The Dowry Blade (24 page)

She pulled away once more, and gazed at Brede’s face.

Brede’s expression was filled with fear and hope and laughter. Such openness, such vulnerability, that Sorcha ached for her, wanting to assuage all that need. Here, at last, was the face that matched the gentle richness of Brede’s voice.

‘How long –’ she asked divining part of Brede’s response.

Brede blinked and said without the slightest hesitation, ‘Nine years, three hundred and sixty-two days, and about seventeen hours.’

Sorcha laughed, not believing her.

‘As precise as that?’ Then the calculation bit. ‘Midsummer Gather, year five, on the banks of the Muirghael River?’

Brede flinched, beginning to build her defences once more.

‘No,’ Sorcha said quickly. ‘Stop hiding from me.’ Brede turned back, but her expression was guarded. ‘Please?’ Sorcha softened her anguished command. Brede shifted silently then sighed.

‘Her name was Devnet, and I do not want to talk about her.’ She untangled her arms from Sorcha and worked her fingers into her hair, pulling gently, raising the hair away from her scalp, letting the sweat cool and dry.

‘So Tegan –’

Brede laughed in protest. ‘I’ve told you twice already. Why do you find it so hard to believe?’

‘You look at her as though she had been your lover, as though there was something unfinished between you. She looks at you as if she regrets you.’

‘Does she?’ Brede asked, concerned more at the tone of Sorcha’s voice than whether what she said might be true. ‘I’m not going to trawl through my entire life story to reassure you that you are the most significant –’ Sorcha stopped her words with a long, deep kiss. Brede pulled away, ‘– significant lover in my life so far,’ she continued. ‘Because you must know that you are, and I do not want to prompt comparisons from you as to where I am on a scale of the doubtless hundred lives you have graced.’

‘You don’t really think that do you?’ Sorcha asked.

‘I don’t know what I think.’

‘Brede –’

‘Not now. This is our – our
now
. I don’t want to think about any before, nor what follows. I want to think about how to make sure you never forget
this
now. I want you to be able to say in ten years, should anyone ask you,
Midsummer festival, year fourteen, Westgate Inn
.’

‘And who do you think would be asking?’ Sorcha asked, but Brede did not reply, caught up in making sure of the
now
.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sorcha strayed from sleep, woken by hunger, thirst, and a need to relieve herself. She lay, revelling in the ordinariness of the urgency of her body, finding great pleasure in being woken by her own needs, rather than by Grainne’s. She looked down at Brede’s motionless sleeping huddle, so deeply lost in her dreams that she could scarcely hear her breathing.

She scrambled into clothes and pulled a knife from the muddled pile beside the bed, and went in search of the privy, and then the kitchen. The inn was busy with the festival, there were sleeping bodies laid about the floors as ready tripping hazards to the unwary, but Sorcha was careful.

The kitchen was a low, dark room; and at this hour of the early morning, was unattended, save by a sleeping bondservant, a restless cat, and rows of unbaked loaves, left to rise overnight. Soon, someone would be up to place the first consignment into the waiting oven, but that wasn’t Sorcha’s concern. She hoped for some bread already baked.

The bondservant stirred, woken by the slight change in temperature as the kitchen door opened. She sat up, and saw what appeared to be an armed warrior standing in the doorway. The cat, observing movement, made an enquiring noise.

‘I suppose you’d know where they keep leftovers?’ Sorcha asked the cat.

‘She does,’ the bondservant answered, ‘but she can’t open the cupboard.’

‘Well then,’ Sorcha suggested, ‘perhaps you’ll oblige me?’

‘You’ll have to pay,’ the girl warned.

Sorcha merely nodded, and waited. The girl opened a heavy door, and hauled out half a loaf and a corner of cheese.

‘Is that all there is?’

‘All there is that I can get at without keys.’

‘Any water? Anything sweet?’

The girl nodded, waved a hand in the direction of the water pail, and climbed up to the high shelf where the stone jar of honey was kept. As she handed the heavy jar down, the bondservant got a better look at her visitor.

‘You’re with the Plains woman?’

Sorcha nodded cautiously, dipping the mug for a second time.

‘Ask where she got her horse. It’s stolen. So’s yours, but you wouldn’t know; she does. I’ve seen the mark. Tell her that.’

Brede pulled the blanket about her shoulders and leant against the wall, as she settled beside her.

‘Food,’ Sorcha said, ‘how long have you been awake?’

‘A while. What did you manage to find?’

‘Not a great deal, there’s no one but the stable-hand in the kitchen at this time of night. Enough.’

‘What time is it?’ Brede asked uncertainly.

‘A couple of hours ‘til dawn.’

Sorcha edged onto the bed, careful not to spill the water. Brede sighed in appreciation as Sorcha handed her the mug. The water was warm, slightly bitter – but exactly what she needed. Her thirst slaked, Brede brought her attention to the slightly dry bread, rich cheese, and the small portion of honeycomb. Sorcha licked honey off her fingers with great concentration.

‘You’d best not leave any crumbs, you’ll attract the rats into bed with us,’ Brede said.

Sorcha gave her a considering look. ‘What crumbs?

Brede picked a morsel of bread from the lacing of Sorcha’s shirt, collecting crumbs with the tip of a honey-coated finger. Sorcha loosened the shirt and threw it into a far corner, crumbs and all.

Brede glanced from Sorcha to her own honey-covered fingers. Sorcha followed the glance, and made a grab for Brede’s hand.

Brede evaded her.

‘This is my share of the honey, and I’m having every last taste of it, thank you.’ She set to licking her hands clean.

Sorcha soon discovered that Brede had not been successful in removing all the honey from her fingers, setting her body alight with a feeling so intolerably precious that she feared to let Brede out of her arms. The reality of the world outside the room became uncertain, and all that mattered was the
now,
Brede, warm and lithe beneath her hands, and the sensations that Brede coaxed from her body.

Brede dozed in Sorcha’s arms, not sure whether it was still the same day, not much caring; almost content to lie in the warmth and ease of slaked desire, to relish the nearness of her lover, and forget the world, but it was not so simple. She rubbed her face, trying to banish the unease.

Sorcha’s lips against her shoulder traced the lines of her scars, and idled against her neck in gentle anticipation of rekindling passion. The quiet space about them no longer seemed infinite, and Brede was no longer listening to that comforting silence.

The roar of the market had subsided somewhat, settling into individual noises: an argument between two drunks, grumbling against the wall of the inn, the grate and thump of a stall being dismantled, horses stamping in the stables immediately below the shuttered window.

Those lips on her shoulder, the scar beneath Sorcha’s questing mouth told her what it was that disturbed her peace.

Sorcha felt restlessness of the wrong kind quiver through Brede and ended the journey her mouth had been taking along the contours of Brede’s body.

‘What is it?’ she protested.

The sun had moved round to once more force its ragged way into the inn’s smallest bedroom. The patches of light from the rotted shutter lay across them, lighting Brede’s shoulder, Sorcha’s breast. Brede raised herself on one elbow, casting about the room, looking for her sword, her clothes.

‘We should not be here,’ she said impatiently.

‘What is there for us to do?’ Sorcha moved to prevent Brede from rising, wanting to recreate the sense of timelessness and ease that had held them safe for so brief a while.

A sudden, sharp cry from the stable below stilled her motion.

Brede froze, trying to identify the sound. Stamping and shouting, cursing, a young voice raised in protest. Were it not for their quiet, perhaps she would not have heard; no one else seemed to have remarked the disturbance. A voice cried out in pain and fury. Brede couldn’t ignore it. She leapt up, groping for her abandoned sword.

Sorcha scrambled after, throwing clothes on, but wary of interfering.

Brede tried to place what it was that cut through the threads of her desire.

Again the voice cried out, and she knew it. The child in the stable called her, screaming for help in a language she was no longer glad to hear in this city.

Brede forced the shutters free and flung them wide. Sorcha blinked in the unexpectedly bright sun and wordlessly handed Brede clothes.

They could hear, now, the stamping and snorting of horses, a general cacophony of distress in the stables.

Brede couldn’t see the stables for the roof under the window, which covered the outermost stalls. She thrust her arms into sleeves, scrambled into her breeches. She glanced at Sorcha, and almost laughed, so rumpled and dishevelled a pair they made.

‘I may need you,’ she said as she climbed awkwardly from the window to the sloping roof, hoping it would take her weight.

Sorcha grabbed her own sword and climbed out, sliding down the roof to land in an undignified heap in the yard. She looked around, and cursed.

Brede crouched over a still figure, one outstretched hand touching the man, her expression hidden by her loose hair. Sorcha reached her in two strides, and turned the body over.

‘What did you do to him?’ she asked, disquieted at the bloody mess.

Brede shook her head.

‘Not me.’ She looked about, seeking the cause of the man’s brutal death. ‘Your horse, I think.’

Sorcha stared up at the great bulk of Macsen, standing apparently docile but for the set of his ears, and the blood and brains spattered up his legs.

‘Be easy,’ Sorcha suggested.

He stamped his blood-splashed hooves: a threat. Sorcha backed away, disturbed by this challenge from a beast she thought she controlled.

‘Macsen,’ she sang, and his head drooped toward her. ‘Am I the enemy, great one?’

The horse shuddered, acknowledging her. She stepped forward, raising her hand to his neck, waiting for permission before she touched.

‘So, what is it then?’ she asked, gentling his twitching. She stepped closer, running her hand along his side, feeling the sweat on his skin. He backed, flinging up his head once more, and she slapped him impatiently and spelled him to stillness, no longer prepared to be polite. She glanced around the stable.

‘Is this the one who called you?’ she called to Brede, indicating the huddled child, crushed into the corner of the stall.

Brede pushed past her and knelt beside the child.

‘What is your need?’ she asked, in the soft syllables of her father’s language.

The child uncurling from her fear, stared up at Brede.

‘I called you,’ she said, barely more than a whisper, ‘and the horse answered, he trampled that man.’

‘Yes,’ Brede agreed, pulling the child to her feet. ‘Are you hurt, by the man or the horse?’

‘No. The horse protected me.’

Brede twisted to look at the horse.

‘Well, Macsen, there’s a sudden change of character. He doesn’t usually care for children.’

‘I’m not a child.’

‘Well, Macsen doesn’t recognise any child in you. You know he has killed the man?’

The child wilted, abruptly heavy in Brede’s encircling arms.

‘Come on. You don’t need to hide behind Macsen now. I have you safe.’

Brede pulled, and the child followed, still dazed. Sorcha took the child from her, singing gentle encouragement. The girl wrenched herself out of Sorcha’s arms, gazing suspiciously. Sorcha folded her arms and met her gaze.

‘Interesting,’ she said, ‘Which Clan are you?’

The child remained silent. She would never reveal her kin to anyone she didn’t trust, and she didn’t trust witches.

‘Tell her how you came by your horse, Brede,’ Sorcha suggested, suddenly making connections. Brede ignored her suggestion, and rested a hand on the child’s shoulder.

‘Wing Clan, my blood,’ she said, still speaking the Clan language.

The child turned to her, a look of painful hope on her face.

‘Kin I call you, then. Wing Clan, my birth.’

Brede stared at the child, trying to see who she might be, under the dirt and hard use. Not a child, but young for all that, not more than ten years, surely. Brede’s hand tightened on her shoulder, and she shook her gently.

‘Are you telling me the truth? I don’t know you.’

‘I’ve never ridden with the Clan.’

Brede’s mind skipped again to a conclusion that she couldn’t bring herself to believe.
Running before the wind
, she told herself.

‘Your mother and father?’

‘My mother is dead. I’ve never met my father, although I know his name.’

‘And? This is important, girl.’ Brede could hardly contain her impatience.

‘I can see that, you are not the first to come asking these questions. My name is Neala, daughter to Carolan of Wing Clan.’

So – then she must be – she must be.

‘Your father was alive last I knew,’ Brede said, dismissing Carolan – it was the girl’s mother who mattered. Her mother, who was dead.

‘Your mother?’

‘Falda, daughter to Ahern of Wing Clan.’

Brede made a strangled sound, half laugh, half sob. She crushed the child to her, not quite believing her still.

‘Blood kin I name you then, Neala, Falda’s daughter. I am Brede, daughter of Ahern of Wing Clan.’

Neala struggled out of Brede’s embrace, staring into her face.

‘Yes, you are. Riding one of my mother’s horses, too.’

Brede’s eyes fell for the first time on the links of the chain about Neala’s neck. She hooked her hand beneath the collar, and pulled it gently free of the scarf that obscured it. Neala’s hand joined hers about the warm metal, loosening Brede’s grip, and tying the scarf once more over the symbol of her enslavement. Suddenly, her hand snaked up, pulling the jerkin away from Brede’s neck: no chain She let the leather loose, finding nothing to say in the face of the unexpected hope that writhed in her mind.

Brede forced herself out of contemplating the child. There was a dead man lying at their feet; something must be done.

‘Do you know this man?’ she asked her niece.

‘No. I think he was after stealing your horses. He went for me when I tried to stop him.’

‘You did well,’ Brede said, seeing the child’s face pinch with fear.

‘Not so well as the horse,’ Neala replied, trying to throw off her distress.

Brede smiled. A strong child, this.

Sorcha touched her shoulder. ‘I know this man,’ she said.

Brede’s waited for an explanation. Her restless eyes discovered the two long knives at the man’s hip: an assassin.

‘Phelan’s man.’

Brede swore, painfully aware of the child at her side, wondering what the implications of this death would be.

‘Sorcha,’ she said, casually, ‘we can’t go barefoot and half dressed – can you get the rest of our gear? I’ll saddle the horses. We need to be gone from here.’

Neala’s face crumpled, hope snuffed out. She turned to go back to the kitchen. Brede’s hand closed on her upper arm.

‘You too, next-kin.’

‘I can’t leave,’ Neala protested. ‘I’m a bondservant.’

Brede swore again, and flung the child towards the horse. ‘Bonded to whom?’ she asked. ‘On what authority? You are a child; as your next-kin I say any bond is dissolved. Now help saddle that horse, and let’s be gone from here.’

Sorcha still stood unmoving.

‘Grainne isn’t going to like this, not assassins, nor your next-kin.’

‘Grainne will survive it – besides, she promised me.’

Sorcha shook her head doubtfully, and glanced up.

‘I can’t climb back up that roof without help,’ she said patiently, remembering the barred door.

Brede glanced at the roof, which was sagging already from their swift, careless descent. She laughed, and kissed Sorcha, at first lightly, and then reluctant to stop.

‘And you a witch,’ she protested.

‘Not one that can levitate,’ Sorcha said.

She could get back into the room, but the child had already shown enough distrust, no need to frighten her more.

Brede gave her a little shake.

‘No need for that, you have yourself a tall horse that will stand as still as stone if you but ask it of him.’