Chosen by Fire

by Harriet Locksley

  She was rooted to the spot until someone shouted ‘cart coming through’. She and Aedan hurried across the road as wheels sliced through the dirt an inch away from them, Aedan knocking the stool of a barber who was shaving a man’s face at the side of the road. The barber nicked the man’s skin and a streak of blood trickled down. Her nerves were so frayed that Kaetha jumped at the thwack of a butcher’s bloodied meat cleaver.

  Finally, she thought when they reached a crooked building with a wooden sign which swung, creaking in the wind, inscribed with the name ‘The Star’. Tam led them to a side door down an alleyway and Kaetha made herself and Aedan visible again before knocking.

  “Ewan Whyte?” she said to the bald man who opened the door.

  “Aye?” he said, squinting at her.

  “I think you know our friend, Alistair?”

  He peered up and down the alley, then grabbed her arm and drew her inside. “This way, my dear.”

  THIRTY NINE

  Sanctuary

  Ewan Whyte led them down a passageway lined with barrels and, catching a small movement at the corner of her vision, she realised that Tam had followed them in as a mouse.

  “Our mutual friend told me that you would be visiting, Kaetha,” he said in a low voice, “and I want you to feel most welcome under my roof. This is your father, I suppose. You’re welcome, too, my good man. I must say you both look remarkably well, considering . . .” he hesitated, “well, considering all that has occurred.” He took them into an empty room, closed a door behind them and lifted a trapdoor in the floor. “If you’d be so kind.” He gestured down the steps. “I’m afraid I must be getting back to my customers but I shall return.” And with that, he was gone.

  Kaetha noticed her father’s muscles tense. She understood. She had also had quite enough of descending into dark, underground rooms. Hesitating, she wondered if it might be a trap.

  “Come on, then,” said Aedan. As he eased himself down the steps, he did his best to stifle his sounds of pain. Her heart went out to him. She felt like she could so easily collapse in a sobbing heap from not only her physical pain but her emotional and mental exhaustion as well, whenever she thought too much about what had happened to her. She could only imagine how her father must feel after suffering days and days of torture.

  She followed him into a room about the same size as her dungeon cell had been, though at least this room benefitted from a shaft of light coming in through a small window just beneath the ceiling.

  Gwyn sat across the room, chewing a thumbnail. It still surprised Kaetha to see her dressed in a short tunic and trews, with her long hair loose and her arm tattoos bared. She noticed a long cloak beside her which must have masked her Edonian appearance out in the city. Alistair would not have looked out of place in a seat of honour in the king’s great hall, his appearance forming a marked contrast to that of Gwyn. Yet he was sat beside this unashamedly Edonian woman in a shabby, dusty room, drumming his fingers on a broken table. When they noticed Aedan and herself, they leapt to their feet. Tam scrambled into his human-like form, making Alistair stagger backwards.

  “Hell’s teeth!” exclaimed the laird. “Why does he keep doing that?”

  “Tam said you’re hurt,” said Gwyn to Kaetha.

  “Both of us are,” she replied.

  “My lady,” said Aedan, inclining his head. “It’s been a long time.” Kaetha was surprised to see him offer his hand for Gwyn to shake. Her aunt had been instrumental in driving her parents apart and she watched intently to see to see how she would treat this man who had once been a source of shame to her, just like herself.

  “No ‘my lady’s please. It’s Gwyn.” She shook his hand, then took his arm and walked him to her seat. “Sit. You look pale.” Kaetha also thought he looked older and, when a fit of coughing came over him, the rattle in his chest did not escape her attention, nor the worried glance Gwyn shared with Alistair. “Here.” Gwyn went to a side table and poured wine. “Drink this. I’ve infused some strengthening herbs in it.”

  Gwyn poured one for Kaetha too and she gulped it down, not realising how thirsty she had been.

  “Will Mairi and Donnan meet us here?” she asked.

  “Aye,” said Gwyn.

  “When?”

  Gwyn hesitated. “Soon. They should be here soon.” Kaetha didn’t like the uncertain tone which accompanied these words. “Now,” said Gwyn, picking up a bag. “Come this way, lass.” She took Kaetha into a small adjoining room lined with more crates and barrels. She helped remove Kaetha’s cloak and lifted her kirtle and smock to reveal her back.

  Her wounds stung as her aunt pressed a wine-soaked cloth to them. Then Gwyn opened her bag and the fragrance of herbs mingled with the smells of blood and wine.

  “You made a poultice?” said Kaetha.

  “We don’t want contagion to set in.”

  “You’ll treat Aedan too?”

  “Of course.”

  The soft mass of cooling herbs gave Kaetha momentary relief but the pain soon crept back again. Gwyn bound the poultice in place with layers of cloth around her torso. “Keep it on until tomorrow if you can,” she said, helping Kaetha to dress in new garments she retrieved from her bag. “I wish I had something to give you for the pain.”

  “It will ease.”

  Her aunt lowered her voice. “It grieves me that I have also been the cause of pain for you, Kaetha. I’m sorry for that.”

  A lump rose in Kaetha’s throat. “You lied to me about who I am.”

  “For your sake, I did.”

  “For my sake?” She shook her head in confusion.

  Gwyn paused. “Long ago, after your mother and I fled the wars in the Edonian lands, Queen Donella persuaded King Alran to offer us his protection. He wanted to appear to treat Edonian refugees well. If he did not, those sympathetic to our old cause might rise up against him. So we lived well, first at court, then at Feodail Hall, bequeathed to us by Queen Donella. But our oaths of loyalty were not enough for him to trust us. Our movements were watched, our servants questioned, any correspondence monitored. Of course, we were not free to marry according to our own will either.”

  Kaetha took some time to let this new view of her guardians’ lives settle in her mind. “What do you mean by ‘our old cause’?” she asked.

  Gwyn did not answer at first and Kaetha wondered how much she still wanted to keep from her. Then Gwyn looked her in the eye and spoke in hushed tones. “I meant the reclaiming of Edonian ancestral lands.”

  “He was scared of you marrying someone who might plot against him,” said Kaetha.

  “Or of us producing offspring who would grow up to be a threat to him and his dynasty. Much better for him if we didn’t marry at all or married Dalrathans of his choice.”

  Kaetha blinked, taking this in. Gwyn and her mother had lied about who she was because the fact of her existence went against King Alran’s will. But what kind of threat could she have been to him? Then she thought of the power she carried within her, the embers that waited ready to flare up and burn at any moment and she pictured the burnt face of King Alran’s son Svelrik. Perhaps Alran had been right to prepare for a threat; it just wasn’t the kind he had imagined.

  Gwyn turned her back to Kaetha as she prepared a bowl of fresh wine and retrieved clean cloths from her bag, ready for treating Aedan’s wounds. “Despite his queen’s assurances,” she continued, “it seems he suspected we were born of one of the ruling clans, one that might, given time, gain the strength to rise up against him. But the Trylenn’s, though we had been lairds and ladies of a small settlement for some generations, were no family to be of threat to a Dalrathan king.”

  “I understand why others couldn’t know who I was. But you didn’t need to keep on lying to me as if I was a child who might tell anyone. You should have trusted me, been honest with me. Don’t you understand how much it hurt that you didn’t?” Her old pain resurfaced – that sharp feeling of rejection. “I had a right to know who I was. You talk of
King Alran controlling your life but what have you tried to do to mine? Both you and my mother.”

  Gwyn sighed, her back to Kaetha still. “I did what I thought was for the best. I’m not asking for you to forgive me.” She faced Kaetha then, her eyes rimmed red. “All I ask is that you understand that all I did, I did out of love.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a thin roll of fabric. Neat stitching showed through at the edge. “She loved you so much too, you know. She would have told you the truth sooner had I not convinced her it was unwise. Here, I thought you’d like to have something of hers.” She placed the fabric in Kaetha’s hands. “It’s the embroidery she was working on. I thought that, someday, you might want to pick up the threads.”

  Kaetha unrolled the piece of sewing. It bore an array of images in colourful threads – Edonian symbols, Dalrathan letters, faces that held familiarity in their careful stitches – all floating in a dreamlike arrangement, as the mind drifts from one thought to another. Unable to speak, she held the fabric tenderly as she followed her aunt back into the main room.

  After Gwyn had treated Aedan’s wounds, Ewan brought down food and Kaetha’s mouth watered at the smell of meaty stew and fresh baked bread. Yet she sat a long while without eating, twisting a spoon in her hand as she sat on the floor at her father’s feet, gazing up at the patch of cloud through the high window.

  “They’ll be here,” said Aedan. He couldn’t sit still and was clearly just as worried as she was. “We’ll soon be all together again.”

  But what then? she thought. Her escape must have left Svelrik humiliated. Soon word of what had happened would spread. He would surely be more anxious to find her than look for her father, she realised. The further away she was from him, the safer he would be. This fact filled her mind like the unfurling of a sail. I will have to leave them all. Her throat tightened and she had to put aside her stew. She rested her head on her father’s knee, not knowing how to tell him, so she said nothing, just sitting there, curling her hand over his.

  “There’s something you should know, Kaetha,” said her aunt. “Mairi wasn’t sure about this at first but eventually she agreed with me. We feel that you will not be safe as long as you’re here.”

  It was painful to hear these words spoken but she was, at the same time, relieved that someone else had brought up the subject so that she didn’t have to.

  “What are you saying, Gwyn?” said Aedan.

  “She will have to leave the country to get out of Svelrik’s reach.” She touched Kaetha’s shoulder. “You’re in too much danger here in Dalrath, my dear.”

  “I know. I know I have to leave you all.” She looked up at her father. “I wish I didn’t.”

  “I wish I could come with you,” said Aedan, his fingers brushing her cheek. “But I’d just hold you back. If only I could look after you. You deserved a father who could do that.”

  “You saved me from Murdo. You gave yourself up for me. I’ll never forget that.” She turned to her aunt. “You’ll look after him?”

  “I promise,” said Gwyn.

  “We both will,” said Alistair.

  “There were many times I thought that the inside of that dark cell would be the last sight I saw,” said Aedan. “You gave me back my life, Kit. Don’t you worry; I’ll take care of it. Only make sure you take good care of your own.”

  “I’ve booked passage for you on a ship which sails at first light,” said Gwyn, “and I’ve packed you some things.” It was only now that Kaetha noticed the leather bag in the corner of the room.

  “I see you’ve thought it all through,” said Aedan. “Who’s the captain?”

  “His name is Abel Mercier. He has cargo bound for Angaul.”

  “Abel?”

  “You know him?” asked Kaetha.

  “Aye, I do,” said Aedan. “You can trust him. He’s as shrewd as a fox, you get the impression that he’s thinking a hundred thoughts for your every one, which causes many to be wary of him, but he’s been a loyal friend to me. It was good fortune that led you to choose Abel.”

  “It was good advice. Carbrey Somerled named him as an ally,” said Gwyn.

  “Somerled? Earl of Torrath?” asked Aedan.

  Gwyn nodded. “Long before his execution.” The image of the three earls’ heads on spikes came to Kaetha’s mind. “Somerled suspected that Abel had been involved in Rhona’s escape, though he said the merchant never directly confessed as much.”

  Aedan’s expression was carefully blank.

  “In fact,” continued Gwyn, “We had planned to ask Abel to deliver the seals of the loyalists for Rhona but his ship didn’t return when we expected, nor for some months after. We assumed he’d been shipwrecked or raided by Hildervalders and we could think of no one else who might know the identity of Rhona’s ally in Angaul. No one, that is, except you, Aedan.”

  “So . . . ?” Kaetha hesitated, “you got Pa to send that package instead? The one that got him arrested?”

  The lines on Gwyn’s face deepened. “I regret, more than anyone, that that happened.”

  “It wasn’t her fault, Kit,” said Aedan. “It was bad luck. Whilst I didn’t like to risk trouble finding its way to those I cared about, I did want to help Rhona’s cause. It was my choice in the end. With proof of loyalty amongst the earls, Rhona might have been able to gain support in other lands.”

  Kaetha felt as though she were falling. She glared at Gwyn. “It was you. Back in Braddon. The cloaked woman.”

  “You’ll need to be more careful in future, Gwyn,” muttered Alistair.

  Gwyn nodded. “I saw you at the ceilidh,” she said to Kaetha. “I didn’t think you’d seen me.”

  “It was you then.”

  “Aye. You’ll understand why I had to keep my presence there secret. It was too risky. Though I longed to talk to you.”

  “But if you hadn’t come,” said Kaetha. “If you hadn’t—”

  The trapdoor creaked then and Mairi and Donnan appeared. Kaetha jumped to her feet, relief surging through her as she rushed over to them.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” she said.

  “Can’t lose us that easily,” said Donnan, embracing her.

  Her wounds flared at his touch and she winced. “Careful,” she said.

  “Sorry.” He backed away awkwardly.

  Mairi was holding Aedan’s face in her hands and speaking with him in low tones. She now wore a dark woollen gown as well as a cloak over her other clothes, a white cap concealing all but a few tendrils of red hair.

  She and Mairi looked at one another, neither one speaking for some moments.

  “Your hair looks nice.” Kaetha smiled at her.

  “Well,” Mairi shrugged, “Your aunt just happened to have a Shamlakahn powder we could make a dye with.” She smiled too. “I just felt like a change.”

  “And, your back – the blood – what did you—?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not mine,” said Mairi.

  “And my poultry yard is only slightly depleted,” muttered Alistair, winking.

  “Tam told us what . . . happened to you,” Mairi continued, tears welling in her eyes.

  “I’ll be alright,” said Kaetha, cutting that branch of the conversation short. She knew that if she talked about what she’d been through, she would be overwhelmed by it. “I’m sorry for making you a promise I couldn’t keep,” said added.

  “I know why you did and it’s alright. I was scared for you but you saved Aedan’s life as well as preserving your own. I cannot thank you enough for that. Oh, here—” she took off the cloak which had once been Morwena’s and handed it to Kaetha. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed it.”

  She felt the smooth fabric between her fingers, the close weave of soft threads. Holding it close, as she were embracing a person, she thought she could still detect the fragrance of rosemary. Then she saw that Mairi was shivering.

  “You’re cold,” she said, wrapping it back around Mairi again. “I’d like you to keep it.”
<
br />   In her surprise, Mairi looked meek and wide-eyed, almost childlike. “I’ll treasure it,” she said. Then she rested her hands on Kaetha’s shoulders and drew her close. Tears ran down Kaetha’s cheeks. “It’s alright now.” Mairi’s voice was soft and warm. “It’ll be alright.”

  She held Mairi tightly and it was a while before she found her voice again. “I’m proud to have you as a mother,” she whispered.

  In the quiet moments that followed, Mairi stroked her head. “I’m the proud one,” she said. “I’m the proud one, you brave lass.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye.” Kaetha took a deep breath and wiped away her tears as she stepped back from Mairi.

  “It’s not forever,” said Mairi. “And you’ll be alright. I have faith in you.”

  FOURTY

  The Tide Turner

  Kaetha blessed the hours she had with her family, thankful that she did not have to leave them immediately but, when she considered the uncertainty of when or if she might see them again after she left, time still felt as though it sailed by too fast. However, when she thought of Svelrik and his men out there looking for her and of the ship waiting to take her away to safety, time seemed to freeze. She twisted the fabric of her cuffs as she looked up out of the window.

  “I can go back out there if you like,” said Tam. “Find out where he and his men are.”

  She put a hand to his arm. “I’d rather we all stayed together,” she said.

  Donnan handed her a ewer of water. “Here. Why don’t you help Mairi with her hair.” He went and sat beside Alistair who gave Tam a wary look as the Baukan went to stand in a corner.

  Mairi positioned her head over a bucket.

  “Close your eyes,” Kaetha said as she knelt beside her and poured the water. The bucket caught the drips of red dye .

  Mairi gasped. “Careful. Some of that went down my back.”

  “Sorry,” Kaetha laughed.

  “It’s bloody cold,” added Mairi, trying not to laugh too.

  Kaetha filled the ewer again to poured more water and used a cloth to squeeze out the remains of the dye and wipe away the rusty streaks which ran down Mairi’s face and neck. As well as being glad to do something practical to keep her mind from drifting to thoughts of farewells, Kaetha enjoyed the closeness she felt between herself and Mairi in performing this simple act.