Isobel

by Chloe Garner

“You should.”

  “What’s this everyone’s got with concern for my sleep?” she snapped. She regretted it immediately, throwing her hand over her mouth as if she could trap the words in, but Kenna gave her a sad little smile and shrugged.

  “You’re tired, girlie. Go sleep. You’ll feel better.”

  Allie wondered when Isobel slept.

  Kenna was still watching her.

  “Go,” the girl said. Allie sighed and stretched, then, as Kenna gave her a wave, dropped down through the tree and trudged to her hut, collapsing onto her bed and falling asleep into a miasma of whirling dreams streaked with blood and hopelessness. Eventually, her mind gave up trying to understand what was going on, and she slept soundly through dawn of the next day.

  The secret of what had happened to Drude lasted another two days. Gede arrived to check in on the young man, and the fight between the king’s steward and Rafa shook the rafters. Drude himself had gotten up and walked downstairs to intervene.

  It hadn’t taken more than twenty minutes after that for the entire establishment to know. The king’s son was damaged.

  Questions and rumors flew like sparrows, darting in and out of sight in the main hall at meals, but Allie knew the worst of it.

  The trip downstairs had exhausted Drude. Too proud to accept help, he’d had to crawl back up the stairs with Allie guarding the door to keep Gede or anyone else from finding him like that. He’d fevered for another twelve hours, not like the first time, but his body struggling to regain control over itself, all the same, and Isobel had told him that if he got up again before her okay, it was possible he would yet lose his leg entirely.

  The site of her surgery was healing as well as Allie might have hoped, the bruising receding and the flesh maintaining a normal temperature most of the time, but as the swelling went down, during the frequent bandage changes, Allie could see just how much flesh Isobel had cut away. Drude’s calf no longer had the elegant curvature of healthy muscle, but was rather more like a desiccated fish, with uneven lumps under the surface and scabbing over skin that would be scarred for the rest of his life.

  Allie spent hours each day sitting with him, talking about training the girls and their altercations with Gede. Sometimes Drude would talk about the war. She noticed that he only spoke about the victories, the ambushes and the routs. He glowed, when he talked, though. Aedan came up a lot, as did the rest of the warriors who rode with Drest personally, and Allie began to get a feel for the strange bonds the men had, like a family, but with more intensity, somehow. Brothers was much too weak a word.

  And so fall came, inevitable and brisk, first blowing the world up with color, then slowly sucking it away. After a fortnight, Drude was allowed out again. He asked Allie to find a time when the house was least active, with the boys out training and the girls off doing similar things. Allie verified that the main hall was mostly empty, then went up to help Drude down the stairs.

  Isobel said that the risk of further complications in his leg was small, and that it was time for him to start building up mobility and strength again. The sunlight revealed that he’d lost a startling amount of weight, and his skin had lost much of its healthy tone. The bright shock of red hair was the only thing that still looked truly like him.

  They walked out to the corral where he checked the health of his mount for something to do, then returned to the infirmary, Drude leaning hard on Allie. He was out of breath by the time he made it back to his bed.

  “Shouldn’t be that hard,” he puffed, reaching down to touch his leg. Allie nodded.

  “It’s going to take time,” she answered. Isobel came to check on him, brusquely verifying that he hadn’t hurt himself, then moving on to the man who had arrived the day before. He’d gotten into a close-quarters fight with two Romans, killing them both, if you believed him, but had sustained various injuries that Isobel was trying to sew up in such a way that he didn’t bleed out.

  “You’re falling behind, Aileen,” the woman said as she settled back in to her previous task. Allie gave Drude a sarcastic look, then went to check on the rest of Isobel’s patients. Cleaning and helping Drude became the focus of her life for much of the rest of the fall, as the flow of wounded warriors began to slow and the war wound to a close for the winter. There would be little raids along the boundary all winter, particularly by the Caledd, Rafa said, but the warriors would go home. Some of them already had, Drude told her, to help take in the crops and prepare for the winter. He asked her how Drest’s hillfort was managing, but she had to admit that she didn’t know. He was eager to get home, to see what had become of his father’s holdings and help with the unending work that would come with hosting the refugees, but she could tell that the last thing he wanted was to draw more attention to what had happened to him.

  At first snow, Allie was out gathering old man’s beard and a few other herbs that Isobel was running short on when she heard hoofbeats. The animal coming was large and moving at a good pace, but without the urgency of important news or fear. She made her way to the path to see who was coming and got there in time for Aedan to see her and pull up his mount.

  “Allie,” he cried, jumping clear and starting toward her. There was a moment of hesitation, as he took in her hair, her body, and perhaps as he wondered if everything were still the same as it had been, then he leaped at her and crushed her in a hug.

  “I’ve wondered about you,” he said. “What happened when Kenna and the girls came, how you were doing?”

  “Made Gede mad,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. He let her back onto her own heels, then pulled her toward the horse.

  “I want to hear everything, but I have to see Drude. He is…” there was a shock of realization as he appeared to think, for the first time, that perhaps his cousin hadn’t made it, but Allie shook her head.

  “He’s here. He’s not…” She bit her lip. “Aedan, I don’t know if he’ll want to see you.”

  “What?”

  She hadn’t considered how this would go.

  “I don’t…” She sighed. “He should tell you himself.”

  “Tell me what?”

  She pressed her lips and shook her head.

  “Allie. What…?”

  She shook her head again, vaulting up onto his warhorse’s back.

  “Let’s go. We have lots to talk about, but he should be there.”

  Aedan looked confused, perhaps even frightened, but he let her be, mounting up in front of her and letting his horse pick a reasonable pace the rest of the way to the houses. Allie ran ahead as he tied up the horse, sprinting up the stairs to find Drude awake, his fingers woven behind his head as he considered the wall across from him. Not for the first time, she felt sad for how boring his life must have been.

  “Drude. Aedan’s here. He wants to see you.”

  Drude looked at her for a long moment, then nodded.

  “Let him up.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Isobel said from another bedside without looking. “Drude goes downstairs to see him.”

  “What?” Drude asked, sitting up indignantly.

  “He’s not making my sick room any more unclean than it already is.”

  Drude stared at her for a minute, then grunted and worked his way to his feet, keeping his weight completely off of his bad leg. He glanced back at Isobel once, then hopped to the door with Allie’s help.

  “Allie,” Isobel called. Allie paused and turned to see Isobel motioning her back. She left Drude to make his own way down the stairs and went to stand next to Isobel.

  “You need to get him out more. In front of people. He’s just sulking up here. It’s time for the child to truly become a man.”

  Allie wanted to argue with her, to present all of the reasonable arguments Drude would have made to such a statement, but there was no point. It hadn’t been a question, nor the opening to a conversation. It was a statement. An order, no less. Allie nodded, then went to follow the sound of single-footed thumps dow
n the stairs. She helped Drude down the hallway, then he abruptly took his arm from across her shoulders and began to walk on two feet with a very slow, dragging gait. Aedan was waiting outside.

  The first look said everything. Even with Drude making a massive effort to cover, Aedan knew, and Allie could watch as the consequences of what he saw sunk in.

  “Drude,” Aedan said, his voice dry.

  “Aedan,” Drude answered, standing an inch taller.

  “How bad?” Aedan asked. Drude looked at Allie, then shook his head.

  “Not good.”

  “Allie,” Aedan said, looking for her to say something to lessen the blow.

  “It is what you see,” she said. “Drude, you, and everyone else need to start coming to terms with it, because it isn’t going to change.”

  Aedan turned away, dropping his head, then spun back.

  “I should have been there. I should have seen him…”

  “Stop,” Drude said. Allie had almost forgotten what his voice sounded like, when he spoke with authority. “We’ve seen men die, Aedan. Don’t apologize for this.”

  Aedan gagged on his next words, then shook his head again.

  “I’m sorry, mate.”

  Drude gave Aedan the slightest of acknowledgments, then clapped his hands together.

  “They’ve been feeding me broth like an invalid for a month, now. If you’re here, it means the warriors are home, and I intend to drink to their health.”

  Aedan gave Allie a small, desperate look as they turned to follow Drude back into the house. Drude clapped his hands again, calling ahead.

  “Where’s the mead?”

  The boys were starting to leave, and the tension among the girls was growing.

  “This has been the best summer of my life,” Brietta confided one afternoon after a long session at the archery range. Allie was feeling too drained at that point to be enthusiastic, but she was genuinely happy to hear it.

  “What will happen to you when you go home?” Allie asked. Brietta shrugged and gave her a forced smile.

  “Worth it, whatever it is.”

  Allie watched the other girl for a moment, not sure what to say.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t around as much, the last few weeks.”

  Brietta looked confused.

  “We didn’t need you to be with us every minute. You just showed us how to be something different.”

  Allie was shocked at the sincerity in the girl’s eyes. After a minute, Brietta looked away.

  “What did your ma say when she saw your hair, that first day?”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t think she ever said anything.”

  “It’s amazing that she lets you do this.”

  “I don’t know how she would have stopped me,” Allie answered. “Gede never could.”

  Brietta laughed at this and shook her head.

  “You’re braver than me.”

  “Or dumber.”

  Again Brietta looked away, and Allie grew uncomfortable. She never knew what to say. Kenna was so much better at this.

  “Well…” Brietta said. Allie nodded. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I’m going to miss this. You. The rest of the girls.”

  Allie nodded. She would appreciate having the lonely woods to herself again, but it would be strange to be completely on her own. She could already feel herself checking the trees around her to find them, only to discover that she was by herself. Brietta fidgeted, then, as if trying to do it before she could talk herself out of it, she hugged Allie. Allie was too stunned to react, standing woodenly for a moment, then patting Brietta tentatively on the back from where her arms were pinned at her sides. Brietta rushed away, embarrassed now, and Allie held up a hand.

  “Wait.”

  Brietta turned and Allie wondered what it was she needed to say.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said finally. Brietta nodded, sucking on her lips.

  “Yeah.”

  One by one, the girls left. All of the departures were strange, several of them awkward like Brietta, several more who just disappeared one morning. One girl, who had never sat well with Allie, cried. It was strange, having women who cared about being around her. Stranger still to find that she cared about being around them.

  Kenna was the last one. Drude was living in the boys’ rooms, at this point, and Kenna had stayed on less as one of the warrior women and more as a second companion for Drude. Aedan would spend days at a time at the training house, talking with Drude and trying to keep his spirits up, but Drest hadn’t visited. Allie could see how much that weighed on Drude.

  Finally, though, the last boys left, and it was just the four of them.

  “You have to,” Aedan said one morning at breakfast.

  “I know,” Kenna said. “Ma is going to be furious.”

  “She’s mostly upset that you didn’t come see her all summer. You could have.”

  “You never did,” Kenna said. Aedan chewed the corner of his mouth and nodded.

  “Yeah, but, it’s not the same…”

  “I don’t see why not,” Kenna persisted. Aedan looked at his sister with a visible sense of helplessness, then shrugged and turned to Allie.

  “Are you going to come see me this winter?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Are you going to come see me?”

  He grinned.

  “I might, at that.”

  He cast a glance at Drude, but didn’t say anything to his cousin. Drude’s improvement had been subtle. He was walking on a cane, now, instead of a full crutch, but it was a painstaking set of motions to get from his room to the main hall. Painful to watch, and obviously painful to execute. Drude pointedly avoided looking at Aedan.

  As promised, later that morning, Aedan helped Kenna pack the few things she had brought with her and loaded them up on the mare that had been lazing in the paddock all summer. Kenna gave Allie a fierce hug.

  “Be great. You’re amazing. Look out for him.”

  Allie hugged her back, having anticipated this level of enthusiasm from Kenna, and gave a silent acknowledgment of her charge. Kenna clapped her arm once, then bounded for her horse. The mare wisely skidded away as Aedan came to stand next to Allie.

  “Good to see I’m not the only one she frightens,” he said.

  “Oh, no,” Allie agreed. Aedan put his arm around her shoulders.

  “You gave her something, this summer. Something important.”

  “Nothing she couldn’t have taken on her own, anytime she wanted.”

  Aedan laughed.

  “You look beautiful.”

  “With my ragged hair and the blisters on my hands,” Allie said.

  “I love your ragged hair,” he answered, kissing the spot above her ear, then boisterously charging off after his own mount as Kenna took off without him.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he called back to Allie as he chased after his sister. She waved, then stood standing at the gate for a long time, feeling the emptiness of the place.

  It was strange.

  Drude stayed for the winter. He wasn’t ready to go home, and Isobel, despite her constant barbs to keep him moving, didn’t force that particular point. Aedan came to visit frequently, often coming on a fair day and getting snowed in for several after, but Gwen seemed to take special care to assign crushing chore loads to Allie while he was around. This was the winter of her womanhood, and it was apparent that Gwen was taking no pains to preserve the fragile bud of her childhood. Not when Aedan was around, to say the least.

  Isobel closed down the sick room and it became as if it had never been there. The door didn’t open, and Isobel never spoke of it. Neither did Allie. Aedan asked her, once or twice about it, but she didn’t have words. Drude would sometimes come to her rescue, filling in benign details in much the same way he talked about war.

  Her favorite times were the evenings that Aedan got snowed in, when they sat in front of the man-high fireplace a
nd listened to stories from the old warriors, or just sat and talked, the three of them. She found herself more and more smitten with Aedan, the way his hands moved when he talked, the light, easy fluidity of his motion and his words, the way his mouth worked when he was listening, the way he kept stealing glances at her to see if she was looking at him. He’d kissed her once more in the hallway in a stray moment when they were alone, and she’d floated on fairy wings for two days.

  Her second-favorite times were the evenings in front of the fire when she and Drude were alone and he seemed to forget that he was disfigured. She would make him laugh and it felt like a victory to crown the entire day. He still had such a healthy, hearty laugh that thrilled her to hear it. He put on weight and his skin regained health, but it was clear that he would never walk perfectly upright again. It didn’t matter how much he recovered from the sickness, the wound would never completely heal.

  And still Drest didn’t come.

  The day of the midwinter festival arrived. Allie had been unwilling to ask whether Drude would go with them, as she didn’t want to hear his answer, but she found him out with the rest of the household, dressed hard against the deep cold. Rafa helped him onto his horse after Drude failed his first two attempts - no one else had wanted to step forward and risk embarrassing the young man - and Allie found herself well-separated from him, riding with her mother and the women from the kitchen.

  “I think this is the day your father would have most wanted to see,” Gwen said softly to her after a while. The white dress was packed in Gwen’s bag. It had made Allie’s stomach jerk to see it, that morning.

  “I wish he were here,” Allie said, surprising herself. Gwen nodded.

  “I as well.”

  Allie found her eyes tearing and she looked away.

  “Life moves forward, lass,” Gwen said, her voice the same strong calm Allie had known since childhood. “That’s the only direction it goes. Today is a good day.”

  She would have had nieces, nephews. A huge family, all of the children younger than her, but some, perhaps, not by a lot. They would have sat in her father’s great room around a fire that roared and chased shadows out of the room, and her father would have laughed.