Chapter Twenty-Seven
The queen really meant to send Freya away.
Freya dragged her feet down the hall, closed in on either side by members of the guard who had confiscated her weapons. Not the queen’s félag, but ordinary guards. Somehow this hurt, too, the insult of not needing the higher rank to keep her from running off.
As she was escorted out, Freya played over her last conversation with Astrid. She’d meant to hurt Astrid, to cut into the raw parts of her, and she had seen the hurt on her queen’s face, clear as day.
The memory made Freya sick. She shook as she walked, perhaps with regret and perhaps with anger. The things she’d said had been true, but she hadn’t needed to say them. Astrid knew already.
Freya had been fooled. She’d really thought Astrid had gotten over the things that made her push Freya away. Sending Freya to the temple was a breach of the trust they had cultivated over the years—trust in Freya to take care of her queen and herself.
The guards stopped at the stables. Freya looked up at the imposing horses built more for tall orcs than smallish humans.
She had become accustomed to riding them in Torden with the queen’s retinue, but it wasn’t going to be easy with her still healing.
She considered which of them would be the most reliable for an escape.
Freya’s falcon circled overhead, screeching her support. At least Freya would still be able to send messages to Brenn, wherever she ended up.
She had decided on a horse she rode with some regularity and half-plotted her escape from the guards when Hrothgar showed up.
They stood tall in the doorway. Their clothing was nondescript: not the leather armor the félag wore in downtime, nor the casual tunic that identified them as part of the queen’s trusted guard.
This was to be secret, then. Did they anticipate she could be assassinated on the way to the temple? The idea was laughable. Who would target Freya over a queen? She was not convinced of her importance.
“I will take you to the temple,” Hrothgar said solemnly. Long gone was the orc who had danced with Astrid at the inn.
“Should I have my weapons, Hrothgar?” she asked. “If we are facing such a big threat that I need a skilled escort.”
Hrothgar flushed at the compliment. They never were good at taking praise. “It is a short trip, Freya. I am here to defend against your escape, not to protect you.”
This made Freya feel a bit better. She turned to the horse she had chosen. “I will take Shadow.”
The stable hand—a human boy who could not have been more than fifteen years of age—paled.
Hrothgar patted the neck of a much larger horse already equipped for travel. “We will both take Wodin.”
So that was how it was going to be. Freya should have noticed when she’d walked in that she had no choice. The level of agency offered to her in the past had distracted her.
She swallowed her pride and allowed Hrothgar to lift her onto Wodin’s back. Getting onto a horse alone was hard enough, and though her physical wounds were healed, her body was weak, recovering from trauma and the effects of poison in her blood. Hrothgar settled in behind her, grabbing the reins.
“Thank you,” they said to the guards and the stable boy. Then they were off.
The ride was so short, Freya hardly thought it worth the horse. The horse was there to give her one more obstacle to her escape. She had let these people know her too well.
“I don’t suppose you’ll let me run off and lie to the queen that I’ve arrived safely,” Freya said when the temple appeared in the distance.
“No,” said Hrothgar. “And if you do flee, I would prefer you do so when you are not under my care.”
There would be no escape, in any case. They reached the temple, where a group of priestesses waited for Freya in the orange light of the evening. Freya was bundled from the horse and handed directly to them like goods at the market.
She glanced back at Hrothgar as they left. Hrothgar stood still, statue-like, watching. So she was still under their care, Freya thought wryly.
“We have set up accommodations for you,” one of the priestesses said. The call of Freya’s falcon drowned out their voices, and then everyone was quiet as they looked up in awe at Huginn’s broad wingspan.
Huginn was a companion to Freya but an omen to the priestesses. Freya had to admit she did like the idea of unsettling them.
Unfortunately, they only paused for an interval before shuffling Freya forward in a newly uncomfortable silence.
Freya had a moment to take in the outside of the temple with its grand but simple stone arches, surrounded on either side by trees shedding their leaves.
The sunset lent the stone a glow, making Freya’s eyes water.
She shuddered. Then, against her will, she went inside.
If Freya had hoped for a single moment of alone time, she was mistaken.
She was subjected to a tour of the temple first. The priestesses lived in simple rooms with bunk beds behind the main temple, which was open to the public.
There was a courtyard, and chilly autumn air swept over Freya as she walked its perimeter.
The priestess showing her around was named Esja, and she seemed nice enough, considering Freya’s opinion of how poorly Vakker’s orc priestesses treated Brenn.
In the middle of the courtyard was an ugly tin bird bath big enough to drown in. Freya began to ask what it was for, but two other priestesses entered the courtyard with soap, brushes, and towels.
Steam rose from the surface of the tub.
“I’ve already bathed today,” Freya protested.
“A cleansing,” said Esja. “To purify you for the goddess.”
Freya made a conscious effort not to roll her eyes as Esja gestured for her to strip down. She removed her clothes and passed them into Esja’s outheld hand. Esja coughed, gesturing to Freya’s ankle. Sighing, Freya handed her the last knife hidden on her person.
“I will be wanting that back,” she said.
Esja pursed her lips. “You won’t need weapons here. Any violence committed in a temple will be retributed by the goddess.”
Freya held her tongue. She knew from experience this was untrue.
As she approached the tub, she tried to hold herself tall, but the cold and her dissipating strength made it difficult to keep her head high.
After being bedridden for weeks, she would be weaker, she had to remind herself—and she’d been not just bedridden, but nearly murdered.
It was perfectly fine not to be at her best.
In contradiction of Freya’s grumpy attitude, the bath was quite nice, less of a bath than a brushing.
The priestesses fragranced the tub with a eucalyptus oil.
The smell soothed her and her aching skin, made her feel more awake.
One priestess brushed her hair while the other gently ran bristles over her back.
“The hands,” Freya heard one of them whisper. She quickly withdrew her hands under the water. The relaxing feeling left as quickly as it had come.
She was more on guard afterward. She chided herself for not being protective of her privacy in the first place. Vessels of the goddess as they were, Freya had seen how judgmental these priestesses could be.
When she rose from the tub, still covered in suds, they did not demand she go back in. One of them patted her with the towel, and the other helped her into an itchy woolen robe. It was blessedly unfeminine, formless and ugly.
Nowhere to hide knives, though, Freya noted. She would have to get an emergency weapon somewhere, and she imagined she was not allowed to leave, even though no one had explicitly told her so.
Esja informed Freya of a strict schedule of prayers, preparing meals, picking and drying herbs, polishing metal. All very dull, but she’d been made to do worse.
Esja seemed apologetic about the many responsibilities. “We have only delegated work to you that you should be able to do in your condition. I know you are just new and only staying for a while. But there is always more work than we have the time for.”
“How long is a while?” Freya asked, and Esja once more pursed her lips. Freya surmised she would be stuck here for months.
“You’ll join us for dinner and a meditation session tonight,” Esja said. “We’ll start you on your duties tomorrow.”
“Lovely,” Freya drawled.
“Do you have any restrictions with your diet?”
“No,” said Freya. She wondered where the food came from—where it had been purchased, caught, or gathered; who had prepared it; what the kitchens were like, as she had not been shown the inside. These were all things to be aware of at Vakker Castle.
For all she knew, the food here could be poisoned. But then, she didn’t have her queen to protect from poisoning.
The temple did not have a separate dining hall.
They had a small, drafty room with a long table and benches on either side.
A small hearth burned at the corner with a simple herring stew from which the orcs ladled portions.
Communal, Freya noted with some relief. If the food was poisoned, they would all go down.
She mopped up the stew with a hearty slice of half-stale bread and ate it reluctantly.
Her strength would be necessary to get out of here whenever they decided to leave her alone.
There was no conversation at dinner, and Freya was grateful.
Only the scraping of silverware and the slurping of stew filled the room.
When they were done, two of the priestesses came around and collected everyone’s bowls.
Freya licked hers clean, not caring what they thought of her.
She filed out of the room with the others, noting that amidst the elaborate designs of the robes, hers alone was gray and drab.
Perhaps this was the kind of garb intended for novices.
But the different robe seemed another way to set her apart.