Chapter Six
Astrid woke when the sky was still dark and promptly tripped over something at the foot of her bed.
She blinked away the last of sleep as she took in the sight of a crumpled human on the ground: Freya, swaddled in an eiderdown blanket. For a beat, she imagined something was wrong, that Freya was injured, and her pulse raced.
And then Freya moved.
“Whatever are you doing in here?” Astrid asked. Freya’s rooms were connected to Astrid’s, but she’d never known Freya to sleep in her bedroom.
To her credit, Freya did little other than grunt, massaging her side where Astrid had kicked her. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Freya was curled at the foot of Astrid’s bed with a blanket and pillow; the arrangement was premeditated. Her eyes were red with fatigue.
“You don’t have to guard me overnight. It’s not like I’ll be stabbed in my sleep,” Astrid joked.
She bent down to put a hand on Freya’s shoulder, and Freya jolted. There was no humor in her expression.
Did Freya think Astrid could be killed in her own bed?
She remembered what Freya had said last night about the possibility of harm coming to Astrid.
Her dark joke about the action she would take.
Astrid had no doubt Freya was fully capable of following through.
Unfortunately for all of them, Guthmar did not deserve to die, and his death would be the start of an international incident.
The last thing Astrid needed was enemies to the west and south.
“There are two guards outside the door,” Astrid reminded Freya, “and the rest of my félag down the hall. Not to mention you in the next room over. I’m well protected.”
“I know, Your Majesty.” Freya’s voice was scratchy. She smoothed down her hair, which had taken to sticking up every which way. Despite herself, Astrid relished in seeing Freya mussed and undone.
“I’m being extra cautious because of the ambassador switch,” said Freya.
Astrid didn’t know what to say. They’d already discussed the ambassador last night. How if he was a threat, he was a diplomatic one, not an…assassin.
The idea of an assassin in her apartments made her shudder. She searched for words of assurance—why did Astrid need to assure Freya that she herself wasn’t in bodily danger?—when someone knocked at the door.
“Hrothgar?” Astrid called.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Ambassador Guthmar is here, and he would like a tour of the castle.”
“He should have come on time yesterday if he wanted a tour,” Freya muttered.
Astrid waved her protest away. “I’ll get ready as fast as I can, Hrothgar. You can let him into my antechamber.”
Silence from the other side of the door. Freya shook her head in disagreement.
“He has brought his spouses and his bodyguards, Your Majesty,” Hrothgar said.
Five orcs crowding up Astrid’s antechamber. Just envisioning this made Astrid want to crawl back into bed. “Leave them in the hall, then,” she said. “I’ll be quick.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Hrothgar’s steps echoed away. There was booming laughter down the hall, unmistakably the ambassador’s, and both Astrid and Freya flinched.
“You should get ready, too, Freya,” Astrid said as she splashed her face in the basin.
“I’m going to follow you closely today,” Freya warned.
Astrid glanced up through her wet eyelashes. Always, Freya insisted on guarding Astrid as her duty. She rejected gifts and other displays of thanks, but Astrid felt gratitude well up in her chest anyway. “Why?”
“I don’t trust the newcomers, and I still have much to learn about them,” Freya said. She was standing now, and though she’d been sleeping a moment ago and was wearing only a light tunic, she looked ready for the day.
“You’ll let me know what you learn?” Astrid asked.
Freya didn’t look up to meet her gaze. The column of her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Of course, My Queen.”
The ambassador was surrounded by a small crowd when Astrid left her rooms ten minutes or so later.
He was regaling the onlookers with a tale—or he would have been, if any of his words made it through his boisterous laughter.
His wife and husband wore indulgent smiles, but the bodyguards he’d brought with him were stoic as could be, and Astrid’s félag wore the stony faces of those forced to pander to a small, petulant child.
It was going to be a long day.
“Is there anything in particular you want to see?” Astrid asked as they headed down the stairs. The light padding of Freya’s feet followed her, comforting and familiar.
“Oh, I’d like to see everything,” he said, and Astrid’s stomach nearly fell out of her ass. She recalled what Freya had said about his attendants: He wanted to stop for every little thing.
He actually, literally, meant he wanted to see everything.
Astrid brought him to the meadery first. It smelled of honey and yeast and reminded her of summer.
She thought about Guthmar’s loose tongue last night, brought on by the mead.
“Perhaps we should try some,” she suggested, and the meadery staff rushed to find something worthy to give an ambassador.
Soon, everyone had a drinking horn in hand.
Astrid pretended to politely sip at hers as the conversation went on.
The bodyguards were on alert at all times for Guthmar’s safety.
This was, in part, because he was known to be clumsy when he drank.
They would reach out at times, anticipating his stumble into things made of glass.
Astrid mouthed thank you to them when they stopped Guthmar from falling into a set of armor in the meadery, worn by a legendary hero of yore who was known to have beaten an army single-handedly after having drunk an entire barrel of mead on his own.
Vera would have shrieked if the armor was so much as dented.
It would not do well to ruin something valuable right before the history fair.
In the scullery, Guthmar wanted a demonstration of how the kitchen staff washed the dishes. Guthmar’s wife shouldered past him right away. “You don’t have to do anything special for him,” Alvor assured the two men assigned to cleaning duty. “He would just like to see how you work normally.”
Astrid was oddly touched by the gesture. The two men displayed immediate relief. They showed Guthmar how they scrubbed every nook and cranny of the fancier goblets. “Fascinating,” Guthmar said with genuine awe. It was also possible he was drunk.
“He’s full of wonder about the world,” Astrid whispered to Freya. Freya hummed noncommittally in response.
Guthmar did, indeed, want to stop literally everywhere.
He stopped at windows to admire the architecture; he stopped at a sconce to appreciate the metalsmithing that went into it; he stopped people in the halls to ask their names and what they did here.
Once, he even sent an older orc on the kitchen staff away blushing after complimenting his hairstyle.
As the day went on, it was hard to be annoyed with Guthmar. Astrid hardly had time to do as much stopping as he did, but how could she begrudge someone who took time to appreciate all of life’s little pleasures? She began to envy him, after a time. She understood what his spouses saw in him.
“He notices everything,” Freya whispered from behind Astrid.
“Yes,” Astrid said, a bit fondly.
“He’s cataloging.”
Astrid saw Guthmar’s actions through new eyes. Thank the goddess for Freya. It was a good cover to look through the accounting books—not that he’d find anything amiss—among other things that could be fed back to King Skarde.
But how much of this was true, and how much was Freya’s overcaution?
“Library,” Freya murmured as Astrid turned the corner toward the aviary.
Astrid paused, shuffled her feet, and pivoted to the other direction. “Do you like to read, Ambassador?” she said. “Our library is the finest in Torden.”
At this, the ambassador wrinkled his nose. He truly was inebriated. “I don’t care much for books. The effort required to read is…vast. Why stay inside and read when we can be out experiencing the world?”
Astrid pursed her lips. Novelty—this was someone who craved novelty. “We have an elf librarian.”
“My, but that is fascinating. Lead the way.”
Vera—said elf librarian—was not pleased to see them. She lifted her spectacles up her nose and brushed long red hair over one shoulder, giving the entourage an impressive glower.
“Your Majesty,” she greeted in a tone that could only be described as ironic. “And the ambassador from Sydlig, I take it.”
The ambassador held out a somewhat sweaty palm to greet her. Vera frowned at it and did not reciprocate the gesture.
“Lovely to meet you. How did you end up in orc country?” he asked.
Vera peered over the ambassador’s shoulder and straight at Freya.
Astrid had never truly understood the relationship between Vera and Freya.
They’d come to the castle together a decade ago, but they were not friends.
What Astrid could tell was that Vera knew Freya was responsible for their presence today.
“Would you like a tour?” Vera asked unkindly.
“Oh, no. I don’t care for literature,” he said, and Astrid smothered a smile at the horror-struck look on Vera’s face.
“I do, dear,” Tassi said. “Perhaps we can have a look around?”
Tassi nudged Guthmar away from Vera. The three spouses and their two bodyguards found a corner with a chair and began to rifle through the books as Guthmar sat there, trying to peer around the corner at the librarian.
“What do you think, Vera?” Freya asked, leaning against the librarian’s counter.
“He’s ridiculous,” Vera said. “Whyever would the king send him? If he won’t so much as read a book, how can he be expected to read and understand legal contracts? Or write and receive correspondence?”
“Why, indeed?” said Astrid.
Freya ran a finger over the book Vera was reading. “I was wondering if you knew anything about Sydlig marriage customs.”
Vera snorted. “Of course I know about Sydlig marriage customs.”