The Legendary Inge Read online

  The Legendary Inge

  By Kate Stradling

  The Legendary Inge

  Copyright © 2015 by Kate Stradling

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written consent of the author.

  Published by Kate Stradling

  katestradling.com

  For my mormor:

  If I’m going to pillage from a culture,

  it might as well be yours.

  ♥

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Just Reward

  Chapter 2: Son of a Lunatic

  Chapter 3: The Trouble with Twins

  Chapter 4: An Awkward Meeting of Sorts

  Chapter 5: Momentary Order

  Chapter 6: Subject to the King’s Whims

  Chapter 7: The Siblings Commune

  Chapter 8: The Unseen Threat

  Chapter 9: The Curse of Prince Osvald

  Chapter 10: The Virtue of Strength

  Chapter 11: Family Legacy

  Chapter 12: Night-Walker

  Chapter 13: In the Mire

  Chapter 14: Promotion

  Chapter 15: Little Sister

  Chapter 16: King’s Estate

  Chapter 17: Lovelorn

  Chapter 18: Royal Secrets

  Chapter 19: Rumors of War

  Chapter 20: Advent of the Dragon

  Chapter 21: Signe Fair

  Chapter 22: The Mask Removed

  Chapter 23: And the Bellows Stokes the Fire

  Chapter 24: Into the Devil’s Arms

  Chapter 25: Aftermath

  Chapter 26: At the End of the Road

  Epilogue

  Preface

  Nu ic Beowulf þec

  secg betsta me for sunu wylle

  freogan on ferhþe heald forð tela

  niwe sibbe

  -Beowulf, lines 946b-949a

  This book was written with a target audience of one. If you hate it, you’re probably not my grandmother. (You’re probably not anyway, but I digress.)

  In early 2007, I took a semester of Old English that required me to translate Beowulf in its entirety. I was not a lover of Beowulf at the start of that class. Every week I would tackle my allotted set of lines with a fatalistic sort of skepticism. Such was my mood when I came to the above excerpt, lines 946b-949a. In context, Beowulf has defeated Grendel, and the Danes are rejoicing. King Hrothgar speaks these words, which translate (by my understanding, at least) to, “And now, Beowulf, best of men, I wish to love you in my heart as my son. From this time forth, keep well this new kinship.”

  Perhaps it was only meant as a symbolic declaration, but when I realized that Hrothgar was, in essence, adopting the warrior (who was a grown, monster-killing man), my immediate reaction was, “But what if he doesn’t want to be your son? Does he get no say in the matter?” Beowulf deflects the offer nicely, and later in the passage Hrothgar’s wife Wealhtheow reminds her husband that he already has two sons and that there’s no need to muddy the waters of succession.

  Disaster averted, yes?

  Still, in my mind remained this image of an autocratic king upon his throne, dictating commands as he saw fit, upending people’s lives according to his whims. I could picture his victims, indignant at his unilateral declarations, and yet powerless to defy him. “What if he doesn’t want to” quickly changed to “What if she doesn’t want to?”

  And thus The Legendary Inge was born.

  In some ways, this book is one long, inside joke, formed in the mental cocktail of my brain with more ingredients than I could possibly list. It is inspired by and framed upon Beowulf, but it is also painted with the echoes of my grandmother’s Scandinavian heritage. The changing army surnames came from personal experience with Swedish genealogy. I chose certain characters’ names from my family tree. In one instance, I used an event from my great-grandfather’s life. The lines between what I researched and what was already dyed into my understanding blurred over the years that I wrote and abandoned and rewrote the first draft.

  When it was finished, my mother read it to my grandmother. In the middle of this endeavor, due to circumstances I can’t recall, we spent one night at her house. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard the tell-tale beep down the hall and the whir of Mormor’s motorized scooter as it approached.

  She called my mother’s name, and said, “I’ve figured out something wrong with the book! The blacksmith’s last name—it shouldn’t be a patronymic! He should have—”

  “I know, Grandma!” I interrupted. “He’s supposed to have an occupational surname! But I did it on purpose!” I didn’t tell her that I’d made that decision because patronymics were so much easier to figure out. By morning, she had decided that the character’s father was also a blacksmith, and that he was honoring him by keeping the patronymic instead of using a surname connected to his trade—which was roughly the same conclusion I had drawn when I was naming him.

  It was never my intent to produce a historically accurate piece of literature. Despite the Scandinavian influences, this is a fantasy, set in a fantasy world. I pilfered and repurposed cultural details as I saw fit, and perhaps this will dissatisfy a segment of readers.

  Oh well. You can’t please everyone, as the saying goes, and the one person I aimed to please has already given her stamp of approval.

  Thanks, Mormor. You helped make me what I am. Here’s my offering back to you.

  Thanks also to Stephanie, Barbie, and Shawnette, who encouraged me not to abandon this story for good; to Chris, Edith, Kristen, Ryan, and others who read the first draft and provided feedback; and to God, because He’s so nice to me.

  K.S.

  May 2015

  Prologue

  Dirt and blood filled his senses, gritty and glorious. The heady reek of his midnight kills always exulted his spirits, confirmed that he was terrible, invincible. He thrived on shadow and darkness and the destruction he could wreak under their cover.

  Tonight was no different. He had infiltrated the same hall, had slaughtered his nighttime meal, and now he picked its flesh from within its armored shell as its fellows scrambled away in fear.

  The creatures were so pitifully weak. His razor-sharp claws made short work of the ones that tried to fight back. He would eat his fill, gorging on their flesh until his belly swelled, and then lope away into the night, back to the darkling warmth of his nest, there to sleep away the long day to come.

  Another sinewy lump slid down his gullet. Shouts rang from the hall’s entrance and the fire of torches followed. The light pierced his eyes. He raised one scaly arm to block it from sight, only to meet the heavy blow of a double-edged sword.

  Pesky creatures, to think that they could harm him.

  Lightning-quick his claws lashed out at the attacker, but they met not the armored shell nor the muscled flesh it guarded. Power flared and forced them back.

  Magic.

  He feared neither blade nor spell. He was immune to magic and metal both, had been endowed with those immunities by his creator. The one who wielded them both would be a troublesome pest, however. His meal forgotten, he sought to silence that newcomer.

  It was lithe, even for his swift movements. The blade caught his skin and glanced off again two, three, four times. Magic filled the room and the other creatures, emboldened, started forward with weapons of their own. His claws could not strike. Spells and that double-edged sword both moved to defend almost before he could attack. Torches flashed before him, waved with menacing cries as their bearers backed him into a corner.

&
nbsp; There would be no more feasting tonight, not with such resistance as this.

  He leapt bodily over the pathetic cluster, felt the sword glance off his hide yet again, and escaped through the same window he had entered. Wrath coursed through him at the disruption, and his stomach gurgled its protest, unsated. Behind him, the creatures vaulted from the window and followed him into the waning night.

  No one had ever given him chase before. He made his way slow enough not to lose them, could hear them behind him even now, the fools. If he lured them far enough into the forest, he could secure the rest of his meal. The hunted was truly the hunter. Dawn was near, with its cursed, piercing sunlight—nearer than he had thought—but his cave was not too far distant. There he could take refuge.

  It would make the perfect trap for the meal that pursued him.

  Even as he bounded on that course, though, a tantalizing smell drifted across his path. He skidded to a halt and breathed the aroma deeply. It was young, fresh and tender, a smell that made his mouth water. Accustomed to sinewy meals, he treasured those rare, supple morsels of youthful flesh. His heart lurched with anticipation and his legs instantly carried him in pursuit of that smell.

  It was not far away, the young one. He crashed through the woods into a clearing and paused to take stock. Gleefully he surveyed the youth, saw the horror flash across its hairless face, felt a twist of gluttony in his gut at the rare treat of which he would partake. The pursuers shouted in the forest behind him, but he had more than enough time to kill this prey and carry it away with him to his nesting place.

  The youth saw its death in his eyes. It swung the sword in its hand into a defensive position, body taut with terror.

  With a leering grin he lunged. He feared no blades; the metal would glance off his skin, ineffective. As his claws extended to capture his delectable treat, the sword shot forward. It connected with the spot directly between his eyes, and he did not flinch.

  There was a sickening crunch of bone, and agonizing pain. Surprise coursed through him in that fleeting instant before death.

  Alas, the blade was not metal. It was wood, to which he was not immune.

  Chapter 1: Just Reward

  She had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Inge decided. Her nervous eyes glanced down at her dirty, too-large, mud-stained attire and then back up to the majestic man in front of her. King Halvard, the ruler of the six provinces of Elsemark, sat resplendent in his royal garb. His clothing was rich, gold-adorned and brocaded. He wore rings on every finger, and an arrogant expression on his face. The obvious difference in their status was so distracting to her that when he did speak, her brain didn’t quite comprehend his words.

  “I… I beg your pardon?” Inge said, baffled.

  The monarch’s attention flicked to one side, an overt sign of annoyance at having to repeat himself. Nevertheless, he opened his mouth to pronounce again the words she was certain she had not just heard.

  “In honor of your valiant deed this morning, I am adopting you,” he said. Then he added, “From this day onward, you are my son.”

  Her left eye twitched. Yes, definitely the wrong side of the bed. Why had she gotten up at all, come to think of it?

  A couple of the guards exchanged glances, having observed what their king apparently did not yet realize, that Inge was, despite her cropped hair and muddy trousers, a girl. King Halvard kept speaking, though, oblivious to the raised eyebrows of his minions.

  “For half your courage, I would have given a smaller reward, as I have given to others on previous occasions. But you have displayed such bravery this day and have brought such much-needed relief to this house where all my warriors have failed. You shall therefore be my son, and live in my house, and marry my daughter, and—”

  “Wait, wait!” she blurted. “That’s impossible!”

  A hush fell over the room. Not only had she just contradicted the king, but she had interrupted him to do it. Inge shrank back.

  “I-it wasn’t intentional,” she stammered as his stony gaze bored into her. “I only acted out of instinct. I don’t deserve a reward like that.” Part of her desperately hoped that she could get out of this without having to correct the king in full. It was humiliating enough to appear before him in her brother’s worn clothing, but to actually be mistaken for a boy? She didn’t want to have to tell people that she was a girl. They should know that just by looking at her.

  Besides, if a reward was the issue, couldn’t he just give her a sack of gold and send her on her way?

  King Halvard regarded her with a shrewd eye—though not shrewd enough, a treacherous part of her mind whispered—and said, “That creature has ransacked my halls every night for the past month. It has killed my men and befouled the place. No one could touch it. Its hide repelled the glance of a sword, and its claws and teeth were razor-sharp. You have done what none other could accomplish, and have thus performed an enormous service to the kingdom. Where is my colonel?” he added, and he looked around the room in impatience.

  The broad-shouldered, age-weathered man next to Inge stepped forward. He was Jannik Bergstrom, the Captain of the Castle Guard, she had learned. He was also the one responsible for dragging her here before the king. Needless to say, she didn’t much care for him. “Raske stayed behind to dispose of the monster,” he said with an authoritative voice.

  The king sniffed. “Oh? If he had done so last night, we might have avoided another casualty.”

  Inge thought this was unfair. Her brother had written her that one of the colonels was returning from the border war to deal with a problem. Gunnar had been extremely vague, but he always was when it came to army business, so she hadn’t questioned. This Raske, she surmised, had to have been among the group of soldiers who happened upon her just after she had killed that awful creature in the woods. They had all worn helmets with metal faceplates, and their abrupt appearance on the scene had startled her almost as much as her attacker had.

  “How long does it really take to dispose of such a creature?” King Halvard muttered. “I wish he would hurry up about it.”

  As if on cue, the wide doors opened at the back of the throne room. The soldiers that lined the walls instinctively straightened and stood at perfect attention. Inge turned to watch the newcomer’s entrance.

  He stood out from his fellows not only because he was a head taller than most, not just because his dark hair distinguished him in a room where everyone else was blond, but also because he was the only man not to wear a full beard upon his face. Instead, he had only the newest stubble of a day-old shave, and in a country that deemed such grooming to be unmanly, Inge might have expected catcalls and derision to follow him.

  She might have expected it, that is, had he not carried the grisly, mangled head of the aforementioned monster in one hand as he strode into the room. A trail of gore marked his path behind. Not one soldier moved an inch or even dared to meet his determined gaze.

  “Raske,” the king drawled in greeting, much to Inge’s astonishment. She had expected a colonel to be older, forty years at least and grizzled from age and battle. This man didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

  “My Liege,” Colonel Raske said with a token nod, “I have brought you the trophy you requested.” He tossed the bloody head on the floor at the monarch’s feet.

  “Indeed. Captain Bergstrom has just informed me that your success this morning was due to this boy.”

  Raske’s gaze followed the path of the king’s outstretched hand to rest upon Inge. His eyes widened in brief, mute surprise. She squirmed uncomfortably, but the colonel only turned a guarded expression back to his king.

  “This person killed the monster. That much is true.”

  A small thrill of triumph raced through her. Someone else knew she wasn’t a boy!

  “I have decided to adopt him as reward,” King Halvard said. “He will marry my daughter and inherit this kingdom when I die. What do you think of that?”

  Colonel Raske’s brows
shot up, but he caught himself from indulging in a derisive snort. “You are king. Do as you please,” he replied with a vaguely amused glance in Inge’s direction.

  That settled it. She hated him too.

  “Your Majesty, it is not possible,” she insisted.

  Once again the room stilled. The king’s eyes narrowed, and he studied her for a tense moment before demanding, “Are you an only child?”

  The question took her by surprise. “What? No, I—”

  “Are you your father’s eldest son?”

  “N-no, I have a—”

  “Then I am within my rights as king to lay claim to you,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I am sure your parents will have no objections.”

  “My parents are dead,” she replied out of instinct.

  King Halvard made a noise of feigned pity. “There, all the more reason—you are an orphan no longer, my son. What did you say the boy’s name was, Captain?”

  Bergstrom cleared his throat. “Inge,” he answered with a sarcastic tone. He knew she was a girl as well.

  “Inge,” Halvard mused. “Is that short for Ingolf…? Ingvar…? Ingemar…?”

  “Ingrid,” she whispered bitterly. She had had a perfectly horrible morning already, so she decided she might as well humiliate herself in full. Her hands clenched the fabric of her trousers. “I cannot be your son, Your Majesty,” she said in as clear a voice as she could muster.

  King Halvard stopped musing about the possible names of the newest addition to his family and puffed up like an indignant bullfrog. “You try my patience. What objection can you possibly raise to my royal generosity?”

  Inge’s gaze darted around the room. Every soldier present stared at her—watching her, judging her. She swallowed her apprehension in a sudden spike of anger. Why on earth should she cower before this king, before these soldiers? She had done nothing wrong!