The Rising Scythe

by S G Dunster

  The full reality of it descended on her, and she was again struggling to breathe deeply. The heat welled up behind her eyes, but this time refused to spill.

  “Thessaly,” Margarida said sharply, “he defeated one of the most expert swords in my cousin’s court. He’s been at sea for decades. Not much use for swords aboard ship. I thought it was cannons? Bows?”

  Slowly, Thessaly turned to face her aunt. Did Margarida know somehow? Could she sense the floes, how she’d fed them into him? Flesh and Passion.

  I’m choosing breath and blood, she thought. That is what I choose. Her gaze grew pleading, earnest. “Aunt,” she began.

  Margarida returned her gaze, piercing it with her clear, grey one. “Though the man was wrong to touch you so, and you were right in your anger, you cannot use the magicks in that way, my girl.”

  “I didn’t know,” she started the lie, then didn’t finish, seeing the lift of a silver eyebrow.

  “You knew very well what you did.” Margarida sighed and sat next to her on the hearth. “You have grown a great deal since we last spoke. You have become strong in your arts. Of course you have, considering the blood than runs through you. But you need a mentor. A mother to teach you morals. You left me as a babe, and you’ve been left to drift in your power without any direction. No punishments, arguments. Reprimands.” She touched Thessaly’s shoulder. “And with Umbra speaking new truths and giving new arts, how else was it to be? But you must know some things before you choose, girl. Yes. You have come here to choose. I see it in your face and in your floes.”

  Thessaly’s heart beat rapidly for a moment, then slowed. She relaxed. It was almost as if she melted there against Margarida. A relief. It was a relief to be chastised.

  She’d known. But not really. Known it was wrong to force floes into her father. To intrude, invade in that way. She had pricks, inklings, as she’d done it before to animals and plants. The rebellion she’d felt initially, as if she’d violated them.

  “Tell me,” she said quietly. “You are right. I need chastening. And yes.” She shuddered for a moment. “I wish to choose.”

  “Wishes and actions are separate,” was Margarida’s mild reply. “We shall see what happens come dawn.”

  “Papa says we go to Milan, next. I must choose before—”

  “Before you’re swept to the lovely court of Sforza,” Margarida interrupted. “To be tutored by your powerful aunt.”

  “He isn’t bringing me there to be tutored, but to be given away like a tonne of cinnamon,” Thessaly snapped.

  “Oh,” Margarida said. “I don’t know but what his plans have changed.”

  “Do you . . . feel they have?” Thessaly asked, hesitantly, a flare of hope lighting inside her.

  Margarida closed her eyes and sighed, then breathed in. A gust of wind came swirling through the cottage, bringing with it the smell of salt and spices. “I sense a change in purpose,” she murmured. “He takes you to Milan to keep you safe, to a place where wytches are accepted as wise-women, assets. To be a wytch-wife; a pope-maker. A power-monger, like the great Umbra. A far less safe life than to live and die in a great hall in the countryside of his birth surrounded by tapestries and heirs.” Margarida moved for Thessaly to stand and stripped her down to her cotton shift. She went to the bedstead, where a dozen intricately woven wool blankets rested. She selected two and wrapped them around Thessaly’s shoulders. “But safer than to be burned on a pyre, which is the fear I see brightest in his mind.”

  Thessaly allowed her aunt to undress her, arms limp at her sides, as the surprise ricocheted through her, and the hope took over.

  Her father had changed his mind?

  She’d forced him to. What else could he do, after what happened in Joao’s court? He knew.

  She realized it with a flash. He knew he had no power over her.

  An exultant frisson of feeling swept through her. She smiled, closing her eyes. He knew.

  And before he came back to claim her, she would choose. It would be done. Umbra and all the Popes in Rome couldn’t do a thing about it, much less her father.

  She was going to be a wytch of the loose magicks.

  It was just like before. Them, settled by the fire. Thessaly reveled in the calm serenity of her aunt’s energies, of the sweetness of the simple bread and butter she was handed.

  This is what I want.

  She was beginning to toast, to turn warm at her edges. Her aunt bustled around the stove, making a pot of tea—some kind of lavender, hyssop, and chamomile concoction. With milk and honey, of course.

  It was like she was six again.

  “Auntie,” Thessaly said in a small voice.

  Margarida responded in kind, patting her head. “It’s all right, love. You didn’t know. You haven’t known. You’ve been blown about by passion and fear. I’m here to teach you. I’ll not let you gust off into the heavens untethered. Here.” She set the cup at Thessaly’s knee.

  Thessaly lifted it and drank.

  “Teach me,” she said eagerly when the tea was finished.

  “Sleep first,” Margarida said.

  “Papa will be here in the morning.”

  “We shall have the time we need. Sleep.”

  Obediently, Thessaly curled up on the hearth, pillowing her head with a fold of woven-flax blanket, and fell asleep.

  Chapter 3

  Margarida woke Thessaly just as the sun was starting to loosen the darkness. Thessaly started to see her aunt bending over her, silver hair glowing in the dim light. Margarida put a finger to her mouth, and gestured for Thessaly to get up and to remove the delicate cotton shift she had slept in.

  Thessaly hesitated a moment, then obeyed shyly, shivering in the cold, her breasts tightening, gooseflesh standing out on her arms and legs.

  Her aunt lowered a new garment over her; loose, flowing. It was linen, woven tightly, light as feathers.

  Her aunt was wearing one like it, only it was stitched all over with a dull-gold cording that flashed bright now and then and seemed to eat up the light in the cottage, holding it hostage.

  As they walked outside, the gold embroidery on Margarida’s robe suddenly dazzled blinding bright, searing lines in Thessaly’s vision. Around them, the light turned pink and gold and the air started to warm, releasing the scent of salt.

  They descended a set of stairs, different from the ones Thessaly had walked up to get to the cottage. It took them across the cliff face, along a narrow ledge that hung out over the sea.

  The ship was anchored as close to shore as possible. Somehow, Antonio had found a safe stretch of beach along the chancy cliffs. Thessaly could see the men down there and a rowboat, a small dark beetle in the tossing surf. The sun, a pink sliver just coming up over the horizon, sent rays of illumination across the chopping waves and onto the wet beach. The men worked at the sails, lowering them, bundling them tightly into the hold.

  “They’re coming ashore,” Thessaly murmured, and her aunt, ahead of her, immediately raised a hand for her to be quiet.

  Thessaly was quiet, looking out at the other two ships in the fleet: Virtude, the second gunship tucked in close against Espada, and Barbos, the storeship with its wide flanks, deep decks crammed full of provisions and spices, hanging heavy in the water further out, like a surly whale.

  The fleet. Her father’s pride and joy. Wood and sails, not flesh and blood. Ships, not his daughter. Maybe if she’d been a son he’d have made her a part of it, but no. Not her, the daughter he had to keep safe. The daughter he planned to use to get the son he really wanted—someone to take over the fleet, the riches and spices.

  Thessaly’s steps grew heavy with her thoughts, and she stumbled, sending a scattering of gravel down the cliff. Her aunt hissed and moved to let her go ahead.

  The steps took a turn around the cliff’s other side and descended into a little hollow, like a cradle, hanging just above the sea. In the cradle’s curve was a stone building. It had a round roof, a round base, and pillars. It a
lmost looked like an old well, the kind Thessaly had seen in ruins around Genoa or Rome.

  Margarida nudged Thessaly to continue, and she did, coming down into the curve. She walked after her aunt and looked down into the pool that lay inside.

  Steps spiraled into the sea, clear down fifty feet to the very bottom of the seafloor. It shone up pale through the emerald water, stone by stone and gleaming sand.

  Her aunt hefted herself over the side and began to descend, gesturing to Thessaly. Something gleamed in her hand—a knife. Strange, curved, with a very sharp edge that danced in the pale pink light.

  “You must not touch the silk we harvest,” Margarida said, pausing when the water reached their necks. They were down five stairs, with many more to go down to the sand below. The water was so clear Thessaly could almost imagine, aside from the ripples they made, that it was simply a barrier between words—air above, and air below—and not the change from air to sea.

  The billow of linen around Thessaly’s body felt like floating weed. Like nothing. The water wasn’t too cold after the initial shock. It rocked a little, here in the well, but not much. The stone held it still.

  “Promise me?” Margarida said, tilting her head slightly, the ends of her hair swirling in the water, linen soaked transparent on her breasts and shoulders.

  Thessaly nodded.

  Her aunt tucked her knife into a tight pocket at her hip, took a heavy stone off the step, balanced at her feet. She handed it to Thessaly, and took another, and then stepped off the stair, sinking down into the clear water.

  Thessaly was not afraid of water, nor of depths. But it was strange, this water. It felt old, and important, and maybe thicker than usual. Greener. Green with moss and oldness.

  She nodded again, took a deep breath and, holding the stone, dropped down into the center of the well.

  Moments later, her feet hit sand. She opened her eyes, chest tight with her slowly releasing breath.

  The well’s curved stone ended a few feet over the level of Thessaly’s head and the bay spread out, open and free and crystal-clear around her. Calm, down here, Thessaly thought, with the breaking of waves happening so far above.

  A waving white flag moved just beyond her, glimmering with flecks of gold—her aunt, walking along the bottom of the sea.

  She walked toward a garden of waving spindles like great porcupine quills. Clusters of them streamed up from beds of striped shells the size of boulders.

  The water was turning pink above. It shone down and suddenly lit up the bristles of gold and their blue-green jewels. All of it gleamed so brilliantly, Thessaly had to catch herself before gasping in a lungful of water.

  Margarida stood in the gold forest. Her hair glowed silver in the filtered light. Her hands were deft as she cut the streaming spindles down near where they sprung from the shells they were rooted in. She used a sharp curved knife, cut in a swift, fierce, stroke, and gathered the spindles into a handful, and bundled them into a pouch at her chest. She lashed out with her knife, cutting another bunch, then another.

  All around were these clams and their gold spines, going on for what seemed to be miles along the sandy bottom of the bay, like the fantastical pictures of mermaid kingdoms she’d been told of from the time she was tiny. Garlands of fish, bright blue and scarlet and jewel green, wove in and out and through the spires. They wove through Margarida’s hair like a jeweled garland as if they loved to be near her.

  Thessaly took a step toward her aunt. Margarida looked up and shook her head fiercely, pointing her knife upward. Thessaly stopped, feeling disappointed and puzzled. Why couldn’t she touch them?

  Again, Margarida jerked the knife upward. Finally, she sighed out a bubble of air that trickled up like a darting fish, put the knife back in the pouch, and pointed up emphatically with her finger.

  Grudgingly, Thessaly let go of the stone, but as she drifted up, she realized how her chest ached for air and kicked furiously. She surfaced, gasping, her rough breaths echoing off the stone enclosing her. She drank in the air and caught a glance of the well’s roof. The massive circle of stone above her was carved with strange symbols, much like the ones embroidered in that strange gold thread in Margarida’s linen shift. Curls, curious angles, whirls, and what looked like archaic writing. Latin, Thessaly thought.

  Maybe. Or older. Slanted lines, protrusions like the teeth of keys. What looked like men and women with bulbous heads and exaggerated nether regions.

  Margarida surfaced then, clutching tight to the bulging pouch that hung down over her soaked garment. “A good crop,” she said. She kicked over to the pale, uneven stairs that led back up to the cliff path.

  Thessaly followed, savoring the solidity of stone under her feet, but not so much the squelch of white cliff dust turning to paint on her feet as it combined with the wetness on her skin.

  They walked up onto the trail of stairs together. Thessaly shivered, but somehow wasn’t cold. The rays of the rising sun hit her and seemed to instantly dry the linen she wore, waving it around her like a belled flower. Her hair was another matter. It hung, sopping down her back, clear past her buttocks, scattering droplets down her calves. In a few hours it would spring up around her face in a riot of untamable curls, a mane like a lion.

  She had never cared. But she knew her father would. As they walked back along the stair, some of the twist came back to her innards.

  Her aunt stopped short as they came around the bend, and turned. “This is not of men,” she said to Thessaly. She held up the pouch. “This is pure magicks. It holds breath and blood. It holds wind and sea. I have it for you to choose, if you will. But once you touch it, there is no choosing the other.”

  Thessaly reached for it eagerly, and Margarida moved it out of reach. “You cannot choose without full knowledge, child. You know all the workings, loose and bound. You must go and see what your other teacher has to offer.” She sat and straightened the strands, combing them with her fingers, and then began to twist them into an intricate plait.

  “I . . .” Thessaly hesitated. She felt foolish. It had been so long since she’d practiced magicks loose.

  No, she thought. This is what I choose. I know. I will. And I need to, before Papa comes.

  “I know already,” Thessaly finished, twisting her fingers together, avoiding her aunt’s gaze. “I choose breath and blood. This is my choice, and I’ve thought long about it. I do not want Umbra’s life, I want yours.”

  Margarida was silent for a long while. She went to a hollow in the wall above where she slept and pulled a box from it. The box sparked memory and knowledge. Thessaly remembered, suddenly, what would be inside.

  Margarida took a key from under her skirt—she wore it always bound to her skin, at her waist.

  She unlocked the box and pulled dried sea silk from it—a harvest from a previous morning—and replaced it with the slimy wet clod she held in her hand, coiling it carefully. She added powders and a few drops of sharp-scented oil and shut the box, shaking it thoroughly.

  The treatment—a recipe passed down, Magarida had told Thessaly years before, through generations of women—would soften and make the strands pliable. Weavable.

  Thessaly felt her heartbeats heavy in her brow, throbbing, as she waited for the answer.

  Margarida spread the cured, dried sea-silk she’d removed over her lap, and began to comb through it. Then, she lined it up, and began to twist.

  Her aunt was making a rope. She twisted two sections against each other, winding them tight, true, and thin. Strong.

  A cord; a cord of gold that lit up more brilliant than any metal when the light hit it.

  “You are not yet ready to choose,” she finally said.

  “How do you know?”

  At this, Margarida looked up sharply. “You’ve been away from teachers too long. You forget, it is for me to decide who to anoint, and who to set aside as unworthy. Dress now as best you can; your clothes are dry.”

  The words stung Thessaly hard. She had to
bite her tongue, and tasted metal in her mouth. She wanted to argue. Passionate words flooded her mind, bringing a wave of anger, indignation.

  She was tired of being told what she wanted, what she needed. She wanted to choose for herself. She wanted to be free. “I cannot do up my own stays,” Thessaly said, and winced at the surliness in her voice.”

  “Being a magicker of breath, I’d advise you leave stays behind,” Margarida replied, a hint of amusement in her tone that both lifted and rankled. Thessaly shut her eyes, bared her teeth, and went to the pile of clothes resting on the hearth. The silk was warm, almost too warm. She pulled it on in abrupt, frustrated movements. Guzal would have clucked in alarm.

  A breeze suddenly blew about the small room, stirring the delicate layers of fabric, whirling them around her legs like blown petals. Thessaly was puzzled for a moment because the door was closed, and no wind should be able to come through. No draft.

  She smelled the warm, human scent of the daisy flower, and knew then. She looked at her aunt and felt her intent. Margarida knew her feelings and was attempting to calm her. Using the very magicks Thessaly wanted to claim for her own peace.

  Angry, frustrated, Thessaly resisted for a moment, then finally sighed and breathed in. What good would it do? Margarida was the only one who could bestow the full powers on her. She would do no good contending with her. Sassing her, as her father would put it. She breathed in deep, accepting the blessing, and her angry thoughts drifted, as if flurried by a warm tide, and then mellowed. The anger was gone, and the hurt.

  But, Thessaly thought, I still feel determined. I still feel fixed on this choice. Does Margarida feel that? Can she understand that? It has been more than ten years. Can she understand me?

  When Margarida finished coiling all she had into the length of cord, she wrapped it against itself in a figure-eight. “We’d best not let your Papa see,” she said. “You’ve a pocket or a purse?”