Fantasyland 01 Wildest Dreams (60 page)

I took one look at his face, knew he was
pissed and did
not
care.

So I yanked my hand free, lifted it palm
up toward him and shouted, “
Don’t start!
”

He looked beyond me (and my hand) and
barked, “
Go!
”

I looked over my shoulder and shouted,
“
Stay!
”

Both men and women looked between Frey and
I and Frey repeated, “
Go!
” so
I fired out, “
Do not dare go! Stay!
”

“Gods damn it, Finnie,” Frey growled and I
looked back at him.

“
They were pelting her with snowballs,
Frey,
right
before she was to hang from the neck until dead!
” I shouted. “She’d done wrong but wasn’t
her sentence as it stood bad enough? Did she have to endure
–?”

I stopped talking because suddenly I was
crushed in Frey’s arms and his mouth had slammed down on mine
whereupon he laid a hot and heavy one on me.

I was clutching his shoulders and blinking
up at him dazedly when he lifted his head and started speaking, “It
would have been nice to have privacy when I told you how gods
damned proud I was of my wife this eve but since you seem to wish a
continued audience for your night’s performance, so be it.” I
blinked again, realizing vaguely that he wasn’t pissed, the
intensity of emotion I read on his face was something else
altogether. He gave me a squeeze and stated, “I’m proud of you,
Finnie Drakkar. What you did took courage and showed compassion and
if your people didn’t already love you, witnessing that, they
will.”

I blinked again then asked, “You think?”

“Absolutely,” he answered.

I felt my body melt in his arms.

“What’d she do?” I heard Jocelyn whisper
from behind me.

Then I heard Thad answer, “I’ll tell you but
I’ll do it outside.”

Then I heard the shuffling of bodies moving
right before both Frey and I were rocked to the side as arms came
around both of our thighs. I looked down to see it was Skylar
giving our legs a hug and I melted even deeper in Frey’s arm as I
moved a hand to touch Skylar’s hair. But Skylar, being Skylar,
didn’t wait around for that. Without a word or look, he let go and
raced out of the room. I twisted in Frey’s arms to watch him as he
did it and saw the only one left was Kell.

He was standing, feet planted, arms crossed
on his chest, eyes glued to Frey.

“Don’t know if it’s the spirit she’s got,”
he remarked. “Don’t know what the bloody hell it is. Never seen the
like from a woman.” His eyes shifted to me before he finished
brusquely. “Only know whatever the bloody hell it is, it’s
good.”

Then he uncrossed his arms, stomped out of
the room like coming to this conclusion was beyond annoying and
indeed rocked his world to its very foundations and he didn’t like
that all that much and he slammed the door behind him.

I turned back to Frey feeling warm inside
and out.

“I think Kell likes me,” I whispered.

“You would think correctly.” Frey didn’t
whisper.

My eyes went to his chest as my fingers went
there to fiddle with the strap of his cloak. “So, uh… you’re not
mad at me for losing it, you’re, um… proud of me?”

He gave me a gentle shake and my fingers
quit fiddling as my eyes lifted to his.

Then he stated, “You weren’t born princess,
Finnie Drakkar, but that does not mean you’re not one.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my forehead to
his chest as his words washed over me. And when I did my crown dug
into my forehead so I immediately pulled it right back.

“I need to get rid of my crown,” I
whispered.

He nodded but didn’t move. Instead, he
asked, “Are you all right?”

I answered honestly, “No, that was heinous
and I hope no one else tries to kill me because that isn’t much fun
at all and watching them hang for it isn’t much better.”

His mouth twitched and he agreed, “I hope so
too.”

I leaned into him and stated, “Now I need
food and after that I need my husband to take me to bed and hold me
so I can forget all this and think about where Mother is going to
take me shopping tomorrow.”

His arms tightened and he replied, “My wee
Finnie, if we’re in bed I would hope you’re not thinking about
where your Mother is going to take you shopping.”

I grinned at him then challenged, “Well
then, it seems you have your work cut out for you because some of
the shops we passed today…” I shrugged and finished, “just
saying.”

He grinned back, his body shaking with
laughter and he accepted my challenge by dropping his head and
kissing me.

Incidentally, several hours later, after
dinner, when I was in Frey’s arms in our warm, soft bed in Rimée
Keep, not once did I think of shopping.

Or executions.

Conjecture

Two weeks later...

Frey Drakkar stood between to Max and Thad
and watched Gunner putting Finnie and Sky through their paces,
Finnie atop her new mount Caspia.

Drakkar had presented his wife with her
horse two days after they arrived in Snowdon. It was a dapple gray;
its dapples an extraordinary shade that bordered on lilac and when
he saw her, Drakkar knew she was Finnie’s. He was correct. Finnie
had been entranced the moment she met her, named her within a
second and fell in love with her the second after. As for Drakkar,
he’d become entranced the moment his wife did and he made note to
bestow gifts upon her far more often.

Now, every day, as with her archery and
knife work, she and Sky spent an hour or more with Gunner learning
what Finnie termed, “Raider Horse Maneuvers”. And at that very
moment she was bent over Caspia’s neck, snaking her gray at a
gallop closely around obstacles Gun had set out after which she
(and Sky) encountered a fence that they had to jump. Once they
achieved that, they were to rein their mounts around sharply,
re-jump the fence and snake again through the obstacles, this time
snatching pennants from the top (Finnie’s, blue; Sky’s, black) only
to end having to jump another fence.

His bride, Drakkar noted, was taking to her
Raider Horse Maneuvers far quicker than she had archery or daggers
and he knew why. Firstly, she had experience on a mount. Secondly,
she was fearless. The speed, the maneuvering, her position in the
saddle nor the jumps fazed her. She faced it all unblinking and
drove herself to excel. Horsemanship was part skill, part finesse
and part daring and she had the latter of those in abundance.

That said, she was beginning to excel at
archery, having achieved three more direct bulls-eyes. Therefore,
Annar had advanced her to stalking young, male servants who
volunteered to wear padded cloaks and tripled wool caps and were
set to skulking through a local forest where Finnie would, if she
found them, shoot at them with arrows that had no points but
instead pads wadded with cotton. Her volunteers, Annar reported,
enjoyed this tremendously, looking on it as a game even when
Finnie’s arrow found its unharmed target. This was because, Annar
told him, Finnie made it a game.

She was, also according to Annar, excelling
at that too.

Although proud of his wife, Drakkar couldn’t
contain a sense of amused disquiet that she seemed so determined to
gather all the skills required of a Raider.

It would be good when she fell pregnant with
his child. This, he hoped, would turn her mind from adventuring
with him and his men, something he was getting the not so vague
sense she was intent on doing, to caring for herself and their
child.

Drakkar watched as Finnie re-jumped the
fence and wound through the seven obstacles, missing only two
pennants as Sky followed her much slower while missing five of his
and one of the ones he’d gained, he dropped.

“Finnie takes to this Frey,” Max muttered,
his eyes on Finnie who had jumped the last fence and reined Caspia
in to trot over to where Sky was atop his mount, shoulders slumped
having given up in his dejection therefore he pulled back on his
horse and did not make the final jump. “Gun will have to increase
her challenge soon,” Max finished.

“He will,” Thad concurred. “But Sky is
nowhere near equaling her and she’ll not advance until Sky can
advance with her.”

Drakkar watched as Gun cantered to his wife
and the boy and both started speaking with Sky who was obviously
dissatisfied with his performance.

Thad was right, there was no hope of Finnie
leaving Sky behind which Drakkar thought was good. She needed to
slow. They were leaving for Kellshorn on the morrow but would
likely stay there no longer than they had Snowdon. The summer thaw
had already begun and the resulting waters favored by the
well-to-do throughout the Northlands would be bottled. And every
year at the thaw, all of Drakkar’s ships were loaded to capacity
with Lunwyn water and then set sail to Middleland, Bellebryn,
Hawkvale and Fleuridia where they sold for ridiculous prices and
were, by far, his most lucrative payload regardless of the fact
they were simply water.

Therefore, he would need to be in Sudvic
to assist Kell managing this as well as discuss with his captains
what their cargo holds would be filled with on their return. He and
Finnie would then board
The Finnie
for Fleuridia and he didn’t want Finnie’s head filled with
new adventures and training for them when their course was set
simply to unload water on Fleuridia.

He wanted Finnie’s head filled with what
she’d name their child and how they would be raising him.

And as his bride trained to become the
Raider Drakkar was never going to permit her to be, Drakkar was
putting a fair amount of effort into siring the child which would
slow her down.

He heard hoof beats in the snow behind him,
turned to see Oleg heading their way and tensed.

Outside the execution, their time in Snowdon
had been good. Finnie enjoyed the city even more than Bellebryn or
Hawkvale and when she wasn’t with him, training or tutoring Sky,
she was holed up with her girls giggling or she was in the city
with her mother shopping, eating in restaurants and partaking in
copious pastry sampling at cafés. He had, unfortunately, been
called to duty to see two plays with her, one which he fell asleep
during only to have Finnie prod him very hard in the ribs waking
him in time to hear her burst out laughing which caused the patrons
close to the royal box to glare at them which made Drakkar laugh
and Finnie laugh more.

His talk with Hernod Grieg had garnered no
more than what Quincy and Balthazar had learned and he’d
unfortunately had no time to get creative. Grieg was adamant he was
the man behind the plot and his desire, he said, was to unite
Lunwyn and Middleland as they should never have been separated by
Atticus and Baldur’s father, King Halldor.

Drakkar could not argue with this though,
obviously, he would never consider assassination which was a
coward’s play not to mention, in the present circumstances, that
target was his wife. And he knew there was a not small faction of
Lunwynians and Middlelandians who agreed that Lunwyn should never
have been split. Those in Middleland were not fond of Baldur as
their king and those in Lunwyn were displeased with losing the land
granted to Baldur. Not to mention citizens of both countries had
been parted from family members who were forced to live in
different borders by Halldor’s decision which was arguably fair to
his sons but not-so-arguably unfair to his people. And even though
Atticus and Baldur had assumed their thrones at very young ages,
the decades passing had not changed these sentiments.

Atticus had made two attempts through his
reign to affect some kind of compromise with Baldur in an effort to
settle this ongoing dissatisfaction. Both attempts were offers to
build an alliance between nations including providing all in both
countries with dual citizenship and uniting their taxes, treasuries
and currency, but Baldur would not hear of it. This was likely
because his taxes were high, they were expected in gold, silver or
copper but his treasury printed currency he expected his citizens
to use on anything not tax-related. He printed this at vast amounts
beyond what was held in his country’s coffers making the printed
tender mostly useless but Baldur extortionately wealthy.

His people were, with reason, restless and
if Atticus, or King Ludlum of Hawkvale and his son Prince Noctorno
who ruled Bellebryn were different kinds of rulers, this would make
Middleland ripe for invasion.

Unfortunately, they were not.

With this, Drakkar knew there was unrest but
Finnie being a target of that made little sense and in fact seemed
counterproductive unless Baldur or the leader of a House wishing to
take the throne as his own was really behind the plot. Further
Grieg was ruled by coin, not patriotism, and would not be moved to
act in a manner that courted, and indeed had ended in his execution
unless there was something exceptional in it for him.

However, whatever that was he’d gone to his
noose without sharing it.

Therefore, Drakkar did not feel Finnie was
safe yet.

Quincy and Balthazar agreed with Drakkar and
Quincy remained behind to continue to dig locally because both were
suspicious of Grieg’s quick trial and his being scheduled to hang
with Viola and Enger. Enger and Viola were both only pawns whereas
Grieg was clearly a player and more time should have been allowed
to glean information from the man.

Drakkar had learned this push had not been
instigated by Atticus but pressed by his father, the head of the
Houses of Drakkar (with the excuse that Finnie was a Drakkar and
they wanted immediate retribution) and backed by the Houses of
Lazarus and Ravenscroft (who also both claimed Finnie as their own
for their blood, they thought, flowed in her veins and this was
true with Sjofn as Aurora was of both Houses). But it was also
pressed by Apollo, the young head of the House of Ulfr and
Drakkar’s cousin for Ulfr was his grandmother Eugenie’s House.
Apollo’s reasoning was that he felt Baldur was clearly behind the
plot and their act of reprisal should be swift in order to deter
future attempts on Finnie’s life.