The Dowry Blade

by Cherry Potts

  Brede glanced at her.

  ‘I don’t care a damn for their land obsessions, and I don’t want a hand-mate, not the way they understand it. That makes it difficult.’

  Brede fidgeted with the pliers once more.

  ‘But there was someone once?’

  ‘Devnet.’ Brede frowned, sighed, a memory conjured: Devnet, sudden and silent at her shoulder, one arm around her waist in a not to be argued with embrace of welcome.

  And Faine?’ Tegan asked again.

  ‘Faine protects us. Without her word for me, the elders would have thrown me out long ago,’ Brede flung the pliers down. ‘I wish they had.’

  ‘Because then your mother couldn’t blame you.’

  Brede lifted a miserable shoulder.

  ‘She needed me at first – we needed each other – and now she is used to me. It will hurt her when I go; she may even hate me – if she doesn’t already.’ She glanced at Tegan’s expression, and got to her feet, moving restlessly about.

  ‘I do try. They need someone to keep watch on the hill? I do it. They need someone to guard the sheep on the higher pasture? I’m a nomad, I know about herd animals.’ Brede laughed, ‘Sheep. I’ve scarcely been living all this time, they don’t understand what moves me, what makes me who I am. Oh and they try, I know that – Faine’s son prefers farming to ironwork? Brede’s tough, why not ask her? And I’m grateful, I am, we had nowhere else to go, but you’ve seen the walls. That’s how their minds work. They’ve been lucky – the Marsh survives drought better than most places, and it makes them too certain of themselves. And – there’s – there’s no movement.’

  Tegan laughed, a rich, full laughter that surprised her – for the first time laughter was free from pain.

  ‘Very well,’ Tegan said softly, ‘if it’s movement you crave, and there’s to be no dancing yet, there is time for another lesson.’

  Tegan put aside the mail shirt, and reached once more for Brede’s knives.

  As she did so there was a sound of scuffling at the door to the forge. Brede turned incurious eyes towards the sound, but Tegan froze. The suddenness of the sound suggested that up until that moment the person out there had been more careful, more secretive in their approach. Her hand tightened about the hilt of the knife.

  ‘Brede –’ she said softly, sliding the other knife towards her. Brede’s face registered alarm, and then understanding, and then something approaching panic. Her hand leapt away from the hilt of the knife as though it had bitten her. Tegan closed her eyes in furious frustration. ‘Brede – use it.’

  Three men stumbled into the forge. Tegan tucked her legs up, trying to get them beneath her so that she could stand if she had to. Brede grabbed up the knife and put herself between the men and Tegan, her skin cold, and then prickling with heat. Adair and Darcie and Rhian. She blinked rapidly, nervous, and kept the knife at her side, out of sight. They kept close to the doorway, slightly huddled, each apparently unwilling to be the first to make a move. They held lengths of wood, large enough to do damage. They stank of ale and fear.

  ‘How’s the party going?’ Brede asked.

  Adair looked startled. Not the question he was expecting. Brede grinned, running her free hand through her hair.

  ‘You come to set something up for the blushing hand-mates?’

  Darcie laughed uncertainly.

  ‘No?’ Brede persisted, aware of a rivulet of sweat coursing down her back. ‘Orla will be expecting something; we don’t want to disappoint her.’ She looked from Darcie back to Adair, trying to work out who the ringleader was. Normally it would be Rhian, but Adair was more committed to whatever they had planned. She didn’t like the firm grip he had on his weapon. Darcie held his club awkwardly, almost hiding it; Rhian’s grip was slack, and he swayed, confused by too much ale. Perhaps Rhian was the one to work on.

  ‘Who got gate duty tonight then?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘Why guard the gate when the enemy is in here?’ Rhian said scornfully.

  ‘What enemy?’

  ‘This one.’ Adair stepped forward waving his club in Tegan’s direction. Brede stepped sideways, putting herself in the way once more. The branch grazed her thigh as Adair swung back to rest the rough-hewn end against the ground.

  ‘Are you neglecting your duty, Rhian? Keenan will be angry.’

  Tegan braced her hand against the rooftree; ready to use it to push off from, but not sure she had enough strength in her legs.

  ‘Keenan won’t care.’ Rhian replied, a grin spreading slowly across his face.

  Brede glanced at Adair, wondering whether she could still make an ally of him. She laughed, and reached out, touching Adair gently on his sleeve,

  ‘Adair, you should take your brother home, he’s very drunk if he thinks that.’

  ‘We’re all very drunk,’ Adair agreed, but it was not a compliant agreement. A tremor of anxiety ran down Brede’s arm and she withdrew her fingers from his wrist quickly, afraid he would notice.

  ‘You might have brought me some ale,’ she said sulkily, and then, as though it had only just occurred to her, ‘You could have come alone.’ She let her closed fist rest against her hip, suggesting irritation, disappointment, scorn – ‘But if you want to play with your friends, don’t come looking to me for –’

  ‘For what?’ Adair interrupted softly, and Brede wondered if he was not perhaps drunk at all.

  ‘Company. Or support when Keenan finds out Rhian isn’t where he should be, and that you got him drunk. You did get him drunk, didn’t you?’

  Adair grinned.

  ‘Company?’

  Brede edged closer to Adair.

  ‘Send them back to the party, Adair. You’re sober enough to guard a gate, so long as someone is there to keep you awake.’

  ‘And you’d do that?’

  ‘Done it before,’ she said softly, unfolding her fist. Adair watched that hand opening out of anger into potential pleasure; ‘If it will keep you all from getting in trouble with Keenan, I might do it again.’

  Adair winked slowly.

  ‘Wouldn’t want to get in trouble.’ He turned slowly to his brother. ‘Go’n tell Keenan me and Brede are gate-keeping so’s you’n join the party.’

  Rhian shook his head and giggled.

  ‘Gate-keeping,’ he said, and the giggle turned into a guffaw.

  ‘Keenan will understand,’ Brede said, ‘Don’t you think Darcie? Your father will understand that you wanted Rhian to enjoy the party, and that Adair and I agreed to cover for him?’

  Darcie nodded, confused that what had started out as something deeply frightening was turning into a trick played on his father, and that Rhian seemed to be in trouble, and that Adair seemed to be finally getting somewhere with ice-maiden Brede. He pulled insistently at Rhian’s arm, dragging him out into the snow, not wanting Rhian in trouble with his father, wanting not to crowd Adair. He didn’t trust Rhian to fully understand how precarious the balance was between Adair and Brede; they couldn’t afford to spoil Adair’s chances.

  Brede listened to their scuffling withdrawal. She looked curiously at Adair, wondering whether he believed what she had been saying. He was swaying. She pulled the club out of his hand. He barely resisted.

  ‘Thank you for bringing more firewood,’ she said, tossing it onto the fire.

  Adair frowned at his empty hand, then found better use for it, clasping Brede to him, a tight embrace that sought to bring every inch of his body into contact with some part of her. Brede wrapped her arms about him, keeping her knife arm free of his engulfing hug, and let him kiss her – a deep, forceful kiss. Her heart pounded in panic, her whole body seemed to reverberate with the force of her blood. A wonder they couldn’t hear it above the row of partying. She wished someone would hear. Adair remembered to breathe and she pulled away slightly.

  ‘I meant it about the gate-keeping,’ she said lightly. Adair shuddered, and returned to kissing her, moving away from her mouth to run his tongue across her throat, and
up around her ear. Brede laughed, trying to writhe out of his embrace, not quite managing it.

  Tegan turned her head away, her eyes smarting with the hot firelight and the sight of the embrace silhouetted against the flames. Why in hell Brede didn’t just stick the knife in him and have done – she knew damn well why not. Protecting her. Tegan listened to the urgent scuffling of loosening clothes, flesh against flesh, Brede’s breath getting troubled, Adair grunting. Tegan caught her lip between her teeth, biting hard, to keep from intervening. Goddess. Tegan covered her eyes, trying to block her ears in the same movement.

  Silence – and not the silence of muffled hearing. An incoherent gasp, a soft, heavy thud. Brede, against the light, her hands tangled in Adair’s clothing, bent over as she let his body gently down to the floor. A huddle of fallen limbs, her face unreadable, her breathing uneven.

  ‘Tie him up. I’m going for Faine.’

  ‘It’s her son’s hand-fasting.’

  ‘That’s right, and I’m her apprentice.’

  ‘What did you do to him?’

  Brede shrugged her clothes into order, pulling her belt unnecessarily tight.

  ‘Clan secret. For dealing with horses that won’t be told. I’ve never tried it on a person. Check I haven’t killed him?’

  And then she was gone – out into the snow. Tegan crawled over to Adair, still not trusting her legs. He was breathing. There was nothing obvious to tie him with, so she made use of his already loosened belt, binding his hands as tightly as she could. She thought about kicking him while she was about it, but she hadn’t the strength, and she wasn’t sure how Brede’s choice of explanation would sit with broken ribs.

  Brede’s choice was to be light-hearted until she had Faine on her own. Then she told her mistress everything.

  Faine pulled her round so that her face was in the light.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Brede nodded, letting her hair fall back over her face.

  ‘How far did you let him get?’

  Brede pushed her fingers through her tangled hair, dragging braid and binding apart.

  ‘Not far.’

  Faine shook her head.

  ‘Come.’ She glanced about the gathering, looking for someone halfway sober. Her eye fell on Edra, who was watching with undisguised curiosity. Faine lifted her hand slightly in invitation. Edra rose and came quietly to join them.

  ‘Adair has had far too much to drink and got beyond himself. I need help to put him to bed, or to guard the gate. Are you willing?’

  Edra glanced at Brede’s dishevelled appearance.

  ‘I’ll mind the gate, but find someone to relieve me soon; I’m ready for my bed too.’

  Faine nodded, and taking Brede by the elbow waved to her son and headed off to the forge.

  ‘Are you really all right?’ she asked again.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Tegan?’

  ‘Upset.’

  ‘Do you want to take this to Keenan?’

  ‘No. They were very drunk. I doubt they will remember in the morning, and I burnt most of the evidence. If we make something of this, it can only mean more trouble.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘Adair believes I invited him. I hope he will think he imagined the whole thing in the morning. I don’t want him trying to build on false foundations.’

  Faine pushed through the leather curtain at the forge doorway. She glanced from Adair, beginning to stir, but not yet aware of his bindings, to Tegan, sitting with her back to the rooftree, knife in hand.

  ‘I hope you will forgive my kin’s behaviour. It seems they can’t hold their drink.’

  Tegan stared up at Faine and said nothing.

  ‘Well,’ Faine said, ‘let’s get this idiot to his bed.’

  Between them, she and Brede got Adair to his feet. Faine made a grab for his breeches just in time. He swayed between them, muttering incoherently.

  ‘You could help us by holding up your own trews,’ Faine said irritably. Brede pivoted him about and almost dragged him through the doorway.

  ‘Where we going?’ Adair asked as the cold air stirred him to greater sense.

  ‘Bed.’ Brede said, and then wished she hadn’t. ‘You, your bed, alone.’

  Adair kept silent, concentrating on his feet. Faine toppled him in at his door and rolled him into his bedding, only then loosening the belt about his hands.

  ‘Where you going?’ Adair asked, sensing the movement about and above him.

  ‘To gate-keep.’ Brede said angrily, yanking his wolfskin off the peg it always hung on.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Faine said.

  ‘It’s what Rhian and Darcie think I’m doing. Let’s not muddy the water any more than we have to.’

  Faine walked with Brede to the gate, and watched her up the ladder. Edra was down the rungs swiftly. She turned as she reached Faine, and looked up at Brede, hunched against the palisade.

  ‘She’s crying,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Adair’s a bastard when he’s drunk,’ Faine said savagely. Edra raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I didn’t think she cared.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Faine sighed. ‘I can’t work her out at all.’

  Edra nodded and waved vaguely as she headed for home.

  Faine stood in the darkness, but the gathering held no charm now, it was deteriorating into a younger person’s evening. She retraced her steps to the forge.

  Tegan looked up as Faine entered, and laid the knife on the floor. Faine stood above her unwelcome guest.

  ‘What are you trying to do to Brede?’ she asked at last.

  Tegan frowned.

  ‘Get her to trust me.’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’

  ‘Teach her to use her knives.’

  Faine hissed air through her teeth.

  ‘Obviously you trust her already.’

  Tegan hesitated, then slowly nodded.

  ‘I think so.’

  Rhian struggled out into the dawn, nursing a split boulder for a head. He had a confused idea that he and Adair had split their shifts to allow them both to spend time at the gather, but there was a nervous anxiety that there would be no one at the gate. He was relieved to see Adair, wrapped in his treasured wolf skin, staring out at the brightening horizon.

  ‘Quiet night?’ he asked genially.

  Adair turned, and was not Adair after all.

  Brede unwrapped herself from the wolf skin and held it out to Rhian.

  ‘Eventually,’ she said.

  Rhian took the fur and stood wordless as she slid down the ladder, landing with a soft explosion of loose snow. He watched her stride away, her shoulders hunched against the cold, and a confusion of memories from the night ambushed him. His heart sank.

  Brede went home.

  Leal met her, hope warring with an urge to scold.

  ‘Adair was here looking for you.’ She left an expectant silence. Brede did not answer. She shrugged out of her tunic and dragged on a warmer garment then huddled beside the fire, her fingers knit tight about her knees.

  Leal gazed at her daughter, silent and withdrawn, and reflected that Adair had not looked like an eager nor triumphant suitor. He had seemed uneasy.

  ‘Brede?’

  Brede shook her head. Leal sighed and sat beside her, reaching to stroke hair out of her eyes.

  ‘He’s a good lad, really.’ Leal said.

  Brede pulled away from her mother’s touch.

  ‘He’s a violent, drunken, lecherous idiot.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Brede looked at her mother; hand still raised to caress, if she would allow it. She smiled wearily, and leant into the offered embrace.

  ‘Is there any mending it?’ Leal asked softly. Brede shook her head. Leal put her arms about her daughter, pulling her close.

  ‘Was there anything to break?’ she asked.

  Brede sighed.

  ‘A friendship, nothing more. A friendship. I don’t want to s
peak to him, not yet. Not if he were to crawl naked through the snow to beg for forgiveness.’

  Leal’s breath jerked between laughter and disapproval. Brede grinned.

  ‘I might enjoy him doing that, though.’

  ‘I’ll mention it when he comes back.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘He’s only gone to the forge to look for you.’

  ‘He forgot I was gate-keeping then?’

  ‘Gate-keeping?’

  ‘I told you, he was drunk.’

  Leal shook her head in disgusted despair.

  ‘I thought better of him. Rhian said he’d offered to relieve him, but that is irresponsible.’

  ‘I dealt with it.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Leave the poor sot alone, mother. I plan to punish him quite sufficiently. He doesn’t need Keenan as well.’

  ‘So he hasn’t lost your favour completely?’

  ‘Despising his weakness and pitying his folly isn’t what I call favour.’

  ‘You are a harsh judge.’

  Brede pulled away from her mother and stood up.

  ‘You don’t know the crime.’ She groaned, stretched the last of cold-cramp from her back. ‘I’ve work to do.’

  Leal watched her daughter go in silence, wondering what Adair had done or said to wreck his chances so thoroughly.

  Chapter Seven

  Tegan’s reach had become limited, her speed slowed, her reactions dulled. She couldn’t bear the weight of her newly mended mail, and knew that she wasn’t pushing Brede as she should. She was afraid that she would not be able to do that pushing, that she could no longer use her own sword with sufficient skill.

  She exercised relentlessly, trying to force the speed and suppleness back into her reluctant body; but she still accommodated her lack of reach, the lack of power behind her blow, and saw those adjustments mirrored in Brede’s movements. She shouted her frustration at Brede, who was bewildered to be told that she was wrong, when her actions seemed identical to Tegan’s.

  They had been working within the confines of the forge, but now Tegan came to a decision. If Brede wanted to learn to use the knives properly she needed space to work and a variety of blades to work against.