Daughters Of The Storm (16 page)

At the bottom of the slope that led up to the gatehouse, Ivy stopped. Willow, her arm pulled backwards by the sudden stop, turned to look at her irritably. ‘I'm not carrying it by myself,' Willow said.

‘We're going to end up with calloused hands. My shoulder's aching. My feet are sore.' What she really wanted to say was,
I shouldn't have to do this, I'm a princess.
But she didn't. Willow wouldn't be sympathetic.

‘What do you suggest?' Willow asked.

‘Go up and find some man in the alehouse to carry our chest for us.'

‘Why should I do it?'

‘Because ...'

‘I don't want to go near the alehouse. Women have no place around drunken men.'

‘Does Maava say that?' Ivy grew tired of Willow's endless moral lessons.

‘No. I say it.' Willow lifted an eyebrow. ‘Go on. I'll wait here with the chest.'

Ivy glanced at the sun, then back up the hill. One way or another, she had to walk up it. ‘Well, then,' she said, but Willow had sat on the trunk and closed her eyes to pray again.

She slipped off her shoes and began to walk. Halfway up the hill, a golden-haired man on a white horse burst from the gates. Ivy waved madly. ‘Hello!' she said. ‘Hello! Wait!'

The man reined the horse in and Ivy approached. Her heart had sped up because it had noticed, before her eyes had, that the man was gorgeous. He was clean-shaven, with aqua eyes and a deep arch to his top lip.

‘Can you help us?' she said, panting. ‘My sister and me? We are the king's daughters ... we have a chest we need to get up to the king's compound. We can't carry it ourselves.'

The man hesitated.

Ivy dropped her head and looked at him from under her eyelashes. ‘Please?'

‘I know your sisters,' he said at last. ‘I'm ... Bluebell has asked me to return to Folcenham.'

‘She won't mind if you help us. She'd appreciate it.'

He nodded, then climbed down from his horse and tied it to the gatepost. ‘Where is the chest?'

‘Back down the hill a little way. I'll show you.' Any thought of waiting in the shade evaporated. ‘There, see? There's Willow. How do you know my other sisters?'

‘King Wengest is my uncle,' he said. ‘I know Rose very well. I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Heath.'

‘Heath,' she said, tasting his name and finding it appetising. ‘I'm Ivy'. She glanced at him sidelong. He was tall, well-made.
The lack of beard was a novelty, and not an unwelcome one. She had only ever kissed men with beards. Sometimes she liked it; she liked feeling her smooth softness in contrast to their roughness. Sometimes she hated beards. Scratchy and ugly. She wondered what it would feel like to kiss a man — hard and strong — without having to contend with whiskers. The thoughts kept her busy all the way down the hill and back onto the road.

She glanced ahead and saw Willow, the silver triangle against her lips. She willed her sister to put the wretched thing down before Heath saw her and reported back to Bluebell. Sometimes she wondered if Willow knew how angry the rest of her family would be if they knew she'd adopted the trimartyr religion. But Willow seemed to care little for anyone's opinion. She had a steeliness about her that Ivy found unnerving.

‘Ignore my sister's bad habits,' Ivy said to Heath, trying to keep her voice light.

He smiled tightly. ‘I won't say a word.'

‘Willow!' Ivy called.

Willow opened her eyes, saw she had company and had the good sense to tuck the triangle and its chain into the pocket on the front of her dress. She stood, smoothing down her clothes.

‘Thank you,' Willow said, as Heath bent to lift the chest, his long hair falling across his face. ‘We'll pay you well.'

‘There's no need to pay me,' Heath said softly. ‘I'm in service to your family.'

Oh, he was perfect. Ivy dragged her feet, extending the time she could walk beside him even though she knew it meant he had to carry the chest for longer. He slowed to her pace. She glanced at his strong forearms, the light golden hairs on his wrists. Ivy felt the familiar stirring of lust. Lust, surely, was wild and fifteen like her: a blind thing that hummed in the body like mad bees.

Then they were back up through the gates, fighting their way through the afternoon crowds on the paths between the wooden buildings, getting stuck behind a farmer herding two goats away from the marketplace. Ivy fell into step behind him, Willow behind her. They approached the family compound. Heath slowed and came to a stop. Ivy took her eyes off his buttocks for long enough to register that Bluebell stood in front of them.

‘I thought you were going home to Folcenham,' she said to Heath, and Ivy heard the chill edge of threat in her voice. Interesting. Bluebell didn't like Heath.

‘It's my fault, sister,' Ivy said, stepping out from behind Heath, who had laid their chest on the ground. ‘The driver wouldn't take us any further and Heath was riding past and said he'd carry our chest for us.' She turned to Heath and beamed. ‘Thank you.'

He didn't take his eyes off Bluebell. ‘I only wanted to serve your family, Bluebell,' he said deferentially. ‘I meant no harm. I'll be on my way.'

Bluebell softened, shook her head slightly. ‘No, don't go,' she sighed. ‘I need to speak with you. Go back up to the alehouse. I'll meet you soon.' She bent and picked up Ivy and Willow's chest. ‘Come on, you two. You'll want to see Father.'

Ivy didn't really want to see Father. She didn't care that much for him, but she did as she was told, glancing one last time over her shoulder at gorgeous, golden-haired Heath.

Bluebell pushed open the alehouse door and scanned the room. There, in the back corner under a shutter left open to let the afternoon sun in, was Heath. He looked glum. She suppressed a smile. Rose had been wearing the same expression when Bluebell left her ten minutes ago.

She straightened her belt and strode over to him.

‘My lord?' he said.

‘Heath.' She sat down, tapping her hands anxiously on the table. ‘I need to speak to you seriously.'

He nodded once, his mouth set in a line.

‘My second-in-command, Sighere, arrived today. I've been taking his counsel.' She sighed. ‘Look, there's no point in hedging. You already know King Æthlric is ill and we don't want that knowledge too widely spread. My sisters and I are taking him north, for reasons I'm not willing to speak of. But there are unarmed women and a sick man, a very important sick man, and ... I need another set of arms. I am strongest when surrounded by other strong men. Will you come?'

‘Of course, my lord,' he said.

‘Do I need to say the next part?'

He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘I'll keep my distance from her.'

‘Do I need to threaten you?'

‘No, my lord.'

She thought about threatening him anyway. Perhaps pulling her blade and pushing its tip into the soft space between his ribs, asking him to memorise how it felt in case he was tempted: nothing like cold steel to discourage a hard cock. But she didn't. Heath was a good soldier, and Bluebell would make sure there wasn't an occasion for him to be alone with Rose. Rose wouldn't like it, but she would have to get used to it.

‘We leave at first light tomorrow,' she said. ‘Meet us at the stables.'

Wylm hadn't meant to follow Bluebell. He had simply noticed her thundering out the front gates of the town on a black stallion in the early afternoon and wondered where she was going. Two hours
later, he happened to be near the gatehouse — loitering, flirting with a creamy-skinned woman named Hazel — when Bluebell came back. She looked ... well, she always looked grim. Grimmer? Perhaps. But their exchange at the alehouse had aroused his suspicion and he wondered where she had been. He went to the stables for his mother's mare and went to find out.

The rain had stayed away for two days, but the ground was not yet dry so he found her horse's prints easily. He traced them down the road and across a field, then north a little and onto a narrow lane between farmland. He lost the tracks for a while, but kept riding in the same direction, and soon picked them up again at a stream crossing. Then it was easy to follow them down a rutted, overgrown path. A little farmhouse came into sight and Wylm dismounted and tied his horse to an oak tree so he could get closer without being seen. He took cover behind an unkempt hedgerow. Across the field, a man with a head like a block and thick, black hair was mending a fence. Wylm watched him a while. The hoofprints definitely led onto this farm and he wondered who the man was, what Bluebell had been doing here.

Was this the lover?

Wylm nearly choked on his suppressed laughter. Why, she must be a foot taller than him! They'd both have to be blindfolded to enjoy themselves, surely. He stifled a laugh, but then the door to the farmhouse opened and a little boy emerged.

A child. A flame ignited in Wylm's chest. Could this be ... Did Bluebell have a child?

No, he was letting his tired brain run away from him. Somebody would have noticed if Bluebell's belly had swelled. She would have been forced out of men's clothes, out of battle, out of public life.

But then, this child looked to be about ten. He didn't know where Bluebell had been ten years ago, what activities might have
been used to cover a secret, illegitimate pregnancy. His whole body flexed forwards with eagerness. A child. And not an ordinary child. This one felt his way carefully along with his toes, his sightless eyes unblinking against the bright sunlight. A certain slackness around his mouth told Wylm it wasn't only his eyes that didn't work right. The farmer pulled the boy close into a hug.

Wylm was electrified. Had he just learned something about Bluebell that nobody else knew? A cooler, duller thought: was it of any use to him?

He stood and headed back to his horse and made his way home to Blicstowe, through the gate and to the stables. The change from bright daylight to semi-dark made Wylm stop a moment to adjust his eyes. The stable smelled of straw and leather.

Bluebell's big warhorse, Isern, was being groomed carefully by young Tom. Isern was back? Why hadn't she taken him to her lover's farm?

‘Afternoon, Tom,' he said, leading his horse to her stable.

‘Afternoon, Master Wylm.'

‘Bluebell's horse is back?'

‘He's been back a few days. We're giving him a rest. She's off again tomorrow.'

‘Is she? Where to?'

‘King's business, I imagine.' He put down his head and kept brushing.

‘But the king ...' Wylm fell silent. Nobody outside a handful of people knew about the king. The steward certainly wouldn't. So Bluebell was off somewhere tomorrow? Far enough away to need her horse rested? His spine prickled. He needed to speak to his mother.

He patted his horse's nose, but noticed his hand was shaking. ‘Tom, you'll take care of my mother's horse for me? I have to be somewhere.'

‘Of course.'

Wylm found his mother in the little room Bluebell had assigned them. Wylm hadn't slept beside Gudrun since he was a chubby-fingered boy, so he had been spending his nights at the alehouse. Gudrun sat in front of a bronze mirror, carefully combing and plaiting her hair. She looked tired. No: more than tired. She looked haunted. He stretched his mind back to his own father's death — her first husband's death — and couldn't remember her looking so drawn and pale back then. A childish feeling of having to endure unfairness pulled tight in his belly, and he took a breath to make it go away. He had been only ten when his father died; perhaps his memory was faulty.

‘Mother,' he said, ‘is there any chance that Bluebell has a child?'

Gudrun snorted. ‘Of course not.'

‘Æthlric never said anything that made you suspect?'

‘I ... he knew she had a lover. But I think it unlikely that a pregnancy would go unnoticed.'

Wylm let it go. ‘Bluebell is up to something,' he said.