Read Online The Reluctant Berserker by Alex Beecroft - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alex Beecroft
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trying to show you what every warrior in my hall saw, the night that you staggered through our doors, carrying your aged master so tenderly, though you were at the very end of your strength yourself. Look.”
Now the exercise made him feel a little sick, but he had promised himself not to be disobedient for no reason, and so he tried. He’d seen the face before, in polished cups and puddles. It seemed thin to him, despite a fortnight of good meals, and the eyes regarded him warily, as though they suspected him of being up to no good.
A stoat-like face, he thought, too sharp, too weasely. His hair was getting too long, past his shoulders now and in danger of hanging into his harp strings, but he admitted to being a little vain of the colour. Why should he not wear gold when it came by nature? The softness of it stopped him from resembling the kind of scrawny feral cat, which begs from door to door of a wic hoping for scraps, that he often felt he was.
“I…I’m not sure I see…”
Leofgar searched his lord’s face, seeking a clue to tell him what the man wanted from him, watched as it thawed further from command to a kind of fondness he felt he had done nothing to deserve.
“You truly do not see it. Well, perhaps that is for the best, for it protects you from the vanity that must have surely followed if you had. Come then, let me tell you plain. When you limped into the hall that night, you were fair as one of the heavenly kingdom’s angels, and slender like a reed, and delicate as a woodland flower. I was not the only man moved by your beauty and your frailty in that hour, but I would contest with any the right to claim myself the most affected.”
These words of praise were not at all to Leofgar’s taste. They burned him up inside with shame and sullenness. Indeed, he had opened his mouth to say, Being starved does not make me a modest maiden any more than famine makes the wolves of the forest gentle , before the thought of his master leaped up and stopped his mouth.
He bit his lip to keep the words in, and turned away. “I, um… Again, I hardly know what to say. My lord, you have driven the wits straight out of my head.”
Tatwine seemed not unpleased with this. He took Leofgar’s arm again, this time carefully avoiding the whistle held snug by Leofgar’s tight shirt cuff. His fingers were gentler this second time, but neither thing made Leofgar less inclined to flinch.
The fingers slid up between overtunic and shirt and came to rest over the heartbeat that pulsed in the crook of Leofgar’s elbow. From there, it felt as though the tides of his blood spread the touch through every inch of him, itchy and invasive.
“I have seen the great love between you and your master,” Tatwine went on. “When you first came, and I opened the door to see you asleep in his arms, I honoured you both for it. He must be remarkable to win such a prize as you, and you must be remarkable to stay with one so old—now that he cannot protect you as he used.”
Oh, Leofgar thought, knowing that his burning face—hot with humiliation—would be interpreted as a slave-boy’s blush of womanly pleasure, so now it is clear . He was furious with himself that he had once imagined himself welcome because he was good at his calling—because his singing was sweet and his music full of power. Instead he had been welcomed as the beautiful daughter of an aged traveller might be welcomed, and vied for, and won at last by the strongest.
Yet he had promised Anna to do anything rather than be sent on the road again. Anything that would let his master stay and recover his strength, so that when he did escape this place in the middle of the night and torch it on the way out, his master would be hearty and hale beside him.
“I owe my master everything,” he said slowly, clinging to Anna even now as a lifeline thrown from a fairer riverbank. “I was a child when he took me in, and he has raised and fed and taught me, and given me
Now the exercise made him feel a little sick, but he had promised himself not to be disobedient for no reason, and so he tried. He’d seen the face before, in polished cups and puddles. It seemed thin to him, despite a fortnight of good meals, and the eyes regarded him warily, as though they suspected him of being up to no good.
A stoat-like face, he thought, too sharp, too weasely. His hair was getting too long, past his shoulders now and in danger of hanging into his harp strings, but he admitted to being a little vain of the colour. Why should he not wear gold when it came by nature? The softness of it stopped him from resembling the kind of scrawny feral cat, which begs from door to door of a wic hoping for scraps, that he often felt he was.
“I…I’m not sure I see…”
Leofgar searched his lord’s face, seeking a clue to tell him what the man wanted from him, watched as it thawed further from command to a kind of fondness he felt he had done nothing to deserve.
“You truly do not see it. Well, perhaps that is for the best, for it protects you from the vanity that must have surely followed if you had. Come then, let me tell you plain. When you limped into the hall that night, you were fair as one of the heavenly kingdom’s angels, and slender like a reed, and delicate as a woodland flower. I was not the only man moved by your beauty and your frailty in that hour, but I would contest with any the right to claim myself the most affected.”
These words of praise were not at all to Leofgar’s taste. They burned him up inside with shame and sullenness. Indeed, he had opened his mouth to say, Being starved does not make me a modest maiden any more than famine makes the wolves of the forest gentle , before the thought of his master leaped up and stopped his mouth.
He bit his lip to keep the words in, and turned away. “I, um… Again, I hardly know what to say. My lord, you have driven the wits straight out of my head.”
Tatwine seemed not unpleased with this. He took Leofgar’s arm again, this time carefully avoiding the whistle held snug by Leofgar’s tight shirt cuff. His fingers were gentler this second time, but neither thing made Leofgar less inclined to flinch.
The fingers slid up between overtunic and shirt and came to rest over the heartbeat that pulsed in the crook of Leofgar’s elbow. From there, it felt as though the tides of his blood spread the touch through every inch of him, itchy and invasive.
“I have seen the great love between you and your master,” Tatwine went on. “When you first came, and I opened the door to see you asleep in his arms, I honoured you both for it. He must be remarkable to win such a prize as you, and you must be remarkable to stay with one so old—now that he cannot protect you as he used.”
Oh, Leofgar thought, knowing that his burning face—hot with humiliation—would be interpreted as a slave-boy’s blush of womanly pleasure, so now it is clear . He was furious with himself that he had once imagined himself welcome because he was good at his calling—because his singing was sweet and his music full of power. Instead he had been welcomed as the beautiful daughter of an aged traveller might be welcomed, and vied for, and won at last by the strongest.
Yet he had promised Anna to do anything rather than be sent on the road again. Anything that would let his master stay and recover his strength, so that when he did escape this place in the middle of the night and torch it on the way out, his master would be hearty and hale beside him.
“I owe my master everything,” he said slowly, clinging to Anna even now as a lifeline thrown from a fairer riverbank. “I was a child when he took me in, and he has raised and fed and taught me, and given me
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