Daughters Of The Storm (49 page)

Bluebell stared at Yldra in the dim, smoky firelight. The fire popped softly. She could hear the thrum of her pulse in her ears. Finally, she said, ‘Will you come?'

Yldra raised her gaze to meet Bluebell's. ‘I won't do it for love.'

‘Then do it for money. I can pay you well.'

Yldra gestured around. ‘I live simply.'

‘Do it for curiosity.'

Yldra shrugged.

‘What can I offer you?'

‘Why do you want to save him? When he dies, you will be queen.'

‘My father's life is more important to me than my own ambitions.'

‘Really?'

‘Of course.'

A pause. ‘I am impressed.' Yldra smiled mischievously. ‘I presume, though, that you don't intend to hand the kingdom over to me now you know the truth.'

Bluebell trod carefully. ‘Nobody in Ælmesse would know you or trust you. But you would be welcome to live with us in
Blicstowe and be part of the family, and use your skills to help keep the peace in Thyrsland.'

‘And you would let me do that?'

‘Yes. Of course.'

Her eyes grew dark, bird-like. ‘It's more than your father ever offered. Why do you think that is?'

He was ashamed.
‘I don't know.'

‘You really don't know? You know his mind so well, though. So the legends go.'

He was ashamed at how he treated his sister, but also terrified that if she was too close she could gather enough support to challenge him.
‘You will have to come with me, make him well again, and ask him yourself.'

Yldra nodded. ‘Well, then. I suppose I will.'

Relief spread warmly behind Bluebell's eyes. ‘We can leave in the morning.'

‘No, we can't. We must travel at night.'

Bluebell sat forwards, shaking her head. ‘My horse can't travel at night.'

‘He will, and so will I. Only at night.' She smoothed her skirt over her legs. ‘I will pull the strength of the Earth Mother herself from the ground tomorrow during the day, and we will leave once the sun has disappeared behind the world. We will travel nearly twice as fast as you could travel. The horses won't tire, though you may.' Yldra smiled, a little cruelly. ‘You'll have to guard me during the day while I renew myself, and travel all night while my body is at its strongest.'

‘Are you saying you can overcome your lameness with magic?'

‘Well enough to travel. But most importantly, I can enchant the horses for speed and night vision. Ah, I see it in your eyes. How useful that would be in battle. But Æthlric thought not.'

‘It's night now. Can we leave now?'

‘I need to renew myself. In the daytime. When the sun's warmth is in the ground.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘You will come to understand. Where is your father? Back in Blicstowe?'

‘At a flower farm, outside of Stonemantel.'

‘We can be with him within a week.'

Bluebell's heart leapt. ‘Really?' Then a darker thought. Was he even still alive?

‘It depends on how much magic I can draw out of the ground. But I think it should be an easy and fast trip down. But you must rest tonight, because there won't be much rest for the next week.'

‘My horse,' Bluebell said.

‘You go on. I'll get myself ready.'

When Bluebell returned, Yldra had cleared a space for her to unroll her blankets on the floor. She stretched out her long frame while Yldra continued to potter about, gathering things and placing them in an embroidered pack. Bluebell closed her eyes and told herself to sleep, but it was much later, when Yldra had taken herself to her little bed under the lowest roof beam and the fire in the hearth had grown low, that she finally drifted off into a dream where Father wasn't really Father at all, but a grey-haired stranger who said one thing, but meant something quite different.

Bluebell woke to the smell of dirt and ash, light pressing on her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes. The shutter was open and letting in a dazzling beam of bright morning light. Bluebell sat up.

In the beam of light, Yldra had cleared the rushes next to her bed and was digging. With her fingers.

‘What are you doing?' Bluebell asked, her voice catching on sleep.

Yldra looked up. ‘The soil is very loose. Don't worry. I've done this before.'

‘But why are you digging?'

‘This is how I renew myself with the Earth Mother's magic.'

Bluebell's memory twitched. She had heard of such a practice, whispered with suspicion by those who opposed undermagic.
They bury themselves alive.

‘Can I ... help?'

‘I am quite capable of doing this myself, as I have done many times before.'

As Bluebell watched, Yldra climbed into the pit she had dug and, sitting up, began to cover her legs and lower body.

‘How do you breathe?'

‘Don't believe all you've heard. I don't bury my face or arms.' She packed the soil down hard and continued to scoop more in. ‘The sun will sit on this spot for an hour and warm the ground, and I will be in here, renewing, until nightfall.'

‘Renewing?'

‘It is a kind of deep sleep, so I won't hear or see anything until I wake. In here I am safe; on the open road, I am prey to every undermagician in Bradsey.'

‘I won't let anything happen to you.'

Yldra harrumphed. ‘And well you shouldn't. I'm doing you a very great favour.'

‘You are doing your brother a favour.'

Yldra stopped for a moment, fixing her in a glare. ‘Oh, no, I am not.' Then she kept working, filling in her pit, finally lying down and scooping the last of the dirt onto her chest. ‘Make yourself food, and get the horses ready in the afternoon. Try to get some more rest yourself, if you can. I have to go under now.'

‘All right.'

She closed her eyes and soon grew very still.

Bluebell stood and went to the pit, looking down at Yldra. Her pale face was relaxed. In the bright sunlight, Bluebell could see the little imperfections in her face. Fine wrinkles, little pale hairs growing on her chin. Bluebell watched her for a few minutes. She knew that, if somebody watched her with this intensity while she was sleeping, she would wake up. But Yldra didn't stir.

The little house was very quiet. She could hear birdsong from outside, far away in the woods. She glanced around, went to the bench, made food, ate it. Still the house was dark and quiet. She thought about going outside to chop wood, or find water, or ... something. Anything rather than waiting in here with the deathly quiet.

She sat heavily by the cold hearthpit. It wasn't the quiet that bothered her; it was her thoughts. Her father had displaced Yldra as heir to Ælmesse's rule. She tried to tell herself that it might have been the same had Yldra been a brother, crippled by battle, unable to lead an army. But she knew with sinking certainty that this wasn't the case. Yldra's other talents more than made up for an infirmity of the body. And then, rather than having her near so he could take her counsel and honour her as she should be honoured, he had allowed her to slip into undermagician exile. He had allowed her to slip beyond the edge of his family's memory. And as much as she loved her father, Bluebell knew that was wrong.

Well, when Yldra cured him, she would ask him about it. The thought cheered her a little and she sat back to wait in the soft quiet morning.

Bluebell saddled and packed both horses before sunset, then went back inside to find Yldra awake and arisen, brushing dirt out of her hair.

‘Ah, there you are,' the older woman said.

‘The horses are ready.'

‘Very well. Now where have I put my pack?'

Bluebell reached for the embroidered bag, which had leaned beside the bench all day. Yldra moved to take it from her, her gait easy and fluid.

‘You can walk.'

‘Yes, of course.' She put her pack over her shoulder. ‘But only if I've spent hours buried in warm ground. It's not worth it most days.'

Bluebell couldn't imagine it. If her body wasn't whole and healthy, she would do anything to make it so. Her hand unconsciously went to her side, where the Horse God had healed her.

Yldra saw the movement and her nostrils twitched. ‘Ah, that's where the smell is coming from.'

‘Smell.'

‘Magic. Horse God magic. Raw and gamey. The smell of a frightened weasel or distant pig shit. Faint, but there.'

‘The day before I came to you, I was attacked by four raiders,' Bluebell explained. ‘They wounded me mortally. But the Horse God came, in the guise of your father.'

She snorted. ‘That old fool. I suppose you should count yourself lucky then.' Then, to her surprise, Yldra softened. ‘I'm glad you didn't die.'

‘So am I,' Bluebell said with a laugh.

‘But you can be sure every undermagician in every direction will be able to smell you. And that will make some of them angry.'

‘Why?'

‘Because we spend endless hours and moments of delicate and finely-balanced work gently coercing the Earth Mother to bless us with her magic. Then the Horse God bestows his instantly and with baffling partiality.' She pointed to Bluebell. ‘Of course he loves you. You send him many souls.'

Bluebell raised her hands. ‘I tire of magic, Yldra. I can't see it and I don't understand it. Are you ready to leave?'

Yldra tipped back her head and laughed loudly, way down into her belly. ‘Well, then. Let's be on our way.'

Outside, the long afternoon shadows were dissolving into night. Isern looked at Bluebell uncertainly and she rubbed his cheek. ‘All will be well, my friend,' she said to him.

Yldra had her hands on the flank of her horse, muttering something under her breath. Then she approached Isern and Thrymm to do the same.

‘Come,' she said, climbing with ease into her saddle.

Bluebell patted Isern and mounted. She gently touched her heels to Isern's sides and the horse moved forwards, as sure-footed as he was in full daylight.

Yldra smiled across at Bluebell, then shouted, ‘Go!'

And the horses began to gallop, flying over uneven ground as though it were smooth and flat. Soon they were galloping out across the plains, Thrymm fluid in their wake. Isern showed no signs of being tired or unsure of where he was going, and Bluebell relaxed into her saddle and let her aunt lead the way.

Yldra took her a different way to the route she had come. She skirted the edge of the darkened woods Unweder had led them through, cutting instead across plains bracketed by trees and punctuated by standing stones. The waning moon was bright in a cloudless night sky, lending its uncanny silver light to the scene. As they skimmed along, Bluebell had time only to take in quick impressions. The broken tooth of a giant's tower glowing white in the moonlight; a huge black tree spreading its branches like a magician calling down magic from the sky; a small enclave of lime-washed huts like Yldra's built in the shelter of a crumbled ruin. The air smelled of damp earth, approaching rain, and the sweet-sour scent of night-blooming flowers. It felt to Bluebell as
if she travelled in a dream through this landscape of undermagic. She let her mind drift: to Ash, to her father, to Rose. Were they well and happy, so far out of the circle of her influence? She glanced ahead at Yldra, whose riding cape was streaking in the wake behind her, her plump behind bouncing in the saddle. Bluebell smiled. She liked Yldra, despite the fact she was an under-magician. Perhaps it was the effect of shared blood. In any case, Bluebell intended to ask her to come to Blicstowe when Father was well again. She would do her best to make them settle their differences, even if it meant Father had to concede a little land to Yldra. It wasn't right for the king's sister to be living in a mud hut in the middle of the wild wasteland.

After a few hours, weariness crept into Bluebell's limbs. She didn't need much sleep: perhaps only an hour or two, but Yldra refused. ‘If we stop or slow down now, I have to cast the spell again and it takes up more energy. We'll be slower, I'll need longer to renew tomorrow, and my hip will start to ache. You must keep going.'