Freyas Saga Ch. 03

There on the grass, amid splashes of blood, was another of the leathery-looking spheres. He stamped on it and poured salt on it and the worms boiled and dissolved.

"That's got to be it," he said. She closed her eyes and shook her head no, and then winced and clutched her stomach and went behind the bush again.

He turned his back and tried not to listen to her gasps of pain as she passed the last one, but then she made a tight cry of anguish and relief he knew that it had happened, and he turned to see her standing up, her face crimson, the shame written all over her, and he handed her a cloth and sprinkled salt on the mess she'd left behind the bush.

She looked around and saw the brook, trickling some way off. She walked towards it, shedding her clothes as she went, and when she was naked she plunged into it and waded until she found a shallow pool. She sat down in it, gasping with the cold, and threw water over herself, rubbing her skin hard until she was red.

Five ran and got a bottle of almond oil and brought it to her and she poured it on herself recklessly, furiously trying to cleanse herself, rubbing her flesh until it was raw.

He watched her, his heart aching with pity. He wished he could think of something he could do, but there was something so desperate in her silent, obsessive washing of herself that he knew that no mere words could do anything.

She wasn't quite silent. He realised that she was making a noise, a repeated sort of hiccup, Huc huc huc huc.

After a moment, he realised with shock that that was her weeping.

"Can I get you anything else?" he asked miserably. She ignored him and went on rubbing and scraping at her flesh.

He turned his back and walked back to the fire, to give her some privacy.

***

After a very long time she came walking back up the slope. She was dressed but her hair was wet and her clothes were damp. Her face looked red and raw and she was shivering. Five put another log on the fire and she sat down stiffly at it, staring into the fire.

"Do you want anything?" he asked. A stiff, curt shake of the head.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I got knocked out. I was there when that thing took you, and I kept asking why we didn't make a move, but Sir Ulf, he was very cautious and said no, but in the end, and I know it's bad, I took a weapon and I was going to go up and try and get you myself but I got knocked out. Then I woke up here, well, over the ridge, down by the village, and everyone was gone but you. You were covered in this white stuff and I got you up the slope and down to here and washed you and dressed you because I thought you were dead and you weren't. I'm sorry."

She stared at him, and he realised that she hadn't really heard what he'd said.

"I found you, lady," he mumbled. "I found you after that thing spat you out, and I, well, I tried to get you out of there. I did get you out of there. We're miles away now. I'm sorry I couldn't do more. I've saved all your kit, though."

He gestured weakly to his bulging pack. She glanced at it, and glanced back at him.

She peered at him, and seemed to see him for the first time, and he saw her go pale with dismay. She scrambled over to him and looked at him, her fingers touching his blood-caked mouth. She inspected his wounds minutely.

Then she fetched water in the pan and lit a new fire with what to him seemed almost magical efficiency. She heated water and then, to his embarrassment, she tended the wounds that she'd dealt him.

She didn't exactly have gentle apothecary's hands, more like the brisk efficiency of a battlefield doctor, but she washed his face and looked in his mouth and cleared out the bits of loose tooth. She found one tooth that was dangling by a thread.

"Oh no," said Five. "Please, lady, no, don't ..."

Freya looked down at him dispassionately, and with a sharp tug she pulled it out, making him yelp. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he felt embarrassed again. Then she looked at his face critically, and she reached up and touched his nose.

"OW!" he yelped. "Oh, please, no, lady, it's all right, it's only broken, please don't do anything ..."

She looked at him, and she tilted her head slightly, as if to say - well, look, now's your chance, if not now ...

"Well," he snuffled, "if you know what you're doing."

She looked around quickly, muttered a silent curse and then reached up and opened his lips. She opened her mouth wide to show what she wanted him to do.

He opened his mouth wide, feeling extremely nervous.

Freya made her right hand into a fist, stuck it carefully in his mouth, and then in one swift movement with her other hand, she clicked his broken nose back into position.

It was fucking agony, and he screamed and bit down on her fist, but it was better than screaming and biting down on his own tongue. He howled with pain and she hissed her breath through her teeth, her eyes narrowing to slits; and then he opened his streaming eyes and she slowly withdrew her bleeding fist from his mouth, opened her hand and flexed her fingers, then nodded once, and wiped her hand with a cloth, and started to wash his face.

He still felt embarrassed, and wasn't sure why. It was just so odd. After all, he had seen far worse things happen to her. But here she was, a great warrior and a general, tending to the wounds of a common soldier.

Odder than that was her continuing silence.

She had made only two sounds since waking up, both screams. Other than that, she answered his every comment with either a look, a shake of the head or a nod, or else she ignored him.

When she'd finished washing his face and had applied healing ointment to his bloody lips and bruised, swollen cheek, she sat back and stared into the fire once more

Five sat on the other side of the fire and watched her warily.

"Lady," he said, "can I get you something? Do you need anything?"

She ignored him.

She's embarrassed, he thought. She's the great leader, the perfect shieldmaiden. I've seen her naked and raped and driven half mad and sick with the ordeal. Better to not talk about it. Talk about yourself.

"My name's Five," he said.

She stared into the fire, ignoring him.

"It's not really," he admitted. "I don't have a name. I was orphaned young and when I was old enough I was put to be Sir Snorri's squire. He always gives his squires numbers until he knights them. I'm number five, but to be honest, I don't think he's ever going to knight me. I'm not a very good squire."

He looked at her. She was silent. She was still trembling a little, but not from the cold. From what had been done to her.

She'll get better, he told himself. I've just got to let her know that I'm at her service. She needs someone to look after her.

"I can do cooking and cleaning and that, and repairing, but I'm terrible with weapons. I'm a bit scared of fighting because I'm no good at it. Not like you. You're the best fighter I've ever seen. They say there's never been anyone as good as you. I don't know. Do you think that's true?"

Her brow creased slightly and she shook her head no, still staring into the fire.

"Well, anyway," Five went on, feeling like a fucking idiot, "I don't exactly know how it happened but I got knocked out, and when I came around, the only people left of our lot were you and I."

She looked up sharply.

"I don't know where they went," he said. "I'm sorry. But I thought you might be dead, or else badly hurt, but then I saw you weren't dead, and I thought the only thing I could do was get you away from there to somewhere where I could clean you up and take you back to Hargest. Because you were all covered in stuff, from that . . ."

He tailed off because she flinched and he saw her fight her gorge back.

"Sorry," he said. "So, I gathered all your gear and I managed to drag you up the slope and down the other side and get you here. I hope I didn't hurt you. I just wanted to get you safe so I could clean you up. I wasn't sure if you'd still be able to talk or, or do anything, but I mean, I did the best I could. I swear, I don't know why they left without us."

She was staring at him intently. He felt terrible.

"I'm sorry," he said miserably. "We should have saved you. I don't know why we didn't."

She was silent. After a long moment, in which he felt her eyes on him but couldn't look back at her, he sensed that she'd gone back to staring into the fire.

"Maybe I should have done something," he said. "I mean, maybe I could have done more."

She didn't move.

"I'm sorry," he said again, and to his bitter shame he lost his composure and wept. He rested his arms on his knees and buried his face on them, his shoulders shaking.

Now she only has me. What kind of helper am I going to be? A lumpen quivering fool who's scared of fighting. She ought to have a hero. All I've done is save her so that she can witness the end of her own career.

"Ssssshh," she said.

He looked up. She was looking at him again, unsmiling, but with a hint of compassion in her narrow grey eyes. She picked up the water bottle and sipped it, and cleared her throat.

"Be a man," she whispered in a hoarse, dry voice.

"That's what everyone tells me," said Five, snivelling. "I don't know how. I don't have it in me. Can you talk?"

She nodded.

"Why didn't you say something before?"

She looked at him.

***

She regarded the smooth-chinned boy sitting there, his short hair flopping over his face, his cheeks pale and blotchy red, his eyes wet. She felt sorry for him.

He dragged me it must be six miles. And now he sits there and reckons himself a disgrace because he did not protect me. It was up to me to protect myself. And Ulf, and Snorri, to be sure. But for whatever reason, they betrayed me.

No, I know why. Because I have been proud, and I have forgotten to serve, rather than to lead. I cannot blame them. I have lost my chastity; it was true, the prophecies were all true. As soon as I lost it, I lost the power to lead.

She drank water again. Her throat was burning; every sound she made was like swallowing a hot coal. Her whole body ached; she felt scorched, inward and out, as if she'd passed through a forge. Her body and soul alike.

How could I stand at the head of soldiers again, who'd seen that happen to me? How would anyone ever take commands from a leader who had been taken and used like that? A laughing-stock. Raped by a worm; it was only pathetic and disgusting, naught else.

But I can do nothing else. I cannot cook, wean a child, write books, run a household, run a kingdom. I am and will only ever be a soldier.

I am not even that. A soldier would have fought, and slain that thing. I merely bit, and escaped it. It lives yet.

"Why don't you speak?" said the boy. She'd even forgotten his name.

She shook her head.

"What's that mean?" he asked.

What do I mean. Be a man. What did that mean? It was men who did this to me, set their beast on me. Took my virginity. Defiled my name.

You have naught to say but lies, Freya.

God, I am tired.

She lay down, wrapped her cloak around herself and closed her eyes.

***

Five watched as Freya wrapped herself in her cloak, and he felt bitter and excluded. He waited until her breathing became deep and regular, and then he put another blanket over her and wrapped himself in his own cloak and lay down too.

***

The days passed.

Five would wake up in the morning, light the fire, heat water, cook breakfast and while he was doing so she'd wake up and drink water and go for a walk. Then she would return and sit by the fire, and he'd offer her food, and she would silently shake her head.

For the first couple of days he saved her portions of the meals but then they started to go off, so he stopped bothering. He would set her meal in front of her and she'd ignore it, and at the end of the meal he'd throw it away.

She slept a lot. She didn't respond when he talked to her. It was like camping with a ghost.

He tried to figure out what she was doing but the longer it went on, four days, five days, a week, the harder it became to avoid the conclusion that she no longer wanted to be alive. Soon she stopped even walking and simply lay wrapped in her blanket, only drinking water, sleeping or lying awake staring into nothing.

Five grew more and more desperate. He considered trying to beg her to eat something but her silence was so intimidating that he felt unable to challenge it. On top of which they were running out of food, and he had no plan for getting more.

Then, after eight days, he was gathering sticks for the fire one morning when he saw a healthy, good-sized rabbit bound out of a thicket. He ran and grabbed his bow and arrow and fired, but he had never been a good shot.

All he could think of was rabbit stew for dinner; he knew he could make something that might entice even her, but he was loosing arrows at the bloody thing and it was bounding from clump of grass to bush, mocking him with its freedom, while he was tied by loyalty and pity to her, the woman lying on the ground, the broken champion whom nothing could rouse from her torpor.

He was down to two arrows and the rabbit was hiding behind a little shrub. It lifted its head and he fired, missing.

"Oh god," he wept with rage, "come on, please, just, one more time, please, come on . . ."

***

Freya lay quite still, feeling the wind rushing over her, no longer able to tell if she was cold because it was cold outside, or because she could no longer feel warm.

Her head rested on the rolled-up bundle of her pack and if she reached out with her fingers she could feel the tough, wiry grass beneath her.

She felt empty.

She had been fasting for over a week, in the hope that silence and hunger would lead her to truth. She had endured the gnawing ache in her stomach and throat and bowels and womb. It had slowly ebbed, very slowly, the monster reluctantly letting her go. There had been no more lumps or cramps. Whatever it had tried to do to her, whatever it had left in her, it was gone now.

But that wasn't true. It would never quite be gone. Some part of her would always be inside it, drowning in its fluids, stunned by the abandonment, the betrayal. She could walk the wide world and trek back to Hargest and hole herself up in the innermost room with an arsenal of weapons and have her meals handed to her through a hole in the wall, and it would still never be enough to make her feel entirely safe.

Had I thought myself entirely safe, before?

Perhaps no. But compared to after.

My sword: useless. My bravery: as nothing, confronted with something that can defeat any man or woman.

I am where I was. Silence and hunger: now I am just hoarse from not speaking and my brain is fogged with hunger.

She had never been very religious, sharing the largely unthinking faith of her family, but now she felt as never before the terribleness of there being no god. The world was as empty as she was. None of it meant anything apart from what you put into it. And what if all you could see was the vanity of putting anything into it?

Her dull eyes followed the boy running back and forth, uselessly sending arrows where the rabbit had been a long moment before. He was a terrible shot. And for what? To fill his belly so that he could slog along, making meals which she would not eat, pouring her water, shaking out her bedroll when she got up to make her toilet.

Something was pricking her, irritating her, something she knew. Some dull intimation. She watched him for a long time, running back and forth, watching him get more and more uselessly aggrieved, huffing and puffing like an idiot. She tried to turn over in her empty mind what it was that was needling her.

Then it went by her and she grasped it, and it cut her to the quick and made her flush and grimace with shame.

Freya Aelfrethe.

You live for yourself? You live for your own glory? That stupid boy is chasing a rabbit so that he can cook it and offer it to you, in the hope that you will eat something and make him feel that there is some sense in this life, that he has not been fussing over you and distracting you this last week for nothing.

So that he can tell himself that his honour and his loyalty mean something.

And you would lie there thinking fine thoughts about the emptiness of the world? How lovely for you, that you have that luxury. He has not. He is a squire. He is not even your squire, but he has saved you, and brought you here, and tried to look after you, and tried to keep you going, and you have repaid him with what?

A beating. And silence. And sullenness.

Shame on you. Shame on you.

Furious with herself, Freya sat up abruptly, took off the blanket, folded it and neatly stowed it on top of the rolled-up pack. She felt light-headed and dizzy, but she strode quickly towards the boy as he stood there fumbling with the bow.

***

He notched the arrow with trembling fingers and aimed, but he was too frustrated and upset and his hands were shaking. He blinked the tears out of his eyes.

The rabbit emerged and bounded across the grass, in the direction of a large bush. He tracked it but it was hopeless. It was getting further away.

"Come back," he sobbed, "come back, you fucker, just come back . . ."

A strong hand grabbed the bow and arrow from him. He whirled around. She was standing there, gaunt and pale, her face grim. She lifted the bow and arrow and in one smooth continuous movement she closed one eye, aimed at the departing rabbit, fired and lowered the bow, watching keenly.

The arrow sped across the grass and plunged into the rabbit's fur, and the animal stopped and sank onto the grass, twitching. She nodded to herself and handed the bow to him. Then he watched her walk until she reached the rabbit, and bend over and pick it up. It was still feebly moving its back legs. She took it in both hands and broke its neck sharply.

Then he watched her walk slowly back, holding the dead rabbit, until she reached him. She handed it to him, her face expressionless. He took it.

He stared at her. The rabbit in his hands was still warm.

"Thank you," he said.

She inclined her head gravely.

"Are you going to lie down again?" he asked.

She shook her head no.

"Are you hungry?" he said.

She nodded.

"Will you sit down while I make you something to eat?" he said.

She nodded.

"Are you not talking?"

She shook her head.

"Right," he said. "Is that just not to me in particular, or are you not talking to anyone?"

She gazed at him levelly, displeased.

"Sorry," he said. "So, it's nothing I've done."

She shook her head no, emphatically. His heart leaped.

"All right, then," he said. "I don't understand, but . . . I would like to be of service, any way I can, lady."

She smiled, grimly. Just seeing her do that made him nervous.

"Your name," she whispered.

"My name?" he said. "Um. Five."

She tilted her head quizzically.

"I'm one of Sir Snorri's squires," he began, and she nodded as if remembering and touched his lips with one hand to silence him.

She held her fingers there for a moment, and then took them away and looked at him.

"You took me out," she rasped, and swallowed. He could see how much it hurt her to talk. "You. Alone."

"I only did what anyone should have done," he mumbled. She shook her head and stared at him.

"No one did," she said. He leaned over and grabbed the water bottle and handed it to her. She nodded thanks, took a drink, swallowed painfully and put her hand on his shoulder and looked him once more in the eye. He felt her hand trembling on her shoulder, and he wondered at it.