Seventh Day of Christmas: Krystanya.

I wake from my bed more afraid than when Jan and I wheeled through Tartar Country during wartime, more excited than when I made my first triple profit, and more anxious than when I was brought before the guild for membership. The past week here at Canute’s has been a nerve wracking joy, until yesterday.

Yesterday Estrith and I were cooking, like normal, under Mrs. Koborg’s watchful eye while Canute and Lieddi went hunting. The pair returned, Canute with a rabbit and Lieddi with a squirrel, and Lieddie reeking of unsated desire and Canute with this smell of lust I’ve come to find. Looks like Lieddie is hunting for more than just game.

After he set down the rabbit and skinned it he came to Estrith and I as we were chopping vegetables. One after the other he wrapped his arms around our hips, turned our heads to face his own and get us kisses deeper than he’d given me before and from the look on Estrith’s face, probably the same for her. He then salted the rabbit and set it to smoke above the hearth before going to bed. The worst part was I could still smell lust strong enough from Estrith I thought she was just about to go in there and mount him like a steed. While I know human-folk haven’t the best noses or even ears, I know they’ve got good eyes, and I’m sure Mrs. Koborg and Pa saw her shaking in her hooves. None of that’s what gots me scared though, today Father Ulf is returning from Lund having settled something with the Bishop, two knightly orders, and the local count. There’s rumors of quite an upset happening in the city, but also rumors that there was unrest before that’s now solved. My loins are burning though, this happened the last time I was around Canute for a long time, and the doctors in both Marienburg and Stettin recommended the same, gotta balance the humors, I’m too hot, I need cold, I’m too wet, I need dry. 

I rise from my bed, trying to get my hooving settled and the joints between my pastern and hock have decided they wanted to have the consistency of black pudding. I take hold of the bed, and in a swift motion force myself up. My fetlock and knee are first to realize they’re on me, a powerful and beautiful horse woman rather than a German’s breakfast table, followed by my fetlock not long after. With that I stumble over to the chest I’ve been storing my clothes in, and with shaky pasterns, I slide into my long johns only mildly ruffling my smallclothes. I wonder if men have to deal with ruffled breast bags or something of the sort. Maybe a sausage sack?

After the woolen long johns comes a proper merchant’s winter dress, a fur-lined heavy woolen dress, and thick hose. I step, not proper into the living room finding Mrs. Koborg eating her morning meal, Jan sipping on warmed cider from a steaming mug, and Canute who’s drinking cold cider. 

“Mornin’ Krystanya, ya sleep well?” Canute asks nonchalantly. 

“Oh me time guarding the fortress of dreams was rewarded wonderfully.” I poke.

“So what did the dreams reveal to you?” Father asks with tease on his tongue.

“And remember daughter, tell me no lies.” He affirms

Dammit. My mind begins to race as I try to find a way to work around telling him out and out I dreamed of the first step in having many children with Canute. Let’s see; I dreamed of having childr-; Nope he’d ask with who; I dreamed of a proper family; again who; eh to hell or Hungary with it.

“I dreamed of starting a family.” I say as if its the most normal thing in the world.

“And with whom might I ask?” Father asks incredulously.

Even though I knew it was going to happen I am still disappointed. “You know the answer I know the answer, Mrs. Koborg knows the answer, or are you just trying to get me to say it?” I demand losing a bit of my cool.

“Do I?” Father asks with faux outrage.

Now with a twitch in my eye and an angel whispering to me that the virtue of honesty is best in this situation I part my lips to speak. “I dreamed of taking that cold-cider-drinking Canute over there to the Church in Warsaw and taking a rest afterwards in Auntie Mary’s guest room working on those grandkids you’re always talking about! There, no lies, no sensibility either. Canute pour me a cold cider.” I spit quickly followed by father’s cider. 

Mrs. Koborg appears to be grinning as she chews before hiding her mouth with a book. Canute either only heard or only chose to hear the last bit about cider as he fills a mug from the tapped cask. When he starts to walk over I thud my hooves to meet him halfway.

He extends the mug out with his hand. “Did ya not ‘ear me Canute? You have the option to make part of a woman’s dream come true!” I half-bitterly exclaim.

His free hand twitches and he tilts his head. “Patience,” he mutters clearly to himself. 

“I will see if I can when Father Ulf returns today…” He says hollowly.

The fire inside my loins rages higher and surely scorched my temperament as I raise my arm and before I can stop myself slide my hand across his face in such a manner I would even call it a slap with a sound not dissimilar to a whole roast falling from a bell tower to a stone slab to match. Canute’s head turns but not much more. 

“Deserved…” Mrs. Koborg says quietly

“Mother, you and I know DAMN WELL that I want to partake but I will not damn myself, nor her over something that may very well be made sacred come this afternoon.” He snaps.

He. Snapped.

“As for you…” He says turning to face me, his face now slightly swollen and his eyes full of frustration, or even anger. 

“You. Tempt. Me. So. If I could make it Holy I’d strip you down with my seax.” He snarls stalking closer even as a pull back.

I’m burning, I must be. I hit the wall. My loins, they burn. Canute’s face, full of anger, full of lust. He draws his knife and places it on the breast of my tunic, so gentle as to not even damage the cloth.

“But I won’t. Not now. Not until our souls won’t be damned for it.” He barks, he takes back his knife, puts it back in his sheath, and slides back to the other end of the room to his cider like a serpent recoiling from a strike.

I can even hear him muttering to his cider. “Seductresses, temptresses, lustful maidens…” He scorns.

Oh Heavens I liked him for his cool but this, this is worse, this makes me want to poke him and prod him until he does strip me with a knife, though much farther and I think he’d skin me. I’ll try again later. I take a step from the wall and feel a trickle down my leg, in the fur just between the johns and the hose. I slink back into my room while Pa and Mrs. Koborg stare at Canute like he’s a wolf. Canute is staring at me like I’m a plump pheasant and from the snarl at the corner of his mouth, he’s thrice the wolf Pa thinks he is.

After I close the door I strip off my tunic. The fluid is sticky, not terribly so like glue, more like a bit of glue in egg whites. I know where it’s coming from, I don’t even have to strip to figure that out, but so much. Father Ulf can’t return fast enough.

While I sit in my room, not daring to poke at Canute until Father Ulf comes to deliver the bishop’s decree. I can hear Pa and Mrs. Koborg laughing. As the fire in my loins dies down the sense of what I did comes over me. Being so forward? The slap? Heaven knows Canute must be livid.

Hours pass in the unlit room, until two knocks can be heard on the front door. From the sound of the voice it's a man. Maybe Father Ulf? No he sounds too excited. I wish I could bring myself to go out there, but I don’t know how Canute will react…

THUD. 

I turn to see my door kicked open and Father Ulf and Canute in the doorway like an Inquisitor and an Order Knight leering over a Saracen Pirate. I guess he was excited.

“GRAB ‘ER ME BOY!” Father Ulf shouts pointing what looks to be a spear at me.

My legs freeze up as Canute marches towards me like a once-bested seeing his hated foe. Unlike a crestfallen knight though doesn’t plant his dagger into me, but throws me over his shoulder like he would a wheel of cheese. I pound my fists on the Cheesemaster of the Holy Order of Saint Uguzo’s back. I I kick into the air as he peels me from the room. I pound and pound and pound his back but it feels like punching oak. He gently sets me down on a chair next to Mrs. Koborg who’s grinning ear-to-ear. He doesn’t even tell me a thing before he repeats the process with Estrith.

“Oh this brings me back to when I was still not wed to Christian, oh Father Joakim had just had enough of our little romantic war of maneuver and ordered him to drag me right to the church. You should’ve seen the way Christian fought me father and seven brothers!” She cheers, throwing all sorts of punches into the air.

I slowly nod as a naked cow girl is dragged from her room kicking and screaming about decency. She too is placed gently into a chair given a press on the nose and the pair approach Lieddi’s room.

“You gonna come with us or ya gonna make Canute take ya?” Father Ulf asks.

“Ye thin’ I wouldn’t want to wrestle Father Ulf? You’re gonna have to drag me all the way to your church if ya wan’ me to we wed, twice ‘oer if you want a baptism.” She calls out to the Priest challenge dripping from her voice.

“Now Lieddi lassy hows about I haul yer keister up to the top of the cheesebarn thrice for both?” Canute offers.

“On the ‘morrow o’ course.” He adds in a rush

“Maybe but you still ‘ought a’ pry me from ‘ere” She raises.

“Okay.” Is all I here Canute say before I start to here huffs, snorts, and thuds until Canute is hauling Lieddi out of her room with a bead of sweat on his forehead.

He sets her down gently like the rest of us. “‘Ere ya go Lieddi” He says with a pat.

With all three of us, maidens? I guess. In the main living room Father Ulf hands Canute three tied together bags before he turns to us. His face now has a new cut across it, he’s unshaven and looks more like his namesake. His blue eyes are half maddened and seems like he’s about to start springing around like a grasshopper the way he’s twitching.

“So. I’ve got some most fantastic news!” He beams

“After much deliberation with the Bishop, the Local Representative of the Knights of Saint Mary, Local head of the Livonian Sword Brothers, as well as three Abbots, five abbesses, and the members of the local seminary…” He announces.

“... We have decided that the current arrangement is acceptable due to extenuating circumstances. The three of you women shall be betrothed to Canute” He relinquishes. 

…

…

…

…

I turn to Jan whose jaw is hanging open.

Mrs. Koborg is, what?

She’s grinning like maddened lout.

Estrith is turned to me, then Lieddi like a clock’s arm.

Lieddi just seems smug about herself.

“Though that’s not why I had Canute drag all of you from yer rooms.” Father Ulf admits.

“It's because strange events suggesting magic is afoot, worry not, its certainly not witchcraft or foul sorcery, a random sort that strikes at odd times, for odd reasons. The kind that doesn’t tarnish the soul, and isn’t worth the exorcism” He explains

“But moreover I found three rings in my coin purse tailored to each of you ladies. Canute if you would.” He instructs in a calm, and now collected sense.

Canute looks inside each of the three bags and rearranges the order of them before handing one to me with a wink, and the others too, without a wink. The bag has a slight weight aside from the dark blue linen and yellow twine. Before I can open it Father Ulf kicks Canute in the back of the knee forcing him onto a knee.

“Open the baggies lassies!” Father Ulf demands in an oddly joyous tone all while trying to keep Canute down on one knee.

I reach inside the blue linen and find something that feels like a ring. It glistens silver and gold as I draw it from the bag. Its adorned in golden iconography of horses and poland, the eagle and horses, crosses, an icon of the Cathedral in Krakow, and on the inside, a name. Krystanya Koborg. Who’s tha-

“Estrith and Krystanya, I’ve loved you two for so long and never could decide between the two of you, which is why Father Ulf has decided I ought to marry both of you, I was going to propose myself after he left but he’s decided he ought to see it himself. Krystanya, your strong temperament and polish sensibilities are like blue cheese, at times strong and difficult but mostly a delight, and you being made my wife would please me more than anything. As for…” I stopped hearing hom after that.

…

Krystanya?

…

The ring was for me?

…

Marry?

…

Marriage?

I feel my nose go from normal to cool, to cold, to so cold I think that if I breathe it’ll shatter all the way up to my eyes. The fire in my loins jumps to my ears. No, it doesn’t leave there either, it just hopped to the rest of everything between my legs and my ears.

This feeling ain’t right

What do I even call it?

…

Embarrassment

I think that’s the word.

While my mind rushes, my everything bar my nose burns like an inferno

My lips curl into a single word

over

and over

and over

and over

"YES!"