by Kim Wilkins
‘What happened?’ she barked.
‘Three travellers came to the gate. We thought they were pedlars,’ one of the men gasped at her, handing up a bucket of water. Another man took it and water slopped over the edge of the bucket and into Bluebell’s face.
She wiped it off with her sleeve. ‘They set this fire?’
‘With flaming arrows,’ he called, dashing back to the well. ‘Then they ran.’
‘Has someone gone after them?’
He jabbed a finger towards the open gate. Bluebell hurried over, and could see down the slope that two of her guards had a man on the ground, who was shrieking at them in a strange language.
Ærfolc language.
‘Come with me,’ she said to Sal, who followed her down the slope. She stopped where the Ærfolc fellow lay on the ground, and he fell silent when she arrived.
‘Speak our language,’ she said.
‘Rathcruick declares war on Ælmesse!’ he said.
‘Where are your friends?’
‘They got away, my lord,’ the guard said to her. ‘They’re light on their feet.’
She looked the guard up and down; his sash strained across his belly. ‘Hmm.’ Then she returned her attention to the woodlander. ‘Do you have anything else to say?’
‘Rathcruick declares war on Ælmesse!’ he spat. ‘Rathcruick declares war on Blicstowe and Queen Bluebell.’
Bluebell turned and stalked away.
‘Shall we kill him or imprison him?’ the guard called.
‘Let him go. I’m not afraid of him or Rathcruick,’ she said. The fire had been brought under control but it was clear the west gatehouse, only built last year, would have to be repaired, if not replaced.
‘Let him go?’ Sal said, clearly stunned.
Bluebell turned. She did not like Rathcruick. She did not trust Ærfolc and especially not Woodlanders. She already had one bogle charm to her name, and suspected some kind of mischief if she killed or kept the man. ‘This way, he tells Rathcruick we are not afraid.’
She strode back to the square, perfectly sober now and wishing Sighere and Ash were nearby to give good counsel. Rathcruick declaring war? What nonsense was that? What trouble was the petty little chieftain planning?
Within a week, repairs began on the watchtowers. The clouds and fog had lifted to a bright cool day, and Bluebell was running drills with the standing army in the damp fields behind the giants’ ruins. As well as these full-time soldiers, she also commanded another eight hundred in the king’s army: men and women who were ordinarily farmers and brewers and builders and idle sons of merchants, and who trained for two days in every month. Combined at fifteen hundred soldiers, it was the largest and best-equipped army in Thyrsland. The idea of Rathcruick declaring war was ridiculous. He had a tribe of thirty at most. Yet the fires had aroused an itch of worry in the back of her mind that she couldn’t quite scratch away.
The field was divided into quadrants: targets for spears and throwing axes; hand-to-hand combat practice with spears, swords and shields; formation drills; and a muddy corner where the soldiers ran up and down as fast as they could while carrying heavy loads without slipping, dodging stones fired at them from slings. Everyone rotated through the quadrants twice, and Bluebell strode between them, occasionally pushing in to correct someone or to show off: nobody could throw an axe with her precision and strength and part of being a much beloved leader meant provoking slack-jawed admiration from time to time.
She stayed out of the mud, though. She had nothing to prove in the mud. She was born sure-footed. Unlike poor Rose, who had spent her childhood tripping over her own feet. Bluebell smiled thinking about her sister, about the childhood they’d shared. Ash too, although she’d been quiet and conciliatory and hadn’t participated in the violent quarrels.
Bluebell stomped up the slope to the edge of the field and watched from above for a while. Sal was trying very hard to impress her, working with the swordsmen. He held that a good swordsman should be able to graze an opponent’s eyebrow in training with faultless precision, but his training group remained unconvinced. Bluebell had no doubt Sal was able to perform such a feat, but somebody’s eyeballs would be on the grass by the end of the day if he kept insisting. The rest of her hearthband were in among the soldiers. Frida was brilliant with the formation group, commanding shield walls and flanking manoeuvres quickly and tightly, knocking her spear on the helm of anyone who broke the line.
Bluebell was about to give the command for the second last switch for the day when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned, peered at the man picking his way over the puddles in the white stone ruins. He was tall and pinch-faced, and she knew him from somewhere.
‘My lord,’ he said, kneeling before her.
‘Cadwell,’ she said in surprise. ‘Why have you come?’ Cadwell was alderman of Æcstede, a hunting and logging town outside an oak forest half-a-day’s travel north.
He stood. ‘We have trouble,’ he replied, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it.
‘It’s Ærfolc, isn’t it?’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘How did you know?’
‘We had some warning, but didn’t take it seriously. What are they doing, setting fire to things? Pissing in the corners like dogs marking territory?’
He shook his head. ‘We are under attack. They emerge from the forest and we engage them and they simply disappear back into the trees. We have no standing guard and not enough of us to chase them into the forest.’
‘But are they not a small group?’
‘They are a hundred,’ he said, but his eyes flickered.
‘A hundred? You do not sound certain.’
‘I have not seen them,’ he confessed.
Bluebell disdained nothing more than leaders who did not go to war. ‘But your men have seen a hundred?’
‘Some say a hundred.’
‘And some say?’
‘Ten. Twenty.’ He shook his head. ‘All we know is they have killed hunters and loggers, raided homes, and seem to be everywhere at once and then nowhere at all. We need you.’
Rathcruick was not lying then. Ælmesse was under attack. By ten, or twenty, or a hundred men, who emerged and disappeared into the forest.
Ælmesse was under attack.
‘We will mobilise at dawn,’ she said to him. ‘You can ride back with us, join us in battle.’
He rubbed his hip theatrically. ‘I am not fit for war any more.’
Bluebell eyed him reprovingly. The problem was not his hip; it was his heart. ‘I see. Perhaps you can ride back swiftly this evening and tell them we are on our way.’
Bluebell brought Snowy, Gytha and her hearthband to a war meeting in the state room that afternoon. Now she felt Sighere’s absence keenly, and Ash’s too: even without her magic, her sister understood these devils; she could see the pitfalls Bluebell was blind to.
The wind had picked up and bumped the shutters softly. Torchlight flickered around the room and a greasy tallow candle on the table sat at the corner of a vellum map of Æcstede and its surrounds. The town was surrounded on three sides by forest, and many hunters lived inside the forest itself, on plots of wooded land marked out by ancient boundary stones. Neighbours to wolves: they were hard people.
‘We will have to go into the forest after them,’ Bluebell said, pacing the room.
‘They’ll be sitting in trees with bows and arrows,’ Gytha said. ‘They will lay traps.’
‘Or worse, he has something in the forest that we have not seen or even imagined yet,’ Sal said. ‘A troll, maybe.’
‘Trolls have never been seen this far south,’ Frida said.
‘Doesn’t mean they don’t have one.’
Bluebell shushed them. ‘Sal’s right. They may have something lying in wait for us. But we cannot draw them out for they simply won’t come. They will stay in the trees and they will kill more hunters.’ Her eyes flicked to Snowy’s profile. He had been a hunter, unprotected in his little
house in the woods. ‘We have to go in.’
Snowy, who had been staring at the map, looked up at her. ‘Trolls. Arrows. These aren’t your greatest threats. You know what he will try to do.’
Bluebell did know. ‘If he draws us into his side of the forest, at least we can defeat him there. And if we are not back in three days, you send for Rowan to get us out.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Hregen asked.
‘Rathcruick has the power to open and control crossings,’ Snowy explained. ‘Stone monuments that you may not even see until you are upon them.’
‘How do we go in safely then, my lord?’ Gytha asked.
‘You aren’t coming,’ Bluebell said. ‘You’ll stay here and take charge of the city again.’
‘But I could come this time. It’s only a few days away.’
‘No. I’m not making your babe motherless.’
‘I’m strong as I ever was.’
‘No,’ Bluebell said, more forcefully, and Gytha glowered at her. ‘And as for how we do it safely? War isn’t safe. But I’ll take four hundred with me.’
‘Four hundred?’ Frida said.
‘Yes, and whether that’s four for each of their warriors or forty, I do not care. We will smash him and his tribe to pulp, and that will be the end of Rathcruick. We may not be sneaking scoundrels like them, but we are many and we have the sturdiest shields and the strongest spears and the fastest feet.’
Snowy was shaking his head. ‘But, Bluebell, maybe that is his game. Trap you in the woods and come for Blicstowe.’
‘Yes, yes. Maybe it is his game. But we are talking about Ærfolc here. There will be half an army left here still … even with only our walls we can keep out the Ærfolc for a week or more, if they could organise themselves to lay siege. Say Rathcruick does have a hundred. Say he managed to drum up support from some of the others. They will dash their brains against the walls of Blicstowe for days and get nowhere. And by then, Rowan will have us out.’
Snowy opened his mouth to speak again, but Bluebell quieted him with a tiny shake of her head. He knew better than to gainsay her in front of her hearthband.
She turned to the others. ‘Sal, take my thanes and go and find me my four hundred. Older warriors, less likely to get spooked. Organise them into bands and tell them to be ready to march at first light. Gytha, go home and get some sleep: you look wretched. Get that babe off your tits so your husband can give it calf’s milk at night. I need to sit here and think about formations for woodland fighting. Father took me on a few small campaigns, nothing like these numbers.’
One by one they left, Gytha pointedly slamming the door, leaving only Snowy. He came to her and stilled her pacing with two strong hands on her shoulders. ‘Do not underestimate Rathcruick.’
‘Four hundred men is not underestimating him.’ She smiled. ‘Do you think he has a troll, too?’
Snowy laughed. ‘I don’t like you going to battle.’
‘That’s as foolish as not liking a dog for licking its balls. Going into battle is what I do, Snowy.’
‘I know.’
‘At least it’s close. A day or two, Woodlanders crushed into the undergrowth, and I’ll be home again. What is he thinking, Snowy? What is going on under those ridiculous blackberry twigs he wears? He cannot possibly think he can defeat me.’
His eyes went to the bogle axe, which she now wore at her belt.
‘Something unexpected. That’s what Niamma said.’ She kept it close for fear that any further attempts to get rid of it would see it found buried in her husband’s skull one night. ‘Snowy, I have no choice. Ælmesse is under attack. Good families who pay their taxes to us to protect them are being killed. I must go.’
‘I know.’
‘Two days. If there is no word from us, then ride directly to Druimach and get Rowan.’
‘I will.’ He touched her beloved cheek. ‘Take all care.’
‘Oh yes,’ Bluebell said. ‘I will be marching into that forest with my eyes wide open.’
Skalmir didn’t watch the army withdraw from the city at dawn. He had heard them, a subdued hubbub of voices and ringing armour where they had gathered in the city square. The standing army all lived in the upper quarter of the city, their houses provided for them by the king. Snowy knew he had no place when Bluebell was organising her army. He had learned to let her go and be without her, to stifle his fears. He lay in bed and closed his eyes, maybe even dozed a little longer. Then he heard the gates open, the withdrawing feet, the clanging as the gates closed again.
He rose, dressed, and went to the hall kitchen to find some breakfast. The cooks always had porridge or fresh flat cakes for those in the family compound. Today’s cook, a tiny little woman named Saxa who had taken far too much of a shine to him, loaded his plate with cheese and oatcakes and cold meat until he had to still her wrist to make her stop. She giggled, and he gladly left her behind to sit in a corner of the hall and eat, while two guards leaned against the door talking softly to each other about how they wished they’d been called to the battle today.
Then he whistled to Thrymm and headed to town. He was overseeing the rethatching of some of the poorer houses in the western-most parts. The day did not warm. He trudged home in the middle of the day only to find the square deep in commotion. From the army houses, soldiers were emerging, saying goodbyes to tearful wives and uncomprehending children. The clink of mail and the march of feet for the second time this day; only a few hours after Bluebell departed. But this was the remains of the standing army, and Skalmir wondered what had happened to make them assemble.
Up at the huge round stone that marked the centre of the square, Gytha was shouting orders. Skalmir’s blood cooled. Something wasn’t right.
‘Gytha,’ he called, pushing his way through the soldiers. ‘Gytha, what is happening?’
‘We had word this morning that Rathcruick and his army are attacking from the south,’ she said. ‘Directly out of the wood that surrounds Delgar. They’ve set fire to the village and are heading this way.’
‘But that is in the opposite direction to Æcstede.’
‘Do you not see? This was the trick that Rathcruick set us up for,’ Gytha said, raising her voice over the clang of weapons and shields. ‘He caused some trickery that made them see a hundred men when there were only ten, to lure Bluebell and half the army out of town so they could attack us from the other direction. Delgar is only two hours from here, one and a half if we push hard.’
‘How many are you taking?’
‘Four hundred. It’s the number Bluebell took.’
‘But that will leave us unprotected.’
Gytha turned her face to him with an exasperated expression. ‘You heard Bluebell last night. Our walls can keep a tiny Ærfolc army out, and I’m bringing a hundred from the king’s reserve up here in case. I will be a matter of hours away. We will return by nightfall or sooner if we hear you are in trouble.’ She laughed. ‘Triumphant in war. Maybe Bluebell will take me seriously again.’
Skalmir opened his mouth to protest again, but she held up a sturdy finger.
‘Snowy, you are much loved, but you are not a soldier, and you are not a member of Bluebell’s war band. This is my decision to make and I am doing precisely what your wife would do. They are only Ærfolc.’ Her eyes roamed over the assembling army. ‘Ah, it feels good to be in the world again.’
‘Back by nightfall?’ he said.
‘I am certain of it. We will need a warm place to drink to our victory. I’m leaving Wigar at the front gatehouse in charge. He will alert you if there is anything to worry about. Go about your day. And let me get about mine, yes? I have an army to organise.’
Skalmir stepped back as she pushed past him. She seemed to be relishing the role of being a war leader, after being stuck home with a baby.
‘Don’t trust Rathcruick!’ Skalmir called after her.
She raised her hand but didn’t turn around. ‘Well, obviously. He is our enemy.’
/> Go about your day. Bluebell had said it to him often enough, and often enough he’d submerged his worry and got on with life. But this time, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t push it all the way down.
Nine
Along the Giant Road between Blicstowe and Æcstede, Bluebell’s army drew much attention. First rode the king, in her helm and byrnie and sash, with her hearthband and her war dog. Then came line upon line of soldiers on foot. Behind them, the stewards and the pack horses and the carts full of supplies, rattling over the flagstones. Everyone had to get out of their way: travelling merchants, lone riders, messengers, families in carts. Some scowled, while some cheered or threw flowers. Wherever they stopped to rest, folk would come to talk to them. Some were fleeing Æcstede, telling Bluebell in frightened or grateful voices about the marauding crowds of red-haired warriors, their faces painted with woad, setting fire to houses in the woods. Some were on their way for business or work, shrugging and saying they thought there were only about six or seven of the attackers, and then eyeing the size of the army in surprise.
Bluebell realised she had no idea what was waiting for them, but she was looking forward to shedding blood nonetheless.
They marched into town around noon and Alderman Cadwell was there to greet her with his standing guard of twenty men. On either side of the small town square stood tall wooden buildings, some oiled and some cracked and splitting against the weather. Her warriors crammed into the small space. Around her, Bluebell could hear shutters opening as curious people came to their windows to stare. The oak woods surrounded the town on three sides, apart from the wide road cut between them. Beside was an empty agistment field and within the woods were hunting tracks and clearings for skinning and trap-making. Bluebell had tried to memorise these, but Sal had the map in his pack too.
An hour passed in organisation. Horses taken to stables, packs loaded, weapons checked and leaders designated. Cadwell pointed out where the Ærfolc most commonly emerged and escaped, and Bluebell led three hundred and eighty-nine soldiers into the forest.
