Embers

by Helen Kirkman

  She did not care. She was no longer a child to be bullied by an older brother, angered by the condemnation in his eyes. Hurt—

  "What is it you wish, brother?"

  "To know what is in your thoughts."

  She tilted her chin.

  "No one ever knows that. It is part of my charm."

  Cunan's hand clenched on the well-worn hilt of polished bone.

  "Like mother, like daughter. I will take a bet even your…friend does not know what goes on in your head."

  She found her mask smile.

  "No, he does not."

  "He just has his uses, is that right? Oh come, Alina, we are no longer children. You have your needs, I do not doubt it." He must have seen her stiffen because he squatted down beside her, the hand that had rested on the knife hilt held out like a token of peace. His hound eyes watched her.

  "I cannot blame you for that. In fact I am sure your

  Northumbrian has fulfilled those needs most satisfactorily. I hear that is his defining talent. Seduction. And he always gets what he wants."

  How many women do you think he has had? You were just one more amusement and a greater trouble to him than he ever expected.

  "You hear so many things, do you not?" Her hands clenched, unseen.

  She tried to make her fingers uncurl. It had not been just a heartless amusement, what had happened between her and Brand. It had not been just a meaningless satisfaction of the flesh.

  …there will only be the pleasure. Naught else.

  Her skin tingled. Such pleasure. He had known it could happen. She had not. It had overwhelmed her. Even now, the memory of his hands and his mouth on her could make her burn. She had given in to the pleasure completely, with all that she was. She had not been able to do anything else.

  Seduction. Such an expert touch… Her face, her whole body, seemed to go rigid.

  "So? I can see that you, at least, are not so light-minded, Alina." Her brother's gaze held hers, his hand, wide and sword-calloused like Brand's, stayed extended towards her. She looked at it. Her heart beat out of time.

  Cunan was right.

  She was not light-minded. She loved. Even if her love could not be returned.

  And she owed debts.

  The hand dropped.

  "Come. You have more sense than that. Just what do you think will happen if you cast in your lot with that heedless fool?"

  "I think that our…" She paused, getting her voice under control. She said it again. "I think that our brother Modan will survive."

  And there was Cunan's face as it truly was, pared down to the bones and the twisting sinew.

  ''''Modan. Modan will be safe enough, I have told you. Your duty lies in loyalty to our father's wishes. It is due to the interests of—"

  "May I join you? Or is this a family discussion?"

  Her fast-beating heart thudded at the sound of the English words. She had not heard him approach. He must move as quietly as Duda who was standing beside him. Cunan's face darkened with anger. She thought that hers must be whiter than chalk.

  She did not know how long Brand and Duda had been there. Cunan did not move.

  "Yes, it is a family discussion and therefore none of your concern. Or of your… slave's."

  Brand settled on his heels like Cunan, hands carelessly resting on his knees. It was like watching a wolf ready itself to spring. Cunan's hand moved towards the bone handle of his knife. It fumbled, just slightly.

  Brand's gaze missed nothing at all.

  "I think we share some of your concerns."

  There was not even a rustle as Duda settled him-self on the grass. Cunan shot him a glance of contempt.

  "Do you expect me to speak in front of that slave—"

  "Duda is free."

  "Want to know why I am free?"

  The faint flicker in Brand's eyes told her that Duda's question was not part of whatever Brand had planned to say. Duda's gaze flicked from his lord to Cunan and then just as suddenly it was on her.

  "Perhaps the lady princess would like to know." The sharp, crinkled eyes held hers and she knew that there was nothing irrelevant about what Duda would say at all. Cunan was seething. She could feel the wolf's tension in Brand, that awful focus that never stopped before it had…all that it wanted.

  There might be blood if she said yes. There might be more blood if she said no. The sunlight rippled the way it did on moving water.

  "Tell me."

  "I would have been enslaved because I could not pay my compensation for theft. Brand paid my wergild."

  "A thief," spat Cunan.

  "Aye. I used to steal to eat. I have no kin. They are dead. I have no home. I lost it years ago. It was burnt in a dispute between two noble thanes over who owned it."

  "And you were not on the winning side?" Cunan's voice still mocked but she could hear the edge that it took when dislike, that strange self-dislike, crept through him.

  She wondered whether the poised wolf beside her could sense it. Whether Duda could.

  "Aye. It was not me who was on the winning side. It was Goadel."

  Oh, they could sense it. They knew, her wolf and his running companion. Hunters so fell could always sense the kill.

  She looked at Duda's rags. She thought of the desperation that lay hidden in the heart of a fugitive. She had had her own experience of that. She wondered whether the gnarled hand concealed in fraying wool was curved round a knife hilt with the same force as Cunan's.

  Cunan looked at no one. "Disputes of a personal nature—"

  "Are exactly what you were discussing, were they not? Is that not what you said?"

  She glanced at the bright gold eyes. They held nothing but enquiry, and the unspoken challenge that had sent Cunan's hand to the knife hilt.

  But he knew everything, her ruthless hunter. He knew all that had been said between her and her brother because he understood their language. Cunan was oblivious to that.

  She had the power to explain it to her half brother. Kin loyalty.

  She kept her eyes on the knife. Cunan's knuckles were white.

  "That does not concern—"

  "Yes, it does. You and I share the same concern, if you remember—to see that your sister is safe, that she reaches Bamburgh, and King Nechtan's ambassador."

  The look Cunan gave held defiance. It also held secrets. She knew that with childhood's knowledge. She had grown up with power plays and secrets.

  "There is nothing to discuss with you, Northumbrian. Some aspects of our family's interests are not shared. Just as some loyalties and some duties are not."

  The wolf rearranged each lethal sinew, gathered for the next strike, the one that would come with the rending of teeth and heavy, tearing claws.

  "Which duty would that be? The one that charges a man to protect those of his kindred who need it? The one that demands thought and a conscience?"

  "What would you know about thought?" demanded Cunan. "You acted without it."

  "No. I thought."

  The strike caught her utterly off balance. But it was not a hunter's strike, or it was one so rash it had exposed far more vulnerability than it should. The reckless, gold-bright eyes had become transparent.

  She could not believe what he had said, or even that he had said it. What he had done when he had abducted her from Hun had been the mad impulse of a moment for him, no more and no less.

  Her eyes sought that bright gold transparency in desperation, to read what was truly there. He was not looking at her. His gaze was fixed on Cunan and she realized the battle was not over. It had just reached a new level she did not understand. Brand did not turn to her, but she knew he was utterly aware of her.

  The sudden change brought its own confusion in Cunan's lean face, an instant when he believed those briefly spoken words. And then the belief was snuffed out by an effort of will.

  "Thought. It is easy enough to confuse thoughts with…certain sudden impulses. But thoughts take into account the future. That truth applies to
us all, from common men to kings."

  "Aye." The gold gaze never left her half brother's face and she knew the transparency of it, the directness were a risk that had been calculated to a hair's breadth.

  "Kings should always look to the future. That is their first duty." The words came steadily, no hesitation, as though he had worked out exactly what Cunan would say and why. It was like watching a death struggle from the outside and yet being involved in it intimately, with the same risk of being annihilated.

  "And the duty to think should be the same for those who would try to make or unmake their king."

  "That is one thing you may be sure of," spat Cunan.

  The gold eyes flickered, as though the breach in her brother's defences, still invisible to her, had been found and the risk, however great, would be pursued to the end.

  "I am glad you are thinking. No one can calculate how long Cenred will hold the throne of Northumbria. But what anyone capable of thought can calculate is that the late King Osred's brother will not have enough strength to hold such a throne either. Goadel's support will not be enough to make the difference. Neither would a temporary intervention from King Nechtan of the Picts be, even if that was truly his will."

  Did she see Cunan flinch at that, or did she just imagine it?

  "The only way anyone will hold the throne at Bamburgh is not through deeds of battle, but through something that takes thought and quite a different sort of courage—finding an alliance and a compromise and holding it"

  Cunan's mouth worked. It was as though he had expected endless swordplay and had been hit with a thrusting spear. He swallowed air. The thin discontented lips twisted.

  "You mean a compromise as long as your kindred comes out best, with you in a king-making role."

  "No. I do not care for king-making. What I care for is the consequences. I care for what is mine and I care for Bernicia. A man like Goadel cares only for himself and what he can gain, not for his country, nor even for an alliance to benefit Pictland. Only a fool would trust him. I believe you would be the last to say King Nechtan of the Picts was a fool. You should have a proper care for what is yours."

  He did not even see the effect of the death blow be-cause he was no longer looking at Cunan, his opponent. He was looking at her. The bright gold eyes were naked. Deliberately so. At what cost to do that before his enemy and before the woman who had betrayed his trust, she could not tell. You could see all that he felt, all that he believed, the incalculable depth of what he had called single-mindedness and probably should better be called courage.

  His gaze caught hers, held it, changed. But lost none of its truth.

  Truth did not allow mercy. She had seen that look before without recognizing it. Memory filled her ears with the clear sound of running water, his touch shivered across her skin, giving her new life. She had been so foolish, so reckless, even though she had known she would have to pay. She could read what filled her lover's eyes now, beside the pity he felt for her.

  It was valediction.

  That was how you bid farewell.

  "Can you not sleep?"

  Rags flapped at her, appearing like a ghost's trappings in the starlight.

  "Duda, I wish you would not do that."

  "I wish you would sleep. Then I could."

  "Why do you not? Or are you obliged to follow me in case I make a bolt for Pictland in the dark?"

  "Aye." There was nothing you could do with Duda. Northern English directness, subtle as an axe blow. Or a spear's thrust. She tried not to think of the two skilled hunters circling Cunan. Or of what Cunan might do. Playing deadly games with kingdoms' futures. And hers.

  She had not quite appreciated the scope of Cunan's plans. Brand had, all the time. He had seen so much more than her. And yet not as much. He had not seen the effect when the death blow fell. She had. Cunan had looked lost. Utterly. Afraid.

  "Well, why does it not just happen, then?" she hissed though the dark, even though she scarce knew what she was asking. They were in Bernicia, now. Tomorrow they would be in striking distance of Bamburgh. One more day and it would all be over. One way or another.

  "It will. You had best make sure you are not in a position to regret it when it does. What are you planning?"

  "Me? Nothing! It is everyone else who is planning."

  "Aye. Must say I am keen to get myself into a position where I can stick a knife through Goadel."

  "Goadel? What makes you think Goadel will be here?"

  "What makes you think it? Cold, are you? You are shivering."

  Alina dragged the thick warmth of her cloak closer round her with impatient fingers. Duda twitched rags.

  "I suppose you want to avenge your losses, too."

  "Aye. There is my dead family to think about, and then Goadel's man made a right mess of my jerkin. I do not allow that."

  "Your jerkin?"

  "Aye." She could see the fierce gleam of his eyes through the mass of unkempt hair and beard.

  …Duda's leather jerkin…a gift. He told me it was fail proof…

  Duda was not talking about the damage done to leather. She took a large steadying breath. It was not enough for the measure of her fears and her loss and her confusion. She took a stab at Northumbrian directness.

  "I would not see such damage happen again. You…you know I would have gone to him then."

  "Aye. Well."

  "Ask Eadric to show you his scratch marks."

  "Must be awkward for you, though, all these brothers."

  She fixed her gaze on the stars. "All I have to do is get to Bamburgh and then it is over."

  "Is that how you see it?"

  "It will be over for me." She could not see anything, really, not even the stars she knew were there. She used her own axe blow of directness. "It will be over for Brand as well. It is already. What happened with us was a mistake, a wrong impulse, even if it had…the right intentions."

  "One thing I have learned over the years about Brand, he is not as good at being impulsive as he likes to believe he is."

  I thought.

  "What?"

  "Do you know what else he and I have in common? No parents. But at least I know what happened to mine. He does not Never will. Could have been bad food that made them scream in agony until they died. Could have been poison. No way to tell."

  "I—" Her voice choked. She did not know it had been like that. She had no idea. He had never said—

  "Difficult age, twelve winters. Not a boy, not a man."

  "Is that how old he was when they died?" All the things they did not know about each other. All the things there had never been time to say. All the things, known and perilously unknown, that divided them—

  "Makes it difficult to believe things can be permanent when something like that happens. Much better to take things as they come, especially if you are an Atheling."

  That is how I did survive it: by the moment. How does one survive anything?

  An Atheling. Throne-worthy and under threat for the rest of his life. Hated by King Osred the vicious, related to the royal house of Cenred. Poison. Twelve years old and no parents. Not even angry and unhappy ones.

  "Thought you were permanent, though."

  "Did he…did he think that?"

  She had not understood. Had not been able to believe that. Still could not.

  … nothing is permanent… And the bitterness in his voice, the terrible acceptance. Her heart felt as though it would break inside her.

  What if it had been true all the time? What if he had felt as she had? What if… what if it had just been she who had not been able to believe?

  She had killed more than she had known when she had left him.

  But it could change nothing. She could not stay with him.

  "Aye. He thought that. Bit of a problem was it?"

  She thought of loss and flight and exile and cruelty.

  "Yes. Something of a problem."

  "Still is?"

  She thought of Goadel's malice
. King Cenred's precarious hold on the throne. The malice of the two rival kingdoms of Pictland and Northumbria.

  "Yes."

  "Pity. But just be sure, tomorrow, you make the right decision."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  There was only one decision to be made, right for whom she did not know.

  "I will not go with you."

  "Oh, you will. Did you think I would leave it to your choice?" The intensity in the harsh face chilled her bones.

  "You are mad to ask it."

  "No. You are the one who is mad, Alina."

  But she doubted that. The mid-morning light showed her the keen eyes fixed on hers. They blazed with an intensity that frightened her soul.

  "You must be mad for letting that Northumbrian anywhere near you, for crawling after his every footstep like a dog. Or like a bitch in heat."

  She took a step backwards, even though he was her brother, even though he was her own flesh and blood.

  "Cunan, did you not hear what he said? It will not work. Goadel is not enough. What you are planning will fail."

  "What he said. Would you believe him over your own brother?" He was walking towards her, his feet cracking twigs in half, tearing the first turning of the autumn leaves.

  "I believe what makes sense." Her back jarred against the thick trunk of an oak tree. She glanced round but there was no one, nothing on the edge of the woodland that could help her. He was between her and the camp.

  "What makes sense for whom? Do you forget who you are, Alina? Do you even know? Is it true what they say? Is that why you always hated my father? Hated me?"

  She did not know what he was talking about. The light in his eyes was something she had not seen before. Where was Duda, her guard dog? Anyone?

  Brand.

  "Cunan, listen to me. I do not hate my father, or you. I would not cause you harm—"

  "Then do as I say."

  She saw it, or she thought she did: the faintest movement caught out of the corner of her eye. Duda. Must be. But Cunan was so very close.

  "Then let me think. Give me a moment."

  "If you were as loyal to your family as you say, you would not even need a moment."