Chapter Text
There were seven, maybe eight farmers to hold Loki down, cowards all of them. They undressed him forcefully, no matter how hard he struggled, or how badly he cursed them.
The cursing, on second thought, was a mistake. He should have tried to talk his way out of this, but the truth of the matter was, he was tired of talking, tired of fighting anew each and every day. Unfortunately, he was even less partial to dying on the stake, so threatening the villagers with a hundred things he had no way of making true had been stupid. Stupid was what killed mages in Asgard.
“Do you really think I would do this?” he yelled, pulling on the rough hemp ropes that bound him.
“We should have gagged the witch,” Bodil mumbled. The old mayor was standing where Loki couldn’t see her.
He struggled to find her, to look at her face. His hands were tied behind the pole at his back, but he could move around a little if he wished.
“You should have gagged the witch? Really?” Loki spat when he had found her. “I think the tatters of my clothes are over there. Why don’t you stuff some of them into your mouth?”
Bodil’s face hardened. She had come to him with a broken leg, once. He had set it for her and had made it heal. Who knows if she would have been able to walk again, if he hadn’t.
“We trusted you, Loki,” she hissed.
Loki made as if to raise his hands, jerking them violently against the pole. “You call this trust?”
“You ruined our livelihood!" yelled one of the younger farmers. Loki did not know which one.
“I did no such thing!”
“Then how come all the crops got infested, corn and vegetable patches alike?”
“How would I know? I’m not a farmer.”
“Lies!” Leif yelled. He was the head-strongest of the farmers, prone to alcohol and violence. “The moment we threatened you, you showed your true face, cursing our women’s wombs and calling forth a drought.”
Loki gritted his teeth. Odin’s wristbands bound his magic so strictly that all he had managed to learn over the years was how to siphon enough to do the small things he had helped the village with. It wasn’t even enough to let him dare brave the wilderness alone.
“Let me go! You know I am the only one who can help you with this, and if you search your hearts, you’ll also know it couldn’t have been me who ruined the crops. Why would I? I depend on the food just like you do. It makes no sense.”
“To make us dependent on you!” Bodil said. “You say you’re the only one who can help us. You want us to need you, so we protect you, so we don’t call the guards to tell them we found a runaway slave.”
Dead silence followed. Nobody had ever said it out loud, despite the bands Loki wore around his wrists, because that would have highlighted their societal duty to report him. To have it brought up now scared Loki immensely, and it made him so angry. He looked up at the sky, trying and failing to take calming breaths. He hoped his face looked neutral when he turned it towards the crowd.
“I have been living in my little hut peacefully for over a decade now. I did you no harm, nobody reported me. That was not about to change, was it?”
“Maybe it wasn’t enough for you. Maybe you wanted more than a few eggs a week and turnips and potatoes,” Bodil’s husband grumbled.
“We really should stop talking to him,” Bodil decreed. “You know what he’s like.”
“What am I like?” Loki raged, spittle flying from his mouth as he tried to rip the ropes, only managing to bruise his wrists all around the bands. So much rope! The villagers had wanted to make abundantly sure he would not be able to escape.
“You’re a sweet talker, Loki. A liesmith,” Bodil explained calmly. “You’ve been known to make people pay more than they wanted.”
“That is how bartering works,” Loki said flatly. “I cannot heal a woman’s dying babes and take a couple of eggs for it. If I’m bedridden from exhaustion for a few days, I need the fire stoked and water brought and yes, a couple of eggs but also a few vegetables, fruit and bread.”
Bodil’s mouth flatted to a thin line. He could practically see her feel betrayed by him mentioning the twins he had saved. It was a bad example. The twin’s mother had been so thankful, she had offered him more than he had been willing to take – her heirloom necklace, her best linens, her body. He should have capitalised on how he refused to take any of it but fear was clouding his judgement.
“I bet, next, you will tell us that the married men you have seduced into your bed with false promises or forced with threats, went of their own free will?”
Loki gritted his teeth, his heart sinking. This was it then, wasn’t it? He would not get off this blasted pyre alive. He thought to say something scathing about how those men had come onto him, some rather forcefully, and how he had been too touch-starved and lonely to refuse them, and yes, also scared of the consequences of saying no to some of them. It was far too easy to collect coin for reporting an escaped slave, especially a magical one, if he didn't do as you wanted. What had helped him was how attuned he was to a rough bout, how little he minded some manhandling. Soon, word must have spread how the enchanter took it up the arse, how his mouth was so talented, not only with words, and how much he was willing to do with it. Maybe this, and not the abysmal harvest, was the real reason for them apprehending him. And baring him to the world before burning him.
“He doesn’t even deny it,” Ragnar said with grim satisfaction.
“Shall I tell them, then?” Loki said, his impulsiveness getting the better of him. “How you begged me on your knees to keep your secret? How hard you wanted me to take you, and how often you returned to my humble cot, when your wife was off to market?”
Ragnar paled. Then, his face reddened with angry blotches.
“Burn him already, before he can spew more vile lies.”
There were answering nods all around, but nobody seemed willing to step forth and put the burning torch to the kindling. Finally, Ragnar took the torch from where it was stuck in the earth in front of the pyre, his face a mask of too many emotions.
“I would have taken your secret to the grave,” Loki whispered to him. Tears stung his eyes that he was too stubborn to shed. There’d be time enough for that when he could attribute it to the biting smoke from the flames.
Guilt flashed over Ragnar’s face.
“You don’t have to do this!” Loki was quick to add. “Talk them into letting me go. I will walk away, never to return, I swear it to you.”
Loki saw Ragnar’s answer before he voiced it. “I can’t do that, Loki. I know how mercurial you are. You’ll take your revenge, one way or the other. I-” He looked around, but everyone had stepped back from the pyre. They wouldn't hear. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, are you?” Loki yelled, trying to break his bondage one last time.
Ragnar flinched, a hardness returning to his features. He thrust the torch into the kindling beneath the logs, and Loki used the rest of his meagre powers to prevent it from catching immediately. He sweated and shook with the effort. He had not even been able to sever the rope which meant he would be able to stave the fire for maybe a few heartbeats. Yet he could not make himself let go. Survival instinct was an unforgiving master.
“Douse that,” an unfamiliar voice with the authority of leadership behind it called from further away.
Loki raised his eyes to a man on the finest horse he had ever seen, a chestnut mare with a strong build and shiny fur. The man wore plate armour to match his horse – not even Odin had owned a suit of armour this well-made. It shone in red and gold and fit him like a second skin. The man himself was wellgroomed, short locks framing a handsome face with an uncommon beard, shorter than Loki was used to and not a full beard, either. A stranger, then. A noble stranger.
Loki saw the heated look the stranger gave him, how his gaze travelled over Loki's naked chest, lingered on his exposed sex and then went back up to his face, completely unapologetically.
“I said douse that,” the stranger repeated, now with a hint of anger in his voice that made Loki flinch.
Apart from his own retinue, the stranger was accompanied by several Asgardian nobles and warriors. Not a simple ambassador, then, but a very important man.
Fear and hope stirred within Loki. He knew the look of one who wanted to possess him, if only for a night. Maybe, if the stranger liked the tumble, he would take him along. But would a life at the whim of a foreign nobleman be any better than death on the pyre? Or much longer, for that matter.
The Asgardians were talking quietly and urgently at the man, who shook his head and dismounted in one fluid motion. Oh, but the armour was even more marvellous in action. It seemed far lighter than plate had any right to be, and it made little noise as it moved with him.
“Bring buckets filled with water,” the stranger demanded, shocking the villagers out of their inertia. He was obeyed, of course he was. It was obvious his displeasure could cost the village dearly.
Water doused the meagre flames quickly. Loki sagged against the pole. He was completely drained, on the verge of falling unconscious, but just like he had not been able to simply let the fire catch, he could not let go of his consciousness.
One of the Asgardian guards kicked the pyre apart to get at Loki, cutting him loose with a belt knife.
“Behave, enchanter,” he hissed and spat on Loki’s face, his back between Loki and the nobles, so the foreigner wouldn’t see.
“Of course,” Loki said sweetly. “I’ll offer him my mouth and my-” The guard backhanded him so viciously, Loki tasted blood.
“I hope he beats you up good and well before he rapes you,” the warrior growled. “You’re not worth the silver he’ll be paying for you.”
“Lovely,” Loki commented, spitting blood on the ground.
The man dragged Loki in front of the stranger where he crumpled to the ground without finesse. He raised his head, trying for a seductive smile. The warrior who had brought him backhanded him again.
“Show some respect for the King of Midgard!” he yelled, supporting his demand with a few more hits that landed on Loki’s back and shoulders, because Loki had been wise enough to hide his face behind his arms.
Loki curled in on himself. King. Of Midgard. The only place that treated mages worse than Asgard, where being born with magical potential meant you were born into slavery, as no mage could ever be trusted to live a free life. His mother had warned him of it, spinning tales of fates worse than death to make him see that his prospects in Asgard were not as bleak as he bemoaned.
What a lucky day. He should have let the fire take him.