Gaelfr’s smile back toward her was surprisingly fond, and he patted her cheek before turning toward Svein again. And as Raye strode back to thebyrgi, she desperately fought to force the whispering doubt and darkness down into a corner of her thoughts. It didn’t matter that she and Kalfr hadn’t talked about this, until now. It didn’t matter that they’d all just kept going, hiding it from each other, keeping the truth from each other…
She could do this. She wouldn’t fail. She would keep her vow, no matter the cost. And if she had another son, Gaelfr would stay. He would keep Svein safe.
So once she returned to thebyrgi, which was already filling with the succulent scent of Grum’s simmering stew, she returned to the loft, and to her new tapestry. She’d already finished almost a finger’s-width, its colours rich and pleasing, a promise of what was to come. And as she wove in one colour after another, glancing at her drawing, guiding her needle back and forth, she should have settled into the rhythm and the purpose of it, the peace and the hope.
But instead, her thoughts kept winding back to Kalfr. Kalfr bending her over in the tunnel. Kalfr saying,turn around. Kalfragain not even looking at her face, as she offered up not only her body to him, but her son, her future, her freedom. Giving him everything, all that she had, for her penance, her punishment.
And then, he’d left. He’d left her for Gaelfr to deal with. Which was perhaps becoming a theme here, wasn’t it? He’d left her that first time on the altar, and then on the altar at the mountain, too. And most depressing of all, he might still be planning to meet his death in ten days. To leave her behind with Gaelfr to not only keep raising Svein, but to bear an entire pregnancy, a dangerous birth, the many months of constant nursing and sleepless nights and unrelenting terror for her precious child’slife.
Raye hissed as her blunt needle stabbed painfully against her finger, and she yanked the finger away, and sucked it into her mouth. Gods damn it. She needed to pull herself together, and do this. She’d sworn to do this. She had to do this…
So she forced herself to keep going, keep weaving, even though her finger kept throbbing, and she kept making stupid mistakes, and glancing too often toward thebyrgi’s main room below. The band’s orcs had begun to filter in for supper, cheerfully chattering amongst themselves, but Kalfr still hadn’t appeared. He hadn’t appeared all this time, not even to check on her, or ask whether she might want to go see Rurik again, and it didn’t matter, it didn’t…
When Gaelfr and Svein came in, both sweaty and smiling, Gaelfr darted a narrow look up toward Raye in the loft, and purposefully waved her down to join them. Which she did, her feet feeling unusually heavy on the stairs, and there was a paltry, perverse comfort in the way Gaelfr looked her up and down, and then plucked up her hand, frowning mightily at her swollen, throbbing finger.
“How have you becomewounded?” he demanded, sounding thoroughly scandalized. And next he proceeded to draw hertoward the table, and down onto his lap, so he could begin carefully licking at her finger, while stroking firmly at her back.
It should have felt ridiculous, but Svein gave them a cautious but approving smile as he settled onto the bench beside them. And it was enough that Raye could sink heavier against Gaelfr’s solid strength, and focus on the feeling of his warm, slippery tongue, stroking against her skin.
She only slightly twitched when Kalfr finally came in with William and Soren and a few others, all of them still bearing distinctive streaks of mud. “We finished the well!” William called out, earning much shouting and acclaim in return, but Kalfr’s eyes only flicked toward Raye and Gaelfr, holding for a too-long moment, while his swallow bobbed in his throat.
There was no room left on their side of the table, so he sank down opposite them, and cast them a careful smile. “Greetings, my kin,” he said, with almost painful formality. “I hope you all spent a good afternoon?”
His eyes held intently to Raye’s, as if he truly wanted to hear her answer — but she only managed a shrug, and soon Svein responded with his afternoon’s adventures, during which he’d apparently gotten a chance to give Mr. Stinkles a treat. And though Kalfr nodded attentively toward Svein, smiling at his chattering face, he kept casting glances toward Raye, and it vaguely occurred to her that he looked tired, too, his jaw taut in his cheek. And was it just due to his busy day’s work? Or was he perhaps still thinking about the report from Joarr, and the ten days? He wasn’t thinking about Raye, and about the son he might have just given her…
“You must eat, woman,” Gaelfr said firmly, nudging up his knee against where she was still sitting on his lap. And though she obediently began picking at the food, she couldn’t even taste it, and she kept foolishly darting looks at Kalfr across the table, while the incessant questions kept nattering behind hereyes. Had he thought about what they’d done in the tunnel at all, then? Did he regret it? Or worse, was he thinking of her body stretching and weakening for him as she grew his son? Of her writhing and screaming in childbirth, or even meeting her death in it? Offering him the ultimate penance, the ultimate punishment?
She desperately fought to shove that thought away, but it kept lingering, festering sick and miserable throughout the rest of the meal, enough that she could scarcely raise her eyes from her plate. Even Gaelfr’s hand still stroking her didn’t help, and she was deeply grateful when the meal finally finished, and she could do her best to ignore Kalfr, and focus on spending the rest of the evening with Svein, instead. Reading with him, playing a game with him, washing up, getting him ready for bed. And though Kalfr and Gaelfr both helped her put Svein to bed, following their now-familiar routine, Raye still could barely make herself look at them.
But once they closed Svein’s door behind them, Gaelfr grasped both Raye and Kalfr’s shoulders, and steered them toward the stairs. “Enough of this, you two,” he muttered. “When will you learn?”
Raye blinked, and her gaze caught on Kalfr, who looked even more tired than before, his mouth drawn tight. But he wasn’t arguing, even as Gaelfr herded them up through thebyrgi, and swiped up a fur before marching them outdoors, into the cool moonlit darkness.
“What are you doing?” Raye asked, her voice thin. “Where are you taking us?”
But maybe she already knew. Because Gaelfr was guiding them around the bluff, and through that familiar ring of greenery. Toward the flat, waiting altar, its stain dark and menacing in the moonlight.
“I am soothing your bond,” Gaelfr snapped, as he kept shoving them toward the altar. “And I am bringing you to do what you both ought to have done, this morn. What all Bautul are called to do, at times of need and change.”
Raye shot another look at Kalfr, but his tired eyes had risen to the moon, to its half-circle of silvery light above them. While Gaelfr hurled out the fur onto the altar, smoothing it flat with sharp strokes of his hand, before whirling back toward them.
“You will now bring yourselves before the goddess,” he ordered, with deadly finality. “You will bare yourselves. You will kneel. You will make her a good and worthy offering. And you willbegher” — his eyes flashed — “to grant us this son.”
48
Raye gaped at Gaelfr, while her heart kicked in her chest, and began thundering through her ears.
They would bare themselves. They would kneel. And they would beg for a son.
Kalfr was staring at Gaelfr too, his breath heaving out, and Gaelfr jerked an imperious wave toward the altar. “Did you not hear me?” he demanded. “You will bare yourselves, and make an offering together, and beg for this.”
Raye’s heartbeat kept screeching through her ears, because — they were talking about this? Begging for this? Out loud?
And gods, even the thought of it churned fresh and disbelieving in Raye’s gut, burning in her cheeks. They shouldn’t be doing this, let alone asking for this. Kalfr might still hate her, he wanted to wield his power over her, and punish her. And they were facing an attack, he might be dead in ten days, and intentionally bringing another child into this mess should be utterly unthinkable. Preposterous.Appalling.
Perhaps Kalfr thought just the same, glancing toward Raye with chagrin in his eyes, or guilt. As if he knew this was wrong, too. This was a monstrous thing for him to want from her, evenconsidering that vow she’d made. And now he would back down, or make excuses, or walk away…
Gaelfr let out a low, irritated groan, and reached and yanked Raye close, plucking at her belt. Undressing her, here, out in the open — and what did it say about Raye’s familiarity with this that she didn’t even try to cover herself, or glance around for observers. No, she was still only looking at Kalfr, watching him watch her, his eyes shifting as Gaelfr slid off her dress, and yanked off her chemise, too.
