The Dowry Blade (46 page)

‘Saraid give you a hard time?’

‘I’m a guest –’ Brede protested.

‘I’ll take that as yes. It’s to be expected. They all loved Sorcha, Goddess,
I
loved Sorcha –’ her mouth twisted, but she raised her head quickly, proudly. ‘She was special. But
Saraid
– well.’

Brede put down the honey, kept her head down, a slow, angry, flush creeping up her neck. She raised her head at last, driven to it by Morna’s silence.

‘Saraid and Sorcha?’

Morna nodded.

‘About three years.’

Brede shrank into herself, struggling with astonished jealousy.

‘She never said a word.’

‘Saraid? Why would she?’

‘Why would she not? But no, I meant Sorcha –’ Brede shook her head quickly. ‘How could Saraid stand to not know where she was?’

Morna shook her head.

‘There was a lot of talk, a lot of angry words, when Sorcha went off without telling anyone. I think she’d have enjoyed the fuss, if she’d known. But where Saraid’s concerned, I don’t believe her mind works like ours, nor her heart. And don’t you be thinking I’m disloyal, none of us would let harm come to a one of them, but under the same roof, you notice they aren’t like
us
.’

Brede sat, puzzling over being included in an ‘us’ she didn’t know, and at how easy it was to talk of Sorcha to Morna; easier than to Saraid, but perhaps she could see a reason for that now, and no matter how easy to talk to, there were some questions she could not put to a complete stranger.

‘Speaking of roofs,’ she said, shifting the subject with some urgency. ‘Why is this place in such poor repair?’

‘I don’t think they notice.’

‘They’d better, trouble will follow Ashe here.’

‘They know that. And don’t think they haven’t noticed that sword.’

‘The sword?’

‘Ashe told them. Goddess, even
I’ve
heard of the
Dowry
blade.’ Brede sat in silent astonishment as Morna gazed consideringly at her. ‘They know what you’ve brought under their poorly repaired roof. Aneira will be preparing something, and –’ She stopped abruptly, brought up against an uncomfortable thought.

‘And – ?’

‘And they have their defences. They don’t really need walls.’

‘No,’ Brede agreed, feeling stupid, and sickened. ‘They can kill anyone they please by singing. No need for walls, except for show.’

Slowly she stood, pushing the honeycomb away from her. Morna took it wordlessly, nodded briskly at Brede’s thanks.

‘Come anytime you care to eat. Help yourself if I’m not here.’

Brede nodded vaguely, and stumbled up the step into the courtyard, swearing silently at the pain, and realised that it was the first time that day she had really hurt, really felt the need of her crutch. She didn’t want to talk about Songspinners as ‘them’ any longer; especially when she had carried trouble into their hall. She limped back to the guest quarters.

Ashe sat in the window, arms hugged about her, gazing at the gathering darkness in the courtyard.

‘Sorcha and Saraid?’ Brede asked her.

Ashe glanced up, and nodded.

‘How long ago?’ Ashe spread her hands helplessly, then signed
three – four.

‘Three or four years? Were they still together when Sorcha went to Grainne?’

Ashe shrugged, she didn’t know; she was already a Journeyer then, out in the world, exploring who she could become.

Brede flung herself down on her bed and brooded. Ashe turned politely towards her and waited. Brede shook her head. Ashe leant over and touched her ankle, knee, hip, lightly and tilted her head. Brede frowned as she thought about that question.

Yes
, she signed at last,
better, a while
.

Ashe smiled and made the sign for witch, then old and pointed at the boots. Brede nodded, understanding.

‘Melva? I thought it might be her.’

Ashe frowned impatiently and made nonsense signs at Brede until she signed what she had said. Brede sat up; it was awkward signing lying down and too reminiscent of Kendra’s cave. Carefully she signed her way through an account of her day, including a less pejorative sign for Songspinner.

‘I need a name for my horse,’ Brede observed, after they had sat silent and still for a few minutes.

Ashe frowned, thinking. Names were beyond her signing skills for now.

Tentatively she signed,
Lost horse, friend. This horse, name friend
.

‘I should call him Friend?’ Brede asked.

Ashe nodded, it hadn’t been her meaning, but it served.

Call me friend?
Ashe signed, and her hand shook slightly.

Brede looked up from her hands sharply.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, but her hands shaped the sign and she held it out towards Ashe. Ashe touched her fingers to Brede’s, and Brede felt a spark of – something – reach across between them. She pulled her hands back, trying to hide the urgency of the movement. Ashe stared at her hand, still out-stretched, and rubbed her fingers against her thumb, puzzling at the strange sensation.

What was that?
she asked.

But Brede could only shake her head, puzzled and uneasy.

Chapter Fifty

Saraid finished her third reading of Ashe’s words. She sat quietly, a stillness at the centre of the turmoil in her brain. She stretched her mind, following Ashe’s lead, touching Sorcha at every move, discovering her motives which were not motives at all, understanding; and beginning to see the way to unbind Sorcha’s tangle.

She collected herself, and took up her own pen, drawing a hesitant line of notes, finding the strands and phrases to unmake Sorcha’s song. The pattern the music held in her head was clear: like a requiem, but sufficiently unlike that she must be careful in her choices. Each note must mirror and challenge Sorcha’s. It must say,
yes; this was so and this was done – but now there is an ending.

Saraid had never had to work so hard, it took her days: Days interrupted by Aneira wanting to know what she was doing, when she couldn’t take the time to explain; and days of meals left at her door to go cold, and days that stretched through nights, as she worked, trying to meld music into the pattern behind her eyes.

When at last she left her room, she was suddenly aware of hunger, a hunger that could not be denied further. She went straight to the kitchen, the melody still drifting in her mind. And in the kitchen she found Brede, eating her way steadily through one of Morna’s pies.

Saraid settled herself on a stool across the great table and Morna, without being asked, put another pie and some fruit down in front of her. Saraid pulled them towards her, and ate silently for a few minutes, staring across at Brede. There was something different about her. Saraid inspected her thoughtfully, slightly less starved looking, something approaching muscle starting to show through the surprisingly good shirt she was wearing; her hair was shorter too. Brede finished her pie and engaged with the stare. Saraid blinked first.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve been wondering why you didn’t kill Madoc while you had the chance?’

‘I would have, but I didn’t have the chance.’

‘You had him at your mercy.’

‘No,
Sorcha
had him at her mercy, and mercy is what she showed.’

‘The Sorcha I knew would not have done that.’

Brede raised an eyebrow.

‘The Sorcha
I
knew would have killed him without thinking about it, but she is not the woman either of us knew, anymore.’ Brede’s voice dried, and she had to wait to continue, her voice harsh and faint. ‘She is dead, and perhaps that changes her perspective.’

Saraid shook her head.

‘I would kill him.’

Brede sighed and pushed herself to her feet.

‘And since I didn’t, you will get an opportunity. I don’t understand why he hasn’t come knocking at your gate already.’

‘You think he will come here?’

‘For Ashe.’
And the Dowry blade
, Brede thought, dread twisting in her gut.

Saraid watched Brede limp away and finished her pie, the music in her mind soured and wrong. She hadn’t thought about Sorcha’s –
perspective
. She hadn’t thought she might have the opportunity to face one of the men responsible for her death. She gathered up more food and went back to her papers.

So when, days later, at last Saraid had her tune, and had taught her sisters their parts and they sang, and it didn’t work; then Saraid doubted herself, doubted even her sanity.

She returned to her task, exhausted, depleted, unable to think any further. Melva shook her head over the papers when Saraid took them to her.

‘I thought perhaps a new pair of eyes, a new ear –’

‘Your design is beyond me,’ Melva said softly. ‘I can see the flow, I can hear that it is beautiful; the intention is there, and I can’t find a fault, I don’t know why it doesn’t work.’

Saraid spent more days and nights without sleeping, staring sightlessly at the papers, at the walls, at the night sky; struggling with her memories of Sorcha, trying to piece together what was missing. She knew Sorcha well, had spent several years in her close company, had loved her; she ought to be able to see what was wrong. She saw only a stranger.

The activity, and its ending, did not go unnoticed by the outcasts, the no-voices. Ashe crept to the doors of the singing room, to listen and practice the words she could hear through the door, spinning them on her fingers. Instinctively, she felt that there was something so vital missing, that no amount of re-scoring and rewording would fulfil the need. Ashe wasn’t proud of the spite with which she greeted the world, but there was a part of her that said:
they can’t do it. They are not so clever, not so talented, not so special after all.
If only she could find a way to free herself of Sorcha’s touch, of wanting Brede free of her death.

Brede noticed the silence more than anything. She had been expecting them to sing, to do something to mark Sorcha’s passing, but it didn’t happen. She fumed to Morna, feeling incapable of discussing it with Ashe.

‘Why did she drag my memories into the open? What was the point? Was it only to satisfy her curiosity?’

‘No,’ Morna said firmly.

‘No? Well, I did think better of her, but now this silence, and Saraid’s gone into hiding.’

‘She’s working.’

‘I can’t leave until they do something. I don’t know what I should be doing.’

‘Ashe –’

Brede shook her head sharply. Morna frowned.

‘She’s lonely. You’re the only one she can talk to yet. Is that so much to ask?’

‘I’m teaching her as fast as she can cope with, but what use it is to her here, if no-one else learns it.’

Morna dried her hands. She flung the cloth down and signed:

Nothing more you can offer?

Brede laughed sharply, taken by surprise.

‘So I’m not the only one she can talk to.’

You sign all words you speak.

‘Do I?’

Yes, now
.

Brede looked at her hands, raised to speak, smiled and folded one into the other, and went to find Ashe.

Once more Ashe was at the door to the singing room, her head cocked to catch the strain of music, her hand pressed hard against the wood. She started away when she saw Brede.

I miss it,
she signed. Brede nodded, and taking her hand drew her away from the door, just as it was flung open, and Ceridwen stormed out, speaking over her shoulder to Islean.

‘This is pointless. What can possibly be gained from yet more?’

She sidestepped hurriedly to avoid walking into Brede, glared at her and strode away. Islean took in Ashe, tear streaked, and Brede, hand outstretched, and skirted them as though they were – as though – Islean had no idea what it was, but it wasn’t good. Ashe recoiled at the sight of Islean, shook her head despairingly at Brede and ran for the privacy of the guest chamber.

Brede watched her go, angry on her behalf, pitying even, knowing that she would be unwelcome if she followed, and found herself disappointed at that. Abruptly Brede wanted to be gone, to be away from the constant reminders of Sorcha that this place held, and more than that, she wanted to be away from the subtle distress of Ashe, who was a disturbance in her mind, a restlessness in her skin. She folded her arms and glared out the window, until she realised she was not alone. She turned, and found Aneira and Melva standing behind her. She nodded to them both and went after Ashe after all.

‘Have I not enough to cope with?’ Aneira asked fiercely.

Melva stayed silent, waiting. Aneira frowned in response.

‘What do you want me to do? We’re trying not to draw attention to our singing; I understand that it must be painful for Ashe to be constantly reminded of what she has – given up –’

‘And has it occurred to you that Ashe thinks we are excluding her?’

‘Yes.’

‘So?’

Aneira shrugged.

‘If you want to talk to her, I’ve no objection.’

Melva sighed heavily.

‘I wasn’t asking for permission.’

Aneira grinned suddenly, and stretched a hand to hold Melva’s wrist.

‘I can find something else for you to do if you’re bored?’

Melva laughed. ‘I will see if Islean can spare me more paper and ink.’

Brede found Ashe sobbing and incoherent, unable to sign for the need to hide her face in her hands and cover her eyes from Brede’s sight.

‘Soon,’ Brede said, signing as she went. ‘soon, you will be able to sing using sign. You are learning so fast. It took me months to get where you are now.’

Ashe shook her head and sobbed harder. She was alarmed by that speed, understanding better than Brede its cause. Each time her hands touched Brede’s; it was as though she took in a part of her, as though she was communicating by touch. Brede seemed unaware of it; she didn’t feel the membranes of knowledge and existence lifting from her, layers of dead skin. And yet, Ashe wanted, craved that touch, that experience, frightening though it was. She dried her eyes on her sleeve, wiped her hands on her jerkin, and held out her hands to Brede. Brede took one in each of her hands, and conscious of taking a risk, Ashe kissed the knuckles of first one then the other. Brede took an unsteady, startled breath. Sharing space and time and words, she felt suffocated by Ashe, and her wanting, which was so self-evident, so painful to them both.

‘It will get better,’ Brede said, hardly knowing what she meant. She squeezed one of Ashe’s hands gently then let go. Ashe tied her hands together in unconscious anguish, but she nodded and resolved to put aside her anxiety and her longing, if she could find a way, and learn everything she could.

Ashe dared one experiment to ease Brede’s pain: Brede had opened doors with sign, why should Ashe not heal with it? She tried in secret, Brede asleep and oblivious, darkness to hide her signs even from herself. And it did not work. She could feel the spell building, could almost see it shimmer between her hands like wards, but there was nothing to carry the spell from her fingers to Brede, no breath of song, no – Ashe let her hands fall – no touch. She couldn’t do that again with the spectre of Sorcha to come between them, not yet anyway – perhaps when Saraid got her song right. Ashe sighed, impatient with Saraid but recognising the difficulty, with her own failure so raw on her fingers.

Brede was out with the horse, exploring some new quarter of the city. Ashe had offered to go with her and been courteously refused. Consequently, she was pacing the courtyard, not quite warm enough, but in too bad a mood to seek the warmth of the kitchen, when Melva walked slowly out of the main door.

‘If you don’t want company, you’ll find the library deserted, there’s no need to catch cold.’

Ashe smiled wanly. She caught sight of the paper, and sighed. What did her sisters want of her now? She signed that, absentmindedly.
What now
?

Melva grinned.

‘I can guess what that was, but I’m too old to learn a new language, my dear, so if you’ll humour me, and use writing, I think we could each enjoy a conversation.’

Ashe met her eyes, and smiled more warmly, then took her arm and together they walked to the library, a small alcove of cupboards and shelves off the main hall. There was a bench set into the wall, and they sat side by side with the paper between them.

‘I can talk about anything,’ Melva said. ‘What do you want to say?’

Ashe wrote swiftly.

Brede, Sorcha, me.

‘Ah, difficult.’

I hate Sorcha for using me
, Ashe wrote.

‘She didn’t choose you, it’s not personal.’

It is. She makes it impossible for me to hold Brede as I want.

‘Ah, Ashe you are young, you aren’t used to being thwarted.’

Am I not? Have I not lost Islean? And now Sorcha’s use of me prevents me from–.

Melva put her hand over Ashe’s preventing her from writing more. Ashe looked up, frowning.

‘Brede deserves better than to be retaliation for Islean,’ Melva said cautiously. Ashe pulled her hand and pen free.

She isn’t. But how can I tell if these are my feelings or Sorcha’s?

‘You must really want to cut that bond.’

Ashe nodded, then wrote, and underlined;

But also to bind her again, in the coldest regions of hell.

‘No, Ashe, surely you don’t believe that.’

I can believe anything, now.

Melva glanced from the words to Ashe’s face, tight-lipped and unhappy and wondered which of the many events of late qualified that
now.

‘And Brede?’

How can she have room in her life for another witch? After Sorcha? Most of all Sorcha? And when I spoke to her with Sorcha’s voice?

Saraid put down her papers, and crawled from her bed. She felt her grip on reality slip, and she was afraid. She knew that she must make this requiem work. Her place was in question, her value to her sisters in doubt. She must make another attempt, not for Sorcha’s sake, but for her own, for the few remaining Songspinners. Sorcha’s mistake was a running sore to her, it must be healed.

Saraid gathered the witches together once more, and Ashe was drawn to follow again, shut out though she was. No one explained to her what was to be different this time.

The singing was gentle at first, as it had been before. The soft chanting described Sorcha, fleshing the bones of the description with memories drawn in strains of melody. Ashe found no surprise in it, but then a harsh, ruthless note hit her, bringing the hairs up on the back of her neck. She listened hard, and abruptly she realised what Saraid was trying to do. Instead of unwinding the threads of the bonds that held the shadow of Sorcha’s being to life, she was trying to cut away the life that Sorcha was bound to.

Ashe froze in shock, her mind leaping ahead to anticipate the results. Her hands trembled as she deliberately shaped other words, warping the meaning, challenging the intention, fighting, word by word, note by note, for Brede’s life.

Brede felt the music. It wound into her bones, seeking out Sorcha’s image, her impression, anything of her, dragging her apart, trying to force her memories to give up their hold on the dead Songspinner; trying to eat away the very flesh Sorcha had touched. Without thought, without senses to inform thought, engulfed in the death that reached for her, Brede screamed. A horror too deep for words engulfed her and she cried out for help – not from Sorcha, as she would once have done – but from Ashe.