Empire's Hostage by Marian L Thorpe

Author:Marian L Thorpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: saga, series, lgbtq+, medieval, dark ages, family saga, historical fantasy, alternative history, alternate history
Publisher: Arboretum Press
Published: 2017-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

IN THE MORNING, HULD was not among those gathered in the hall to bid us farewell. Late in the night we had slipped back, separately, to our own rooms, when voices outside told us the torpari were returning to their cottages. Finding hay still in my hair this morning, I hoped we had been unseen.

After the lovemaking Huld had curved herself against me, one finger stroking my cheek. “Tell me of her,” she murmured.

“Who?” I asked, already drifting into sleep.

“The woman who hurt you. You make love for the body, for pleasure, yes? Not for heart. You hold back what inside you.”

I rolled away from her, staring into the darkness. Huld put out a hand to touch me. “I not upset,” she said. “Just say what think. I wrong?”

“No,” I said slowly. “You are not.”

“Tell me,” she urged. “Talk is good.”

Was it? “Her name is Maya,” I said. “When Tirvan—my village—voted to fight against the invasion from Leste, she chose exile from Tirvan rather than fight. I stayed to fight, but when it was over, I went to find her.”

“And she not want you?”

“No,” I answered, “She didn't, because she had found like-minded women and they were going to start a new village, one open only to those who had been exiled from their home villages. There would have been no place for me.”

“Is sad,” Huld said.

“I understood that, though,” I said into the night. “It was the second time, later, that I could not understand.”

“You join up again, then?”

“Not quite,” I said, hesitating, looking for a simple way to explain. “After Linrathe invaded, I stayed in the south. I had a male lover for a while, and he had a son in a village that grew grapes and made wine, and so I went there, to help raise his son.”

“So, you not fight again?”

“Not at first, no. The woman who was raising Valle—the boy—decided to go to Casilla, our one city, to live with a friend, who had a child of about the same age. I went with her. We weren't lovers, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. I found work on the fishing boats—Casilla is on the coast—and helped support us. And then Maya came looking for Valle, too, because his father was her brother. She moved in, and after a while, she asked me to leave. She told me I had no reason to be there, and she wanted me to go.”

“So, your man, he your Maya's brother?”

“Yes,” I said.

“She know?”

“No,” I said. “I never told her.”

“Then why send you away?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I don't know.” I felt the mix of anger and humiliation I always did, when I thought of that time. Huld lay silent for some minutes.

“Was only pleasure with this man, too?” she asked.

It was easy to speak the truth in the dark. “No,” I said. “It started as comfort, but by the end, when he had to leave for his ship, I loved him.”

“Then we try for comfort, again,” she whispered, running her hand down my arm.

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