The Dowry Blade (6 page)

Brede offered him the cooling ale as he settled beside her, feet braced against the rough wood.

‘I’ve been busy,’ she said, shrugging.

Adair took the beaker from her, and took a sip, turning to look out across the Marsh at the first red streak of day.

‘So, which way is the wind blowing?’ he asked her, as he had asked so many times before.

‘Today, north by west. But not for long.’

‘And how long before the wind is strong enough to carry you away?’

‘Not as long –’ Brede stopped, her usual ‘
as it will take to grow the wings to ride it,
’ silenced.

Adair frowned. This wasn’t part of their joking ritual. His eyes strayed away from the Marsh and he focused on the way the wind played with Brede’s hair, teasing it loose from her inadequate bindings.

‘Grown your wings, have you?’

‘Maybe.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps I should have gone back to Wing Clan as soon as I had recovered from the fever; it gets harder to leave the longer I stay.’

Adair stood abruptly, almost overbalancing.

‘You spend too much time with –’ he could find no words.

Brede froze, her hand half extended to steady him.

‘Faine’s guest?’ she asked, her heart suddenly pounding.

‘Her.’

‘I do only what I have been asked to do by the elders.’ Brede said gently.

‘Many would have refused. No one would have blamed you. Why should we nurse one of those killers back to health? We’re only storing trouble for later.’

‘I know that. I’ve said that. But I’ve thought it through. I chose to do this. And I have far more reason for distrust than you.’

‘But? Say what’s on your mind.’

‘Since when do you have the right to know my mind?’

Adair stepped away, his frown deepening.

‘I’ve not found you untruthful,’ he said, puzzled at her sharpness. Brede nodded, regretting her irritation.

‘Well, the truth –’

‘You should not have agreed,’ Adair burst out. ‘You should shun her as we all do.’

‘All? I see no sign of that from Faine, nor Edra. They aren’t afraid of a helpless wounded stranger. Why are you afraid?’

‘I’m not afraid of her.’

‘No, well neither am I. I like her.’

Adair leant forward, and hauled Brede sharply to her feet.

‘You should not
like
her,’ he said forcefully. Brede closed her hand over his, prising his grip away one finger at a time.

‘The footing is uncertain up here,’ she said, her voice very quiet. ‘This is no place for fooling about.’

‘I’m not fooling. I’m warning you, Brede; we don’t want you with her.’

Brede scowled, judging the distance to the ladder, the narrow footing, and Adair’s bulk between her and safety.

‘Let me by.’

‘Not until you promise.’

‘For pity’s sake, Adair.’

‘Promise.’

Brede shook her head, preferring even Tegan’s known wrongdoing to this unexpected aggression.

‘I thought we were by way of being friends,’ she said.

‘I thought we could be more, but you’re after riding the wind, aren’t you?’

Brede considered Adair’s hurt pride.

‘Wherever it takes me,’ she said, and stepped quickly away from Adair’s angry lunge. Too quickly. She missed her footing, and measured her length in the snow. Adair’s movement after her turned from anger to concern in half a thought, and he grabbed a handful of clothes, preventing her from falling headlong to the ground below. Brede writhed free of his grip, shunting herself out of reach. Adair straightened, and sighed.

‘You’re not so good at flying yet. There’s time to tame you.’ He leant and stroked her ankle, the only part still within reach. ‘Still time,’ he said wistfully, and strode back to the ladder, and out of her view.

Brede lay where she was. When she was sure he had gone, she struggled up, and limped, wet and bedraggled, to the forge.

‘What have you been doing?’ Tegan asked as melted snow dripped onto her hand. She wiped her fingers clean.

‘Wrestling with my conscience,’ Brede said, flinging her cloak across a low beam, and turning at once to the fire to warm her shivers.

‘Who won?’ Tegan asked.

Brede stopped rubbing her stiff knee and thought about that one. She smiled to herself.

‘I think you did.’

Tegan frowned, puzzled. Brede laughed at her expression, and turned to setting her bellows for the day’s work, but her mind was not on the metal. Adair’s harshness, his
you should not like her,
sank into her heart and festered there. Her own admission of that liking made her uneasy and she turned to watch Tegan. A burst of reddened light fell across Tegan’s upturned face and Brede asked suddenly:

‘Have you ever faced ambush?’ she reached with her foot to stir the blanket around Tegan’s shoulders. ‘Ever found arrows in your fire when you’re wrapped in your blankets?’

Tegan pulled the blanket out of her reach and considered that sudden change from laughter to grimness.

‘No.’

‘No; but you were prepared to put us through that, weren’t you. One moment, we’re idling over a jug of wine, singing of horses and fine riders, and the next –’

Brede turned back to her bellows, forcing air through the charcoal, and firelight into her face, lighting the set brooding anger on her features. She tried to quell the memory that made her muscles jump and her teeth ache, but words spilt from her.

‘All our horses,’ Brede waved a hand and the dancing light became those horses, hurtling through the darkness. Her hand dropped suddenly, she hardly knew if she made sense, ‘– arrows, spears, swords –’

Tegan settled her blanket about her shoulders more tightly in a sudden gust of cold wind from the forge’s doorway. She glanced up at Faine, who shook snow from her clothes.

‘I was scared half to death, but Devnet was amazing,’ Brede said, a half smile on her face. Her hand rose suddenly, grasping an imaginary mane, ‘I thought she would fall and be trampled, but not her.’

Brede’s smile faded and the hand strayed to her shoulder. ‘Falda was somewhere in that turmoil –’ she wiped sweat off her face, stamping once more on the bellows, ‘– eight months pregnant.’ She sent sharp yellow light across the forge, harsh as the bitterness in her voice.

‘Devnet was so concerned for her horses. She barely stopped for me, and she wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t hear until they were safe, too late.’ Brede shivered. She glanced at Tegan’s grim-faced silence, and found more coherent accusation: ‘Cloud Clan and most of Wing Clan were destroyed by that raid. We went back to search, to help collect the dead, to aid the wounded, but there was no trace of Falda.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Tegan said quietly.

‘
Sorry
?’ Brede raised her hands in futile anger. ‘We were not armed.’

Faine laid a light hand on Brede’s shoulder.

‘It’s ancient history,’ she said gently.

Brede started away from her touch, and pushed past, out into the snow.

‘Is it?’ Tegan asked Faine bleakly, burrowing into her blanket a little more. Faine stared down at Tegan.

‘She’s blaming you,’ she said at last.’Is she right to?’

Tegan’s silence gave sufficient answer. Faine began mechanically clearing the forge, putting the tools away safely, smothering the fire and then she went in search of Brede. She did not find her with Leal, and cut short Leal’s enquiry. She set off toward the ox stall, half expecting to find the horse gone. Brede was there, grooming the beast with slow, considered strokes, murmuring in the Plains tongue. Faine stood in the doorway, and waited for Brede to notice her. At last Brede turned away from the horse, cursing softly. She started at the sight of Faine, and turned away again, trying to hide her tear-streaked face.

‘Brede –’

Faine did not know how to broach it.

Brede leant her head against Guida’s neck, and waited for whatever it was Faine had to say.

‘Brede, if I had known what she was, I’d not have –’

The smith stepped closer, resting her hand on the horse’s shoulder, not yet daring to touch Brede.

Brede focussed on Faine’s hand in preference to her face.

‘I don’t want you to tell anyone.’

Faine’s hand made a convulsive movement, and the horse jerked her head, forcing Brede to step away.

‘How did you find out?’

Brede quietened the horse, moving her hand under her mane, feeling the tattoo. She pulled Faine’s hand across to feel the ridges.

‘This is an uncancelled breeder’s mark.’ Brede’s voice sank to a disbelieving thread of breath. ‘This horse was bred by Falda.’

‘Then she is dead.’ Faine pulled her hand away.

‘Do not tell Leal,’ Brede begged. ‘Tegan says she doesn’t know what became of Falda.’

‘And you believe her? Brede, how can you stand to – ? I should throw her out.’

‘And have a frozen corpse at our gate? This isn’t a village matter. I won’t endanger you all for the sake of a revenge that is not yours.’

‘You are one of us, and Falda was my niece too. I know I never met her, but – she was kin – of course this is ours.’

‘Not this.’

Faine reached out and pulled Brede’s hand away from its obsessive movement across the tattoo. Brede shuddered. Faine caught her into her arms, hugging her fiercely.

‘What do you want to do?’

Brede laughed; a bewildered sound.

‘I want to believe her. I want to think she’s not to blame, I really do. I want to be free of hating her, but I can’t.’

‘Why should you? If you don’t want revenge, you let her recover. What difference does it make whether you believe her? She’ll be gone as soon as the thaw reaches us.
Gone
, Brede.’

Brede shook her head.

‘I don’t want her gone.’

Faine stepped back, to get a better look at Brede’s down-turned eyes.

‘What a mess.’

‘You mustn’t say anything to Leal.’

‘No. I wouldn’t begin to know how – but – does Tegan know – ?’

‘I hope not.’

‘And does she – ?’

‘She talks of Maeve constantly.’

‘That’s something.’ Faine frowned at Brede. ‘I can’t tell you how responsible I feel.’

Brede stared at Faine, mystified.

‘None of this is your fault. And as you say, by the thaw, she’ll be gone.’

Chapter Six

Edra’s final visit to the forge and her unwelcome patient coincided with Brede’s completion of her second knife.

Tegan had healed enough to offer help in sharpening the edges and polishing the knives, but she made slow progress. She was alarmed at how quickly she tired; her wound seemed healed, but she was still unpleasantly weak.

Edra made no comment as the blades were shuffled out of her way. She stood above Tegan, her eyes narrowed, waiting for Brede to stop crowding her.

‘You’re healed,’ she said finally. ‘What you need now is exercise, or you’ll favour those muscles and grow into bad habits.’

She turned away from the look of relief in Tegan’s eyes, and caught Brede’s mirroring expression.

‘You are well suited,’ she said, ‘as well matched as those sorry excuses for knives you’ve been working on. Faine must be mad to countenance such a wanton waste of good metal.’

When Edra had gone, Brede got the knives from their hiding place, and inspected them critically.

‘If only it were good metal.’

Tegan pulled herself up to look, wincing at the aching of muscles weakened by long inactivity. ‘Edra’s right.’

Brede frowned.

‘Not the knives, the exercise. Those match reasonably well, considering that wasn’t the plan when you started, but the proof of the forging is in the use. And the proof of the healing is in the use too.’

‘You shouldn’t let Edra see you’re frightened of her, it’s insulting.’

Tegan raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m to take lessons from you on courtesy, am I?’

Brede opened her mouth to answer, but Tegan cut her off.

‘Or prejudice perhaps? You know as well as I do that Edra could have done more to heal me swiftly; she chose not to. What is that but prejudice?’

Brede tried again.

‘I meant that since you owe her your life, you could show your gratitude.’

‘No. I’ll not be grateful for that. I’d need to be grateful to you too, and you wouldn’t bear with it.’

‘Grateful to me for what?’

‘If you had told anyone about that horse, I would be long dead.’

‘Faine knows. She has kept her own counsel.’

‘Why has she?’ Tegan asked, challenging.

‘Because I asked it of her.’ Brede admitted.

‘And why did you ask her?’

Brede tossed the knives into their basket.

‘It is between you and me.’

Tegan glowered.
And always will be
, she thought.

As soon as she was able to walk so far, Tegan went to the ox stall to look at the horse. She was tempted to blame the animal. Once again she sorted through her memories of that night, trying to persuade herself that she would remember if she had seen a heavily pregnant woman taken up by any of her comrades. But her mind was a blank. She remembered the four people she had killed – she always remembered those. She remembered helping a man blinded by one of the stones the Plains folk were so expert with; she remembered finding the horse, limping and frightened when the worst of it was over; she remembered the string of prisoners, many of them women, but pregnant? No. She remembered swearing at the general in charge of the chaos. Tegan’s face creased into a travesty of a smile at that memory, not one she intended to share with Brede.

She rubbed her thumb over the tattoo, and regretted ever taking the beast. She was aware of the edgy hostility of the villagers. Only Faine’s protection kept them from making outright threats. Tegan had seen the way their eyes skittered away from her. Even Faine, now. The smith’s initial openness had stilled into suspicious scowls and long doubting looks. Tegan needed Brede’s trust. Reluctantly, she decided that she must teach the apprentice how to use her knives, and run the risk of finding one of them between her ribs.

Brede came into the forge to find Tegan leaning precariously against one of the rooftrees. In each hand she held one of Brede’s knives.

‘You want to learn how to use these vipers,’ Tegan said, without moving from her position, ‘but first you must learn to protect yourself from them.’

She flicked one of the knives into the air, and caught it again. Brede waited, keeping her stance as relaxed as she could. These were not throwing knives, too long in the blade for that. Nonetheless, Tegan threw one, not at Brede, but to her. The weight of the hilt dragged it down, and Brede caught the knife awkwardly. It felt strange in her hand.

‘Wrong hand,’ Tegan said, ‘Which means I have the advantage. You have to decide whether you have time to change hands before I attack you. This time, because it’s me, and you know I can’t move fast, you have time. Did you know which knife I was throwing?’

Brede shook her head, already beginning to be confused. She changed hands and felt better. Tegan threw the other knife, faster, lower. Brede caught it, instinctively changing her grip to accommodate the angle.

Tegan gazed at her thoughtfully, then motioned for Brede to throw the knives back. She threw them, again, and again, and Brede couldn’t help but notice that Tegan caught them more easily each time, and she did not.

‘Better,’ Tegan commented at last. ‘You made those knives to fit your hands, not mine, and you made one to fit each. You need to know which is which, or change them so you can use either.’ There was still a half question in her eyes.

‘You didn’t tell me that when I was moulding the hilts.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

Brede hated the knives for a moment.

‘I’ll change them,’ she said reluctantly, ‘if you tell me before I make a mistake next time.’

‘No bargains. I won’t always be there to tell you. You have to learn by your mistakes or die from them,’ Tegan answered irritably; hoping Brede was taking in what she said. She hesitated a moment longer, then said softly, ‘You favour your right arm. You need to work on that.’

Brede straightened her back, and worked her shoulder thoughtfully.
Still?
There was a persistent pulling across her shoulder blade, a heat in the muscle, a coldness in the bone.

Tegan was feeling the restlessness of a slow convalescence, and she began to plan and prepare. She begged new leather and the loan of tools from Faine, and set to repairing her mail shirt. Brede sat opposite her, watching her struggle with the intricate links of metal, and made no move to help. At last Tegan could stand no more of Brede’s silent disapproval.

‘What ails you?’ Tegan asked, testily.

Brede raised a shoulder in a slow shrug.

‘What did not protect once will not protect again,’ she said, lowering the shoulder once more.

Tegan inspected her handiwork, vaguely aware that out beyond the forge there was music playing.

‘It’s better than nothing,’ she said, trying to place the source of the music.

‘You intend to continue as a soldier?’ Brede asked.

‘I can’t do anything else.’

‘And so you’ll keep killing until your armour fails you once more and there’s no one to help you?’

Tegan frowned, and put aside the pliers she had been using to bend the rings back into shape.

‘I don’t expect to make old bones.’ It was not something she had thought about for some time, not even when she felt that blade in her flesh. Now, Tegan shivered under Brede’s steady, questioning gaze.

‘If that is the sort of question you ask yourself,’ Tegan said, ‘why are you so keen to learn my way of life? It won’t suit you.’

‘I know that,’ Brede said irritably. ‘I have to do something. I can’t go back to the Clans and claim Clan-right without a horse, preferably a whole string of horses.’

‘You’re a smith.’

‘Can you name me anywhere you’ve been that was short of a smith?’

Tegan shook her head.

‘You’ll not stay here?’

Brede folded her arms and leant back against the rooftree.

‘I’ve stayed long enough.’

Tegan laughed, feeling a sudden affection for Brede.

‘Are you staying away from the festivities out of preference for my company?’ she asked, inclining her head toward the sound.

Brede smiled her agreement.

‘I was invited,’ she said casually, ‘but it’s not because of you I’m staying away. I’ll go and dance later. If you think you’re spoiling my chances with some local lad, be easy about it.’

‘Adair, for instance?’

Brede smiled, tilting her face into the firelight.

‘Adair is young, he has eyes and a mind; I can’t prevent him using them. I don’t want what he hopes to offer.’

Tegan wondered if she read those words aright, and hesitated before she asked her next question.

‘And Faine?’

‘It’s Faine’s party,’ Brede said. ‘It’s her son’s hand-fasting.’

Tegan laughed as she considered Brede’s response, trying to divine how much truth she was being offered.

‘I’d have thought you would want to be at the party, that you would miss the companionship of the Clans.’

Brede raised an eyebrow, and took the pliers up, opening and closing them aimlessly.

‘Companionship? At Gathers, maybe, but the rest of the time I was almost completely alone. We weren’t a typical Clan family. My parents compromise between their Clans: breed horses but stay still. I got used to it. It was a mistake of course. It made them a target for the horse raiders.’ She raised her eyes to Tegan, an unspoken question between them. ‘We lost everything. My father was killed. We weren’t welcome with the Clan, and Leal would never have been able to live like that. There was nowhere to go that was safe, apart from here. The Marsh folk aren’t overly fond of me. I don’t really fit into this way of life.’ She glanced at the pliers, surprised to find them in her hand. ‘Did you think Faine would ask you to the hand-fasting?’ Brede asked, suddenly divining a different cause for Tegan’s questioning.

‘Ah no, Brede, she has more sense than to ruin her son’s hand-fasting by antagonising the entire village.’ Tegan considered Brede’s face, flushed with the heat of the fire.

‘She’d have invited me if she didn’t know – wouldn’t she?’

‘She would.’

‘And knowing what you think you know; you’d still have invited me?’

Brede nodded.

‘They’ll never learn that you are not to be feared if they hide from you.’

‘And am I not to be feared?’

Brede frowned, not pleased to be caught out in this way. ‘Not by them.’

Tegan decided not to risk asking what Brede meant.

‘So you’re different, you choose to hide and let them think ill of you?’ Tegan watched Brede’s face close, and changed tack: ‘you don’t fit?’

Brede glanced at her.

‘I don’t care a damn for their land obsessions, and I don’t want a hand-mate, not the way they understand it. That makes it difficult.’

Brede fidgeted with the pliers once more.

‘But there was someone once?’

‘Devnet.’ Brede frowned, sighed, a memory conjured: Devnet, sudden and silent at her shoulder, one arm around her waist in a not to be argued with embrace of welcome.

And Faine?’ Tegan asked again.

‘Faine protects us. Without her word for me, the elders would have thrown me out long ago,’ Brede flung the pliers down. ‘I wish they had.’

‘Because then your mother couldn’t blame you.’

Brede lifted a miserable shoulder.

‘She needed me at first – we needed each other – and now she is used to me. It will hurt her when I go; she may even hate me – if she doesn’t already.’ She glanced at Tegan’s expression, and got to her feet, moving restlessly about.

‘I do try. They need someone to keep watch on the hill? I do it. They need someone to guard the sheep on the higher pasture? I’m a nomad, I know about herd animals.’ Brede laughed, ‘Sheep. I’ve scarcely been living all this time, they don’t understand what moves me, what makes me who I am. Oh and they try, I know that – Faine’s son prefers farming to ironwork? Brede’s tough, why not ask her? And I’m grateful, I am, we had nowhere else to go, but you’ve seen the walls. That’s how their minds work. They’ve been lucky – the Marsh survives drought better than most places, and it makes them too certain of themselves. And – there’s – there’s no movement.’

Tegan laughed, a rich, full laughter that surprised her – for the first time laughter was free from pain.

‘Very well,’ Tegan said softly, ‘if it’s movement you crave, and there’s to be no dancing yet, there is time for another lesson.’

Tegan put aside the mail shirt, and reached once more for Brede’s knives.

As she did so there was a sound of scuffling at the door to the forge. Brede turned incurious eyes towards the sound, but Tegan froze. The suddenness of the sound suggested that up until that moment the person out there had been more careful, more secretive in their approach. Her hand tightened about the hilt of the knife.

‘Brede –’ she said softly, sliding the other knife towards her. Brede’s face registered alarm, and then understanding, and then something approaching panic. Her hand leapt away from the hilt of the knife as though it had bitten her. Tegan closed her eyes in furious frustration. ‘Brede –
use it
.’

Three men stumbled into the forge. Tegan tucked her legs up, trying to get them beneath her so that she could stand if she had to. Brede grabbed up the knife and put herself between the men and Tegan, her skin cold, and then prickling with heat. Adair and Darcie and Rhian. She blinked rapidly, nervous, and kept the knife at her side, out of sight. They kept close to the doorway, slightly huddled, each apparently unwilling to be the first to make a move. They held lengths of wood, large enough to do damage. They stank of ale and fear.

‘How’s the party going?’ Brede asked.

Adair looked startled. Not the question he was expecting. Brede grinned, running her free hand through her hair.

‘You come to set something up for the blushing hand-mates?’

Darcie laughed uncertainly.

‘No?’ Brede persisted, aware of a rivulet of sweat coursing down her back. ‘Orla will be expecting something; we don’t want to disappoint her.’ She looked from Darcie back to Adair, trying to work out who the ringleader was. Normally it would be Rhian, but Adair was more committed to whatever they had planned. She didn’t like the firm grip he had on his weapon. Darcie held his club awkwardly, almost hiding it; Rhian’s grip was slack, and he swayed, confused by too much ale. Perhaps Rhian was the one to work on.