Three Kings, One prey

Freya

It was at the age of six that I came to understand love is nothing but a transaction.

The winter Mama passed, she was coughing her lungs out on a bloody rag with a fever eating her alive. Papa was gone a month after, a victim of a beam in the barn that caved in while he was toiling for the coin needed to put food on the table for the farm. In some ways I was an orphan, in others not; there were second cousins and other distant relations, I suppose. But the village priest made one assessment of my scrawny, weeping face and put me in with Gasher and Mertle Crane. The Lord and Lady, as they were called. "They are God-fearing," the priest told me. "Respectable people with a roof and room at their table for one such as you."

Room at their table was what he meant. In practice it was a cold, dusty nook in the attic beside an old trunk full of moth-eaten blankets.

I was never a child in their eyes. From day one I was a set of hands and knees to be put to work, a voice to be barked at to go to the well. My recollection of that house is of thankless, grinding labour, of a stomach so empty it kept me from sleeping, and of bruises on my arms like dark flowers.

Mertle was a tall, gaunt woman with severe gray eyes and a long face. Her hands were bony and strong, like claws. She would put her hand across my face for raising my voice or throw hot soup if it didn't please her. And Gasher, her husband, a fat man with a red nose and a mean streak, would have none of my slowness. He'd take hold of my ear when I was late with his boots and put me on my knees to curse the parents who had left him with a burden.

Then there was their son, Boris. Three years my senior and a pudgy little bully with all of his father's cruelty and his mother's guile but neither of their wits. He would waylay me in the pantry and make off with my bread, or corner me in the barn to pull my hair and say things to make me sick. I was wise enough to keep my distance from him.

Time wore on and I faded into the background. A scullery girl. A maid. I had no school, no friends, no dolls. Just work from before dawn to after dusk. I would be on my hands and knees scrubbing until my knuckles were raw, or washing their clothes in water so cold my fingers went numb. Mertle was fond of reminding me of my debt to them, for feeding me their leavings and tolerating my poor blood in a good Christian home.

At sixteen I had the look of twenty-five; by seventeen I was forty. I wasn't permitted the mirrors in the house, but a window pane or the brass of a door handle would show me what I was: a pale, thin thing with haunted eyes and hair that lye soap couldn't seem to clean. I saw the exhaustion. I saw a person devoid of joy.

"Be grateful," was the instruction.

"You're lucky we didn't put you in an orphanage or turn you out on the street," Mertle would tell me, putting a finger to my chest. "You are worthless, Feyra. We are the only reason you are still breathing."

Perhaps. Dying has its appeal. It is a kind of freedom. What kept me from it was a spiteful little spark that wouldn't be put out, a whisper in my head telling me there was more to life than this and that I would not let them have the last word.

Then came the day I ran. It began like any other. As is my habit, I was on my feet before the sun to put a fire in the kitchen stove and see to the porridge for breakfast. The work of the day had left my wrists chafed from all the scrubbing, and there was a dull throb in my shoulder where Boris put me up against the wall last week. I was ravenous too; I had stowed a heel of hard bread in my apron for later.

I was in the process of setting the table when Mertle made her way in. She was in her Sunday best, a dark blue wool dress with lace at the collar, and wore an expression of cold amusement that put me more on edge than any shouting would have.

"Feyra," she purred, savoring the name. "Come here, girl. Let me have a good look at you."

I did as I was told, hands folded before me and my gaze fixed on the floor.

She took her time walking around me, her eyes appraising. "Hmm. You are thin, but no matter. A man these days wants a slim bride. Your skin is pale enough to be considered refined. And your hair is a shambles, but we can pin it up. We will put some decency on you for the Baron."

The name coiled in my chest like a snake. "The Baron?" I heard myself say, not liking the tremor in my voice.

Mertle's smile broadened. "You have won a prize of sorts. Baron Eder has been in the market for a young woman to warm his bed and give him an heir. He was pleased with what he saw of you at the market last month and is prepared to put down a handsome sum for you."

A coldness spread through me. "You are selling me?"

"Selling is an ugly word," Gasher rumbled from the door. He was already well into his bottle, his shirt tight across his belly. "We are making an arrangement. A marriage. Not a bad thing for a girl with no family, no money and no future to speak of."

"He is old," I whispered. "Barely able to put one foot in front of the other. He can't even shift. He is not a shifter."

In this village, to be human without the beast in your blood is to be cursed, incomplete. There were stories about the Baron's line having lost their ability long ago, of his health and seed being weak.

"Rich, though," Gasher said with a swig of his drink. "He is handing over a thousand coins for your hand. One thousand, Feyra. With that I can settle the farm, get a new plow, or drink myself under the table for twelve months. It does not matter if he cannot shift, so long as he can lift his purse."

"You can't do this," I blurted out. "I am not some cow to be put on the block."

The back of Mertle's hand caught me before I could register the movement, turning my head and leaving a coppery taste in my mouth. "Ungrateful wretch!" she spat. "After all we have put out for you? You owe us, Feyra! Every bit of it. You will pay your debt and ensure we have our comfortable old age."

"The Baron arrives at dawn tomorrow," Gasher said, wiping his mouth. "You will be presentable. Try to make a run for it and I will chain you to a post until he is here. Then I will still sell you, only you will be wed with a black eye. Make of it what you will."

It was then that something in me gave way. Not with a sound, but in a quiet, irrevocable fashion. I looked at them: the leering Boris in the doorway, Mertle's smug face, Gasher's greed. For the first time I saw them for what they were. Not kin. My jailers. I was nothing more than their property.

I gave a slow nod. "Very well, ma'am. I will go and clean up."