Chapter 2 Foreboding
Foreboding
Present day.
It was quiet in the castle stable. The whole keep held its silence, waiting for something to shatter. Ayla drew an achingly cold breath and leaned against Gemshorn, the only joy her husband had yet to take away.
He was nearly too big for her to manage, a Rogess breed her father had called leggy when he handed the reins to her years ago.
Now the dapple gray gelding stood with his head down and his lower lip drooping.
She ran the soft brush over his back in slow, steady lines.
Gemshorn cocked his hind hoof, resting his leg as his weight slumped.
“Must be nice to be pampered,” Ayla murmured, pressing her chilly hand against the warmth of his hide. The wool cloak over her shoulder wasn’t enough to keep the cold from her bones. “How about next time, you groom me.”
Gemshorn cocked an ear back at her and sighed, a little more dramatically than Ayla thought was fair. She lifted the brush to set it against his withers, then froze.
There were footsteps in the aisle of the stable. But she’d learned to read them, and these were soft and quick, not a heavy stride. Her shoulders relaxed as Gemshorn curved his neck to look at her, as if demanding to know why she’d stopped.
“Lady Ayla? He wants you,” a woman said from the stable aisle.
It was Megh, the plump, square-faced woman who tended to Ayla’s quarters. Megh's brown eyes looked frantic as she paused outside the stall, clasping and unclasping her hands.
“Is he in a mood?” Ayla asked, trying to sound calm.
“Fiercely,” Megh whispered.
“Chamber or study?” Her own voice sounded quiet, almost stiff. Gemshorn, sensing her anxiety, sidestepped out from under the brush.
“Neither. He’s in your room.”
“He’s in my—?” Ayla started. She looked at Megh, then back at the tall gray horse. “But he never…”
New wasn’t good, when it came to Ditmar. New was always bad.
She could run. The thought was there, in the back of her mind, every hour of every day.
She could saddle Gem and plunge outside the castle walls, race deep into the mountains that leered up around castle Blackfell like an iron vise.
She could go so far, so fast, that nobody would ever find her.
She could run until she forgot his face.
But it was a fantasy to believe she’d get away. Anywhere she ran, he’d track her down, with dogs and men and horses.
Even if she could somehow succeed, there were others to think about.
He’d hurt the servants and guards if they failed to stop her escape.
He’d hurt her father, who she still loved, even if it was through his own folly she’d ended up Ditmar’s wife.
Her mother, her brother, her sister in law, her nephews, the youngest just a babe.
None of them bore blame for her current predicament.
But Ditmar would doubtlessly ruin them if she fled. That was the way of things, with lords and knights. Men with swords were not to be trusted. All they knew was how to hurt.
She stepped outside the stall, latching the door behind her, and bent to set the brush in the bin on the floor.
A bit of straw clung to her plum-colored gown.
Ayla reached down to dust it from her skirts, carefully inspecting them for anything else that could stoke Ditmar’s rage.
She straightened to see Andrek, the chief hostler, watching her from across the way with a pitying expression.
Her cheeks flared. It was hard to hide the truth from the servants, but it made her feel shameful, like it was somehow her fault.
She knew better, but it didn’t stop the emotion from creeping in.
Holding her head high, Ayla tucked her hands inside her sleeves and walked across the courtyard back into her husband’s castle.
Nobody needed to know that her stomach churned and her palms sweat.
Megh left her at the base of the inner stairs, with a quick, bracing hug. Ayla let go reluctantly and forced herself to walk up alone, each step growing heavier the closer she drew to the black wooden door to her room.
And then she stopped, steeling herself for a moment. Ayla flinched as the unmistakable sound of shattering glass, and a man’s deep cursing, snapped through the closed door. If she waited any longer, it would only get worse.
She whispered a prayer, reached out a shaking hand, and slowly turned the knob.
Lord Ditmar of Blackfell stood before the window seat on the far wall, shoulders heaving as he stared out at the landscape.
Harsh white light silhouetted his body. Between them lay the ruins of her bedchamber.
The contents of her wardrobe scattered across the floor, silk and wool and linens dyed as richly colorful as jewels.
Her mirror was broken; every drawer of her dressing table upended.
He’d even torn down the stilder-berry garland Megh had hung along the walls for Ayla to enjoy.
Now the branches of pale green nettles with their bursts of dangerous white berries lay in heaps along the floor.
Worst of all, the green glass vase, the last remaining piece of glass she'd blown herself, lay smashed into a thousand glittering pieces. Now there was nothing to remind her of the art she'd once loved.
Her mattress still sat on the wooden frame, though the linens were torn loose. It was a small blessing. If he’d found the books she hid beneath the bed, surely the mattress would be on the floor, or cut open and the horsehair stuffing pulled out.
“My lord?” Ayla fought to keep her voice even.
Normally, when he wanted her, he summoned her to his own bedchamber or his study. Considering the books were the only thing she kept hidden within her small, square bedchamber, she couldn’t think what had sent him into today’s rampage.
“So this is what comes of marrying a merchant’s get, instead of a lady of breeding,” Ditmar said to the open window, as if talking to himself. Her room had no glass panes. A thread of wind ruffled his hair.
“If I have displeased, I apologize,” Ayla whispered.
Every hair of her body stood on alert, screaming to run.
But the only way through Ditmar’s anger was to face it and let him dole out whatever punishment he thought she’d earned.
Ayla tucked her hands deeper into her embroidered skirts to hide the tremble, and kept her expression calm. Ditmar turned to face her.
He was an ugly man even at the best of times, as beady-eyed as a boar, with red, puffy skin and lips more prone to grimace than smile.
She hadn’t minded his looks at first, and if he’d had a beating heart instead of one made of ice, she would have accepted his appearance without complaint.
These days, she found him hard to look at.
“What is this?” her husband held up a small oval leaf.
Ayla’s mouth went dry.
Mercy. No matter how Ditmar had found out, he was going to kill her this time. There was nothing she could say. She forced herself to meet his eyes, since he would take looking away as a confession.
“It appears to be a leaf, my lord.” The maids had helped her hide the contraceptive tea leaves in a box in the lower pantry, where only the kitchen staff went, so that they couldn’t be traced back to her. Had one of them turned on her?
It felt impossible. The household servants were the closest thing she had to friends.
“Three years I’ve been saddled with your barren womb.
And now?” Ditmar crushed the dried leaf in his hand and let the fragments fall onto the floor.
She felt her legs go watery but forced them to hold her upright.
There went the last measure of control she had over her own body and fate.
She could not trust he’d treat a child any more kindly than he treated her.
The leaves didn’t grow this far north. Most merchants carried them, but trade was sparse in the cold months. And now that Ditmar knew, she would not be able to buy them as discretely as she had before.
“If I tracked in some odd leaf from the woods, I am sorry,” Ayla managed to say, fighting to keep her tone even. “Perhaps it stuck to my cloak.”
“Too late for lies,” Ditmar informed her, anger burning in his eyes. “Did you think you could fool me forever? I’ll have a child if I have to watch every meal or drink you take with my own eyes.”
“I do not know what you speak of,” Ayla whispered. Her voice wobbled despite her best attempts. “Surely those belong to one of the servants. I have never—”
“Enough,” Ditmar bellowed, his voice so loud it hurt her ears.
She refused to flinch or show any expression on her face.
As he stalked towards her Ayla did not turn and run.
She shook all the same, trembling like she herself was a brittle leaf clinging to a branch in the autumn wind.
Perhaps it was a pitiful way of fighting back, refusing to give him any reaction more than that.
But she would not give him the satisfaction of her tears.
And then his hand was on her chin, his fingers digging painfully into her skin, though not hard enough to bruise. He never left bruises where they’d be seen, not that any of the servants could have stopped him if he did.
It was no relief that he spared her beauty. It was beauty that had led her into this marriage in the first place.
“You have played me for a fool,” Ditmar hissed, his voice quiet now, his breath stinking of drink. “You’ve taken the wealth from my coffers and denied me my due. But I will have it. I will have my heir.”
“You are mistaken, my lord,” she managed, despite the fingers clamped around her jaw. “That was not mine.”
“No?” Ditmar asked quietly, forcing her chin up as his other hand found her arm. His face was inches from her own, his eyes boring into hers. “Good. Then you will not care that I have burned it all to ash.”
She closed her eyes, and reminded herself that nothing could last forever, not even pain.