Winter's Fury

by A. E. Rayne

  ‘Well, don’t think I won’t do that too,’ Eirik grumbled. ‘You need to be spending time with your wife, not some childish girl who wants to play games with you, and me, it seems’. He looked around, frowning. ‘Where is Jael, by the way? It feels as though I haven’t seen her for days.’

  ‘She’s gone riding with Thorgils.’

  ‘Again?!’ Eirik’s eyebrows knotted together in displeasure. ‘Perhaps it’s time you remembered how to ride a horse so that you can spend some time with her yourself. She’s horse mad, that one, so you’d better get back in the saddle if you want to keep up with her,’ he huffed. ‘Eydis, you stay with your brother and finish your meal, I’m going back to the hall to get warm.’ And mumbling crossly to himself, he stormed off.

  ‘Well, he’s easily annoyed today,’ Eadmund said with a bemused grin as he watched his father scurry away.

  Eydis didn’t say anything. She had suddenly lost her appetite, for she had felt Evaine’s glow, seen a vision of light around her. Not darkness, but light; the light of life growing inside Evaine.

  She was pregnant.

  22

  The cliff they stood beneath was so high that Jael had to strain her neck to see a glimpse of its peak. It stood there, staring back down at her, steaming with cold moisture, its sheer exterior, dark and imposing amongst the low-lying mist.

  ‘We go in here,’ Thorgils smiled, his eyes twinkling with pleasure as he pointed to the rock-face.

  Jael and Fyn looked around, confused at first, but a slight turn to the left revealed a light emerging from the rocks, and a natural opening wide enough for Thorgils to slip through. They followed him, Fyn as curious as Jael now; he certainly hadn’t been here before.

  The smell, when they entered the cave was intense, like rotten eggs, Jael thought, wrinkling her nose. The air was much warmer than outside, though, warm, and glowing blue! Looking up in amazement, she saw that the high, curved ceiling of the cave was covered in thousands of tiny, blue lights; glow worms, she remembered. She had seen something similar in one of Andala’s sacred caves, but nothing that matched this; this place felt like magic.

  They followed Thorgils down a ragged path towards a huddle of large rocks. ‘Careful here, it’s very slippery,’ he cautioned them. ‘I would suggest you close your eyes before you get to the surprise, but that would no doubt kill you both!’ He stopped and waited for Jael and Fyn to come beside him, smiling at their puzzled expressions as he gestured over the rocks. He had led them to a little pool, a shimmering, steaming pool, rippling under the sky of lights.

  Fyn’s eyes widened. ‘It’s a hot pool, isn’t it?’

  Jael’s eyes widened. ‘Hot? It’s hot? Hot water?’

  Thorgils looked triumphant. ‘It is! A hot pool, just for you, the coldest woman on Oss!’ He laughed happily at the look of sheer joy on her face. ‘I’ve seen you shivering about since you arrived, moaning and miserable in that thin cloak of yours, so I thought you needed something to warm you up. And I remembered this place,’ he smiled. ‘Eirik found it and named it Eskild’s Cave, after Eadmund’s mother. Only those people Eirik trusts know about it, and luckily for you, one of those people is me!’

  Jael was touched that he would think to bring her here, but impatient too; her frozen body was demanding she throw herself into the steaming hot water immediately. ‘I can’t think of anything to say, except, thank you, and get out so I can get in!’ She smiled ecstatically at the men as she rushed to remove her gloves and cloak.

  ‘Alright, alright, give us a chance to leave!’ Thorgils panicked as he hurried back to the entrance with Fyn. ‘I don’t want to see you naked before your husband does!’

  Fyn stared at Thorgils curiously as they made their way outside.

  ‘Don’t ask!’ Thorgils laughed, rolling his eyes.

  Jael didn’t even look up to see if they had gone; she was undressed in a heartbeat, folding her sword up into her damp clothes, happy to escape their miserable embrace for now. She caught a glimpse of her tattoos as she approached the water. They had almost completely healed; she hoped they wouldn’t mind the heat.

  Her body went limp as she slid one toe into the dark pool. It was warm. Warmer than just warm, though; it was hot enough to melt her icy bones. She slipped into the water as quickly as she could, feeling the heat devour her shivering flesh.

  The water was deep enough for Jael to stand and still be mostly submerged, but the heat quickly made her limbs heavy, so she found a little hole in the side of the pool, just big enough for her backside, and sunk into it. She lay her head back against a smooth rock and stared up at the sparkling ceiling, marvelling at the lights. Her body sagged contentedly, restfully, into the water and she closed her eyes. She saw Eadmund’s face then and frowned. What had happened to him this morning? Perhaps the changes in him had just been an illusion, a false hope for everyone to cling to? Maybe it just was, as Biddy had said, the way some people were born. Perhaps it was that Eadmund would end up as miserable as Biddy’s father had? She hoped not.

  Jael opened her eyes. She suddenly felt low and didn’t want to feel that way in this perfect, perfect place. Shaking her head in frustration, she tried to stop Eadmund from entering her thoughts. She cleared her mind and closed her eyes again. Her body was utterly limp now, and it was impossible to resist the sense of unravelling she felt as the water softened every part of her. Her mind kept wandering back to Eadmund, though, and eventually, she didn’t resist. Should she try to help him? He was her husband, after all, for now at least. Perhaps there was something she could do? He would likely need all the help he could get if Eydis was right about Ivaar coming back to Oss.

  But what could she do? If Evaine was to fall pregnant, then nothing was going to stop Eirik from bringing Ivaar back.

  Kalfa was a small island, about a quarter the size of Oss, and Ivaar hated it. In truth, he hated Oss too.

  The people of Oss had never liked him. His father had never liked him. His brother had hated him, and the feeling had been entirely mutual on every count. But he had spent every day of the past seven years imagining a way to get back there and reclaim the life he once had, as the king’s son, as heir to Oss.

  He was a lord here, on Kalfa. The lord. It was his island, as much as it was his father’s. His father never came here, and Ivaar never went to Oss, so Kalfa had become his whole world, and him, its prisoner. A tiny, unimpressive, rocky stone of a go-nowhere world. He was lord of nothing much and going slowly insane because of it.

  Ivaar was ambitious; desperately so. And not prepared to wait any longer. He’d had word that there had been a wedding on Oss; that his pathetic brother had married, and married well. A Furyck. His father had pulled a surprise there. Jael Furyck was a real prize, the woman he would certainly have chosen for his wife if he had been given any choice in the matter. Furia’s daughter, they called her, and a battle-hardened warrior too. That was a woman to have, not like his dim-witted and tedious wife, Isaura.

  Forced upon him at the last moment before he’d been thrown from Oss to Kalfa, she had provided him with four living children; one of them a son, three of them annoying, screeching, and equally dim-witted girls, so she had done her job. But nothing about her excited him, just as nothing about Kalfa excited him. And he was desperate for excitement; desperate to turn everything upside down in his boringly predictable life.

  Ivaar sat impatiently on his large, wooden chair, inside his ugly, little hall, on his small, little island and stroked his finely groomed beard. His eyebrows narrowed. There had to be a way back to Oss; if only the gods would help him. Perhaps he needed to talk to his dreamer about making a sacrifice?

  There might be hope in that.

  ‘Did Jael give you that bruise?’ Thorgils wondered, pointing to a large, greenish mark on the side of Fyn’s face.

  Fyn blushed, ducking his head. ‘Ummm, yes, she did. One of many.’

  They were standing by the horses, jiggling and shivering in the freezing air, both wishing that Ja
el would hurry up so they could take their turn in the hot pool.

  ‘Ha!’ Thorgils laughed as he stroked the side of Leada’s cold face with one hand, feeding her a carrot with the other. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. She doesn’t go easy on you, that’s for sure.’

  ‘No,’ Fyn agreed. ‘But if she had treated me softly, I’d probably still be tripping over my feet, dropping my sword every time she looked at me. Now I just need to learn how to avoid being kicked in the head!’

  Thorgils looked shocked. ‘She kicks you in the head? How does she do that?’

  Fyn laughed at Thorgils’ contorted face, relaxing for the first time in a while. ‘Easily, it seems, as she’s done it a number of times and I’ve not seen it coming yet!’

  ‘So, that’s what the bruise is from, then? Her boot?’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Fyn mumbled, gnawing on a piece of dried fish he’d pulled from the pouch on his belt.

  ‘But how does she kick that high?’ Thorgils was still stunned by the thought of it, reaching his arm out to measure the height of Fyn’s bruise from the ground. ‘I should like to see that.’

  ‘I’m sure she would happily show you,’ Fyn laughed. ‘But you’d probably end up with your face in the snow!’

  ‘Show you what?’ Jael wondered as she emerged at last through the hole in the mountain, folding her hood around her wet hair, her face red with heat and pleasure.

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ Thorgils muttered quickly as he slipped past her. ‘Nothing for you to worry about. You just keep those horses happy, and we’ll be back soon.’

  Jael looked at Fyn, but he just shrugged his shoulders and followed Thorgils into the cave. She smiled, pleased to see a flicker of life in his eyes again.

  Eydis knocked on the door, but there was no answer. There was no one around at all, she thought, as she listened intently, not even a horse and certainly not any puppies; she couldn’t hear a soul.

  Her shoulders dropped in disappointment. She had been hoping to see Jael, to talk to her about Evaine, to try and decide what they could possibly do, as futile as it all seemed.

  ‘Hello there,’ Biddy smiled down at the little girl standing outside the door. ‘You must be Eydis.’

  The puppies rushed joyously at Eydis, jumping up her legs. She bent down, with a smile, happy to be showered in their sloppy affection again. ‘And you must be Biddy,’ she said shyly.

  ‘I am that,’ Biddy said as she unlocked the door. ‘Come inside and warm yourself up, young miss. I’m sure that Jael won’t be long.

  ‘You need to go there regularly, I think,’ Thorgils laughed. ‘You look like a different person with that silly smile all over you. I think in this mood, you’d even give Eadmund a kiss or two!’ He laughed loudly at his own joke and the sudden twist in her cheerful face. ‘Oh, he’s not that bad that you can’t even imagine kissing him, is he?’

  ‘Well, he’s not my choice,’ Jael tried to explain, suddenly awkward. ‘He’s not who I would choose to kiss, or choose to be married to.’ Her eyes drifted away gloomily then. ‘If I had ever chosen to be married at all.’

  ‘So, you had someone in Brekka, then?’ Thorgils suggested delicately.

  Jael eyed him as they ambled up the hill towards the fort, the horses blowing hard after a fast ride from Fyn’s. ‘I might have.’

  Thorgils looked at her with deep sympathy. ‘Well, that’s a hard thing, Jael, and I’m sorry for you. But you can’t go back, can you? What’s done is done. You’re married now. And I tell you, in Eadmund you have a good man, and if you give him a chance, you might find a reason or two to kiss him, at least once. And who knows where that might lead...’

  ‘You have to stop worrying about me and Eadmund, and focus on your own chances for getting kisses, my friend,’ Jael told him as she gave Tig an encouraging nudge with her heel. She was starving, and desperate to get back to see what Biddy had cooking. ‘Why is it that you’re not married?’

  Thorgils’ face fell so heavily that Jael regretted her words. She’d never seen him look so serious or sad, but within moments he had masked his eyes, and shaken it off with a light-hearted grin. ‘Oh well, I’m the picky type, you see,’ he insisted, trying to keep his voice casual. ‘I like to sample the goods, rather than go through with the purchase.’ It didn’t sound like him at all, and he knew it, and he knew that she knew it, but both of them left it alone. ‘Besides,’ he continued. ‘I watched my mother nag my father to a miserable death, so I was never keen on the idea of living under the thumb of a woman, no matter how comfortable her tits might be to snuggle into at night!’

  Jael rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, with talk like that, I can imagine the line to receive your favours stretches long and deep.’

  ‘Yes, just like my cock!’ He couldn’t help the laugh that roared out of his chest as he firmly shut the door on the painful memories she had uncovered. They were so dusty now; it was an easy door to keep closed... most of the time.

  Jael shook her head and nudged Tig again, who, annoyed now, dug his hooves into the thick snow and started to climb faster, leaving Leada with her much heavier weight, and the extra burden of towing Thorgils’ horse, in his wake. Jael turned around in the saddle and laughed at the frustrated face staring back at her. ‘You’d better hurry up old man, or there’ll be no stew left for you!’

  There was not even any stew for her, it turned out. Eirik had sent word that he expected Jael at the hall for the evening meal, so Biddy hadn’t prepared anything, which was just as well, as Eydis was desperate to talk. Thorgils left them to it and headed to the hall, his stomach rumbling loudly.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Jael asked as she removed her wet boots, worried by the troubled look on Eydis’ face.

  Eydis hesitated, glancing about, unsure where Biddy was, but feeling her presence in the room.

  ‘Oh, you needn’t worry about Biddy,’ Jael insisted as she gripped Eydis’ hand. ‘Biddy wouldn’t dare reveal anything we talk about. She knows what I can do with a sword!’

  Eydis smiled nervously, half-heartedly reassured. She felt strange putting words to her thoughts, talking about such adult things.

  ‘Tell me what’s happened, Eydis.’

  ‘It’s Evaine,’ she spluttered. ‘She’s pregnant. I know she is.’

  They both heard Biddy’s gasp from the kitchen; Jael was too stunned to say anything.

  ‘She was in the square today, with her mother,’ Eydis went on. ‘She sounded so happy, and I could see a light around her. I could see a child in her. I am certain of it, Jael. I saw it this way in my dreams.’ Eydis turned her head towards the floor, worry shrouding her pale little face. ‘She is pregnant. Now.’

  ‘Well, alright,’ Jael muttered, almost to herself, scratching her nose distractedly. ‘There’s not much we can do about that, is there?’

  ‘Isn’t there? Anything?’ Eydis pleaded hopefully. ‘She can’t have Eadmund’s baby. You’re supposed to do that!’

  Jael didn’t know what to say. She felt uncomfortable; all this constant talk about Eadmund was getting under her skin. If only Eirik had married him to Evaine, they could all have saved themselves a lot of trouble. ‘All we can do is try to keep your father calm when he finds out,’ Jael suggested, trying to imagine Eirik’s reaction. ‘He has seen the changes in Eadmund, so he may not be as quick to jump for Ivaar as everyone thinks.’ She glanced at Biddy, who had come to join them by the fire.

  Biddy’s face reflected the doubt in her own. ‘Perhaps you just need to get yourself pregnant before he finds out?’ Biddy suggested helpfully.

  Jael didn’t welcome that piece of advice. ‘I think I would rather have Ivaar here than suffer that!’ she snorted.

  ‘No, no, don’t say that, Jael!’ Eydis cried, her eyes full of fear. ‘You don’t know what he’s capable of. You don’t know what he’ll do!’

  Jael sighed, deeply. She felt as though she was rushing towards everything she had spent her whole life avoiding. But rushing towards it, she was.

  A
xl sat, simmering furiously as he watched his uncle paw at his mother. Their marriage plans were gathering pace, and Lothar assumed that gave him the right to touch Gisila where and when he wanted, and he chose the King’s Hall, in front of anyone who mattered in Andala.

  Lothar sat there in the seat that had been Ranuf’s, touching the wife who had been Ranuf’s, wearing the sword that had been Ranuf’s. Axl was not sure he’d ever felt so helpless and angry at the same time; he could barely contain himself. He chewed on his lip, clenched his jaw, rolled his fingers over and over, his mouth set in a firm line of displeasure.

  ‘You should learn how to craft a better smile than that,’ Gant whispered hoarsely in his ear. ‘It might save your life.’

  Axl didn’t turn around to acknowledge him. Gant was Lothar’s man now, why should he care what he said? He had abandoned them all when they’d needed him most, chosen to follow the easier option of his bloated, ridiculous uncle, so Axl had no need for his advice now. He picked at the food on his plate with his knife and remained silent and sullen.

  ‘Your sister’s not here, and your mother won’t be able to save you if you keep to this path, Axl,’ Gant tried again, keeping his voice low. ‘Don’t think they’re not watching you.’

  Axl looked up and saw Osbert’s eyes boring straight through him. Without looking at Gant or Osbert, and completely ignoring his mother and Lothar, Axl got up from the table and left to join his friends at the rear of the hall. He was too angry to speak.

  ‘Axl does not seem happy these days,’ Osbert noted pointedly to Gisila. ‘Perhaps he does not approve of you marrying my father?’