Sisters of the Fire

by Kim Wilkins

  ‘I just need to wake up.’

  ‘Eat something at least.’

  ‘I have no appetite. I have to keep going.’

  ‘But, my lord –’

  She put up a hand to silence him. ‘I know who can make me well,’ she said. ‘And I think she is close by. Tell me, how many miles to the sea from here?’

  ‘Five direct, ten by the road. But do use the road, my lord Bluebell.’

  She climbed to her feet, bent to pick up her byrnie and nearly fell back down. He caught her elbow, held out her mail and helped her slip it on. Its familiar weight settled across her shoulders.

  ‘Tell me, how is Torr this morning?’

  ‘The destrier? He is well.’

  Then perhaps Torr had escaped poisoning. Bluebell remembered the ghostly horse she had seen the night before. She forced her teeth to stop chattering. If Grimbald saw how ill she really was, he would find a way to stop her leaving.

  ‘Let me help you –’

  ‘I want no more help.’ She pulled herself up to her full height, despite shaking knees. ‘Grimbald the humble, I will remember you and I will tell of your kindness to my father when the Horse God wills that I see him again.’

  Grimbald beamed, making him look thirty years old again.

  ‘Now, goodbye,’ she said. And strode out as if there were nothing at all wrong.

  Vision swimming, perspiration prickling her top lip, she mounted Torr and turned him towards the sea. The morning breeze caught her hair and cleared her head a little.

  ‘See?’ she said to nobody. ‘A touch of fresh air and …’ She didn’t finish the sentence. She had nobody else to convince, and she certainly couldn’t convince herself.

  Eighteen

  The boys slept in their beds, Hilla dozed while sitting up by the fire, and Ivy pushed her brain against the marks on the bound vellum pages in front of her, determined to understand the lines and shapes that made up words. Albus, the preacher, sat beside her, bent forwards to catch her words as she said them. He had been encouraging her to read for years; she had always found reasons not to, but now she was determined to learn. It wasn’t as though Albus had much to do now that she had emptied the chapels.

  ‘Come along, Ivy. Just two more lines.’

  ‘It’s grown so dark. The candlelight hurts my eyes.’

  ‘One more line. You know this.’ He tapped the page. ‘This word. You’ve read it a hundred times.’

  ‘King!’ she said, as recognition came. ‘Oh, yes. King. If the king should arrive …’ The rest of the sentence weighed too much for her eyes and her mind. She closed the book. ‘I’m sorry, I really can’t go on. I’m tired and worried.’

  Albus smiled at her gently. ‘Maava would give you great comfort.’

  ‘Maava was never my god,’ she said curtly. ‘And you will do well to remember that now you aren’t a preacher, you’re a teacher. It would be better for Sæcaster if I can read laws and accounts. I’m relying on you.’

  His smile never left his face. He really was irritatingly patient. ‘As long as it’s no crime for me to believe what I believe,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not. I don’t care what people think as long as they do what I say.’ Here she laughed, even though she had only been half joking. ‘You may go. I will see you after dinner tomorrow.’

  Albus stood, laid his hand flat on the front of the book. ‘Practise,’ he said. ‘You have a good brain. This will be easy for you.’

  She glowed at his compliment and saw him off at the door to the bowerhouse. Hilla woke at the swirl of cool sea air that entered the bower, blinking and glancing around.

  ‘Go to bed,’ Ivy said. ‘The boys are fast asleep.’ Hilla had a small bed in an alcove off the main room. Ivy usually slept between her boys. She had been considering moving into Guthmer’s bed, but the mattress still bore his impression, the room his smell. Perhaps she was being superstitious.

  ‘As you wish, my lady.’

  A loud knock on the door made them both jump. Ivy wondered if Albus had forgotten something and returned for it, but when she opened the door it was Crispin, who ordinarily came nowhere near her bower.

  ‘My lady,’ he said, anxious eyes glancing over her shoulder and seeing Hilla. ‘A woman has come who says she is your sister.’

  ‘My sister?’ Ivy immediately thought of Bluebell, but then realised Crispin would have named Bluebell. ‘Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I came straight here. She is tall but not so tall as Bluebell, and travelling with a man who is hidden by his cloak.’

  Ivy was already reaching for her own cloak, which hung on a hook by the door. ‘Dark haired?’

  He shook his head. ‘She wears a scarf, but I think her fair.’

  Ivy gasped. ‘Then it’s Willow.’ Willow. Her twin, whom she hadn’t seen in many years. Whom her family had lost contact with, considered lost or dead. It couldn’t be Willow. It must be Ash or Rose. ‘Hilla, I don’t know how long I will be. Kindly sleep with the door open so you can hear if the boys wake.’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  Ivy closed the door behind her. The night air was cold and heavy with the smell of salt. Mist gathered over the ocean. The torches on the southern side of the hall were lit, and by their light she could see the tall figure of a man, a dark cloak pulled over his face. He leaned his back against the outside wall, one knee bent. Her curiosity prickled. Crispin led her into the hall, where a strong, sullen-faced woman waited for her.

  Willow. She was all in grey, a scarf tied over her hair in the trimartyr style, but wisps of her pale brown hair had escaped. Much changed by time and circumstance, but unmistakeably her twin sister. She looked tired, harried.

  ‘I never thought I’d see you again,’ Ivy said, as the door to the hall closed and they were plunged into almost dark.

  Crispin lit a row of candles as they spoke, gradually adding an amber glow.

  ‘I have come because I need your help.’

  Ivy stepped close, held out her arms. ‘You don’t have a hug for your sister?’

  ‘I don’t have a hug for anyone who burns Maava’s chapels,’ Willow said, a disdainful sneer pulling up the corner of her mouth.

  ‘You speak plainly for somebody who wants a favour,’ Ivy said, dropping her arms. Her eyes ran over Willow’s body. She had once been a skinny thing, but she appeared to be developing the gristle and dense power of Bluebell in her limbs. Her wrists were ropey.

  ‘I need to go far away,’ Willow said. ‘I need a small boat. My companion and I will row it and work the sail.’

  Ivy thought of the tall cloaked man. ‘And who is your companion? Is it your husband? Your lover?’

  ‘He is neither of those things. I have no need for a husband or a lover. I have Maava in my heart and a high purpose beyond your imagining, on other shores.’

  While it was like Willow to say something like this, Ivy could never remember her sister using such a high-handed, condescending tone with her. Willow had often been judgemental, but always spoke gently. More about her was growing hard than her wrists and shoulders.

  ‘Why should I help you?’ Ivy snapped. ‘You speak to me so rudely.’ Crispin was at her side now, and she felt comforted by his presence.

  ‘You will help me because you want me far away, as my whole family does. As you always have.’

  Ivy considered Willow in the flickering candelight. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked at last, gently. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I have been wherever Maava wants me to be. I don’t answer to anyone other than Him.’

  It seemed Willow was determined not to share the slenderest shred of information about herself. Ivy thought about Bluebell’s visit; she wanted to know where Willow was, whether she had the sword. Bluebell would surely be happy if Ivy gave Willow the means to sail far away. ‘You can have a boat,’ Ivy said. ‘It makes no difference to me. Will I ever see you again?’

  ‘If Maava wills it.’

  ‘You
know that Maava nonsense is really quite infuriating.’

  ‘You don’t know fury.’

  Ivy half-turned to Crispin, asked his opinion with her eyes.

  ‘You have enough to concern yourself with,’ Crisipin said. ‘Send her away if she wants to go away. I can take her and her companion down to the harbour, give her one of the smaller boats.’

  ‘It needs to have a sail,’ Willow interrupted. ‘We can’t row all the way.’

  ‘I will find you something suitable from Guthmer’s fleet,’ Crispin said to her with respectful courtesy.

  ‘Will you stay the night?’ Ivy said. ‘Head off in the morning?’

  For the first time, Willow looked unsure. ‘I – no. If we can’t sail at night, then we can sleep in the vessel.’ She seemed to gather herself. ‘Maava rewards those who suffer hardship while doing His work.’

  ‘Well, good on Maava and good on you,’ Ivy muttered.

  ‘This way, my lady,’ Crispin said to Willow, showing her to the door.

  Ivy stood in the threshold. Willow called for her companion, but not by name – just one simple word: ‘Come.’ The tall figure began to move; a statue come to life. Ivy watched him closely, trying to catch a glimpse of his face. As he passed under the torchlight, she thought she saw a skull under the cloak and recoiled. But then he said something quietly to Willow and Ivy told herself that skeletons didn’t walk and talk. It must have been a trick of the light.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she called to her sister’s departing back. Tomorrow she would send word to Bluebell that Willow had been, that she was gone now, and that she certainly represented no threat to the family while sailing away to distant shores.

  It grew late. Hilla was asleep in her little alcove. The boys, curled on their sides to face each other, slept on with their soft eyelashes pressed gently against their plump cheeks. The fire had grown low, but still Ivy was awake, pacing in her nightgown to keep herself from nodding off, listening for Crispin’s footsteps returning from the dock.

  Finally, deep in the night, she heard him. She dashed to the door and pulled it open. He took a step back, startled, then smiled. All the torches had extinguished and only starlight and a half moon lit his face.

  ‘My lady, you are still awake.’

  ‘Come into Guthmer’s bower,’ she said, grasping his wrist. Quickly and quietly, she led him past the boys to the adjoining room, then closed the door silently behind them.

  Crispin sat on Guthmer’s bed, grinning at her in the dark. ‘My lady, are you keen for company?’

  Guthmer’s bedding hadn’t been freshened since his death, and she recoiled at the idea of lying there naked with Crispin. ‘Not that kind of company,’ she said. ‘Not on the very mattress he died upon.’

  Crispin leaned forwards, elbows on knees. ‘Your sister and her strange friend are even now sleeping upon one of Guthmer’s boats. They intend to leave at first light. You say she is your twin? She’s nothing like you.’

  ‘Her brain is addled,’ Ivy said. ‘Full of trimartyr nonsense.’

  ‘She was very angry with you about the burning of the chapels.’

  Ivy shrugged. ‘She’s gone now. Perhaps another four years until I see her. Maybe more, with any luck.’ She sat on the rushes in front of him, touched his knee. ‘What a strange evening it has been. I find it tiring, making decisions.’

  ‘Let me help you make them,’ he said, grasping her fingers. ‘I would ease your burden.’

  She smiled up at him, heart brimming.

  He stood and paced to the shutter, opening it to let a cold sea breeze in. ‘You are young and soft, Ivy. You know too little of the world.’

  Ivy, unsure if this was a compliment or rebuke, watched him uncertainly.

  He turned. ‘Your dead husband’s cousin, Athmer of Nether Withing, came to see me today.’

  ‘Came to see you? What? When?’

  ‘He found me out at the guardhouse, on his way home from visiting for the funeral. He offered me rewards … a great deal of gold and land.’

  ‘I don’t understand. For what?’

  ‘To undermine you. To take away the support of the city guard. He wants Sæcaster. He believes, as the closest adult male relative, the city should be his.’

  Ivy felt at once hollow with panic and too full of rage to speak. ‘What did you say?’ she managed to ask.

  ‘Ivy,’ Crispin replied, with an expression bordering on sadness. ‘Of course I said no. How could you think otherwise of me?’

  ‘I didn’t!’ she squeaked.

  He came to crouch beside her, took her face gently in his hand. ‘I act from love. You know I love you.’

  She beamed so hard that her cheekbones pushed against his strong fingers, and he released her and leaned to kiss her. Just once. Swiftly.

  Then he stood again and said, ‘You can trust me. I don’t know who else you can trust. My feeling is you should trust no-one at all. No-one but me.’

  ‘I will. I do,’ she said, keen to erase that moment of sadness her doubt had caused him.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Next time you wonder “What did Crispin do?”, know that the answer is always that I do what is best for you and your boys.’

  ‘I’m sorry I ever questioned you.’

  He smiled at her. ‘You are beautiful.’

  ‘I love you,’ she said, quickly and boldly. ‘I love you, Crispin.’

  ‘Whatever happens next, we will be together,’ he said.

  ‘Together,’ she said, and stood to hold him, letting her uncertainty melt away.

  ‘None of this is familiar,’ Skalmir said, and Rose had heard him say it dozens of times already in the last three days, so she had stopped responding. She recognised it as his way of reconciling his bafflement, their strange dislocation from one place to another, from certainty to incomprehensibility. None of this is familiar. Not the forest nor the feelings. They wandered in a fugue of enchantment, not knowing who or what had enchanted their way and why.

  They suspected Rathcruick of course, which was why they were still moving, hoping to find him and his encampment and thus Rowan as well. Skalmir wouldn’t admit any other possibility, though Rose supposed that he, like her, feared wandering endlessly and never, ever returning to the Howling Wood, to the real Thyrsland and safety.

  Rose followed Skalmir down a rocky gully, balancing by staying low to the ground, steadying herself with her hands when she needed to. Skalmir was much lighter and fleeter of foot, quiet too. At the bottom, the leaf fall was ankle deep. She waded through it behind Skalmir, following the line of the gully towards densely growing hazel trees.

  ‘There’s lots of hazel in the west side of the forest,’ Skalmir said, always hopeful.

  ‘We aren’t in the Howling Wood any more,’ she said, and she knew she sounded dour and sharp, but couldn’t help herself.

  He shrugged his big shoulders. ‘If I can just get a fix on where we are …’

  ‘We are nowhere!’ she said, a wave of panic rising. ‘And perhaps we will wander here for all our lives and die here.’ Please, Great Mother, let me die first. She didn’t want to be old, wandering a forest alone.

  ‘Did you want to return to the barrow, then?’ he asked, as though he hadn’t heard her lose her composure, his back still turned to her.

  She shook her head, realised he couldn’t see her and said, ‘No.’ They’d agreed after the first day and a half there was no use waiting there. Hundreds of times they had gone inside the barrow and waited to be transported back. Eyes open. Eyes closed. Standing. Sitting. Touching hands. At sunrise. At sunset. At moonrise. Every time they emerged, they found themselves in the same place. Rose herself had suggested they move, and Skalmir had carefully marked waypoints back to the barrow with patterns of small, stacked stones.

  ‘Then we move forwards,’ he said, and she followed him into the cover of the trees. The sunlight disappeared, the temperature dropped. They crossed a stream and stopped to fill up their water skins and rest a while. The wind mo
ved in the branches. Rose sat with her legs stretched out in front of her. She was numb and tired, and struggling to keep up with her companion’s long, athletic stride. She felt defeated and hopeless. For once in her life, she had taken bold action, leaving behind the safety of her home with Yldra to find and rescue her daughter. Now she was the one who needed finding, rescuing.

  Skalmir stood and hitched his pack back on. ‘Time to keep moving,’ he said.

  Rose groaned. ‘I am a woman, and nearly a foot shorter than you. I need to rest a little longer.’

  He nodded, and his expression was sympathetic, more patient with her complaining than she was with herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘You’re right, we need to keep moving.’

  He strode over to her, gently laid a hand on each shoulder. ‘No. You sit and rest. I will go a little way further and leave some waypoints. I am slowly building a map of this place in my mind. I know where you are, and I will return for you.’

  She became uncertain, the idea of him disappearing and her being left alone overwhelming her.

  He read her expression and smiled. ‘I will not go far, I promise.’

  Her aching legs told her to trust him. She sat, wrapped her arms around her knees, and watched the stream flow by, long ribbons of bright green algae caught in the currents. Skalmir’s footsteps were audible further in among the trees, and he whistled a tune – a folk tune, cheerful and comforting – which she could still hear, sometimes softer, sometimes louder, deeper in the wood. She closed her eyes. The breeze shivered over her. The waves of panic were awful, exhausting. Rose reassured herself that Rowan was here in the wood. She must be, Rose had dreamed about her all three nights, curled against her back, whispering soft, strange sibilant words Rose couldn’t understand, but that settled in her mind like comfort.

  The whistling abruptly stopped. Rose sat up, listening hard. Rustling leaves. Birds.

  ‘Rose!’ he called, and she climbed to her feet, stood uncertainly.