Edutch and Embla: Two

They held the truce-talks in a clearing close to the shoal-side of a thin, dying wood. Dawn was crisp beneath its skeletal fingers, hardwood trees reaching into a sky that would not bless them with warmth enough to sprout their leaves ever again.

It gave Edutch an uneasy feeling, but the Corean forests always did. 

Some time in the night, people had come from the palace and set an impressive display – blazing bonfires and two long tables facing each other, set with a king’s feast. There were baskets of fresh bread still steaming and kegs of ale, gifts for the warriors who would not sit at table. It was wealth on display, foolishness or scheming. 

Across the clearing, nearly into the trees, a wildwood throne had been bowed together with evergreen saplings so fresh he could scent the citrus in the crisp air. There the Queen sat, dressed in pale blue and fleckless gray furs. She was hooded and veiled, a clever ploy to draw out their curiosity, and every eye was drawn to her like a dousing rod. On either side, she kept two massive dogs who watched them with bright, unforgiving eyes.  

“Heard her dogs are men she charmed into thralldom.” Cole grunted beside him, the brutish warchief spitting over his left shoulder to ward off demons. “Thaw-blooded witch.”

Mirosha, in her chieftain finery, scoffed. The sound was as unstable as lake ice. Then she darted hooded eyes at Edutch. “Careful, little brother. Lord Edutch comes from a long, distinguished line of witches.”

Edutch showed his teeth at Mirosha’s ugly smile. A ripple of disdain flickered through him, lashing waters of rage that hid deeper griefs. But he’d never give her the satisfaction.

“Better born of the loins of witches than the cunts of demons, Mirosha darling.”

He ignored the daggered cut of her eyes and Cole’s squeamish grunt of laughter, returning his gaze to the enigmatic queen.

Behind her, firelight glinted off the steel of soldiers’ belts and the bolts of crossbows, a threat to keep the peace, while the shoals were backed by their own arsenal of fur-wrapped warriors watching uneasily from the edge of the clearing. Truce-talks were not common among the tribes of Borea, and when they were, this tenuous assemblage was the most dangerous part. 

Into the tension, the Queen raised a gloved hand. 

“Lords.” Her voice was deep, and it carried, but Edutch suspected it was with much practice. “Welcome to our table. As a show of good faith, the sons and daughters of my own lords will eat first from the feast before you.” 

To allay worry of poison. Clever twice over. A line of well-dressed youth, some only children, walked together out of the shadows of the soldiers in the treeline. They bypassed the first table and stepped up to the second, their thaw-blood rosy in their cheeks. Each ate a little from the steaming platters, then they returned to the trees, pausing only to tap a knee before their queen. 

“Does this satisfy you?” She asked, and he could not see her eyes behind the veil. 

Haret, the oldest and grimmest of them, answered. He glared at the queen as he crossed the clearing, snatched a pheasant’s leg off the table, and ripped the flesh off the bone with age-yellowed teeth. 

The Queen didn’t blanch. “The table is yours, then, Lords. One day and one night of feasting, as is customary among your folk, is it not?” 

Haret snorted reproachfully, begrudging her the good manners. “As you say, Queen. But first,” and he nodded toward his retinue, “a gift for you.” 

Edutch clenched a fist behind his back. Haret’s soothsayer broke from their line leading a pale lamb by a sacred red rope. He stopped short of the table in dripping black gauze, in clear view of the gathered, and barked the Queen’s name with such violence that birds startled. One of her dog’s growled and steel rattled collectively in her soldiers’ lines, but the queen stilled them all with a notched hand. 

Haret’s soothsayer drew a wicked sickle knife blessed by their gods; the gray blade slashed and red stained the snow, melting it in rivets as the bloodlet spread across clean white down. The gathered shoals, he among them, barked in unison, a single, cracking word to draw the eyes of their gods. 

The force of it rattled through the clearing, and Edutch noted the tightness with which the queen gripped the arms of her sapling throne. It was an honor, to have a lamb given over to the gods in your name when so many in the camps were going hungry, and Haret and the others had wanted to see what this Queen would do at the sight of fresh blood.

Her veil foiled much of that plan. 

“I thank you, Lord, and in the spirit that this gift was given, I wish to return the lamb to your people. Food is precious at this time, is it not?” 

An ugly intake of breath. Edutch tensed as the soothsayer growled a harsh, harrowing word. But Titulus stepped quickly forward, his voice clear and effortless. “Truce-Queen, you do not know all of our ways. Was it your intention to insult our warriors? To call down the demons of hunger upon them?” 

She was very still on her throne; only her breath moved the veil. “No, Lord. It was not my wish.” She said at last, and made a sharp gesture. One of her attendants came forward immediately and spirited away the lamb’s corpse, its blood staining the white of his gloves. 

Titulus eased the tension even further by offering her a handsome, cunning smile. “Very well, Queen.” He said, then he nodded to Haret, who turned and jerked his chin at the rest of them. 

Beside him, Edutch’s shadow gave a low whistle of relief, and Edutch grunted his agreement as he followed the other warchiefs across the warming snow. They each spat into the lambsblood stain as they passed before taking to the longtable. In his periphery, Edutch caught his shadow’s eyes widening when they came within scenting distance of the feast-food, and even his gut gave a rumble of traitorous approval. 

The Boreans had been on rations for uncountable weeks, culling out reedy rabbit and even thinner deer from the dying wood and scraping the last of the crops out of conquered villages. Their seal hunters scoured the bays, but the colonies had not yet moved this far south. Hunger wasn’t beyond their capacity, but neither were they immune when twenty different platters were set before them steaming and swimming in gravy.  

With wicked restraint, none of them touched the food. Not until Haret was done scowling at the thaw-bloods across the clearing like a rutting godsdamned buck. Just when Titulus was going to step in, Haret decided he’d intimidated them enough and gave a final, fierce pound of his fist against the table. Dishes clattered, and on the shoal side, music broke out in bounding leaps. 

Edutch grit his teeth at the theatrics, but a wave of relief washed through the clearing. The most dangerous moments were passed. The warchiefs tore into the meal, Mirosha with brittle control, Cole like a demon who hadn’t eaten in weeks. Edutch forced himself to go slowly, but he frowned at the way his shadow’s hands shook as the boy reached for a breast of pheasant.  

“Nothing too rich,” he murmured, “or you’ll be sick all night. Eat the greens whether you like them or not. Your mother will never forgive me if you die of wricken before you notch a glory on your belt.” 

Aren gave a very small, very impish grin and nodded wordlessly, piling an overlarge serving of cooked vegetables over the pheasant on his plate. Edutch kept one eye on him and made his own. Lean, roasted meats, roots in herb cream, a fist of tender greens. Bread and salt and butter and wine lay within easy reach. It was a spread the shoals might see once a year on Borea, if that year had been good, and still not quite as fine as this.  

Something about it made the center of him clench unpleasantly. 

Then the truce-queen rose unobtrusively from her throne. 

Edutch tensed, tracking her through his periphery instinctively, sure she would settle at her own table. But she did not, and when she waved off a displeased-looking queensguard, he perked, warm bread uneaten in his fist. The other warchiefs noticed her one by one by one like a pack scenting prey and quiet clarified through the clearing as the veiled queen approached. 

Only her dogs followed as she carved a path behind enemy lines, a move that might have been foolish without her crossbowmen in the trees. She skirted the table, very close to Edutch as she came. Unwisely close. He could see how small she was, and how large and silent her dogs. Her face was a flickering silouhette beneath the veil. 

Leather and steel creaked as the warchiefs tracked her, and her dogs watched them with malicious intensity in return. She paused before the stain in the snow, the place where the lamb had given its lifeblood to the gods in her name. Here, the truce-queen hesitated. 

With deliberate grace, she slipped off a fur-lined glove, revealing pale, fine-boned fingers alive with blush. The nails were tapered and clean and she wore no ornaments. Edutch tracked them as she lifted the edge of her veil, exposed the curve of her jaw, and spit into the blooded snow as they had done. 

A heartbeat passed. Another. 

Then Haret roared with laughter. Cole followed, and Mirosha and Titulus. Even Edutch cracked a smile as she let the veil fall back into place and turned wordlessly toward her own table. 

“Well done, Queen.” Haret boomed, raising a cup to her. 

As she took her seat – and a band of relieved counselors and lords joined her – she only inclined her head. Edutch wondered if he imagined it, or if the edge of a bright mouth smiled beneath the veil.