by Kim Wilkins
‘No, which is why we are leaving so quickly. Before she changes her mind.’
‘She won’t change her mind.’
‘Well, she should change her mind,’ he grumbled. ‘This isn’t a time I ought to be leaving her.’
Ash grasped his rough hand and squeezed it hard. ‘No. Shh. Bluebell is the most capable person I know. She doesn’t need you. I need you.’
He bent down to kiss her cheek, and said softly against her ear, ‘And I need you.’ Then he straightened, and turned back towards the stables. ‘Come along then. A live horse awaits you, my lady.’
Ash turned to follow him, but then her perception rubbed against the edge of something. She paused, closed her eyes. Wraith was nearby, but behind a veil; the veil that ordinary people never even felt. Ash had once seen behind it with ease, commanded its creatures. Now all was closing down, coming to an end. It was a kind of death, and though it may have been brought on by comfort and love, still she mourned it. What was there for her now? To become Sighere’s wife, have little plump-limbed children? Her heart warmed to the idea so readily, but her soul stirred restlessly like a storm stirs the sea.
That is not all I am.
‘Coming, Ash?’
She opened her eyes. Sighere had stopped ten yards away and was considering her curiously. ‘Coming,’ she said brightly, and ran to catch up with him. She grasped his hand.
‘To the seaside, then?’ he said lightly.
‘Yes,’ she replied, leaving the impression of the phantom horse behind her. That which she had been perhaps was no more. Wraith was no longer hers and it was time to embrace an ordinary life.
No matter what the restless sea said.
Bluebell had been clear: nobody else was to touch ‘that thing’, as she’d insisted on calling the bogle charm. Skalmir had watched with his own eyes as, wrapped in her green dressing gown, hair wet and dripping, muttering and swearing, Bluebell had lowered the axe into the wooden box that had once held a pair of gold cups (a wedding gift from Lyteldyke: she’d cast the cups onto the rushes as if they were worth nothing), and snapped together the box-locks on either end. Only then had she handed it to Skalmir. ‘Take it immediately to Cuthbert Arrowfoot. Tell him I will pay him double if it leaves Blicstowe for Druimach now and gets to Niamma the Arse-Pain before she leaves for whatever wilderness will put up with her.’
On his return, Skalmir walked into the firelit room, Bluebell dropped her green robe and then he had his hands full of her skin and hair and there was nothing else for a little while but their favourite welcome home.
But afterwards, as she sat naked and cross-legged, brushing out her long fair hair, she said, ‘You were saying something about Cuthbert when you came back.’
‘He demanded triple.’ Skalmir smiled as he remembered Cuthbert asking if Bluebell would have his bollocks for agreeing. There were those who believed that Bluebell must have emasculated him completely. He didn’t care what they thought, for he knew the truth. His wife was as fair-minded and as devoted to family as she was fierce and agile in battle. He certainly didn’t tell Cuthbert that when Bluebell had his bollocks, it was only ever in the nicest imaginable way.
‘I knew he would. I suppose you said yes.’
Skalmir nodded. ‘You wanted it gone.’
‘That I did.’ She stood and stretched and picked up her robe. Skalmir, wrapped in a blanket, admired her lean, muscular body. As always, he cringed to think of the many and varied ways she had acquired her scars. ‘I would have said yes too.’ She squatted next to the fireplace and fed it a log. ‘Damn autumn,’ she muttered. ‘Gets colder every year.’
He watched her as she stoked the fire, made sure the new log had air to catch, then came back to bed. She sighed with happiness as she lay back among the blankets and cushions.
Then froze.
‘What is it?’ Skalmir asked.
She reached under the cushion beneath her head. ‘There is something under …’
And pulled out the bogle axe.
‘Snowy?’
He stared at the thing in horror. ‘It was in the box,’ he said. ‘Cuthbert shook it. I heard it. It should be miles away.’
‘It’s here.’
A silence as they both considered the axe.
‘Well, then,’ she said. ‘It looks like it’s mine to keep.’
Six
Mid-afternoon on a rare windless day, and Rose sat with Rowan by the fire, both of them stitching blue thread onto either edge of Linden’s cloak. For his part, Linden sat staring at the fire, bewitched by it, as though he’d never seen a fire before. Heath was out, taking a final few meetings before the tribal assembly moved on in two days.
‘Your stitching is very neat for somebody more used to bows and arrows,’ Rose said, admiring her daughter’s handiwork.
‘Many, many, many hours with Marjory nagging me. In the end, I learned how to do it well to shut her up.’
‘Ah, yes. What do you think of Wengest’s new wife?’ Rose wondered why on earth she should feel a twinge of jealousy. She had not been happy in her marriage to Wengest.
‘Hardly new. Isn’t it four years or so now? Her spots have finally cleared up. Why, she might even be twenty by now.’
Rose winced. ‘She was too young to be married.’
‘The younger we are the less we complain, I suspect. How old were you when you married Wengest?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Too old, you see. Old enough to know you needed more. How soon after did you start to long for Heath?’
Rose felt herself on unsteady ground at this question. ‘It was – I did love Wengest. Or at least I thought I did. He was not cruel to me, until I betrayed him.’
Rowan shrugged as though it was no concern to her. Her head bent forward and her red hair fell over her face as she edged up the hem of the cloak. ‘Four years with Marjory, and no babies. He’s at his wit’s end, you know. A trimartyr king needs a male heir.’
Rose glanced at Linden.
‘You and Heath have had no more children,’ Rowan observed.
‘I fell pregnant shortly after coming to Druimach,’ Rose said, remembering those dark days. ‘Gave birth to a dead, half-formed child in my first winter. The poor wee thing never even drew a breath, tiny as a doll. Since then, I haven’t been pregnant again.’
‘Not for want of trying,’ Rowan said with a smile in her voice.
Rose’s face went instantly warm. ‘Rowan!’
Rowan laughed. ‘It’s nice to know that passion exists in old age, Mama.’
‘Old age!’
Rowan was laughing again, and Rose laughed with her, and then the door of the house opened and Heath was there with a figure in a grey cloak. Rowan dropped her work and stood up with a gasp.
‘Someone has come to see you,’ Heath said, before the figure pushed back her hood and was revealed to be a willowy woman with long brown hair, a thin face and a turned-up nose.
‘Annis!’ Rowan cried, and ran to her.
But Annis stood back, holding out her hands in a stop gesture, and would not accept Rowan’s attempt to embrace her. ‘Please. I’m not here for … I’m not here to … be with you.’
Rose could see Rowan’s face, and her expression of disbelief and desperation caused a twinge of pain in Rose’s chest. To see her daughter’s heart broken was almost more than she could endure. She set the sewing aside and stood, then went to Rowan and slid an arm around her back.
‘You must be Rose,’ Annis said. ‘I can see your resemblance to …’ She gestured to Rowan as though saying her name hurt.
‘Why have you come to us?’ Rose said, trying and failing to keep her anger from colouring her voice.
Heath, not as attuned to the heartbreak of adolescent girls, told everybody to sit down so he could shut out the cold, and they’d talk it over by the fire. Annis said hello to Linden, and Rose sat protectively beside her daughter.
Annis removed her gloves and reached her hands towards the fire. ‘Ever
ything is awful,’ she said. ‘Wulfgar is making me go away to study in Thriddastowe as punishment for … us.’
‘Thriddastowe is the other side of Thyrsland,’ Heath noted suspiciously.
‘Yes, well. I’ve run away. I have an aunt in Stanstowe. I hope she’ll take me in.’
‘I could come with you,’ Rowan said. ‘We could –’
But Annis was already shaking her head. ‘No. I don’t know how to tell you this but … it wasn’t love for me. Or at least I don’t think so. When you went, I didn’t miss you as much as I missed the fact that we had upset Wulfgar.’ Annis rolled her eyes. ‘He is such a stick-in-the-mud.’
Rose squeezed Rowan’s hand. ‘So why come here?’ she asked.
‘To warn you,’ Annis said. ‘Wengest turned up looking for you. Of course. And Wulfgar, because he wants to have his revenge on both of us, told him you’d headed for Druimach.’
Rose’s heart chilled over. The light around her seemed to warp and become too bright.
Rowan gasped. ‘How did Wulfgar know I came to Druimach?’
‘I told him. I complained that he had driven you out to the wilds among the Ærfolc, where you had relatives. I told him nothing more. He doesn’t know about …’ Here Annis pointed at Heath and Rose. ‘But Wengest is almost certain to turn up here though I don’t know when. He has a full retinue so he’s running much slower than I could.’
Rose climbed to her feet, her knees shaking. ‘You silly, insensitive girl,’ she said to Annis through gritted teeth.
‘Mama, you’ll have to go,’ Rowan said. ‘With Linden.’
The desolation washed over Rose. It was true. She had to go. She couldn’t have both her children together in the same place. Ever.
Annis looked between them, the tilt of her mouth saying for certain she didn’t like being called a silly, insensitive girl.
Heath dropped his forehead into his hand. ‘This is really very bad.’
Linden stood up and took Rose’s hand as though he understood.
‘We will go to Yldra,’ Rose said. ‘And stay until you have left for Blicstowe.’ Midwinter, Bluebell had said. Miserable autumn days and long cold nights. Curse Annis. Curse Wengest.
Then she looked down at Linden and tried not to squeeze his hand so tight. She would not lose this one. He wouldn’t survive without her.
Heath raised his head. ‘I’ll have a horse and a cart made ready for immediate departure. It’s too far for Linden to ride and I want him hidden in the back anyway. And you can take the south road. If Wengest is coming from Lyteldyke he’s coming on the north road. It’s more direct.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Annis said, as though anyone might be listening to her.
Rowan crouched down in front of Linden. ‘You can find things, Linden. If Mama needs help finding things, you draw her a map, all right?’
‘No, no,’ Rose said. ‘Don’t ask him to do that. He’s not a magic charm. He’s a little person in his own right.’
But Linden released Rose’s hand and went running off to the bower. Heath slammed out of the house on his way to organise their transport, leaving Rowan, Annis and Rose.
‘What is going on?’ Annis asked.
Rowan opened her mouth to answer but Rose spoke over her. ‘Family business, and none of your concern. And if you have any conscience about the way you have treated my daughter, you will not mention any of it to anyone. Least of all Wengest.’
‘Mama,’ Rowan said gently. ‘She didn’t know. At least we’ve been warned.’
Linden came rattling back in then, with his box of maps and inks and paper under his arm. ‘Come then, Linden,’ Rose said, forcing a bright tone. ‘We will go and see your great aunt Yldra. Remember Yldra?’ Rose had only visited once since she left four years ago, and she felt a twinge of guilt. ‘She will be so delighted to see how big you’ve grown.’
Linden sat down, the box protectively stored under his knees. Although he was seven, his muteness made him seem younger. His littleness tapped on her heart, and she realised that she could not bear to lose another child. Her spirit would finally break.
Whatever happened, Wengest mustn’t find them.
In the end, Rose managed to pack all she needed in one canvas bag. A change of clothes for her and for Linden, some food and water, her sewing kit and a folded piece of blue cloth she had been saving to make a shirt. There would be long hours at Yldra’s house; time enough to do something useful.
She had placed the bag in the cart and was checking the ropes that secured the cover, when Rowan appeared beside her, placed a long white hand over hers.
‘Mama, I will miss you.’
Rose felt the corners of her mouth turn down. ‘It is so unfair,’ she said. ‘I only just got you back.’
Rowan fell into her arms and Rose closed her eyes and squeezed her hard. ‘Oh, my beautiful daughter,’ she said, breathing in the clean scent of her hair.
‘I will miss you. And Linden. My little brother.’
‘I’m sure he will miss you too.’
‘I love him,’ Rowan said. ‘I love his little face, though it’s identical to Wengest’s. I’ve never seen a child look so much like his father.’
Rose released Rowan and stood back, only to see Linden standing a few feet away, staring at them. Her skin flushed warm. Had he heard what Rowan said about Wengest? He knew nothing about his father, and because he didn’t speak there had never been any questions to answer. She’d assumed he thought Heath his father.
‘Hello, darling,’ Rose said. ‘Are you ready?’
If there were any questions on the child’s mind, they never made it to his lips. Clutching his box of maps against his chest, he shuffled forward and pressed himself against Rose’s side.
Rowan mouthed the word, ‘Sorry,’ and Rose waved it away. It would be all right. Surely.
Heath approached from the stables with the portly ginger-haired driver who would take them to Yldra’s.
Rowan impulsively leapt forward for another hug, then stepped back and nodded once. ‘Goodbye, Mama. I hope to see you again soon.’
Linden tugged on her sleeve. She picked him up and helped him into the cart. Heath leaned in to give the boy a kiss, then gave another to Rose.
‘Take all care, my love,’ he said.
‘You too,’ she replied.
An hour after Annis had arrived with her terrible news, they were away. Rose watched Heath and Rowan standing side by side until the horse and cart crested the hill, and the road east opened up ahead of them.
Annis stayed only one night, keen to be on her way to Stanstowe. Rowan endured her presence stoically, awkwardly. Annis seemed like a different girl from the one she had known so intimately, the one she had laughed with until she gasped for air, the one she had loved. Or thought she had loved.
Rowan and Heath saw her to the stable, where her mount was being readied for the remainder of her journey. The air smelled of horse dung and approaching rain.
‘Thank you,’ Rowan said. ‘For warning us about Wengest, I mean.’
Annis pulled on her gloves. ‘The least I could do given how … close we were.’ She touched the hem of Rowan’s sleeve. ‘I will keep your secrets if you will keep mine.’
‘Agreed,’ Rowan said.
Then she stood back as Annis climbed onto her horse and urged it off and away. Rowan watched her until she disappeared over the rise, out towards the city gate. When she turned around, Heath was considering her.
‘What?’
‘Would you like advice?’
‘On love? From you?’ The questions came out a little terser than she’d intended.
‘It’s the fatherly thing to do,’ he said, and he smiled and she couldn’t help but smile in return.
‘Go on then.’
‘You are smarter, stronger and kinder than her. It never would have lasted. You were not well matched.’
Rowan hid her grin. ‘You only saw her for a few hours.’
‘We elderly folk are good
judges of character.’ Here he put his hand on his back and crooked his neck forward in an exaggerated caricature of age. ‘Trust me.’
Rowan laughed. Heath had only a few strands of silver in his golden hair, and was handsome even to her own eyes. She knew why her mother had fallen in love with him. Good looks and a good heart.
The sky was grey and blue, weak shoots of sunshine between clouds, not too windy. Rowan turned her eyes upwards. ‘I think I will walk a while. I don’t feel like being cooped up in the house.’
‘Don’t get lost amid the chaos of the tribes packing up,’ he said. ‘And if anyone approaches you about the treaty, or Renward, or even Bluebell –’
‘I will be the most perfect diplomat you can imagine,’ Rowan said. ‘Don’t worry.’
She set off in the direction Annis had taken, away from the town and down the deep grassy slope. Rain and fallen leaves had made the narrow path muddy and slick, so she wound down in her own pattern, the damp grass making her hem wet, until she reached the white markers at the edge of the sacred grove. Here she turned and began to walk the curving path around it, the one that led eventually to the stony track out of Gwr-y-Llorcyrn territory. Only then did she let herself cry. Silently, with shaking breath and trembling hands. She had the terrible feeling she had lost something or was yet to find something or that time was slipping away under her feet, making every step precarious …
Voices up ahead made her stop in her tracks. She quickly palmed the tears from her face and set her chin. Around the bend came four people: one Rowan recognised as Niamma, the leader of the Wildwalkers.
‘Well met!’ Niamma said, with what appeared to be genuine warmth. ‘And allow me to present to you my brother, Albi.’ Then she said something to Albi in their own language, and heard her name. Albi was no more than ten or eleven, slight and round-eyed.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Rowan said with a smile.
Niamma turned to the men who accompanied them, and issued an order. They led Albi away ahead of them, leaving Niamma behind with Rowan on the path.
