Page 4 of Swordheart
More thumping, followed by cackling, followed by silence.
One of the cousins brought her food that night. Halla couldn’t remember her name, but it didn’t much matter, since they were all fairly interchangeable anyway. Sayvil, Aunt Malva’s sister, lurked on the other side of the door, watching them through a crack.
“What was all that noise earlier?” she asked.
“Malva told Roderick to wring the bird’s neck,” said the cousin.
“He opened the cage, didn’t he?”
The cousin nodded. “Fastened on to his face like a leech,” she said, with a certain amount of relish. “He was screaming and hopping around like anything. Then he got it loose but it flew up into the rafters.”
“Oh dear.” Halla composed her face to look as innocent as possible. “I’m good with the bird, I could probably get it back.”
The cousin looked blank. “Do you think we were born yesterday, girl?” snapped Sayvil from the door. “Anyway, the bird’s gone out the door, and good riddance.”
Halla sagged. Well, it had been a thin hope.
It was that night, as she sat brooding, that she realized that she was probably going to have to kill herself.
Halla had no great desire to die, but she had even less desire to remain living among her relatives. This did not leave her with many options. She had run through every possibility in her head and no matter which way she turned it, her continued life was about to get very, very bad.
If I could just break out of the house and… and what? Be penniless on the street on the edge of winter?
This was a daunting prospect, but she’d been willing to try. It wasn’t the worst situation she’d ever found herself in. If she could get to a convent, she could throw herself on the mercy of the nuns, like so many other unfortunate women did. It would probably mean a lot of scrubbing floors, but Halla wasn’t afraid of hard work.
If she could get to a priest, things would get easier. She could throw herself on the mercy of the Four-Faced God, whose priest currently inhabited the village church. He wouldn’t let her be dragged to the altar unwillingly.
But that assumes I can get out. And that’s the tricky part.
Well, the windows are right out. Even if they weren’t these stupid diamonds, I’m two floors up. I’d fall in the street and probably break my legs, and then I’d be in pain as well as betrothed. And then I couldn’t run.
The notion of being at Alver and Malva’s mercy and unable to escape… she couldn’t imagine.
No, wait, she could imagine it very well, since it was apparently happeningright now.
Once they start locking you in your room, it only gets worse though. I’m going to be kept in an attic like a mad aunt. And Alver seems to think we’ll have children, which… Halla shuddered.Locked in a room, pregnant… gods above and below…
She didn’t even dare to think about what else could happen. There were rumored to be drugs that could render someone docile or wipe their mind as clean as new snow. Death was undoubtedly preferable tothat.
No, the future is not looking very good at all. Unless I do something… drastic.
There was a sword over the bed, in a tarnished silver scabbard. One of Silas’s prizes, no doubt. He had collected strange objectsand left them scattered haphazardly around the house. She’d found a manticore skull in the pantry once. It had just stared eyelessly at her, and eventually she rearranged the sacks of flour and jars of spices to make room. It was still there. The cook had screaming hysterics when she found it the next day, but you got used to things. She’d never been quite sure if Silas had gone senile or just enjoyed leaving things where they would shock people.
And then, of course, there was the bird. It had been sold to Silas as a dwarf parrot, which it certainly was not, and while you could argue that it did talk, it did so in a way so unnatural that it raised the hair on the back of your neck. Two servants and the cook had quit on the spot. The cook had to be rehired at twice her previous wage and one of the servants had refused to come back for any price.
Halla took the sword down and stared at it. The hilt was wrapped in leather and the cross guard was plain. The scabbard was the only ornamented part, the metal etched with interlocking circles. The grooves in the etching were black, with paint or tarnish, she didn’t know.
It looked old. She wasn’t even sure if she could pull it out of the sheath or if it had rusted in place.
She tried to hold it by the hilt and her wrists immediately began wobbling with the weight.
Howdidyou kill yourself with a sword? People in ballads and sagas fell on their swords, but what did that mean? If she fell over on the sword, presumably she’d be lying on top of a sword and then what? If it was lying flat on the ground, nothing would happen, and if it was lying on its side, she might get cut up a bit. Were you supposed to wait for infection to take you?
No, no, don’t be stupid. Obviously you have to prop the thing up on the floor somehow so it goes through you when you fall on it.
… however the devil you do that.
Obviously, guardsmen and soldiers killed each other withswords all the time. It was just that it seemed like it would be much easier to kill someoneelse,when the sharp bits were all aimed away and you didn’t have to worry about whether it hurt. In actual practice, Halla found herself looking at the sheathed sword and thinking that she could probably hurt herself quite badly, but what if shelived?
