DEBTS (Vinlanders' Saga Book 3) (18 page)

The guard stiffened, and jerked free of Aren’s grasp with a sharp twist.

Annikke’s heart picked up speed. This wasn’t what Aren had said would happen. Too late, instinct urged her to flee. She took half a step away but the guard roughly jerked her back.

“Are you Fey-marked, too? These
prisoners
are dangerous and have a warrant sworn on them.”

A warrant?

The shock on Aren’s face told Annikke all she needed to know. He hadn’t lied to her, but that mattered little now. The Jarl had already made up his mind. Would he have them stripped of their Talents? Exiled? She should have let Benoia run instead of encouraging her to trust the Jarl’s justice.

“Sworn by who?” Aren demanded.

The guard answered with a disgusted sneer. “It’s none of my concern who brought the charges. I obey my captain’s orders and he obeys the Jarl. And
the Jarl
wants the prisoners detained until he sees fit to hear their case.”

A small spurt of hope diluted Annikke’s fear.
At least Lord Dahleven still intends to hear Benoia’s side.

“When was that order given?”

“Yesterday.”

Annikke searched Aren’s face, wondering why that mattered. “What does this mean?”

Aren ran a hand over his beard. “The Jarl sent me to bring you in to give your account of what happened. When I left, Lord Tholvar had brought a complaint but a warrant hadn’t been sworn on you. Matters have progressed in the sevenday I’ve been gone.”

“Maybe the men who escaped came here and brought new accusations,” Benoia said.

“Enough chatter,” the first guard said. “Come with us.”

The guards marched Annikke and Benoia down a stair and through smooth stone hallways lit by glowlights. Annikke’s heart sank. The Jarl must be powerful if even his prison enjoyed the luxury of Talent generated light. What hope had she of persuading him of Benoia’s innocence, and her vulnerability to Sveyn’s unwanted attention, if he’d never known any himself?

Annikke heard Aren following but the guard gripping her arm hustled her and Benoia along briskly and she couldn’t turn to see him. The passage turned several times, until they came to a room with a table and chairs. Two men sat there, playing bones.

“What have we here?” one asked.

“Annikke Torsonsdatter and Benoia Fornosdatter. Warranted, both of them. They’re to be kept separate.”

Separate!
Annikke turned to the guard who was still tightly clasping her upper arm. After all Benoia had been through, Annikke didn’t want her to be alone. “No! Please, put us together.”

One of the new guards laughed nastily. “Why? Are you two lovers like those Daughters of Freya? I could teach you better.”

Her escort pulled Annikke back from the leering guard and pushed her into the custody of his companion. Annikke clung to Benoia as the man who’d left marks on her arm turned to loom over the guard, but Aren was already in his face.

“Listen very closely,” Aren said in a voice as hard as the granite walls. “The Jarl does not tolerate abuse of prisoners, and Lord Fender takes great pleasure in disciplining those who do. Harm them at your peril.”

The guard lifted his nose. “You’re not my commander.”

Aren bared his teeth in a humorless grin. “No. I just play bones with him.”

The guard backed up a step, bumping into Annikke’s escort who stood just behind. “Fine. I was just making a joke. There’s no
harm
in that.” He shot a narrow-eyed glance at her and Benoia as if he blamed them for the set-down he’d just received. A chill shivered down Annikke’s spine. She didn’t want Benoia in this man’s care.

Her foster-daughter shook as she had after Sveyn’s attack, but the girl wasn’t weeping now. Anger burned in Benoia’s eyes. “The last man who tried to rape me got a shriveled cock for his trouble,” she snarled at the guard, “so don’t even think about it.”

“Benoia!” Annikke rebuked her foster-daughter out of habit, but she couldn’t keep a smile from the corner of her mouth as the man paled. It probably wasn’t wise to provoke someone like him, but she couldn’t bring herself to fault her foster-daughter.

The guards escorted them into a long hallway punctuated with metal doors. One of the guards took Benoia to the far end, while Annikke’s held open a door near their break room. They wouldn’t even be able to hear each other.

Annikke paused in the doorway of her cell. A sliver of light filtered down from a horizontal slot near the ceiling, giving just enough illumination to see how meager her accommodations were. The cell held only a narrow sleeping bench cut into the stone wall, covered with a thin straw mattress and a rough wool blanket. At least all appeared clean, even if a malodorous bucket sat in the corner.

This
was what she’d counseled Benoia to come to Quartzholm for? This was the Jarl’s justice?

“Get in there.” The guard shoved her in and shut the solid iron door. It rang with finality as it locked behind her.

*

The guards stopped Aren from following them down the hallway to the cells. He wanted to defy them, but it would serve no purpose, so he forced himself to wait at the entry point. His gut churned as he watched the women being locked away, all the while trying to not imagine how Annikke’s worry for the girl must be weighing on her. He understood the woman well enough after only these few days to know that she wouldn’t be thinking of her own danger. Annikke was a truer mother to Benoia, even though they weren’t blood, than his daughter’s mother had been to her.

That alone was the source of his admiration for her. That and her willingness to expose her Elven gifts by healing him. It wasn’t because she was beautiful, or that he wanted her in his bed.

Annikke glanced back at him. Glowlights glinted on her hair. She took his breath away, even tired and bedraggled, with wisps of silver coming loose from her braid.

“Try not to worry,” he said, sounding lame to his own ears.

Her smile was weak, but she nodded.

Aren watched as the women who’d been in his charge were caged, and then turned on his heel and left.

Over the last several days he’d worried about becoming an Oathbreaker, about whether the Jarl would judge Benoia harshly for what, in Aren’s opinion, was her fully justified defense of self. On more than one occasion he’d been horrified by the close margin by which Annikke and her daughter had been kept from harm. He respected Annikke’s strength and caring, and saw more than a little of his daughter in Benoia. They should have been confined under watch in servants quarters, not in the
gaol
. That was generally used only for murderers and violent men who refused to give their parole. Lord Fender would never have allowed this.

Where
is
Lord Fender?

Aren stalked through the polished stone passages of the castle, unseeing. He’d managed to keep his word to both Lord Dahleven and Torlon, but only just barely. Annikke and Benoia were in Quartzholm and safe. Now all he had to do was keep them so.

Chapter Nineteen

Smells of dinner cooking wafted into the street from the cottages Aren passed on his way home. He looked forward to eating his mother’s stew and sleeping in his own bed again, but the pleasure of his anticipation was muted. Annikke and Benoia would be eating prisoner’s fare and sleeping in bleak cells.

Tandra looked up from the onions she was chopping as he entered. “Da! You’re back!” She jumped up to greet him as his mother turned to smile. Halfway across the room Tandra’s face assumed an expression of horror. “You’re hurt!”

“Summon a Healer!” his mother exclaimed. “Quick girl!”

Aren looked down at the front of his trews. The Elves’ glamour had faded and the stain now showed clearly that he’d lost a lot of blood. He caught his daughter by the arm before she ran out the door. “It’s all right. I’m not hurt.” He pulled first his daughter and then his mother into a big hug, rubbing their backs.

His mother pulled away first, her brows knitting as she glanced down at his recently mended pants. “There’s a tale here, clearly. But first you should bathe and change.”

“Aye,” Aren agreed.

A candlemark later Aren returned from the public baths clean and freshly clothed. In the interest of keeping his mother and daughter from worrying, he told them a falsehood—that the blood staining his pants belonged to another man who’d tried to hurt Annikke. Then he diverted their attention by relating his rescue of Vali.

Tandra listened eagerly and wondered aloud if she might see the young lord before he returned to Forsvaremur. In return, she related all the goings on in the castle that she’d heard while he was gone.

Aren listened with only half an ear to his daughter’s account. It warmed his heart to be back home with his family, and Tandra’s happiness reassured him that his decision to uproot them all and bring them here to Quartzholm had been a good one. But as Aren watched his daughter wash the dishes, his thoughts kept straying to Annikke and Benoia. Annikke had sacrificed her home and come to Quartzholm with little choice in the matter, and she wasn’t enjoying her evening meal with Benoia or with much hope of a better future.

“Goodnight, Da.” Tandra kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you’re back.” Then she climbed into the loft where she slept.

For a few minutes he and his mother sat in silence except for the slight creak of her rocking chair. A summer breeze wafted through the open shutters, carrying wisps of domestic sounds from other cottages on the lane. He was home again with his family, but Aren couldn’t be restful. He stood and paced over to the still damp dishes, taking a towel to them instead of letting them air dry.

It wasn’t right that Annikke and Benoia should be treated so harshly, and had Lord Fender been in the castle he would not have allowed it. But even his commander couldn’t gainsay a warrant. The women were as safe as they could be in the gaol. Aren was sure the guard understood the risks of abusing them and would leave them alone. Yet safe or not, he knew Annikke was afraid for Benoia, and Aren had brought her into that fearful place.

“What troubles you?” his mother asked, drawing him out of his thoughts.

“What makes you think I’m troubled?”

His mother rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

Aren laughed mirthlessly. His mother was no fool. She knew him. He’d just returned from a long journey and yet he was pacing and drying dishes for no good reason.

“The women I escorted to Quartzholm are honorable women, but I fear things will not go well for them. There’s an angry lord looking for vengeance, and they have no man to speak for them.”

“You’re a good man to think of them, son, but this is clearly not your problem.”

“It is.”

His mother lifted a brow. “How so?”

He sought for a way to answer without telling her about the Elves and his debt to Torlon. A debt he was in danger of defaulting on. He’d never told her that an Elf had saved his life those many years ago. He hadn’t wanted to frighten her with the truth that she’d almost lost her only son, especially at a time when most folk feared the Fey. He’d been his mother’s only support, so he hadn’t wanted to burden her with the knowledge. Now he couldn’t explain his debt without revealing his secret.

Aren sat again. “I promised a friend of theirs that I’d keep them safe.”

Dismay filled his mother’s expression. “Why would you do such a foolish thing?”

In response Aren asked a question too long left silent, a question that had been much on his mind this last week. “Why did Da not answer Lord Fellig’s call?”

Hurt replaced dismay on his mother’s face, chased away by ...
guilt
?

“That ship passed downriver long ago. Why bring it up now?”

“Tell me, Mother.”

A spark of anger flashed in her eyes, but she quickly looked away. “Because I asked him to stay with me.”

Aren’s mouth fell open. “You asked his da to break his oath?”

“I was afraid I was going to die. Afraid your da would die in Fellig’s stupid raids and leave me alone with a son to raise. I loved him so much, and I didn’t want to lose him. Didn’t want you to be fatherless. Or if I died, an orphan.”

“And yet he left us anyway.”

His mother shook her head. “It was my fear that killed your da. He loved me more than he should, and he stayed with me because I asked it of him. But he was a good man. An honorable man. He couldn’t bear the shame of being an Oathbreaker. I think he thought if he was dead, he’d take the shame of what he’d done to the grave with him. He never meant to saddle you with it. Never wanted you to suffer for his choice. You know that, don’t you?”

No I don’t know that.

Memories of his da
before
came flooding back. Memories Aren had kept walled away, because it hurt too much to remember what he’d lost. His da teaching him to draw a bow, to plow a straight furrow, to mend harness. Laughter shared over the evening meal. Aren stared at the last few embers that glowed in the hearth as anger and shame and love roiled in his gut.

Aren ran a hand over his beard. “I do know that. But his shame still clings to this family, even if he never wanted it to. I brought us here to earn some honor, for you, for Tandra. And now I’m cross-sworn, just as Da was.”