The Dowry Blade (9 page)

Chapter Nine

Brede groaned in despair. She threw the sword down and crouched beside the discarded blade, her arms clasped to her body as though it was her own flesh she had torn. Her lungs did not want to co-operate, determined to wrench her body with sobs of misery. When at last she could breathe easily, Brede wiped her face, smearing bloody mud into her skin. She pulled the tie out of her hair, and rebraided it, ruthlessly tight. For the first time she realised that she was bleeding. She pulled the remains of her sleeve apart, using the ruined cloth to bind the long tear in her flesh.

She shook with misery and the sudden release of tension. She whistled Guida to her and began loading the swords into the saddle pack, putting off the inevitable decision – where to go. Her half-formed plan to search for Falda in the city faded to foolishness, and she couldn’t imagine what her Wing Clan kin would say if she went to them bearing a sword.

Brede leant her head against the horse’s shoulder, abruptly unable to continue. After a moment she forced herself away from the warmth of Guida’s skin and walked back to where she had left Tegan sprawled in the mud. She stared at the bloody tangle of Tegan’s hair, feeling again the force with which the sword hit Tegan’s body, hearing the impact of Tegan’s bones on winter-hard earth. Such finality that sound had. Brede hardly dared touch her – hardly dared
not
touch her. She stood uneasily over Tegan, then knelt and turned her face to the light, straightening her limbs; gentle now. Her hands shook. She narrowed her eyes against that trembling and forced herself to wipe the mud from Tegan’s face. Cold skin, unnaturally pale beneath the smearing of earth and blood – and the faintest flutter of a pulse at her neck.

Brede blinked, startled, thinking that perhaps she had felt only her own tremor of exhaustion against Tegan’s skin.

Tegan’s eyelids flickered. She opened eyes that were unfocussed and confused. Her seeking gaze fell on Brede, and she watched a long silent moment.

‘Not going to finish me off?’ she asked at last, barely a whisper, her words not as jaunty as she had hoped – she sounded old and afraid.

Brede sat back on her heels, flooded with relief.

‘No,’ she said, and waited to see what Tegan would do.

Tegan put a cautious hand to her head, feeling the bruise rising on her skull. Slowly she raised herself on one elbow. Not good – the trees swam in and out of focus, and her hearing was equally unreliable. Brede was saying something, but Tegan couldn’t make out what it was, losing the words in a roar of blood. Bile rose in her throat and Tegan forced herself more upright, afraid of choking. She was barely conscious of Brede’s arms, supporting her as she retched.

Tegan took a shuddering breath, and unravelled herself from Brede’s arms. She squinted at the younger woman, still struggling to find a horizon to hang the sky on, still fighting to make sense of noise and movement.

‘Is cracking my skull sufficient? Are you done?’ she asked wearily, her voice still no more than dry rasping, she wasn’t sure that her words made sense outside the ringing roaring cacophony of her skull. Brede did not answer, wandering away from her, out of range of Tegan’s willingness to focus. She curled herself back onto the earth, hugging her aching body, trying to gauge her hurts, her ability to stand, whether it might not be better to close her eyes and give in to the whirl of darkness that sought to swallow her.

Out of nowhere Brede’s voice, harsh in her wounded hearing, water against her lips, cold against the angry ridge of bruising under her hairline. The familiar feel of Brede’s hands, seeking out her needs – Tegan tangled her hands in Brede’s, pushing her away. She forced her eyes to focus, barely able to open one of them.

‘What was this about?’ she asked.

Brede wouldn’t meet her gaze. Tegan forced her body more upright, and leant unsteadily towards Brede. She reached to rub the dried blood from Brede’s cheek. ‘I think we have misunderstood something important,’ Tegan said softly.

Brede sighed. It seemed pointless. She resisted the temptation to catch Tegan’s hand and hold it against her face. She glanced sideways at Tegan, and wondered how to say the words. It would make her look a fool, it would make her vulnerable, and it would change nothing. She pulled away from Tegan’s touch and shook her head.

Tegan cursed.
Stupid stubborn
– ‘What has this resolved?’

Brede stood abruptly, walked away. She whistled the horse to her, and pushed the last sword into the pack.

Tegan watched Brede, knowing what she wanted. She thought about what she felt about that possibility an hour ago, and what she thought about it now. All that separated those responses was anger. She struggled to her feet.

‘Damn you,’ she said under her breath, furious with Brede for her silences.

Brede settled herself into the saddle. She walked the horse across the clearing to Tegan.

‘That’s my horse,’ Tegan said aggressively, suddenly afraid that Brede was going to leave her here, virtually helpless.

Brede ignored her words and said stonily, ‘Are you coming?’

‘Where?’

‘You tell me. East, to begin with. I wouldn’t want Maeve to have a wasted journey.’

‘How can I trust you?’ Tegan asked. For answer, Brede reached into the saddle pack, and wrenched free one of her knives. She flicked it into the earth at Tegan’s feet.

‘If you get up behind me, you can put that between my ribs, if you’re so minded. Or you can walk home, and defend yourself against every footpad and army deserter you meet. Or you can trust me. Decide.’

Tegan picked up the knife, a slow cautious stoop; careful of the ocean of confusion her brain swam against. She was grateful for the smooth feel of the hilt in her hand, it was the sort of trust Tegan recognised. As an answer, it sufficed. She pulled herself up behind Brede. She held the knife and seriously considered thrusting it into Brede’s side. Tegan changed her grip, pushing the knife into her belt. Brede tried not to wince from the feeling of the hard metal of the hilt pressing into her back. Tegan shifted her position slightly, and the pressure was gone.

‘Have you left anything behind that you’ll need?’ Brede asked.

Tegan thought about that. She had most of her belongings on the horse. She said so. Brede nodded.

‘What about food?’ Tegan asked.

‘I have supplies hidden up in the shepherd’s hut. I wasn’t sure we wouldn’t have to make a run for it.’

‘You thought Adair might turn ugly again?’

‘Him, or one of the others.’

‘And your mother?’ she asked.

Brede snarled.

‘What do you care about my mother? What is she to you, but a woman whose daughter you killed?’

‘You owe her a goodbye. She’ll think you are dead.’

‘No she won’t. She’ll think I’m a heartless bitch who doesn’t deserve to be called her daughter, the same she would have thought it if you had killed me just now. I don’t imagine you’d have taken my corpse back to her?’

‘No, I would not,’ Tegan answered fiercely. ‘But you are live enough to carry yourself back, and you care enough about your mother not to let her suffer, or you wouldn’t have stayed with her so long.’

Brede said nothing, but she pulled the reins sharply and kicked the horse into motion, back down to the village.

Brede did not dismount at the gate – she did not trust Tegan alone with the horse.

As they reached the forge, Faine stepped out from the doorway. She halted abruptly at the sight of the horse, and at the look on Brede’s face.

‘We’re leaving,’ Brede said.

‘So I see.’ Faine rested her fists on her hips and gazed up at Brede.

‘Will Leal be all right?’ Brede asked.

‘I think so.’ Faine leant in through her doorway, and called out ‘Leal, come say goodbye to your daughter.’

Leal pushed aside the leather curtain. Her hands found her hips in unconscious echo of her sister.

‘You’ve decided then.’

‘Yes.’

Leal gazed up at her daughter, trying to imprint her image in her mind.

‘I’ve a mind to say goodbye properly, Brede; get off that blasted horse and come here.’

Brede laughed uncertainly, then unravelled the reins from her fingers, and slipped to the ground. She refused to even glance behind her, willing the horse to stay where she was. She heard Tegan shift forward on the saddle, the leather creaking slightly under her weight.

Leal hugged her daughter fiercely, pulling her head down so that she could speak privately to her.

‘There’s blood on your sleeve.’

Brede tried to nod, but Leal had too tight a grip of her.

‘It will be all right,’ she whispered.

‘How can it be? Dear Goddess – how can you trust her?’

‘I don’t know. I do, that’s all.’

Leal glanced beyond Brede at Tegan for a second, taking in her battered exhaustion. She wasn’t sure what it meant.

‘Good.’ Leal released her tight hold at last. She smiled wryly. ‘Which way does the wind blow?’

‘Towards the future,’ Brede responded; and for the first time in nearly ten years it was the correct response.

‘Follow,’ Leal said.

Brede clasped her mother to her, briefly burying her face in her hair. She turned swiftly away, to catch Faine into an embrace.

Faine pushed her away gently.

‘Be strong,’ she said clearly, including Tegan in her farewell, ‘stay safe.’

Tegan laughed weakly, acknowledging Faine’s use of the ancient warrior’s valediction. She walked Guida a few steps forward, offering a hand to Brede, to help her up. Brede rejected the offer, a feral grin softening the rebuff, and sprang up behind Tegan in a smooth Clan move.

At the gate Adair stood, his back pressed against the bars, arms crossed, brow creased. Guida danced under the combined confusing tensions of her riders, trained to battle but not sure who was asking what of her.

Brede couldn’t think what to say.

‘I’m not going to ride you down, Gate-keeper.’ Tegan said keeping her voice light and cheerful. ‘You wanted me gone and I’m going, so open the gate and let me by.’

Adair shook his head. He fixed his eyes on Brede and lifted his chin – half command, half pleading. Brede sighed. She slid from the horse and stalked over to him.

‘Well?’ she asked.

Adair closed his arms about her, a suffocating, intimate embrace, which made her shudder. She kept her arms rigidly by her sides and turned her face sharply away from his seeking mouth.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked, evenly.

‘Checking for wings. I can’t find any.’

Brede shrugged him off and pushed sharply at his chest. Adair was no match for her forge-strong, sword-swift energy. His back thudded into the gate.

‘You can’t stop the wind from blowing, Adair, and you’ll not stop me following it.’

‘You aren’t even a little sorry, are you?’

Brede watched the expression on his face, gauging what was safe to say.

‘I am sorry for the friendship we might have had if you could have been content with friendship. I’m sorry that you are hurt.’

Adair shook his head, a loose weak movement.

‘You don’t understand me. I’m still your friend. I’m trying to protect you.’

‘From what?’

Adair focussed beyond her shoulder.

‘From being hurt.’

‘She’s done her worst already. We’ve both survived it.’

‘She’ll never let you close. I know; I recognise the signs.’

Brede stared intently at the ground between them, and then raised her head to nod. Adair sighed, a huge, anguished letting go of tension and hopes.

‘Go then.’

He turned and threw the bars to the ground, yanking forcefully on the gate so that it fell open in a great sweep of light from darkness.

Change was not the passionate whirl Brede had imagined, it was a drudgery of days spent walking through a landscape that changed only slightly, a landscape unpeopled, barren from old disasters, silent of voices, save those of Marsh birds, complaining at their presence. Tegan admitted to no knowledge of the best route, the last days of her journey into the Marsh were only a vague memory of endurance; she had no idea which way they had wandered following Corla’s lead. In the absence of more than a direction to travel, Brede kept to the uncertain ground of the Marshes, where no army would risk their horses. Let them keep the high ground, Brede could find a route safe for their one beast, even if it meant walking the entire way, prodding the ground ahead with rational caution.

Emerging suddenly from a screen of willows, Brede startled a heron. She watched the great sweep of wings as the bird took flight, so close she could have reached out and touched the slate sheen of its wing tip. At her shoulder, Tegan half raised a hand, the same thought in her mind.

Brede glanced at her, with laughter in her throat, but she silenced it, waiting for Tegan to speak.

Tegan’s hand dropped. ‘Which way does the wind blow?’

Brede lifted her hand after the heron; flying into a wide grey sky full of possibility. Suddenly she flung the other arm up, and spun on her heel, laughing.

‘Well?’ Tegan asked, unconsciously kneading the fierce agonising tension in her neck. Brede saw that movement, and silently acknowledged the pain Tegan was enduring. She relived that second when metal sang in her hands, keening her anger, seeking to slake her despair in blood. She remembered an earlier time, and Tegan’s half-laughing protest,

Don’t imagine the Goddess wants you for a holy slayer.

She clenched her fingers against memory.

And why was there a blade in my hand?
Brede asked herself, recalling the effort it took to turn the blade, to pull back the strength and speed behind the blow. She recognised the split second when she found herself launched into killing. She was sick to her core with fear of that moment, not sure that she would have the strength to resist that singing arc of murder again.

‘I should not have tried to force your hand,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for it.’

Tegan shrugged. ‘Bruises fade.’

Chapter Ten

Two days on, and into the well-wooded landscape of the hills to the east, they crouched in undergrowth, waiting for the sound of horses to fade. Tegan was tight-lipped and uneasy.

‘It’s too early for this; soldiers shouldn’t be on the road so soon.’

‘We should have kept to the Marsh,’ Brede breathed.

‘No.’ Tegan gathered the reins, leading Guida back onto the track; ‘Speed is even more vital now.’

Then, three days later, they came across the remains of a skirmish. No attempt had been made to bury the corpses, although some had been laid out, as though prepared for some rite that had been interrupted by something more urgent.

Tegan stood amongst the slain, trying to judge what had happened. She followed the trampled marks in the soft earth; restless to know where any danger might lie. The parties had come from the north and west, at speed, and the victors had moved on, equally swiftly, in a direction uncomfortably close to Tegan’s planned route.

Green cloth told her who these losers were. None among them were friends of hers, but she felt a wrench at leaving them lying, at putting her own safety first.

Tegan turned, intending to speak to Brede, but found her no longer at her shoulder. She hadn’t gone far. Standing with her back firmly to the carnage, she worked imaginary snarls from Guida’s mane. Tegan sighed and put a hand on Brede’s shoulder. Brede recoiled from the sudden touch, and turned to Tegan, her eyes blazing.

‘You can’t allow this sort of thing to distress you,’ Tegan said, with more kindness than she had intended.

‘The last time I saw
this sort of thing
I –’ Brede closed her mouth, covered her face, fighting to get control of her emotions.

‘The last time you saw something like this, you were looking for your sister among the Clans’ folk
we
had slain,’ Tegan said for her, drawing away, and folding her offending hand into the crook of her arm.

Brede drove her fingers into her hair, trying to find a way to say what she needed to, without forcing yet another confrontation. She glanced sideways at Tegan’s folded arms, her bowed head, her frown.

Let it go
, she told herself, but the anger stayed firmly rooted, and couldn’t be shaken away.

Tegan’s head came up abruptly, as though she had reached a decision. She winced as she did so. Brede met her gaze, and realised how tired Tegan looked behind the curtain of her hair, beneath the livid bruising covering half her face. Brede turned back to the horse, caught up the trailing reins.

‘You should ride,’ Brede said, undermining her irritation.

Tegan raised an eyebrow, and took the reins from her without comment.

The dark night and the cautious lack of a fire did nothing to ease Tegan’s anxiety, nor the continuing rictus of pain in her neck. When at last she slept, she stirred and called out from her dreams. Brede shifted closer, pulling the tail of her cloak over Tegan to warm her, so that she would settle back into silence. Brede rested her arm along Tegan’s back. Half aware of the encircling arm, Tegan turned in her sleep and tangled herself more firmly into the cloak and arms, so that Brede must lie beside her, or lose her cloak, or strangle on it.

When Tegan woke, she was wrapped tightly in Brede’s arms, her head cushioned against her breast. She started up, alarmed that they had both slept.

‘Hush,’ Brede said softly, ‘I’ve not closed my eyes.’ She untangled herself from Tegan and stood stiffly.

‘Have I slept all night, then?’ Tegan asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And have you held me against the cold all night too?’

Brede shrugged, and began to rebraid her hair.

‘Most of it. You had me fairly caught.’ Brede smiled cautiously through her hair. Tegan tried to work the stiffness from her shoulders, then took the end of Brede’s plait and fastened the tie for her.

‘You should have woken me for my watch.’

‘You needed to sleep; besides I quite enjoyed the warmth of you.’

Tegan handed Brede the end of her plait.

‘It was dangerous.’

Brede shrugged her cloak straight.

‘We survived,’ she said softly.

Tegan made anxious use of every vantage point, but on the eighth day of their journey, despite her caution, they heard fighting before they saw the warning signs.

Tegan’s every instinct was to give the battle a wide berth, and travel on, but the risk of having a war party travelling on her trail was too great, and there was the chance that she would be able to help another outnumbered, beleaguered company bearing green banners. She did not consult Brede. She dismounted and led the horse through the densest cover, Brede at her shoulder.

At first there was only utter confusion, but as Tegan watched, it became clearer. A small band of green cloaks, a number of red banners. An uneven match. Tegan loosened the buckle that held her sword across her back so that it dropped to her hip and caught up the reins. She found a restraining hand at her elbow.

‘She’s my horse. You do not ride her into danger.’

Tegan sighed in exasperation.

‘Then I’ll walk.’

‘It’s not your fight. How many times have you said to me, do only what’s necessary?’

Tegan smiled in spite of herself.

‘If you look down there, oh wise one, you may see a horse or two that you recognise. That’s Maeve. It is my fight. It may not be yours, but will you join me?’

Brede grabbed hold of Tegan’s mail shirt, deliberately forcing her fingers into the damaged rings, holding her still. Tegan glanced down at that hand, laid so precisely across the scar beneath the leather. She raised her gaze, sweeping over Brede’s woollen coat. She lifted her eyes a fraction more.

‘I shouldn’t ask you, should I?’

Brede shook her head, and pulled her fingers loose of the mail.

‘Go,’ she said.

Tegan did not step away immediately; she gazed at Brede for perhaps another three seconds, and then startled her with a swift embrace and a cold kiss on her cheek.

‘I can take care of myself,’ Tegan said, then set off down the wooded slope, at a steady, easy run. Brede noted that ease, as she led the horse after.

Brede watched from the shadowed edge of the trees. Tegan’s friends were not seriously outnumbered, and were holding their own for now.

Tegan was tiring, the wound still weakened her, she should pull back, but she would not.

Brede sighed impatiently for Tegan’s stubbornness, stepping further back into the trees, as the confusion of warriors surged in her direction.

Her movement drew the eye of one of the red-clad swordsmen, who was no longer intimately involved in a life and death struggle, having just withdrawn his sword from a sheath of flesh. Brede saw the look on his face and she reached for the sword that protruded most readily from the saddle pack: the greatsword. As her hands gripped the hilt she faltered, but there was no time to think, she pulled the blade free and turned into the attack.

Of course, Tegan was right about the sword; it made her balance awkward, especially among the trees, where there was so little space. It was hard to get close, to manage more than a feinting and dodging weave. Had she picked one of the knives, he might already be dead.

Not dead
, Brede told herself fiercely;
there need be no death
. The man was unduly cautious of the reach of her blade, and did not come near, waiting for the weight of it to tire her, as it must.

So, when at last the warrior closed, he was careless, he underestimated her, and he watched the wavering, glistening blade, not the eyes of the woman who held it. He did not parry the awkward, tired thrust Brede made until it was too late.

It was not how she had imagined. This was no stabbing sword, and even if it had been, this was not the same as stabbing at a sack of straw. Brede knew the instant she felt the vibration in the metal, that she would never forget that tremor of bone grating on blade. She watched, blank-eyed, as the fallen warrior gagged and gasped through the spilling of his life’s blood, and she had not the wit to finish him quickly, nor to watch her back.

It was only a glancing blow; the killing impetus behind it drained by death. Brede felt the blade slide across her back, catching on her hip, tearing cloth and skin, but no more than that; then the body hit her, knocking her to the ground. She struggled out from under her lifeless attacker, and found Maeve standing over her, ready for another attack. Scarcely glancing at Brede, she kicked a fallen weapon to within reach of her hand, and was away again.

Brede snatched up the blade, got to her feet, and followed.

This blade was easier to handle, and she made use of it only when she must turn aside the blades of those who attacked her or the green-coated warriors about her, resisting the sense of power and vulnerability that a sword in her hand gave her, fearful of what she might do. She did not notice how many times Maeve or Tegan must parry a blow meant for her.

An uncertain shifting and the fading away of enemies. Brede glanced around anxiously, to be sure that the only red coats remaining were wounded or dead. Abruptly she felt completely alone, completely a stranger, and would have taken Guida and gone, but the chance slipped away from her.

Tegan and Maeve faced each other in considering silence, Maeve raised her hand to the bruising on Tegan’s face; a wounded man raised his red-sleeved arm and gathered up a lost sword to slash at Tegan’s unprotected legs. Brede couldn’t get her brain to formulate the words needed for a warning. She flung her borrowed sword in the direction of that reaching arm and knocked his blade aside. There was little strength behind his blow, and Brede’s intervention was enough. Tegan flinched away from the unexpected clash of metal so close, and narrowly missed both blades. She stared down at the fallen enemy. He lay limply now, his eyes beginning to lose their understanding. Tegan stepped away, leaving him to die in his own time. She raised her eyes to meet Brede’s.

‘Protecting me again?’ she asked.

Brede shrugged, and Tegan turned swiftly away, joining the huddle of warriors about an injured comrade. Brede followed hesitantly. The confusion of strangers resolved itself. Corla, supporting a heavy-set man Brede remembered from the Marshes. She dredged a name from her memory: Balin. He leant back against Corla’s shoulder, barely conscious. His coat was dark with blood, slick and glistening. His breathing was harsh and thick, loud in the waiting silence of the warriors about him. Brede glanced at the intense expression on Corla’s face, at the blood pumping from beneath her protecting hands. Abruptly one of the other men snatched her hands away.

‘Let him be, Corla – let him go,’ he said, his voice wretched. He cradled Balin against him, hunching his back against the others. There was a hesitation, then they stood and left Inir to his private leave-taking. Corla staggered as she walked away, and the young boy, Riordan, caught at her elbow, supporting her. Still that silence, waiting for Balin to die.

Tegan was short of breath, her head and neck were a fire of tension and her older wound ached miserably. She looked around for Brede, beckoned her close, welcoming the touch of her hand, and needing support. She missed the suspicious look Maeve shot her.

‘So, the apprentice has broken her bond, and come to join the mercenaries?’ Maeve asked, her voice low, in deference to Inir’s quiet sobbing.

Brede eased out from under Tegan’s arm. Brede met Maeve’s gaze, but Tegan answered for her.

‘She kept me alive all winter. I’ve taught her to use a sword.’

Maeve snorted.

‘She’ll have to do better than that. I’ve had to guard her back today. I don’t want to have to do so again. If you can’t train her to do that, she can’t be a fighter in my band.’

‘Yours?’ Tegan asked softly.

Maeve flushed but she continued to meet Tegan’s gaze, to challenge her, for the sake of the fear in her heart.

‘You’ve fallen out with Chad, haven’t you.’ Tegan said, no longer questioning, but unwilling to discover the details just yet. ‘Well, I can’t lead you. My wound will not heal as it should; I am too old for this. If you want the command, you may have it. I shall work out the year of my contract and then I shall retire gracefully.’

‘But I’ve got us a new contract,’ Maeve said, warily.

‘Doing what?’ Tegan asked, puzzled.

Maeve grinned.

‘Household guard to Grainne.’

Tegan raised a disbelieving eyebrow, until she caught the wan grin on Riordan’s face.

‘In that case, I won’t retire. I think I could manage some ceremonial marching.’ She saw Maeve begin to relax and added sharply, ‘But you keep the command.’

‘It’s you Grainne wants.’

‘Was that what she said?’

‘Her exact words were:
I remember Tegan. I will trust the people she trusts at her back, but most of all I trust her eyes. If she lives, I would welcome her eyes into my service.
’

Tegan laughed, and blushed.

‘Is there something we should know?’ Maeve asked.

‘No,’ Tegan said firmly, ‘my eyes she can have and gladly, but I am a liability now, I can’t put you at risk. You’ll have to keep the command, Maeve, like it or not.’

Maeve nodded reluctantly, but her eyes drifted back to Brede, an unspoken suspicion still festering.

‘If our new contract is to sit about in the capital, what are you doing here?’ Tegan asked.

‘Short term contract, special orders. Find you and bring you back in one piece,’ Maeve grinned. ‘Grainne was eager to have us, but I don’t think she’s especially happy with Chad’s crew, and since it’s you she wants really, it was best to come get you. Ailbhe’s spawn are out early, we thought you might run into trouble – there are a lot of odd rumours about.’

‘What sort of rumours?’

‘A ritual bloodletting?’

‘The rain, you mean?’

Maeve nodded. ‘Rumour has it that Ailbhe has lost his head.’

Something stirred in the back of Tegan’s mind and she glanced sideways at Brede, to see if the same thought had occurred to her.

‘And did rumour suggest the whereabouts of the sword needed for that?’

‘Of course.
Allegedly
it isn’t where it belongs, so
naturally
it is imagined to be somewhere in the region of the decapitated monarch.’