Fantasyland 01 Wildest Dreams (29 page)

My grin became a smile. And Father smiled
back and finally it wasn’t fake.

“Until tomorrow,” he muttered.

“Cool,” I muttered back.

His head jerked a little at my word (and I
reminded myself that I really had to speak like they did in this
world) but he kept looking at me smiling. Then he bent and touched
his lips to my cheek, turned and walked away.

I stood in the hallway watching him go and
grinning to myself.

Well, that went well. Finally. Thank
God.

Then I turned and started to make my way to
my rooms because I knew, soon, the dressmakers would be there to do
a fitting for my gown for the Bitter Gales.

I had learned from my girls that the Gales
was a big, resplendent ball which was preceded by a huge hunt –
this one of two hunts and balls the King and Queen of Lunwyn threw
every year. The Bitter Gales was held on the shortest, coldest day
of the year, the hunt in the forest around Fyngaard and the ball in
the Winter Palace and the Solar Gales was held on the longest,
warmest day of the year thrown at the king and queen’s castle,
Rimée Keep in a city called Snowdon.

One could say I was looking forward to the
Bitter Gales like I would look forward to having bamboo shoots
shoved under my nails, that was to stress
attending
it, not dressing for it since my gown was
kickass.

This was because I would be attending with
my husband.

In the last week and a half I had barely
seen Frey and I had not spoken to him once and, obviously, he had
not spoken to me. I’d seen him three times, all from a distance,
all only in passing and only once did his head turn to me and when
his eyes caught mine, he gave me a minor chin lift then he looked
instantly away.

That hurt. A lot. Too much. More than it
should.

But it did.

And the fact he kept away not only from my
person but my bed also hurt.

A lot. Too much.

More than it should.

I now had four girls to guide my way and
help me to understand this world better and they took this job
seriously, were very informative and what made it fun was that they
thoroughly enjoyed learning about my world too. So, in the last
week and a half, I’d learned a lot about Lunwyn, about this world
and mostly about Frey.

The good news was, my girls had asked
around and he wasn’t sleeping with Viola as he had threatened or
with
any
of my
servants (the girls checked, they were, I was learning,
thorough).

The bad news was, they had no idea where he
was sleeping but it wasn’t at the Palace.

The good (ish) news was, in learning about
my husband, I’d learned why my maidservants were so keen for me to
hook up with him.

This was because sex was not at all taboo in
Lunwyn. Brides were not expected to be virgins and sexual
exploration for boys and girls started early, around fourteen or
fifteen; in fact it was encouraged in order to prepare you for a
fulfilling sex life during marriage.

“Dalliances” (as my girls called them)
amongst unmarried people were frequent, often short-lived and were
without any disgrace. “Affairs” or relationships between unmarried
people lasted longer and were also frequent.

And, as a matter of course in their culture,
with a man like The Drakkar on my hook, with his looks, wealth (and
he was wealthy, I’d learned that too), aristocratic line and the
sheer power he held, my girls expected me to be all for that and to
want it, badly, and work for it, beyond anything, and they were,
they made clear, there to help any way they could.

And when it became painfully obvious I
wasn’t getting it, they did not pry but they exuberantly went about
trying to get me to thaw my chill toward “The Drakkar” (as Frey was
known and always referred to) and they did this by sharing a great
deal about him.

I had learned he was thirty-six (shocking,
he had the manner of a man much older though he didn’t look it). I
had learned he commanded a fleet of five ships (five!) and all the
men it would take to man those ships plus his own highly trained,
personal raiding party of which Thad, Ruben and the other men I had
met were members. I had learned that along with his lodge, his
chalet, his hunting cabin, his fishing cottage and his ships, he
also owned a chateau in the country of Hawkvale and apartments in a
city in Fleuridia (which made it more of a bummer that we were not
talking and it didn’t seem we ever would again because, I had to
say, I would have liked to see
all
of these places).

Intriguingly, I learned that, although Frey
was a Raider, he was not like the other ones who travelled long
distances to pillage foreign, often more primitive lands, lands
that did not have the resources to seek retribution against the
Raiders or even Lunwyn for their raids.

No, Frey’s raids had purpose. They were,
as the girls informed me firmly,
just.

This was because the Frey who had betrayed
his throne and cast the country into chaos had also sold or lost
Lunwyn’s many treasures and sacred relics and those that weren’t
sold or lost disappeared in a variety of ways in the ensuing
centuries of turmoil.

And often, when not sailing on some secret
mission for his realm (the girls and everyone knew of these but did
not know details, obviously, because they were secret), he was
sailing to retrieve Lunwyn’s lost riches. These included priceless
scepters, chalices, crowns, orbs and objects that held Lunwynian,
dragonian or elfin magic.

Frey had been very successful with these
endeavors and on top of the extraordinary things he’d shared about
himself, which would clearly demand the respect of all of Lunwyn
for obvious reasons, he’d actually
earned
their respect by returning these important national
treasures to their homeland after centuries of them being
lost.

I had to admit, I respected him for these
endeavors too. Not to mention, him going after them and securing
them was cool,
way
cool, like
out of an action movie cool.

I had also learned from my girls that the
House of Drakkar might be the longest running noble House in Lunwyn
and the first known rulers of the land (which, at that time,
included Middleland where my Uncle Baldur now ruled) but it was
currently the least respected and most definitely the least
liked.

This was because, when the Frey that went
astray did his dire deeds, the House of Drakkar, like Lunwyn on the
whole, descended into chaos. Without A Frey or A Drakkar born to
the line, the males of the House stopped their raiding and unrest
and infighting prevailed and from the stories my girls told me, it
was
far
from pretty.
Brothers killed brothers. Wives poisoned husbands and (the very
next day on one occasion) married her husband’s brother, uncle,
cousin who she’d conspired with to take over the House. Sons
plotted against fathers. And sisters competed bitterly to make the
best match to strengthen the line of Drakkar.

Although the House of Drakkar held vast
wealth and property across Lunwyn, they were known to be ruthless
in business, more often than not untrustworthy and autocratic with
their servants and those who worked their lands. They were also
known to be superior, condescending and dedicated to the order of
things. That was to say they were nobles and everyone else were
little people and everyone knew their place, stayed in their place
and served their purpose.

This, clearly, they’d instilled in Frey.

But that was, strangely, all they instilled
in Frey. For the first time in over seven hundred years, his birth
heralded a true leader in the House of Drakkar and it was known
widely his mother and father were overjoyed, not to mention filled
with conceit that they had created the undisputed head of their
House.

But, to my shock, the girls told me that at
thirteen, Frey had walked away from all of that. He’d walked away
from his family, his home and the House of Drakkar, boarded a ship,
talked its captain into employing him and turned his back on that
life and his House.

And he never went back. In fact, to this
day, he had very little to do with his House except carry their
name.

Although he went on to own many properties,
amass great wealth (for, when sailing, Frey didn’t only raid, he
also loaded his ships’ stores with goods and brought them back to
Lunwyn to trade), command his own fleet and the men who sailed it,
he had nothing to do with his House except the fact that he bore
their name, the stamp of aristocracy they drilled into him growing
up and the command of elves and dragons he’d somehow inherited
through their blood.

This, I had to admit, considering the
stories about his family, I respected too.

And, I had to admit as I made my way
through my Palace to my rooms, it was becoming clear to me that I
might have overreacted a
wee
bit
about Frey and his dalliance with Viola.

He couldn’t know it (though, I couldn’t
shake the uncomfortable feeling he did even though this was
impossible), it was not
me
he’d
humiliated but the other Sjofn. And he’d thought she was a lesbian
or, the girls told me, they were referred to here as
guenipes.

And the girls knew all about Sjofn’s
tendencies which also, considering the sexual openness, were not
frowned upon in either sex, unless, of course the guenipe happened
to be a princess and needed to bring forth a future king.
Therefore, Sjofn had not only hidden her preferences, doing so for
her country and her father, the king, she’d never allowed herself
to act on them and vowed to her girls that in this world, for
country and king, she never would (which was extremely sad).

Because of this (and Frey knowing it), it
was doubtful Sjofn would care about Frey getting it on with Viola,
if Viola was her servant or not. And it was definite that Sjofn
wasn’t really allowed to care even if she would because what Frey
said held true from my girls. He was a man, he was an aristocrat
and he could do as he wished, when he wished and with whom he
wished.

Although dalliances and affairs before
marriage were commonplace, after marriage (yep, you guessed it),
the wife desisted in these behaviors but it was not expected for
the husband to do the same. It was commonplace for husbands to
honor their wives and only their wives, most specifically amongst
those of the lower classes but also some aristocrats. But it was
not unheard of for a husband to do as he would and the wife was
expected to turn the other cheek.

This did not sit well with me but I had to
remind myself that I was not in my world. I was here. And Frey
could have no idea I was from another world, how that world was and
how it looked on these things and unfortunately was justifiably
livid that I had an expectation that any Lunwynian woman and
especially a wife should most definitely not have.

This sucked. It also meant that, as much as
it chafed, I was in the wrong.

I just didn’t know what to do about it.

Because, although he was within his rights
to do as he wished, especially since we were not married at the
time he took Viola to his bed, he
had
asked her to serve the table right in front of
me.

There was, of course, the small fact that,
back when the deed was done, I had no clue he or his world even
existed and he still had no clue mine did, so he was right in his
weird questioning if he had actually injured
me.
He had not, I had just grown into my place in this
world and I forgot that it actually
wasn’t
my place.

But still, Frey rubbing my nose in his
dalliance and the mean-spirited way he did it, well…
that
was
not
nice.

And
that
was what was holding me back from doing anything at
all.

Because that hurt. A lot.

Too much.

I’d ascended the stairs and was moving down
the hall toward my rooms thinking that what sucked the most was
that I missed him.

A lot.

Too much.

Logically, in the recesses of my head, I
recognized this distance was probably good. Although I enjoyed
spending time with the Frey I’d come to know and would have
definitely enjoyed spending more time with him doing more things
with him, specifically some of the things we could have been doing,
the smart thing to do was keep a distance and I’d been getting in
too deep.

Illogically and in the forefront of my mind,
I wanted what we had back.

And that, too, was a lot.

Too much.

My girls were fun to be with, they laughed
often and Sjofn was right, it was very clear they were trustworthy
and they had been immensely helpful. I had a great time with them.
I was enjoying spending time with Mother and discovering Fyngaard.
I definitely liked learning more about this world because it was
all very strange but
very
cool. Being a princess in a Palace, I’d learned, pretty
much rocked. And I was making inroads with Father, which pleased me
immensely.

But on Valentine’s line of happiness, I was
no longer anywhere near bliss. I was no longer smack dab in the
middle of happiness either.

I was definitely at the lower end, hovering
around contentment.

And I was there, I knew, because I didn’t
have Frey.

I opened my door and stopped before entering
when I saw Mother in the armchair across the room, her legs
crossed, her long fingernails scratching Penelope’s ruff. A
Penelope who was lying on my mother’s thigh with her eyes closed,
purring.