The Red
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21 October, 987 A.D.
"Tighter," Brynhild barked, not even bothering to glance up from her knitting. A small grunt left Helga's lips, and she held more tightly onto the back of the chair she was braced against as her corset further contracted around her ribcage like a python.
"I do not see why I must go through all this simply to meet one of equal military standing," she growled through clenched teeth.
Brynhild sighed wearily, and answered for the hundredth time, "Because your father wishes it."
"My father is not even here!"
"But I am, and you will honour your family's wishes at least once before my old bones take their rest in the earth!"
The younger witch was unwilling to let the subject go. "What fruit can he possibly expect from this labour?" she demanded. "It is pointless, it is impractical, and above all it is uncomfortable. I see no reason for it."
Brynhild's ancient, gnarled fingers worked more fervently at their task, and she willed as much patience into her voice as she was capable of - which, after continuous complaints ranging from dressing to the necessity of bathing over the last three hours, wasn't much. "He is only thinking of your future," she explained. "He is just a man who wants what he feels is right for his daughter."
"He feels wrongly. The subject matter of this meeting has nothing to do with my state of dress. What does he believe will happen? That Gryffindor will become entranced by the movements of my callused hands as I oh so delicately inform him of the carnage Almas' forces make of this land and my people? Oh yes, he shall surely be entranced!" Helga snorted, then muttered under her breath, "Erzähle mir nicht so einen Mist. . ."
Brynhild narrowed her eyes. "Tighter, Ursula!"
The noblewoman grunted again as the order was followed, and whipped her head around to glare first at her lady in waiting, and then at her governess. "Any tighter and you will suffocate me," she growled. "I can breathe easier in mail than I can in this. . .this costume."
"Good," the old witch nodded, pleased. "If you cannot breathe then you cannot speak, and if you cannot speak, then this meeting may just defy all laws of nature and go well. If we are lucky."
Helga seethed quietly for a moment. "He is a prince," she mumbled, more to herself than to incite further argument with Brynhild. "He could have any woman he desires, witch or Muggle, and both of a higher royal ranking than myself. . .and what would he want with me regardless? What use has he for a wife who would rather don a helm than a crown and I do not even want a husband anyway! This is pointless!"
"As you have said many times before, but you will endure it! Ursula, tighter!"
"Ursula, sit!"
Ursula, torn between two very formidable witches, froze with fear and looked between them, unable to decide which would be more painful - death by knitting needle or death by sword?
Thankfully, they were both too busy focusing their scowls on each other to pay her much mind.
"It--" said Helga lowly, "--is tight - enough."
Brynhild's hard black eyes squinted dubiously at the young woman she had all but raised since birth. Now she was wondering if that had been Hartwig Hufelpuff's first mistake with his daughter. Brynhild was quite aways along in years - well past her centennial - but she was far from being blind and deaf. She knew she was an old battleaxe, but she had never intentionally set out to mould Helga into the same.
Just as much his fault as it is mine, she inwardly affirmed. He indulged her warlike side, and now he must deal with the consequences.
Of course, Hartwig Hufelpuff was not the one currently at odds with his daughter concerning the importance of one's personal appearance and hygiene when meeting with foreign royalty, and Brynhild could not deny that she, too, was reaping what she had sown.
Blast.
With an impatient huff, she forced her expression to soften some, then stood and went over to the austere-looking twenty-four-year-old, leaning heavily on a knobby wooden walking stick. "Now you listen to me," she whispered forcefully, cupping Helga's chin with one bony hand. "Like you said, your father is not here, and I do not expect you to marry this man. All you have to do is wear the dress, and be polite."
The girl opened her mouth to protest, but Brynhild squeezed it shut before she could utter a sound.
"For one night, Helga. One night. That is all. You have led armies, young one; surely this will not be the challenge that defeats you, eh?"
Helga lowered her eyes, fingers balling into fists of defiance that Brynhild knew from experience were directed at her question and, finally, not at the situation.
"Good girl," she smiled, and lightly patted Helga's right cheek. "Ursula, tie off the laces and fetch Helga's hairbrush. If she owns one."
She did indeed - wrapped within a somewhat ripe-smelling old cheese cloth buried at the very bottom of her trunk, beneath three heavy iron corslets, a practice sword, and two fur cloaks that Ursula was convinced weighed nearly as much as she did - and finding it had been the easy part. Untangling the knots that had accumulated in Helga's waist-length hair took over two hours. Brynhild wondered if the girl had deliberately tied her hair in bows, and said as much aloud. But a glimmer of hope shone as the last snarl was undone, and in the end Helga's head was graced by twin yellow plaits that rested - neatly - over her shoulders.
After the hair, it was the dress (which went - to the relief of all - fairly quickly) and, following that, the mirror.
Helga gazed dully at her reflection, and her reflection stared unimpressedly back. She was far too clean for her own liking, and she ground her teeth together as she tried to refrain from squirming at the itchiness of the wool gown against her scrubbed-raw skin.
Brynhild, on the other hand, looked upon her with approval, and the pride one feels after completing a long and arduous task. "Look at you," she breathed, tilting the girl's chin to either side to admire the young face from all angles. "Truly, Helga," she nodded, her thin mouth curling up into a small smirk, "you are your father's son."
Helga only shook her head in dismay. "My men are going to lose all respect for me."
The old witch shrugged. "Do not let them. Go now; you are already late."
Taking a deep, composing breath, Helga steeled herself as if going to do battle with a lion bare-handed, and walked briskly out of the tent and into the chill evening air.
She was greeted shortly by the dumbstruck expression of her best strategist, Erik Krum, and immediately thereafter, the badly-stifled sniggering of her herald, Galbinus Higgs. Her glare could have cowed a rabid hippogriff. Krum averted his gaze accordingly, and coughed loudly in his hand. The gesture had been meant for Higgs, but went unnoticed due to the tears of mirth in the other wizard's eyes.
Helga smiled indulgently at them both for a brief moment, then, with irritatingly less speed than she would normally have been capable of, she lunged at Krum, pulling his sword from its sheath and spinning quickly around to bring the weapon dangerously close to Higgs' nether regions. The herald sobered instantaneously.
"You know, Galbinus my friend," she murmured with faux sweetness into his right ear, "if you are that greatly amused by this, I am certain it can be arranged for you to fight our next battle in similar attire." She pushed the sword up, brusquely tapping his groin with the flat side. Higgs jumped, swallowed roughly and shook his head.
"Ah - that will not be necessary, my Lady," he smiled weakly, and Helga arched one pale eyebrow.
"No? Are you sure?"
"Quite--" Higgs started, his voice a few octaves higher than normal. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Quite sure, my Lady."
His "lady" sneered at him, and shoved the sword back into Krum's hands. "Come on," she ordered them, casting a glance around the camp to see if anyone else took pleasure in her discomfort. Filthy faces of which she was envious all took a deep and simultaneous interest in their feet. "Let us get this over with as quickly as possible."
"I heard that she rides naked into battle upon a white winged horse."
"Really? Well I heard that she prefers rolling around in the mud with a male pig to being with a man."
"It is just as well - a lady of her station should not be with any man unless she is wed."
"Yes, and once she is wed, a lady may be with any man she chooses!"
"The two of you are the only ladies in this camp, honking and gossiping like geese," the Red Prince of Gryffindor reprimanded the two men with a frown, but neither Marius McGonagall nor Warwick Weasley paid his scoldings any mind.
"The only ones?" pressed McGonagall, cocking a brow. "So you believe her to be female in title only, is it? Come, my Lord - what have you heard about her?"
Godric glared disapprovingly at his second-ranking officer and made to return to his poring over a map of the Holy Roman Empire. He chewed contemplatively on his bottom lip for a few moments, then glanced back up at McGonagall and Weasley, who were both staring down at him expectantly.
"Oh, fine!" he gave in, and pushed his chair back from the table. "I heard that her mother was a frost giant, and that she is the size of two men put together, cold as the barren North and hard as stone. A brutish, ugly woman whose heart beats only for battle, and whose mind is incapable of any notion that does not pertain to war. Her hair is sharp with ice and appears as frozen straw in great spikes atop her head, and her eyes are naught more than chips of flint, and when she blinks, their sparks start the fires with which she burns her enemies to cinders. She--"
"Ahem."
Three heads swivelled around in the direction of the intruder's voice. In the threshold of their tent's flap stood a tall, burly man with sandy hair and blue eyes, clad in the green and white of the Einhorn army.
"Prince Godric son of King Gruffydd of the House of Gryffindor, may I present to you my Lady, the Duchess Helga daughter of the Grand Duke Hartwig of the House of Hufelpuff," Higgs announced, then stepped aside as Godric stood, and Helga herself stepped within the tent.
The prince froze, and went momentarily slack-jawed, caught off his guard by the rather surprising - and very contradicting - sight of the object of his speculation. Standing coolly before him was an attractive woman only a couple of inches shorter than himself, and he was of impressive height. Her hair was golden, the colour of straw though not the texture of it, as far as Godric could tell, and she was properly clothed - in white, no less. In fact, the only rumour that seemed to ring true, judging from her appearance alone, was that of her eyes: hard and grey, every bit the chips of flint that had been described to him.
"What?" she demanded, her voice slightly deeper than that of a normal woman's. "I know you were expecting a frost giant, but surely I cannot be that much more hideous."
Godric flushed crimson, and knew inwardly that his face was contrasting unflatteringly with the reddish colour of his hair. "My Lady, I apologise - it was not our intention to insult--"
"Yes, well," Helga interrupted him, "The road to Hel is paved with good intentions. However, I do suggest you employ the use of a silencing charm on your tent in future, to save yourself any further embarrassment."
The Welshman narrowed his eyes at her, bristling slightly. He was not fond of outspoken women. "Indeed."
She did not take her eyes from his, but nodded towards the table full of maps and documents. "Shall we?"
He nodded once, and they sat.
Zerleg Almas was the most powerful Dark wizard the world had seen in centuries. From the frozen lands of upper Mongolia, he had been progressing West steadily for the last decade, conquering all who stood in his path and ensnaring their bodies and minds with forbidden magics, bending and breaking those who opposed him to his will. He was rumoured to control the Muggle Huns, and his evil influence could be felt the world over, in the violence and paranoia that gripped both ordinary and extraordinary people alike.
He had begun his seige of Western Europe two years earlier, along the Eastern borders of the Germanic realms, and though many small but bloody battles had been fought already, Helga was certain that they had only just tasted the power Almas was capable of weilding. She and the men of her uncle, King Maximus of the House of Einhorn, had fought against his intrusion into their lands for one year and six months ere Maximus had struck an alliance with the three other great wizarding kingdoms - Gryffindor and Ravenclaw in Wales and England, and Dracuore in Northern Italy.
"We are to head south," Godric explained, tracing their proposed path with his index finger. "The Dracuore army is being led by Count Salazar of Slytherin. They are in Carinthia at the moment, and will meet us in Bavaria."
Helga nodded. Having done a good deal of her growing up not terribly far from Regensburg, she knew that region well. It would do both her and her men good to return to a realm far more hospitable and at ease with magic than the Muggle-enriched countryside of Alamania. It would rejuvinate them and lift their spirits, and remind them of what they were fighting for.
"And Prince Roderic? Where shall he be?"
"Currently he is in Burgundy. His forces are to meet us here--" He tapped the map for emphasis; "--on the Eastern border of Bohemia, where our combined strengths shall head off Almas' main army."
Helga squinted down at the map, gaging the distance they would have to cross. "We will have to move fast. Very fast. Almas' forces can move at the speed of shadow, when he wishes them to. My men do not like plunging head-first into battle. They fight better when they are on the defence."
"Yes," Godric smirked, "and we all know how far that approach - or should I say, retreat - has gotten you and your men."
"Oh. . ." breathed Krum, glancing surreptitiously to Higgs, whose eyes were suddenly rapt with the ground. "Er - my Lady - Brynhild would--"
Too late. Krum winced as his lady's arm shot across the table quick as an arrow, and her fist made contact solidly with the prince's jaw. A loud crack resonated through the tent as both the Welshman and his chair were knocked backwards to the grimy floor.
"--not. . .approve. . ."
On instinct, McGonagall and Weasley made the mistake of seizing Helga's arms, and quickly learned that boot heels and kneecaps were not a pleasureable combination. They crumpled to their bruised knees, and the duchess broke free from their grasp to push past the table and flip the stunned and slightly dizzy-looking Godric over onto his front. She gripped his arms tightly and folded them across his back until his shoulders were straining at their sockets, before lowering her face very close to his.
"Can you speak, Gryffindor?" she enquired against his already-swelling cheek. Godric coughed, sending a small cloud of dust into the air.
"Yes," he ground out through clinched teeth.
"Good," she smiled. "Then you are perfectly capable of apologising."
Godric grunted, and rose up once in an attempt to buck her off. But Helga was not a small woman; she held fast to the prince, and jerked his arms back further. He growled in pain and slumped back down to the ground, his golden-brown eyes swivelling around like a hawk's to glare at McGonagall and Weasley, who had since righted themselves and were watching the scene with a mixture of awe and perplexity.
"Curse her, you twits!" he hissed, growing increasingly crimson in the face.
"Ah-ah!" tutted Krum, as he and Higgs both drew their wands and pointed them at their Gryffindor counterparts.
"Oh dear," mumbled McGonagall, looking between the two parties. "A conundrum."
"Indeed," Helga agreed. "And only one forseeable way out. Prince Godric? The outcome of this rests upon your shoulders."
"Literally," Higgs nodded.
For a moment, the Red Prince said nothing, and Helga braced herself harder against him in case he was planning on trying to throw her off again.
"You are wasting time, Welshman," she sighed, hooking her feet around his calves and pulling back so that his chest was partially lifted off of the ground. Godric's eyes squeezed shut; a vein was visibly throbbing in his temple.
". . .mrrry," he grumbled at last. Helga lifted a dubitable eyebrow.
"Excuse me? I did not hear you. Speak louder, please."
The prince seethed silently for a few seconds.
"I - am - sorry," he spat through his teeth, and the duchess nodded triumphantly.
"Thank you. Apology accepted."
She released him abruptly, and he fell forward onto his face once more as she climbed off of his rear and returned to the table. Bending over the map as Godric haltingly stood, Helga ran one finger along the route he had proposed. "Bavaria, eh?" she muttered, then stepped back and headed for the tent's flap. "We leave at first light tomorrow."
Higgs and Krum exchanged glances, then nodded at the three Gryffindor soldiers before ducking after their lady.
"Das Lebewohl, my Lords," Higgs called over his shoulder as he followed his compatriot outside.
McGonagall and Weasley stared after him briefly before turning back to their leader, who was dangerously silent, and dangerously serious.
"Well," said McGonagall, with hope of jollying up the thickly tense atmosphere. "That went. . .well."
"True, sire," contributed Weasley. "It. . .it could have been much worse."
"Precisely. She could have been a frost giant."
"Oh." Weasley blinked. "Was she not?"
"That was fast," Ursula commented as Helga returned to her own tent. Brynhild, who had been napping in her chair near the smokeless fire, started instantly awake with a grunt. With a critical eye, she studied the young shieldmaiden's appearance. Patches of dirt clung to the former whiteness of her dress at the knees. Her face was flushed, and her grey eyes smouldered with anger.
"You were not polite, were you?"
Helga turned away quickly, and leaned against the chair she had held onto not so long as an hour ago whilst Ursula, without question, began undoing the laces of her gown.
"I said 'please'," she growled.
Deciding it was not worth the bother, Brynhild merely heaved a sigh and looked toward the roof of the tent, wondering why it was always war with Helga.
Erzähle mir nicht so einen Mist - Don't give me that bullshit
Das Lebewohl - Farewell
"Hel" is intentionally misspelled; in Norse mythology it is the land of the dead, as well as the name of the goddess who rules it
Hufelpuff - from the German "hufe" ("hoof") and "puff" ("thumps")
Einhorn - "unicorn"
Dracuore - "dragonheart"
There will be historical innaccuracies throughout this story; I'm no expert in medieval history or any of the languages used within, so please excuse my errors made in ignorance if you find any, and feel free to correct me. And, in case anyone is confused, this chapter is set quite a few months before the prologue.