by Cherry Potts
‘Well?’ Brede asked, flinging herself back to the ground and gathering up her blankets.
Sorcha said nothing, startled to find that what had begun as a distraction had become protection after all. Something she had always known filtered into her mind, the subtle strength of Brede’s voice.
‘They’ll serve their purpose,’ Sorcha said, weakly. ‘Can you not see them?’
Brede shook her head. ‘I’ve never been able to.’ She turned her gaze to Neala. ‘You: go to sleep or Sorcha will sing you a sleep skein.’
Neala laughed, and settled back into her blankets.
‘Except that I can’t,’ Sorcha murmured, seeking the comfort of Brede’s arms. Brede instinctively stroked Sorcha’s hair away from her face, as though the darkness in her mind could be brushed away with the same ease.
Sorcha shuddered at that touch: death could be gentle; there could be no comfort in tenderness.
Chapter Thirty-Three
So many days now, with no sign of danger – Brede had begun to relax. They were far into the plains, with no hope of cover, when the clouds at last spilt their burden of rain. And then, at last, there was a smudge of motion on the horizon, far to the east. Brede watched, uncertain. She did not believe it was the feared pursuit. Not even Lorcan would send so many at such speed as a hunting party, not even for the sake of the Dowry blade; but it might still be an army. She wasn’t used to identifying horses in rain – most of her herding experience was gained during the drought, when a cloud of dust would have been the first sign, visible from much further away. So she waited to bring the blur to her companions’ attention until it finally solidified, and was indeed a herd of horses.
Brede encouraged Guida into motion. She felt Neala tense against her.
‘It may not be Wing Clan,’ Brede warned.
Neala shrugged. ‘It’s a Horse Clan.’
Brede laughed at Neala’s pretended calm. The first time she joined a herding on these plains she had almost choked on her excitement.
Closer now, the horses were clearly visible. The herders had seen them; their pace had increased noticeably, and three of the outriders were diverging, making towards the strangers.
Brede’s breath came short, waiting for hailing distance, but the riders wheeled into a defensive stand, waiting for the strangers to come to them.
Sorcha pulled Macsen in, slowing his pace. The herders each carried a spear, where once the only weapon on the plain had been a sling and a handful of stones. Brede rode further and stopped within range of those spears, and waited for the herders to speak. She searched for a face she recognised.
‘What do you want?’ asked the older of the two women.
Brede baulked at the use of a trade language but replied in her native tongue.
‘I look for kin. I am blood of Wing Clan.’
The woman relaxed slightly, but her eyes stayed wary.
‘Who are you?’
‘Brede, daughter of Ahern. And you?’
‘Muirne, daughter of Toole and Brenna.’
‘You are Wing Clan then?’ Brede asked eagerly. ‘I didn’t recognise you. Does Toole still keep that vicious stallion he bought from Cein?’
‘Toole is dead. The horse is a good stud beast, but still unmanageable. He runs in my string now.’
‘I am sorry for it. Will you tell me, is Carolan still riding with Wing Clan?’
‘Your sister’s hand-mate is with this herd –’ Muirne shook her head slightly.
Brede felt Neala’s grip tighten, and shook her arm free of her niece’s clasp.
‘I have Carolan’s daughter with me.’
‘His daughter?’ Muirne was frowning now, and unease fluttered under Brede’s ribs.
‘Falda was carrying a child,’ Brede said cautiously, ‘when we lost her at the last Gather. She was taken into captivity and bore her child safely, but she died four years ago.’
Muirne’s frown vanished once more. She urged her horse forward; until she could look Neala straight in the eye, could search for signs of her parentage. She reached out a hand and smiled.
‘Well, and what did she name her daughter?’ she asked, as though this were a chance meeting beside a horse ring.
Neala stretched awkwardly across Guida’s neck, and took the hand she was offered. With quiet dignity, she introduced herself. Muirne laughed aloud.
‘Your sisters will be glad.’
‘Sisters?’ Neala asked, wondering how swiftly her unknown father had forgotten her mother.
‘My daughters. I hand-fasted with Carolan six years ago.’
Brede swallowed the muddle of emotion at Carolan’s hand-fasting, at least Neala had been offered some form of acceptance. The last time she had seen these riders they must too have been children. In that dreadful searching, they had shivered and wailed as Wing Clan gathered them safely together, like herding foals away from their mothers. How many had been lost – she did not recognise any of these three riders from that last memory, nor from earlier memories of the child-herd running in amongst the horses and their elders at the Gathers, shrieking and whooping and laughing.
Muirne reached again and absentmindedly rubbed her hand along Guida’s neck; she found the tattoo.
‘Falda’s,’ she said softly. ‘We have a few of her mares still and many of their offspring,’ she smiled at Neala. ‘You will have a good string to start your herd.’
‘Me?’ Neala asked confused.
Muirne nodded, and raised her eyes to Brede. ‘You too, we found a few of yours running loose after you’d gone. Carolan and Devnet kept them for you, in case you came back.’
Brede gazed at her in silent astonishment.
‘I have horses?’
Muirne laughed. ‘We buy or steal any horse we come across with an uncancelled mark.’
Neala twisted to glare in triumph at Brede and mouthed You see? Brede clasped her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.
Muirne glanced at Sorcha.
‘So,’ Muirne said, recovering her poise. ‘You and Neala are kin. Who’s this?’
Brede twisted slightly to beckon Sorcha forward. Macsen behaved, stepping delicately and docile, holding his head so that any horse breeder would know he had more mettle than he chose to show. Sorcha murmured him to absolute stillness, and spoke.
‘My name is Sorcha.’ She faltered, what was she, now? ‘I am Brede’s – hand-mate.’ Sorcha chose that word with care, regardless of its limited truth. She caught Brede’s startled, pleased glance, and smiled slightly.
There was a hostile stirring and the young man murmured ‘City dweller,’ at the sound of Sorcha’s accent.
‘So are you riding one of Brede’s or Falda’s horses? He’s clearly Plains bred.’
Sorcha glanced helplessly at Brede.
‘No,’ Brede said. ‘He’s another stolen at the Gather. One of Cloud’s, but I don’t recognise the mark.’
The man started forward at that, and Muirne nodded to him, saying ‘Murtagh will know.’ He rode across to Sorcha and searched Macsen’s neck.
‘Macsen,’ he said. Sorcha started. He glared at her suspiciously, and Macsen sidled, feeling the tension between them.
‘Macsen is what I named him,’ Sorcha said quietly. Murtagh considered.
‘Well his breeder is long dead, it serves well enough for the horse to bear his name as well as his mark; though by rights this horse should come back to Cloud.’ Murtagh shrugged, relinquishing Cloud’s claim.
Muirne stared anxiously after the disappearing herd.
‘Murtagh, ride after them, tell them to wait.’
Murtagh dipped his spear point slightly, kicked his horse into an easy canter, and chased after the receding herd.
Muirne spoke swiftly. ‘Murtagh is one of the few of Cloud left. They ride with us now; they were no longer viable as a Clan.’ Brede nodded, mind reeling at the thought of a Clan so depleted. Muirne bit her lip. ‘A lot has changed since the last Gather; I hardly know where to begin telling you – it really isn’t the
same.’ Muirne shook her head, and turned her horse abruptly to follow the herd.
Brede caught her breath at the size of the herd. Muirne frowned at the glance she swept across the herd.
‘It is enough,’ she said curtly. ‘We don’t have so many Clan members to feed these days. You were not the only one to give up the plains.’ Brede was about to protest, but Muirne hadn’t finished her explanation. ‘We can move more swiftly with this number, and they are the finest beasts I’ve ever raised. They fetch a good price when we choose to sell.’
Murtagh came forward from the waiting herd. Brede recognised the man with him at once. Carolan glanced apologetically at Muirne, who did no more than raise a shoulder. Brede grinned at him; close kin, someone who had been a friend, a counsellor to her youthful, half-forgotten self.
Carolan considered the woman before him, searching her face for the child-woman he remembered – wincing away from the metal-clad warrior that girl had become. At last he allowed his eyes to drop to Neala, another child-woman, he realised at once, another warrior. He measured the serious, eager, frightened, demanding countenance Neala offered him and opened his arms in welcome, beyond speech for the moment.
Neala ran to her father’s horse, placing her hands against rein and saddle. She looked up at him, a little solemn, but ready to forgive him for being a stranger with a new hand-mate and daughters. Carolan leant to her, offering a hand and Neala sprang up to sit before him on the saddle, managing the leap neatly.
Carolan gathered up his reins, encircling his newfound daughter, holding her gently, wonderingly. He inclined his head to Brede.
‘We’re almost at a watering place. We’ll camp there, and you can tell us,’ he hesitated. ‘You can tell us.’
With the horses corralled and fires lit, Carolan gathered his people to him. They huddled beside the main fire, waiting for the strangers to speak.
Carolan hugged Neala close to him, remembering, with fleeting clarity, the moment when his hand slipped from Falda’s as they ran from arrows in the darkness of the last Gather. He was not about to make the same mistake now.
Brede scanned the faces about the fire, uneasy with the role of news-bringer. She would rather sit quiet by a fireside, and drink, and later explore her new-found herd. She would rather talk privately with Carolan about Falda, although Neala would have more to say than she could – no: it was the private mourning she craved, surrounded by people who had known, had loved her sister. She found she could remember some faces from that terrible morning after all. This woman, she remembered as an older girl, drawn and trembling, cradling her lifeless young brother against her – she would not be parted from him, crazed with grief. Well they had all been crazed then, Brede as much as any other. Brede’s heart lurched with sudden realisation – all crazed – yes. All this time she had been blaming Devnet for something not of Devnet’s doing, nor within Devnet’s power to mend. Not Devnet’s fault: she had felt the same pain and fear as any of Wing Clan that dreadful morning. If Tegan could be forgiven, how not Devnet?
Brede found her suddenly. She met Devnet’s gaze, and tried to make that dagger-intensity soften.
Devnet – Brede forgot to breathe. Devnet – her first lover, her first real friend; but now –
Devnet watched Brede with curiosity. She observed how strong she was in the shoulders, how her face had thinned and her eyes deepened. She moved like – like a warrior, surprising, impressive. There was just a hint of the young Brede, in the way her hair refused to stay bound, in the way her hands wouldn’t stay still. Devnet let her glance encompass those hands, stirring uneasily, pushing the mailed sleeves up her arms, exposing scars that hadn’t been there before. Strong, capable hands. Devnet remembered, and smiled.
Sorcha watched for the Scavenger. She examined each face, each stance, and couldn’t recognise anything that Brede had claimed for her kin. No strength of mind or spirit presented itself, in the ninety or more Plains folk before her. Pride, suspicion, even fear. And something else, something even less welcoming. Sorcha searched for it, and caught the gaze of a woman sitting the far side of the fire, one leg bent under her, and her chin resting on the knee of the other, hands clasped about her shin. The tension, the curiosity, the intensity of her gaze alarmed Sorcha. The haze from the fire between them made her face seem to waver, but her eyes did not. It was not Sorcha she watched, but Brede. The woman smiled a slow, feral, threatening smile. She closed her eyes slightly, and turned her head. Brede started at the break in the contact.
The shuffling and murmuring died to a waiting silence. Brede rose to her feet, feeling that her welcome was not as certain as she would like.
‘Greetings to Wing Clan,’ she began formally, ‘from your kinswoman, Brede, daughter to Ahern of Wing Clan.’ She smiled suddenly, warmed by a sudden recognition of what those words meant. Kin. ‘There are some here who remember me, across the ten years we’ve been apart. I had a sister, hand-fast to Carolan of this Clan. We all thought her dead at the last Gather, but it wasn’t so – Falda was taken into slavery. She bore a child away from the plains, away from her kin, in bondage,’ her voice failed her for a moment, ‘to a man named Madoc.’
She felt rather than heard the stir in the crowd, and hesitated, looking about for who had reacted, trying to divine why. She caught up the thread of her tale again.
‘My sister died in bondage, her child was sold. But I have found her, and brought her home to her father. She is called Neala. I claim her rights for her.’
Brede waited for Carolan to acknowledge her claim.
‘I recognise this child as my daughter; I offer her a share of my fire, a share of my herd, a share of the sky. Would any gainsay her?’
A soft murmur of acceptance spread about the fire. The rain was easing, making it easier to distinguish individual voices. Carolan squeezed her hand gently, and Neala, in her turn, stepped forward.
‘Greetings to Wing Clan, from your kinswoman, Neala: daughter to Carolan and Falda of Wing Clan. I accept my share of the fire, the herd and the sky,’ Neala grinned round at her kin, ‘joyfully, after much hope and long waiting.’
She was welcomed with laughter and whistles. She looked anxiously at Carolan, and he nodded, beckoning her to sit beside him. Carolan inclined his head to Brede. She smiled, more confident now. Riding the wave of good humour, she gazed at the Clan, and picked Devnet from the crowd again. Devnet’s face was a mask of fury. Brede glanced quickly at the people on either side of Devnet, they were edging away, and there was furtive wariness in the glances that shot from other groups, at Devnet, but also at Brede.
‘You speak ill of a friend of this Clan,’ Devnet said. ‘You speak ill of kin.’
Brede glanced at Carolan, confused.
‘Madoc is hand-fasted to Wing Clan,’ Carolan muttered.
‘What?’ Brede asked in shock, her tongue running ahead of her mind.
‘Devnet,’ Carolan responded, still keeping his voice low.
‘Devnet?’ Brede took an uneasy breath. ‘Well, there is more I would say concerning Madoc.’ How to say it? ‘Some more things that you won’t wish to hear, Devnet.’ Brede took a steadying breath. ‘He is a general in Grainne’s army. Did he tell you that much, at least?’
Devnet heart raced suddenly, but she didn’t let that show on her face. ‘That is what was said, kinswoman. But I also heard there was a Plains woman acting bodyguard for the Queen. I didn’t believe it until I saw you, with your mail shirt, and your green cloak. So now I believe the general, with this evidence before me. So why should I disbelieve what else he said?’
Brede nodded slowly, trying to control the fury that made her limbs shake dully with the need for movement. ‘Madoc told you about me, did he? Have you forgotten how we escaped the carnage of that massacre together? Have you forgotten the scar I bear across my shoulder, and how you pulled me out from under that blow, to safety? Devnet, you can’t tell me you’ve forgotten.’
‘I’ve not forgotten,’ Devnet agreed, thinking of
Brede, raving with wound-fever, blaming her for Falda’s death, blaming her.
‘You don’t know who it was commanded those troops,’ Brede continued. ‘And you couldn’t know until now who carried off my sister to die slowly in captivity.’
Brede glanced at Carolan, and was certain that his hands were shaking, where they grasped his newfound daughter.
‘It was Madoc who kept Carolan’s hand-mate and daughter in slavery.’ Brede wiped tears from her face, scarcely aware she was weeping, she reached out, half believing she was still talking to the Devnet she remembered from her youth, trying to say something to reach her. ‘But worse, Devnet, it was Madoc who commanded that raid, Madoc who scattered Wing Clan and destroyed Cloud.’
Brede caught Murtagh’s incredulous look, and the way his body shifted, away from Devnet.
Devnet was on her feet in an instant, hearing only that Brede was somehow blaming her again.
‘What kind of – jealousy – revenge – is this, Brede?’
Brede tried to keep her voice level, but she couldn’t keep the tremor of grief and anger from her words.
‘Not jealousy, Devnet, not revenge; truth. Madoc’s raiders, Devnet, and his sword, in defiance of the orders he was given. No one else is to blame for the loss of our kin, no one but him.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Devnet said, her voice harsh, rage twisting her face. ‘You’ve spent too much time in the city, you’ve been – corrupted, you – you are not my kin.’
Not her kin? There was nothing worse than that. Brede shook off Sorcha’s restraining hand.
‘Madoc is no kin of mine,’ Brede said, her voice jagged with shaking. ‘Any who claim kin with him are kin to a murderer – and a slaver. Those actions are his; and they are the actions of any who claim kin with him.’
‘This is madness,’ Devnet said, desperately, half believing it as she said it.
Brede fought a pain in her chest, drawing her breath in tight gasps; ‘You haven’t seen the slave markets, Devnet,’ she said, and her voice died. She swallowed and tried again. ‘You haven’t seen women tattooed by your hand-mate’s friends, you haven’t seen slave collars, or watched children sold away from their mothers. If you take Madoc to your fire, that is where you are taking this Clan. That is madness.’