Siren Slave (36 page)

“Freya is a swan,” Balder said. “Just a swan.”

“As Ard Righ,” Lugh said, “it is my responsibility to ensure my people feel safe. Something might need to be done.” They knew nothing of Freya and were willing to…to what? Bash her skull in, as Hecate had said? Siegfried tensed, setting his goblet down eight times. He’d listen before he spoke again.

“You would do well to remember that I did not try to become Ard Righ myself.” Woden’s single eye flashed with a silver light. He then turned to Siegfried, “Freya is one of the Aesir, a proud citizen of Asgard. Fomori or not.”

“Don’t worry so, Woden,” Lugh said. “I haven’t come to suggest sending Freya to Summer Isle. I want to suggest a match. It would ease hearts if Freya were wed to Airgetlam.”

“I don’t worry. It is much easier to crush things before they cause me worry, as a man should.” Woden’s words surprised Siegfried, but not as much as they had before the revelation that Woden could have easily been a contender to become Ard Righ.

Siegfried set his wine down, then set it down again seven more times. Woden gave him a speculative glance, then shook his head. No, there could be no match for Freya. Siegfried had promised her he’d do his best to protect her.

“I’ve heard Freya is beautiful,” Airgetlam said. “If she is gently bred and biddable, it would forge a powerful alliance between you and the Ard Righ.” Now that Siegfried had seen Freya, the real one, he shuddered at the thought of her with a warden. “It is better than putting her in one of the prison cells. I would care for her well.”

“Nuada,” Loki said, “the problem is someone managed to put the Marks on Freya’s face.”

Nuada dropped his wine. “She’s disfigured? Lugh, if she is marked with those—”

“Then
I
should be seeing to her,” MacMidhna spoke up. His frilled, white collar trembled with the virbations of his Adam’s apple. “I’ll gladly take Freya. She cannot wed if she’s been Marked. Unless, Lugh, you’d make an exception for Woden’s daughter.”

“He’s just as virginal as Balder,” Hedwig whispered to Siegfried, side-eyeing MacMidhna. “Not that that’s a surprise that there is not such a thing as ‘drunk enough’ when it comes to sleeping with that.”

“None of you seem to realize the other problem,” Loki said calmly. “Beast or not, Marked or not, Freya is in love with Siegfried the Fox.” He gestured at Siegfried.

“A faun?” Woden bellowed at the same time Airgetlam said, “A pirate?”

“How did you even come to be involved with this, faun?” Woden demanded.

Balder and Hedwig gave an explanation with several interruptions.

As soon as he was able, Siegfried cut in. “Freya is not
in love
with me. Circumstances forced an alliance, a friendship between the two of us. Tell me, Loki, how is it you know this very recent information?”

Loki tipped his head back and laughed. “Years-old information is hardly recent, at least it shouldn’t be to a human. The daughter of a Beast backing Rome? You show your ignorance, my lusty faun. You’re rather disappointing as the Fox.” He traced his finger around the rim of his wine goblet. “A simple puzzle, really, that you could have figured out without searching her chamber. How easy would it be for the princess to steal keys, bat her lashes at the warriors, and free those prisoners? How easy would it be for no one to suspect vain Freya would go skulking through the dungeons at night? As Balder said, Freya is a swan. But more than that, she is Swan.”

Loki watched Siegfried’s face as he considered what the Trickster had just said. Freya had been so eager to come to him, in so many ways. All that silence at first, the nervous squeals, they had been squeals of excitement? She’d asked him whether or not he wanted her to remove his toga with her teeth, the way she washed his feet had been almost reverent. She’d been so fervent about pledging herself to no one but Siegfried. She’d bowed before him, prostrated herself in willing submission. But was Loki a reliable source? He didn’t think so. He looked to Balder and Hedwig.

Balder sighed and Hedwig whispered, “You’re just realizing this now? Really?”

Could Swan really be Freya? The details on the wedding she’d sent him had been detailed, to say the least, and almost always spotted with vegetable stew. But Swan had been surefooted. Shoes, it was the damned shoes. He thought back to Swan’s garb with the high slits, exposing her thighs. Hedwig had been around that night, no doubt encouraging the princess to wear something more revealing and providing her with shoes she could comfortably wear.

“Ah, Siegfried, ever the one not to trust,” Loki said. “Didn’t want to see what was so obvious, did you? Not even the warriors that had to be scraped off the ground at Vercingetorix’s camp. Oh, have the rest of you seen Freya’s pretty little power? Not the incinerating of people with lighting, the other one.” Siegfried tensed until Loki clarified. “The one that makes men’s veins explode? It happens when she’s upset. Almost killed General Pompey by accident.”

“Loki, how did you come upon this information?” Lugh asked, the gold rim of his goblet thudding against the food-laden table. Siegfried was thankful the Ard Righ had asked. Mayhap Woden would pay attention now. When Loki described the Blood Call, a huge grin had spread across Woden’s face.

“An uncle should watch over his niece,” Loki said. “Come now, Hecate had Balder watching over her. My shapeshift forms aren’t as ostentatious, if I don’t want them to be. Who is going to notice a small spider or a fly? Don’t feel badly, Siegfried. I know more about Freya than her own father does. But she does loathe when an insect lands in her hair. And if any of you suspect I have something to do with this, I would not have had my niece Marked. Not unless I were certain I was going to have her allegiance.”

Siegfried wasn’t breathing. He took eight sips of his wine. Why hadn’t he seen how eager she’d been? How quick she’d trusted him? How staunchly she’d defended him? Because he didn’t want to. What must she have thought when her “hero” made her do all those things? She had admired him enough that refusal of whatever he had asked was not possible.

“By gods.” Woden rose. “I do not know if I want to kill or celebrate. Perhaps I shall have mead and do both.” He tipped back a horn of mead. “My daughter, the fruit of Asgard’s mighty loins, turns her enemies into piles of blood and bone. My seed rains glorious carnage upon the cowardly of the earth. But who has shamed my illustrious progeny with the Marks of the Condemned? I remained neutral for a reason, and yet the Great War finds its way into my hall over a thousand years later! The skies shall rain blood and ice with Asgard’s wrath. The yellow shall quake and piss themselves. My daughter, my flesh and blood can explode people.”

“The problem now is what happens to Freya,” Lugh said, showing none of Woden’s excitement on his serene features. “She roars and has no rights. She has one sennight to be claimed. Less than, perhaps. I assume she is ignorant of this.”

“Asgard will not enforce those laws,” Woden said.

“She cannot be your heir with the Marks.” MacMidhna leaned forward eagerly, the frill around his neck dipping into the gravy covering the chunk of boar on his plate. “I would care for her, and she’d want for nothing. I will dissuade her from this infatuation with Siegfried—for all we know another Balor—and claim her as mine.”

“Except Siegfried can’t steal people’s powers,” Hedwig said. “And Siegfried isn’t a Fomori and fights Romans instead of Lugh. He’s also not a water dragon, doesn’t use fist weapons—did you not notice the bow?—and he has different colored hair. Alien, you really are an ass. This isn’t an infatuation. She’ll probably kill me for saying this, but she was going to marry someone she didn’t love to pass along information to Siegfried. She was going to marry that Etainen person for him.”

“Who’s this Attaining person?” Woden asked, twirling his beard.

She’d never mentioned why she was still going to go through with that match after she was fey. Now Siegfried knew. But what was fifty or so years if she’d live for an eternity? Damnit, he saw it all now. He wouldn’t belittle the sacrifice she’d been willing to make. She’d taken risks when she had no idea she was fey. Then she’d still taken astronomical risks. And she’d been willing to help him get Julia, even after what Julia had done. She wanted him to be happy. That was
love,
wasn’t it? She loved someone she barely knew. Why? And of course she would let him have his perverse way with her if she
loved
him.

“This daughter who explodes things, she
shall
be my heir. If anyone refuses to recognize her, we can spend some father-daughter time, raining waves of blood, carnage, and glory upon those cowards. But she needs someone strong as her husband. I will have a contest of strength to win the hand of my Freya. It can all be done in days. Asgard has already discarded Laws for the Marked Fomori, lest anyone was not clear on what I said a few moments ago. She can wed, but only the greatest warrior in all the Otherworld. A man who drinks blood instead of mead, a man who dines upon the entrails of his vanquished.”

“Uh, Woden, that’s disturbing,” Hedwig said. “I don’t think I’d find cannibalism attractive at all.” Siegfried remembered Freya picking what she called questionable things from her teeth after she’d snapped apart Merrick.

“Furthermore, Aillen MacMidhna,” Woden continued, “you will remove those Marks from her face. You were the one who created the Marks.”

“I cannot remove them,” MacMidhna said peevishly. Yes, this was a meeting between equals, not a king and his subjects. “I designed them to be permanent. That’s what they are. They are there to mark and subjugate Beasts. If Freya roars, perhaps she should be Marked. As I said, I will compete for her and treat her well. I would be respected as your heir to the realms that would not accept her. Methinks they would accept her if she were wed to me, considering my office. A lesser man would balk at the ability to control another that way.”

“It’s a formidable burden, frightening to a lesser being,” Airgetlam said, clearly speaking from experience. “You see the fangs, feel their hatred of you, but you can forcibly control their powers. You can feel their anger, even feel them speculating subversion, which is useful. If she’s even part Fomori, this isn’t something you would want to experience.”

“You can’t judge on blood, as well you should know. If Lugh did that, you would never be Warden of Summer Isle, Nuada,” Woden said, giving the man a cocky smirk. “Unless you note that she has my proud blood in her veins, as is evidenced by her ability to explode her enemies.”

Airgetlam rose and Hedwig made a gagging sound. “I was, indeed. Born into a low caste of the elves, I was never permitted to become a warrior, though I had no small amount of skill with the spear. I had no interest in raising cattle or crops.” His eyes glazed over. Siegfried had the impression Airgetlam had been waiting for just this moment to tell this tale. “So, I took to stealing. I, too, had been an outlaw. But I only stole small items, like bread or ale. Like all criminals, I was eventually and rightfully caught.

“The Ard Righ was there the day my hand was to be chopped off. He was camped there for the Great War. I was stubborn, obstinate to the last. Until Lugh intervened. I was in awe that the Ard Righ would take notice of me, a man with a spear skill greater than my own. He made me a deal. If I suffered the removal of my hand as a man, without fighting, he would take me into his ranks as a spearman. I agreed.

“I proved myself able and was given the honor of commanding the Ard Righ’s forces, bringing destruction to the Beasts. I earned my position there as Warden of Summer Isle. I was also given a new hand.” He flexed the silver one. “It is much better than my old one.”

“Oh, no,” Hedwig said. “Lugh, can’t you stop this?”

Airgetlam removed a leather pouch from his hip. He reached into it and plopped a skeletal hand onto the center of the table, alarmingly close to the venison. “Here before you is a reminder of my old inadequacy, a reminder of what I shall never be again, a reminder of how Lugh Lamfada raised me up to greatness.”

“No one wants to see your damned severed hand,” Hedwig bellowed. “No one cares what it symbolizes. We just want it off the table. Throw it away. Who walks around with decapitated limbs as some kind of badge of pride? That’s not a badge. It’s the reason why you’re almost as celibate as Alien or Balder.”

“The hand is a bit disturbing,” Woden conceded. He looked to Siegfried. “Fig-Reed is not quaking, so I assume he has not touched my daughter’s powers, else he would have died in fear and awe of the wonder that sprang from Woden’s loins. So, she will find her match via this tourney. Aillen, your abilities should make this easy enough for you. And wash your hair.”

There was a break in the conversation as all watched MacMidhna contemplate the lank strands of his hair. Siegfried took his chance. “If your aim, Lugh, is to put your people at ease and you do not wish to kill Woden’s daughter, your only choice is to give her custody to me,” Siegfried said calmly. “For me, it is as simple as ordering her not to touch Oblivion. Lest you seek to equate me with Balor the Power Thief, my interests are not in Asgard or the Otherworld. My goal remains the same, that people should live in freedom. My efforts only touch the Otherworld as far as the fey who is involved with our enemies, the one who gave the Druids the tool to Mark Freya. Woden, I do not see how you can see this differently.”

“I do not want my daughter with a
faun.”
Woden slammed his mead horn on the table. His fist went
through
the wood, yet the horn remained unscathed. “Cannot waste booze,” he muttered.

“Freya pledged herself to me with the old words, and I accepted that pledge,” Siegfried said, stunning the table into silence. “Freya is mine. No contest can change that.”

“I thought that’d be obvious already,” Hedwig said. “Siegfried did say he and Freya made a necessary alliance. Hmm, wonder what that alliance could be?” She rolled her eyes.

“Siegfried, come with me,” Lugh rose and a scantily-clad serving woman pulled his chair away. “We will adjourn to Woden’s solar. If you are serious about this, you will sign the documentation that will hold you legally responsible for Freya.”