by A. E. Rayne
‘We have an abundance of eggs at the moment,’ Runa said quietly, walking to the table and reaching quickly for a cup of mead as she sat down. ‘And while the fish is still fresh we must use it up.’
Tanja sat Sigmund up. He had drifted off to sleep, but she needed to get some wind out of him if they were going to have a peaceful night; Evaine was always much more even-tempered when she slept well.
Evaine joined Runa at the table, interested in nothing but a piece of bread, which she distractedly broke into small pieces. Her mind was lost on Eadmund, her body rigid and anxious as she perched on the edge of her chair.
‘I spoke with Edela today,’ Runa began, her voice faltering. She coughed and tried again, ignoring Evaine’s frown. ‘She said that she saw the ships returning soon.’
Evaine’s eyes brightened. ‘She did?’
‘Yes,’ Runa went on. ‘In a day or so, she said.’
Evaine could barely contain the joy that blossomed inside her chest. ‘And Eadmund? Did she mention Eadmund at all?’
Runa shook her head. ‘She didn’t mention anyone, just that the ships were returning. But of course, I’m sure that Eadmund will be on one of them.’ She swallowed a soggy piece of carrot and put her knife down, taking a deep breath. ‘Perhaps you need to organise a new outfit for his return? Something special for you and Sigmund?’
Evaine frowned, surprised by the suggestion, but it was an idea that quickly sparked to life. She was having a new cloak made, but that was for summer, and as for the baby? He had vomited over every outfit he had.
‘Sigynn showed me her new wool and linen today,’ Runa went on nervously. ‘She even has some white furs from Alekka. I was thinking of getting a cloak made for next winter. Although, it is in high demand, as you can imagine.’
Evaine nibbled on a piece of bread. ‘Well, perhaps it’s worth a visit tomorrow then, before it’s all gone? I would at least like to look it over.’
‘Good,’ Runa smiled quickly. ‘Shall we go together, then? I will help you with Sigmund. It will give Tanja a chance to visit with her mother.’
Evaine was too excited by the thought of seeing Eadmund again to give much attention to the nagging question of why Runa was being so helpful. Her mind was racing towards which colour she thought Eadmund would prefer to see her in: blue or green?
Jael Furyck looked far more like a woman than Bayla had imagined she would. In fact, with a bit of scrubbing and brushing, she was certain there would be an attractive, presentable queen underneath all those filthy, male clothes. But her face was hard, and her eyes were sharp, and there was no danger of her being anything like Irenna or Nicolene at all. Perhaps that was to her credit, she considered, thinking of the ridiculously silly girls her sons had married.
Bayla sighed and looked away, to where Haaron had cornered Jaeger, who stood, propped up against a mediating Haegen, working hard to defend himself.
‘There was nothing to be done against such odds,’ Jaeger insisted again, cringing at the sharp pains in his ankles; the right one, in particular, was not healing at all and he could not stand without help.
‘Nothing?’ Haaron sneered, watching the Furycks with their heads together out of the corner of one eye. ‘Have you heard of retreat?’
‘We are Hestians!’ Jaeger insisted, horrified that his father would suggest such a thing.
‘We are Hestians with no fleet!’ Haaron grumbled. ‘And we did not become Hestians by putting inexperienced idiots in charge. My mistake entirely.’
‘Father,’ Haegen tried. ‘There was little chance to escape such a fire, even if they had tried to retreat. We have never encountered anything like it.’
‘Well, your father-in-law managed to escape,’ Haaron countered. ‘He’s not sucking shit at the bottom of the sea with all of my drowned men!’ He wanted to scream and rage at his son but here, in the hall, in front of his guests, it was not the right time or place. Now, he admitted, in frustration, was the time for pretence and fakery and preparation, for soon there would be a wedding. ‘You need to see Sitha about your wounds,’ he grumbled. ‘If you are to have any hope of standing at your wedding, you are going to need her help, I’m sure.’
Jaeger flinched but didn’t say a word. He knew that he would have to suffer the humiliation of marrying Lothar Furyck’s daughter without argument.
‘Do you not know his reputation?’ Jael whispered hoarsely, trying to ignore Osbert’s smirking face as he wobbled nearby, leaning on a stick.
Lothar waved Jael’s concern away with a pudgy hand. He was full of food and giddy with drink and had not felt this relaxed in some time. ‘He is a Dragos,’ he muttered. ‘You cannot expect him to behave like a Furyck. They are different down here. More... coarse, I have found.’
‘Coarse?’ Jael fumed, trying to keep her voice low, her eyes darting to where Haaron and Jaeger stood.
‘Karsten Dragos said he punched his first wife in the stomach while she was pregnant,’ Gant interjected, much to Lothar’s annoyance. ‘Perhaps that’s a little more than coarse, my lord, considering that both she and the child then died.’
Lothar’s eyes widened at that unpleasant news. ‘If he was telling the truth.’
Axl had already revealed as much to Jael, which made her even more determined to do something to prevent the wedding. But she knew Lothar from her own wedding misery. He was not a man about to be moved by anyone, not even his own daughter. Not when there was the much more attractive proposition of Helsabor dangling before his greedy eyes now.
‘Amma will be in danger here. He is violent and cruel,’ Jael tried, her eyes meeting that strange girl’s. She was still there, following an old woman about; an old woman who looked ready to crumble into dust. A dreamer, she realised, as those ancient eyes snapped to her. A shiver shot up Jael’s spine, and she shuddered, suddenly cold all over.
She was here, Varna realised. Within reach. She could stop her now, couldn’t she? There were ways, of course there were. And it would not take much, just an item of clothing, some hair, some small thing, and they could weave a spell, trap her...
Destroy the one who stood in their way, and then it would be done.
And the prophecy would burn.
‘Do you believe in dragons, Edela?’
Edela felt her heart stop, all breath leaving her body in a terrified rush.
‘Your saviour has just stepped into the mouth of a dragon,’ the voice crowed. ‘Into the hungry mouth of a fire-breathing dragon!’
Jael.
Edela could see the flames now, bursting up from the darkness as she lay there, trapped on a table, tied down, her arms straining against harsh ropes, the voice booming all around her. She had to break the bonds. She had to escape.
‘You can’t, you can’t, you can’t!’ the voice taunted her. ‘It’s too late now. Your precious Jael is there, and she is too arrogant to think that she can come to any harm. Too busy thinking of her lost husband, or her lost love. Too busy planning how to save the girl. Too busy to see what is right there in front of her!’
Gleeful echoes vibrated around Edela, bouncing off the walls of the cave. It was a cave. She could smell the damp, hear the slow drip of moisture from somewhere. But she couldn’t move as she lay there. And she needed to.
She had to save Jael.
35
They watched them leave.
Runa, carrying the baby, kept glancing nervously behind herself. Edela shook her head, wishing she would stop. It wouldn’t help for Evaine to get suspicious.
Biddy peered at Entorp. ‘Are you ready? Do you have everything?’
He nodded, impatient to begin.
Respa, Runa’s servant, popped her head around the door of the house, then looking around to check that it was clear, motioned Entorp over.
Entorp took a deep breath.
‘I will follow them,’ Biddy assured him, trying to mask her own anxiety beneath a firm voice. ‘And Edela will wait at that table on the corner over there. We will stop Evaine before she gets back
to the house, somehow, I promise.’
Entorp tucked his leather wrap under his arm. ‘I must go,’ he muttered, hurrying away, not wanting to waste a moment.
Edela touched Biddy’s arm. ‘You’d better go too,’ she urged. ‘I don’t want them to come back around because they forgot something.’
Biddy nodded and scurried away, leaving Edela to walk to the table. She walked slowly, her body aching and weary. Her dreams had been a blur and she’d woken up remembering nothing. Sometimes it could be that way, she knew.
But something was stirring. Edela could feel it.
‘Meena will find something, won’t you girl?’ Varna croaked as she chewed on a piece of bread from the loaf Meena had brought up from the kitchen. It was still warm, but neither Varna nor Morana noticed as they sat around the fire with glistening eyes, salivating over the opportunity the gods had presented them.
Jael Furyck.
In Hest.
If only they could agree on how best to harm her.
‘If we can bind her –’ Varna began.
‘We need to kill her!’ Morana insisted. ‘Why bind her? If she is dead, then the prophecy is no more.’
‘She is powerful,’ Varna tried again. ‘We could use her to our own ends.’
‘And what are they?’ Morana snorted, ripping off another piece of bread and reaching for a slice of cheese.
‘We need to remove the Bear,’ Varna smiled.
Meena trembled as she sat on her bed, eating her small share of the meal. Jaeger had not even glanced at her since his return. He had hobbled about, fawned over by his awful mother and glared at by his hateful father. She felt sorry for him. They were a horrible family; though, she admitted with a sigh, far better than her own.
‘Not until we have that book,’ Morana reminded her.
‘True, but once we know where it is, he will need to be killed quickly,’ Varna muttered, curling her fingers into the air. ‘Meena, you need to go to Jaeger. Tell him you have found more ways to understand the book. That you have been going through my spells. He is certain to show it to you. He will want you to look at it.’
Meena froze. It was everything she wanted, and yet, she was hesitant.
Because they wanted to trap him.
They wanted to kill him.
Respa had shown Entorp up to the mezzanine and left him to it. He shook with nerves, trying to remind himself that she was just a girl. But he knew very well that she was far more dangerous than any girl he knew of.
He kept Edela’s sketch next to him as he tapped his chisel across the floorboards, first lightly, then more heavily, scuffing out the wood in circular motions, working as fast as his fingers would allow, jumping at every sound.
It was a detailed symbol. He needed to get it right.
Evaine looked unimpressed as she ran her hands through Sigynn’s selection of fabric. ‘There’s nothing new here,’ she said crisply. ‘It all looks very much the same to me.’
Runa panicked. ‘But what about for Sigmund? He must have something for when his father returns, don’t you think?’
Evaine frowned. ‘Why do you care all of a sudden?’
Runa swallowed, certain that she was sweating, there being so many lamps burning in Sigynn’s cramped cottage. ‘I, I,’ she stumbled, shaking her head and thinking of Fyn. ‘I have grown quite attached to him,’ she said, jiggling the baby. ‘And he is Eadmund’s son. You don’t want him thinking that you are not taking care of Sigmund, do you? Don’t want to present him to his father covered in stains?’ She ran her eyes over the fabric, noticing some bright blue wool poking up from beneath a pile of grey cloth. ‘That would be perfect. Such a nice colour for a little boy, don’t you think? He would look so handsome in that,’ she tried. ‘Especially if you had something made in a lighter blue for yourself. The two of you together would be very pleasing to the eye.’
‘But would there be time?’ Evaine wondered, fingering the fabric Runa had spotted. ‘It would suit him well, with his light hair, I think,’ she murmured, lifting the soft wool up to Sigmund’s face.
‘And perhaps some little booties?’ Runa went on, feeling her heart pound. ‘Fur trimmed ones? With a bonnet?’
‘Perhaps,’ Evaine said slowly. ‘How long would that take?’ She turned to Sigynn.
The tailor opened her mouth to answer when Sigmund suddenly burst into tears, wailing, as though in terrible pain.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jael said, her eyes full of sympathy as she looked out over the harbour, the sky still covered in a smoky haze. ‘I don’t see how we can stop it. Not yet.’
Axl felt a spark of frustration as he stood alongside his sister at the end of the pier, watching the gentle rise and fall of the Osslander’s ships as they bumped against their moorings. ‘Why won’t you ever do anything, Jael?’ he cried, turning to her. He was desperate to get through to Jael so that she could think of a plan. He needed her. ‘You don’t ever do anything!’
Jael sighed, rubbing her eyes. She felt like vomiting. Her whole body rocked as though she were still at sea. ‘We are not in any position to attack Haaron and then defend ourselves. Not here, like this. They took all of your weapons.’
‘We could find some!’
Jael shook her head. ‘This is their kingdom. They would chase us back to Andala or Oss. How many Brekkans or Islanders would die? How could you be certain that Amma or Mother wouldn’t die?’
Axl’s shoulders sagged. ‘But we can’t leave her here with him! Married to him! He will hurt her... you know he will!’
The guilt of that thought sat heavily on Jael’s shoulders, but she was responsible for more than her brother’s happiness or Amma’s safety. ‘Well, all I can do is keep thinking. The way everything is now... it can change. Given time, we can turn things around.’
Axl barely heard her. ‘If only you had killed him,’ he grumbled, ‘when you had the chance.’
‘Ahhh yes, if only... if only you hadn’t made noise under the bed that night,’ she said harshly, regretting her words as guilt flooded his already troubled eyes. She caught sight of Aleksander walking towards them. ‘We all have choices to make, but we don’t always make the best ones.’
Axl turned to her, wondering what that meant.
‘Looking for an escape?’ Aleksander smiled, trying to brighten the miserable faces before him.
‘Trying to think of how to help Amma,’ Jael said. ‘I just don’t see what we can do.’
‘Not a lot, is the truth,’ Aleksander said frankly, ‘which I’ve already told you, Axl. We’re weaponless, and we’re in their kingdom. And we’d have to fight Lothar as well and defeat him. There’s no way around it. Not yet. You’ll have to be patient.’
Axl looked even more miserable as he stared out to sea, listening to the birds call to each other; screeching, angry birds, warning of dark things to come.
‘Take him back home!’ Evaine ordered anxiously. ‘He needs milk. You will have to find Tanja.’
Runa was doing her very best to soothe Sigmund, patting his back, cooing soothing words into his ear, kissing his bright red cheeks.
It wasn’t working.
Evaine was getting irritated, embarrassed by the ear-piercing noises coming out of her son. ‘You should leave,’ she said impatiently through tight lips, pushing Runa towards the door. ‘I will follow shortly.’
Runa looked helpless. ‘Some fresh air may help him,’ she suggested quickly. ‘Take your time. I will wait outside. If he doesn’t settle, we can always go and find Tanja at her mother’s.’ She hurried through the door, clasping a screaming Sigmund to her chest.
She had to stop him crying.
Egil opened the door, surprised to see the quivering figure of Meena Gallas standing there. He frowned. ‘What do you want?’ She was an odd, ugly girl, and he had no idea why his master thought she could be of any use to him.
Meena shook her head, twitching her nose. As eager as she was to see Jaeger, she was just as desperate to run away from actually
having to face him at all. Her confusing feelings, she decided, were far better contained in a dream.
‘Who is it, Egil?’ came the tired, throaty voice from inside.
Meena stood up straighter then, shivering.
‘That girl,’ Egil said distastefully, turning his head back into the room. ‘Meena Gallas.’
‘Well, bring her in!’
Meena looked at the floor as she scrambled past Egil and into the warm chamber, tapping her head with increasing urgency.
Biddy was surprised to see Runa rush out of the cottage, but one look at the red-faced baby and she could see the problem. ‘Here,’ she offered, her arms outstretched. ‘Give him to me.’
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ Runa panicked, almost as red-faced as Sigmund. ‘He was fed before we left.’
Biddy patted Sigmund’s back. ‘There, there,’ she soothed. ‘I think you’ve just got some wind trapped in your belly.’
Runa paced around, her eyes never leaving the tailor’s door.
Sigmund suddenly burped loudly. He got such a fright that his crying ceased immediately.
Runa sighed in relief, and Biddy smiled, handing him back to her.
‘What are you doing?’ Evaine growled as she hurried out of Sigynn’s cottage. ‘What are you doing with my baby?’
Biddy and Runa froze.
‘I was...’
‘Biddy was just passing,’ Runa said quickly. ‘She offered to help. And she did. He is much better now, see?’ She held a calm but exhausted Sigmund up to his mother.
Evaine frowned. ‘Well, I shall take him home anyway. You need to go and find Tanja for me. He must eat.’
‘But what about the new outfit for Sigmund?’ Runa asked. ‘Don’t you need to go back inside?’
‘No, we are done,’ Evaine said impatiently, holding out her arms for her son. ‘Sigynn knows what I want. I said I would bring him back tomorrow to be measured.’ She grabbed the baby and lifted him to her shoulder. ‘Now please, just get Tanja, so that he can have some milk.’ And without another word, she headed off towards the house.
