Soulvine 03 A Bright and Terrible Sword (25 page)

Stephanie was seven years old, Jee eleven.

‘I told her, too, of what ye had done to save the palace from the Blues, those years ago. To save her mother. And she did not know that, either. And then I told her what she maun do now.’

Jee
had told
her
, the queen. Jee, whom Stephanie had clung to on our journey months ago through the Country of the Dead. Jee, whom Stephanie apparently trusted with that blind loyalty of which her ruthless mother had been incapable. Jee, who had convinced Stephanie to order Lord Robert here in order to do – what?

Jee gazed at me, his eyes dark and shifting as ash, and all at once I knew what he intended. For a moment I could not catch my breath. We stared at each other, and he nodded quietly.

Rawnie, not quiet, had been turned over to one of Lord
Robert’s lieutenants, who had dismounted and walked through the drooping branches of the great willow. He held Rawnie firmly and I heard him say, ‘Touch Lord Robert again and I will bind you, see if I do not. And stop that screaming or you stay here when we march.’

He meant it. Rawnie stopped yelling and flailing, although her expression was murderous. But I knew she would not have been left behind, not even if she grabbed Lord Robert’s sword and thrust it through his belly. Lord Robert was no longer directing this campaign. Nor, except for whatever assistance she might have given the little queen, were the elderly Mother Chilton and her web women. Nor were my father and his
hisafs
, sworn enemies of The Brotherhood and of Soulvine Moor.

This part of the war would be directed by children. Jee, Stephanie, Rawnie, my infant son. Four children and a moor cur, poised to save two realms, the living and the dead, through a plan that made even my animal blood run cold in its foreign veins.

21

We could not bring the horses. That much was clear even to Lord Robert, who nonetheless hated the idea. But, then, he hated everything Jee had planned, everything Jee had asked Queen Stephanie to order done. As Lord Robert gave commands to his men, his face looked like a man eating pickles.

‘Dismount. Grooms, assume control of mounts. Captains, tight three-column formation.’

Much shuffling of men, hooves, armour. The wildflowers in the little meadow became trampled. On passing boats, people craned their necks to see and shouted indistinguishable words. The soldiers made three columns of sixteen men, a captain heading each and Lord Robert with his man-at-arms in front.

Rawnie knelt beside me. ‘What are they doing?’ When I did not even glance at her, she turned reluctantly to Jee. ‘Boy, what are they doing?’

He did not answer either.

She rolled her eyes and said, with an elaborate show of mock courtesy, ‘
Jee
, what are they doing?’

‘They be invading Galtryf.’

Rawnie frowned, and then her eyes widened as she worked it out in her mind. Springing forward, she grabbed her little bundle, raced back to me, and twined her grubby hand firmly in the fur of my neck. I shook her free. She grabbed my tail.

Lord Robert choked out, ‘Each man grab hold of the one ahead of him. Hold on tightly.’

The men looked at each other, scowling or puzzled or already angry. On a few faces, older men, I saw the first dawning of comprehension. They remembered the battle three years ago at the palace. Heads swung around, looking wildly for the queen’s fool. The three captains looked grim but unsurprised. They had known what was coming.

‘This will provoke you,’ Lord Robert said, and I wondered how long it had taken him to choose that particular word. ‘It will not be pleasant. But when we arrive at Galtryf, remember that you are fighting the enemy there in the name of The Queendom and of Queen Stephanie. Long live the queen!’

‘Long live the queen!’ the men returned. This, at least, they understood. Their fear stank in my nostrils, and it would only increase.

No
hisaf
could cross into or out of Galtryf from the Country of the Dead. But I was not coming from the Country of the Dead. No web woman, the mouse-woman had told me, could enter the gates of Galtryf as a mouse, a swan, a deer, a hawk: ‘That would be possible only if I had guised to my soul-sharer while inside the castle’s reach, and I did not.’ But I was not a web woman, nor was I entering the gates of Galtryf in a soul-sharing state. My body was already there.

Anyway, this plan was all we had.

Jee stepped forward and wrapped one arm around Lord Robert’s waist. The three captains and the man-at-arms locked arms around each other’s shoulders, and Lord Robert did the same to the captain at the left. I moved forward from the hidden shelter of the bushes, rose on my hind legs like a faire dog trained to amuse the crowd, and planted my front paws on the back of Jee’s shoulders. The soldiers broke discipline to murmur – one even cried out – but at a sharp word from Lord Robert
they fell silent, taut as lute strings. Rawnie gripped my tail so hard I nearly shook her off again, but her grip was the only thing preventing me from sticking the tail between my legs.

And so I crossed back into my body.

It was just as three years ago, and it was not. Then I had crossed the grave, bringing the Blue army with me. It was not the grave I crossed now, but the weight of the men dragged at me just the same. I struggled to surmount the well, and the struggle went on and on and on so that there was time for a thousand thoughts, all black with despair:

What if this bastard art, half
hisaf
and half web woman, did not permit me to cross back with others attached to me?

What if the chamber in Galtryf that held my body was too small for so many? Would soldiers end up inside solid rock?

What if this unnatural effort killed me – what then of these others?

What if—

What—

On and on and
on
—

In the distance someone was crying. How could that be, in the grave? How could I hear it? All at once, a woman’s scream, and then I lay on a pallet of straw, unable to move from weakness, labouring hard just to breathe. A woman bent over me, whirling around and crying out as soldiers abruptly filled the room.

Maggie.

Maggie
lived
.

A long bare room, rubble at one end. Lord Robert shouted commands and his soldiers rushed the door. It was not locked. In a moment all were gone except for two, guarding the door. Rawnie would have rushed after
them, crying ‘Mama!’ but Jee tackled her to the hard floor.

‘Ye maun stay here till the place be secured.’

‘Let me go!’ Rawnie screamed.

Maggie gaped at us. ‘
Jee?
’

Rawnie tore free and ran for the door, only to be stopped and thrown back by one of the guard. Jee got to his feet. Maggie threw her arms around him and burst into tears. ‘But how … how …’

She looked back at the pallet and my gaze met hers.

Her face went dazed and still, as if hit on the back of the head by a rock. When she finally managed to speak, her voice did not sound like Maggie. ‘Roger …’

Jee said simply, ‘He be back. And he brought the rescue.’

She looked wildly from me to the straw, back again, and put her hands over her face. A long shudder shook her entire body. But Maggie was still Maggie. The next moment she had thrown off her fear and she bent over me, raising a waterbag to my lips. ‘Roger … drink …’

I could not. Everything went dark, came back, wavered again. I was dying.

And yet I was aware of all I could not see, almost preternaturally aware. From the corridor beyond came screams and the clash of swords. Rawnie argued with the guard. Jee went to Maggie and put his arms around her, and she hung on to him like a drowning woman to a raft. But Jee pushed her gently away, drew a pouch from his belt, and forced something from a vial into my mouth.

‘This be from Mother Chilton. It might not be enough but it be the best she could do.’

The liquid from the vial tasted bitter on my tongue. I was too weak to speak. My eyes sought Maggie, who clutched my hand hard and started to cry. The last things
I saw were her tears and then Rawnie’s face, thrust angrily over the pallet.

‘What the by damn is wrong with
you
? Roger, don’t you dare die before we find Mama and Papa! Don’t you dare!’

Darkness.

I was in the Country of the Dead, and then I was back in the land of the living. No, that was not possible; it only felt real. Others flickered in and out with me.

I saw Stephanie, and the little queen was crying.

I saw Maggie, also crying, who laid a cool hand on my forehead and said something I could not hear.

I saw Alysse, who said to me, ‘I told you already, Roger, that those living and those dead are connected in a vast web. How can it be otherwise, when the Dead were once alive and the alive must someday join the Dead?’

I saw Jee carrying a sword too large for him. The sword flashed in sunlight, vanished in a clap of sound.

I saw Tom Jenkins, playing at dice with Fia, while a moor cur capered around them like a court fool.

I saw my mad half-sister, a dim figure in the fog, mourning, ‘Why did you do it, Roger? Why did you kill me?’

I saw Lord Robert, scowling as he said, ‘We have won.’

And I saw Mother Chilton say back to him, ‘You understand nothing.’ But I could not have seen Mother Chilton, she was too old to travel to Galtryf. I could not have seen any of them, because weren’t Alysse and Tom and Fia dead? Was I dead?

I saw an old man with a white beard and green eyes, who held a knife poised above my heart.

I flickered in and out of the Country of the Dead, and that could not have happened either, because no one could cross over from inside Galtryf. I was inside Galtryf,
was I not? And there was a battle, after which Lord Solek fell on the green tiles outside Queen Caroline’s door … or was that a different battle? I seemed to see the dead Lord Solek arise, his son Tarek behind him, and to hear them chorus at me, ‘Where do they go, Roger?’ while Leo played his lute as accompaniment.

Then, all at once, I was back, myself, Roger Kilbourne, with a jolting wagon firm beneath my back, my body so thin that even through the several thick blankets on which I lay, my spine seemed to touch the wagon bed. But I was back.

Sleep.

‘I think his breathing is more even.’

‘Aye, child. He will live.’

Sleep.

‘How much longer, Jee?’

‘Be two days more.’

‘It’s so by damn slow! And no one will let me ride a horse?’

‘They care for the horses.’

Sleep.

‘Why don’t they kill him now? It makes no sense?’

‘Hush, Rawnie. You’ll wake Roger.’

‘Nothing wakes him! He was more interesting when he was—’

‘Hush! I mean it, young woman!’

Sleep.

Another awakening, and this time I knew I would live.

I lay on the bed of blankets, and above me arced a small canvas tent held above the wagon bed by bent and tied saplings. The wagon had stopped. Light rain pattered
on the tent, and the fresh, sweet smell of rain-wet air drifted in the opening at one end of the wagon. Charlotte sat beside me on a low three-legged stool, reading a book. Where had she found a book? Where was I?

Not in Galtryf. Although it was difficult to sort the true experiences of my illness from what must have been either fever delirium or Jee’s drugs, I was certain that I had flickered in and out of the Country of the Dead. Infant
hisafs
did, since they had not the will to control where pain sent them. I, too, had lost will and control, and that told me how close I must have been to death. Had I remained in Galtryf, the puzzling and complete barrier would have kept me from crossing over even involuntarily. I – we – had been travelling. Who? To where? And why?

Charlotte had not yet noticed my open eyes. She looked thin and worn. Was my father here, too? Rawnie? It seemed I had heard Rawnie during my illness, but it also seemed I had heard Tom Jenkins, and Fia, and my sister Katharine too, none of which was possible. I did not know how much time had passed.

Charlotte turned a page of her book and glimpsed my face. Her voice came soft as breeze: ‘Roger?’

I tried to nod, could not, managed to croak, ‘Yes.’

‘Oh, thank the skies. We thought we had lost you!’

I tried to ask ‘Maggie?’ but was too weak to form the word. The next moment I was asleep.

When I woke, Maggie was there. The wagon moved again, slow as a funeral procession. Rain still pattered on the tent roof. Maggie smiled at me, tears in her grey eyes, and her fair curls fell over her forehead just as I remembered. ‘Roger. I’m going to give you something to drink, and you must swallow it. No arguments.’

As if I were in any condition to argue! But now I vaguely remembered the taste of what she placed
between my lips; I must have been forced to swallow it in my delirium. It was a medium-thin gruel, not unpleasant, but with the bitter undertaste of herbs. I guessed that the gruel, both nourishment and potion, was what had kept me alive after my wrenching return from the moor cur. Mother Chilton had been right.
Hisafs
had no business trying the arts of web women.

‘Did he take it all?’ said someone behind Maggie. Charlotte. And then Rawnie was there, too, pushing her freckled face between the two women, her red braids dripping rain upon my blankets.

‘Yes, he took it all,’ Maggie said, taking my hand in hers. ‘Rawnie, stay back!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Charlotte said. ‘Rawnie, you heard Maggie – stop dripping on Roger.’

‘I can’t help dripping,’ Rawnie said, ‘if I’m going to see him close enough to see him. Roger, I’m glad you’re not dead. But you’ve been sick a long time, and so much has happened! Do you want me to tell you about it?’

‘Y … yes.’

Maggie rolled her eyes. I saw her disapproval that Charlotte could not control her daughter.
My son
, Maggie’s eyes said,
will never be allowed to behave like that
. I wanted to ask Maggie about our son, but I could not – no one must know about him. But she leaned close to me and, under guise of kissing my brow, murmured into my ear. ‘He is safe.’

Rawnie crowed, ‘He wants to hear
me
tell it!’ I did. Rawnie would know more than Maggie or Charlotte, who both had probably spent most of this journey nursing me. Rawnie always knew more.