The wheels of the cart creaked with promised doom. My ears rang with the sound of the chains that bound me to the cart, drowning the laughter of the children accompanying the men. On the cart, spears were laid upright against the corners. Heavy wooden chests occupied most of the space and were piled up almost as high as the spears stood. Round viking shields hung from hooks on the sides of the cart.
As we approached the hamlet, the children scattered to the houses. Women heard them and abandoned their chores to come watch from windows and doorways. Many waved at the group. A few came running to join it.
When we reached the crossroad, it was getting dark and the war party split up. Most kept going further into the hamlet, others took a few of their chests and weapons and went their way. I remained chained to the cart until we reached a little house by the stream. The same house I visited earlier. The house with the cute lady.
"Leda," my captor yelled from the street and candle lights immediately lit up through the windows. The door of the house creaked open by a hair and I could perceive hurried movement inside.
He grabbed a big shield and a spear from the cart and his friends helped him with his chest. They also dragged me by my chain to his front door.
"By Fury, LEDA!" He yelled once more and the door opened the rest of the way. The cute lady stood at the doorway. She was looking at the ground. She raised her head to look at me but as soon as our eyes met she closed hers shut and looked at the ground again.
She jumped when the blonde raider spoke again.
"Carry my things, woman," he said. He turned to his companions and shook their arms and hugged them before saying goodbye.
Leda - which I began to assume was the cute lady's name - did her best to drag the shield inside as fast as her tiny arms could allow her to. She came back for the spear and blonde brute had the chest on one shoulder already. My chain did not leave his other hand for one second.
He dragged me inside and yanked hard so I fell on the wooden floor.
"Tie him up," he said to her before he took the chest to an adjacent room.
Leda came running to the chain that bound me. She took it in trembling hands and began looking for somewhere to tie it to. I kept looking at her, thinking that maybe she would let me go but the big brute came back as she was still looking for where to tie the chain to.
He came and tore the chain from her hand, sat on a chair and looked at the both of us.
Leda was wearing a long dress with an apron over it and even beneath the layers of fabric, I could see her knees trembling.
"What is the meaning of this, Leda?" He said to her.
Leda spoke and a mouse would have been louder.
"What was that, woman?" He said, visibly irritated.
"He came here," her voice trembled worse than her knees, "he was looking for clothes."
"And?" he shouted.
"And... I gave him-" she didn't have time to finish her sentence.
"And you gave him my father's coat!" He shouted.
Leda was on the verge of tears and I began to fear that he would hit her. Or, more likely, me.
In such situations, it is best to simply keep silent and let rage die out in a still loneliness but I didn't know what this man just came back from. Was the raid fruitful? Was he grieving a companion? Was he angry a superior berated him? He came back with weapons so obviously this man was either used to committing violence or to seeing violence.
"By what right, Leda?" he said, more calmly this time, "By what right did you give this stranger my deceased father's clothes," this was obviously an emotional topic for him and his rage was quickly draining as grief replaced it.
"I apologize, husband," tears were rolling down Leda's face, "I did not know it mattered that much to you. I wouldn't have given him anything if I had known, I swear."
The bitch!
She looked up at his face and kept going, "I caught him stealing in our backyard and I got scared. I gave him food and the coat so he would go away."
THE BITCH!
Her cheeks glistened in the candlelight and her tears did not cease to roll down her lovely face. I guessed it was my turn to face the viking.
I stood up as gracefully as my bound wrists would allow me to and dusted off the coat I wore, the coat which was the very subject of this encounter's quarrel.
I began thinking; this man was very quick to decide he would make me his thrall. That meant he needed one and all I had to do to ensure I survived this night at least was to show him what a useful thrall I could be.
"Allow me to introdu-" I began but he cut me short.
"No, please don't," he said dismissively, "you are a thief and that is all I need to know."
"Oh, am I?" I said, bringing him to my terrain, "would any thief worthy of the title be caught by a frightened little housewife?"
That caught both him and Leda off-guard.
"Uh-" he began but I pressed on.
"Or could it be that I am not a thief but a disciple of other aptitudes?"
He blinked at me and tried looking for something to say before I could speak but in vain.
I gave a flourishing bow and spoke loudly to hide how scared I actually was.
"My name is Gayan and I am..." I paused for effect but also to think of what to say next, "a royal tutor from a very distant land."
The confusion on his face began to be amusing. I kept going.
"On my way to acquiring even more knowledge for my royal masters," I exaggerated my movements to pretend at some degree of madness and kept on, "I have, alas, lost my way in the hills that lay yonder," I ended pointing at the direction of the hills from where rolled the stream.
"A royal tutor?" he said, not believing it entirely. I had to give a demonstration.
"Think of a number, sir, and hold it in your thought" I launched at him and before he had time to reply positively or negatively, I kept going, "now double it."
I could see in his eyes that his confusion was slowly turning into suspicion but I also saw that Leda was already counting with her fingers and that was all I needed.
"Now add four," I said, pointing at her, which pulled all of his attention away from me and onto what she was doing.
"Divide it by two," I said as my voice increased in volume.
"Now, subtract the original number you were thinking about," they were both concentrating very hard on Leda's fingers, each finger bending into her palm as the subtraction went on and before they were done, I was already holding two fingers at them.
This is too easy!
In case they were both bad with numbers, as Leda approached the answer, I shouted, "And let me guess, you obtained two, didn't you?"
Leda gasped and did a little hop in celebration, "By Fury, yes!"
Fury? Could this be...
"Where I'm from," I told her "we say 'Thank Manusha'."
"Thank Manusha," she repeated and time stopped.
The air got both colder and warmer and my body shivered like the room was full of steam. The wood of the house, the light of the candles and the darkness of the setting night outside all seemed to have nodded at me. Nature was aroused by something new appearing. Something new commanding. I felt a presence at my back and a voice in my ears.
"Good start, Gayan," it whispered.
I felt stronger. I felt more confident. I also felt exposed, somehow. As if I had entered an arena already populated by thousands and I was only lucky that my entrance was barely perceptible in an already very crowded all-out brawl.
When finally I came back to myself, Leda was still hopping and clapping. Her husband sat there and looked hard at me.
"A royal tutor, huh?" He grunted at me.
"A royal tutor indeed!" I said, bowing.