Queens of the Sea

by Kim Wilkins

  ‘Why have you drawn this, Linden?’ she breathed, knowing he wouldn’t answer.

  Then he leaned across and drew a shape on the island. A little crown.

  ‘Whose crown is this?’

  He quietly and tidily packed away his pens and his ink, locking the lid of the box. She offered to return the map to him, but he wouldn’t take it, pushing it gently back in her hands.

  Linden found lost things. Perhaps the Brenci Isles was where she would find her magic.

  The dew-damp of early morning was in the air when Bluebell and Ash made their way down to the coomb on foot. Bluebell left her hearthband behind, packed and ready for immediate departure to Blicstowe. As much as she would have loved for them to ride down on the Wildwalkers with weapons ringing, she knew it wasn’t wise to do so. Especially as she had made a promise to Rose to behave, for Rowan’s sake.

  From the hill, Bluebell could see two dozen people camped in the grassy bowl held by the arms of the valley. She ought to have guessed that it was the Wildwalkers who had cursed her with the bogle axe. Her hearthband had encountered them once, many years in the past, collecting apples from an abandoned overgrown orchard. Bluebell had ordered her thanes to collect some apples too, and the Wildwalkers had put up their spears. Blood had been spilled on account of a few apples, and their chieftan, Niamma, had blamed Bluebell when it was clearly her own tribe’s fault.

  ‘So Niamma holds a grudge,’ Bluebell said. ‘I’m surprised she’s still alive. I’m surprised nobody has cut her throat in the night.’

  ‘I don’t know Niamma,’ Ash said.

  ‘She lacks both wisdom and humility,’ Bluebell said as they approached. ‘Calls herself Niamma the Bold, but it should be Niamma the Fucking Annoying.’

  ‘Why don’t you let me speak, then?’ Ash said. ‘Perhaps you cannot be diplomatic.’

  Bluebell cast Ash an irritated glance. ‘I can be diplomatic. Watch.’

  She lengthened her stride and heard Ash hurrying to catch up.

  ‘Hoy!’ Bluebell called, when she was within a hundred yards of the encampment. ‘Tell Niamma that Bluebell is here to see her.’

  A few pale faces looked up from their campfires. A trio of little children stopped playing and ran inside an oilskin tent. From another, larger, tent dyed with swirling patterns, a tiny woman with a pretty face emerged, her hair the exact shade between copper and gold. She wore a bright blue dress overlaid with furs.

  Bluebell approached, feeling her size and ugliness acutely. ‘Niamma,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you for a while.’ Bluebell shrugged towards Ash. ‘My sister, Ash.’

  Niamma smiled at Ash, then returned her eyes to Bluebell. ‘Did you come to steal our apples?’

  ‘We weren’t stealing your apples. They were nobody’s apples.’

  ‘Mighty King Bluebell, going to war over fruit,’ Niamma said, the smile never leaving her face.

  ‘You lost two men and we lost nobody. I wouldn’t be laughing.’

  A small crowd had gathered. Bluebell could feel the hostility in the air around her, and thought of Ash’s warning about diplomacy, about her own promises to Rose. She turned to Ash and nodded.

  Ash stepped forward. ‘Niamma, a bogle charm has attached itself to Bluebell. As you can imagine, this is a cause for some concern. Her safety as one of the most powerful kings in Thyrsland is very important to all of us.’

  ‘One of the most powerful kings in Thyrsland?’ Niamma said with a sharp voice. ‘Why do you people think you are better than us?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Ash said.

  ‘That’s what I heard. I’m just as important as her.’

  Bluebell interlaced her fingers and pressed them against each other until they were white. Don’t threaten her. Don’t draw your sword.

  Ash’s voice and demeanour remained even. ‘No insult was intended. The bogle charm clearly has Wildwalker markings on it.’

  Niamma clicked her fingers. ‘Let me see. You people know nothing of the Gwr-y-Aírd. Don’t call us Wildwalkers. Learn our language as we have learned yours.’

  Bluebell withdrew the axe and held it out. The little woman folded her hands behind her back and leaned forward to examine it, then called out in a surprisingly loud voice, ‘Lugaid!’ She smiled up at Ash. ‘Lugaid is our druid. I will be most angry with him if he’s been cursing people without my permission.’

  A middle-aged man with a beardless face rose from beside one of the fires. He wore grey robes and a tightly fitting black cap over his silver hair. He was smiling as he approached, almost as though he were trying not to laugh.

  ‘What is it, my lady?’ he asked as he joined them.

  ‘Did you make that bogle charm?’

  Here he burst into laughter, as did Niamma and the gathered crowd. Even the little children emerged from their tent and began to run about, laughing and making sing-song teasing noises. Bluebell felt as though she had walked into a bad dream. The entire tribe was laughing her. They all knew about the axe, and they thought it a great joke.

  ‘Silence!’ she shouted.

  Ash gripped her elbow firmly. ‘Explain yourself,’ she said to Niamma.

  ‘Of course we sent it,’ Niamma said. ‘You oughtn’t be interfering with Ærfolc business here in Bradsey. A bogle charm is nothing. An unexpected surprise, neither good nor bad. But if you do not go home, we will concoct something worse next.’

  Bluebell wrenched her arm from Ash’s grasp and flung the axe past Niamma’s ear, so it embedded itself with a thud in the crossbeam of one of their tents. A ripple of silence, then low, hostile whispers.

  ‘Have it back,’ Bluebell said. ‘And be glad I don’t fillet somebody.’

  Niamma raised her eyebrows with a smirk. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t do that. That would upset Heath and the Gwr-y-Llorcyrn far too much. Blood spilled at a tribal assembly over a little joke? Worse than apples.’

  Red mist descended and Ash tried to tug Bluebell away. Bluebell flung her off roughly, stood a moment staring Niamma down, then turned and stalked back up the hill. ‘Come along, Ash,’ she said.

  Ash struggled to keep up.

  The druid called from behind them, ‘You’re as dried up as an old fig, little witch!’

  ‘What does he mean by that?’ Bluebell muttered.

  ‘He means me,’ Ash said. ‘My magic.’

  ‘He knows nothing,’ Bluebell sniffed. ‘Everybody knows the Wildwalkers are thickies.’

  Ash chuckled, and Bluebell drew her protectively close. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘At least I got rid of that damned axe.’

  The meeting with Heath’s advisors had gone well, but still Rowan dreaded speaking in front of the tribes. The night before the assembly she fell asleep but woke up within an hour or two, to low hearthlight and the sounds of her family sleeping. She lay staring at the roof beams, her hand on her cheek over the miraculous mark of Connacht. Why had he marked her?

  She rose as silently as she could, slipped on shoes and let herself out. The night was foggy; she could barely see four feet in front of her. She moved carefully down the slope, crouching to steady herself on rocks. Rowan entered the clearing and sat on a flat stone and waited. An owl hooted in the distant dark. She shivered a little from the cold.

  Then that feeling again: something gathering, pressure building. Her heart thudded and her blood seemed to heat up. In a moment, he was there, part of the fog, growing dense, denser, then almost solid in front of her. The mist shredded on his mighty antlers.

  ‘I like your face better this night, granddaughter,’ he said, his voice booming inside her head.

  Rowan touched her cheek and smiled. ‘I like it better, too.’

  ‘I can undo all the enchantments Rathcruick wrought on you,’ he said. ‘I can make you a child again, but you would also lose your ability to work the waypoints.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘All things are possible in the woods behind the woods. Time passes slower, faster, backwards, forward …’
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  Rowan considered this. She had never been eight, or ten, or twelve, and would never know what those stages of childhood felt like. But nor had she ever lived with her parents or had friends her own age. She had been raised in the woods by a hunter. Nothing about her upbringing and growth were normal, and she found she didn’t mind.

  ‘I will stay as I am,’ Rowan said. ‘But thank you.’ She looked behind her, wary of Linden having followed.

  ‘He has not come tonight,’ Connacht said.

  Rowan turned her attention back to the ghost. His eyes shone in the fog. ‘Linden helped me find you.’

  ‘Your great aunt gave him the power, for such petty reasons: to serve her. I do not understand the ways of undermagicians. They covet our magic but will not live in our communities. What is the point of power if it is not exercised for others? This is your only lesson from me. Be one of many, and act for the good of all.’

  Rowan nodded. ‘I am here to learn all your lessons. I have to face the assembled tribes tomorrow and I’m … unsure.’

  ‘Unsure? No.’ His voice grew soft, grandfatherly. ‘You are my true heir. The magic that runs through you is born in you, and will emerge over time. Heath is a good war leader, but he does not have your magical ability. I could not speak inside his head the way I can in yours. He cannot be the leader of the Gwr-y-Llorcyrn for long.’

  Rowan held her breath a moment, then released it. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You will one day wear the antlers on your head under the moon.’

  As he said this, the vision sliced into her mind as clear as memory: Rowan looking at the tribe gathered around a bonfire, a heavy weight on her head, the moonlight running down to her in a silvery tide, Heath kneeling before her … then the vision was gone. She touched her forehead where the antlers had been. ‘When will these things happen?’

  ‘You will know when,’ he said. ‘For now, you must make yourself known to the tribes and unite their spirits. War is coming. The wretched trimartyr raiders will only grow bolder. Their religion is cold and their methods are cruel. The tribes can no longer squabble among themselves. They must unite under the Moonhorns. You must throw your support behind Heath. You must lead the way for their spirits, as he leads the way for their spears.’

  Rowan felt a stiffening in her blood as the weight of responsibility and fate settled in it. ‘And may I return to you for advice?’

  ‘Until the Gwr-y-Llorcyrn are safe I will wander here in the grove. Sometimes close, sometimes far.’ His dark, serious eyes turned upwards. ‘I long to cross the veil and enter the green city.’

  Rowan smiled. ‘I wish for your sake and the tribe’s that that will be soon.’

  He made no sound or motion, but his presence began to fade. She watched him disappear, become the mist, then vanish.

  Rowan stood a few moments in the circle, eyes closed, contemplating. She listened to the thrum of her pulse. Her blood, the blood of the Southlanders and the blood of the Ærfolc. Two grandfathers who were kings.

  In her slight body converged two great bloodlines and, through this quirk of biology, a huge responsibility had been placed on her head, as heavy as the antlers in her vision.

  Rowan stood very still in her bower while her mother pinned on her dress with two matching silver brooches.

  ‘These belonged to Connacht’s first wife, Fianna. She died giving birth, along with the babe, when she was only nineteen,’ Rose said softly. ‘The tribes will recognise the pattern. You see, it’s a pair of owl wings. Fianna was considered very wise.’

  Rowan took a deep breath. ‘I am not wise.’ She could hear the voices on the other side of the door. The rain had set in and so the meeting had been brought inside the roundhouse: the leaders of each tribe and their closest advisors. Twenty people in all, crammed into the spaces where the family usually cooked and talked and played. Heath paced nearby, probably just as anxious as Rowan. Linden sat on his bed, legs crossed, drawing. The sound of the rain intensified, a true autumn drenching.

  ‘Hardship makes one wise. You will be wise one day.’ Rose smoothed down her dress and picked up a bone comb. ‘Let me fix your hair.’ Rose unpinned her daughter’s hair and began to run the comb gently through it.

  Rowan barely registered the tug and pull as knots were untangled. She strained her hearing to pick up words and phrases from beyond the door, but could make out nothing but a low mumble, the occasional laugh. Some would think her the true chosen heir of Connacht, some would think her too young to be of any importance, some would think her dangerously close to the kings of Ælmesse and Netelchester.

  ‘There. Now you are ready.’ Rose stepped back. ‘Do not forget who you are. You have the blood of many kings.’

  ‘And queens,’ Rowan answered.

  Heath ceased his pacing and approached, offering Rowan his arm. She took it, and then her feet were carrying her out of the bower, towards her destiny.

  The roundhouse was airless and smoky, and so many eyes were upon her that she initially looked down at her feet; but then remembered what Bluebell had told her. She lifted her chin, unsmilingly, and prepared herself to meet every gaze. The occasional drip of rain made its way through the smoke hole in the ceiling and hissed on the fire. Rowan gently pulled her arm free of Heath’s and stood with her spine very straight. Heath glanced at her, then at the gathered crowd. He spoke a sentence, something Rowan didn’t understand as it was in the speech of the Ærfolc. It must have been some kind of welcome, because the assembly murmured a response in unison. Then Heath switched back to his own language, and said, ‘I called you here to present to you my daughter Rowan of Netelchester, whose lineage is drawn from two glorious forebears: the famed war leader King Æthlric of Ælmesse and Connacht the Wood King. This is the young woman the great seer called the little queen.’

  A murmur went around the room. Some nods of assent. Some expressions of disdain.

  Heath began to speak again, but Rowan lifted her hand and grasped his shoulder to stop him. If she didn’t say anything soon, they would think he spoke for her.

  Her heart was hammering as she said, ‘I know your eyes see a stranger and a girl. I know I am untested in battle and know not your language and your ways, but they are things that I can learn. But magic, which no-one can learn, runs in my veins. I control the crossings and … I have spoken with the ghost of Connacht.’ She stopped and let her silence work in her favour, as the assembly muttered among themselves. She could feel Heath’s body tense next to hers.

  Finally, an elderly woman with knotted hands and fading blue tattoos up her neck spoke. ‘And when you spoke with Connacht,’ she said in a voice oily with sarcasm, ‘what did he say? That we should all bow down to your blood-crazed aunt, the new king of Ælmesse?’

  Rowan fixed the woman in her gaze and remained silent a few more moments. It gave her a chance to choose her words. ‘Bluebell poses no threat to us –’

  She was instantly shouted down by a jumble of harsh phrases. ‘Ælmesse have always thought they are our lords and masters.’ ‘Renward is her faithful dog.’ ‘She kills before she thinks.’

  But then another voice called, ‘Silence! All of you, be silent! Here stands the little queen, the true heir of Connacht, and she has his words from beyond the grave. Let her speak.’

  Rowan caught the eye of the man who had spoken, a tall fellow with a scraggly red beard, wearing blue-and-red checked pants and a fur vest. She nodded at him gratefully, and decided she didn’t want to use Bluebell’s tricks any more. She wanted to speak as herself.

  She offered them a smile. ‘I am not your enemy. I understand your mistrust, of course I do. But the war the Thyrslanders waged with your forefathers, generations past, has already been won. I am sorry, but I am not here to change history: not even the mighty Connacht could change history. But the raiders grow bolder, and we are safer united against them. Will you risk being consumed by grudges from the past when the future is crumbling? Connacht says we must unite, under Heath –’ here
she took his hand, ‘– my father, who is a fine chieftan and leader of warriors.’

  Then the debate began in earnest. Those who had always been in favour of Heath spoke fast and loud. A few questioned whether Rowan was lying, but the woman with the tattooed neck reminded them of the great seer’s prophecy of the little queen. One person pointed out the tattoo on Rowan’s cheek as evidence, while another said it looked like cheap ink from Blicstowe. The tall scraggly-bearded man told them of the deaths of his sister and her children at the hands of raiders. Others mentioned the threat that the Crow Queen’s trimartyr ways posed to their spirits, while others – mostly older men with only a handful of bitter years left to live – said they’d rather be trimartyrs than come under Bluebell’s rule. Heath told them again and again that he had no plans to submit them all to Ælmesse’s rule, or even to Renward’s, without a clear treaty of autonomy in place, and that was a decision for another time. Rowan stood back and allowed them to agree and disagree. She didn’t know their names or their histories, and sometimes they lapsed into long streams in the Ærfolc language – slightly different for every tribe, but they understood each other. But as ten minutes passed, then twenty, she could feel the tide turn. Voices calmed, and the words became ‘unity’ and ‘agreement’ and ‘together’.

  Finally Niamma the Bold, whom Bluebell had warned her about, walked up to Rowan and peered up at her. ‘Connacht’s heir? I trust her more than I’d trust him.’ Here she jabbed a finger towards Heath. She turned to the crowd. ‘We trusted Connacht. We lose nothing by trusting his heirs for long enough to unite against the raiders. Beyond that, well … we shall see.’ She took Rowan’s hand and squeezed it, and she had such a soft twinkle in her eye that Rowan couldn’t help but feel fond towards her. ‘You’re a bonny young woman,’ Niamma said softly. ‘You remind me of myself. A little taller.’ Here she smiled mischievously. ‘We shall talk further, I know it.’

  This acceptance by Niamma seemed to trigger a note of harmony through the assembly. The scraggly-bearded man, who Rowan now understood to be a very elderly chieftan’s son, called on those gathered to speak in one voice in favour of uniting under Heath to resist the raiders, in the hopes of stopping them from wintering over in tribal lands and to drive them back to Is-hjarta for good. Heath promised he would send four seasoned soldiers to each tribe to train them for war.