The Valor of Cappea Varra, Recapped [Cappea Verra][A Gender Switch Adventure] - Poula Anderson

The Valor of Cappea Varra Recapped

by Poula Anderson

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Poula Anderson

A Cappea Verra story.

A Gender Switch Adventure.

"Let little Cappea go," they shouted. "Maybe she can sing the trolls to sleep--"

The wind came from the north with sleet on its back. Raw shuddering gusts whipped the sea till the ship lurched and women felt driven spindrift stinging their faces. Beyond the rail there was winter night, a moving blackness where the waves rushed and clamored; straining into the great dark, women sensed only the bitter salt of sea-scud, the nettle of sleet and the lash of wind.

Cappea lost her footing as the ship heaved beneath her, her hands were yanked from the icy rail and she went stumbling to the deck. The bilge water was new coldness on her drenched clothes. She struggled back to her feet, leaning on a rower's bench and wishing miserably that her quaking stomach had more to lose. But she had already chucked her share of stockfish and hardtack, to the laughter of Svearek's women, when the gale started.

Numb fingers groped anxiously for the harp on her back. It still seemed intact in its leather case. She didn't care about the sodden wadmal breeks and tunic that hung around her skin. The sooner they rotted off her, the better. The thought of the silks and linens of Croy was a sigh in her.

Why had she come to Norren?

A gigantic form, vague in the whistling dark, loomed beside her and gave her a steadying hand. She could barely hear the blond giant's bull tones: "Ha, easy there, lass. Methinks the sea horse road is too rough for yer feet."

"Ulp," said Cappea. Her slim body huddled on the bench, too miserable to care. The sleet pattered against her shoulders and the spray congealed in her red hair.

Torbek of Norren squinted into the night. It made her leathery face a mesh of wrinkles. "A bitter feast Yolner we hold," she said. "'Twas a madness of the king's, that she would guest with her sister across the water. Now the other ships are blown from us and the fire is drenched out and we lie alone in the Wolf's Throat."

Wind piped shrill in the rigging. Cappea could just see the longboat's single mast reeling against the sky. The ice on the shrouds made it a pale pyramid. Ice everywhere, thick on the rails and benches, sheathing the dragon head and the carved stern-post, the ship rolling and staggering under the great march of waves, women bailing and bailing in the half-frozen bilge to keep his afloat, and too much wind for sail or oars. Yes--a cold feast!

"But then, Svearek has been strange since the troll took her daughter, three years ago," went on Torbek. She shivered in a way the winter had not caused. "Never does she smile, and her once open hand grasps tight about the silver and her women have poor reward and no thanks. Yes, strange--" Her small frost-blue eyes shifted to Cappea Varra, and the unspoken thought ran on beneath them: Strange, even, that she likes you, the wandering bard from the south. Strange, that she will have you in her hall when you cannot sing as her women would like.

Cappea did not care to defend herself. She had drifted up toward the northern barbarians with the idea that they would well reward a minstrel who could offer them something more than their own crude chants. It had been a mistake; they didn't care for roundels or sestinas, they yawned at the thought of roses white and red under the moon of Caronne, a moon less fair than my lady's eyes. Nor did a woman of Croy have the size and strength to compel their respect; Cappea's light blade flickered swiftly enough so that no one cared to fight her, but she lacked the power of sheer bulk. Svearek alone had enjoyed hearing her sing, but she was niggardly and her brawling thorp was an endless boredom to a woman used to the courts of southern princes.