The Dowry Blade (43 page)

Brede watched Ashe as she by turns stirred restlessly and was rigidly still. She distrusted her for what she had done, and for what she was, and for what she was not.

Ashe watched Brede as she checked the horses, stirred the embers of the fire and added some more wood. Brede kicked the embers together, watching Ashe watching her. She didn’t know how to hold a one-sided conversation with this woman. She didn’t know what to think of her. Maeve would call her a monster – perhaps she was – but she seemed so young, so – vulnerable. Brede remembered the feel of Ashe’s lips against her knuckles – that wasn’t an act of vulnerability. Brede considered Ashe.
Young?
Who was to say? She brushed her knuckles uncertainly, suddenly angry. Ashe turned her back on Brede, feeling uncomfortable under her gaze.

Brede crouched beside her, a tentative hand on her shoulder.

‘I thought we were stopping for the night to rest, but you aren’t sleeping, and neither am I. Would you rather go on?’

Ashe shook her head.

Brede forced herself more upright. Slowly she made the signs for what she wanted to ask, watching her own fingers, thinking how to ask that aloud.

‘Is it true, what Madoc’s crew say about you?’

Ashe gazed at her face, wondering how many times she must admit it. She nodded stiffly; and waited, straining for the sense of Brede’s voice, rather than her words, but she said nothing.

Brede considered her own hands, still raised to communicate, and wondered what point there was in asking why, what use there was in judging Ashe’s motives or condemning her actions. She remembered Sorcha raising blooded hands to her, asking for help that she had refused to give. Brede covered her face, trying to blot out that thought. Her outraged words of anger at Ashe filtered back into her mind:

Why didn’t you just kill yourself?

She matched those words against her horror at Sorcha’s actions, her disgust at Ashe’s, and sighed in regret.

‘Was that why?’ Brede asked, returning her gaze to Ashe’s tense waiting, and pressing her fingers against her own throat.

Ashe jerked her head in an awkward nod and her trembling became an uncontrollable shudder.

Brede reached out to still the shuddering but Ashe flinched away from her touch.

‘There were times when Sorcha needed comfort and I wouldn’t give it, because I thought what she had done was – inexcusable,’ Brede said softly. Ashe listened to the tremor in Brede’s voice. Brede couldn’t finish that thought; she wasn’t sure where it ended, where it might lead her. She reached out again. This time Ashe accepted that embrace with gratitude and relief, closing her mind to the complications of Brede’s half-expressed doubt.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Brede followed Ashe’s lead up through the town. She could have found their destination herself; the stark tower of the keep was obvious from miles away, but Ashe needed to be first, this had been her home. Whether it still was, rested with her kin. Neither of them was optimistic. Brede could not help but think how this homecoming would have been for Sorcha, with a no-voice hand-mate in tow, and was grateful that at least she was nothing more to Ashe than a chance companion.

Close to, the keep was less intimidating. There was an air of decay about the walls; many of the windows were shuttered, unused. The cobbles under the gateway needed weeding. But the neglect did not stretch to their entrance going unnoticed.

The unexpected clatter of hooves on the cobbles brought many a head up, many an eye strayed to a window.

Islean sensed this, but hesitated over whether to join the general migration to the windows. She opened her mind to the noises from the courtyard, whilst continuing her work. There was a disturbance there that was more than the simple arrival of strangers. She put away her papers with slow deliberation.

Her wide casement overlooked the gate. She leant against the edge of the window and peered down. She didn’t see the wrongness, the strangeness, she saw only the one she had been longing for, home at last, and her heart was warmed.

It wasn’t until she reached the courtyard and felt the cobbles beneath her feet that Islean realised that there was something wrong. She did not understand what it was, but she slowed her impulsive rush and approached more cautiously. She arrived quietly at Ashe’s side and laid a hand on her arm, and Ashe smiled, a slow uncertain smile that frightened Islean. This was not her confident, warm, charming Ashe. There was a grey tightness to the skin about her eyes, a stillness in her face that made Islean’s heart lurch with dread. She opened her mouth to speak, and her words failed her. Instinctively she sensed that the silence in her friend went far deeper than her own lack of words.

Ashe saw the colour draining from Islean’s face, and dropped her bag, so as to have her hands free, so that she could speak – and realised that Islean would not understand, and that she had no idea how to shape her meaning. Brede’s face was closed, her mind firmly elsewhere, locked into some private anxiety. Ashe opened her arms to Islean and embraced her friend, gently at first, as though afraid to touch her, then more strongly, feeling intently every point of contact; feeling the hum of power in her, feeling the distress in Islean’s tight muscles and resisting bones; feeling loss. She drew away from Islean, looking at her, searching.

Islean felt the loss, the spark that wasn’t there.

‘What has happened to you?’ she asked, hardly daring to break the silence between them.

Ashe raised her hands, but couldn’t complete the gesture. The magnitude of what had happened couldn’t be contained by the slight movement of her fingers that might shape it.

Brede watched the strained reunion from the back of her horse. She wasn’t sure she could get down without falling on the cobbles. She didn’t want to disturb the meeting of these two with her ungainliness, but now, Ashe needed her.

‘She has taken her voice.’

She shaped the words on her fingers for Ashe, reiterating the lesson, making her learn the signs. There was no way to say it that would be gentle, that would ease Islean into understanding. It was not as though she hadn’t guessed.

But Islean had hoped, irrationally, that she was mistaken, that Ashe was merely ill, or too tired for speech. She had hoped, against all the evidence of her senses. Still she denied it.

‘No.’

Islean’s voice took on an all too familiar obstinacy. Brede had heard it before –
If I say it is not so, it will cease to be so
.

‘Yes,’ Brede answered her patiently.

Islean’s shoulders slumped, and she clung to Ashe, to stop herself from falling.

Ashe’s face froze. She would not fold under Islean’s distress. There was no going back. She couldn’t remember a time when this barrier of silence hadn’t been there. She tried, but only the most fleeting glimpse of her carefree love for the woman she held could wind beneath her defences. Islean was a stranger. She glanced beyond her, and saw Aneira, the Elder. Ashe gave Islean a gentle shake.

Islean wiped her face. She didn’t care that she was behaving foolishly. She had loved Ashe once, and she didn’t think she could love her now, not as she had become. That was, for the moment, more important than the fact that Aneira was staring at her as though she was the one to have ridden home on a horse, voiceless.

‘I think we need to deal with this at once,’ Aneira said, conscious of the many eyes on her. She glanced at Brede with distaste.

‘You speak for Ashe?’ she asked.

Brede smiled at the tone, and inclined her head, acknowledging her role, accepting Ashe’s name. Aneira nodded, impatient, almost embarrassed.

‘You may accompany her,’ she said ungraciously.

Aneira turned on her heel, and stalked to the double doors at the far side of the courtyard. They burst open at her command. Brede wasn’t impressed. Ashe held out her hand to Brede, asking her if she would go with her. Brede nodded, beckoning her closer. She rubbed her aching leg. Ashe held the horse still, ready to grab Brede if she needed steadying.

Brede swung her legs down, trying to control the force with which she hit the ground. The cobbles twisted her foot at the vital moment. She winced at the stabbing pain, but managed to stay upright. Ashe’s hand rested for a second against her arm, not supporting, merely acknowledging.

Islean saw that touch, that slight brush of finger and sleeve. She saw that part of the silence in Ashe was for her alone, that her heart was closed against her. She wondered if Ashe had prepared herself against the rejection she knew must come, or whether they have lost each other inadvertently. Islean glared at Brede. Why did Ashe touch her so, a no-voice? Well, and what was Ashe now? She shuddered. Islean pulled her shoulders back, examined her state of mind, and followed the Elder into the council room.

Brede’s fingers interlaced with Ashe’s, offering support. Ashe returned the pressure, and followed the woman she used to love into the darkness of the chamber.

It was harder to stand there than she had thought it would be. Ashe gazed around the room. It was barely a quarter full. She had hoped to come home to understanding of her choice, to acceptance, but she had also imagined the worst. She had lain awake fearing the look that had swept into Islean’s eyes. Islean, of all of them. At least she had been spared open council. She could not have borne to have them all there, the journeyers, the apprentices, the townspeople, even the children – that she was being given the grace of only the Songspinners themselves was a relief, and was also terrible.

Aneira cleared her throat. Ashe heard it. That hesitation comforted her. Even Aneira didn’t know what to say. The doors closed softly behind the last of the women gathered to hear, to see what she had to say. There weren’t many. Saraid, Melva, Ceridwen, Islean and of course, Aneira. So few. Of course they would be harsh. Ashe didn’t understand how she had thought they would be anything else.

Aneira spoke: ‘Ashe has no voice. She has a – companion who will speak for her. We will listen to what she has to say about this. When she has spoken we will consult as to what we must do.’

The Elder glanced around, collecting their full attention, their assent. She nodded to Brede.

‘You may speak.’

Brede brushed aside her anger. She must speak well. She knew what it was to be cast out from her kin. She had been rehearsing this ever since they entered the town, and she saw that tower and its lack of compromise.

‘Your sister, Ashe, has done something she – now – understands to be evil. She has killed an entire army.’ Brede hesitated, still unable to imagine that act, and uncertain as to why she had not condemned Ashe for it. ‘With the weapons you taught her to use.’ She glanced at the faces of the women about her, and remembered why she was protecting Ashe from their censure.

‘You taught Ashe to believe in herself, you taught her how to kill, and that she was correct to use her power so. She has found that to be wrong. She has been rash – I don’t know her exact reasoning, she can’t tell me – but she’ll never be able to injure or kill with her voice again.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘For now,’ Brede replied with as much dignity as she could muster, knowing already that she had failed.

Aneira inclined her head, waiting to hear who would speak first.

Melva stood. She was old, but she stood straight, and her voice didn’t quaver.

‘Ashe is right to condemn her actions. She should not have used her powers in the way she did. But she was wrong to devise her own punishment. We can’t afford the loss of even one voice. That should have overridden everything else.’

Ceridwen didn’t wait for the older woman to seat herself.

‘Whatever Ashe did, she should not have thrown away her voice. A warrior wouldn’t throw away a sword because it had cut down the wrong person, not while it was still needed for the protection of others.’

Brede was aware of eyes glancing at her, sweeping the length of metal that she used to take the weight from her injured leg, now resting beside her as she used her hands to speak to Ashe. She ought not to have brought that blade into their hall.

Saraid shook her head. She put a quieting hand on Ceridwen’s arm.

‘We are not warriors. We should be clear what we condemn. For myself, I think Ashe’s judgement has been at fault. She has been concerned only with her weaknesses, not her strengths. She made no attempt to put right what she had done. Instead she put away her power to do anything. And in so doing, we have lost a powerful, wonderful voice. A voice second only to Sorcha’s. We should be grieving that loss, certainly; but we should also be considering why it is Ashe has returned to us, voiceless as she is.’

Brede heard, and didn’t hear, what was said.

A voice second only to Sorcha’s.

She looked sadly at Ashe, shaping the words for her, so that she might learn them. Not just any voice, then, but an extraordinary voice. No wonder they were so bitter, no wonder Melva asked why she had bothered returning.

And then the secondary meaning bit. They did not know, as Ashe had not known, that Sorcha was dead. Brede quailed, wondered how to tell them, even as her hands moved, spelling her thought for Ashe, ‘A voice second to none.’

Ashe raised her head in surprise, and Brede realised that her protest had been made out loud. She looked around the room, and tried to remember who had been speaking as she caused the startled silence. The Elder, Aneira, drew herself up.

‘What do you mean, second to none?’

Brede licked her dry lips, afraid to speak again into the thickening, waiting silence. The truth that she had lived with, and tried to avoid living with, for two years, was a shocking cruelty to them; but it was too late to soften the blow. She stood, stiff with her own grief.

‘Sorcha is dead.’

An intake of breath echoed around the Songspinners. Aneira’s remarkable voice was shades lighter, weaker.

‘Who says this?’ she asked, but her voice asked far more,
Who are you to tell us this? A no-voice. How dare you even speak her name?

Brede was used to that kind of question. She answered the intent rather than the words.

‘Her companion and lover. I was with her when she died.’

For a flickering moment Brede remembered Sorcha’s voice, fierce with unexpected nerves, claiming her as hand-mate, but she couldn’t bring herself to voice that half-truth to these women, be they Sorcha’s kin or no.

‘How is it that we did not know?’ Saraid asked.

She did not ask Brede, she asked the others. Accusing, disbelieving: How did they let this happen? How did Sorcha let it happen?

Aneira shook her head.

‘We must not let this sudden grief cloud the issue before us. Our immediate concern must be Ashe.’

Concern?
Brede snorted. She didn’t think that Aneira was concerned for Ashe, but for herself.

‘Ashe has done us untold damage in the eyes of the world by her rash actions. She has done us far worse injury, struck us right to the heart by casting aside a unique gift, a voice second to none.’

Aneira’s voice caught.

Brede, signing this automatically for Ashe, saw the words, and separated the tone. She couldn’t allow this. She sighed, and struggled once more to her feet. Aneira frowned angrily.

‘You may not speak.’

Brede smiled, allowing the tone to wash over her, still steadily shaping the words with her hands.

‘I shall speak,’ she said quietly.

Ashe’s mouth quirked into a half smile, a nervous twitch of the muscles. She was afraid of what Brede would do. Brede accepted that anxious twitch, but would not be silent.

‘You’ve thought no further than your own hurt. I see the way you look at me, at Ashe. I see the
no-voice
you don’t quite say. But I have a voice, I will speak, and you will listen. Ashe has no voice, but I can give her one. I can teach her the songs of silence, I will teach her such songs to spin on her fingers that you will be speechless.

‘I don’t believe you are grieving the loss of her voice, I think you are angry that she has punished herself. She has stolen your retribution. What could you possibly do to her that is worse than what she has done to herself?

‘Ashe has not thrown down her sword, she has cut off her sword arm. There can be no going back for her; and you’ve nothing but bitterness for her. All you can say is
no-voice
, and tell her what damage she does you. Not one of you will look at the damage she has done herself, nor will you think of what she asks of you, a way to learn to feed herself, now that she has but one hand. You’ll not accept your responsibility for her actions. Foolish she is, and arrogant, like her sisters, too full of pride to admit when she is wrong.’

Brede knew she still had not persuaded them. The silence was curdling with unspoken resentment of her intrusion. She glanced uneasily at Ashe, and a sudden certainty about her took root. Ashe was as young as she seemed, she hadn’t grown that carapace of self-worth these other women had. Perhaps that was the root of problem.