Loki and the Foal

The foal followed Loki.

Loki moved to the left.

The foal moved to the left.

Loki stepped behind Baldr.

The foal put its head beneath Baldr’s arm and continued watching him.

Thor leaned against the stable door with an expression of profound contentment.

“I’ve missed evenings like this.”

“You have never experienced an evening like this,” Loki said.

“Then I’ve been deprived.”

The farmer’s daughter approached with half a pear in her palm.

“Pip.”

Eight hooves shuffled.

The foal turned immediately.

Lexander looked at her.

“Pip?”

She hesitated.

“That’s what I call him.”

“Then Pip it is.”

Io’s smile softened.

The girl offered the pear. Pip took it delicately, which Lexander considered insulting after the treatment his coat had received.

“What’s your name?” Io asked.

“Nella, Your Majesty.”

“And I’m Tobin,” her father added, twisting his cap between his hands. “From Bellweather. West road, then north at the old lime kiln.”

The stablemaster was kneeling beside Pip’s bandaged leg.

“How did he do this?”

“Fence,” Nella said.

Thor glanced at the empty stretch of ground the foal had crossed without touching.

“Surprising weakness.”

“He can’t do the other thing when he wants to,” Nella explained. “Sometimes he tries and runs into things.”

Loki’s amusement disappeared.

He crouched beside the stablemaster.

“Don’t tie him.”

The man looked up.

“He needs somewhere enclosed to rest.”

“Yes. Enclosed. Nothing fastened around his neck.”

Nella nodded quickly.

“He got out of his halter twice. The third time he didn’t come all the way out.”

She touched the bandage.

Loki examined the leg without another word.

Pip lowered his head against his shoulder.

Thor opened her mouth.

Baldr quietly stepped on her foot.

She looked offended.

He did not move.

After a moment, she closed her mouth again.

They settled Pip in a broad box stall with deep bedding and another horse where he could see her.

The stablemaster assured Nella that the mare was patient with young animals.

Pip introduced himself by trying to put four feet in her water bucket.

The mare moved the bucket with her nose.

“Exceptionally patient,” Lexander observed.

Tobin remained near the door, cap still turning in his hands.

Lexander recognized a man waiting to discuss money and ashamed of needing to.

“What had you hoped would happen when you brought him here?”

Tobin looked toward his daughter.

“We can’t keep him safe.”

It was not the answer Lexander had expected.

“People started coming,” the farmer continued. “First to look. Then to offer money. One man came back after I’d told him no.”

Atreyu, who had arrived midway through Pip’s examination, stepped closer.

“What did he do?”

“Asked where the foal slept. Whether our dogs were loose at night.”

Nella’s hand tightened on the stall door.

Lexander felt Io move beside him.

Tobin glanced between them.

“Perhaps he meant nothing by it.”

“Perhaps,” Atreyu said. “I’d still like his description.”

He drew the farmer aside without making it feel like an interrogation.

Io crouched beside Nella.

“Pip will be cared for here.”

“Can I come back?”

“Of course.”

The girl swallowed.

“He doesn’t like his ears brushed.”

“I’ll make certain they know.”

“And if he won’t eat, you stand next to him for a bit. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay.”

Io nodded.

Behind them, Lexander spoke quietly with the stablemaster about payment for the foal, transport home, and rooms for the night.

When Tobin heard the sum, he stared.

“That’s too much.”

“It includes the trouble of bringing him.”

“We were coming because—”

“You brought us something precious,” Lexander said. “Let us pay you fairly.”

Tobin looked toward Nella.

She was leaning into the stall while Pip investigated her hair.

“We have his mother,” he said. “A perfectly ordinary mare. Never done anything stranger than open a feed bin.”

Loki looked up.

“Keep her.”

Tobin blinked.

“I intended to.”

“Good.”

Lexander made a mental note to ask about that later.

There were many things about his old life that people became strangely reluctant to explain near horses.

Pip escaped before dawn.

He was discovered standing in the stable passage, apparently as surprised by his location as everyone else.

The stall door remained bolted.

By breakfast, the stablemaster had requested a chair, a blanket, and permission to employ an additional groom.

Lexander approved all three.

“You could put Loki in there,” Thor suggested.

Loki did not look up from his plate.

“You could discover silence.”

“I’ve heard of it. Never appealed.”

Fulla sat beside Io with a bowl of porridge cooling in front of her. She had slept through most of the night, though a footstep outside her room had woken her badly enough that Lisbeth stayed until morning.

Nobody mentioned it.

Instead, Lysandra described an argument at school about the use of the assembly hall.

“The music club reserved it first,” she said. “Then the debate society decided their meeting was more important.”

“What were they debating?” Lexander asked.

“Whether inherited authority prevents fair access to public institutions.”

He paused with his cup halfway to his mouth.

Io began laughing.

“They asked me to settle it,” Lysandra added.

Thor grinned. “Did you hit anyone?”

“No.”

“Did you threaten to?”

“No.”

“School sounds exhausting.”

“The music club kept the hall. The debate society can explain the failures of inherited authority in the smaller classroom.”

Fulla smiled into her porridge.

Lexander watched his sister reach for the jam.

Fifteen.

School disputes. Books beneath her chair. Friends waiting beyond the palace gates.

He had spent so much time trying to keep disaster away from her that he sometimes forgot what all that effort was meant to preserve.

“Do you still need the library shelves?”

Lysandra looked at him.

“You approved those.”

“I know. Have they arrived?”

“No.”

He turned toward the steward.

The steward, who had been hoping to survive breakfast unnoticed, sighed.

“I’ll inquire, Your Majesty.”

“Thank you.”

Lysandra smiled at her brother.

Then Seraphina sneezed a tiny spark onto his sleeve.

The moment lost some dignity.

Atreyu brought his first report before midday.

The man who had questioned Tobin was, as far as the Watch could determine, a horse dealer with a poor reputation and no obvious connection to Surtr.

Atreyu had still sent word to Bellweather’s constable.

“Sometimes an unpleasant man is simply an unpleasant man,” he said.

Loki stood by the window.

“Comforting. I’d hate to think we were becoming scarce.”

The second report mattered more.

One of the prisoners taken at the mill had driven supplies between several properties. He claimed never to have seen the people held inside.

Mara believed that part.

“He knew enough to avoid looking,” she said.

She placed a rough map on Lexander’s desk.

“There’s an old dye works east of the southern road. He delivered sacks of grain, lamp oil, and blankets.”

“Recently?”

“Eight days ago.”

Fulla had described the smell of the first place where she had been imprisoned: sour water, damp wool, something bitter that stung her nose.

A dye works fit.

Lexander looked at the marked road.

“How soon?”

“A small party can reach it this afternoon,” Atreyu said. “I’ll go with Mara and Baldr.”

Thor shifted.

Atreyu met her eyes.

“We need you here.”

She looked ready to argue.

Then her gaze moved toward the terrace, where Io sat learning another stitch while Ignatius slept against Lisbeth’s shoulder.

Thor folded her arms.

“Bring enough men.”

“We will.”

“No wandering into cellars alone.”

Mara lifted an eyebrow.

“Was that advice?”

“It was excellent advice. You should treasure it.”

When the Watch had departed, Thor found Lexander in the practice yard.

He was standing with a spear in his hands, looking at the rack of blunted weapons.

She stopped inside the gate.

“Good.”

He turned.

“That sounded ominous.”

“You’ve been thinking about it since the mill.”

He looked down at the spear.

“I wasn’t there.”

“No. You were here, helping Io close the opening. Useful place to be.”

“But next time—”

“Next time will be different.”

Thor took another spear from the rack.

It looked too light in her hand.

“So we practice for more than one possibility.”

Lexander settled into a stance.

Thor struck his spear aside and tapped him firmly in the ribs.

“Ow.”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t ready.”

“I noticed.”

The second exchange lasted longer.

The third ended with Lexander sitting in the dust.

Thor offered him a hand.

He took it.

“You could at least look as though this requires effort.”

“I could. Would that help?”

“No.”

“Then stop asking for things you don’t want.”

They began again.

After a while, the irritation burned away.

Lexander’s breathing steadied. His hands stopped trying to remember everything at once. The length of ash became familiar beneath his palms.

Thor thrust toward his shoulder.

He turned the point aside and stepped in.

For an instant, he knew where her weight would go before she moved.

His spear touched her sleeve.

She looked down.

Then she smiled.

“There.”

He stepped back, breathing hard.

“I remembered.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. The movement.”

“Then do it again.”

He tried.

Thor swept his legs out from under him.

From the wall, Bruni winced sympathetically.

“Almost.”

Lexander lay on his back and stared at the sky.

“I preferred being king.”

“Excellent news,” Thor said. “You still are. Up.”

Io found them an hour later.

Lexander was drinking water with the concentration of a man who had come to appreciate it deeply.

Thor looked mildly warmed.

Io surveyed the dust on his clothes.

“Productive?”

“He hit me once,” Thor said.

“Twice.”

“The second was a collision.”

“I’m counting it.”

Io sat beside him.

She took the cup when he offered it.

Across the yard, Bruni was showing the armorer a drawing of his proposed helmet. The sketch included horns, a crest, and something that might have been a tower.

The armorer looked close to tears.

Lexander leaned back against the bench.

“We need to finish talking about the kingdoms.”

Io lowered the cup.

“I know.”

It was an old conversation now, postponed by births, attacks, unfinished streets, and the ordinary demands of keeping so many people fed.

Concordia already behaved like their shared capital.

The laws had not caught up.

“Another merchant petition?” she asked.

“Three. The same cargo pays one toll leaving your territory and another entering mine.”

“Ours.”

He looked at her.

Io brushed dust from his shoulder.

“Ours. That’s rather the point.”

He smiled.

“The officials remain attached to their distinctions.”

“They’re attached to the revenue.”

“Also that.”

They sat quietly for a moment.

Then Io said, “We should begin with the things people encounter every day. Tolls. Courts. The guards on the roads.”

“A common treasury?”

“Eventually. I’d like to know what’s in both of them before we put it all in the same box.”

“Practical. Deeply unromantic.”

“I married you. My appetite for unnecessary risk is satisfied.”

He laughed.

She leaned against him.

They would summon representatives from both kingdoms. Hear the objections. Set dates that could survive contact with actual work.

It would be tedious.

People would argue over seals and appointments and which city had the right to keep which records.

Lexander found himself looking forward to it.

A kingdom ought to have problems that could be solved at a table.

The Watch returned after dark.

Lexander heard the courtyard before he saw it.

Horses. Quiet orders. The scrape of a cart wheel against stone.

He was halfway down the stairs when Mara entered.

“Two alive.”

He stopped.

Behind her, attendants were carrying a stretcher.

An elderly man lay beneath blankets, his eyes open but unfocused.

A young traveler followed with Baldr supporting most of his weight. He watched every doorway they passed.

“Others?” Lexander asked.

“Moved,” Mara said. “Before we arrived.”

“Resistance?”

“Four guards. They surrendered when they realized the road was covered.”

She looked tired.

Not injured.

He let himself register that before asking the next question.

“Names?”

“The older man is Oren. The younger one says he’s called Davin.”

“Did they remember Fulla?”

Baldr nodded.

“They asked whether she got out.”

Lexander stepped aside as the stretcher passed.

“She did.”

Fulla insisted on coming.

Io walked beside her to the infirmary, prepared to turn back if the distance proved too much.

It did not.

Oren recognized her first.

His hand moved on the blanket.

“You.”

Fulla sat beside his bed.

“Yes.”

He stared at her bandaged wrist.

Then at the clean dress, the cup of water within reach, the lamp burning without anyone demanding work beneath it.

“Are we…?”

“Concordia,” she said. “We’re in Concordia.”

His eyes closed.

Across the room, Davin began to cry without making a sound.

Baldr stayed beside him.

No one asked about old names.

No one demanded that they remember gods, battles, or the lives that had made them valuable to Surtr.

Lisbeth checked their injuries.

The palace physician asked what they could manage to eat.

For tonight, those were the questions.

Fulla remained until Oren fell asleep.

When she rose, her knees trembled.

Io caught her arm.

“I’m all right.”

“I know. Lean anyway.”

She did.

Later, Atreyu spread what they had recovered from the dye works across a table.

A few accounts.

A list of deliveries.

One damaged letter.

“No relic?” Lexander asked.

“None.”

“And the woman with the scar?”

Mara pointed to a line in the accounts.

“A wagon left three mornings ago. Two passengers under guard.”

“The fourth prisoner.”

“Possibly.”

Loki picked up the damaged letter.

Most of the lower half had been burned.

He read the surviving lines twice.

Then he handed it to Lexander.

The handwriting was narrow and disciplined.

The woman has remembered the clasp.

Below that, a second sentence remained intact.

Do not permit her to touch the box.

Lexander looked up.

“Io’s?”

“We need to ask her,” Loki said.

For once, he sounded reluctant to place another old possession between them and a dangerous road.

Lexander folded the letter carefully.

“We ask in the morning.”

Atreyu nodded.

The trail would still need riders before dawn. Maps could be checked. The wagon could be traced through toll stations.

They could do those things without waking two exhausted women.

Lexander’s final visit that night was to the stables.

He told himself it was to check on their unusual new arrival.

In truth, he wanted ten minutes somewhere that smelled of hay and had no paperwork.

A lamp burned beside Pip’s stall.

Loki sat on an overturned bucket.

The foal was asleep with its head resting on his knee.

Lexander stopped.

Loki looked up.

“Not a word.”

“I hadn’t said anything.”

“You were preparing to.”

Lexander leaned against the opposite door.

Pip twitched in his sleep. Three hooves stirred in the straw. The others remained tucked beneath him.

“Is he all right?”

“He’s learning how to stay in one place.”

“Is that difficult?”

“For him? Apparently.”

Loki rubbed a thumb along the foal’s forehead.

His hands were unusually gentle.

Lexander watched for a moment.

“Nella’s leaving tomorrow.”

“I know. He’ll miss her.”

“We could ask Tobin to visit with her in a few weeks. Bring his mare, if he wishes.”

Loki nodded.

“That would help.”

Silence settled comfortably between them.

From the far end of the stable came the soft sound of a horse chewing hay.

At last Lexander said, “We got two of them home.”

“Yes.”

“And Fulla.”

“Yes.”

He looked at Pip.

“And whatever administrative problem this is.”

Loki’s mouth twitched.

The foal sighed and pressed more of its weight onto his knee.

Lexander pushed himself away from the door.

“Shall I send someone to relieve you?”

“In a little while.”

He nodded.

At the stable entrance, he glanced back.

Loki had lowered his head toward the sleeping foal.

“You have no idea,” he murmured, “how much trouble your family causes.”

Pip slept on.

Lexander left them the light.