Donnel's Promise (9 page)

Risha took a moment to understand him, then sprang up in alarm. ‘You’d see the whole of Elgard raised to war?’

‘I’m a soldier, my lady. War is what I am trained for. And sometimes it’s necessary.’

‘It’s wrong! How many would die and be maimed? How many lose their homes and futures? We can’t let it happen.’

His voice was gentle. ‘Tell me, my lady, how we might stop it.’

She shook her head in a single sharp movement. ‘I don’t know. But there must be a way.’ She looked at their faces, thoughts racing. ‘How long will it take Athan to march his army north?’

‘To the border? Once they’re gathered, perhaps ten days; less if the rumour that they’re assembling at Whitelaw proves true. The navy could reach Westlaw in half that time — and at least we can be fairly sure our
ships will meet little resistance.’

Risha shook off the reference to the decisive battle for LeMarc’s citadel.

‘Commander Bruer can be relied upon, and might at least keep some of Goltoy’s forces occupied.’ Nolan paced restlessly. ‘Athan will likely place Tyne or Lombard in charge — they’re both good men, good tacticians. But an army of untrained volunteers … better they invest time in training the new recruits.’

‘There’s something else,’ Croft said. ‘If we’re right in thinking there’s a traitor on Havre’s Council, Goltoy’s going to know Athan’s every move in advance.’

Risha felt queasy.

Fenn slung a duffle bag over her shoulder. ‘Seems to me more urgent than ever that we get word to Donnel.’

Nolan gave a grunt of agreement. ‘Send a bird to LeMarc’s citadel whether or not you find Gorth.’

‘It’ll be done by nightfall. Ride safe, guardsmen, and look after our lady. I’ll see you all at Merren Bay in three days.’

With a brief, bleak smile, she was gone.

8

The Gift

N
olan led them east along the shore of
CaledonWater
. Risha scanned the boats flanking them up the western arm, wishing she had asked Fenn the colour of sail she carried. By midmorning the day had turned cold, the surface of the lake broken in white ridges above iron-coloured water. The storm broke in the early afternoon, thunder rumbling overhead as rain swept in drenching sheets across the lake.

‘Will Fenn have reached Caledon yet?’ Risha asked, staring disconsolately at the grey and sodden world around them.

‘Perhaps,’ Nolan answered. ‘It might not be so bad, the other side.’

He was humouring her. Risha hunched her
shoulders
and tried to ignore the cold seep of water down her neck.

The rain slowed their journey, and Risha was soaked and shivering by the time Nolan stopped at an inn. The innkeeper offered warmed ale and spread their sodden cloaks to dry by the fire, creating a fuggy damp.

‘Is the rain likely to last?’

Nolan shook his head. ‘Not more than a day.
Tomorrow
will be better.’

His prediction proved accurate, though the wind that blew from the north remained chill. Leaving the lake behind they turned southeast through broad fields of damply drooping grain. By afternoon the clouds scudding overhead had begun to break up and evening brought a high tattered sunset of intense reds. Risha’s head felt musty and clogged. Over dinner she began to sneeze.

‘That drenching, I’d guess,’ Croft muttered. ‘A few days’ rest wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘We’ll reach my cousin’s farm tomorrow,’ Nolan said. ‘We’ll rest there.’

Risha woke with a pounding head and parched throat, and spent the day miserably huddled on Mica’s back, each hoof-fall seeming to judder up her limbs and into her throbbing skull. By the time they reached the farmstead she cared about nothing beyond crawling into bed.

During the night she woke, sweating and distressed, and found a stranger beside her bed.

‘Hush, little bird,’ the woman said. ‘You’ve taken a chill. Will you drink?’

The liquid was bitter. Risha swallowed and slid back into a dream, where it was Nonno who mopped her damp forehead and called her back each time she wandered too far away.

Voices woke her; not the voices of her dreams. Her eyes felt gummy as she pushed them open.

‘Nolan?’ Her voice was a harsh croak.

‘Risha! Thank Sargath.’ He appeared beside her.

Risha cleared her throat and he lifted her shoulders
and held a cup to her lips. It was an effort to swallow, despite her thirst.

‘Where are we?’ The room was unfamiliar, its
sloping
, dark-beamed walls and low ceiling threatening to smother her.

‘My cousin’s farm.’

A woman with iron-grey hair and a weathered face appeared beside him. Her square jaw and wide-set eyes were familiar. Risha frowned as she rummaged through her disjointed memories. ‘Where’s Nonno?’

‘No one of that name here. I’m Minna.’

‘She was here with me.’

‘You’ve been dreaming.’

Risha closed her eyes. The lids felt heavy, as if they might refuse to open.

‘Best to let her sleep. Now that her fever’s broken you might do the same.’

Panic gripped her. She forced her eyes open. ‘Nolan?’

The woman was shooing him from the room. He turned. ‘My lady?’

She wet her lips, her throat creaking and tight. ‘I don’t remember getting here.’

His mouth quirked a fraction. ‘You wouldn’t. You’ve had us worried.’

‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t matter now.’ His face relaxed into a
reassuring
smile. ‘Sleep. I’ve a surprise for when you wake.’

It was dark when she next opened her eyes. Risha struggled up in the bed and stared around the room. Her head felt clogged with cotton fluff, but she felt a little closer to sense.

A small window jutted outward between the angled beams of the wall beside the bed. Risha knelt up to look out. A three-quarter moon hung in the sky, spilling light across the farmyard. A handful of horses were corralled beyond the barn and, as her eyes became accustomed to the moonlight, squat shapes on the hillside resolved themselves into sheep. A shadow shifted on the hill — she couldn’t quite make it out — and a chain rattled in the yard.

Nolan’s cousin’s farm. The last thing she recalled was sitting on Mica’s back in the rain — no, that had been the day before. Sitting on Mica’s back, but after the rain. She’d been cold; aching in her joints. And then … And then Nonno had been with her.

Shivering, she crawled back beneath the quilt. Fever, Minna had said. Abandoning her search for sense within her recent memories, Risha closed her eyes.

Ciaran shook her shoulder. ‘Risha, you must tell Donnel it’s a trap. Tell him not to be fooled; not to come.’

‘Ciaran?’ She started up.

Sun slanted through the window and fell in a broad golden square across the foot of the bed.

The woman sitting in the chair beside her leant
forward
and smiled. ‘No. But perhaps you’ll be as pleased to see me?’

Risha gaped like a netted fish. ‘Lillet?’ Her head felt hollowed out, her eyes hot and aching. She pressed the heel of one hand against her temple. ‘I think I’m dreaming again. I can’t tell when I am and when I’m not. Minna was real, I suppose?’

‘Oh, most definitely.’ The young woman handed her a cup. ‘This will help clear your head. The farmwife
knows her remedies.’

The liquid tasted familiar, and bitter. ‘What are you doing here? If you’re really here.’

Lillet tutted. ‘Fenn sent me, to help Minna care for you. She’s worried for you. And my father sends his greetings.’

‘Olli?’ Risha’s head had started up a slow, pulsing beat, as if a smith was shaping a ring of iron around her brain. A spiked ring. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself somewhere where nothing hurt. Nonno stroked her forehead.
There, my kitten
.

Risha’s eyes flew open and Lillet drew her hand back. ‘Are you all right? You’ve gone very pale.’

Risha stared wildly around the room.

‘You should sleep,’ Lillet said. She pushed the hair back from Risha’s hot cheeks. ‘Sleep and dream.’

Ciaran was weeping, the sobs shaking her kneeling body.

Risha watched, uncertain. ‘Ciaran?’

The woman ignored her. Risha moved forward, but the distance was larger than it seemed. She called again, and Ciaran lifted her head. Her skin was blotched, her eyes swollen and wild, but even so she looked younger. She stared into the shadows, her grief a force that
propelled
Risha around.

They were in a chapel. In the apse were three coffins. Risha saw them as if she were looking down from above. The nearer two held children, a boy and a girl, neither more than five or six. Their bodies were covered by a thin shroud of gauze. In the third the body of a man was swaddled in linen bindings.

As Risha stared, the chapel walls fell away and she was
at the door of a small room. It swung open. This time Ciaran stood beside a bed, bleak grief dragging her face downwards in a premature old age. Risha lingered on the threshold, not wanting to look at the body on the bed, to see who else lay still and cold beneath the sheets.

‘Risha.’

The voice tugged at her.

‘Arishara.’

She forced her eyes open. Minna was leaning above her. The woman studied her for a moment. ‘You were weeping in your sleep.’

She looped an arm beneath Risha’s shoulders and helped her to sit. ‘Here.’ She held out a mug. ‘It’s water. Try to hold it.’

Her hands cupped Risha’s as she lifted the liquid to her lips. ‘I’ll send Lillet up to sit with you.’

‘She’s really here?’

‘She is.’ The tone held a certain flatness, as of judgement held in reserve.

Soon after, Lillet arrived with a tray. ‘Minna says I’m to make sure you eat. There’s soup — it’s not too hot — and bread to soak in it.’

She set the tray down and lifted a square of cloth from a bowl. ‘Can you manage or shall I help?’

Risha shook her head and wished she hadn’t. ‘How are you here?’

‘I’ll explain while you eat,’ the young woman offered, placing a spoon in Risha’s hand.

It felt an effort. After several mouthfuls Risha paused. ‘You were explaining,’ she said.

Lillet’s smile lent prettiness to her face, her high
cheekbones emphasised by the black braids that swept from her temples to wind around her head. ‘I was. So. Captain Nolan was escorting you to his cousin’s home when you fell ill. Minna says it’s a summer chill, “worse than many but not as bad as some”. Eat some more.’

Risha managed another three mouthfuls. After two, Lillet continued.

‘Minna blames the captain for letting you get
thoroughly
soaked — she said so when he wasn’t around to hear. She bosses him about as though he were a boy, though she’s really quite fond of him I think. She acts more like a mother than a cousin, perhaps because she’s older — quite a lot older, a generation at least.’ Lillet paused to study Risha intently. ‘He’s very good-looking, your captain.’

Risha frowned. ‘Nolan, do you mean? He is, I suppose.’

Lillet’s eyebrows rose. ‘If you only suppose, then Fenn must be wrong.’ Her expression turned speculative.

‘About what?’

‘Nothing. Here.’ She fed Risha several mouthfuls.

‘Is Fenn here, too?’ Risha felt as if she’d missed
something
important.

‘She spent a day by your bedside then returned to Caledon to fetch me.’ Lillet frowned. ‘Olli will be feeling abandoned.’

‘Is it two days, then, since we arrived? I don’t
remember
anything beyond …’ Lillet’s expression stopped her. ‘What?’

‘It’s four days since Fenn fetched me.’

Risha’s mouth opened and she promptly closed it. She had lost a week.

Lillet returned the spoon and bowl to the tray and handed her a cup of dark liquid. ‘Minna said you should
drink this once you’ve eaten. It will help your head and ease your sleep.’

‘I’ve had enough sleep.’ Risha pushed the bedclothes aside and swung her legs to the floor.

Lillet caught her as she stumbled. ‘Minna said you’d be weak.’

Her words reached Risha from a distance. A weight was constricting her lungs, surging in a pounding tide through her head. Black and red hazed her vision.

‘I don’t think standing up is a very good idea,’ Lillet said, as she lifted Risha’s legs back into bed and tucked a blanket around her.

Risha gathered a breath. ‘Where’s Nolan?’

‘Gone scouting. He’ll be back soon.’

Risha closed her eyes. The rushing in her head had begun to settle to an oily sliding.

‘Would you like to sleep now?’

Risha moved her head slowly from left to right. ‘Dizzy.’ She lay still until her breath came easier. ‘I feel sticky.’

‘I can fetch hot water.’ Lillet stood. ‘I’ll wash your hair, if you like. And trim it: it looks as if it was chewed off by a dog.’

Risha smiled thinly. Bray seemed a long time ago. ‘Do you know if Fenn is planning to come back?’

Lillet shrugged. ‘She said there was a job she had to do. She’ll come if she can.’

By the time Lillet had finished tidying her hair Risha was exhausted, and plummeted into a hot and restless sleep. Shredded images twisted and tangled in her head, disappearing before she could fully grasp each one. Nolan sat beside her for a time — or she imagined he did; the
boundary between real and imagined seemed slipperier than usual. She woke once certain that Ciaran was with her, only to find the room empty, then woke certain she was alone and found Minna watching her intently.

‘You’ll do,’ the woman said, and held a cup to her lips.

It was another day before Minna allowed Risha out of bed. Even with Lillet’s help, the effort of dressing and walking downstairs tired her more than she’d expected.

Nolan studied her carefully. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Much better.’ If she kept her sentences short, she could manage without gasping for breath.

‘Food and rest,’ Minna said, setting a plate of porridge before her.

‘I’ve been resting. I feel as if I’ve slept for days.’

‘That’s because you have,’ Lillet said. ‘For more than a week.’

Risha eventually gave up trying to work out how many of those days she could recall. ‘Is there any news of Lyse and Ciaran?’

Nolan shook his head.

‘Of anything?’ She coughed, pressing one hand against her ribs.

‘No. Risha, should you be out of bed?’

‘Some people prefer not to be told what’s best,’ Minna said.

That night she dreamt of Ciaran. The woman stood before her, arms outstretched, wrists tightly bound. When Risha reached to untie the bonds, Ciaran pulled her hands away. ‘You have more important tasks.’

From behind a door came the sound of weeping.

‘So many,’ Ciaran said. Her face had become a skull covered only thinly with flesh, her hair wispy and grey. ‘So many will die.’ Her eyes were hollow sockets of bone.