Ice Maiden: The Chronicles of Alcinia, #3

Chapter 1

Ihad ten years and six the day I met my lord. It was my natal day, in fact, but in a family of eleven children—seven of them girls—that hardly signified. It was always someone’s day of birth. There were still cows to milk and horses to hay. I was between the two chores when I heard horns, their jarring note clear in the crisp morning air, too close for my liking.

Oh, no! I turned quickly to run back to the hen house, where I had just let our flock into their pen. It was only a wattle and daub fence, not nearly enough to stop a hungry hound. And sure enough, before I could reach it, a large gray lurcher loped out of the woods. He had the long legs and body of a hound and went up and over the fence amongst the chickens almost before I could draw breath.

HIYA! I screeched. Ripping off my cloak to beat him with it, I hurtled over the fence without the dog’s agility, but gracefulness was the least of my concerns if he ate our precious hens. Already there was a mad scramble in the run, a cacophony of chickens squawking and fleeing for their lives with the lurcher in hot pursuit, mouth open, tongue lolling. It was a veritable feast for him, but I would not let him have it without a fight. I would have sold my soul for a pitchfork or even a broom, praying for Father or the boys to hear the commotion. It was a losing proposition, though—one girl against a hundred-weight dog with chickens flying into my face in a feathered bombardment.

LEAVE IT! The sudden bellow behind me was too loud to miss even over the uproar, and I chucked a flapping red hen into the air so I could see who was there. I didn’t know him, but he carried the long whip huntsmen used to turn their hounds and knew how to use it.

CRACK!

LEAVE IT! The dark whip struck like a coiled serpent, catching the lurcher in one flank. He didn’t quite leave it—a prize hen was already in his jaws and he didn’t drop her—but no doubt he’d had previous experience with that whip. Scrambling over the side of the pen, he vanished into the woods, the echoes of our dispersing hens the only reminder of his raid. The better flyers among them were roosting tipsily in the trees, while the faint-hearted had run back into their house. In any case, the pen was now empty but for their droppings and a bit of loose corn, neither thing conducive to good footing.

I was off balance from spinning around, hair had flown into my eyes, and it took a moment to quell everything enough to see that a huntsman had leapt into the pen with me. He was large, dark and obviously furious—I hoped with the hound, because when nobility hunted across the land of small farmers, we had no recourse against them.

Your pardon, he said, to my utter surprise. Here, are you hurt? I wasn’t hurt, just topsy-turvy from fighting off his beast, and he grabbed my arm to keep me from tumbling into the dirt. I shook my head.

He likes chicken too much, I’m afraid. He smiled—a flash of very white teeth against a very tanned face. He looked like a foreigner—black hair, black eyes, a little older than I. Richly dressed. My mother made many of my gowns from sacks or old curtains, and I noticed things like that.

I think…I think…he just got the one, I stuttered.

Hopefully. There was a fall of footsteps, finally. It was Father and two of my little brothers, pattering behind him. They ran past a big bay horse standing with his reins on the ground, presumably trained since he only wheeled in place to present his hindquarters to them. He was a well-bred animal worth a fortune, a far cry from the cob we had to pull the plow and drive to market. And if he was lame, neither the plow nor the family went anywhere.

Hola. My father eyed the stranger without enthusiasm, no matter his good manners. Yer dog’s got my hen. Good layer she was, too.

Yes, I saw. The young man didn’t speak like a Western freeman, which a huntsman ordinarily would have been. I might not have been cultured, but knew when I was listening to someone who was. I’m sorry, he’s a real brute. Nearly had your girl on the ground here. He smiled at my father’s stony glare. She’s all right, though—I think?

Aware that this stranger was looking me up and down, I just nodded dumbly. I knew what he saw. I had my mother’s good looks before she was worn out by work and birthing children—her fine bones, gilt hair and icy blue eyes below brows that were, incongruously, pitch black like my father’s. I wore a decent gown that day, since it was turning cold, but like my brothers I wore no boots, to save them for when it would be colder yet and I would have to stuff them with straw. Hay still hung from my cloak.

Good. Well…then… I saw him make an equally quick assessment of his surroundings. Only my father shod. A reeking midden heap. Ramshackle buildings. Laundry for innumerable people flapping in the breeze, everything from trousers to nappies. Thirteen mouths were a lot to feed, even when you raised your own food. Every bite they took was one not sold.

Confident now of his course, the huntsman grappled under his heavy tunic, coming up with a purse obviously secured for the hunt. Here’s recompense for your hen. Startled, I watched him count out what was easily a year’s income for my father. And your daughter.

Whut? Though he had little use for seven daughters and had often said so, my father was taken aback. For myself, I was shocked out of my wits. Yes, I knew I was good looking. Several young farmers had been hanging about, hoping to lift my skirts, but there were none I had cared to let under them. Apparently this one had the same interest, and he was far more dangerous.

Your daughter, the stranger repeated. I would have sworn my hair stood on end. She’s a beauty. It would be a sin to leave her here. Like leaving a rose in a manure pile. It was not precisely a compliment and as he coiled his whip I noticed he wore a signet ring, of the kind only nobility would wear. He was no ordinary huntsman. And Father knew it, too.

But she’s my daughter! he protested dangerously. I expected the stranger to practice his whip next upon my family, but he did not, though he took my arm in a proprietary way.

And she’s got no shoes, probably no food, and you’ll freeze all the winter long. I can do far better by her. Let her come with me.

It wasn’t really a request and I knew how my father’s mind worked. He would lose me anyway, so he might as well have the money.

She’s much too fine for here. The man stepped forward, pressing gold coin into my father’s hands—encountering no resistance, I noted. Boy, he addressed my brother Dirc. Bring my horse.

Stunned into silence, I watched Dirc pick up the horse’s reins and bring him over beside the fence. He gave me a look of apology because there was no effective protest against a nobleman, which this appeared to be. Let my father complain and he’d end up hauled to a magistrate who’d find him guilty of damaging hounds, thence to prison for a fine he couldn’t pay and his whole family out on the road.

The young man simply put his hands around my waist and lifted me, like a parcel, over the fence, then stepped over it. I was silent, even though I was screaming inside. Noblemen could do exactly as they pleased with us; they’d been doing it for years.

Now… he said, calm as a mug of milk. You put your left foot here. He bent and grasped my ankle, his gloves velvet soft against my bare skin, for of course I wore no hose. Lifting my foot into the stirrup with one hand, he hoisted me helpfully by the back of my gown into the saddle. It was a long way up and I had to claw my way up the horse’s neck, but he didn’t move. His rider simply removed my foot from the stirrup, pushed my leg up over the saddle flap, put his foot where mine had been and swung up behind me. It was so neatly done I barely had time to wonder at it before he had taken the reins in one hand while the other arm encircled my waist, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough.

Her cloak, if you please?

Silently, Dirc handed it up and my presumptive benefactor who thought I was too good for farm living tucked it around me.

Whur’s she goin’? my father demanded.

The man clucked to his horse so that it began to move out. To the Land of Fire and Ice.

Chapter 2

Icouldn’t—or perhaps wouldn’t—speak until the horse had reached the poor track that served as a road. He had threaded his way at his rider’s direction as if he knew those woods, and the apparently now well-fed lurcher joined us, falling in behind the horse. I was still in a daze, unable to believe what had begun with simple morning chores had ended in abduction. Such instances were not unknown. I’d simply had the bad luck to run into a nobleman with probable rape on his mind.

Don’t worry, girl. He spoke so close, I could feel his warm breath in my hair. I’m not going to hurt you.

But of course that was what they all said. I choked back a sob. My mother would be heartbroken, but the nobles never cared for things like that—ever.

Fire and ice? I said in lieu of protest. What’s that?

Not what, where, he corrected. ’Tis an island. Or at least we think so, since no one has found a land connection. It’s where I live.

I was silent, and he went on. ’Tis well west of here. Near Armatica. Have you heard of Armatica?

I had, some of our wares had come from there—dishes, mostly. Raiders had come from there, too, for many years, until the Queen sent an army to stop them. People said she had done well, but after that I heard no more of her. I supposed she was dead because we had a young King now. And now we only got dishes, clay glazed and fired with red ochre, very popular with those unable to afford better. Just the thought made me sob involuntarily for my mother, who had no doubt been preparing breakfast on just such plates and would be more shattered than any dropped dish.

Don’t cry, the man said, though he said it gently. I mean you no harm and you’ll have a far better life where I’m taking you.

Better than what? I demanded, finally getting my nerve up. He had wrenched me from my home and family, poor though they might be. He had no right, although it was done to peasant girls all the time. Yes, he had paid; they always paid. It was to prevent trouble with the magistrate. I was fine where I was.

No. You only thought you were. Trust me.

Trust him? Was he a lunatic?

First to get you somewhere warm, he continued.