by Kim Wilkins
Then on the third night, late, when she should have been sleeping, she found herself hanging about by the door of her bower, gazing at Wengest’s bower across the way. There was light flickering under the shutter. He was awake. But would she be welcome? No, she was being a fool. He was avoiding her for a reason. She wanted to stamp her feet. Why should Rose be the lucky one who got to marry the king of Netelchester? Of course she would have been too young a few years ago, but now she was marrying age. Queen Ivy. It sounded divine.
Footsteps caught her attention. The serving girl came into view, making her way down from the kitchen quarters. Ivy’s heart started; she was about to duck inside, then changed her mind.
Instead, she stepped out and hailed the serving girl with a raised palm. Her heart sped a little with fear and excitement.
‘Princess Ivy?’
‘I expect you’re going to visit the king? To lie with him?’
The girl gulped. ‘I ... no ... no, of course not. I mean ...’
‘Go away. He is married to my sister, and I won’t have a piece of rubbish like you soiling her husband’s reputation. Leave now, or I’ll tell Rose, and she’ll put you and your family out of Folcenham.’
The girl put her hand over her mouth to suppress a sob and turned on her heel and ran. Ivy waited until she was out of sight before turning back to Wengest’s bower and, with determination, striding towards the door.
As she pushed it in, she heard him say, ‘Edlyn?’ So the serving girl had a name and he’d bothered to learn it. He rose in her estimation.
‘My lord,’ she answered, emerging into his sight and closing the door behind her. His bower was richly decorated with tapestries and furs, lit by two tallow candles that smoked greasily. The candlelight glinted dimly off golden cups and ornaments that were mounted on the wall or placed on the dresser and table. Coals in the hearthpit glowed low and warm. In the middle of this sat Wengest, wearing only his undershirt and an expression of surprise.
‘I sent her home,’ Ivy said, as though it explained everything.
‘You won’t tell Rose?’
Ivy almost laughed. He was worried his infidelities had been discovered. She shook her head. ‘I didn’t come here to spy on you. I came here to give you what you need.’ She untied the front of her shift and pulled it off her shoulders, so her breasts were free.
‘No, no, no, Ivy,’ he said, gathering the blankets around him. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Help me understand, then,’ she said, knowing she was glorious half-naked in the firelight.
‘I don’t ... I wouldn’t ... Edlyn and I, we don’t ... I can’t risk a royal bastard. You understand?’
Ivy struggled to comprehend. ‘Then what ...?’
‘She pleasures me. While Rose is away. I’m a man and I’m full of desire, but she ...’ He indicated his groin. ‘... you know.’
And now Ivy was back on firm ground, because she understood ‘you know’ as only a young woman could.
She sank to her knees next to the bed. ‘Then let me do that for you. I’m longing for it.’
‘Ivy, you’re Rose’s sister.’
‘Rose isn’t here. I am.’ She climbed up on the bed and dropped her breasts in his face. A moment later the back of his knuckles was grazing her nipples. ‘Ah, yes, you know you want to.’
She wriggled her way down his body, lifting his nightshirt slowly to reveal two hard hairy white thighs, and then a cock the size of which she had never seen before. It looked angry, red, surrounded by wiry hair. She almost fainted with desire.
‘Ivy,’ he said, half a protest, half a gasp of pleasure as she fastened onto him with her mouth. To her bafflement, he leaned over and extinguished both lights — William always wanted to watch. Wengest groaned like an animal, and Ivy was warm with pride and vanity. The second-most powerful man in Thyrsland, spilling his seed in her mouth. Why, that made her practically the most powerful woman in the land, and all without lifting a sword.
Not a real one, in any case.
Afterwards, she snuggled up under his arm, and he seemed happy to stroke her hair in the dark and kiss her cheek, though he assiduously avoided kissing her mouth. Just as she was drifting to sleep, he spoke, his voice booming after the long silence.
‘Ivy, you must never, ever tell Rose.’
She roused herself and sat up. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark and she could see his face contoured by grey hues. His dark brows were drawn down low. He looked so very serious that she experienced a pang of fear. ‘Oh, no. Of course not.’
He lifted his hands to cover his face and sighed deeply, a sound so desperate it took her breath away. ‘What have I done?’ he said.
‘Nothing. You’ve done nothing bad,’ Ivy said, stroking his arm. ‘We’re having a little fun, that’s all.’
‘You’re Rose’s sister.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘I love my wife, Ivy.’
‘I know, I know,’ she said, twinging with jealousy all the same. ‘But she’s not here. And I’ll never tell.’
He sighed again and Ivy grew impatient. He’d been taking his pleasure elsewhere a long time, if Nurse’s observations were anything to go by. And it wasn’t as though Rose was pining for Wengest. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you something funny, and I know it will make you feel better.’
He uncovered his face and fixed his gaze on her. ‘Go on, then.’
She smiled, absolutely sure she was doing exactly the right thing. ‘Rose has a lover, too!’ She giggled, waiting for Wengest to laugh too. With relief. It was a joke, after all: both of them, getting on elsewhere then feeling guilty and furtive about it.
A vacuum of silence followed her laughter, however, slowly icing over her veins.
‘She has a lover?’
‘Yes,’ Ivy said. ‘Well, I think so, I mean ...’
He sat up. ‘Who is it?’
Frightened now, Ivy became guarded. ‘I don’t know his name. I don’t know him. I don’t really know anything.’
‘Then why do you say she has a lover?’
‘I saw them together.’ Her pulse hammered in her throat.
‘You saw them ...’ Words stopped up in his mouth. ‘Maava and all his angels, how long has it been going on?’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Is Rowan even mine?’
‘Of course she is,’ Ivy said in a rush, desperate to undo the damage. A joke? Was she mad? ‘She looks exactly like you. And I’m sure it was only the one time.’
Wengest gently pushed her off the bed. ‘Go,’ he said to Ivy. ‘Forget what happened here tonight.’
‘Only if you forget what I told you,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘Go. You are far too young to know what you’re doing.’
Ivy laced her clothes and cast one desperate glance back to Wengest on the bed. ‘She loves you. You ought not —’
‘I said go.’
Ivy bit her lip hard to stop herself from crying. Then the door was swinging shut behind her, and she was outside in the cold evening air, wondering what she had done.
Twenty-two
‘Put the sword down, Bluebell,’ Ash said, her hand on her sister’s iron forearm. The slight man stood silent and unyielding in front of them in the dim, cold inn room.
‘No. Not until he says who he is and why he’s been following us.’
Rose agreed. ‘We know nothing about him, Ash, let Bluebell handle this.’
But Ash did know something about him. She knew he wouldn’t hurt them, she knew he was important to her somehow, she knew he was growing impatient with Bluebell.
‘I won’t speak until the weapon is sheathed,’ he said, in a soft voice that belied the steel in his good eye.
And I won’t put away the Widowsmith until you speak,’ Bluebell countered. ‘Come on, fucker. Why were you following us?’
He sealed his lips together, looking almost like a child refusing to tell. Ash could have laughed, only she was so annoyed with Bluebell that the corner
s of her lips wouldn’t lift. ‘Please, sister, you must trust me,’ she said. ‘He won’t harm us, I feel it strongly.’
Bluebell turned her gaze to Ash. ‘I feel strongly the opposite,’ she said.
A thrill of ice passed through Ash, gone before she could make sense of it. ‘Let him go. Trust me.’
Bluebell hesitated. Ash studied the man more closely. He was older than her by ten or fifteen years, clean-shaven, with hair thinning on his temples, and small pale hands. His bad eye was permanently fixed to the right. If he was afraid of Bluebell, he didn’t show it.
‘Please,’ Ash said, rubbing Bluebell’s forearm. ‘Please.’
Reluctantly, Bluebell sheathed her sword and sat back. Ash saw the man’s shoulders untighten slightly. So he had been afraid, after all.
‘What is your name?’ Rose asked.
‘Unweder,’ he said, confirming Ash’s premonition.
‘I am Ash,’ she said. ‘These are my sisters Bluebell and Rose.’
He nodded at them in turn, but soon returned his gaze to Ash. He offered no more words, but Ash sensed he was willing to speak if she asked the right questions.
‘Have you been following us?’ she asked.
‘I’ve been following you,’ he replied, and a jolt of heat went to Ash’s heart.
‘Why?’
‘Because you make me curious.’
‘Why do I make you curious?’
He raised one eyebrow, and Ash wondered coldly if he knew about her Becoming, as Yldra had.
‘I’m curious because you don’t know what you are,’ Unweder said.
‘And what am I?’
‘An undermagician.’
Rose and Bluebell exchanged glances.
‘No, I am a counsellor in the common faith.’ She held the edge of her green cloak up, as if to provide the evidence.
‘Then you have ignored the wishes of the Great Mother because, I assure you, you were born for undermagic.’
Ash’s heart squeezed hard against her ribs. His words fell on her like sheeting rain on parched earth: soaking in quickly, but threatening to flood. Of course, it was true. And yet she had ignored it for so long. Those long years in Thriddastowe, pretending to be less than the elders, when all along she knew a fire grew inside her that could burn the study halls down. Unweder’s words were both liberating and terrifying.
‘I don’t know the first thing about undermagic,’ she said.
‘You need only a good teacher.’
Bluebell butted in. ‘Enough of this nonsense. Prove to me you don’t mean my sister harm.’
He spread his hands. One of them jerked meaninglessly, as if under the control of a careless puppeteer. ‘I can prove nothing.’
‘Why were you trying to get into the room?’
‘I knocked. Nobody answered. I was concerned she was hurt.’
‘I didn’t hear you knock.’
‘Bluebell,’ Rose said, ‘we were asleep.’
‘I would have heard,’ Bluebell said. ‘I sleep with my ears open.’
‘I believe him,’ Ash said. ‘We were tired. We hadn’t slept for two days.’
Bluebell harrumphed, but Ash could tell she was backing down now. Unweder was too small and weak, too half-blind and hand-palsied to pose a physical threat.
‘Unweder,’ Ash said to him, ‘we seek an undermagician named Yldra. Do you know of her?’
‘Yes, I do. I can direct you there easily. She lives many miles to the north of me. Perhaps you’ll travel with me to my house. We can talk a little more of undermagic before you continue on your way.’
Ash turned to Bluebell, who shrugged. ‘I expect you’ll do what you want,’ she said.
‘Rose?’ Ash asked.
‘If he knows the way, that can only be of use to us.’
Ash turned back to Unweder. ‘We would be very grateful if you joined us.’
He nodded, and Ash sensed he was hiding a sly smile. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll travel together.’
Rose slept lightly, determined to be awake before dawn so she could see Rowan in the little bronze loop the old woman had given her. She woke repeatedly throughout the night, then finally rose while it was still dark to go and wait outside, leaving her sisters sleeping, passing the neighbouring room where the strange Unweder slept. She found a long wooden bench behind the back wall of the inn and sat there to wait. The morning chill prickled her cheeks and she shrank from a cold wind that found its way up the alley between the inn and the next building. Clouds lay on the horizon, but as they flushed orange she knew the sun was rising. She untied the seeing-circle from her belt and held it up to her face. The block of ice had softened, was starting to melt. Rose watched as the water gathered in the loop, suspended there by magic. Once the ice had turned to water, the surface rippled and the image formed: tiny, but perfectly clear.
Rowan, in her bed. She slept, long dark hair spread out around her. Ivy was curled on her side next to Rowan. Rose studied her daughter’s sleeping face for long minutes, her soft cheek and black lashes. Then the sun got too high, and the water frosted over and began to solidify. Moments later, it was a block of ice again, cold to the touch.
Rose fought a sense of disappointment. No, not disappointment. Just a feeling of not being deliriously happy. She’d looked forward to this moment ever since the old woman gave her the seeing-circle. The hard ache of missing Rowan had intensified, day by day, since they’d parted. But seeing her child was no substitute for feeling her hot, impossibly light body in her arms, breathing in the sweet-salty scent of her skin.
More than that: Rowan was safe. There was no question. Bluebell had put her finest warrior in charge of her safe trip back to Folcenham. Now that she was home, she was no doubt being treated kindly. Even if Ivy wasn’t particularly patient, Nurse was there. And Wengest loved her madly, Rose was certain of that. Rowan was a happy, safe, pampered little girl and Rose would see her again in a few short weeks. So why had she fixed the seeing-circle on Rowan, when she could have fixed it on Heath? It had been three years since they were last together, and it might be another three years — or more — before they could be together again. If she could see him every morning in his bed at the garrison, that would be some comfort ...
She leaned heavily back on the wall behind her. It wasn’t fair. Was it too much to ask, to know the people she loved most were happy and safe, when she was destined to be apart from them?
Bluebell didn’t take her eyes off Unweder. She made him ride ahead of them forty feet, at the very least twenty feet from Ash, and kept her eyes fixed on his slight shoulders. It was their second morning with the undermagician in their retinue. The cold water in her guts told her not to trust him, but Ash was determined to have him around. Bluebell couldn’t make sense of it. Her sister had never shown any interest in men. That this man with his crooked eye and fine fingers could command her attention worried Bluebell. He was an undermagician: could he enchant her? If he’d enchanted Ash, what was stopping him from enchanting Bluebell, too? The experience with the witch in the wood, with her mud wall held together by magic, had terrified Bluebell. She liked to be able to know her enemy; or at any rate to see him coming.
She glared at Unweder’s back.
Or see him going.
Rose rode up beside her. ‘The dogs are a long way back.’
‘They always catch up.’
Rose nodded, looking behind her again. Bluebell sensed it wasn’t the dogs she was worried about. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Good, then,’ Bluebell said, and they rode side by side in silence up the wide, grass-edged road a while.
Then Rose said, ‘Rowan wasn’t in the seeing-circle this morning.’
Ah, so this was the problem. ‘Maybe the magic isn’t working any more.’
‘No, it’s working. I saw her bed. It was empty.’
‘Perhaps she was up early.’
‘She’s never been an early riser.’
Bluebell
glanced at Rose. Her eyes told the story: she was panicking. ‘You see, this is why I didn’t want you to have that thing in the first place.’
‘You never told me not to take it.’
‘I thought about telling you. But you’re not a good listener.’
Rose’s eyebrows twitched downwards.
‘Rowan will be fine. She’s with her nurse, who takes good care of her; her father, who adores her; and her aunt, who ...’ Bluebell trailed off, struggling to think of a single good thing about Ivy. ‘... who is her aunt,’ she finished.
Rose sighed, her gaze going out across the long grass. ‘I wish I wasn’t so far from her.’
‘Have you asked Ash?’
‘She says she can’t see or sense anything.’
‘Then stop worrying.’
‘But she said herself, she has little control over what she sees.’ Rose’s voice dropped. ‘She wasn’t telling me everything. I’m sure of it.’
Bluebell smiled. ‘Rosie, don’t make problems where there are none. Listen to me. Perhaps Rowan woke up early because there was a noise outside. Perhaps one of Nurse’s ducks escaped and was quacking at the door. Perhaps she ran out into the early morning to chase it away.’ She could see Rose’s shoulders start to relax, so she continued. ‘The most you have to worry about is her running about barefoot in the dew.’
Rose smiled weakly. ‘Thank you, Bluebell. That makes me feel a little better.’
Bluebell dropped her voice. ‘What do you think of Unweder?’
‘He’s an ugly little man, is he not?’
‘I don’t care how he looks. I care that he seems to have some hold over Ash.’