Queens of the Sea

by Kim Wilkins

  Ash tucked the pendant under her tunic. It was cool against her skin.

  ‘One week,’ the Great Mother said. ‘If not sooner, should the battle not go Bluebell’s way.’

  ‘Can you see?’ Ash asked, suddenly desperate. ‘Do you know if we will win?’

  The Great Mother smiled. ‘You know I do not. Here you have a situation; it is unchangeable. What happens from here depends on your deeds, on your sisters’ deeds, on all the soldiers in all the armies. You mennisc always forget how much power you have. The wind blows as it will; now you set your sails.’

  ‘How do I get back to the island?’ Ash asked.

  The Great Mother pointed over her shoulder. ‘There,’ she said.

  Ash turned, and saw a place where the mist shredded apart. It had not been there before.

  ‘Go then,’ the Great Mother said.

  Ash did not look back.

  The pre-dawn dark was illuminated by firelight. Shouts and movement. Bluebell was thigh deep in the water, slipping a chain on Hyld to keep her secure at the back of the longboat. The water was icy, swelling low and falling away.

  ‘Good girl,’ she said, rubbing Hyld’s big head.

  Ash had not returned, and even though it felt like she was leaving the island without one of her limbs, Bluebell knew she had to go. Her thoughts had to turn to war and nothing else now.

  Fifty yards up the shore, the giants had carried their longboat down to the water’s edge. They were already packed and waiting, speaking softly to themselves. One by one her warriors finished packing and climbed into the longboat. The dark leeched from the sky. Bluebell waited on shore for as long as she possibly could.

  As she turned her back to walk to the longboat, she heard her name called faintly.

  ‘Bluebell!’

  She whirled, ran back up the ridge. It was Ash, running nimbly over rocks and gullies. Bluebell waited, the wind chilling the water on her trousers.

  ‘Just in time!’ she called, as Ash approached.

  Ash smiled broadly. ‘You would have left without me?’

  ‘You know I would have, if I had to.’

  Ash put her arms out and Bluebell drew her into a hug. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I’ll tell you on the way. Let’s get moving. Time will beat us.’

  ‘Nothing will beat us.’

  Within minutes they were in the longboat. Orange light on the horizon. Bluebell saw that Ash was looking across at the giants. She looked stricken, hollow.

  Bluebell crouched in front of her, saying in a low voice, ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘They don’t think they’ll be back,’ she said.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Look at them.’

  Bluebell looked across at the giants. Nepsed and Cammoc were huddled together, heads on each other’s shoulders. Gagel had his eyes turned wistfully to the shore. Wermod stood at the helm, his face set like granite. Withowind and Finol gripped hands.

  ‘It is normal to fear death in battle,’ Bluebell told Ash.

  ‘They must come back,’ Ash whispered, as if to herself.

  On the other longboat, Wermod raised his hands and clapped. A stiff breeze picked up. The sails flapped and filled.

  Bluebell turned her attention to her own party. ‘Row out!’ she called, and the longboat began to move.

  They were on their way.

  Thirty-one

  Now she was standing alone and exposed outside the tiny backroad alehouse, Ivy couldn’t remember quite how the thieves had managed to persuade her to be here.

  ‘Look more lost than that,’ Vex had said. ‘Lost and sad.’

  Lost and sad. Ivy adjusted her expression, her eyes on the road out of the woods as though she were waiting for somebody. The thieves had cleaned her up and pinned her hair, so she looked once again like a pretty noblewoman, the perfect bait for their trap. Perhaps that had been the tipping point: they’d appealed to her vanity. ‘We will never have a chance to do this again, because we will never meet somebody as beautiful and golden-haired as you again,’ No had said, right before she hustled the children away somewhere safe.

  ‘It has to be you in front of the alehouse,’ Wander had explained. ‘Einhard knows our ugly faces.’

  They had answers to all her objections: it was low risk; in the service of good; she didn’t actually have to steal anything herself. All she had to do was lure Einhard into the woods and then run away. Vex and Wander would take care of the rest: they had history with him, and taking this route to Æcstede had given them an opportunity to settle an old score.

  Perhaps she was stupid for saying yes. Crispin would tell her that. Thinking of Crispin made her straighten her spine in defiance. She could do what she wanted now, even if it was helping thieves get revenge on other thieves. Ivy waited. Soft rain dampened her curls. She wondered if it made her look more fetchingly miserable. Vex was clear that this Einhard preyed on miserable, beautiful girls.

  Her stomach itched. She didn’t want to be stalled here at this barely-a-village in the woods, surrounded by dripping, overgrown trees and the faint smell of dog shit, she wanted to be with her family. She yearned for a hot bath and for clean clothes and for the inside of a house. They made good time now they were with the thieves: there were more backs for whining children to be carried on, more meals that satisfied, more knowledge of the best routes.

  The door to the alehouse opened and she stiffened, waiting to see if it was Einhard. They’d said he was tall and bony with a completely bald head. ‘He looks like an egg,’ No had said.

  But the short, round woman that moved past her with a curious glance was certainly not Einhard.

  Ivy untensed her body. Eyes on the road. Looking sad in the drizzle.

  ‘Good afternoon there, lovely.’

  Ivy risked a glance over her shoulder. Standing at the door to the alehouse, leaning in the threshold, was a tall, thin man. Whether or not he had a head like an egg was a mystery to Ivy, as he wore a thick hat. Ivy smiled coyly and turned her eyes back to the road. Her heart sped a little.

  He was at her side a moment later. ‘Are you lost?’ he asked.

  ‘I was meant to meet my father …’ she said, eyes on the road, hoping she sounded uncertain.

  ‘Would your father want you to stand in the rain?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘I did not want to go inside alone. Father said there are … rough men in this alehouse.’

  ‘There are that.’ He stood close enough for Ivy to smell him. Smoke and body odour. ‘Your father,’ he said. ‘Was he coming via the woodland road?’

  Ivy pointed down the road. ‘Yes, this way. From the north.’

  ‘On foot?’

  ‘On his horse.’

  ‘His horse you say? Why some of the folk inside the alehouse have said a horse threw a rider on the woodland road earlier this afternoon. What does your father look like?’

  Ivy turned frightened eyes on him. ‘He’s fair like me.’

  ‘They said it was a fair-haired man. Richly dressed.’

  ‘I hope it isn’t Father!’ Ivy exclaimed.

  ‘They say a healer took him in. I know where to go. Will you let me take you?’

  Ivy was careful not to look too stupid. ‘I … I don’t know. Father said I should wait here.’

  ‘How late is he?’

  ‘An hour.’

  ‘More than an hour has that rider lain injured, without his loved ones around him. I hope he will live.’ Then Einhard made a brushing-away motion. ‘But of course it might not be your father at all, only he was fair-haired and it did happen precisely when you were expecting him.’

  Ivy pretended to take the bait. ‘How far is the healer’s house?’

  ‘Ten minutes along the road by foot. I can show you.’ His eyes dropped momentarily to the brooches holding up her dress. He was sizing her up, but whether to steal her jewellery or remove her clothes, Ivy was not sure.

  She looked over her shoulder at the alehouse, then ba
ck at Einhard. She bit her lip.

  ‘I understand, my lady. There are cut-throats and thieves lurking at the hems of every woodland. But it is yet daylight and I am a good man.’ He bowed slightly, his big hand spread across his chest. ‘We will stay on the road.’

  Ivy nodded, keen for her part in this adventure to be over. Vex and Wander would be watching from the woods, and would follow them until they were all far enough from the alehouse that the trees would swallow the commotion. Then Ivy was to run back to No and the children, and that was that. She didn’t care what they did to Einhard. Thievery was not her business and he seemed an awful, rough sort of fellow.

  ‘This way,’ he said, and for a few hundred yards she followed him in silence as he pointed out landmarks and noted the sounds of the robins and pretended to be a genial fellow.

  Then he said, ‘You know, if we cut across the woodlands here we can come out directly behind the healer’s house.’

  Ivy stopped, and for a moment had a genuine flicker of fear. What if this wasn’t Einhard? What if she had followed the wrong man? What if Vex and Wander were nowhere near? She hadn’t heard a single footfall, and she had been listening for it. Her eyes went to the woods. Mossy rocks and damp leaf-fall.

  ‘I give you my word,’ Einhard (if it was Einhard) said, and theatrically dropped to his knee with a smile.

  Ivy was about to say yes when Vex burst from the trees and bore down on Einhard, a knife gripped in her right hand. Wander came from the other direction, but slower, with his bow drawn. Ivy turned to run away, as she had been instructed, but Einhard leapt to his feet and, rather than engaging with Vex, made to close the distance between him and Ivy. He flailed out a long arm, got his fingers around her wrist and brought them both to the ground. The shock of the fall slammed through her. A second later he had dragged her to her feet, her face pressed suffocatingly into his chest, his arm pinning her. She struggled against him, wondering why Vex and Wander weren’t saving her. Then she felt the point of something sharp at the back of her neck. She went very still.

  ‘I should have known this was bait!’ Einhard spat. ‘What makes you think you can outwit me, Vex?’

  ‘We want what is ours,’ Wander cried. ‘Let the girl go. She is nobody.’

  ‘Nobody? In these clothes?’

  ‘She’s a whore we paid to play the part,’ Vex said.

  Ivy almost laughed. A whore. Again. She managed to turn her face a half-inch to grab a breath. Einhard moved his arm up to pin her more closely, not realising he had eased the pressure across her right arm. She remembered a conversation she’d had with Crispin once. He’d had her in a similar body lock, angry with her. But as his anger released and his guilt kicked in, he had pretended this was some kind of lesson for her safety.

  ‘Every woman thinks they should punch a man in his balls to take him down,’ Crispin had said. ‘But if you can get a clear shot at his throat, you should take it.’

  Ivy drew back her arm. Einhard tried to shift his grip but it was too late. She slammed her fist with all her might into his throat. His arms flew wide, she slipped them and began to run – blood hot, heart pumping – and only stopped when she could hear Vex and Wander had him on the ground, begging for mercy.

  Ivy ducked behind a tree and peered out, curious. Vex sat astride him, a knee on either arm, while Wander held his head with a knife at his throat. Vex was feeling him up and down, then produced a little pouch from one of his pockets. She held it aloft and shouted at him some of the most inventive curses Ivy had ever heard.

  Ivy didn’t wait to see what would happen next. She took to her feet again, and ran back to the camp behind the village, where No and the children waited.

  It was late afternoon by the time Vex and Wander finally returned. Their clothes were wet, indicating they had been in the stream, but Ivy could still smell the faint metallic tang of blood on them.

  The camp was well off the main road in old forest, under a rocky overhang. No and the children had stoked the fire and were roasting rabbit. Vex peeled off her clothes down to her shirt, hung the wet things over a rock and sat close to the fire. Wander stayed in his wet gear, easing off only his shoes to dry them by the flames. Goldie had taken a distinct shine to Wander, who was gentle and patient with her, and loved to listen to her stories. The little girl sat next to him and began to speak quietly to him.

  Vex caught Ivy’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry that happened,’ she said. ‘If I’d’ve known he’d go after you like that, I never would have asked you.’

  Ivy shuddered, thinking about all the other ways the incident might have ended. ‘No more adventures before we get to Æcstede,’ Ivy said. ‘I am done with adventures.’

  Vex shifted over so she sat closer to Ivy, and pulled from her pocket the pouch she had taken from Einhard. ‘Would you like to see my treasure?’

  Ivy had to admit she was curious. She nodded.

  Vex grasped Ivy’s hand and turned it palm up, then tipped the contents of the pouch into it.

  Ivy had been expecting coins or jewels, but all that fell out was a tiny string of wooden beads, tied into a circle.

  ‘It was my boy’s,’ Vex said gruffly. ‘A bracelet my aunt made for him when he was born. After … it happened … when he was gone …’ Vex’s voice gave out. She shrugged, as though shifting the weight of the burden. ‘When he was gone, for a long time I thought I could still smell him on the beads. I realised of course I couldn’t. I just wished for it. I wished for him with every bone in my body. I would ache at night from it.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Ivy said. ‘How old was he when he died?’

  ‘You mean when my husband drowned him? Not quite a year old.’

  Ivy’s eyes went to little Edmund, still new enough to remember as a one-year-old. How vulnerable he had seemed then. How vulnerable he still seemed.

  Vex plucked the bracelet from Ivy’s hand and dropped it back in the pouch.

  ‘How did Einhard come to have it?’ Ivy asked.

  Wander took up the story. ‘Einhard and his gang raided us one night when we were camped right here,’ he said. ‘They took everything we had. We are thieves. We had no illusions that the things they stole were ours to miss.’

  ‘But this was a treasure that could not be replaced,’ Vex said. ‘I have tried to reason with him, to bargain with him. Every time we come to this part of Thyrsland, I have tried to take back what’s mine. He laughed at me, taunted me with it.’

  Ivy shivered. ‘If Einhard knows that you camp here, are we safe? Won’t he come to take revenge?’ She remembered his smell, when she was pressed up against him.

  Vex and Wander exchanged glances.

  Gently, Wander said, ‘No, Stupid, he won’t be coming here.’

  ‘Or going anywhere,’ Vex added, much more offhand. ‘Or doing anything. Like standing up. Or breathing.’

  Ivy sought out the children with her gaze, wondering how much of the exchange they understood. Goldie was staring into the fire, not giving any indication that she was listening. The boys were at the edge of the camp, finding stones that looked like eggs. They had become so taken with Goldie’s stories about stonebirds, and always looked for the best stones for her wherever they stopped. Goldie’s apron was quite weighed down with them.

  No, who had been carving the rabbits, finally spoke. ‘Let’s forget him now. Tomorrow we should get to Æcstede, and Stupid here has promised us a good purse for the favour. We are lucky to have each other and our freedom.’

  Wander stood to help her serve the meals and Vex leaned into Ivy. ‘That was a good punch, by the way,’ she said, her voice low.

  ‘One useful thing Crispin taught me,’ Ivy replied.

  ‘No person is all bad,’ Vex said. ‘That’s what makes them hard to leave.’

  Ivy nodded. Thoughts of Crispin had made her sad. Frightened. She wanted all these bad feelings to stop.

  Vex, who seemed to intuit what Ivy was thinking, said, ‘He hasn’t followed you.’

  ‘H
ow do you know?’ She realised her pulse was flicking hard at her throat.

  ‘We know.’ She laid her hand on Ivy’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. We can make ourselves disappear.’

  Ivy fought with her feelings. If he hadn’t come looking for her, did that mean he didn’t love her? Was he glad she was out of the way so he could take charge of the city? The answer hit her with full force. Of course he was. Power was what he wanted above everything.

  ‘Did you miss your husband after you left him?’ she asked Vex.

  Vex said, ‘No,’ very quickly, then paused, eyes on the fire, and said, ‘I missed who he had once been. Who I thought he was. But one cannot go on believing the best of somebody determined to do their worst.’

  Ivy said nothing more. She was tired and heart sick, but tomorrow, in Æcstede with her family and with her comfort restored, it would all be different.

  At least, she hoped it would be.

  Long before the refugee camp came into view, Ivy could hear it and smell it. Shouting, crying, hammering, singing; human waste, smoke, rotting food scraps. It ran counter to what she had imagined, which was people waiting clean and peaceful to return to their homes. She didn’t need to see their faces to know that these people despaired of ever seeing their homes again; the air for miles around seemed infused with feverish anxiety. Life seemed turned upside down to Ivy then; impossible things had happened and to know it was one thing, but to be confronted with its aftermath in all its visceral misery was quite another. She dragged her feet until she was at the back of their party, walking alongside Wander, who had Goldie on his back.

  ‘Are you well, Stupid?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid to look,’ she said.

  The trees began to thin, the road widened, and Æcstede and its surrounds came into view at the bottom of the hill.

  There was much activity around the fields where the escaped citizens of Blicstowe were camped. Drivers with blankets, kindling and oilskins unloaded to rows of helpers. Other people were upending clean water from buckets into a trough, or walking from the trough and the stream, which Ivy knew was a mile away from town. The latrine pit – where the worst of the stench was coming from – was being tended by two brave souls with scarves tied over their faces: one burying the highest filled end of the furrow, the other sprinkling the rest with lime. Beyond, laid out in untidy rows, were makeshift tents, the ground between them churned and muddy from rain and many feet. People clung to these miserable temporary homes. Some children played, others – the older ones who were able to understand fully their circumstances – sat still and drawn with their mothers, perhaps wondering, as Ivy was, where their fathers were.