He shot a look toward the loom, which currently displayed a large sheet of simple beige wool, and Raye swallowed as she attempted a shrug. “It takes too long,” she replied, though it sounded choked — and suddenly, foolishly, there was again the overpowering urge to weep. “And it’s too expensive, and my buyers mostly — well. I just couldn’t turn enough profit anymore.”
She couldn’t make herself meet Gaelfr’s eyes —worse than you, worse than you— and she found she wasn’t hungry anymore, either. She’d failed at weaving, along with all the rest of it. She’d abandoned her family’s trade, her mother’s great gift, so she could make plain beige cloth for the villagers who hated her. She’d even been forced to sell the last few small tapestries she’d meant to keep for herself, including a precious one from her mother. But that still hadn’t been enough. Svein had still gone hungry, because of her.
“Here, love,” she said, without thinking, as she slid her half-empty plate toward Svein across the table. “I’m already full, so you ought to have the rest.”
Svein absently nodded — he was well used to this routine by now — and Raye twitched as Gaelfr’s hand shot across the table, plucked up the plate, and set it back before her again. “No, woman,” he said, his voice hard. “You must eat, also.”
The rebellion burned through Raye’s stomach, and she glared back at Gaelfr, opened her mouth to protest. Ready to say something she’d surely regret, but then —
His hand. On her bare forearm. Warm. Heavy. Touching her.Touchingher.
Raye froze, staring down at Gaelfr’s hand, gripping like that around her too-thin arm. His thick black claws were drawn in, his skin warm and callused against hers, his big fingers slightly spasming. Sending a sudden jolting heat through her arm, her chest, even low into her belly, because it had been so damned long since she’d been touched by anyone but Svein. And for a hitched, hurtling breath, she needed Gaelfr to keep doing it, maybe to dig his claws in just a little, let her feel how strong he was, how capable, and…
Too late, she dragged her gaze away, and up to Gaelfr’s face — where she found him looking straight back at her, with an unreadable glint in his eyes. “Youwilleat what I hunted for you,” he said, steady and low, every word vibrating through Raye’s belly. “I swore before the goddess to help you, in the stead of myástvinur.”
Right. The heat in Raye’s torso flattened into something bitter and cold, and she wrenched her arm out of Gaelfr’s grip, far too late. Of course it was all about his precious vow to his goddess, and to his preciousástvinur. To Kalfr. Because Gaelfr hated her, and she hated him, and she was clearly just overtired and overwhelmed from this endless exhausting day.Worse than you…
Raye rubbed at her aching eyes, and even as she silently cursed herself, she picked up her fork, and started eating again. Just like Gaelfr had wanted, like he’d ordered, because what the hell else was she going to do? Waste the food? Shout at him over supper? Stalk out into the dark and leave Svein in here with him, alone? She needed to be civil, to do her best for Svein…
She was deeply grateful when Svein began chattering again, telling Gaelfr about the other kinds of food they ate, and the garden, and how they bathed and hauled water from the nearby creek. All of which Gaelfr listened to with surprising attentiveness, asking various questions, while finishing everybite of his supper. He’d taken his time with the sweetcakes, Raye couldn’t help noticing, as if savouring every morsel, and once he’d finished it all, he even shot a longing glance toward Raye’s empty pan by the fire.
“Are you still hungry?” Raye asked, with icy politeness. “I could make you more.”
Gaelfr grimaced as he glanced toward her, and shook his head. “No need,” he said flatly. “We shall eat the rest for breakfast, and then I shall hunt us more tomorrow.”
Breakfast.Tomorrow. Right. Because he was staying here — until Kalfr returned, he’d said. And Raye was already casting a worried glance toward her small bed against the wall, and down at the cottage’s empty floor space. Which, between the loom, the spinning wheel, and the table, was scarcely large enough for even a human to lie down on, and perhaps Gaelfr could sleep outside? Surely he could?
“Do you want to see my tunnel, Papa Gaelfr?” Svein asked now. “Where I hide from the men?”
Gaelfr blinked, once, but then he nodded, and followed Svein to his small room in the corner. Where again, he listened patiently as Svein excitedly showed off his tunnel, his face flushed with pride. As if the tunnel was something noteworthy, something important and worthwhile, rather than a tiny hole that trapped him cramped and alone in the dark.
Raye’s head had begun distantly pounding, and she sat at the table for far too long, watching dully through the open door as Gaelfr praised the tunnel, and Svein’s cleverness in concealing himself inside it. And when Svein showed Gaelfr how he hid in it, folding his too-big body tightly inside and drawing down the trapdoor over him, Raye didn’t miss Gaelfr’s alarmed look back toward her, the way his face looked paler than before. Judging her again, surely, for locking her beautiful son into a tiny dark hovel under the floor.
Raye couldn’t watch as Gaelfr urged Svein out of the floor again, and shut it with a too-loudthunk. And then, speaking faster than before, Gaelfr asked Svein about his favourite floppy toy — which he’d taken down into the hole with him, as always.
“Oh, he’s Mr. Snuggles, of Clan Terror!” Svein said brightly, every word scraping through Raye’s aching head. “Mama made him for me, and he even has pointed ears and sharp teeth and claws like me, see? And since he’s from Clan Terror, he knows how to scare all the bad men away from me.”
There was a long stretch of silence from Gaelfr, followed by a sound that might have been a cough. “I am most glad to hear this, my son,” he finally said, so quiet Raye almost couldn’t hear it. “Mr. Snuggles has been well caring for you, I ken. Along with” — Raye glanced up just in time to meet Gaelfr’s shadowed eyes through the open doorway — “your mother, also.”
Svein nodded, giving a toothy smile toward Raye, and she had to look away, while something too close to a sob again bubbled in her throat. No. No, she’d failed her son, and Gaelfr had been silently shouting it toward her, since the first instant he’d arrived here.Worse than you. Worse than you…
“Now, it must be near time for you to sleep, ach, my son?” Gaelfr asked. “How do you ready yourself for this? Do you wash? Or mayhap braid your hair?”
His hand brushed at Svein’s messy head — yet more silent judgement, damn him — and Raye could barely hear Svein’s response over the pounding in her ears. But whatever it was, Gaelfr waved Svein onto the small bed, and then settled down behind him, and began combing through his hair with his claws.
“Your father Kalfr bore hair just thus, also,” he told Svein. “As do many orcs of our Bautul clan. It is most comely, but it oft takes careful tending, ach?”
Svein nodded, and cast a guilty look through the open door toward Raye. “Mama always helps,” he said, “but it takes a long time, and it doesn’t stay.”
Raye braced herself for yet more criticism from Gaelfr, but he only nodded toward Svein, and kept combing. “Claws are a great help in this,” he replied. “In our clan, fathers oft tend their sons’ hair, until they are grown enough to either tend it themselves, or find a mate or brother to do it.”
It felt like a concession, maybe, followed by Raye’s depressing realization that Kalfr had never told her any of this either, at least not in person. Gods, she couldn’t recall even seeing him do his own hair, and wait, did that meanGaelfrhad been doing Kalfr’s hair, all that time?Worse than you…
It was another bitter twist in Raye’s gut, especially once Gaelfr somehow managed to put Svein’s hair into a perfect little braid, and he even produced a thick green ribbon, and tied it onto the end. And when Svein inspected the end of his braid, and sniffed at the ribbon, he straightened, and twisted to flash Gaelfr a stunning smile. “This is Papa Kalfr’s!” he exclaimed. “It smells like him!”
Gaelfr solemnly nodded, as something like pain flashed across his eyes — suggesting that yes, he had been doing Kalfr’s hair all that time. And also — Raye’s head tilted — that he’d been carrying around that ribbon ever since, too. He’d been across the southern sea, he’d told her, for all these years… and yet, he’d still kept this with him? He’d missed Kalfr that much?
But yes, that horrible memory was already swirling behind Raye’s eyes — Gaelfr touching Kalfr in her garden, tasting him, biting him. Showing too clearly his affection toward Kalfr, his attraction, his ownership.You are mine, Kalfr of Clan Bautul. You, and your woman, and your sons.
