Burdens
Freya had found her fears deepening as the night came on. Rationalizations that spun in ever decreasing circles kept her vacillating between a state of near panic and a numb despondency bought on by exhaustion. In her mind the journey's end had not been a cause for sighing relief, but the approach of a monumental dread. There was, waiting there, the certainty that she would be forever trapped in a silent world of utter boredom and renunciation.
Still, in all she'd imagined when she'd followed her partner, the vision of a young woman, hysterical and clinging to his leg as he wrestled with their packs, was not one she had ever considered. The more he swore and tried to free himself, the more determined this girl became to keep her not inconsiderable weight against him. And the old woman matched him, curse for curse.
Just when her own situation seemed to have reached the point of unbearable frustration, here was a sideshow to rival the best and Freya found herself beginning to laugh, despite herself.
Dragan was not so amused and his temper was clearly rising, which only made it all seem funnier. By the time he had thrown the packs to the ground and used both hands to pry the woman loose, Freya had stepped back from the weak light and was watching it all, delighted.
"Don't you laugh." From nowhere the old woman's anger sought Freya out. "You've no business here; this is all your fault."
It was hard to take the small, bent figure seriously in the circumstances, but Dragan clearly did. He had succeeded in driving the young woman off and she'd fled inside as he carried the argument up into the matron's face. "I warned you, Mother."
"Warned me what? What will you do? Send an old woman out into the pastures to freeze?" She, too, turned back into the house with her son at her heels, and Freya stepped up to the packs, shaking her head in amazement as she carried them to the door. She was reluctant to step through when she was clearly unwelcome, but she peered in to watch.
"Lenka, go back to your father's house. My mother doesn't need you here and I don't want you. Get ready; I'll saddle you a horse." His tone was even, but Freya could hear the fury in his tightly clipped syllables.
"I told you, Son, she's staying here with me. When you come to your senses, she'll be staying here with you and that one out there will go back to where she came from." No one spared a look at her, but Freya let the amusement slip from her mouth as she began to realize just how much animosity she had inherited with her ring.
"You can't send me away. Don't, please Dragan. Let me stay with your mother to help her. I won't get under your feet." Lenka's lips were pale and her eyes were reddened by her earlier performance, but there was some defiance in the lines of her face even as she begged. "You can't put me out in the night, not with wolves loose and no moon to ride by."
Freya could see the determination in her to stay where she was, and she wondered just what he would do if both women refused to obey him.
"He'll not put you out, girl. You steady yourself and get that fire burning. He'll want a meal now and some ale. You go off and fetch him his due." His mother comforted her companion and then turned back to jab a finger toward Freya. "What do you want that for? What can she give you half as good as you have here? Send her back to her own kind, and stop acting the fool."
Her own kind? Even here, she was not free. Paradise, Dragan had promised. Peace. But here, too, there was hatred and bigotry. There in the shadows, the howl of her inner scream began to rise as humiliation and anger burned into white hot shame.
"This," Dragan seized her hand and dragged her into the room, exposing her to the light, "– is my wife." He held her hand up, dragging her along behind him like she was a streamer trailing from the prize of his wedding gift. He turned with it, flashing the silver ring into Lenka's face.
The girl covered her mouth with both her hands, beginning to sob again as she recognized what he held. "No," she sobbed. "No. You can't have wed her. Not her."
"I have. As I said I would."
Freya tried to pull her hand back, to wrest some small dignity from the appalling situation, but his grip was tight and his determination to make a point too strong.
Lenka ran to stand with his mother, still weeping loudly into her hands as if the old woman could somehow recant any vows he had made. And Freya felt inclined to give her consent. She watched him, furious and arguing with his mother over choices he had made, choices which had become her life, and he spoke as if she was not even in the room.
"I'm bound to him already," Lenka cried over their bickering, raising her tear streaked face to Freya and holding her hands cupped around her ample belly. "I bedded with him. Even now I might have his baby here."
Her earnest confession shocked a laugh. "Good!" Freya pulled her hand back hard and succeeded in ripping it out of his grasp. "That'll save me the inconvenience of having to bear him any."
The furor stopped. In an instant every word was stilled and the vast emptiness of the outside world rushed in on the silence. All eyes were on her. All the cold anger Dragan had directed at his mother and their hysterical guest was turned toward her. Slowly, she watched his emotion reform itself and the light in his eyes turn to hurt and confusion.
She took a perverse pleasure in seeing her own pain reflected. He had brought her to this. None of it had been hers to choose, but she had trusted him.
All Lenka's noise was still, but tears ran down her face as she turned to look at Dragan, waiting to hear his reaction to this outrage. His mother was quicker. "There. There you have it. As I told you. They're not natural, her kind. She's not for you, Son." She spoke so solemnly, it seemed she was sealing a vow more binding than those Freya had never made.
And Dragan answered in a voice not much louder, but as sharp as her two best blades. "She's my wife." With his fists caught in silent strain, he walked past Freya to the door. Over his shoulder as he stepped out, he said, "I'll saddle the horse for you, Lenka. You're leaving."
Lenka's weeping began again, and she stood briefly glaring her terrible grief at Freya, then she turned and ran out the door after him, calling and begging as she ran.
"Well then. That's my only comfort gone, thanks to you." Dragan's mother leaned across the table to ensure her words and meanings could not be lost. "You're nothing good, nothing. And nothing good will come of you being here. Are you pleased with yourself? That poor child is out there now, alone in the night."
Freya leaned on the same surface, her face close to the old woman's. "Yes, she's gone. That's one down, one to go."
"You're fooling yourself, you stupid girl. You don't belong here, and you won't ever belong." She laughed, "You don't even want to be here, do you?
"You won't see me out of my home. Not now, not ever. And my son will realize his mistake, soon enough. He'll never prosper, not while you're here. Every neighbor in the district will know of you. We don't need more women here now, and never your sort.
"As long as he has you beside him, he'll get nothing from them but contempt. And this life is too hard to survive alone."
There was an awful power in her certainty. Freya would have chosen to laugh in her face, but she could find no humor in the words. If she'd stood across from a man, she might have taken the chance to free some of her pent up rage in blows. She might even have drawn a weapon. But as it was, she wished only for the cover of deep darkness so she could weep for sorrows too profound to be brought into the light.
She might have run out into the darkness of the night, but Dragan was out there with his hysterical lover and his anger. Away from him there was nothingness for twenty leagues in every direction. The closest thing to familiarity was the city of Talsiga to the south, with its wealth and its guilds and its cruelty.
Her elderly adversary struggled to the door instead. "Don't you worry yourself my darling," she called out as she leaned on the jamb. "You have a home here, tell your father that. As soon as we can we'll have you back under our roof. Don't you fret." Carefully, she stepped out into the night, still calling encouragement to Lenka as she went.
The costs of Dragan's choices weren't all hers to carry, then. He had accepted his share of the burden without ever making her aware of it, just as he always had. The heat from some of the shames she knew crossed into her cheeks. She needed to apologize to him for her words. But there was no way to take them back, no matter how much she wished she could. Nor how much she wished they were untrue.
But there was one thing she could do. She could try hard to be happy here, for his sake if nothing else.
Her dress had twisted, the basque turning easily on her each time the shoulder slipped, and she straightened it self-consciously. She hated it. She hated the coarse cloth and the heavy skirts. She had worn her suede breeches for as many years of her life as she had worn dresses, and she felt she would drown or choke on the masses of ill-fitting fabric.
But she could wear them without complaint if she had to.
Walking quietly to the door, she collected their few possessions and brought them in and laid them in the light. There was nowhere to put riches if they'd had any, so they would not be missed. There was, against the near wall, a bed with clean linen and thick blankets and furs. There was also, by the table and stools, a small open hearth that smoked up to the roof vent. Past that was another smaller bed, a single high-backed chair, and a chest. On the chest was Dragan's box and she walked to it and flipped it open.
All the small mementos were there just as they had been, and she slid the feather across her lips trying to remember better times. For both of their sakes.
