Daughters Of The Storm (61 page)

Stall Bluebell for as long as you can.
Willow had no idea how she was going to do that, especially as she could hear Bluebell already, from fifty feet away, screaming, ‘Where is my fucking horse?' from inside the stable. Her instinct was to run away: Bluebell was frightening and dangerous. The angel voices inside her head were intensifying, overlapping and swirling together, so that she could make out no words. She had to think despite them and it was hurting her brain. She only knew she had to do what Wylm said. Something serious was happening, and she had to play her part in it.

She approached the stable warily. She would tell Bluebell that Isern had slipped out of her hands and galloped away. Yes. Then Bluebell would go looking for him and ...

Then she realised it was simpler than that. She kicked the stable door shut and dropped the big wooden latch.

‘What the fuck?'

Willow stood back, pulse jumping in her throat, while Bluebell began to swear and kick the door.

‘Who's there? Who did this?'

‘It's Willow,' she called, in a steely voice.

‘Willow, open this fucking door. Don't give me any of your trimartyr nonsense. I will do what I have to do. Mercy doesn't apply in this situation.'

Willow realised Bluebell thought she was trying to protect Gudrun. ‘I have a message from Wylm,' Willow said.

Silence. Willow was glad she couldn't see Bluebell's face.

‘He says he has Eni, and he's heading to Blicstowe.'

‘Eni?'

‘Yes, the little blind boy. We rescued him. I know what you did.' Then Willow clamped her hand over her mouth, reminding herself not to tell Bluebell too much.

‘Wylm has been here?'

Willow didn't answer, she had just remembered the flint in her pocket.

‘Talk sense to me, girl,' Bluebell said. ‘Wylm is not our friend. His mother tried to kill the king, our father. What could he possibly know about Sabert and Eni?'

She had built the little pile of kindling at the stable door in seconds, barely recognising her hands as her own. Now she took the flint and struck it. A spark jumped into the kindling. A little orange flame. Smoke. She fanned it with her apron. It singed the bottom of the stable door. Black streaks. Bluebell was still demanding answers. A generous splash of Ash's fire oil and ... there. Then the flames caught and held.

Dropping the flint, she turned and ran, angels shrieking at her all the way.

When Bluebell smelled the smoke, any questions about Wylm and Sabert and Eni dropped away. The horses were already uneasy, shifting restlessly, snorting, ears flickering. Bluebell kicked the door as hard as she could, but it wouldn't budge. She screamed Willow's name several times then realised the girl had gone. The stable was wood, and it was a clear, dry day. She didn't have much time.

Bluebell went to the shutter at the back of the stable and pushed it open. Punched it off its hinges. She put her hands in the opening and pulled herself up, but could already see she wouldn't fit through. Choking smoke swirled up behind her. By now, the horses were whinnying loudly, rolling their eyes and kicking at the stable walls. She slid back down to the ground. The door was on fire; if she tried again to kick it down, she would burn. Embers were falling into the straw all over the floor. Bluebell frantically stamped them out. The flames were curling around the door now,
moving up into the stable and licking up the doorframes. The door suddenly sagged, and she realised the latch had given way.

Bluebell turned to the horses. Of the five of them, she chose the calmest and, coughing until her throat was raw, she saddled it and held tight to the reins as it strained and whinnied. When the door fell in, she might have a few seconds before the fire leapt across the opening, and she wanted to be prepared. As the smoke filled the stable, she realised that flames were no longer the greatest threat. She tore a strip off her tunic and tied it gently around the horse's eyes. She went through the motions, slipping the bit between its teeth, talking to it quietly. Then she held the horse still long enough to mount it, its ears working back and forth. But Bluebell stroked its neck firmly and calmly. The horse, like her, would smell the fresh air and run for it. The door sagged again, with a crashing thump, as the wood around its hinges burned through. Bluebell's body was tensed like a bow.

‘Bluebell!' It was Rose.

Bluebell gasped in relief. The horse tried to throw her. The heat from the fire made her face feel raw. ‘There's a water trough and a bucket behind the —'

‘Already found it.' Then a puddle of water spread under the door.

Bluebell held tight, coughing and spitting. More water. The flames began to subside. The door was safe to approach, so she let the horse have its head, ‘Stand back!' she called, and her own horse and the others bolted for the fresh air. Rose waited on the other side, her face streaked with soot. Bluebell gulped the clear afternoon air, galloped out the gate and then slowly and calmly brought the horse back to a walk and circled it round to the gate, where Rose waited. ‘Thank you, sister,' she called.

‘What happened?'

‘Willow did it.'

Rose's eyes rounded. ‘Willow?'

‘She's gone to Maava. Was talking about Wylm. Has Wylm been here?'

‘No. I would have told you if he had been.'

‘There's something suspicious going on.' She untied the horse's blindfold and wiped her sweaty, soot-streaked hands on it. ‘Willow said she's been talking to Wylm.'

‘I haven't seen Wylm around here. Though Heath mentioned a little boy who showed up from time to time to see Willow.'

Bluebell's heart jumped. ‘A blind, simple boy?'

‘Yes. And Heath said she often disappeared without warning, taking food with her. You don't think ...?'

Wylm. Wylm had Eni. ‘I have to ride. Now.'

Rose opened her mouth to speak then stopped.

‘I suppose you're going to tell me not to be rash. Not to go to Blicstowe and kill my stepmother?'

Rose shook her head. ‘I'm going to tell you to do what's in your heart. Of all the people I have known, Bluebell, you are the only one who always knows the right thing to do.'

Bluebell smiled in spite of herself, in spite of the smoke and the rawness in her chest, in spite of the mystery of Wylm and Eni, in spite of Willow's stinging betrayal. ‘Yes. I do. And Father's mercy will leave the whole kingdom exposed,' she said. ‘I'll leave Thrymm here to guard you and Yldra until Father wakes. Look after her and she'll look after you. Round up those horses when they've calmed down, and make sure all the embers are out.'

‘You're going directly to Blicstowe?'

‘Almost directly.' If Wylm had Eni, that meant something had happened to Sabert. The thought made her flinch. ‘But my path and Gudrun's are destined to meet now. She can't escape her fate.'

Late evening. Light under the shutters making a yellow band across the pale branches of the ash tree that Willow had been cowering in since dusk. Hissing, spitting voices in her head.

‘You killed your sister. You murdered her.'

No, no. I had to! She is a murderer. I had to save the life of the little boy. He might be her son; my nephew.

‘You care nothing for the little boy. You want the man. You burn with desire for him. Whore! Murderer! Sister-killer!'

My sister is a heathen.

‘She
was
a heathen. Before you killed her.'

Willow tilted her head to one side and thumped her ear, in hopes that the voices would drop out her other ear.

‘Leave her be. She is doing Maava's good work. Bluebell would have been a heathen queen.'

Yes!
Willow breathed again. This voice came from time to time, stronger than the others. She liked to imagine it was Maava himself.

‘She carries a child within her who is fathered by the rightful heir of Ælmesse.'

‘Her sister burned to death.'

I had to do it.

‘She had to do it.'

I had to do it.

Willow groaned. She didn't have to do it. Wylm only asked her to stall Bluebell, not to kill her. Not to slay the monster. The voices in her head whirled on, but she started to suspect that her own thoughts were infecting her. That one of those voices — the one calling her a murderer — was actually her own. Her hands trembled on the branch in front of her. They were covered in dried blood. She had cut herself so much today and it had flowed freely down between her fingers, making them stick together. Bloody handprints marked her route up the tree. The
wounds along her wrists stung, reminding her that she was real and still in the world.

Finally, the light went out in the house. She was about eight miles south of Stonemantel, outside a house she didn't recognise, full of people she didn't know. But there was a horse tied up under a shed just on the other side of this tree, and that was what she wanted. Only Wylm could give her the comfort she needed and she knew where she could find him.

Since Rose had lost Rowan and then Heath, the days flowed as slow and formless as cold honey. So when Yldra said it had been twenty-four hours since Bluebell left, Rose was puzzled.

‘Has it?'

Yldra turned from the open shutter and looked at Æthlric, lying still between them. ‘A full day since I removed the elf-shot and still he hasn't woken.'

Rose went over it in her mind. After helping Bluebell out of the burning stable, she had cleaned herself up and sat by the fire, dozed then slept, prepared food and washed her dress in a tub ... yes, she supposed it had been a day. One full cycle of the sun.

Yldra sighed. ‘There's nothing more I can do. I suppose we wait.' She nodded at Rose. ‘I'm going for a walk. You'll stay with him? He oughtn't be alone.'

‘Of course,' she said.

Yldra limped off. The shutter was still open, letting in a late afternoon breeze that stirred the hangings on the wall. Rose sank forwards, her arms folded on the bed, her chin resting on them. Father's rhythmic breathing. She wondered how close Bluebell was to Blicstowe by now. Perhaps another day away. Would that day also pass as though it hadn't? Would every day from now on be indistinct, blurred with misery and longing?

The covers moved and Rose lifted her head. Had she imagined it? Father had been still for weeks. She watched him a moment. Then he stirred again, his hand fighting the tightly tucked-in blanket. Rose sat back and watched in amazement as he withdrew his hand and then let it come to rest on top of the blanket. She realised she was holding her breath. She released it and said, ‘Father?'

The word sat expectant in the quiet room for a moment, then another and another.

And then he said, ‘Bluebell?' A statue coming to life: his eyelids fluttered, opened.

‘No. It's me, it's Rose,' she said, happiness flooding warmly into her heart for the first time in days. ‘Bluebell is ... you'll see her soon, my lord.'

‘Where am I?' He licked his lips and coughed. His pale blue eyes seemed strangely unfamiliar after so long closed.