by Kim Wilkins
Bluebell turned and rode back to the front of the party. Rowan sobbed for her mother. Bluebell leaned over and whispered harshly in her ear: ‘Stop it. I’m not your mother, I won’t put up with your nonsense.’
Rowan took a deep, shuddering breath.
‘I’m going to tell you a secret,’ Bluebell said softly. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
Rowan nodded, turning her face up to Bluebell.
‘One day you’ll be a queen.’
‘Yes,’ said Rowan, clearly enraptured by the idea.
‘I have very big plans for you, little one.’
Bluebell was almost certain Wengest couldn’t father another child, and she was also certain she’d outlive Wengest: if she managed his relatives well and kept them from getting too powerful, Netelchester could be hers with the application of only a little force. And as she would have no children of her own, Rowan was her obvious heir. The little girl was sturdy and strong, with fire in her eyes. On her seventh birthday, Bluebell planned to have her brought to Blicstowe under the pretence of giving her an education. Wengest would let her go; he didn’t care for girls and wouldn’t be interested in educating her himself. And then Bluebell would herself train the child in arms and strategy.
Of course, Rose knew none of this. It wasn’t right to tell her, when the child was still so soft-skinned. No mother wanted to think about their little one taking up an axe.
‘You’ll be a warrior queen,’ Bluebell said. ‘Beautiful and terrible and mighty.’
Rowan bounced in the saddle, all tears evaporated.
‘But you mustn’t tell your papa.’
‘No?’
‘Your papa doesn’t believe in warrior queens.’ Bluebell hesitated, then decided to go all the way. ‘He’d stop you from being a queen. That’s for certain. You mustn’t mention it.’
‘Does Mama believe in them?’
‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is this: warrior queens don’t cry at a little rain and cold.’
Rowan set her chin. ‘I’m a warrior queen.’
‘That’s my good girl.’ Bluebell rubbed her head roughly, then urged Isern forwards. Rowan was quiet for the rest of the day’s journey.
Around midafternoon, they came across an abandoned stable with a piece of its roof missing. The rain and mud had tired everyone, including the horses and dogs. They had travelled as much as they could for the day, so they stopped.
‘Horses outside, people inside,’ Bluebell said. Sighere and Heath unlatched the cart and brought it inside, and the weary travellers tended to their horses in the rain.
Ivy couldn’t remember ever being so uncomfortable. Her clothes were damp and stiff, her thighs and back were aching, and her waterlogged hands were white and puffy. And now, for comfort, she sat on mouldy straw next to a fire made with kindling so damp it could hardly warm her. Choking smoke poured off it. At least the hole in the roof allowed a little air in ... not to mention rain. Night was approaching, and somehow she would have to sleep. Sleep! Unthinkable. Added to this, Iron-tits was cranky and casting a black cloud over everyone. She was displeased they’d not got as far as she’d hoped. In Ivy’s view, they had travelled halfway across the world: she simply couldn’t think about the fact she had to get back on the horse tomorrow. If she thought about it, she would break down into uncontrollable sobbing.
Somehow she made it through the evening. Chewed halfheartedly on a piece of bread and some salted meat, found a quiet place outside to wee in the rain and got her clothes barely dry. Everyone agreed they were exhausted and they would sleep and began to roll out their blankets. That’s when Ivy realised she hadn’t packed a blanket.
‘Can I share yours?’ she quietly said to Willow.
‘No,’ Willow said, ‘it’s too small for both of us. Why didn’t you bring one?’
‘I didn’t think of it.’
‘What did you pack?’
Ivy didn’t answer. She couldn’t admit she had two pretty dresses and a selection of bead chains. Willow would make her sleep on her dresses, but Ivy didn’t want mud on them. Those clothes were for when they got there, wherever ‘there’ was. Bluebell had said something about a flower farm and Ivy had imagined herself in her blue dress with the gold embroidery at the sleeves, out among the flowers with the sun in her fair hair. Then Heath would see her and want her.
Ivy glanced around the room. Everyone was settling down for the evening except Bluebell, who was taking first watch by King Æthlric’s cart. The cart! Ivy wagered there would be spare blankets in there. She approached it happily.
Bluebell, whose sword was drawn, frowned at her. ‘What?’
‘I need a blanket,’ Ivy said, reaching for the edge of the cart.
Bluebell’s sword whipped out in front of her, blocking her hands. The steel caught the firelight.
‘Hey!’ Ivy protested. ‘I’m your sister.’
‘You stay away from him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the Widowsmith says so,’ she replied, with no trace of a smile.
‘I need a blanket.’
‘You’re not taking his.’
‘He has more than one, surely. You would’ve padded the cart with them.’
Bluebell narrowed her eyes, but didn’t answer.
How Ivy hated her and her silences. ‘Please, Bluebell. I’m so tired, but I can’t possibly sleep without a blanket.’ Her heart beat hard in her ears. She was aware everyone was watching this exchange, including Heath.
And still Bluebell stared at her silently and stonily, the sword barring her way forwards. Ivy knew, though, what Bluebell was thinking. Bluebell had warned Ivy to prepare herself properly and she hadn’t. Ivy wanted to cry, but not in front of Bluebell. She took herself back to the other side of the stable and tried to plump up some straw. It smelled cold and damp. A tear rolled down her cheek and she palmed it away. Then a shadow fell over her. She looked up, expecting Bluebell.
It was Heath. He smiled and crouched down next to her, holding out a rolled blanket. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I have a spare.’
And all her body and blood lit up. Heath was giving her a blanket. She smiled at him adoringly, gazing at the red sheen of his hair in the firelight. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘How can I repay you?’ She knew how she wanted to repay him and the thought made her shiver.
‘By sleeping warm and safe,’ he said, patting her shoulder once and then moving away.
She watched him go. Now there was a man. Not like the other men she had fancied herself in love with. Not selfish, nor proud, nor talking ill of her behind her back the moment she pulled her dress back on. Her heart squeezed up against her ribs. If she couldn’t have him, she would die.
It was night, and Wylm was soaked through, muddy to his knees and terrified. Creeping around behind the king’s compound, sticking to shadows, ears strained for the slightest sound. He knew they were looking for him. He’d been hiding in a hollow log that day when three armed riders thundered past, calling to each other. Lying there — elbows cramped against his ribs, dirt in his mouth, bugs in his hair — he had been so overwhelmed by misery and uncertainty that tears had formed. He’d blinked them back with rage. Bluebell had brought him so low.
Now, poised breathless with his back flattened against the back wall of the bowerhouse, any self-pity was squashed down into a hard brick inside him. He had to rescue his mother.
There was a pit near the latrine in the main street where Bluebell liked to put prisoners, and he assumed Gudrun was in there. The pit was out in the open, but the hour had slipped well past midnight and only the alehouse would still be lit up. He slid along in the shadows, stopping every few feet to listen. Crickets. Laughing voices on the wind. A soft steady drip from the eaves ...
And a woman crying.
Wylm froze. Was it his hopeful imagination or did that sound like his mother? The sound was coming from the infirmary.
He turned back, scanning around for signs of life. All was still. He approached the infirma
ry. The crying had stopped now, and he doubted himself. Then he saw the bolt and box padlock on the outside of the infirmary door. Somebody was locked in there.
He went to the shutter, got his fingers underneath it. It wouldn’t budge.
Heart thundering, he glanced around, crouched and put his mouth at the gap along the bottom of the shutter. ‘Mother!’ he hissed.
Nothing.
Helpless fear. His senses on high alert.
‘Mother!’
A querulous voice. ‘Wylm?’
Relief washed through him. She wasn’t in the pit, she was somewhere warm with a bed. He let his heart relax a little. Her footsteps approached the window and the tips of her fingers appeared under the shutter. He brushed his own fingertips against them.
‘Are you well?’ he whispered.
‘I am imprisoned!’
Her voice was too shrill. His skin was alive with tension. ‘Hush, mother. Not so loud. Have they hurt you?’
Her voice dropped low. ‘No. In fact, they are very careful with me. But I am trapped in here. Can you get me out?’
‘There’s a lock on the door. If I tried to break it, somebody would hear.’
‘They’re looking for you, too, Wylm.’
‘I know.’
‘And Osred. Where did he go?’
Wylm didn’t allow himself to feel the small, cold thrill of guilt. ‘Perhaps he has gone home. Where we should have gone.’ As he said the word ‘home’, he was moved by a surge of homesickness. His childhood home, Tweoning, was the smallest kingdom of Thyrsland, landlocked between Ælmesse, Lyteldyke, Netelchester and Thriddastowe. Geography had made its people conciliatory, good at getting along; girls and boys from good homes learned diplomacy, mediation, the languages of the southern traders and the northern raiders. If only his mother had never met Æthlric. Would his life have been carefree? For a moment he was winded by the thought that back home none of this would ever have happened. He wouldn’t have formed an ambition for the throne. He wouldn’t have to face this test of what kind of man he was. Or would manhood, wherever it bloomed, have inevitably brought its burdens?
‘They threw me in here. I think Bluebell took Æthlric,’ Gudrun said, crying. ‘My husband.’
‘Perhaps she believes she can fix him.’ Fear narrowed around his heart again. ‘If Bluebell does somehow find a way to make Æthlric well, then your secret will be exposed.’
‘No, Æthlric would forgive me. He wouldn’t tell Bluebell.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I’m sure. He loves me.’
Wylm dropped the topic. Æthlric would not forgive her. Æthlric would tell Bluebell, and then his mother would die and so, too, would Wylm. He wasn’t about to let that happen.
She broke into sobs. ‘And this is my own stupid fault. I am truly the unluckiest woman in the world. Find somebody who can help us, Wylm. Somebody from Tweoning who remembers me fondly.’
Wylm pressed his fingertips against hers. Did she not understand? Nobody could kill Bluebell; or certainly, nobody from their past in Tweoning. A noise of a door opening and footsteps had him shrinking back against the wall. Without a chance to say goodbye, he dashed off in the dark. He heard voices: Dunstan’s, his mother’s. He paused behind the stables. Young Tom would be asleep inside: had he been instructed to call out if Wylm came in, looking for his mother’s horse? Of course he had. There was nothing for it. Wylm would be running away on foot.
No, not running away. Running towards something. His destiny as a man and as a king. He would not be the weakling, he would not be the man who floated helpless on the tide of Bluebell’s will. He would be a different kind of man: a man of strength and cunning, a man who could bring down the crown princess of Ælmesse. Certainly, he could not do it alone. But there were rumours on the road and in the alehouses that a mighty enemy of Blicstowe yet lived.
Hakon, the Crow King.
Ash woke on the edge of dawn from a confused dream about being back in Thriddastowe. She opened her eyes and lay still a few moments. Somebody was snoring loudly. She gradually remembered where she was. Her back was tight from sleeping on the hard floor. And she was bursting to wee.
She climbed to her feet. Willow sat by Æthlric’s cart, head heavy in her hands. She smiled weakly at Ash. ‘I got the last watch,’ she said.
‘We’ll all have to take turns, I expect.’ Ash made her way out of the stable. Outside, blue light lay over the sodden fields. The clouds had shredded apart and a pale, clear sky promised a more comfortable ride today. This was a flat part of the country, heading west towards the sea. Not the ship-friendly sea of the east, but the thundering cold ocean. Ash yawned. Her belly felt watery and crampy. She hoped she wasn’t coming down with a loose stomach: that would be sheer misery while travelling. She trudged through the mud to the low hedgerow that lined the field, in hopes of finding a private place to relieve herself.
Her belly twitched again. She climbed over the hedgerow and squatted on the other side. A few feet away, a tight grove of elms stood, holding shadows close.
It took a moment to realise the discomfort in her stomach wasn’t an illness, it was a warning.
She tried to gather her clothes quickly, but the dark figure was already rushing towards her, tackling her to the ground and clamping a rough, dirty hand over her mouth. She bit down hard on his fingers. He jerked his hand away long enough for her to scream her sister’s name, but then his hand was back, under her chin this time, pushing her jaw closed. He flipped her over and fumbled with her skirts.
Time slowed. He said something to her. She couldn’t understand, and then she realised he was speaking the language of the northern raiders. Her heart squeezed into a stone. He wasn’t speaking to her at all, he was speaking to his companions: raiders never travelled alone.
But Bluebell was alone as she vaulted over the hedgerow, blade already swinging. The raider took his hands off Ash and she rolled onto her back in time to see four others emerge from the shadowy grove. Her blood froze. She scrabbled back out of the fray, her back against the rough hedge, and watched in horror.
Bluebell’s dogs were there a moment later, leaping on one of the raiders and taking him down. Bluebell skewered a second man, but the other three were on her in a flash. Ash heard Bluebell’s name passed from one to the other, as the raiders realised who they were fighting. Bluebell, grunting and shouting like a man, held firm against them until her foot got stuck in mud and she went down on one knee. The dogs rallied around her, snapping and snarling, but the raiders surrounded her. Ash tried to clamber to her feet, knees too weak to comply, eyes searching for a rock or a branch or anything to help, but then Heath and Sighere were there. Events became confused, overloading her senses. The clatter of arms, barking, groans of death; the blur of steel, the effusion of blood, black in the early light, loosened every nerve in her body. She closed her eyes and clamped her hands over her ears.
A few moments later, Bluebell was helping Ash to her feet.
‘Did he hurt you?’ Bluebell asked, puffing warm air into the cold dawn.
Ash shook her head, holding back tears. Bluebell was covered in mud, and a smear of blood — someone else’s — coloured her left cheek. It would be one thing to have been the cause of her beloved sister’s death. Another altogether to have caused the death of Ælmesse’s only heir when the king’s fate already hung in the balance.
‘My lord, what are raiders doing this far south?’ Sighere asked, crouched next to one of the fallen bodies to search for anything of value.
Ash shivered. She had spent so long trying not to open up her second sight she was becoming blind. Here, in the pre-dawn gloom, surrounded by blood, with her heart returning to its normal temperature, clarity came to her. Ash had nearly led Bluebell to her death, because she wasn’t paying attention to her instincts. Because she was blighted and doomed to blight others with her. Getting Bluebell killed would plunge Ælmesse into uncertainty, Netelchester would make a claim, the raiders would c
ome ... was this the Becoming she so feared?
Ash made two vows. The first was never — no matter how much danger she was in — to call for Bluebell’s help again.
The next was to keep her second sight open — no matter what the cost.
Twelve
Wylm watched Bluebell’s lover’s house all morning, the blockheaded farmer and his simple son. Possibly Bluebell’s son. The more he thought of it, the more he convinced himself it was true. Why else would a simple be tolerated to live? How it must embarrass and shame her that this child would never be a warrior. He took comfort in imagining her distress, but then told his tired brain to concentrate. He needed to discover where Bluebell was and what she planned, and any man who loved something as vulnerable as a sick child was a man Wylm felt confident he could bend to his will.
The farmer plonked his boy onto a stool in the sunshine, where he sat unseeing and unspeaking while the farmer mended a basket and talked to him. It was almost relaxing, sitting here in the damp grass behind an elder hedge that bristled with marjory vine, watching them go about their ordinary lives. Fat, furry bumblebees buzzed around, and the grassy smell of horse shit in the distance tickled his nose. He might have felt sorry for them; but then he thought about Bluebell and pity vanished.
The right moment came, as he’d hoped it would. The farmer stood and stretched, touched his son’s dark hair and muttered something inaudible to him, then moved off towards the fields. As soon as he had vanished out of sight, Wylm stood, brushed damp leaves from his pants and climbed the hedge to stalk across the grass. Moments later, he stood in front of the boy.
At first he thought the child hadn’t noticed him. He was clearly blind. But then Wylm bent towards him, so his face was only inches away. And his face twitched softly.
‘Papa?’ he said.
Wylm straightened, turned towards the house. Inside, on a low table, a loaf of bread was cooling. Beside it lay a heavy knife. He picked it up, tested its weight in his hand. Then dragged a stool outside to sit with the boy.