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Authors: M. D. Lachlan
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a stick and thrashed them back.
‘That is not a natural way to behave,’ said the maid Barza.
‘Neither is pissing in your husband’s soup, but that’s what my auntie Freydis did when my uncle beat her,’ said Hawis.
Beatrice wondered if she would ever see her sisters again. If the child inside her was a boy, then perhaps. She bowed her head. And if it wasn’t a boy? Then she’d just have to try again and again until one appeared. Maybe she should even buy a child in a market and present him to her father as his heir. The more she thought about the idea the better it seemed.
And what of her mother? Now tears came down her face in great gouts. There had to be a way back. But not while she dreamed those dreams. She had run away with Loys for love, true, but that that wasn’t her only reason – she wasn’t so stupid.
Plenty of noble ladies had their loves and managed to keep them close despite the husbands their families had chosen. Minstrels, tutors, advisers, merchants even, all had a legitimate claim to regularly attend on a lady. An old, sleepy or bribable chaperone made everything possible, particularly if you had a warlike husband who was always away fighting.
No, she knew why she had fled. The dreams. Something sought her and at Rouen it found her. She needed to move, to hide. She loved Loys dearly but she would have found him a place in her life in Rouen had she been able.
She remembered that morning – the frosty predawn when she had crept out of the hall to saddle her horse and slip off to meet Loys. She had looked for him in the woods but then had noticed something strange – the dawn was not coming and the moon was still high. It was the middle of the night. Why had her father’s guards not at least questioned her? Had she woken no one, not even a dog, as she left?
It was cold, very cold. She turned her horse for home but around her the hoar frost seemed to glow, her horse’s breath clouding the air under the sickle moon. The woods felt full of eyes and she dearly wished to be home. She spurred the horse, but the animal wouldn’t budge.
A noise behind her in the trees.
‘Loys?’
‘Loys is not here but the night is cold. Won’t you share my fire?’
An extraordinary man stood twenty paces from her. He was tall and his hair rose in a red shock. Stranger, he was scandalously underdressed, just the skin of a wolf tied around his midriff to cover his shame, a long feather cloak on his back. A fire burned further away in the woods. How had she not seen that?
Beatrice kicked the horse again but it didn’t move, standing as if entranced.
‘Come, lady, the ice is cold and my fire is warm. Though you, I think, have a chill in you no flame can dispel.’
‘It’s not seemly for me to be here with a man on my own. Go away from me, sir. My father does not like to hear of vagabonds on his lands, let alone ones who approach his daughter so boldly.’
‘You are a beauty. The god always wants beauty and lives that are painful to lose. He could go to the starving, to the sick and the imprisoned and take them – and take them he does – but it is the lovely life he wants the most, the life like yours. Dismount.’
Beatrice did so, though she didn’t want to, as if her body was not her own to command.
‘Who do you speak of?’
‘Why, who else? Old man death himself. Lord Slaughter. King Kill. The back-stabbing, front-stabbing, anywhere-you-like-and-plenty-of-places-you-don’t-stabbing murder god. Odin, one-eyed corpse lord, corrosive and malignant in his schemes and his stratagems. But of course you know all this, you’ve met him before.’
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. It sounds like idolatry.’
‘Funny,’ he said. ‘They call us idol worshippers, while they are on their knees before their painted saints. And what do the saints ever bring them? Misery and death at every turn.’ He clicked his fingers and pointed at her. ‘Ask what I bring you.’
‘What do you
‘That is not a natural way to behave,’ said the maid Barza.
‘Neither is pissing in your husband’s soup, but that’s what my auntie Freydis did when my uncle beat her,’ said Hawis.
Beatrice wondered if she would ever see her sisters again. If the child inside her was a boy, then perhaps. She bowed her head. And if it wasn’t a boy? Then she’d just have to try again and again until one appeared. Maybe she should even buy a child in a market and present him to her father as his heir. The more she thought about the idea the better it seemed.
And what of her mother? Now tears came down her face in great gouts. There had to be a way back. But not while she dreamed those dreams. She had run away with Loys for love, true, but that that wasn’t her only reason – she wasn’t so stupid.
Plenty of noble ladies had their loves and managed to keep them close despite the husbands their families had chosen. Minstrels, tutors, advisers, merchants even, all had a legitimate claim to regularly attend on a lady. An old, sleepy or bribable chaperone made everything possible, particularly if you had a warlike husband who was always away fighting.
No, she knew why she had fled. The dreams. Something sought her and at Rouen it found her. She needed to move, to hide. She loved Loys dearly but she would have found him a place in her life in Rouen had she been able.
She remembered that morning – the frosty predawn when she had crept out of the hall to saddle her horse and slip off to meet Loys. She had looked for him in the woods but then had noticed something strange – the dawn was not coming and the moon was still high. It was the middle of the night. Why had her father’s guards not at least questioned her? Had she woken no one, not even a dog, as she left?
It was cold, very cold. She turned her horse for home but around her the hoar frost seemed to glow, her horse’s breath clouding the air under the sickle moon. The woods felt full of eyes and she dearly wished to be home. She spurred the horse, but the animal wouldn’t budge.
A noise behind her in the trees.
‘Loys?’
‘Loys is not here but the night is cold. Won’t you share my fire?’
An extraordinary man stood twenty paces from her. He was tall and his hair rose in a red shock. Stranger, he was scandalously underdressed, just the skin of a wolf tied around his midriff to cover his shame, a long feather cloak on his back. A fire burned further away in the woods. How had she not seen that?
Beatrice kicked the horse again but it didn’t move, standing as if entranced.
‘Come, lady, the ice is cold and my fire is warm. Though you, I think, have a chill in you no flame can dispel.’
‘It’s not seemly for me to be here with a man on my own. Go away from me, sir. My father does not like to hear of vagabonds on his lands, let alone ones who approach his daughter so boldly.’
‘You are a beauty. The god always wants beauty and lives that are painful to lose. He could go to the starving, to the sick and the imprisoned and take them – and take them he does – but it is the lovely life he wants the most, the life like yours. Dismount.’
Beatrice did so, though she didn’t want to, as if her body was not her own to command.
‘Who do you speak of?’
‘Why, who else? Old man death himself. Lord Slaughter. King Kill. The back-stabbing, front-stabbing, anywhere-you-like-and-plenty-of-places-you-don’t-stabbing murder god. Odin, one-eyed corpse lord, corrosive and malignant in his schemes and his stratagems. But of course you know all this, you’ve met him before.’
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. It sounds like idolatry.’
‘Funny,’ he said. ‘They call us idol worshippers, while they are on their knees before their painted saints. And what do the saints ever bring them? Misery and death at every turn.’ He clicked his fingers and pointed at her. ‘Ask what I bring you.’
‘What do you
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