South of Umeå, Suomi
Late September, 1192
The hardest part, Marja considered afterward, was when Emma remembered that they would need food for the journey. There was no choice at that point but for her to steal into the town and buy some bread and cheese. Huddling in the forest, with Ulli shaking beside her, she had imagined every shifting branch to be the enemy there to abduct them both. Marja had known that she might die when the war started, but it was cruel that she should have to watch her son go as well.
Emma made it back, however, and they rode down the coastal road at a gallop for what seemed like hours. The horses could not maintain that pace forever, and of course nothing would doom them more than the loss of a horse. So although it went against every instinct in her body, Marja eventually had them slow to a walk. Father had told her about sleeping in the saddle while on campaign, but she had never found it plausible until that day, when exhaustion finally overcame her.
The next morning, they woke to find no trace of pursuit. They went a little slower this time, to keep it easy on the horses. The first time they heard somebody else on the road, she had hustled Emma and Ulli into the woods–but it was just a farmer and his sons wheeling a last crop to market at a nearby village. There were few others on the road this late in the year.
Gradually, after a few days without a sign of the prince, Marja finally allowed herself to hope that perhaps they had shaken their pursuers. The younger Turo would not wish to be stuck in hostile country over the winter, after all. It would still be a long solitary trek down to Uppland, with the risk of winter weather growing every day, but perhaps they would make it.
Their escape had come at an opportune time as well, because she was beginning to realize that her mare was not hale as she had appeared in the stable. They had been in a hurry, without time to consider such things too carefully.
If it comes to a pursuit… But it had not come to that, so why borrow trouble?
Emma was getting more relaxed too. One evening, after Ulli had fallen asleep, she began to complain good-naturedly about how late the sun stayed out over the summer. “I could scarcely sleep all summer.”
Marja smiled when she heard that. “I would think that you’d be worried about me.”
“Well, that too. But I could bear my cares and worries more easily in a less unnatural land than this.”
Marja laughed. “This reminds me of that evening in Murmaan. As I recall, you couldn’t sleep because of the sun then also.”
“That,” Emma said with a smile, “and also somebody was keeping me up all night.”
“You were so sweet to me then, too.” Emma’s caring nature while she was struggling in Murmaan was one of the reasons that Marja had fallen in love with her.
Emma was silent for a second. “I have a confession to make.”
Marja looked at her quizzically. “What?”
Emma wasn’t making eye contact with her, which was unusual. “I thought you were annoying at first.”
“You what?”
“Think about it! I had a long day tending to the sick and the dying and then I came back wanting to go straight to sleep and…”
Understanding dawned on her. “You wanted me to be quiet. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“Of course! It was exhausting. And you were the one person in the camp that I couldn’t be mad at, so of course I was nice to you.” Emma shrugged and poked at the fire with a stick. “Meanwhile I was begging one of the other sisters to take my place in the tent.”
“I am learning a lot about you right now,” Marja said with a laugh. “So wait–so when you gave me that little speech…?”
“I was hoping you would go home, yes.” Emma flushed. “But then you didn’t, and I saw this other side of you. You weren’t just this needy posh girl. You were stronger than I had realized.”
“So I haven’t been annoying you this entire time,” Marja said drily.
Emma gave her a mischievous look. “Not this entire time, no.”
They settled back into companionable silence. Marja looked over at Ulli, who was curled into a ball and breathing regularly. Her son had spent their journey retreating into a sullen silence, and it worried her. “I keep thinking–he’s going to remember this for the rest of his life. His father betraying him, his mother fleeing with him in terror.”
“This isn’t the end of the story for him. Not for us, either.” Emma grabbed her hand and cradled it. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything, always.”
“Do you ever…” Emma bit her lip, before continuing. “Do you ever regret that we got together?”
Marja looked at her, astonished. “Why would I regret it?”
“I just thought… It's not easy, being the first woman to rule Suomi. And if you hadn’t had all those rumors swirling around about us, maybe things would have been a little smoother for you. For the country. If only you hadn’t…”
Marja frowned. “If only I hadn’t what? Been so loved? Felt so happy? What sin did you commit,
rakas?”
Emma looked down at her hands. “I guess that was pretty stupid.”
“No, not stupid. Never that. But you are not my brother’s keeper,
rakas.” Marja squeezed her hand. “Make love to me,” she said quickly, after giving another look to confirm that Ulli was truly asleep.
Emma gave a worried glance to Ulli also. “What if he wakes up?”
“Then he’ll know that we love each other.” Marja pulled Emma to her gently before kissing her.
Emma raised an eyebrow. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Marja said, before slowly grinning at her lover. “I hope that’s not too annoying.”
Emma released a sudden bark of laughter. “Oh, I’m never going to hear the end of that, am I?”
*****
Marja saw the horsemen first at dawn. They were on the horizon, scarcely more than specks, but somehow she knew who they were regardless. She said nothing, because by then Ulli was stirring and she would not scare the boy. Emma saw them as well, because they shared a wordless look before getting started for the day.
“You were kissing
Täti Emma,” Ulli said once they were on the road. He was riding on Emma’s palfrey, which he seemed to prefer to her own. They were his first words in more than a day, and he said them like an accusation.
“I was,
poju.” She had not wished for the topic to come up this way, but here it was before her. She would not lie now. “I love her, and so sometimes I kiss her.”
He was outraged now, with a child’s purity of feeling. “You kissed her, and it made
Iskä mad, and he made us leave.” His jaw was jutting out, and it made him look particularly peevish. “This is all your fault.” Emma had a look on her face like she wished to be anywhere else.
“Your father was a coward,” she snapped. “He meant to hand us over to bad men, men who meant to kill us. He would have seen us both dead, to save his own worthless skin. That’s why we had to leave. It had nothing to do with Emma.” She regretted speaking so bluntly as soon as she had said it, but words once loosed could not be called back.
Ulli’s eyes went wide. “You’re horrible,” he said in a low voice. “You’re horrible and I hate you.”
Marja absorbed the blow silently, although it had not been easy to hear.
Blessed Kuutar, if he lives to hate me for many years to come, that would be enough. Her mind went back to the horsemen who were following them. She could not see them now, but she could sense them behind her.
At an hour short of midday, they stopped to give the horses a chance to rest and drink from a nearby stream. While Ulli sulkily considered the water in front of him, Marja pulled Emma aside.
“My horse can’t outrun them,” she said quietly.
Emma nodded. “Take mine. You and Ulli… you can make better time without…”
“No.” Marja was decided on this point.
Turo will never stop looking for us, not so long as I’m beyond his grasp. “No, you have to take him. Go to Irene, she’ll shelter you two to spite Turo if nothing else.”
Emma’s eyebrows shot up. “No, no, you’re the queen, I’m just…”
“You’re just one of the two most important people in the world to me, that’s who you are.” Marja’s eyes filled with unshed tears as she spoke. “If something happened to you… I need you to live, Emma. I need you to live and be well and be happy for many years. I need that more than I need a crown.”
A tear fell down Emma’s face. “But… I can’t. I don’t deserve…”
Marja kissed her softly. “Think of this as a royal command, if that helps. Live. Save my son. Be free and happy. My last order.”
“That sounds like three orders,” Emma said, but her laugh turned into a sob. They were both in tears by then, holding each other and weeping.
When they parted, Marja could see Ulli looking at them with a fearful look. “I don’t really hate you,
Aiti,” he said quietly.
“I know,
poju.” She wiped aside her tears and did her best to smile for him. “I need you to do something for me, Ulli.”
He looked at her uncertainly, but then nodded.
“My horse needs to rest for a while. I’m going to wait here with him, while you and
Täti Emma go on ahead. Can you be good for her until I see you again?” It was a challenge, not letting her voice break. She had no notion how she managed it.
Ulli nodded again, solemnly. “I can do that.”
She kissed him on the forehead, quick and casual, as if this were just to be a brief parting. “I love you, Ulli. Always.”
He flushed and looked abashed, and she thought for a second that there had never been a sweeter child. “See you,
Aiti,” he said shyly, to his shoes. She gave him a warm smile and tried to ignore how her heart was breaking.
*****
There were four of them, young men in mail with spear and seaxe; more than two women in their middling years could have handled, that was for sure. Turo’s son was a head taller than the others, and from horseback he looked like a mountain of a man. It took a second for her to realize that of course he could not be more than, what? Fifteen? A boy, in any case.
While the prince loomed, his men circled, their spears pointed down at her. “There were three of you,” he said. He spoke with a Norwegian accent, she noticed, and not in the cultured tones of the Yngling court either.
“There were,” she agreed with him. “I sent my lady-in-waiting with my son along a different road. Wouldn’t do to have both of us in the same place.” Her eyes were dry now, and her voice steady. She would not give these men her tears.
“There were three of you this morning,” he said, and at that moment he sounded like Ulli at his most sullen. “I saw you. I’m not stupid.”
“My apologies, your highness,” she said, realizing that she might need to take a different tack with this angry but observant youth. “I should not have insulted your intelligence.”
That did not satisfy the prince. “You stole my mother away, you bitch,” he said in an acid tone. “You stole her and kept her away from us.” He flushed then, as if realizing how boyish he had sounded at that moment.
She cocked her head and studied him, feeling as if she could understand: a boy who hated his father, who dreamed that his mother was out there somewhere trying to find him, to rescue him. It was a sad story, or at least it had the potential to be.
“Emma had nothing to do with that,” she said quickly, hoping that it sounded like the truth. He reacted to the name Emma, she noticed. So he knew who she was, she could use that. Marja made herself leer, ignoring the sick feeling that it gave her. “The lass was pretty enough, but I didn’t value her for her mind if you know what I mean.”
One of the guards laughed at that. Another looked disgusted. The third, the eldest of the lot, said staunchly, “His majesty says come back with you and the boy.”
“Ulli’s just a child,” she said, and the pleading note in her voice was entirely unintentional.
“Nothing’s to happen to him,” the prince said. He shifted uncomfortably in his saddle as he said it, and she could see that he didn’t entirely believe his own words.
She put a hand on his arm, thinking that she saw her chance. “Thorfinn, you’re not like him.”
He looked down at her, need and despair and rage warring on his boyish features. Finally he spat in disgust, and addressed the men. “Bind her hands. We best get back to Ulvila before the sea freezes.”
)
