by Kim Wilkins
Bluebell recognised the forlorn note in her voice and gently grasped her wrist. Her skin was cold, standing out in gooseflesh. ‘Perhaps it is for the best,’ she said. ‘You could have a normal life. Fall in love. Marry.’ She paused here, pointedly. ‘All without that great weight upon your shoulders.’
Ash wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘Perhaps.’
‘It is decided then. Tomorrow we ride to Druimach, to see Rose and Heath.’ She hung the axe on her belt. ‘And then life will become predictable again.’
Two
‘Is he asleep this time?’
‘I think so,’ she whispered. Rose closed the door behind her. Linden had been quiet, still, thumb trapped softly in his mouth when she’d extinguished the lamp. The nightly battle to get him to sleep wore her down. He was seven. When would it end? When he was twenty? She moved on quiet feet to where Heath stood by the firepit, in the centre of the large round room that made up most of their home. A door on one side led to the bower and on the other to a narrow alley and the weapons chamber, always locked against Linden’s curious mind. Woven tapestries hung around the walls. Rose had made them all herself in the years she had been here.
Heath seized her around the waist and kissed her neck. ‘And you?’ he said, his breath tickling her skin. ‘Are you interested in sleep, or in something else?’
‘Something else,’ she said, her hands fumbling at the ties that held up his breeches.
His mouth closed over hers, one hand on her breast and another on her bottom. Warm firelight enveloped them. Her body had changed over the years she had lived in Druimach: contentment and cold had yielded layers of extra flesh. Heath delighted in it, but sometimes she didn’t recognise herself.
Her skirts were in his fists, bunched up around her hips, when the door to the house flew open.
Heath leapt back. She pushed her skirt down and whirled around to see a red-haired girl of about seventeen, with fierce eyes and a swirling tattoo on her cheek. The cold blew in behind her.
Then recognition came.
‘Rowan!’ Rose cried, hurrying over to grasp her daughter’s hands. Then again, because she did not know what else to say, ‘Rowan. My Rowan.’
‘Mother,’ Rowan said, then arched an eyebrow. ‘Heath,’ she said, deliberately not calling him ‘Father’.
‘Why are you here?’ Heath asked.
‘I’ve run away from Netelchester. From Wengest,’ Rowan said.
‘Run away?’ Rose said, still too dazed to make much sense of her daughter’s words. Rowan had been taken from her at three years of age, and Rose had seen her only once in the years since.
Heath strode across the room and closed the door on the cold, then gently took Rowan by the upper arm. ‘Come sit by the fire and explain to us.’
Rowan allowed herself to be led inside, and Rose marvelled at her appearance. Last time she’d seen Rowan, her hair had been dark brown. If it was red now, did King Wengest suspect that he was not her blood father? If that was the case, was Rowan in danger? Would the peace between the kingdoms hold? But all these questions took second place after the delight, the relief, of seeing her daughter in the flesh. She sat next to Rowan, too close perhaps, and caught her daughter’s hand in her own.
‘You’re here,’ she said.
Rowan smiled at her indulgently. ‘Yes. Right here.’
‘You ought not be here. Wengest will be angry.’
‘Oh, he is so angry,’ Rowan said with a rueful smile.
‘Does he say anything about your hair? Does he still think he is your father?’
‘My hair turned red after my encounters with Rathcruick in the Howling Wood. Wengest knows it is magic. He loves me as he always has, as his daughter, but don’t ask me what happened between us because …’ Here, her eyes flicked to Heath. ‘Because I don’t want to talk about my heart.’
‘What do you mean?’ Heath asked.
Rowan shook her head, almost imperceptibly, and turned her eyes to her mother. ‘Can I stay?’ she asked.
Rose looked up at Heath. ‘Well, I –’
‘Does he make the decisions?’ Rowan said, archly.
‘No,’ Rose said quickly, trying to keep the heat out of her voice. ‘You are my daughter; of course you can stay. But you have come at a hectic time. The tribes are assembling here at Druimach for talks about unity, and about Renward’s bid for an alliance. Heath is the leader of the Moonhorns.’
‘I will not be any trouble. I will stay hidden in your house and be as quiet as the mist.’
‘You are always welcome here,’ Heath said. ‘You are my blood. You are Gwr-y-Llorcyrn.’ Heath leaned across, placed one of his big hands on her tattooed cheek. ‘You are not Rathcruick’s. You are ours.’
Rowan smiled up at him cautiously. Rose’s breath was stolen by her young beauty, the warm truth of her presence. She had stopped daring to dream of Rowan returning to her.
Then a scuff at the threshold of the bower. Rose turned to see Linden standing there, his dark curls messy, thumb in his mouth.
‘Back to bed, darling,’ she said.
Rowan saw him and leapt up. ‘Is this my brother?’ she said, her voice warm with excitement. ‘Why hello, little man. I’m your sister, Rowan.’
Linden stared up at her with round eyes.
‘He doesn’t speak,’ Rose said, realising she was afraid they wouldn’t like or understand each other.
‘Is he shy?’ Rowan asked, taking Linden’s free hand.
‘No. He doesn’t speak at all. He never has.’
‘Is he simple?’
‘Not in the least. He is very clever. He remembers everything. He loves maps and draws them all the time from memory, in such detail I …’ Rose trailed off. She couldn’t bear it when people thought Linden was simple. ‘He chooses not to talk. I don’t know why. He understands everything.’
‘Well,’ said Rowan, squeezing Linden’s hand and smiling down at him. ‘I would love to see your maps sometime, Linden. I know we will be great friends.’
Linden blinked up at her without smiling.
‘Come along, young buck,’ Heath said, taking Linden’s hand from Rowan. ‘It is late and you need to sleep.’
Rowan watched them go, waited until the bower door was closed, then turned to Rose. ‘He looks exactly like Wengest.’
‘I know.’ Linden grew more like her previous husband every year.
‘Does he know?’
‘Wengest? No! He would take the boy.’
‘I meant does Linden know? Who his real father is?’
Rose’s stomach clutched with guilt. ‘No. Heath is the only father he has known.’
‘It’s almost funny,’ Rowan continued, with a glance back towards the bower. ‘Wengest raising Heath’s child, Heath raising Wengest’s.’
Regret, fear, swirling coldly in her stomach. What a mess she had made of her life. ‘I’m not laughing.’
‘I said almost,’ Rowan said with a mischievous smile. She approached and wrapped her arms around Rose’s waist. ‘I missed you, Mama. I spend my whole life missing you.’
Rose squeezed her tight, a hand in her red hair. The joy of having her daughter with her was tempered by the new worry that talk of Wengest had aroused. He would come looking for Rowan, surely he would. Eventually he would wonder if his daughter had sought out Rose. And if he found her, if he came, if he saw Linden …
Rowan had said it herself. Linden looked exactly like Wengest, a king who needed a male heir more than he needed anything except breathing.
Rose wasn’t going to allow him to take another of her children.
Rowan woke in grainy light among warm, rough, animal skins. The room was familiar; the smells of cold peat ash and dried lavender were not. So many times as a child she had sent out her spirit to be in this room, among her family. She turned on her side so she could see the three of them, sharing the bed. Linden wedged between Heath and Mama, his little eyelashes fluttering in a dream. She smiled. It had been many years since she�
�d escaped her body and gone spearing through the sky like a swift bird, watching the world roll unnaturally fast beneath her, time and distance collapsing. As she’d grown older it had become easier; the feeling of embodiment at the other end stronger. But the last time she had stayed away too long. Her body had grown chill as the dead, and had to be revived by King Wengest’s physician. She had regained her senses in a hot bath, but her toes and fingers had tingled with cold for weeks afterwards. Rowan reluctantly came to understand that her life needed to be lived within her body, that she was in mortal danger if she continued seeking out her family with her spirit.
Rose stirred in her sleep and turned over, opening her eyes.
Rowan smiled and Rose smiled back. She mouthed the words, ‘Come on,’ and Rowan rose and followed her out of the bedroom and across to the door, which opened onto a low step.
Rose closed the door behind them and sat down, pulling Rowan down next to her.
‘What a lovely way to wake up,’ she said. ‘With my little girl in the house.’
‘Not so little,’ Rowan said grudgingly, holding out her long arms as evidence.
‘You’re tall like Bluebell,’ Rose said. ‘Well, not quite that tall. What a gorgeous thing you are.’
Rowan hid a smile. ‘It’s nice to see you too, Mama.’
Rose’s eyes went out over the patchy grass. Chickens were awake and pecking around. The morning air was damp and fresh. They sat together in silence a long time, watching the world wake up.
‘Why did you come?’ Rose asked at last.
Rowan knew she owed her mother an explanation, but hadn’t wanted to provide it in front of Heath. She stretched out her legs, digging her heels into the dirt. ‘Wengest was keen for me to make a marriage with the kingdom of Lyteldyke. He believed that King Wulfgar was considering an offer for one of King Tolan’s granddaughters, so he sent me up there for the summer. I was prepared to marry Wulfgar, Mama. He’s a nice man. Young, not ugly. Not a great military mind, but strong on building alliances. I was prepared to do my duty and become the queen of Lyteldyke, but then … it all went wrong.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘I fell in love.’ Ah, that stung.
‘With King Wulfgar?’
‘With his sister. Annis.’ Rowan studied her mother’s face, but she showed no puzzlement or shock.
‘Annis? I remember meeting her once, when she was a child. Stubborn. Headstrong.’
‘I told Papa … Wengest. He said I must forsake Annis and marry Wulfgar. But do you not see? I am in love with his sister. I will see her every day and yearn for her, then return to his bed at night. It would be impossible. Nor could I take her as a lover while married to her brother. How could she betray her own blood like that?’
Rose remained silent, and finally Rowan asked, ‘Are you angry at me for not doing what I was told?’
Rose shook her head. ‘No, no. It’s simply that … to hear you speak of lovers and alliances makes me feel old. It seems you were a round-cheeked babe just a moment ago. So, will Annis come here to meet you?’
Rowan sighed.
‘Rowan?’ Rose brushed the hair off Rowan’s cheek.
Rowan’s eyes stung with tears. ‘Six weeks ago, when Wengest sent the message that I was forbidden from seeing Annis, she and I started planning to run away together. We met in secret every day, organised it all … But when the time came to leave, Annis wouldn’t come.’
‘But you … are in love?’
‘I am in love.’
‘She is not?’
Rowan shook her head. She ached with it. She had experienced strong feelings for both girls and boys, but nothing like the feeling of being with Annis. Liquid lightning.
‘I am so sorry, my love,’ Rose said, and she pulled Rowan’s head onto her shoulder and encircled her with her arms.
Rowan leaned into her mama’s soft body, breathing the warm, lightly floral, scent of her, and tears came hard and fast. She cried until Rose’s shoulder was damp, then sat up and dried her face on her sleeve. ‘I can do so many things,’ she said. ‘I can open crossings and hear the unseen world, but I can’t make her love me.’
‘Human hearts are hard to turn,’ Rose said, and Rowan saw a twitch of guilt around her eyes. Then she rubbed Rowan’s arm. ‘Linden will be awake. Are you hungry?’
They got to their feet and returned to the house. By the hearth, Heath sat stripping arrows. He had lit the fire and Linden, in a shirt and no pants, stood by it, stirring the porridge pot.
‘There you are,’ Heath said, in a tone that Rowan knew was purposefully light. Heath’s curiosity edged into hostility, but Rose hadn’t seen it. He was stripping practice arrows, which was one of Rowan’s favourite ways to calm her mind.
‘Can I help?’ she asked.
‘If you like,’ he said, moving over on the bench by the fire to make room for her.
The pile of arrows lay at his feet. She picked up a knife and an arrow, and began to cut off the fletching, her thumb steadying the blade on the arrow’s shaft. Her shoulder bumped against his, and she moved away an inch.
‘Good work,’ Rose said to Linden, who looked as though he hadn’t heard. ‘Where are your pants?’
No answer.
Another arrow. Another. Slowly the pile of fletched arrows reduced, and the pile of bare ones grew. They continued a few minutes, while Rose prepared breakfast, then Heath said, ‘How long do you intend to stay?’
That same, careful tone. This question mattered to him, but he didn’t want her to know it mattered. She grew suspicious.
‘Why?’
‘The tribal assembly begins in a matter of days. It would be – if you are going to stay, it would be better if you lay low.’
‘Lay low?’
Heath said nothing for a long few moments, and Rowan could see he was weighing his words.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘We are blood. I would rather you were honest with me. I would rather have the truth, even if its edges are sharp.’
‘It would be better if the tribes did not know you are here,’ he said at last. ‘We are in difficult times. The onslaught of the raiders is unceasing. I believe the wisest thing for us to do is to unite under Renward, so we have the benefit of his army, of Bluebell’s alliance with him. My ability to make this argument is … compromised by you being here.’
‘Because some believe I am the true heir of Connacht?’
‘Precisely.’
Connacht of the West had been a warlord druid, a wood king like the tribal kings of old, before the coming of the Thyrslanders. He had named Heath his heir, but there were many who saw him as a placeholder: a good war strategist but without the sight, without the connection to the undermagic that ran through the earth and the trees and the rivers.
‘Some still call you the little queen,’ Rose said.
‘Yes,’ Heath added. ‘And if they think you little, then that gives me some time for my plans to come to fruition. But if they saw you, now a grown woman …’
Rowan felt the thrill of her own power, immediately followed by a terror of that same power. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I do not know how long I’ll stay. I made no plans.’ A shiver of embarrassment. She hadn’t thought anything through beyond being with Annis, and then running away from the pain of rejection. ‘But I would not risk the lives of the Ærfolc tribes.’
Heath smiled. ‘You speak as though you are not one of them.’
‘I was born and bred a Thyrslander.’
Rose handed her a bowl. ‘Your blood says you are as much Connacht’s heir as Æthlric’s. But, Heath, must she stay inside? Linden and I will be walking down to see Mother Maydew this morning. I had hoped Rowan could come.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Rowan said quickly. ‘If Heath thinks it for the best.’
‘Good lass,’ Heath said, and he rubbed her arm gently with his knuckles, an unexpectedly affectionate gesture. She was taken aback. It made her realise how wary she was of him. ‘I know I can trust
you.’
‘Of course you can,’ she said, and in that moment, she meant it.
As hard as it was to leave Rowan, her long-lost daughter who had only just arrived, Rose knew that Linden would have one of his whining fits if they didn’t follow through with their plan to go to the village. The boy understood everything, and was particular about things running to plan. Mother Maydew, the seamstress, had his new winter clothes ready and so they would go and fetch them, as Rose had promised him. She kissed Rowan’s taut young cheek and got Linden into his cloak. Then out into the fresh morning.
Heath’s roundhouse, the stables and stewards’ quarters, the granary and the guesthouse, were perched at the summit of Llorcyrn Fell, with towering wooden watchfires built at four points around. The adjoining weapons store was the old house, the one Rose had come to live in four years ago. Tiny, grim, windowless. Rose had sent to Bluebell for money and their new abode had been built, not without the hostile judgement of some in the tribe, who were wary of the Thyrsland blood and money that seemed to be colonising the town. The buildings were enclosed by a high wattle-and-daub fence and a guarded gate. Beyond the gate was the town of Druimach, on the crest of the fell and tumbling down the sides towards the sacred grove where the healers went to worship the Great Mother. From outside the gate, Rose could see all the way over rolling and rocky land to a distant belt of grey sea. Usually the town was quiet and slow, and she was likely to be stuck behind a trader driving wayward sheep to market. But this month Druimach was crowded, noisy, full of movement and colour. The meeting of the tribes was approaching, where representatives of every Ærfolc tribe in Thyrsland gathered to disagree about almost everything. At least, that’s what it seemed to Rose. Already the Fenlanders were refusing to acknowledge Heath as the true leader of the Moonhorns; the Coombers who mostly lived on the border of Is-hjarta were begging for the tribes to make a treaty with Renward as more and more of their villages succumbed to raiders; Niamma of the Wildwalkers was being as opinionated and obstructive as she always was; and the Woodlanders – Rathcruick’s tribe – had failed to show at all. When meetings started in earnest, on the other side of the first autumn full moon, Rose expected the pointless arguing to continue.