Sisters of the Fire Read online

  Thirteen

  Skalmir opened his eyes to morning light. He could feel the warmth of another body behind him and smiled as he remembered Bluebell was here. Their second morning together, the longest she had ever stayed. The rest of his troubles tumbled into his mind only after he had smiled, but the first feel of her – now he rolled over – and sight of her, long fair hair falling over her face, made troubles easier to bear. Sometime during the night Thrymm had joined them, and Bluebell lay asleep, curled on her side, with the dog pressed against her. Thrymm’s eyes were open, and she looked at Skalmir guiltily, not sure if she was allowed in the bed. The fresh bandage he had applied last night was unspotted by blood. Skalmir reached across Bluebell’s body and rubbed the dog’s head, and she closed her eyes and huddled closer to her mistress.

  Bluebell didn’t sleep through more than a few seconds of being watched. Her eyes opened and her body filled with its usual intensity and power.

  ‘What is it?’ were her first words to him.

  ‘Thrymm’s better.’

  Bluebell shifted her head and saw Thrymm against her, and patted her gingerly. ‘Is that right?’

  Thrymm licked her softly.

  ‘Ah, she’ll live, but I don’t know if she’ll do battle any time soon,’ Bluebell said. ‘If ever again. War dogs often grow timid after an injury like this one. Curses. I don’t want to have to train a new one.’

  Even though she spoke practically, Skalmir could see by the light in her eyes that Bluebell was happy her companion had survived.

  ‘I expect we have to move on today, then,’ Skalmir said. He had enjoyed the last two nights, playing house with Bluebell even though she had been armed (when she wasn’t naked or sleeping) and had likely been playing siege, checking the doors and shutters, accompanying him outside with her sword and shield when he went to get food or water or firewood.

  The sound of approaching horses ended their morning cheer. Bluebell was out of bed in a heartbeat, reaching for her clothes. ‘Is it Sister Julian?’ she asked. ‘Your woodlanders aren’t horsed, are they?’

  ‘Must be someone from the village,’ Skalmir said. His first thought was that it was ill news from Rowan and he too scrambled out of bed and into clothes.

  A thundering on the door. ‘In the name of King Wengest, unbar this door!’

  ‘Did you send to Wengest?’ Bluebell asked him.

  ‘No.’

  She pulled her brows down, strode out and across the room, pulling her sword free and throwing the door open. Skalmir saw the expression on the men’s faces and nearly laughed. The last thing they had expected was to be confronted by Bluebell the Fierce.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

  Skalmir approached, more congenial. ‘What do you want of us?’

  ‘I am Harack and this is Ned. The king sent us,’ the elder of the two men said. He was florid and plump, while his companion was tall and wiry. ‘We’re to take the little girl home to Folcenham.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ Skalmir said, pulse thudding at his throat. ‘I moved her for her own safety. She’s in Nether Weald. I can take you to her.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘Did Wengest not come with you?’ Skalmir asked. ‘Is Rowan to travel with strangers?’ His heart felt tight. Rowan was unhappy about being decamped to Sister Julian’s; how was she going to feel about spending two days on the road with two unknown men? Had that thought never crossed Wengest’s mind?

  ‘The king is lately married, hunter. He has no time for travel. His new wife will be the child’s custodian.’

  Bluebell turned to Skalmir. He read in her face that she understood how he felt. ‘You will travel with them,’ she said.

  ‘The king has not asked for –’

  Bluebell silenced them with one irritated glare. ‘This hunter stays with the girl,’ she said. ‘Go back to Nether Weald and wait at the mouth of the wood. Skalmir will join you within an hour, and he will accompany you all the way to Folcenham, and you will provide him with food and shelter along the way. If Wengest has a problem with any of that, you tell him Bluebell commanded it.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ the younger man, Ned, said.

  Harack was more grudging in his compliance, but agreed nonetheless. As soon as they were gone, Skalmir hurried to Rowan’s bedroom.

  ‘She’ll be safe with Wengest,’ Bluebell called after him.

  ‘I’d rather she was going to Blicstowe,’ Skalmir replied. ‘I’d rather she was going with you. She’d be safer.’

  ‘They may look like halfwits but I’m sure they are high up in Wengest’s retinue,’ Bluebell said. She was in the doorway now. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Packing her dresses and dolls.’ He threw things on Rowan’s bed, rolled them up tightly. Concentrating on the task at hand stopped him from feeling too helpless and bereft. He didn’t know what the future held for him and Rowan, but at least he would be with her the next few days.

  ‘Wengest will have plenty of dresses and dolls ready for her.’

  ‘But these will be familiar to her,’ Skalmir said. He grabbed the leather bag that hung on the back of Rowan’s chair, and began to push the things into it. ‘Everything is about to change for her.’ He stood. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be away.’

  ‘I’ll make sure everything is in order here. I’ll stay another night with Thrymm.’

  ‘What shall I do with Strike and Stranger?’

  ‘I’m on my way south soon, and Thrymm isn’t well enough to travel with me. I intended to leave her with a very kind woman who looks after Torr in Nether Weald. I can take your dogs too?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He grabbed his travelling pack and shoved some clothes in it, then found himself standing in the centre of the house he had built with his own hands, about to leave. ‘The Horse God willing, I will be back here one day soon,’ he said. Without Rowan.

  ‘The house will still be standing,’ Bluebell said. ‘Don’t look so lost.’

  ‘I’m not lost.’ He reached across and took a strand of her fair hair between his fingers. ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘I need to continue hunting for my sisters. I’ll collect my hearthband at Withing and head deep into trimartyr country to see if Willow has taken up refuge there.’

  ‘Tweoning?’

  ‘Yes. Last fucking place in the world I want to visit, to be honest.’ She brushed away his hand. ‘Send me a message when you’re safe in Folcenham. Let me know how it goes.’

  ‘I will.’ He wanted to tell her he loved her, but last time he did that she ignored him for a few months. ‘It was good to see you,’ he said instead.

  ‘I agree,’ she replied with a twist of the lips that could have been a smile.

  Skalmir gave Strike and Stranger a last affectionate pat, and was on his way.

  By midafternoon, Rowan had travelled as far as she was able. Skalmir reminded Harack and Ned that she was a child and couldn’t spend any longer in the saddle, and they made for the nearest village, a tiny lakeside community fifteen miles out of their final destination, Folcenham.

  Rowan had not taken the news that she was leaving the Howling Wood, Snowy’s house, the life she knew, with any kind of good grace. It had pained Skalmir to see her face fall, her brow turn pink just as it had when she cried as a tiny girl. He was uncomprehending that Wengest could have expected her to travel so far and so sadly with strangers, which made him wonder what kind of father Wengest would be to her once she was with him again. As he rode on a borrowed horse with Rowan sitting in front of him, between his arms, he wondered who would love her as much as she needed to be loved.

  Around ten miles outside of Nether Weald, she’d appeared to accept her fate. By the time they stopped for the day, she seemed her usual self.

  ‘Come on, Snowy,’ she said, grasping his hand while Ned and Harack waited at the stable for somebody to take their horses. ‘Let’s go and look at that lake.’

  He allowed himself to be led away from th
e stables and along the dirt road, where the smithy clanged and the market stalls hung with hares and water fowl. As they approached the grassy bank of the lake, Rowan kicked off her shoes, lifted her skirt, and began to run, sloshing out into the water until it was up to her thighs. Her legs looked impossibly thin and white in the afternoon sunshine. Skalmir slipped off his own shoes and rolled up his pants to join her. The sky was cloudless, blue. Dragonflies darted across the water weed and lilies. He could feel the sun on his back, a light breeze moving the cloth of his shirt. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. She looked up at him, the sunlight in her hair and, fixing him with her clear gaze, said, ‘I will always love you, Snowy, even though we are apart. I am used to being apart from people I love, though, so I know I will be all right.’

  ‘Perhaps we won’t be that far apart,’ he said lightly. ‘I will come to Folcenham to see you.’

  She wrinkled up her nose. ‘I don’t like the sound of Papa’s new wife.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about her.’

  She shrugged. ‘I know that she’s not my mother. Nor you. Nor Bluebell nor even Julian. She is nobody I love.’

  ‘You may come to love her.’

  ‘My heart is already full enough, Snowy.’ She leaned against him. ‘You’re not to worry about me. I’m big enough to look after myself.’

  ‘If you say so, my darling girl,’ he said, rubbing her shoulder. ‘And I will do my best not to worry.’

  Dawn broke on a grim, wet day. Skalmir lay a few minutes listening to the rain outside the inn. Travelling to Folcenham was going to be a miserable affair. He turned to see if Rowan was awake.

  Rowan wasn’t there.

  He sat up, called her name. No answer. That’s when he saw the trunk pulled up against the wall, directly under the shutter, which had been left open.

  I’m big enough to look after myself.

  ‘No, no,’ he said, running to the window and looking out. The street, the lake beyond. Dreary, grey, hammering rain. How had he not heard her slip out? Where had she gone?

  But he knew already. She had gone where her heart and spirit were always drawing her, back to the Howling Wood.

  Rowan had gone to find the singing tree.

  Whenever Willow felt she couldn’t go on, when her arms ached and her back roared with hot pain and her lungs were raw and her heart hammered like galloping hooves, she reminded herself that Maava needed her to be His warrior in Thyrsland and she pushed back harder and harder. In the small circular garden, surrounded by a colourful abundance of snapdragons, sweet peas, and roses, Hakon loomed over her. She had long ago grown used to his hideous face: the sunken pit where his eye should have been, the jagged-edge hole in his cheek through which she could see his teeth. It was his physical strength she struggled to grow used to. His height, his reach, his power. And she knew he was not fighting her as hard as he could, that he could crush her easily with only a little more force.

  Churning clouds choked the sky, but rain had held off during their drills. The grass was wet and it was a constant challenge for Willow not to slip, but she held firm, blocking Hakon’s blows and even getting a few good strikes in against him.

  But, as always, she was glad when it was over. Then guilty that she was glad. She sent up an apology of prayer to Maava, and one of His angels hissed in her ear and told her she was weak.

  ‘I’m not weak,’ she said aloud.

  ‘You are far from it,’ Hakon agreed in his rough but musical accent, not realising the remark was addressed to invisible angels, and not to him. ‘One day you may be the equal of your sister.’ He touched the wound on his cheek, and Willow knew he was remembering his last encounter with Bluebell.

  Willow didn’t want to be like Bluebell, but she had to admit that her body was changing under the demands of learning to wield a sword and shield. Skinny limbs were growing thick with sinewy muscle. Just a week ago she had scratched an insect bite on her leg, only to feel unfamiliar steel in her once soft thigh. Transformation. The kind that cracked open seeds and ripped them apart, sending tenacious shoots out of the earth. That was what was needed to take her from naïve girl to Maava’s warrior.

  Hakon sat on a wooden bench and cleaned and oiled his weapon. Willow fixed her scarf on and joined him, and they sat side by side in silence a moment before she said, ‘Did you think over our lesson from yesterday?’

  He grunted. She thought it might be a yes.

  Willow was not easily discouraged. ‘The first book of Maava is very clear on this.’

  ‘The Horse God has served me well.’

  ‘There is only one god, and that god is Maava,’ she said patiently.

  ‘The Horse God brought me to you. My randrman prayed to him, and saw you in a vision.’

  ‘Yes, so you’ve said, but I’m telling you it was Maava who sent the vision. The Horse God has no such power because he’s a heathen fiction.’

  ‘Maybe your god is the fiction.’

  Willow felt the flame of indignation. ‘How can He be, when I feel His power inside me as mighty as an ancient tree?’

  Hakon shrugged. ‘Maybe they are all the same gods but with different names.’

  Willow was already shaking her head.

  Hakon snorted a laugh. ‘You are as stubborn as your sister too.’

  ‘It’s not stubborness, it’s faith.’

  ‘Maava is a good idea for rulers,’ Hakon said. ‘Kings would like him because the second book says that kings rule by divine right. He’s not so useful to people like me.’

  It annoyed Willow when anyone mentioned the political expedience of the trimartyr faith. But she told herself to bank her anger, and concentrate instead on finding a way to convince Hakon to convert.

  They sat in silence a little longer, then Hakon said, ‘If you help make me a king, perhaps …’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My brother Gisli. My twin. He has the throne of Is-hjarta. He knows I have a greater claim on it, and that’s why he had me imprisoned and spread rumours I was dead. But one day … I would like to return to Is-hjarta and reclaim what is mine.’

  ‘How could I possibly help?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but you are strong and canny. If you helped to make me king, I would convert and so would all of the Ice-Heart.’

  A kingdom. A whole kingdom to convert. Angels sang in her heart at the idea, and she knew it would come true somehow. She only had to turn her focus to it wholly and solely. Perhaps if she did that, Maava would reward her with Avaarni’s rebirth as a son.

  ‘It will happen,’ she said, in a clear cold voice. ‘I don’t know when, but I am young. Do you swear you will convert if I help make you king of Is-hjarta?’

  He spat in his hand and offered it to her. She did not recoil. She spat in her own hand and they slapped their hands together and held them firmly. His fingers were big and rough.

  ‘But first,’ Hakon said, ‘your sister.’

  ‘My sister,’ Willow said. ‘I will be ready for her soon. Maybe by next summer.’

  ‘Before then.’ He sniffed. ‘You do not know your strength. I see it.’

  And with Ælmesse in disarray, King Hakon of Is-hjarta could take it and from there all of Thyrsland would resonate with Maava’s great name. The thought popped into her head, a ringing song of joy and praise. She began to laugh.

  ‘What is funny?’ Hakon asked, smiling his awful smile.

  ‘The angels love us. You should hear them singing!’

  He shrugged, pulling thoughtfully on his long plaited beard.

  ‘But you would take Maava as your soul’s Lord for the sake of power,’ she chided him. ‘I will show you. I will show you His might and you will come to your knees for Him. I promise you.’

  Hakon sheathed his sword and stood. ‘We will see,’ he said dubiously. ‘Same time tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, same time tomorrow,’ she said. And in her head she said, Yes, you will see. You will see.

  Fourte
en

  Skalmir pulled on his shoes and slammed out of the room, through the empty drinking area that smelled of stale beer and cold ash, and into the rain. He almost ran into Ned, the younger of the king’s guardsmen, standing under the shelter of the eaves, pissing against the wall.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ Skalmir demanded. ‘How long have you been out here? Did you see Rowan?’

  Ned refastened his trousers and gave Skalmir a quizzical look. ‘She’s with you.’

  ‘She’s not. She climbed out the window. She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ He blinked back at Skalmir, the significance of what he was saying starting to sink in. ‘The king’s daughter is gone?’

  ‘Yes. We need to go after her. I don’t know how long ago she left, but on horseback we should catch her.’ Was that true? Wouldn’t she stay off the road, trying to avoid them? But how would she find her way? How long had she already wandered in the dark? The thought was like a punch in his stomach. Rowan. So young and small, somewhere alone and unprotected in the wide world.

  But then it occurred to him: perhaps she wasn’t alone at all. And although she had gone willingly, that didn’t mean she had gone without assistance.

  ‘Wake your friend,’ Skalmir demanded of Ned. ‘We have to get after her.’

  But Ned was peering at him darkly, his hand on the pommel of his sword. ‘Go back inside,’ he commanded. ‘Show me the room where you both slept.’

  Of course suspicion would fall on him. He’d insisted on coming, insisted on staying at an inn and sharing a room with Rowan.

  ‘Yes, yes, this way,’ Skalmir said, deciding the safest strategy was to go along with Ned. As soon as he saw the evidence, he would know Skalmir wasn’t lying, and he would get on with trying to find Rowan.

  Skalmir led the man inside, opened the door and gestured to the trunk, the open window. But the door slammed behind him, with Ned on the other side.

  Skalmir tried the handle, but it was being held firm from the outside, jammed by something hard and unbreakable. He heard Ned calling for Harack, people’s voices as others woke, footsteps, a dog barking; and he pushed against the handle with all his might until he heard the innkeeper’s voice and the jangle of keys and knew he’d been locked in.