by Kim Wilkins
The black moods didn’t last and nor were they frequent. Regular, but not frequent.
‘I am sorry,’ she said, trying not to wince.
‘You are always sorry. Now we have to wait untold time to marry. You have made a fool of me, and of yourself.’ He reached up to the wooden beam above them and tore down a red ribbon. ‘Here you are, party girl.’ He draped it over her, around and around her neck, with his free hand. ‘Celebrate, why don’t you? Celebrate your stupidity. Don’t you look pretty.’ He pulled the ribbon tight enough to frighten her, but nowhere near tight enough to strangle her.
Ivy reflexively put her hand to her throat, fingers under the ribbon.
‘I’m not hurting you, you idiot.’
At the same instant, he released the ribbon and her wrist, sending her reeling backwards. She put her hand out to steady herself but found nothing beneath her fingers. She fell down hard on her backside.
Crispin laughed at her. ‘You look like a half-witted whore,’ he said. ‘I’m embarrassed to know you.’ He turned and strode out, slamming the hall door behind him.
Ivy sat on the floor and cried, rubbing her wrist. She succumbed to a brief fantasy of Bluebell stalking into Sæcaster and putting him to the blade, but then dismissed it and hated herself. This was Crispin: her beloved Crispin. The warm smell of him, the touch of his fingertips, the gentle way he looked at her most of the time: she couldn’t ignore those facts in the face of five minutes of violent nastiness.
Not even violent. He didn’t hit her, did he? What was there to complain about? He would cool off, and it would be as though this encounter never happened.
The door opened and her heart lifted, imagining Crispin returning and apologising, promising never to lose his temper with her again. But it wasn’t, of course. He never apologised. It was Harwin.
‘Are you well, my lady?’ he said.
Ivy couldn’t bear the shame of knowing other people suspected Crispin’s ill-treatment. ‘Of course. What are you talking about?’ she said, standing and lifting her chin defiantly.
‘I thought I – you were sobbing.’
‘No. Not me. Perhaps you heard something else.’
He smiled tightly. ‘I am always at your service, my lady.’
‘Go on with you,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. I don’t need your pity.’
Harwin closed the door and Ivy sagged against one of the carved wooden pillars that held the roof up. No party. No Wengest. So no wedding. She breathed out slowly, and had to admit she was relieved.
Widow’s Day fell on a rare sunny day, so Ivy made arrangements for the event to be held in the town square. Widow’s Day was an idea she had borrowed from her father, and later Bluebell, where all the wives of warriors killed in battle came to eat honey-cakes and drink spiced wine, and receive a small gift from Ivy. Her advisors saw it as an unnecessary expense, given the widows also received small pensions from the city (which, in the lean years after the siege of Sæcaster, were also seen as an unnecessary expense), but Ivy stuck to her principles. None of the advisors, and certainly not Crispin, came anywhere near Widow’s Day. Women’s business, they said, even though it was war that had made them widows. Sometimes Ivy longed to be back in Ælmesse, where her sister Bluebell held the throne, and women could go to war, and Widow’s Day always involved several widowed men. Crispin wouldn’t dare dismiss that.
By the time the sun had climbed to midday, the square was full of the happy shouts of children playing, and the weary, resigned chatter of women who were too familiar with loss. Ivy’s own boys, Eadric and Edmund, were dressed in their finest dyed wool tunics: Eadric in crimson and Edmund in gold. Eadric’s snowy curls shone in the sunshine, and Edmund’s mousy straight hair was in disarray as always. What beautiful boys they were. They tore about, playing a game that involved hiding, chasing, tagging, a complicated handshake, then running in opposite directions. One by one, Ivy greeted the women and listened to their memories and woes, presented them with this year’s gift – a bronze pin with the swirling wave of Sæcaster’s sigil on it – admired their children and reassured them that, despite rumours to the contrary, the war pension would continue to be paid.
The day wore on, and Ivy became aware that one of the widows stood by the stone pillar in the centre of the square, where runes of dead warriors’ names were carved, with her dark grey hood pulled over her face. She had with her a girl about the age of Ivy’s own boys: a pretty fair-haired child who stood utterly still, watching, but could not be persuaded to join in the clatter and misbehaviour of the other children.
Ivy’s gaze returned again and again to the hooded woman and her child, as she moved through the crowd. At one point, Ivy saw the hooded woman’s hand emerge from her robes to stroke the child’s hair, and it was the hand of a crone: she could not be the child’s mother. Doubly curious, Ivy finally found a chance to join the woman by the stone pillar. She applied a smile and said, ‘Are you a widow?’
‘I am. Twice, though my second husband put me aside before he died.’
Ivy frowned. She could only see the lower half of the woman’s face. ‘This is a war widow’s event. I can’t give you the gift if your husband wasn’t lost in war for Sæcaster.’
‘I need no gift.’
Ivy turned her attention to the girl, who looked up at her with huge blue eyes. ‘Hello. What’s your name?’
‘Goldie,’ the girl said in a quiet voice.
‘It suits you, with your golden curls. What a pretty thing you are. Do you and your … grandmother live in Sæcaster?’
Goldie didn’t correct her, so Ivy assumed she had guessed the relationship correctly. ‘We have lived in many places.’
‘Ivy,’ the old woman said. ‘You know me. I need to speak with you urgently.’
‘Perhaps if I could see your face.’
‘Not here,’ the woman replied. ‘Somewhere away from the eyes of others.’
Ivy glanced around. Curiosity gave way to fear. Did this crone really know her, or was she a disgruntled citizen or trimartyr who sought to take revenge?
‘I don’t think –’
‘It’s Gudrun,’ the woman said, dropping her voice to a hiss. ‘I was your stepmother for a time. You must help us.’
Gudrun. Ivy had only met her once or twice. She had married Ivy’s father, then used magic against him. Bluebell despised her, but Ivy had never felt anything for her. She always seemed a bit sad, a bit hapless.
‘Come to my bower at dusk,’ Ivy said. ‘Tell the guard to show you. Tell him I invited you because you are an old family friend.’
‘I will.’
Ivy touched the little girl on the chin, drawn to her. There was such goodness in her face, such calm fortitude. ‘I look forward to meeting you again, Goldie.’
The girl smiled, and Ivy turned back to her widows. Next time she looked around, Gudrun and Goldie were gone.
The turn of the year from the air and sunshine of summer to the fog and damp of autumn was always disheartening for Ivy, especially when the twilight began to creep in earlier and earlier. She had been sitting by the fire, embroidering gold thread on Eadric’s cloak, when the dark had closed in and made it impossible to see her work. She lit lamps, and they glowed softly against the bronze fittings and illuminated the tapestries and rugs, but she felt foiled by the coming of the night.
She called for the maid to put hot rocks in the boys’ beds, and fed them supper and told them a story. Still Gudrun didn’t come, and now it was night time properly. She helped the boys wash their faces and hands, dismissed the maid, tucked the boys in. Still no Gudrun, and Ivy itched with disappointment and curiosity.
But then, as Eadric and Edmund were falling quiet, a knock came at the door.
Eadric sat up. ‘Who is that, Mama?’
‘We shall see,’ Ivy said, and opened the door.
Gudrun had pushed back the hood of her cape, and Ivy could see in the gloom that she was very thin, her face very lined.
‘Come in,
come in,’ Ivy said, ushering her inside. Little Goldie was in Gudrun’s wake, her blonde head bowed.
Now both boys were sitting up, gazing wide-eyed at Goldie.
‘We have visitors, boys,’ Ivy said, taking down one of the lamps from its bracket and offering it to Eadric. ‘Could you take Goldie to the play room?’
The play room was little more than a closet behind a curtain, but the rug was littered with wooden horses and soldiers, spinning tops and knucklebones. Eadric and Edmund leapt out of bed at the idea of night-time play by lamplight. Edmund took Goldie’s hand and she followed them wordlessly.
Ivy brought Gudrun to the carved table under the shutter, and then stoked the fire while Gudrun waited, her bony fingers tapping the table.
‘You look …’ Ivy started.
‘I am ill,’ Gudrun confirmed. ‘Very, very ill.’
Ivy glanced around to make sure the children were out of sight. She could hear their quiet giggles from the play room. ‘Who is the child?’
‘Family. My granddaughter. She is a good girl. Quiet, obedient. When she warms up she is sunny and easy to love, and she knows how to survive.’ Gudrun reached out and closed cold fingers over Ivy’s hand. ‘I am dying.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I can feel death in my bones as readily as I can feel the autumn chill in the air. Goldie and I have been inseparable for as long as she can remember. We have lived a simple life these past four years. She doesn’t need much.’
Ivy’s skin began to prickle suspiciously. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘I am dying,’ Gudrun repeated, dropping her voice low. ‘And someone has to take her.’
‘Surely you have friends, family? I can’t –’
‘Ivy, do you not know who she is?’
Ivy’s protests died on her lips. ‘No. Who is she?’
‘Your niece,’ Gudrun said. ‘Goldie is Willow’s daughter.’
Four
It was inevitable, Rowan supposed, that she would be back here in the woods.
The fog was so thick she could barely see three feet in front of her. She felt the way forward with her toes on the slick leaf-fall. Linden wouldn’t follow her this time. She had told him where she was going and, rather than trying to reason or persuade, she fell back on the time-honoured older-sibling technique of threatening: ‘You stay here while I go, or I’ll punch you in the face.’
His eyes had widened with shock: one of the few conventional reactions she had seen from him. But then, Mama babied him so relentlessly he’d probably never been challenged before.
Deeper into the sacred wood she went, following memory and instinct when landmarks were invisible. At last the trees opened out and the stones came into view. She positioned herself in the middle of them and waited.
For long minutes, nothing happened, and she shivered and wished she was in bed.
‘Whoever you are!’ she called. ‘Make yourself visible to me.’ Then under her breath, ‘I’m fucking cold.’
A rumbling beneath sound, sensed with her skin rather than her ears. She held the air in her lungs.
He stepped out of the woods. A tall, cloaked man made of mist and vapour, coalescing into shape and coming apart again into trailing wisps of smoke, then back together and holding. On his head he wore the antlers of a great stag. Beneath the horns, his eyes were bright, brilliant, penetrating. He glowed like the moon.
Rowan stumbled back, her hand landing on one of the stones. Cold as the grave. She moved her lips to ask who he was, but his voice sliced through her mind like a hot knife.
‘Why do you wear that mark?’ he boomed, lifting his hand and pointing at the mark of Rathcruick that was tattooed on her face.
Her hand went to her cheek, but she could not find the words to speak to him. Awe. Dread.
A flash of light momentarily blinded her, and with it a blistering cold sensation arose from the tattoo on her cheek. She withdrew her hand as if bitten, but then the sensation fled as quickly as it had come. She blinked, and realised the antlered man was gone. Touched her face. It felt warm and soft as usual.
‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Who are you?’ She turned in a circle. ‘Hello? Come back. I need to talk to you.’ Because she suspected she knew who this imposing figure was: her grandfather, Connacht of the West.
An ordinary mildness had returned to the clearing. She knew in her heart he wasn’t coming back, but lingered nonetheless. Ten minutes passed. An owl hooted. Still her pulse did not slow.
Finally, Rowan accepted he was gone and turned back towards home.
At the foot of the hill, a shadow moved in the mist, setting sparks of alarm flying through her veins.
‘Who’s there?’ she called. Was it Linden, disobeying her threats? Or was it somebody much more dangerous?
But it was neither. Heath stepped out in front of her, his face grim.
Rowan put her hand over her heart. ‘Heath,’ she said. Then, ‘Did you follow me?’
He grasped Rowan gently around the elbow. ‘Come home.’
‘I wasn’t doing anything –’
‘I know what you were doing because I have done it myself. Linden showed me that map as well.’
Rowan fell into step beside him. ‘So you have seen the antlered man too?’
Heath stopped, turned to her. She could not see the detail in his face in the grey dark, his eyes hooded by shadows, but his brow was drawn down. ‘You saw him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he speak to you?’
‘Yes.’ Rowan paused a moment before asking, ‘You haven’t seen him?’
Heath dropped her arm. ‘I am not chosen for such things.’
‘What do you mean?’
He looked away. ‘I came here, just as you did, when Linden showed me his map. I felt something gathering around me, I felt a pressure on my ears. But ultimately … nothing.’ Now he returned his gaze to her. ‘What did he say?’
Rowan shook her head. ‘He didn’t say anything.’
Heath’s shoulders seemed to relax. He smiled. ‘I see. Well, perhaps Linden’s map is not for either of us. Linden finds things, you see. All of his maps lead to something, something you have lost or misplaced or do not know you need. He has helped me find my shaving comb more than once.’ Heath chuckled. ‘Remarkable lad.’
‘Is that so?’ Rowan immediately started composing a list of things Linden could find for her.
‘Your mother won’t let him, though. So don’t ask him for anything.’
‘No?’
‘There are those who would exploit him.’
Rowan didn’t admit that a few seconds ago she might have been one of them. ‘I understand. She’s a good mother to him.’ Rowan realised it sounded like a backhanded compliment. ‘And to me. When I am with her.’
‘Yes, and she will be worried that you have been gone so long. So let us get you home.’
They made their way back to the roundhouse wordlessly.
Something was going on and Rose knew it, but here she was playing toy horses by the fire with Linden. Rowan had said she was going to climb the watch fire tower to take in some fresh air and quiet. Ten minutes later, Heath had made an excuse about going to visit one of his councillors and the door had closed a second time, leaving her housebound.
It was not as though Rose had the luxury of being able to flounce off for private time or an important meeting. Her responsibility to Linden was unrelenting. Though admittedly, she would be reluctant to leave his side while the thought of Wengest finding him was still sharp in her imagination. So she lined up the toy horses and made horse noises, all for the benefit of the quiet, watchful little boy who barely seemed to show he was enjoying himself.
At length, Heath and Rowan returned together, both with downcast eyes. Rowan crossed the room, heading straight for the bedroom, but Rose called her back.
‘Where have you been? Both of you?’
Heath looked sheepish. Rowan gave him a meaningful raise of th
e eyebrows.
That’s when Rose saw it. The tattoo on Rowan’s face, the horrible snarl of black marks that Rathcruick had carved into her cheek, had changed. Gone were the twisted branches; in their place a pair of antlers.
‘What …?’ She leapt up and reached for Rowan’s face.
‘Ow,’ Rowan said.
‘When did this happen?’
‘What are you talking about?’
Heath joined them. ‘How could this be?’ he gasped. ‘I didn’t see it in the dark.’
Rowan’s fingers brushed theirs away; she touched her cheek. Looked frightened. ‘What is it?’
Rose’s heart hammered hard. She had been here all these years with Heath, and she knew that when he had been revealed as heir of the mighty Connacht, there had been much disappointment that he had no powers of enchantment or prophecy. ‘This is no longer the mark of Rathcruick,’ Rose said, fingers returning to Rowan’s cheek. ‘It’s the mark of Connacht.’
The last time Bluebell had been in Druimach it had been a blisteringly cold winter day with snow swirling but not settling on the round rooftops. Today it was mild and clear, and the town was teeming. After the long wind up the hill, she, Ash, and her hearthband rode through streets full of Ærfolc, dodging children and skinny dogs who growled at Hyld. Stares and dark mutters followed in her wake. The insignia of Ælmesse was not always welcome among the tribes. Bluebell flew it high and proud anyway.
As she approached the high fence of the chieftan’s compound, the wooden gates swung open, stirring up fallen leaves. Heath himself stood there, in checked trousers and a deep red shirt, with a green cloak. He had grown out his beard, and it was flaming red in contrast with his blond hair. He raised a hand, and an army of stewards and grooms descended on them. Bluebell climbed down and her feet had barely touched the ground before she had the bogle axe in her hand, offering it to Heath for inspection.