The glint came back into Rokir’s eye, though it was faint. “Why should we turn away for that?”
“Would you want me looking up at you if you didn’t have your leggins on?” Alea asked, and at the looks of horror and embarrassment that crossed their faces, “No, I thought not. Be good lads, now, and turn away for a minute or two.”
Shame-faced, they shuffled around to face away from the tree.
Alea kicked high and managed to get a leg back up on the limb—she’d been hanging right next to it, after all. She managed to swing herself up, blessing her tomboy days, and clawed her way up the trunk until she was sitting again. She hugged the trunk, arms tense while the rest of her went limp with relief.
But she couldn’t afford to let the boys see her weakness. She pulled herself together, swung both feet up on the limb, and tucked her skirts around her. “All right, you can turn back now.”
They turned, then stared. “But you’re still up there!”
“I’ll come down when I’m feeling strong enough,” Alea told them. “Hanging from a tree wasn’t the worst fright I’ve ever had, but it was bad enough.”
“Why?” Rokir frowned, really not understanding. “Because the rope could have broken, or the knot could have worked loose,” Alea said, her tone tart, “and you two ungainly louts might not have been able to catch me!” Worse, they might have.
They winced at the rebuke, and she was instantly sorry. “I don’t really mean to be sharp, lads.” She mustn’t call them boys, not when they were beginning to think they were men. “It’s just that you gave me a bad scare.”
“I know,” Jorak said, surly but looking at the ground.
“You can come down,” Rokir told her. “We’ll be good.”
“I will, lads, when my heart slows down.” Alea knew that she would have to take the chance—you have to keep promises made to children, or they lose all faith in other people. The thought gave her a glow of strength. She was an adult, after all, and if they’d lived in the same village and she’d been their neighbor, these boys might have been put in her care now and again, only a year or two ago. They were children still, no matter their size. Boys that age still looked to their mothers for reassurance, though they didn’t like to admit it, and therefore to most older women, too—at least, if they’d had good mothers, and she guessed these two had. It must have been a cruel wrench indeed to have their own parents turn them out of the house—though she suspected the village had turned them out and shouted down the mothers’ weeping. “Are you both from the same village, lads?”
“Huh?”Jorak asked, surprised by the change of topic. Rokir, quicker to catch up, said, “No. We never met until a week ago.”
“Odd how strangers can become friends so quickly, isn’t it?” Alea asked, and added mentally, Especially when they’re lost and lonely, feeling their lives are ended. “I fled my village only two days ago.”
“Fled?” The boys stared, astounded that anyone could actually want to leave home.
“Ran away, yes.” Alea’s tone hardened again. “My parents died, and no boy had come courting because I was too tall. The baron’s man told the Council to take my parents’ house and lands and goods and give them to someone else, and give them me into the bargain.”
A sick look crept over the boys’ faces. They’d seen such things happen before and joined in the vindictive cries that the victim deserved it, for being suspiciously like a giant or a dwarf. It didn’t look so right and just now, though.
Rokir tried for bravado. “At least they didn’t cast you out for being a giant!”
“I’d rather they had,” Alea said, her tone grim. “Do you have any idea what people do to slaves? Or try to—especially women.”
The boys winced and looked at the ground, sullen again. They had heard, well enough. Jorak muttered, “There are good masters.”
“There are,” Alea agreed. “Mine weren’t among them. The baron’s man gave me to a family that had always hated my parents.”
Rokir shuddered at that, and Jorak grudgingly admitted, “No wonder you ran.”
“No wonder,” Alea echoed grimly.
“You can come down, miss,” Rokir told her. “We wouldn’t hurt someone who’s been through as bad as we have.”
“At least you realize it would have been hurting.” Alea frowned at a sudden doubt. “You do realize that, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard screams from houses where they kept slaves,” Rokir admitted. “I should have guessed.”
“We didn’t know you’d been a slave.” Jorak’s eyes were still downcast. “Thought you were one of them wild women they talk about.”
“Wild or not, it would have hurt just the same.” Alea still eyed them warily. “Do you promise?”
“Cross my heart.” Jorak actually drew an X over the left side of his chest.
Alea’s heart went out to them in spite of what they’d tried to do—or tried to work themselves into doing. They were still children inside, after all, and children who had been heart hurt very badly. But they were growing up fast.
She had to help them grow up right. “Very well, I’ll come down. Turn your backs again.”
The boys did, and Alea climbed down, staff still dangling from her wrist-she wasn’t about to let it go. She dropped from the lowest limb. “All right, you can look.”
The boys turned around as she slipped the loop off her wrist and leaned on the staff to look up at them. Heavens, they seemed huge! Almost two feet taller than she was, and already hulking with muscle. “You’ll have to learn to stand very straight,” she said automatically. “You don’t want to grow up hunching over.”
The boys straightened up on the instant, but Jorak frowned. “Who made you our mother?”
Something in Alea cringed at the thought, but she answered gamely, “It’s just that I’ve been down the road ahead of you, my lad. A girl as tall as I am starts hunching her shoulders forward and stooping a bit, so people don’t see how high she stands. My mother stopped me from that, or I’d be a hunchback by now. Stand straight! Stand tall! Be proud of your inches!”
“Proud?”Jorak stared, confounded.
“Proud!” Alea declared. “Half the reason they threw you out was jealousy, you know, and the other half was fear. They wished they could be as tall as you, and were afraid what you might do to your enemies when you were grown. What you are is grand, and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise!”
“She speaks truth,” rumbled a deep voice behind her. “I’ve never heard a Midgarder speak so honestly.”
Alea whirled in alarm and stared up—and up, and up. She’d thought the boys were huge, but she hadn’t known what size was. The giant towered four feet above her head and was so wide he seemed to fill the whole world. He wore the same tunic and leggins as the men of Midgard, with leather armor sewn with rings and plates. But there was so much of it! She wondered dizzily how many cows had gone to make his hauberk, how many sheep had been shorn to make his clothes.
“Nay, don’t be frightened, lass,” the giant said, his voice oddly gentle. “We’ll not hurt you.”
We? Alea glanced around him and saw half a dozen more, one or two even bigger than he! But the strands of gray in his hair showed him to be the oldest and most experienced, so it was he who spoke for them all.
Alea stood her ground, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin in defiance so the giants wouldn’t see the fear inside her. If Midgard women went to battle, she might have seen one of these behemoths before, but since they only went as nurses, half a mile behind the fighting, she never had.
“I’d best talk to her, Gorkin,” a lighter rumble of a voice said, and a shorter giant stepped up beside the leader. Alea took in the long hair flowing out from beneath the iron cap, the huge steel cups sewn to the leather of her armor, and realized with a shock that this second giant was a woman! She was scandalized—how dare the giants risk their women in battle? But hard on its heels came envy—this huge woman could share in the glory of war and had been trained to face its dangers. Most importantly of all, she could defend herself against attack! Alea wished sorely for some of that training now, when she had to face the world alone.