The Dowry Blade

by Cherry Potts

  ‘This is my bondswoman. As soon as I realised she was responsible I dealt with her.’ Brede blinked, trying to work out how much time had passed; it seemed only seconds.

  ‘And you are?’ she asked, choosing not to admit that she knew his name.

  ‘Doran.’

  ‘The archer.’ Brede said. Doran inclined his head. ‘And this was your – storm-mare.’

  Brede pushed away from the support of the walkway, shaking her head. She saw a length of cloth at the foot of the walkway, she scooped it up, and saw the simple outline of a running horse painted onto it, barely more than waving lines unless you knew how to look. Brede knew how to look. She wrapped the cloth about her hand, pulling the fine fabric between and about her fingers.

  ‘Eachan will take care of the body,’ she said. She glanced about her, recognising more faces now. Killan, and Ula – furtively wiping blood from her hand. She turned to find Corla at her side. She glanced at Corla’s hands: finding them unsullied, she gestured at Jodis’ body.

  ‘Will you help Eachan?’ she asked. Corla nodded and began to force people out of her way.

  Brede turned back to the offering circle, absently dabbing blood from her forehead. She knelt at Grainne’s feet.

  Grainne looked at her silently then took a tight breath.

  ‘I suppose it is too much to hope that the culprit has survived.’ She turned to Sorcha: ‘Get me away from here.’

  By the time Brede had gained her feet the Queen was gone. She stared at the questioning faces of Maeve, Tegan, and even Phelan, expecting some sense from her.

  ‘A Plains woman,’ she said at last, aware that Tegan and Maeve at least would make something of that. ‘A makeshift sling and a couple of flints from the walkway. Doran’s bondswoman.’

  Phelan nodded, satisfied. He turned his horse and headed back to the tower. Brede looked furtively at Maeve, then Tegan.

  ‘What now?’ she asked.

  Tegan sighed.

  ‘Back to the barracks. Grainne will want some explanations.’

  ‘She won’t get many.’ Brede said shortly. The feeling was beginning to come back into her arm, and with it, a certainty that Grainne was not the target of those chips of flint. Tegan had to help her onto Guida’s back.

  Grainne pulled away from Sorcha’s protective touch the second she was within the chamber.

  ‘That shouldn’t have happened,’ she said fiercely as she struggled with the fastenings of her ceremonial robes. Sorcha caught the falling cloak, and flung it over the back of Grainne’s chair. Grainne strode to the window, flinging the shutters wide, anger and fright keeping her moving, restless, impatient.

  ‘Where’s Brede?’ she asked irritably, but as she spoke there were steps on the stair and voices at the outer door. Sorcha opened the inner door, but it wasn’t Brede, it was Phelan.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked immediately, his eyes scanning Grainne’s white, drawn face.

  ‘No,’ she reassured him immediately.

  ‘There’s blood on your face.’

  Grainne nodded.

  ‘It isn’t mine.’

  Phelan relaxed.

  ‘Sit down cousin, before you fall down.’ He took up the bottle of wine and poured two glasses.

  Grainne’s hand shook as she clutched the glass. She raised the glass to Phelan, allowing him to see that weakness.

  ‘I will confess that I did not expect this. I did not think my citizens enjoyed war so well that they would react brutally to the suggestion that it end.’

  ‘Not one of your citizens. A slave. One of Doran’s.’

  ‘Are you suggesting he was the target?’

  Phelan laughed, pleased that Grainne could make light of the incident.

  ‘I’ve asked him to join us, perhaps we’ll find out. It is possible that he thought so, as he was amongst those to see to it she threw no more stones.’

  ‘Was he?’ Grainne said angrily.

  More voices at the door. Doran and Brede arrived together. Brede allowed him precedence through the door, glad to let him mask her entrance a little. She slipped into her accustomed position and kept silent.

  ‘Your bondservant, Doran?’ Grainne asked.

  ‘My lady, I have no idea what could cause her to commit such an act.’

  ‘But you killed her all the same.’

  ‘It was my duty as your loyal subject.’

  ‘Quite.’ Grainne’s angry eyes strayed to Brede.

  ‘Did anyone see what actually happened?’

  Doran stayed silent. Brede made an effort.

  ‘Eachan was beside her.’

  Grainne considered Brede’s bloody face and clothing.

  ‘Sit down before you fall down,’ she said echoing Phelan’s words to her, but not his tone. Brede lowered herself carefully onto a low-backed chair, trying to hide the lack of strength in her left arm.

  ‘Her name was Jodis. Daughter of Ute of Storm Clan,’ Brede said dully.

  ‘That explains the choice of weapon,’ Phelan commented. Doran said nothing, but began to take more notice of Brede, divining her accent, and her knowledge of his bondswoman’s bloodline.

  ‘It seems an impetuous action,’ Brede continued. ‘The sling was her scarf, the stone from the facing of the walkway.’

  ‘Even so, we can’t assume she was working alone,’ Phelan said firmly. ‘Had she family or friends in the city?’

  Brede had a sudden vision of Jodis’ children being tracked down and killed to satisfy Phelan’s lust for punishment.

  ‘She was there at the instruction of her master,’ Brede said swiftly and with a touch of malice. Doran met her eyes.

  ‘Your stable-hand knows more of this woman than I do after six years in my service. Is that not strange?’

  Phelan snorted.

  ‘She knows what Eachan knows. Eachan bought a horse from you only yesterday. Jodis handled the sale. Unless you go out of your way to get to know your bondservants, Doran, I would place no reliance on that kind of comparison.’

  Grainne gestured impatiently at Doran.

  ‘You can go.’

  He looked startled and relieved. He made a bow and left.

  Grainne observed Brede.

  ‘You’d best talk to Eachan more, but go and soak your bruises first. Let Tegan’s healer have a look at that cut, I don’t want any more of your blood on me.’

  Brede struggled to her feet and bowed, unable to disguise the limpness of her arm this time. Grainne frowned, catching Sorcha’s anxious gaze on Brede. She turned back to Phelan.

  ‘I think this will turn out to be nothing,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You still want me to go to Lorcan?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Very well. I will leave as soon as I can be ready. Two hours perhaps?’

  ‘Good. Thank you, Phelan.’

  Phelan shook his head.

  ‘A strange birthday. Shall we announce that you are persuaded the woman was alone and crazy? The midsummer festival will be out of sorts, else.’

  Grainne laughed.

  ‘You think of that now?’

  ‘Popular support is fickle, my dear. If the traders suffer from the uncertainty of an unresolved attack on the Queen, much of today’s good work will be undone.’

  Grainne nodded.

  ‘Would you arrange that before you go?’ she asked contritely.

  Phelan bowed.

  ‘Your command is my heart’s wish. I’d better get on with it – unless you have reconsidered your answer of this morning?’

  ‘My answer?’

  ‘Your hand?’

  Grainne frowned.

  ‘Go away, Phelan, I am weary of your jests.’

  He swept another bow, deeper than the last and went.

  ‘He didn’t kiss me,’ Grainne observed.

  ‘You do have blood all over your face.’

  Grainne nodded, accepting this explanation. Suddenly she seemed to collapse in on herself.

  ‘Goddess, I’ve had eno
ugh. I can do no more today.’

  Sorcha glanced into the bedchamber, with an anxious frown on her face.

  ‘There are hardly any herbs left, how much have you been taking?’

  ‘I have taken more, when I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘You should have told me. There aren’t enough there to get you through the night. I can’t leave you to get more until Brede is back. I shall have to stay with you, unless you can manage?’

  Grainne shook her head. She reached up and removed the crown, placing it gently beside her.

  ‘I can’t, my mind is too full of other things. I’m sorry to burden you.’

  ‘It is not a burden,’ Sorcha said quickly.

  Grainne caught her eye and said nothing. She rubbed at the dried blood on her face.

  ‘Help me up, Sorcha, I can’t stand.’

  Brede went first to find Corla, but found Tegan.

  Brede cleared her throat, warily.

  ‘I was looking for Corla. I need her to look at this cut.’

  ‘The witch too busy to bother with you?’ Tegan asked, then cursed and interrupted Brede’s reply. ‘No. I’m sorry. Corla is laying out the Plains woman.’

  ‘Where?’ Brede asked.

  ‘Leave that for later.’ Tegan inspected Brede thoughtfully. Brede tried to straighten her shoulders and sighed.

  ‘Can you help me?’ she asked. ‘I can’t get out of the mail.’

  Tegan stepped close enough for Brede to feel her breath.

  ‘I am sorry about your sister,’ she said at last, taking the weight of the mail while Brede snaked out of it.

  ‘Thank you.’ Brede shook her hair loose, caught up the mail in her good hand and went out into the yard, heading for the bathhouse. Tegan was relieved that she did not walk into Maeve, who, happily oblivious to Brede’s progress, was caught up in deep conversation with Killan by the gate.

  And what is he doing here? Tegan wondered, heading over to join and break up the huddle of gossip at the sentry post.

  Brede did not have to struggle with the tubs, several willing hands found hot water, and helped her out of her clothes. Eager for rumour, Brede’s audience listened to anything she was willing to say about the morning’s events. They were disappointed with her terse comments, and eventually Brede sank below the surface of the water to escape their questions, but the water started the scalp wound bleeding again, and Riordan went to find Corla, declaring that she would bleed to death else.

  Corla inspected the cut without touching it, calling Riordan to get fresh hot water. She washed her hands while Brede waited docile, blood pouring down her face and curling into the cooling bath.

  Corla probed the wound gently.

  ‘It’s a flesh wound, there isn’t even much bruising. If you’d only let it clot you’ll be fine. Hot water wasn’t the most sensible thing to do.’

  ‘That was for my shoulder.’

  Corla glanced down, observing the bruise seeping up through the skin.

  ‘Can you move it at all?’

  ‘Now, yes.’

  ‘You’ll live,’ Corla said. ‘I’ll find some salve to speed up the healing.’ She slid off the side of the tub and crouched down so that she was level with Brede’s ear.

  ‘Eachan would be glad of your company,’ she said softly, then she was gone.

  Brede eased out of the tub, and dried herself quickly, rejecting Riordan’s joking offer of help. She dragged her clothes on somehow and trailed her mail shirt after her round to the stables.

  She found Eachan sitting beside Jodis’ body in an unused stall. He did not stir as she entered. She flinched at Jodis’ ruined face.

  ‘What happened to the collar?’ she asked at last.

  ‘Doran – removed it. It amused him to have his servants wear collars that reflected their worth to him. Jodis was worth quite a bit.’

  Brede nodded, and gently tied Jodis’ scarf about her neck, hiding the gouge where the careless smith had struck the collar from her lifeless neck.

  ‘The stones were meant for me,’ Brede said, sitting beside Eachan.

  ‘Yes, I think you could be right.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She didn’t realise what you were until you were standing there, being bodyguard. I suppose, to her that was shocking.’

  Eachan turned his head slightly, but Brede was on his blind side, he couldn’t see her expression.

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ Eachan said. ‘She said something to me that makes me think that’s so – she said something else too –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No. I must check first. If I’m right, I will tell you.’

  Brede reached out to trace the tattoo on Jodis’ temple.

  ‘The children?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how many, I don’t know how old. I don’t know where. Did she say anything more to you?’

  Brede shook her head, regretted it as her vision swam.

  ‘Doran said he’d had her six years. They must all be infants. Where –’

  Eachan raised a hand in caution.

  ‘It would not be wise to draw attention to them just now. You couldn’t afford them, Brede, nor could I.’

  Brede withdrew a little; surprised at the rough anger of Eachan’s voice, and the way he anticipated and answered her unspoken questions.

  ‘Why should you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve known Jodis for under three days, but I think I owe that woman something. I’m not sure yet. You know, when she called to me this morning, I thought – only this morning? I thought –’ Eachan covered his face suddenly. ‘Foolishness I expect. I’m turning into a foolish old man.’

  ‘Not old.’

  ‘Not foolish?’

  ‘No, not foolish either.’

  ‘What if it was all planned? What if she was fooling us both? What if she came here trying to find a way in?’

  ‘What she told us was the truth – wasn’t it?’ Brede was suddenly assailed by doubts.

  ‘Yes, she told you the truth, I’m sure of that. What I’m not sure of is why.’

  Brede stayed silent for a long time. Eachan at last turned his head fully to look at her.

  She would not meet his gaze.

  ‘This could have been my sister,’ she said quietly, gesturing at Jodis’ broken body. ‘It could have been me; it could have been any one of Wing Clan. But it was Jodis, and it was Jodis because she tried to help me, and because I didn’t trust her. I didn’t tell her everything, even when she asked.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Brede returned to Grainne’s chambers to find Riordan on guard, and silence and darkness within. She slipped quietly through the main room to the door of Grainne’s bedchamber. It stood open, and she saw two recumbent forms on the bed, Grainne held close within Sorcha’s naked arms. Brede stood motionless for several minutes, and then moved an experimental hand across the threshold. She met gentle resistance. Wards. She turned away, seeking her own bed, desperate to put the distance of sleep between herself and the morning’s events.

  Sleep, and dreams of Falda’s hand-fasting, a quiet affair: their mother’s Marshland birth had meant that Falda and Carolan must ask permission of the Clan.

  Brede smarted at her sister’s humiliation, bristling at her side during the protracted deliberations, but Falda put her arms about her, laughing,

  ‘No one is going to say no, it’s just a game.’

  And no one had said no, because Falda, for all her mixed blood, was Wing Clan to her core. Brede dreamt the dancing, Falda and Carolan skipping joyfully about ,yelling promises to each other, and then Brede dreamt Falda, eight months pregnant, staggering as a horse barrelled into her in the darkness and confusion of the last gather, and then Falda surrounded by dozens of children, Falda lying in the straw of a horse stall, her face ruined and a bloody gash in her neck.

  Brede woke to the soft touch of Sorcha’s lips against her eyelids. She stirred, confused, as Sorcha’s lips caressed upwa
rd to the wound in her scalp. She heard the faint hum of Sorcha’s song purring into her throat, and the wound tingled under Sorcha’s mouth, shaping words against her skin, healing the torn flesh. The stirring spread through her body, waking, warming, exciting. Brede lifted her head slightly, lips against Sorcha’s throat, feeling the vibration there. Sorcha sighed and the humming faltered. Sorcha lowered her head slowly, so that she could see Brede’s face.

  ‘I’m running low on herbs,’ she whispered. Brede stopped her with a kiss. Sorcha twisted away laughing and reached for Brede’s injured shoulder. The humming resumed, a little louder, the words a shade more distinct. A sudden surge of feeling in the torn nerves, and Brede’s newly mobile hand caught at Sorcha’s shirt front, winding fingers into cloth, pulling Sorcha close once more. Sorcha’s hand slipped from shoulder to breast, and Brede’s found places to kiss that had Sorcha giggling.

  ‘I have to get more herbs,’ she whispered. Brede let the cloth between her fingers slip a little.

  ‘I thought you didn’t need them anymore?’

  Sorcha sighed.

  ‘I can’t be awake all day and night. It takes drugs to keep her out of pain when I’m not there and – she’s been lying to me about how much she’s using.’

  Brede reached to stroke Sorcha’s face, aware that she was close to tears.

  ‘I’ll take care of her, go and get whatever it is you need.’

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Sorcha promised, and before Brede could acknowledge her words she vanished, as abruptly as a snuffed candle. Brede’s reaching fingers refused to acknowledge the absence of her warm skin. She scrambled for her sword, and held the hilt tight between both hands, trying for something of which she was certain. She sat staring at the space where Sorcha had been, and then she shook herself, pulled on clothes, and walked swiftly into the main chamber, checking the doors, the windows, even the fireplace, with a thoroughness she knew to be unwarranted.

  Grainne stirred from sleep, and moaned.

  Brede started at the sound and went to the bedchamber door. Grainne’s eyes opened, and Brede straightened to attention.