The Dowry Blade

by Cherry Potts

  Brede watched the moonlight break off the dark ripples of water with a quiet pleasure, unexpected contentment taking some of the knots from her muscles. She stayed for as long as she could bear the numbing cold.

  Resting her hand on Kendra’s knee, Brede indicated her readiness to leave. Kendra stared down at her thoughtfully, before reaching down to pull her very slowly from the pool. The drag of the water was dreadful, and Brede struggled with a moan at the sudden reassertion of her own weight. Kendra cradled her gently as she pushed to her feet and stepped across the slippery stones in one stride. Brede was asleep in her arms before they were back at the cave.

  Kendra was aware that Brede’s only thought was of leaving the safety of her woodland domain. For every improvement in Brede’s twisted, damaged leg, there was another sign of Brede’s determination to leave. Kendra was tempted to keep Brede with her, and nurture their fragile communication, but she had been tempted this way before and it was foolish, there could be no long-term bond between mortals and beings such as Kendra. So Kendra was careful of herself, pulling gently away.

  Brede was aware that Kendra was withdrawing from her, and feared it. She had been spending more time away from the cave, relearning the skill of walking. She rediscovered hunger, thirst; and drank greedily from the river. She used her unsteady progress through the woods to gather mushrooms and berries, edible mosses, the occasional bird’s egg.

  Brede put her weakness down to hunger, which was a constant now. Kendra encouraged Brede’s sorties, not for the exercise alone, but for the sustenance she discovered on her forays. As Brede spent more time away from the cave, as she found her own food, her reliance on the essence that fed Kendra lessened, and gave Kendra hope that Brede would survive without her. She would not allow Brede to fall to the Scavenger through any lack of effort on her part. Brede was her last charge, her last responsibility, and she would see her safe. But to do that she must find a horse. Horses weren’t commonplace in her land, stumbling in by accident, and that rarely. And so she must go outside her domain, to the nearest farm, and take a horse.

  Kendra had not left the narrow strip of woodland that was her world for so long, that she had only a few broken images to supply her memory of what the rest of the world looked like.

  She hadn’t always been tied to the wood. There was a time in her green and eager youth, when she had been tempted out of her safety, to follow a smiling lad, who had forgotten her as soon as he reached the next town; never realising he owed his life to her care, never realising what she was, or what she might had been to him, had he let her into his heart.

  Time had warped for him, and when he at last left Kendra’s arms, his wife was long gone, hand-fasted to some new man down the valley, believing him dead. So Kendra had got her revenge for his leaving, his forgetfulness.

  She wondered whether she wasn’t falling into precisely the same trap with Brede; pouring out her days on someone who would not remember her, who would dismiss her sacrifices as nothing. But no, Brede was not another smiling careless one. Kendra had seen the worried frown play across Brede’s face, when she had allowed her foundling to see her own doubts, her weariness: Brede wouldn’t forget her. They had communicated in their rough and ready silence, in a way the smiling one never attempted. For him, Kendra’s silence had implied devotion and agreement, which had rapidly ceased to exist. Kendra couldn’t remember, now, why she had followed him; but she was glad that she had, for it was to Smiling Conal’s farm she went, to steal a horse for Brede.

  Conal had substantial fences about his field. Kendra stood in the shadow of the nearest trees, measuring the distances, trying to smell if Conal was about, and whether he kept dogs. She moved so slowly across the clearing that between the forest edge and his fence, that her movement would only be seen if someone were to look straight at her. The horses didn’t notice.

  Kendra laid her hand gently on the dead wood of Conal’s fence. Her skin looked almost as dead as the bleached and dry paling. She gave a tug, and the post pulled from the earth as though it were water. One of the horses raised its head, startled by the unexpected movement.

  She pushed the crossbar gently, and the fence folded in on itself. The horse looked at her curiously, puzzled at the sudden appearance of what appeared to be a tree. He walked towards her, stretching his neck out so as to investigate from as safe a distance as he could. Kendra offered a hand, and he scratched against her bark-like skin.

  The other horse started out of its reverie, and whinnied shrilly. A dog started barking, and there was an abrupt jerky movement from the porch of the shack-like building on the far side of the field. The horse shied from Kendra, stepping away uncertainly. Kendra stared across the field at the bent old man woken from his afternoon nap. She didn’t recognise him, for this wasn’t Conal after all, the smiler had gone with the Scavenger many years past. This one might be his son’s son, or even further down the generational ladder. This one was not so tall, and not so ready to smile as his handsome ancestor.

  Kendra sighed to herself, and resolved to banish any remaining tenderness for Conal’s memory. She beckoned the horse closer and took hold of its halter. She led the horse carefully over the broken fence. She ignored the cry of protest from the other side of the field. She might not move swiftly, but she was faster than the old man and the horse came willingly.

  There was no sign of Brede at the cave. Kendra tethered the horse, and ducked under the entrance.

  No Brede, but there was another.

  What are you doing here? Kendra asked, angry and taken aback.

  Kendra, the Scavenger said, in soft reproach.

  The word span across the space between them and uncoiled into Kendra’s being. She stepped back, trying to escape the strange feeling of disintegrating.

  What are you doing? she asked, frightened now.

  I’ve come for your soul, the Scavenger replied.

  It is not time, Kendra protested, her certainty of that fact failing her briefly.

  No? I thought I felt something – the Scavenger turned her head thoughtfully from one side to another. I thought I heard something dying? But here you still are.

  I have no soul, Kendra offered.

  Yes you do. You’ve had a soul ever since you picked up that bleeding boy, and kept him from me. You have picked up a veneer of mortality. I can smell it.

  Conal? Kendra asked, startled into it, with her memories of him so recently woken.

  Was that his name? the Scavenger asked. You’ve kept me from my work too many times for me to remember them all. I remember the first, and I will remember this last one. I look forward to taking them most, when you go wherever it is you go.

  Have them now, and welcome, Kendra signed, confident that the Scavenger could harm neither her, nor her charge. She did not hold Brede’s soul, nor did she need any soul she might have.

  The Scavenger was startled at so easy a capitulation.

  How will you manage without them? she asked, not understanding even now, that Kendra was not mortal in the way the Scavenger understood.

  She got no answer; Kendra had moved to the cave mouth. She had heard something, felt something, and was drawn by the cry, as she was always drawn.

  But the Scavenger had told her that there would be no more souls for her to rescue, that Brede would be her last charge, and so, that cry must go unanswered. Kendra had a momentary fear that the cry might, after all, be Brede. She feared that she had been tricked into giving away her protection of Brede. She turned back to the Scavenger, her hands raised to ask, and saw the disappointed frown on the face of death’s messenger.

  Kendra smiled. She had won.

  Brede’s grip on the sword altered as she entered the cave, alerted to potential danger by the horse outside.

  ‘Greeting,’ she said politely, although there was a chill in her heart that made her tremble. Brede had never known Kendra be so still, so tense. Her voice was scarcely a whisper it had been used so little of late, but it hit the stillness
and something of the tension broke.

  Yes, Brede thought, that immobility had been fear. Anger for Kendra’s dread reminded her tongue of how it once made words. She punctured the silence again.

  ‘Is that your horse outside?’

  That other, the uncertain being that she couldn’t quite see, answered casually, ‘No, I believe it is yours.’

  But there was nothing casual about this meeting. Brede sensed the purpose tightening at her throat. Although that other had spoken, Brede was aware of no voice. Mostly she was conscious of an absence, an emptiness about the figure, which seemed intent on drawing her in.

  Brede glanced at Kendra, hoping for an explanation of the terror. Kendra smiled uneasily, still half listening to the crying out in the woods.

  ‘Who are you?’ Brede asked.

  ‘You don’t need to know that,’ the Scavenger said. ‘Not yet. But I shall not forget that you asked. I’ll even give you the advice that Kendra can’t bring herself to give. Leave here at once. The horse is for you, a gift from Kendra. Be grateful. You’ve made better progress than I would have thought possible.’

  Brede stepped towards the stranger, sensing that she was about to leave, trying to restrain her. The Scavenger raised a warning hand.

  ‘I would not advise you to touch me, not this time. We will meet again.’ The Scavenger turned to Kendra. ‘I am disappointed, and puzzled. I don’t understand how you have kept this one from me.’ And she walked through the Gate, and vanished.

  Brede turned to Kendra, sensing a tremor of delight in her companion.

  It is over, Kendra signed, and now you must leave. Take the horse, get away from here, go and find your own kind.

  I don’t know if that is what I want, Brede offered, trying to fathom the urgency of Kendra’s fingers.

  You must. It is time.

  Brede nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Kendra,’ she said aloud, trying out the name, recognising why the sign for the name was as it was.

  Kendra gazed at her for a while, measuring the life in her, feeling that the balance had been reached. There was nothing more to be done. She felt Brede’s voice slide into her heart, felt her name spoken with love for the only time in her life. She smiled, grateful for the Scavenger’s carelessness, in allowing Brede that knowledge, and herself this unexpected luxury, to hear her name from Brede’s lips.

  Take your horse, take that blade, make a life.

  Brede glanced at the weapon. The sword was blunt and dull now.

  ‘It’s not my sword,’ she said aloud. Nor ever had been, yet here it still was, a curse, clinging to her. Well, there was an answer to that.

  I will take it back to Lorcan. Let him have the monstrous thing if he wants it, and my curses with it.

  It is only a sword, Kendra signed. There is no curse on it, no special secrets. It is only metal, wrought by an intelligent smith into something that has been used for evil. It is a tool, nothing more. Even as she built the words Kendra was rejecting them, knowing they were not her words, not her persuasion. She couldn’t stop her fingers building the half-truths.

  Brede shook her head. At every turn, since she found it, the blade had marred her life. The only solution now, was to be rid of it.

  It is time, Kendra signed again, feeling the pain of losing this, her last foundling, and wanting it over swiftly.

  Brede stretched her arms to embrace the rough solidity of Kendra’s body. Kendra placed careful hands on Brede’s shoulders, remembering with painful clarity, the last time anyone embraced her. It must be two hundred seasons or more. She sighed.

  Brede stepped away from her, gathering up the sword. She glanced about the cave, and gathered up the mushrooms, tying them into a corner of her ragged shirt. Then, with one last look, she turned, and limped from the cave.

  Kendra watched her go, and then thought herself into the earth, roots delving deep, seeking solace for the silence of her being; a comfort that seemed, for once, elusive.

  Chapter Forty

  Brede stumbled from the cave, her mind full of the journey ahead, Kendra already half forgotten. She ran a cautious hand over the horse’s shoulder. Certainly not Plains bred. Not even an animal trained to be ridden, more of a plough beast. Brede glanced back at the entrance to the cave, feeling guilty at her silent criticism of the beast. Kendra had done what she could. But with no saddle, riding an untrained horse would be difficult.

  She led the horse to the boulder that had been one of the milestones in her recovery. She steadied herself, scrambling painfully onto the stone, and whispered a terrible threat to the horse, should it dare move whilst she tried to get across its broad back. The animal flicked a deprecating ear, and stood still.

  Brede settled cautiously into the familiar position on the horse’s back. Her bare feet reached uncertainly, and she wondered how she would manage to get back to the ground. The horse raised an inquiring head, not, as she had feared, unused to being ridden. She collected the rough rope rein in her hands. She was a child again: too far off the ground, on a horse too broad in the shoulder for her. Frightened, but exhilarated. It was hard to get the horse to respond to her weakened kicking, and she was grateful for the horse’s ploughing, for it responded to spoken commands.

  To ride, after so long scarce able to walk, was at once a luxury, and a torment. New muscles were pulled and twisted into a fire of pain. Brede wasn’t sure she could stand it for long. She walked the beast in a slow circle about the clearing. Possible, perhaps even wonderful. Brede grinned – a certain fearful delight. She glanced once more at the cave, wanting to say goodbye, but uneasy with the thought of dismounting from the horse. There was no sign of Kendra. Hesitating only a second longer, Brede sketched a farewell into the air, and encouraged the horse into a more purposeful walk.

  As she rode out from the trees Brede was overcome by a haze of memories that she did not wish to examine, full as they were of terror, and of Sorcha. She blanked those thoughts with scrupulous care, and mapped out the lie of the land in her mind, tracing the distances she must cover, the direction to follow. She scarcely noticed the certainty she had for the route. There was a road, and the sun weak in a cloudy sky to give her a hope of finding her way.

  She wasn’t as cautious as she should have been. She rode carelessly along the road, without a thought as to the progress of the war, or who held these lands. It was hard to turn her mind to those concerns again, to scan the horizon for signs of habitation, or for riders; her mind was too full of pain and how to endure it.

  The first farm Brede came to she entered, careless of danger, hoping only to confirm her tentative mental map. The gate was smashed, the hearth cold. Brede sifted the jumble of rotting furniture quickly, hoping for anything that might be of use. She found a belt, but not, as she had hoped, any food or any boots. She couldn’t continue barefoot indefinitely. Sure sign of a stolen horse, riding barefoot, bareback. She couldn’t afford those suspicions falling on her.

  On then, harder to get to the horse’s back this time, her muscles refusing to translate her wishes into motion. She had to lead the horse to a wall, and scramble up. Her muscles leapt in protest, and she was grateful for the patient indifference of the horse, which allowed her to spend many moments gripping his mane, waiting for her body to accept the shock of the climb up the wall, before permitting her the risk of the horse’s back.

  Brede started to look about her, at the empty fields, rock strewn, dusty. There had been no drought, so the crops must have either never been sown, or have been destroyed by some passing army. She tried to reckon the time of year. There was a cold bite to the air, and the leaves had turned, some trees already reaching bare branches towards the unpromising sun. Time had been passing, and she hadn’t seen it. She tried to reckon it up. It must be at least two years since she had fallen into that gorge, into Kendra’s land, perhaps a little more. Her reckoning faltered, it could as easily be three years, four – it was not so late in the year. Brede’s mind avoided the thought, trying not t
o remember the falling, the pain, Sorcha. And another thought lodged, limpet-like. An army, set on starving the villages here, but who, and why, seemed irrelevancies; there was only danger.

  And so, darkness. The cold deepened, and her threadbare clothing didn’t keep out the wind. Cold and pain and hunger kept her awake; kept her moving.

  Only when dawn greyness lit the sky did Brede stop, brought up short by the sight of a river, and the charred remains of a bridge. On the other bank there was a building, an inn perhaps, with smoke rising in a lazy trail from its smouldering ruins. Brede walked the horse a few paces into the water, determined to cross, but the bank shelved steeply, and the footing was difficult, many-coloured pebbles shifted noisily under the horse’s hooves.

  Pebbles.

  She stopped. So bright they seemed, those small rounded stones, water-splashed and shining in the wan sunlight. She gazed across the river again, trying to pull her memory into order. This was the same river: she was a few miles further upstream, but it was the same river. Brede forced the horse around, unwelcome memory dragging at her mind as the water dragged against the movement. Out of the water once more, Brede scanned the bank, and the stony path that led alongside it, overgrown with straggling late brambles. The horse, distracted, pulled a meagre mouthful of leaves from the nearest bush. Brede glanced at the plant, and approved the animal’s choice. She pulled an eager handful of not yet rotten berries from the stem, stuffing them into her mouth. The almost bitter juice and the coating of dirt caught her throat, but she swallowed hard, stripping more berries from the bush with concentrated urgency until she had eaten all that she could reach. The acid sat uneasily in her stomach, burning, curdling.

  Brede urged the horse along the track, aware that the path had been used recently, despite its overgrown state – the brambles were trampled in places, there were skid marks in the stony earth. Someone had come this way recently, and in a hurry. It was then that she saw the body, lying half in the water. The horse shied away, and Brede allowed him his head, a few steps only, and the beast calmed, but refused to go nearer.