Tale of Elske (6 page)

Most evenings saw Taddus come to the house, to dine with Idelle and her father. Elske did not serve them, not being skilled in waiting on table, but when the plates and pots were put away, when the floor was scoured clean and Ula was satisfied that all was ready for the morrow, Elske was sent to sit by the fire in the front room, with its table and candlesticks and whitewashed walls, to join the three who had pulled their chairs up close to the fire, on these cold nights. When Var Kenric had talked with Taddus about stores and sales, profits and investments, he went up to make his nightly visit to his wife and Elske remained, turning the hem on the bridal bed linens. It was necessary for a servant to attend a courting couple. This made no sense to her, but a servant asked no questions, as Elske learned.

One of the first nights by the fire, while Elske sewed, Taddus and Idelle sat at the table to compose the announcement which made public offer of Elske's services as maidservant.

When Idelle saw what Taddus wrote, “You can read? And write?” she asked in surprise. “But our merchants and bankers wouldn't want maidservants who know such things. It's not as if you were a manservant,” Idelle said to Elske, and Elske agreed that she was not a man.

“Still, it might prove desirable,” Taddus disagreed, and wrote, adding,
She is experienced with babies.
“Is there any other use you have, Elske?”

Elske, a stranger in Trastad, could not tell him.

“She can sew a good hem,” Idelle said, and her cheeks turned pink, as if that were a blushing matter. “She is always willing, and she doesn't tire.”

“Father said that the men who seek to hire you should come first to our house, Elske,” Taddus told her, as he wrote down Tavyan's name at the bottom of the paper. “He wishes to see you well-protected.”

“Thank you,” Elske said. “My thanks to Tavyan, as well.” Her stomach was full with the fish soup she had helped to prepare, served with slices of thick bread; her stockinged legs were warmed by the fire while thick snow fell silently outside; a winter night covered the city but she would sleep on soft furs beside Idelle's high bed. What more could she ask for?

She had never had anyone near her own age to talk with before, not any sister or even a brother, only Tamara, who was a grandmother and wise. Idelle was four winters older than Elske and soon to be a married woman, but the two lived companionably, walking out to the marketplace together, talking about the gown Idelle would be married in and the nightdress in which she would present herself to her new husband. “I had no fortune when he chose me, so he chose me, not my fortune,” Idelle announced, so vehemently that Elske knew she doubted it.

Elske could tell her young mistress, “He was impatient to be back in Trastad.”

Idelle blushed. “Young men are always eager when a marriage bed awaits them. Should my nightgown have lace at the neck?” she asked Elske. “Would a man desire such finery?”

Elske could not say. It seemed to her that, except to marry, the women of Trastad feared men, except for their fathers, and brothers; and the fathers, brothers and husbands mistrusted all other men. The women of Trastad could not go out of doors alone, lest they be set on, and ruined. Ruined, Elske deduced, meant raped, although Idelle seemed to anticipate having Taddus in her bed. “So it is good to be raped by a husband?” Elske inquired, and Idelle covered her face with her hands before she said, “When it's your husband it isn't rape. Rape is when the woman is unwilling. When the man forces her.”

Among the Volkaric, the women were neither willing nor unwilling. They had no will in the matter, just as they had no marriages.

Seeing that Elske did not understand, Idelle explained, “If a woman is ruined, no man will have her to wed.”

“What if,” Elske asked, “a woman is willing?”

“A woman
must
be willing for her husband, or how will she get her children?”

“What if,” Elske asked, “a woman is willing for a man not her husband?” If a woman bore the Volkking a son she got honor and importance, and other men then wished to rape her, this woman who had produced a son for the Volkking.

“No woman would wish such a thing,” Idelle told her. “Or else why would any man look for a wife?”

Elske did not know and could not have said. All she could do was accompany Idelle to the great marketplace, and to the shops that crowded around the Council Hall, whenever the needs of house or wedding sent the young woman out of doors. In Trastad, if a female servant was the only companion a woman's house could afford her, then the female servant made her company, to keep her safe. A Trastader woman did need her safety guarded, Elske learned. The young men of Trastad made a game of teasing women, especially young women. Elske walked at Idelle's shoulder through crowds and when someone approached her mistress too close, or too roughly, or with words that were too bold, Elske stepped forward. Seeing Elske there, “We only jest,” they might say, turning to find another woman to trail, adding as a parting unpleasantness to Idelle, “If you were prettier, Varele, I'd take more trouble over you.”

The days went slowly by. When Taddus came in the evenings, he sometimes brought men of the city whose houses needed a maidservant. Often, the man would be pleased with Elske and then Taddus would come the next afternoon to take Elske to meet the mistress of the house. But always the Varinne would say, “She will not do.” Even though Elske looked like any other Trastader serving woman, with her hair scarfed, under a man's protection, still “She will not do,” the Varinne would report to her Var. Elske was found too young, too inexperienced, too old to train, too ignorant of the ways of Trastad or too clever.

The Longest Night drew closer and still Elske had been offered no place. Var Kenric's house was hung with greens, to celebrate the season and the marriage. The bed linens were hemmed and folded up into the chest at the foot of Idelle's bed, ready for the wedding night. Snow piled high in the courtyard behind the house, where evergreens showed black against the whiteness of the snow. It was full winter, almost the Longest Night. “A place will be found for you, Elske,” Idelle assured her, uneasily. “Somewhere. Soon. Maybe tomorrow.”

They were returning through the empty streets of Old Trastad from the bakeshop where Idelle's marriage cake would be made. There would be bad fortune on the marriage if the guests were offered no marriage cake of dense, heavy sweetness, rich in honey and nuts and ale-soaked raisins, so they had stayed on, discussing ingredients with the baker. They walked back in the long darkness that devoured winter's brief day. At one corner they almost ran into a group of young men, Adeliers accompanied by two servants. The Princes held their heavy cloaks close around them, and were wrapped also in the perfume of ale. They leaned into one another, joking and cursing in Souther. The servants followed behind, carrying jugs of drink.

Elske knew, immediately and without question, that Idelle was in danger. She smelled danger as strongly as might one of the wolves whose skins made the cloak she wore.

The darkening air was thick around them. The snow-covered street was empty of people, the shop-fronts shuttered at day's end. Sounds were muffled, in these twisting streets.

The young men stumbled by, laughing. Then Elske heard them halt, turn, and come to walk only a few paces behind Idelle, boasting to one another about their knowledge of women, speaking about Idelle in her heavy woollen cloak, “one of these precious virgins of Trastad. Plump as a honey cake, isn't she? Would she be sweet in the taking?” they asked, and answered themselves, “Who's to stop us finding out?”

Although she didn't know Souther, Idelle seemed to understand her danger. She began to walk more quickly, concentrating on the snowy ground ahead of her feet.

“And a maidservant, too. Two's double one, and always will be,” one voice said and another answered, “She's a child, too young to be worth the trouble,” but he was hooted down. “Where are your eyes, fool?”

Elske pretended to trip in her haste to get away, and she fell forward. She used her hands to break her fall, and heard laughter from the young men behind. The snow stung her skin as she reached beneath it; and when she scrambled back to her feet, she held one fist-sized rock in each hand.

Now the Adeliers made their move, and rushed ahead to face the two women. Idelle started to cry out, a thin wailing cry, pleading for kindness.

Elske kept her hands under her cloak. She considered the seven laughing young men.

Two were so ale-sodden that they were obviously no danger. One, with full lips and a jewel in his ear, she counted their captain. All had eyes bright with eager cruelty, like a war band going together into battle. Two of the Adels held back the menservants, who now called out warnings in Norther. “Run, Varele. They'll ruin—”

Elske stepped between Idelle and the young captain. “Quietly now,” she advised her trembling mistress. “Your fear will make them the more cruel.”

Idelle raised her hands to her face, and whimpered into her fingers.

Two young men grabbed her from behind, and she screamed out.

Elske screamed, too. But when Elske screamed, it was the war cry of the Volkaric that came out of her mouth, a howling like the voice of a wolf. The cry wound around the narrow streets as if they were in the wild and merciless northlands. She howled again and the Adels loosened their hold on Idelle. They turned to their captain.

This young man paused where he stood, his jewel glinting in the lantern light. Elske saw in his eyes a tingle of fear and his own pleasure at the fear. Quick, she swung her fist at him, and hit him on the side of the head.

He fell sideways onto his knees in the snow.

The other Adeliers stood wordless. And watched. Idelle, too, had fallen silent.

Elske howled once more as she bent over the young man and lifted his head by the thick, dark hair. She smiled down at this drunken Adel Prince with the rich jewel in his ear, knowing what revenge she would take on him.

Holding the second stone like a fist, Elske raised her arm and smashed it into his lip and nose. Then she let his head fall back.

Now it was the captain who whimpered, and his hands covered his face, and he curled up on the ground. “Help me!” he cried.

The snow beside his hidden face stained out a bright red.

The servants, now free, called to Idelle and Elske. “Run! Run! We have no weapons! We can't help you! Run!”

Idelle sobbed, asking Elske, “What have you done? What have you done?” But Elske turned to the Adeliers, three now lifting their fallen captain, and spoke to them in Souther. “If you had succeeded, you would all have been dead men.”

They stared at her.

“Fruhckmen,”
she named them, the Volkaric word. They didn't know the language but they understood her meaning.

Now Idelle was running awkwardly home, her feet tripping on her own cloak in her haste and fear, but Elske knew they had no more to fear from these Adeliers, these cowards. And their captain would be marked for life for what he was. She'd seen his bloody teeth in the snow. She'd split his lip like a nutshell.

WHEN IDELLE TOLD HER STORY
to Ula, and then again to her father after he had returned in the evening, there was a great commotion. Var Kenric pressed Elske over and over, “And she was never touched? Never harmed?” When Taddus came to call, Var Kenric pulled him aside and spoke to him in a low voice, in the corner of the front room.

Idelle sat wrapped in a blanket in her chair by the fire, sometimes weeping in remembered fear. They gave her wine to soothe and strengthen her. “If it hadn't been for Elske,” she kept saying, and Ula stroked her hair and spoke to her as softly as if she were a little child.

After a time, Var Kenric said quietly, “I thank you, Elske.” He had started to add, in warning, “But you—” when he was interrupted by a pounding on his door.

He opened it to four men accompanied by servants carrying lanterns. The men stamped their feet in the snow and asked to enter the house.

“Certainly,” Var Kenric said. “May we be well met, gentlemen.” He offered to take their cloaks and he offered tankards of ale. They shook their heads, declining to give up their cloaks, declining refreshment, and to persuade them he said, “It's a cold night.”

“Colder for some than others. You must know, we've a gravely wounded princeling on our hands.”

At that, Var Kenric called for Elske to join them around the table, leaving Ula, Idelle and Taddus near the fire.

The four visitors were thickset Trastaders and one stood taller than the others, a bearlike man with heavy-lidded eyes and a thin mouth. Elske didn't know how they would deal with her. Among the Volkaric, reward for courage was given as swiftly as death for cowardice—but she was among Trastaders.

One of the shorter men spoke. “You have attacked and injured an Adel.”