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Alith lies in bed and tries to sleep, but it is difficult. She took Bodil and Hillevi aside and explained how Robert truly views them, and what choice she was forced to make in what she said. She may not have lied to Robert, but she also didn't tell him the truth, and that hurts and feels like a betrayal. That she did it for Robert's own good doesn't make it feel any better, and Robert is really smart in more ways than one so he will eventually realise or find out how they really see him. She believe he will understand and forgive them, but it still feels like a betrayal, made worse with having such wonderful lives. They all know that their lives is likely to just get better, more luxurious and more interesting as time goes on, and they all love their lives they have. But dreams and desires are powerful things, and can be hard to give up.
Gunhild seems to have it the easiest, as she has already given up on the dreams she had about a family years ago when her brothers stopped the last marriage offer, and she hopes to serve Robert for the rest of her life. Gunhild seems at peace and pleased with the fact that her life will have a really important meaning and be something she can be really proud of. She really hopes and prays that Robert can have children with his sambos. Gunhild wants to hear the mansion filled with children's laughter, see the children play, and play with them while she helps to teach and raise the children. They all want to see what wonders Robert will give to his children. More than most, Robert deserves to have many strong children and a wonderful life, and Gunhild have prayed to Freya for Robert to have healthy children, even though she worries that Jane is here partly to give him children. Especially since Jane doesn't want to get pregnant, and it is likely that Robert will continue to accept that no matter what.
Bodil has been adapting her dreams and hopes for a couple of months now, and it is now to help with Robert's crafts and creations while she continues to guard Robert. She hope to marry a good man and have children and live the rest of her life on the islands while serving Robert, but even if that doesn't happen, her life will have meaning and be pleasant. Bodil is so immensely pleased to have contributed to so many things at the mansion, and that the boxes for the radios are her handiwork. Bodil is so proud that it is her craft that protects the valuable things that makes the radio work. That it is her handiwork that is seen when you look at a radio or at his other creations. She looks forward to telling her parents, and when Robert gives permission to tell about the machines that 'machine' wood and metal. They all know Roberts plans about factories and production lines and Bodil hope to find carpenter work for her little brother in one of them.
Hillevi is the one that finds her situation difficult. She loves the life she have, but she really wants her own farm and family. Her own children and preferably many, and a man to call her husband. But then she will be focused on her family and farm, and won't be able to spend time with them or serve Robert. As Robert show glims of Midgård and continue to do amazing things, and they all understand just how primitive Alfheimr is to Robert and Jane, and Hillevi finds her decision harder. She wants to be able to let go of her dream and stay just like Gunhild, but she still has a few weeks until they need to swear a new oath to Robert.
Jane. What a shock it was when she appeared. Another human. Alith really really wish she understood their shared English language and tries to listen and learn when Robert talks to Jane or translates words or concepts. Alith especially want to know what Robert said to Jane that evening when she step into their lives and they talked in the bedroom. Robert was not happy to see a human woman here and immediately became cautious and on guard, like she was a huge threat. Did he see her as a threat to Alfheimr? Was Jane angry that Robert planned to teach them his knowledge? Make it harder for other people to enslave them? They only know the selective information Robert and Jane have told.
No one else saw how Jane reacted to what Robert said to her. How horrified and panicked she was as she quickly assessed escape routes. How she gave up and accepted her fate, realising that she wouldn't be able to escape or successfully hide anywhere now that Robert knew she existed. Neither of them has said what Robert really said to her in there. Said what they really talked about all the time in the garden the next day. And it was a lot. So much. What made Jane be surprised, serious, horrified, and laugh until her eyes watered, especially after her fright the evening before? It wasn't just because Robert was uncomfortable being attractive and having so many women.
Alith thought a lot that night and the days since, and she has talked to the others about it, especially to Gunhild who stayed at the farm when they left. Gunhild would see what Jane did and would stop her from visiting Robert's room, but Jane seemed to just happy to be left there; alone, painting and making kites. She never tried to enter Robert's room, and she still never enters Robert's rooms without his permission.
Alith believes that Jane was furious that she and Tom came along to Alfheimr by mistake, and wanted Robert to send her home to her rich, comfortable life. He could take as many Elves as he wanted as bed slaves and create a kingdom in this primitive world, but she wanted to be sent back. Robert refused and told her she was wrong about what he was like and what he was going to do here. Threatened her into silence and that she wasn't allowed to return to Midgård so she could tell other Humans there. Forced her to realise she had no choice and had to accept living with them. Accept, adapt and make the best of her new life and future here, and that he would try to give her a comfortable luxurious life here, and make her rich and famous. While moving in, Robert took away Jane's last hope of ever returning to Midgård.
Alith isn't alone in believing that they might not be able to return even if Robert wanted to, because Alfheimr is too primitive. They can only imagine what it took to open Bifrost in that insane show of power, and they suspect Robert over did it on a trial run that got out of hand. He obviously hadn't planned for it would be that big and bring anyone else along for the ride. If Robert meant to cross over and never come back, he obviously would have been far far more prepared. Robert would have brought everything he believed he would need or have use for, especially in technology or medicine. Those pills and electrical components are so small and light that he could have brought bags of them. Instead of taking things apart and make do. He lament missing tools and stuff. But Robert understood what had happened and followed his mantra: Learn. Adapt. Move on.
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He did, but Jane have had a far far harder time and is still adapting. Robert tries hard to be Jane's friend and help her adapt to her hew life. Help Jane through the hardest days and he really cares about making her life more comfortable, easier and happier.
No one knows what he said to her a few weeks ago either, but none of them liked it, and it wasn't just what he might do if someone hurt his women. It worried them that Jane was clearly drinking to get drunk. To drown sorrow, to forget and to sleep, in a way she had never done before or since, while Robert just wanted to hold someone who loves him above all else. To feel loved and needed. What was so terrible?
Jane is now a valuable presence in their lives, but she hardly talks about Midgård, and only about 'harmless' things and checks with Robert if she is uncertain it is harmless. Jane too knows incredible much and can help Robert with a lot, but it is clear that she was a noble lady who lived a comfortable lazy life without really having to work. Robert was some kind of learned sejdmann and craftsman who worked, because he does not hesitate to get dirty or work hard or long to get a job done right, and he is so used to working with metal, wood, leather and other things and always had tools in his pocket. Jane was a noble woman who amuses herself by becoming skilled in music, dance and arts, and become a skilled horsewoman when it apparently is an expensive and completely unnecessary luxury in Midgård. Robert doesn't hesitate to work in the greenhouse or vegetable garden, and he understands agriculture, growing seasons and storing food. Robert have handled hens, cows, sheep and pigs before and is not afraid of them, thinking about their different needs in pens and other things - he knew stuff like the sheep's hooves need to be taken care of. Robert knows a lot about kitchens and has cooked his own food, and for him it is normal to butcher animals or cleaning fish, and he knows tools to make kitchen work better. He's just unused to it and trusts others who are more skilled, while Jane probably never even touched a dead animal before she came to Alfheimr. Jane may know what to do with plants in the greenhouse, but she's probably barely done it and doesn't use her hands in the same way. She avoids contact with all animals except the horses and the cat.
Jane must have had a hard time adjusting to common work life in Hildifjoer, because she is still like the most spoiled and sheltered princess, and Kari, Gunhild and Hillevi agree that Jane is even worse than Princess Sefa and Ulfarna. Jane is happy that her nails are growing long and pretty again. Nails you don't work with. Decorated nails, to brag that you don't have to do any work at all. Just like high heels. Just like collecting high heels and having so many that some have never been used.
Jane has obviously fired guns before and is surprisingly dangerous in close combat, but it's like a lady who might need to protect herself. Her training is to protect her body, while Robert is focused on damaging and quickly incapacitating, then killing and moving on. No matter how it is done, because in his eyes everything seems to be a potential weapon. Jane has never crawled in woods and mud. Not trained to attack or be attacked like Robert. Not trained to hide and live in nature. Using hand signals and walking quietly in a forest or on a trail. Robert is worried about being attacked when he sleeps in nature, and prefers discreet camps that no one notices, and to cook without making a big fire and to be quiet. The difference in their clothing, colours and the equipment they came to Alfheimr with speaks volumes. Robert didn't have a piece of jewellery. Jane didn't have a knife. Robert didn't have 'nail polish'. Jane didn't have food.
It is so clear that Jane is genuinely deeply impressed by much of what Robert has managed to do here. Because Elves are so primitive. Jane can make such amazing paintings, but it will be a surprise to Robert how well it goes, and everyone helps Jane keep it a secret. Jane is so terribly anxious to make Robert like her. That she fulfills her agreed upon task is not enough, and she wants to prove her worth to him in every way she can.
It's been clear to all of them for a while now that Jane really wants to be one of his sambos, and it's not just because she's finally realised that she probably doesn't have a choice. Robert is undoubtedly her best future, and her desire for Robert has only increased over time. Alith isn't the only one that have noticed her looks on him, and how she's been jealous of Iselin and the others. Jane tries to seduce him in her own way. So Robert will take her as a wife, and get Iselin, Kari, Ciara and Caecilia on her side. So that they like her and accept her as one of them, so she doesn't upset the balance between them that Robert is so keen to maintain. So she too can feel safe, protected and loved by Robert.
Alith understands that, because she herself has been gradually changing her dreams since that day on the beach in Njahamrar. As long as she stays with Robert, he will fulfill her life long dreams of adventure, life experience, fame and status. Probably in absolutely fantastic ways she doesn't even know to dream about - like elk hunting with thunder weapons. There's a much much bigger world out there, and Robert wants to explore it, populate it with the Elves from the North, and create even more amazing things. And Alith wants to be by his side as he does.
Alith would have been so honoured, overjoyed and proud to call herself Robert's wife or concubine, and had loved to call Robert her husband. Because she loves him, and now she knows Robert loves her too - enough that he wants her to live her dreams, no matter how it affects him. It hurt to be rejected even though he did it for love, but she have herself to blame for not seeing him as anything other than a very good master to serve before it was too late. Ironically, just like Robert, she just didn't see herself being in a relationship for years to come, and she was blinded by her dreams, when she might have had it all. Alith wish she too was treated like Iselin, Ciara and Kari. Got to hold his hand, snuggle into his arms and enjoy the moment like them. Like she got today. Like the wonderful memory of sitting in the woods after sex and how he held her as they talked and looked at the elk they shot. She too wants to feel his hands massaging and lathering her body, and start the day waking up in his bed.
But then she wouldn't have been able to protect him, because Robert had made sure to protect her. And Robert is too important. As both his bodyguard and Captain of the Guard, she is ultimately responsible for his life, and it is her duty to follow him wherever he goes. Her duty to stay close, where she get to see and try a lot of things first. Her duty to accompany him on hunts and other things he avoids taking his sambos along for. Her duty to be the only one he accepts is there, when he would have preferred to be completely alone. And when it suits them, she can become his friend Alith and they can have fantastic sex and enjoy the moment ...
And how good of a dream is it, to toil every day on a farm and fields to get simple food for the day and pray to the gods that the harvest does not fail? With a man chosen by her parents that she doesn't love and who won't give her sex the way she wants? In a primitive cold longhouse with dirt floors and a fire pit, where she stay at home with the children when her husband goes away?
And how fun is it to be Furstess anyway? All that responsibility, keeping books and having to take care of a large estates household, and being proper and social with important guests?
Alith fall asleep with a smile on her face. Content with her life and dreaming of her future as Robert's bodyguard and friend. With almost all the advantages.