Freyas Saga Ch. 27

"Because of your brother?"

"He knew that the story Ulf told about Casman was a lie," Carfryn said. "He was trying to raise it with the knights, when, when he died."

"He was a good man," Freya said.

"I know," Carfryn said. "Better than I. Not that that's saying much."

Carfryn stared at the counterpane.

"Carfryn," Freya said, "you are brave, and you have shown uncommon loyalty to a man who did you a great ill."

"I will not talk about Durberry," Carfryn said.

"I do not understand," Freya said. "Have you forgiven him?"

"I will not talk about him!" Carfryn snapped. Freya grabbed her wrist.

"Carfryn of Hargest," she said quietly, "I am your leader, and I need to know what your intentions are. Otherwise, I cannot make plans. Are you saving your vengeance for later, or might you carry him off at any time?"

"What are your intentions towards the old man," Carfryn said. "The cult leader, the one who set his worm on you. Have you vengeance in mind, Freya? Is that what we are for?"

"I said I would have vengeance, and I meant it."

"I thought so," Carfryn said, smiling bitterly. "With me, it is more complicated."

She pulled her wrist free of Freya's grip, and rubbed it.

"Durberry has helped me," she said. "He wants to atone. Everything about him shows it. He is not so clever that he could pretend as much, and have something else in mind. I cannot just kill him in his sleep."

"Others have done as much, for less."

"I am not others," Carfryn said, her voice quavering with anger. "I have an example before me. My brother. I cannot just throw him away. I have already failed him, many, many times."

"Do you want him to forgive you?" Freya said. "For you must know, it is never going to happen."

Carfryn glared at her, and Freya saw out of the corner of her eye Carfryn forming one hand into a fist. But she looked back at her, holding the young woman's gaze.

"You do not move against Durberry," Freya said, calmly. "You keep company with him. You behave towards him like a friend. You killed men, sooner than let them take him down south. How is that not forgiveness?"

Carfryn said nothing. Freya could see how much of an effort it took for her to control herself.

"So," Carfryn said after a long moment, "why do you not forgive the old man?"

"You know what he did to me," Freya said.

"And, supposing, instead of leaving you on the plain, which in itself I do not understand, supposing he had taken you in and cared for you, until you were fit to kill him? Would you then have killed him?"

"Yes."

Carfryn sank back in her chair and sighed.

"What is forgiveness, Freya? Is it just a form of words? For I tell you now as I told Five, if all Owyn wants is for me to set him free by saying three words to him, I will cut my tongue from my mouth, if I have to."

Carfryn looked at the ceiling and shook her head, and grinned viciously.

"I am not Siegfa, I know that. I cannot live as he did. Sometimes I feel like everyone thinks I should just slit Owyn's throat. And, at other times, I feel like it would be easier to pardon him for his many sins."

She looked at Freya narrowly.

"I will do as I choose," she said quietly. "I will not be told what to do, in this. And I do not see why I have to account for myself to anyone. If I choose to do something that may interfere with your plans, I will tell you. And if you would stop me, then you will stop me. But this is for no-one else. Only me."

Freya looked at the girl, and turned her face away, and thought for a moment.

"Carfryn," she said, looking at her again. "Do you have friends, in Hargest?"

"Friends," Carfryn said. "There's an idea. As it happens...no. I think not. My friends were Siegfa's friends. And now they think I killed him. So, no."

"Then you need some," Freya said. "And I will be your friend, if you will let me."

Carfryn stopped scowling, and looked up at Freya.

"Thank you," she said. "I would like that."

Freya took her hand and squeezed it for a moment, then let go. They sat in silence for a while.

"May I say something," Carfryn said quietly.

I know what, Freya thought. You have been trying to get this off your chest since we met.

"Our first meeting," Freya said. "In the hall, at Hargest."

"You remember."

"Of course I remember."

"I didn't make a very good first impression."

"No, that was not what happened. You were courteous. I acted like a pig."

"No..." Carfryn began, and then paused, uncertain.

"You spoke to the point, and you were gracious, and had you been a man, I would have treated you better. Do you know why I did not?"

Carfryn reached up and absently scratched at the scab on her cheek.

"No, I don't," she said.

"Because," Freya said, "I was so thrown by your beauty, I could not look you in the eye."

***

Carfryn stared at Freya.

"Oh," she said, feeling oddly mortified for Freya. "Well. All right. Thank you."

"I am sorry," Freya said, shaking her head at her own foolishness. "It was lust. No more than that."

"I had no idea."

"No."

Freya lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes for a moment.

"I, um," Carfryn said, "I hope you don't...still..."

"No," Freya said matter-of-factly, opening her eyes and glancing at Carfryn for a moment.

Five stirred and woke, and Freya turned her head and smiled at her. Five sat up and took Freya's hand and pressed it to her lips and shut her eyes for a long moment.

Carfryn watched them, and thought of all the times she'd dreamed having such a moment with Siegfa. Him being brought back wounded from a campaign, and her keeping vigil by his bed until he woke to find her next to him, and realising her true love for him as she kissed his hand, and him returning her kiss, until at last...

Yes, in your stupid, selfish, childish fantasies, Carfryn. You lied to yourself, and you lied to him, just so that he would not leave you. And when he realised the scope and depth of the lie, he saw you for the lying, stupid, selfish bitch that you are. No wonder he killed himself. The one person he trusted turned out to be the one person who had been lying and lying to him, for every hour of every day of his life.

You will never have anyone like those two have each other. You don't deserve to.

You destroy everything.

Five opened her eyes and looked up at Freya.

"You came back," she said.

"I came back," Freya said.

Five looked at Carfryn and smiled, almost in disbelief. Her happiness made Carfryn want to...

No, no; it's not right, I have not come this far, and fought so hard, just to wound myself, now, when we have come through so much. Because there is a long road ahead. And I should be glad to be here.

She let her anger go out of her, and it pierced her, and she closed her eyes for a moment.

"Carfryn," Freya said softly. She opened them again.

"Lady," she said, sitting up straight.

"Why do you weep."

"Was I weeping? I didn't realise." She wiped her eyes and smiled at them. "Relief, nothing more. Will I fetch the men?"

"Yes," Five said.

"No," Freya said, and she took Carfryn's hand. "Let them sleep. Let it just be us, for now."

She laid her head back on the pillow and stared into space, thinking. Five held her left hand, Carfryn her right. Carfryn took the comforting weight of the Book and tucked it into her right arm, and closed her eyes.

***

The following day, Freya was sitting up in bed. The others sat around the room on what was available. Carfryn stood against the wall.

"Are you feeling well, lady," Schuldt said.

"Are you going to call me 'lady' for as long as you know me?" Freya said. "You know I have no title?"

Schuldt looked tongue-tied. Freya smiled at them.

"What did you call Manfred Rosso?"

"'Old man', mostly," said Michele Ladro. Freya raised an eyebrow; that clearly wouldn't do.

"'Sir' seems odd," Ladro said "Or 'captain'. Nothing's in writing."

"We are bound by contract," Schuldt said.

"Come off it, Christoph," said Nizzi. "A legal thing isn't as binding as a title."

"But what title? If she is not knighted, we cannot call her 'lady'."

"It's polite," said Guillaume Merevus.

"I think we passed beyond ordinary manners when I voided my bladder before all of you," Freya said. Petrus Fenelon laughed, and the others smiled.

"Call me by my name," she said. "It is simple, and while this is not nothing, it is far from everything."

"Then, Freya Aelfrethe," Schuldt said, "may we have news of your health?"

"I am a good deal stronger, Christoph Schuldt, and I thank you for your concern. With rest and exercise I could be back at my full strength within a month."

She waited to see what they would do, and when they all looked serious and thoughtful, she smiled.

"But, as you all know, we do not have a month. I have an appointment at Hargest, and I should have been there a week ago."

"What do you plan to do," Carfryn said.

"I am glad you asked, Carfryn of Hargest, for this concerns you too, and Five. All three of us have business there. I am to report to my father, for I have been missing for a year. Five is to come to terms with the family of Snorri Midlafsson, and you must find out the truth about the death of your brother."

"If I go back, I will be killed," Carfryn said.

"We will disguise you. In any case, this cannot be left undone, Carfryn. The truth must come out. I have no wish to face my father and tell what happened to me, either, but until I do, nothing else I attempt can come out clear. There must be a reckoning."

Freya's voice was hoarse and scratchy, but stronger and clearer than it had been at any time since the village. She was not spitting up blood. That's what two weeks' sleep can do, Five thought.

"What about the cult," Five said quietly. Freya paused for a moment.

"Yes. The cult. They have signed a peace with Hargest. But I have a quarrel with them, which must be resolved, one way or the other.

"There was a time when I would simply have walked in to Hargest and demanded what I wanted, and nobody would have had the courage to deny me. I say that that time is gone. I am no longer the great hero, the shieldmaiden of Hargest. Do not protest, Guillaume Merevus. I am not being weak, or putting up a face of modesty. I am being honest, and we all know it."

***

Merevus sat down. He'd stood up, looking indignant, when Freya had declared that she was not a hero. Now he just looked confused.

So gorgeous, Carfryn thought. Not the first in brains, though.

"Carfryn of Hargest," Freya said, "apart from my skill with a sword, or at leading men in the field, or planning a battle, what would you say was the thing about me that is prized above all other qualities?"

"You're asking me?"

"I feel you can frame it words better than most."

Carfryn held Freya's gaze, and felt the challenge. So, that's what you want from me. Interesting.

"Everybody has always said that the reason you won battles was that you wouldn't let anyone fuck you," she said.

Freya gravely nodded her thanks.

"It is even thus," she said. "And when I had recovered from the loss of my maidenhead, I worked with all my strength to show to the world that I was strong as I ever was.

"It was a waste of time. I know that, now. If I ever want to recover my glory, I will have to start from nothing. No one will believe me, unless I prove myself."

She looked at Schuldt.

"You did not believe me, Christoph Schuldt," she said.

"I do now," he said. "I have seen you face down death itself."

"You do now," she said. "That is my point. I cannot again go through what I have undergone these past two weeks, just to gain the trust of everyone I might need. It will kill me."

"What about the Serpent Queen," said Schuldt.

"The Serpent Queen is only a rumour in these parts, and she will remain one. I can draw on the goodwill towards her when we go south again, for we will go south. But for now, we cannot go back to Hargest expecting to be greeted as heroes. We must go another way. The way of silence and weakness. That is our road, for now, gentlemen. Maybe later we will gain glory, but it will not be now."

"How do you propose we do that," Petrus Fenelon said. "We're soldiers, not play-actors."

"You must become both. It is easier than you think. Some of us have form at being what we are not."

Freya glanced at Carfryn and Five.

***

Five was as mystified as everyone else, but she also knew the signs. For all her thinness and pallor, Freya seemed calmer and stronger and more certain than she had seemed since...

Since when, exactly? Since Casman? The worm had harmed her and done nothing else, but had illness done what the worm could not do?

"So, what are you saying?" she said. "Have you got a plan?"

Freya stared at the foot of the bed for a moment, as if thinking, her lips moving silently as she did so.

Then, slowly, she smiled to herself, and looked up at them, and those that had read accounts of what it had been like to be in strategy meetings with Freya during the war, and the way she had of radiating confidence when she had hit on something that she was sure would work, realised that the accounts were true.

Freya's smile, and the way she looked at them from hooded eyes, made them smile back.

"Yes," Freya said. She sat up, folded her hands in her lap, and leaned forward. "

"I do. Listen, now-"