The Ice Dragon King & The Slave-Queen

Chapter 5 - The Celtic Women

Taryn stretched on the bed languorously, her eyes still closed. She had never been in a state of deep sleep like last night for as long as she lived. As she was still in between consciousness, she took a deep breath and a waft of strong fresh masculine scent and oranges entered her nose. The strong citrusy smell woke her in a panic. For a moment she was thrown back to the time when she was in her small hut, sleeping on the floor in front of the fireplace after tending to her sick grandmother half of the night, her clothes and hair smelled like smoke, and her nose filled with soot. A man who hired her for work at his house and farm for long hours every day would come into her small hut every morning without fail, poking her side with his booted leg to wake her up so that she would get up for work. He thought giving her and her grandmother a meal a day was more than enough as payment for working her to the edge of her sanity. He always smelled of citrus.

Taryn sat up, her heart racing. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down, remembering that she was no longer in her little hut. There was no booted man to overwork her and then whip her if she was lacking. There was, however, a scarier man, a warrior who was known for his brutality — one who would not only whip her but probably strangle her if he knew she was a pretender.

Taryn looked around the bedroom and saw small rays of sunlight penetrating the curtains near the window, lighting up the room a little. She turned to look at the pillow next to her. The pillow was untouched and the mattress was not slept in. She realized that the king, her husband, had not slept in his own bed the night before.

One part of her was relieved that he was not in the room because she would not have wanted him to catch her off-guard, especially when she was yet to settle comfortably in this kingdom and as his wife. Another small part of her was a little disappointed, however, wanting to at least take a peek at him in the morning after they, well, did whatever they did yesterday. It was especially disappointing since his scent was everywhere in the room. She recalled what they had done the night before, the way he touched and kissed her, the way he made her body respond in a way she never knew was possible. She blushed as she sat alone in bed, touching the back of her cold hand to her warm cheeks, wondering what else he might have done to her if his general had not called for him in the middle of their shared passion.

And now that she thought of it, what was that business about a burning ship? Did something bad happen to his men?

Taryn heard a soft knock on a door connecting the king’s room to another. Taryn didn’t notice that there was a door there the night before. She remembered that she fainted after the wedding and not long after she woke up, she was entangled with the man she had just married, a literal stranger, in the most delicious fashion.However, she understood that she didn’t know many things, not just about the man she had just married, but also about this castle and this kingdom.

“Milady, are you awake?” Taryn heard a familiar voice, Eve’s, behind the connecting door.

“Is that you Eve?” She asked, just to be sure.

“Yes, Milady. May I come in?” Her handmaid inquired, her voice soft.

After Taryn gave an affirmative answer, the young maid walked into the king’s bedroom, grinning from ear to ear, almost skipping toward her.

“How are you feeling this morning, Milady?” Eve asked in a teasing way as she continuously wiggled her eyebrows.

Taryn thought Eve was acting oddly and laughed softly at the young girl’s behavior.

“I slept like a log. I can’t remember the last time I ever slept like this,” she answered honestly, changing the maid’s mood quickly.

This is because Eve knew about Tayrn’s background, just like governess Riona too. They all knew about each other’s situation and the ordeal they had to go through before they were all shipped off to the Varangian kingdom. All three of them were dumped into this situation abruptly, without their consent.

“I hope you will get the best nights of sleep from this day forward, Milady,” the young girl said softly and bobbed a little curtsy at her.

“Eve, you don’t have to do that when there’s nobody around,” Taryn said, smiling.

“Oh, but she must, my lady,” Lady Riona said, as she appeared and walked through the adjoining door from the other room towards them both.

“We must always remember to keep up with the pretense. At all times. Any slip-ups and we will be as good as dead,” Lady Riona whispered softly, then she looked around the room as if waiting for someone to jump out of the closet or peek from under the bed and tell them that they had been caught.

Eve made the sign of the cross to herself quickly when she heard that. Both of them helped Taryn out of bed. Lady Riona noticed that one side of the bed was untouched.

“Did the king not sleep in his room last night, my dear?” Lady Riona asked, and when she flipped the bed covers aside, she also noticed that there were no marks on the bed sheet.

“Well, I didn’t notice. He had to leave at some time in the night. Something about one of his warships was on fire,” Taryn paused when she heard the governess gasp. Then, she continued, “I was too tired by then and went to sleep. I didn’t wake up until this morning,” Taryn explained.

“His warship was on fire? On the day of his wedding?” Lady Riona questioned, but her eyes were already vacant, wondering if this was just a coincidence or if it was a calculated move made toward the Varangian king.

“Could this be a coincidence?” Taryn asked out loud what the governess was thinking, hoping that it was.

A coincidence was easy to handle, but if somebody was targeting the king, especially on the day of his wedding, it would never be settled with just a signed treaty or two.

Lady Riona pursed her lips. She walked to the heavy curtains and opened them, letting the bright sunlight penetrate the room. She looked out the window at the bright sky and then saw some of the castle workers and the king’s men walking about near the castle compound, busy with their tasks. Lady Riona didn’t like how the first day of Taryn’s marriage ended. She came from a line of family who believed in superstitions. Taryn fainting at the altar before the kiss, the king’s warship being burnt down and the storm that rolled in last night was not a very promising beginning to a happy marriage. She wondered if these were signs from God.

“It might be just a coincidence, dear. We shall pray that it was just a coincidence,” Lady Riona said with conviction, not only to the two young ladies in the room but also to herself.

Then, she turned around, gave Taryn and Eve a big warm smile, and clapped her hand once. “Let’s assist the Queen so she can be ready for a new day!” Lady Riona said excitedly, pulling Taryn out of bed toward the room behind the adjoining door, Eve following close behind them.

Lady Riona has been a governess ever since she was a young woman. She became a governess to a rich lord of the highlands because of her good education and family background. She was not high born but her parents were respectable people in the community and she was their only child and daughter. Many people in the community loved and respected Lady Riona too, and knew that she would become someone great when she grew up one day.

Working at a lord’s house as a governess was easy for Lady Riona. The lord was a very busy man whom she would hardly see every month and who barely tolerated her. The lady was a beautiful and kind woman who loved her children dearly and was always friendly with her. The three high-born children were all well-behaved and intelligent. Lady Riona loved and cared for the children like they were her own family.

But things took a turn for the worse when the lady of the house, her mistress, fell sick all of a sudden. On certain days the malady sinks its claws into her so that she would scream and cry for it to stop, to end her life, to spare her from the pain. On other days, the delirium made her short-tempered and she would lash out at anyone and everyone, including her husband and the children that she so loved. Around this time, the children started to misbehave, maybe from fear or from the changes in their mother, knowing that there was a possibility that their mother could die. The sickness was progressive and nothing that the lord did, not even by bringing in the best physician from the furthest corner of the world, could save her. When she died, a huge part of the happy household died with her. Lady Riona knew as they lowered her mistress’ coffin into the grave that nothing would ever be the same again.

Lady Riona continued to stay on at the manor as governess of the lord’s children after that. However, no matter how hard she tried, the children would not respond to her the way that they did before their mother’s death. They refused to listen to her, rebelled against her, and retaliated with actions that hurt her feelings tremendously. For years she tried to understand the children that she loved so dearly. She indulged them and tried to make excuses for them even though she was the one hurting the most. Then one day, out of the blue, the lord asked her to marry him. It was surprising to everybody, most of all to her, for he was not the type of man to even pass a glance at her — his nose always being buried in his papers, his accounting books, and complaint letters that arrived almost daily from his tenants.

There was not much choice for Lady Riona anyway, since she was a grown woman and an unmarried one at that. Living under the same roof with a widowed man and his teenage children does not look good to society, she often being the topic of gossip. Many of the elderly ladies that she knew assured her that this was the best thing that could ever happen to her, that she should marry the lord, someone above her own station, and at the same time keep people's tongues from wagging. They said that it would be good for her too, because she wouldn’t have to break her back to make her yearly meagre salary anymore. Being a lord’s wife would mean she could have pretty much anything that she wanted. As her husband, the lord must help her if she had any financial woes. So, against her better judgment, she married the man. On the day of the wedding, she was only twenty-two years of age and her new husband was fifty-five years old.

Before she was married to the children’s father, they treated her with impartiality most of the time, but after she was married to the lord, they treated her with open hostility all the time. Yet, their behavior was lost to their father. Even when the children were rude to Lady Riona in front of him, their father would just keep quiet. If Lady Riona even tried to broach the subject of his children, he would brush it aside or claim that he had work to do and left her by herself. This went on for years until, one day, he died.

If Lady Riona thought living with her husband’s belligerent children when he was still alive was hard, she didn’t imagine that it would be as bad as how she experienced it after he died. Because almost immediately after the passing of her husband, his first son and heir took charge and became the new lord of the manor. He was a man by then, having married a young woman of the same distinction as his family. Lady Riona never understood why the children hated her at first, especially since she didn’t have children of her own to contest their position or their wealth. She was only married to their father because it was convenient — and to protect herself from slander.

But one day, when the children kicked her to the curb, as she stood next to her suitcases with the little clothes and belongings that she owned, the new lord, who used to be the one who loved her the most, came to her and said, “I had always loved you, my lady, even when I was a young boy and you were a mere young woman working in my father’s and mother’s house. It irks me, the affection I had for you because, since I was young, I knew I could never marry a woman under my station. But I made a promise to myself that I would marry you, someday, when I’m older and able to provide for you. But when you married my father, I just knew. I knew you were nothing but a gold digger, marrying an old man more than twice her age for his money. You meant nothing to me then. And now, you are nothing. You will not touch even a dime of my father’s money. Goodbye and good riddance.”

Even though her late husband had left her some money in his will, the children had contested the will strongly and vehemently. None was more affected by their father’s uncalled-for decision than the first son. He claimed that his father was not completely sane when he made the will. And who else would the men of stature and power in the court side with if not with the new lord?

So, Lady Riona was made to leave her past life as a penniless widower, without children, her parents long dead, fending for herself at the age of thirty-six. She had no job, no letter of reference from a former employer to attest to her many years of successful work as a governess, and was left with no other way to feed herself. That was how she had gotten herself into the mess with the Celtic ministers. A stroke of bad luck and a wrong turn on the roads led her to ask for work from the king’s bishop at the kingdom's largest church. He was the one who threw her into the situation she was in right now, being hundreds of miles away from home, acting as the governess to a fake princess who was in this mess as deep as her.

“Who’s room is this?” Taryn breathed, as all three of them entered a different room behind the adjoining door. Taryn turned her head to look behind her, taking a sweeping look at the Varangian king’s room, and turned her head back to the front to see the new room in front of her.

“This is your room, my sweet. During the daytime, you will come into this room to wash, dress, read or do whatever you like. At night, if the king has need of you, you will retire to his room. If he does not, you will sleep here, in your own room,” Lady Riona explained.

The size of this new room was as big as the Varangian king’s room, one that befits a princess of royal birth and the new Queen of the kingdom. This room was bright and airy, its furniture was more feminine, and the carvings on the furniture are less intimidating. There was a lot of space for her to furnish with things according to her own taste and preference. Taryn was so overjoyed when Lady Riona said that this room was her own. Her last home was smaller than a hovel and there was nothing that belonged to her in that small, shared hut except her grandmother.

Eve walked to the large closet that was along the walls next to the room’s main door. She threw open the closet doors with a huge smile and exclaimed, “Ta-da!”

“Milady, everything in here is yours. You have pretty dresses in here, more than what we brought from our kingdom. Some of these clothes are made according to the Varangian fashion. There are capes and coats too, made of animal skin and fur. Most of them are hand woven. They are very comfortable,” Eve explained as she brought a dress out for Taryn.

Eve showed the dress to Taryn and Lady Riona, a simple one-piece boat-necked dress in gray color. The sleeve was a lighter shade of gray and the skirt reached Taryn’s ankles, but the embroideries on the dress’ edges were handmade and beautiful, similar to the Varangian writings.

“Let me prepare you a warm bath first, milady,” Eve said.

Since the day they arrived in this kingdom, their daily routine has changed drastically. The Varangians bathe every day, no matter if the sun was up or if there was rain. They would bathe in the mornings before they proceeded with their work and tasks. If they are too dirty by the end of the day, they will use wet washcloths to clean parts of their body before they go to bed.

When Taryn and her lady companions first arrived in the kingdom, they were all surprised by this routine. It didn’t help when the local womenfolk watched them judgmentally when they realized the Celtic ladies never bathe in the mornings like the rest of the Varangians. So, to save face, Taryn decided she would follow the local customs. After a few days, she quite liked it, feeling refreshed in the mornings after a good hot bath, and decided she would continue this ritual.

Lady Riona was sitting on a stool by the low-burning hearth when Eve helped Taryn into the copper bathtub with warm water. Taryn sighed softly as she stared into the burning logs.

“Do you think the Celtic king had something to do with the burning warship?” Taryn asked out of the blue.

Lady Riona was startled and told Eve to quickly close the adjoining door between Taryn’s room and the king’s, lest someone was in that room and might overhear.

“We must not speak things like this, child, in fear of people overhearing them. If it were not true, it would unnecessarily embed into people’s minds that this was a possibility. If it were true, however, it would make us the main suspect. We must behave normally, and go about our day and duties normally. We cannot afford to look suspicious to others,” Lady Riona said softly, again her eyes darting around as if fearing they were being eavesdropped on.

Taryn and Eve nodded in agreement. Eve sat on a stool next to Taryn and started scrubbing Taryn’s body with a sponge, rubbing soap on it once in a while. Taryn smiled at the young girl. Taryn wondered how such a young girl could be so brave, separated from her own family at a very young age, sent off to live with strangers, shipped to a foreign kingdom, and still smiling as she worked.

Eve, Taryn’s handmaid, was a middle child to parents with twelve children. There was nothing remarkable about her life growing up. Being the middle child, her mother was indifferent to her since she already had five other daughters before Eve. When her mother gave birth to their sixth child and it was a boy, both her parents were so ecstatic that her father didn’t go to work for a week, just celebrating and gushing over their new son. Eve’s mother continued giving birth every year until the twelfth year, when she decided she was too tired to do it again. By then, she was just happy that she had given birth to two sons out of all twelve of her children.

One day, two years after the last baby was born, Eve’s father had an accident at the mines where he worked. The cave his father and some other miners dug was not stable and the roof of the cave fell in. Eve’s father did not manage to run out in time, he tripped and a large rock fell on one of his legs, shattering his bones. His leg had to be amputated and he was not able to work anymore after that.

Eve’s mother was the breadwinner for a while, cleaning people’s homes and washing their laundry. Eve and her five older sisters worked along with their mother. They walked around their little village, asking for work from anybody who was willing to pay them, either with money or food. Sadly, since they lived in a little village where most of the people were almost as poor as them, they didn’t get much to spare, so they lived from mouth to mouth daily.

Eve once told Taryn and Lady Riona that two days before her birthday, she had collected mushrooms from the forest near their house. She had planned the whole week that she would cook for her large family on her birthday as a celebration. She thought it would also be another way to thank her mother for giving birth to her, even if she wasn’t her mother’s favorite child. But the next day, a man came to their house, riding a cart filled with straw and a sheep. At first, Eve didn’t think anything about it, assuming the man had some arrangements with their father. But not long after that, her mother called for her and her eldest sister — the first daughter named Ciara, to their driveway.

“What are these bags, Mam?” Eve heard Ciara ask their mother as she herself came out of the door to stand next to her older sister.

“I have filled these bags with your clothes, and Eve’s. You are to follow the man back to his ranch. You are to work with him from now on,” her mother replied, her voice emotionless.

“Work with him? Where?” Eve inquired, her mind still unable to grasp what was going on.

“At his ranch. You will live with him there,” her mother answered, exasperated.

“When will we come back here?” Ciara asked, her eyes already filled with water as she began to grasp what was going on.

Her mother did not answer Ciara’s question. She quickly turned into the house to pick up her two-year-old son who was wailing on the floor. She looked upon her son’s face with a sweet smile, the kind of smile that she hardly gave her daughters. Eve then saw her father walking toward the cart, a crutch under his right arm and the right stump of his foot swinging as he walked. He helped pick up the two bags that his wife had left on the ground and placed them at the back of the cart. Eve realized that the straw and sheep were no longer in the cart.

“Go on, girls. Get in the back of the cart,” Eve’s father said, not looking at them.

“What? Why?” Eve was still confused about what was going on.

The man who came with the cart came out to the driveway from their barn. He looked at Eve and Ciara leeringly before he climbed into his seat at the front of the cart, not saying a word to her father.

“Get on now girls,” her father said, but both Eve and Ciara stood rooted on the ground, unable to move.

Ciara started crying. She wailed at her mother and asked her father to spare them. Her screaming and crying made Eve cry too. Their mother then came out of the driveway, her face filled with scorn, and screamed at them to stop.

“Both of you must go! You cannot live here anymore. You belong to this man now. Both of you have been sold to him. So go!” She yelled at them.

The man jumped off his seat and walked to the girls. Without a word, he first hoisted Eve onto the back of the cart and then he did the same with Ciara. As he walked back to his seat, Ciara tried to scramble off the cart but their mother walked toward them and stopped them. Her hand raised in front of them, she told them they must be obedient, that they were no longer her children, and told the man to go. And so off he went, his horse trotting fast, throwing the girls off balance as they held on to the side of his cart for dear life.

The girls didn’t know where the man was taking them or how far they went, but by the time they arrived at his run-down house, the sky was already dark. The man did not speak as he got off his seat and went to the back of the cart. He did not speak when he took their bags. He did not speak when he carried one girl after another down from his cart. He led the girls to a small room with two single bed frames pushed together. He dumped their bags on each bed unceremoniously and left. Eve said she remembered standing in that room and thinking about the mushrooms she kept hidden in the barn, the mushrooms she planned to cook for her family on her birthday the next day. The whole night she stayed awake, listening to her sister cry to sleep.

At first, the girls thought even though things were not very ideal, it could not have been worse. They were fed twice a day and were told to work on the man’s farm. He hardly spoke to them and when he did, it was only because they did something wrong. Most of the time, he would just let them be.

However, one night, the man came home drunk. The girls were already sleeping in their beds when he came barging into their room, surprising them both. He pulled Eve’s sister, Ciara, roughly to his room. Ciara fought him hard, and Eve fought him too, pulling on her sister, kicking his shin, trying to make him let her sister go, but to no avail. He was a big man, tall and heavy. How could a mere eight-year-old and a fourteen-year-old fight off such a large man? The man simply kicked Eve away as he took Ciara into his room, locking the door behind him. Eve could hear her older sister scream for help and plead for mercy. She could hear her sister’s nightgown being torn and then she heard her sister scream the loudest scream ever.

Eve ran. She ran out of the house. She ran in her nightgown in the middle of the night, not knowing where she was going or how she was going to make it in the cold night. She ran with tears running down her face, crying for her sister, crying for herself, crying for her poor family. She didn’t remember how many times she had tripped but she always pushed herself back up and continued running. Maybe it was God’s will, but after she ran for a few hours and when she thought she was going to pass out from thirst and fatigue, she came upon a small chapel. She entered the chapel and slept on one of its pews until morning.

This was how the priest found her the next morning. He listened to Eve's cries and pleas for help, but the priest did not know who the man was. It seemed that Eve had run to a different village altogether. She didn’t know how to go back to the farm or to her sister. The priest and his wife then adopted Eve. When she turned thirteen, she was sent to the city by the church, and with the blessings of her adoptive parents, she became a handmaid to the royals.

“Your Grace,” a female voice called out from outside her door.

“Yes?” Taryn answered as Eve’s hand stopped mid-air on her back.

“His Grace, the king, has requested your presence in the dining room for breakfast,” the voice said again.

“Yes, of course. I shall be down in a moment,” Taryn answered.

All three ladies in the room looked at each other quietly. Then, Taryn got out of the bathtub. As Eve wiped her body dry, she tried to calm her thoughts. She would have to meet the king at one point. What’s the difference between meeting him in the morning after the night he kissed and touched her and left her because his ship was burning compared to meeting him on other mornings? She would be fine, she assured herself.

After Eve helped Taryn into her simple dress and braided her hair, Lady Riona fastened a brooch of the Celtic sigil on her front collar. Taryn took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and looked straight ahead. She was ready.