Chapter Twenty-one:
When I returned to my bedroom after Augustin had gone, I found Freia knitting a fresh pair of woolen socks in the soft glow of our nightly candlestick. She looked up when I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. “Swanie?” Her relieved expression shifted into one of concern as I blinked at her, my fingers gripping the door at my back. My ice had begun to seep outward from my blood. I could feel it crusting upon the wood beneath my fingertips.
I could not fathom how to answer her. My heart pattered swiftly beneath my nightdress, as though in rebellion against that sinister priest’s demands. Images of Ina and Walfrid at their wedding swirled in my mind, mingling with Fonsi’s anger: I’m like one hundred percent sure that the bastard bound her the day they met. I don’t like that some priest stole her away from me.
“Swanie? What did Augustin want?” Freia stood just a handbreadth away from me now, her posture hesitant.
My vision sharpened in a veil of blue, I shut my eyes and placed my hands upon my temples, working to organize my thoughts. It’s not the same as Ina and Walfrid, I told myself. Augustin wouldn’t treat your heart the way Fonsi described. He just wants to bleed you freely . . . and he’ll help you uncover all the things that Hans wanted to keep hidden. This is your chance to become as knowledgeable as any Teuton priest . . . but at what cost?
“He wants my heart,” I finally managed to whisper. I reopened my eyes to gaze into those of my most faithful eleventh century friend, watching her own widen in what appeared to be a combination of horror and confusion.
We sat on her bed together while I described the concept of the heart-bond to her, her countenance appearing fascinated one moment and disturbed the next. “My cousin Beth said that it sounds like a bound woman gives up her free will,” I related after I had finished outlining what Der Weg said about it. “But while that’s true to some degree, the heart-bond isn’t as strong as the bonds that a Teuton city places on her Lady. And Augustin doesn’t really strike me as a narcissist. I doubt he’d try to hurt me using the bond.” I chewed on my lip as I made that claim. It was as though I tried to convince myself.
“It sounds like something Teuton priests do once they’re married, a way to enhance the relationship in the mystical realm,” Freia noted, fingering a partially finished sock, her forehead wrinkled in thought. “Has he proposed to you yet?”
I felt my cheeks grow hot at that question; my ice had retreated into my spirit during my explanation. My emotions seemed to be lurking on the sidelines, weighing Augustin’s requirement on the scales of my mind. “He hasn’t,” I admitted, “and I don’t really think he ever would. I’m nobody, and if the oldest Bayern male ever took it upon himself to marry, I’m sure he’d choose some Teuton princess.” A sigh escaped my lips, and I looked away from my friend. “Besides, I have to think about Joel, too. I’m the only girl he can talk to here.”
Freia snorted quietly. “Joel’s Teutonica improves every time he visits. Soon enough, he should be able to inquire after other maidens in the city, if he wants.” I raised an eyebrow at my Rhenisch companion, and she pulled her hair back from her face as she asked, “Would you agree to be Augustin’s mistress?”
My jaw dropped just a tad; that thought had not yet crossed my mind. “I . . . I’m not . . . sure,” I said, the earlier warmth returning to my cheeks. “I’ve always wanted to save myself for marriage . . . but maybe I should rethink that.”
Freia shook her head once and gathered her sewing equipment. “It seems unusual to offer your heart willingly to a man who doesn’t want to complete the partnership.” She rose from her bed and carried her wares to a basket of fabric by the door. “No matter what Augustin has told you about his inability to love, you’d better prepare yourself for more, if you let him form the bond.”
I contemplated the prospect all week, trying to consider every aspect. While my rational mind warned me against offering my heart to a dishonorable Teuton priest—veritably extinguishing my independence—I suspected that the bond would break once I returned to the future. The heart-bond was not a deadly Teuton ritual, and therefore it was not actively discouraged for time travelers. I may be able to detach myself from Hans at long last if I allowed Augustin to be more than just my tutor, more than a stoic priest preoccupied with inflicting death.
Memories of his sacrifice arose in my mind on several occasions that week, the moans of his victim, the smell of blood, the black excitement in his voice when he dedicated the woman’s body to Wuotan. He had told me that he would never do such a thing to a Teuton, and I believed him. But I grew disgusted at myself, at my willingness to sign my life away to an unrepentant murderer.
What if he starts using you to recruit new victims, like a heathen pimp? What if that’s the blood ritual he wants to teach you—how to properly sacrifice an outsider? If he holds your heart, he could force you . . . would the love you have to offer be enough to tame him?
I did not know, but I had a strong feeling that if I refused Augustin’s wish, he would sever our academic relationship along with our friendship. I did not want to lose either. I loved him in spite of myself, in spite of who he had become. And I determined during that tedious week that nothing he could do would change that. He could take my heart and rip it to shreds, make me beg for the day he would kill me, so I could return home, but I would not stop loving him. Love was a choice, I believed at the time, and Augustin von Bayern needed to know love again.
On Tuesday, a frigid day bringing the first flurries of winter, my destiny arrived at the Meldorf estate shortly after None. Ulka found me helping Freia in the kitchen and informed me that the Lord Augustin von Bayern waited for me upon the porch. I thanked her and told Freia that I would be back later, following Ulka swiftly through the great hall before my roommate could advise me to reconsider.
I grabbed my coat and exited the house with some trepidation, working to beat back my lingering doubts. What you’ll get from this outweighs anything you might lose, I reminded myself again.
After shutting the door behind me, I raised my eyes to Augustin’s face. He wore a thick black coat that practically trailed the ground, the hood covering his hair, his heavy-treaded snow boots planted firmly on the boards of the deck. A slow smile appeared on his face as his blue eyes looked me over, and he nodded once. “You have decided.” It was not a question.
“Yes,” I replied, my element rising to match the chill of the afternoon. My eyes glinted with just a touch of blue as I met Augustin’s gaze. “I am ready.”
His smile grew sarcastic, and he said, “No, you are not. But come.” He held out his right hand, covered by a black leather glove, and I took it, my hand bare, frost clinging to my skin. He enclosed my small hand in his fingers, the heat of his fire warming me through his glove. He pulled me briskly off of the porch and down the steps, remarking that he had brought his own horse to make the trip simpler.
He swung my body atop his horse, a magnificent black stallion, and I asked, “Where are we going to do this?” I imagined riding to that altar in the forest, offering my heart to a man who served Wuotan himself.
“That depends upon your Louni,” he said while mounting the saddle. I felt my forehead crease at that term; it was an antiquated one that referenced the body’s humors. “I have arrayed my spare room for this task, but if your mad fear of doctors would manifest in such a place, we shall have to choose another locale.”
I secured my arms around his waist as he nudged his stallion into a trot in the direction of the road to the drawbridge. I knew the chamber to which he referred, and my ice chilled my veins further at the recollection of my first experience there. Would I have a panic attack if I must sit on that couch again, in that room with the candles and the apothecary’s implements? I buried my face in his back, shutting my eyes and breathing deeply of the wintry air.
“I should be fine, I think,” I responded at length, “especially since we’re going to the spiritual realm to form the bond. It’s not a medical procedure.”
“That it is not,” he agreed with a soft chuckle, “and once your heart rests in my hands, I should be able to quench any hysteria that rises within you. You ought not to be terrified of doctors, Swanhilde. Their purpose is to heal.”
A strange giggle worked its way up my throat, and I pulled back a little to see the Isar’s banks fast approaching. “Sure it is,” I muttered in English, thinking again of Dane’s suffering and of my mother’s sad fate. Modern physicians were not particularly skilled at their purpose, in my experience, and I doubted the ones of this era were any better. I saw Garin Zeuner nod at us as Augustin guided his stallion onto the drawbridge without paying the toll. “You can get into Muniche for free? Is that because you’re of the Bayern family?”
“Marelda’s son pays no fee to enter her city’s gates,” he answered in a grating tone, turning his horse down the first street to the left once we had passed between the turrets. I nodded to myself, the ache in his voice reminding me that Augustin had known love once, long ago. And he still felt it where his mother was concerned.
When we reached his front door moments later, a slightly plump, grizzled man with a crooked back and an upturned nose met us at the threshold. Augustin slid off of his stallion, holding out a hand to help me down. I covertly studied his servant, watching his wrinkled eyes widen at the sight of me, a well-dressed young Teuton woman, innocently approaching the house of the most dangerous man in Muniche. The man bowed low toward me and welcomed me in uncertain, thickly-accented Teutonica. Augustin waved him aside, handing him his stallion’s reins, murmuring a few orders to him in a language I did not know. The aged man bowed once at his master and disappeared around the corner of the cottage with the stallion in tow.
“That is my servant Viktor, a Slav who has served me faithfully since my return from Salerno two winters ago,” Augustin told me as he unlocked his front door. “Unlike the servants of the Bayern castle, Viktor knows when to stay out of my business.”
I nodded absently, nervousness rising within me again at the knowledge of what we were about to do. My heart would belong to someone else entirely when I stepped onto the street again. We passed through the entryway and front parlor of the cottage without pausing, though I cast my gaze around in curiosity, noting the few candles burning above the blazing fireplace, the leather chairs, the tables, the lion sculpture in a corner, the decorative swords hanging upon one wall, and the shelves laden with writing materials and many other instruments. I glanced toward the doorway of the dining room and caught a glimpse of an impressive larch table ringed by matching chairs, before Augustin led me down a short hallway and into the very same room in which I had awoken the night of his sacrifice.
Now, the chamber was almost completely ensconced in darkness. Just two candles flickered atop the fireplace mantle beside the window, its heavy curtains shutting away any thoughts of daylight. I invoked my ice into my eyes in an attempt to see the contents of the room despite the shadows. The long couch still lay against the far wall, and at its head, the small table where Augustin had placed his goblet of blood. Shelves lined every wall aside from the one beside the couch, eye-level ledges bearing countless unlit candlesticks. I saw no trace of the bundled herbs and vials that had set off my panic that first time; perhaps Augustin had stuffed all of that into the closed hutch against the left wall.
Augustin shut the door behind us while I stood in the center of the room, looking around. Then, to my chagrin, I heard a key turn in the lock. I whipped my head around to stare balefully at this eerie priest who wanted my heart, thinking that perhaps he wished to kill me tonight, as well. I watched him stuff the door key into a pocket of his overcoat. He noticed my preoccupation and grinned at me, showing his teeth.
“Does it frighten you that I have locked us in, my dear lady?” he queried, removing his coat and hanging it upon a hook on the door, revealing the dark robes of the Teuton priest underneath.
I eyed the coat, ordering myself to remember the pocket that held the key, just in case. “No, not particularly. I was just wondering why that’s necessary.”
“To ensure that no one should encroach upon our union here tonight.” He smirked at me, doubtless reading all of the emotions that ran across my face at his words. “Shall I take your coat, Swanhilde? You will want to be comfortable for this task, and once I have lit all of the candles and the fireplace, it may grow a bit warm in here.” I nodded slowly, worked my way out of my coat, and handed it to him.
Augustin’s eyes widened at the sight of my outfit, a winter dress made of dyed black and blue wool. It had blue ribbons decking the bodice and a matching swath of blue sweeping down the front and back of the skirt, trimmed with gossamer fabric on the sides and around the square neckline. I realized that I had not yet worn black in Augustin’s presence, and I could tell that he was impressed. “You look glorious, my swan princess,” he murmured as he hung my coat next to his.
I blushed at his compliment and turned away from him to climb onto the couch. With my back to the room, I smoothed out my hair, which I had left down beneath a blue ribboned head covering. Augustin spent the next several moments lighting all of the candles on the shelves before casting his element at the fireplace. When he approached me shortly thereafter, the lambent blue light fairly enveloped his dark robes, enhancing the grandeur of his aura.
“You should wear black more often, Swanhilde,” he said as he sat down upon the stool he had used at our prior meeting in this room. “It suits you.”
“Thanks. I wear it a lot in the twenty-first century, especially when I’m trying to look mysterious.” I grinned at him, imagining him accompanying me to a metal festival back home. Dressed as a Teuton priest, he would fit in with the crowd.
“Well, it is certainly appropriate for what we do here today,” Augustin said, leaning forward on his elbows, folding his hands and eyeing me.
“Would you mind telling me,” I began shakily, clearing my throat as the awful truth of what we were about to do washed over me afresh, “exactly what I ought to know . . . about creating this . . . heart-bond?”
Augustin leered and placed his chin upon his folded hands. “You could have sought the information yourself, had you graced the archives this past week. But no matter; I shall tell you what I know. By agreeing to this, you are willingly binding yourself to me with a tie you cannot break, a tie that spans beyond this mortal coil. You are granting me control of your heart, control of your blood . . . control of your will.” He raised his eyebrows at me. I scooted toward the wall at my back, thinking again that I should reconsider.
“I will be able to feel you, and you me, the presence of our souls, though we be separated by great distance. We shall have the privilege of meeting in the realm of the spirit at any time, even in our dreams. I will guard your heart as though it were my own, learning from it, feeling your pain and your pleasure. I will be with you always, your priest, your guardian. Until the day the bond is broken, you will call me master.”
I shivered at the notion of such a mystical relationship, impossible in human terms. Though I had read the truth of the matter in Der Weg many times, the depth of such a connection sounded much more significant when Augustin described it. I inhaled unsteadily, thinking again of Ina and Walfrid, wondering whether he had forced her into it, whether that was possible. “How . . . can the bond . . . be broken?” I asked, feeling a renewed sorrow for my subjugated girlfriend.
“Only by the priest who made it,” Augustin replied, nodding in satisfaction. “Although, I suppose two united parties could be forced to break by other Teuton priests . . . but such a sudden severance of this tie would be painful and may lead to death or insanity.”
I remembered my earlier muses, that if this bond proved harmful, perhaps it would break when I returned to my era. “Would it span time?”
Augustin scowled a bit and dropped his gaze to the floor. “I do not know. But you must ask yourself, Swanhilde, does that barrier of time really matter to you?” He met my eyes once more. “Why set aside such a rare opportunity just because the moment is ephemeral? All glory is fleeting, my dear, and one must enjoy pleasure while it lasts, I believe.”
He had a good point there. I frowned a bit myself, pondering everything one final time. Augustin rose from the stool to stand before me, brushing my face gently with his hand, tilting my chin upward to meet his gaze. “I will not be a monster . . . as you think,” he murmured, his tone persuasive, his stare intense. “With this bond . . . hurting you . . . would hurt myself. I would be good to you, my swan . . . and give you everything you ask . . . just to feel your heart in my hands. I promise.”
My hesitation vanished at his pleading words, and I nodded at him as passion gripped me. “Do it to me then,” I said, “and I will teach you love.”
He smiled at me and took hold of my right hand. “We must enter the other realm together, since I must be able to properly touch you to create the bond.” His sturdy hands began to seethe with heat around my own.
I blinked, his statement taking me completely off guard. “Wait. You mean it’s possible to touch other spirits?”
“If two Teutons enter the spiritual realm with their physical bodies joined, it is certainly possible.” Augustin cocked his head at me, a chiding glow appearing in his eyes, which glimmered with cobalt fire. “Then Hans never brought you to the other realm himself? What a waste.”
I stretched out on the couch to ensure that my body would not freeze in an uncomfortable position. But I shot the priest beside me a dirty look and said, “Well, Hans taught me how to set my spirit free as a way to counter my anxiety.” I called my ice into my veins, its cold clashing sharply against Augustin’s hands.
“Ah. Still a waste.” Augustin’s smirk mocked me, and he gripped my fingers more tightly. “Now come. We shall seal this in the firmament.”
I shifted my gaze to the ceiling and focused upon my element, awakening it fully from its slumber within my spirit. I felt it consume my mortal body, and I held my breath as it crystallized everything upon and within my torso. An instant later, my spirit burst into the sky above, stratus clouds thick with flurries encircling my snow white robes. Their unspoken camaraderie made me laugh with delight, and I pierced the cloudbank in the midst of a whirling dance, a thousand tiny flakes defying gravity to fly upward with me. The sky was decked in a deep winter dusk, the sun already having tucked itself beneath the clouds in its quest for December’s night. I continued to chortle as I raised both arms in wordless praise. It had been far too long since I had last entered the ether for any reason other than reassurance, and there was so much here to enrich my element.
Ah, my victorious ice goddess, we did not come here for a frigid frolic. My companion’s words entered my mind in a tone of amusement, and I felt a fervent heat trace its way down my back. My element gathered the wintry air more closely around my spirit, an instinctive reaction against the fiery priest who hovered right behind me. His garments were the cerulean of his fire, undulating in mesmerizing splendor, his flaming hair sweeping down his shoulders, his eyes shining with glory. I had never seen him look so beautiful. He smiled at me when he met my gaze, his teeth sparkling like sunrays upon the water. Are you ready to grant me your heart, my wintry Teuton witch?
Whoa, was all I could manage to think in return, for the radiance of his spirit nearly blinded me, his heat luring me to a place I had not yet known. Here was a Teuton priest who actually wanted me, who saw me as more than just a naïve female student. He drew closer to me, surrounding me in his warmth, and he softly requested that I relax and look into his eyes.
His right hand touched the icy robes at my chest, but his smoldering fire did not prompt my spirit to recoil this time. He began to recite the binding spell in Ælte Teutonica and I caught some of the words, though my knowledge of the ancient dialect was far from perfect. Eternal bond of love . . . one priest and his chosen one . . . unbreakable . . . protecting . . . grant me this responsibility . . . undying union . . . Swanhilde and Augustin . . . .
At the moment when our names spilled from his mind, I felt his hand close around my heart. He drew it carefully from my chest, from my soul, to his own soul, uniting it with his desires, his power holding it fast. I experienced one brief flash of panic at the realization that my heart was no longer mine, that a mad sadist now held it himself, a man of darkness, of evil. But then I finally broke eye contact with him to look down at his right hand hovering between us, the heart of my spirit throbbing steadily in his grasp. His fingers caressed my heart so tenderly that I could have cried, if that was possible in the spiritual realm. And he murmured one additional pledge in Teutonica, his sincerity seeping from his fingers deep into my heart. I will be good to you . . . I promise . . . .
I could not think of what to say in response, for the intimacy of the bond had begun to prod at everything I thought I knew. If Augustin continued to stroke his fingers along my heart this way, I may very well spread my legs for him the very second we returned to our bodies. I shook my head slowly and shut my ethereal lids, pulling an extra layer of frost over my vision as I tried to salvage what I knew about myself, about my standards. I can’t have sex with him unless we’re married. I can’t let him convince me otherwise, no matter how entrancing his hands feel around my heart, no matter how much he may seduce me.
Three more of his words crept into my mind to seal the spell: It is done. Then he caught me in his fiery storm, pulling us out of the realm of the spirit, back into his candlelit room. I opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling in shock, watching the blue lights from the candles dance across the beams, dallying with the shadows.
I blinked several times, trying again to steady myself. I drew my ice back inside my spirit, relaxing while my fingers melted and my eyes returned to their natural gray. Augustin appeared over me, and I moved just my eyes to look at him, a new and compelling loyalty drawing me to him forever. He placed his hands on my shoulders, his expression concerned. “Are you all right, Swanhilde? Speak to me.”
My long silence had frightened him, and I rushed to assure him, “I’m fine . . . don’t worry . . . master.” The word fell unconsciously from my lips.
He smiled at the new title he had earned and brushed his right hand softly down my cheek and my neck. Eventually his hand found its place upon my heart, the physical realm merging somehow with the spiritual, soothing the heart of my soul. He parted his lips in a contented sigh and whispered the truth I had known for weeks now. “You love me . . . Swanhilde . . . .”
“Yes, Augustin . . . yes . . . I do.” He wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me against his chest, laying his cheek upon my hair, protecting me, shielding me, solidifying our bond, our ardent passion.