| |
The carriage made Meg’s head ache. As much as she had promised Kiam she was fine, she had regretted the journey only an hour in. Everything seemed to make a noise and throw her around. She couldn’t remember the journey out being so violent. But then she had been so focused on learning where they were being sent to.
Brent had wanted the shutters up, but they couldn’t cope with the smell of smoke and ash that seemed to have infiltrated them so completely. Kellin sighed in her sleep as she dozed against Meg’s shoulder, and Meg pulled her arm tighter around her.
It had seemed so long since she had thought of Elalia. She had thought of her every day when they had first arrived at the Keep, and what influence the Silent Mother had over her. She sighed as she looked out into the night sky passing by. An image of the shadow queen, which she had seen so clearly in the chapel with the Silent Mother, leapt out of the darkness. She bit hard on her lip to prevent herself crying out.
She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to focus on the sounds of the wheels against the rough ground. She had tried to forget what the shadow queen might have been, or what her presence might have meant. When she had allowed herself to think about it, the soothsayer’s words echoed loudly through her head and the death of those she cared about seemed far too close.
What could have occurred while they were gone? What had the Silent Mother and her shadow queen done to Elalia?
Either way, Elalia would be angry at their return. She hadn’t sent for them, and Meg had seen the uneasiness on Brent’s face. But there was no other way. They weren’t safer at the Keep. There had been no threat at Rocfeld other than the cousins, possibly, but they hadn’t been found since the attack at the hunting lodge. Meg leaned back and tried to relax her limbs, but her head throbbed. Elalia had wanted them gone. Simply gone, and this had been the only way she could do that.
What that would achieve Meg couldn’t even imagine. She knew that no matter what she did or said, Elalia wouldn’t provide an answer as to what that could be. She wondered if the death of the cook and maid would be enough to end the soothsayer’s prophecy.
The rocking of the carriage stopped, and Meg found herself smiling at the relief of the stillness.
“Meg?” Kiam asked, his hand on hers on the window frame of the door.
She opened her eyes slowly. “Mmm?”
“The commander thinks we should stop here, to allow some rest for the men.”
Meg nodded and gently moved Kellin back as she sat forward and opened the door.
“You can stay inside if you wish.”
“I don’t,” she said, pushing the door against him. “I need to stand and stretch.”
“I don’t think...”
“It smells of smoke and dust and death in here,” she said too loudly. “I think I can stand for just a moment.”
He nodded and stepped back. “I worry,” he said.
“I know, and I’m thankful, truly. But I need to stand.”
He offered her his hand and she took it to step down from the carriage. “Are we close?”
“Days away,” he said.
“Of course,” Meg said. “It seems so long ago that we came out, I forget just how long it took us.”
“We are moving much faster on this trip.”
“Princess Meg?” a scared voice called from the carriage, and another started to cry.
“Meg?” Kellin called over the top of the crying.
She gulped down her tiredness. “I am here, Lora,” she said, poking her head back into the carriage. “We have stopped for a time. I wanted to stretch my legs.”
Lora squeezed her hand in return. “I could stretch mine too,” she said, looking about the darkness.
“We will light a fire, camp for a short while,” Rainger said from the darkness, and Kellin appeared in the doorway.
“How long have we been travelling?”
“Hours and hours,” Meg said.
“It will be light soon. Let us get a little rest, allow the horses to drink and eat, and we shall carry on,” Rainger said.
Meg nodded and the men around them disappeared. The light from the full moon seemed dimmer now that the four of them were standing alone by the carriage, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to get back in. Lora started to cry, and she pulled the girl to her.
“Here,” Kiam’s soft voice said, pulling a blanket around the two them. Raf handed another to Cate as Rainger paused too long with his arms around Kellin, pulling a blanket around her.
“It still smells of smoke,” Lora said.
“It is the fire,” Raf said quietly.
Meg could feel the heat of the flames behind her. Panic caught in her throat, but he tilted his head and she focused on the blazing fire they had just set. The number of men there for just their protection was apparent in the flickering light, and the four women moved forward slowly to sit on the ground, close enough to be warmed but not too close to the flames. A young soldier handed Meg a cup of wine, which she gulped at too eagerly. He topped it up and she handed the cup to Lora, still tucked under her arm.
They sat in silence while the men murmured amongst themselves. Meg searched for Brent in the ghostly faces, still smeared with soot from the horror of the night before, but she couldn’t make him out. Her eyes were heavy and thankfully her head no longer ached. Lora was heavy against her as she slept while Meg’s fingers played with Kellin’s hair as she lay across her lap.
She had stood for so long on the gravel watching the Keep burn itself out, the top floor collapsing in on itself. It had happened so slowly, and yet the noise of the stones falling and the metal bending had seemed so loud and painful. Like a cry of death. The four women had huddled together in their nightdresses, blankets around their shoulders, until Brent had convinced her that they should rest in the barracks.
She hadn’t slept, surrounded by the smell of men and smoke. As the first light hit the sky, she had gone out to survey the damage as soldiers worked their way through the ruined building to see what they could find. Very little had survived the angry flames. Two young soldiers had dragged out a trunk of Kellin’s dresses. They were fine gowns, but they smelt of the ash and fire, and the smoke had dulled their bright colours.
The four of them had helped each other dress. The maids had momentarily smiled at the beauty they wore, but as they looked back out over the Keep they had started to cry. It will have to do, Meg had thought as the gravel cut into her feet. Then Brent had appeared with a pair of boots.
Meg realised that she would not be able to sleep with the others leaning against her, and then Kiam was kneeling over her, gently lifting the sleeping maid. “There is a blanket behind you,” he whispered.
She lowered herself down and he placed another over her.
“Not the most comfortable bed,” Kiam whispered. “But you only have a few hours before we will be on the road again.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Kiam?”
“Yes?”
“Will you stay with me?”
“It is my turn to sleep too,” he said with a yawn, “Commander Brent has watch.” He pointed to the side and she found Brent sitting not far from them.
She nodded and closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, listening to Kiam spread out a blanket beside her and lie down.
Kellin tossed in her sleep, making it difficult for Meg to settle, and she couldn’t quite relax knowing they were so exposed, despite the number of soldiers surrounding them. All she had wanted was to go home, and she suddenly regretted having to leave the Keep. She had no idea what they would find at Rocfeld, what her sister might have done or negotiations she might have made. Brodwyn came to mind, but Meg shook the image away, remembering the nightmare of his death. Would there be as much death as she feared?
The fire crackled. The image of Bess and the scullery maid lying lifeless on the gravel bloomed behind her eyelids. She tried to focus on the distant moon rather than their unseeing eyes that wouldn’t leave her.
But in Rocfeld she would be able to pray in the Temple—finally kneel before the gods in the way she was meant to. She wondered if they would ever forgive her for her blasphemy.
“Shh,” the fire seemed to say.
Then she was being shaken gently awake by Brent, and she wasn’t sure if she had managed to sleep at all. The sky was pale above them, the tops of the trees slowly turning orange in the new morning light. Whatever she might want to happen, they had to return to Rocfeld, and that was the way they were headed.
Each day in the carriage was harder than the one before. Despite the speed with which the commander assured her they were travelling, it felt slow and awkward. Every time she closed her eyes, Meg saw Bessie’s face. She hadn’t realised that the woman had grown up with Rainger until in the stark daylight the morning after the fire, he had stood and chatted to her broken body, and Kellin had patted his arm as the tears slipped down his tanned face.
Meg was responsible, she was sure, for the fire, the destruction and the death. It was her need to return home that had fanned the flames and provided her with the reason to go. But she had not wanted anyone to die.
She looked into the scared and sooty faces of Lora and Cate across from her in the carriage and she remembered the little scullery maid, Dawn, that had teased her in the garden, and she found her own tears running away.
She longed for a bath, for a chance to wash the death from her skin. She had thought she heard a river, but when she looked out over the men riding with them, she feared the worried looks they would give if she asked to go in.
Commander Rainger was nearly always in view of the window, yet Kellin travelled much of the time with her eyes closed, her skin pale. He had coughed for days, as Brent, but he was not burnt. Despite his own skill, Kiam came to her at the end of each day to ask for her to apply his ointment, which she was only too happy to do. She tried to joke about ducks as she grimaced at the smell, but he didn’t laugh like he used to, and she knew that he would wear the mark of the fire for the rest of his days.
“You smell,” Kellin said after she had applied the ointment to Kiam’s arm.
“We all smell,” Meg said. “I just smell like ducks.”
Kellin looked up at her for a moment, then put her head back on her knees.
“How long?” Meg asked quietly.
“Until what?” she asked.
Meg sighed and looked into the flames. They jumped and leapt, and Meg was distracted looking for faces. For her father, Bessie, and Dawn with the light giggle. “The child,” she whispered.
“What would you do?” she asked softly, leaning her head on Meg’s shoulder.
“I do not know,” Meg said. “I have not had the... I do not know,” she said, squeezing Kellin’s hand.
“I love him,” she whispered. “I have always loved him. He keeps me safe.”
“Not safe enough,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“He has left you to scandal.”
“He has not left me,” Kellin said, too loudly.
“Shh,” Meg hissed. “What do you think will happen when we return?”
Kellin shrugged.
“We have been gone so long, living alone with soldiers and staff. You return with a child growing in your belly and no husband. You are a princess,” Meg said. “A princess.”
“We could marry,” Kellin whispered. “Like Sera and Tyne; they were happy and content.”
“She was not a princess,” Meg said. “And he was a bastard son. A princess cannot marry a soldier.”
Kellin gulped down a sob and Meg put her arm around her. “We will see what the nurse says when we return.”
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. “I wanted to.”
“I know,” she said softly as Kellin rubbed her hand over her stomach, and Meg caught her hand. “Do not do that,” she whispered. “I have noticed but others may not; we may cover this as rumours and lies,” she said. “I have heard of the nurses ending such problems before. Perhaps we can prevent Elalia finding out.”
The tears ran down Kellin’s face and Meg wrapped her arms around her, holding her tight. Across the flames, she saw Brent nod slowly and then looked up into the lost face of Rainger standing almost out of the light. He does love her, Meg thought, which will make this so much harder.