by Kim Wilkins
Then snap. The link with Him popped apart, and she and Maava fell away and away from each other, until she was returned entirely to her cold, fallible body with no divine union. Only the mundane. Only Willow.
Rage descended. She climbed to her feet, shaking. Fist into the wall. She felt one of her knuckles fracture. The pain was exquisite. She stalked to her throne, heaved it into her arms and carried it to the knife rack, smashed the rack from the wall. Knives scattered everywhere. She bashed the throne against the rock wall, and splinters flew. Her hands were bleeding. A guttural roar made its way out of her unbidden.
The door to the chamber opened and she was barely aware of it, until Hakon’s big hands closed about her wrists from behind, shaking the throne from her hands. It landed with a clatter. She wrestled against him and he took her to the ground and pinned her, knees on the insides of her elbows.
‘Willow. Gather yourself.’
‘I nearly saw Him! He was there, then gone. I don’t know why. He must despise me so.’
He let her rave. They had assumed this very same posture many times before. Hakon was the only one who could control her rages; and he could only do that through physical force.
Finally, the storm blew itself out. She did not cry. She took a deep breath and told herself that to endure her misery without tears would prove her love for her god. Hakon, sensing she would not hurt herself any further, let her go.
‘What have I told you a thousand times, wife? About anger?’
‘Anger does no man good in battle,’ she said, in his language. ‘But I am not in battle.’
‘You are. You are always in battle. That is the way of our people.’
Slowly, she got her thundering heart under control.
‘We will find Avaarni,’ he said. ‘Modolf will go again to look for him in the winter. We still have time.’
Four years. Four long years in this empty, sodden, frozen, fish-stinking place. Even though she knew the angels would mock her, she was impatient for things to change. One way or another, she had to act. Soon.
The following day was one of Marvik’s rare fine and clear ones. The autumn bite was still in the air, of course, but she hadn’t woken with fog outside the shutters that hung there until midday. So as soon as she had broken her fast, she tied on her walking shoes and headed out of the mountain hall and up into the hills.
The sky was pale blue, streaked on the horizon with grey clouds that would march in soon enough. The grass was damp with dew, and mud sat in the trails. She ascended the hill under which the royal chambers were built, climbing over rocks and dodging razor-sharp frost-gorse. She came to a natural hollow in the hills, where a big flat rock caught the distant sun, and sat down.
From here, Willow could see out over the grey harbour to the churning sea beyond. Currents tugged against each other, illuminated to sparkling by the weak sunlight. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, thanking Maava for His creation, for the beauty she sometimes found in this otherwise ugly place.
But the dark thoughts came anyway, sneaking in under the light. Angels telling her that four years ago she had promised to return to Blicstowe and place Avaarni on the throne of her sister Bluebell, and convert all of Thyrsland to Maava’s teachings. She had sworn it in blood. So had Hakon. Hakon seemed not to mind that the key to their plan – her son – was nowhere to be found. She knew Hakon would happily sit on Bluebell’s throne until Avaarni came of age. Sometimes she did not know for sure whether or not Hakon would relinquish it when the time came.
‘Wife.’
Willow opened her eyes. Hakon had followed her.
‘It is time,’ he said.
‘The weather,’ she replied, as if it explained everything.
Hakon squinted at the sky with his good eye. ‘Then we will do it here.’
Every morning, at precisely this time, she met with Hakon in the inner chamber and they sat by the martyrs’ fire to practise speaking each other’s language. Her, so that she could issue commands without being mocked by the native Is-hjartans. Him, so that when Thyrsland fell to them he could do the same.
Every day for four years, she told him a story from her youth and he told her one from his. In this way, they had learned more about each other than most husbands and wives. Mutual understanding had grown between them, despite their repulsion for each other physically.
‘Come sit here, then,’ she said, making room on the warm rock. She eyed the clouds moving in from the horizon. ‘Let us make the most of the sun. What is today’s topic?’
‘Is it my turn to choose?’
‘Yes, it is. For yesterday I chose “a time you did not get your way” and you told me what a bully your brother Gisli was.’
He nodded, remembering. ‘Well, then. Today we shall talk about “a time you did the wrong thing and were punished”.’ He smiled, the leather patch on his cheek bowing out. ‘You first.’
Willow thought back. The truth was that, as a child, she was compliant and sweet to everyone. She rarely did the wrong thing. That was always Ivy’s specialty.
But thoughts of Ivy brought back the memories. Picking up her husband’s language, she began, ‘When I was nine or ten, Uncle Robert moved us from his house on the hill down to a smaller house near the beach. In front of us, beyond a small strip of grey sand, was a long finger of rock. The first afternoon, our tutor took us down there to look in the …’ She ran out of Is-hjartan words. ‘You know, the little pools among the rocks.’
Hakon said a word that Willow realised translated literally as ‘little water worlds’.
‘Yes, the rockpools,’ she continued. ‘Ivy and I became fascinated by them. We might have stayed there all afternoon and evening.’ It was curious, reflecting on her sister now. Ivy was little better than a whore, and she had burned every chapel in Sæcaster, where she reigned as the duchess, in a flagrant insult to Maava. The image was at odds with her memories of Ivy, fair and giggly and full of life. ‘On our return, Uncle Robert told us that the tide was not to be trusted and that we must never go to the rockpools on our own. Such words to Ivy were always taken not as an order, but as a dare.’ Willow caught her breath. She had heard the tone of fondness in her own voice. ‘Her wilfulness as a child explains her later vice and iniquity,’ she added sternly. ‘Maava be praised.’
‘Maava be praised,’ Hakon echoed softly, thoughtlessly.
A breeze whipped up, swirling leaves that had fallen from the wild rimeberry bush. The scent of organic matter and mud filled the air.
‘The very next morning, Ivy woke me at dawn and bid me come with her. I reminded her Uncle Robert had said not to trust the tide, but she said, “Fiddlesticks”, and that it was perfectly safe as I’d seen with my own two eyes the day before. I did very much want to return to the rockpools, so I climbed out of bed and pulled on shoes and a cloak, and off we set.
‘The very south of Thyrsland is mild. You will love it. The farmland goes all the way down to the sand in some places, but there are also fishing huts all along the coastline and not far from where my uncle lived a small port town for trade across the sea. The sun shone.’ Here Willow closed her eyes, remembering. The sun. The full, bright sun. She tried to imagine its warmth and couldn’t. A little worm of panic in her guts. Had she forgotten light and warmth?
She opened her eyes, distracting herself with the story. ‘I shed my shoes on the shore as sand had found its way into them, and out we went onto the rock finger, skirts hitched up above our knees, until we came to the rockpools. I knelt beside them, one by one, and imagined being inside them, with the tiny barnacles and darting silver fish and drifting weed. Lost myself in delight.
‘Time passed. Too much time. The first hint I had that something was wrong was Ivy squealing. I looked up to see the tide rushing in, and our way back to shore under water. I don’t know if I was more afraid of drowning or of Uncle Robert’s temper, but while I froze, Ivy began to shout and cry. We waded as far as we could before the water was up to our armpits
and I dragged Ivy back up higher on the rock. We watched as the water converged around us.
‘Finally, a passing fisherman heard us and fetched Robert, who drenched himself wading out to collect us, and carrying us one by one back to shore. He dropped us in the sand and gave us a belting right there. I couldn’t sit down for a week, my bottom was so sore.’
Hakon laughed lightly. ‘That was your punishment? Smacked bottoms?’
‘Yes. And weeks of Uncle Robert reminding us what naughty fools we were.’
He shrugged, fixing his cold hard eye on her. ‘No wonder you were weak when I met you.’
Willow bit back her response. Weakness was not a thing of the body, but of the mind. His weakness had been taking far too long to accept Maava’s will. ‘Go on then. You tell your story, in my language.’
He rubbed his lips together as if rubbing off the native dialect, and began. ‘I have a similar story, of my twin and I deliberately disobeying our father. We stayed in the woods too late or some such thing. I do not remember the details, and perhaps we were younger than you. Seven or so. But I remember the punishment.’
‘Go on,’ she said, tightening her scarf as the breeze, colder now as the sun fell behind cloud, plucked at it.
‘Father said Gisli and I were each to bring the thing we loved most in the world to the chamber, for him to destroy it as punishment. Gisli and I conspired that we would bring something we cared little for instead, and lie for each other if asked. So I took a wooden soldier that my grandfather had carved for me. I had never liked it. Its face was too merry for a soldier. Gisli brought a board game he never played. Father sat us down on the floor and asked us to place our beloved object in front of us. Then he marched over and kicked them both over, called us liars. With a “hoy”, he summoned his old advisor into the room, and he had brought with him Gisli’s toy shield. The one he slept with. He loved that shield with all his might, for he had painted it himself and believed he would never own something as fine again. Father threw it on the ground, poured fire oil on it, and set fire to it in front of our eyes.
‘Now I was worried. I had many precious things – silly toys, of course, but I was a lad – and wondered which of them Father would find and destroy. The old advisor departed, then returned only a few moments later with my closest friend of childhood, the leatherworker’s son, Kel.’
Willow willed him to stop. Opened her mouth to say, ‘Don’t,’ but it was too late, he finished his tale.
‘Father threw him on the ground, poured fire oil on him, and set fire to him in front of our eyes.’ Hakon’s voice dropped almost to a growl. ‘He shouted so much that Father handed me his sword and invited me to run him through and save him the pain. But I was a coward and could not.’
The silence that followed his words rang in Willow’s ears.
‘You were a heathen and a child,’ she said at last. ‘You did as you knew. Now you know better.’
‘I know that if I must cause pain and fear, I must do it in Maava’s name,’ he said. ‘Modolf has brought you a gift.’
‘A gift?’
‘A young fellow caught painting an image of the Horse God on the chapel.’
Willow’s heart grew hot with rage. ‘Still they are doing this? After four years?’
‘Again they are doing this,’ Hakon corrected her. ‘Because the promise of taking over the southlands has not yet been fulfilled.’
‘If they want to share the coming wealth and the glory of Is-hjarta, they must accept the yoke of the trimartyrs. There is no room for heathen gods.’
‘I think you should make an example of him.’ Hakon put out his hand and she took it and got to her feet. The clouds were blowing in, now. Rain was coming.
‘I will,’ she said. ‘And I know how I shall do it. Your story has put an idea in my mind.’
Hakon laughed again, a big hearty laugh this time, snatched away on the wind. ‘I am proud of you, wife. They will fear you.’
Willow headed down the hill, calling back to him, ‘They will fear Maava. As they should.’
Ivy loved a party.
Outside, the world was swathed in fog and rain, but inside the hall fires blazed and every lamp was lit. The roof beams were wrapped with red and gold ribbons and the tapestries on the walls had been washed and rehung, fresh and vibrant. Two deers roasted on spits, and two burly servants were even now setting up the long tables and benches for the coming feast.
Ivy was standing on a chest to reach one of the ribbons, which had come loose, when somebody grabbed her around the waist from behind and pushed her, making her shriek.
‘Don’t fall!’ he said with merriment in his voice, pulling her back against him.
‘Crispin!’ she admonished, slapping at his hands, but he gently brought her down to the ground and stole a kiss.
She stepped away, smiling up at him. ‘Not now. After,’ she said. ‘When it doesn’t matter who sees.’
He put his hands around her hips and pulled her against him once more. ‘Everything will be different after,’ he said.
‘If Wengest says yes.’
‘Of course he’ll say yes.’
Their king, Wengest of Netelchester, was due to arrive any moment for a feast in his honour. A feast where Ivy and Crispin planned to ask for permission to marry. The union of the widowed duchess and the captain of the guard would have been a scandal four years ago when the old duke had died, but had become an open secret more recently. Ivy liked to think that nobody complained because the folk of Sæcaster had come to love and accept her and care about her happiness. In her darker moments, she suspected they didn’t complain because there were plenty of other things to complain about. Ivy had hardly been a good civic leader. Her plan to raise taxes on ships and merchants in order to pay for the rebuilding of the docks – destroyed by raiders – had resulted in fewer ships and merchants. So she lowered them again, and left the eastern side of the harbour unrepaired. Same result. Many of the storehouses stood empty except for cobwebs. Less port traffic meant less need for the tradespeople along the waterfront. Stores began to close. Families began to leave. Taxes grew thin. A progression of scarcity she could not stop.
Crispin had helped all he could, but she hoped that elevating him to the official co-ruler of the city would fix everything. And nice big marriage gifts from Wengest and Bluebell wouldn’t hurt either. Her eldest son, Eadric, though he was only eight now, would be the duke of Sæcaster one day. Ivy had to make sure there was enough of Sæcaster left to be duke of.
‘You look pretty,’ Crispin said, twitching the fabric of her blue-and-gold dress. ‘This is my favourite colour on you.’
‘I know. And you look handsome,’ she replied, admiring the sharp cut of his jaw beneath his dark beard, the soft curls about his ears.
He took her hand and placed it over the front of his pants, where the bulge of an erection was present. ‘See what you do to me?’
She giggled, glancing around. ‘Crispin, the servants will see.’
‘They see everything and can do nothing,’ he said dismissively. ‘They are servants.’ He pressed her hand more firmly against him and pushed his lips up against her ear. ‘I can’t wait to put this inside you.’
‘When we are wed,’ she replied compulsively. She had said it so many times. They still took their pleasure the way curious virgins did, with hands and mouths. She did not want to risk a pregnancy until the rule of the city was settled, and she had never had trouble turning a seed into a child.
In fact, she did not want to risk a pregnancy at all. Ever again. She had been glad those years were behind her, but she supposed it was inevitable. Just please, not a girl. With Crispin and Ivy as parents, she’d be bound to be spectacular. When Ivy had forty winters on her brow, she certainly did not want a beauty of sixteen summers hanging around her.
The door to the hall opened then, and Crispin’s second-incharge strode in. Ivy and Crispin quickly and quietly separated, and she stood with her spine straight, her hands fol
ded in front of her.
‘Harwin,’ Crispin said. ‘What news?’
Harwin nodded once. ‘A messenger from Wengest’s retinue. They are not coming.’
‘Not coming!’ Ivy squeaked. ‘But why?’
‘The king has other business in the north that takes precedence. They have marched directly past us.’
Ivy tensed. This would be bad. She would be blamed; she was always blamed when King Wengest snubbed them. She flashed her gaze at Crispin, whose face was a mask of neutrality.
‘Thank you, Harwin,’ he said. ‘You may go.’
Harwin glanced from Crispin to Ivy. Did she see pity in his eyes? No, she was imagining it. He withdrew, closing the door behind him.
‘Ivy,’ Crispin said in a low voice, ‘dismiss the servants.’
‘No, no, they can stay,’ she said brightly. ‘They can pack up the tables. They can –’
‘Ivy,’ he said again. ‘Dismiss them.’
Ivy cleared her throat. She clapped her hands to get the servants’ attention and said, ‘Thank you. You are not needed any longer.’
She watched them go, watched the door close behind them, feeling the smallness of her body. Like driftwood on the tide. When she turned, Crispin was waiting.
‘Is it any wonder Wengest didn’t come?’ he said. ‘You have run this city into the ground.’
‘I am doing my best. I have taken all your advice …’ She didn’t know what upset her more: her fear of him or the awful fall from his shining admiration to his cold cruelty.
‘You take advice from anyone,’ he spat. ‘You are a whore for any man’s advice.’ He adopted a preening expression and mocked her voice. ‘“Oh, yes, we will raise the rent on the warehouses. We will put the poor families in the empty shops. We will sell half the duke’s fleet. As long as you all think I’m pretty.”’
Ivy didn’t point out that selling the ships had been his decision, and an utter disaster. When he was angry, it was best she stood still and take it.
He grasped her wrist, not gently. The last bruises had only recently faded. ‘When will you learn, you idiot? Trust nobody but me. Wengest hates you. Everybody hates you.’ He squeezed harder, until Ivy was sure her bones were grinding against each other. His cruelty had escalated slowly over the years. So slowly that she didn’t recognise it as cruelty for a long time. He probably didn’t know how tightly he was crushing her wrist, and she wasn’t about to remind him when he was in this black mood.