Daughters Of The Storm

by Kim Wilkins

  DAUGHTERS OF THE STORM

  KIM WILKINS

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  About the Author

  CREDIT: Craig Peihopa

  Kim Wilkins published her first novel, a supernatural thriller, in 1997. Since then she has successfully maintained a busy writing career, as well as earning a PhD and holding down a job as a senior lecturer in writing and publishing at the University of Queensland. Under her pseudonym, Kimberley Freeman, she has published seven novels of epic women’s fiction. She is published in seventeen languages and has written for adults, young adults and children.

  For fun, she likes to hang out with her chihuahuas and ride her bicycle up mountains.

  Praise for Kim Wilkins

  “Wilkins confirms her increasing maturity in creating believable mythological worlds.”

  Canberra Times

  “Kim Wilkins has a gift for creating narratives that swivel between the world of fantasy and reality. This is a tribute to the measured purposefulness of her prose ... Inhabitants of the real world will be seduced by this fantasy.”

  Sydney Morning Herald

  “Rich with the dense texture of authoritative research.”

  The Age

  “Wilkins’s human characters are endearing and her mythic monsters spring into vibrant life.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Wilkins is one of Australia’s most assured and interesting storytellers.”

  Aurealis

  “... superb world building ... intriguing, genuine, rich.”

  Kirkus Review

  “One of the most gifted and versatile writers Australia has ever produced.”

  Kate Forsyth

  “Rather than relying on standard fantasy tropes, her stories are informed by detailed research into the periods in question.”

  Publishers Weekly

  ”Wilkins combines great craft with solid knowledge and understanding of the core material. [Her] skill is demonstrated in not being overt about it but letting her historical knowledge sit under the motivations and actions of the characters.”

  Thirteen O’Clock

  “There’s a richness of invention here while the characters are perfectly realised, people with feelings and internal conflicts between doing what they wish and what they know as right.”

  Black Static

  Also by Kim Wilkins,

  now published in ebook:

  The Infernal

  Grimoire

  The Resurrectionists

  Angel of Ruin

  The Autumn Castle

  Giants of the Frost

  Rosa and the Veil of Gold

  For Oliver, the best of men

  ‘Gaéð á wyrd swá hío scel.’

  (Fate goes ever as she shall)

  Beowulf

  Contents

  About the Author

  Praise for Kim Wilkins

  Also by Kim Wilkins

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  A thousand times he had murmured her name in the soft darkness; now though, he didn’t know her name. He didn’t even know his own.

  The rain had set in outside the bowed wooden shutters. Endless mornings under dark grey, swirling clouds that unburdened cold water from one end of Ælmesse to the other, turning the roads to stinking mud: Gudrun could not send for a physician, and she could not tell anyone he was ill, because he was the king. She could not even tell Byrta, his counsellor, because Byrta would send for his daughters.

  Gudrun knew his daughters hated her.

  And so she had been trapped for three long days in the gloomy bowerhouse with him as he raved. The wild man in the looking glass made him quiver for fear; he shouted obscene words at her; he wept like a babe over a loose thread on his robe. She soothed him with soft words and firm touches, even when he pummelled her with his fists and accused her of trying to steal his food. The fits came suddenly, and left as suddenly. Then he would sleep for hours among the crumpled woollen blankets while she watched his face and barely recognised his sagging skin and grey beard.

  Where was the noble, strong man he had been? The warrior king, the Storm Bearer, Æthlric of Ælmesse?

  And where was the woman she had been? Whose were these thin-skinned hands, fearfully stroking an old man’s troubled forehead?

  Finally, the rain cleared, and she sent for Osred, the physician who had accompanied her more than three years ago when she came to marry Æthlric.

  She should have known word would spread quickly.

  The bowerhouse door opened, gusting air against the tapestries so they swung then settled with a clatter. Three figures stood there. Osred, tall and finely dressed; Byrta, the crone who had attended Æthlric since she was a young maid; and Dunstan, a grizzled war hero who was so old the hairs on his meaty fists were silver.

  Gudrun’s stomach coiled. Osred was her only ally. The others were natives of Ælmesse. No matter that they had always been friendly to her; she knew they thought her an interloper. She felt old, frail. Far from home. The person she loved and depended on the most was lost to her; lost, it seemed, to the world.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Byrta admonished, though gently, as she hurried to Æthlric’s side. He was sleeping now, the deep, impenetrable sleep that measured out the hours until his next fit.

  ‘I hoped he might get better on his own.’ Oh, how she had hoped it. She had hoped so hard her ribs ached at night.

  Osred came to Gudrun and laid his hand on her forearm. ‘You mustn’t worry,’ he said in a cold, flat voice.

  Dunstan closed the door carefully and pressed his back against it, arms folded across his round belly. ‘No-one must know,’ he said. ‘If our enemies thought our king could not rule ...’ He trailed off, his voice tripping on tears he refused to shed. He straightened his spine. ‘We must send for Bluebell.’

  Bluebell. The name turned Gudrun’s stomach cold. Æthlric’s eldest daughter: with her sinewy tattooed arms and her crushed nose and her unsheathed hatred.

  ‘It is premature, surely,’ Osred said smoothly. ‘Let me examine the king and let me prescribe him a remedy. Then we will see. He may be better in a few days.’ He advanced to the bed, gently but firmly pushing Byrta aside. ‘Let me attend to him.’

  ‘I have medical training,’ she said, bristling.

  ‘I have trained in the Great School.’

  ‘Which is run by trimartyrs. Their faith is not welcome in Ælmesse.’

  Gudrun’s scalp tingled with fear and anger. ‘Enough!’ she said. ‘Byrta and Dunstan, you must leave. My husband’s dignity does not allow for any but his wife and a trained physician to see him.’ As she said it, it became urgently true. The room smelled of sour sweat and trapped stale breath, the bed a mess of dirty blankets. ‘Wait outside. Osred will advise you when he has finished his examination.’

&nbs
p; Dunstan set his jaw forward, but Byrta quieted him. ‘My lady,’ she said, her bright blue eyes locking with Gudrun’s. ‘I understand you are uncertain and sad. I would not add to your misery. If you want us to leave ...’

  Gudrun nodded, chest pounding, and Byrta smiled at her slightly — there was stone beneath it — and took Dunstan with her. ‘We will be in the great hall,’ she said, as she closed the door behind her.

  Alone with Osred, with Æthlric sleeping, Gudrun felt not so desperate as she had. Osred led her to the carved wooden chair by the bed and helped her to sit. Then, crouching in front of her, he said, ‘Tell me his symptoms.’

  She described the last few days to the physician, and gradually his expression softened with a pity that terrified her. Her heart grew colder and heavier. At last he said, ‘Dunstan is right. You should send for Bluebell. You should send for all his daughters. They will want to see him.’

  ‘You think he will die?’ The words rushed and mumbled against each other, but he understood her nonetheless.

  ‘A malady that comes upon the brain this way is serious. I have heard of such an illness before. The fits will grow shorter, the sleeps will grow longer. Until ...’

  Her veins hardened. The forgotten certainty of death was upon her with steely force. But through it glimmered self-preservation. If Æthlric were to die, what would become of her? Surrounded by enemies, who masqueraded as friends to please the king. She needed someone on her side. Someone by her side. Long before those women arrived, greedy to turn her out of the king’s bowerhouse.

  ‘My lady?’ Osred’s voice roused her from her dark reverie.

  She turned her face to him, forced her swimming eyes to focus.

  ‘Shall I send for his daughters?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ The strength of her voice surprised her. ‘Send for my son.’

  One

  Blood. It smelled like the promise of something thrilling, as much as it smelled like the thrumming end of the adventure. It smelled like her father when he came home from battle, even though he had bathed before he took her in his arms. Still the metal tang of it lingered in his hair and beard, and as she smashed her skinny, child’s body against his thundering chest in welcome he smelled to her only of good things.

  Now she was a woman and knew blood intimately. Bluebell loved and feared it, and appreciated its beauty splashed crimson against the snow.

  The air was ice, but her body ran with perspiration beneath her tunic. Her shoulders ached, as they often did if the skirmish was fast and intense. Around her, twelve men lay dead; ten men stood. Her men still stood, as did she. Always.

  Thrymm and Thræc, her dogs, nosed at the bodies delicately, their paws damp with powdery snow. They were looking for signs of life, but Bluebell knew they would find none. The ice-men hadn’t a chance: they were on foot, trudging up the mountain path, no doubt to attack the garrison that managed the beacon fire and kept watch over the northern borders of Lyteldyke. Bluebell’s hearthband were mounted, thundering down the path from the garrison. They had speed and momentum on their side. Four of the raiders had fallen to the spear before Bluebell even dismounted. Swift, brutal, without cries for pity. Death as she liked it best.

  Bluebell crouched and wiped her sword on the snow, then rubbed it clean and dry before sheathing it. Her heart was slowing now. Ricbert, whom she had collected from his shift at the garrison, called to her. She looked up. He was kneeling over the body of one of the fallen raiders, picking it clean of anything valuable. She rose, stretching her muscles, joining him along with the others, who had been alerted by the sharp tone of his voice.

  ‘Look, my lord,’ Ricbert said. He had pulled open the tunic of the dead man to reveal a rough, black tattoo within the thick hair on his chest. A raven with its wings spread wide.

  Sighere, her second-in-command, drew his heavy brows together sharply. ‘A raven? Then these are Hakon’s men.’

  ‘Hakon is dead. His own brother murdered him,’ Bluebell said sharply. Hakon, the Crow King, they called him. The only man who had come close to killing her father in battle. Brutal, bitter, the ill-favoured twin of the powerful Ice King Gisli. The man Bluebell herself had played a part in delivering into Gisli’s hands. ‘It’s an old tattoo.’

  Ricbert called to her from another body. ‘No, my lord. They all have them.’

  ‘It means nothing. He’s dead.’ Thrymm and Thræc had loped over to join her, their warm bodies pressed against her thighs. She reached down and rubbed Thrymm’s head. ‘Come on, girls,’ she said. ‘Let’s get off this mountain.’

  She turned and stalked back towards her stallion, Isern. His big lungs pumped hot fog into the chill air. Bluebell mounted and waited for her hearthband.

  Gytha, a stocky woman with arms like tree branches and a brain to match, was last to her horse. As they moved off into the snowlit morning, Gytha said, ‘They say Hakon is so favoured by the Horse God that he escaped his brother’s dungeon by magic.’

  ‘Raiders don’t believe in the Horse God,’ Ricbert said shortly.

  Gytha continued unperturbed. ‘They say he has a witch who makes him war spells that —’

  ‘No more of this talk,’ Bluebell commanded, ‘or I’ll cut someone’s fucking tongue out.’

  Her thanes fell silent; they couldn’t be certain she wasn’t serious.

  A noise in the dark. Furtive knocking.

  Bluebell sat up, pushing the scratchy blanket off her body and feeling under the mattress for her sword. It took a moment for her to orient herself. She was in a guesthouse that huddled in the rolling green hills of southern Lyteldyke. They had ridden a long way south-west of the snow-laden mountains that day, into warmer climes, and were half a day’s ride from the Giant Road, which would take them home. In truth, Bluebell would have preferred to push on into the evening, but her hearthband were tired and sick of the cold. When they spied a guesthouse in the dip of a valley, under a fine blanket of twilight mist, she’d agreed to stop for the night, even though the rooms were small and dark and the wooden walls whiskery with splinters and sharp malty smells.

  ‘Declare your name and your business,’ she called, her voice catching on sleep. She cleared her throat with a curse. She didn’t want to sound weak or frightened: she was neither.

  ‘My lord, it’s Heath. King Wengest’s nephew.’

  Bluebell hurried from the bed. She was still dressed: it didn’t pay for a woman of physical or political power to be half-dressed in any situation. She tied a knot in her long, fair hair and yanked open the door. He stood there with a lantern in his left hand.

  ‘How did you get past my entire hearthband to the door of my room?’

  ‘I bribed the innkeeper to let me in the back door.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Hello, Bluebell. It isn’t good news.’ He paused, took a breath. Then said, ‘Your father.’

  Her blood flashed hot. ‘Come in, quickly.’ She closed the door behind him and stood, waiting. Anything, anything she could endure: the world was a chaotic, amoral place. But not Father, don’t let Father be dead.

  ‘You must keep your head when I tell you this,’ he said.

  ‘I can keep my head,’ she snapped. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No.’

  Sweet word. Her stomach unclenched.

  ‘But he’s ill,’ he continued. ‘A rider was sent from Ælmesse to our war band up on the border of Bradsey. Wylm was called away urgently by his mother.’

  ‘Gudrun,’ Bluebell muttered. The flighty idiot her father had chosen to marry. ‘She sent for Wylm?’

  ‘I overheard their conversation. King Æthlric is sick, terribly sick.’

  ‘And she sent for Wylm instead of me?’ Misting fury tingled over her skin.

  ‘Don’t kill her. Or Wylm. Rose wouldn’t want you to kill anyone. Least of all your stepfamily.’

  She glared at him. The beardless half-blood in front of her was her sister’s lover. Bluebell had assigned him to a freezing, sedge-strangled border town to keep him away from Rose. Thre
e years had passed, and still he went soft and sugary when his tongue took her name. ‘I’m not a fool,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to kill anyone. Despite what my itching fingers tell me to do.’

  He nodded. ‘Wylm left on foot. I don’t know if he’s managed to horse himself since then, but he’d be on the Giant Road by now in any case. You’re directly above Blicstowe here. You can catch him.’

  Sleep still clung to her, so she had to shake her head to clear it, as though the early morning dark was only given to dreams, and this must be one. Why had Gudrun sent for Wylm and not her? What purpose would it serve to separate Bluebell from her father if he was dying? Did she have plans for Wylm to lead Ælmesse? The thought was ridiculous: Wylm was Gudrun’s son by a first marriage, no blood relation to the King, and untried in war. Bluebell was well-loved by Ælmesse’s people. She dismissed the thought as quickly as it crossed her mind.

  ‘Do you know anything else about my father’s illness?’ she asked, fear clouding the edges of her vision. ‘Will he die?’ He couldn’t die. He was too strong. She was too strong. She would get the best physician in the country and march him down to Blicstowe at knifepoint if she had to.

  He shook his head. The two lines between his brows deepened. ‘I know nothing more. But if she has called for her son ...’

  ‘She should have called for us.’

  ‘Perhaps she has. Perhaps she’s sent for the others, but didn’t know where to find you.’

  ‘Dunstan knows where I am. There’s only one good route between the garrison and home. You found me.’ Her heart was thundering in her throat now. ‘What was she thinking?’

  ‘Perhaps she wasn’t,’ he said.

  Bluebell fixed her gaze on him in the flickering dark. ‘I’m going. Now. Home.’

  He helped her pack her things, then followed her out into the early cold. She saddled and packed her horse, who whickered softly. He was a warhorse, not afraid of the dark. But still getting old enough to miss his sleep. She rubbed his head roughly. Thrymm and Thræc sniffed at her feet, straining against their chains.