Daughters Of The Storm (47 page)

In the morning, before Ash opened her eyes, she was aware she was somewhere new by the smells. She remembered the previous day, the pain of leaving her family behind, and tried to burrow back into sleep where nothing hurt.

But it was full daylight, and Unweder was nowhere to be seen. She rose and went to the door to look outside. No, she was definitely alone.

She turned and caught sight of the chest Unweder had forbidden her to touch yesterday, and frowned.

It seemed he didn't trust her after all. He had put a box padlock on the latch.

Late afternoon shadows and a tired horse told Rose she had to stop. Since she had drawn closer to the border of Netelchester, the roads were busier and the inns more frequent. She paid a stable hand to take her horse and found a bench at the inn to order a meal and a drink.

The serving woman who approached her was trailed by a small girl, perhaps a little older than Rowan. Rose's heart twinged, seeing the child's poreless skin and liquid eyes.

‘Hello,' Rose said to the little girl.

She sank behind her mother's skirts. The serving woman put a hand in the child's hair. ‘It's all right, little one,' she said. She smiled at Rose. ‘A few of the patrons have been annoyed that I have her here with me tonight. She's caught the rough end of a few tongues.'

‘But she's only a child.'

‘She's slowed me down. But my husband's away and my sister offered to look after her, but then she got sick.' She shrugged. ‘I couldn't leave her at home alone.'

‘Of course not.'

‘It's only one night. Her father's home tomorrow.'

‘Are you helping Mama?' Rose said to the little girl.

She nodded enthusiastically. ‘I've been carrying plates.'

‘Good for you.'

As she waited for her food, Rose watched the serving woman and her child. Here she was, a queen. She wore gold brooches and beads from exotic lands far away. And she would exchange it all to be a serving woman in an inn on the road out of Lyteldyke, who had her child with her and the child's father coming home tomorrow.

What waited for her back in Folcenham? She had almost changed her mind, a day out of Bradsey. She had almost headed for Stonemantel, to find Heath and tell him what happened. Because an awful suspicion was growing inside her that Wengest was behind Rowan's disappearance. Every morning, in the seeing circle, Rowan's side of the bed was empty. Ivy was still there, sleeping peacefully. So it wasn't as though Folcenham had been conquered by raiders and the inhabitants all put to the knife. But if Wengest had moved Rowan, what was the reason?

Rowan had been away from her own bed for days. Where had he taken her? And why?

The hot nerve quivered in her heart. Her eyes followed the little girl and she felt tears slipping down her cheeks. Deep breaths. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as she feared. Wengest would never hurt Rowan, and he had no reason to think ill of Rose and take the girl away from her. Some benign explanation awaited her, surely. But until she knew what that explanation was, she would keep moving as fast as she could towards home.

Willow liked a simple life. Her days started early, before Heath was awake. She stole away every morning in the grainy dark before dawn to pray outside the front gate, begging the angel voices to come to her. Sometimes they did, with a whoosh of grey wings
clattering and a tumble of words falling sharp and golden through her senses. Sometimes, there was nothing but the grindstone of her own brain. Afterwards, though, she would return to the farmhouse and stoke the fire, make the morning's bread, tend to her father and his soiled bedclothes, then start the dinner. She and Heath fell into a comfortable, if not companionable, routine. They spoke to each other little and he spent most of his days outdoors, tending to horses and hunting food. At night she slept on the floor of her father's room while Heath slept by the low-burning hearth.

On this particular day, she woke with a prickle in her senses that told her today would be different somehow. A vague wariness infused her as she slipped past the sleeping Heath and let herself out into the twilit morning. She paused a few moments on the doorstep, glancing around her. Nothing moved that didn't always move, like the branches and leaves and waking birds. Yellow light lay just beyond the horizon. Sweet floral smells were damp in her nostrils. Seeing and hearing nothing out of the ordinary, she moved off up the front path and made her way across dewy grass to the front wall and gate. She checked behind her once more, then decided that surely this prickle simply meant that Maava was working in her and that he or his angels would speak directly to her this morning. Excited, she was light of step as she made her way to her usual place on a collapsed pile of stones, sat and withdrew her triangle to pray.

Maava, my lord and protector, speak to me this day that I might
—

‘Please, you must help me.'

Willow's eyes flew open. This was no angel's voice. Standing before her, clutching a skinny child against him, was a man.

Not any man. As her gaze focussed and she looked beyond the travel dirt and pale sickliness, she recognised her stepbrother. Wylm.

‘Oh!' she cried, then remembered herself and tucked her triangle away, climbing to her feet. ‘What are you ... where have
you ...?' She remembered the dream she'd had about him, and blushed despite herself.

‘You must help me, sister,' he said. ‘You must help us both but I ...' He extended his left hand, and she could see a festering wound barely covered by a filthy bandage.

‘Of course. Come with me. Come inside.'

‘No. No, I can't. Bluebell has ...' He appeared to be speaking with great effort. ‘She hates me. She has poisoned the opinions of others.' He spat the word ‘poisoned', spittle landing at her feet. ‘I cannot go in.'

‘Bluebell is not here.'

‘She's not ... here?' Bewilderment crept over his face. His feet faltered.

Willow realised he was seriously unwell. He clearly had a fever upon him. ‘You must come inside.'

‘I cannot, for if any of her retinue are within they will slay me immediately.'

Willow glanced back towards the house, even though the view was obscured by the high wall. ‘Heath is still here.'

‘Then I must not go in. You must bring help out. The lad is fine. He's well and he has eaten. I had ... food ...'

Willow turned her focus to the child, whose eyes darted around like fish in a pond. ‘Is he blind?'

‘This is Bluebell's son, Eni,' Wylm gasped. ‘I have rescued him.'

‘Son?'

‘Illegitimate.'

Her mind reeled. She had known her sister a violent thug, but couldn't imagine her as anyone's lover. ‘You can tell me all in a short while. Wait here. I will get what I can for you before Heath wakes. I think ... I think I know how to treat an infected wound.' Countless times the little cuts she caused on her own body had grown red and once one had even filled up with a volcano of pus. ‘My sister Ash left medicine.'

‘Anything you can do will help me, but I cannot wait here out in the open. Eni and I will be further into the woods. I've made a little space for us. You'll find us if you call.'

He took Eni by the elbow and shuffled off over the wide stony road and towards the woods. Willow hurried back to the farmhouse. Heath was still asleep, but he stirred and rolled over when she came in. Any moment he would open his eyes. She went to the shelf above her father's bed where Ash had put the pots and potions she used. The little stone pot full of oily balm was there. She had been instructed to use it if her father had developed any infected bedsores, but so far the king had been magically free of such things in his unnatural stasis. She also found the pot of honey and crushed coriander seeds, that would take down Wylm's fever. Willow put the pots in her apron then tore the bottom off her father's cloak for a bandage. In the kitchen, she seized the rest of yesterday's bread and some cold pheasant that had spent the night under a linen cloth. With these things and a skin full of clean water she was halfway out the door when Heath woke.

‘Willow?' he said blearily.

She paused, heart hammering. Why did she feel so guilty? This was Maava's good work she was performing. ‘I'm going for a walk,' she said, with cool righteousness.

‘Very well.'

Then the door was slamming closed behind her and she was outside. Dawn had cracked over the horizon and golden light flooded among the trees in the wood. She listened for voices. Called out, ‘Hello?'

‘Hoy,' came Wylm's response. ‘This way.'

She took a deep breath, and headed into the woods. Within a hundred yards she had found them. Wylm had rigged up a large piece of hide as a roof, tied among tree branches. On the ground he had laid travelling skins and blankets. Here the little boy sat,
twisting a ring round and around on his finger. Wylm lay on his side. His skin was unnaturally white, thick with sweat.

‘Here,' she said, ‘take some of this.' She handed him the honey and coriander medicine.

‘How much?' he said, unstopping the lid.

‘I'm not sure,' she said, faltering. ‘All of it, perhaps?'

He tipped the pot to his lips and the medicine dripped into his mouth.

‘How long have you had the infection?' she asked, kneeling beside him and unwrapping the wound.

‘It has been over a week since I received the wound. It looked a little better for a time, when I had it in seawater every day. But travelling on land with the lad, fiddling with dirt and ropes ...' He winced as she turned his hand to the light to look at it closely, then returned the medicine pot to his lips.

‘And your fever?'

‘Three days now.'

‘Let me clean this wound and dress it. Tell me about the boy, tell me how you came to be here in the woods, while I work.'

Wylm turned his face away, gritting his teeth as she poured water on the wound and started dabbing at it fearlessly.

‘I found Eni at his dead father's house on a millet farm just out of Blicstowe. He can hear, but he understands almost nothing. His eyes don't work either. But he is Bluebell's child. You see the ring. And I know his father was your sister's lover.'

Willow concentrated very hard on the task in front of her, so she wouldn't blush at the word ‘lover'. Grit had embedded itself in the wound and she had to dig a little with her fingernail to clear it out. White-yellow fluid followed it, running over Wylm's hand and onto the blankets beneath him.

‘This millet farm, was it manned by a fellow named Sabert? Willow asked.

‘I didn't ask his name.'

‘A stocky dark-haired fellow?'

‘The very same.'

‘I met him there once, Willow said, ‘many years ago when I was a child. I rode there with Bluebell. I had no idea they were... He seemed kind. It is sad that he is dead. I think I remember a small boy. This must be him.'

‘Yes, it must.'

‘You have grown, little one,' she said to Eni kindly, then turned her attention back to Wylm. ‘You mentioned seawater.'

‘I have been at sea for six days. We were captured by raiders, and taken to King Hakon's lair on Hrafnsey.'

‘No! King Hakon is real? I thought he was just a character made up to frighten children.'

‘As real as you or me. And a nightmare to look at.' He paused a moment then continued with a voice full of steel. ‘All of them heathens.'

Willow's head snapped up.

‘I saw you. With your triangle.'

‘I ...'

‘It's all right, Willow. I have seen you with it before. I know your secret and I do not mind. Because I share it.'

‘You are ...?'

‘One of Maava's good children, yes. Or at least I try to be. I am certain that Maava was guiding my hand when I managed to escape the island with Eni on a fishing boat. The first day was fair, but then grey clouds rolled in and the sea surges tossed us this way and that.'

Willow turned his hand to catch the morning sunlight and see if she had cleaned it properly. Satisfied, she washed it with clean water again and held it still a moment for the morning air to dry it. She became very aware that it was Wylm's hand she was holding.
Wylm whom she had dreamed of, who was now telling of his heroic escape from the monstrous Crow King. ‘Go on,' she said.