Daughters Of The Storm (23 page)

The thought made her lonely, but just for a moment. Then the angels spat to life in her head and she remembered her purpose. It wasn't to sit here, pitying herself. Once again, she prayed. This time, harder than before. Prayed until her ribs ached and her fingers were raw around the silver chain. Dimly, she became aware she was drifting away from the camp, from the popping fire and the spring breeze. The words were leading her into a different place, a soft place where she could lay down her burden ...

Then she snapped awake. Birdsong, pale light. It was dawn. She had fallen asleep.

Quickly, she picked up the chain and began to pray again, in time to hear Bluebell's voice strong behind her.

‘What are you doing?'

Willow plunged the chain and triangle between her knees, folding it between layers of her skirt. She turned to Bluebell, heart thundering. ‘I'm ...'

‘You're not supposed to be on watch. Ivy is.'

Relief was warm in her heart as she realised Bluebell hadn't seen her praying. ‘Oh. Ivy was tired and I wanted to be there for Father.'

Bluebell smiled, an expression that made her scarred face look cruel. ‘You can help Father best by being fit to travel.' She touched Willow's shoulder lightly. ‘You do enough. Ivy needs to do more. Please let her.' Then she was striding off while Willow wound up her chain and placed it carefully in her pocket, away from judging eyes.

They smelled the farm long before they saw it. A soft breeze from the north in the late afternoon carrying the sweet, creamy scent of flowers. Ash took deep breaths of it. The change from one season to another always made her ache pleasantly. Yes, it was a farewell to the stark splendour of winter, to the bare trees and pure glistening snow. But that first kiss of warmth on the breeze, those first green shoots on the chestnut trees, made her heart cheer.

Soon they would rest and eat and have a roof over their heads. Bluebell had dispatched Sighere and Heath to Stonemantel for supplies. The rest of the party rattled wearily down a rutted track beside a stream where trees created cold shade. Then over the rise Ash saw it: a sea of flowers. Creamy meadowsweet and blue wolfsbane, white daisies and yellow cowslip, all growing gloriously in the sunshine among the long, waving grasses. She caught her breath.

She urged her horse forwards so she was riding alongside Bluebell. A flurry of white flower seeds, like snow, was beaten up by her horse's hooves. ‘The whole farm is like this?'

‘It used to be a barley farm. The woman who lived here loved flowers and turned the fields over to them.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘She died a few months ago.'

‘It's very pretty,' Ash said.

‘You can't eat flowers,' Bluebell grumbled. ‘But there are chickens and bees. And lots of room.'

As the stable and the farmhouse came into view, Ash understood how true this last statement was. The house was long and sturdy: one end was constructed of stone, but the largest section was constructed of dark wood. The doorframes and windowsills were decorated with carvings of creeping vines and flowers. They rode through the wide front gate, under a carved arch, and round to the stables.

Bluebell ordered a horrified Ivy to tend to the horses, and Willow offered to stay and help her. Æthlric was in one of his deep sleeps, so Bluebell left him outside the stable in his cart and led the rest of them inside to see the house.

They came into the main part of the farmhouse, where the cold hearthpit sat. The interior was cool and dark, musty with the smell of dust and mouse droppings. Posies of dried flowers hung from the ceiling beams. Rose and Rowan stayed to light the fire while Ash followed Bluebell as she explored behind other doors. One small room was a larder, where they found barrels of grain and salt. The next door led to a bedroom, where the ceiling sloped dramatically low. A wooden bed had been built on the floorboards and a large chest stood beside it. Ash opened the chest. It was full of women's clothes.

‘This must have been where she slept,' Ash said, careful not to touch any of the clothes lest the memories jumped onto her hands.

‘Æthlric can have this room,' Bluebell declared, testing the mattress with her foot. ‘This is full of feathers. He'll be comfortable here. There's plenty of room for the rest of us around the hearthpit.'

She strode out, Ash scurrying after her. The next room was a kitchen. Knives and bowls, jars of pickled food and jams were stacked on benches. A large pot hung on a chain over the hearth. A low door stood opposite the one they'd come in. Ash unlatched it and found herself looking out over a soft carpet of meadow grass and flowers, down towards a deep green strip that unribboned across the fields.

‘A stream,' Ash said. ‘Nice and close.'

Bluebell was examining the jars. ‘There's a lot of food here already. I'm told there are chickens.' She looked up. ‘Ash, could you go out and look for eggs?'

Ash nodded, and ducked under the threshold and outside. She followed her ears to the chicken coop. Two hens were still out in the soft light, scratching in the dirt. Ash bent to enter the coop. Eggs everywhere. Dozens of them. She collected as many as her skirt would hold and emerged into the twilight.

She stopped a moment, drawn by a prickling sense somebody was watching her. Her gaze went across the fields and towards the stream. A breath half-caught in her lungs.

Nothing.

Then, something. A dark silhouette on the opposite bank of the stream, flickering into visibility. Ash blinked hard, but already the muffling hush against her ears told her that her second sight had opened up. She focussed hard. The figure turned slightly, enough that the last light of the day caught her features. Then the figure dived into the water and disappeared, leaving a silvery flash behind her. It dissolved, and then nothing.

Ash knew she had seen a water spirit. She had never seen one before. She had never seen any kind of elemental before. Nobody saw elementals.

But she had seen one. And in that moment when the light had hit it, the creature had looked as surprised as she was.

The aching in her joints had started and Ash cursed this decision to keep her senses alert. Already, it seemed, she was attracting attention she didn't want.

The wood where Wylm decided to stay the night was thick and overgrown. Little dark berries and pale flowers hung from vines that wove themselves around rough hedges. He was too tired to hunt and cook, so he unrolled his blanket on a patch of soft undergrowth and lay down. The tendons behind his ankles throbbed softly. Late afternoon shadows stretched cool throughout the wood. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the sharp stone under his hip, the chilling damp that was beginning to seep through his blanket. Exhaustion overwhelmed these other discomforts, and he plummeted into sleep before the blackbirds stopped singing for the night.

The dream was as dark as the wood, though in it he was standing, not lying down. In front of him was a high stack of branches and twigs: a funeral pyre. He approached slowly. In the grey shadows, he could see a man's hand hanging over the edge of the pyre. A gold ring on his index finger glinted dully and Wylm knew this man was his father. Inconsolable childish grief returned to him with full force. He struggled against the dream, but was caught fast in its web. The pyre burst into life, sending up a spray of bright embers. He stepped back.

Then the skin on his back shivered as he sensed something behind him. Someone was crying. He didn't want to look around, for he knew when he looked he would see something so terrifying it would make his heart stop. The firelight made shadows leap and shudder.

‘Please?' a little voice said, almost inaudible over the whoosh of the flames.

He turned. A boy stood there. The boy from the farm: Eni. Sightless eyes. Wylm's heart flashed hot. Eni reached his hand towards him.

Wylm woke up. His heart was thudding and his feet tingled. The quiet that engulfed his ears was sudden and shocking. It was fully dark now, and his eyes took a moment to adjust.

He shivered. A light rain fell. He sat up, pulling his knees close in the circle of his arms. The shivering wouldn't stop; even his breath shuddered in his lungs. The soft tissue under his ribs felt raw. The boy. He had left the blind, simple boy alone, probably to die slowly of starvation, wondering where his father had gone.

The distress he experienced at this thought was blunt and hard, and it made him loathe himself and fear for himself, and at the same time it made him stand and grab his pack and head back onto the road the way he had come, to retrace his steps.

He could not endure the boy's misery. He had to end it, one way or another.

Bluebell hated the hour before dawn blushed the sky. Quiet. Absolute quiet. Everyone slept, even the birds and the horses. The world had stopped. She sat on the floor next to her father's bed, her chin resting on her knees. Father slept too.

She glanced at him in the candlelight. He was no better, he was no worse. Experience told her things would go as they would go, that hoping and fearing would make no difference to the outcome. Her spirit was weary of the hope and the fear.

The door opened, and Sighere stood there. ‘My lord. Your watch is over.'

‘Close the door,' she said.

Sighere did as he was told and sat cross-legged next to her. He was a tall man, with bony knees, very dark hair, and thick eyebrows. Not a great brain, but a great heart.

‘Why are we still watching him, Sighere? We're in no danger now.'

‘We are watching him because you willed it, my lord.'

‘You didn't question me.'

‘I never do.'

‘Yes, you do. If I'm about to ride into an ambush.' She smiled.

‘This is different, Bluebell,' he said quietly. ‘This is your father.'

She turned her eyes to Æthlric. ‘I want him watched, Sighere, because I'm afraid he'll die alone.'

Sighere didn't answer.

‘I have been listening to the quiet,' she said. ‘It is the quiet of death, but not glorious death in battle. The death of old age and winter. And I have been imagining his hall, when we have returned from a campaign and the mead flows and laughter and firelight warm everyone's faces and the harps clang. Father with his arms outstretched, giving gold and love.' She mimed the movement, her long arms sending spindly shadows across the bed. ‘Then I am back here in this wretched, silent darkness and I cannot bear it.'

‘I would bear it for you. If I could.'

She shrugged. ‘We must look to the future. He can't travel. He is better here. I will take my sister Ash and we will go up to Bradsey alone. We'll bring back the witch.'

‘If she will come with you.'

‘I will make her come.'

Sighere nodded. ‘I don't doubt you.'

‘You will stay in command here and protect my sisters, and my sister's child especially.'

‘When will you leave?'

She glanced at Æthlric again. She opened her mouth to say, ‘Today,' but then hesitated. What if he woke up with the dawn, clear-eyed and asking for her? Should she not allow a few days for any magic to weaken? ‘I'll wait until he's been a week away from Blicstowe,' she said.

Sighere's eyes flickered almost imperceptibly, and she knew he thought she had made a decision from the heart and not the head. ‘As you wish it, my lord. That way you can be certain you've decided well.'

But certainty would continue to elude her, she knew, until he was well again. Or until he was dead.