Frieda's Tale

Chapter 2

There were students, Frieda had been told, who looked forward to the holidays because it meant a chance to go home. She’d thought they were insane even before she’d been transferred to Whitehall and discovered that, away from the darkened tunnels of Mountaintop, it was possible to actually enjoy one’s holiday. But then, those students — children, really — had good and decent parents, parents who treated them as real people. She remembered laughing at a girl who’d whined that her parents had grounded her for a week after she’d disobeyed them. The silly twit hadn’t known how lucky she was. Frieda’s parents would have beaten her bloody if they’d caught her defying them.

The sense of oppression grew stronger as they made their way down the muddy track, picking their way through woodland paths that were barely visible against the gloom. She felt out of place, as if she’d sneaked into an aristocratic ball and discovered, too late, that she was expected to lead the first dance. She’d once known the forests around her village like the back of her hand — all the best places to find mushrooms, all the best places to hide when her parents and relatives had been in that mood — but now, they felt strange and wrong. She looked down at herself, her head spinning. Her outfit was very simple — she had no intention of becoming a clothes horse — but it was still finer than anything she’d ever owned as a child. It struck her, suddenly, that they might not even recognise her. She looked nothing like the scrawny girl they’d sold into an uncertain fate.

She snickered, then sobered. It might be better if they didn’t know who she was…

The path opened suddenly, revealing the village. Frieda gasped. Had it always been that small? And grimy? The low-built shacks looked laughable, even though she knew it was a very practical design. The children bustling around, watched by a pair of ancient crones — she knew the women were probably in their forties, but they looked older — were only half-dressed, while their older counterparts watched the newcomers warily. Frieda felt old memories rising inside her, taunting her, as she spied a cluster of thuggish young men eying her. She thought she knew them. She certainly knew their attitude.

Hoban addressed the nearest man. “I seek the headman,” he said, “Point me to him.”

The man jabbed a finger at the largest hut in the village. Frieda was torn between the urge to laugh or cry. She remembered the hut. It had once seemed a palace. Five rooms, a luxury beyond compare! Now… she found herself giggling helplessly, drawing disapproving stares from the villages who thought she couldn’t see them. She’d seen palaces and castles and magical mansions that were bigger on the inside. The headman’s hut was so tiny! Frieda tried to calm herself as they were shown into the audience chamber, a fancy name for a muddy parody of a throne room. The headman sat on a raised chair, trying to look both firm and obsequious. Frieda frowned, inwardly, as she looked back at him. She’d been impressed by the headman once, the strongest man in the village. Now… now, he was a joke.

“My Lord,” the headman said. “I am Ivanov, Son of Ivanov.”

“I am Lord Sorcerer Hoban,” Hoban said. “And this is Frieda, Daughter of Huckeba. She hails from your village.”

Frieda looked up. The headman stared at her, a wash of confused emotions crossing his face before he schooled his features into an immobile mask. Frieda was torn between amusement and annoyance as he tried to work out how she should be treated. Was she a powerful sorceress, with enough magic to burn the entire village to the ground, or was she a worthless woman who could be put to work while the men talked? Frieda held his eyes, daring him to try to order her to submit. The headman broke contact first.

It might have been better if Hoban hadn’t told him who I was, Frieda thought, crossly. I bet he doesn’t even remember me.

She kept the thought to herself and allowed her eyes to roam the chamber while the two men talked. The curtains at the rear were drawn back, revealing a makeshift kitchen — it had once seemed the best kitchen in the world — and a hanging birdcage, positioned against the far wall. Her heart clenched. The cage wasn’t for birds, but for young women. She’d slept in one herself, when she’d been a child. It was supposed to keep them safe from the men.

But it didn’t work, she recalled, trying not to shudder. The old memories hovered at the back of her mind. All it did was keep us firmly under our father’s thumb.

“Your team visited twice, then never came again,” Ivanov said. He sounded as though he was telling the truth, although Frieda wasn’t so sure. The wretched headman would have lost his head — the thought nearly made her smile — by now if he hadn’t been a very good dissembler. “They’re not the only people to have wandered off, never to be seen again.”

“Oh?” Hoban leaned forward. “Who else?”

Ivanov didn’t shrug dismissively, but the effect was there. “A pair of taxmen set out from the keep last month, hoping to make their rounds. They left the village late in the day and were never seen again.”

Frieda kept her thoughts to herself. The villagers hated the taxmen. They tended to be runaway villagers, looking for a little revenge by groveling in front of the local nobility while putting their insider knowledge to work rooting out hidden crops and seizing everything they could. Frieda recalled one boy, the runt of the litter, who’d become the worst of the bunch. He’d taken too much, even by the standards of the region. And he’d eventually had a terrible accident that was nothing of the sort.

And these taxmen probably got killed too, Frieda thought. She found it hard to feel any pity for the wretched creatures. They were little better than traitors to their own families and kindred. As long as their masters don’t know what happened to them, or even precisely where they died, there will be no punishment.

“We do need to recruit more workers,” Hoban said. There was a hint of threat in his tone. “We will pay good wages.”

Frieda tuned out the rest of the conversation. She knew how it would go. Ivanov would protest — probably truthfully — that the village couldn’t spare anyone, then make a show of offering a handful of likely lads before Hoban started trying to conscript local men to work on the dig. They wouldn’t be that helpful, not unless Hoban offered them permanent employment a long way from the village or something — anything — more than coins they’d probably lose in a hurry. The headman would take his cut — naturally — and the local strongmen would take the rest.

“We must discuss the details,” Ivanov said, finally. “Perhaps Lady Frieda” —Frieda could hear the sarcasm— “would care to visit her family?”

Frieda felt her blood boil. The headman was provoking her. No, he was testing her. He wanted to see if he had any influence over her… she wanted to laugh at the sheer provincialism of the trick. Didn’t he have any idea how wide the world truly was? Frieda had been to Mountaintop and Whitehall and Zangaria, all so far away the headman couldn’t even begin to comprehend the distance. His world petered out a few short miles from the boundary line. She doubted he’d been more than ten miles from the village in his entire life.

The thought made her smile. He looked disconcerted.

“Perhaps I will,” she said. She made a show of moving her eyes to Hoban. “I’ll meet up with you in an hour.”

She could feel the headman’s eyes boring into her as she turned and left, stepping into the outside air. The poor man had to be completely unsure of her. Hoban was a sorcerer and Frieda was neither his clear superior nor groveling at his feet, let alone keeping herself out of sight and out of mind like a village girl. He didn’t have the slightest idea what to make of her. Good. She felt her smile grow wider as she took a long breath and let it out slowly. The village stank and yet, the air was cleaner than the hut. She wondered, not for the first time, how many unexplained deaths over the years had been caused by poisonous air.

The thought sobered her as she kept walking, heading towards a shack she hadn’t seen for over six years. It hadn’t changed, as far as she could tell; it was still a long low building that seemed permanently on the verge of falling and being squashed under its own weight. The roof was covered with soil and grass, a trick that was supposed to keep the heat from escaping during the long winter months. The hell of it, she reflected, was that it actually worked. It just didn’t feel that way. She shuddered, remembering long nights when they’d huddled together for warmth. It wasn’t something she could do now. Not after…

Frieda stopped outside the shack, suddenly unsure of herself. Hoban had let the cat out of the bag, damn it. She should have told him to keep his mouth shut. Frieda was hardly an uncommon name. The scrawny girl she’d been had vanished long ago. No one would know her, even the girls who’d taunted and the boys who’d… she felt her magic bubbling, her anger driving it on. It was hard to tap it down, to keep it under control. She knew she was brave and yet, it took everything she had to step up to the door and tap on the wood. There was no point in wasting time. Ivanov would tell her parents she’d returned shortly.

The door opened. Frieda found herself looking at a stranger’s face. The woman looked… strange. It took her a moment to realise just how much she had changed. The woman was both strong and weak, tough enough to bear and raise children while engaged in backbreaking labour and yet too weak to stand up to her husband or chart a new path for herself. A flash of horror ran through Frieda as she realised she was staring at her mother. The woman didn’t look like the giant she remembered…

“My Lady?” Daffodil, Wife of Huckeba, stared at her. “I…”

Frieda gritted her teeth. Her mother didn’t recognise her. Frieda had read a bunch of adventure stories about children who’d been stolen away and had to find their way back to their loving parents and, in all of them, the parents had recognised their children instantly. But this was reality… it had been six years since Daffodil had laid eyes on her child, six years of good food and healthy exercise and decent treatment. Frieda no longer looked like someone who belonged in the village. She looked like a visiting aristocrat. It was hard, so hard, not to turn and walk away.

“Mother,” she managed, suddenly very aware of how her accent had changed, too. “It’s me.”

Daffodil staggered. “Frieda?”

She stepped back hastily, muttering a welcoming invocation. Frieda sensed a faint tingle of magic around the doorway, too slight for her to be sure if it was anything more than a light sensation, as she stepped inside. The interior was dark and dingy, the air stinking of too many people in too close of a proximity. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the older man leaning against the wall, the memories rising up and threatening to overwhelm her. Huckeba — her father — had once been her master, a tyrant who could never be appeased or challenged. He’d thrashed her regularly, beating her back and buttocks with his belt without even bothering with an excuse. He’d done the same to his other children, she recalled. It was no surprise to her that her oldest brother had walked off one day and never returned.

“This is Frieda,” Daffodil said. There was an airy tone in her voice that scared Frieda almost as much as it angered her. “She’s come back to us.”

Huckeba belched. He was drunk. Frieda shuddered. The villages brewed their own alcohol and drank themselves blind drunk regularly, when they weren’t fighting so savagely someone would be bound to wind up with a broken bone or cracked skull. A surge of hatred ran through her, followed by disgust and shame. She’d never really liked the tutors of Mountaintop — they’d looked down on her, for being a common-born magician — but they’d been far better than her biological father. She didn’t know, now, why she’d been so scared of him. It would be so easy to kill him with a snap of her finger.

You were a child, she told herself. Her body ached, quivering with remembered pain. Now, you’re a grown woman and a sorceress to boot.

“So,” Huckeba said. His voice was thick, his accent so strong it was hard to follow his words. “You’ve come back to us.”

“She’ll raise us up,” Daffodil said, her voice shaking. “She’ll…”

Frieda gritted her teeth. She’d wondered, from time to time, what it would be like to see her parents again. They’d beg her forgiveness, she’d told herself, and welcome her back into the family. Or she’d rage at them, demand to know why they’d sold her to a stranger who’d taken her to an uncertain fate. Or… instead, she felt an icy sensation spreading through her body. The man and woman in front of her were pathetic. It was impossible to believe they were her real parents. There were spells to check… she bit down, hard, on the temptation to check they were. It was possible, but… she studied her mother, picking out traces of her own features on the older woman’s embittered face. It was like staring into a vision of her future, or an alternate reality. The only thing she’d inherited from her father had been the eyes.

Huckeba staggered to his feet. “What do you want, girl?”

“Why?” Frieda readied a spell, just in case he tried to strike her. Again. “Why did you sell me to a stranger?”

Daffodil twisted her hands. “We had no choice. We would have died that winter, without money and food. We were promised you’d become a great lady and you have…”

Huckeba grunted. “You were sacrificed so that the rest of the family might live,” he said, stiffly. “Just like your uncle.”

Frieda frowned — her father’s brother had been a sore spot for as long as she could remember, although she’d never been sure of the details — and put the question aside for later consideration. Instead, she leaned forward. “That was it? You sent me away…”

“And now you’ve come back,” Daffodil said. “You’re our daughter…”

“There’s an aristocratic mother I met at Mountaintop,” Frieda said, stiffly. “She does everything for her daughter, from choosing her clothes to organising her courses and arranging her future marriage. The poor girl has no freedom. She doesn’t know how to cope without her mother. And yet, that mother is a far better parent than either of you!”

Huckeba stumbled forward, raising his fist. Frieda froze him effortlessly, disgust and contempt welling up within her. How could this… this brute rule his family? She looked at his uncovered arms and knew the answer. He’d brutalised everyone to the point they didn’t dare lift a hand to him, not when it would mean a week of pain. She knew she’d been lucky to survive. If she hadn’t had magic in her blood, she would have died too.

“I never want to see you again,” she said. “Either of you.”

She turned, ignoring the tears in her mother’s eyes. She felt no obligation to forgive her parents. They’d mistreated her and sold her and… she shook her head in disgust as she pushed the door open and stepped outside. She wanted to burn the shack to the ground, to erase all traces of her past, yet… what did that matter? She had made a life for herself that didn’t include any of her family. And besides, Emily would be disappointed. Frieda didn’t want to let her saviour down.

“Well,” a new voice said. “Look who’s come crawling back, dressed so fine.”

Frieda looked up, cursing herself for being lost in her own thoughts. The boys in front of her — she knew without looking there were others behind her — smiled nastily, their eyes wandering over her chest. Memories flashed through her mind, of little touches and gropes and…

She felt sick. She knew the leader. Ivanovo, Son of Ivanov.

“You think you’re better than us?” Ivanovo leered at her. “You think…?”

Frieda cast the spell without thinking. There was a brilliant flash of light. The boys were gone, small frogs hopping on the ground where they’d been. They panicked a second later, completely discomfited by the sudden change. Frieda understood. She’d had trouble coping the first time someone had turned her into a frog too. Bile rose in her throat. The aristocratic bitch who’d cast the spell had also talked about putting her in her place. And now…

She muttered a summoning spell, yanking the runaway frogs back to her. “Two things,” she said. “First, the spell will wear off shortly, but if you ever touch another woman without her permission, you’ll become frogs again. Permanently. And second…”

The frogs stared at her, quivering. “And second,” Frieda repeated, “you’re all going to work on the dig. Report to the cursed village tomorrow, or you’ll be cursed.”

She turned on her heel and walked away. Hoban would be pleased to have some labourers and he probably wouldn’t ask too many questions. Even if he did… Frieda smirked, feeling some of the ghosts of the past fade away. It wasn’t the first time the village louts had ganged up on a woman alone, she was sure. They’d been a little too practiced for it to be their first time. They deserved punishment. They deserved…

And none of them will ever know the spell won’t linger, she thought. Ivanovwould probably make a fuss, when his son whined to him, but who cared? It wasn’t as if he could do anything about it. They’ll treat their women a little better in future.