The Will of the Empress Page 17

  Gudruny looked down. “Ten years gone I was considered quite the beauty,” she said, her voice soft. “All the lads were courting me, whether they had prospects or no, and even though I had no fortune of my own. And I was vain, I admit. I teased and I flirted. Then Halmar began to call.” She swallowed hard and added, “Halmar Iarun. He was in his twenties, and I in my teens. He is the miller, like his father, and he’s done well as miller. He said he’d had his fun, and it was time for him to be setting up his nursery, and he’d decided I would do.” Gudruny sighed. “I would do,” she repeated. “As if he had a field of choices, and I met most of his requirements. Oh, I was angered. I sent him off with a host of insults, and went back to my flirtations.”

  Tears trickled down her cheeks. “One day my mother sent me out to gather mushrooms for supper. I went to the woods three miles from here, where I knew there were edulis mushrooms—my favorites. I was gathering them when Halmar came for me. He ran me down on horseback, caught me, and took me to a shepherd’s hut up in the hills. There he kept me, according to the custom.” Gudruny’s lips trembled. Sandry found a handkerchief in the pocket of the robe and passed it over.

  “He did not strike me, not then,” Gudruny whispered. “He said he wanted me to love him. He said I would love him and agree to marry him, or I would never see my parents again. He tied me up while he was gone, and he came back to me each night, to feed me and to tell me how much I was missed, until…until I signed the marriage contract. A priest took our marriage vows, or rather, Halmar’s vows, since they didn’t need mine. I am his wife now, and the mother of our two children.”

  Sandry listened to this astonishing tale in silence, fury rising up from her belly until so much of it was collected in her throat that she could hardly breathe. “You married a man who would do that to you?” she demanded after Gudruny had been silent for at least a moment. “You live in the house of a man who would treat you that way?” She jumped to her feet to cry, “Where is your pride? How could you bear him children? How could you share his bed?”

  Gudruny looked at her as if Sandry had just started to speak Old Kurchali. “I had no choice,” she whispered, her lips trembling. “He would have kept me there forever. Other men do worse to make women sign the marriage contract. And once it is signed, the wife has no rights. Most marriages are not made with a contract for that reason. But in west Namorn…” She shrugged, her bony shoulders dimpling the cloth of her gowns.

  Sandry stared at Gudruny, her hands clenched on the back of the chair. “But you can run away,” she pointed out.

  “And with a contract he can ask anyone to give me back,” snapped Gudruny. “The only way a woman can be freed of the contract would be if she petitioned her liege lord to set it aside.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” Sandry wanted to know. “Cousin Ambros is a fair man. How could you not go to him?”

  “Because he is not the liege lord here,” whispered Gudruny. “Your mother rode by me, twice, when I tried to ask her years ago. Now I come to you. Please, Clehame. I will do anything you ask, if you will but free me of him.”

  Sandry realized she was trying to shrink away from Gudruny. Surely she had not just said that about her mother. Sandry had known for years that her mother was a pleasureseeker, a pretty woman who cared only about her husband, her daughter, and having fun. She had never considered that those things might make her mother a very bad noblewoman. “What about your own family?” Sandry wanted to know. “Surely they protested. Didn’t they search for you while he had you captive?”

  “My family was just my parents,” replied Gudruny. “My sisters had married away from Landreg, and I had no brothers. People in the village searched for me, but…there are signs a man leaves, to show he has taken a woman for a horse’s rump wedding. That’s what we country folk call it. Mostly it is a harmless way to get past an overbearing family, or to avoid waiting to wed, or to add spice to a runaway marriage. He told them that I’d decided he must court me, and they believed him. I had made enough mothers angry, toying with their sons. They were glad to think I would marry this way.” She thrust a hank of hair back with a trembling hand and looked curiously at Sandry. “You truly did not know of this custom? To kidnap a woman, or pretend to, and hold her in a secret place until she escapes, or is rescued, or signs the contract and is wed?”

  “I’ve never encountered anything like it before,” Sandry replied grimly. “Gudruny, if you are lying to me…”

  Gudruny slid to her knees. “The custom comes to us from old Haidheltac.” She named the seed country from which the Namornese empire had sprung. “You might even inquire of the empress, if you dared. It was done to her twice, but she escaped both times before she could be forced to sign the contract. The punishment visited on her captors, once she was free, made all men think twice about trying such things with her.”

  “But wouldn’t she react the same if it happened to other women?” demanded Sandry, feeling as if the safe and level earth were swinging wildly under her feet.

  Gudruny wiped her eyes again as tears spilled down her cheeks once more. “She said, when a noblewoman came to her, that any woman foolish enough to be caught was a caged bird by nature, and must content herself with a keeper.”

  Sandry shivered. That sounds like Berenene, she thought unhappily. It would be like her, to despise other women because they didn’t manage to escape like she did. “Well, there’s nothing we can do right now with the gates closed for the night,” she told Gudruny. “In the morning I will set this right for you, Gudruny.” She bit her lip, to stop it from trembling with shame. When she felt she could speak without her voice betraying her, she said very quietly, “I beg your forgiveness for…my family. For our not doing our duty by you. You deserved better.” She cleared her throat, quickly wiped her cheeks, then said more briskly, “There’s a trundle bed under mine. You can stretch out there, at least.”

  Gudruny pulled out the trundle as Sandry banked the fire again. “What of your children?” Sandry asked once she had climbed back into bed. “What happens to them?”

  Gudruny smiled wanly as she sat on the trundle. “They will remain with me,” she said, turning to blow out the candles. “The children belong to the mother, as they do everywhere.” She took off her shoes by the glow from Sandry’s crystal, and crawled under the blankets of the trundle bed, which had been made up for the maid Sandry didn’t have. “The father may pay—must pay—for their keeping, but the children are the mother’s. That is something the empress approves. I will get to keep my children, since she has decreed that the only bloodlines the law need concern itself with are the mother’s.”

  “Of course,” murmured Sandry, her eyes sliding closed. “So the fathers of her own daughters cannot claim the throne in their name. I’ll have to hear testimony,” she murmured. “Hear what those who know you have to say. After so much has been done wrong here, I must be sure to do right.”

  If Gudruny answered, Sandry did not hear. She was fast asleep.

  9

  The 1st day of Rose Moon, 1043 K. F.

  Clehamat Landreg to

  Pofkim Village, Namorn

  Daja woke to shouting. A glance at the bolted shutters showed bits of pale morning light creeping through the cracks in the wood. She went to her chamber door and opened it.

  “—rot you, I know she slithered in somehow!” came a muffled roar from the ground floor below. “She was gone all night! Gudruny, I know you’re here! You’d best pray, because when I—take your hands off me, oaf!”

  Frowning, Daja pulled a robe over her nightshirt and went out to the gallery around the main hall to see what was going on. Footmen struggled with a wiry commoner whose face was full of rage. It was the commoner who yelled for someone named Gudruny.

  Across the gallery the courtiers ventured from their rooms, looking as if they could use a few more hours in bed. Briar emerged from his chamber, saying back over his shoulder, “Stay here, Zhegorz. Some kaq has his underclothes in a twist.”
He came to stand beside Daja, taking in the scene below.

  A third door on their side of the gallery slammed open with a crack that drew everyone’s attention. Tris surged to the gallery rail, robe and nightgown flying in a wind that rattled all of her braids, released from their coil for the night. Seeing her red, sharp-nosed face, framed by moving lightning bolts, the people downstairs went still. Tris gripped Chime with both hands as the glass dragon screeched with distress, shimmering with lightning of her own.

  “Quiet,” Tris ordered Chime. To Daja’s surprise, Chime obeyed. To the people downstairs, Tris said, “This is not what I expected in a nobleman’s house. Who are you, and how dare you wake us?”

  Now Ambros and Ealaga emerged from their rooms. From the look of them they had started to dress before the fuss broke out.

  “Do you stand between a man and his lawful wife, it is you who are in the wrong, Viymese or no!” shouted the troublemaker. “My wife sneaked in here last night, telling all manner of lies, I don’t doubt, and I will have her back!”

  “A missing wife does not grant you an excuse to disrupt others’ households in this coarse manner, Halmar Iarun,” Ambros said coldly, leaning on the gallery rail. “Where is your respect for the clehame? She is here at last, and this is the welcome you give her?”

  Sandry marched from her room, towing a rumpled woman with coarse, brownish-blond hair. “If this is Halmar Iarun, then I am glad he is here,” she announced flatly. “You, down there—you are the man who kidnapped this woman and forced her to sign a marriage contract ten years ago?”

  “Uh-oh,” muttered Briar. “She’s all on Her Nobleness already.”

  “It’s too early,” grumbled Daja. Briar was right. All three of them had seen that stubborn jut of Sandry’s chin and the blaze of her eyes before. In this mood, Sandry was capable of facing armies armed only with her noble blood.

  “I am her wedded husband under law,” barked Halmar. “Halmar Iarun, miller.”

  “Down, cur!” barked one of the footmen, kicking Halmar’s legs from under him. The man thudded to his knees. “The clehame can have you beaten for your lack of due respect!”

  Halmar bowed his head.

  “Are you finished?” Sandry demanded, her eyes on the footman.

  He looked at her, swallowed hard, and went down on one knee to her, all without releasing his grip on Halmar’s arm. His companion, still holding the miller’s other arm, slowly went to one knee as well. Every other servant in the lower hall did the same.

  Briar looked at Daja and rolled his eyes.

  “Poppycock,” muttered Tris.

  Sandry glanced at them, frowned, then looked down at Halmar again. “I have news for you as your liege lord, Halmar Iarun. Your wife Gudruny has asked me for her freedom, as is her right under law?” Sandry glanced at Ambros, who nodded. “Well,” continued Sandry, “I decree that she is now free of you. Your marriage is at an end. You will pay for the care of your children by her. That is my right under the law. And shame to you, for using such a disgusting trick to marry her!”

  “She was lucky to get me!” Halmar cried, trying to drag free of the men who gripped his arms. “Her family didn’t have a hole-less garment to their names, did she tell you that? Holding up her nose at the likes of me when everyone knew she hadn’t a copper of dowry. I did her a favor to marry her. I’ll provide for my children—I’m no naliz, to let my own blood go hungry! But she’ll see not an argib from me in back wages, or whatever you womenfolk cook up between you—”

  “Another word,” said Ambros, his voice pure ice, “and I will have you flogged at the village stocks, for disrespect to nobles, one stripe for each of us.” Halmar looked up at the faces that stared down at him from the gallery.

  As far as he knows, we’re all noble, and he’ll be sleeping on his belly for a month if he doesn’t bite his tongue, thought Daja coolly. Ambros should know the only way to douse a fire like that is drown it in a tempering bath. Ice water would silence him fastest. A plunge in the Syth, maybe.

  “Get him out of my sight,” ordered Sandry.

  The footmen rose, hauling the man with them. They bowed deep, forcing Halmar to bow with them, then half-marched, half-dragged him from view.

  Ambros looked across the stairwell at Sandry. “You should still have Halmar flogged for disrespect,” he said quietly, his voice carrying perfectly to everyone in the gallery and the main hall below. “We don’t encourage the lower classes to speak so to the nobility here.”

  Sandry flapped a hand as if she brushed away a fly. “Either I’m so important that the squeaks of a beetle like him aren’t worth my attention, or I’m not important, which means I can’t hire his former wife as my maid and her children as my pages. Which is it, do you suppose, Cousin?”

  “I thought you didn’t need a maid,” Tris reminded Sandry, her voice flat. Her lightnings were just beginning to fade.

  Gudruny looked at Sandry. “You don’t? Lady, I do not wish to be a burden—I can get sewing work in the city. I never meant to be a charge on you—”

  “Hush,” Sandry told her gently. She glared at Tris and said, “It’s been made clear to me that it’s very strange for me not to have a maid. Gudruny will add to my consequence. All right? Does that suit you?”

  “Don’t bite my head off,” retorted Tris as Chime climbed up to her shoulder. “Did they deliver your consequence in the middle of the night? I didn’t hear it arrive.”

  “They smuggled it in with the morning bread,” commented Briar. “They didn’t want us getting in the way of her consequence.”

  Sandry propped her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Enough.”

  “Yes, Clehame,” said Briar. He bowed and returned to his room.

  “Yes, Clehame,” added Tris. She bobbed a curtsy and retreated to her own chamber with Chime.

  Sandry looked at Daja, clearly upset, and opened her mouth, but Daja shook her head. Let them calm down. They always listen better after breakfast, she thought, though she didn’t use their magical tie. She knew that Sandry would understand without that.

  “Well, I know what Her Imperial Majesty would say,” volunteered Jak. Unlike the others, he looked fresh and ready for the day as he leaned on the gallery rail, grinning with amusement. “She’d say a clehame’s word is law, whether she means consequence or the marriage of one of her servants. Particularly when the clehame’s of imperial blood. You’re a spitfire in the morning, aren’t you, Lady Sandry? The poor sod who marries you may not be ready for so much hot pepper in his bed.”

  Sandry stuck her tongue out at him.

  She’s forgotten that newly arrived consequence already, observed Daja.

  Gudruny sank to the floor, weeping. “Enough,” Sandry told her kindly. “It seems you weren’t lying, which is really just as well, if you’re to work for me.” She looked over at Ambros. “Would you send a few men-at-arms with Ravvi Gudruny, to help her pack and to bring her children here?”

  Ealaga looked at her husband. “You said things would be different with the clehame at home,” she remarked with a twinkle in her eye. “I see now you weren’t joking. Perhaps you should order that the catapults be inspected, in case she wants to practice with those later.” She turned and vanished into her room.

  Rizu laughed from her position across the stairwell. “Where’s the fun in that?” she asked Daja. “Get dressed. You and Caidy can go riding with me.”

  As Daja nodded her agreement, Jak offered, “I’ll ride.”

  “Not me,” grumbled Fin. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Ambros continued to watch Sandry. “I was not her overlord,” he said cautiously. “I could stop him from beating her, but that was all I could do.”

  “Please don’t rub my nose in it, Cousin,” Sandry replied gloomily, urging Gudruny to her feet. “I’m already feeling guilty.” Of the woman at her side, she asked, “You petitioned my mother twice?” She led Gudruny back into her rooms.

  Daja sighed. “I’d hoped to sleep
late,” she said to no one in particular. “Give me an hour?” Daja asked Rizu. The young woman nodded and returned to her chambers, while Daja went back to get dressed. Once clothed, she checked on Sandry. Her friend stood in her personal sitting room, staring bleakly through an open window. Sounds of rummaging came from the bedroom. It seemed as if Sandry’s new maid had gone straight to work. “Was it all that dire?” asked Daja, curious. “It had to be solved first thing in the morning?”

  Sandry grimaced. “You mean I should have done it with more ceremony? Probably. But Halmar rushed in first thing, remember? I think Cousin Ambros would have stopped me if I were in the wrong. You didn’t see her, Daja. She hid in here to talk to me.” She gave a tiny smile. “Well, then she fell asleep and woke me in the middle of the night. He kidnapped her, and he forced her to sign a marriage contract. She could only be free of it if my mother—or I—decreed it.” She returned to her watch over the view outside her window. “Daja, my mother didn’t only refuse to hear her. She, she ignored Gudruny. She ignored the whole thing and left Gudruny with a man who forced her. I didn’t think my mother was like that.”

  “Like what?” asked Daja. “Like a noble?”

  “Uncaring,” whispered Sandry. “Oh, I know she was flighty. So was Papa. They were like children, in a way. They used their money to travel and have fun all the time, never asking where it came from or what they owed to the people who provided it. They were wrong in that, very wrong. If I’ve learned nothing else these last three years, I’ve learned that much.” She turned and went to sit in the chair next to Daja’s. “And yet—I don’t want to be responsible here. I don’t want to stay here. My home is with Uncle, and the three of you. But won’t I be selfish if I insist on going away again? Won’t I be turning my back on these people?” She bowed her head and covered her face with her hands.