by Kim Wilkins
‘We shall love her as our own,’ Ivy had said, and thought to herself that, yes, that was an admirable goal and would be easier when Hilla was back.
So now it was mid-morning, and the boys had strewn their toys around the bowerhouse, and Goldie sat unsure on the sidelines watching their unabashed exuberance, tickling the corner of her mouth with a strand of her golden hair.
Ivy sat next to her on the bench and slid an arm around her waist. ‘Would you like to play too, Goldie?’
The girl shook her head. ‘It seems wrong, with Grandmother so recently in her grave.’
‘Gudrun would have been happy to see you play,’ Ivy said, giving her a squeeze.
Goldie turned her grey eyes on Ivy, and Ivy could see Willow in her then. The solemn, deep-thinking Willow of childhood; not the zealous monster she had become. ‘I think perhaps I shall be quiet for a few more days.’
‘That is a good decision. Until then, you can watch and be content, and join in whenever you like. Next week, Hilla will be back and she will look after you well.’
Goldie frowned a little. ‘Will you still be here?’
‘Oh yes, of course. But I will be busy. I’m the duchess, you see. I have to make decisions and meet with important people …’ She saw the uncertainty in Goldie’s eyes and wondered why she was boasting. ‘I will be around as much as I can, I promise you. I will put you to bed every night.’
Eadric shouted at Edmund and snatched a toy horse from him, and Edmund started to cry. Ivy felt a moment’s impatience with her own boys. She turned and snapped, ‘Stop fighting. You have plenty of toys to share.’
This made Edmund cry harder, and she rose to pick up the littler boy and soothe him. Children! Why could they not be more sensible, or at least not so tiring?
A moment later, Goldie was at her side, reaching for Edmund’s hand. ‘Come, little cousin,’ she said. ‘I will tell you a story.’
Edmund, shocked by the offer of a story – something Hilla offered regularly but that Ivy’s brain could not conjure no matter how hard she tried – immediately stopped crying and wriggled to be put down. Goldie led him off to sit cross-legged by the hearth.
‘Play soldiers with me, Mama?’ This was Eadric, head down, carefully laying out wooden horses and soldiers in formation.
Ivy tried not to sigh. She could think of few things more boring than having to actually play with her children. That was what they had each other for, wasn’t it? Nonetheless, she dutifully sat down upon the rug with him and pretended to be the losing army (with Eadric, she had learned never to suggest that anyone but his army win). Goldie’s voice was soft, but Ivy could hear her story. It was about a mouse who had to hide from a hunting bird, and it was full of repetitions and rhythms and rhymes. Before long, Edmund was sitting up, toy soldiers forgotten, listening too. Then Ivy began to listen. All three of them, in the quiet bowerhouse, listening to the story of the little mouse who outwitted the hunting bird.
When the loud knock on the door came, it jarred Goldie into silence.
Ivy rose, said, ‘A moment, children,’ and went to the door.
Crispin stood there. ‘My lady,’ he said, bowing. Then leaning in closer so only she could hear, ‘Neglecting your duties with that foundling child again?’
‘You know Hilla is away and –’
He interrupted her. ‘News from Ælmesse. Blicstowe has fallen to the ice-men.’
The news was so shocking that Ivy could not force her tongue to move. Her mind went white.
‘They couldn’t take Sæcaster,’ Crispin said proudly. He was smiling. Smiling! ‘But they took Blicstowe. We are well placed now to –’
‘Silence!’ Ivy roared, and he took a step back in shock. ‘Ælmesse is my homeland. I will not hear of the political advantages of this … horror.’
He drew his eyebrows down, raised a finger in warning. Then dropped it again. ‘You are upset,’ he said. ‘I understand. But you are weak now, Ivy. So exposed.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Many of the highborn of Sæcaster tolerate you because they fear Bluebell. But she has not managed to hold the most well-fortified city in Thyrsland. She is a joke. If she has no power, then perhaps neither do you.’ His voice grew dark. ‘And now the Crow Queen sits upon the throne. Your twin. People will wonder how close you are to her.’
At mention of Willow, Ivy stepped outside and closed the door behind her. She didn’t want Goldie to hear. ‘Don’t speak of Willow in front of the children,’ she said in a low voice.
‘The children? This news ought to have come to you in the state room, not a bowerhouse,’ he said gruffly.
A flicker of shame. Was he right? Should she have not let Hilla go to her sister? Should she have left the children with a new nurse, even if they didn’t know her?
‘We should marry,’ he said. ‘And quickly.’
‘Marry? At a time like this? You’ve always said marrying without Wengest’s blessing will make the situation worse, make them hate me more.’
‘The wolves will be circling,’ he said. ‘You will show them the city guard is entirely within your control if you marry its captain.’
Marriage to Crispin had always been something for the future. Now the moment was upon her, she felt no excitement, no happiness. Just doubt. A wedding without her sisters? In the fog of autumn? When the world had been turned upside down?
Crispin’s voice grew irritated. ‘Am I so revolting to you?’
‘No, no,’ she said quickly. ‘I love you. I want to be your wife. I simply didn’t imagine it this way.’
‘Oh, you imagined a spring wedding, with flowers and streamers?’ His words were thick with sarcasm. ‘You are no silly virgin, Ivy. Well, sometimes you are silly, but you’re enough of a whore to know such a wedding is not for you.’
Ivy fell silent, afraid if she protested again she would anger him more.
Then he laughed, as though it had been a joke, and she tried to laugh too but it wasn’t funny.
‘We will announce it tomorrow,’ he said, then leaned his face close to hers and said, ‘Yes?’ Never had such an innocuous word seemed so threatening.
‘Yes,’ she said, and her own voice seemed very small. ‘Will we marry in a chapel?’
‘Well, of course. Whether or not you like it, Ivy, we are a trimartyr kingdom.’
Ivy allowed herself a small breath of relief. The trimartyr way was to wait six weeks from announcement to marriage, so that the couple could pray for blessings. If only she believed in Maava, she would pray very fervently indeed.
By the following evening, their forthcoming wedding had been planned and Crispin invited the nobles of the city to the hall for a hastily organised feast. Half of the invitees didn’t show, and most had plausible reasons for being unable to attend. Crispin airily said they were all lying and would have to come and pay their respects once he was the duchess’s husband. He hadn’t used the word ‘duke’ yet. Ivy wondered if he would.
When he would.
Eadric and Edmund ran about the hall like mad things, excited by the party atmosphere. Ivy kept a close eye on one of the older members of the guard, who kept offering Eadric sips from his mead cup. Eadric wisely made a face and ran away from him, but the old fellow and his friends thought it was great fun to entice the child to get drunk.
Goldie sat at the children’s table long after the meal was finished, watching. Ivy was busy in conversations and could not get to her until late in the evening, when she plopped on the bench next to her and said, ‘Are you enjoying the party?’
‘Will Crispin live with you when you are married?’
‘Yes, I expect so. We haven’t discussed it. Perhaps we will need to build an extra room on the bowerhouse so we can all fit.’ The queasy sensation that had been troubling her all night bubbled in her stomach again. ‘Don’t you like Crispin?’
Goldie shrugged. ‘I don’t know him.’
Ivy’s gaze roamed the room, looking for him. His dark hair had gro
wn to his shoulders. His beard was neat, though, and as always his cloak and deep red sash were immaculate. ‘Do you not think he’s handsome?’ Ivy asked.
‘No, I do not.’
Ivy glanced quickly at Goldie. ‘Really? Well, I suppose you’re only seven.’
‘He is well formed but his eyes are not kind,’ Goldie said.
Ivy could have laughed. Goldie was young and small, and had the faintest lisp. To hear such words come from her lips was both astonishing and amusing. But then she thought about how Crispin had never said a compassionate word about Goldie, so of course his eyes had never looked at her kindly. Of course she would be anxious about him living with them.
‘You’re not to worry about anything,’ Ivy said. ‘Crispin loves my boys and he will come to love you too.’ In fact, right at that moment, Crispin had caught up Edmund and was holding him upside down while he laughed until his face was red, his little white teeth showing.
‘I am tired, Ivy,’ Goldie said. ‘May I go to bed?’
Ivy turned back to Goldie and rubbed her shoulder gently. ‘Yes, I think it’s time to get the boys to bed too. Though how I’ll ever calm them down, I do not know.’
It took a further half-hour to say goodnight to everyone and to round up the boys, and Goldie waited throughout, occasionally yawning but otherwise showing no sign of impatience.
Crispin barely seemed to register her leaving. He stood with a group of friends, making merry with a drinking game. She took the children to the bowerhouse, washed their hands and faces, and got them into nightgowns and finally bed.
‘Can Goldie tell us another story?’ Edmund asked.
‘Goldie has to sleep,’ Ivy said.
‘I don’t mind,’ the little girl said, sitting up, brushing a blonde curl out of her eyes. ‘I like telling stories.’
‘A short one, then,’ Ivy said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
So Goldie began. This time it was about an old carpenter building a chapel that he knew he would never pray in, because every day his chest hurt more and more and he knew his heart would burst on the day the triangle was raised over the front door. It was a sad story, but told with lots of vivid details and with a cast of interesting characters: preachers and grandchildren and nosy ladies and uppity gentlemen. When she had done, Ivy said, ‘Who told you that story? Was it Gudrun?’
‘No, I made it up myself.’
‘Really? When?’
‘Then. When Edmund asked for a story.’
‘Well. I’m very impressed. Now, all of you, heads down and eyes closed.’
But then Edmund started to whine. ‘Where is Poppy Fox? I can’t find Poppy Fox.’
Poppy Fox was a toy fox sewn of wool that Edmund’s father, the late duke of Sæcaster, had given him on the day he was born. Once he had been called Papa’s Fox, but that had become Poppy Fox over the years and Ivy had no desire to remind him of his father. Poppy Fox was a wretched nuisance who was always getting lost, but whom Edmund needed to sleep.
‘Let me look for him, precious,’ Ivy said, rising to her feet.
‘He’s at the hall,’ Edmund said. ‘I had him when Crispin was holding me upside down.’
At the hall. Ivy sighed. ‘Well, if you put your head down and close your eyes, I will go and fetch him. All right?’
Edmund shook his head. ‘I won’t close my eyes without Poppy Fox.’
‘I’ll tell another story while you’re gone,’ Goldie said.
Ivy was aware that it was late and they should all be sleeping, but Edmund really was such a baby about Poppy Fox so she agreed.
By the time she returned to the hall, the only folk left inside were the servants cleaning up and packing. She found Poppy Fox easily enough, and made her way back outside. Then she heard voices and smelled the pungent scent of pipe leaf. It seemed a last small group of revellers were gathered behind the hall in the crisp night air. Crispin’s voice was among them, and there was laughter. She felt so excluded from it all. From his happiness. It had been so long since he had been happy in her company.
She crept along the side of the hall to listen, Poppy Fox tucked under her arm.
She didn’t know what to expect: perhaps political machinations or war strategies. But no, they were talking about breasts. This heartened her for some reason, though she admitted a clench of jealousy, wondering what Crispin would say as the others compared the attractiveness or otherwise of every woman’s breasts in the hall that evening. But no, that girl’s were too small, and this girl’s were too pointy, and those ones were older than the hills, and so on. The conversation did seem to go on a long time, and she was aware that when Goldie’s story ran out, Edmund would start calling for her.
Then finally, one of them said, ‘Tell us about the duchess’s jigglies then.’
Ivy tensed.
‘Soft and round and heavy, but they sit perfectly. Not too high as to look girlish. Not too low as to look sloppy. Pale pink nipples that she loves me to pinch.’
A round of lewd laughter. Ivy’s face flushed warm. She was both embarrassed and proud. Of all the breasts at the party, Crispin thought hers the best.
‘And will you go and pinch them tonight?’ one of the other voices asked.
‘Maybe, though my cock may not be working after all this mead.’ He paused, and there was the sound of a deep draw on his pipe. ‘Now the world knows we are marrying, I’m not going to wait any longer to put it in her. Four years of rubbing each other up! I’m going to stick her like a pig.’
More lewd laughter, and Ivy’s queasy feeling was back.
‘I can’t believe you’ve waited,’ one of the others slurred, and it sounded like it might have been the old fellow who was trying to get Eadric drunk.
‘She didn’t want any more babies. But all that is going to change. Those other whelps can go away to school and never come back for all I care. It’s going to be my seed who rules Sæcaster, not old dead Guthmer’s.’
Ivy caught her breath, then turned and began to walk away. Still she heard the last words.
‘What if she says no? Women have got a way of saying no.’
‘No means nothing. We are to be married, and I’m a lot stronger than her.’
The lewd laughter followed her as she hurried away to the bowerhouse.
As predicted, Edmund was snivelling but Goldie was comforting him. Ivy handed him Poppy Fox then lay down beside them all and listened to their soft noises as they wriggled, settled, drifted and finally slept. Silent tears were on her cheeks. Was it drunken nonsense he was talking, or did Crispin really intend to force her sons out of the succession of Sæcaster? Eadric had known his whole life he was to be duke one day – granted, it was sometimes excruciating to hear him say it to a servant or even his brother in an argument.
Did Crispin really intend to force himself on her? In her mind, she went back over their sexual encounters. In the early years, they had been so good. Tender and thrilling. But lately – maybe even for a year – he had been rougher, quicker, sometimes not caring about her pleasure, complaining he couldn’t go back to his duties with breath that ‘smells like cunt’. She had once dreamed of opening up to him, having him slide his cock inside her. But after hearing him speak to his friends like that, the thought made her feel vulnerable.
Stick her like a pig.
Ivy rose and went to her room, lifted the tapestry and carefully locked the secret door. It could stay locked now until they were wed. She had six weeks to figure out what to do after that, but with her most powerful ally, Bluebell, in dire circumstances of her own, Ivy was more vulnerable than she had ever been.
Fourteen
Tolan’s men kept the cart covered, but Rose knew they were being taken south to Tweoning, and she knew the reason was that the older soldier had recognised her, or thought he’d recognised her, and that Tolan would be curious: not out of concern for her, but out of concern for himself. For what he may leverage from Bluebell, perhaps. Or Wengest. Everyone knew that Rose had been put a
side by Wengest, and had mysteriously disappeared into the north. She did not believe that anyone cared, but perhaps Tolan did.
Through the days they travelled, stopping at designated times to relieve themselves while one of Tolan’s men stood guard. It was hard to read what Linden was feeling. He stayed close to her, lacing and unlacing his fingers, watching them as though they fascinated him. Rose told him stories until her voice was hoarse, then gave up trying to engage or entertain, and lay miserably on her side imagining the worst.
Through the nights, they slept in the cart, still under guard. It was cold, and they coiled together for warmth. Linden always fell asleep before her, and she listened to his breathing and smelled his curly hair, and wished until her heart hurt that Tolan would treat them kindly.
At last, they drew in among the grassy slopes and lush valleys that characterised Tweoning. By mid-afternoon, they were unloaded from the cart outside a gathering of buildings around a small, neat hall above the main town of Winecombe. Rose looked up to see tidy gardens. Grey skies.
Linden struggled against the guards to get back to the cart, but was forced away.
‘His box,’ she said. ‘Let him have it please.’
‘You’ll have nothing until the king has seen you,’ said the guard, manhandling Linden so he faced a low-roofed wattle-and-daub hut. ‘In there, young sir. And no more of this nonsense.’
Rose took Linden’s hand firmly. He made a panting-whining noise she’d never heard from him before. ‘It will be fine. Just be patient, my love. Mama is here.’
They were marched into the hut and told to sit on the bench that ran along the wall. ‘Wait here.’
Rose did not sit. One of the guards stayed while the older one headed off, closing the door behind him.
Linden was still whining.
Rose looked to the guard who stood inside the door. ‘What is your name?’