by A. E. Rayne
Stina nodded, slipping out of the kitchen, leaving Eddeth to mutter and mumble to herself as she carved her symbol. And when it was done, she ran her finger over it, eyes closed, hoping to bring it to life.
There were words to say, Eddeth assumed, but she didn’t know them.
And worried by that, she started blinking, turning her eyes to the rafters. ‘Valera!’ she cried. ‘I can’t save Alys if you don’t help me save Sigurd and Ludo and those men out there. Please! Help me! Help me save them!’ And adding a quick, ‘thank you!’ Eddeth poured the wine into the bowl, adding fish oil, black pepper, garlic, and a few hastily torn-up mandrake leaves, which she worked at with a pestle until the powerful odour had her eyes watering.
Stina popped back inside with a bundle of clothes in her arms, gagging at the terrible smell. ‘Here, Aldo found your clothes.’
‘No time for that!’ Eddeth insisted, bustling past her. ‘We must get this into them. Quick!’ And elbows moving, breasts wobbling, Eddeth hurried into the hall.
Aldo was surprised to see that she was still naked.
But Eddeth didn’t care. ‘Grab Ludo! Sit him up. We need this potion to go down his throat, not dribble out the side. Let’s try, let’s try!’ And she nodded to Stina. ‘Get on his other side! Hurry!’ Eddeth was starting to shake with cold now, her teeth chattering, and she thought longingly of the steam house and the urgent need to get back to it. Blinking, she tried to focus on Ludo, who was white as snow, lolling lifelessly before her. And closing her eyes one last time, seeing herself standing before Valera’s Tree, Eddeth dipped a cup into the bowl of herb-laced wine, lifting it to Ludo’s black lips. ‘Tilt his head back. Further! Stina, try and pry open his mouth!’
Stina felt how heavy and limp Ludo was, and she panicked, trying to support his head. ‘Hurry, Eddeth, please!’
Eddeth bent over, pouring the wine into Ludo’s gaping mouth, and standing back, she waited as Stina and Aldo held onto him.
Ludo didn’t move.
They waited some more, Eddeth holding her breath, seeing that symbol spark in her mind, coming to life now. She closed her eyes, watching it glow like a star suspended in a night sky. She could see it so clearly, almost feeling the warmth of its light on her face.
‘Eddeth!’
And eyes springing open, she looked down at Ludo, who had mumbled.
Or had he?
Eddeth stepped closer, leaning over him.
Ludo’s eyes burst open, and he gasped in horror, sucking air through his teeth, before turning away to vomit on the floor. He hung his head, body heaving, unable to stop, as Eddeth and Stina looked on. Eventually, he sat back up, wiping his mouth, barely able to keep his eyes open. ‘What? What’s happening? Eddeth?’
Stina looked at Eddeth with tears in her eyes. ‘You did it! Eddeth, you did it!’ And she threw her arms around Ludo, clinging on for dear life.
20
Bergit put Solveigh to bed. ‘You should sleep,’ she soothed. ‘After all that wine? It’s stronger than anything I’ve tasted before. My arms are tingling! Though I imagine it helps with the cold.’ She smiled, but Solveigh looked up at her mournfully, tears in her eyes as she lay down on her sumptuous bed. Bergit couldn’t stop staring at the lavish wooden headboard that reached to the rafters. She could make out horses running beneath a generous sun that stretched its golden beams over the whole land. Blinking, she tried to focus on Solveigh, who’d started sobbing loudly. ‘What is it? My lady?’
‘I don’t know you. I don’t know anyone here. No one! It’s not my home. It’s my prison!’
‘But you are married to a powerful lord, my lady. A handsome, powerful lord. He has so many people here. Thousands, I’d say! They will crush the South and take the throne, and then you’ll be the queen!’ That thought had Bergit salivating, thinking of the future, but Solveigh only cried harder.
‘Why would I want that? Why would that make me happy?’
Bergit sat down on the bed, not understanding. ‘But you haven’t seen the great city of Stornas. Oh, it’s nothing like this. The South is different, so different. You see the sun in the South! It’s where I met my husband, where we had many happy years. Stornas is a most beautiful city, full of possibilities. You’ll see, my lady.’
‘You love your husband.’
Bergit nodded.
‘I see it in your eyes when you look at him, when you talk about him. But if he were killed, lost to you, would you feel so happy about Stornas then? Would you clamour for your new life, or would it make no difference if there was sun or rain or ice or fields to plough?’
It was a good question, and Bergit didn’t know the answer. ‘You say the man you lost is dead? But if that’s the case, you must let him go, for you have a chance to be happy now. You cannot live in the past, my lady. The dead are gone, and if this man truly loved you, he would wish for your happiness.’
Solveigh rolled over. There was nothing to say.
The orange-haired woman didn’t understand. She was just like the rest of them.
Heartless.
Bergit patted her arm. ‘You sleep, then, and perhaps tomorrow we could go for a walk? After the men leave, we’ll need to find something to do, won’t we? A way to take our minds off things.’ Solveigh ignored her, closing her eyes, and smiling, Bergit blew out the lamp and stood. She walked to the other side of the bed, blowing that lamp out too. ‘Everything will be better in the morning,’ she promised the Lady of Orvala. ‘You just need some sleep.’
No one knew what had happened, but as the men started waking up, Stina turned to Eddeth, who was still naked. ‘Go and put on your clothes!’
Eddeth nodded, finally agreeing that there was time to do it.
Grateful to Aldo for retrieving them.
And noticing Aldo for the first time in a while, she grinned at him. ‘You just might be the most sensible boy I’ve ever met. Most boys would have sat down and tried to act like a man, helping themselves to ale, drinking like it’s Solsta. But not you!’ She pulled up her trousers, shivering. ‘You’re a good boy, Aldo Varnass. A very good boy indeed!’
Aldo blushed, bloody face stinging with cuts, too shy to say anything.
‘I could sleep for a year!’ Ollo announced through an enormous yawn. ‘What was in that ale?’ He blinked, peering at the swaying men, struggling to open their eyes. Most looked confused, half asleep, many vomiting. He ran a hand over his face, turning to Eddeth, who was pinning her cloak. ‘Finally! I thought you’d never turn up. Ludo, pass the fish!’
Ludo had just sat down, still dazed, Stina sitting beside him. He stared at Ollo as though he couldn’t hear him.
‘No!’ Eddeth cried, lunging for Ollo, who was about to reach for the tray of smoked fish himself, grabbing his hand. ‘Best we don’t eat anything. It might be poisoned too.’
‘What?’ Sigurd was blinking at Eddeth, head thumping. ‘Poisoned?’ Turning around, he felt confused, wondering what was happening. And then he saw Elfa, tied to the pole, sniffing loudly, Edwin’s dead body beside her, blood everywhere. ‘What happened? Eddeth?’
Eddeth clambered onto the table where Ollo Narp was busy grumbling, not happy having Eddeth’s bare feet where his plate should have been. ‘You’ve all been poisoned! They tried to kill you. I saw it all, I did! Oh, you’re lucky you couldn’t see it. Just so horrible, it was!’
Jonas was wide awake now, wiping his mouth, and he turned to stare at Elfa. ‘What? Who are they?’
‘Servants,’ Eddeth said, wobbling, one foot balancing on a plate of flatbreads. ‘Disgruntled servants. It was all her doing!’ And she pointed a bloody finger at Elfa. ‘She knew about herbs and spells, and she convinced her husband to go along with it. They killed them all! An entire family. All their men too! And they tried to kill you!’
Vik swallowed, feeling foolish. It hadn’t felt right. It hadn’t made sense.
A house this big and no one around but two idiots who didn’t seem to know what they were doing?
&nbs
p; He dropped his head to his hands, kicking himself.
‘But Eddeth saved you,’ Stina smiled. ‘Didn’t you?’
And now Eddeth felt bashful, looking to get down, feeling everyone’s eyes on her. ‘Well, I did, it’s true. But more importantly, you mustn’t touch any food, any ale. Anything! We need to leave this place. Take what we can and leave at dawn. We can’t trust what that witch has done!’
They all turned to look at Elfa, who snarled at Eddeth, pulling at her ropes.
‘Who killed her husband?’ Sigurd wanted to know.
‘Eddeth,’ Aldo said shyly. ‘It was all Eddeth.’
Eddeth turned bright red as she shuffled to the edge of the table.
‘You bitch!’ Elfa screeched. ‘You stinking old bitch! They treated us like slaves! Like nothing! Why shouldn’t we have killed them? Why should they have lived?’
‘What are we going to do about her?’ Ollo wondered, disappointed that they couldn’t eat or drink anything.
Sigurd took a deep breath, convinced that soon he was going to vomit again. He peered at Elfa. ‘For killing all those people? For trying to murder us?’ He stood, unsheathing his sword, and in two steps, he was standing in front of the seething woman. ‘Did you see the bodies, Eddeth? Of their masters?’
Eddeth nodded. ‘I found what’s left of them in the stables. Oh, the smell!’
Sigurd stared at Elfa. ‘There’s nothing for you here, not for a murderess bitch like you. Close your eyes, if you like, for I’m sending you to Vasa’s Cave.’
‘Nooooo!’ Elfa looked horrified as Sigurd took up his position, but there was nothing for her to do, nowhere for her to go, and she screamed as he brought his sword across her throat with a brutish stroke, taking off her head.
Eddeth looked surprised, though not as surprised as Elfa, whose head dropped to the floor, rolling to a stop beside her husband’s body. ‘Well, that was quick. I had a few questions.’
‘Oh, sorry. I thought it best to tidy things up quickly.’
‘Not too quickly,’ Ludo hoped. ‘If we can’t eat anything, we may as well get warm in that steam house again.’
Eddeth jumped down from the table, immediately falling over.
Vik stood, helping her up. ‘You should have the first turn this time,’ he grinned. ‘After all, we’ve just been lying around sleeping while you three have done all the hard work.’
Stina felt relieved, smiling at a pale-faced Ludo, pleased that he was alright.
He reached up a hand, touching her swollen eye, and she flinched. ‘Sorry. I... are you alright?’
Stina shook her head, flustered, standing quickly. ‘She hit me. It’s... fine.’ And moving away, she looked at Eddeth, whose mind was fixed on that steam house again.
‘Well, Aldo Varnass, are you coming?’ Eddeth wondered with a toothy grin. ‘We couldn’t have done it without you!’
Aldo squirmed, staring at the table. ‘I think I’ll wait, Eddeth. I’ll go later.’
Vik laughed at the embarrassed look on the boy’s bloody face. It needed stitching, and being handy with a needle, Vik supposed he may as well give it a go. ‘You go, Eddeth, we’ll bring him with us once we’ve tidied him up. Take your time.’
Eddeth nodded, pleased to see Vik looking so alive again.
All of them. Every last one of them.
And she thought of Valera, smiling as she headed out of the house.
Valera and the gods were on their side, Eddeth could feel it.
Allies.
‘Ake will have more allies than you can imagine,’ Ulrick said, eyes on Bergit, whose hair was flaming in the glow of the fire she’d returned to. She kept staring at him, subtly moving her eyes to the doors. He smiled, wanting to feel her soft skin beneath his hands. He finished his wine, eager to leave Tarl Brava behind, though the lord had rebuffed all other company, hungry to learn what Ulrick knew of the South and the enemies he would eventually face.
‘Because he needs them?’
‘He does, and if you truly have that many men, my lord, he’ll most certainly need them.’
Tarl slapped him on the back. ‘I like you! Not afraid to question me. An ambitious lord needs to be told the truth, even if he doesn’t want to hear it. It’s why I sit on that chair instead of my father.’
Ulrick looked intrigued, his eyes drifting to the throne-like chair perched upon a raised dais.
‘My father killed those who dared warn him of problems. He believed there were none, in the end, because everyone was too afraid to tell him the truth. He didn’t heed the warnings about trouble until it was too late.’
‘So you don’t mind the truth, my lord?’
‘No, I don’t mind it. I will defeat Ake, but I need to know how. He fought a long battle to finish Jorek Vettel. I heard all about it. The Ten Year’s War! But I have no desire to climb a mountain for that long. Ha! I’d be an old man by then. As old as you. Why would I want that?’
Ulrick straightened up, not feeling that old. ‘You can only kill Ake with help, my lord. The South is vast. He can’t defend all of it at once. He doesn’t have the men. If you can make this alliance, you can push forward quickly, outflank him. Crush him. Take Stornas.’
Tarl liked the sound of that. ‘And will I like it, do you think, this Stornas everyone is always talking about?’
‘If you can get there, you will, I’m sure.’
‘If?’
‘Well, as I said, Ake will have more allies than you can imagine, and none more valuable than the Slave Islands.’
‘Which are small and insignificant and hardly a threat to Alekka!’
‘But they have a queen called Jael Furyck. Have you heard of her?’
Tarl shrugged with little interest, though he’d heard all about the woman they called Furia’s daughter.
‘And that queen knows everyone in Osterland. Everyone. So if Ake can convince her to fight with him, she’ll bring Osterland’s might to bear on his side. The King of Brekka, the King of Hest, Iskavall too... so you must be ready, my lord. Mirella is right. You need allies, so whatever you do, you can’t kill them. You must come to an agreement, whether you like the men or not.’
Tarl nodded, though he didn’t feel happy, for his father had always warned him that it was better to make enemies than friends. Though, he realised with a smile, his father was dead because of his own pig-headedness, so perhaps he wasn’t the shining example of how to be a lord. ‘Well, Ulrick Dyre, it looks as though you and I will have plenty to discuss on our journey west. Make sure to find yourself a good horse in the morning, for I want you riding by my side.’
While Eddeth and Stina enjoyed a well-earned rest in the steam house, Sigurd left half his men clearing up the hall, searching for anything useful to take with them, while he took the other half outside.
They made torches, carrying them as they explored the outbuildings, barns and sheds. And then they headed for the stables, where they found a stack of body parts, long decayed. Some bones. Other things they didn’t want to imagine.
Ludo gagged. ‘The poor horses!’ There were eleven horses inside, half-starved and miserable. They’d found another twenty outside, penned in, hungry in the snow.
‘We’ll fire the stables before we go,’ Sigurd decided quickly. ‘Let’s move the horses out. Hopefully, they’re worth saving. We’ll take the strongest ones with us. Set the rest free.’
Jonas nodded, opening the stall doors. The horses, neglected for what looked like weeks, were standing in their own excrement, and he gagged, trying not to vomit again. ‘No wonder I couldn’t smell those bodies, not with the stink of that horseshit! Poor things.’
They hurried to drag the shell-shocked horses out of their stalls, moving them into the secure paddocks.
‘Bastards,’ Vik muttered angrily. ‘What sort of person treats an animal like that?’
‘They didn’t seem like the type to care about much. Except themselves,’ Sigurd grumbled, just as angry. ‘We need to look around, find some grai
n. They must have grain somewhere. Some hay too.’ He felt nauseous. The smell had them all gagging, but it was more than that. Sigurd felt sick that he’d led his men so poorly, so carelessly. Almost to their deaths.
He thought of Reinar, imagining what his brother would say if he were standing before him. Sigurd could see him frowning, growling, telling him to wake up.
And he needed to.
He’d lost Dagger, Falki, and twenty-three men to that serpent and the sea.
And nearly the rest of them at the farmstead.
He was so busy making mistakes that he’d lost sight of what they were trying to achieve. Reinar had sent him to find Alys. Alys and her son.
Sigurd blinked, needing to focus, suddenly worried that they were running out of time.
‘What do you see?’
Arnon came up behind his wife as the sky lightened, wrapping his arms around her.
Alys jumped, eyes on Magnus, who was watching them. She looked away, turning Arnon around. ‘I see ice. It’s coming.’
‘We’ll make it in time, don’t worry. We’ll make it to Orvala.’
Alys wondered what Arnon saw in his own dreams to sound so confident. Was Alari coming to visit? Promising him things? She pulled her cloak around her chest, shivering, which only encouraged Arnon to hold her more closely.
‘And Lotta? What have you seen of her?’
‘Nothing.’
Arnon peered at Alys, his dark-blue eyes oddly piercing in the early morning light. ‘Nothing? How is that possible when you’re a dreamer? Her mother?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve struggled to see anything of Lotta since Ullaberg. Just a few glimpses.’
‘Why?’
He moved even closer, anger in his voice, and Alys tried to think. ‘I don’t know, Arnon. I don’t know. Please.’
