Daughters Of The Storm (7 page)

Heath responded by urging his horse forwards, Rose moved off after him. Hot imaginings of intimacy were left on the muddy slope as they trotted down to the gatehouse and out into rain-drenched fields, Rowan wailing all the way.

The rhythm of the horse settled Rowan eventually and the rain eased. But distance and travel made talking difficult, and knowing Rowan was listening constrained Rose to discussing with Heath only outward things. Rowan was famed for repeating what she had heard adults say, with unerring mistiming.

Rose spent most of the day measuring the breadth of Heath's shoulders from behind him. She remembered those shoulders, bare and pale. She remembered the smudged black tattoo over his heart: a bird with its feet in its own beak. She remembered pressing her own naked flesh against him, the lightness of his fingertips across her nipples and the sweet heat of his mouth against her stomach. She remembered it, yes, but the years had drawn a curtain between them. As the day wore on, as she stole glances at him while he kept his eyes resolutely in front of him, he grew to seem a character from a dream. This man, the real father of her child: a stranger at the centre of a familiar longing.

The unpredictable weather drove them early to a tall, crooked alehouse in Doxdal, south of the great lakes of Netelchester and still two long days from Blicstowe. Heath stayed with their horses to cool them down, while Rose took Rowan inside to feed her and dry her clothes by the fire. The child always demanded to be held while she fell asleep; it had been scarce a month since she was weaned from the breast. Rose lay out beside her on the blanket, watching her eyes flicker and sink, flicker and sink, until finally she was still. Rowan's soft, even breathing measured out the minutes, the first hour. Evening settled in. Perhaps by now Heath had eaten, too, and was sitting downstairs among the noise of men and the spitting fire, thawing his limbs from the long cold ride. He would be thinking of her ...

Would he not?

But they had been apart a long time. Perhaps his feelings had changed. The thought staggered her. She had felt the proximity of him all day, her skin aware of his skin. She had assumed such feelings were shared, but perhaps she was being a fool.

A deep, sad current thrilled through her, making her gasp loudly. Rowan stirred and settled again. And why should Heath be constant for her and love her? She was married to someone else. Not just someone: the king of Netelchester, Heath's uncle. Her fingers went to Rowan's soft cheek, grasping for the last thing in the world unsullied by her dissatisfaction. She was trapped, and the truth of this was crushing. Once, she had imagined that when Bluebell was queen, Rose could ask to come home to Blicstowe, not to have to perpetuate this loveless marriage. In her imagination, her sister would raise war against Netelchester to free her. But now Bluebell stood poised to take control of Ælmesse, these imaginings revealed themselves for what they were: childish fantasies. Bluebell would give her life for Ælmesse, Rose had to give nothing but her womb.

And, it seemed, her happiness.

A creak on the floorboards outside her room made her sit up. She cracked the door open a fraction, and saw Heath rolling out his bed against the wall. He had placed on the floor a stuttering lantern that made the shadows of the balcony rail leap.

‘Heath?'

He looked up and saw her. Smiled. Love was still there, she knew it with arrowing intensity. A sob caught in her throat. He came to the door and took her right arm in his hands, his desire compressed into the hot palms that circled her sleeved wrist, sending her heart into a frantic rhythm. But he dared not embrace her. From here, they were visible to whomever cared to look up. And she could hardly bring him into the room where Rowan was sleeping. Sleeping, but listening.

‘This is torture,' he whispered, dropping his hands.

‘I know.'

His glance went over her shoulder, to the warm lump of Rowan in the bed. Rose smiled and stood aside, so he could see his daughter properly.

‘If she were my uncle's child, then I would know how to behave around her,' he said. ‘But to know she is my blood ...' He trailed off, glanced away. ‘I search her too often with my eyes. She's growing frightened of me.'

‘Be natural with her. She's a friendly child. She won't be frightened for long.'

‘I couldn't look at either of you today. Happiness so close, but forever denied.' The rushlight lit auburn glimmers in his hair.

She gazed at his face, the beloved contours of his jaw, the shallow furrow in his brow. His hard shoulder inches from her soft shoulder. Warm waves of desire magnetising the space between them. Misery and longing mingled to such a high pitch that her chest burned.

‘I still love you,' she said.

A little sigh and yawn. Rowan. Rose stepped back, Heath dropped her arm. Rowan sat up, looked around sightlessly, then fell back on the mattress with her eyes closed.

Heath withdrew, dropped his head. ‘Goodnight, my lady. I will sleep close to keep you and your daughter safe.' He pulled the door closed reluctantly.

Rose returned to the bed.

‘Mama?' Rowan murmured, reaching out her hand.

‘Here, my love,' Rose answered, curling up against her, yearning uselessly into the dark.

The Giant Road led up and then down the rocky hillsides and oak groves above the town of Æcstede: the closest large town to Blicstowe. At the end of a full day of travel with Wylm, Bluebell was exhausted. Her bones and muscles and mind ached. She hadn't slept properly since Heath had woken her with the news back in Lyteldyke. She had been either in the saddle or itching to move, and her thoughts were constantly turned towards her father. They rode down the hill into the town — Wylm was twenty feet behind her — while dusk gathered at the eastern rim of the sky and a thick flock of starlings swooped low overhead. Æcstede was a forest town: a town of hunters, not farmers. The people were harder, crueller than in Blicstowe, living in the shadows of wolves.

This was where they would stay the night. She couldn't push Isern further, and she needed to sleep in a proper bed. The alehouse was well known to Bluebell, but she had only ever approached it with a full hearthband around her. Tonight, she had only Wylm to scare people with. She snorted a laugh despite herself. Wylm couldn't frighten a cat.

A light drizzle started as Isern cantered between the tall front gates of the town. The stables stood immediately on Bluebell's
right and already Harald, the stable master, was stepping out towards the road and waving to her. Thrymm and Thræc, recognising him, rushed up with tails thumping, pawing at his chest, their hot tongues seeking out his hands.

‘My lord,' Harald said. ‘Well met.'

Bluebell dismounted and handed the reins over to him. ‘Be kind to him, Harald, he's exhausted.' She put her mouth close to the horse's cheek. ‘Aren't you, my old friend?'

Harald rubbed Isern's nose with a big, hairy hand. ‘What has she been doing to you, big fellow?'

‘We're heading for Blicstowe at first light.'

‘We?'

Bluebell gestured over her shoulder towards Wylm, who walked his horse through the stable gate. ‘My stepbrother,' she said, with a sneer in her voice.

Harald turned his attention back to Isern. ‘I'll have him ready for you, my lord.'

‘Can you feed and water my dogs? I want them nowhere near the hunting dogs that crowd the alehouse.'

‘Of course.'

Bluebell waited for Wylm to dismount and hand his horse over.

‘This way,' she said to him, and led him up the grassy slope towards the alehouse, a dark, wooden building squatting on muddy, rutted ground. The smell of sweet yarrow steam and roasting meat met her nose, and her mouth grew wet at the idea of eating. She pushed open the front door. Every head in the room turned to look at her. Some men smiled, some nodded, others glared at her stonily.

‘You've been here before, I take it?' Wylm asked her.

‘Many times. I come here with my hearthband to hear cases and settle disputes.' She smiled grimly. ‘There are always disputes.
And after those disputes have been settled there are always dissatisfied men.'

The large main room was bathed in firelight, suffused with smoke and heavy with the smell of damp dog. The wood and finishings were finely wrought: Æcstede was also a logging town, and Æcstede oak and carvings were known even beyond the seas of Thyrsland. Animal hide rugs covered the floor in front of the roaring fireplace, while long wooden tables lined up beside the cooking pit where a deer was roasting on a spit. Bluebell took a seat, Wylm seating himself across from her. He was grubby from travel and stank like a goat; she was glad she couldn't smell herself. The alehouse wife, a thin, harried woman named Cynburh, caught her eye and Bluebell nodded. A few minutes later, warm ale and plates of food landed at their elbows.

‘You're travelling light, my lord,' Cynburh said.

‘I'm hoping to be invisible,' Bluebell replied.

Cynburh looked around the room at the many men stealing glances at her. ‘Not much chance of that.' She returned to the bar and Bluebell started on her meal.

Soon enough, Bluebell could feel the shadow of somebody moving closer to her. She longed then for Sighere's company, or even panicky Ricbert; for the company of thanes who had been hardened in the fires of battle, who knew how to keep a drunken fool at a distance. For a drunken fool had slid onto the seat next to her and was leaning on his elbow right over her meal.

‘I remember you,' he said, rubbing his patchy beard.

Bluebell glanced at Wylm. He did nothing.

‘You and your father decided I'd been hunting over my boundary. But you didn't even go out and look. I asked you ... I begged you. And you wouldn't even go and look.'

‘I have no recollection,' Bluebell said, without emotion.

‘Well, I have,' he said, his voice growing louder, ‘because since then my neighbour is growing rich hunting on
my
land.'

‘If you have a dispute to settle, wait until the next King's Hearing and speak to me then.' Bluebell didn't allow herself to imagine whether she would be running the next King's Hearing alone.

‘That's not until summer.' He stood now, leaning over her. She was aware a small group had gathered. ‘Your father is no wiser than a donkey, and as slow and stubborn.'

‘Shut your gob, fool!' This was another man, a willowy one with unusually pale skin. He shouldered through the small crowd and grasped patchy-beard by the shoulders. ‘How dare you speak like that to Princess Bluebell?'

‘Don't call me princess,' Bluebell muttered under her breath, turning back to her meal.

Patchy-beard pulled back and plunged his fist into pale-man's gut. A shout went up, the others surged forwards. Bluebell watched them sidelong, always surprised by how men liked to use their fists. It was so base. Her first instinct was always steel. The room erupted with cursing and yelling, pushing and pulling. Dogs growled and barked. She calmly finished her food, then stood and drew her sword. The ones who noticed backed away quickly with their limbs drawn close, scuttling into corners like spiders. The others moved quick enough as she muscled them aside to find the two men who were the core of the brawl. Pale-man lay on the floor while patchy-beard kicked his ribs. She grabbed patchy-beard by his greasy hair and jerked his head back, pressing the edge of the blade against his throat.

His eyes rolled towards her. ‘Let me go!' he shrieked, struggling against her.

Why couldn't Wylm get on his feet and help her? If she was travelling with her hearthband, there would be at least half a dozen
pairs of hands on him by now. But then, if she was travelling with her hearthband, this fight might never have happened.

‘Hold still or I'll fillet you, fucker!' she roared.

Patchy-beard stilled. Pale-man stood up, coughing and clutching his ribs. The crowd quietened, eager to see what would happen next.

‘I don't care if you don't respect me,' Bluebell said, ‘but you will not insult my father with your foul, toothless mouth.' She thrust him away from her and he stumbled against an adjacent table. As he righted himself, she turned the point of her blade to the crowd. ‘Go and sit down, leave me the fuck alone.'

They dispersed, some with eyes averted in shame, some with chests puffed to show they weren't scared of her, even though they were. She sheathed her sword and sat down to return to her drink. The sweet ale hit the back of her throat with a light fizz. She became aware of Wylm considering her in the firelight.

‘What?' she said.

‘I'm sorry ...?'

‘Your eyes are on me. What is it? Have I grown a second head?' He watched her too much. At first she thought he'd developed some misguided affection for her: plenty of men and a number of women had in the past, despite the fact she had more scars than eyelashes. But there had been no affection in his words or actions.