Chapter 28 #2
“Yes, it does please me,” she replied, too quickly, her face hot. “It’s wonderful. Thank you, Kalfr.”
Kalfr shrugged again, still not meeting her gaze, but Raye didn’t miss the flicker of approval in Olarr’s eyes, and his relieved glance toward Aulis.
And some of the lingering tension around the table had faded, too, and soon they launched into an easy, if surface-level, conversation.
About the children, and Kalfr’s progress in his garden, and various acquaintances the orcs shared.
To Raye’s surprise, Olarr even asked about her weaving, and whether she still made beautiful tapestries like the one Kalfr had shown him.
It took Raye an instant to follow that — she’d entirely forgotten she’d given Kalfr a smaller piece, back during their happier times together — and she couldn’t hide her grimace as she shook her head.
“No, I don’t do tapestries anymore,” she replied.
“I haven’t since Svein was small. My client base kept shrinking, and it just wasn’t profitable enough, between the time, and the cost and work to either source the coloured yarn, or grow the right plants to dye my own. So…”
She swallowed and shrugged, because surely they didn’t want all the miserable details.
But Olarr kept watching her with genuine-seeming interest, and casting occasional glances toward Kalfr, too.
“Then mayhap you could begin this again here,” he told her.
“Kalfr has plenty of room, do you not, brother? And I am sure you could help her grow these plants, and dye this yarn, also.”
Raye blinked at Olarr, and then at Kalfr, while the sudden, dizzying vision of it unfurled behind her eyes.
Setting up a loom here, in this lovely house, with its huge beautiful garden.
And with Kalfr, helping her with plants and dyeing, sharing delicious meals with her, making her tea, being a father to Svein…
And… choking her under the table. Barely looking at her afterwards. Wielding his power over her, testing her. Maybe still punishing her, too, no matter what Gaelfr claimed it to be.
And even now, Kalfr wasn’t saying anything.
Wasn’t betraying any response whatsoever to Olarr’s offer.
He wasn’t even looking at Raye, and she should know better than to even consider such things.
He didn’t want that. He didn’t want her, or trust her.
And she needed to remember that she still couldn’t trust him, either.
“That would be lovely,” she finally said. “But the amount of space and time required for such an operation is very extensive. It really doesn’t bring in enough to live on, anyway.”
It sounded paltry, unconvincing, and though no one argued it, Raye didn’t miss the suspicion flaring through Aulis’ eyes again.
And she was deeply, irrationally grateful when Gaelfr nudged her foot under the table, and asked Olarr a question about Bautul leadership at the mountain.
Olarr answered easily enough — something about a new orc named Joarr now being involved, after some kind of cross-clan complication, and how Olarr himself was still sharing captain’s duties with an orc named Silfast. But how these days, Silfast was the one making most of the clan’s decisions, since Olarr and Aulis and their family were now living half the year in a small byrgi of their own a few leagues to the south.
Raye tried to follow along as well as she could, but the longer the conversation went, the more unsettled she felt.
In part due to that still-stinging snub from Kalfr, but also due to the lingering coolness in Aulis’ eyes, and her own rising awareness that this conversation was carefully avoiding any further points of contention.
Not only around Raye’s future here, but also her history before coming here, and Gaelfr’s history in the south, too.
And, most conspicuous of all, there was no mention whatsoever of Kalfr’s conflict with Sybil, or his reasons for being here.
Though surely, if Olarr was really a captain, he would know, wouldn’t he?
And did that have anything to do with why Olarr and Aulis had come here today?
She swore she would destroy me, Kalfr had said.
She swore she would track my scent, and then she…
“I ought to go out and check on Svein,” Raye abruptly said, rising from the table. “Please, continue your visit, I’ll be back shortly.”
But Gaelfr also stood up, clearly intending to accompany her, and after an instant’s hesitation, Aulis stood, too. “Good idea,” he said, with a too-easy grin. “Should make sure they haven’t stabbed each other yet.”
The offer was clearly intentional, meant to leave Olarr and Kalfr alone together, and Raye fought the ever-deepening unease as she attempted a smile back, and accompanied Aulis and Gaelfr outside.
Where, it turned out, Alfie and Svein were cheerfully sparring with their wooden swords in the clearing, while Ophelia was sitting up in a nearby tree, and throwing pinecones down toward them.
“Mama! Papa Gaelfr!” Svein exclaimed, skipping over to greet them. “Papa, will you spar with us, too? Alfie is really good with his sword, and Ophelia is shooting arrows at us!”
Gaelfr smiled and nodded, and went to fetch Svein’s second wooden sword from where he’d left it nearby. Leaving Raye standing awkwardly behind with Aulis, and though he flashed another easy smile toward her, it almost felt worse than if he’d just started hollering at her.
“Look, you can just say it, you know,” she muttered toward him. “Whatever it is you’re hiding, or whatever you’re thinking about me. Maybe that I don’t deserve Kalfr? That I should never have come here?”
It came out harsher than she’d meant, and more challenging, too, but to his credit, Aulis only shrugged and smiled again, more genuine this time.
“No, you should have come,” he replied. “We’ve all wanted Kalfr to reunite with his family.
But I don’t think any of us expected you and Gaelfr like this, yeah? ”
Her and Gaelfr. Raye blinked back at him, and then glanced uncertainly to where a chuckling Gaelfr was now being attacked by Svein and Alfie at once, while Ophelia pelted them with pinecones. “Oh?” she asked Aulis, as blandly as she could. “How so?”
Aulis’ look toward her was rueful, but incredulous, too. “You and Gaelfr reek of each other all over,” he said. “Thought you two hated each other. Isn’t that why Gaelfr took off across the sea, for all that time? And why you ran Kalfr off in the first place, too?”
Raye’s face flooded with heat, while her thoughts swarmed with questions.
Did Aulis really think the only reason she’d run Kalfr off was because she’d hated Gaelfr?
Did they all think that? Also, how the hell did Aulis know anything about her and Gaelfr to begin with?
Aulis was human like Raye, so he couldn’t smell such things, could he?
Had Olarr smelled it, and surreptitiously told him, somehow?
But clearly Aulis had followed Raye’s confusion, because he angled her another rueful smile.
“I can smell Gaelfr on you,” he told her.
“You’ll start to pick up the scenting from the orcs, if you’re in their bed often enough.
Something in their seed, apparently. Supposed to be good for your health and strength, too. ”
What? Raye’s mouth fell open, her face burning even hotter, while she glanced up and down this Aulis’ tall muscled body.
He did look excessively healthy, what with his height and size, his pink cheeks, his clear blue eyes — and suddenly Raye was struck with memories of…
Gaelfr. Feed yourself upon me. Make yourself plump and fat and hale upon me…
“It’s a bit of a fixation with them, I think,” Aulis continued, with another too-knowing smile. “Especially if they think you need it. Easiest to just relax and enjoy it, yeah? Not like it’s a hardship.”
Raye stared at him for another long moment, while visions of Aulis relaxing and enjoying his mate’s seed crowded into the rest of the mess in her brain.
And there was something in the way he was looking at her now, his brows raised, because — right.
His question about her and Gaelfr. And was he…
was he offering her an explanation, with this? He was, wasn’t he?
“Right,” Raye said, with a wince. “Yes, that was… how it started, between Gaelfr and me. He barged his way into my house, and refused to leave, and he felt very strongly that I needed… tending. And that Kalfr would understand, or even… approve. So…”
She couldn’t finish, her cheeks still burning with humiliation, while unmistakable comprehension — or even amusement — flared across Aulis’ eyes. “Ah, I see,” he replied. “A lot harder to keep hating them when they’re fussing and fretting over you like an overwrought hen, yeah?”
Raye choked a reluctant laugh, and Aulis grinned too, his eyes warmer than they’d been yet.
“You’ll just… be good to Kalfr in it too, yeah?
” he said. “I know losing you and Gaelfr was a huge blow for him, after everything else he’s gone through, and now” — his smile faded as he glanced away — “these past few months have been absolute hell for him, too. He could really use some help, and some kindness, from people he can trust. People who actually care about him.”
Oh. The words twisted uncomfortably in Raye’s gut, because it was a challenge, wasn’t it?
Making it clear what he — and clearly Olarr — expected from her, and from Gaelfr.
And also… what had he meant by everything else Kalfr had gone through?
Just the war, surely? Or maybe everything that had happened with her, too?
But before she could ask, Gaelfr shoved up from where he’d been wrestling with the children, and stalked over to join them. “How fare you, woman?” he demanded, with a disapproving glare toward Aulis. “Is aught amiss?”
More amusement flicked across Aulis’ eyes, and he raised both his hands in mock defeat. “No, not at all,” he replied. “Only talking about Kalfr, and how you two mean to take good care of him.”
Gaelfr’s disapproval shifted into something almost offended, and he drew himself taller. “Ach, always,” he said flatly. “We shall do all within our power to uphold him, and keep him content, and sated, and safe.”
If Aulis was affronted by Gaelfr’s belligerence, he didn’t show it, and instead put his hand to his heart, and bowed his head. “I’m most glad to hear it, brother,” he replied. “You know you have our full support with what comes next. If you need help, please don’t hesitate to call on us.”
With that, he turned and strode off toward the children, whistling a jaunty tune.
Leaving Gaelfr still frowning after him, though there was something calculating in his eyes, too.
Perhaps due to that cryptic comment about what was coming next, and what the hell had that meant?
Aulis knew something they didn’t, right?
Did it have to do with Sybil? With the byrgis?
With the mercenaries who had come to Raye’s cottage?
But Gaelfr didn’t speak again, and Raye forced her attention back to Aulis and the happily playing children.
Waiting, and waiting, until Kalfr and Olarr finally came out to join them.
And Raye couldn’t read the look in Kalfr’s eyes as he gazed toward her, and then down at her hand, which had curled around Gaelfr’s bulky forearm, without her even noticing.
Raye belatedly snatched her hand away, and Gaelfr strode to meet Kalfr, and caught his face in his hand.
Tilting it up toward him, searching his eyes with sudden, surprising intensity.
And though Kalfr didn’t resist, he betrayed a full-body spasm, a hard swallow in his throat.
He didn’t look nearly as easy as he had before, either, the lines heavier around his eyes and mouth, as if…
“What is amiss, ástin mín?” Gaelfr demanded, as he drew Kalfr slightly away, further from Aulis and the children. “Tell me.”
Kalfr’s tired eyes darted toward Olarr, who had been watching them with something much like relief. But now he gave an indulgent wave, and jogged off toward Aulis and the children, while Gaelfr kept intently searching Kalfr’s face.
“Tell me,” Gaelfr said, softer now. “It is news, ach? From the Bautul at the mountain — or mayhap from their scouts? About Sybil?”
Sybil. Raye’s heartbeat jolted, but Kalfr wasn’t denying it. Was he? No, he just looked even more tired than before, his face drawn, his eyes blank and empty.
“She is coming, then?” Gaelfr asked, the softness in his voice not at all matching the sudden, murderous look on his face. “For you?”
Again, Kalfr didn’t deny it. Only gazed back at Gaelfr with such empty, unseeing eyes. Saying… yes? Sybil was coming? Here? Now?
Raye’s heart thumped faster, and her exhale sounded not unlike a whimper. Snapping both Kalfr and Gaelfr’s heads toward her, Kalfr’s mouth twisting, his breath hitching in…
“Ach, she is coming, in just over a fortnight,” Kalfr said, his voice a strangled rasp. “You all need to leave me. At once.”