The Queen and Her Brook Horse

by Amalia Dillin

  “I did not wish to bleed myself half to death, my king,” she said coolly. “And I fed your daughter from my breast for her sake. That she might benefit from my strength. Had I not, had I left the boys to an indifferent nurse before her, you would be furious that I had given you weak and worthless children instead.”

  Gunnar’s hands balled into fists, and his jaw went tight. “You dare to speak to me this way?”

  It was the exhaustion. The strain. Compounded by his threat. She had no other explanation for her boldness, her foolish tongue. “Forgive me, my lord,” she murmured, dropping her eyes. “I do not know what I say. It has been a long and tiring day.”

  His gaze fell to Arianna again, asleep still. “There will be those that say she is a cuckoo in my nest, with that dark hair upon her head. Keep it covered, and the child out of sight.”

  She stared at him, stunned. “You cannot truly think—”

  “You will do as I say,” he growled. “In this, if nothing else.”

  Signy struggled to bite her tongue, to keep her fury from her face. After all that she had suffered. What she had given up! For this child. For his child. “Call upon your Seithr women, your witches, and ask them whose child she is,” she said. “If you will not trust me, perhaps you will trust them, for I swear to you Gunnar, Arianna is yours. I would swear it in blood if you asked it of me.”

  “Keep her out of sight,” he snarled. “And for once in your life, do as you are bid. Or I will make you bleed, Signy, but it will not be for any meaningless vow. I cannot risk killing you with the boys not yet ten, but there are many things worse than death. Do you understand me?”

  She swallowed her outrage and her objections, knowing she had gone too far, and only nodded, rigid with disgust she could not wholly hide, even with downcast eyes.

  And when he had gone, she gathered Arianna into her arms, holding her tight. “Poor unwanted child,” she murmured into her hair. Her father’s hair, though he clearly could not bring himself to see it. “Perhaps it would have been better if you had not survived.”

  But even then.

  Even weak and worn and heartsick, she could not bring herself to want it. Gunnar would always be a monster, but his daughter—his daughter had asked for none of this.

  Arianna alone of her children would not have the brook horse’s blessing and protection, and so Signy was left to guard her alone, with only her body and blood and no spells to speak of. Or perhaps not wholly alone, for Frida was just as furious with the king’s suggestions, and promised to keep a special watch upon her, too, after she was given at last to her nurse. Signy had not dared to press Gunnar’s patience, giving her up and binding her breasts before the third month after the birth, when she was certain she had recovered.

  “That he would say such a vile thing of Arianna of all of them,” she’d told Isolfur, after she had healed enough to make the short walk. She had no shortage of blood, for she’d kept some of the linens after the birth, though the rest, as she had before, Frida burned. “I cannot abide even the sight of him, and I dread being summoned to his bed again. Though perhaps I will be spared that, if he cannot get another child on me. Assuming he does not wish me dead—and I cannot say I am certain of that, either, though it seems he is content to wait. Thank the Ancestors for our marriage contract.”

  Isolfur had sat silently while she paced, his expressive face growing more and more grim. Finally, he caught her by the hand, forcing her to sit. “You are not recovered enough to waste yourself polishing the stones with your slippers so determinedly, Signy.”

  “Is there not some bargain we might make?” she asked, only half-meaning the words. “You have my love. Is that not a valuable gift?”

  “Invaluable,” he said. “But I will not see it twisted in such a way. Nor risk you again. You’ve barely strength enough to rage, and even if I was willing, you cannot spare the blood. Nor would it be like the last time. If one of us broke the bargain, Arianna would be left helpless all over again, if she survived at all.”

  “He hates her,” she said. “And me, I fear. When our last bargain unraveled—I think he must know things were not quite as they ought to have been, even if he does not realize yet that he was bespelled. Or how I might have had my way.”

  She rubbed her forehead, her head aching now. Truly, she should not have left her bed. But she had not wanted Isolfur to worry. And then she had told him all this? As if he would not worry all the more for hearing it.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “It is nothing I cannot manage, I’m sure, and I am safe enough for years yet, for Gunnar will not risk losing his sons to my father. It is only that I cannot speak of it with anyone but you.”

  He snorted at her false assurance. “We promised one another honesty, my love. I do not forget it.”

  She flushed, caught in the lie. “Forgive me,” she said again, and meant it this time. “It is only that I hate to make you worry. And I see it already in your eyes. You are plotting his death again, wondering how you might accomplish it and survive.”

  He grimaced. “You have always seen through me.”

  Signy allowed herself to smile. A sliver of delight in the dark, to know him so well. “I have missed you sorely these past weeks. And I fear I will miss you more in the coming months again. Gunnar is too suspicious of me, and if I am to have any peace, I must act the part of his perfect queen.”

  Isolfur cupped her face in his hands, touching his forehead to hers. “I hate that I can do so little. That you face all this alone.”

  “Not alone,” she said, closing her eyes. “I still have Frida, and before long, there will be the boys, too. But I must go. I must rest, and I cannot count on being left undisturbed. Not since Arianna’s birth.”

  And that had been the pattern after. A few stolen moments here or there, shared briefly, but never more than an hour together, even when Isolfur stretched the time they were given. With four children, three of them toddling, she found herself with her hands suddenly quite full, too, for she had no wish to see her sons raised by maids and nurses, or worse, influenced by men of Gunnar’s choosing. Her husband did not like when they left the castle, and she had been careful not to press him, but the boys were wild enough when left cooped up that he could hardly deny her without causing himself more trouble, too.

  “Take them out and let them run,” he’d finally snarled, the third time Sigmund had escaped his maid and tripped one of Gunnar’s nobles. The man had nearly broken his nose against the wall. “I cannot have them careening through the halls, making noise enough to wake dragons.”

  She had done her best to hide her satisfaction, but Gunnar had still scowled, his eyes narrowing at her careful expression. “Ragnar will determine the course you take and the subjects of their study. You will not fill their heads with foolishness any longer.”

  “Of course, my lord,” she’d agreed, struggling to keep the words sweet while she inwardly seethed. Anything he thought she wanted, anything he considered to be her way, he poisoned. And now he would have Ragnar raise her sons?

  But she could not argue. If she did, he would only become that much more determined, for it would prove his suspicions of her, whatever they were. So she watched Ragnar put sticks in the hands of her sons and teach them to batter one another, contenting herself by tending to their bruises and cuts, with words of wisdom slipped in as she kissed them better. And she kept her daughters close. Isabel, who had no desire at all to leave her side, and Arianna, who might have run wild once she found her feet had Signy not kept a firm hand upon her.

  The most important thing, she reminded herself, over and over again, was that they all lived. Outlived Gunnar, truly. Afterward, once he was dead, then they could have their freedom.

  Weeks and months of stretched stolen moments became years before long, and Isolfur found he could not resent the time that was lost. For even an hour spent with Signy was better than days
spent without her, and he delighted in the stories she told him of his sons and daughter, eager for the day that he might know them again.

  “They are ten, now, our boys,” she said, lying in his bed in the darkest hours before the dawn. “And so sturdy, so stubborn and determined. Gunnar does not let me see much of them anymore, but they know I watch them from the windows of the bower, and the walls, during my walks.”

  She was not permitted to leave the castle any longer. And if they had not had the mirror, Isolfur would have trampled any number of guards to retrieve her. But as it was, with Ragnar’s sharp eye upon her, and Gunnar’s lingering mistrust, she had accepted it without much in the way of argument, just as she had accepted every other freedom stolen from her by her worthless king. Isolfur hated him. And had taken to goading Ragnar through Sigmund’s lips. A careful word here or there, feeding a resentment that had always existed. It was not perhaps the wisest use of his power, but he could do nothing else, and every passing year Signy came to him more wilted and worn than the year before.

  “Not long then, now,” he promised her, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. “Only eight more years, and you will have what you’ve wanted. Your duty discharged at last.”

  Signy made a soft sound of agreement, her eyes drifting shut. “I am not yet dead. After all these years. And I do not think he still wishes to kill me, or at least he will not risk losing Isabel. Perhaps we might spend most of our nights together again. Gunnar comes to me so rarely, and summons me even less. Just often enough to remind me he is my husband and my king, and I am his to possess. Even the girls have learned to keep to their own beds, at last.”

  “Only if it is safe,” he said firmly, for he was not so certain that Gunnar would not give up his daughters if it freed him from a wife he did not like. “Only if you are certain of it. I would not have you take any risks on my account.”

  “They are my risks to take,” she said, as stubborn as her sons. “For my pleasure as much as yours. And I sleep better here, beneath your lake.”

  He did not doubt it, and in truth, he slept more soundly too when he held her in his arms. Knew with certainty that she was safe. But he would sleep even better still when she did not have to leave him at all. And Gunnar had been slowly tightening the noose, closing her in smaller and smaller cages in such a way that Isolfur feared he was merely waiting for some final bit of proof before springing his trap.

  “When Gunnar is dead, you will sleep here every night, and wake every morning refreshed. You will not need to use the mirror, for I will come to you, and you will ride out from the castle upon my back, proud and strong. There will be time for all of it, Signy. For everything you desire.”

  “I will be nearly forty by then,” she said sourly. “Old and gray.”

  He laughed, smoothing back her golden hair. It was true she had a few fine silver strands, already, but nothing anyone but he would notice. “When you are my bride, my wife, it will not matter. You’ll be young again in my arms. For what is forty years to an elf?”

  “But I am not an elf,” she said. “And that blood is so diluted by now, it cannot make the difference you think it will.”

  Isolfur traced a tender finger along one blue vein, from her wrist to the crease of her elbow, and smiled at the gooseflesh that rose beneath. “The meagerest drop is all I need, and you have that, no question. Though I think you may well be the last of your line to possess it. If it had been your daughter come to me, I would not have believed her when she threatened to leave. And I must admit now, I may have given you too much credit.”

  Signy laughed, her whole body blossoming with mirth. “It is not as though I did not have some magic.”

  “Blood magic,” he sniffed, pretending disgust for the form. “Nothing more. Certainly nothing Elvish. Anyone with a little knowledge and a strong, stubborn mind can draw magic from that.”

  She rolled to her side, and he was more than happy to meet her eyes, bright and curious now even in the muted light. “Is that true? In Hunaland we were always taught that blood magic needed something more. The right kind of blood.”

  Isolfur snorted. “Elvish nonsense, that’s all. Of course they told you that, to keep you from growing too strong. Their blood is stronger here, that’s true, and they’ve other magic of their own, in addition, which makes them stronger still. But blood magic is the magic of life and living things. The elves do not own it, even if they might wish they did. How else do you suppose your Seithr women weave their spells?”

  “They are witches and wise women, not magicians,” Signy said, dismissive now.

  His lips twitched. “You call them witches, reduce them to wise women, only because of the elves. There was a time when it was different. Before Ingvifreyr came with Sinmarra. Before there were any elves at all. Your Seithr women learned their magic from the dragonkin, once upon a time. A village would give a daughter up to them, to learn their ways, and when she returned the magic she brought with her served to protect them.”

  “From what?” she asked, bewildered.

  “Poor harvests, starvation for lack of game in winter. And me.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her hand sneaking up beneath her cheek upon the pillow. “You?”

  “Mm,” he said. “My kind, at any rate. If they had already bargained with the Seithr woman, they could not then, again, bargain with me, you see. Or if she had their blood—and often that was the way of it, for the gift of her peoples’ blood alongside her own made her stronger—she could untangle a person from a brook horse’s spell, if we tried to lure one of her people into the water or upon our backs to steal them away, or to be, ah—eaten.”

  She half sat up at that, incredulous. “Eaten!”

  He laughed and drew her back down, glad it was more outrage than fear in her face. “Only if our lakes had been overfished and we had no other recourse, I swear it. When there were more of us, we kept strict boundaries. A brook horse could only cross into another’s waterway by invitation, and as a result, should a large village depend upon our own lake overmuch, we found it was most effective to prey upon the villagers instead. But I have never eaten human flesh myself, if that is any consolation. Once the elves came and began to trap us, our movements became much less restricted. We denied one another neither escape nor nourishment after that. And now…”

  “You are the last.”

  He twisted a shoulder, looking away. That he might not see her pity, however kindly meant. “And since my children with you will only ever be human, it will remain that way, I suppose. I am not certain my sisters remember how to live as anything but horses any longer, and their children, when the elves manage to breed us one to the other, will never know the water. Never know what it is to be anything other than a horse. We build our own cottages, you know. After we are grown enough to live on our own.”

  “I did not know,” she said, and he felt her gaze upon him, searching. “I did not realize you had a mother. That you were born.”

  “It has been a very long time since,” he told her. “And she has been lost to me for nearly as long as I have lived, by any measure. The elves took her before my first century, and she died in their stables rather than live a slave.”

  “I’m sorry,” Signy said softly, her hand upon his chest.

  He lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss into her palm. “It does not matter now,” he said. “And it will matter even less after you are freed of Gunnar.”

  Isolfur was rarely away, but more than once, the year Arianna turned ten, she had passed through the mirror to find him missing, only to push through the door she had just closed a heartbeat later. He shivered once, when he had settled back into his body, like a horse dislodging flies, and then forced a smile to his lips that she did not believe for a moment.

  “Tell me,” she said, taking his hands and drawing him to the small table, pushing him into a chair. “You have listened enough to me that
it is only fair.”

  He shook his head, but his smile softened into something more natural when she swung the kettle over the banked fire—he always kept it lit for her now—and he eased back in his seat, letting her have her way.

  “You are not the only one who strikes foolish bargains,” he admitted.

  “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow, retrieving two mugs from the small cabinet and setting them on the table, along with the box of poorly kept tea leaves, always just slightly damp and clumping, but serviceable enough.

  “Did you never wonder how I had gained the help of an elf?” he asked her, laughter in his voice.

  “Oh.” She remembered now. The peddler had said something similar, about his own foolishness in bargaining with a brook horse. “I think if that’s how it was done, you both regret the promises exchanged. What in the world were the terms?”

  “He is bound to provide me with assistance in seeing to your needs, food and clothing and gifts as required, and in exchange I must provide some small services to him. Spying mostly, and little of it until these last few years. Something is happening beyond the mountain, but Ancestors only know what, and nothing in our agreement requires me to risk my neck. Nor does he ask it of me, truly, but I’ve seen enough now to know I want nothing to do with any of it.”

  She considered that for a moment, spooning loose tea into both cups. That he had bargained himself for her comfort, and the rest as well. “It won’t trouble us here, will it?”

  Isolfur hesitated, his lips pressing thin. “Elvish troubles rarely remain limited to the elves alone. If the queen is returned from her exile, which seems to be what the regent fears… There is no knowing what will come after. And in truth, I am not certain if it would be better or worse for me and mine. Why should I care if she takes back her crown as long as my people are freed? Except that she might well meddle here, as well. Perhaps it’s already begun.”

  “Surely we would know if elves were meddling in Gautar,” she said, pouring the heated water and sitting down with him at last.