“Cease your bids for murder, you wretch,” she hisses, letting loose a stone across the ground. The heavy thunk where it sinks into the dirt sends a cry of alarm into the air as one crow takes flight; following it are many others, joining in the cacophony of piercing screams as they take into the night sky. The absence of the crows milling around offers her little comfort where she sits, by a cold hearth, acting as the lone warden to a dead man. The birds’ dark wings blot out the dim moonlight for a time before they finally scatter across the clouds.
Aeshaeidr turns her gaze from the sky to look down at the hearth that sits before her with a sigh. Where once was a fire that burned bright and hot, now is the home to little more than cold ash and charcoal. Her mind slips back to the last time she took in such a sight when her breast heaved with indignation and righteousness. Now all she feels is the winter chill that seeps into her bones and burrows a home in the hole in her chest where that righteous fury once boiled her blood. Even the beat of her heart resounding in her ears sounds like a mockery, as much so as the jeering cries of the crows and the ravens as they feasted on the flesh that their murder had called for.
Trembling fingers reach down to sift through the ash, though they come up short of any proof of guilt; instead, her hands are only dirtied by the remnants of the flames. Perhaps if she had not played with fire and fate so easily several nights before, she would not be the one responsible for overseeing the corpse that was left in the wake of her decisions. Regret as sharp as the cold simmers in her bones, and she draws her knees up to her chest in an attempt to defend herself from it. The thin slice on her hand stings from the frigid winter air, but it is deemed deserved in light of what was weighed in left wanting in this forsaken burh of injustice.
Intentions are easily lost in matters of deceit, she can hear her mother’s voice saying to her, ringing with as much clarity and grace as they had on the day she spoke them to her on the hillside. Aeshaeidr winces her eyes shut, wet emotion pooling over the ends of her lashes. You should lie only when you hold noble intentions… and even then, only when the consequences are less than if you should just speak the truth.
The woman feels her body began to wrack in sobs, yet not over the cold or the guilt that holds her chest tightly. A gasping breath causes her to look up at the outcome of what all had happened; The Thane of Sedgebury, dishonored; his son, dishonored; his daughter-in-law, betrayed; the Dunlending Talvrun, dishonored; Óswine, the favored son, missing or dead; and Deor, hanged for a crime that he may truly have committed in the end. Was it worth it? She asks herself, parsing her tongue against her lips to keep them safe from the cold yet only finding a bitter salt upon them. Was it worth what little justice I thought I could hasten? Was it worth watching a man swing?
No, she answers for herself, forcing her eyes open against the stinging wind as she watches out to make sure that the crows do not return to feast on that which may have deserved its fate in the end. She cannot force herself to look now upon the gallows; it had been hard enough in the daylight, where Alweard and Wrecca’s eyes fell upon her, mournful. Now their eyes were gone; she promised them that she would retire when the flames died, but she was a liar on that account too. She plans to stay until the sun returns once more, and she does not have to chase the ravenous fowl away.
“You can leave,” she had said. “I will bury him. It is my guilt.” Alweard had already walked ahead, waiting for them at the fire.
“Lass…” Wrecca sighed in response, his gaze drifting ahead to where he knew they should join Alweard. “Yours are noble intentions, but there will be no place that the people of Sedgebury will consent to have him buried. You should leave him. Dwelling will only increase your sorrow.”
It was not worth it.
She was not noble enough.
But there was never going to be justice found in this town regardless.
