Frost Child

by Gillian Philip

  Two

  We didn’t think to ask her if she had any possessions; we must have assumed she had none, and in that at least our instincts were right. At least, she had none but the thin dress she wore, and the leather belt and pouch around her waist, and the silver collar on her neck. She drew the stares of every one of my fighters as we emerged from the cavern mouth, but she walked on beside me with her head straight and unbowed, her expression once again not so much insouciant as indifferent. She waited only for me to mount my own horse, and didn’t hesitate to be pulled up onto its back after me. So small and skinny was she, I couldn’t even be sure she was still there till I urged the horse forward, and I felt her bony arms go round my waist.

  There was no point racing home; our wounded had already gone with Grian to the dun. This meant he wasn’t there to mend the slash in my ear, but for all its copious bleeding the wound was superficial and I made do with a strip of cloth wrapped round my head. At any rate we could afford to take it easy, to revel in the faint sunlight breaking through the earlier mist. Eventually the heavy sense of ill-omen lifted even from me.

  It had not gone badly, after all. The Lammyr were cleared from this particular nest, and our casualties had been surprisingly light, and the job I’d been dreading was done. Whatever Crickspleen had wanted with the unnerving girl at my back, he was thwarted. I even felt light-hearted enough to make conversation with her.

  Not that the conversation itself was exactly light. ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘They’re dead. Ever so long ago.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact.

  ‘Did the Lammyr kill them?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  She might have been blocking like a three-hundred-year-old veteran, but I could still tell that was a lie. I glanced over my shoulder, but she seemed untroubled, watching the light flow over the landscape. I wondered how long it had been since she’d last seen the sunlight. It depended on how closely she was kept prisoner, and given how calmly she seemed to have accepted her captivity – as calmly as she’d greeted her release, in fact – I suspected she’d had a certain amount of freedom.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I suddenly remembered to ask.

  She paused again, barely perceptibly. ‘Lilith. I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  I felt the slightest of shrugs in her body behind me. ‘They called me Lilith.’

  Why did I get the feeling that everything she said was not quite a lie, but not quite the truth either?

  I stopped worrying about it when we came in sight of the dun, its stone walls gilded by sunlight and dappled in sea-reflections. My heart never failed to lighten when I rode home, especially on a morning like this: the mist had cleared altogether and sparks of light glittered across the water, and the air smelt of sea-grass. Unthreatened for now, life in the fortress was raucously cheerful, and the gates were thrown wide. Falaire was leading five horses across the machair and the dunes for their swim; the black cattle cropped lazily; the guards on the rampart gave us a yell of welcome. So none of our wounded could be too badly hurt, and the news must have spread that the raid on the Lammyr had been as straightforward as it ever could be.

  I left the reins loose, let my horse pick his own way up the rock-and-peat slope to the dun gates. Niall was joking and flirting with one of the other fighters, and I was half-listening and laughing under my breath at her retorts, and I’d almost forgotten the thin creature at my back when she leaned forward, showing eagerness for the first time.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. Her tone was still noncommittal, but there was no mistaking the way her body tensed with interest.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  She said no more, but as we clattered into the courtyard she didn’t shrink under the stares of my clann; she returned them with a frank curiosity. All the same I felt a little protective of her, so when my fighters halted I rode on to the door of the forge, and dismounted into the force of its blasting heat. The child slid down into my arms and I set her on the ground.

  For the first time she hesitated, and gripped my arm. Her cheekbones were flushed with the heat, and the darkness within seemed very deep compared to the sunlit courtyard, but with my hand on her back, she stepped inside at last.

  ‘Griogair?’ Wiping sweat from her forehead, Lann straightened and stared at the girl. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Her name’s Lilith,’ I said.

  Warily Lann laid down the half-made sword and stepped forward. She slipped a finger under the carved circlet round the child’s neck. It was slender, delicate and strong, and exceptionally beautiful.

  ‘That’s not silver. That’s Lammyr steel.’

  Lann had an annoying habit of telling me what I knew. ‘Of course it is,’ I said sharply. ‘Get it off her.’

  ‘Yes, Griogair. And do what with it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Melt it down.’

  For the first time the child shot me a look of hostility, and her hand went to her throat. ‘It’s mine.’

  ‘No. It was theirs, and so were you. Now you aren’t.’

  She frowned, studying my eyes. I wanted to blink and look away.

  ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘If I’m yours instead.’

  *

  ‘Where the hell did they get her?’ I asked Niall Mor as we leaned on the rampart watching the sun set.

  ‘You’re not expecting an answer from me,’ he pointed out dryly.

  ‘Just thinking aloud.’ I took a long swig of ale. ‘Either she doesn’t remember or she isn’t telling.’

  The last of the light lay green on the sea, so that it glowed like liquid tourmaline. The child Lilith sat on the rocks down by the shore, perfectly alone and perfectly content. She was just as she’d been all day: quiet, self-contained but not remotely shy. She had made no complaint about the scratches and grazes Lann had left on her neck as she cut the Lammyr collar away; in fact Lann had seemed unnerved by her.

  So was I.

  ‘It’s not surprising she’s strange,’ said Niall. ‘She must have been years with the Lammyr. I’d be bloody strange.’

  ‘Who says you aren’t? And you make Lann nervous.’

  He grinned. ‘Not as nervous as she makes me.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Do something about it, then. Don’t be so damn indecisive.’

  ‘Yes, boss. And speaking of bound lovers, when does Leonora come back?’

  ‘A week.’ I felt the usual ripping stab of longing in my gut. Gods, binding hurt sometimes. But I wasn’t about to say anything that might dissuade Niall. He’d been pissing about for quite long enough, and he wasn’t the only man in the dun who was sniffing around Lann like an enthusiastic hound. Not to mention at least one woman: my best sharpshot archer who’d taken a sudden interest in the creation of swords.

  ‘It’s not as if we have to bind,’ he said unconvincingly.

  ‘Uh-huh. Wait till she’s bound to Falaire and you don’t get to sleep with her whenever you like.’

  Niall fell silent. I hoped he felt bad. And jealous. Binding would make offspring a little more likely, after all, and I couldn’t wait to see the warrior he and Lann would come up with.

  That only made me think of Leonora again. Abruptly I stood up.

  ‘Either go and flirt with her, or get a detachment together and do something about that broken wall on the south boundary.’

  ‘It’s dark.’ My lieutenant yawned and stretched, and grinned as he got to his feet. ‘Can’t see the stones at this hour.’

  Shaking my head, I watched him jog down the stone steps towards the forge. About to follow him, I turned back to call to Lilith. The sun had lowered beyond the sea horizon and the landscape was darkening fast to charcoal and indigo.

  My shout of summons stayed in my throat. She was standing at the edge of the water now, balanced delicately on a slab of basalt, arms outstretched and head thrown back, like a little girl about to spin into a dance. She looked blissful but she looked rapt, too, and in a way that sent tremors dow
n my spine. Falaire was leading two horses up the path through the rocks and back towards the dun but she took no notice of him, simply swayed back and forth on her tiptoes, singing softly.

  I shuddered. As far as I could tell she was singing to the empty air and the ocean. I had no grounds for suspicion, no reason to rebuke her: only the solid certainty that she was calling, over and over again, to someone – something – beneath the water’s opalescent skin.

  Three

  She seemed happy to be solitary, haunting the dun like a small quick shadow, and I admit I didn’t take enough interest in her: not then. Of course that was a mistake, and of course I regretted it, but I had much on my mind, and more to do. There were patrols to coordinate, quarrels to settle, a whole winter to prepare for; and that winter was already drawing near, hauling itself across the land like a sluggish giant, shadowing the broad blue skies and crushing the sun tight against the horizon.

  The clann gave her a place to live with her own people; we provided her with warmer clothes and furs now that the darkness fell earlier; and then we let her slip from our conscious minds. I knew she wasn’t exactly gregarious but I saw the other children try to make friends; I saw her sit peacefully watching their games even when she didn’t join in, and – it seemed to be all she required – they were distantly kind to her, and didn’t persecute her for her strangeness.

  All of them but one, that is.

  Ramasg MacRaonull: never my favourite child of the clann, but he had the makings of a sturdy fighter. He had a head of wiry black curls, impenetrable hazel eyes, and quick violent fists. He also had a tendency to sulk at criticism, and an inclination to laziness, but I knew he’d grow out of both. I didn’t take him for a bully till the day I found him tormenting Lilith; I’d certainly never thought him capable of actual malevolence.

  I wasn’t accustomed to taking notice of the clann children; at least, not till they were old enough to begin proper fight training. I found Lilith harder to ignore, largely because I’d often scratch an itch on my neck and turn to find her watching me. I suppose I was just more aware of her than of the others, and that was why I noticed that evening when she wasn’t around.

  There had been some name-calling, but that was hardly surprising; she’d lived with Lammyr for the gods knew how long and even the children who liked her were properly wary of her. I thought a few insults and insinuations harmless, under the circumstances, and it wasn’t as if they seemed to affect her. Lilith was fearless. I’d seen her eyes linger on Ramasg when he threw taunts. She never flinched and she never responded, just looked; I tell you, I would not have wanted that gaze on me.

  Niall said the trouble with Ramasg was that his tongue was faster than his brain. I knew otherwise: that his mouth was a true reflection of his mindset. It wasn’t pleasant, but as I said, I knew he’d grow out of it.

  I wish I’d been right about that.

  Niall only went into the stables that evening because he wanted to check on a horse that was lame. Falaire was anxious about the animal, and since she was one of Lann’s favourites, Niall wanted to check her before nightfall. No doubted he wanted to the excuse to convey any news to Lann, still occupied in the forge.

  It was quiet and musty in the stalls, with the low snuffling snorts of contented horses, the shift of a hoof, the slow tug-and-crunch of teeth on hay. Niall comforted Lann’s mare, gave her an extra treat, prepared to leave. He told me he almost missed the girl, cowering there in the furthest stall beneath the hooves of my grey hunting stallion. And when he did see her, he almost failed to recognise her.

  She’d managed to free herself from the post she’d been tied to; the rope’s frayed remains hung there. But she was still gnawing at the length of it around her wrists, though she stopped when she saw Niall, and stared at him in silence. She didn’t say a word, though her glaring eyes were stained and swollen with tears. Her long black hair no longer straggled across her face; it had been hacked back to a rough dirty crop.

  She didn’t flinch when he crouched and sawed through her wrist-bonds with his hunting knife, but she did at least manage to spit a name.

  ‘Ramasg.’

  *

  Ramasg was unrepentant, even in the face of a hard strike from me.

  ‘She should have had it off long ago,’ he snarled, putting a hand to his bruised cheek. ‘She never cut it when her parents died. I asked her.’

  ‘That’s not your business, you little shit,’ said Niall Mor. ‘And she’s half your size. ’

  ‘Makes up for it in other ways,’ he muttered.

  ‘You’d better explain that,’ I said, pacing to the window and staring out at the machair. I was simmering with rage, and I didn’t trust myself not to hit him again.

  ‘She’s a witch, isn’t she? You don’t need to worry about her.’

  Niall and I looked at each other, then at him.

  Niall had to take two breaths before he could speak. ‘Gods’ sake, boy. This is Griogair you’re insulting.’

  Ramasg swallowed and shot me a nervous look. ‘Leonora’s different.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked silkily. ‘How?’

  He’d got his nerve back. ‘Lilith’s evil, that’s how. You can tell from her eyes. And she stares.’

  Niall rolled his eyes. ‘I’m going to slap you myself in a minute.’

  ‘She stares at you because she can’t believe what an arse you are,’ I told Ramasg. ‘And neither can I.’

  ‘You’ll see,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’ll see the ditch in the lower field cleared,’ I said. ‘Niall, take him down there.’

  Niall took hold of his arm, but he pulled back to give me a sullen glare. ‘She’s trying to summon a kelpie.’

  That took me aback. ‘What?’

  ‘A kelpie. There’s been one off the shoreline for days. She’s trying to bond with it.’

  There was a triumph in the twitch of his mouth as Niall yanked him out of the room. He was a vindictive little bastard, but he’d unsettled me and he knew it. I could see no reason for him to lie, because it was such an outlandish accusation, and besides, I remembered shivering as I watched her singing to the ocean.

  I rubbed my hands across my face, wishing for a straightforward problem: a caveful of Lammyr, or a full-scale war. Sighing, I slung my sword down on the table and went out of the dun to look for her.

  She was in her usual place on the rocks, sitting with her arms wrapped round her knees and humming to herself. Maybe, I thought, she was humming to something else. Her newly-chopped hair blustered in the cold breeze; she’d done nothing to improve the rough mess Ramasg had made of it, but I couldn’t help thinking it suited her in a strange way.

  I sat down at her side, nearly unbalancing when she promptly huddled against me. She hadn’t struck me as a girl who was much affected by the cold.

  ‘He won’t do it again,’ I told her. ‘He’s out clearing the ditches.’

  She nodded contentedly.

  ‘He came up with some excuses.’ I took a breath to broach the subject.

  ‘Oh. Did he mention the horse?’

  The breath stayed stuck in my throat. At last I managed to say, ‘It’s a water horse?’

  She threw a pebble idly into the waves. ‘It’ll come to me in the end.’

  ‘Lilith,’ I said. ‘Lilith, that’s not wise.’

  She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t have to be wise. They’re lovely.’

  ‘They’re deadly. And unpredictable.’ I was finding it stupidly difficult to argue with her. ‘You could lose your life.’

  She gave a dismissive snort. ‘Or I could gain the best warhorse in your stables.’

  ‘It’s not worth the risk. For you or anyone else in the dun.’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  I shook my head in irritation. ‘If you want a familiar, find a cat or a raven or a wolf-pup. Put water horses out of your head. They can’t be trusted.’

  ‘You’ll see,’ she said simply. ‘It wouldn’t be my familiar anyway. It would be
my warhorse.’

  ‘Lilith!’ I barked. ‘This should not be done! It hasn’t been done in centuries, and it ended badly the last time.’

  She tilted her head to give me an endearing smile. ‘All the more reason to do it. For me it’ll end just fine.’

  I would have talked sense into her, I’m sure of that. And I should have waited to do it, and spent the time well, but I was unnerved by her candid innocent grin and her closeness. It was clear she held a particular and pointless affection for me, and I wanted to do nothing to encourage it. And besides, at that precise moment, I heard the call in my mind that I couldn’t resist, and would never want to.

  I sprang to my feet, and this time it was Lilith who nearly slipped sideways. I steadied her with a hand on her fragile shoulder and said, ‘Sorry—’

  ‘What is it?’ Her eyes were quizzical and hurt.

  I gave her a grin of pure happiness. And that was probably a mistake as well.

  ‘It’s Leonora,’ I told her. ‘It’s my lover. She’s coming back to the dun.’

  Four

  If I thought Leonora would have any special sympathy for the lost witch-child, I’d misjudged both her mood and her inclinations. Still, like the diplomat she could always be, she didn’t raise the subject till later that night, till we were both in bed and the coverlet thrown aside in our untidy haste.

  She’d caught her first sight of Lilith when the child trailed after me into the courtyard on the afternoon of her return. Leonora had taken no notice of her; but then Leonora had ignored everyone but me. She’d slipped lightly from her horse and walked straight into my arms, laughing with a combination of happiness and anticipation.

  She’d studied Lilith in the Great Hall that evening, though. The child had settled herself in a dark corner, eating and drinking quietly, watching rather than participating. There was nothing new in that behaviour. At least she’d wasted no time in following my advice about a familiar: a young crow hopped at her feet, cocking its head for the shreds of meat she offered. Laughing, she stroked its black neck with a fingertip, and it dipped its head as if in a mock-bow.