The Dowry Blade (13 page)

She saw a great many children sold. She followed those children to the homes of their new owners, furtive, horrified, dreading now that she might after all find Falda.

Returning from one of many visits to the horse market, Brede was accosted by a man whose face she recognised. For a split second her heart lurched with unforgivable hope, as quickly extinguished as she recognised him: one of Chad’s lieutenants, one of Maeve’s drinking companions.

Brede returned the man’s greeting, keeping her eyes down, hoping she hadn’t betrayed the kindling of hope. He fell in step with her and walked in silence for several minutes. Brede eyed him carefully, wondering what he wanted. At last he spoke, as though making casual enquiry.

‘What is it that draws you down to the market with such regularity?’

Brede shrugged.

‘I like horses.’

‘Aren’t there enough horses in the Queen’s stable for you?’

Brede laughed, and shook her head impatiently.

‘Not made arrangements to meet someone?’

‘Arrangements?’ Brede asked; her mind full of the possibility of arranging a meeting with the witch.

‘You haven’t many friends.’

‘Nor enemies,’ Brede said pointedly, quickening her pace, ‘and I’ve no interest in gaining either.’

‘You’re getting a reputation –’

‘I’m not interested in reputations. I came here for my own purposes, and I’ve no intention of being pulled into whatever petty rivalry is going on in this – ant nest.’

‘Petty?’ Killan asked softly, a detaining hand on her arm.

Brede shook him off, letting her hand fall to the hilt of her long dagger. His eyes flickered from the hand to her face and he backed away one step.

‘You might want to think about having more friends,’ he called after her, as she walked away. ‘The Queen’s horse master might not prove enough to protect you.’

Tegan, who had been following Killan, hurried to catch Brede up.

‘What did Killan want?’ she asked.

‘I wasn’t sufficiently interested to find out.’

Tegan nodded slowly, but her frown deepened as Brede’s eyes became anxious under her regard. She tugged at her gloves trying to find something to say; wanting to ask after Brede’s search for her sister, but the failure of that search was self-evident. She allowed her gaze to drift after her quarry, and by the time she turned back to speak to Brede, she had lost patience and walked on.

Maeve observed Brede’s return to the barracks and settled down to see how long it would take for Tegan to follow her. Tegan was through the gate only a few minutes later and Maeve drew her own conclusions. She shifted from her post and walked away, Tegan’s greeting unanswered.

Journey after journey proved fruitless. Brede abandoned searching and tried to lose herself in her work.

Eachan noticed the change in the quality of Brede’s attention, no longer concerned with proving her skill, merely cloaking her misery in effort. Tegan’s new horse was learning some particularly vicious fighting skills, and he didn’t want Brede to spoil Donal’s famous amiability. Impatiently, he cornered her.

‘So, girl, what ails you? Are you in love? What?’

Brede glared at him, insulted, although she could see that her long absences and deep gloom suggested just that. She said nothing.

Eachan tried again.

‘Pining for the Plains?’

Brede flinched from that.

‘You can’t imagine I don’t know you’re Horse Clan?’

Brede shook her head, wondering where this was leading.

‘There are no secrets here, girl. I know that horse of yours used to be Tegan’s, I know an uncancelled breeder’s mark when I see one. I’ve met other Plains folk searching the city for something they won’t find. What are you searching for?’

Brede considered Eachan.

‘Were you part of the raiding party at the last Gather?’ she asked, already knowing the answer, curious as to whether he would admit it.

Eachan rubbed the blind side of his face.

‘Where do you think I lost this eye?’

Brede nodded.
Well then
.

‘I lost a sister there. We never found a body.’

‘There are a lot of bondservants in this city,’ Eachan said cautiously.

‘Yes,’ Brede said impatiently, ‘But where? Where do I look?’

‘You’ll have found the slave markets.’

Brede nodded impatiently.

‘If you’re looking for a Plains woman, try the big houses with their own stables. It’s a long time though – she might have bought herself free, or pined away, like you’re doing.’

‘I am not pining,’ Brede said irritably, ‘compared to the Marshes this is paradise.’

Eachan raised an eyebrow.

‘I’ve met Marsh dwellers,’ he said, and walked away, leaving Brede to her restlessness.

Eachan’s casual saunter took him to Maeve.

‘Your wild woman from the Marshes is here under false pretences,’ he said.

Maeve gave him her full attention. Eachan rubbed at the scar beneath his blind eye, not entirely sure why he was talking to Maeve about this.

‘You surely never thought Marsh folk know anything about horses?’

‘What are you telling me?’

‘Horse Clan.’

‘I should have guessed.’

‘No, Tegan should have told you.’

‘You mean that she knows?’

‘She must.’

‘Yes,’ Maeve’s voice was tight with anger, ‘she must.’

She nodded her thanks to Eachan and went to find Tegan.

‘So,’ she said, without any greeting, ‘Brede is a Plains woman.’

Tegan was taken aback.

‘Yes, you knew that didn’t you?’

‘No. You forgot to tell me.’

Tegan shrugged.

‘What does it matter? Brede hasn’t ridden with the Clans for almost a decade; she is hardly a security risk.’

‘Not ridden with them?’ Maeve remembered that somewhere she had known this; something had been said in passing, that night in the Marshes, and her rage intensified at the thought that she had missed the import of it all this time. ‘Tegan – which Clan is she?’

‘Wing Clan.’

Maeve thumped the wall beside Tegan’s head.

‘Wing Clan? And you think she’s not a security risk? Are you out of your mind? She’ll have to go.’

‘No.’ Tegan caught Maeve’s arm.

‘No?’ Maeve asked coldly.

‘I owe her my life. I take full responsibility for her.’

‘For pity’s sake, Tegan, think. If you do that I may end up hanging you.’

Tegan raised an eyebrow, and let Maeve’s arm drop.

‘I do not think that Brede will give you cause,’ she said.

Maeve considered the likelihood of Brede causing the sort of trouble she feared. She hadn’t forgiven Brede for coming between herself and Tegan and she was furious with her for being trouble after all.

‘Right.’ Maeve spared another glance at Tegan’s face. ‘I’ll deal with this my way.’

Maeve glanced about; satisfied that she had something by way of an audience. She set off across the yard, yelling for Brede.

Brede came out of the stables blinking at the sunlight. Her enquiry as to what was wanted went unanswered.

‘I don’t willingly have Plains women under my command, so if you’re staying you’ll prove your worth. Go get a sword.’

Brede had not been expecting this, was not entirely sure what this was. Maeve reminded her of Devnet. Not a good thing, not worth the risk.

‘I did not think I was under your command. I am content with the horses,’ she said, giving Eachan cause to laugh, ‘I do not wish to learn to be a warrior.’

Brede’s mind raced.
Tegan? Wing Clan?
Which was it that Maeve wanted to hit her for?

Maeve had worked herself to a fever of anger, and Brede’s refusal to be a part of the scenario she had planned tipped the balance. What had been anger was now something else. She saw Brede’s scowling face; the arms crossed over her chest, in a defensive, half threatening pose. She remembered that posture from the first time they met. Brede glanced about, bitterly angry at Maeve’s determination to make a fool of her publicly. She felt eyes upon her, saw the rank curiosity and delight in spectacle that rippled through the crowd of onlookers.
No,
she would not allow Maeve to goad her into fighting.

‘I am not under your command,’ she said again. ‘Eachan pays me, and it is an arrangement that suits me well.’

Very deliberately, Brede unfolded her arms, and turned away, collecting up a feed sack to take to the stables.

Maeve’s fist caught Brede a blow on her shoulder, knocking her slightly off balance. Brede dropped the sack, her breath tightened. She gritted her teeth, but refused to turn.

Tegan grabbed Maeve’s arm preventing another blow.

‘Stay out of this.’ Maeve said. Tegan let go, stepped back. She had never heard that tone in Maeve’s voice before. At least Maeve did not aim another blow at Brede’s unprotected back. Eachan pulled Brede to one side, muttering swiftly, ‘Maeve has a temper, like one of those horses of yours. When the horse challenges, you meet on its terms, on its own ground, and you show that you know better. This should be no different. Go and get ready.’

Brede looked at Eachan’s calm brown eyes, the one sightless from that old wound; she saw the scars and lines of age on his craggy face. A warrior first and foremost, he knew Maeve as well, or better, than he knew his horses. Brede forced her anger back to a steady flicker, a safe level. She handed Eachan the sack, and met Maeve’s glare. She nodded once, careful that it didn’t look like submission, and went to choose a sword from the rack in the practice yard.

Other eyes, high above the yard, watched the preparations. Sorcha turned from her high window to Grainne, having to adjust to relative darkness.

‘I think this might be a good opportunity for you to see this woman,’ she said. ‘Can you manage the stairs?’

Sorcha grasped the hand Grainne raised to her, she took a steadying breath, and began a low singing, that wound into Grainne’s shaking limbs, giving her the strength to force movement from her ravaged muscles.

Grainne closed her hand over Sorcha’s in silent acknowledgement, and they began the slow, agonising descent of the stairs.

Brede belted her long knives about her and took her chosen blade onto the practice ground, holding the sword as though she had never touched a blade before. Tegan’s sharp eyes approved the choice of weapons, but she despaired at the expression on Brede’s face. Brede felt the cold of the metal leeching through the binding leather of the hilt, drawing the warmth from her hand, and remembered the tremor of death running up the length of a blade. She glanced furtively at Tegan, but couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

Maeve waited impatiently, swinging the shorter blade that she favoured from one hand to the other. Brede considered the antagonism that brought her here to face Maeve with a weapon in her hand, and for a moment her nerve failed her completely. Maeve wanted this confrontation, and that made her dangerous. Brede straightened her shoulders, and forced the tremor of fear from her arm; she had not the slightest intention of harming Maeve.

What Maeve proposed was another matter.

Chapter Fourteen

The two women entering the practice yard hesitated as they heard the ugly mutter of the over-eager crowd. They glanced at one another. Grainne shrugged and continued her careful walking, leaning heavily on her companion. Her hand as she gripped the guardrail was white-knuckled with effort; but she would not permit anyone to make her decisions for her, least of all one on which her life might depend.

The Queen’s entrance had gone unnoticed. All attention was on the two women in the ring.

They fought hard, underhand, and brutal.

Grainne turned to her companion, a half-angry, half-puzzled frown on her face. This was not what she expected of warriors in her pay.

‘Find me someone who knows what is happening here,’ she demanded.

Sorcha scanned the many watchers leaning against the rail. She considered for a short while, reviewing what she knew of Tegan, whose slouch attempted to cover a tension that Sorcha saw clearly.

‘Tegan,’ she called quietly.

Tegan raised her head and glanced along the rail. The slouch vanished and she left Eachan’s side with undignified haste. Sorcha grabbed her arm to prevent her from saluting the Queen.

‘Not here,’ she said shortly.

Tegan hesitated between standing to attention and pretending that these were two friends casually met on the grounds. She decided on the latter since Grainne had not come attended. Tegan leant against the rail once more, no longer watching the fight between her pupil and her lover. Her back flinched at being turned to the harsh sounds of combat. Grainne nodded at the pair in the ring.

‘What is this?’ she asked, giving Tegan permission to turn once more to face the conflict.

Tegan sighed, rubbing her face.
Jealousy,
she wanted to say.

‘Maeve seeks to undo my teaching. She wishes Brede to learn how to fight for her life. She has had to cover her back in battle. And now she wants Brede to learn to kill, and step away ready for the next assailant; to learn that there is no time for grief at every blow struck. At least, that is what she would say if she was asked. Mostly she is just angry.’

Grainne leant more of her weight against the rail, knowing that she couldn’t sustain this for long.

‘And Maeve is willing to kill her to make this clear?’

Tegan’s breath caught, and she watched the way Maeve was holding herself.

‘So it seems,’ she admitted, her voice weak at the thought.

Sorcha’s quiet murmur increased in intensity, giving Grainne the strength to remove one hand from the rail. She pointed at the dark-haired woman.

‘This Brede,’ she questioned, ‘you trained her?’

Tegan nodded, not sure that she was proud to own it.

‘She is quick,’ Grainne said, ‘but this is not her kind of fighting, her heart isn’t in it.’

Tegan struggled to hold back a smile, remembering Brede’s speed when her heart was engaged with her blade.

Grainne saw Tegan’s expression.

‘What makes you smile?’ she asked.

Tegan shook her head slightly, but then remembered who asked the question.

‘I have trained that woman,’ she said cautiously, ‘and I’ve seen her in battle; but I have only once seen her raise her sword in anger. Then her heart was with her blade, and only then was she dangerous. She doesn’t have the breeding to be a killer, she doesn’t understand how not to care – and so she will only strike to kill in defence or if she is angry.’

‘And what was it made her angry?’

Tegan hesitated before answering.

‘I did.’

‘And yet you are not dead.’ Grainne frowned at Tegan, and Tegan lowered her eyes, uncomfortable with having piqued the Queen’s curiosity.

‘What else?’ Grainne asked, and Tegan heard a tone she recognised in her voice, a tone from a long time ago. This was not the Queen asking, but the woman, Grainne.

‘She won’t protect herself when she is angry. There is only – this –’ a gesture at the ring, ‘or all out insanity.’

‘And yet, you are not dead.’ Grainne said again, forcing Tegan to think hard about the why of Grainne’s questioning, and the why behind what she was trying to explain about Brede.

‘She was – protecting me?’ Tegan’s uncertainty turned the statement into a question part way through, and her eyes focussed once more on Brede. Grainne sighed and followed her gaze. Sorcha’s song sank to a murmur.

Sorcha watched the fighting, watched the level of skill and judgement behind each movement. She saw that Brede had made no effort to overcome Maeve, who was trying to force her into a mistake. She saw that she held back the spark that would make her dangerous; she defended herself, but no more than that. She saw that Brede was tiring, and that Maeve was not. As she watched, a scuffling exchange brought the sparring pair about so that Maeve was facing her. Just for a second, Maeve glanced in their direction. Brede made no use of that slender advantage and Maeve lunged swiftly under her guard, knocking a knife away with her left fist, catching the falling blade before it struck the earth. Sorcha winced, and turned away from Maeve’s contemptuous skill. She didn’t want to see Brede humiliated.

‘Don’t make her angry,’ she said.

Tegan began to understand why Grainne was here. She bit her lip, doubtful, wanting to say that Brede was no warrior, was only permitted to stay because she was good with the horses; wanting to say that Brede couldn’t be trusted. She wasn’t sure that any of these things were true, and could not say them. The Queen straightened her back and stepped away from the rail.

‘When Maeve has finished, send the other one to me,’ she said, having no doubt that Maeve would win, and having won, would not choose to kill Brede.

She had no strength for more. She needed Sorcha’s arm as well as her song to hold her up. Tegan inclined her head and turned away, so that the Queen could pretend she hadn’t seen her weakness.

Tegan leant once more against the rail, and watched the swift whirl of Maeve’s two-knifed dance end, trying to dull the disquiet in her brain. The hilt of Maeve’s left knife crashed down on Brede’s wrist, numbing her hand so that she dropped her remaining knife. Maeve threw all her strength into her raised arm and the other hilt thudded into Brede’s back, throwing her forward, to sprawl in the dust. Maeve’s foot landed on Brede’s blade so that she couldn’t reach it.

Brede rolled hastily away and fought to get her knees beneath her. She’d had enough, beaten with her own weapons. She moved her shoulders cautiously trying to ease the paralysing pain knifing from between her shoulder blades into her neck, her shoulders, and her legs, briefly preventing further movement. She fought pain, and a wrenching fear that Maeve might not, after all, stop with humiliation. She staggered to her feet, head spinning, and limbs barely under control. She was determined that she would not be on her knees when the blow came.

A hush fell on the watching crowd, not one of them sure that Maeve would stop now, each wondering what that meant for them, under her command. Tegan felt that moment drag; aware of Eachan slowly drawing himself up straight beside her, his hands gripping the rail tightly, twisting about the pole in unconscious anxiety, willing Maeve to stop. Tegan’s mind was empty of future; there was only the space between Maeve’s anger and Brede’s painful fear.

Maeve held her tension to herself, tempted, no question but she was tempted. She caught the look in Brede’s dark eyes, and nodded abruptly, allowing Brede to end the bout. If she had really wanted to kill Brede it would not have been the hilt of the knife that she used. Maeve tossed the knife down and wiped the sweat from her face with her scarf. Brede’s face lost its closed, frightened expression and she blinked, getting her ragged breathing back under control. She flexed her hands and found they would obey her, just, although she still shook. She gathered her knives back into their sheaths and picked up the discarded longswords aware of the buzz and murmur of the watchers, trying to disguise the way her body was barely under her control. She carried the weapons back to the racks, checking for new nicks and scores as she walked.

Tegan met her at the racks. Brede scowled at her, self-conscious. Tegan barely noticed, shaken by what had just occurred, uneasy with knowledge.

‘You’ve attracted some interest,’ she said tersely.

‘Whose?’ Brede asked, instantly alert.

‘The Queen. She has asked to see you.’

Brede stiffened, recognising the cause of Maeve’s abrupt skill –
showing off for Grainne
– and then the full meaning hit her.

‘Must I go?’ she asked.

Tegan laughed, incredulous.

‘Of course you must. It wasn’t a casual request.’

‘How should I be, what must I do?’

Brede fiddled with the swords, sorting them unnecessarily to size, concentrating her thoughts on making her body do what she wanted of it without shaking too much. Tegan began to relax. This was the Brede she was used to, not the fighter she had been watching on the practise grounds.

‘Wash;’ she suggested and Brede laughed despite herself.

Tegan thought, giving serious consideration to how best Brede should present herself.

‘Be honest,’ she said, ‘be yourself. If that isn’t what she wants, you’ll be back out here fast enough and none the worse for it. If you are what she needs, you’ll be glad you have no boasts to live up to. And don’t stand on ceremony; she hasn’t the strength for it.’

‘It’s true then, that she’s dying?’

Tegan drew in her breath.

‘Never say that out loud. No, I do not think it is true. She looks better than the last time I saw her. She has some witch in attendance; she seems to be doing some good.’

Tegan didn’t mention that she recognised that witch, and had drawn her own conclusions. Brede must sort that for herself. Brede pulled a face.

‘For all I care she can wither away.’

Tegan cast a sharp look at Brede.

‘If that is how you feel you’d best not go. Grainne won’t thank you for that association.’

‘I don’t mean that I believe the superstitious nonsense they talk in the inns. I don’t think that she can be crushed by war or starved by famine; I doubt she cares enough for the trouble out here to bother her.’

‘Well, but you’ve not met her. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Do I not? And haven’t I been a beneficiary of Grainne’s
concern
for people who are none of hers?’

Tegan shook Brede’s arm gently.

‘Peace. If you can make a friend of me, can you not make an employer of Grainne?’

Brede frowned, considering Tegan, and friendship.

‘But you don’t trust me, Tegan, friend or no, or you wouldn’t be talking to me like this, you’d have stopped with the advice to wash.’ Brede stopped for breath, now that the fear was gone. ‘So why should Grainne trust me? Why did you let her think she could? And why would she want to speak to a raw recruit who isn’t even contracted to her guard, who is permitted to do no more than tend the horses and make use of the practice yard – one she has just seen
humiliated
?’

Tegan shrugged unhappily.

‘She didn’t stay to watch, they didn’t see.’

‘They?’ Brede asked blankly, and then she remembered. ‘A witch?’ she asked thoughtfully, and a fleeting smile crossed her face, smoothing the anxious scowl. Tegan sighed, recognising that expression for what it was and cuffed Brede across the shoulder.

‘I’d worry about that, were I you, not smile like a love-struck goose.’

Brede’s smile broadened, and she became abruptly aware of the warmth of the sun on her bruised and protesting back. She turned her face into the sun, drinking in the light, her eyes closed.

‘Are you listening?’ Tegan asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Brede said, loosening her collar, conscious of the cooling sweat in her hair, ‘but I’ve never known a goose smile.’

Tegan shook her head in mock despair.

‘There is no hope for you,’ she said, moving out of the sunlight, back into the deep shadow of Grainne’s tower. ‘No hope at all.’

Brede idled away to the bathhouse, stripping away her borrowed leather guards, piling them together in the outer room. She glanced around, seeing that Maeve’s guards also lay on the bench. She slid resignedly onto the wooden slats and worked off her boots, wincing at the pain in her back and wrist as she tried too hard to get the tight boots free. She could hear faint splashing from within. Brede would have preferred not to speak with Maeve for now. She would have much preferred to wash away the sweat and dust and aches in comfortable silence. She needed time to think how to speak to a ruler she did not acknowledge as her liege, who held the lands of her ancestors, and ordered the destruction of her kin; who had bought her allegiance with money. For the space of a heartbeat, Brede couldn’t remember why she was in this city, closed in by walls, choking on alien dust. She swallowed her need for open space, for movement. Grainne was only a woman; Brede could only speak to her as she would to anyone else – like Maeve, perhaps?

Corla glanced in through the door and grinned sympathetically.

‘Here,’ she said and threw a bundle of herbs to her; ‘put that in your water and mash it up a bit, it’ll help the bruising.’

Brede gathered the bundle to her and sniffed. There was that smell again, it reminded her of something, but she couldn’t place what.

‘Thank you, Corla,’ she said softly, but Corla had already gone.

Brede pulled the ties out of her hair and ran her fingers through, forcing her braid apart. She sighed; she couldn’t afford to wait. She pushed through the leather curtain, glancing swiftly at Maeve, and then away, busying herself with the cisterns of water filling the tub as hot as she could bear, throwing in Corla’s herbs, pulling bits of clothing off as she went, her back and shoulders protesting at every jug of water, and thanking the Goddess that she was permitted to ignore Maeve’s rank in the bath house.

Maeve watched her in silence, noting the awkward way Brede was moving, and her determination not to acknowledge her presence. She inspected the spreading bruise on Brede’s back furtively. An inch or so further to the left and she might have paralysed or killed her. Maeve sank lower in the water, so that Brede was out of her line of vision. She had made a fool of herself, insisting on a public display of her disapproval. She had not sated her anger, nor had she forced Brede to recognise the errors she was making in the way she fought, which was so subtly different from what Tegan had tried to teach her. And, it seemed, humiliation didn’t work with Brede. Perhaps she should have killed her. She listened to the slop of water as Brede lowered herself into the tub, the involuntary groan of relief as the hot water cradled her aching body. Maeve frowned at Brede’s apparent indifference; still smarting from the way Tegan had gone straight to Brede after the bout.