by Jack
More voices outside, the shouting on the war field has stopped. I open my eyes and return to the window, crack the shutter. The riders have pulled up their horses. The first rider is talking to Wengest. She wears no helm and her long, blonde hair is unbound. My heart leaps. It is my sister. It is Bluebell.
I fly from the room, forgetting my cloak. I am running, my heart thundering, all woes temporarily forgotten. Pregnancy has robbed me of much of my grace, but I hurry on, down the uneven road out of town and into the cold sludgy fields. She looks up and sees me and breaks Wengest off half-sentence with a sharp hand gesture. She has no love for him, and he none for her. He believes women do not belong in battle; she believes that kings do.
Bluebell dismounts with athletic strength and no elegance, and stalks towards me. A moment later she is bending to embrace me as the rain deepens. Her body is bony, the mail is cold and hard. Then she stands back, laughing at my swollen belly, reaching out a tattooed hand to touch it.
‘Why are you here?’ I ask, breath held against the answer.
‘I’m here to fetch you and take you back to Ælmesse for summerfull-month.’ She tries to smile but it arrives on her face as a grimace. ‘Our father intends to marry.’
* * * *
The drinkhouse on the village square is warm, and flooded with sweet cinnamon steam and the pungent smell of fermenting yarrow. The rain intensifies. Bluebell’s retinue sit at the hearth and order bread and meat. I take Bluebell to the king’s table — a carved table with high-backed benches, tucked away from the noise in a corner of the room — so that we can talk uninterrupted.
Bluebell has few manners. She spends most of her time with warriors or with my father, so hasn’t had the opportunity to learn niceties. She sits with her knees spread wide and her big feet lolling in the walkway, wipes her damp nose with the back of her hand, then raises her fingers and shouts to the young man with the tray of drinks, ‘I’m starving! Bring me food and beer.’ In height and colouring, she is my father’s copy. In almost everything else in the world, she is my father’s favourite. The rest of us have always known it and have each managed our jealousy silently. The idea that Father is to marry again is shocking to me, but to Bluebell it would sting like a betrayal. They are bone-achingly close. He makes no decision without her counsel; he enters no battle without her at his side.
‘Who is she?’ I ask, almost the moment we have sat down. ‘Is she a good woman?’
‘I hate her,’ Bluebell growls. ‘Of course.’
‘But how did they meet? I didn’t know Father had any thoughts about remarrying.’
The shutter next to us leaks, a slow trickle of water runs down the wall and pools under the table. Bluebell half-stands and slams the shutter with her shoulder. It crunches tightly. No weak light can make its way in. The small, close room is dim except for hot firelight. It could be morning or midnight.
Bluebell sits. ‘She came with a retinue down the river from Tweoning, on her way to visit her sister at the far coast. Her boat sprang a leak two miles from Blicstowe.’ She leans forward on her elbows, resting her chin in her hands and mutters, ‘Would that it had sunk.’
I assess Bluebell as the rain thunders on the mud outside. I cannot trust her opinion; her jealousy skews her judgement.
‘In any case, she made her way to town and Father offered her a place to stay,’ she continues. ‘It turns out that she’s the widow of an old friend he knew in his youth. Her name is Gudrun.’
‘She’s a widow? Any children?’
‘A son. Wylm. A spotted eel, not yet fifteen.’ Bluebell’s food and beer arrive, and disappear down her throat alarmingly quickly. As she chews loudly and slops her beer on the table, she describes to me our new stepmother. Gudrun is a pretty, soft-spoken woman who has lived among the Trimartyrs but retains the old ways of our common faith. I am curious to meet her, to see how far Bluebell’s resentment of her is justified.
Finally, my sister slaps her hands against each other to wipe them clean, and indicates my belly. ‘Can you travel?’
‘Blicstowe isn’t far.’
‘A day and a half. Can you ride?’
‘I ... I don’t know. I’ll never fit into my riding clothes.’
‘You can’t ride a horse in skirts. Two days then. You’ll have to take a covered cart.’ She says the words as though they taste bad.
I feel weak and damnably feminine. Yet I am as relieved by the idea of a covered cart as I am ashamed to accept it. ‘Yes, that might be for the best,’ I admit.
The corner of Bluebell’s mouth twitches in a smile. ‘I’m not riding with you. My men wouldn’t look at me the same again.’
I burst into laughter. The idea of Bluebell on an embroidered seat in a covered cart is entirely wrong. The baby responds to my laughter by squirming. I press my fingers against a tiny foot, poking me hard.
‘What is it?’ Bluebell asks.
I reach for her hand and pull her to her feet, holding her palm against my belly. The baby obliges by kicking her soundly. Bluebell’s face is overcome by childish wonder.
‘Is that the child?’
‘Yes. She kicked you.’
Bluebell presses her hand hard against my stomach, waiting for another kick. She knows not her own strength. The baby has gone quiet now, and eventually my sister sits again. ‘It was a foot then?’
‘I don’t really know. I think so.’ For a moment I feel sorry for Bluebell. She has no knowledge of the giving of life, only the bringing of death. She has often declared that she will never marry and bear children; though Ash and I suspect she has had lovers. I know that she is a fine warrior, a great leader, that she is addicted to the bloodrush of battle. But does she not deny somehow what the earth mother formed her for? So few women go to war, far fewer lead armies, because women are created for another purpose. As Wengest always says, crudely, women have sheaths, not spears.
But then I shake off my pity. She wouldn’t want it. She has known glories and sorrows that I cannot imagine; she would consider me — trapped in the bower — to be living only half a life.
She raises her cup to her lips and drains the last drops from it. Turns and shouts for more. Then fixes me in her steely blue gaze. ‘You said she.’
‘Ash said “she”,’ I reply warily.
Bluebell’s eyebrows arch. ‘I see.’
‘Though she tried to deny she meant anything by it.’ I shrug. ‘We ought not to talk of it.’
‘I don’t see why it should be a secret. If she has the sight, it will make her a better counsellor. Many counsellors in the faith are sighted.’
‘After twenty years of practice maybe: not in their first year of study. She might be thrown out of school. Nobody wants to be around a wild latent.’
‘She should be proud of herself.’ Bluebell drops her voice anyway. ‘I go to her, if I can, before every battle. She sees, she knows what will happen.’
‘Truly?’
Her voice becomes urgent. ‘Before we went to Skildan Bridge, back in winterfull-month, she told me to strike while the tide was still low. I marched my men for two days with barely a pause to get there at low tide, and praise the horse god that I did. The raiders had war ships waiting to come down the river on the next high tide. We had already spilled their blood before the other half of the army came. We picked off the reinforcements quickly and raided their ships.’ She thrusts out her arm and pushes up the heavy mail sleeve, to show me a gold armband — two fish eating each other’s tails — jammed hard over the blurring blue tattoos on her forearm. Then she leans back, toying with her empty cup. ‘Ash is far from me now. Too far. As are you.’
Outside, the rain has eased and the wind has begun to gust. I contemplate Bluebell’s words. I had no idea that Ash’s sight was so strong. But instead of feeling anxious for her — untrained latent sight can take a heavy toll, especially on young women — I am only anxious for myself. When Ash felt my belly, declared I was pregnant and accidentally told me the child was a girl, what
else did she see? What else does she know about me, and about Heath?
‘Something troubles you, sister?’ Bluebell says.
I shake my head. ‘I am tired, that is all.’
Bluebell rises, stretching long legs. With quick movements, she pulls her long hair back and winds it into an untidy knot. ‘We’ll stay two nights and then head to Ælmesse. But first I have to speak with Wengest. Will you come? I find him so difficult to talk to.’
‘Surely. Though why must you speak with him?’
She doesn’t blink. ‘Father needs an army. A hundred men to go with us up to the northern border of Bradsey. The raiders are pushing hard against the people there. We’re going to go and crush them, send them back into the heart-of-ice. Where the dogs belong.’
But I hear nothing beyond, Father needs an army. Because this is the news I have dreaded to hear. Heath is going away. To war.
Silence draws out uncomfortably. ‘Will you be going?’ I ask at last, aware my voice is tremulous.
‘Of course.’ Her chest puffs proudly, almost imperceptibly. ‘Father is staying home for the first time. I’m in charge.’
A small comfort then. Bluebell will be there. Bluebell will look out for him. But, of course, she doesn’t know he is important to me. I want to cry: I am so full of spidery fears and hot secrets.
Bluebell misreads the anxiety on my face and slings an arm around me, roughly pulls me close and slams her fist into her chest. ‘You need not worry, sister. No raider will cut out this heart. I’d cut it out myself first.’
And I cannot tell her: it is not for her heart that I am anxious. Selfishly, it is for my own.
* * * *
I wake earlier than the sun. Bluebell sleeps beside me, snoring softly. Wengest has given her his bed for the night, and he sleeps at the other end of the bower house. He has decided not to come to the wedding, because he must get his army ready for marching north. I know this is an excuse, that he trusts Grislic to prepare his men. But he is all too aware of Bluebell’s disdain for his lack of involvement in war. He is trying to impress her, because she is so famed a warrior. And yet she remains unimpressed. I almost feel sorry for him.
I lie, stuck awake, for a long time. Outside, the darkness leeches from the sky. The wind has blown all the clouds away, leaving the world shivering unprotected under the stars. We are leaving this morning, after breakfast. My father’s wedding feast will last a week, perhaps two. All my sisters will be there, clamouring for each other’s company. Bluebell will ride early for Is-hjarta, but I will not get away before the end of summerfull-month. I will not see Heath again before he goes.
This thought throws itches into my belly. I sit up quietly, feel around in the half-dark for my clothes, and dress quickly and quietly. Bluebell sleeps hard, as does anybody who works vigorously and has a clear conscience. She doesn’t hear me leave the room or the bower house; I doubt she will wake before the full rising of the sun. By then, I will have said my goodbye to Heath.
I walk, through the town and out the gate-house, calling good morning to the guards there. They are used to my long absences. The king’s wife, it is well known, likes to walk and think. Perhaps, in whispers, they talk about how my father allowed his daughters to be too independent, far too clever for their own good. Yet they seem to have accepted my ways now, and I believe there is genuine fondness for me in the town. The birth of this child will be welcome and happy news.
I take the main road out of town and then cut across fields and skirt the edge of the wood. I see cows and sheep in the distance, farmers taking their first steps, yawning, into the day’s work. The long walk warms my blood; I don’t feel the morning cold anymore. I arrive at the edge of the river and follow it, staying in the cover of the trees. Finally, I am at the edge of Heath’s farm and I make my way up towards the house. His fields have been freshly ploughed, and he is moving between the furrows, throwing handfuls of lime around him. The fields will be ready to sow soon, but he will likely not be here. Wengest will send a caretaker to watch Heath’s farm in hopes he will be back for harvest-month. I pause, to burn the image of Heath into my mind. He is so beautiful, with his wide shoulders and his golden hair. He turns and sees me, half-lifts a hand in a hopeful wave.
I hurry towards him, and he catches me in his arms. I breathe in the scent of him: smoke and straw and faint sweat. He stands back and admires my belly, dusting his hands on his pants.
‘You are growing apace,’ he says.
‘There are just three months to go.’
Sadness crosses his face. ‘I will not be here.’
‘I know.’
We fall silent a while. Then I say, ‘I came to say goodbye. I travel to my father’s hall at Blicstowe today. He is marrying a second time.’
‘I had heard it from Wengest,’ he replies. ‘But I had not guessed I would be so lucky as to see you a last time. Come inside, where it is warm.’
He leads me into the house. The fire is hot but he doesn’t go to the hearth, he sits on the mattress and I kneel, leaning on him. I am crying before I can promise myself not to cry.
‘Hush, hush,’ he says, his warm lips moving over my face. ‘Your tears alarm me. They say you fear I will fall to the raiders.’
I take a deep shuddering breath and stop myself. ‘My sister leads Ælmesse’s army. Look to Bluebell. There is not a greater warrior in all of Thyrsland. In all things, look to Bluebell.’
‘Hush,’ he says again. ‘I won’t speak of it.’ His lips are on my throat. I climb onto the mattress beside him. Lying against each other, we trace familiar patterns on each other’s bodies. My belly is in the way, so I turn on my side and Heath presses against my back, his hot skin against me, his fingers gentle on my breasts, his kisses in my hair. The harder we chase desire, the more it seems that passion’s tide cannot move us. Instead, I turn against his chest and cry a little more and this time he lets me. I am warm, I am tired. I drift to sleep. We both do.
The next thing I am aware of is a loud voice at the door.
‘Heath? Are you there?’
My heart jumps into my throat. Heath is scrambling for clothes, throwing the wool blanket over me and calling, ‘Who is it? What is it?’
‘Grislic sent me. You are past an hour late for training.’
I hear the door open, only a crack. ‘I slept late,’ he says. ‘I will come shortly.’
‘You will come with me now,’ the voice says. ‘Grislic insisted.’
‘I ... very well.’ Then I hear the door close and I know that I am alone, that Heath has left immediately so no attention could be drawn to the figure hiding in his bed.
He is gone and I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t say, I love you.
* * * *
IV. Summerfylleth
Seven hours from home, my bones are aching and my ankles are swollen. The covered cart bumps along the rutted path and no matter how I sit I cannot get comfortable. Added to this, a miserable drizzle is falling so that I cannot even part the curtains to see outside. I hear voices from time to time, Bluebell laughing with her hearthband, but I am stuck in here with a sagging cushion and nowhere to put my feet up. Added to this discomfort, I am desperate to relieve myself but too embarrassed to ask because it is not yet two hours since I last stopped the riders for the same purpose. Travelling while pregnant, I now see, is a form of torture. My father should not have expected me to come. The very thought of having to get through another day of this, and then take the return journey after the wedding, makes me want to sob.
I have with me a wooden box packed with edible treats that Cook prepared for me: mince pies and sugared fruit. I am not hungry, but I pick at it and eat too much, until my stomach feels blocked and queasy. I am a lump, glued to the seat, the hours carrying me along in uncomfortable monotony.
Just before dusk, the retinue stops. I pin back the curtains to peer out at the fading day. My knees are sore and my thighs are numb. The rain has cleared, and I see a nearby copse with sufficient privacy. My l
egs thank me for stretching them, my bladder thanks me for emptying it. When I return, Bluebell is nowhere in sight. Her retainers are gathered on the muddy road, arguing among themselves.
‘Brygen is only two miles. If we don’t stop there, we will not reach the next village before nightfall,’ one man says.