The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

21

STRIDES

“I have never heard such a song,” Alba said. “The one about begetting.” They lay side by side in the large bed, the chieftain’s keep creaking around them, the wind nudging the trees, and the leaves hissing back. Neither of them had been able to talk about the events that had transpired. They’d readied themselves for bed with nary a word, but the shock had worn off with their silence.

“It is a song for weddings,” Ghisla answered. “For marriage.”

“I’ve never been to a wedding,” Alba mused, wistful, and Ghisla was startled into silence once more. Such a commonplace thing in any culture had become so rare that a sixteen-year-old princess had never witnessed it.

“I did not know you weren’t from Leok,” Alba whispered. “Do the others know?”

“Master Ivo does. I’m sure it has been discussed among the keepers. I once was afraid I would be sent away if anyone found out. But it hardly seems important now.”

“Is it as King Gudrun said?”

“Before I came to the mount—when I was a girl—I lived in a place called Tonlis. In the Northlands. But that was long ago, and I am not a Northlander anymore. King Gudrun has no claim to me.”

“And Father will never give you away.”

The knowledge was not a comfort to her, though she knew Alba sought to reassure her even as she feared it would be her own fate.

“It is not the king or the Northlands or even leaving Saylok that frightens me,” Alba whispered.

“No?”

“No. I am afraid I will never see Bayr again,” Alba confessed. “I do not speak of him because it hurts too much. But that is what I fear most.”

Ghisla reached out and took Alba’s hand. She did not tell her all would be well. She couldn’t. Not when she was convinced all would not be well.

“Will you sing to me, Liis?” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

“Of course. And tomorrow we will go home,” Ghisla murmured. “You have nothing to fear.” Yet.

“Sing the one about the little bat,” Alba begged, sounding like the child she’d been.

“Oh, Alba. Not that one,” Ghisla moaned. She couldn’t sing that one. Not tonight. Not while she clutched Alba’s hand.

“He cannot see, but he’s not scared, he swoops and glides up in the air. His joy is full, his wings are strong. He dances to a distant song,” Alba sang. “I always thought it such a lovely little song. To be free and surrounded by those who love us most. What more could a living creature want?”

“What indeed?” Ghisla murmured.

“Please, Liis. Please sing it. It comforts me,” Alba pled, and Ghisla relented as she always did, but Alba was not consoled. Her misery echoed in her memories, and Ghisla, with their hands clasped and the song reverberating between her and the princess, could not escape them.

Six-year-old Alba sat atop Bayr’s shoulders. Her arms were spread and her hair streamed out behind her. He was running, making her fly, and her remembrance was painted in joy.

“Bayr promised me he would come back,” Alba cried as the song ended. “He promised.”

“Someone I loved once promised me the same thing,” Ghisla said.

“What happened?” Alba almost sounded afraid to ask, as if she knew.

“He never did.” Until now. But had he come back?

“Why?” Alba asked, mournful.

“I don’t know. Some promises . . . are impossible to keep.”

“I fear that’s true,” Alba murmured. “But . . . you’re not angry?”

“Sometimes I am angry,” Ghisla admitted. Sometimes she was so angry she lay facedown and sang her anger into the earth until the grass turned brown and the ground around her cracked with her furious song. “But most of the time, I simply miss him.”

Oh, how she had missed him.

He had lived among the Northmen, that much was evident. But why? And why was he here? How would she see him? How would she tell him she had given up long ago?

“I miss Bayr every day. There is a hole in my heart,” Alba said. “And I fear it will always be there.”

“You were very close,” Ghisla said, her voice strangled.

“And now . . . we are nothing,” Alba said dully.

For a time, they lay together in the dark, their hands clasped, and when Alba finally found relief in sleep, Ghisla allowed herself to grieve.

Hod did not leave the chieftain’s keep with the Northmen but doubled back on his own. In the darkness, everyone was a threat, and he did not want to be seen lurking in the shadows. He found the room where Ghisla and the princess were quartered and climbed a tree where he could eavesdrop without being observed.

The North King had created a spectacle in the hall. He’d dangled Hod like a carrot with his ridiculous talk of a trade, insulted the princess, and tossed Ghisla’s history onto the pyre all to provoke the king. She’d had no warning of his presence, and Hod had heard her distress, her racing heart and her constricted breath, and he’d put up a wall against her, unable to concentrate on his audience—and the things they hurled at him—and still listen to her. But he was listening to her now.

The two women were comforting each other, their voices bleak and their conversation quiet. Alba begged for the song about the bat, and Hod was catapulted back to the temple mount, standing in the shadow of the temple listening to little Alba plead for the same song.

“Bayr promised me he would come back,” Alba mourned.

Bayr had never returned to the mount?

“Someone I loved once promised me the same thing,” Ghisla murmured.

Someone she loved once. Did she love him still?

“What happened?” Alba asked, almost fearful.

“He never did.”

Hod’s heart cracked and bled, knowing Ghisla spoke of him. No, he never had . . . and she’d given him no reason to believe she would welcome him.

“You’re not angry?” Alba asked.

“Sometimes I am angry. But most of the time, I simply miss him,” Ghisla answered.

He was angry too. The anger had become a constant companion. But he had missed her more than he hated her. He had loved her more than he hated her. And right now, he could not hate her at all.

Eventually, Alba fell asleep, the cadence of her breathing and the tempo of her heart signaling she’d succumbed to slumber. But Ghisla did not sleep. She cried. Her weeping was not a moan or a wail. It was a catch in her chest and an ongoing, valiant attempt to breathe quietly so Alba would not hear her distress.

A soft knock on her chamber door came after she’d just begun to drift off, her tears finally abating, her weariness deep. She woke immediately, her pulse quickening.

“The king is asking for you, Liis of Leok,” the guard murmured.

Her heart raced, but she rose and, after a moment of shuffling, followed the guard down the corridor to the king’s chambers.

Hod’s anger rose again, so palpable it flooded his mouth. He should have left then and saved himself the agony of their interaction. But he couldn’t pull himself away. He couldn’t bear not to hear her, even if it meant burning himself alive while he listened.

Their voices were obscured by walls and the patter of rain that had just begun to fall, making his perch in the tree even more precarious, but he did not leave.

“Lie beside me,” the king demanded.

She did not protest and her heartbeat did not alter; the king’s request was not out of the ordinary. The taste in Hod’s mouth became metallic, like he’d licked his blade and cut his tongue. Mayhaps he had. It felt forked behind his teeth.

“What will happen on the morrow?” Ghisla asked the king.

“It does not concern you.”

“The North King thinks it does.”

“Shall I give you to him?” Banruud hissed. His heartbeat echoed oddly, like it ricocheted in his head, and his breaths were harsh with pain.

“If you wish.” Her words were devoid of emotion.

“He would not make you his queen; he seeks only to goad me.”

“I do not wish to be his queen. I do not wish to be your queen.”

He grunted, like he was all too aware of her wishes, and she didn’t press him further. She began to sing, no words, just music, her voice a harp to the anguished, and the bitterness in Hod’s mouth became longing in his veins.

She carried on for half an hour before the king slept, the odd echo in his head fading with her song. She eased herself off the bed, moving slowly, painfully, and walked back down the corridors, twenty-one tired strides to her chamber door. The creak of the handle told him she’d entered, but she didn’t cross the floor and crawl into her bed. She drank two glasses of water, her throat working; she’d cried and sung herself into a great thirst. Then she washed her face, cleaned her teeth, and dressed, shrugging off one gown for another and pulling on her shoes.

Her movements were almost as intoxicating to him as her voice. To hear her swish about, to breathe, to simply be, when she’d lived only in his memory for so long was irresistible.

She stopped in front of her window and unlatched the shutters, and he froze, realizing he’d been careless. He’d lost himself in listening, and though he’d climbed high enough in the tree to escape detection from the ground, he was directly across from her window. She would see him, resting in the tree like the bat in her song.

She opened the shutters inch by inch, as if guarding against the screech of hinges, and he swung down, dropping from the lowest limb an instant before she leaned out into the dark coolness and inhaled deeply. He hugged the wall of the keep directly below her, listening, always listening.

She was climbing out. A tiny huff of exertion, a rustling of leaves, and a murmur in the tree signaled that she had cleared the ledge and settled herself on the branch nearest the window. She breathed for a moment, plotting her course, and he inched back, sliding along the wall until he turned the corner.

Where was she going? The woods were full of Northmen and Bernians, neither of which would hesitate to harm—or kidnap—her. It was not safe in the trees. It was not safe anywhere.

Then she said his name.

She could not see him; he was almost certain of it. He would have heard the moment of sight and the change in her breath. He would have felt her eyes.

“Hod?” she said again, but the word was a moan. “Where have you been?”

His answer hovered on his lips. He would reveal himself. Right now. He would tell her everything and plead for her to come with him. He would take her to Gudrun and insist that he give them safe passage to the Northlands. His hopes soared . . . and immediately sank.

Gudrun would not help him.

When he discovered her gone, Banruud would most likely declare war, which the Northmen were not yet prepared for. They’d brought a small contingent for this meeting with King Banruud and the Chieftain of Berne. They had a plan, and Ghisla was not part of it. Gudrun would probably kill him, and Ghisla would be at the mercy of yet another king.

Hod clenched his teeth and made fists of his hands, denying himself. Denying her. He dared not even speak. Alba slept mere feet away, and the king’s men patrolled nearby, bristling at every sound. Nothing would be accomplished in the chieftain’s keep, not tonight, and mayhaps not for some time to come.

She sat in the tree until just before dawn, as if she waited for him, but he did not show himself. Instead he stayed, crouched beside the wall, holding his vigil until she slid back along the heavy branch and returned to her chamber, barring the window behind her.

“Have I made you angry, my blind warrior? Are you sulking because I have attempted to trade you for the Songr?” Gudrun became affectionate and magnanimous when he thought he had won. He was eating like he’d just been through battle, slurping up the grease on a platter of lamb with great hunks of bread, one of which he tossed to Hod. He’d insisted Hod join him for breakfast, but Hod didn’t eat with Gudrun for the same reason he didn’t sit among his men. He needed his hands free and his senses sharp. He would break his fast when Gudrun left the table.

He doubted the North King had slept. The sun had not yet begun to warm the air, and the mist from the water sat thick on the ground, muting the early morning chatter of the birds and the movement of Gudrun’s men in and out of the chateau and back and forth to the docks. They were preparing to sail. A settlement had been reached.

“I am not angry. I simply do not understand your strategy, Sire,” Hod responded, voice even.

“I met with King Banruud last night. After the feast. Where were you?” Gudrun’s tone changed, suspicion tinging his words. “I sent men to fetch you, but you had disappeared. You could have witnessed the drafting of a momentous agreement.”

“I was sitting in a tree, listening to a woman sing.”

Gudrun snorted, but the pathetic confession seemed to reassure him. “He will not give me the Songr.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“Ahh. You are angry.” Gudrun tsked as he hacked off a large piece of lamb and fed it to his teeth.

“I don’t understand your play,” Hod said again.

Gudrun washed his mouthful down with loud gulps of ale and wiped his fingers on his trousers.

“You said he would not want to part with the woman. You were right. I simply wanted to make King Banruud feel as though he’d won and I’d relented. It made negotiations much easier later on. And it provided an opportunity to put your skills on display.”

“My skills,” Hod said, voice flat.

“I want to make your father love you, don’t you see? I am repairing a bond.” His tone was mischievous, and Hod heard his grin. When he did not elucidate but began preparing another bite, Hod prodded him, just as Gudrun expected him to.

“He does not know he is my father, Sire, and there is no bond to repair,” Hod said.

“He does. I have told him,” Gudrun said, swallowing.

“What purpose does that serve?” Hod whispered. He was not surprised. Gudrun used every weapon at his disposal, and Hod had supplied him with it, long ago. It had provided him with a story any man could understand: the blind, bastard son of a king seeks revenge on those who rejected him. It was only a matter of time before Gudrun wielded the information against him.

“It serves my purposes, Hod.” Gudrun thumped his chest to emphasize his words. The action made him belch, and he laughed again. He was in fine spirits this morning.

“I have agreed to bed—er, wed—the daughter.” Gudrun laughed at his wordplay. “In exchange I have promised to be a very good North King and stay in my own lands. The Northlands will not attack Saylok, and Saylok will not raid the Northlands. It’s all very civilized and familial. We will set sail today, and I will return next month to retrieve my bride.”

“Retrieve your bride . . . where?”

“I’ve been invited to Temple Hill.” Gudrun spread his arms and sat back in his chair, making the rungs groan against his girth. “To the castle of the King of Saylok. The mighty Banruud wants to show his people that he has tamed the North King and saved the clans from being overrun by Northmen.”

“I see.”

“You will not be sailing with us, Hod,” Gudrun added.

Hod waited, tensed.

“You will go with Banruud to his hill. I have convinced him I must have a man I trust on the mount to prepare for my arrival and to ensure that no treachery is afoot. If he kills you, he can’t very well expect me to hold to my end of the bargain.”

“You do not intend to hold to it regardless.”

“Yes. But he thinks he has the upper hand. He has invited us to the mount during his Tournament of the King. He informs me that the fiercest warriors from every clan will be in attendance. I have told him I worry I will be ambushed.” The irony was as thick as the grease on his plate.

“It is a valid concern,” Hod murmured.

“The king insists that a wedding at the end of the tournament will be well received by the chieftains. Coronations and celebrations are done during the week, as I understand it.”

“This is true.”

“I have agreed to his plan with great . . . reluctance.”

“Understandably.”

“Banruud has asked that you be ready to depart today. I doubt he will welcome you. But you must make yourself useful to him . . . until I arrive.”

Hod’s fingers flexed around his staff, but he nodded, impassive. “Very well.”

Gudrun wanted a reaction, and Hod did not give him one. The king’s irritation was evident in his exhale. “You will have until then to make the Songr want you again,” he murmured. “You should thank me. Of course, if she is the king’s Songr, you may not want her.” He sucked at his teeth. “She is rather appealing, Hod. Not plain at all. Long hair like spun gold. Sweet little bottom and enough breasts to fill a man’s hands. Her eyes are the bluest I’ve ever seen—shocking, how blue—and her mouth is a rosebud, soft and pink and plump; it is a shame you cannot look at her.”

“I’ve always seen her well enough.”

Gudrun chuffed, and Hod did not know whether the man grinned or glowered. He was silent, studying Hod, and when he leaned toward him, his voice intimate and low, Hod did not shrink.

“Do not fail me, Hod.” His greasy breath wafted over Hod’s lips. “And do not cross me.”

“I have never crossed any man,” Hod replied softly. “They have crossed me.”

Gudrun chuckled, this time in earnest, and he sat back in his chair, the tension leaving him. “If you do, the little Songr is mine. I may take her yet.”

If Banruud and the North King had addressed terms of an accord, they were not announced. Instead, the Northmen prepared to sail, and the king’s party prepared to depart from Garbo. The Bernians seemed relieved—overjoyed even—to see both, and they’d gathered on the docks and around the chieftain’s keep to point and speculate.

The king’s men were in their saddles and the wagons loaded, and the North King and his men, including Hod, were lined up to bid them adieu. The only point of contention seemed to be who would leave first.

Ghisla and Alba had been escorted to the carriage, and they watched from behind the parted drapes they’d drawn over the open windows.

“Do you think they are really leaving?” Alba whispered, flabbergasted.

“Yes. I think they are.” And Hod would be leaving with them. She had not slept at all, hoping he would find her. He stood beside the North King, his hand on his staff, a shield, his bow, and a small satchel slung over his shoulders. She wondered suddenly if he was listening.

“Father must have promised them something,” Alba said, and her fear was palpable.

Ghisla had lain beside the king in his chamber, but she had not touched him while she sang—she always tried not to—and she had not divined his thoughts. Mayhaps next time, for Alba’s sake, for both their sakes, she should.

Banruud reined his horse around and halted in front of the North King, obscuring the view from the carriage, but his words were clear.

“We have saddled a horse for your man, Gudrun. I hope his skills extend to riding.”

“I will walk,” Hod answered.

“You will not be able to keep up, blind man,” Banruud argued.

“I will keep up well enough.”

“Hod does not trust the horse between his legs,” Gudrun inserted. His men laughed as he intended for them to do.

“Why not?” Banruud asked. “Surely you are not afraid?”

“I can only hear the horse,” Hod explained evenly. “Their hearts are like cannons and their instincts interfere with my own. I will be of more use if I walk.”

“He’ll make it eventually, Highness,” Gudrun said, and the Northmen laughed again.

“It is three days’ hard travel to reach the hill,” Banruud protested.

“Yes. I know. If I fall behind, I will catch up to you by day’s end,” Hod replied, unbothered.

Banruud was silent for a moment, and his horse shimmied, impatient.

“You will ride on the carriage. There. On the footman’s stoop.” Banruud pointed toward Ghisla and Alba. “It will not be pleasant for travel, but you will not be left behind, and you can guard the rear.”

“Very well,” Hod said. And without another word, he approached the carriage and swung up onto the tiny platform. The carriage bounced beneath his weight, and Alba stared at Ghisla, dumbfounded.

“The blind man is coming with us,” she whispered.

Ghisla could only nod, her hand pressed over her racing heart. “It seems he is.”

She was intimidated by the knowledge that Hod would hear her every word. The bumps and jostles of the wheels and the thundering clap of horses’ hooves would not be enough to shield their conversation from his ears. She sat in agonized silence, unable to believe the turn of events, and unwilling—for a multitude of reasons—to speak of them to her young companion. Alba’s mood improved with each mile from Garbo, and she chattered about this and that for the first hour but then curled herself up into an impossible ball and fell asleep, her hands folded beneath her chin and her head against her knees. Ghisla had not slept in ages, and quickly succumbed as well, waking only when they stopped at midday to water the horses and eat a hasty meal. Hod was coated in dust and spent several minutes shaking out his clothes and washing the grit from his skin. The driver goaded him good-naturedly.

“Ye’ll be covered again, Northman, within the hour.”

Hod nodded, acknowledging the truth of the man’s statement, but he washed anyway. Alba worried that he’d had nothing to eat and made sure he was given food from the provisions. She was so thoughtful that Ghisla was shamed, but she had no notion of how to speak to him when there was so much to say. And there were eyes and ears everywhere.

Before resuming their journey, Alba and Ghisla were escorted to the trees to find some seclusion to relieve themselves. It was always a difficulty for the guard when they traveled; they had to keep their distance while maintaining a protective presence. Hod was recruited to the detail, the captain of the king’s guard remarking dryly that his blindness made him the perfect escort for such things. The fact that he was Gudrun’s man did not seem to bother him overmuch.

It bothered Ghisla, but she did not protest. She and Alba hurried through their privacies and washed with him standing watch. It was also Hod who extended his hand to assist them back into the carriage. He helped Alba first, and when he offered his hand to Ghisla, palm up, the lines of the rune he’d made a decade before were still visible to her eyes. Very softly, she rested her hand on his. His reaction was immediate, a tightening of his lips, a flutter of his lids, and Ghisla’s breath caught.

His fingers brushed over the thick, star-shaped scar on her palm, and his brow furrowed. She dared not stand with her hand clutched in his and climbed the steps quickly so she could let go, but his hand tightened around hers.

“What happened to your hand, Ghisla?” he insisted, his voice flat. It was the first time he’d acknowledged her at all, and he’d used her real name, the name only he knew.

“You called her Ghisla. She is Liis,” Alba corrected. “Release her please, Northman.”

Hod did so immediately, but he didn’t move.

“What happened to her hand?” He directed the question at Alba instead. He stood in the doorway of the carriage, his face perfectly void of emotion, but his voice was lethal.

“It was burned,” Ghisla said.

“You had best keep your distance, Blind Hod,” Alba murmured, urging him to close the carriage door. The guard was mounted and the driver in place.

“When did this happen?” He was addressing Ghisla now, but Alba answered.

“It was many years ago. It does not pain the lady anymore. Now . . . please. Retreat.”

The driver called down, impatient. “Are you ready, Northman?”

Hod stepped back and shut the door without another word. They felt him hoist himself onto the footman’s stoop, and the driver cracked his whip. The carriage lurched forward, falling into line with the cavalcade, armed riders taking up positions on each side.

Alba frowned at Ghisla in confusion.

“How odd . . . and impertinent. He should not have asked something so personal. And what was it he called you? Ghisla?”

Ghisla was too shaken to speak. She could still feel Hod’s fingertips against her palm.

Alba tipped her pretty head, studying Ghisla with new eyes.

“Was that your name? Do you know Blind Hod?”

“His name is not Blind Hod,” Ghisla said, her voice low. She hated when people called him that, as if his sightlessness was part of his name. “He is Hod. And I do not . . . know him.” Once she had. Once she’d known him better than she knew herself.

“But you did,” Alba guessed, nodding, warming to her conclusion. She crowed and clapped, thrilled at the surprising discovery.

“Alba,” Ghisla protested softly. “Please. Please. Let us not speak of this.” Hod would be able to hear, but that was not what scared her most. Any familiarity between them would be noticed and punished. Alba knew this. It was why she’d immediately warned Hod to not linger.

“He does not act like the other Northmen. He is quiet and . . . very clean. He reminds me a little of Bayr too. He is humble, though he has every reason to be proud. He does not boast or brag like most men do.” She paused and then made her pronouncement. “I like him very much.”

“You would, Alba. You have a soft spot for the strange.” Ghisla winced at her own words. Hod would think them critical when they were not. She too had a soft spot for the strange, and Hod’s peculiarities had always been precious to her.

“No.” Alba shook her head. “Not for the strange. For the good. He is good.”

He once was. Once, he was very good. But Ghisla didn’t know anymore. They’d been parted too long, and he was too removed. Too different.

“I thought you seemed nervous around him. That is not like you. You are so self-contained,” Alba said, prying, curious.

“I will not speak of this,” Ghisla insisted again.

“All right, Liis,” Alba sighed. “We will not speak of it. Your secret is safe with me.”

Her sisters did not know about her past with Hod. She’d never confessed to having feelings for him, never spoken of him at all. But Ivo knew. Dagmar knew. And if Dagmar knew, Ghost knew.

It would be seen as an omen when they discovered he’d returned to the mount.

She would be warned to stay away from him and watched even more closely than before.

It made her angry. Hod had done nothing but supplicate the keepers for a place among them. He was blind, but he was fully capable and supremely well-trained in the art of the runes as well as for the defense of the temple. He’d been raised up for a purpose, and his purpose had been denied him. He’d been branded a risk, a threat, a portent, and he’d been rejected.

They could not reject him now.

He would not need or seek their acceptance. For whatever incomprehensible reason, he was now a servant of the North King, an emissary between lands, and Master Ivo would have no influence over him whatsoever.

For the first time since she’d seen Hod’s face in Chief Benjie’s great hall, Ghisla smiled.