Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  “Yes, they do. For an candlemark or two.” Rennika had learned a few things, traveling with the refugees. Meg had asked Gweddien’s mother to teach her.

  “Mine will last for weeks, if I infuse them with magiel magic,” Gweddien boasted.

  “Good idea,” Janat said, but Rennika knew Janat wouldn’t do it. She hated using magic.

  The day had been remarkably good. Only this morning, they’d found a horse on a battlefield below their encampment that was still feebly kicking, and tonight their little band would feast. And, there would be enough meat to dry over low fires—if the weather stayed fair—to last them for weeks.

  They’d found all sorts of knives and bits of armor. Saddles. Small personal effects like bronze mirrors and razors. As much as they could carry. Even a cask of some kind of Midellian licorice liqueur. Tonore Warrick’s mother had found a metal cooking pot and Tonore helped his uncle repair a light cart they could fill with salable goods and push to the next town. They’d been wealthy land owners at one time.

  Meg came out the richest, with three chetra from a dead soldier’s purse, and Janat got a good linen shirt with no holes, that would almost be a robe for Rennika. Meg was able to wash the blood out in the cold brook, so there’d be hardly a stain. And, here on the hillside, Gweddien had found the feverfew.

  They were singing, and the men—and some of the women—were dancing a Teshian jig around the fire, and Janat was giggling so hard she almost fell over and spilled her licorice drink, when Tonore caught sight of movement down the valley. He nudged his mother and pointed.

  The singing scattered to a halt and the dancers, sweating and breathing hard, turned.

  A lone figure, hood thrown back, came slowly up the road from the battlefield.

  The smiles faded. The men reached for sticks and stones and Rennika tensed to run. There were people so hungry, they would kill for food. She knew.

  But no others appeared on the road; the traveler was alone. If there was trouble, their numbers would protect them.

  Whoever it was stopped as though seeing them for the first time, then turned and hurried back toward the battlefield.

  “Hold,” Sieura Warrick said to the others. “It’s a woman. Another refugee.”

  Rennika squinted into the fading twilight.

  Sieura Warrick stood and flung back the cloak she’d worn against the annoyance of mosquitoes. “Wait!” she called out.

  The woman on the road faltered to a stop. She turned uncertainly.

  “We mean you no harm!” Tonore’s mother cried.

  The woman hesitated. Frightened? Or wary?

  Janat nudged Meg. “We don’t know anything about her.”

  Rennika reached for the reassurance of Meg’s sleeve.

  “Come!” Sieura Warrick detached herself from the group and walked a short way down the hill. “We have food.”

  All watched as Tonore’s mother made her way toward the woman. No one let go of their sticks.

  The woman eyed her doubtfully for a moment then, catlike, crouched, a glint of blade in her hand.

  Rennika squirmed behind Meg. Please, Gods, don’t let this be another time to run.

  Sieura Warrick stopped in the path, hands open and out to her sides. She spoke to the woman, though the two were too far away for Rennika to make out her words.

  The woman swayed where she stood, confused or weary.

  Tonore’s mother spoke again, approaching slowly.

  The woman’s knife faltered. Then she lurched forward and almost fell into Sieura Warrick’s arms. Supporting the woman, Tonore’s mother brought her, stumbling, up the hill.

  Rennika retreated behind Meg, watching the strange woman.

  Blodwyn—who wouldn’t tell her last name—was a bundle of sticks, even more emaciated than the rest of them. She tore ravenously at the band’s communal food bowl, eating uncleanly with both hands, not heeding Sieura Barcley’s admonishment not to make herself sick, and Rennika was at once frightened and sorry for her.

  Blodwyn watched them as she ate, her gaze roving from face to face, lingering fearfully on the three men. The bruises she wore were beginning to heal but her clothes were shreds, and her feet—when her shoes could be eased from them—were a mess of festering blisters and half-healed cuts. Meg helped Sieura Barcley apply soothing herbs and bandage them with linen torn from the shirts of dead soldiers.

  When they were done, night had deepened. Blodwyn gathered her shoes in her arms and crept to the edge of the firelight. She turned and, eyeing them suspiciously from beneath wild tangles, pulled her dirk from her purse. “Now,” she whispered through broken teeth. “What payment do you take for your food?”

  The others lifted their heads.

  “No payment,” Tonore’s other uncle said.

  “There’s always payment!” The woman’s voice was low and hoarse.

  “We’ve had good fortune today,” Sieura Warrick said. “We share.”

  “You think I’m stupid?” the woman croaked.

  There was a stunned silence. The fire snapped.

  “You’ll come to me in the night! You think I don’t know it?”

  Rennika looked to Meg for explanation, but her sister’s face reflected the same bewilderment Rennika felt.

  “No—” Sieur Warrick said.

  Blodwyn turned her knife to him. “You’ll be the first! You and these other two!” She nodded toward Tonore’s uncles.

  “Payment. Yes, you’re right,” Meg said.

  “Aha!”

  “But we don’t need the kind of payment you suggest.”

  Blodwyn snorted her disbelief.

  “You see.” Meg gestured. “There are plenty of women here.”

  Blodwyn hugged her shoes more closely. “You’ll rob me, then!”

  Meg gave her a slight shake of the head. “We have boots. A battlefield full. You have nothing for us to take.”

  “What, then?”

  Yes, Rennika wondered. What?

  Meg rested her hands in her lap. “You can pay us with news. We’re making our way to Theurgy, in Midell.”

  Yes, news! How clever of Meg. Some said King Artem had taken Midell. Others said Midell was still a free country. She knew Meg worried that the king of Midell would decree death to magiels if Artem took his lands.

  “Theurgy.” Blodwyn drew into the shadows, her eyes glittering in reflected firelight. “You can’t go there.”

  “Why not?” Sieura Barcley asked. “Do you come from there?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” the woman screeched. “The city’s been under siege all winter.”

  Rennika’s heart sank.

  “I knew it,” Sieur Warrick muttered.

  “Where can we go?” Meg asked.

  “Castle Theurgy’s fallen.” Blodwyn hugged her knife and shoes as one who clung to her last remaining comfort. “Three—no. Four days ago?” Her brows knit in confusion. “Perhaps longer.”

  “Did you live in Theurgy?” Sieura Barcley asked gently.

  “We hid in the cellars.” Blodwyn stared at some figment in the flames. “For weeks. My sisters. Their children. The baker’s nieces and nephews. The king didn’t have food for us. Curses rained over the walls from catapults. Curses that made us burn with fever. Curses that made us vomit and die. My brother,” she wept. “My mama...my husband—” Blodwyn collapsed on her bundle.

  Tonore’s mother crept toward her. “Hush—”

  The woman sprang to life and waved her knife, and the others jerked back.

  “The payment,” Meg insisted. “Tell us. What have you seen?”

  Blodwyn’s eyes flicked back and forth. “The king was beheaded.” She laughed. “The Citrine Prayer Stone was smashed.”

  “Oh...” Sieur Warrick slumped. “No.”

  Janat stared at Blodwyn. “The king...”

  Rennika wasn’t sure she remembered the king of Midell, but it might have been his daughters who plaited her hair into long braids one day. And the next day, her hair was all
curly.

  “His magiel? His family?” Meg asked.

  “The ax.” Blodwyn grinned, though her eyes shone with a sickly, wild look. “It was a holiday. There were banners. Food. In the square before the castle. Each of them. One at a time. Death tokens on their tongues, then chop. Chop. Chop. Chop.”

  Janat drew back, her fingers on her own death token.

  “Who—who’s the new king of Midell?” Meg asked.

  “Prince Eamon Delarcan.”

  “He’s not more than fourteen years old!” Sieur Warrick said.

  “And Jace Delarcan rules Pagoras, and Hada Delarcan rules Gramarye,” Blodwyn sang.

  “That makes no sense.” Janat shook her head. “King Artem’s children?”

  King Artem and his family had come to Archwood for a winter celebration...when? Rennika and Jace had built towers from blocks of firewood, falling on each other and giggling when the pieces toppled to the flagstones. Huwen and Eamon had raced around the bailey through the snow with mock swords, much to Meg’s disgust, until their tutor took them for an outing. And Hada was just a chubby little baby, crying until her mother nursed her.

  “Can the king’s madness be worse?” Tonore’s father spluttered. “I supposed he’s left Crown Prince Huwen governing Arcan as he goes about his campaign?”

  “Regents,” Sieura Warrick reasoned. “Of course the king’s taken the land for himself and his family. The dukes’ estates will go to his cronies. That’s why he’s waging this war. Greed.”

  Sieur Warrick’s brows narrowed. “Woman,” he said to Blodwyn. “Is this true? Or are you the one who’s mad?”

  Blodwyn spat in the dirt. “You call me a liar?”

  “Where did you hear this, about the child princes ruling the carns?” Tonore’s father challenged. “Did Artem announce it when he beheaded the king of Midell?”

  “I heard it from them as know.” She hugged her shoes and gripped her knife.

  “Who?”

  “Talkers. In the tavern. In Seedmarket.”

  “Gossip.” Sieur Warrick dismissed her words.

  “It’s true!” Blodwyn flared.

  Sieur Warrick shook his head.

  “They were plotting.” Blodwyn rose to her knees in the firelight. “They’re going to get their own king, and their own army, and they’re going to fight King Artem.”

  Meg lifted a brow. “Uprisers?”

  Janat’s soothing hand on Rennika’s back stilled.

  “Who?” Meg asked. “Who was talking? What were their names?”

  Blodwyn looked at Meg as though she were mad and sat back in the darkness.

  “Was one of them Sulwyn Cordal?” Meg persisted.

  “Meg!” Janat admonished.

  Meg fastened her eyes on Blodwyn, ignoring Janat.

  Blodwyn shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Meg sighed and slumped back.

  Rennika wanted to see Sulwyn again. He’d been good to them.

  Blodwyn lifted her head with sudden memory. “Might have been. The one with the broken nose. In the corner. Someone might have called him Sieur Cordal. Sulwyn. Yes.”

  Meg exchanged looks with Janat. “Aye, his nose was crooked.”

  “Yes.” Blodwyn nodded with conviction. “Sulwyn Cordal. He was the one. The one the king’s men were hunting. Didn’t talk much, though.” She shook her head ruefully.

  “What?” Meg probed. “Why?”

  “Cut up in the battle,” Blodwyn said. “A curse in the wound bloated his leg. Deluded with fever.” She sheathed her knife. “He’s probably dead by now.”

  The hillside above the battlefield was dusty and dry where Janat and Meg picked feverfew. The sun beating on her back was the first real heat Janat could remember since summer. Their way from Coldridge had taken them down into the high hills, where spring came earlier than Janat had ever seen it.

  She straightened, stretching her muscles. She could see far out over the battlefield to farmland beyond the river, and hazy treed hillsides in the distance. There was a smudge on the horizon that looked to Janat ominously like smoke. The world seemed vast and trackless. “What’s wrong with going to Seedmarket?” She challenged Meg. She knew her voice sounded peevish, but she persisted anyway. She’d woken with a headache, probably from the licorice drink from last night. But also, Meg was being bullheaded for no reason. Like always.

  “It’s not up to me.” Meg stripped leaves and stuffed them into her bag. “Rennika, get up and help.”

  Rennika lay in the low scrub, almost asleep.

  “We always follow the other refugees,” Janat insisted. “Why can’t you suggest we go to Seedmarket?”

  “It might be dangerous.” Meg turned back to the bushes before her. “Blodwyn said there was fighting there, not three days ago. A band of locals declared the town under the rule of a council of commoners. Rennika!”

  Rennika dragged herself into a sitting position, but Janat pushed past her. “We have to go somewhere to sell our spoil. Blodwyn says Seedmarket’s not far.”

  “It’s not up to me. Rennika, pick up your bag.”

  “Besides. We don’t have to go with the others,” Janat pointed out, stuffing feverfew into her sack. “We could go on our own.”

  Meg stared at her. “With soldiers and bands of thieves roaming the countryside? Not to mention wolves, cougars, and bears? And not knowing the way? Make sense.”

  Janat hesitated, hearing her own words for the first time. “Well.” She picked at the bushes furiously. “If you won’t ask the others, I will.”

  Rennika began to pick leaves. “You think they’ll listen to you?”

  “I’ll be sixteen, my next birthday,” Janat shot at her. She turned to Meg. “Old enough to be mistress of my own house. Besides.” She bent closer to Meg and whispered, “Don’t you want to see Sulwyn again?”

  Meg pursed her lips, holding back a reply.

  Janat sighed in exasperation. “Well, I do. I’m going to ask them.” She marched down the hill.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sulwyn wasn’t in Seedmarket. Though she didn’t say anything, Meg could see Janat was vexed.

  Blodwyn had flown into a rage at the suggestion the band go to that village, and in the end, fled westward alone rather than accompany them.

  The village of Seedmarket bore the scars of recent fighting: scorch marks and burnt thatch, broken fences, and trampled fields and gardens. Only a handful of villagers remained, toiling to repair the damage. The town had no food to share, no coin to purchase the refugees’ booty and no pay to hire their labor. Many of their number had left, refugees themselves. Sulwyn might—or might not—have been among them. When the small band stayed the night, the exhausted townspeople didn’t even compel the magiels to camp separately.

  In the morning, they pushed their cart down the road to the next town. And the next, and the next.

  When they reached Silvermeadow, a remote village untouched by war in what might have been the kingdom of Gramarye, Tonore’s father got work cutting trees. Meg and Janat built a shanty, and helped Sieura Barcley and Gweddien work spells into sachets of feverfew, while Rennika explored the streets, begging.

  Cursed cough. The warming days of spring were no time to be shuffling from one room to another in the great hall, wearing a shawl, trying to avoid that daft healer and his potions.

  Wenid Col allowed his man to help him into a formal—if plain—surcoat, and give him his cane. Ten days ago, he’d slipped on the marble stairs and twisted his knee. Blasted nuisance.

  He approached the king’s chambers and the guard admitted him immediately. Artem had come to Coldridge from the ongoing Orumon campaign for a council with his dukes’ emissaries. Rebels had begun attacking forts and lesser strongholds in a random patchwork campaign, and from Meadowhill to Three Rivers to Seedmarket, partisan attacks had left swathes of the country in chaos. The generals needed their king. He would ride out again within the week, but Wenid would be in no shape to accompany him.

  Art
em—lean and grizzled and somehow out of place in his fine brocade doublet surrounded by embroidered draperies and richly dyed wool carpets, small touches Wenid had imported to the stark castle—sat on a spindly-legged chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, deep in conversation with a young soldier.

  Uther Tangel.

  The boy seemed to have filled out in the past year. Well, he was no boy, now. A courier, by his dress.

  Wenid hesitated in the doorway. “I apologize, Your Majesty. I was told you wanted to see me?”

  Father and son stood.

  “I should go,” Uther said. “We returned late last night. I have not yet even seen the barber.” He bowed to both of them and took his leave.

  The king sat once more, tea and fruit tarts on a low table before him. He waved at the buffet, and Wenid perused the dainties with disdain.

  “I see you’re not getting any healthier.”

  “Your point?” Wenid poured himself a cup of herb tea, his hand shaking and spilling half. Where was the maid servant?

  “When we spoke at the camp at Archwood, you were to select a magiel woman to mother a child.” Artem leaned back in his chair. “What progress?”

  Wenid was not one to sidestep difficult issues, but this one gave him pause. His king—his life’s work, his God—hung by his petition to have magiels hunted. He fumbled for a napkin and mopped up the spilled tea as best he could, spreading the mess. “Several attempts were made,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could, blotting at the stain. His throat was dry, tight. “None...” He groped for words. “None was successful.”

  Artem’s lips twisted in a suppressed smile.

  “The women were unsuitable.” No. This was what Wenid had told the women. It was not the truth. He put his napkin on the table but could not meet Artem’s gaze. “I...was unsuitable.”

  Artem rubbed his thumb along the arm of his chair. He did not speak for a long moment. “Then, we are left with a problem that is unsolved. A serious problem.”

  Wenid extended his hand to select a biscuit. It fell back into his lap.

  “A male magiel,” the king concluded.

  To perform what Wenid Col could not. Obviously. The logical inference.