Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter III - Aila

"What manner of woman plots against her own husband by such foul means!"

Aila could feel the ire suffuse her gut with heat as she recalled Brynja's harsh accusation and the hateful manner in which it was delivered. How dare the woman speak so out of turn. But at the heart of her disapprobation was her sister's meek acceptance of Brynja's recrimination. She despised the disgust that impinged and, consequently, distorted the high regard for Inga that Aila seemed always compelled to defend. She knew not what they had discussed, had only managed to grasp the last skeins of their intercourse, but now congratulated herself on disrupting Brynja's harrying.

"Are you well, sister?" She clasped Inga's chin between her own long fingers and brought her sister's gaze to meet her own.

"Aye, why do you ask?"

"So we are to play games now?" Her lips compressed in vexation as she considered her sister's pale complexion and stark features. "Very well, I shall draw you out. What did Brynja have to say?"

"Naught." Inga had never been much of a talented liar, and had yet gained no knack for it.

Both women looked to where Brynja sat joking with the men, her sultry laugh inciting them to more than just humor. She was certainly a beautiful woman — tall, strong and in possession of a fluid grace that drew even the most captious eye. Her hair, long and unfettered, was lustrous sunshine and her skin was as pale as goats milk. 'Twas a striking combination and she did not begrudge the woman for it. What she would not tolerate was Brynja's caustic tongue slapping at her younger sister.

"Do not equivocate, Inga. You are pallid and shaking! I overheard your conversation just now." It was not altogether a lie for she had managed to hear some of what Brynja had said. "Wherefore was she harassing you? What was the subject of your discourse?"

"Leave me be, Aila! You are not my mother!" She ripped her face from Aila's fingers and promptly pushed her hand away.

"But let me be your sister," Aila cajoled gently. "Tell me what is the matter, my love!"

Her sister had been slowly wasting to bones since she had married Harald. But in this instance she could not lay the blame at his feet for he was not only a just and fair leader, but a kind man who was by no means partial to cruelty. He was a prepossessing man of strength and honor, and he never spoke unless it was to do so with brevity. There was not a maid within miles who did not think him handsome; there was, in fact, no warrior one tenth as handsome as he. But Inga had ever been a moody and complex child, and had never, above all, been drawn to men. It had, therefore, been a great shock to her when their father had declared she would be wed to Harald.

Inga shook her head defiantly which loosed a lock of titian hair from her kerchief; it spilled across her cheek and clung to the tears that flowed there. The obdurate gesture was more spirit than she had exhibited in the past months that she had lived under Harald's roof. But she had taken no aliment all day, not even a crust of bread, that Aila had seen, other than the mead that she now clasped in her boney, dun fingers.

"Tis no wonder you are not with child," Aila observed. "You lead an abstemious existence and you do not sleep or laugh. Do not deceive yourself, Inga, I see how you undernourish yourself and stare with lorn eyes as the world continues without you." Aila placed a tender hand on her sister's thigh then, kneeling before her, she searched the girl's face for some sign of life; but there was only inanition where there should have been a spark of energy.

Inga's tears began to fall in earnest. What on earth is the matter with the girl? She had always been an odd egg, but never this abstruse or melancholic.