Page 57 of Swordheart #1

“If you’re looking for that horrible guard of yours, he’s gone,” said Aunt Malva. “Gone off with Bartholomew and that scholar of his, and good riddance to him.”

“What?” said Halla blankly.

Sarkis? Gone?

Malva smiled. She was clearly enjoying this. “Oh yes. Bartholomew left in a hurry and came by to tell us where you’d be. Very kind of him. Very lucky for you.”

He left with Bartholomew? What?

The hollowness inside her began to expand. She’d thought to find Sarkis and forgive him. It seemed he had decided that it was not worth his time to wait around and be forgiven.

And here I am.

Right back in the place I started.

With these two.

“Surprised?” asked Malva. “I don’t know why. Men like that don’t stay in one place.”

Halla shook her head slowly. Blood roared in her ears.

The events of the past few weeks began to feel like a long, surreal dream.

Had she even known a swordsman named Sarkis?

Where was Zale? She had her inheritance back, the clerk had confirmed it, but she was back in her great-uncle’s house and her wretched cousin and his aunt were here and she might as well never have left at all.

“Halla…” Alver said, stepping forward.

It didn’t matter how disassociated she felt, Halla wasn’t letting that clammy-handed little bastard touch her. She jerked back, eyeing him with disgust. “Why are you two here? I don’t care if Sarkis left—”

Liar. You care very very much.

“—I still don’t want to see either of you again.”

Something was rushing into the hollowness, filling it up. She did not quite know what it was. It felt like rage.

“Now Halla…”

“I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“Bartholomew told us to come,” said Malva. “He knew Alver was the only one softhearted enough to still want you.”

Halla stared at her, then broke into a high, braying laugh. She knew it was an ugly sound, and that was fine. She had no desire at the moment to be beautiful. “Do you think I care ? I don’t want him.”

Malva flicked her fingers, dismissing this. “It hardly matters what you want. You clearly can’t manage your own life. You’ll come with us, and this will become a family matter again.”

“Once you’re carrying a child, it’ll be easier,” Alver assured her desperately. “Then you won’t want them to be illegitimate so you’ll understand that it’s best to marry me. We can put all this behind us. Mother said so.”

Halla stared at him for so long that he started to sweat. “Really, Halla…”

She began to laugh incredulously. “Are you daft ?”

“ You must be daft!” said Malva. “Carrying on all over the countryside with that—that barbarian! You’re lucky my son agreed to wed you at all, with that kind of scandal hanging over you!”

“Carrying on? Oh yes, there was carrying on!” Halla could hardly believe what she was about to say, but she suspected it was her only chance. “We carried on like you wouldn’t believe! He bedded me in half the inns from here to Archon’s Glory!”

Alver recoiled, eyes the size of saucers.

“And I enjoyed it!”

“Stop this!” Alver tried to bellow, but it came out as more of a squeak. “I don’t want to hear such talk!”

“ And I’m pregnant!” shouted Halla, throwing caution to the winds.

Aunt Malva stepped in and slapped Halla across the face.

Halla slapped her right back.

“Mother!”

“Are you going to let her do that to your mother?” said Malva, holding her hands to her face.

“No, of course not… err… Halla, I’m very sorry, but you can’t carry on like this…” He grabbed for her wrists.

“If you two get out of my house, I won’t have to!”

“This is not your house,” said Malva coldly.

The imprint of Halla’s hand on the side of her face had left a blurry mark in her makeup.

“It belongs to the family. It will not go to you to use like a whorehouse. You will go into the countryside where you cannot shame any of us.” She looked Halla up and down, lip curled.

“If you are carrying that barbarian’s bastard, you’ll soon be properly grateful that anyone will have you at all. ”

Alver managed to get hold of both her wrists. Halla twisted her arms furiously, but he held them fast. She took some small pleasure that he had to work for it, and sweat started to pop out on his forehead. “Halla, stop! I don’t—don’t want to hurt—stop that!”

“Tie her up,” snapped Malva. “Tie her up and put her with the other one!”

Wait … the other one? Does Alver have a whole stable of women here or something?

In practice, Malva did the tying. She wound rope around Halla’s wrists while Alver stood behind her, locking her arms in place. The feel of his chest against her back made her skin crawl.

“And you brought rope, I see. So you knew you’d have to tie me up to get me to the altar. Did you plan on gagging me so I can’t denounce you to the priest? Tying me to the bed afterward?”

Alver made a pained noise. Malva just glared. “You’ll be grateful soon enough,” the old woman said. “After you’ve had a while to think about it. I suggest you stop acting like a whore and start thinking about what’s best for you. And your…” her lip curled “… child.”

Halla fumed while Alver walked her upstairs. She thought about making him drag her, but it seemed like that would result in a lot of bruises to little effect.

He opened the door to one of the unused servant’s rooms and pushed Halla inside. “You rat bastard!” she shouted after him.

“I’d rather you didn’t take my god’s name in vain in quite that way,” said a familiar voice from the floor.

“Zale!?”

The Rat priest smiled, lifting their bound hands. They looked a bit mussed, their hair flopped back out of the braid and into their eyes, but none the worse for wear. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this…”

“What happened to you?” asked Halla, sitting down beside them.

They’re the “other one.” Not a stable of women after all.

Pity.

“Apparently, no one warned your relatives that I was in the attic conducting an inventory. They came in and began discussing how to marry you off to Alver. I came down to tell them that they would not do such a thing, certainly not without your consent, and the next thing I knew, your cousin was stuffing me in the back bedroom.” They shrugged. “You were right, too.”

“What?”

“He does have clammy hands.”

“Ugh, I know. ” Halla leaned her head back against the wall.

The idea of those clammy hands on her body had been bad enough before.

After Sarkis had touched her with such passion, coaxed such extraordinary responses from her body…

no, it didn’t bear thinking about. Like drinking a fine aged whiskey and then having a dead fish as a chaser.

“And you, I assume, did not feel like consenting to this marriage?”

“Obviously not.” Halla scowled.

“I am a bit surprised they put you in here with me,” admitted Zale. “If they’ve already stooped to kidnapping, I would expect them to spirit you away to a willing priest, have it done as quickly as possible, and then deal with the consequences later.”

“I told them I was pregnant with Sarkis’s child,” said Halla.

Zale stared at her. “How did you do that?”

“I didn’t! I mean, I’m not! We haven’t—well, we did— err — well, there was some—he and I—but he used his fingers, we didn’t—”

Halla was aware that she had turned bright red, and stopped talking. She put her hands over her face. Her fingers felt cold against her blazing hot cheeks.

“You couldn’t, though,” said Zale. “Even if you wanted to. Could you? He’s dead. Dead men don’t sire children, except in a few very specific cases.”

“They don’t walk around and talk, either, but he manages.”

Zale considered this. “Yes, but…” They frowned.

“That’s why we didn’t,” said Halla wearily. “I didn’t want to get pregnant. I don’t want children. Not his, not Alver’s, not anybody’s.”

Zale gave a very unpriestly snort. “ That’s easily avoided. Just sheathe the sword after he… ah… sheathes the sword. As it were.”

“What?”

She stared at the priest so intently that Zale, too, started to turn red.

“Look, we did the experiments, didn’t we?

You saw them, too. Just… um. Look, his…

uh… that is… his seed is like the rest of him, isn’t it?

If you sheathe the sword, it should just go back in the sword.

Like a severed tongue.” They coughed. “If you’re really worried, you could test it.

Have him… um… you know… in a jar… and then… ” They trailed off.

Zale and Halla looked at each other. Then they both carefully didn’t look at each other, since they were both beet red.

“So!” said Zale brightly. “How about this weather?”

“Rainy,” said Halla gratefully. “Very rainy.”

“And these ropes! So… uh… rope-like.”

“Yes. With the hemp. And the knots. Very much so.”

“Do you think you can untie it? Or that I can untie you?”

Halla put her wrists alongside Zale’s. “I think you have a little more slack. Aunt Malva was not happy with me when she tied mine.”

“Fair enough.” The priest began picking at Halla’s knots with their fingertips. “Dear me, yes. You know, after the last time, I started thinking that it would be wise to carry a knife in my boot.”

“And?”

“It turns out that is an excellent way to ruin your sock. I got the most fascinatingly shaped blister, too. Now I rather wish I’d dealt with the blister.”

“Men have died of blisters,” said Halla. “At least, so Sarkis tells me.”

“Good heavens. Where is Sarkis, anyway?”

“I wish I knew.”

Zale raised a thin eyebrow. Halla sighed and began recounting the story.

She found herself trying to make excuses for Sarkis as she told it. I’m sure he didn’t mean to lie … It was all a long time ago …

Zale paused in picking at the ropes and glanced up at her. “Did he say any of that?”

She sighed. “No. He said that was a coward’s way out. That he knew what I believed and never corrected me.”

“That sounds more like him.” Zale bent their head over her wrists again.

“He should have told me.”

“Yes.”

“Now he’s gone, though. Alver said that he’d gone off with Bartholomew and Nolan and left me here.”