by Kim Wilkins
Footsteps hurried away outside.
Rowan took two steps to the shutter and threw it open. In the dark, the retreating figure of a woman. A very, very old woman in a long black cloak.
‘Hoy!’ she called.
The woman stopped for a moment, glanced back and gave her a hideous grin. Rowan’s stomach turned over. Then the woman kept running, alarmingly fast for her advanced years.
Rowan closed the shutter, thought about telling Heath. But then decided perhaps it was some mad village woman who hated the ruling family. If she came back Rowan would have her arrows ready. An old woman was not much of an adversary.
She slid once more into her bed and closed her eyes, her heart thudding loudly in her ears. The old woman had seemed familiar, somehow. At the back of Rowan’s mind was a rub of recognition, but it would not spark to life.
Twelve
The pull from the west was growing.
Autumn dawn, yellow gold on the edge of the world, greeted Ash as she rose after a night dipping in and out of half-remembered dreams. She shut the door to her bower and took the path from the garden, following her ears to the sea. Along this rough path, copper beech and blackberry thorns grew. She spied the last few wild blackberries along the way and picked them to eat; one was sour and she spat it out, but the taste stayed in her mouth. She could hear robins in the hedges, and further away the strange, sad cries of seagulls. Ash made her way down onto the rocky strip where the waves beat out their endless rhythm. Here she stood, the sun rising in a cloudless sky, and tried to find calm in her mind.
Time passed. A sound behind her drew her attention. Sighere.
‘I thought I might find you here,’ he said, moving towards her and slipping his arm around her waist.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said.
A few moments passed in silence as they watched the withdrawing tide. Then they both spoke at the same time.
‘I would like to marry you,’ said Sighere, while Ash said, ‘Can we go further west?’
Reluctant, hopeful questions.
Each looked at the other with a puzzled smile, and once again they spoke at the same time.
‘Yes.’
As soon as she knew she would be heading west, the agitation in Ash’s body and mind settled. She felt hopeful and calm enough to imagine a lifetime with Sighere. He would be away a lot. Would she worry about him at war? Perhaps they could have a house near the sea. Would there be children? Life unfolded in front of her, simply and happily.
At breakfast they sat at the heavy wooden table in Uncle Robert’s long half-stone, half-wood house, and Ash burbled out the news over her porridge.
‘Sighere and I are to marry,’ she said.
Uncle Robert froze with his spoon halfway to his lips. He hadn’t yet combed his thick, white hair and it was rough and spiky. ‘You are? What will your sister the queen think?’
Aunt Myrtle, who made no secret of her permanent impatience with the daughters of Robert’s sister – even Bluebell – shot to her feet and clapped her hands together. ‘A wedding!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s about time you were married. All your sisters have been. Weddings are such happy occasions.’
Then there was a half-moment of uncomfortable silence as everyone remembered that Willow had married the Crow King of Is-hjarta.
Sighere broke the silence. ‘We are also heading away today, a little further west.’
Uncle Robert kept eating his porridge wordlessly. Ash had no idea why he didn’t like Sighere. It would be good to get away.
Myrtle sat down again. ‘You must wait until after the winter to wed,’ she said. ‘If your mother was here she’d tell you so. Wait for the spring. Winter marriages are always unhappy marriages.’
‘We married in winter,’ Uncle Robert said.
Myrtle continued as though she hadn’t heard. ‘Your mother would be so happy for you, Ash. You were her bonniest baby. She told me so.’
‘Is that right?’ Ash couldn’t help but smile.
‘Oh yes, she said Bluebell would never sleep and Rose was always crying to be picked up. But you were smiley and patient.’
Ash almost laughed. Could their personalities have been set so early in their lives? She couldn’t even imagine Bluebell as a baby. She had memories enough of her as a child, but she had always been four years older and tall and strong. And, yes, always in motion.
As if reading her thoughts, Robert said, ‘I wonder if your sister the king will be as happy as Myrtle.’
Sighere glanced at him, and Ash could see in his expression he had wondered the same.
‘She will be happy for both of us,’ Ash interjected. ‘For me as her sister, and for Sighere, as her most valued thane.’
‘What’s your family?’ Robert said to Sighere, and now Ash understood. Uncle Robert was always too concerned with provenance. Rose had married a king (not that it had worked out); Ivy had married a duke (who had died … suspiciously); even Willow had married into a ruling dynasty (of monsters). Bluebell had married a hunter, but as king herself she could marry where she pleased.
‘I’m the second son of –’
‘Sighere is from a good family,’ Ash interrupted. ‘But that is not why I will marry him. I am free to marry for love.’
An awkward silence settled. Myrtle did not look at Robert, and Robert did not look at Myrtle, and Ash gave thanks that her marriage would not be an unhappy one like theirs.
‘And we will marry in autumn,’ Ash said, enjoying speaking her mind. ‘I see no reason to wait.’
From further within the house there now rose a commotion. Dogs barking, urgent voices. Robert put down his spoon and rose to investigate, but was only halfway to the door when it flew open and a young messenger burst in and declared, ‘Robert of Fengyrd, I bear bad tidings from Æcstede. From the alderman there.’
‘Æcstede?’ Sighere said.
Cold dread crept over Ash’s skin. ‘What has happened?’ she demanded, climbing to her feet.
‘Blicstowe has fallen,’ the messenger said.
Ash heard nothing more. Both Sighere and Uncle Robert were barking questions at the messenger, who could barely keep himself from sobbing. Ash’s ears rang and the room seemed to swell around her. Blicstowe has fallen. She hadn’t known. She hadn’t felt it before or after. Home of my father and his ancestors, home of the king. Home of thousands of innocents. Already preparations were being made, people began rushing in and out of the room. Sighere wore a mask of pained guilt and fear.
Blicstowe has fallen.
‘Ash?’ This was Sighere, shaking her gently.
She blinked, as though waking from a dream. ‘Blicstowe has fallen?’ she managed. ‘How? To whom?’
‘Hakon and Willow.’
Ash opened her mouth but no words came out.
‘We have to leave. Now,’ Sighere said.
She nodded, feeling the west dragging at her spirit as she was constrained once more to resist it. It wasn’t time for that now. It was time to face a new horror, one that had never been imaginable.
Of all the fuckery that boiled like rage and fear in Bluebell’s blood at this moment, Gytha’s panic about her baby was the thing that made her want to tear somebody’s head off.
‘Yes, Gytha,’ Bluebell said for the eleventh time in the hour since they had met in the forest. ‘We all have those that we love in Blicstowe. Now explain how you ended up in these woods.’
Through tears, with the help of her second-in-command, Gytha got the story out. They hadn’t meant to come to the same woods. They’d gone to Delgar, miles south of here. Marched right past one of those ancient dolmens that gave Bluebell the creeps. And run into Bluebell.
Her entire army, lost in a fucking forest, while the Ærfolc attacked Blicstowe.
‘Now hush about your baby,’ Bluebell said. ‘They are only Ærfolc. They are tricksters and mischief-makers rather than conquerors.’
‘They will set fire to the city.’
‘And somebody will put it o
ut.’ Bluebell wanted to tell Gytha that little Bless was safely with Gytha’s husband, a long way from the town square. If anyone got into Blicstowe, the first place they’d start shedding blood and setting fires was in the family compound. Where Snowy was.
Then the helplessness rolled over her as she realised she had no idea what was happening to time: would she be one hundred when she left? Or would she still be young and Snowy have become an old man? What of her city, her people?
Gytha, with an effort that made her shake, pulled her feelings under control. Bluebell summoned Frida and Sal, leaving Hroth and Hregen in charge of the combined armies, and took them down a rocky slope between the trees where they could speak without being heard. Gytha’s panic had been noticed, and panic in a leader was contagious. Many of the soldiers were wondering and worrying about what would happen next. ‘We need to get out,’ she said again. ‘I will listen to any ideas.’
But as she said this, the light dramatically changed. The sun, which had been hanging directly over them for hours, had moved to the horizon in the space between one blink and the next. Long shadows fell across them. The air cooled so rapidly that Bluebell’s skin rose in gooseflesh.
‘What is happening?’ Frida asked.
‘The trap is open,’ Bluebell said breathlessly, starting to run up the hill. ‘Everybody run for town.’
She crested the hill, began to shout. ‘Every one of you. Run back towards Æcstede. The trap has opened. Get out while you can.’
The clank and jingle of weapons and mail followed in the wake of her words. Bluebell sped ahead with Hyld at her heels, back the way they had come. The whisper of doubt: what if this was another of Rathcruick’s tricks? But Bluebell preferred to act rather than think, and so she led her army, out of formation, back through the trees towards the town.
Her heart was thundering as she burst out of the woods ten minutes later, but she had no time to rejoice in being free. For laid out in front of her, in the field of rough pasture, was a sight she had never thought to see in her life.
Hundreds upon hundreds of people, sitting on damp blankets, with their crying children and their hungry dogs …
‘What?’ she managed.
Then a middle-aged man at the edge of the field saw her and stood and began to shout. ‘Where were you?’ he called, and even from this distance, even with her soldiers noisily being spat out of the woods around her, she could hear the hurt and the fear in his voice. ‘Where were you?’
Bluebell was rooted to the spot.
Sal gently grasped her elbow. ‘My lord?’
‘What has happened?’ The fear, the shame, had completely taken over her body, for she knew what had happened; she simply couldn’t bear to articulate it.
Alderman Cadwell, who had been giving orders to a group of guardsmen at the edge of the crowd, marched towards her. Bluebell wanted to turn and run. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
‘My lord, you should come with me. We have much to discuss and I fear for your safety here. There is much anger among the refugees.’
Bluebell tried to say, ‘Refugees?’ but her mouth was too dry.
‘These people have fled from Blicstowe, which has fallen,’ he said quickly, perceiving how difficult the news would be for her to hear. ‘You have been trapped in the woods for nearly five days.’
Five days?
Still, none of it was sinking in. ‘Blicstowe has fallen?’ she said. While I was her king? ‘But how did Ærfolc –’
‘It wasn’t Ærfolc. They merely lured you into the woods,’ he said grimly. ‘Blicstowe has fallen to raiders, my lord. To your sister, the Crow Queen.’
Bluebell could not succumb to despair, at least not yet. She was in the alderman’s meeting room in his hall, a cramped space with whitewashed wood panelling and heavy wooden furniture that scraped and creaked as everyone sat down around the table: Cadwell, his advisors, Bluebell and her hearthband.
Later, the moment she was alone, she would allow herself to feel the horror and the shame. King after king had held Blicstowe, since the time of the giants, and it had prospered and grown strong. Within four years of her ascending the throne, it had fallen.
Numbly, she pushed the thought aside. She needed information. She needed to start working on a solution.
First, the problem of the refugees, who filled the agistment field but also the town square. Even though thousands still remained in Blicstowe, these people from the poor areas had run through the open back gate as soon as the raiders had passed towards her hall. Most had suffered the loss of loved ones. They had flown with only the clothes on their backs. Cadwell had acquisitioned resources for them but they were not enough. Bluebell set out plans for every other town in Ælmesse to give up oilskins and grain, and ran messengers to leave immediately with overnight orders. She also set up war bands to manage both groups, because already the citizens of Æcstede had expressed concern that they would be robbed or overrun. Bluebell knew that desperate people could act in desperate ways.
Then it was time to discuss military plans for the recovery of the city. Bluebell felt sick. She had to force her voice to be strong for never in her life had she imagined she would have to make such plans. She had begun to draw a map of the city’s fortifications in charcoal on the tabletop when a tall woman, one of Cadwell’s guards, came to the doorway, rapping hard on the threshold.
‘My lords,’ she said. ‘An envoy from the Crow Queen has come.’
Bluebell shot from her seat, hot rage making her hand twitch to the pommel of her sword. ‘Send them in.’
‘He will speak with Queen Bluebell and no other, and it will be alone.’
Bluebell glanced at Sal, who nodded. Of course she would not be alone with Willow’s envoy: within moments four members of her hearthband were hidden under benches, in cupboards, behind doors. Of all the stupid mistakes she had made today – this week – being assassinated would not be one of them.
‘All of you, out!’ Bluebell commanded the remaining people. ‘I would speak with my sister’s messenger.’
The room cleared quickly, and Bluebell sat behind the table, her eyes on the doorway. A few moments later, a tall man with his face hidden by a hood was accompanied into the room then left. Bluebell recognised his gait and posture instantly, and her gut clenched in rage.
‘Hakon,’ she said.
‘How did you know?’ Hakon said, pushing the hood off his face. A pouchy leather patch had been sewn over the hole in his cheek. It made him look rather like a patchwork doll: one made to frighten children.
‘I smelled you,’ she said. ‘Nothing smells that bad but cat shit and the Crow King.’
He laughed. ‘You talk as though you have power over me. I could almost feel sorry for you.’
‘I have never needed pity and I do not need it now. Why have you come? Your statement has been bold enough. You conspired with Ærfolc to invade Blicstowe. We all know what happens next.’
He smiled and it pulled his face up on one side like a hook. ‘What happens next?’
‘I come to Blicstowe with my army and take it back.’
He shook his head. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘Yes. I do.’
‘The message I have from my wife is this: the moment we see your army on the horizon, we burn everything. We have built pyres on every street corner, around every building in your compound, and they are oiled and covered and ready to be set off. Before your army has even approached the gates, Blicstowe will be ablaze. By the time your army arrives, you will hear the howls of thousands burning alive in their houses. And if you do defeat us, Blicstowe will be nothing but a pile of ashes.’
Of course this was their plan. That’s what raiders did: took booty and burned the rest. They had done it to countless small villages, why not to Blicstowe? She had no doubt they would have everything of value stockpiled and ready to move in a moment, and no doubt that they would torch what was left behind. Willow, as a trimartyr and a raider, loved to burn.
‘The other message,’ he said, ‘is that if I do not return by morning, Queen Willow will set the fires anyway.’
Bluebell sheathed her sword. ‘What do you intend to do with Blicstowe?’
‘Willow likes sitting on your throne,’ Hakon said with a smirk. ‘We killed everyone in your compound, too, even the cats and dogs. That’s what we’ve done so far.’
Ice edged her heart. Snowy. Cadwell had told her the raiders had come with the dawn. He would have been sleeping with Thrymm.
‘But we have plans. You will see them unfold in time.’
Bluebell could not speak. The picture in her mind’s eye of Snowy and Thrymm in the grey morning light, vulnerable among the bedding, was too much for her.
‘Any other questions?’ Hakon asked.
Bluebell shook her head, returned to her seat. ‘You can go.’ She knew she looked defeated; she knew he took pleasure in that. But in this moment, nothing mattered.
She had lost everything.
Thirteen
With Hilla, the boys’ nurse, away, Ivy found the days very long. Children were so needy. Goldie rarely spoke, seemed perfectly at home with her own company, and was clearly grieving the loss of Gudrun. Ivy didn’t know what to say to comfort her and found the whole thing quite awkward, so it would have been much easier simply to pretend she wasn’t there.
But then Ivy would see her, sitting in the damp garden with her big grey eyes turned skywards, and she would soften. There was something about Goldie she couldn’t put into words: some intrinsic goodness that inspired Ivy to also do good. Alarming, really, that her own children had never made her feel that way. Also alarming how chubby both boys were getting, another thing she hadn’t noticed until she’d seen them alongside Goldie.
So Ivy determined to win her trust, to make her feel at ease. The boys already adored her, probably sensing the same innocent virtue Ivy sensed. Little Edmund had said the night before, as Ivy was kissing him goodnight, ‘Must Goldie be our cousin? Can she not be our sister?’
