Sisters of the Fire

by Kim Wilkins

  Ash would talk her out of it anyway. Ash wanted to get home to Blicstowe. Home. The thought flowed through her like a bright ribbon. Home. At last.

  It grew late and the noise began to abate. One by one, the revellers left to stumble back to their houses. Ash roused Bluebell, who was nodding off into her cup.

  ‘Come, sister. Time to sleep.’

  ‘I was asleep,’ Bluebell protested blearily. Her hair was lank and hanging half over her face.

  ‘In a bed.’

  ‘Where’s the bed?’

  ‘Gartrude has a spare room for us.’ Ash rose and put her hand under Bluebell’s elbow, felt the sinew of her sister’s mighty arm.

  Bluebell stood unsteadily. ‘I like her.’

  Gartrude saw them and hurried over, beaming. ‘My lord, you will be so comfortable at my house.’

  ‘Why are you talking so loud?’ Bluebell said.

  ‘This way, sister,’ Ash said, and they followed Gartrude out into the cool night air. Her head spun.

  ‘I will cook you a breakfast fit for a champion,’ Gartrude was saying. ‘Eggs and salted pork and porridge. Will that make you happy, my lord?’

  ‘My sister is coming home with me,’ Bluebell said, grasping Ash around the waist and nearly knocking her over. ‘I couldn’t be happier.’ She stumbled, fell.

  ‘My, but she’s long,’ Gartrude said, considering Bluebell flat out on the ground.

  ‘Come on, up you get,’ Ash said, wishing she were more sober.

  Between Ash’s coaxing and Gartrude’s thick muscles, they managed to get Bluebell back on her feet and across the village to the little house behind the smithy. Here, out of the cold, Gartrude showed them to a neat room with a soft mattress for them to share.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ash said, because Bluebell was already spread out on the mattress with her eyes closed.

  ‘It’s an honour,’ Gartrude said, and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Come on, Bluebell,’ Ash said. ‘You can’t sleep in your mail.’

  ‘’Course I can.’

  Ash shrugged and lay down next to her.

  Bluebell rolled on her side and put her heavy arm over Ash, then dropped into sleep, snoring loudly.

  Ash listened to her a while, listened to the wind over the eaves. Slowly began to descend towards slumber, thoughts blurring against one another …

  Fire. Fear. It’s coming for you.

  Ash startled awake, every nerve in her body alive. The dream again. The dream that had driven her into exile, driven her on the quest to find and destroy the dragon. The dream that seemed to tell her that she would bring death and destruction to those she loved.

  But how could it? The dragon was dead. No, she was simply drunk. Unused to company. Unused to being back among those she loved. A simple dream, not a prophetic one.

  She lay a long time in the dark, half-afraid to fall asleep.

  The sea was wild and thunderous in the distance, and the clouds roiling over the moon when Ivy rose, dressed, and slipped outside with an oil lantern. She made her way down to the gate, where she ordered the guardsmen to open it for her.

  One of them, a burly man whose face was grim in the shadows, looked at her suspiciously. But she was the duchess of Sæcaster and he was paid to do as she said, even if it was leaving the city alone at midnight.

  Lantern in one hand and clutching her cape around her against the wind with the other, Ivy set off. The path to the Tanglewood was made unfamiliar by shadows and the strange noises of night creatures. Dark wings flapped overhead. She kept her head down, eyes on the path in front of her. Distance and time led to unwelcome thoughts, but she resolutely refused to think them.

  When she arrived outside Dritta’s cottage, she was surprised to see flickering light behind the shutters. The old witch was awake.

  Ivy rapped hard.

  A voice from within, alarmed, called, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Ivy,’ Ivy said in a harsh whisper.

  Dritta took her customary two minutes, but finally opened the door. ‘I don’t know anyone named Ivy,’ she said.

  Ivy could see past her into her crowded cottage. Potions bubbled over the fire. ‘You have to leave,’ Ivy said. ‘It’s not safe for you here any more.’

  ‘I can’t leave,’ the old woman said, fear creasing her forehead. ‘What do you mean?’

  But before Ivy could answer, footfalls sounded behind her. She whirled around to see Crispin detaching himself from the shadows of the trees.

  ‘Crispin?’

  ‘Stand aside, Ivy.’

  ‘No! I –’

  Crispin pushed her aside so she overbalanced and had to steady herself against the threshold. He loomed over the old woman, who cowered, not screaming, but making a soft mewling noise. Crispin slammed the door and Ivy withdrew her fingers just in time. She heard the bar drop into place and began to pound on the door.

  ‘Stop! I order you! Stop it, Crispin! Leave her alone!’

  On and on she shouted and banged and kicked, then the door gave and she was falling into Crispin’s arms. He smelled like blood and smoke.

  ‘Leave it, Ivy,’ he said, as she tried to get past him.

  ‘Why did you do this?’ she cried. ‘Why?’

  ‘To protect you.’ He closed the door behind him. The firelight inside still flickered.

  ‘Did you follow me? Am I being watched?’

  ‘The guardsmen at the gate told me you left.’

  ‘I am your duchess. I tell you what to do. Not the other way around.’

  ‘Sh, sh. You are young. You need me to be strong.’ He wrestled her into a hug and she felt the rough material of his shirt against her cheek and his heart thudding, and she pressed herself against him, hungry for comfort. Then he released her and the cold, damp wind chilled the tears on her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t kill anyone else,’ she said, and knew she sounded young and petulant.

  ‘There’s nobody else to kill. You are safe now.’

  Ivy didn’t feel safe. Crispin had control of an army, but she had lost control of Crispin.

  Twenty-four

  Hakon told Willow it was midnight. Marvik’s cold harbour was dark silver and still under a clear, twilit sky. The air seemed white, shivering with pale light and frost. The days didn’t end this far north, but the cold still bit as hard as winter. The winds on their journey had been bruisingly unfavourable. What should have been one long day’s journey turned into two, with Hakon growing so tired and irritable that he snapped at Willow repeatedly. Willow endured the hardship, thinking of the story that would be told of the high waves and the cold and the rain, to bring the name of Maava to the heathen lands of the north. She tried to encourage Hakon to do the same, but received a tongue lashing in his native language for her trouble. Willow brushed it off. She had already submitted to the will of her Lord. Raging against the weather was not her style.

  In the low light, she caught her first glimpse of Marvik. Since childhood, she had heard tales of the mighty city of the raiders with its mountain hall, but the city in front of her seemed small and ill-formed, somehow. Yes, the harbour was like a mirror, just as the stories said, and yes, the entrance to Gisli’s hall, carved into the mountain and closed up with a giant, elaborately decorated wooden door, impressed her. But the other houses were a mismatch of little earth bungalows with turf roofs, or strange, round wooden buildings with double-peaked roofs painted in different colours. There weren’t the many ships in the harbour or clatter and colour of the port that she had seen in Sæcaster, and the natural world around the city seemed vacant and hostile: tough yellow grasses, rocky promontories, and snow on the mountains behind the city.

  The north was a cruel place, and it had bred cruel people. It was Willow’s task to make them see their privations as their blessings, giving them good standing in the eyes of the Lord. Somehow this would come to pass, although she wasn’t sure how; and between this moment and that moment lay the assassination of King Gisli, a task that fell to
her.

  Willow wouldn’t think of that. Not yet. Instead, she prayed.

  She was still praying, although silently, when Hakon pulled their boat into a tiny jetty at the furthest end of the harbour. His hood was up as he tied their boat and helped her onto the creaking boards, and she did likewise, so that they were two hooded figures, one tall and one less so, skulking into the city at midnight.

  ‘Stay close,’ was all Hakon said. He had told her of his many allies in Marvik, and she presumed they were heading to meet one of them now. She kept her head down and her steps even, her thoughts focussed. Angels sighed and breathed all around her ears and eyes, and her blood sizzled and popped with anticipation.

  They moved away from the mountain hall, towards the outer ring of the city. Standing among the turf-roofed huts was a tall, bulky wooden building, more like the buildings of the southlands, but with the strange double-peaked roof. Willow thought it was painted red and blue, although the colours were made inky by the low light. All the shutters were down and no noise came from within. Hakon approached the front door and knocked twice, hard. The sound echoed around them, but Hakon seemed unconcerned.

  A few moments later, a voice from the other side. It must have asked who was there, because Hakon said, ‘The raven has returned,’ in her own language so she could understand.

  The sound of a latch moving and then the door opened, and Willow found herself looking at a portly man of about her father’s age, with a well-kept silver beard, thick grey curls and a crooked grin. ‘Ah, so he has. And he has brought a little bird with him.’

  ‘A rare bird,’ Hakon said, pushing her in ahead of him then closing the door behind them. ‘Willow, meet Modolf, who was my father’s most trusted advisor, demoted to minister of trade by my double-dealing brother, Gisli. Modolf, she doesn’t speak our language.’

  ‘No matter, for we speak hers,’ Modolf said, going from one lantern to another and lighting them so the room was bathed in amber light. ‘You must have studied hard, Hakon. I didn’t think you had the brain for languages.’

  ‘I had a good teacher,’ he said. ‘But she’s always cold so perhaps you could light a fire.’

  ‘In the middle of summer? She will have to grow a little harder if she is to live here in the north. Is that your plan? Are you to marry? Lucky girl. What is she, some kind of southlander peasant?’

  Willow had been glancing around the room, looking at the the vast array of exotic objects: bowls and combs and mirrors and cages with birds in them, tapestries and rich woven blankets shot through with gold thread. Every inch of space was crammed with things. When he mentioned marriage, however, she snapped her head around and gave him her most ferocious stare.

  ‘I am Princess Willow, daughter of Æthlric of Ælmesse,’ she said, and instantly regretted her pride. How Maava would be judging her now, aligning herself with heathens just to impress this stranger. Why, she should be happy to be a peasant if she was a good, humble peasant who loved her Lord well.

  She was so busy with these thoughts that she didn’t hear what was said next, but the two men were laughing together so she presumed it was some joke about marriage and who would rule their roost. She didn’t care for such base nonsense so ignored them imperiously, lips pressed tightly together, until they stopped laughing and Modolf got on with lighting a fire in the hearthpit and invited her to sit.

  ‘I have bread baked fresh this morning,’ he said, offering her a blanket, which she took and spread across her lap. ‘Would you eat, my lady?’

  She shook her head and Modolf sat across from Hakon, and Hakon pushed back his hood all the way and showed his mutilated cheek to Modolf.

  ‘What do you think?’ Hakon said, with a big grin.

  ‘Of …?’ Modolf asked.

  Willow’s heart picked up its rhythm.

  ‘Do you not remember what I looked like when I left? The axe wound in my face, when Bluebell the Fierce nearly took my head off and then sold me to Gisli.’

  Modolf peered at Hakon’s cheek across the fire, narrowing his eyes.

  ‘All healed,’ Hakon said.

  ‘It truly is,’ Modolf agreed. ‘What a miracle. You must forgive me; it is so long since I have seen you I only remembered you whole and handsome.’

  ‘A miracle indeed,’ Hakon said, and reached for Willow’s hand. ‘Willow did it.’

  ‘Maava did it,’ she corrected him.

  ‘Maava, eh?’ Modolf said thoughtfully. ‘The trimartyr faith is a good way to run a kingdom, my friend.’

  ‘Yes. Divine rule. Gisli doesn’t have that.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Bluebell doesn’t have that.’

  ‘Under Maava, she never will,’ Modolf agreed.

  ‘Maava is worth more to all of us than political expedience,’ Willow said hotly.

  Modolf turned his face to her. ‘So you’re the full trimartyr, Princess Willow?’ he said. ‘Your father must be in agony.’ He laughed heartily, and so did Hakon, and nobody pointed out that when Hakon laughed spit flew from the side of his face and hissed into the fire.

  ‘Willow hasn’t seen her family for many years,’ Hakon said. ‘I’ve been training her. She has a trollblade, forged to kill Bluebell. I will show you tomorrow what she can do. It’s impressive.’

  ‘Why are you back, Hakon?’

  ‘It’s time. I have Willow, and I have a plan. Are there still allies here for me?’

  ‘I have been sowing the seeds, Hakon. I had to go slowly and silently for a long time after I released you from prison.’

  ‘Gisli didn’t suspect you then?’

  ‘No. I had two of your jailers executed for the crime.’ He grinned, his top lip curling back unappealingly. ‘Gisli sees me as he always has: he thinks I am old and eccentric and a little incompetent but mostly harmless. Only guilt about my long service to his father keeps me employed at all, I suspect.’

  They spoke for a little longer in her language, and Willow gleaned from the conversation that Modolf had always been devoted to Hakon, and Hakon had promised him a return to his role as advisor should he become king. But then they lapsed into their own language and Willow lay on her side and began to drift to sleep. She heard Maava’s name mentioned a few times, and hoped that it was being said with enthusiasm and love.

  At some point, the two of them went outside. She heard the door open and felt the blast of cold air, then it closed again and she was alone. She shivered, imagining her body’s vulnerability, so far from home in hostile territory, alone. But then she remembered that she was always held in Maava’s grace, and she was safe wherever she was. She didn’t need Modolf and Hakon; they needed her.

  As she drifted off again, she puzzled over Modolf’s acceptance of Hakon’s self-deception. Was he too afraid of Hakon to state clearly that his face was the mess it ever was? Or did he see the advantages of allowing Hakon to live inside his own story?

  For a little while, remembering Hakon’s proud grin, she almost felt sorry for him.

  When she woke in the morning, both Hakon and Modolf were asleep on the other side of the fire. She lay there a few moments, considering them in the dim room. The air smelled like ashes and sweat. If Hakon was determined to marry her, he would have to start bathing more regularly.

  She pushed aside her blanket and went looking for a private place to relieve herself. Modolf probably had a piss pot in here somewhere, but she didn’t want to wake him to get it for her and then use it in front of him. It had been bad enough going over the side of the boat while Hakon, back turned as she requested, shouted at her to hurry up. Something about being urged to pee quickly made everything freeze up.

  She was wise enough not to use the door they’d come in last night, and found instead a shoulder-height back door that led to an overgrown garden with chickens scratching around in it. She crouched in a far corner by the henhouse, then took a few eggs and went back inside to stoke the fire and cook.

  The sounds and smells of cooking woke her companions and Modolf rose to cut bread and hold
it on a long skewer over the fire so that it was crispy. He also offered Willow a jar of pickled fish, which she politely declined. They ate as though the mismatched company was unremarkable – the duplicitous counsellor, the Crow King, the converted trimartyr princess – but Willow was well aware that this was just one more verse in the story that would be told of them by Is-hjarta trimartyrs for generations to come.

  ‘Come on then, princess,’ Modolf said as he wiped his plate clean with his toasted bread and brushed crumbs off his fingers. ‘Show us this sword of yours then.’

  Willow stood, pushed back her cloak and unsheathed Griðbani. The shutters were still closed so the room was dim but for firelight, and the orange glow caught the welding patterns and the strange runes on the blade.

  Modolf nodded, smiling. ‘Very nice. Wait right there.’ He moved to the corner of the room. There was a clattering sound among his many objects and then he turned suddenly and lunged at her with a sword of his own.

  Shocked and angry, she blocked him, and pushed forwards. He overbalanced on his back foot and went down on one knee. Willow brought Griðbani down swift as lightning and he rolled out of the way, his flailing feet sending his plate and cup clattering to the ground. Willow stepped forwards again. Hakon boomed, ‘Don’t kill him,’ and she stopped, the point of the blade over Modolf’s heart. He gazed up at her, one hand, palm out, trembling over his head. When he saw she had stopped, he grabbed the end of her blade and thrust it away from him.

  ‘Away with you,’ he said. ‘You’ve proved your point.’

  Willow sheathed the sword, her heart returning to its normal rhythm.

  ‘I believe you now, Hakon,’ he said.

  Hakon shrugged and kept eating. ‘I’m not a liar.’

  ‘Sometimes we deceive ourselves,’ Modolf said, and fixed Willow with a meaningful gaze as he climbed to his feet.