A Whisper to the North

Chapter XVI ✠ The Beginning

Una crept around the corner and slowly pushed on the latch to her mother's door. It was still pitch-black outside. Una had overfilled herself with water last night, so she woke early with a full bladder. After she relieved herself, she gathered up all the things she needed for the journey and went down to saddle up the horses. Now she enters his room with a small candle in hand. She walks over to the lamp on the table and lit it. A slow amber glow engulfed the room. Frey was on his stomach, with his arms reached up over his head. He definitely didn't sleep like a soldier on his back.

"Get up. You loiter sack!" Una said, walking up to the bed and throwing a pillow at his head.

"Ugg, just a few more minutes, please!" He mumbled, turning over.

"We have a long journey ahead, now get your lazy carcass up!" Una said, pulling off the covers.

Not surprising to Una, he was naked yet again. He balled himself up in a fetal position and opened his eyes.

"God's it's freezing! Has winter already knocked on our door?" He laughed.

"You just don't want to move from a warm bed! Do you have any fresh clothes laid out?" Una asked, walking the room's perimeter around the things he brought when he first entered the kingdom.

"It's good to see you have everything in order. Did you get everything you needed from the castle?" Una asked, bending down and picking up a dark purple tunic he had neatly folded.

"Come on, lad, get up!" She threw the garment at him.

"I gathered more than enough, all except gold." He laughed.

"Sorry to say that our gold is secured away, and besides, most of it wasn't ripped off of Christian relics like the gold your friends bribed me with." Una laughed.

"Ahh, about that." He said, sitting up and throwing the tunic over his shoulders.

"Yes, that gold was plundered, but it was not my gold. And those weren't my friends."

Frey gathered up his loose locks, and he wrapped them up in a bun with a ribbon he had tied on his wrist. Una found a pair of riding pants and tossed them to him.

"Enlighten me then. Why were they traveling with you on this magical quest for my sword." Una laughed.

"They were Vikings, yes, but they were brigands who attacked my original group," Frey said as he put on his pants.

"Oh?" Una said, grabbing him a wool pair of stockings and gloves.

"Everyone was killed but me, as sexy as it would sound to say that those scars on my chest were from battle. They were from that whore of a woman. She tried to seduce me, and then she impaled me."

"That sounds oddly familiar." Una laughed, throwing him the gloves and socks.

"Will I really need these?" He laughed.

"Yes, it is raining pretty hard, and I'm sure your delicate little prince hands and feet will get stirrup and rein sores." Una laughed.

Frey laughed and patted the socks.

"Well, that was one problem too. I was so weak and weary from travel. They offered to spare my life and feed me if I were to give them the things I was traveling with. They knew where this kingdom was too."

"Is that why they were wearing noble garbs and jewelry?" Una laughed.

"And what is with the dresses?" Una laughed again.

"They're ceremonial if someone was to die. The other dresses were nightwear. I didn't need them anyway. I had lost so much tissue that everything fits too loose." His demeanor sunk.