Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  Meg stopped for a moment, so Rennika, too, fell to her knees in the snow. The steep climb down through the woods and cliffs, filling their bellies with nothing more than snow and icy water, sleeping—or merely shivering—under the prickly boughs of giant spruce trees, was now only a jumble of disconnected memories akin to the shards of a nightmare.

  The endless walk through the frozen forest, looking, always looking behind for their pursuers, was no better.

  Meg mumbled something, reached down and heaved Rennika to her feet. The knife-pain that cut Rennika with every step in her ill-fitting boots pinched again on her bunions, across the backs of her heels, on the knuckles of her toes.

  Holding Rennika’s hand, Meg stepped over a log, guiding her on painful steps through the close, straight fir trees in the direction of Janat’s cry. They stopped when they reached Janat, who pushed her ragged hood back, her face lit with joy.

  Ahead, Rennika could make out a lightening of the forest, as though there might be a meadow beyond the trees. Then Meg made the same choking cry as Janat had. “A house!”

  A house.

  Rennika collapsed by Janat, and Janat held her and rocked her. “We’re safe!” she cried to Meg through her tears. “We’re safe! The Gods have saved us!”

  Meg grunted. “Stay here. I’ll go see.” She trudged in the direction of the opening.

  “Will there be food?” Rennika asked. When had they eaten last?

  “Food. Yes,” Janat sang, hugging her. “And a bath, and a bed, and clean clothes.”

  “Is Mama there?” She couldn’t be, but...

  “No, no,” Janat said. “But they’ll take us to Mama. They’ll take us back to the castle, or somewhere good and safe. We’re rescued. Meg will marry Nevin, I’ll be betrothed as Mama promised, and everything will go back to the way it’s supposed to be.”

  They waited a long time.

  Snow fell, and Rennika shivered in Janat’s arms. “I want to go to the house.”

  “Meg said to stay here.”

  But the clouds grew darker and the snow swirled about them. “I’m cold,” Rennika said.

  “All right. We can go a little way. To the edge of the forest.”

  They took slow, painful steps through the snow and bracken. Halfway across the farmer’s field, they spotted two men walking toward them. Janat cried out and ran, stumbling through the drifts.

  And then the men were there, and one of them took Rennika’s hand. She was tired and cold beyond caring.

  Two boys, the older one about Meg’s age, were limbing a felled tree beside a thatch-roofed cottage. The younger boy noticed her and nudged the other. “’Allo,” the older boy said.

  “Please.” Meg’s word came out a whisper. “Do you have a bit of bread—” Her throat closed on the joy of rescue, and she felt suddenly weak. “My sisters—”

  The boys looked at one another, and the older nodded to the younger who hurried into the house.

  Meg’s feet were numb, her back aching, and icy air poked through her layers of clothing. The boy regarded her soberly but did not appear hostile as much as unsure.

  The door to the house opened, welcoming light and warmth against the fading afternoon shadows. A woman appeared on the step, pulling a thick shawl around her.

  The boy nodded toward the house. “Bes’ talkta Momma.”

  “Thank you,” Meg managed, and nodding to the boy, stumbled with stiff feet across the yard.

  Surprise touched the mother’s face, silhouetted against the bright interior.

  “Please—” Meg repeated. “Please, I—”

  “Ye pur chil’, commin fro’ the cold.” The mother’s gaze flicked about the yard and she held the door wide.

  Meg faltered into the stone house, into the warmth and light and savory smell of cabbage broth. A fire danced on the hearth beneath a cauldron, and she pulled her scarf from her throat. The hovel, chinked with moss against the wind, was small and simple, a single room with a dirt floor and a loft overlooking a clutter of rag rugs and rough-hewn furniture.

  The mother called to her boys and nattered instructions, as Meg struggled with her mittens. The woman closed the door and pulled a chair up to the hearth, then went to work helping Meg remove her snow-crusted boot. “Me boys’ve gone fer yer kin.”

  Meg fought to parse the mother’s words, but pain shot up from her foot as the boot dropped to the floor and the woman peeled off her sock. Her toes were white, and blisters had broken on the joints and heel. A chill enveloped her, and she began to shiver.

  “Ye needta get outta ’ose close.” The mother pulled off the second boot and, grimacing at the damage, scurried off.

  Meg rubbed her feet, and they felt like smoothed river rocks. Knifing pain shot up from her toes. The woman had spoken to her several times, and Meg was beginning to realize she could understand her odd words. It was normal speech eroded into a vulgar form. Meg spoke as the woman rummaged through a chest. “We won’t inconvenience you long.”

  The mother returned with a homespun robe, a thick shawl, blanket, and slippers. “Now, chil’, tell me who y’ar, and wy yer here.” She knelt at Meg’s feet and rubbed a foul-smelling salve onto her blisters.

  “My sisters and I are from Carn Archwood. We’re going to Coldridge.” Coldridge. Mama’s brother was magiel of the Amethyst. This past summer, Mama had taken them, with a retinue, to Coldridge where they’d met Uncle Chirles and their two cousins. Meg had ridden in a coach and hadn’t attended to where they went but she thought Coldridge was at the north end of the Orumon valley. Now that they’d made their way to the valley, someone would help them.

  The woman sat back on her heels and studied Meg, her brows lifting in surprise. “Castle Archwood?”

  Meg pulled her shawl tighter. “Yes.” Why should the name of the fortress cause this woman to look at her so?

  The woman broke her stare and bent to cover Meg’s feet with thick, warm stockings. Then she helped her strip away her damp rags and hung them on pegs over the fire.

  As Meg was pulling on the shawl, the door banged open, and Janat stumbled in with a swirl of snow. The boys followed, and the older one carried Rennika on his back.

  “Oh! Thank you!” Janat gushed as she entered, and with an effort, Meg rose from her chair on painful feet.

  The mother sat Rennika down and peeled away her boots and bloody stockings, smearing her feet with salve. She wrapped the blisters with rough bandages, and Rennika cried and clung to the chair with the pain of her thawing toes. The mother took Rennika’s clothes and gave Meg a coarse linen shirt and boys’ leggings to bundle her in. Meg cocooned her sister in a blanket.

  “The Gods bless your house!” Janat squealed as the woman brought her clothing. She looked about the room, clutching the clothes to her chest. “Where shall I put them on?”

  The mother gave Janat a worried look. Then frowning, she said something sharp to the boys, and they trooped out into the snow.

  Janat reddened as she turned in the single room, but saying nothing, she took herself to a corner to puzzle at how to dress herself.

  “Na, ye mus’ be brekkin bredw’us an’ steyn’n ur home,” the mother said as she busied herself finding an array of pots and dishes to lay out on the tiny wooden table.

  When Janat was dressed, the mother called something to the boys out in the snow, and they trudged in with two stumps from the woodpile. These, they set on the hard-packed dirt floor, then laid a cut board across to serve as a bench at the table. The mother insisted the chair be moved to the head of the table, and she and her boys watched as the three sisters sat.

  This was not right. Why were they being treated with these small honors?

  The mother nodded to the boys to sit. She ladled a thick, steaming cabbage soup from the cauldron, thickened with barley and lumpy with vegetables, into small bowls, protesting all the time that “it isna gudinuf, it isna gudinuf.” She served Meg and her sisters before she served herself and the boys.

  “My moth
er shall be ever so grateful,” Janat prattled, looking in her mug of water, then looking about the table. “You know she’s—”

  Gods! Meg touched Janat’s arm and gave her a quick, piercing look. “Yes, good wife. The Many Gods bless you for your kindness.”

  “What?” Janat rebuked her, washing back a mouthful of boiled barley.

  But before Meg could reply, the clatter of a wagon and heavy horses arrested their attention. One of the boys rose but the mother said something to him, and he sat again. Wrapping a heavy shawl around herself, she slipped into the swirling snow. Meg took a breath.

  “What?” Janat said angrily to Meg.

  But the two young men were still here. They lowered their eyes over their bowls, chopsticks moving steadily, but they would hear anything she said to Janat. She spoke under her breath. “You do as I say.”

  Janat straightened, eyes wide, unable to speak with shock and anger.

  “We’re not at—home,” Meg said in the same hissed undertone. “This isn’t a game.”

  Janat blinked at Meg and closed her mouth, breathing furiously through her nose.

  The boys finished eating, blushing and silent. Janat fumed, and Meg worked away at her meal, trying to think through what she could tell these people.

  The door opened and a big man entered with a chill gust and a flurry of flakes, followed by the mother. He closed the door, his wife hanging back by his side. He reminded Meg of the castle’s old gardener as he unwrapped layers of snow-crusted garments. But his expression turned from surprise to awe to doubt as his gaze lit on each of them in turn.

  When he had hung his garments on a peg, he came forward and knelt before Meg. “Lady,” he said. “’Tis an honor t’have ye in me humble home.”

  Janat smirked.

  The mark of respect was gratifying, yet unsettling. “We are in your debt, Sieur.” Should she act the aristocrat or the fleeing refugee?

  The man came to his feet awkwardly, head lowered, fingers working.

  Aristocrat. It felt right. “Please, sit. You must be tired and hungry.”

  He bobbed his head but did not sit. “W’your Lady’s leave, mum,” he said by way of preamble to something more.

  Meg folded her hands in her lap and faced him. Had she guessed wrong? She’d made her bluff and could see no way forward but to continue.

  The man licked his lips. “Mum. Lady, ye canna stay here.”

  Janat drew in a sharp breath.

  The older of the young men lifted his head quickly and the mother opened her mouth as if to speak.

  Meg’s pulse closed her throat. Was this family in league with King Artem’s men? “I see,” she said to the man, summoning her courage.

  “It’s...it’s...”

  “The wee chicks’ll stay,” the mother cried. “Look at them! How can ye—”

  “And defy King Artem?” he snapped. “You know his troops came this way.”

  The mother’s words stopped as if cut by a knife.

  He turned to his wife and spoke in a soft voice as though he would not have the others overhear him, but his words carried in the silence of the snapping fire. “The miller’s story be true. I was in t’village today. Soldiers did more’n pass through last week. They levied—stole—every egg ‘n’ block of cheese ‘n’ side of goat t’be had, and they left a dozen men t’hold the village hostage. Everyone was kept indoors for two days.”

  The whole valley. It made no sense. The world had turned upside down.

  “King Artem’s men?” the mother said in disbelief. “Why?”

  His lips barely moved, yet his words articulated clearly in the small room. “Arcan attacked Carn Archwood.”

  But it couldn’t be. A misunderstanding, a momentary madness.

  “Attacked t’carn? Yer daft. T’Gods would never permit it!”

  “Why?” It was the older boy who asked.

  The father shook his head. “Old Tomwy Yakherd who farms below t’carn sent his son down t’village for food. Soldiers took over the fields of eight farmers for their encampments. His son saw flaming balls launched at t’city. Saw smoke and flames behind t’carn walls. ’Em poor buggers. No one’s getting out of that fortress ’til King Artem’s army says.”

  Janat stood, her face pale in the light of the single candle.

  “The king wouldna attack his own allies,” the mother said.

  Meg gripped Janat’s arm and she slumped slowly into her chair. The woman spoke truly. The Gods could never permit an insanity of this scope.

  The man gestured at Meg. “You knae who she is. Who all of ’em are.”

  The mother’s lips remained shut, doubt in her eyes.

  “Did ye ask’m why they’re here, dressed in rags?”

  Meg shifted in her seat, feeling her regal air falter.

  The father turned back to Meg. “Yer running f’yer lives, aren’t ye? From t’castle.”

  Meg lowered her eyes.

  “By the One God, Pa.” The older boy spoke, startling them all. “Give’m to t’king’s men! We don’t want fireballs here!”

  “We will not!” the mother cried. “Young girls? You say they be King Ean’s magiels? D’ye want the wrath of all t’Gods to fall on our household, then?”

  The father ducked his head to Meg and indecisively dropped to his knee before her again. But his words were not indecisive. “Lady. Sieura.”

  Meg tried to straighten in her chair but could not school her face.

  “As ye can see—” He gestured ineffectually. “—I have a farm. I have a family.”

  The mother shrank back into the shadows.

  He lifted his gaze to Meg’s face briefly. “I won’t turn ye over to King Artem, I promise ye that. I won’t say a word. But—”

  Janat bit her lip, tears of rage and disappointment coursing down her cheeks.

  His words went relentlessly on. “I hope ye can see we mean ye no harm. Ye can understand...”

  “Thank you for the food,” Meg said. “And the clothing. We’ll be gone directly.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The contrary wind was cool, the sun uncooperative. Three days of rain had meant that today was the first possible day to use the sun dial and sextant, and Huwen’s tutor was adamant that he mastered the mathematics of astronomy. Huwen’s precious paper was covered in tiny triangles and even tinier figures. With Father at war with two rebellious keeps, Huwen could see no point in learning such impractical abstractions.

  And how could he concentrate when Jovan, second son of Father’s chancellor, had boasted—secretly and smugly—he’d overheard that Arcan had started the war. That King Artem’s greed had angered the kings of Gramarye, Midell, and Elsen. Huwen immediately challenged Jovan to a duel, of course, and Jovan turned green and took the words back, but the others looked at Huwen aslant, as if his outburst were only a confirmation of Delarcan volatility. Worse, Jovan’s apology could not erase what had been said. Of course, people in other countries—foreigners—would tell lies about Father. Kings were appointed by God; they had a huge responsibility to care for their subjects, and they deserved certain privileges. This had always been the way of Shangril.

  Huwen should be at his father’s side on the borders, like his bastard brother, not wasting his time behind castle walls like a woman. Uther would never be king, but he, not Huwen, had been at Father’s side for the past eight weeks since the other countries had risen up. Sieur Daxtonet’s mathematics and astronomy were an irritating drone, like the whine of a mosquito.

  And, to be fair, the tutor’s words also were not half as compelling as the occasional glance from Lady Saffen’s youngest handmaid, Anwen. Lady Saffen Brille—Huwen’s second cousin—was only thirteen years old, but Anwen, who sewed with the ladies in the garden and ran to do Saffen’s fetching, was Huwen’s age, almost sixteen. And, like him, she was tall and...filled out. He had exchanged smiles with her before, several times, and once, he’d been bold enough to lean over her shoulder as she read on a bench by the roses. He’d
breathed in her bewitching perfume, and seen the milky tops of her breasts where they disappeared into her bodice.

  “Your Highness?”

  Huwen turned his head.

  The tutor smiled patiently. “And the hypotenuse is...?”

  He consulted his drawing.

  But before he could respond, a page rushed into the garden. He bowed cursorily. “Your Highness! Lord Uther Tangel has arrived with news from your father! Pagoras has fallen! Prince Avin summons you. Sieur Daxtonet, ladies, please come.”

  With a flurry of exclamations, Huwen’s tutor and the ladies set aside their tasks and hurried off behind the page.

  Uther! And news of father—

  But...Huwen slowed.

  Anwen was here, walking beside him. Glancing at him. Now.

  Uther would be here for at least a few days, and whatever he reported had already happened. It would not change. The news would be talked about for days or weeks.

  But to be alone with Anwen...

  Huwen touched her arm and adjusted his stride to fall back behind the others.

  Anwen caught his smile and they slowed, allowing the ladies to push past them on the path. He grinned, and she grinned back and caught his hand. The touch of her fingers sent thrills of pleasure into his core.

  They reached the garden gate.

  Across the bailey, courtiers crowded the door of the great hall, a flock of servants at their heels.

  —they didn’t have to follow. No one would notice.

  Huwen bit his lip and she raised a brow. She had thought the same thing. The stables. He cast a glance across the bailey, then tugged on her hand and led her swiftly through the stable door.

  The interior was dark and smelled of horse and hay, but the stable boys had followed the others. They were alone. His heart beat pleasurably in his chest, and he pulled Anwen into an empty stall.

  Grinning, she sank into the hay, tugging his hand. He followed, delightful anticipation growing. “They’ll see the hay on us,” he whispered.

  “We’ll brush it off.” She lowered her lashes, demurely. Then, surprising him, she lifted her chin and kissed him softly, tentatively on the lips. An explosion of delight skittered across his skin. He released her to catch his breath, then kissed her back, sweetness multiplying within him.