Chapter 12
It was an endless, miserable day.
Raye had at least managed to empty the basin and dry her face before Svein crept out of his room again. But he could still smell her sickness in the air, and his face instantly crumpled as he ran into her arms.
“Mama,” he sobbed, against her shoulder. “Mama, what did they do to you?”
Raye fought to dismiss it, to explain it away, but Svein only grew more and more distressed. Clinging to her, whining and wailing at her, demanding to know when Papa Gaelfr would return.
But Raye couldn’t answer, because Gaelfr had said it was a quarter-day’s journey — but he would also have to find these people, and meet with them, and travel back.
If he came back at all. And for perhaps the first time, it occurred to Raye that even if Gaelfr did mean to come back, he could be waylaid by men, too.
He could already be dead, and Raye and Svein would never, ever know.
Raye finally wrangled Svein into his room, and into his bed for a desperately needed rest — he hadn’t slept nearly enough the night before — but even once he fell asleep, he kept sniffling, his claws still extended sharp from his fingers.
And Raye was sniffling too, and she had to make herself leave his room before she started sobbing again.
But now she was alone in the cramped cottage, blinking around at the plain walls and floors, the sparse furnishings, all the little holes and cracks and weaknesses she hadn’t been able to fix.
And then the huge loom, with that endless bolt of flat beige cloth upon it.
Waiting for her to offer up more of her time and her body, her boredom and her pain.
And without warning, another memory flared through her thoughts.
Kalfr, standing tall and handsome beside this very loom, carefully tracing his finger against her richly coloured tapestry.
This is so stunning, Raye, he’d told her, his voice hushed and reverent.
You bear the goddess’ own magic, in this.
Raye shook her head and shoved the memory away, and stared back down at the expanse of beige cloth. No. The tapestries were long gone, and there was nothing else to do. No other way to survive. And no guarantee that Gaelfr — or Kalfr — would ever come back.
So finally she sat down at the loom, and began working.
Lifting the warp threads, passing the shuttle through, beating down, lifting, passing, beating, again and again and again.
Gods, she was so tired, and she couldn’t stop glancing behind her toward the door, jumping at every creak, every gust of wind.
Waiting not only for the men, but for Gaelfr.
He’d promised he would come back, but what if he’d changed his mind, what if he was dead?
It plodded around and around through Raye’s exhausted brain, and an afternoon had perhaps never passed so slowly.
Her only saving grace was that Svein was still asleep, rather than milling about bored and whining, demanding to know when Gaelfr would return.
So she forced herself to keep weaving, keep sitting there, until —
A bang. At the door.
Raye choked and leapt off her stool, her hands trembling in midair. Svein burst out of his room too, his eyes wide as he rushed past her toward the door. As if…
“Grant me entry, woman!” called a deep, decisive voice. “It is only me.”
Gaelfr. He’d come back. Raye couldn’t deny her sudden wheeling relief, or her faint whimper as she staggered toward the door.
Pulling at the bars and latches, and yanking it open to reveal…
him. Gaelfr. Standing here alive and unharmed, still wearing his cloak and his sword and his axe, his usual frown firmly in place.
“Papa!” Svein yelped, as he hurled his arms around Gaelfr’s waist. “You came back!”
Gaelfr stilled for an instant, gazing down at Svein — and then he dropped to his knees, and folded Svein’s body into his arms. While Svein clung back tighter, his shoulders shaking, the tears streaming from his eyes.
“Ach, my son,” Gaelfr murmured, hoarse, into Svein’s hair. “I swore to you I would come back, did I not?”
Raye bit her lip and swallowed, gripping her still-trembling hands tightly together. Yes, Gaelfr had come back. He’d kept his word, and come back.
But he frowned again as he glanced up at her, his nostrils flaring. “Men came here today,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Did they frighten you? Harm you?”
His voice was surprisingly sharp, his eyes darting toward the now-clean washbasin, and Raye clutched her hands tighter, fought for breath. “N-no harm,” she replied, clipped. “I didn’t let them in.”
Gaelfr’s frown deepened, and he gently extracted himself from Svein, and turned to sniff at the closed door behind him. “Five of them — nay, six,” he said, his lip curling. “And a hound, also.”
Raye numbly nodded, and Gaelfr studied her again, as bitter comprehension flicked across his eyes. “Ach,” he said, on a harsh exhale. “They scented… me. In the garden, mayhap.”
Raye darted a look down at Svein’s watching eyes, but made herself nod.
“I didn’t… realize,” she said thickly. “Apparently they’ve been…
watching me. Watching for adult orcs. And they accused me of harbouring and abetting — participating in some kind of plot against the capital — and they said — they said —”
Her voice rose, her breaths heaving far too fast, and the look on Gaelfr’s face was thunderous, his huge body looming too close over her. “They said what, woman?” he demanded. “Tell me!”
Raye flinched and staggered backwards, her breath choking, while before her, Gaelfr winced, and rubbed at his eyes. “I only — ach,” he muttered, and Raye flinched again at the feel of his hand, spreading against her back. “Come, woman, and sit. And then we shall speak.”
He nudged her forward, toward the bed, in an order that Raye didn’t try to resist. And once she was seated on the bed, Gaelfr sank down close beside her, his hand still warm on her back, stroking up and down.
“Son, will you grant me a spell alone with your mother?” he asked Svein, who was now hovering uncertainly before them. “Only a moment.”
Svein nodded, but he kept hovering, his claws extending and retracting from his fingertips. “Papa, I… I didn’t scent them,” he said, his voice small. “I didn’t scent the bad men in time, because my nose was stuffed, because I was… I was weeping.”
He dropped his head, and betrayed another sniff. As if he was ashamed, because he hadn’t smelled the men in advance. And Raye was already shaking her head, reaching out to stroke Svein’s arm, while Gaelfr firmly gripped his shoulder.
“There is no shame in this, son,” he said. “We all must weep sometimes, and this is why we must stay together, and help each other. And” — his mouth thinned — “I was not here to help you, was I?”
Svein’s head snapped up, his eyes pathetically hopeful on Gaelfr’s face, and in a jerky movement, Gaelfr pulled him close, and pressed a brief kiss to his hair. “You were very brave, my son,” he said, rough. “I am so proud of you. And we shall speak again in another moment, ach?”
With that, he gently nudged Svein toward his room, and Svein went this time, only slightly dragging his feet. While Gaelfr let out a heavy breath, and again rubbed his hand at Raye’s back.
“Now tell me, woman,” he said, quiet. “All of this. Please.”
Please. It was perhaps the first time Raye had ever heard him say it, and it was enough that she began speaking.
Pouring out the entire tale, her voice rapid and choked, her tongue tripping on the words.
Telling him about the men’s surveillance, the accusations, the threats.
And how they’d only left once she’d used Gaelfr to threaten them in return, and how if any other orcs came, they would kill Raye and Svein both, but Svein first, so Raye could —
The bile surged again in her throat, and she clamped her mouth shut, buried her face in her hands. While Gaelfr’s hand kept stroking her, and a low growl vibrated through his body beside her.
“Ach, woman,” he said, his voice a rasp. “I ought to have been here. Ought to have foreseen this. Ought never to have left you alone thus.”
Raye exhaled into her hands, but then dropped them, and shook her head.
Gods knew she and Svein had been alone here long before Gaelfr had shown up, and she hadn’t warned him about the men snooping around, either.
None of this had been Gaelfr’s fault, and he…
he’d come back. Like he’d said. Her threat to the men hadn’t been an empty one, after all.
“I ought never to have left,” Gaelfr said, almost more to himself than to her. “I am sorry, saeta.”
Saeta? Raye darted a wet-eyed look toward his face, but he was glowering viciously toward the closed door, his jaw set. “Naught to fear now,” he said firmly. “I will not leave you again, not until Kalfr returns. You and Svein are safe with me.”
Oh. They were safe with him.
And Raye still couldn’t trust him, she knew that, he was still leaving — but it still felt like he’d lifted a crushing weight off her exhausted shoulders.
And she couldn’t stop herself from leaning closer into him, her head sinking against his shoulder, her body sagging into his solid stubborn strength. They were safe.
Gaelfr’s hand kept stroking against her, moving warm and reassuring up and down her back, and Raye fought the urge to turn her head, to breathe in the rich scent of his shoulder. Or even to slide her arm around his waist, to guide him down to lie on the bed…
“But… did you find what you were looking for?” she made herself ask, over that deeply disconcerting thought. “Did you send your message to Kalfr? And what if he comes back, what if the men see him, and then —”
Gaelfr cut her off with a low shushing noise, his hand slipping sideways to her shoulder, drawing her closer against him. “I did find a scout to send word to Kalfr,” he said. “But it shall take at least a day to reach him, and then another day for him to journey here. We yet have time.”
It sagged Raye heavier against his shoulder, and for an instant, she felt almost relieved.
They still had time, before Kalfr returned, and Gaelfr would stay, until then.
And why did she want Gaelfr to stay, she should be remembering the night before, all his orders and threats. She couldn’t trust him…
“What will we do?” Raye asked him, her voice thin. “If the men come back before then? If they threaten us again? Or try to burn down the cottage?”
She searched Gaelfr’s too-close face, his set mouth, his glittering eyes. And his stubborn settled certainty, already so familiar, so safe.
“If they dare seek to harm what is mine,” he replied, hard and furious, “then I will gladly kill them all.”