Sisters of the Fire

by Kim Wilkins

  But Avaarni clung to Gudrun’s side. ‘I want Gudrun.’

  Gudrun patted her pale curls, cropped short over her ears. ‘Leave her with me, Willow. She can make up stories for me. I love your stories, little one.’

  ‘She should be telling stories of our faith,’ Willow said grudgingly. ‘Liava, her doomed twins, the coming of the triangle.’

  ‘There’s no harm in having an imagination,’ Gudrun said. ‘Let her be a child for the afternoon.’

  Willow relented. Somehow between them, Willow and Gudrun managed to avoid conflict. One thing was non-negotiable: that Avaarni would be raised as a boy. Gudrun’s protests recurred from time to time, but Willow always had a new reason to give her. Lately, she’d been telling Gudrun that as a girl, what was to stop Bluebell marrying Avaarni off to a rough man and sending her somewhere far away? Gudrun had never really recovered from the loss of her only son, Wylm, who had died at Bluebell’s hand before his child was born. Ever the protective grandmother, she was so horrified at the thought of Avaarni married off that she had actually cried.

  Perhaps Willow had told that story with too much detail and relish.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, looking at Avaarni and Gudrun, both shining with love for each other. ‘I’m off for training.’

  Gudrun nodded, eyes averting almost imperceptibly. Gudrun most definitely did not like Willow’s trainer – whether for his ugly face or his rough manners, she didn’t know – but that was immaterial. Maava had sent him to her, and Maava didn’t make mistakes.

  Willow went to the bower she shared with Avaarni, and from under the mattress – a trick she had learned from Bluebell – she pulled her sword. Well, Wylm’s sword, and because he was dead, Avaarni’s sword. But for now Willow wielded it, and she wielded it well.

  She left the house and made her way down the hill to the flat area where she trained, every afternoon, without fail. For the first few years, it had been Gudrun’s guardsmen, Othilaf and Penda, who had shown her how to lift a sword, how to move it around, which body parts to aim for and which of her own to protect. At first, wooden swords. She had taken a wooden blow to the head so many times in the first year that she’d had a permanent lump on her crown.

  But she had become good at it. Not just competent – good. First she beat Othilaf, but he was old so perhaps that wasn’t such a surprise. The day she knew she could have easily taken Penda’s right arm off, and held her blow, was the day she knew she needed somebody better to train her.

  She prayed to Maava for somebody. Somebody who was battle hard, who knew how to fight the heathens. And who should turn up, just seven months ago, looking for her by name, but a dirty, desperate heathen warrior. They had trained every day since, except for holy days.

  So she sat in the glade waiting for him now. Whatever his low reputation, that was less important than what she was becoming: a soldier for Maava, ready to do battle for the souls of Thyrsland. Even if that meant shedding the blood of her heathen sister.

  Ivy rode hard.

  The stallion beneath her dug its hooves into the sand then sprang away fiercely, as Ivy goaded it forwards recklessly.

  ‘Come on,’ she shouted over the sea wind. ‘Come on, you bastard!’ Whether she was shouting at the horse or the foetus that she believed clung to the inside of her womb, she couldn’t be sure. But it felt good to release her frustration nonetheless.

  Around the curve she could see the path up to Sæcaster. Time to return. Despondent, she reined the horse in and headed up the path at a walk. She paid close attention to her womb. Was that a twinge?

  Another visit to the old witch in the Tanglewood then. The horse-riding trick never seemed to work. Was this the third or fourth time since the boys were born? Curse her ridiculous husband who, though old and sick, had some kind of nightmare seed that managed to embed itself in her successfully time and time again.

  Back on level ground, Ivy sped across the field towards the stables. Summer was the only time of year out here on the coast that the whole world wasn’t grey and being flayed by grim north-easterly winds. The fields all bloomed with wildflowers and the days were long and sunny, unless they were long and foggy. She dismounted and handed her horse to the stableboy, Joe, who never managed to get her riding gear as clean and organised as she’d like. The years of his incompetence had worn her down, though, and she had grown fond of his wide, friendly smile, his simple humility.

  ‘And you have a good day, my lady,’ he said.

  ‘You too, Joe,’ she said.

  In fact, years of life in Sæcaster had worn her down, just as the relentless sea wore down the gravel on the shore, turning it smooth. What a snappy, silly girl she had been when she’d first come here; always complaining about one thing or another. Ivy stopped and gazed out at the grey sea from the highest point outside her husband’s hall. The city of Sæcaster was more than just the city square and the duke’s hall: beyond the east gate crooked, narrow lanes wound up and down the sloping cliffs to the dark harbour. On all sides, little houses, people moving between them, donkeys with carts, chickens loose across the mossy pavings, long lines of washed clothes or drying fish, baskets piled loosely outside doors, the flap of market stall covers along the wharf, ships roped to jetties, traders rolling barrels and crates. Sæcaster was the busiest port in Thyrsland, and her husband, Guthmer, controlled it. His family had been dukes of Sæcaster since the time of the giants, or so it was said, which gave them the longest family history of any noble people in Thyrsland, along with Ivy’s own father. Guthmer had so much power in his frail old hands. And Ivy’s hands were on his.

  She let herself into her bowerhouse. The walls were decorated with tapestries Guthmer had had specially made. In all of them, she was the central figure, a smiling blonde woman who bent to feed a hart by hand, or who stood wistfully in a garden of flowers and trees (all her sisters were represented: bluebells, roses, willow and ash trees), or who reclined daintily on the shore, with the grey sea behind her. The room smelled perpetually of lavender from the dried flowers hung on roof beams. In here, too, were chests full of dresses and pretty shoes, endless trinkets that her husband had bought for her – beads and combs and mirrors and ribbons – and there were her two most prized possessions, playing quietly on the woven rug with Hilla, their nurse.

  ‘Hello, my darling boys,’ Ivy said, crouching and opening her arms.

  Eadric and Edmund ran towards her, squeaking and squealing. She breathed in the raw scent of them: milky and agreeable. Such little, soft things, full of sweet breath and life. She kissed them then handed them back to Hilla.

  ‘Mama has to go see Papa, but I will be back after supper. Be good boys, now.’

  ‘We will,’ said Eadric. And Edmund, much younger, made a noise in echo that might have been agreement.

  Ivy untied the scarf from her hair and brushed it loose and golden, then moved to the door that connected her bower to her husband’s. He’d been quite clear: babies made too much noise for him to sleep. Sour old prune.

  Ivy closed the door behind her, put on her most honeyed tone. ‘Guthmer, my love?’

  ‘Is that my Ivy?’

  She approached and sat on the bed, making a show of tossing her long fair hair. He reached up with his weathered fingers and caressed a curl. She tried not to look directly at his face. His skin was almost grey, his eyes sunken. This long illness unfolded so slowly, increment by increment. She had learned patience.

  Life in Sæcaster had confounded her expectations in so many ways. She had cried all through the first summer, snivelled through the first autumn. The brooding darkness of the first winter had been laden with the extra dread of approaching childbirth. But then, a small pink person had come into her world and charmed her utterly and completely. His total, unconcealed, unrestrained adoration of her was like a spell. She fell deeply in love. The second baby had doubled the feeling.

  Then she had looked down at her breasts and belly and decided two was enough, especially since she had met
Crispin. Gorgeous, tall, hard-bodied Crispin, who was half her husband’s age and whose smile could make her clothes fall off. How they loved to make moony eyes at each other and fumble about in the hayloft; she didn’t want him having to search around her waist for her nipples. Besides, every subsequent child increased the risk of her having a girl, who might grow up to be gorgeous at the same time as Ivy lost her looks. A beautiful daughter wasn’t a fate she’d wish on her worst enemy.

  In all, life as the wife of a duke was not as bad as she’d feared. Except for the duke himself, that was.

  The door to his bower opened and Elgith, his serving woman, stood there. In her hands was a tray with Guthmer’s supper on it.

  Ivy leapt up. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said.

  Elgith, who had always been silently hostile to Ivy, held tight to the tray. ‘I’ve brought this from the kitchen and it’s my job to serve –’

  ‘I said I’ll take it,’ Ivy repeated, a little more steel in her voice. ‘I like to feed him.’

  Guthmer chuckled from his bed. ‘Dear ladies, don’t fight over me.’

  Ivy smiled at him, but inside her head she called him savage names. Fight over me. She knew Elgith had once been his lover – still was for all Ivy knew or cared; it wasn’t as if her old womb could quicken. If the fight was over who got to sit on his ancient, crinkly cock, then Ivy was happy to let Elgith win.

  ‘Darling, I love being your wife, and I love serving you,’ Ivy said to him. ‘Now sit up and let me give you some soup.’

  She helped Guthmer to sit, propping him with pillows. Elgith still stood in the doorway, eyeing her carefully. Ordinarily, Ivy would tell Elgith to get out, but today she was happy to let the older woman see her tend to her husband, all pretty and young and glowing with her golden hair, spooning the soup directly into his grey mouth. Slowly does it. Slowly, slowly.

  Elgith, satisfied that Ivy was not up to no good, left, closing the door behind her.

  ‘You are good to me,’ Guthmer said, leaning back and sighing with exhaustion. ‘Sometimes I think I’ll never be well again. I am so tired. Even eating makes me tired.’

  ‘Hush, now. You’ll be fine after a little more rest. Come along, eat your soup.’

  Slowly, slowly. If he declined any quicker, it would raise suspicion. Give them time to get used to having a sick leader, a leader who hadn’t been out of bed in months. Then his death would look perfectly natural and expected, and nobody would suspect Ivy of anything.

  Seven

  Sister Julian always arrived directly after breakfast, but today she was late. Rowan didn’t seem to have noticed. She was happily playing with Strike and Stranger on the floor, pretending to be a cat and getting them to chase her. Skalmir hovered near the open front door, watching the road. It had been a week of foul weather and, today being a fine day, he hoped to get out to the far side of the wood to do some hedge trimming and mending. He had his scythe and his crook on his belt, his oak-and-iron shovel waiting by the door, his axe on his back, his handsaw, tools, and his food in his pack. Ten miles of dense woodland lay between his house and the far side of the wood, and the later Sister Julian arrived, the more time he would lose.

  As soon as he heard hoofbeats, he kissed Rowan goodbye and picked up his shovel. But as he walked down to the road, the dogs at his heels, he saw it wasn’t Sister Julian at all, but the son of the innkeeper from Nether Weald.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ the young man said, reining the horse in.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you.’

  ‘No, sir. Sister Julian … she’s sick. She won’t be coming today. Maybe not for the rest of the week. She sends her apologies.’

  Skalmir hid his frustration. If Sister Julian was unwell, there was nothing to be done.

  Rowan had emerged from the house and was standing on the front path watching curiously.

  ‘Hello, missy!’ called the innkeeper’s son.

  She waved happily.

  ‘You’re Julian’s neighbour, aren’t you?’ Skalmir said.

  ‘That I am.’

  Skalmir fished in his pocket for a coin and handed it up to the lad. ‘Here. Take this and visit her twice a day, see if she needs anything and let me know if there’s aught we can do. Tell her we hope she’s well again soon.’

  The lad took the coin. ‘Will do, sir.’

  Skalmir watched him go, then turned to see Rowan standing directly behind him.

  ‘Can I come into the forest with you?’

  ‘No, Rowan.’

  ‘But you aren’t hunting today. You said so last night. You said you are mending the hedge. I can help.’

  He considered her request. He certainly didn’t want to waste a day, let alone the rest of the week, inside with Rowan. She wouldn’t be much help, but he could show her how to cast up more soil on the hedge, nip the twigs before burying them to take root, shore up weaknesses and plug gaps. The more she learned about the way her father’s lands were managed, the better.

  ‘It’s a very long walk,’ he said finally. ‘Three hours, and it will be muddy.’

  ‘Then we’d better set off straight away,’ she said. ‘I’ll put on my oldest shoes so my new ones don’t get ruined.’ She raced inside.

  Strike ran around in a circle barking, picking up on the child’s jubilant mood. Stranger, always the more still and circumspect of the dogs, stood close to Skalmir’s ankle and waited.

  Moments later she returned, shutting the door firmly, then, with her spine straight and queenly, strode down the path. He noticed she had her bow and quiver.

  ‘Come along then.’

  They set out down the main path, but soon headed east into the forest. Skalmir knew the Howling Wood well, but could never claim to know it intimately. Over the many years he had lived here, he had marked paths in and out and kept a rough map of it in his head. He knew the places where the streams bisected it, where the ridges and vales were. But his work meant he was constantly learning new areas and forgetting others, as populations of deer and boar moved around, and his tracks through the woods grew over.

  The woodland here was ancient and almost sunless, with towering oaks, birch, elms and sycamore fighting for the light. Fallen trees, taller on their sides than Rowan standing, lay hollow and crumbling next to boulders so furred with bright moss they had forgotten their original colour. The musky, damp smell of centuries of rotting leaves, mud, and cold rushing water pervaded. The quiet of the wood always affected him deeply. His own footfalls, which he was never aware of outside the wood, now sounded like the footfalls of a two-legged animal, as much part of the primal ambience of the forest as the weasels and stoats in the undergrowth or the birds that rustled and twittered between the branches. Today, there were extra footfalls – Rowan, his young, trotting after him – and her chatter as she pointed out insects and animals, shouted angrily at flies, and repeatedly alerted Skalmir to the presence of brambles and nettles, as though he had never traversed the forest before.

  They stopped to eat and drink after two hours, alongside a stream that crashed over boulders at a sudden drop. When they started off again, Skalmir climbed down first and then helped Rowan, and he could see she was limping.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘It turns out my old shoes are a little small for me.’

  Skalmir was at once annoyed and admiring. He bent down and put her on his back, telling her to be careful of his axe blade, and she wrapped her strong little legs around his waist. They kept going.

  By the time they made it to the far hedge, he was exhausted. He plopped Rowan down on a flat rock under a huge sweet chestnut tree, and she sat there gazing up at the splinters of blue summer sky visible through the canopy, shoes cast aside and head cocked almost as though she were listening to music.

  The hedge was a head higher than Skalmir, so first he had to climb up on it and walk a few yards in each direction. On the other side was unused pastureland, overgrown with long yellow grass and nettles, and a few straggling saplings
. He carefully picked his way over the growth on top of the hedge, some of it very healthy and stubborn, nipping and trimming with his hook, estimating where to cast up more soil, and trying not to slip into a bank of nettles. In all, it wasn’t in too bad a state for its year of neglect. It had stood here for nearly fifty years already, built by the man who had raised him but had never allowed Skalmir to call him ‘father’. They had lived on land outside Nether Weald then. Wengest had not allowed him to inherit his un-father’s land and, besides, he wasn’t a farmer. He was a hunter, all the way into his soul. The woods spoke to him.

  About a fifty yards from where he had left Rowan, Skalmir found a breach in the base of the hedge where a tree root had erupted from the ground, cracking it open. He climbed down and returned to Rowan.

  ‘I need to do some work a little further in, but it’s not anything you can help with. Do you want to stay here? There’s nowhere as nice to sit closer by.’

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ she said, happily. ‘I’m just listening.’

  ‘Well, you’ll hear my axe and know where I am if you need me,’ he said.

  She drew her knees up under her chin. Her pale feet poked out from under her dress. ‘I’m fine. Really, I am.’

  Skalmir returned to his work. Despite the shade, he grew warm as he hacked at the root with his axe, then bent the broken branch-weave into place, shoring it up with boulders and earth. Soil stuck to his sweat. The sounds of the wood enveloped him. Soft movements, the chirp of birds and bugs, the shushing of leaves in the breeze. He was absorbed in his labours and in the familiar calm of the wood, and he did not know how much time had passed. Then a butterfly flew over the fence and landed on the handle of his shovel. Its wings were pale blue, Rowan’s favourite colour this month, so he called out to her, ‘Rowan, come and look at this.’

  No answer. The butterfly took to the air.

  ‘Too late. You missed it.’

  Still no answer.