken a word beyond his name, and that only to open the door from her side, and he did not wish to press her, but he worried all the same. “Will you not tell me why?”

  She shook her head, sliding into the tub and wrapping her arms around her knees at once, hiding her body, he realized suddenly. His stomach twisted, snakes coiling in his belly, though his rage would not help her in the slightest. She smelled wrong, and Gunnar had been at her again—for he had known her long enough now to understand that it was only the wounds her husband gave her that she strove to hide. She had no shame for anything else, and why should she?

  “Signy.” He knelt beside her, turning her face to his. “Tell me what he’s done. Let me heal you, if it’s needed. Body and spirit, both.”

  “Isabel is with her nurse,” Signy said at last, after a long breath of silence. “Gunnar will not let me have her again until my milk has stopped.”

  But that was not all. Perhaps it was the cruelest stroke, but Gunnar was far more direct in his punishments. Isolfur took up a sponge and began to wash her, stroking it over her skin and waiting for her to go on.

  “He thinks I have disobeyed him to keep him in my bed. That I was too ashamed to admit my desire for his—” Her lips twisted, her jaw going tight. “For him. And I could hardly deny it. What was I to say that would not make it worse? So he gave me what he thought I wanted, and took what he wanted from me, forcing the milk from my breasts so I could not feed it to my child, and leaving me to sour in my own mess.”

  And she had not come to him, after. Too abused and too ashamed, and likely not wishing him to see her in such a state. She had not come to him, not realizing that it was not her milk alone that had kept Gunnar’s seed from taking root.

  “My love,” he murmured, his heart breaking even as his blood burned. He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the point of her bared shoulder. But he could not bring himself to tell her. Could not say the words. He should have warned her, but he had not thought—she had been so faithful in coming to him, it had not mattered. And now he had failed her. “I wish you had come sooner.”

  “I could not face myself in the mirror,” she said, the words hoarse. “I could not bring myself to look.”

  He stroked her hair and kissed her neck, and told her nothing. He would bathe her and bed her, and let her believe for a little longer that the child she carried was his own, and not Gunnar’s. Give her time to recover from Isabel’s loss before that blow came to knock her down again.

  But it had loosened the binding between them. A thread of the bargain unraveled. Not a breaking, quite, for what had happened was not his doing, precisely, nor hers, but he still felt it like a cut, sharp and bleeding.

  She dragged herself reluctantly from his bed and back to the castle, and he longed to ask her to stay, but as things were he did not dare, for it would only pick at the loose thread, worry it looser still if she tried to remain. So Isolfur walked her to the door, and stood there, telling himself he must release her hand, let her leave him, but the pain of it was too great.

  “Signy.”

  She looked back at him, her brow furrowed, her gaze falling to their hands. His, beyond the frame of the door, nails already thickening, yellowing, bending. Even that strange magic room was too real, too grounded upon the earth for him to stand in it as anything but a beast.

  “Will you forgive me for not saving you from this?”

  Signy came back, just near enough that their clasped hands fell inside the doorframe again, making his fingers twitch and tighten around hers. “Forgive you? What for?”

  He shook his head, unable to speak. The magic of their bargain still bled. A slow leak, not so different from her breasts.

  She took his face in her hands, searching his eyes. “What Gunnar has done is not your fault, and I know in my heart you would never wish it on me. I chose him, Isolfur, and I must live with that choice. But you—you have done all that I asked.”

  “Not all,” he said, and then he tugged her back, seeing the means he had not recognized before, in his pain. In hers. If he spared her the grief of knowing, it would be too late. But now—now she was still more water than flesh. “Let me take it away,” he said. “Let me flush it away. It would take nothing more than a firm word and a touch of my hand. Let me rid you of this mistake, before it takes any deeper root in you. Before you will feel any pain.”

  “Isolfur—I do not…” Her eyes widened, her hand slipping from his and pressing against her womb. The blood had drained from her cheeks, flushed and pink just moments before, glowing with pleasure and love. “What?”

  “It was an easy thing when you came to me each night, to keep his seed from your womb, to ensure you were protected from it. But you did not come as you had been. You did not come, and I did not think to tell you that you must. It was part of our bargain. Your body and blood. Do you not feel the difference now? In this, he has taken what is mine. Because I did not have the wit to warn you.”

  She stared at her hand, pressed hard against her stomach, and he was not even certain she heard him. “Gunnar’s child?”

  “I did not want to tell you,” he said, and he hated himself then for speaking of it at all. “I should not have told you.”

  “Are you certain?” she asked.

  He had never wanted more to lie, but he had promised her honesty, so long ago. “Yes.”

  “How long?” she asked, looking up then, at last. “How long do I have to decide?”

  He pressed his lips together and looked away. “A week or two more, before it is beyond my power. If it were my own, my blood, it would be different but like this…”

  “I—” She stepped back. Back through the door, no doubt knowing he could not follow. “I must think.”

  And then she fled, and he was alone with his pain.

  Bleeding, yet.

  He had only left his cottage for food and drink, always after seeing Signy safely asleep in his own bed. But he could not stay there now, trapped within those walls, and knowing what he did. So he swam, and then he ran, always with one ear cocked toward the cottage, and not so far from the
water that he could not find his way back the moment she set foot inside it.

  Gunnar’s child.

  It was the basest betrayal. The only thing she had wanted was to keep his seed from her womb. To bear children that were only hers. And he had promised her so blithely that he would see it through. But he could not bring himself to harm her, even that smallest piece of her that was not her. Not without her knowledge.

  She had a right to choose. Just as she had said of Isabel. To spend her life selfishly or in service to something greater. To keep this life, or destroy it as she willed. It was her right to determine what she would do.

  His feet took him to Fossegrim’s cottage, by habit more than desire, and he stood upon the river bank, drooping as the elf approached.

  “You look ill, Isolfur,” he said. “Has something happened to your bride?”

  He snorted. If only she were his wife. If only he could hurry Gunnar’s death and put it all behind them.

  “Ah,” Fossegrim said. “Something to do with her husband?”

  From the start, he had been a fool. He pinned back his ears in annoyance. From the start, he had promised her what he could not give, thinking there could be nothing beyond his power. Thinking that the world might still be his as it had been, once before. When there had been more brook horses, and more men who knew their power. When he had never needed to hide.

  “Yes,” the old elf agreed. “It was a foolish bargain all the way around.” But his eyes narrowed, his gaze growing sharp. “What will it cost you? Or. Ahh, no. It is a price that must be paid on her side of the affair?”

  His head came up, and he pranced back, half-rearing at the thought. No. No, the failing was his own. She had not known. She had not known.

  “Ignorance protects few, my friend,” the old elf said, leaning upon his stick, old and weary now. “I wish it were otherwise. But your desire to protect her, to see it as your own failure, well, it can only help, I suppose. Perhaps you will share the cost between you, if you will it, for it is magic leashed to you and your bargain in the end. Just remember even a leashed dog can still bite, eh? No matter how friendly you think it is.”