by Jude Fisher
It had not always been so.
At fifteen, she had been a celebrated beauty, exotic in a region known for its pale blondes and striking auburn-haired girls, with her lustrous black hair, her hazel eyes and regal bearing. Every lord and chieftain in the Northern Isles in that time had striven to win her hand. Contests had been held by her father, feats of bravery and skill and downright idiocy – horse fights and sword fights, wrestling and archery, seal-catching and cow-tipping, tree-chopping and spear-casting. Ashar Stenson, Prince of Halbo, had been the victor in every event in which he participated. Handsome he was, with his flowing yellow hair and plaited beard, his weather-tanned skin and his sharp blue eyes, his great stature and well-muscled limbs. The scars of a hundred duels and battles criss-crossed his forearms and puckered his chest in a fascinating web which told of fates run their course and lives cut short, and the famous luck of the royal house. She loved him at first sight. At thirty-three he was confident and attractive, a man who had outlived one wife already (dead in childbirth, and the babe, for shame, as well) and had a well-earned reputation for his lusty pursuit of the ladies of the court – a man, in short, in comparison to the scores of callow boys who came to ply their suit. But even so, Auda had turned him down, much to the chagrin of her father and uncles, who plainly saw the political advantage to be had in marrying their charge to the heir to the throne. Whether she had done so out of wilfulness or arrogance, none could determine. None but Auda herself.
The truth of it was that she had been awash in an unfamiliar sea of desire. It frightened the wits out of her. She had never stood to win so much; nor yet to lose it. And so she withheld herself. This merely provoked Ashar to pursue her harder. He wooed her with furs and amber and silver, with fabulous weavings from the Southern Continent, with bards sent to sing her praises and with declarations of devotion. He had her brought to Halbo and showed her the castle that would be hers should she accept his troth. Still she would not take him. He tried to force her one night; she bit his cheek, leaving a mark which never fully healed, and fled the city. How could he resist such a hell-cat? He sent armed men after her entourage and had her brought, raging, back to Halbo; where instead of paying a seither to marry them whether she would or no, he stripped to the waist and had four men beat him close to senseless in front of her for his temerity, until she cried out in horror and agreed to wed him.
There was blood on the sheets after their first night together; his (from the lashing) and hers from the virgin wound. She believed, in some ancient, pagan, instinctive way, that this melding of their essence – like the binding of a seither’s enchantment – would keep them together forever, but she was wrong.
For three weeks after the wedding she was in bliss. By the end of the first month, he lost interest in her, and continued his lascivious affairs with every other woman under the northern sun, thus confirming her fears: that he was a man driven by the need to hunt and to conquer, a shallow man who preferred novelty and illicit liaisons to spending his nights in the conjugal bed. He swived her maybe two dozen times in the first year of their marriage, then never again. Unsurprisingly, she did not fall pregnant, a matter of political inconvenience and great bitterness to them both, though after that first year, he could not bring himself to touch her even for the sake of begetting an heir. Bastards abounded; most died in blood-feuds brought about by the political manoeuvrings of one clan or another. And then, twenty-four years ago, the unimaginable had happened. Ashar Stenson – by then known as the Grey Wolf or the Shadow Wolf, for his cunning exploits in battle as well as for the mane of silvered hair he wore to his waist – fell in love, for the first and only time in his life. With an Istrian woman, the wife of his greatest enemy, the Lord of Forent.
With the irony that suggested the gods regarded those folk whose prayers they were offered with the utmost contempt, preferring to twist their fates into painful knots rather than to grant favours, the Lady of Forent duly conceived, from the single encounter the King of Eyra had managed to visit upon her.
The result – a boy-child smuggled into the northern court, claimed and raised as Auda’s own at the violent behest of her grief-stricken, guilt-ridden, passion-maddened husband, against all sense and propriety; and against the prophecy of a seither she had once loved like a mother – was the man who now reigned as King of Eyra: Ravn Asharson, Stallion of the North. She had nurtured him as her own all these years and had never spoken of his origins; out of fear of her own fate if her part in this treachery to the nation were to be known as much as out of any sense of loyalty or love; and the bitterness this situation had engendered had eaten her from the inside out as surely as any canker. Now, she looked upon the man who was thought by all to be her son, and the nomad bitch he had taken as his wife, and felt the bile rise in her throat.
She had done all she could to raise Ravn in the Eyran way, to instil in him the true northern values of courage and honesty, honour and shrewdness; but in the end he had been true to his tainted roots. Travelling to the Southern Continent just like his father he had gone and brought a foreign whore back to his bed. Like every weak man he had been led by the demands of his insistent cock, instead of choosing himself a good northern bride who would respect her heritage, her position and her husband’s mother. Worse for – she could have found some secret way to be rid of a mere bed-partner – he had taken the whore to wife and apparently got upon her a son, an heir to whom the Eyran throne, and all the weight of the Northern Isles’ proud history, would pass in time.
It was insupportable. From the pride and love she had learned to feel for this handsome boy she had raised as her own, her softer sentiments had hardened and turned increasingly, day by bitter day, to fury, resentment and loathing. Like Sur’s raven she hoarded these treasures. Like the raven, she carried vengeance and death in her heart.
At the outset of this sorry affair she had cried down woes on Ravn for the shame of taking a nomad whore for his bride; she had predicted doom and disaster, for himself, for his family, and for the whole country. And when none of her words would sway his will (or what was left of it once that pale sorcereress had sapped him with her lascivious appetites) she had dwelt with steadfast purpose on her desire to see the Rosa Eldi put off as infertile, or preferably dead. When the woman did not fall pregnant, she thought all her prayers to Feya had been answered; and to ensure matters stayed that way she had brought the seither here. But that ancient being had betrayed her, and turned instead to do the bidding of the whore. Somehow (and Auda could feel the poison of magic at work in it, could feel it in the hair on the back of her neck, which rose like a dog’s every time the child was nearby) the seither had helped the Rosa Eldi, the Whore of the World, to conceive and give birth to a boy Ravn now cherished as his heir. This single act made the woman’s position unassailable. Except to basest treachery.
There they were, the little family group, lit by the warm colours of the fire: the Stallion, the Whore and the Child. And just behind them sat the wet-nurse, who was never far away.
Auda regarded the girl from the safety of her secluded seat. She was very pretty, in a doe-eyed, foreign sort of way. No one appeared to know a damned thing about her, except that her name was Leta Gullwing and she had come in by ship from the south, which should have been all Auda required to loathe her entirely. But something about the girl, something sorrowful and yet determined, something damaged yet optimistic, reminded her of her own younger self. She saw, with the shrewd observation born of years of watching from the shadows, how the girl watched the King, with sly, stolen glances; how she seemed to melt when he held his ill-begotten child, with its huge, ugly head and its unearthly violet eyes, how her cheeks pinked if he addressed her, how she looked quickly away as if she might betray herself. Auda recognised obsessional devotion when she saw it: it was how she had looked at Ravn’s father, longingly, confusedly, when he had no care for her; and like his father, Ravn was oblivious to her attentions.
Fool, she thought to herself. All men are
fools. It was time for a woman to show her mettle: left to himself and the Whore, Ravn would destroy Eyra and all it stood for. Already the royal line was tainted. She had given him every chance to redeem his poisoned heritage, but he had failed her, and his people. Now was the time to act. Wrapping her shawl closer about her, she slipped from her seat and left the hall unnoticed by all but the hound which lay outside the side door, who sniffed at her hand uncertainly, not sure whether it would earn for its attentions a scrap or a cuffed head. In the end, it won neither: the Lady Auda swept past it as if it was not there. Her mind was on higher matters entirely.
In her chambers, her servant awaited her. The girl had changed the rushes on the floor and stoked up her fire, but still the room smelled musty and damp. I shall have finer quarters soon, she thought, crossing to her sewing table. There, she withdrew two threads of fine wool from a tray of assorted skeins laid out for the tapestry work she did in order to limber up her stiff joints, and with awkward fingers tied a series of knots into each piece. Then she wound them into tight bundles, extracted a small leather pouch which chinked when lifted, and beckoned the girl close.
‘Take the red one and this pouch. Give them to the master of the dungeons,’ she said softly. ‘Make sure no one else sees you. I don’t care how you manage it . . .’ She paused. The girl was attractive, in a robust Eastern Islander way, and had a certain lusty reputation: it was always useful in Halbo Castle to have a pretty servant at hand who had the ability to come by information in exchange for a favour or two. ‘Promise him a kiss or . . . something . . . when he does what is asked of him. And when he has read the red string, show him that you have the blue: but on no account let him take it or unravel it: that one must be passed unread to the one it is meant for. Accompany the dungeon master down to the cells. When he unlocks the requisite door, give the blue thread to the man inside that cell.’
The girl nodded, then frowned. ‘And then what?’
Auda smiled. ‘And then you let him take his . . . kiss . . . and you have completed your task, and shall be rewarded as you deserve.’
‘There is a pretty gown in the market just like the Queen’s,’ the girl said covetously. ‘I would very much like it. Though it is . . . rather expensive.’
Auda inclined her head. The idea of Ana busting out of diaphanous white silk cut for a spear-thin woman was quite ridiculous. ‘Of course, my dear, I am sure it will suit you well,’ she said graciously. ‘Run along now; and mind no one sees you.’
Ana thought about that dress all the way to the Sentinel Tower and down into the dungeons: it helped to keep her mind off what might be lurking in those dark corridors full of echoing footsteps and dripping water. The sconce guttered as she walked, casting strange shadows onto the ancient stone walls, illuminating spiders’ webs strung out across the ceilings and the fat occupants which squatted patiently awaiting their next repast. Narrow stairways wound down and down and down, the steps slick with wear and seepage – of water, or something worse – and the stench got so bad by the third flight that she had to pinch her nostrils closed with her free hand.
Bram will love me in it, she thought. He won’t be able to keep his hands off me. There was a dance coming up on Fifthnight, just over a week away. She had thought she’d have to wear her green dress, the one with the embroidered bodice, but it seemed so old-fashioned and frumpy in comparison with the new fashions inspired by the Queen. Pale colours, floating fabrics and mother-of-pearl trim had replaced bright, sturdy velvets and wool in the wardrobes of all the ladies of the court, whether the new style suited them or not. It did mean you had to dash between fire-warmed rooms down chilly castle corridors if you didn’t want to freeze your tits off, but it was well worth it for all the attention you got from the guards, or the chieftains and their retinues gathering in Halbo for the muster to war. That chieftain from Black Isle, she thought, skirting a particularly noxious puddle, he has a bold eye. The memory of his flirtatious glance as she served in the Great Hall made her shiver. Perhaps she was setting her sights too low with Bram. Wearing a dress like the one she’d seen in the market, with its low-cut bodice, its fine sleeves and shimmering skirt, she might catch more than a mere sergeant in the King’s guard: a clan chief, perhaps; even a lord . . .
Thoughts of the coming war did not concern Ana: she was a girl who lived from day to day and didn’t like to spend much time thinking if she could help it. She knew that Bram would sail south to Istria to fight; and the handsome chief from Black Isle, too. Whether or not they would return was in the hands of the gods. But there would always be other attractive men around while they were gone, even if they did not come back. What was a real shame was never having a chance to entertain the King himself; for it was said by many he didn’t confine his charms to noblewomen, but had been generously evenhanded in his affections, before he’d gone away to the Allfair, at least. She’d arrived at court only the week before he sailed and had been far too overwhelmed to have set her sights that high in such a short time; then he’d come back with the peculiar, pale woman from the South, and had had eyes for no other woman ever since. Which seemed a waste. The Rose of the World – a strange name for such a fragile creature: she was more like a snowdrop than a voluptuous rose, so fragile it looked as if you could snap her in two between your fingers, just like that! Ana couldn’t understand what the attraction could be to a man like Ravn Asharson: she hardly seemed a fitting bed-partner for the Stallion of the North. He needs a proper mare! She giggled to herself and nearly tripped down the next stair, steadying herself against the dank wall.
She rounded the final curving stairway to the dungeon keeper’s chamber without further mishap. No one saw her and there seemed to be no guards on this level at all: unsurprising, really, since most of their charges had been released into the care of the Earl of Stormway and were learning the ropes ready to be drafted onto ships bound for the Southern Continent when such became necessary. At the door to Flinn Ogson’s chamber she smoothed her hair, tugged her bodice lower and knocked loudly. There was a moment’s pause in which she heard the clink of a flask and goblet and the sound of them being hastily tidied away. She stifled a laugh: did he really think everyone was ignorant of his habits?
The door opened a hand’s width and the dungeon master peered out, looking irritated at the interruption. His eyes were bloodshot. His breath almost knocked her down. ‘What d’you want?’ he slurred, apparently addressing her cleavage.
‘Well, that depends.’ Ana bobbed a curtsey to show him even more, then handed him the red string and watched as he turned a shoulder to her and unravelled it with clumsy fingers. Sometimes she wished she’d been more diligent at learning her knots, but it always seemed a lot easier to tell people things than have to go to so much trouble.
The man looked at her again in an assessing way. He leered at her. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘best get the dull bit over with. Then we can have some fun.’ He took the sconce from her and beckoned her to follow.
Down into the bowels of the dungeons she followed his broad leather-clad back. At the bottom it was hard to breathe, as if every poisonous smell from the entire castle had been dropped into this well of lost souls. Ana hoped very much that whatever favour the man expected to claim it would at least be in the relative comfort of his own chambers than in one of these filthy cells. It was a good job she’d worn her old homespun. She fixed her thoughts on the pretty white dress again, and let her fingers play over the first knots on the coiled blue thread. A meeting. Interesting. Surreptitiously, she removed the thread from her pouch and unrolled a bit more of it. Something about a man . . . something, something . . . a woman . . . She raised an eyebrow. Perhaps the old woman wasn’t quite as dry a stick as she made out. Perhaps she was arranging a liaison with a condemned man! The idea thrilled her. It was quite romantic, really, if you thought about it; or it would be if it were a beautiful young girl, rather than the old bag, offering some poor criminal his last taste of love . . . She smiled, even as she picked
her way through the rat droppings and pools of other, unnameable substances in Flinn’s wake to the last cell of all. The dungeon keeper took a vast ring of keys off his belt and unlocked this last door, then pushed her ahead of him. Ana shivered. Perhaps she was being offered to the prisoner! She hadn’t been prepared for that possibility. Quickly, she thrust the blue string at the captive and watched as he perused it. He must have been rich once, she thought idly. That robe had cost a fortune just for the marten fur. Pity it was ruined now. Though perhaps with a good wash . . .
Then the man stared at her, his eyes gleaming. She looked swiftly away, embarrassed despite herself. When she glanced back, it was to see his fingers running back and forth along the thread as if he was not quite sure of its import. Then he tucked it into his robe and stood up, wiping his hands on his thighs. He held one out to her.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and she was struck by his educated tones. A nobleman, then. Hard to tell in this light, and with that straggly beard.
She stared at his hand, and took a step away.‘Don’t mention it,’ she said. ‘Sir.’
‘Come on, then,’ Ogson said brusquely. ‘Both of you.’
