by Cherry Potts
‘If we tempt them into an open attack, all to the good.’
Brede clasped her hands tightly together. She shook her head, and allowed some of her anger to show.
‘Maeve said that I was asked because I am expendable. I see she is right.’
‘And you have such good cause to believe Maeve.’
Brede’s brows drew together, considering.
‘She’s not lied to me. All you have said so far has been about deceit – you can’t hope to stay hidden. Since it is not yet known that you’re here, you could pass as a soldier?’ Brede asked. If she was to bait a trap, she would do it in company.
‘I suppose I could.’ Sorcha said, intrigued by the idea.
‘Tegan knows about you. You could pass for part of her crew.’
‘Yes.’
‘So is she to be included in this?’
Sorcha was distracted.
‘What is there between Tegan and yourself?’ she asked. ‘I sense something – difficult.’
Brede sighed, and instead of telling Sorcha to mind her business, answered, ‘A stolen horse. We’ve come to an agreement. I won’t kill her; she will not kill me. I won’t make demands that she can’t meet, she will not ask the impossible of me. I won’t say that I love her, she will not insist I leave.’
Brede stopped suddenly, shocked at the force of the depression that sank into her bones as she spoke. She hadn’t intended to say so much, she wasn’t even sure that she had known what the agreement was, until Sorcha asked. She glared, listening for the hum of song. There was a noticeable silence. Sorcha looked away, caught out; and regretting forcing that confidence from Brede.
‘And do you love her?’ Sorcha asked, simply, without any subtle strain of song for persuasion.
Brede had not asked herself that for some time, it had been too painful. She felt cautiously for that thought.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do; but it doesn’t seem so – all consuming – now that I no longer hate her.’
It was an unexpected revelation; a relief.
‘Why should you hate her?’
‘Wing Clan,’ Brede said. ‘There is a death between us.’
Even that pain seemed dulled, away from her mother and despite her constant, fruitless search for Falda. And what would become of that search, should she accept this post?
‘Wing Clan,’ Sorcha said, as though that was all the explanation that was required. But then, it being Wing Clan, ‘If Wing Clan can cause you to hate Tegan, what of Grainne?’
Brede shrugged, and the pain in her back flared once more. She recovered quickly, but Sorcha saw: not a woman who knew how to lie convincingly. She waited for Brede’s answer with a curiosity that was about more than danger to Grainne.
‘If I can accept Tegan, I can accept Grainne. I kept Tegan alive all winter, I suppose I can keep Grainne alive if that is what she wants; it is not so very different.’
‘So, daughter of Leal,’ Sorcha asked, ‘are you willing?’
Brede thought of the isolation that the task would inflict, and the restrictions it would place upon her. There would be no riding the plains; she would be alone, yet again.
Sorcha waited, smothering the questions that she wanted to ask, letting Brede find her way through her objections.
‘This place is – to be here all the time would be –’
Brede had been going to say torture, but she realised that wasn’t true. In the face of Grainne’s pain how could it be? She replaced the word in her mind: lonely. And even that was no longer true.
‘I came here partly because of Tegan, but mostly in search of change.’ She hesitated; she couldn’t mention Falda –
‘Change is an uncertain mistress.’ Sorcha said, sensing Brede was holding something back.
‘This is not the change I had planned,’ Brede agreed.
She thought of the closeness of this woman, within the cold stone, and wondered if there was enough warmth in the witch to keep the cold out of her soul. She looked at Sorcha with a pleasure not yet fully acknowledged. Acting on that half recognised feeling, she risked a different vein of personal comment.
‘You’ll have to cut your hair if you’re to pass for a warrior,’ she said.
Sorcha smiled cautiously.
‘Is that an agreement?’
‘I’m not sure that it is. How long...?’
Sorcha groaned. ‘How long? Would that I knew. Would that Grainne had some way of knowing. I can’t answer that.’
‘And how will these peace talks come about?’ Brede asked, divining flaw after flaw; ‘Who is to speak for Grainne, and to whom should they send? To Ailbhe, who is probably dead? To Lorcan? And who among the rebels is the acknowledged leader? Who speaks for the Clans?’
‘I don’t know.’ Sorcha was not used to uncertainty. She glanced at Brede, waiting for a response. Brede didn’t believe that Grainne could live so long.
‘Refusal will do me no good, will it? Grainne has been honest with me, and honesty breeds assassination in this place.’ Brede assessed the waiting tension in Sorcha’s silence.
‘Very well,’ she said at last, and saw that tension vanish.
‘Good,’ Sorcha changed the subject swiftly, relieved to have crossed that vital and dangerous bridge. ‘So, Grainne will sleep for a while. Show me what to do with my hair, and tell me more about Wing Clan, and what is so dreadful about the Marshes, and this stolen horse – ?’
‘Why would you want to know about Wing Clan?’ Brede asked, suspicious.
‘I want to understand you.’
Sorcha watched Brede hesitate. She pulled the combs from her hair, shaking it out to its full length.
Brede eyed Sorcha’s black curls, falling beyond her shoulders, well down her back. No warrior would risk hair so long. Besides, she wanted to see what the witch’s face was like, when it wasn’t hidden behind the weight of that hair.
‘I’ve not brought a knife with me,’ Brede said.
Sorcha reached into the top of her boot, and pulled a knife from the leather. She placed the hilt into Brede’s outstretched hand without hesitation or comment.
Brede stepped behind Sorcha and gathered up a handful of her hair, pulling clear of her shoulder. Brede’s back spasmed suddenly, objecting to the angle of her arm. Brede let her hands drop, remembering Tegan, mounting Guida with Brede’s knife in her hand. She took a steadying breath and tried again. The weight of Sorcha’s hair lay across her hand, and then Sorcha felt the sudden brush of loose ends against her back, the uneven weight. Involuntarily she put her hand up to feel, and tangled with Brede’s hand, reaching for the next hank.
Thinking that she was regretting her hair, or perhaps sharing that momentary fear, Brede hesitated.
‘Changed your mind?’ she asked.
‘Too late for that,’ Sorcha said, letting go of her hand.
Three more flicks of the knife, and Brede gathered the not particularly even ends together, and began to make a plait. Her hand grazed the back of Sorcha’s neck as she did so and her fingers found a row of beads threaded into her hair, behind her ear.
‘Do you want these?’ she asked, Sorcha’s hand once more met hers, tangling around the beads in a convulsive movement. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten them.
‘They are not for adornment,’ she said hesitantly. ‘That has always been the safest place for them.’
Brede shrugged, and worked a tie loose from her cuff.
‘They will still be safe,’ she said, tying the braid tightly.
She stepped back to survey her work.
‘Better,’ she said, absent-mindedly rolling her cuff up to stop it flapping against her wrist.
Sorcha looked at that wrist. Bony: with the tail end of a scar disappearing under the rolled cuff. Somewhat to her surprise, she had a momentary urge to run her finger along that line of raised flesh, to see where it led her. She ran her hands over her hair instead, checking that the Singer stones were secure and out of sight.
Brede gat
hered the cut lengths of hair together, and handed them to Sorcha.
‘What will you do with that?’ she asked.
Sorcha shrugged.
‘Stuff a cushion perhaps,’ she considered. ‘Two cushions.’
She had no intention of doing anything of the kind. She saw the thick strand that Brede was twining between her fingers and had to dampen a flicker of superstitious anxiety.
‘You were going to tell me about Wing Clan,’ she said.
Brede lowered herself into a chair, and began to explain about the Horse Clans and her father’s Clan in particular. She had not spoken in this way since the winter, when she had tried to make Tegan understand what it was that had been destroyed by that raid. Then, anger and loss had motivated her, wanting to make Tegan feel guilty. Now, she told the witch more honestly, more objectively about life on the plains, and about the horror of the last gathering of the Clans, her lost horses, and her lost Clan.
Sorcha listened with only half her attention for the words. The rest of her was concentrating on how Brede held herself as she relaxed, forgot herself in her telling. She took in everything she heard, to be analysed later; it was far more important to her to drink in the sound of Brede’s voice, the range of emotion she betrayed, husky one moment, harsh the next. She regarded the sharp curves of Brede’s face, that trailing scar on her wrist as she raised her hand to describe something – the quick glance of those black eyes, as Brede’s voice faded to silence. Sorcha held her gaze for perhaps two breaths. Brede stood, stretched cautiously against the stiffening in her back.
‘When am I wanted for – this?’
‘At once.’
‘And am I truly to say nothing to anyone, not even to pass the time of day with my friends?’
‘For now.’
‘What do I tell Tegan?’
‘Bring her back with you. Tegan needs to know what to say when she is asked about me.’
Brede nodded. She turned to the door.
‘Wait,’ Sorcha said, not sure why she said it, only wanting to detain her a while longer. Brede laughed.
‘I am coming back,’ she said. ‘I’ll be gone an hour at the most.’
Sorcha lowered her head, feeling foolish. When she looked up, Brede was gone.
Chapter Seventeen
Brede’s legs shook as she walked down the short flight of stairs from the Queen’s quarters.
Too fast, this – too much change all at once. She wondered if the witch had charmed her with an unheard song, if she had been rushed into this decision by magic. She did not think so, and yet, Sorcha had charmed her. She grinned to herself. She was out of the habit of being desired, of being flirted with. It was pleasant, and dangerous.
She went first to the stables. Guida hadn’t been exercised yet, and there would be little enough time for the horses now. That was something she would have to negotiate – she needed the horses, they were her lifeblood, and she would not willingly abandon them, most especially Guida.
Brede saddled Guida and walked her out of the warrior’s quarter, down to the riverbank, where she rode as though there were demons at her heels, grateful for the wind in her face and the dazzle of sunlight off the water.
The river wound round and under Grainne’s tower. Brede glanced up at the balcony, with its long window still firmly shuttered. It occurred to her that she was being asked to give up her freedom; that she was being asked to share that confinement with a witch and a monarch.
With Guida safely returned to her stable, groomed and watered, Brede went to find Tegan in the barracks.
The lower floor of the block was deserted, but she could hear voices above, from Tegan’s quarters. Mindful of Sorcha’s instructions, she set her foot to the bottom rung of the ladder, but this close, she could hear the quality of those voices, the intimacy of Maeve’s sudden laugh. Brede backed away, and bolted before her presence could be detected.
Brede found Eachan asleep in a corner of the stables, beside a mare that was due to foal. She edged past the twitching animal to shake his shoulder.
Eachan’s eye opened before she had quite touched him, his one pupil boring into her. Brede backed away slightly.
‘You’re away then?’ Eachan asked, then laughed at her surprise. ‘I have one good eye in my head,’ he said reproachfully. ‘I can see the woman who pays me when she comes into my yard.’
‘And you know what she wanted?’
‘I don’t need to know more than that she found it. Be careful what you say, girl, and what you hear. Have you told Tegan?’
‘She’s – otherwise occupied.’
‘Maeve tracked her down then?’
Brede nodded. Eachan settled back into his mound of straw.
‘I’ll tell her. You’ve not time to help this mare, I suppose?’
Brede was jolted by his change of tack. She didn’t have time, but his invitation was a balm to her uneasiness.
‘Grainne can wait a while longer,’ she responded, settling into the straw beside him, suddenly comfortable with the idea of setting her own rules.
When she at last returned to the tower, Brede met Sorcha’s anger levelly.
‘I was needed,’ she said calmly, ‘and Tegan was not available. She can keep her mouth shut without being told, she’s no fool.’
‘I am disappointed,’ Sorcha said.
‘Yes, but it isn’t you who pays me.’ Brede glanced at Sorcha’s change of clothes, green jerkin and darker breeches, and a sword belt. She nodded at the sword. ‘You and I are of equal standing in this matter, two novice guards in the Queen’s household.’
‘I have underestimated you,’ Sorcha said.
‘So,’ Brede said cautiously, ‘I have something to show you that may be of interest to Grainne.’
Brede held out a long, heavy bundle, wrapped in a red cloak. Sorcha could sense the strength of it, even before she took it into her hands and felt the cold of metal through the cloth. She flicked the cloak to one side, uncovering the hilt of the sword.
‘What is this?’ she asked, already half guessing.
‘If I’m right, it’s the sword that ended Ailbhe’s life.’
‘And how did you come by it?’
Brede thought about her answer to that question, and answered as she had when Tegan asked the same.
‘I had it from the hands of the Goddess.’
Sorcha nodded, unsurprised. She could still feel the resonance of the places this sword had lain, singing within its core. She could feel the blood it had spilt.
‘The Dowry blade – Grainne must see this,’ she said, ‘but she must be prepared for it. To bring any unsheathed sword into her presence without warning would put unnecessary strain on her.’
‘Then it is the same blade?’
Sorcha glanced from the sword to Brede.
‘Did you ever really doubt it?’
Brede shook her head, and took the sword back into her arms, cradling it against her, aware of its weight as her back and shoulders protested. She touched the simple, unadorned hilt.
‘What is so special about this sword?’
‘It is a symbol – like the crown. Without it, Ailbhe cannot become king as he hopes. Without it, Grainne is not entitled to rule alone. She will want to know how you came by this, and riddles won’t suffice for her. Be ready to say exactly where you found this blade.’
‘I’ll wait,’ Brede said, daunted by Sorcha’s seriousness.
Brede could hear the murmur of voices, and the sharp intake of breath, as Grainne understood the import of Sorcha’s message. She didn’t need prompting to take the sword through to Grainne’s chamber.
She laid the sword across the arms of Grainne’s chair so that she need not take the weight. Grainne fingered the red cloth, before pulling it away to examine the sword. She gazed at it in silence, engaged in a detailed scrutiny, her fingers resting lightly against a small nick in the edge.
‘Then it is true. Ailbhe brought us rain with his blood.’
She covere
d the sword again, but kept her hand upon it. She searched Brede’s face, not finding was she was looking for. Her eyes strayed to Sorcha.
‘Did you know about this?’
Sorcha shook her head.
‘I felt something – I did not think it was –’ she shook her head again. ‘No, I had no idea.’
Grainne focused on Brede once more, her gaze intent, full of doubt.
‘And you didn’t know what you had.’ He voice was harsh with disbelief.
‘I think Tegan guessed. But I’d not heard of this blade when I found it.’
‘And when did you find it?’
Not where or how, but when. Brede suddenly understood that look, recognising it from Tegan’s face, the first time she saw the sword.
‘Just as the fighting stopped for the winter. Tegan or Maeve can tell you when exactly. I met Ailbhe’s army heading westerly out from the Marshes, with this sword left at an offering place. The blood was still sticky.’
Grainne sighed. It had been raining for weeks then. If Ailbhe did not die to bring rain, then her illness couldn’t be tied to the failing of her land, and she need not search Brede’s face expecting to find the Scavenger of Souls there.
Brede shifted uncomfortably under Grainne’s searching gaze and was grateful when Sorcha reached for the Queen’s arm, distracting her.
‘Ailbhe’s force went back to their winter quarters calmly; hostilities started early. Someone is in control of that army.’
Grainne sighed for her hoped-for peace. ‘Poison was never Ailbhe’s weapon. As soon as Lorcan was old enough to go into battle and earned the right to be considered his father’s successor, he started his challenge. In the eyes of some, including at least one person I trust, he has earned the right to be considered the successor to my throne too.’ She looked at Brede, then Sorcha; she did not find them sufficient to her need. She longed for her niece, dead these many years; for Aeron, who once held the world together for her.