Read Online Tale of Elske by Jan Vermeer - Free Book Online

speak the order. She would give Idelle her wolfskin boots, for the young woman had admired them.
    â€œAre you not afraid?” the tall man asked her.
    Elske shook her head.
    â€œAnd were you not afraid when there were seven of these Adeliers ready to attack and rape you both?” he asked.
    She corrected his mistake. “There were only three, for two held the two servants back, and two more were soft-legged with drink, not dangerous. There was only the one who was truly a danger to Idelle.”
    â€œNo reason for fear, then,” he said, with what might have been a smile. “And if the princeling dies?”
    â€œWhy should he die?” Elske asked. “I gave him a scarring blow, not a killing.”
    â€œBut how could you be so certain they planned ill?” one of the others asked. “I want to be merciful, but I don’t see how you could be so certain they planned ill.”
    Elske tried to explain. “When men take too much mead, and they are together, and each wants the others to know his manhood—such men are as dangerous as a pack of wolves at the hungry end of winter. They smelled dangerous, and they said Idelle was a precious virgin of Trastad, and they asked one another, ‘Who’s to stop us?’ ”
    â€œBut how do we know—?” one of the shorter ones started to ask, before another cried him down, demanding, “Do you care more for the profits of these Courting Winters than for the safety of our women?” but “Will you have it known abroad that such an attack went unpunished?” the first countered.
    The tall man gave his orders. “Speak no more of it. Let the servants carry tales, as they will, being servants, and all the Adeliers will hear soon enough from their own servants, and from Prince Garolo’s face when he reappears in their midst. The story will be told, and it will grow, and if we neither punish nor praise this girl—if we say nothing, as I advise—then the story will act as a deterrent for years to come. It will be known that the Adeliers may not with impunity act like beasts in Trastad,” he concluded, with another small smile that was not a smile.
    â€œBut I think the girl had better come with me. I am in need of a nursemaid for my three daughters. I would like my daughters,” he said, unsmiling now, “to be in the care of someone who can defend them.”
    â€œWhat will your wife say, Var Jerrol, to such a choice?”
    â€œMy wife will say what I say,” the man answered. “Come now, what is your name?”
    â€œElske,” she told him as Var Kenric called across the room, “Daughter? Make your farewells to Elske.”
    â€œBut who will be my servant?” Idelle asked. “Elske was to stay with me until I marry.”
    â€œYou’ll be safer apart, now,” Var Kenric told his daughter. “I’m sorry you leave us, Elske, but this is the better way. When my daughter has no maidservant, then she could not have been the Trastader maiden who was attacked in the street. When you have been hidden away in Var Jerrol’s house, nursemaid to his daughters, you could not have been that half-wild servant from off island, for if you were, who could trust you with his own helpless children?”
    Elske knew Var Kenric meant to remind her of how great her strangeness was, how perilous her position in Trastad, as a warning not to protest. She needed neither reminder nor warning. And she would move warily in her new position, for this big Trastader was as dangerous as any man of the Volkaric. She bade farewell to Taddus, and to Var Kenric and Ula, and sorrowfully to Idelle, whom she wished joy on her wedding day. Then she followed the four men back out into a night filled with dark falling snow.

Chapter 6
    T HE PARTY MOVED SILENT AS a Volkaric war band through the night. Snow muffled the sounds of their footsteps and the only light came from the lanterns