His entire body hurt, a terrible, constant pain spreading with his heartbeat and washing over his ribs, leg and torso in an a fiery unrelenting stream of agony. His heart raced. He couldn't make out his surroundings. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He breathed in short shallow hard-earned gasps underlined with an occasional unintentional sob. His mouth was dry, his throat raw and scratchy. He clutched at the skin he was lying with a desperate grip, his body taut as a string. His eyes burned. He felt hot and cold at the same time, his face blazing with heat, yet a chill running along his back, making him tremble.
"Be quiet," a woman hissed. Lovis? No, something was wrong. Her voice could be stern, but never this biting and filled with such venom. "You'll wake everyone up."
It took some time for the woman to become visible from the haze that surrounded them. Undis. What? Why? Why was she there? It was probably important. He couldn't focus, couldn't remember anything. He eyed the water jar in her hands with longing, wishing to drain it and to pour the rest over his face to put out the fire there.
She scowled at him and took a step back. "Water's scarce here. Don't think we'll be wasting a drop more than we absolutely have to on you."
He tried to speak and only managed "I-" I can do with snow. Please. He didn't question how he knew it was winter, but didn't remember how Undis got to their part of the castle or where Lovis was. His focus narrowed down to one word: water. Water. Water.
She scowled deeper, clutched the jar to her chest as if he was going to snatch it and walked away, leaving him alone in his hell.
It seemed like exhaustion settled in Klippen's bones deeply enough to stay there for the rest of his life, leaving him weak and achy, not to mention constantly cold. And somehow he still had trouble sleeping. He sat on the bench with his back against the table and his arms folded against his chest, staring unseeingly at the fire, the familiar faint chill crawling up his back and spreading along his shoulders and limbs.
A female silhouette moved into his line of vision and he flinched, drawing back from it, before the memories and recognition caught up. He bit his lip and stared at his lap, waiting for disparaging comments directed at his courage to be done with. There was only an expectant silence instead.
Right. Lovis.
Tentatively Klippen raised his head to look at her unreadable face. He was somehow surprised to see a steaming mug handed to him, though he really shouldn't have been. Lovis, he reminded himself.
She waited until his grip around the mug was secure enough before letting go. If she made note of how he made a conscious effort not to touch her fingers she didn't show it.
"I…" he managed, thinking he probably had to say something. She kept looking at him with no hint of annoyance or impatience. "Thank you." He couldn't quite work up a smile.
She lingered maybe for a moment longer than was strictly necessary, then nodded and walked away.
He held the cup between his palms, savoring the warmth and inhaling the herbal scent, his throat closing and his eyes burning. He screwed them shut, tightening his hands on the cup to keep them from shaking.
Klippen hated this newfound tendency towards panicking and crying about completely mundane things. It wasn't like him at all. Maybe it was something that would wear off when he got better, or so he hoped. His only saving grace was that the hall was mostly deserted at this time of the morning and no one was there to witness how stupid and pathetic he looked.
With an immense concentration of will he warded the sobs off, then actually drank the brew in an attempt to distract himself further. It was surprisingly pleasant, hot but not scalding, fresh and a little sweet. He let out a relieved sigh, feeling calmer, and took another sip.
On a whim he looked around, just to make sure there were no witnesses of his momentary breakdown, and dark eyes met his. He froze. Lovis was watching him from where she was stirring the steaming pot of morning porridge, her face impassive. He shivered, told himself it was due to the chill and turned to the fire again, keeping himself purposefully still as the rustle of cloth gave away Lovis' movement. He very deliberately did not flinch this time as she came close, but his muscles tensed against his control.
"Get up," she said. Resigned to his fate, he did, his body alien and stiff.
Once again he was surprised when the weight of a blanket settled around his shoulders and back, instantly comforting. He turned to stare at her, bemused. Something flickered over her face and she shoved at him. "Sit." The push was notably mild enough not to make him keel over. It didn't take much force to make him lose his footing those days, and to be fair, he wasn't exactly sure he'd have a chance to stay upright even at his normal strength if she really put her mind to being physical.
He complied, still staring at her. She tugged at the edges of the blanket, the gesture almost absent in how practiced it was, pulling the fabric up so that it fit more snugly around his shoulders. It made perfect face to do that, really, seeing that his hands were still occupied and the wool would just slide off otherwise. Yet something about this situation just refused to connect in his mind. Stunned into silence, he couldn't even thank her as she returned to her cooking once again.
Had Lovis always been so… motherly with them – well, excluding the obvious scolding for misbehavior part – and he hadn't noticed, or was this something new? It bothered him that he couldn't tell. It bothered him that he didn't know why it bothered him. So he busied himself with drinking the brew, staring resolutely at the fire and not at the matron, until the rest of the robbers trudged drowsily into the hall.
There was a cool cloth oh his forehead. His eyes focused enough to make out a red-haired silhouette, and for an insane moment he believed that it was Borka sitting by his bedside. But as the mist cleared, the hair gained shape – not the crow's nest, but a helmet – and the features turned out to be familiar, but much more youthful, the build smaller and slimmer.
Snake Spawn.
The boy said nothing as their eyes met, only inclined his head, a gesture of bird-like curiosity, and procured a wooden scoop seemingly out of nowhere. Miraculously it was filled with water. The boy was oddly patient as he let him drink, only allowing small sips, no matter how much he wanted to drain all of it at once, but the task was finished eventually. Klippen expected him to leave when he was done. Instead, the boy put aside the scoop and began to whistle. The tune was unfamiliar but oddly precise, easy to remember.
It wasn't until later that he questioned the oddity of the enemy chief's son appointed as a babysitter to a member of a rival robber gang and wondered if it really was that boring out there or if the boy was being punished for something.
Klippen watched Ronja dance animatedly and frowned. He could have sworn she had been humming while sitting by his side during his illness and that the tune was familiar. But surely it couldn't be true.
Must have been his fevered mind playing tricks on him.
"Why is it our turn again?" Sturkas objected, slamming his fist onto the table. "Fjosok and I did it a few times in a row that one time, and now you think you can just dump this onto us whenever you like?"
"So did Knotas and I," Tjorm pointed out from across the table, sounding like he was trying to be reasonable but failing miserably.
"You didn't even volunteer for that. Lovis volunteered you, and you had to only make one round at the very beginning," Sturkas continued.
"Knotas did volunteer and went multiple times," Pelje interjected cheerfully from the corner and was ignored.
"So what? You volunteer once and you get to skip your turn whenever you feel like it?"
"Not once, but twice! I'm not skipping my turn if it isn't my turn!"
"Has anyone been keeping tabs on water rounds recently?" Fjosok asked from Sturkas' left. "I haven't been paying much attention to them."
"We did, but then they got all confused," Tjorm pointed out. "With all the switches we did and that extra water we needed and the rounds we had to make during the day."
"Mostly me," Sturkas mumbled.
"So we decided we needed a new schedule to keep things clear. And since we work in teams, it's been decided it's your and Sturkas' turn today."
"Decided?" Fjosok frowned. "Who decided it exactly?"
"A vote, of course."
"That doesn't sound fair," Fjosok said. "All of you have an ulterior motive. We should draw instead."
"Sturkas always ends up losing the draw anyway," Tjorm said. "This saves us all the time."
"This from a guy who ended up losing three times in a row a month ago."
"Which means I still made more rounds than you."
Sturkas opened his mouth and closed it again. Unexpectedly to himself, Klippen laughed. It was unusual to see Sturkas cornered into silence, and by Tjorm of all people.
They turned their heads to stare at him, startled, except for Sturkas who looked annoyed. Unconsciously Klippen pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, but it took no effort at all to keep his voice light. "You know if you keep this up Lovis will just find more work for all of us."
"I never claimed to be a hero." Sturkas' expression lost a bit of its edge. "If I'm going down, I'm taking all of you with me."
Fjosok elbowed him sharply in the stomach. Sturkas rubbed at the offended spot and glared. "What the hell is your problem?"
Fjosok stared at him, intense and unimpressed. Sturkas deflated and hunched on himself a little, then turned to look sheepishly at Klippen. Klippen blinked back at him, bemused. Sturkas deflated even further, grabbed the buckets and stomped for the exit. "Let's go, Fjosok." Then, at a much higher volume: "It's for the last freaking time, Tjorm!"
The heavy doors slammed shut behind them, leaving a puzzled Klippen to contemplate what the hell just happened.
If he had to name one good thing that came out of his enforced absence, the cold he had to go through two weeks ago and the cough he still suffered from, it would be the ability to avoid the snow bath that the rest of the robbers were subjected to. Apparently he looked pathetic enough that no one even suggested it. He didn't mind for once.
He still ended up getting the haircut, but it seemed like such a small thing that he hadn't even tried to object, just shrugged and went with it.
"You seem pretty calm about it, unlike the rest of the merry band," Skalle-Per commented as he worked. "Aren't you scared I'll cut all of it off and leave you bald?"
"What a silly thing to be scared of, old man," Klippen snapped at him out of habit, without much bite. "My hair will grow back, unlike yours."
Predictably, Skalle-Per only laughed at this. "Young people these days, no respect for their elders at all. Be careful, these old hands are shaking so badly they could always slip and cut something they shouldn't."
Klippen rolled his eyes. "Lovis would never let you anywhere near scissors were your hands that unsteady."
"It warms this old heart to see you put such trust in our matron," was the response.
Klippen quieted at this, unsure what the old fox was fishing for this time, if at all, and not trusting himself not to put his foot into his mouth.
He didn't get his ear cut off. He did, however, end up essentially bald, which was annoying because he was always cold already, even without the chill now prickling at his head. Skalle-Per had smiled at him evilly. When he exited the barn to return to the castle, Ronja and Mattis laughed at him till they teared up. The corners of Lovis' mouth curled up slightly.
He ran his palm along his scalp, smiling ruefully and shaking his head. "All that torture with the comb, and for nothing."
Back in the castle, he grabbed the blanket in an unfortunately practiced motion and tucked it higher around his neck, taking a spot near the fire. The rest of their sulking gang filled in pretty soon, followed by guffaws. He took in their appearance and couldn't hold back a chuckle himself.
If he looked even nearly as ridiculous as Sturkas with his hair shaved off, Mattis and Ronja's reactions were more than understandable. Even though he was also a target, along with the freshly bathed robbers, he found he didn't really mind.
It was a good kind of laughter, pure mirth and no malice about it. It wasn't even close to…
He shook his head, bringing himself back into the present and to a wonderful smell spreading through the hall.
The closer spring was, the more restless the robbers became. It had its upsides and downsides to it. The upside was that the air was less depressed and more lively, filled with anticipation. The downside was that said anticipation could easily turn into impatience, especially now that it was mixed with the thirst for vengeance.
If Klippen thought about it, it could almost count as a compliment, the fact that Mattis was so used to him evading most things that were thrown at him that he didn't think twice about doing so in his anger. They were both surprised when a heavy wooden mug connected with his forehead with a crack and he went down from the sheer force of it, stars in his eyes.
He lay on his back, staring at the stone ceiling, expecting the roaring and the raging to continue as they always did. Instead heavy and awkward silence fell.
He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. Quick footsteps came close, familiar boots entered his line of vision and he was hefted suddenly into the air by the upper arms. His heart skipped a beat as he half-expected to be flung into the wall next, but before his mind caught up he was already lowered onto his feet. World spinning, he grabbed at the forearms supporting him to keep himself upright. But when Mattis' face swam into view, he flinched and jerked back before he could wonder if it was a good idea. Maybe to make up for that one lost beat, his heart started racing, slamming desperately and repeatedly against his ribcage as if it wanted out, and maybe to keep it inside, his ribcage tightened and it was suddenly hard to breathe. The corners of the room darkened ominously.
What if he knows, what if he suspects you, what if he thinks it's your fault, what if he thinks you're useless and wants to get rid of you, what if…
Released abruptly, he slumped to the floor, and the face was replaced.
"Breathe." Lovis. Calm, no-nonsense, practical Lovis who thankfully didn't try to touch him. She was kneeling next to him, and why was she telling him to…
Oh. He was hyperventilating. That explained it.
He struggled to bring his breathing and heartbeat under control, focusing on her serene face and dark attentive eyes.
Where has Mattis gone? Is he close? What will he make out if this? Will he guess that…
No, no, this wasn't helping. Best not to think about it. Focus. Think about something else.
Lovis' eyes reflected the light from the fireplace, just like the metal ornaments in her hair and clothes. The light was flickering as the wood cracked. The floor he was sitting on was hard and cold. His forehead throbbed angrily.
Slowly, his gasps for air went down to a manageable level, leaving him even more exhausted then before.
He nodded at her and she gave him a small smile, getting up and offering him her hand. He allowed her to pull him to his feet, supporting his weight when the hall tipped again, and to guide him to the bench. Gingerly, not meeting anyone's eyes, he reached to touch the spot where the mug crashed into him and winced. This was going to be one hell of a bump.
There was a sound of the doors opening and closing again. The hall was ominously silent. Why was no one saying anything?
He chanced a look and witnessed the robbers in various stages of glowering. Some of them were glowering at the table, some at the wall, and some at the fireplace. Skalle-Per was eyeing him shrilly. Klippen couldn't read his expression. Mattis looked like he wanted to throw something again but was holding himself back for once. Pelje and Tjorm were giving him looks of open concern.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling irritation stir. "For the love of… it's not the first time any of us got hit by flying objects around here. Nor will it be the last. I'm fine. Whatever it is you are doing, just stop."
They were all looking at him now. Concern on Pelje and Tjorm's faces deepened while Mattis' expression was even darker than before. Belatedly realizing whom he had been addressing, Klippen shrank under the stare, which for some reason made Mattis even angrier. Thankfully Lovis chose that moment to enter the hall and to press something cool wrapped in fabric against his forehead, instructing him to hold it there. She must have gone outside to gather snow.
Lovis gave Mattis a stern look and he subsided, still fuming.
The snow stung initially. The mug must have broken skin. Soon, however, the cold provided a much welcomed contrast against the fire spreading across his head, and he exhaled in relief.
Sturkas gripped the handle of his mug so tightly it hurt. A vile, unpleasant chill moved in his gut.
It was bad enough to see Klippen take the hit, but on itself it could have been tolerable. There was nothing new about Mattis throwing things around and occasionally at his robbers whenever he was in a mood. No one, except for Skalle-Per and obviously Lovis and Ronja, had been exempt from it. And while Klippen himself had always been good enough at dodging whatever was hurled at him, he was right: it wasn't unusual for hits to land and be mostly put behind a minute later.
While he was irritated with Mattis for forgetting that Klippen's agility was hampered, he realized that the chief probably hadn't meant to actually hurt him if the fleeting vaguely horrified expression was anything to go by.
What was more troubling was how quietly Klippen had gone down. He hadn't cried out, not even in surprise, hadn't groaned or whimpered a single time, hadn't objected or complained or questioned the abuse. To say that he had been terrified of Mattis would be an understatement of the year, and still he hadn't made a sound except for the fast breathing. He hadn't even struggled apart from that first jump.
It would look unnatural on anyone. It was downright disturbing on Klippen who had always been, by nature, a whiner. Sturkas' suspicions were confirmed. Something was very very wrong, and it didn't take Skalle-Per to deduce that the wrongness started with the winter Klippen spent with Borka and his gang.
Klippen had expected to be beaten, that was obvious. Maybe this wasn't something he had learned at the Northern fort. They did, after all, fight a lot, and Mattis had always been prone to random bursts of violence. However, the quiet, almost subdued response was definitely new. Klippen had embraced their fights, had, in fact, initiated more than a few of them. And while he had always been reasonably wary of Mattis, he knew how to get around his temper a little better than most and he had never had panic attacks in his presence before, even on the receiving end of his outbursts.
It took more than one hit for one's reaction to change so drastically.
Had crying out made it worse? Had his pleas to stop been mocked or ignored or silenced with more abuse? Had the bastards enjoyed the silent panic and terror in his face? Was this how they amused themselves to pass long boring winter evenings?
The chill in his gut turned into heat as it reached his chest, and he found it hard to breathe through the rage that compressed his lungs. As an exhausting exercise of will he kept his breaths even, trying not to let his anger show, and after a while it abated a little.
To distract himself he looked around the hall and saw his turmoil reflected in most people around him. They seemed to have reached similar conclusions, and the only thing that varied in their grim expressions was intensity.
Sturkas couldn't wait for spring to come full force.