3. Family Ties
FAMILY TIES
Iwoke in a jail cell barely dressed beside a naked orc.
Shadows sculpted his form in the gray light.
He was a more massive creature than any I’d had to treat before.
I was no stranger to bodies, what with Bogdana’s training in medicine, but the power of his form seemed excessive.
Maybe it was because he was inhuman. Maybe he was more panther than paramore, muscled more like a draft horse than a wooer.
He stirred, and the light fell on his face, the hard lines softened by the fullness of his lips.
I tore my eyes away. I didn’t need to convince myself that I could kill him. Many, far less frightening monsters than this had taken a bride’s life before.
I pulled my gown off the bars and dressed. The town would be coming soon. Should I risk his ire by waking him, or by letting a parade into the guard house wake him up? What made this particular man less dangerous, sleep or waking? My gaze pulled to one particular part of anatomy again, and I chose.
“Sir Orc?” I winced at how hoarse my voice was. “They’ll be coming—" I reached out, touched his arm.
Like an adder striking he had my wrist, yanking me in. He spun and pinned—
He was over me, breathing hard, awareness registering in his eyes. “Sorry.” He let me go, sat up. “Sorry. Habit.” He stood, found his breeches. I was still trying to breathe. He pulled his trousers on. “I don’t know your name,” he said, like this was a reasonable next step in conversation.
“Annora,” I said.
He tied the laces. “Annora. Good to know.” He crossed to the rain barrel, a long drink. “Your dashing groom’s name is Vrathgar, if you were interested. Unless you’d like to keep calling me ‘Sir.’”
This was a trick question, definitely. Better to answer with a question. “What do orc wives call their husbands?”
“Lots of things.” He smirked. “But by name in public.”
I nodded.
“What do human wives call their husbands?”
Another trick question. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never been married before.”
A banging sounded from the door.
A guardsman entered first, young and scruffy with eyes that lingered openly. The overseer followed.
“Open the cage then,” he declaimed in a voice projected for whatever rabble gathered outside. “The orc is harmless now. He’s bound to the community. He can’t harm any of us. I am correct, Sir Orc? You can breach us no further damage?”
My husband scanned the crowd, his gaze lingering a little longer on the gawking guard.
“That would be up to my wife, wouldn’t it?
” he said, and the overseer almost dropped the keys.
My new husband grinned wider. “When my brother married a bride from Belnor, she went back and burned their gates herself.” He looked at me. “What do you say, wife?”
It took me a moment to remember words. “No…no harming,” I whispered.
He looked back at them. “Ah. No harming.”
The overseer fumbled at the keys.
Behind him, in the melee crowding the doorway, I saw Bogdana’s face, her stern eyes.
When the door swung open, my husband took time to stretch. “Thank you kindly. It’s been a tolerable stay. Better at the end.” He rolled his neck, cracked. “Will you be giving me my weapons now or at the outskirts of your town?”
The council people fluttered.
“I assume,” he continued, “That you are not trying to send your bride into the wilds with an unarmed man? You want her to survive, do you not?”
The overseer muttered an order to someone, to run for whoever had stolen his gear.
They gave me my dowry by the guardhouse doors, a bundle of cloth, some grain, a fur pelt, I think, and a set of bone needles. Not well thought-out, and truly for show. They wanted to look grateful. They wanted to imagine I’d survive.
Vrathgar lifted it out of my arms, like it was nothing, and slung it over his shoulder. “Much obliged,” he said, in a tone that said he wasn’t. He looked at me again. “Do you need anything else?”
I thought of the smoke-stained down comforter in that small, sour house, of the one cooking pot, of all these things that would be too heavy to carry and too dingy with memories to keep. “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Alright then. Lead the way.”
The crowd followed us to the edge of town, a good distance, but still not enough distance to disguise the whispers. I kept my chin high while they handed him two curved swords that he belted on.
“Farewell,” the overseer declaimed. “You will not be forgotten. Live a long life, Anura.”
“Annora,” Vrathgar said. “Your savior’s name is Annora.” He pulled the dowry pack up on his shoulder again. “Let’s go.”
I made eye contact with Bogdanna one last time, and nodded to her, a promise, that I’d live, that I’d escape, that I’d be free. She nodded back.
“My father's house,” I said, loud enough that all of them would hear, that they couldn't pretend it didn't happen, loud enough that it hurt. “Anything left of it, I give it to Odelle and John the baker's boy, so he can pay off his debt. Anything that is there, ensure it's saved for them.”
And then I followed Vrathgar into the woods.