Chapter Text
Tony’s share of the loot from the sack of Asgard included several items of sufficiently advanced technology (indistinguishable from magic); the unburnt remains of Asgard’s library; and a bluish-pale dark haired servant boy (slave is such a harsh word).
Odin the king was dead. Tony’s fellow Avengers (that’s what they called themselves) had split the living Royals between them: Queen Frigga for the berserker Bruce, an otherwise gentle man; Sif for Captain Steve, a warrior to tame a warrior; the healer Eir for brittle-boned Clint, their finest archer; and the golden-haired child Thor to Lady Natasha, red in hair and deed (she might coddle him or sacrifice him—none of the others cared, or dared, to ask). Which left Sir Tony Hovarthson without a worthy prize; so he’d gone at dawn to the marketplace, where the Shieldsmen had corralled the remaining Asgardian citizens, and chosen from the pen a shivering dark-haired child, the only one who resembled him among the blond masses.
Who argued with him. “Would you not prefer a sturdy peasant child? Look, I have a fever”—he did: lively movements, dancing green eyes, his arm hot when grabbed—and Tony sighed.
“Listen, brat, do you understand their fate? What yours would be if I hadn’t taken you? Imagine the worst; then argue.”
“Oh,” the child said, eyes down; then daring a look at him: “And mine will be better?”
Tony grinned. “Depends on you.” Negotiations he could deal with; those, and mechanics, were his role in the Avengers.
He brought the child to his tent, washed off some of the visible grime. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Hearthfire.”
“No; that doesn’t suit you.”
Pale, pale skin; dark tarnished hair; eyes like two green gems set in … “Silver. Your name is now Silver.”
“As you will,” said the boy, subservient and courtly.
Silver indeed had a fever, and spent the next few days asleep in Tony’s red-and-gold silk tent (for Tony loved the Orient and all its products: spices and languages and damascened steel and especially the cool feel of silk). The boy muttered occasionally in his sleep, never coherent; and sometimes woke himself up from nightmares with a shout. Perhaps his previous life had been worse than even the siege had been. Tony wandered the smoking ruins of the palace, the Shieldsman Sir James of Rhodes with him to watch over the few palace servants he had commandeered to carry his discoveries. (When he found other Shieldsmen collecting papyrus scrolls for tinder, he’d let out a screech, dashed to their leader Nicholas the Fury, and successfully collected most of them back. Any paper with writing, however indecipherable, was his, dammit.) He probed the piles of residue with a pointed stick, searching for metal, and chose one of the few intact buildings in Asgard in which to store his treasures.
Within a few days, the troops had exhausted their blood-and-other lusts; the Asgard folk—fewer now, branded and sore—harvested grain and firewood, cooked meals, built wide wagons to Tony’s specifications, and gathered food, wine, and loot for their conquerors to take away. Odin’s golden throne—gold leaf, in fact, the ornate carvings all repoussé —had been hacked and hammered into flat plates, and divided between the company and the Avengers; otherwise, Odin’s “golden kingdom” was proving to be disappointingly lacking in gold, and value would have to be taken by other means.
Growls and screams came regularly from Captain Steve’s red and blue tent; whenever he appeared (which was seldom), he sported various cuts and bruises—a split lip, a black eye—and a beaming smile. Who was taming whom between him and Sif became a betting matter.
Clint had inherited his faded tent from Captain Steve, after a former (and unfortunate) bedmate had tried to wash it, running the colors together; but Clint and his healer (and his frequent Shieldsman companions, as he was lately promoted from that company) did not mind its motley look. The tent smelled of Eir’s drying herbs.
Lady Natasha’s tent was deep red, and set beyond the hearing of the rest of the troops; in the center of the Shieldsmen’s camp, Nicholas the Fury had an old Moroccan tent, of once-black goathair, which he claimed was the coolest of all.
Aide-de-camp Coulson of the Shieldsmen, outside his tent checkered in black and blazing white, sat in the shade of a tree at his portable desk, alternately tallying and chewing thoughtfully on the quill of his pen. Tony walked by, training Silver to accept a neck collar and a leash. Stopped. “What do we need?”
“Soldiers,” said Coulson.
“Had to kill ‘em all. Too much honor.” The elder princes smothered in rugs (and Lady Natasha has the remaining one). The rest of the troops strangled, disgraced by a bloodless death. None would go to Valhalla.
“Any prospects?”
“Nick’s checking them out. I’ll go too; sometimes his focus is a bit narrow.”
The remaining Asgardians had been gathered from their tasks to the dirt of the large training field. They formed their own social clumps. In torn finery, the former leaders of the community: mayor, sheriff, priest, teacher, healer. In handwoven linen or leather aprons, the crafts-men and –women, their tools left behind. Heterae, singers, and dancers, much the worse for wear, in formerly bright colors. Innkeepers, storekeepers, and accountants. Farmers and laborers, farmwives and children.
Nicholas the Fury beheld them all from a low platform, his remaining eye sharp. Clint and an armed Shieldsman, Jasper, were going through the crowd, now roughly pulling one aside, now pushing at another man, testing his mettle. Once a few dozen (nearly all men) had been pulled to the side, Clint inspected their teeth.
“The soldiers of Asgard kept you from earning your own glory!” Nicholas shouted at the selected few.
A quiet correction from the boy at Tony’s side: “Einherjar. They were Einherjar.”
“Were you going to be one?” Tony asked in an equally low voice.
“No,” said Silver. “Never.”
“Would you like to fight?” Nicholas shouted. The chosen men and women growled agreement.
“For us?” And they were suddenly silent.
One steps forward: a burly man with a damaged arm, probably a veteran. “Never,” he says, and spits. Jasper runs him through with a spear.
“Who agrees with him?” the Fury demands, and another five—four men and a woman, aged, all comrades—step forward. “Your city is gone. Your rulers are dead without honor. Fight for us, and prosper with us; fight against us, and die.”
The five reply in order: “I die,” with a spit at the Fury; Clint and Jasper alternate at spearing them.
With a tug at the boy’s leash, Tony walked to Nick the Fury and said, “You’re only making martyrs. If they die bloody, they go to Valhalla.”
“You get ‘em on our side, then,” the Fury said.
Avengers negotiator, right. Tony stepped onto the platform, pulling his servant to stand near its edge. Nicholas stepped aside.
“Listen,” Tony yelled. “We’re leaving soon. When we go, we’re burning this place to the ground. We’re sowing the ground with salt. We’re breaking the canals. The only direction you can go will be the one that we take: the rest of the land will be salted bogs. And we will scorch the earth behind us. You still have families. Travel with us, or starve to death. There is no honor in that.”
“Does Prince Thor live?” asked a voice from the huddled main crowd.
Odd: the boy beside Tony flinched at the question. Tony looked at Nicholas, who nodded.
“Yes!” Tony relayed.
A tall woman in soiled velvet walked forward. “Then we will come with you.”
“Do you all agree?” Tony asked the crowd.
“Yes!”
“Then return to your labors.”
Tony stepped off the box, gave his leashed captive a tug. The boy gave a small start: perhaps he’d been lost in thought.
“This is a rabble,” Nicholas told Tony. “They are not an army we can wield.”
“Yet,” said Tony.
Nat in her red samite tent; a bed of squirrel furs, a cloak of sables. She’s washing herself in a golden basin held up by her child servant; Tony had left his servant child in his red-and-gold tent, tied to the center-pole with a knot Gordius would have been proud of. Nat’s Thor does not tremble as he holds the heavy basin.
She glances at him, motions Tony outside with her eyes. “There’s pestilence brewing here,” he tells her. “Once we blow the last dam the bad air will move in.”
“I’m ready to go,” she says.
“We have more carts for the children and old people,” he says. “Never overlook hostage value. But Cap wants another one for his loot and his hell-cat; then Bruce wants another, with springs, for delicate Frigga; and Clint wants Eir’s medicines, and Nick and Maria—thank God they’ve got each other—want a tent full of carpets, and the Shieldsmen want…”
“We need more horses, then. My Thor says he knows where they pastured.”
“He’s talking now?”
“I didn’t tell him his mother lives. He thinks I’m all he has.” She frowned. “Well, almost…”
“Almost?”
“He says his youngest brother left the keep, the night before the attack. He’s convinced his brother is still alive.”
“Right. Hide a blond kid among the rest of them. Ask your Thor to point him out, and we’ll winkle him out of the crowd.”
Tony returned to his tent, where the rope leash had been neatly untied. His former captive was gone.
“Son of a bitch!”
There was a commotion at the far side of the camp, at Bruce’s green double tent. Two Shieldsmen were pulling the ragged dark-haired boy from a pair of half-seen womanly arms, while the boy’s high screams echoed against Bruce’s bellows of rage. Tony came running.
“She’s mine! You know she’s mine!” Bruce ranted; turning to Tony: “You’re not to touch her!”
“Calm, Bruce, calm.” Even though Tony was not as relaxed as he sounded, and somewhat winded from his run. “Just here to pick up my runaway.”
The boy was quivering, lips and eyes held stiff against crying. Tony cuffed him anyway, and pulled him away by his neck.
“I said”—yank!—“your fate would depend on you”—a shake—“didn’t I, Silver?”
“Yes,” the boy finally said, sullenly.
“My tent. Now.”
Where Tony tied him to the pole with a still more complicated knot, then rinsed his face with a wet rag and gave him a cooling bowl of stew.
“You served her, right? Was she your mistress?”
Silver looked at him, answered between gulps. “Yes.”
“Your loyalty is commendable, then. But she belongs to Sir Bruce, eh? And you, miserable brat, are what I took because I had no royal hostage. So you belong to me, now. Capishe?”
Silver looked at him blankly.
“Get it?”
Still a blank look.
“Do you understand me?” Tony roared, almost at Bruce’s timbre.
“…Yes.”
The next morning, Tony decided that Silver was no longer carrying a fever; he made the boy wash himself all over with the rags of his clothes and soapy water, then gave him Tony’s own outgrown silk shirt to wear. (And a sarong, for now, for the lack of pants.) Again into the collar (removed for his bath), on the leash, and accompanying Tony for the next scrounging expedition. The kid had been the Queen’s servant, he should know where the goodies were kept. Sir James gathered the usual palace servants to go with them; the boy gave them an out-thrust tongue and an odd, pointed stare. They muttered among themselves.
“Your brat’s putting on airs,” said Sir James.
“Eh, former airs. He’s property now; they all are,” said Tony, unconcerned. “Silver! Where would you go for treasure?”
“What kind?” said the boy.
“Something we haven’t found yet,” Tony said. They turned a corner, faced the ruins of the castle.
“Perhaps the foundation stones?” The little shit arched one eyebrow. “You seem to have the rest.”
“Any cellars?”
“Let me look.” With his leash running free behind him, young Silver was a questing hound, orienting himself to the ruin, pacing, climbing over the low remnants of a wall; then gesturing. “Dig here.”
Some shoveling and a few whisks of a broom disclosed a rune-carved door, set into the stone pavement. Tony pried it open. “Got a torch? Let’s go.”
Sir James had followed; but the other servants had not. “Get over here,” Tony said; and when they did not move, “What’s the problem?”
“The Royal Crypt was there, sir,” said one. “We dare not.”
“Yeah, well, I dare. Sit. Stay put. Rhodey, go get some Shieldsmen willing to hunt for treasure. We’ll wait.”
A Shieldsman named Gallagher was willing to watch the servants; Jasper and Clint (almost Sir Clint) were willing to share in the chance to improve their prospects. And Silver did not seem to fear the tombs. So the five went underground.
Unlike the shining throne room, the grave chamber was not decorated with gold. Instead, the dead were buried with practical things: horse bridles (and skulls), bronze bowls of decaying food, warm cloaks held together with bronze-and-glass pins. The last and most recent grave, that of (Silver said) King Bor, finally showed golden traces, in rings on his arms and fingers and ears, soon removed. Silver grabbed a grave offering, a wooden horse on wheels, and tucked it in his sleeve as they searched for treasures. The air growing stale, they returned to the surface.
“Well?” said Gallagher; his share would come from theirs.
“A laminated bow and some arrowheads,” said Clint; “The arrow shafts are rotten, though.”
“I got the jewelry,” said Jasper. “Take your pick.”
“Lemme see the rest of it.”
Sir James had grabbed some old short swords (possibly long knives) with intricately knotted designs on their handles. Tony, ever practicing his trade, had taken a bronze krater, red-lipped from its former contents of wine, and filled it with miscellaneous things: horse bits, fasteners, bronze pins. He’d hummed the whole time he was down there.
“How ‘bout the boy?” asked Gallagher.
Silver had wrapped Bor’s discarded dull green cloak around himself, and had his toy horse.
“Well, he’s not afraid of ghosts, but he doesn’t have much sense of worth,” said Gallagher. “He’s yours all right, Tony.”
In the end, Gallagher took a sword from Sir James and a few of Jasper’s rings for wooing barmaids. The Shieldsmen headed back to their fire, and Sir James roused the servants to go.
“Desecrator! Mind yourself!” the oldest servant said, and grabbed at Silver’s overlong cloak; he hissed in reply. Tony tugged at the leash, pulling him away from the group.
“Let’s get you some pants,” Tony said; then more quietly once they were far enough away: “No gold?”
“King Odin brought the gold,” said Silver. “There was none before. Or so I heard.”
Tony chuckled. “Maybe a dragon got it all.”
“You’ve seen a dragon?” The boy’s eyes were wide. Tony just laughed.