Embers

by Helen Kirkman

  It was a shadow, moving. She must not look at it. Must not let Cunan realize— But perhaps her gaze flickered towards the shadow because Cunan's tightly sprung body tensed. The feral eyes widened.

  "You are right," she lied, her eyes holding his, knowing she was betraying him but that she could not do otherwise. "I will come with you."

  The shadow on the edge of her vision blurred, took another shape. Cunan's face vanished. The struggle was brief and without the slightest mercy. She could not watch it.

  "Do not kill him!"

  Her gaze skittered over the crumpled figure pinned under Brand's weight.

  "Don't." The word was torn out of her throat.

  He did not reply. Did not so much as look at her. The bright gold eyes sought her brother's. They held no mercy, just as his hands had not.

  "Where is Goadel?"

  Cunan spat, spittle mixed with blood.

  "I have no idea—"

  "Please do not…" The words were scarce formed, no more than a sound of horror. She did not even know why she pleaded. Cunan had showed her no pity. He would show none to Brand, and if Brand heard her, it made not the slightest difference. She cringed, as though the blow would fall on her, but it did not. It did not fall at all.

  She read her brother's eyes. Behind the streak of animal fear there was something more chilling: a kind of triumph that had nothing to do with the terror of the present struggle, but with something unguessed at.

  "You heedless fool," said Brand. "It is true then. He is here. And you did not turn him back, even when I warned you."

  She realized the clearing was full of men, Duda, Eadric, the others, a man she did not recognize who wore brightly burnished ring mail and a heavy leather baldric painted with a device that looked like a red boar.

  The house of Cenred.

  Brand's gaze flicked to the king's man and then back to Cunan. "Tell him. Repeat to this benighted, self-serving creature what your message is."

  The mail-clad man's eyes flickered.

  "Lord, the message was for you, the king's kinsman."

  "Aye, and if this nithing does not hear it from your lips he will hear it from mine. Get up."

  The words had more force than the blow she had been expecting. Cunan was hauled to his feet Brand's large hands released him. They were not steady. Not out of the kind of fear that lived in Cunan's eyes but from the force of what was held back.

  "Go. Go and stand beside your sister while you listen to what this man has to say. Move."

  Cunan crossed the four paces that separated them. He did not look at her. His gaze moved from Brand to the king's man, fixed there.

  "The message my lord has sent is that he has confirmed the conditions of the peace treaty made with the king of the Picts—that the lord Nechtan has agreed, and that any man soever who breaks this peace shall be accounted a nithing and a traitor in both lands."

  She stared at Cunan. The secret triumph in his eyes was gone, leaving the coldly seeping horror of the helpless. Or the guilty.

  "Cunan… Why do you look like that? What does it mean? What have you done?"

  He did not say a word. His face, white, suddenly as terrified as hers, began to fade in consuming brightness. There was a strange noise in her ears. She was half-aware of Brand leading her away, somewhere quiet, somewhere where there was only the two of them and no other.

  She breathed in deep jerking gasps, trying to slow the dizziness in her head, fend it off; and she would have turned into his arms then. She would have sought the primal safety of touching him. But she could not. He was changed, utterly.

  He did not touch her.

  There was a wasteland of silence.

  "I do not understand."

  "Do you not? Did you think he would have taken you to Goadel after all? Or not? Did you think that he would have taken you somewhere safe out of family loyalty, so that you could be amongst your kin?"

  "I did not… I just…"

  "If you thought that, you were right. He would have done that for you, Alina. He would have taken you to your kin. But you would not have been safe."

  "I do not understand what you are saying. What… How…" Her voice broke off. Fear struck ice through her, fear of what was in Brand's eyes. Not the brightness of the anger he tried to hide, not the lingering traces of the battle will that had defeated Cunan in a few fiercely honed seconds, but the pity.

  "Cunan was going to take you to your father."

  "My father? To Maol? No—" But she could see the answer in the carefully controlled eyes. "Then…it is my father who is here. He is the one Cunan should have turned back and did not."

  "Yes."

  "And you knew?"

  "No. I did not know. Not until that last moment. Yet nothing else made sense. Cunan was sending messages to someone. Someone was shadowing us. Yet the attack made on me was a complete surprise to Cunan. He should have known what Goadel's men were doing but he did not. Yet even so, I could not believe it. That Cunan, or your father, would risk so much openness, knowing what was in King Nechtan's mind, calculating, surely, what would be the likely outcome of the treaty being negotiated at Bamburgh."

  But her father had always believed he knew better than his brother the king. Cunan believed whatever her father believed. She had known that. She should have understood.

  Her legs gave way. She sat down, the skirts of her fine riding dress snagging on brambles. She looked at the thorns. There was a tiny spot of blood on her thumb.

  "My father is trapped, is he not? He has overreached himself by coming south. King Nechtan, his own brother, has taken quite a different decision. Nechtan has thrown in his lot with your King Cenred, and now my father can no longer throw in his with

  Goadel. He cannot win. It would be suicide. Pointless."

  "Yes."

  Her mind made the next step. "But Goadel is committed to what he planned. If my father tries to withdraw his support from Goadel, Goadel will kill him."

  This time the matter-of-fact English voice did not say yes. It did not need to. She stared at the small trickle of blood on her hand. If she could just wash it off in the stream… But there was no stream, not here. She did not know why she thought she had heard it.

  "What can I do?"

  "Go to Bamburgh."

  "Bamburgh? No. I have to go to my father now. I have to—"

  "It is your king's decision you have to keep faith with. And your brother Modan."

  She looked up. The blankness of his eyes, the tightly reined strength of his body were implacable. It was impossible to believe that he had ever held her in his arms with such passion or such…kindness. Or that he had ever let her touch him.

  "There is no time to lose, Alina, not for Modan or for you."

  She swallowed bile. Her hands fisted at her sides.

  "I cannot leave—"

  "You will. It is no longer your choice. Or mine." Ice-bright gold beat against her gaze, broke it. "Your fate is not my responsibility anymore. It belongs to

  King Cenred's men. This is the moment when it is over, Alina. Finished."

  She felt as though he had hit her with one of those large capable hands held so loosely at his sides. She felt as though he had betrayed her utterly. Even though he was right. Even though there was nothing else she could expect.

  "Come. There is not one moment to be lost." He held out one of those lethal hands towards her. She could not take it.

  "Suppose I will not go."

  "Then you will be constrained."

  "What? You—"

  "Not I, Alina. I have told you. It is no longer my responsibility. That belongs to the king's men and king's men are not…scrupulous if someone resists their orders. I think you have learned that already. Besides, you gave your word. You have pledged it to Modan as truly as though you had spoken it in his hearing. He has nothing, not even a retinue of Pictish rebels. Will you break your word again?"

  She got to her feet. Unaided. He turned away from her, striding towards the t
rees, towards the men with the expensive armour and the bright red blazons. She watched his back.

  "And you, Brand, what will you do?"

  "I will do what I have always wished. I will pay what I owe to Northumbria."

  He did not turn. She should not expect it. She realized what her heart had refused to acknowledge yesterday when Cunan had turned away from the truth.

  The leave-taking she had seen in Brand's face had been absolute.

  The king's men fetched her horse and allowed her to gather her things. There were three of them. They wore armour of hand-linked steel and helms adorned with flashes of enameled red. They knew exactly what they were doing.

  Duda was waiting for them on the road.

  "Duda? Where are…the others?" She could not bring herself to say Brand.

  "Where do you think?"

  There had not been one moment to lose. "Halfway to Bamburgh?" It was dishonourable to be bitter, achingly unfair.

  Duda's shapeless form twitched.

  "That is where we should be."

  "Aye. Naught to hold us back."

  "Right decision?"

  Not mine. Like everything in my life. She wanted to yell it at him, at his cold, ferocious little eyes. But she could not She did not have the breath. They were already riding. Fast.

  Besides, it was only half-true. It was not a decision forced without will. In the end, Brand's ruthless assessment was also hers.

  She kept riding. But despite the fact that she knew no other decision had been possible, her mind was split so that she thought she would die of the pain of it. Ahead was her brother. Behind her was her father, caught in a trap made of his son's relentless, misguided zeal, and of his own overbearing will.

  She did not have much reason to care. Her father had taken no account of her wishes when he had sold her to Hun. He would not have deviated one hair's breadth from his course if Goadel's brother had beaten her senseless daily. The minor inconvenience of that would have been subsumed in the greater good to Pictland.

  Just as the pain of what she was doing now would be subsumed by the greater good of rescuing Modan. It was only her misfortune that the pain inside her had the power to kill. She had no reason to feel torn between the two of them, father and brother. And what would she achieve anyway? She looked at the mail coats woven by master smiths, at the brightly coloured shields picked out in red and white slung across metal-clad shoulders.

  She was hardly a warrior.

  Not like them.

  Not like Brand.

  He was the loss that would really kill her. Even while her mind made the same sharp, clear judgment as his, her heart would not allow it. Her heart would admit nothing but the course of love.

  She had tried to say that. She had tried to explain to Brand what lay so deeply buried inside her. But that had had no purpose. And in truth, she had not been able to explain anything. All that she had tried to say had perished in the gulf between them.

  That gulf was now unbridgeable.

  The speed of their flight was something she could not have endured even days ago. Now she could. So fast, and every pace of the muscular horse across the open ground a step closer to the end.

  "Will we catch them up?" She shouted it. Stupid question but she could not help it. Just one glimpse of him before they reached the gilded prison walls of Bamburgh.

  A red-flecked helm turned. She caught a brief look of incomprehension before the man mouthed something at her, the words snatched away on the power of the east wind. The earth thundered past her and the moving air of Bernicia plundered her lungs. She could smell the sea.

  It was like the last time; fleeing toward the sea, turning west at the last minute to evade pursuit and the trap waiting for them on the coast road. Except that then Brand had been with her and she had felt that she could endure anything.

  She had not known all that lay ahead, all the things she could not endure: damage to Brand, damage to his brother who had pretended to go on ahead and had really gone back in order to save their necks.

  Who had pretended to go on ahead.

  She wheeled the labouring horse round, so abruptly it nearly fell, nearly threw her. She clung on, fighting for balance, for control, for the speed she needed to evade three mail-clad men and Duda.

  She was so much lighter than them. Her horse was good, fresh. Fresher than theirs. She could ride like the devil now. She would need to.

  She had no idea where she was going, only that it must be to the west and perhaps south. Only that she had to do it.

  If one of them drew bow, or throwing spear, she was dead.

  It was Duda who caught her, cutting her off from the refuge of the trees, forcing her to ride wide so that the others had time to complete the circle.

  She looked at the swords and the bow on string. She looked at Duda's eyes.

  "Made the right decision, have you?" she enquired through the heaving of her breath. His eyes snapped but he, at least, sheathed his blade. She turned her attention to the small ring of steel surrounding her. Everything was honed down to what she did next, what she said, whether she won.

  "Perhaps we should have a careful think about decisions. Which one of you three would like to report to King Cenred that you left his kinsman to face death at the hands of a band of Picts and rebels when I could have prevented it?"

  Of course, she had no way of preventing it. The thought ate through her mind as they rode west and perhaps south. But the others did not know what was in her head. No one ever did. Even Duda must not know, because he managed to find Eadric for her. How, she could not contemplate.

  "It is a difficult situation, lady." Eadric's eyes would not meet hers. "There was a dispute." Oh, you fool, Maol of the Picts. "The lord, your father, brought only a small number of men." Doubtless because his brother Nechtan did not know or did not approve of what he was doing. She gritted her teeth.

  "Of course, when we arrived it helped. Brand could have taken Goadel, but we could not force the issue because…" Eadric became fascinated by a small patch of moss. "Goadel has the lord Maol."

  "I see," she said through the freezing emptiness where heart and mind had been. "And the lord Cunan?"

  "Rescued." She would have left him to his fate. Her hands clenched against the soft wool of her skirts and it was Duda who asked the next question. The one she could not force through the deadening emptiness.

  "Brand?"

  "He…he is in discussion with Goadel. Goadel wants safe passage to Ireland. Do not worry, lady," added Eadric, as though her voice had actually been strong enough to ask the question. "He will not let Goadel kill the lord Maol."

  She could not imagine why not. He would have to, out of the most basic duty to his kinsman on an uncertain throne.

  Or Goadel would kill him.

  "Why did you have to come here?" The words were one long hiss of pain. She scarce knew who she was speaking of, Brand or her overweening father. Or her crazed half brother. But she knew the answer: duty, twisted or pure. It was the wellspring of men's lives. Her father thought he knew better than Nechtan what suited Pictland. Cunan would die a thousand deaths to fulfil his father's wishes. Brand would not let Goadel go free to wreak rebellion.

  She understood now. Brand's love was for Northumbria, beyond even the strength of kin ties to Cenred. Beyond anything she could give.

  She crept forward so that she could see.

  He had to keep moving, otherwise the damage to his ribs would seize up and he would be no use if it came back to fighting.

  Goadel yelled and spat foam.

  When it came back to fighting. Brand paced, tossing the hilt of his sword and catching it so that he could keep his arms moving. The sight of the blade sparking sunlight irritated all hell out of Goadel.

  "I will not loose the prisoner until I reach the coast—"

  Somewhere behind him he could hear Cunan reeling off curses in Pictish. He wished one of his men would have the sense to belt him over the head. He could not believe any
thing quite so ham-fisted had happened. He should have left Cunan to Goadel, not dragged him away and got his ribs knocked out in the process.

  "…the coast…" bellowed Goadel. "Ireland.

  Brand spared one glance for the prisoner staked out on the ground. Duty dictated he should be left to the consequences of treason.

  "No," he yelled in turn and tried not to think how much his refusal might have to do with the unhealed wounds of what had been done to his brother by Goadel's kin.

  Or to do with Alina.

  He could not let his mind focus on Alina. The thought of her would take all that he had.

  The prisoner stifled a groan. He could not imagine why, after the life she had lived, Alina would still care about her criminally arrogant father. But that she did was indisputable. Just as she cared for the other Pictish idiot, Cunan.

  He transferred his gaze to the brother of the man he had killed.

  "What I propose…" screamed Goadel. Something moved behind him. There was a small scuffle and a bitten-off curse. Someone had clouted Cunan after all? He risked a glance over his shoulder, swallowing the curse that rose to his own lips because of the jarring pain in his side.

  "I have come for my father," said the Lady Alina.

  The curse escaped. He could not believe she was real. Duda and the three king's men should have taken death rather than allowed this.

  The princess of the Picts stared at them. Behind her a bloodied remnant crawled its way up off the ground. It appeared to have a broken nose. The princess rubbed her elbow as though it might have bruises.

  "Take her away." They were the only words he could get out of his mouth. As a bellow, it was louder than Goadel's. "Now." There must be some of his men who would not be outfought by a woman.

  "No. Do not do that" The voice, suddenly smooth, was Goadel's. The white heat in Brand's blood seemed to freeze. "I said, leave the lady be."

  At a sign from Goadel, a small sound of shock issued from his helpless prisoner on the ground and was just as abruptly cut off. Brand saw how it happened. Bile rose in his throat and he knew the heat of the fury inside him was not extinguished, it was just held, under a thin ice-crust of frozen coldness, waiting its target.

  Some things were not permitted. People should know that