You are a virgin, right?

"Make us a son!" a man's voice shouted from outside the door.

"Shut up, Ronnar!" Willarn Karkbhurg shouted back. "I'm trying to concentrate here. I don't need your ugly voice distracting me."

There was some laughter and hooting from outside the door. Raina backed herself against the wall but there was nowhere to go. The window was too high and too small.

Her giant of a husband stood between her and the door. Beyond the door were dozens of his relatives and hers, all expecting them to consummate their marriage.

Raina ripped a sheet off the bed to hide her nakedness. Her husband stood there, naked and unconcerned. For better or worse, she was stuck with him for the rest of her life.

This is it, Raina thought as Willarn Karkbhurg took a step towards her. But he sat on the bed instead and pulled the second sheet across his lap, finally hiding that menacing penis. He tapped the spot next to him. Raina didn't want to but she sat down anyway. She saw no other option.

Her husband turned the full strength of his gaze on her. The jocular smile was gone. "Why do you hate me, my dear? You just met me today. Give me some time to really annoy you first. It doesn't take long. Just a couple of days. "

Raina said nothing. She sniffled and closed her eyes. "Do I stink that much or is it my ugly face?" he asked.

"It's your ugly face."

He smiled. "That's a simple problem. Just close your eyes. It tends to go away when you do that."

Raina felt the anger rise again, chasing away the fear. "You killed Robyr!" she hissed.

"Killed who?" he asked.

"Robyr."

"And who is that supposed to be?"

"Robyr Malbhurg. He was my betrothed. You killed him."

Sir Willarn's face twisted in confusion. "I did?"

Raina's blood boiled. "You killed him and you don't even know?"

"Where did I kill this Robyr?" he asked. "I know the Malbhurgs are your bannermen but if I killed one I would remember."

"At Siiruch's Roost," Raina said, jutting her head forward as if she was about to stab him with her eyes.

"Oh, the battle," her husband said.

"Yes."

"I killed dozens of men in that battle, Raina. I didn't bring a scribe to write down the names of everyone I felled. If I killed your beloved Robyr, I'm sorry."

"Sorry? That's all you have to say for yourself?"

"It was a battle. Things get messy. If I killed your Robyr, it's because he was trying to kill me too. That is the way of war. Stop acting as if I sneaked into his house and cut his throat while he slept."

Raina glared at him, her eyes glowing. "Robyr was a great warrior. He was brave and noble and chivalrous. He went off to his first battle and you killed him."

"I don't think you know what the word 'great' means," Sir Willarn said. "A warrior who dies in his first battle cannot, by definition, be great."

Raina swung a fist at his smug face. He caught it mid-swing. He smiled at her. It was a pained smile. An apologetic one. "We have the rest of our lives to make each other miserable, my dear," he said. "Let's not start with the violence today. Give it a month at least, yes?"

Raina screamed into his face. As loud a scream as she could muster. Willarn Karkbhurg closed his eyes and angled his head back.

Outside the door, Raina heard cheering. The brute smiled even wider. "They think that's a scream of pleasure," he said. "In my experience, people screaming in pain and pleasure sound much the same. Even their faces contort the same way."

Raina paused to glare at him. "Let us consummate this marriage and be done with it," he added.

I will never lie with you, Raina thought. But she stopped herself from saying it out loud. It would have been a silly statement. This man was her husband now. He had every legal right to bed her whenever he wished.

He was two feet taller and a hundred pounds heavier. His biceps were thicker than her thighs. She was naked, unarmed, and alone with him. There was nothing she could do to stop him from forcefully taking her if he so wished.

The realization made her shoulders sag. She felt tears gather beneath her eyelids but blinked them away. She would be strong. For herself, for her family, for Robyr.

Raina stretched out on her back beside him. "Do your worst," she whispered.

Willarn Karkbhurg sucked in a breath between his teeth. "I'll pass," he said.

Raina sat up. "Pass?"

He shrugged. "I like my lovers willing and enthusiastic."

Raina looked long and hard into those flinty gray eyes. Something stirred inside her. There was a flicker of hope and then there was something else. She didn't know what it was but it terrified her.

"We still need to put on a show for our kinsmen out there," her husband said, thumbing his chin at the door. "You make some noises and I'll creak the bed."

"What noises?" Raina asked.

Sir Willarn looked at her as if she had gone mad. "Moans!" he said. "They're like screams but less annoying. I don't want my cousins thinking I can't make a woman squeal."

"I am not a whore," Raina hissed. "I will not make some fake sounds to boost your reputation. Never. Make the moans yourself if you want to."

Her husband shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Raina turned away and then shrieked as Willy put her in a headlock. Her arms flailed around but he caught and pinned them with the same left arm he had around her neck.

Try as she might, Raina couldn't break free of his iron grip. Her hands were like two sticks in his giant fist. Then with the fingers of his free right hand, he went to town on her ribs. He played them like a harp.

It had been so long since Raina had been tickled that she had forgotten just how much she hated it. She shrieked and cried and moaned and begged him to stop. He didn't. She laughed and shrieked until tears came pouring out of her eyes and snot shot out of her nose.

She flailed her legs, hit her feet against the bed, and tried to wiggle out of his grip but it was futile. He was too strong. Overwhelmingly strong. He found her feeble attempts amusing and just tickled her more.

As Raina tried and failed to break out of the unfortunate embrace, she could hear women giggling outside the door. The men kept clapping, stamping their feet, and chanting, "Willy! Willy! Willy!"

Raina could only weep. The weeping was what got him to stop. Raina was exhausted by the time he let her go. She scrambled away and curled into a ball, sobbing softly. Her husband walked to the door and chased away the nosy eavesdroppers before coming back to her.

When he stroked her cheek Raina shrieked and jumped away. She could bear another tickling. She would kill herself first. "I am not going to tickle you again. Not tonight at least," he said.

"I don't believe you."

"I'm a man of my word. I won't tickle you again until tomorrow night."

"I don't want you to tickle me tomorrow. I don't want you to tickle me ever again!"

Willarn Karkbhurg shook his head. "That is not a promise I can make. Or keep."

"Because you like torturing me," Raina accused.

"I can't say I like torture but you're asking me to give up a great deal of leverage in return for nothing. That is not how the world works."

"What do you want?" Raina asked.

"What do you have to offer?"

"Um… I don't know," Raina stammered.

Sir Willarn took a sheet and walked to the fireplace. "Then I will tickle you again," he said. "I'll try to be gentler than I was today."

"You can't do that to me," Raina protested.

"Your father expects a son within the year. As long as we're in his house, he will expect me to do my duty to you as a husband. I am not a man who shirks my duty, Raina."

"I will make the noises if you don't tickle me," Raina offered.

Her husband looked at her and smiled. "Then we have an understanding, my dear wife. Goodnight." He stretched out by the fireplace and covered himself with the sheet.

"You're going to sleep there?" Raina asked.

"No," he said. "I have diarrhea and the privy is too far. Figured I would just shit over here."

Raina glared at him and felt a flicker of anger ignite within her. He smiled. "Of course, I'm going to sleep here," he said apologetically when he saw the look on her face. "Unless you want me to share the bed with you. If I lie down first and you lie on top of me, we might just fit."

"No," Raina said and turned her back to him.

"What a pretty back you have, my dear. Never seen a spine with such gorgeous curvature."

"Shut up," Raina hissed, pulling the sheet to cover her back.

"As you say, my lady. I have figured out what I want in exchange for a promise to never tickle you again."

Raina turned to him, thoughts of whatever heinous price he might choose to extract swirling in her mind. "And what would that be?"

"I will accept a story," he said. "Tell me about this man I killed. This Robyr Malbhurg."

"Why would you want to know anything about Robyr?"

"Because I am curious. I have never known anyone I have killed. They were just faces and helmets on a battlefield. Blood on my sword and brains on my hammer. I would like to know something about this Robyr."

"I will not sully his memory by speaking of him to you," Raina spat.

"Well, my dear wife. I am afraid I will have to tickle you first thing tomorrow morning."

Raina launched into the tale. She told Willarn Karkbhurg of the first time she met Robyr. She had been thirteen. Another one of her brothers had recently died at the grand old age of nine days. He hadn't even lived long enough to have a name. He was the fourth of Raina's brothers to die in infancy. If you counted the stillbirths, that number was six. Her brother's delivery had been a difficult one and the physician said Lady Carla would not survive another pregnancy.

Finally accepting Raina as his heir, Nylarn Lamanbhurg made arrangements for his succession. Towards that end, he chose Robyr Malbhurg, the 14-year-old second son of his most powerful vassal, as Raina's future husband.

Robyr lived with them for a summer and got along splendidly with Raina, just as their parents had hoped. They got along so well that they had to be chaperoned at all times after her mother caught them pawing each other behind a bush.

A betrothal had been arranged soon after and the future couple visited each other frequently to strengthen the bond. Raina told her husband everything, up to the point five years later when the outbreak of war forced a postponement of their wedding while a freshly knighted Robyr went off to fight in the Lamanbhurg host.

Half the men who left never returned. Robyr was in that half. All the returnees said it was Willarn Karkbhurg's green war hammer that dented Robyr's helmet and crushed his skull.

"I do have a green war hammer," Sir Willarn admitted. "I will get rid of it. It's the least I can do for you." Then he turned his back to her and promptly fell asleep. Raina, with tears in her eyes, watched the rise and fall of his body under the thin sheet until she too fell asleep, the tears still leaking out of her eyes.

The newlyweds were woken by a knock on the door. Willy scrambled from the floor to the bed, putting one arm around Raina and covering them both with his sheet before bidding the knocker to enter. It was a bashful servant. She flashed Raina a cheeky smile before bowing. "M'lord, m'lady. Lord Nylarn and Lady Carla bid you to come breakfast with them."

"Of course," Willy said. "We will need our clothes."

The servant broke into a girlish giggle. "Oh. I will bring them to you, m'lord, m'lady," she said with a bow and turned to leave.

"And a knife," Willy called after her.

The servant stopped and turned to them with a look of surprise. "A knife?" she asked. "What for, m'lord?" Seeing Willy take a little too long to answer had her falling over herself with apologies. "Please forgive me, m'lord. It's not my place to question you."

"Don't worry about it," Willy said with one of his jocular smiles. "Raina and I have gotten the sheets all tangled up. Couldn't climb out of this bed if we wanted to. We may have to cut our way out."

"Tihihihi…" the servant broke into a bout of giggles and ran off.

Raina turned to her husband. "What do you want a knife for?"

Willy gave her an incredulous look. "To cut your throat, of course," he said. "Your father made me swear to never take another wife for as long as you live. I need to make myself a widower and marry a woman who actually loves me. What other use could I have for a knife?"

For a moment, Raina's heart quickened. Until she saw the cheeky smile. Then she was fuming. She was too angry for words. She glared into those stormy gray eyes of his. "If you keep looking at me like that, my dear, I will have to kiss you," he threatened.

Raina turned her head away, fuming even more. When she turned back, it was with her arm swinging with the full force of her body. She slapped him hard on the cheek. Hit him so hard her arm stung and she had to suppress a yelp.

Willy brushed the slapped cheek with his fingers and smiled. "That was such a soft caress, my dear. If I didn't know any better I would say you were warming up to me. Wanna do it again?"

Raina was now huffing with anger, her chest heaving as she inhaled and exhaled deeply. She gnashed her teeth and tried to control her breathing. How could a man be so infuriating? How could he ceaselessly mock her like that? "What's wrong with you?" she snapped at him.

He smiled at her again. "I have a pressing need to pee but other than that, nothing."

Raina found herself heaving again. She was so angry she wanted to punch the walls and smash the castle into a thousand little pieces then beat him into a pulp with those pieces.

Raina jumped off the bed but he caught her and dragged her back, imprisoning her in his arms. She squealed when his fingers brushed her ribs.

"Shhh," he hushed. "I swore never to tickle you again. I am not in the habit of breaking my oaths." A heartbeat later, there was a knock on the door.

The servant had returned with their clothing and the knife. She set them by the bed and sprinted away. It was only then that Raina's husband released her. "You never told me what you planned to do with the knife," Raina said.

"I told you. I am going to slit your throat."

"Can you be serious for once!" Raina yelled.

Sir Willarn gave her an apologetic look. "My mother will want to see a bloody sheet. Proof that you came to my bed a maiden."

Raina's shoulders sagged as she realized she had forgotten about this ancient all-important custom. Her husband took that for a bad sign. "You are a virgin, right?" he asked.

"Of course. How can you ask me that?"

"I had to ask. You and this Robyr seemed very... fond of each other."

"He wasn't that kind of man. We fooled around but he never dishonored me. We were waiting for our wedding night."

Willarn Karkbhurg shook his head as pity clouded his face. "Poor man." He handed Raina the knife. "Want to donate some blood?"

Raina's hand trembled and she let the knife drop onto the bed. Her husband let out an exasperated sigh, picked it up, sliced his chest, dabbed his wound with a sheet, and dropped it back onto the bed. He climbed out and got dressed.

Raina did the same, trying not to think of how long she had been naked around him. They held hands and went off to play newlyweds at breakfast. Lady Carla was all giggles and winks. She was acting like a twelve-year-old girl who had kissed a boy for the first time. It was disgusting.

Raina and her husband left the dining room to find a worried Hyrman waiting outside. His weatherbeaten face was even more wrinkled than usual. "I need to speak with you, my lady," he said in a worried tone.

"Alright," Raina prompted.

Hyrman flashed Willy a worried smile. "Alone, if you please, my lady… my lord."

Willy flashed Hyrman another one of his smiles. "Is it Herman or Hyrman?" he asked.

"Hyrman, my lord," the huntsman said.

Willy clapped him on the back. "Don't steal my bride."

"I won't, my lord," Hyrman promised with another worried smile.

Sir Willarn smiled back, bent to plant a surprise kiss on Raina's forehead, and walked away.

"I bring terrible news, my lady," Hyrman said as soon as Willy was out of earshot.

"What is it?"

"I think you should see it for yourself."