by A. E. Rayne
Jael stared at Edela, wishing she would open her eyes again. ‘Well, good, because we all need her.’ She glanced at Gisila and Biddy who huddled against the walls of the house, their faces pale with worry and anticipation. ‘And now, for the first time, she needs us too.’
‘Good luck.’ Eadmund was pensive as he clapped Thorgils on the back. He didn’t feel confident at all. The plan itself made sense, but where Ivaar was concerned, he was always left with the feeling that something bad was about to happen.
Thorgils jiggled next to him, eager to be gone. The sun had started to shine, glittering off the calm harbour, and he felt a burst of optimism because of it. He wrapped his fingers around the wolf amulet which swung across his green tunic. Vidar’s symbol. Bram had given it to him as a boy, and despite not being overly suspicious, he’d never taken it off. The gods, Odda had drummed into him, would either grant him their favour or they wouldn’t. Thorgils had always thought that there wasn’t much he could do about that, but he’d kept the amulet in the hope that one day it would grant him some luck. ‘And you.’
‘Me?’ Eadmund looked confused for a moment. ‘Oh, you mean Ivaar?’
Thorgils wasn’t sure that he did, but he nodded anyway. ‘I think we both need to keep an eye out for that vengeful cunt.’
Eadmund laughed as Bram joined them. ‘I’m sure he’ll be on his way as soon as he hears that you’ve taken his wife and children!’
Bram smiled. ‘Mmmm, I should like to see what he does about that. Slippery bastard. If we happen to come across him, we’ll take care of him. Unless you’d prefer to do it yourself?’
‘Well, I can’t say that I wouldn’t, but I’m more concerned with getting rid of him for good than any revenge, so take whatever chance you get,’ Eadmund said, thinking of Jael. It felt odd not having her here. He was not unhappy to think that Evaine was waiting for him in the hall with Sigmund, but with Jael, he could discuss the island, the fort, Ivaar.
Their kingdom.
‘Eadmund?’ Thorgils grabbed his shoulder. ‘Are you still in there?’
Eadmund shook his head. ‘Just thinking about Jael. I hope Edela made it to Tuura. It’s not an easy trip on a good day.’
Thorgils felt both sad and cross. He knew that Eadmund couldn’t help it, but he would have loved to slap him across the face, to make him wake up and see what he was doing.
He shrugged. That was for another day.
It was time to get going.
Jael swallowed, watching Gisila twist her fingers into strange shapes as she walked beside her. She knew how her mother was feeling as the memories of their last visit caught in her throat.
They had arrived by ship then too.
Her mother had always preferred to travel that way. She was not overly fond of horses.
Tuura looked nothing like the place they had left, though. Aleksander had warned them, but it was still a surprise to see how the once sprawling village had transformed into a towering fortress of wood and stone.
The Tuurans were a people who had lived as one with the land, and the gods had walked freely amongst them once. They had not believed in walls. Prisons, they had called them. Barriers meant to keep them from their gods.
Yet, over time their lack of walls had made them easy targets for the Osslanders, who had taken away their land, piece by piece. Nearly all of it. And now, when it was almost too late, the Tuurans were finally surrounded by impenetrable walls.
It looked like a hard place to attack, Jael thought as she dragged Tig down the pier. He was disturbed by the unfamiliar smells and sounds and, as usual, was not making it easy for her. The puppies, desperate to feel solid footing again, revelled in their escape from confinement, racing around everyone’s feet, charging up the pier, barking at the seabirds as they swooped down, searching for scraps.
Jael frowned. There were few people about. She saw three other ships tied along the small pier, but no one looked their way; no one seemed surprised by their presence at all, which was odd, she thought.
It was as though they were expected.
Jael turned back to Fyn and smiled encouragingly. He walked next to Eydis, who held Biddy’s hand, vibrating with excitement. Entorp had remained on Sea Bear with Beorn and the crew to watch over Edela. They would need a cart to bring her into the fort.
If that was indeed what they were going to do.
Jael closed her eyes, desperate to turn around and head back to the ship. Back to Oss, to Eadmund.
But there was no Eadmund waiting for her on Oss.
Just a man she didn’t know, who didn’t love her anymore.
Ayla felt a lift as she walked towards the prison, wondering if it was truly possible. She knew that Thorgils was coming. She had seen him on a ship, standing with the man Isaura had given the note to.
But could he really save them?
Ivaar felt so close that Ayla kept stopping, glancing around. Or was that just fear stalking her, she wondered anxiously, smoothing down her hair. It was a damp day, and her long, brown curls tended to frizz in the misty weather.
Straightening her cloak and rolling back her shoulders, she nodded to the guard, who unlocked the gate and led her down the muddy path towards Bruno’s hole.
The prison compound was a sorry sight: a barricaded slop of boulder-riddled earth containing four large mounds which Ivaar had burrowed into, creating... burrows. And into those damp, airless, earthen holes he threw his prisoners, locking them behind iron-strong doors.
The guard knew her.
He felt sorry for her.
She would come every month, for that one moment when she was allowed to be with her husband. He could barely look her in the eye as he led her towards the prison holes, imagining how difficult it was for her. He had a new wife and felt the pull of needing to be with her, so it was easy to sympathise with the sad dreamer.
He never hurried her up. He always let her take as long as she wanted.
Ayla wrinkled her nose at the decaying stink of the men who bent and stooped and slumped in the mucky holes, waiting, in the hope that they would be freed by their merciful lord.
Most just died there.
Their lord was not that merciful.
None had been there as long as Bruno Adea, though. His bones clicked as he tried to stand. He was stiff and weary from doing nothing; weak from barely eating or drinking. From no light. No warmth. No companionship, love, or care. Nothing at all but this bleak, dark, reeking hole that Ivaar Skalleson had thrown him into.
Before he had taken his wife.
At first, Bruno had spent his days dreaming of all the ways he would kill Ivaar. Now, he dreamed of all the ways he would kill himself.
‘Bruno,’ Ayla whispered, tears in her eyes. He looked frailer than ever. His kind, brown eyes were lifeless, hollowed out, filled with despair. His black hair had become a birds nest of coarse, grey curls. His dark-skinned face was almost entirely covered in dirty-white whiskers. He was 53-years-old, but he looked as worn as an old man on his deathbed.
Her heart broke.
Ayla reached through the tiny window in the cell door. It was small enough so that food or cups of water could be passed through. It allowed light to filter in, but also wind and cold, and when Veiga, the Tuuran Goddess of Weather, was feeling ornery, rain and snow too.
But once a month it allowed Bruno to touch and glimpse his beautiful wife. And as desperate as he was to shy away from her, ashamed of the shadow of a man he had become, he was just as eager to inhale the life in her.
He reached up, clasping her soft, warm hand. ‘Ayla.’
Their tiny party did not have to wait in line at the gates. They were ushered quickly into the fort, the puppies charging off ahead of them before creeping back, suddenly filled with trepidation.
Tuura was a dark place.
A faintly familiar place.
The walls were so high that the shadows they threw onto the ground stretched far, covering the Tuurans who stopped and stared at them with narro
wed eyes and pursed lips. Jael watched her mother stiffen. Gisila’s most recent memories of Tuura were mixed up with a childhood which had been happily spent here.
When it was a different place.
A different time.
Jael stopped, wondering where to go before a familiar voice rose above the low hum of curiosity. ‘Gisila! Gisila!’
Gisila turned, relieved to see her sister and brother-in-law pushing their way through the crowd. ‘Branwyn! Kormac!’ She sunk into her younger sister’s welcoming arms. ‘Branwyn!’ she sobbed desperately against her shoulder. ‘Oh, Branwyn!’
‘Whatever has happened?’ Branwyn wondered, stepping back and staring with concern at her sister who had turned into a bruised and pale skeleton. ‘Why have you come? And what has happened to your face?’ Her eyes snapped suddenly to Jael. ‘Jael? Is that you?’ Tears came quickly as she thought of her own daughter, Evva, who would have been the same age as Jael now. A woman. She shuddered as memories of that night burst out of the shadows.
‘Branwyn,’ Jael said awkwardly, allowing herself to be embraced. ‘It’s been a long time.’
‘Yes, it has, and you are quite different from the little girl I remember.’ Branwyn looked Jael up and down, noticing her trousers, the sword poking out of her cloak. ‘Quite different!’ Blinking away her tears, she turned to Kormac. ‘You remember Jael?’
Their reunion was suddenly interrupted by a flurry of activity at the rear of the crowd, and they watched as four guards in dark-red tunics pushed their way towards them.
‘My lady,’ the first guard to arrive said roughly. ‘The Elderman of Tuura requests that you accompany us to the temple to meet with him.’
Branwyn and Kormac blinked at Jael in surprise.
Jael nodded quickly. ‘Of course.’ She handed Tig’s reins to Fyn and turned to Branwyn. ‘I won’t be long. I’ll find my way to your house when I’m done.’ She followed the guards, who were forcing their way back through the crowd, not afraid to shove anyone who didn’t hop out of their way quickly enough.
Jael kept her eyes fixed straight ahead as she hurried to keep up with them. She didn’t want to recognise anything that might stir a memory. Her body was tense, holding her tightly.
Holding her together.
Tuura was a door she had shut and locked. A door she hoped never to open again. A scab of a place that existed only in her nightmares, but despite her best efforts, she could feel it being slowly ripped away.
Yet the wound was still there.
Festering.
The guards pushed open the giant temple doors and left Jael with a shrunken elder woman who led her across the grand chamber. The ceiling of the ancient temple stretched so far above her head that it reminded Jael of the limitless cave in Edela’s dream, yet nothing echoed. Thick columns of stone rose up around her, marked with symbols she didn’t recognise. It was a dark, cloying place and despite being only mid-morning, it felt as though she had stepped into the night. The only light in the cavernous chamber came from a row of angry, sparking flames running through its centre, leading towards one large, blazing fire.
The Fire of Light.
Edela had told Jael stories about that fire when she was a little girl, before she had ever visited Tuura. Supposedly, it had burned from the time of Dala. Through centuries of destruction, through storms and famine and terror, legend had it that its flames, guarded by the elders, and above all, by the elderman, had never gone out.
Finally, the grand chamber ended, and they turned down a narrow corridor. It was even darker down here, with only a few torches to light their way; colder too, Jael thought as she walked past door after door. All of them closed. Another twist, a turn, and the woman stopped outside a door that looked just like all the others. She rapped loudly on its wooden panels, nodded curtly to Jael, and left.
Jael waited impatiently, trying to remind herself that she was a queen. A warrior. But at that moment, shivering in the dark, she felt 9-years-old again.
The door opened suddenly, and a tall man stood there, frowning so intensely at her that the lines between his eyes stood out like great posts. Jael eyed him back, not feeling very welcome at all.
Sighing, Marcus attempted a smile and motioned for her to come inside.
‘Is everything alright?’ Gant asked as Rexon approached his column.
Rexon scratched at his scrawny beard. He looked as though he hadn’t slept. ‘More sickness. More dead men,’ he sighed wearily. ‘It’s still spreading like weeds. No matter how quickly we isolate the ill, it’s not fast enough.’
Gant felt anxious, dismounting immediately.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t want to take the sickness back to Andala,’ he grumbled, desperate to be on the road; listening to his impatient men shuffling in their ragged lines, eager to go home. The sun was already older than he would have liked, and although he felt weary and not at all keen for another long march, he knew that he had to get to Axl and set his mind at ease. ‘Let’s just go through the columns. Isak! Rag!’ he called before turning back to Rexon. ‘Whatever this sickness is, I hope you can stop it soon. I just can’t take it back to Andala with me.’
Rexon nodded. ‘Agreed. I’ll take your last column, and meet you in the middle.’
Gant worked his jaw as he looked over his men, one by one. But as much as he didn’t need the delay, he knew that his new king would not appreciate a bunch of shitting, half-dead men delivered to his door.
That would be no way to start his reign.
Branwyn and Kormac’s house smelled of spices.
Something was steeping in the cauldron that hung over the fire, and it reminded Eydis of Vesta. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the rich, festive smells as they awakened her senses, then giggled as Fyn’s stomach gurgled loudly beside her.
‘I shall put Berta to work on a hearty stew!’ Branwyn declared after she had found everyone a seat around the fire. ‘After being at sea, there’s nothing as comforting as a bowl of hot stew!’ She smiled at Fyn, who looked gratefully at her. He reminded her of her sons, Aedan and Aron. The house had felt empty since Aedan had married and left home, taking his younger brother with him. It was so nice to have people to care for again that she didn’t stop to wonder where she would put them all.
‘You don’t think we should go and get Edela?’ Kormac wondered. ‘I have carts in my workshop. We can take some furs from here. Lay her on them.’
‘It’s best that we wait for Jael,’ Gisila insisted, her stomach growling as loudly as Fyn’s. Now that her body had come to rest in a safe place, her constant nausea was dissipating, replaced by the realisation that she had barely eaten in days. ‘We need to see what will happen in the temple. With the elderman.’
Branwyn and Kormac glanced at each other.
‘What is it?’ Gisila wondered, taking a cup of small ale from Branwyn’s servant, Berta. ‘Should we be worried?’
‘About the elderman?’ Kormac certainly felt worried as he tried to reassure his sister-in-law. ‘I don’t imagine that he’ll have any problems with Jael. But if he did, it looks as though she could handle herself.’
Biddy nodded, picking up Vella who had finished sniffing the floor with her brother and was ready for some affection. ‘Yes, Jael can handle herself, although I’m not sure that her sword is going to do her any good in the temple.’
‘No,’ Branwyn mumbled as she counted the beds, suddenly realising that there were not enough of them. ‘The temple is not what it once was. But that could be said of most things around here. Even the people. Some we considered friends not so long ago, now feel like strangers. Something is wrong here, but we don’t know what.’
‘Queen of Oss, Queen of the Slave Islands, and now, sister to the King of Brekka,’ Marcus mused as he led Jael to a small chair by a large fireplace. ‘Do you think your gods will look kindly on your family for such actions? Two murders to reclaim a throne?’ He shook his head gravely, clicking his tongue.
Ja
el was quickly irritated by the dour man, whose superior way of talking scratched at her temper like a cat at the door. He took his own seat and stared down his long nose at her. The room was dimly lit, but she could make out his features, which were heavy-set, and his eyes, which were too small for his face. Lightly coloured. Perhaps blue.
She didn’t like him at all.
‘I think our gods would thank us,’ Jael said, just as coldly. ‘Especially Furia.’
The corners of Marcus’ lips barely moved, but his eyes narrowed even further. After all these years of hearing about her, it was surreal to have her here at last. There was so much he wanted to say. He rolled his large hands over the ends of his chair, trying to restrain himself. Other than that, he didn’t move. And nor did she, and so they sat like that for a while, listening to the hiss and spit of the flames, their eyes fixed on each other.
‘You sent my grandmother to Oss,’ Jael said, breaking the awkward silence. ‘Why?’
Marcus’ thick eyebrows rose at that. ‘Why?’
Jael leaned forward. ‘I don’t have time to waste dancing around each other like newlyweds. Let us speak plainly. Why did you send Edela to Oss?’
‘To save you. As I told her. She was supposed to save you.’
‘Yet she is the one about to die, not me. The one who is barely hanging onto life, not me. So why didn’t your dreamers see that that would happen? Or perhaps they did, which is why you really sent her there?’ Jael suddenly felt hungry and sick all at the same time. It made her even more irritable and desperate to hurry through their conversation.
Marcus looked offended. His nostrils flared as though he had inhaled a midden heap. ‘My dreamers advised me that Edela was needed on Oss, because of the threat that Evaine and her mother posed to you,’ he said slowly, deliberately. ‘They all saw that. The fact that Edela then went and put herself in such danger by... taunting that girl. By speaking when she should have remained silent.’ He looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap. ‘She didn’t make the right choices.’