Chapter 13

During my days in Aston and with Frode I had painfully learned that whatever my strengths were, drinking other people under the table wasn’t really one of them. Well, maybe I might have been able to drink the people under the table, but the price I would pay for it the following day would be high. Vomiting two dozen times once you had nothing to vomit was quite bad. The headache was much worse.

After that happened the second time, Frode felt sorry for me and taught me a series of tricks that he had been using himself for years. He had told me that he had the same problem that I had and therefore was very careful with his drinking while at the same time fooling the others around him to drink way too much. First I was so angry to him for fooling me that I wanted to hit him - but it’s hard to hit someone when your headache is so bad that you throw up when you raise your hand.

If somebody tries to make sure that you drink your stuff and get drunk, they keep on looking at your throat when you swallow. First part of the trick is to raise your jug to your mouth and not really get much drink in your mouth. Second part of the trick is to learn to make those movements without actually swallowing anything and the final part is to get the drink out of your mouth and back into the jug without anybody noticing that you didn’t really drink it. Since Liv and I were not sitting next to other people the first and last parts were quite easy if you knew what you were doing. I made sure to exaggerate the swallowing motions and the leader who had asked for the toast couldn’t help a small smile forming to his thin lips. Bastard.

Now there was one other problem - I needed to figure out what was the plant or mushroom had been added to the drink they had offered me. If it was some mushroom I should soon be hallucinating. I needed to think quickly. Most likely they would not like me to hallucinate. When he took a quick look at Liv I understood that Liv was the one he wanted - I might be needed because of my ability to catch rabbits. I might live if I would seem harmless enough. It was like the cloud of fog had suddenly disappeared and I would be able to see what the other side of the lake or stream looked like. So, it must have been Poppy. I had seen them growing behind some houses and I had been wondering why they had Poppy there instead of potatoes or cabbage.

It wasn’t that much later when I started pretending that I was sleepy. I tried to use my fingers to show Liv that I was actually okay, but either she didn’t notice it or she was even better actress than I had believed. Whatever the reason, we soon were back inside our meager hut and Liv helped me to the platform that served as a bed. I pulled Liv on top of me and once Liv was lying next to me I wrote slowly on the bottom of the platform with my finger. I had decided to trust that they weren’t able to see inside this quite dark hut.

‘Tried to drug me with poppy. Tonight he will come after you.’

Liv just looked back at me and nodded.

‘Need some cloth to put into his mouth.’

Suddenly there was a grin on Liv’s face and somehow I wasn’t able to think that it would be anything good for the man. The man. The Man. I noticed that he hadn’t told me his name nor had he asked for our names. Maybe there was no need to use names here if he was The Man here and the rest of the people were his servants. Or his parishioners. In Aston I had heard that there were some Preachers who were able to control their listeners a little as he just did. Those Preachers were allowed if their parish remained small enough and they stayed away from Aston - or were loyal to their church.

I didn’t dare to think what this man could do if he had been taught properly and he had been able to talk to a large number of people. Or then there might have been that one arrow, coming from the distance, which would have put an end to his talking.

I forced myself to relax. If I had guessed correctly, now we should just wait - and if my suspicions were for nothing then the worst thing that would happen would be a night without sleep. That, I had done before.

It never really became dark during the night here; the dusk would just change into morning twilight at some point. On the western coast, where the ocean kept the worst cold away, there was a short period during which the sun didn’t set at all. Here, the sun went below the horizon but it didn’t get dark - so most likely somebody would have been able to see how ‘The Man’ entered our hut in the middle of that hazy period.

I didn’t really dare open my sensing here, but I sensed enough to recognize ‘The Man’ when he approached our small hut. Alone. I kept my eyes closed when I heard how the door opened. Risky, I knew, but I felt that they would like to have more rabbits for their stew, so no arrows in my body - yet.

“Woman, you will be my woman and carry my children.”

Again, the amount of Magic he was able to put to his Anglon was worrying and I could only hope that, as a non-magical person, Liv would be mostly immune to his charm. Besides that, Liv had her hair tied in a bun that was held together with several wooden pins - all made of the wood from the larch trees surrounding the valley. The same wood that had been used in the inner walls of Elise’s home. I had my hand touching Liv’s back and I could sense how her body tightened.

When ‘The Man’ took the second step towards our makeshift bed, I finally allowed the Warrior to surface.

The Man might have been a very skillful and powerful Magic user, but a fighter he was not. There was no fight, no blood - just one hit and a thud when The Man hit the floor. For a short moment I was worried about Liv, but then I touched her and spoke to her softly - putting a whole lot of my magic into those words.

“Liv, that man has no power over you. Remember that Ylva loves you.”

Liv blinked her eyes for a few times and shook her head before looking into my eyes in the dimness of the hut and finally nodding. Then she reached between her legs and gave me a piece of a cloth.

“Here, I probably would have liked to cast this away, anyway.”

The piece of cloth Liv gave me had been folded several times and it had obviously been washed several times, but it still carried several stains of blood. I raised my eyebrows in the darkness even if she most likely wasn’t able to see it.