Daughters Of The Storm (57 page)

‘Sorry,' she said to it, ‘I hope this wasn't a friend.'

She put her hand into the chest with her palm flat. The animals in it were definitely dead, but felt as warm as though they were living. As though they were about to draw breath again any second and shudder into life. Badgers and rabbits, swallows and
skylarks. What were they for? Did they have something to do with the dead zone around Unweder's house? Ash replaced the crow and the rat as she had found them and closed the lid, leaving the latch exactly as it had been. She sat back down beside the hearth to listen to the storm clatter overhead, but then began to grow guilty and anxious. If Unweder came back and found her here alone, after specifically telling her to leave for the day ... would he know, somehow, that she had been poking around in his things?

She climbed to her feet and went to the door again. Rain fell heavily. She wanted to take her moleskin from behind the door, but Unweder had seen her leave without it. So she went out into the soaking rain, so that she could come back later and pretend she had never done anything wrong.

Three hours later, she decided it was finally safe to come back. The storm had long since cleared, and she'd found a place to sit in weak sunshine to dry off a little. But she was cold and her skin was puckered with wet when she came home.

Unweder sat on a stool by his bench, pouring a hot mixture into his little jars. ‘Ah, you're back,' he said.

‘I'm soaked,' she replied.

‘The fire is warm. Take your wet dress off.'

She did as he said, stripping down to her linen shift and hanging the dress over the back of a chair. She sat by the fire, stretching out her fingers. The warmth was welcome and comforting.

‘Have you eaten?' he said.

‘Nothing but currants since breakfast.'

‘I'll cut us some cheese and bread.'

Ash glanced at the chest. The latch was down. The padlock was closed.

He took his time cutting up the food, putting it on plates. Then he came to sit by her. They ate in silence a few moments. Ash felt her pulse thudding hard in her throat. She wanted to ask him about the numbness around his house, but was judging a way to say it that wouldn't give away that she had been snooping.

Then he said, casually, ‘I know you went into my chest.'

Ash's head snapped up, her mouth opening to deny it. But she couldn't deny it. It was true. So instead she said, ‘How do you know?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm not in the mood to tell you.'

That's when she realised he was angry at her. The pupil in his good eye was shrunk to a pinpoint.

‘I'm so sorry,' she said.

He waved away her apologies. ‘It's good to know I can't trust you. I won't be polite about locking things from now on.'

Ash squirmed with the shame. She wished for nothing less than to disappear. ‘I'm so sorry,' she said again, quieter. But he didn't respond.

The hearth wasn't yet cold when an angel's shout woke Willow. The figures of her sisters lay around her. Bluebell snored softly. Rose's hip was a silhouetted hillock on the other side of the fire.

What is it, my angels?

But they gave her no words, just shouts and yelps and growling sentences of ominous babble. She closed her eyes, chasing sleep, but then she felt that tickling again, down low inside her. She hadn't done what they said. She hadn't taken Wylm inside her and made the child that would one day rule Thyrsland. Was it any wonder they would torment her sleep?

She had tried, boldly holding him and stroking his back.

Don't be a baby, Willow.
She had seen Ivy do it. Not once had she stroked William Dartwood's back to get him interested. She
flipped over, screwing her eyes tightly shut. A frightened virgin. That's what she was.

Maava, one god, only god ...
What was it she needed so desperately to ask him? She was afraid even to put the thought into words, lest the cruel laughter start again. But there was only silence, and she ventured again to reach for her lord in her mind.
I am falling in love with Wylm,
she said in her mind.
If this is wrong in any way, give me a sign.

She tensed against the sign coming. Two owls hooting in the dark perhaps, or a shooting star overhead. But no sign came. She waited, and still it didn't come.

Be bold. Be bold for Maava.
Quietly, she turned over, folded back her blanket. Climbed to her feet and was out the door in silent seconds.

She found her way to him in the dark. He and Eni were both sleeping. Their fire was still burning, and she could see Eni in the dark, on his back, his face in repose giving no sign that he was blind or simple. Just a beautiful, skinny boy.

Willow knelt next to Wylm, her hands in her lap. She gazed down at his face by firelight. By Maava's light, he was gorgeous. She focussed her mind as she had done that other time.
Wake up.

His brow furrowed in his sleep, then his eyes fluttered. Brief fear chased by recognition.

‘Willow?' he said, in a croaking voice.

She put her finger to her lips, remembering the performance she had seen Ivy give. She took his hand and placed it on her breast. Only she didn't have breasts like Ivy's, and the movement seemed awkward.

Wylm allowed her to rest his hand there. Then she felt his fingers flex as he closed his hand over the curve. His eyes seemed very dark. In one quick movement, he rose on his elbow and
pulled her down next to him, and his arm was locked around her waist. Her back was pressed up against his chest.

And she realised a swelling chorus of voices was bearing down on her. The heat of his body was the only thing holding her together, because as the angel voices rushed through her, gushing up between her legs and through her stomach and then pouring out her eyes and ears, her body began to shake. Shake as though her joints might disconnect one from the other and her limbs might spin off into the dark and she might never find herself again and so she stayed in her body and burned, while Wylm's hand moved up her leg and gathered her skirts and Wylm's fingers gently stroked the underside curve of her buttock and Wylm's fingers probed her gently and found her slick and wet and Wylm's other hand grasped her breasts through her dress and Wylm's lips were on her neck and Wylm's body pressed against hers so she could feel the hard heat of his erection and the foreign yet welcome thrill of him as he entered her body and moved so that she rolled her eyes back and her head and the angels and the voices and the exploding white hot spangles of Maava's love snagging on her flesh and in her throat and the slow darkness bleeding into the edges of everything ...

‘Willow?'

Ears ringing.

‘Willow?' It was Wylm. She was lying on her back, he was bent over her, gently rubbing her face.

She opened her eyes.

‘You blacked out,' he said. ‘You frightened me.'

She beheld his beauty in the dark. He was half-undressed, his hair a mess, a glorious gorgeous mess. She reached for it, tangling her fingers. ‘I'm well again now,' she said, realisation hard upon her. What had she done? But under the panic was a sense of certainty. Maava had led her here.

Maava had led her here, Maava had put the feelings of longing into her body, and that meant she and Wylm were meant to be joined that way. It was Maava's will and she would serve him by bearing and raising the child as a true soldier in Maava's righteous army.

‘Willow, we really shouldn't have —'

‘It's all right, Wylm. We won't do it again.' She had his seed now. All was well.

‘I'm sorry. I ... haven't felt the touch of a woman for ...'

‘You need not be sorry.' She smiled at him. ‘But I must go back to my bed beside the hearth.'

He nodded. She felt his eyes on her as she left. Willow pressed her hands over her stomach. Ah, she could feel it already. The spark of life, and she the mother of a trimartyr king.

The road north-east out of Folcenham had been wide and well-travelled, but the eastern route to Sæcaster, where Guthmer had his hall, was narrow, rutted and crowded in by twisted trees. Ivy knew the trees were bars and she was entering a cage: she was a pretty bird for Guthmer to admire, feed, and show off to others, but one, nonetheless, who was always captive. The conviction persisted, even after the trees scattered and cleared, and she and her retinue — two of Wengest's warriors, although not his best — came out across the wildflower moors that led to the sea. Sæcaster was an important military town, a shorefort built on a tall clifftop, guarding this easily accessible eastern port from raiders. Guthmer commanded a small army of his own and the town was heavily fortified. Even from this distance she could see the great, high walls obscuring from view everything that was inside: the town and hall and bower that would constitute her new life. Her breath sat flat in her lungs.

They crossed the bridge that had been lowered over the deep ditch surrounding the town, then under the gate and into the crowded town square. Everywhere the smell of fish and seaweed. Ivy felt as though she were choking on it.

The town seemed small and dark and damp, compared to the bright warmth of Blicstowe, or the wide lanes of Folcenham, or the summery freshness of Fengyrd. She tried to cheer herself by remembering that she would soon be a duchess, the most important woman in Sæcaster. All of these plain-faced people at the market would soon recognise her and have to smile at her, have to acknowledge and respect who she was. For now, she kept her head down as the horses sidestepped people and carried them around to Guthmer's stables.

She dismounted and stood at the entrance to the stable gazing out at her new home. Guthmer's hall was small, and the bowerhouses around it few. How much luckier had Rose been in marriage, just because she was older. In fact, Bluebell, as the first daughter, ought to have been married to Wengest, but of course nobody thought that a good idea. And if they could change the rules for Rose, then why not for Ivy? She would have been a much better queen of Netelchester.

A tall woman with long, grey-streaked hair was hurrying towards them, and Ivy presumed this was their welcome. She stood up straight and squared her shoulders.

‘Princess Ivy of Ælmesse,' the woman said, and Ivy noticed she did not smile. ‘I am Elgith and Guthmer has sent me to show you to your bower.'

‘Thank you,' she said, glancing behind her at her retinue, who were conversing with the stable hands. Even though she didn't know them or like them, she felt the twinge of leaving them behind. That was it: her last link back to her old life. She felt it stretch and snap as she walked from the stables to the bowerhouses with Elgith.

‘Where is Guthmer?' Ivy asked.

‘In the hall. He'll see you afterwards.'

Ivy didn't like the way Elgith spoke to her, as though Ivy were lower than her in the scheme of things. She didn't like the way the woman didn't smile, either, nor offer her any kind of welcome befitting a princess of the most powerful kingdom in Thyrsland. She would make it her first piece of business to tell Guthmer and have the woman put out of service.