Chapter 13 #3
“Ha! You could, but I think that is not what the court will accept. It’s very unusual—maybe impossible… Ah, yes, this woman says what I have thought. There is no way it would work.”
Once again, I was washed with confusion.
The sea dogs argued with their king as if he weren’t a king.
They argued in a way I’d never seen even children argue—with seemingly no control.
Just words and gestures released without any thought or embarrassment at appearing so unconstrained.
I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would look like if even a single person yelled out to my father in his hall as was happening then in King Arik’s.
“Oh! No!” Dania pointed at someone and shouted in the sea dog words.
The man had been shouting himself, and looked at her as though very offended.
She continued shouting until King Arik took notice of her and waved the crowd quiet to hear her.
She spoke with wild gestures and the king spoke and the man spoke.
In the end, the king nodded, and the man scoffed.
“What is happening?” I said, gripping Dania’s arm.
Dania laughed. “He was Islish once. He offered to guard you, but I have told The Bard King it must not be. That he will figure you for a gentlewoman and be bitter toward you for it. He may not be able to treat you fairly. The king has agreed it is too great a risk.”
I stared at her, my chest warm. “Thank you.”
“Ugh, don’t look so softened by it. I can’t possibly spend time with you if you’re going to look at me like that.”
Farwatcher shouted, and people quieted. Maybewoman nodded and spoke, and people quieted further.
Fell laughed and covered his face like a bashful child.
Arik growled like… I don’t even know what. My bones were afraid of the sound.
“They say Hyrold visited in lightning form. Vanuerim also visited?” Dania grasped my shoulders and turned me to face her straight on. “Did you see her?”
“Dania, I have no idea—”
“Was there a woman in the sea on your voyage?”
I shook my head.
“Did you see any children? Imagined or in front of you?”
I shook my head again, and she frowned.
“They say… or—” Dania turned away, listening as Speartooth tried to speak, and Fell held his hand over the man’s mouth. I curled my fingers into my fists, thinking Speartooth might bite Fell’s fingers with his sharpened teeth, and feeling a little anticipatory pain myself.
“Sigyn says Fell has a… scar from the lightning… it will convince everyone—”
Arik bellowed, and Fell shuffled forward from the crowd, grinning and saying something that had many laughing.
“He says if The Bard King wanted him undressed, he need only have asked.”
Fell reached behind his head and tugged at his tunic, pulling the cloth off sloppily.
I saw a glimpse of hardened chest stained with blue-green tattoos before I averted my eyes.
I knew what he was going to show everyone, for I had a few similar marks from when I was just learning how to direct the vault’s sting.
Dark purple streams—almost like veins risen to the surface of the skin.
It wasn’t from the lightning strike, but from the vault’s sting.
I’d caused it when I released it upon him in the carriage.
Hushed whispers coasted through the hall, and I was vaguely aware of King Arik and Jorn the Calm approaching Fell to take a closer look.
I wanted to weep, to run, to tremble into nothingness. It was one more thing I couldn’t explain without giving away my order’s secrets.
King Arik’s voice was something I had already learned, despite having known him for only a short time. I could tell it was him speaking.
“The Bard King says he will consult with Jorn and the lesser readers in private. He bids us drink and eat and wait for him.”
I waited what felt like ages before glancing back up, giving Fell ample time to redress before risking meeting his eyes again.
I was successful in my aim, only there was great treachery hidden in the success, for I hadn’t seen him approaching.
I looked up, and he was nearly upon us, meaning I had little time to prepare.
He walked slowly, dragging his feet, which I’d never seen a grown person do.
And then he smirked just the smallest bit—an embarrassed smirk if anything.
“He says your colour is improved. He is glad to see it.”
I was swarmed with the overwhelming confusion of not knowing what to do. He was still looking at me… the way that he looked at me… I had to look away.
“He says, not to be embarrassed if that is what you’re feeling because of Egil’s wildness while you were ill. He says everyone in this hall has done far more humiliating things with the aid of ale. He says Sigyn once pissed in the corner just there because he was too drunk to know where he was.”
Again, I felt like crying. Everything was rough. The sound of their words, the linen wrapping my sore-covered body, the creaking wood beneath our feet.
Fell spoke, and still I kept my eyes on the floor, my cheeks burning.
“He thanks you for saving him on the ship, in the storm—what does he mean?”
I looked up then, but I didn’t say anything because he was still watching me, and I had saved him, but not with intention or in the way he was probably thinking. It was my slippers that saved us both.
We have been struck by lightning together, I thought, my cheeks burning at the absurdity of it.
He kicked at the fur on the floor, looking down for a moment as he spoke.
“He asks if you consider a debt between the two of you or if his part in bringing you here has paid it.”
I frowned. “Him taking me captive, by accident or not, in addition to me saving his life would mean he owes me more, wouldn’t it?”
Dania laughed and then whistled amid more sea dog words.
Fell frowned as he listened.
“He says he took the wrong prisoner, but you were still imprisoned, no?”
I shook my head.
“He says the cart was locked from the outside.”
I held my face neutral, as if I’d known that.
Had I simply ignored the jangling of the keys when one of my escorts opened the partial door to slide in a meal or take out my chamber pot?
I had. I could remember the sound of the lock after Dania had translated Fell’s words, but I had not thought about it at all when I’d first heard it.
“He says you wore a torture cloth… or no… the word, torture tool?”
I was beginning to understand his thinking, but that made me less sympathetic, for I was no longer only arguing with him; I was arguing with myself, my life, the very notion of what I was.
“The man with the spear teeth… he forced me to sleep.” I wasn’t one to raise my voice, but there was a firmness that poured into my words. I knew I had a good argument. Why would they have poisoned someone they were rescuing?
Dania shared my meaning and listened to Fell’s response.
“Ah, it was not meant to make you sleep. It’s a…
there’s no Islish word for this, it’s for slowing berserk, for slowing the heart after battle, when a warrior cannot remember the fight is over on their own.
Breathing the cloth lets the mind see only the present for a moment.
They gave it to you because maybe you’d been fighting those outside the cart for days.
He says he and Sigyn have wondered why you slept—Sigyn has guessed it was from the constraints of your clothing, that maybe you didn’t have enough air? ”
Fell began to laugh.
“He says he is seeing everything how you are seeing it.”
The man bent forward with the force of his laughter.
“He says it’s a wonder you didn’t slay everyone onboard—”
“This is not funny in the least,” I said.
“He says he has dropped his shield. He’s calling Sigyn over, he’s telling him now… all the mistakes—”
“His shield?”
“It means he has made a grave error.”
I watched the fool struggle to tell Speartooth anything because he was laughing so hard. Speartooth spit out his drink and laughed along with him. Dania giggled too, though she had the decency to try hiding it from me.
“This is abhorrent,” I said. “To laugh at my suffering so.”
“Come now,” Dania said. “You cannot see how it is a little funny? How everything looked one way to one and another way to another? The gods have been meddling, it seems.”
Maybe I would have cried. Maybe I would have shouted. But King Arik returned with his readers, and Fell looked up at the man.
It was the first time I began to understand there was more between them than they shared with others. The king had an apologetic look about him, and Fell appeared wary because of it.
“The Bard King says they have deliberated and there are greater risks for someone acting Norsern on your behalf than with a usual sotern. He says that Fell will act as your guardian as he has been spared by whatever forces watch over you and because Hyrold—he is god of sea and storms—and Vaneurim, goddess of mothers, have visited both of you at the same time.”
“Njen.” I didn’t know the word, but I knew from Fell’s tone what it meant.
It was the same thing I was thinking. No.
This man had attacked me, mistakenly or not.
He had taken me captive. Mistakenly or not.
And whenever our eyes meet… The world around us felt quieter as his gaze settled on mine.
Was he pitying me? No. He seemed almost like he was searching for help.
You must stop looking at me, I told him in my thoughts.
His eyes went back to the king.
“The Bard King says it has been decided. Fell says he cannot. He sounds very serious—he says the king knows why he cannot. Ouu, I love a little mystery.”
King Arik sighed.
“The Bard King says it is done, and Fell says… he will name you Norsern immediately, and King Arik says… that you will have a very difficult time if this is what Fell does. That the Islish people will scorn you too, because of your birth in your home country, and anyway, he is not giving Fell a choice.”