Trapped in this tiny cell, the walls so thick, the air so still, she was already walled up, lost in a prison of Hugh’s making.
“But you would not be so lucky, as young as you are, and the way you look.” He stroked her hair in that way he had, running a hand up her neck and catching the hair on the back of his hand, in his fingers, stroking free. “This hair is too fine and too lovely, your skin stays dark through the winter, like the folk from the southern lands, and who in these Lady-forsaken parts has seen such folk, or even believes in them? And your eyes. As blue as the deep fire, or did you know that? I know. I have sought since I was a boy to unlock the secrets of sorcery. There are others like me, others who struggle to learn and to master. Somehow you were born with it in your blood. I know what you are, but I will never betray your secret to anyone else. Do you believe me?”
Even trapped under him, knowing he would say anything to convince her to give him the book, to tell him everything she knew, the horror of it was she did believe him. She had a sudden premonition he had spoken those words rashly and without thinking he might be swearing himself to them.
“I believe you,” she said, but the words hurt. He knew what she was. A sorcerer makes herself, but two sorcerers must never marry. Her mother had said it once, placing a hand on Liath’s brow. Because the child of two sorcerers might inherit a wild streak of magic more dangerous than the king’s wrath. Except Liath had inherited a kind of deafness instead. Da taught her, but only so she could protect herself by having that knowledge. “You cannot use them, for you are deaf to magic.”
Or so she had always thought. But now she had burned the Rose of Healing into the wooden grain of the table.
Hugh would put no barrier in the way of her studying Da’s book, other books, as long as she shared everything she knew and learned with him.
“I will be faithful to you, Liath,” he said, cupping her face in his hands, a lover’s gesture, a lover’s sweetness, “as long as you are faithful to me.”
Ai, Lady, but it burned, this new fire. It hurt so horribly, running out like lines burned into her flesh, long since dormant. She could no longer cloak herself in lethargy. So it was, so she felt: A momentous decision was about to be made.
He shifted, rolling slightly off of her, and made a low, contented noise in his throat. “Liath,” he said, softly, gently, coaxingly, and he tightened his embrace on her.
Hanna was leaving. She herself would leave, to be alone in Firsebarg with Hugh. To go on in this fashion, always resisting him, always frozen, listless, numb. Barely able to acknowledge any human contact but his; forbidden any human contact other than with him, as he strove to isolate her.
Wouldn’t it be easier to give in? To give him what he wanted? Mistress Birta had herself said that Liath’s position was enviable. She would not be treated badly. She would probably be treated well.
She had burned the Rose of Healing into the table. Lady’s Blood, she might even learn enough to see if she truly was deaf to magic. Or if Da had truly not known, and she was born with a mage’s power. Or if Da had known all along, and lied to her.
Why would Da lie to her? Only to protect her.
Hugh ran his hands up her arms. He brushed her throat, tracing an oval there, like a jewel, and she shivered. He sucked in his breath hard and reached to unbuckle his belt. “Stop fighting me, Liath. Why should you not have pleasure? Why?”
Her skin tingled where his lips touched. Why, indeed? It had come time, at last, to choose.
“I will not be your slave,” she whispered. She would have wept, it was so hard to say, but she was too terrified to weep. She placed her hands against his chest and pushed him away, locking her elbows and holding them rigid.
He went quite still. “What did you say?”
Having said it once, she knew she must hold to it as strongly as ever she might. She twisted away from him and slipped off the bed to land bruisingly on her knees, huddled on the rug, her gaze on him the way a trapped rabbit stares at a fox. But she raised her voice above a whisper. “I will not be your slave.”
He sat up straight. “You are my slave.”
“Only by the gold you paid.”
His mouth pulled to a straight line. “Then it is back out with the pigs.” But he smiled as he said it, knowing full well that after a winter of luxury she could never face that again.
Liath thought this over: the dirty straw, Trotter’s back, the cold spring nights. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes. I’ll go back out with the pigs.” She climbed stiffly to her feet, walked stiffly to the door. None of her limbs worked right.