Sisters of the Fire Page 14

  ‘You can’t go tonight,’ Ivy said. ‘Nether Weald is nearly fifty miles away.’

  ‘We can have the hearthband ready by dawn,’ Sighere said.

  ‘Ivy is right. I’ll stay here tonight, and head off in the morning, but I’ll go alone. It’s … private business.’

  Bluebell was aware that Sighere and Ivy exchanged glances. Her lovelife had always been the subject of amused speculation, and the fact that Skalmir Hunter had chosen to call himself by the pet name ‘Snowy’ in the message had clearly pricked their interest. Of course he had done it to protect his identity and Rowan’s hiding place. Snowy was a smart man. One of the best. Though it was unhelpful for her to think that way.

  Ivy stood and grasped her sister’s hand. ‘Come inside my hall, Bluebell. You have been travelling for days, I hear, and you need food and mead and a long slumber in a soft bed. Let me be the one who gives you all those things, and tomorrow you can make your journey with a full belly and a rested mind.’

  Bluebell allowed herself to be led inside, wondering what Snowy needed from her, and hoping she would get to him before it was too late to help.

  Eleven

  Neither living nor dead, Unweder continued day after day in his strange, still sleep. Ash could not feed him, and the few drops of water she squeezed from a rag into his mouth would not sustain him for long. He was withering before her eyes.

  Each morning when she left to hunt in the southern caves for more evidence of the dragon, she expected to come home to find him dead. Each night, when the sun had finally disappeared into the sea and she rolled out her blankets to sleep, she expected she would wake up beside a corpse. Somehow, he did not die, and she wondered if it was an effect of his magic: he had lived so long now that he was incapable of death; only this still, cold barely living that echoed the fates of all the animals and people whose spirits he had stolen to shift his shape.

  The solitariness was hard for Ash to bear. She hadn’t realised how much she relied on Unweder’s company. The evenings seemed to linger forever, and she found herself yearning for the short afternoons of winter, for early dark and long sleep so she wouldn’t see him there, a breathing corpse. Sometimes she spoke to him, just to hear the sound of a human voice, and to feel not quite so alone and abandoned on the edge of a vast and empty world.

  On the fourth day, she dressed and went out in the morning as usual. The ocean was green and cold, stretching out towards measureless horizons. The sun was behind her, her shadow preceding her along the cliff path. She walked resolutely down the beach, trying not to think about how alone she was, how far from everything. But this morning loneliness and distance had got inside her somehow, made the lining of her veins cold. Even the hot summer sun, as it climbed in the sky, couldn’t warm her. Her feet crunched over shell grit, and she wished that she would see the sea-spirit so she didn’t feel as though she was the last being on earth.

  Ash stopped, pondered, eyes towards the sea. She could simply command it to come. She had avoided doing so until now, wary of damaging its trust of her. But now the thought had formed in her mind – loud as bells – it only took a beat of her heart for that thought to become a command and moments later, she heard little footsteps behind her.

  She turned, the sea wind whipping her cloak against her ankles.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  The creature looked at her curiously. ‘Why are you sorry?’

  ‘For making you come to me.’

  ‘Do you need me?’

  ‘I … No. Unless you know where the dragon lives.’

  Its grey, translucent skin seemed to thin, and its eyes widened in fear. ‘You seek dragons?’

  ‘Have you seen one around here?’

  ‘Not with my own eyes. But you ought not seek dragons, for they are made of fire and talons.’ It shook its head sadly. ‘Please don’t make me help you find one.’

  ‘No. No, that is my own challenge, my own risk. I should never have asked you to attend me.’

  The sea-spirit brightened, lifting its head. ‘I can show you something else even more wondrous, though.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come with me.’ It began to hurry along the shoreline, just as it had the first time she had followed it. She called out for it to slow down, which it did for a few minutes, but then it was off again. Ash kept up as best she could, scrambling over rocks and picking around huge clumps of seaweed washed up on the beach. Eventually, they came to a cave with an entrance so low she had to duck to get under it. Once inside, the roof of the cave was two feet higher than her head, with rocky formations jutting all around. The ground was gritty sand, so wet that it sucked at her shoes. The sea-spirit climbed onto one of the outcrops so she followed, head low, until they settled on a rough rock together, Ash with her shoulders hunched so her head wouldn’t touch the roof of the cave.

  ‘What are you showing me?’ she asked.

  ‘Look, the tide is coming in,’ it said.

  Sea water swirled into the mouth of the cave then out again. ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Let me sing to you,’ it said. ‘Close your eyes.’

  Ash was amused, but closed her eyes. The sea-spirit started a tuneless song, filled with repetitive melodies and strange percussive noises. At first it jarred, but after a few moments it began to settle into her body and bones calmly, and she found herself drifting on the sounds as one might drift on water. Rhythms that seemed as haphazard and mutable as waves, with currents underneath that were strong and predictable. Time blurred away from her, the way it did if she napped in the daytime; then she shook herself and opened her eyes and realised the song had finished. The light had changed in the cave. More importantly, the water had come up – all the way up, over her ankles and knees – and she hadn’t noticed.

  ‘What – was I sleeping?’

  ‘Did you like my song?’

  ‘The tide’s come in. I can’t swim.’ She looked around frantically. There was nowhere higher to go. Barnacles on the roof told her the cave went underwater completely. ‘I’ll drown here.’

  ‘You will not drown.’

  ‘Help me get out, please.’ But now her heart was beating hot and fast, because for the first time she entertained the idea that the sea-spirit was not friendly, that it did not want to protect her or keep her safe. That it wanted, in fact, quite the opposite.

  ‘No,’ it said.

  ‘I command you to –’

  ‘Don’t command me.’ It gestured to the water. ‘Command the tide.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can feel your power. Tell the water to go back.’ It nodded, its strange fish-like eyes blinking roundly.

  Ash looked at the sea water around her knees, then eased herself off the rock ledge so it sloshed around her hips. The tide. She tried to grasp it in her mind, but it was mighty, a complex and supple matrix of pushing and pulling; she couldn’t find its edges and had to cast her thoughts out wide and wider and wider still towards impossible horizons, and all the while the water was rising.

  This is going to hurt me, she thought, and she caught the tide in her mind and raised her hands and already the water was draining from the cave, being pulled out with a great guttural roar of shale and rasping waves. Down, lower and lower, until only her ankles were covered and she could hold it no more. Ash let it go with her mind and ran from the cave, blood thundering, out to the shore and up onto rocks, higher and higher. The ocean stalled, gathered its sovereignty once again, and came roaring back. It engulfed the shore, thundered into the cave she had just left, and split so hard over the rock she stood on that it broke ten feet above her. Salt water rained down on her, drenching her head to foot. She grasped at a rock outcrop to stop herself from being knocked into the water. Then the water settled, and the waves took on their usual shape.

  Ash’s body felt as though it had been beaten from the inside. Her cramping stomach forced her to her knees, where she threw up vigorously, sea water pouring out of her along
with her breakfast. When she finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood, glanced around, wondering where her sea-spirit had gone.

  ‘Ash!’ it called from behind her, higher up the cliff.

  She turned, her head still spinning so violently that she thought she might fall or faint.

  It waved, its creaking voice carried on the wind. ‘You are as strong as the moon!’

  Ash turned her eyes back to the sea. As strong as the moon. And now, as weak as a kitten. She sat down heavily, waiting for the illness to pass, breathless at what she had done.

  Ash trudged up the cliff path towards home, intending to change out of her wet clothes and spend the remainder of the day resting. In one small mercy, her scalp wasn’t itching at all. She kept imagining it might start at any moment, but it didn’t and that tiny comfort buoyed her spirits. But as she approached the chapel, she noticed immediately the door was open. She knew she had closed it, as she did every morning, to keep Unweder safe. Had the trimartyrs returned to the chapel? She broke into a run, thundering over the tough grass. She grasped the threshold, dreading what she might see inside the dark room.

  No trimartyrs. No signs of disturbance. Everything was just as she’d left it except for one detail: Unweder was gone.

  Ivy could hear the sea’s melancholy roar as she quietly closed the door to her bowerhouse behind her and stepped out into the night. Inside, in their warm bed, her boys slept on. If Hilla noticed Ivy leaving, she said nothing about it. She was a woman who knew when to keep her mouth shut.

  The moon was bright, outlining the clouds. Ivy pulled her cloak closer against the cold and hurried across the garden and down towards the stables. Joe was on duty tonight, so it was safe for her and Crispin to meet. A coin in the stableboy’s warm hand and he gave her his broad smile and slipped outside to wait in the cool night air.

  Crispin was already inside, up high in the hayloft, waiting for her. Sconces burned on the walls, giving the space a warm glow. The smell of horses and hay, comforting and raw in her nostrils.

  ‘He’s a good lad, is our Joe,’ Crispin said as she reached the top of the ladder and fell into his arms.

  ‘Come here,’ she said, fingers already at his belt.

  Ivy had seen, too close for comfort, the misery an illegitimate child could cause a mother, a family, a kingdom. She and Crispin had their fun carefully but no less passionately. The cold outside was immediately forgotten in his warm embrace. As he unpinned the front of her dress, her fingers and lips traced over his broad shoulders and big arms, his hot skin, so different from Guthmer’s withered limbs. With Crispin, she embraced life and youth, not age and death. She couldn’t be blamed for seeking him out again and again.

  Nearly a year now. The longest she had ever chosen to stay with anyone. Of course it helped that he was captain of Guthmer’s city guard, and was stationed right here in the duke’s compound at Sæcaster.

  Crispin’s lips were on her breast now, his thick dark curls under her fingertips. Slowly he ran a hand under her skirt, up her thigh, and then he began to massage that soft, hot place where all her pleasure seemed to condense and catch fire. Steady, steady, the pressure growing under his expert touch. Gasping, she arched her spine and he pinned her down hard against his hand, making sure she took every last drop of bliss.

  By this stage he was so hard with desire that it took only a minute to pleasure him too, and then they curled, half-naked, around each other, nose to nose in the warm stable as the sea wind thundered over the roof.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ he said.

  ‘I love being with you,’ she sighed.

  ‘Love won’t help us,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ Neither of them ever mentioned what would happen after Guthmer died. Crispin had no suspicions that she was the cause of her husband’s illness, and she never spoke to him about how desperately she wanted to be free of her marriage. To mention Guthmer was to ruin all the fun.

  She wasn’t without guilt about her husband’s long illness. When she’d started, she’d only wanted to make him sick … she couldn’t remember now what small slight she’d wanted to punish as it had been over a year ago. But then his illness had given her the space and freedom to imagine a future without him. Almost without meaning to, she had kept going, until his death was inevitable and she had grown used to the idea that she would cause it. Soldiers killed all the time; Bluebell had probably killed hundreds of men. That’s what families of kings did. Her one little killing – of an old man who had hardly any time left anyway – barely rated a mention.

  ‘I have to go to Folcenham tomorrow,’ Ivy said, fingers twining with Crispin’s. ‘King Wengest is remarrying and Guthmer cannot go.’

  His thumb stroked her palm softly. ‘I shall miss you.’

  ‘I wish you could come. Could we make some excuse why I might need the captain of the city guard to accompany me?’

  ‘They’ll send you with some younger fellows. I will have to stay.’

  ‘I won’t feel as safe without you.’

  ‘You’re safe on the road between here and Folcenham,’ he laughed. ‘It’s the busiest trade route in Thyrsland after the Giant Road.’

  ‘I won’t feel as happy without you,’ she said, with an exaggerated pout.

  He kissed her bottom lip. ‘I saw your sister when she came yesterday.’

  Bluebell had raced off that morning. ‘She’s ugly, isn’t she?’

  ‘There’s no doubt she hasn’t your beauty, my love, but if you took away the scars, the broken nose, she would have been a handsome woman.’

  ‘Her tits are made of iron,’ Ivy said, stupidly jealous.

  Crispin laughed loudly and then pinched her bottom and called her a naughty, silly thing, and they fell to kissing a little more. Then Crispin lay on his back and Ivy propped herself up on her elbow and took a piece of straw and drew soft patterns on his forehead and cheeks with it.

  ‘I used to hate her, you know, in my youth,’ she said.

  ‘Your sister?’

  ‘Bluebell. Yes. I hated all my sisters really. Except Ash. Willow was tolerable before she found Maava and lost her mind.’

  ‘There’s a lot to admire about a leader like Bluebell,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a warrior in Thyrsland who is her equal, and we all know it and love her for it and hate her for it with the same hearts.’

  ‘I don’t hate her any more,’ Ivy said. ‘I see now that she simply does what she thinks is right for our kingdom. She said something to me just before she left …’ Ivy trailed off, not wanting to talk about Guthmer’s impending death openly.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘When Guthmer …’

  He nodded, indicating he understood.

  ‘She wants me to take control of Sæcaster immediately. She says I have to secure it for the boys.’

  Crispin considered this carefully. ‘It’s good advice. Your husband has a cousin south of Withing who might make a claim, and I can think of at least two of the thanes that come to every feast night who might think they can take charge because Guthmer’s sons are so young.’

  Ivy felt the first thrill of her potential power. ‘So I would simply say –’

  ‘You are ruling in your sons’ names.’

  ‘And to those who say women can’t rule?’

  ‘Ivy,’ he said, his eyes intense, his hand reaching up to touch her cheek. ‘You have me. And while you have me, you have control of the city guard.’

  ‘And together we could have control of the most important harbour in Thyrsland.’

  He dropped his hand, his eyes rounding as though he was momentarily afraid of his own ambition, just as she was of her own. Then she smiled at him, and they both laughed, kissed again.

  ‘Who knows the future?’ she said, lightly. ‘All I know is poor cold Joe is going to be most unhappy if I don’t let him back inside soon.’

  ‘Goodnight, my beauty,’ Crispin said.

  Ivy pulled her clothes together and descended the ladde
r while Crispin stayed to dress himself. Outside, she whispered a soft goodnight to Joe, who smiled at her in his simple way and wished her a peaceful night’s sleep.

  But Ivy had too much to dream about.

  Every inn in Folcenham was full to overflowing with people who had come from all over Netelchester in the hopes of glimpsing the king and his new bride. This was all terribly inconvenient for Ivy, who’d had to take a room a half-mile’s walk from Wengest’s hall and then carefully keep the hem of her new midnight blue dress from become mud-spattered on the way across town to the celebration.

  Wherever she went, she turned heads. Women admired her gown, men admired her figure. But she found she didn’t take the pleasure in their interest she ordinarily would. What did it matter if a man passing on the street found her pretty, it was really only Crispin’s opinion she was interested in, and that thought sent her into smiling rememberances of their times together. She wondered, not for the first time, if she might be falling in love.

  It was still broad daylight when she arrived and was ushered in. She answered many questions about Guthmer’s health and feigned sad optimism to them all, finding she quite enjoyed the compliments about her courage and her kindness. As the hall filled and grew hot, she saw her father arrive with his full retinue and hurried over to bow to him and take his arm.

  ‘Sit by me, Father,’ she said. ‘For I haven’t a husband here and you haven’t a wife.’

  ‘Soon Wengest will have two,’ Æthlric said in a low, disdainful tone, but allowed himself to be led to one of the highest mead benches.

  It was true that Wengest now had two wives, but the first – her sister, Rose – had been put aside after her infidelities had been revealed. Unfortunately, it had been Ivy who had revealed these infidelities but she’d been very young and could surely be forgiven by now. She’d forgiven herself, at least. Though she had no idea if Rose ever would.

  The chatter in the hall grew louder and the smells of cooking filled the thick air. Ivy talked gently with her father about nothing important: weather, travel, who brewed the best mead in Blicstowe. She and her twin Willow had been raised apart from the rest of the family, on the warm south coast with their maternal uncle. Æthlric had always intimidated her, with his stature and his kingly gaze, but today he seemed mellow, happy to talk to her. And Ivy was happy too: as Æthlric’s companion, she was seated near the front of the room, and not all the way at the back with the random cousins and half-remembered friends.