Freyas Saga Ch. 27

"Well..." Norbert said.

"Nearly finished," Schuldt said.

"Or mine," Five said.

"Or mine," said Guillaume Merevus.

"I don't know how to do that," Norbert said.

Freya laughed. Except she didn't dare to laugh, so she tried to swallow it, so it came out as a dull huc huc huc noise. Five and Carfryn looked down at her.

"Thank you," she gasped. "Thank you for offering me your blood. But let us finish what we are doing, before we start medicine anew."

"Bit late for that," Norbert muttered.

"Done," Schuldt said, and stepped back. Norbert stepped up and leaned over Freya, and she felt him sticking his fingers inside her again.

She tried to shut it out, but couldn't. It was awful, on top of which the pain from the wound itself was sharpening and beginning to scream at her. She fumbled for Five's hand and grabbed it, and turned her head so she could see the hourglass.

The sand in the upper half was half gone. She was beginning to feel dizzy. She couldn't think anymore, there was nothing left but the urge to fight it, and the urge to resist the need to scream. She was going beyond pain, now. She could feel herself losing control.

His fingers slithered around inside her, grabbing it, losing it, grabbing it again, losing it again.

He stopped. She opened her eyes, and saw him looking up at Schuldt, blinking. Carfryn dabbed the sweat from his eyes and he took a breath. Then Carfryn looked down at her, and went pale, and wiped Freya's face.

"Be ready," Norbert said to Carfryn and Schuldt.

He reached down inside her, almost under her stomach, and in doing so she felt him widening the wound. She growled with agony and the men grabbed her and stopped her from writhing, but his fingers slid down and touched something, and she felt him gather it, and pulled out.

And in so doing, they stopped. What in god's name, Freya screamed silently. She could feel him reaching around for something else, and he froze, and thought for a second, and then reached in with his other hand, and touched it, and took them both out, palming them. It was wrenchingly painful and she yielded at last to the impulse to scream. It tore at her throat, but she couldn't help it any longer.

"Go," Norbert gasped, and jumped down from the chair. She felt liquid splashing into her innards, and then it burned, savagely. She cried out in pain, but the men held her down, and somebody was swabbing at her quickly and then she felt the now-welcome stab of the needle, as Schuldt began to sew her up.

She was exhausted, but in too much pain; she felt Five squeezing her hand.

***

Norbert sat on the floor, exhausted. He heard Freya's last cry falter into a whimper, as she at last passed out.

He opened his bloody hands, and examined them: the dark scrap of flesh that had been poisoning Freya, and the other thing.

It was oblong, about half the size of a playing card, but as thick as a biscuit, but with rounded corners, and black, heavy and smooth, as if made of obsidian. It was warm, which he expected, since it had been inside her. He pocketed it.

Freya gasped abruptly, and came around again; the pain was too much for her to stay unconscious. Five was telling Freya it was over, and he could hear Freya's steady, ragged breathing as Schuldt finished closing her wound.

It had gone as well as it could go. He knew that. He'd done what he'd set out to do. Now, all they could do was tidy her up and hope that she would heal.

Somebody sat next to him. He looked up, and saw Carfryn's heavily bandaged face. She was looking at what he had in his hands. Then she looked at him.

"Think it worked," she said.

"Too early to say," he said, avoiding her gaze. He was frightened of her. He couldn't work out who she liked, what she was for. All he knew of her was that he'd seen her be oh so haughty and calm, and then go on fire with rage and slaughter. He didn't know who was there.

He got up and climbed onto the chair, to watch Schuldt finish the sewing-up.

"That's good," he said, when Schuldt tied off the last stitch. He took from his pocket a small vial of clear blue liquid and tipped some onto his hand, which he then gently wiped over the surface of the bloody wound.

"What's that," Five said.

"It's like soap," he said. "Hopefully it'll stop her wound from getting swollen."

Then he nodded to Schuldt, who started to bandage her.

He looked down at Freya, who was lying with her eyes closed but very obviously not asleep, breathing raggedly through dry lips.

"Right, he said, "now we must move her."

***

It took six men and Five to carry Freya to the best room on the ground floor, but soon she was lying on a reasonably decent matress, beneath a counterpane, and for the time being she seemed to be sleeping.

Five looked down at her, stroked her hand briefly and then cocked her head, and they all trooped out of the room and left Freya alone.

"Thank you, gents," she said, when they were in the corridor. "It was noble of you to help."

"Will she live," said Guillaume Merevus.

"Dunno."

They stared at her.

"What is it, mate," she said to Petrus Fenelon.

"Well," he said, "you're so..."

"What."

"Why aren't you all weeping and wailing."

Five thought about this.

"Would you heed me any more if I did?"

"Well," he said, "no. But it'd be more, you know. Womanly."

"Mate," she said, "look at me. That's not a card I get to play."

"Suppose not," he said. "But..."

"That's all," Five said firmly. "Noon's coming. It's dinner time. Go and get some food. She needs her sleep, all right? Good job."

"Can I have a word," said Guillaume Merevus. Five waited till the others had gone back to the kitchen.

"Wanted to ask you this, after earlier," he said. He looked uneasy. "When your boss was talking last night-"

"She's your boss too, now, remember," Five said.

"Yes. She said something about what happened to her, and how it could happen to anyone, and she looked at me."

"I'm sure she didn't mean nothing by it," Five said.

"I'm just wondering," he said, "what does she know? Just wondering what she thought she was looking at."

Five couldn't help thinking of a hot day, months and months ago. Standing in a cool pool of water, the sunlight coming through the dappled leaves, burning with shame. And then Freya asking her a question that broke open her heart.

She looked up at the bloke: tall, gorgeous, the kindest of them all. But there was something behind his asking the question, some secret pain, which she couldn't work out.

Whatever it was, it would have to wait.

"I don't know, friend," she said. "Why don't you ask her when she wakes up."

He looked troubled, but after a moment he nodded, and turned and started going through to the kitchen. When he realised she hadn't followed, he turned.

"Aren't you coming to eat?"

"No," she said. "I'm staying with her."

"I'll bring you something."

"No thanks," Five said. "If she doesn't eat, I don't."

Five went into Freya's room, shut the door, pulled up a chair next to the bed, and took Freya's hand.

Oh great something beyond everything, she thought. Give us some of whatever it is you give people at these times. Luck, or blessings, or something. I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention, but you've never paid much to me, neither.

She stared down at Freya's face. She was blessedly asleep and, as always, she looked much younger when she slept.

Come back to me, she thought. Just come back to me, and I'll look after you.

***

Carfryn walked back across the courtyard, from the privy. The forenoon sky was covered by cloud, and there was a frost in the air. Everyone was quiet.

She had needed the privy, but also she had needed to recover from watching the boy cut Freya open and take things out of her. It had been horrible. He had been impressively calm and precise, but all the same. Freya had seemed to be made of iron, but nobody could have got through that without screaming. As, indeed, she hadn't. Carfryn felt as if she had been beaten by a hammer. The image of Freya lying on the table with the gaping wound in her side would follow her to her grave.

She let herself in by the kitchen door and found Manfred's men sitting around the table. It was still soiled with blood and other liquids from the work the boy had done on Freya. The great warrior had lost control of her bladder, at one point.

They all looked up at her as she came in. She looked back at them. For a moment, nobody did anything.

Where were Durberry and Dovid? She turned and looked in the other room; through the doorway she could see Dovid on his knees, with his head bowed.

At his devotions. She looked out of the window and saw Owyn limping across the yard to the privy. She looked back at the men, who were all looking at her expectantly, apart from the boy, who just looked uncomfortable and tired. Then he got up abruptly, but Carfryn raised a hand to stop him.

"Gentlemen," she said, "please don't tell me you don't know how to wash a fucking table."

There was an awkward silence.

"We thought..." said one of them.

"Oh no," she said. "I'm not doing it. You will do it, after I have told you how to do it. And after that, we will take turns. Is that clear?"

"Who made you the boss?" Petrus Fenelon said.

"I did," Carfryn said, glaring at him, "after you sat there, thinking this my job. Now, are we clear?"

Schuldt stood up.

"We are clear, sister," he said, and gave her a respectful nod. "We will need hot water, yes?"

Hm, Carfryn thought, and Schuldt rose slightly in her estimation.

"Yes," she said. "And rags, and all the soap there is. I will follow Freya Aelfrethe to the end of the earth, but I draw the line at drinking her piss."

Michele Ladro was sitting in a chair with his splinted leg resting on a stool. He started to try to struggle up.

"Not you," Carfryn said. "You're excused. And you," she said to the boy, "go and wash yourself. All over."

He nodded and went out.

"Right," she said. "Did I accidentally kill those among you who could cook?"

She gazed at them all for a moment, and they gazed back at her, unsmiling. Then Petrus Fenelon smirked.

"You did not," he said, "but Calvi had a lovely thing he did with ox kidney."

She nodded.

"He was a cunt, though," Fenelon added, glancing at Guillaume Merevus.

Merevus nodded, looking away, and Carfryn guessed that Calvi had been one of the company's resident shitheads. Siegfa had always said that every company had at least one, although he called them "rogues"; soldiers whose worse appetites couldn't be sated by action alone, but who had to torment the kinder and nobler ones.

She glanced at the others, who apart from Schuldt were looking at her warily, as if expecting her to lash out at any minute. Schuldt alone was exploring the kitchen, looking for rags and soap.

They think I am the new Calvi, she realised. Perhaps I am. But I had better strive not to be, for now.

"Still," she said, "I'm sorry to have deprived you of his ox kidney."

She let it hang there for a moment. Then she turned and started opening cupboards.

***

Freya swam up through the dark, and found herself tunnelling through earth, making her way up through the choking soil into grey daylight.

She pulled herself out of the hole, and started making her way up the rocky slope.

The sky was pale and the wind whipped her. She was thin, cold and dirty, and her limbs and body were wrapped in bandages, covering all her many wounds. It hurt to move. She felt every old scar she had; under the bandages they were livid and painful. The slash on her face was throbbing with pain but it wasn't bleeding.

Up ahead she saw two figures. One was a beautiful young woman in a rich dress, jewellery glittering around her neck and on her wrists. Her companion also seemed a beautiful young woman, although as Freya got closer she wasn't so sure; the hooded figure had broad shoulders and its black robe covered it very well, and as Freya reached them she couldn't tell if the figure was male or female.

But the black robe was smiling at her, as was the young woman.

-Hello, Freya, black robe said.

-Hello, Freya said, and her voice was clear and easy, and there was no ache in her throat. She eyed the young woman, whose long dark hair was braided down her back, and who was smiling at her.

-For a long time, you have been courting me, black robe said.

-Have I?

-Don't you recognise me?

-I do not.

Black robe threw off its hood and opened its robe, and on its head it wore a crown so glorious that it made Freya want to weep. It wore a breastplate of dull black armour, and a sword hung from its belt.

-God knows, black robe said, you have earned me, over and over.

Freya tore her eyes away from the crown and looked at the young woman, who smiled back at her. Freya wondered at her.

-...Mother?

The young woman laughed.

-No, she said smiling. Not her.

-She would make a good queen, though, black robe said, favouring the young woman with a smile.

-That is what I long for, the young woman said, turning to black robe, and they embraced and kissed.

-Please, Freya said, I want to serve. She was in a room, with Oskar Grimsson. He looked deep in profound thought, and he glanced at her.

-Well, he said doubtfully, you can try.

He looked her up and down, and regarded her ragged bandages with disgust.

-Cover yourself, girl, he said, and went into the next room, where Hargest and the King and Kremer and other men were standing around a table talking heatedly. Lying on the table was Five, as Freya had first met her, dressed in male clothes, heavy and worried-looking, protesting weakly as they argued.

-Can't you at least try harder, Hargest said to Five. Freya noticed that Five's right arm, up to her shoulder, was solid iron. Five flexed her fingers and made a fist, and looked helplessly at Hargest, who shook his head no.

-Don't blame me, Five said, and catching sight of Freya, she pointed with her left hand.

-She did it to me! Five cried. She did! It's not my fault!

Freya saw that Five's eyes were dull balls of grey metal.

-It is all lost! Hargest shouted, and he walked out of the room, leading the other men with him. Freya approached the table and stared down at Five in horror.

Five looked up at her, blinking. She wore only a sheet, tightly wrapped around herself, covering her from her breasts to her feet. Her head, neck and arms were bare. Her iron right arm creaked rustily as she tried to flex it.

Suddenly, Freya knew she was dreaming. The pain in her side told her so. She looked down and saw the dark bloodstain spreading on her bandage. She looked up. Five was sitting up on the table, her arm and eyes normal again. She was looking at Freya with a sidelong gaze.

Freya felt suddenly ill, and realised that the room was shaking. She looked at Five, who smiled. There was a sound like distant trees falling, buildings toppling, people screaming. It was coming closer. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling.

-What is that, Freya said, feeling suddenly full of sorrow.

Five reached out and took her hand.

-That? Well.

She raised Freya's hand to her mouth, and kissed it.

-That's the price you pay, she said, shrugging.

The room started to buckle, the floor was tearing upwards, the world was ripping itself apart.

-No, Freya cried, no, I have to save them. I cannot let this happen.

Freya was weeping, but Five seemed curiously untroubled. She clicked her tongue.

-Never mind, she said.

***

Freya woke up.

The room was dark. She was cold. She was in pain. But...

She blinked and waited for her eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. She looked around.

Five was in a chair next to the bed, asleep. Schuldt, the surgeon, was sleeping in a chair in the corner. The boy Norbert was curled up sleeping on the floor, his box open next to him. A table was scattered with empty vials. The corridor outside was dimly lit. The house was silent.

She felt very weak. The sheets were clammy and damp. She made to move her head, to look at Five, and barely could.

"Lady," a voice whispered to her right. With a great effort, she managed to turn and look.

Carfryn was sitting there, a book in her hand, staring at her, a tentative smile forming on her face. Freya noticed that her bandages were off, and her right cheek had a good-sized star-shaped scab. Apart from that, she looked pale and hollow-eyed with tiredness.

They have taken it off much too soon, Freya thought. A wound like that needed to be dressed for days, not a few hours.

"Are you awake," Carfryn whispered. "Do you know me."

Freya went to form the words, but her mouth was dry. Carfryn picked up a tankard and lifted it to Freya's lips. It was rainwater, cool and clear. She drank.

"I know you, Carfryn," she said. "What time is it."

Carfryn yawned and smiled.

"I am sorry," she said. "Freya, where have you been?"

"I have been sleeping," Freya said, impatient. "What time is it?"

"Freya," Carfryn said, "you have been on the brink of death for two weeks."

Freya stared at her.

"Your wound," Carfryn said. "The boy did the best he could, but the wound became inflamed, and we couldn't rouse you. At first we just thought you asleep, but as the day went on, we realised...well, Five and Schuldt realised you were very ill. You have lain in this bed for thirteen days, and Schuldt and the boy have worked every hour to bring you back from the edge."

Freya felt dazed.

"But...I have been asleep? How could I..."

Carfryn shrugged.

"From time to time, you would come awake enough that we could get you to take some broth. We had to steal a cow, just to get enough bones. Half of it is hanging in the pantry, still. But otherwise, yes, you would have died. I swear, lady, you have some ungodly powers of healing. And I say that as a novice reader."

Freya glanced at the book in Carfryn's hands, and realised that it was the Book. She reached down and tentatively touched her wound. It had a dull ache, but it was nothing like what it was. She looked at Carfryn.

"I knew nothing," she said, feeling absurdly powerless. "I dreamed, a little."

"Put it this way," Carfryn said. "I never would have thought that one person could have so much pus in her."

Freya nodded. She lifted her shirt gently, and looked at her abdomen. The scar was angry and red, but it was definitely healing.

"Only in the last three days did you get a fever," Carfryn said. "It broke yesterday."

Freya felt her strength slowly returning. She looked at Five.

"She's been here the whole time," Carfryn said. "The rest of us have been taking turns to keep her company. She's eaten barely a morsel, god knows we've tried. I don't think she's slept for four days."

Freya watched Five sleeping, and the relief that her dream had been only a dream, made her smile.

"Do you want me to wake her?"

"No," Freya said. "Let her get some rest. I am...sorry, to have done this to you all."

"I don't know medicine," Carfryn said, "but since it was either this, or have you die puking up blood from burning gut, I..."

Freya looked at her.

"I am very glad to see you awake," Carfryn said.

"I am glad to be it, Carfryn," Freya said. "Thank you."

Two weeks, Freya thought. Two weeks? There is so little time. We have to get to Hargest. Yet I am as weak as a fledgling.

"We have not talked," Carfryn said, "but...you do know that I have been searching for you, for months?"

Freya eyed her.