To Hold the Bridge

by Garth Nix

  Robin waited another second she couldn’t afford, hoping that she would see Merewyn move, that her sister would suddenly get up and sprint away. But she didn’t move. Deep inside, beneath the barrier of hope, Robin knew that Merewyn wouldn’t get up, now or ever. She’d been hit too hard.

  The iron warrior struck at the tree in front of Robin, its sword shearing through the wrist-thick branches she was sheltering behind, a spray of woodchips chasing Robin as she fled deeper into the forest.

  Not long after dawn the next morning, with the inexplicably insistent and enduring iron warriors left behind only a few hours before (and at least one of them struggling in one of the forest’s more extensive bogs) Robin wearily climbed up onto the broad, ground-sweeping branch of an ancient oak and used it as a bridge over the narrow ravine known to locals as Hammerbite.

  She looked for the two sentinels on the upper branches, but no one was there. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the camp either, when she rounded the trunk and looked out through the lesser trees at the row of leather tents, carefully pitched under the overhang of a huge ledge of shale, an outcrop from the gray hill whose bare crown poked out of the forest a hundred yards above the camp.

  Robin whistled dispiritedly, not really expecting an answer, and so was not surprised when there wasn’t one. She trudged over to the fire pit and looked down into it. The fire was emplaced about three feet down to disguise the smoke, and it was fed only good, dry wood, so it would burn clean. It was always kept alight, for there was never any knowing when fire might be needed.

  But it was not burning now and was clearly many hours dead. Robin picked up the bent iron rod that doubled as poker and pot-hanger and stirred the ashes, but not one bright coal emerged.

  She kept poking it long after this was clear, for want of anything better to do. It seemed symbolic to be stirring dead ashes, the ruins of a once-bright fire. Merewyn was dead, and it was all Robin’s fault. She had gotten her own sister killed. The fact that none of the band had returned to the camp indicated that they thought so too, perhaps coupled with the distrust of her Norman heritage that had always simmered beneath the surface, kept in check only by Merewyn’s authority.

  She stabbed the poker hard into the ashes, wishing that it were the heart of the Norman ironmaster. Flames suddenly erupted from the dead ashes and Robin jumped back. Not in fear of the flames, but of what she had just done, without thinking.

  ‘That’s a right Norman trick. Iron magic,’ said Jack, making Robin jump again, this time almost into the fire.

  ‘I … I didn’t …’

  Jack shook his head and crouched down to pick up a gnarled knot of ancient beech, which he threw down onto the fire.

  ‘You needn’t fear, lass,’ he said. ‘I always knew you had the iron magic from your mother. There’s no one here to see by me and Doublejack, and he’s across the Hammerbite, eating up a gobbet of something I didn’t care to look at.’

  ‘Did you see …’ asked Robin quietly. ‘Is Merewyn …’

  Jack took the poker and made sparks fly. He didn’t look at Robin.

  ‘The Princess is dead,’ he said finally. ‘I took the squirrel-shape and went back to be sure, though the Ferramenta chased me anyway. Her neck was broken. They took the body.’

  ‘I killed her,’ whispered Robin. She picked up handfuls of dry dirt and smeared them across her face, then she stood up and screamed, her words flying back at her, reflected by the overhanging shale. ‘I killed my sister!’

  She reached for the hot coals of the fire and would have taken two handfuls but Jack caught her in a bear hug and lifted her away, with her still kicking and screaming and quite out of her head with shock and grief and exhaustion. He carried her to the tent that was their makeshift surgery and hospice, patting her on the head and crooning the nonsense words he’d used long ago to calm young dogs when he was the King of Ingland’s master of hounds.

  When her threshing stopped and the screaming had subsided into a dull, inward keening, he laid her down and, taking up a small leather bottle, poured a cordial of dwale down her throat. Within a few minutes, the potent combination of hemlock, Italian mandragora, poppy juice, henbane, and wine calmed her and only a little later sent her into a dreamless sleep.

  When she awoke, Robin felt strangely calm and distant, as if a veil of many months lay between her and Merewyn’s death. But she knew that the dusk she could see outside was the partner of the Ferramenta-haunted dawn. Even dwale-sleep could not hold someone for more than nine or ten hours.

  The taste of the herbal brew was still in her mouth and her breath stank as if she had vomited, though she was clean enough. Her hands had been washed, and the scratches smeared with yarrow paste. Robin stared at the scratches and for a few seconds couldn’t remember how she had gotten them. She sat for a minute or two, thinking, then she slowly unfastened her dark Norman hair and hacked it short with her dagger, so short that her scalp bled and had to be staunched with cloth.

  Jack and Doublejack were sitting by the fire, occasionally passing a wineskin between them, with an even more occasional word or two. They looked around as Robin emerged from her tent, started at her changed appearance, then got up and bowed as she approached. Deep, courtly bows, out of place for outlaws in a wild woodland den.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Robin. ‘Not to me.’

  ‘You are the Princess Royal now,’ said Jack. ‘Heir of Ingland.’

  ‘Ruler of all I survey,’ muttered Robin, gesturing at the empty camp. She held out her hand for the wineskin and poured a long draught down her throat before handing it back.

  ‘You are King Harold’s daughter,’ said Jack. Doublejack nodded in emphasis, almost spilling the wine. ‘You are the rightful Queen of Ingland.’

  Robin laughed bitterly.

  ‘Queen of nothing,’ she said. ‘We should have found another way, not this bandit life, skulking in the trees, while Duke William’s rule grows ever stronger.’

  ‘We have been biding our time,’ said Jack. The words came easily to his lips, the familiar speech he had made to doubters before. ‘The Duke is old and has no sons. The Normans will fight each other when he dies, and we shall have our chance. The true Inglish will flock to your banner—’

  ‘No,’ said Robin. ‘They won’t. They might have come to serve Merewyn. They won’t serve me. Besides, Duke William looked well enough yesterday eve. He might live for years, even beget himself new sons.’

  ‘It was the Duke?’ asked Jack. ‘I wondered—’

  ‘It must have been,’ said Robin. ‘Fourteen Ferramenta, walking for hours, never wavering in their purpose. Duke William is the only living ironmaster who wields such power. It was him. My grandfather was my sister’s bane. Though I also must bear the fault—’

  ‘Nay,’ interrupted Jack quickly, as he saw the grief begin to twist Robin’s face. ‘None can escape their doom. The Princess was fated to fall as she did.’

  Robin did not answer for a full minute, her gaze locked on the fire. When she at last lifted her chin, her eyes were red, but there were no tears. A plan … or at this stage just a notion … was already swimming up from the dark depths of her mind.

  ‘Who stands to inherit from the Duke should he die now?’ she asked. Merewyn had always kept up with the many machinations, plots, counterplots, and deaths among the Norman nobility, but Robin chose not to know, as part of her repudiation of that side of her heritage.

  ‘I think three of the eight grand-nephews still live, his sister’s son’s sons,’ replied Jack. ‘And the son of his brother’s leman, the Bastard of Aurillac, has something of a claim to Normandy alone.’

  He hesitated, then added, ‘None of your cousins has as good a claim to the Duke’s lands as you do, highness.’

  ‘I am not a Norman heir!’ protested Robin. ‘My claim flows from my father, the true and Inglish King! Besides, the Duke has already tried to slay me, as his iron servants slew Merewyn!’

  Jack tilted his head just a fraction, indicat
ing his doubt that the Ferramenta had actually tried to kill Robin. But she did not see it, her eyes on the fire and her mind on other things.

  ‘If I die, Jack, who stands next in the true line?’

  Jack looked at her, trying to fathom what she was thinking. He had known her since she was born, but even as a little girl it had been hard to gauge her thoughts or predict her actions. She was always headstrong, a fault usually tempered by intelligence. She never did the same stupid, impetuous thing twice. Though sometimes once was all it took for lifelong regrets.

  ‘None stand clear,’ replied Jack slowly. ‘The kin of your father’s brother’s wife in Jutland. King Sven would claim by that right, I think. But he would gather no following among our people here—’

  ‘Is there no other Inglish heir?’

  ‘There are distant cousins of your family, but none with the name or blood to stir the hearts of the people. Even fewer could wield the holly magic or the rowan, as you do.’

  The fact that Robin could also wield the iron magic was left unsaid between them. The magics of holly and rowan were Inglish, born of the land, bred true in the royal line. Iron magic was not native to the island kingdom; it was an alien power, like the Norman invaders themselves. It was also magic much more suited to war and conquest.

  ‘What do you intend, highness?’ asked Jack.

  Robin did not answer.

  ‘I know … I suppose … you will wish to see the rites conducted for Princess Merewyn. But we cannot bring a priest here, or linger ourselves. The Ferramenta may not cross the Hammerbite, but men-at-arms could, and this place is known … and the local folk may not hold out against questioning.’

  ‘Not now they know Merewyn is dead,’ said Robin bitterly. ‘Tell me, does that fat priest still haunt the cave near the whitestone glade?’

  Jack looked at Doublejack.

  ‘Aye, he does,’ said the huge man.

  ‘Which god does he serve?’

  Doublejack shrugged. ‘He keeps to himself. I would guess the Allfather.’

  ‘Not the best—’ said Jack.

  ‘Can he sing a death?’ interrupted Robin.

  ‘He sang for Wat the miller’s son,’ said Doublejack. ‘Not at the cave, though.’

  ‘Her death should be sung at the High Chapel in Winchester,’ said Robin bitterly. ‘But we cannot go there, or to any temple or church that I can think of. So we will go to the fat priest, no matter which god he worships.’

  Jack and Doublejack bowed, though it was clear Jack would have argued more, if Robin had allowed it.

  ‘We should take what we can from here, highness,’ said Jack. ‘We will not be able to come back.’

  ‘I will gather what is needed from our … my tent,’ said Robin. She walked the little way over to the small leather tent she had shared for so many years with Merewyn. There was little enough to pack inside. She took Merewyn’s bow, which was better than her own, but left everything else. Of her own stuff, she took a quiver, among its dozen arrows one ivory-tipped, black-fletched shaft, made for killing Norman ironmasters; a small purse of silver pennies; and more hunting clothes.

  Then she reached under her straw-stuffed bed and retrieved a leather case. It contained two books. One, bound in bright blue calfskin, was a primer for the Inglish magics of holly, rowan, and oak. The other, bound in dull bronze and black leather, was her mother’s grimoire, an ironmaster’s compendium of spells and lore.

  Robin took everything outside to pack and sort. She could feel grief and raw emotion rising up in her again, overcoming the numbing dregs of dwale that still coursed through her blood. But she forced the complex mix of guilt, rage, and sorrow back down and concentrated on balancing her case, bow, quiver, and sack of clothes. It took her only a very few minutes, for quick departures had been part of her life for six years. Even so, Jack and Doublejack were already ahead of her, the hawker’s baskets on their backs full of everything of worth that needed to be carried away.

  It was a long walk, via the most hidden paths in the deep forest. The night was light enough for travel, with the moon waxing and near full, and the stars bright save for a single long wisp of cloud on the horizon. Robin gave little thought to where she put her feet or to the green world around her. She simply followed Jack, with Doublejack behind, her mind mostly stuck on a narrow path of its own, a constant repetition of those fateful seconds when the Ferramenta stepped forward and swung its shield at Merewyn.

  To try and break out of this pattern, Robin began to focus on a plan that was slowly gathering momentum in her mind. An act that if successful, might make some small amends to Merewyn’s shade, to her father, and to the people of Ingland.

  It was near midnight when they reached the cave. Though they were quiet and came so late, the priest was waiting for them on the high ledge outside the cavemouth.

  Merewyn’s band knew him as the fat priest, for he had carried much excess flesh when he’d first arrived in the forest. But that was two years past, and he was now gaunt, great folds of skin around his cheeks and neck the only signs of his previous corpulence. It was unlikely anyone from his past, before he came to the cave, would recognize him. Particularly since, in addition to being a much-reduced man, he had also chosen to cut out his left eye in honor of his god.

  The priest went down on one knee as Robin climbed up the stone steps to the cave entrance, Jack pushing past him to make sure no one lurked inside.

  ‘I welcome you, highness, in the Allfather’s name,’ the priest intoned quietly.

  ‘I am honored,’ replied Robin. It was best to be civil to priests and particularly to those who served the Allfather. ‘I suppose since you know who I am you also know what I wish of you.’

  ‘To sing Princess Merewyn beyond this world,’ replied the priest. ‘A raven came to me with the dawn, with the news of her death, and what would be required of me. But come, set down your burdens. I have prepared ale and oatcakes within.’

  ‘We do not worship the Allfather,’ said Robin. ‘And do not wish to be beholden to him. We will set our packs down here, sit on these steps, and sup on our bread and water, while you sing.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said the priest. He got to his feet creakily and went into the cave, emerging a few minutes later with a harp that had only four strings, a cup of ale, an oatcake, and a silver-bound ox horn. He set all but the harp upon the ground. Taking the instrument under his arm, the priest looked to the starry sky and began to slowly pick out a tune. It began simply, but grew more complex, and Robin felt sure she could hear the strings that weren’t there.

  Then the priest began to sing as well. His voice was hoarse, but strong, and after the first few words, it echoed strangely, almost as if someone far distant had joined in the singing.

  Robin shivered as the song grew louder and stranger, with the unseen voice beginning to drown out the priest. Then suddenly Robin heard Merewyn, clear through the layers of song, in between the harp notes.

  ‘Robin! Seek new beginnings!’

  Robin sprang to her feet and rushed toward the priest, but even as she gripped him, screaming, ‘Merewyn! Merewyn!’ her sister’s voice was gone, as were the others. There was only the priest, silent now himself, plucking one last note.

  ‘She is gone,’ said the priest. He stepped back out of Robin’s grasp. She did not try to restrain him. ‘You had best begone yourself, highness, before your men wake.’

  Robin looked behind her. Jack and Doublejack were sprawled against the steps, chests slowly rising and falling in the rhythm of deep sleep.

  ‘Duke William is at Winchester,’ said the priest. His single eye reflected the moonlight with a red glint, as if there were also fire in the sky. ‘You wish to kill him, do you not? Have your revenge?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Robin warily. She was not entirely sure who she was talking to now, whether it be the priest or the one he served. She could feel the sudden attention of the oaks in the forest. They would not bend themselves to listen to a mortal. But it was
not safe to seek the Allfather’s favor. He was a god who loved battle and dissent and delighted in sudden treachery.

  ‘Your servants would try to prevent you going to Winchester,’ said the priest. ‘But they will sleep here till the dawn, and by then you will be at the gates of Winchester, with your black arrow.’

  ‘I do not want your aid, whoever or whatever you are,’ snapped Robin. ‘Wake my men!’

  ‘I only wish to be of service,’ wheedled the priest. ‘Duke William is a powerful adversary. How will you strike at him, without more powerful allies?’

  ‘I asked only for what any kin may ask of any priest, to sing my sister’s death,’ said Robin. ‘I will take nothing else and owe no debt. Wake my men!’

  ‘Very well,’ said the priest. ‘I will wake them.’

  He snatched up the ox horn and blew it mightily, its peal echoing out across the forest. It was answered not just by Jack’s and Doublejack’s sudden, surprised oaths, but by many voices on the forest path below, accompanied by the jangle of arms, armor, and harness.

  Robin looked down and saw a column of men-at-arms stretching back along on the path, their helmets glinting in the moonlight. They were leading their horses and there were at least two score of them, perhaps more.

  When Robin turned back, the priest was gone, as were horn, cup, and oatcake. Shouts from below showed that she had been seen. Within a few seconds there would be Norman men-at-arms charging up the steps.

  ‘Into the cave, highness!’ exclaimed Jack. He pushed Robin out of the moonlight, into the dark entrance. ‘You must escape!’

  Robin knew there was a wide, natural chimney at the rear of the cave, but she couldn’t see it and she didn’t even try to find it. Instead she turned back toward Jack and Doublejack. Two silhouettes, etched in moonlight, standing in the cave entrance with drawn swords. From beyond them came the crash of soldiers charging up the steps and sudden war cries that echoed and danced around the cave.