Black Rose

(Dear reader, this is where this story goes somewhere where some of its earlier readers really wish it hadn't gone. (See Pt. 01 for how this was originally published in a very different form.)

(This episode contains a depiction of sexual violence. I have omitted explicit detail, because it's not a 'sex scene': I'm not writing a non-consent fantasy.

(It is, however, an essential part of the story, because much of the rest of this whole saga is about the after-effects of this violence, in a society which doesn't really know how to deal with it, or even want to deal with it.

(But this is the inciting incident that gets this entire saga in motion. This is also a long episode, because breaking it up would have killed the tension: most of it takes place within the space of about half an hour.

(If youdon'twant to read it, because it's about what I've said it's about, chances are you won't want to read any of the rest of it. And, if so, I have the greatest respect for your reasons, and I wish you all the best, and thank you for reading thus far.

(To anyone else who wants to keep reading:Black Roseis certainly the grimmest thing I've ever written, because that's what these people are like. This is a violent and rather primitive society, struggling with ideas about morality and justice.

(But it's also more complicated than that. And my ultimate aim in writing stories isnotto tell the reader that life is awful, or that bad things happen to good people, blah blah. Please bear that in mind, as we go on.

(In this saga as a whole, the typographical convention is that three asterisks in a row signify a shift between episodes, while one asterisk signifies a shift of POV within the same episode.)

***

Chapter 2: The All-father

The following day

It was late morning, and Hargest had summoned Freya, Ulf Jansson and Snorri Midlafsson to a meeting in a small chamber by Hargest's quarters in the Manor House.

Ulf felt terrible.

After his conversation with Freya, which he had been looking forward to for a long time, but which had gone in quite a different direction than he had thought it was going to go, he had returned to the hall and secured a bottle of spirits, and taken it back to his chamber in the manor house, and drunk steadily until he had passed out in his chair.

He had been woken up by the maid cleaning out the fireplace, and he had had to go for a swim to clear his head, which had left him cold and wet and still with a sick headache and a churning stomach. He had paused to empty his belly, and while doing so he was interrupted by Hargest's middle son, Jan, who had been looking for him, and who had told him that he was summoned to an immediate meeting.

What in the name of god's balls, Ulf had thought.

But he cleaned himself up and, feeling a little better, went along to the meeting. And there, waiting for him, was Freya, her grey eyes keen and clear, poised as a falcon, and sitting a couple of chairs down from her, Snorri Midlafsson, his belly bulging over his belt, still blurry from the previous night's beer. Freya turned in her seat as Ulf came in and looked at him with an unreadable expression.

He nodded to her and she nodded back. He nodded to Snorri, who grunted something by way of hello.

Ulf sat down and listened for a while to the sound of his own breathing.

They had little to say to each other. Ulf thought that Snorri was mentally negligible, and he knew that Freya thought so too. He suspected that Snorri, in his turn, considered Freya a bit of a stuck-up bitch, and Ulf himself a vainglorious boaster with ideas above his station.

He had always believed that Freya, for all that she warded off close friendships, harboured a certain respect for him, and at times he had liked to believe that she, along with most of the other women in Hargest, thought that he was the best-looking man in the barony. After Hargest himself, of course.

Well. I know better now.

Hargest himself came in, spry and alert as usual.

'Welcome,' he said, smiling at them all in turn.

'Greetings, lord,' Ulf said.

'Lord,' Snorri said.

Freya just nodded. God, Ulf thought, we've just won a war, can you not behave with more respect towards your father? But Hargest was used to Freya's manners.

'I have had a letter,' Hargest said, sitting down and pulling out a piece of folded paper. 'I know you have all heard the rumours coming from the northeast, about a certain village. Well, this letter confirms them, and it tells more. Evil is being done to the folk on our borders, and I have called you here to tell you the details, and to let you know my mind.'

Ulf sat up.

'Before we start,' Hargest said, 'has everyone broken their fast, in the modern manner?' He smiled.

Freya smiled and shook her head no; she didn't hold with the modern habit of eating something as soon as you woke. The people of the Book had introduced it, claiming that it lent strength to this and helped one's keenness of eye with that, but Ulf knew that Freya stubbornly preferred to eat nothing until midday, unless she had eaten nothing the night before.

'I have, lord, thank you,' Snorri said.

'Jansson?' Hargest said. 'Have you any of your coffy on you? I could drink a cup.'

Ulf always carried coffy around. He'd picked up a taste for it during the war, looting it from a carwan in some boilingly hot shithole up north. He loved the sweet-sharp bite of it. The others mocked him, but Hargest was the only one who shared a liking for the stuff.

'I do, lord,' he said. 'And to spare.'

'Then we will need hot water,' Hargest said. At that, Freya unfolded herself from her chair and walked rapidly to the door, which she opened, and she talked with someone outside, then sat down again.

'Good,' Hargest said, nodding at her. 'Thank you, daughter.' She did not respond, just looked at him.

'Now,' Hargest said, 'the rumours of a cult of some kind, seem to be true. They have attacked more than one of the roundabouters' settlements, and they seem to have especially caused harm to villages in the Malocca mountains.'

'What do they do,' Snorri said.

'They attack a village,' Hargest said, 'and they kill some men, chosen for no reason, then they take those young women who are of childbearing age, and they take them away. Then they demand the village pay homage to their faith. They worship what they call an incarnation or body of god, which they call... yes. The "All-father".'

He looked up at them.

'Why the god we know and revere is not mysterious enough for them, I cannot tell.'

He smiled. Snorri chuckled. Ulf stirred in his seat, and glanced at Freya, who permitted the ghost of amusement to pass over her face.

'In any case,' Hargest went on, 'they are treating the roundabouters as converts to their cause, and punishing them when they are not sufficiently...fervent. They have chased any people of the Book out of the villages, and threatened them with beatings if they return.'

'Can't blame them for that,' Snorri said. 'Bunch of snobs.'

'No doubt,' Hargest said, smiling, 'but like it or not, the people of the Book are to be treated with respect. They kept the Book, through all the darkness of Dominion, and they have endured every kind of hatred and resentment in order to bring its message to us. But this is still not the worst that these Casman folk do.'

Hargest told them more.

He told about how the men and boys would be made to learn long passages of the cult's creed, which they called the Utterance, and which was not written down, like the Book, or even condensed from the Book, like the Word was, but was a peculiar and narrow creed of their own, passed on only by word of mouth, and which had to be remembered by heart.

To write it down was a major sin. There were regular tests of memory, and the penalty for not passing was, all too often, death. The women and girls at first considered themselves lucky for not having to learn the Utterance, but they soon realised that this was because the cult believed that women were incapable for anything but cooking, cleaning and childbearing.

This annoyed many of the women, but those of them who protested their ill treatment would invariably suffer the same fate as the men who didn't do enough learning: a rapid and public death by beheading.

Ulf glanced at Freya; she was frowning.

'The King is most concerned about this,' Hargest said. 'Now that we have a peace, the King wants the peace to be kept.'

The door behind them opened, and the maid came in with a tray bearing apples, bread, butter, a jug of small beer, and an earthenware jug of hot water for coffy.

*

Freya glanced up as the maid came in.

She had been thinking about the cult, and how it might be called out and defeated. But she found herself sneaking glances at the girl, as she served the food and drink.

Oddny Adlasdottir; that was her name. She was fair-haired and broad-hipped and had the narrow eyes and ruddy complexion of a mountain girl.

She served Ulf and Hargest their coffy, and in pouring the water into Hargest's mug she had to lean across Freya, who felt the warmth from her body and smelled her smell: smoke from the kitchen, and behind that, hay and wool and soap, and behind that still, something more intimate and human.

Freya sat, staring at the table, breathing through her mouth, waiting for the girl to move away.

When the girl left, Hargest sipped the coffy and nodded to Ulf.

'Very well,' he said. 'The King has commanded me to send a force to deal with these people. He has no desire for battle, but they must be told that they have to stop doing what they are doing. He has chosen you three, to lead the party.

'Freya,' he said, turning to his daughter, 'you are our greatest warrior, so we honour them by sending you. It shows good faith, I think, that we do not scorn them. Also, with your power of convincing folk, the King trusts you to put forward his case, as forcefully as it may be made.

'Sir Ulf,' he said, 'of all of us, you are the most skilled in the war of words between peoples. You have the ability to see the other's point of view. The King thinks that you can help us see what these people want, and how they are to be tamed.

'And Sir Snorri,' he said, smiling, 'you for whom these matters can always be simplified to a question of who is to be hit, and how hard: your presence is needed, along with your men, to put real muscle behind our words, and to show these folk that peace means peace.

'That is the mission. You are to be joint leaders. Will you accept? If you do, we may save the roundabouters a good deal of suffering, and the King's affection for Hargest will be reinforced. There is glory to be had, here.'

'What if they do not wish to hear us?' Freya said. 'What power do we have to make them obey the law?'

'You will do as you see fit,' Hargest said. 'Bearing in mind that the Word commands us to show mercy to those that ask for it.'

'Are these folk Dominie loyalists?' Freya said, frowning.

'They could be. I do not know.'

'What are they doing with the women they take,' Freya said.

'No one knows,' Hargest said. 'Nothing honourable, I assume. If you can find out, so much the better. The roundabouters are missing them. These are folks' wives and daughters and sisters.'

'If we cannot find them?' Ulf said. 'Those hills are poorly mapped. We cannot chase them forever.'

'Start with the oldest village,' Hargest said. 'It is reasonably established on maps. You may find their trail there. I give you a month. If, after that, you have not found them, come home and we will discuss with the King what to do.,

He stood up. They followed his lead.

'These people are disturbing the peace,' he said.

'The King is concerned. There must be punishment of some kind, but first they must be made to stop. Whether you persuade them, or stop them some other way, is your affair.'

'We understand,' Freya said.

'It shall be as you ask,' Ulf said.

'Then make preparations,' Hargest said. 'I will see you tonight at supper.'

He left the room.

Freya looked at the other two.

'A ride in the country, gentlemen,' she said. 'This is how we achieve glory, now. In making folk behave.'

'We serve at the pleasure of the King,' Ulf said, smiling.

'Let us first make inventories of store, and then look at what we shall need to take with us,' she said. 'I will meet you in the hall after lunch.'

'Good,' Ulf said, and he nodded politely.

'Freya,' Snorri said, 'may I speak with you a moment?'

'About what,' she said.

'A matter that I wish to speak with you about,' he mumbled.

Freya saw Ulf glance at him, and wondered what it meant.

'Very well,' she said. Ulf left the room.

Freya waited to hear his footsteps going away, and stood drinking the cup of milk the girl had put before her. Then, she turned to Snorri.

'Speak,' she said.

'Freya,' he said, avoiding her eye, 'I have some dozens in my household, and much fine grazing land, and I am the head of my family, and my father Midlaf Orensson brought much glory on Hargest, as did his...'

'I know all this, Midlafsson,' she said. 'Why are you telling me now.'

'Because,' he said, 'I have been thinking, for some time, that in the interests of both your house and my family, and by the respect in which I hold you, it seems to me that, between our two houses...'

'Did Jansson put you up to this,' she said, smiling.

He paused, and stared at her.

'... What?'

'Did Jansson tell you what he asked me last night?'

'No,' he said.

She paused.

'Go on,' she said.

'What I mean,' he said, 'is, Freya of Hargest, would you do me the honour...'

'No,' she said.

'What?'

Freya noted that he looked genuinely startled.

'You were asking me to marry you?'

'Well. Yes.'

'Yes, I thought so. No, I will not.'

He stared at her.

'Why not?'

'I do not wish to.'

'But why?'

'I am chaste, Midlafsson.'

'But if we were married,' he said, 'you wouldn't have to be.'

'Iwantto be.'

'But why?'

Because it is who I am, she thought, staring at him staring back at her. Because it is what I do.

He was evidently failing to comprehend that she would take a proposal of marriage from him as anything other than the highest compliment he could pay her.

He took a small step backwards, his eyes widening, and Freya realised that she had been letting her feelings show on her face. She took a deep breath and calmed herself down.

'Do not be insulted, Midlafsson,' she said. 'I will never marry. Not you. Not anyone. It is not as though you have lost to another. There is no competition for my hand, and there never shall be.'

'But why?' he said, in exactly the same tone of voice.

Freya bit her lip hard, gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder, and quickly left the room before he could ask it again.

***

Four days later, Ulf and Snorri selected several members of their own households to be their retinues. Freya, who no longer had men of her own to command, took no one.

The party of one hundred men left the palace early one morning and set out on the long journey to Casman. Among the party was Five, who was travelling both as a member of the Hargest kitchen, and as Snorri's squire.

Three days out of the manor, the party was travelling along the edge of the Forest of Segda. It was a hot afternoon, and everyone was sweating. But up ahead, they all knew, rest was at hand.

Sure enough, as they left the shadow of the wood to their north, the party reached the brow of a slope that led down to the broad and shallow River Resern.

Freya, Ulf and Snorri looked at each other and agreed with a nod. Ulf spoke to the herald, who blew his horn to signify that it was time to stop and wash.

On the sixth day, the Word said, there is virtue in washing, which helps prevent foulness. Everybody was glad that the word gave them an excuse for a swim.

As they tied up their horses and secured their gear, Five's job was to make sure that the food stores were safe from vermin and predators, and to ensure that the water crocks were filled from upstream, where the water was purer. Only after that had been done could Five have a swim.

Five hated swimming. Everyone was always a pain about Five's particular shortcoming.Won't catch no fish with a rod that short, fat boy.That was one of the funnier ones.

As Five walked through the camp, mumbling to each man how he had to remember to fill his water, he couldn't help glancing at Freya. He wasn't the only one. The quicker men had already stripped off and plunged in and were larking about on the western bank, standing on their hands and mocking each other.

Freya did not wait for them to finish, or keep her clothes on, or look scandalised. She stripped off with the rest of them and then strode into the river, looking neither to left nor right, and dived forward.

She swam over to the opposite bank and stood with the water up to her knees, a piece of soap clutched in her fist, and she washed herself, watching their antics from a distance, a sardonic half-smile on her face.

Everyone took it for granted.

Nobody thought to call out to her, or to tease her, or even to flirt with her, even though there were plenty who couldn't help stealing furtive glances at her, each dreaming that he'd be the one to make her melt. The consequences didn't bear thinking about, but would doubtless start with her death glare and end in a serious beating. She herself created the distance between them, and she watched them to make them know she was watching them. And they took it as a challenge, and accepted it.

Five would have dearly loved to have had the courage to do what Freya did.

Sure, she was a great lady with a notoriously quick temper and was not the type to drop kind words to squires. But she was beautiful, and in combat she moved with the rhythm and ease of a terrifying dancer.

Five had seen Freya work herself up into a murderous rage and charge the enemy screaming bloody murder, but as soon as she got into actual fighting, her rage seemed to melt away and she became calm and alert, her body flowing with the rhythm of the strokes and swipes that she dealt out and dodged.

Five once saw her kill a man by driving a sword into his neck and pulling it out, and then he saw another man come up behind her, axe raised, yelling over the din of the battle. Freya did not move, but Five saw her eyes slide to the right as she judged his distance, and just as he got close and brought the axe down, she dropped to a crouch, ducking to one side and twirling her sword in her hands until it faced behind her. The soldier, bringing his axe down on what was suddenly thin air where Freya had once been, was unable to stop it in time and it went all the way down and split his foot in two. His yell of agony was stifled when Freya turned her head just slightly and, half-smiling, drove the point of her sword upwards and backwards so that it pierced the man's jaw from beneath and pushed right up through the roof of his mouth and into his brain. The life left him and he collapsed, and she turned and stood in one motion, putting her foot on him and drawing the sword out of his head.

Five went upstream to refill the crocks. Somebody shoutedOy, squire, clean yourself up.

'I will,' Five shouted back. 'Just a moment.'

Having refilled the crocks, Five carried them to the stores wagon and fiddled with it, waiting to be ignored again. It didn't take long.

In due course, the men were clean and they sat on the grass to dry. Freya swam back across the river and stalked out of it, over to her kit, and she quickly dried herself with a blanket and got dressed, and then went over to her horse.

Before the sun had travelled much more, they were on their way again.