Witch Crag (21 page)

“No,” she said. “I'll go back to the hill fort. There's work to do there.”

On their return that afternoon, the headman summoned everyone together and told them that the union of the four tribes had been agreed at the council. Then he announced that Arc was now captain of the sheepman army, responsible for readying it. “Obey him as you would me,” he said. Then he went off to his hut, alone.

If the sheep people were alarmed by this, they were too disciplined to show it. The same went for Arc. He stepped forward and shouted, “The enemy is larger than we feared. We have a fighting elite of some thirty footsoldiers – I need more than double that. All men who've retired from fighting because of age, but are still able bodied – step forward. Those lads who hoped to be fighting in a year or two, your time has come right now. Men and boys never chosen, who shared the women's work, this is your chance to prove yourselves. And those farmers not too injured to fight, all of you, come forward now.”

As the men surged forward, Kita melted away with the women.

“I suppose our role is to keep things going without the men,” said the head cook.

“I suppose it is,” said Kita.

“I've lost three of my best helpers to that army. And now there's more mouths to feed with those farming folk here.”

“A lot more.”

“Well,” said the cook, “now you're back,
you
can give me a hand. Come with me and get chopping.”

Kita worked hard for several hours in the kitchens, then she was sent over with soup to the hospital huts. Arc had set out with his little army to hack down a route through the scrub of the wasteland, then he'd taken over the whole of the central yard, in front of the great gates, for drilling purposes. She crossed behind the ranks of men.

At the huts, the matron immediately put her to work sweeping the bloodstained straw from the ground, and laying down fresh. “You could've been in charge of the infants' pens,” she said. “But young Erin came up as my successor when you did your bunk. So she's in charge now.”

Kita, busy with her straw, didn't answer. She felt as if the old suffocating ways were claiming her again, making her dull and obedient.

“So?” said the matron, after a while. “Did you say your piece at the council?”

“Oh, I don't know. A bit. It was mainly Arc. He led it.”

“He'll be named the new headman when this is over. He's stepped up to the line, that lad. Do you know, I thought you and he would get together this spring. But I don't suppose there'll be any time for all that pairing up and sneaking off now. . .”

“No,” said Kita. She felt suddenly weird. She stopped spreading straw and turned to face the matron. “The witches are coming back soon,” she said, loudly. “They promised to bring you healing salves and potions.”

“Good,” said the matron, complacently. “They're needed.”

“Have you no curiosity,” Kita demanded, louder still, “at
all
about why I did
my bunk
, as you call it? And what happened to me after I did?”

“Yes,” said the matron, looking straight back at her. “Of course I have. Enormous curiosity. But it's not the time to go into it all now. Maybe after the war, if we survive it. Now off you go. There's the summons for the end-of-day meal.”

A night and a day went by, filled with endless mundane chores. It was both the same – routined, regimented, fuelled by sheep-bone broth – and utterly different, because of the looming war. The farmers they'd taken in quickly became absorbed into the sheep people's routines and ways, so much so that Kita had trouble telling everyone apart.

The end-of-day meal came round again. And like the evening before, Kita ate alone. The other girls still nervously avoided her. She'd look up sometimes, and catch them looking at her, whispering, then they'd look away.

Arc was seated in the middle of his elite footsoldiers, loudly discussing that day's training. How best to use the old, how best to use the young. What could be expected from each. She looked over, and thought that deep down nothing had changed: she was back here now, mucking out and chopping mutton, and Arc was still top dog. . .

She was wrong about her purpose here. Lilly's purpose was clear, to help with a revolution that was already fermenting. Her purpose was in her imagination. She should have gone back with the witches to the crag. She thought of them disappearing into the woods, the dogs pacing beside them, and was gripped by longing, and regret.

And that turned into witch rage, simmering.

The unjustness of it
.
The waste of her.
Not long ago she'd stopped the witches putting a poison arrow in Arc; then convinced him, through bars, of the need to become the witches' ally. Then she'd fought to the death alongside him when the horse thieves attacked. And led him to welcome the witches and save the council. But now,
now
, just the thought of going over to him, of speaking to him, of running the gauntlet of his entourage – it was unthinkable.

No it wasn't
. She'd go over there and
demand
he recognize her, her part in the union, recognize what she'd done,
what she could do
—

Something struck her, and her heart pounded with horror, which mixed with the rage. Her mind crackled. She jumped to her feet, marched purposefully over to Arc's table, and stood right in front of him. All the footsoldiers looked up at her, but no one said a word.

Arc raised his eyebrows, questioningly.

“The watch for the arrows. Arc,
who's doing the watch
?” she said.

For a moment, he looked stunned. Then he shot to his feet, pushed past his men, jerking his head at her to follow, and together they left the food hut.

Outside, he leant against the wall, and covered his face with his hands, rubbing furiously. “Oh, lord,” he groaned. “Oh, lord help me, I clean forgot it. All I could think of was my army, getting the men ready. . .”

“Well you're lucky I only had a load of menial chores to do,” she retorted, “so I had space in my brain to remember.”

He dropped his hands and stared at her. “I am. I am lucky. Oh, lord save me, the headman put his trust in me, and I've failed.”

“Bollocks,” she said, robustly. “You've done anything but fail and you know it. You're headman in all but name.”

“Could the witches have sent the flares up yet, d'you think? Could we have missed them?”

“No.
No
, Arc. The city was still clearing the road, wasn't it? Pitch saw it. Wekka was being super careful, saying she'd watch the road from dawn today.”

“The
flares
– everything depends on them. We need to watch
now
. The hordes could set out under cover of darkness.”

“They could, but I doubt it. They're not afraid to be seen.”

“All the same, we can't afford to risk it.
The parley ladder!
” he suddenly erupted, pushing himself off from the wall, and heading over to where the ladder was propped. “We can see the whole sky from that!”

“I've got a better idea,” said Kita. “Follow me, footsoldier.”

Five minutes later, they were sitting side by side on Kita's secret flint ledge, overlooking the dusky grasslands. Arc, still panting from the climb up the rock face, scratched from his crawl through the brambles, looked around in awe. “So this is where you disappeared to,” he breathed. “I used to wonder. I thought maybe you were just crouching behind the scrub at the top.”

“Course I wasn't,” scoffed Kita. “I was looking
out
.”

“I kept thinking I'd come after you, but I never did. It seemed. . . I dunno. Cruel. And intrusive.”

“It would've been both,” she said, as her mind slinked over what he'd just told her. That he'd been watching her. That he'd respected her wish for privacy.

“We escaped from here,” she said, boldly. “Dropping down into the brambles below. And it was from here that I saw Nada's funeral – only it wasn't a funeral. And saw you slit the witch.”

He flinched. “Not me,” he said. “It was Drell.”

“I know.”

There was a long silence, both of them with their arms wrapped round their knees, looking out over the grasslands as the night came in. “You're still in your witch clothes,” Arc said, at last. “Your tunic and trousers.”

“Of course I am,” she retorted. “They're a lot easier on the skin than hairy sheep's wool. And more free to move in.”

“They suit you. You look – I like how you look.”

Kita didn't know what to say to this. Her pulse quickened and she hugged her knees harder. Then after a while she said, “Arc?”

“Yes?”

“Have you told anyone that . . . that Nada's still alive?”

Arc blew out a long breath. “One step at a time,” he said. “Actually, I played down the witches' powers, a bit. Went on about their archery skills. I didn't mention Vild either. Didn't want to freak the headman too much.”

“You
know
about Vild?”

“I remembered the name. The oldies used to mutter it, scaremongering.
Vild, gone to the witches
. I asked Wekka, and she told me her history. After all this is over . . . that'll be the time to tell everyone everything.”

Another potent silence, humming between them. “You should get back,” Arc murmured, at last. “Get some sleep. I'll watch tonight.”

“No.
I'll
watch while you go down to your men, and organize a rota. There's plenty of time before bed and you're too important to be sat up here pinching yourself to keep awake, and you know it.”

He grinned. “You should be in charge, tree rat, not me. OK, I will. Thank you. It's good of you to. . .”

“What?”

“Oh, you know. Everything. Come back here. Make your ledge public. Let it be used.”

“It seems so long ago, that it was mine, my secret place.”

“I know. Everything's changed, hasn't it? Everything's different, right down to the bones. I know what the headman's going through. I feel like it myself.”

She turned to look at him. “You're OK, though, aren't you, Arc?” she said. “You'll be OK?”

“Yes. I think so. I just – I hope with all my heart that we can get through this. And
live
– on the other side of it. Kita—”

“Yes?”

“Can I hold you? Just for a moment.
Please
. I won't try anything. I just want to—”

He broke off because Kita had thrown her arms round him and was hugging him with all her strength. He folded his arms round her too and they stayed locked together as the night grew darker. Then she let him go, and without another word, he crawled through the brambles and climbed back down the rock face, and she sat on, waiting, looking up at the stars crackling above her.

The next morning, not long after breakfast, the lookout on Kita's ledge yelled out, “Strangers! Strangers on the boundaries!” Then – several octaves higher – “
Witches! Witches on the boundaries! Leading a horse!
”

Kita was just coming away from the infants' pens; she nearly collided with Arc as he ran into the central yard, bellowing for the parley ladder to be thrown up against the great gates. She watched while it was fetched, and Arc launched himself at it and practically ran to the top. Then he scrambled down again. “Yes, it's the witches,” he said. “Laying fellfurze in the ditch. Open the gates! We need to go out to greet them, and start building the makeshift bridge. Drell, you lead the drills while I'm gone. And choose five good men to come with me.”

Kita darted out in front of Arc, blocking his route to the gates. “I need to come too,” she said, loudly.

He stared hard at her for a moment; Drell scoffed, waiting for him to shove her aside. But then he said, “You're right. Our witch interpreter. Yes, you come too.”

*

“Witch
interpreter
?” she queried, as she hurried along beside him through the gates, the five footsoldiers following. “Since when have we spoken a different language to the witches?”

“Not in words, maybe,” he said. “In all other things. Look, the lads were shaken enough by me allowing a girl to come along, I had to give you an official title.”

“Thanks.”

“And interpreter sounds less threatening than friend. . .”

“You're right. Although all the sheep people think I'm actually a witch, never mind just a friend to them – they avoid me like poison.”

There was a pause, then Arc said, “Do you wish you were?”

“What, a witch?”

“Do you wish you'd gone back with them, to Witch Crag? When you turned down Wekka's offer, and came back to the fort, I saw your
face
, Kita. When they disappeared into the forest without you, it cost you, didn't it? You wanted to be with them.”

“Yes. But I'm in the right place right now, Arc. I just feel I am.”

He pressed his open hand to her back, so quickly that the footsoldiers behind them might have thought it was a push, and they hurried on.

*

Before too long, they'd reached the far boundaries. Seven witches, male and female, were there, stooping under great bundles of spiky, rust-coloured fellfurze. Flay was leading his horse, which was also burdened by fellfurze – Comfrie walked alongside with Wekka, who hailed Arc and Kita eagerly.

“Welcome!” called Arc. “You've worked hard!”

“We gathered these bundles yesterday,” Wekka said, “and travelled all night with them on our backs.”

“Don't you need to sleep?” Arc asked.

Comfrie smiled. “We have ways to get round the need for sleep for a few days. We'll rest when we return.”

“You must,” said Kita, hugging her. Then she hugged Wekka.

“Raff and Quainy wanted to come,” Wekka murmured, into Kita's hair. “They wanted to see you again. But this skill of travelling without sleep – it takes time to perfect it. Flay would let his horse sleep, and catch us up.”

“Send them my love,” said Kita.

“Have you set someone to watch on the old road?” asked Arc.

“From yesterday morning,” said Wekka. “Nothing. Although the road is now cleared, and there's an ominous emptiness about it. But no sign of any movement from within the city. Yet.”

“We're keeping good watch for your flares,” said Arc, then he glanced over at Kita, and grinned, and she knew he was thinking of the night before, and all that had happened between them.

“Right then,” Wekka said. “Let's crack on. With your help, footsoldiers, we should finish by midday.”

“And then I hope you'll come to the hill fort, for a meal, before your journey back,” said Arc.

Wekka bowed. “Thank you. We have those healing salves I spoke of.”

“I can show your matron how to use them,” said Comfrie. “And we've got some delicious mushrooms we gathered on the way.”

Everyone set to work. Slender felled trees, long dead, were found for the bridge; lashed together and laid over the ditch they made a sturdy platform. “But one that will burn easily,” said Arc, grimly.

Kita laboured hard, helping thrust the spiky strands of fellfurze in among the ditch debris. “This wood's tinder-dry,” said Wekka, approvingly. “If the heavy rain holds off till the hordes invade, we can make a ring of fire as tall as the grisly weapons they've been making.”

By the time the sun had reached its height in the sky, they'd finished. They headed up to the hill fort, Wekka and Kita walking either side of Arc, with Flay just behind leading his horse, and Comfrie and the other witches behind him. But the footsoldiers, following, gave the witches the widest berth they could without actually separating from the party.

Inside the fort walls, it was the same story. The mushrooms were viewed with deep suspicion, even after Flay had swallowed two raw. Food was brought out to the central yard and left there, the cooks scuttling back to the kitchens as fast as they could.
A bit like we dump bodies outside our gates
, thought Kita, crossly
, and leave them for the dogs and crows
.

Luckily, it was a fine spring noon, and almost warm, and Arc made his footsoldiers sit down with the witches to eat, so it wasn't too inhospitable. He also sent news of their arrival to the headman, who appeared halfway through the meal. The headman didn't sit with the witches, but he bowed to everyone, and when Arc gave him a report of their morning's work, he seemed pleased. Then he trudged back to his hut again, alone.

“We must go,” said Wekka, wiping her mouth and springing to her feet. “Flay, Comfrie – bring those little bundles, would you? Kita, take us to the hospital huts?” Kita loved walking across the fort with the witches. The boldness and beauty of them, the freedom and fluidity as they moved – this time, she enjoyed being stared at. The matron welcomed them into her hospital gravely, and showed them the preparations she'd made. Comfrie, whom Wekka introduced as one of the best healers on the crag, gave the matron the ointments, potions and bundles of herbs they'd brought, and explained how best to use them.

“Aaah,” breathed the matron, unwrapping a large packet. “Wonderful. Shadewort.”

“You know it?” asked Comfrie.

“Oh yes. Nada would risk her neck to gather it. We all relied on it – for childbirth, for pain from injuries. . . She left me a stock of it, but it's running low.”

“I can show you where to gather it,” said Comfrie. “When—”

“When the war is over. Good. Thank you.”

“We must head back now,” said Wekka, apologetically. “It's growing late. Flay—?”

Flay grimaced, and unwrapped the oddly-shaped bundle he'd been carrying. “We're not sure if this is a good idea, now,” he said, revealing half-a-dozen newly made blackbows. “We thought, Kita, that you might teach some of the girls to use them. But there's still such fear—”

“Oh, I'd love to,” said Kita. “If anyone would—”

“Leave them with me,” interrupted the matron, firmly. “I'll sort them out.”

The witches left, leaving behind the horse, who, Flay explained, had done his job and missed the company of other horses. The second watch on the flint ledge was relieved, and the afternoon wore on, filled with military training and preparations for war. Kita was working in the sheep pens, shovelling dung. Ma Baa the old ewe was still alive, hugely pregnant, and more vindictive than ever. But Kita wasn't unhappy working her long shift, because she had six visitors. One after the other, six girls, all around her own age, all quite well known to her, sidled into the pens and asked her to teach them the blackbow. They told her the matron had singled them out for their courage and strength, and suggested they come and see her. Kita was struck by how eager and excited they all were – as if they were at last being given permission to break through the boundaries, and become more than before. She arranged with them to hold a lesson that evening, in the same place that Flay had taught her to shoot.

The lesson went well, everyone showing a good level of aptitude, and a couple of the girls showing real skill. Then Kita, resetting the target, was suddenly aware of the girls giggling and shuffling and she spun round to see Arc standing there, arms folded, watching them all.

“Well?” she shouted, annoyed.

“Can I talk to you?”

The jaws of the six girls dropped. A footsoldier –
the
footsoldier – making a
request
to a girl, not just barking an order?

Kita smiled. “OK, archers,” she called out. “Well done. We'll practise here tomorrow after start-of-day meal, right?”

They trooped off, still giggling, and Arc came over to Kita. “They're good,” he said. “Better than I expected.”

“The blackbow is an amazing weapon. Were you watching for long?”

“A few rounds. Before they spotted me. Kita, the headman's spoken to me. About this.”

“Oh,
typical
. He wants me to stop?”

“At first he did. The oldies – they're just so freaked by the witches. They came to him wailing about the weapons they'd left here. I had to pretend I knew all about it. Stop smirking, you could've told me! Anyway. No one can countenance our girls mixing in with the witches in the woods, when it comes to the war. So I came up with a compromise. You and your six archers stand on your flint ledge. Protect the hill fort.”

“Oh,
what
? We'll have nothing to do! I thought the plan was to let the hordes nowhere near the hill fort?”

Arc looked at her steadily. “That was the plan, yes. But plans don't always work out. A flank of the city army could make a break for it, and scale our walls – and if they do, you shoot them. And if we have to retreat – I mean really retreat – you cover us while the gates are opened.”

“Oh,” said Kita, in a low voice. “I see. What happens to the witches if we retreat?”

“They come in with us.”

“If they can get here.”

He looked down. “It's a war, Kita. Nothing's sure. Look, please agree to this. Or the headman will order these blackbows destroyed.”

“Then I don't have a choice, do I?”

“No,” he said, and touched her arm briefly, then walked away.

She stared after him and found herself wondering if part of the reason he'd come up with the compromise was – he didn't want her out there in the woods with the witches either. He wanted her away from them, safe within the fort.

She found herself wondering what she felt about that.