Chapter Thirteen
She should’ve known this man’s abdomen was harder than iron.
By the time the snowstorm abated, Briar and Rune had been stuck in the forester’s house for three days. The roads weren’t exactly practicable, but she needed to get out of there, so she saddled Rose and Nettle.
Rose was weak, and to protect her, Briar rode her for short stretches of time and got off when the track was bad. Rune was riding Nettle, who was healthy, well fed, and could carry his weight. It was necessary, since the man was blind and mostly useless with his walking stick.
Briar had found a scarf and tied it around his head to cover his empty eye sockets. He was nicer to look at now, and she didn’t avert her gaze as often. He still talked little.
He barely ate, too.
After the foolishness he’d pulled, she’d been so upset with him that she’d ignored him for a day and a night, even as they were bound together at the wrist. The length of rope was generous enough that they didn’t have to sit too close.
They slept in the bedroom, where she took the bed and made a nest of blankets and pillows for him on the floor.
They went to the outhouse together when either of them needed it, and the only time she’d allowed him to be alone in a room was when they’d bathed.
Even then, she’d washed quickly, with the door cracked open, and when it was his turn, she stood guard by the door, senses alert.
“You will never get out of my sight again.”
She’d meant it.
He hadn’t wanted to eat the meal she’d cooked that first night, so she’d eaten it all in anger.
The next day, she sat a plate of food before him, and he barely picked at it.
More for her. It continued like that, until Briar realized he was intentionally starving himself.
As if that were possible. She’d rolled her eyes and carried on, cooking for herself and eating everything.
She was busy caring for Rose and Nettle, who were beasts, so naturally, they needed someone to feed and water them.
Rune wasn’t a beast, as far as she was concerned.
Well, not that kind of beast. She refused to hover over him any more than necessary.
She’d tried to teach him how to manage with the walking stick, so he wouldn’t run into furniture every five steps he took.
He’d relented at her insistence, but his lack of enthusiasm made her want to pull her hair out.
Had she not been successful training Seraphina, she would’ve thought she was a bad teacher.
No. Rune was a bad student. He pouted and sulked, choosing to spend hours unmoving rather than engaging with Briar and her well-intentioned lessons.
She’d shoveled snow every day, keeping the path that led to the road clear.
The moment it stopped snowing as heavily, and the weather seemed like it might hold for a while, she hurried to leave the comfort of the forester’s house behind.
She packed provisions for two days, and they were on their way before dawn.
“Let’s stop and eat something,” Briar said after three hours of riding.
They’d just emerged from the forest, and since they were out of the Harvester’s territory, they could drop their guard a little. They’d managed to cross the front line without being noticed.
Rune got down, and Briar tethered the horses.
It was unamusing how she herself was tethered.
To him. The rope had given her a rash, so she applied cold cream twice a day.
On the bright side, her shoulder was better, and her limp wasn’t as pronounced.
She’d caught a bit of a cold after plunging into the frozen lake, but broth, hot tea, and four nights of sleep in an honest bed had done her good.
She still got the sniffles, but those would fade eventually.
Of course, Rune hadn’t even been bothered by a stray sneeze.
She dug into their provisions and offered him a piece of buttered bread laid with cheese and speck, meticulously prepared and wrapped in cloth the night before.
Rune accepted it but didn’t touch it. While Briar ate ravenously, he held it in the palm of his hand, his head turned toward the pale sun.
When she was done, she rolled her eyes, took it back and ate it in a few bites.
She pushed a flask of beer in his hand, and from that, he did drink.
“I don’t know what to do with you anymore,” she said. “You probably can’t tell because of your… unfortunate condition, but I am trying.”
“I know you are,” he said in that deep, rumbling voice of his. Briar felt a shiver run through her bones. “You should leave me.”
“Leave you… where?”
“Behind.”
“So the Harvester’s men can find you and take you back to him? Not a chance.”
She pulled at the rope more to make a point than anything.
They got on the horses and were back on the road.
Late afternoon, the weather turned, and Briar started thinking about a place for the night.
There were still abandoned buildings if they looked for them, but an inn sounded better.
She looked Rune over and appreciated that if he pulled his hood down low and kept his hands tucked into his sleeves, no one would ask questions.
He and Seraphina had stayed at an inn for five days without any trouble.
Briar had money for a room. However, the rope would have to go.
Not that it ensured anything. If Rune wanted to be free of her, he could just rip it off, turn on his heel, and leave.
She couldn’t stop him. She would try, maybe come close to killing herself again, but she knew that if he started walking in the opposite direction, she could cling to him, beat him with his own stick, jump onto his back, bite him, or tie the rope around him and Nettle and try to pull him that way, and it would all fail.
Realistically, all she could use against him were her words and the adopted attitude of a shrill, fundamentally disappointed and eternally exasperated mother who knew where and how deep to cut.
Playing upon his guilt. She’d learned early and from the best.
Though a more likely explanation was that in his blind state, Rune had become dependent on her.
What would he do on his own? Find another lake to jump in?
Become dependent on someone else? There were no options.
He nodded at her lengthy, annoyed speeches out of inertia, not because her shaming got through to him.
It was after sundown that Briar found an inn tucked away from the main road, and paid for a room and for the horses to be brushed, watered, and fed.
She led Rune up the stairs, herding him like he was cattle.
When he tripped and nearly stabbed himself in the gut with the end of the banister, she lunged forward and shoved her hand between the wood and his stomach.
Swore under her breath when her fingers were crushed.
She should’ve known this man’s abdomen was harder than iron.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Walk,” she spat through gritted teeth.
It wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t make her hand throb less. It was going to be all shades of green and yellow in the morning.
The room had one bed, and Rune dutifully settled on the floor. Briar threw a blanket and a pillow at him.
It might’ve been the sight of him arranging them clumsily, or her fingers spasming with pain that made her run to the kitchen and order a huge meal, bring it back up, and slam the tray on the floor so hard that the plates clattered and broth spilled down the sides of two bowls.
“You’re eating.”
Rune froze.
Briar sat with her legs crossed, facing him.
Between them – the tray of food. Beef broth, roasted pork swimming in its own fat, a generous pile of sauerkraut, and two bread dumplings.
Beer in two stoneware mugs, though most of it had sloshed over.
She broke off a piece of dumpling and soaked it in gravy.
“Open up.”
He didn’t understand what she wanted from him.
She reached over, grabbed his jaw, and squeezed until he opened his mouth in surprise.
He was confused as to what was happening until she slipped the food past his lips and covered them with her hand to force him to chew and swallow.
He pulled away from her and fell backward, bracing himself on his elbows.
“Don’t be dramatic,” she said.
He turned his head as he swallowed.
Briar armed herself with a generous handful of dumpling, pork, and sauerkraut, crawled closer to him and repeated the gesture. Rune protested only lightly before chewing and swallowing.
“Good?” she asked, reaching for the beer mug. She held it to his lips. “Drink up.”
He sputtered, she tipped the mug, half of the beer went down his throat, half down the front of his shirt.
He laughed.
“I’m glad you’re finding this amusing.”
“I can eat on my own,” he said.
“Can you? Because I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, which led me to the obvious conclusion that you cannot feed yourself.”
She shoved a spoonful of beef broth between his lips, the pewter spoon hitting him in the teeth. She didn’t regret it one bit.
“I hope it’s not too hot.”
She pushed, he tipped his head back, most of the broth went into his nose. He collapsed onto his back, laughing.
Briar watched him with a frown and a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
She didn’t know what reaction she’d expected from him, but it hadn’t been this.
She threw a coarse cloth at him that she’d snagged from the kitchen, and he wiped his mouth and dabbed at his shirt.
He was still laughing, for some reason, and Briar found it infectious.
Her chuckle turned into laughter as well, she doubled over, a hand on her stomach, but before she could understand what had happened, what had led to it, it all turned to sobs.
She braced her hands on the floor and watched her own tears drip onto the backs of them.
They poured out of her eyes and she couldn’t stop them.
This wasn’t ugly crying, it was more like a dam had broken and the flood was inevitable.
“Briar?” Rune crawled to her, his hand patting the floor to find her. “Why are you crying? Is it because of me?”
She shook her head, though he couldn’t see her. She didn’t have an answer.
His hand found hers, and he covered it with his wide, warm palm.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She sniffed loudly and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. She had one hand trapped underneath his. She didn’t feel like pulling away.
“I will eat,” he said. “I will learn how to use the stick if you still want to teach me. I’ll do whatever you say. Please don’t cry.”
He sounded panicked.
She snorted.
“Is this the first time you see… hear… a woman cry?”
He bit his lip and shrugged. She saw a rosy tint take over the tops of his cheeks.
“Had I known this was the secret weapon to get you to behave…” She laughed out loud.
Tears didn’t stop streaming down her face.
“I’m not upset that you’re not eating, or that you refuse to learn how to function blind, or even that you plunged into a lake with a rock attached to you.
What upsets me is that you won’t talk to me.
It’s like you’re punishing me through your silence, and I don’t know what I ever did to deserve it. ”
“I… I’m not silent because of you.”
She knew that. But knowing it rationally and accepting it emotionally were different matters.
Briar was tough. Over the years, she’d honed herself into a woman with clear principles and beliefs, a woman who depended only on herself and knew not to expect much from the people around her.
She was more reliable and resilient than most, and she’d come to acknowledge it as fact.
She didn’t hold it against them that they couldn’t be like her.
It was her choice to stay or to leave, to pursue or back away when the pursuit proved to be more trouble than it was worth.
However, there was one thing that could bring her down, lock her inside her head and torment her with spiraling thoughts.
Silence.
When she did her absolute best, weighed all options and found the one that benefited her and the people involved, did all the work to achieve the envisioned result, and in return she was met with… silence.
People were different, they battled their own demons.
Silence was Briar’s demon. She had yet to win one against it.
“I don’t talk because… what would I talk about?
” he said. “I don’t have the right to say anything.
I am a useless lump. A burden to you, like I was a burden to her.
I went to the bottom of that lake because I know the world would be a better place without me.
I’m not saying that to be… dramatic. It’s the truth of what I am.
Bad people will use me for the worst. Good people, like you, will only suffer because of me. ”
“No, you can do good.” She placed a hand on his arm. “Can’t you see how special you are? You’re strong, you don’t tire, you don’t get sick, you heal instantly, you can’t die. You’re a master weaver. There are so few of them in the world.”
“None of it is my own doing.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll reach the convent tomorrow and you can be… our master weaver. We have a vault filled with relics. You can win us the war.”
He gave her a lopsided smile, didn’t agree with her, nor contradict her.
The tears had ceased. She herself had been trying to figure out why she was risking her life to bring Rune to Saint Vivia’s. The convent would be a sanctuary to him, and he’d be an asset to them. His life could have meaning. Once he saw that, he’d drop all thought of not wanting to exist.
“Let’s eat and sleep,” she said. “Tomorrow, we’ll be home.”
Rune cleaned his plate and emptied the bowl of broth.
That night, Briar forwent the rope.