Mid-afternoon on a rare windless day, and Rose sat with Rowan by the fire, both of them stitching blue thread onto either edge of Linden’s cloak. For his part, Linden sat staring at the fire, bewitched by it, as though he’d never seen a fire before. Heath was out, taking a final few meetings before the tribal assembly moved on in two days.
‘Your stitching is very neat for somebody more used to bows and arrows,’ Rose said, admiring her daughter’s handiwork.
‘Many, many, many hours with Marjory nagging me. In the end, I learned how to do it well to shut her up.’
‘Ah, yes. What do you think of Wengest’s new wife?’ Rose wondered why on earth she should feel a twinge of jealousy. She had not been happy in her marriage to Wengest.
‘Hardly new. Isn’t it four years or so now? Her spots have finally cleared up. Why, she might even be twenty by now.’
Rose winced. ‘She was too young to be married.’
‘The younger we are the less we complain, I suspect. How old were you when you married Wengest?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Too old, you see. Old enough to know you needed more. How soon after did you start to long for Heath?’
Rose felt herself on unsteady ground at this question. ‘It was – I did love Wengest. Or at least I thought I did. He was not cruel to me, until I betrayed him.’
Rowan shrugged as though it was no concern to her. Her head bent forward and her red hair fell over her face as she edged up the hem of the cloak. ‘Four years with Marjory, and no babies. He’s at his wit’s end, you know. A trimartyr king needs a male heir.’
Rose glanced at Linden.
‘You and Heath have had no more children,’ Rowan observed.
‘I fell pregnant shortly after coming to Druimach,’ Rose said, remembering those dark days. ‘Gave birth to a dead, half-formed child in my first winter. The poor wee thing never even drew a breath, tiny as a doll. Since then, I haven’t been pregnant again.’
‘Not for want of trying,’ Rowan said with a smile in her voice.
Rose’s face went instantly warm. ‘Rowan!’
Rowan laughed. ‘It’s nice to know that passion exists in old age, Mama.’
‘Old age!’
Rowan was laughing again, and Rose laughed with her, and then the door of the house opened and Heath was there with a figure in a grey cloak. Rowan dropped her work and stood up with a gasp.
‘Someone has come to see you,’ Heath said, before the figure pushed back her hood and was revealed to be a willowy woman with long brown hair, a thin face and a turned-up nose.
‘Annis!’ Rowan cried, and ran to her.
But Annis stood back, holding out her hands in a stop gesture, and would not accept Rowan’s attempt to embrace her. ‘Please. I’m not here for … I’m not here to … be with you.’
Rose could see Rowan’s face, and her expression of disbelief and desperation caused a twinge of pain in Rose’s chest. To see her daughter’s heart broken was almost more than she could endure. She set the sewing aside and stood, then went to Rowan and slid an arm around her back.
‘You must be Rose,’ Annis said. ‘I can see your resemblance to …’ She gestured to Rowan as though saying her name hurt.
‘Why have you come to us?’ Rose said, trying and failing to keep her anger from colouring her voice.
Heath, not as attuned to the heartbreak of adolescent girls, told everybody to sit down so he could shut out the cold, and they’d talk it over by the fire. Annis said hello to Linden, and Rose sat protectively beside her daughter.
Annis removed her gloves and reached her hands towards the fire. ‘Everything is awful,’ she said. ‘Wulfgar is making me go away to study in Thriddastowe as punishment for … us.’
‘Thriddastowe is the other side of Thyrsland,’ Heath noted suspiciously.
‘Yes, well. I’ve run away. I have an aunt in Stanstowe. I hope she’ll take me in.’
‘I could come with you,’ Rowan said. ‘We could –’
But Annis was already shaking her head. ‘No. I don’t know how to tell you this but … it wasn’t love for me. Or at least I don’t think so. When you went, I didn’t miss you as much as I missed the fact that we had upset Wulfgar.’ Annis rolled her eyes. ‘He is such a stick-in-the-mud.’
Rose squeezed Rowan’s hand. ‘So why come here?’ she asked.
‘To warn you,’ Annis said. ‘Wengest turned up looking for you. Of course. And Wulfgar, because he wants to have his revenge on both of us, told him you’d headed for Druimach.’
Rose’s heart chilled over. The light around her seemed to warp and become too bright.
Rowan gasped. ‘How did Wulfgar know I came to Druimach?’
‘I told him. I complained that he had driven you out to the wilds among the Ærfolc, where you had relatives. I told him nothing more. He doesn’t know about …’ Here Annis pointed at Heath and Rose. ‘But Wengest is almost certain to turn up here though I don’t know when. He has a full retinue so he’s running much slower than I could.’
Rose climbed to her feet, her knees shaking. ‘You silly, insensitive girl,’ she said to Annis through gritted teeth.
‘Mama, you’ll have to go,’ Rowan said. ‘With Linden.’
The desolation washed over Rose. It was true. She had to go. She couldn’t have both her children together in the same place. Ever.
Annis looked between them, the tilt of her mouth saying for certain she didn’t like being called a silly, insensitive girl.
Heath dropped his forehead into his hand. ‘This is really very bad.’
Linden stood up and took Rose’s hand as though he understood.
‘We will go to Yldra,’ Rose said. ‘And stay until you have left for Blicstowe.’ Midwinter, Bluebell had said. Miserable autumn days and long cold nights. Curse Annis. Curse Wengest.
Then she looked down at Linden and tried not to squeeze his hand so tight. She would not lose this one. He wouldn’t survive without her.
Heath raised his head. ‘I’ll have a horse and a cart made ready for immediate departure. It’s too far for Linden to ride and I want him hidden in the back anyway. And you can take the south road. If Wengest is coming from Lyteldyke he’s coming on the north road. It’s more direct.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Annis said, as though anyone might be listening to her.
Rowan crouched down in front of Linden. ‘You can find things, Linden. If Mama needs help finding things, you draw her a map, all right?’
‘No, no,’ Rose said. ‘Don’t ask him to do that. He’s not a magic charm. He’s a little person in his own right.’
But Linden released Rose’s hand and went running off to the bower. Heath slammed out of the house on his way to organise their transport, leaving Rowan, Annis and Rose.
‘What is going on?’ Annis asked.
Rowan opened her mouth to answer but Rose spoke over her. ‘Family business, and none of your concern. And if you have any conscience about the way you have treated my daughter, you will not mention any of it to anyone. Least of all Wengest.’
‘Mama,’ Rowan said gently. ‘She didn’t know. At least we’ve been warned.’
Linden came rattling back in then, with his box of maps and inks and paper under his arm. ‘Come then, Linden,’ Rose said, forcing a bright tone. ‘We will go and see your great aunt Yldra. Remember Yldra?’ Rose had only visited once since she left four years ago, and she felt a twinge of guilt. ‘She will be so delighted to see how big you’ve grown.’
Linden sat down, the box protectively stored under his knees. Although he was seven, his muteness made him seem younger. His littleness tapped on her heart, and she realised that she could not bear to lose another child. Her spirit would finally break.
Whatever happened, Wengest mustn’t find them.
In the end, Rose managed to pack all she needed in one canvas bag. A change of clothes for her and for Linden, some food and water, her sewing kit and a folded piece of blue cloth she had been saving to make a shirt. There would be long hours at Yldra’s house; time enough to do something useful.
She had placed the bag in the cart and was checking the ropes that secured the cover, when Rowan appeared beside her, placed a long white hand over hers.
Rose felt the corners of her mouth turn down. ‘It is so unfair,’ she said. ‘I only just got you back.’
Rowan fell into her arms and Rose closed her eyes and squeezed her hard. ‘Oh, my beautiful daughter,’ she said, breathing in the clean scent of her hair.
‘I will miss you. And Linden. My little brother.’
‘I’m sure he will miss you too.’
‘I love him,’ Rowan said. ‘I love his little face, though it’s identical to Wengest’s. I’ve never seen a child look so much like his father.’
Rose released Rowan and stood back, only to see Linden standing a few feet away, staring at them. Her skin flushed warm. Had he heard what Rowan said about Wengest? He knew nothing about his father, and because he didn’t speak there had never been any questions to answer. She’d assumed he thought Heath his father.
‘Hello, darling,’ Rose said. ‘Are you ready?’
If there were any questions on the child’s mind, they never made it to his lips. Clutching his box of maps against his chest, he shuffled forward and pressed himself against Rose’s side.
Rowan mouthed the word, ‘Sorry,’ and Rose waved it away. It would be all right. Surely.
Heath approached from the stables with the portly ginger-haired driver who would take them to Yldra’s.
Rowan impulsively leapt forward for another hug, then stepped back and nodded once. ‘Goodbye, Mama. I hope to see you again soon.’
Linden tugged on her sleeve. She picked him up and helped him into the cart. Heath leaned in to give the boy a kiss, then gave another to Rose.
‘Take all care, my love,’ he said.
An hour after Annis had arrived with her terrible news, they were away. Rose watched Heath and Rowan standing side by side until the horse and cart crested the hill, and the road east opened up ahead of them.
Annis stayed only one night, keen to be on her way to Stanstowe. Rowan endured her presence stoically, awkwardly. Annis seemed like a different girl from the one she had known so intimately, the one she had laughed with until she gasped for air, the one she had loved. Or thought she had loved.
Rowan and Heath saw her to the stable, where her mount was being readied for the remainder of her journey. The air smelled of horse dung and approaching rain.
‘Thank you,’ Rowan said. ‘For warning us about Wengest, I mean.’
Annis pulled on her gloves. ‘The least I could do given how … close we were.’ She touched the hem of Rowan’s sleeve. ‘I will keep your secrets if you will keep mine.’
‘Agreed,’ Rowan said.
Then she stood back as Annis climbed onto her horse and urged it off and away. Rowan watched her until she disappeared over the rise, out towards the city gate. When she turned around, Heath was considering her.
‘What?’
‘Would you like advice?’
‘On love? From you?’ The questions came out a little terser than she’d intended.
‘It’s the fatherly thing to do,’ he said, and he smiled and she couldn’t help but smile in return.
‘Go on then.’
‘You are smarter, stronger and kinder than her. It never would have lasted. You were not well matched.’
Rowan hid her grin. ‘You only saw her for a few hours.’
‘We elderly folk are good judges of character.’ Here he put his hand on his back and crooked his neck forward in an exaggerated caricature of age. ‘Trust me.’
Rowan laughed. Heath had only a few strands of silver in his golden hair, and was handsome even to her own eyes. She knew why her mother had fallen in love with him. Good looks and a good heart.
The sky was grey and blue, weak shoots of sunshine between clouds, not too windy. Rowan turned her eyes upwards. ‘I think I will walk a while. I don’t feel like being cooped up in the house.’
‘Don’t get lost amid the chaos of the tribes packing up,’ he said. ‘And if anyone approaches you about the treaty, or Renward, or even Bluebell –’
‘I will be the most perfect diplomat you can imagine,’ Rowan said. ‘Don’t worry.’
She set off in the direction Annis had taken, away from the town and down the deep grassy slope. Rain and fallen leaves had made the narrow path muddy and slick, so she wound down in her own pattern, the damp grass making her hem wet, until she reached the white markers at the edge of the sacred grove. Here she turned and began to walk the curving path around it, the one that led eventually to the stony track out of Gwr-y-Llorcyrn territory. Only then did she let herself cry. Silently, with shaking breath and trembling hands. She had the terrible feeling she had lost something or was yet to find something or that time was slipping away under her feet, making every step precarious …
Voices up ahead made her stop in her tracks. She quickly palmed the tears from her face and set her chin. Around the bend came four people: one Rowan recognised as Niamma, the leader of the Wildwalkers.
‘Well met!’ Niamma said, with what appeared to be genuine warmth. ‘And allow me to present to you my brother, Albi.’ Then she said something to Albi in their own language, and heard her name. Albi was no more than ten or eleven, slight and round-eyed.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Rowan said with a smile.
Niamma turned to the men who accompanied them, and issued an order. They led Albi away ahead of them, leaving Niamma behind with Rowan on the path.
Rowan wondered if she should feel uneasy. She was unarmed, but Niamma was half a foot shorter than her and delicate of limb. Or at least she appeared to be.
‘Did you know your aunt sent me the most ridiculous gift?’ Niamma said with a laugh.
Rowan was not expecting this. ‘Which aunt?’
‘The one whose name I can’t bear to say. Bluebell.’ She grimaced. ‘We don’t get on.’
‘I had gathered that. What did she send you?’
‘An empty box.’ Then Niamma laughed again. ‘The problem with Thyrslanders is they are not quick enough to laugh.’
‘Is this about that bogle charm?’
‘She will be thanking me for it one day! I asked the druid to make sure it was a nice unexpected thing, not a nasty one. But I won’t tell her that yet. If she wants to point to an enemy among the Ærfolc it is Rathcruick, not me.’ Niamma shook her head. ‘I do not want to talk about your family. At least not her and not Heath either. And certainly not Rathcruick, if you still bear any daughterly affection for him.’
‘Affection?’ Rowan spluttered. ‘I never had affection for him. Pity, maybe. Curiosity. But he changed me, and he ought not to have. I was a child. Younger than your brother.’
‘No more talk of Rathcruick then,’ Niamma said, with a wave of her white hand. ‘Let us talk of you and me.’
Rowan tilted her head curiously. ‘Go on.’
Niamma was silent for a few moments, choosing her words. A light breeze moved in the hazel trees, and birds chirped deep in the grove.
Finally, she said, ‘Do you have enough courage to do what you must?’
Her words amplified the doubt in Rowan’s heart. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Connacht chose you, not Heath. Heath may know a few tricks about how to lead an army, but anyone could learn those. You’re clever. You could do it. But he cannot learn to be what you are.’
Rowan remembered Heath’s warning, and prepared a diplomatic reply. But before she could open her mouth, Niamma continued, ‘The Ærfolc are connected to the land beyond farms and fields. We are connected with our souls. All magic – the kind your Aunt Ash cruelly drains out of the elements and harnesses as undermagic – proceeds from that connection. Without a leader of the spirit, without a chieftan who can hold the otherworld in her mind as you can, the Ærfolc are not Ærfolc. We are just folk. We are just Thyrslanders. I do not want to be a Thyrslander, and nor do any of the other chieftans. Heath is well liked. You are necessary.’
‘I am yet very young and –’
‘Psh. I’m twenty-four and have been leading the Wildwalkers since I was eighteen. Ærfolc do not judge the young; they judge the weak.’ Niamma stopped a moment and shook her head. ‘I am not stupid. We have no homes for the ice-men to raid, but if they find us on the road or in a coomb or sheltering in a cave, they will kill us. They must be stopped. The tribes can form an army; Renward has an army.’
‘Renward also has a treaty in place with Ælmesse. With Bluebell.’
Niamma shrugged. ‘Needs must.’
Rowan shook her head. ‘What are you telling me? What is it you are trying to get me to do?’
‘What’s right,’ Niamma said. ‘Despite your family. What’s right for us, the Ærfolc. Do not be afraid to … take charge.’
‘Heath wants all the things that you want. He is a good leader.’
‘Then learn what you must from him about war, then go to Connacht and take the horns. The tribes will unite and follow you with far greater pride and fearlessness than they will ever follow Heath.’
‘Niamma!’ a mournful little voice called.
‘Coming, Albi,’ she called back. She fixed her eye on Rowan. ‘I’ve raised him since Ma and Da passed. He will be my heir. I can’t see me marrying or having babies. Load of nonsense.’
Rowan laughed. ‘It is indeed.’ But even as she said it, she knew one day she wanted children. Maybe just one. A little girl who could live the childhood that she had missed out on.
Niamma was moving off now, towards her brother’s voice. ‘Take the horns,’ she said again. ‘Do what you must. You know what it is. You share our blood.’
‘I will try,’ Rowan said, watching her walk away. Then to herself: ‘All the gods help me, I will try.’
It was fine enough weather and far enough from anywhere to fold the cover back off the cart on the last ten miles to Yldra’s house. It made Rose happy to glance across and see Linden’s face taking in the scenery: the open moors, the last of the rock daisies, the broad clear sky. Rose knew the way well. They had stopped at the last town for supplies to see them through for several weeks. She hoped Yldra still kept chickens for eggs. Linden loved eggs for dinner.
She was in good spirits as they rattled around the bottom of the hill where Yldra’s house stood. But then Rose realised she could see the little white dwelling clearly, and that the corn dollies that lined the way towards it were all overgrown and black with mould. Yldra’s home was usually protected by magic.
Something wasn’t right.
The driver slowed, reined the horse in at the bottom of the hill.
Linden looked at her curiously as she climbed down.
‘Back under the cover,’ she said. ‘Wait here,’ she told the driver. ‘I won’t be long.’ Already Rose was making plans in her head: if Yldra had moved on, they could still use the house. It wouldn’t be so bad. They’d be safe here, if not as perfectly hidden as she’d hoped. She slung her bag over her shoulder. Up the hill Rose went, past the corn dollies, and to the front door. Rose could already feel there was nobody home. An emptiness in the air.
She pushed the door open, saw the bones, and pulled it closed again. A big breath. Then she went inside.
Yldra had died in her hollow, the shallow scoop in the floor of her house where she buried herself with only hands and face exposed, so she could pull the magic out of the land. Perhaps she had gone into one of her trances and never woken. There were no signs that violence had been done. A skull, some grey hair, and two skeletal hands resting calmly on the ground. She had been dead for months, if not years. Rose crouched down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You were a great help to me when I needed you.’
She closed her eyes and said a prayer to the Great Mother, then turned to the shelves carved into the earthen wall, where Yldra kept her potions. Jar after tiny jar lined the shelves, all with cork stoppers. As a very little boy, Linden had loved to arrange them and rearrange them, understanding all the complex markings on them that told Yldra what they were. Rose still remembered what a few of those markings meant, and she quickly found the one she was looking for. She unbuckled her bag and slipped it in, still not sure if she would ever use it. Rose was fastening the buckle when she heard a commotion outside. Shouts. The horses neighing. Thumps in the cart.
Heat enveloped her heart.
She tore open the door and began to run. Four men in dark blue livery on horseback had circled the cart. A fifth had climbed into the driver’s position on the cart and taken the reins. She couldn’t see Linden through the crowd of people, but she could see her driver, running for the woods.
‘No! Linden!’ she cried, stumbling and righting herself and making it to the bottom of the path in time to grab at the reins. ‘Let him down! Take the cart, but let the boy down!’ She could see him now, cowering in the corner of the cart, clutching his box of maps.
She heard footsteps as one of the men dismounted and came towards her. She turned, saw the insignia of King Tolan’s court on his sash, and relaxed. They weren’t thieves or cut-throats. They were soldiers. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘My son and I are travellers. We knew somebody who lived here.’
The soldier was in his forties, with grey hair and a rugged face. He squinted at her, as though struggling for recognition.
Please don’t let him know who I am.
‘You’d best come with us, my lady,’ he said. ‘It’s not safe out here.’
‘I am perfectly safe and in no need of your help.’
‘Travelling with an Ærfolc driver? I’d say you are in desperate need of us. We’ll bring you back to civilisation.’
‘No. I insist that you –’ But then he grabbed her around the middle and no matter how she struggled, he wouldn’t put her down. He deposited her instead in the cart, where Linden immediately leapt on her and pressed himself against her.
She put her arms around her son and the cart began to move and there was nothing she could do.
‘We will be fine, Linden,’ she said, although she didn’t believe it. ‘Don’t you worry. We will be fine.’