Daughters Of The Storm

by Kim Wilkins

  ‘I’ll kill him, of course,’ he said.

  His words, delivered so casually, turned her blood to ice.

  ‘So name him. And I will give you back your child.’

  She opened her mouth, but no words would come out.

  ‘Name him.’

  Wengest would never hurt Rowan. And as long as she still breathed, Rose could find a way to see her again.

  ‘Choose, Rose,’ Wengest said, doubt creeping into his voice. ‘Your lover or your child.’

  But he would hurt Heath. He would kill Heath. No matter that Heath was his nephew — his favourite nephew — hatred would bend his heart. He may not do it with his own hand, but it was certain Heath would not survive.

  ‘Choose!’ he shouted.

  ‘I won’t tell you his name,’ she said, her ribs bursting, her throat stopped up with sobs. ‘I won’t let you kill him.’

  His face twisted. He was a monster now, with fiery cheeks and heavy black eyebrows and a raging mouth. She had made him angry; angrier than he was before. Before, his wife had simply been with another man. Now, she had revealed she loved the other man.

  ‘You are not a fit mother,’ he said, spittle flying from his lips and landing hot on her cheek. ‘And while I live, I shall make sure you never see my daughter again.’ He slammed out of the hall and left Rose in the darkened room, falling on her knees, sobbing into her hands.

  Ivy knew she couldn’t be here when Rose returned. Her sister’s rage and pain were too raw for Ivy’s liking. So she threw her things into her pack and buckled it, closed the bower door behind her and went the long way around the hall and into the village. She had a few coins left to pay for a room at the big lime-washed alehouse on the main street, and then she would persuade a trader to give her passage back to Fengyrd. She hated her sisters; all of them. She would be glad to go home and pretend none of this had ever happened. How dare Rose hit her? If keeping Rowan was that important to her, Rose should have kept her legs crossed. It was bound to come out sooner or later that she was having Heath on the side. Rose should be thanking Ivy that she didn’t name Heath, nor allow the seed of doubt to grow about Rowan’s paternity.

  The alehouse wife eyed her lip warily. ‘What happened to you?’

  Ivy touched her mouth. The ring on Rose’s hand had cut across her bottom lip and it had been almost impossible to stop it bleeding. ‘Never mind,’ she snapped. ‘Hand me my keys.’

  She went up the wooden stairs and let herself into a tiny room with white walls and fresh rushes. She propped open the shutter to let the last of the afternoon light in, then curled up on the bed to cry. She cried like she hadn’t cried since she was a child, miserable and self-pitying, nursing a stinging lip and an equally stinging shame that would not go away.

  She lay there for maybe an hour or so, as the rain intensified and the room grew dark and her stomach started to rumble. She thought she’d best clean herself up and go downstairs for food. She lit the lamp and rummaged in her pack for her little bronze mirror. What a mess! She wiped the tears and snot off her face, touched her wounded lip gingerly with her tongue and cursed that she didn’t look as pretty as usual: she needed to find somebody to take her home and how could she do that with a mouth puffed-up and bloody? She ran a comb through her hair hard, pulling out knots. Then there was a knock at the door.

  Curious, she cracked it open. Wengest stood on the other side. In the light of the hallway, he looked tired and damp-eyed. Had he been crying? Did men cry? Kings? She squirmed with embarrassment for him.

  ‘I need to speak to you,’ he said, clearly making an effort to control himself.

  Ivy opened the door wide and stepped aside. He came in, back erect, dark hair loose and flowing over his shoulders.

  He glanced around the room. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked.

  ‘I couldn’t be with Rose. I want to go home. I’ll find a passage tomorrow and —’

  ‘You’re not going home.’

  She drew her brows down. ‘I’m not staying here.’

  ‘That’s right. You’re not staying in Folcenham. But you are staying in Netelchester.’

  Heat crept up her chest. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Two years ago Bluebell offered you in marriage to Guthmer —’

  ‘Guthmer! He’s a hundred years old!’

  He continued as though he hadn’t heard. ‘— and I have been delaying on making a decision because you are young and I didn’t want to foist a silly wife upon my cousin. But under the circumstances, a peace deal between Ælmesse and Netelchester should be sealed as soon as possible. Guthmer likes what he sees and so he has agreed.’

  ‘What circumstances? Are you putting Rose aside? Bluebell will kill you.’

  Wengest leaned forwards, drilling an index finger into her shoulder. ‘Don’t threaten me with your sister. Bluebell is wiser than to punish me for Rose’s mistakes. It is the will of your family, and it is my will, and that is that.’

  Ivy’s mouth opened and closed, but words wouldn’t come. Couldn’t come. She had always known this would happen to her one day. In fact, she had relished the idea from time to time: a wealthy husband, the keys to her own household, nobody telling her not to boss the servants so much. But this revelation was so unexpected. Why hadn’t Bluebell mentioned it to her? She had hoped she might be married to a good-looking man. Certainly a much younger one. ‘I want to go back to Blicstowe first,’ she said, scrambling for time. ‘And talk to Bluebell about it.’

  ‘Bluebell had best do as I say if she wants peace to hold,’ he said darkly. ‘She has no love for you. You know she won’t break the agreement for you.’

  Ivy’s bottom lip trembled. He was right. Damn him. ‘I’ll tell Guthmer what we did!’ she shouted. ‘You are not so noble and strong! You have a prick like a twig!’ It was a silly insult. He had a prick like a branch and he knew it.

  His cheeks flared warm in the dim light. ‘Guthmer has seen your preening ways and wouldn’t care how many others you had turned your hot eyes on. So long as you bear him five fat sons before you are twenty summers old. His first wife gave him none, so he will be keen.’

  Ivy gasped, thinking about her tidy figure, stretched forever out of shape.

  ‘I have a guard downstairs. Don’t try to run away.’ He rubbed his hand over his bushy black beard, his voice softening. ‘You are a princess and you must do as your family dictates, as my Rowan will one day. I wish you no ill, only that you would accept your fate with hope in your heart. Guthmer has ridden home to the shorefort at Sæcaster to prepare your lodgings. My retainers will come for you in the morning.’

  Tears flowed again, pouring down her cheeks. She imagined he might take her in his arms and comfort her. But he did not touch her. With an awkward nod, he turned and left.

  Rose was ready at dawn to leave, alone in the stable with the door propped open, breathing the scent of dew-drenched morning and fresh hay. She hadn’t slept more than a few fitful hours, her mind a whirl of plans, adopted and abandoned equally swiftly. She was not about to stay here in Netelchester. But neither could she return to Blicstowe, to a life she had been displaced from five years ago. She didn’t even know if there was still room for her at the family compound. In the end, there was only one thing she could decide on: go back to the flower farm and tell Heath. He couldn’t fix anything, but she longed for comfort and she knew he would give it to her.

  She hoped, too, for Bluebell’s compassion. Oh, there was no doubt Bluebell would be angry, but she was loyal to family and surely she would fix things. Wengest couldn’t keep Rose from her own child forever.

  Once again she shuddered with the sorrow. Her baby! Where was her baby? Was she missing her mama? Asking for her every hour? Crying? Did she think Rose had abandoned her? The pain of this thought was so acute she had to stop saddling her horse and bend over double, clutching her belly.

  ‘Queen Rose?’

  She turned. Coelred, Wengest’s first retainer, stood there. She stood up tall, forcing
herself to meet his eye, fingers clenched around the reins. ‘Coelred?’

  ‘Wengest sent me to pass you a message, my lady.’

  She smiled tightly. ‘Am I still your lady, Coelred?’

  His head drooped a little. ‘Your quarrel is not with me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she said.

  ‘You are to pass this onto Bluebell. The future of our kingdoms relies on you doing so.’

  Her blood cooled. She braced. ‘I will.’

  ‘You are not to see your child again if peace between our kingdoms is to hold. Now you have broken the bonds of peace with your ... actions,’ he cleared his throat and glanced away, ‘you must give up your daughter.’

  A rough wind shook the eaves of the stable, threatening to freeze her face with an expression of shocked misery on it forever. ‘Must I?’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

  ‘A child should be with her mother,’ Rose said, her pulse hammering in her throat. ‘It is the natural way of things.’

  ‘Will you pass this message to your sister?’

  Rose swallowed hard. Licked her lips. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. And may Bluebell bring her entire army down to Netelchester to punish Wengest for it.

  ‘I wish you well,’ he said, nodding once.

  She turned back to her horse, tightening the saddle. When she looked back, he was gone. She mounted and urged her horse forwards, out of the stables, down to the road and out of Netelchester, hoping with every nerve in her body Bluebell would see things her way.

  Twenty-seven

  Bluebell tried not to notice the twinge of pain in her side when she set off riding that night. If anything, she was glad it kept her from falling forwards in her saddle into sleep. The night passed in a blur of movement and shadows, and the twinge became a throbbing pain, pulling sharply if she moved too suddenly. Rain came, but it didn’t slow them. Bluebell’s tunic grew soaked under her byrnie. With a hot sense of alarm, she started to believe the moisture she could feel dribbling down her side might be blood. There was no chance to stop and take off her clothes to see, so she kept her eyes ahead and kept going. At first light, while Yldra dug her hole in the muddy slope under an ash tree, Bluebell gingerly pulled off her byrnie, wincing as she stretched. She pulled up her tunic to see a cut about the length of her outstretched hand, curving around from under her rib. It wept blood slowly.

  ‘Have you hurt yourself?’ Yldra said, peering at her.

  ‘It’s an old wound that’s reopened.’

  Yldra looked at her sharply. ‘The one the Horse God healed?’

  Bluebell nodded.

  ‘Curious. Perhaps he’s not as powerful as he thinks, eh?’ She smiled smugly.

  ‘Perhaps.’ Bluebell didn’t tell Yldra about the old magician for fear she would know Bluebell had been asleep on the job and not trust her enough to continue. She suspected Yldra might be mutable, flighty. She didn’t want her to refuse to come the rest of the way.

  ‘It doesn’t look too bad. Do you want me to dress it?’

  Bluebell thought of the sleep she’d miss, and sighed. ‘I suppose you should.’

  She sat while Yldra cleaned and dressed the wound, then waited under the tree in the rain while Yldra put herself into the ground for the day. Her side throbbed and throbbed. Pain was nothing to her. She had felt pain before and would no doubt feel it again. But pain laced with fear of magic was different, because she didn’t know what to expect. It could get worse, stay the same, get better, or kill her ... she had no way of predicting the outcome.

  So she paced to take her mind off it, and reassured herself that within a few days she would have brought Yldra to Æthlric, which is what she had set out to do. In fact, it was all she could do. If Yldra couldn’t heal him, then Bluebell would have to accept it.

  The day passed in a blur. Her brain was a whirl of birds’ wings, no thought settled long enough for her to think it through properly. The weariness and pain sapped the strength from her limbs, so she could barely pull herself onto Isern that night.

  Yldra, her clothes caked with mud but otherwise well and limber, narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you well enough to travel?’

  ‘We can’t stop,’ Bluebell said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  The night unfurled, as the nights before it had. The dark woods blurring past her, the thunder of the horses’ hooves as they sped supernaturally forwards. But tonight, the searing thorn under her ribs was different. Breaking into the rolling rhythm of movement was an insistent, wretched pain. She felt a trickle, wondered if it was sweat or blood. Her head pounded, the road unfolded — grey with grim shadows — beneath her ...

  She wasn’t aware she’d lost consciousness until she regained it, brittle as crushed glass in her mind. Yldra’s face was above hers, her lips pursed so dark furrows formed around them. Eerie night shadows gathered on her brow. Bluebell’s heart hammered.

  ‘What has happened to me?’ she said.

  ‘You fell. Don’t move.’ Yldra inched up Bluebell’s heavy mail byrnie, then the tunic, and gasped.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This wound,’ Yldra said.

  Bluebell struggled to sit up, caught a glimpse of dark gore, and was pushed back down by Yldra. ‘No. Don’t look at it. How has this happened?’

  ‘A magician, on the beach,’ Bluebell said. ‘He must have undone the spell.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘He got close while I was ... sleeping. I didn’t mean to sleep.’

  Yldra shook her head gravely. ‘We can travel no further tonight. I will have to use what magic I have in me to heal you.’

  ‘You can heal me?’

  ‘With the amount of power I have pulled from the ground today, I can undo the second spell, so the first will hold. But be warned: these two magics do not mix well. You will be sick for a few days. And every magician for miles will smell you. You’d best never return to Bradsey.’

  Bluebell lay back on the cold ground while Yldra raised her hands and began muttering her incantations. She closed her eyes. No, she would never return to Bradsey. She could happily live her whole life without seeing another undermagician.

  She thought about Ash, and sighed. Ash would become one of them, with shadows on her brow. Would she smell Bluebell and shun her? She listened to the wind in the trees while the hot pain cooled in her side, then withdrew altogether. When she opened her eyes, Yldra sat, head bowed, next to her.

  ‘Yldra?’

  ‘Sleep. We can travel no further tonight. I am spent.’

  And although she longed to get back to her father, the idea of a full night’s sleep was sweeter than honey to her. She rolled out her blanket and remembered nothing more until morning.

  It had become clear to Ash that Unweder did not like the rain. Cooped inside on grey days, he wandered from one side of his tiny house to the other, growling about the weather and peering repeatedly out the shutters with his bottom lip pushed out. On fine days, he was gone with his hessian bag full of clattering pots in the morning until late afternoon, when he would return with a rabbit or a pheasant or pockets full of wild mushrooms for their meal. Ash would cook while he tidied up his things, and then they would eat together and talk. Every time Ash asked Unweder what she should be doing to develop her skills, he told her simply to rest and think and recover from the loss of her old life. ‘Until your mourning is complete, you won’t be able to access the full extent of your power.’

  She understood this was one of the tenets of undermagic. Earthly attachments interfered with the craft. So many undermagicians lived alone, and yet Unweder had taken her in, seemed keen to share his knowledge. She understood the logic of his statement, but she didn’t tell him she thought her mourning would never be complete.

  Two days of rain cleared to sunshine on her seventh day with Unweder, and he woke her early with a gentle nudge of his toes.

  Ash looked up, blinking sleep from her ey
es. He had opened the shutters and a cool morning breeze stirred in the branches outside, making the sunlight move on the wooden floor.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I want to see what you can do, and there’s no better time than early morning.’

  Ash propped herself up on her elbows. ‘You want to see what I can do?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, fixing her with his good eye. ‘The elementals.’

  Her heart picked up its rhythm and she fought a smile of pride. ‘Then let me show you.’

  She threw back her blankets and found her shoes, tied them on and climbed to her feet. Unweder had gathered his hessian bag and waited by the open door. She joined him and they stepped out into the dew-soaked morning. Birdsong, crickets, the sounds of animals in the woods finding breakfast. Her own stomach rumbled but she had to catch the dawn, when elementals were most active. He took her up his front path, then around the back of his land, down a slope thick with slippery, damp leaf-fall, then through crowded elm trees and down to the overgrown edge of the stream where they drew their daily water supply. The sun filtered through the trees and made diamonds on the water. Ash removed her shoes and left them by the side of the stream, tucked up her skirts and waded in up to her ankles. The water was cold and clear. She could see the rocks in the bottom, the bright green weed pulled softly on the current, tiny fish darting around. She looked up at Unweder, who stood on the bank with his arms folded, smiling.

  She smiled back, then closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. She could feel them around her. The air teemed with invisible movement. Rather than opening her eyes and trying to see them, she found one with her mind — a muscular movement in the air. It communicated with her wordlessly, tensed against her hold but not struggling.

  ‘What is it you want from me?’ Its words were not words, but a shape in her head. She understood it with the hindmost part of her mind.

  Ash thought about what Unweder had said. This was her gift. She didn’t have to concentrate so hard, she didn’t have to exert herself so much and make herself sick. Now she had stopped trying to develop her ability to prophesy or heal or any other thing, she could allow her body to do what it had been born for. To control elementals.