“I’ve already bathed today,” Freya protested.
“A cleansing,” said Esja. “To purify you for the goddess.”
Freya made a conscious effort not to roll her eyes as Esja gestured for her to strip down. She removed her clothes and passed them into Esja’s outheld hand. Esja coughed, gesturing to Freya’s ankle. Sighing, Freya handed her the last knife hidden on her person.
“I will be wanting that back,” she said.
Esja pursed her lips. “You won’t need weapons here. Any violence committed in a temple will be retributed by the goddess.”
Freya held her tongue. She knew from experience this was untrue.
As she approached the tub, she tried to hold herself tall, but the cold and her dissipating strength made it difficult to keep her head high. After being bedridden for weeks, she would be weaker, she had to remind herself—and she’d been not just bedridden, but nearly murdered. It was perfectly fine not to be at her best.
In contradiction of Freya’s grumpy attitude, the bath was quite nice, less of a bath than a brushing. The priestesses fragranced the tub with a eucalyptus oil. The smell soothed her and her aching skin, made her feel more awake. One priestess brushed her hair while the other gently ran bristles over her back.
“The hands,” Freya heard one of them whisper. She quickly withdrew her hands under the water. The relaxing feeling left as quickly as it had come.
She was more on guard afterward. She chided herself for not being protective of her privacy in the first place. Vessels of the goddess as they were, Freya had seen how judgmental these priestesses could be.
When she rose from the tub, still covered in suds, they did not demand she go back in. One of them patted her with the towel, and the other helped her into an itchy woolen robe. It was blessedly unfeminine, formless and ugly.
Nowhere to hide knives, though, Freya noted. She would have to get an emergency weapon somewhere, and she imagined she was not allowed to leave, even though no one had explicitly told her so.
Esja informed Freya of a strict schedule of prayers, preparing meals, picking and drying herbs, polishing metal. All very dull, but she’d been made to do worse.
Esja seemed apologetic about the many responsibilities. “We have only delegated work to you that you should be able to do in your condition. I know you are just new and only staying for a while. But there is always more work than we have the time for.”
“How long is a while?” Freya asked, and Esja once more pursed her lips. Freya surmised she would be stuck here for months.
“You’ll join us for dinner and a meditation session tonight,” Esja said. “We’ll start you on your duties tomorrow.”
“Lovely,” Freya drawled.
“Do you have any restrictions with your diet?”
“No,” said Freya. She wondered where the food came from—where it had been purchased, caught, or gathered; who had prepared it; what the kitchens were like, as she had not been shown the inside. These were all things to be aware of at Vakker Castle.
For all she knew, the food here could be poisoned. But then, she didn’t have her queen to protect from poisoning.
The temple did not have a separate dining hall. They had a small, drafty room with a long table and benches on either side. A small hearth burned at the corner with a simple herring stew from which the orcs ladled portions. Communal, Freya noted with some relief. If the food was poisoned, they would all go down.
She mopped up the stew with a hearty slice of half-stale bread and ate it reluctantly. Her strength would be necessary to get out of here whenever they decided to leave her alone. There was no conversation at dinner, and Freya was grateful. Only the scraping of silverware and the slurping of stew filled the room.
When they were done, two of the priestesses came around and collected everyone’s bowls. Freya licked hers clean, not caring what they thought of her. She filed out of the room with the others, noting that amidst the elaborate designs of the robes, hers alone was gray and drab. Perhaps this was the kind of garb intended for novices.
But the different robe seemed another way to set her apart.
At the exit to the courtyard, Freya glimpsed an opening into the scullery, where the two orcs who had gathered the plates were scrubbing them clean. They were chatting. Freya recognized their conversation for what it was. The same kind of gossip that echoed through the castle kitchens.
Freya slid out of line, invisible as ever, and hid against the inside of the open door.
“No, I swear. In her personal bedchamber, not the infirmary,” the one on the left said, and Freya’s skin flushed hot with anger.
“Are you sure? It sounds made-up,” the one on the right said.
“I heard it from someone who was there. She said the queen never left her side, day or night. She was utterly sleepless and distraught.”
Stand up for your queen, Freya begged the second orc with all of her heart. In the silence that ensued, someone splashed water, and Freya almost thought her wish would come true.
