Intentions

Torches lit the parade ground, flaring in greens and blues by some strange alchemy, revealing the ranks of young soldiers. A blur of faces, mostly male. A small corpse of females stood to one side. They looked harder than Freya remembered being, as if they had already seen as much hell as they needed. She appraised them from where she stood at the rear of the patio in a group positioned well back behind the speakers. They were beautiful. Strong and able, the best of the empire: its hope and its future.

"Wonderful." The visiting dignitary, a tall woman trailing layers of filmy fabric, raised a fair hand and waved in the general direction of the field. She was not saying more. The Commandant, who Freya could not remember ever having seen in the flesh, had given a short speech about glory and that seemed enough for the recruits. They raised a cheer.

Her party filed from the patio into the ballroom in order of importance and Freya waited, smiling. It was theatre and she was feeling buoyant. Better than she'd felt for a long time.

She took her turn, passing by the officers in their gleaming brass and shining leather, nodding and hand shaking. The Commandant was in position beside the willowy visitor, "This is the one time warrior we spoke of, Grevinde. Sadly, she has chosen to retire from the field."

"Ah," the woman was impressed, but spoke to her companion, not to Freya. "I see. But do the women here all dress as men? Should she have a dress, some corsetry, a smock at least?"

"They are all men, here, Ma'am. Male or female, their role is the same. All soldiers are men.

"Katarin, Grevinde of Ludz-Obila Province, here is Freya Oernen, with us tonight safe and warm, not on the front lines fighting for our empire."

Freya took the slim hand in hers, bowing slightly as she said, "Here indeed, Ma'am; hiding here, where all the officers hide." She smiled broadly and opened her free hand to extend her slur to every man standing in the line. The grevinde, unsure if this was a gruff form of military humor or a great insult to her hosts, smiled tentatively and nodded.

The Commandant was not unsure, and the men who stood nearby were not unsure. Icy stares rounded on her from both sides and conversation along the line suddenly quieted. Behind them, recruits were filing into the open hall and Freya's excitement grew as the numbers swelled.

Every new spectator raised the stakes. Her superior had whitened and lost all expression, his eyes were sharply focused and cold, but the urge to laugh in the face of his fury beat in her chest. Her blood was already hot, her senses piqued, her desire for battle raging.

"I am not here by choice, Ma'am," she said, too loudly. Pulling her tunic open at the throat, and pushing back the strapping of her breastplate, Freya bared the savage purple and silver scar that gouged her shoulder. She turned her head, craning her neck away to expose as much of her torn flesh as possible, to as many watchers as possible. "If I could take a sword right now, I would." Her smiled burned brighter at the thought, "But these are our superiors, Ma'am, as you know; more and greater than we who go to fight and die for our homeland. Divinely decreed. They know best."

"More and greater, indeed." From behind, Paske grabbed the fabric of her tunic and dragged it roughly into place, laughing to break the mood as he leaned on her in subtle warning and turned her up toward the waiting tables. "But we all have our place in the defense of our empire, Ma'am." Leaving an arm around her in a gesture of camaraderie, he hurried her up the line.

"You are here as an honored guest, Oernen. Would you let your blood betray you?"

"It's only blood, it can't speak for itself. If it could…." At the top of the line, he turned sharply to the right, propelling them both from the ballroom out into the chilled night air. Still holding her too tight, he shoved until the gravel crunched under their boots crossing the parade ground.

"Remember you are not here by any order, save your own request to be kept from the front." He stopped their headlong rush suddenly as they moved into shadows. "You are an embarrassment here, to us and to yourself. You would not be on display tonight if the grevinde herself had not asked about…."

"I made no request to be here. You remember my request for discharge."

"You are not entitled to a discharge," he spat. "You have nothing; you cannot even justify the price of your food here. What little you contributed to our cartographers you negated with your little act of vandalism. There is no good place for you."

"I could teach." Dragan's logic still argued for her when shame and rage filled her chest with burning and made her words too small to defy him. If she hated it; if it was the very argument that had left her pinned against the cold stone might of the citadel, it was still the only defense she could make. All her life she'd been nothing, no one, worthless. Here she had made herself something great, and her skills had value, she knew it.

"No you can't: you're broken. Would you teach the young ones what not to do? Teach them how to fall under an enemy sword? It would be better for us all if you were never seen by our young men. If you were the hero we pretend, you would not be here at all, you'd be out there."

Tears of shame were rising and she hated those, too. Her hand moved to her shoulder, not in remembrance of her wound, but feeling instinctively for a sword that was not there. Her throat was dry and hollow; the only answer she wanted to make was in steel. Even a small knife would have opened him wide enough.

"What of all the years I fought?" she croaked. "I've dedicated my life to the defense of this empire."

"And you were fed and clothed and kept for your trouble. When you needed care, physicians healed you. Now you shirk your simple duty in the hope of gold to relieve the poverty of your contemptible old age. And for what? You will skive off into the muck that spawned you, to riot and fornicate and breed more of your despicable ilk. You are filth, born of filth. That you are left to breathe at all is a crime."

For all his self-assurance, he was slower than he should have been. The fist that snapped up under his jaw came hard, whipping his head back and forcing a backward step. Before he had recovered enough to defend, a shove against his armored chest took him back again. But the second punch was too slow and he turned his face in time to let it glance across bone.

Following her momentum, he caught her fist and turned it up behind her back. "Even the young men," he jerked it higher, "who should laud your glories laugh at you." He spat to the side and wiped a hand over his mouth.

"They laugh at a drudge scrubbing the floor; they don't know who I am, who I was."

"What you were." Shifting his weight, he pushed her back against stone. "If you cannot appreciate the honor of being raised up among us, then at least you won't embarrass us any further." Standing too close, his hot breath washed over her. The sharp angles of segmented leather on his hip and thigh pressed her pelvis back against the wall. With one arm locked behind her, the other grasped her free hand and pinned it high above her head. In the shadows, his pupils were wide and dark, his nostrils flaring. A growl vibrated from his throat, "Or so help me I will take your miserable life myself."

"If you gave me a sword you could try." Her arm burned; so did her eyes.

"I've bettered you once before tonight. Twice now." He held her there for long moments, breathing hard, studying her, close. Behind his eyes, his mind was racing, but his distraction did not affect the strength of his hold. She stood still, refusing him the satisfaction of a struggle.

At last he stepped back enough for Freya to draw breath, and said, "Yes, I'll give you a sword. I'll have you out those gates tomorrow at dawn and I will make certain you do not come back."

*****

Bowls had been piled high with liver and onions and mashed turnips, more than any man could eat at a sitting, and yet it was set before him. Dragan ate, and as he ate, he drank the sweet cider and fortified wines he'd traded from Lenka's father for fresh meat and offal.

When his plate emptied, she stood nearby to refill it. She sat, as was her custom, slightly behind him near to the fire, but while he ate she rarely took her seat. The table was a man's domain. And his mug was never empty.

It had been a good day. The stone hedges were done, the mutton butchered, and Lenka had stoked the smokehouse fire around stones all day, so he returned to the steaming comfort of a sauna and bath. Now with food and wine, he was more relaxed than he had been for months. Maybe years.

He had intended to deal with her presence tonight. He had intended to bring his mother from her bed and face them both with his decision. But his best intentions had sighed away with the steam and faded as the warm glow of cider loosened the clench of his shoulders and carried the worries that twisted his gut to a dim distance.

As he pissed a torrent against the hillside watching the steam rise into the darkness, he decided; tomorrow would be soon enough to deal with it all again. Fresh linen covered the straw of his mattress, and furs were piled in soft warmth that drew him down into dreams almost as soon as he lay down upon them. It had been a good day.

As the old woman sopped her crusts into the thick sauce, Lenka sat watching. Her hands twisted nervously in her lap and too often she smoothed the rough wool of her skirts down her thighs as she waited.

"You don't lose heart now, girl." Goda took her cup of cider in age-weakened hands, her fingers thick and twisted. "There's no more to this than's natural. You've seen the bulls and the boars and the rams. It's spring and all of life is calling to life. You don't lose heart."

"No." Lenka didn't want to lose heart. Her breath was short, struggling against her heartbeat in shallow gasps that made her mouth go dry. She sipped her wine, too.

"You've no ring on your hand, but that's of no mind. That will come."

"Yes." She'd heard this all before. Women followed after a ring on their finger, but bulls were led by a nose ring and for men, the ring was…. Her breath failed her again, and her head went light.

"Drink this. Come, child; you're not growing younger. I know you have no better course planned, and no one else to bind to."

It was true, and in the light of day, she knew this was a good plan. It was right. She would have what she wanted most: the boy she had wanted since she was a small girl. If he was just a little drunker, or a little less willing than she would have hoped, it was nothing time and care would not correct. He was no drunker than her father when he scrabbled onto her mother in the night.

Goda fumbled with the fabric of her smock, then brought her hands up and patted them down onto the table. "You fetch a little grease from the mutton if you need it," she said, then stood, holding herself upright on the table top as she limped slowly toward Lenka. "You rub a little here," her bent and swollen fingers patted Lenka's lap, but her meaning was clear enough. "It will make it all a little easier for you."

"Yes."

"You need to help nature sometimes. You want to be rounding with child, and soon." She touched Lenka's cheek and kissed her gently on the top of the head as she shuffled toward her own rough pallet. "But remember, you mustn't sleep."

"Mother," Lenka caught her hand, "What if he won't have me? What if he sends me away as he says? What will…?"

"Hush girl. You'll get yourself all tense. While this roof is over my head, he'll not send you away. Now, you clean away these leavings before you go to him. He can't know I've been up, yet. There'll be time enough for that once you're bound."

"Yes." There was nothing for it. This was how her life would be, and there were worse lives. As Goda lay down into the shadows pulling her blankets up tight around her face and turning to the wall, Lenka stood and began to gather the evidence of her meal.

Behind her, Dragan snored softly unaware of the cool night air on his bare shoulders. She stood with her mug trembling in her fingers and watched him breathing deep and regular. There was little to keep her; her chores had all been done before nightfall as her fears drove her hands to work more quickly.

She rubbed the dimpled knuckles of her hand and the backs of her fingers where no iron band marked her right to protection. If her father was enraged, his anger would soon be settled. He had been the one to send her when he knew Dragan was returning from the war. Dragan worked hard, that is all her father would care. He was old, and when he died his orchard would be cared for, his wealth saved, and his place on the river bank marked for generations to come.

There was no one in this world of war and hardship who would not understand her actions. No one would condemn her, not if they put themselves in her place. She lifted her mug of cider and drank down a deep draught closing her eyes and trying to settle her breathing.

She would be happy. He was as much as she needed, she knew that was true. The last months, while she'd cared for his needs and fussed over his house had been happy times. She liked to be with him and when she watched him work, watched the hard muscle of his chest and the tight line of his belly, her blood warmed.

As it warmed now, standing by the lamp watching him sleep.

 

Editing, with thanks to Essie Holton.

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