The Will of the Empress

Gudruny looked down. “Ten years gone I was considered quite the beauty,” she said, her voice soft. “All the lads were courting me, whether they had prospects or no, and even though I had no fortune of my own. And I was vain, I admit. I teased and I flirted. Then Halmar began to call.” She swallowed hard and added, “Halmar Iarun. He was in his twenties, and I in my teens. He is the miller, like his father, and he’s done well as miller. He said he’d had his fun, and it was time for him to be setting up his nursery, and he’d decided I would do.” Gudruny sighed. “I would do,” she repeated. “As if he had a field of choices, and I met most of his requirements. Oh, I was angered. I sent him off with a host of insults, and went back to my flirtations.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks. “One day my mother sent me out to gather mushrooms for supper. I went to the woods three miles from here, where I knew there were edulis mushrooms—my favorites. I was gathering them when Halmar came for me. He ran me down on horseback, caught me, and took me to a shepherd’s hut up in the hills. There he kept me, according to the custom.” Gudruny’s lips trembled. Sandry found a handkerchief in the pocket of the robe and passed it over.

“He did not strike me, not then,” Gudruny whispered. “He said he wanted me to love him. He said I would love him and agree to marry him, or I would never see my parents again. He tied me up while he was gone, and he came back to me each night, to feed me and to tell me how much I was missed, until…until I signed the marriage contract. A priest took our marriage vows, or rather, Halmar’s vows, since they didn’t need mine. I am his wife now, and the mother of our two children.”

Sandry listened to this astonishing tale in silence, fury rising up from her belly until so much of it was collected in her throat that she could hardly breathe. “You married a man who would do that to you?” she demanded after Gudruny had been silent for at least a moment. “You live in the house of a man who would treat you that way?” She jumped to her feet to cry, “Where is your pride? How could you bear him children? How could you share his bed?”

Gudruny looked at her as if Sandry had just started to speak Old Kurchali. “I had no choice,” she whispered, her lips trembling. “He would have kept me there forever. Other men do worse to make women sign the marriage contract. And once it is signed, the wife has no rights. Most marriages are not made with a contract for that reason. But in west Namorn…” She shrugged, her bony shoulders dimpling the cloth of her gowns.

Sandry stared at Gudruny, her hands clenched on the back of the chair. “But you can run away,” she pointed out.

“And with a contract he can ask anyone to give me back,” snapped Gudruny. “The only way a woman can be freed of the contract would be if she petitioned her liege lord to set it aside.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Sandry wanted to know. “Cousin Ambros is a fair man. How could you not go to him?”

“Because he is not the liege lord here,” whispered Gudruny. “Your mother rode by me, twice, when I tried to ask her years ago. Now I come to you. Please, Clehame. I will do anything you ask, if you will but free me of him.”

Sandry realized she was trying to shrink away from Gudruny. Surely she had not just said that about her mother. Sandry had known for years that her mother was a pleasureseeker, a pretty woman who cared only about her husband, her daughter, and having fun. She had never considered that those things might make her mother a very bad noblewoman. “What about your own family?” Sandry wanted to know. “Surely they protested. Didn’t they search for you while he had you captive?”

“My family was just my parents,” replied Gudruny. “My sisters had married away from Landreg, and I had no brothers. People in the village searched for me, but…there are signs a man leaves, to show he has taken a woman for a horse’s rump wedding. That’s what we country folk call it. Mostly it is a harmless way to get past an overbearing family, or to avoid waiting to wed, or to add spice to a runaway marriage. He told them that I’d decided he must court me, and they believed him. I had made enough mothers angry, toying with their sons. They were glad to think I would marry this way.” She thrust a hank of hair back with a trembling hand and looked curiously at Sandry. “You truly did not know of this custom? To kidnap a woman, or pretend to, and hold her in a secret place until she escapes, or is rescued, or signs the contract and is wed?”

“I’ve never encountered anything like it before,” Sandry replied grimly. “Gudruny, if you are lying to me…”

Gudruny slid to her knees. “The custom comes to us from old Haidheltac.” She named the seed country from which the Namornese empire had sprung. “You might even inquire of the empress, if you dared. It was done to her twice, but she escaped both times before she could be forced to sign the contract. The punishment visited on her captors, once she was free, made all men think twice about trying such things with her.”

“But wouldn’t she react the same if it happened to other women?” demanded Sandry, feeling as if the safe and level earth were swinging wildly under her feet.

Gudruny wiped her eyes again as tears spilled down her cheeks once more. “She said, when a noblewoman came to her, that any woman foolish enough to be caught was a caged bird by nature, and must content herself with a keeper.”

Sandry shivered. That sounds like Berenene, she thought unhappily. It would be like her, to despise other women because they didn’t manage to escape like she did. “Well, there’s nothing we can do right now with the gates closed for the night,” she told Gudruny. “In the morning I will set this right for you, Gudruny.” She bit her lip, to stop it from trembling with shame. When she felt she could speak without her voice betraying her, she said very quietly, “I beg your forgiveness for…my family. For our not doing our duty by you. You deserved better.” She cleared her throat, quickly wiped her cheeks, then said more briskly, “There’s a trundle bed under mine. You can stretch out there, at least.”