Bramble

THERE WAS WATER moving nearby. Bramble could hear the slap and hiss of small waves on shingle, a sound that took her back to a day spent with Maryrose in Carlion before the wedding, when they had wandered over the town and the harbor, down to the small beach, and looked out over the waves. They had talked about their parents moving in to Carlion to live with Maryrose and Merrick in the new house after it was built.

“They’ll be safer here than in Wooding, so near the fort,” Maryrose had said, and Bramble had nodded agreement. Yes, Carlion was much safer. So they had thought. But now there were no safe places anywhere, and the dead could rise with axes in their hands and kill, and nothing could stop them. Except Acton, maybe. She forced down the choke of grief and concentrated as her sight cleared. If she had to live every second of Acton’s life, she would.

They were down at the beach, sure enough, in Turvite, on a cold still day. Late autumn, maybe. But where before fishing boats had been drawn up on the shingle, now there were boat cradles reaching high ribs that seemed to mimic the cliffs around the harbor. Three of them. They were holding the skeletons of larger versions of the boats Acton had rowed down the river. But these, it was clear, would have masts as well as oars. They were long, flat-bottomed boats with high prows and sterns, a shape much like the reed boats of the Lake People, but bigger. Ships.

She was inhabiting a man, and she was so inured to it by now that when he hitched his trousers to get a more comfortable position for his privates, she didn’t even wince. She thought at first that it was a stranger, but then the man reached out a hand past the cradle rib to touch the side of the ship and she recognized the hand. Baluch, but a Baluch so enraptured by the ships that he had not a single part of his mind to give to music.

“You’ve done well while I’ve been away,” a voice said. Baluch turned and there was Asgarn, wiry hair bristling with energy, blue eyes bright with admiration. He, too, was entranced by the ships.

Acton’s voice replied from behind Baluch. “We’ll be ready by summer.” Baluch turned as Acton slapped the side of the ship as Bramble would give a friendly slap to a horse. “We’re collecting cargo now. I’m sending trappers out during winter for pelts and I’ve got a lumber crew in the forest picking out fine hardwood. That’s scarce in the Wind Cities, the old men say.”

Asgarn nodded. “Next year we might have grain as well. Bone carvings, too, when our men have more time.”

Baluch added, “Metalwork, once the forges are set up. I’m sending out a message inviting charcoal burners to come to T’vit.”

Asgarn looked skeptical. “Why would they leave their steadings to join you?”

Baluch traded glances with Acton, and abruptly the music was back, a low horn note. Bramble was good enough at deciphering his thoughts now to know that the note — and the look — meant warning. But Acton grinned at him. Not reassuring, just shagging cheeky. Acton knew that whatever he was about to say would cause a stir.

“Because here they’ll be living in a free town.”

Asgarn frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means that T’vit is governed by a town council. Like the Moot, but permanent. It decides how the town is run. The council is elected by the people who live here.” With an air of getting it all out, even the worst, he added, “Including women.”

Bramble thought Asgarn might have an apoplexy, he turned so red. “Are you insane? And what do you mean, ‘is’? Have you set this up already?”

Acton nodded. “It’s going well. I’m the head of the council at the moment, of course, but in time I may be able to hand it over altogether.”

“Did you consult the Moot about this?”

For a moment, Acton looked very much like his grandfather. The same stubbornness. “They gave me T’vit. I can do what I like with it.”

“Give away your power? What kind of fool does that?”

“One who doesn’t want it,” Baluch said.

“Then hand it over to someone who’ll use it properly! Not a bunch of traders and… and charcoal burners!” Asgarn took a step closer to Acton and reached out a hand in supplication. Bramble thought that he really did want Acton’s understanding. That he respected him enough to want his support. “Can’t you see the opportunity we have here? This country is empty. We needed the Moot before because we were all crowded up ham by haunch and we had to have a way of resolving disputes. But there’s so much land here that each chief could rule a vast territory, rule without concerns about how his decisions would be greeted by others. There could be real power, not negotiations and bargains and paying compensation because a cow cropped another man’s pasture! Can’t you see what we could have?”

Acton was staring at him with a frown. Bramble tensed. This was the moment, then. This was the time when Acton helped establish the warlords. No wonder she’d never liked Asgarn. Baluch, however, didn’t seem to pay much attention. He looked back at the ship instead of at Acton, smoothing his hand over the planks of the keel. Bramble could have hit him. Look at them! she thought. Look!

“The Moot has served us very well,” Acton said. Baluch looked up and nodded agreement.

Asgarn set his mouth. “One man ruling a large territory would be better. A clear line of command, a clear area of responsibility, each chieftain able to work for his own good and secure his own power.”

So there it was, spelled out. The warlord’s creed. Bramble was sickened by it, and yet felt curiously exalted, because Acton was shaking his head. “Have you discussed this with the Moot council?”

Asgarn hesitated, and Bramble knew what that meant. He’d been sounding out the members of the council, doing deals, finding out what each man most wanted. Acton waited.

“Not in full council, no,” Asgarn said. “But I am sure they will see the truth of what I say.”

“That may be. But I think I will have a few words to say as well.”

In Baluch’s head, the warning music rose sharply at the look on Asgarn’s face.

“Perhaps we should go together,” Asgarn said slowly. Baluch put a cautioning hand on Acton’s arm. Acton grinned at him.

“Baluch reminds me that we have much more to do here if we want to take the dragon’s road in Spring. I will follow you to Wili’s steading for the Mid-Winter Moot.”

Asgarn nodded sharply, turned on his heel and headed up the shore toward the houses of T’vit. Acton and Baluch watched him go.

“Don’t trust him,” Baluch said.

“I don’t,” Acton replied. “But I didn’t think he was mad enough to destroy the Moot.”

“He’s never forgiven you for Sebbi’s death.”

Acton’s eyes clouded. “I’ve never forgiven myself.”

“What will you do at the Moot?”

Acton grinned, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. “It’s a different kind of battle. I’ve watched Harald fight that fight enough times to know how it’s done. Don’t worry. The Moot will survive.”

Bramble was astonished and elated that Acton had refused Asgarn’s arguments, but she was also confused. What had happened to change things? To make Acton a warlord, to have him help set up the warlord system? What had they offered him that had won him over?

She didn’t have time to speculate further, because the waves on the beach rose suddenly and crashed over her, tumbling her into darkness.

There was warmth on her shoulder: warm lips, moving, kissing, a tongue touching. Her side was pressed up against something warm, all down her naked flank there was warmth. For one long moment, Bramble simply felt it; heat, comfort, teasing pleasure. Something loosened inside her and relaxed. Then a hand stroked down from her shoulder to her breast and she realized: Acton! That’s Acton’s hand!

At the same moment sight came back and she saw him, gold head bent to kiss the soft flesh above her breast, hand cradling the breast itself. Get me out of here! she shouted in her mind to the gods, but they did nothing.

Then the woman pushed him away. Bramble felt a combination of emotions from her — affection, unease, a lingering pleasure mixed with revulsion. It was so much like her own emotions that she couldn’t quite tell where the woman’s feelings stopped and her own began. Acton sat up and looked at her ruefully, as though he were aware how she felt. He had shaved off his beard. She wondered why. It made him look younger.

“Oh, Wili,” he said regretfully, “was it that bad?”

Wili smiled carefully. Her eyes pricked with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. Bramble could sense that she didn’t want to hurt his feelings; but that she wanted to be out of that bed and dressed, securely, with trousers and belt and a good strong knife at her waist.

“Not bad,” she said. “Well, I had to do it, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again.”

A light broke on Bramble and she thought, they just made his son. The son of the woman who would have nothing to do with men, except that she tried it once with Acton . . .

He grimaced. “I’m sorry. I did the best I could.”

She reached out and tousled his hair, making him look like a five-year-old. “It was a good try. But —”

“It’d be different if you loved me.”

“Or if you loved me? I don’t think so.”

His face clouded. Wili drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. She felt safer that way. Calmer. The feeling of wanting to cry faded from Bramble’s mind.

Wili risked letting go with one hand and touched the back of his arm.

“If I loved you the way I loved Friede,” he said, “it would have to make a difference.”

Wili made a noise of disbelief. “I doubt it.”

He was offended, but she smiled grimly. “You didn’t love her,” she said simply. “She knew it.”

He sat up straight in indignation, the blanket falling away to show his muscled chest. “I did!”

“Ha!” Wili seemed to take some satisfaction in cutting him down to size. “You liked her. Maybe you were fond of her. Maybe you wanted her. But you didn’t love her.”

He looked worried, perhaps sad. “Did she tell you that?”

“She did. Not that she had to. I could tell. If she’d gone to your bed like the rest of them you’d never have given her another thought!”

“That’s not true! Friede was… different.”

“Because you thought she needed to be protected. She hated that, you know. She didn’t want to be protected. That’s why she loved Baluch. He never protected her. Didn’t think she needed protection.”

Acton looked down at the bed and stayed silent for a while. “I don’t understand love,” he admitted finally. “All women are beautiful, even the ugly ones. All of you are delicious.”

“We’re not honeycakes,” Wili said quietly, but not to interrupt him.

“Friede was my friend, and that felt different from all the others.”

“So maybe you just called it love, when it was friendship all the time.” Wili patted his hand. “Friendship’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

He looked up and smiled, mischief gleaming. “Do you think I’ll ever love?”

“Not while you go around bedding every woman you meet!”

He grinned, mischief growing, and was clearly ready to tease Wili about being one of those women. Time to change the subject, girl, Bramble thought, and Wili did think a lot like her, because immediately she said, “What is the Moot saying?”

His face became serious. “I have ratification for the free towns, to be set up like Turvite, with town councils elected by the people. I have agreement that there will be no thralls.”

“How did you get that?” she asked, astonished.

“Fear. I used that traitor Uen as an example. We are too vulnerable, here in a new land, to have men with us who are not oath-sworn, who do not have a stake in our future here.” He smiled slowly. “It took some time, but they agreed. Now we just have to re-establish the All Moot and I can go back to actually getting some work done!”

So, Bramble thought, it was his idea to get rid of thralls. That was well done. But was fear his real reason, or was it something else? Free towns, no thralls — how could that come from the man who established warlords? Did he simply get voted down? She was tired of being confused about him. She wanted some solid sense of what he was really like. Something beyond fighting and politicking and taking revenge. Or was that all there was to him? She didn’t believe that. Mainly because of Baluch and Wili. They didn’t think that, and they were not fools.

Wili laughed at him and asked, as she had asked once before, “How are the boats coming along?”

The gods were not interested in his answer because the waters rolled over her and dumped her down a cascade. Bramble was falling, and falling, with nothing solid to hold on to.

As soon as she came to herself, she knew that she was not with Baluch. This was a much taller man who moved heavily, shifting from foot to foot with a perceptible thump. For the first time she became aware of how lightly Baluch moved, how easily his body obeyed him. She hadn’t noticed before because it was how her own body moved, and so she had just accepted it. But this body was clumsy, lumbering. A big man, with big muscles, she thought, and weighed down somehow, not just by the heavy winter clothes he wore against the biting cold.

He was standing in a wood on a hill, a spur of pines on the edge of a much greater forest. He looked down to a steading, a snow-covered collection of houses and barns surrounded by pasture and some fenced fields, although pasture and ploughed ground looked alike under the thick snow. Bramble realized that it was Hawk’s — that is, Wili’s — steading. She had not seen it from exactly this angle before, but she was sure. There were some figures, well wrapped up, moving between house and animal barns. A woman emerged and shook out a blanket. Bramble recognized her: Wili. Her pregnancy wasn’t showing yet, so not much time had passed. Wili had named the child Thegan, she remembered. He had finished what Acton started, the invasion of the Domains, right up to the Sharp River. Wili stood upright and looked up the slope, shading her eyes. Two children raced out the door past her and she called them back.

The sky was gray, but there was no wind. The man Bramble inhabited put up a hand to shake the snow from his collar, and she saw that he had copper hair springing thickly on hand and wrist. Maybe the one who had been in the boat with Acton, whose friend had died? Red. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure, because the only emotions she could sense were grief and fear, combined. It was a familiar grief, constantly refreshed, and it was threaded with guilt, because he was still alive.

Bramble knew that feeling. She felt sorry for him, but she was worried. What was he doing up here in the woodland, waiting, skulking? Where was Acton? Surely it was too soon for him to die? He couldn’t be much older than the last time she had seen him, not if Wili were pregnant. The stories all talked about him ruling Turvite, setting up the warlord system, pushing the invasion further and further — surely that would take years more?

Then Red saw Acton, down at the steading, coming out of the main house, talking briefly with Wili, and then going to a barn. A few moments later he emerged, riding one of the stocky little ponies Bramble had come to admire.

He rode up the slope and passed Red, whose breathing came faster as Acton went by. Red reached down and brought a knife out of his boot. Not an eating knife. This was a fighting dagger, meant for killing.

Acton rode further up the slope, his breath and his horse’s blowing clouds of steam. He was growing another beard, but it was still short and outlined his face. His expression was hard to read; the set look might just be due to the cold, but she didn’t think so. He looked like someone going to do a job he disliked.

Halfway up, though, his face changed. He looked into the woodland and smiled, as though he had seen someone he knew. Bramble knew that smile, the sideways smile that he cozened women with. Bramble could have hit him. He was courting someone again. Now, of all times! But instead of riding toward whatever girl was smiling back at him, he raised a hand in farewell and continued on.

Further up the hill the forest curved around and continued in a thick ribbon of larch and spruce trees along the lower slopes of the mountains. As Acton disappeared into those, Red followed him, skirting the open spaces until his path crossed Acton’s tracks just inside the belt of trees. Then he followed the tracks through the trees. Where they ended, he waited. Acton was higher up the steep hillside, near the cliff which showed the entrances to some caves. Dotta’s caves? Bramble wondered, and then was sure. It had to be, so close to Wili’s settlement.

Acton tethered his horse to a low bush and disappeared inside the cave. Immediately Red started to run forward, treading as much in the horse’s tracks as he could. He fetched up, breathing hard, against the cliff face next to the cave entrance, and peered cautiously around into the cave. The passageway, winding between rough walls, was empty, but Acton’s tracks were clear in the dirt, overlaying another set of footprints.

So someone was waiting for you, Bramble thought. What a surprise. I wonder if Asgarn is man enough to do his own killing.

That was the moment that Bramble understood. Acton never had set up the warlord system. They had killed him first and used his name afterward to gather support.

She was filled with rage. Asgarn and shagging Oddi. This was their doing.

Red crept along down the passageway as stealthily as he could, and paused at a turn, where the rock screened the cave beyond. There were voices, hard to decipher. Red didn’t have Baluch’s sharp ears. He edged closer to the opening.

Then Bramble heard Acton laugh in response to some comment. “Is this what you and Oddi have been scheming about? The Moot has ruled us for a thousand years, would you give all that history away? The Moot works. It has proved itself. That’s why I copied it in T’vit. It’s a curb on the headstrong and the foolish. The weak are protected.”

“The weak are favored, you mean.” That was Asgarn’s voice, of course, bitter and harsh.

Red slid to the very edge of the opening and peered around. Beyond was Dotta’s cave, but it smelt stale, of old ashes and grease from the small oil lamp that sat on a rock, giving a wavering and fitful light. Dotta was long gone, and her sacred fire with her. Bramble hoped she was safe.

Acton and Asgarn were facing each other, looking like two versions of the same man. Both tall, both fair, both strong and wide across the shoulders. Only the hair was different, and the way they stood: Asgarn with shoulders hunched and fists clenched; Acton upright and at ease, Asa’s brooch on his cloak catching the lamplight like a star. Oh, be careful! Bramble thought. Don’t be so sure of yourself.

“The strong are forced to carry the weak,” Asgarn said.

Acton looked at him with curiosity. “Because we are all one people, of one blood. Should we not help each other?”

“The strong don’t need help and the weak should pay for the help they need.”

“Pay how?”

“In obedience. And other ways, if necessary. Labor. Gold. Goods.”

“No,” Acton said. “The chieftain has a duty to his people. Generosity pleases the gods.”

“A ruler should look to his own interests first, and then give what he can, in return for loyalty.”

Acton paused, as though he could see that this argument could go on forever without either of them shifting position. “I cannot support you,” he said. “I think you will find that most of the Moot council is of my view. I have already received endorsement for my free towns.”

“Aye, they’re short-sighted, like you. They don’t see where that will take us. But uninterested in power? I don’t think so. I think enough of them like the idea of being fully in control of their own territory. But it would be just like you to convince them. Just like you to lead us all into disaster, like you always do. Come over the mountains! you said, and so all of them went and died, just so you could feel good. If we’d taken this territory in the first place, Swef and Asa — yes, and Friede, too — they’d all still be alive.”

“That’s true,” Acton said quietly.

“Oh, yes, admitting it makes you sound so noble, doesn’t it? You’re good at that, aren’t you? At having grand schemes. You’re good at convincing people to die for some stupid noble idea. Like you convinced my brother!”

Asgarn sprang, drawing the knife from his belt. Like Red’s, this was a killing dagger, not a belt knife. Acton was ready for him, his own knife out and his arm up to deflect the first blow. They began to wrestle for supremacy, kicking and hitting, shouldering each other around the cave.

Bramble could feel Red tensing, getting ready. If only Acton had lived! If only he had swung the Moot his way, there would have been no warlords, ever. How different the future might have been. The future came down to now, to this moment in a cave. To Red.

Because it was clear that Asgarn was tiring. Acton’s immense strength was slowly winning out, forcing Asgarn back, step by step. Once he was pressed against the wall of the cave he would have no chance. If Red chose not to help Asgarn . . .

Bramble felt his muscles tense in preparation and screamed into his head: No! Noooo! He faltered and she was exultant. She could stop him. She would, and take whatever consequences that came.

She gathered her strength to shout again into his mind, but the gods flooded into her, overwhelmed her, pressed her back, silenced her, and Red leapt from the shadows and raised his knife high.

He swung the knife down into the middle of Acton’s back, and then reversed his grip so he could strike up, under the ribcage, up into the heart. Bramble was straining to break free of the gods, straining to touch his mind again, so as the knife went up, and in, it was as though her own hand guided it, her own arm gave it strength.

Acton slumped down, the knife still in him. Asgarn kicked him as he fell and bent over him to say harshly, “Before you go to the cold hells, tell my brother from me that I have avenged him.” He glanced at Red, who stood frozen, staring at Acton, his heart thumping and his eyes burning dry. Asgarn’s face drained of fury. “And tell Geb the same, for Red.”

At the name, Red’s eyes filled with tears and he took a deep, sobbing breath. He nodded slowly, in a kind of desolate satisfaction.

Acton’s eyes had rolled up and his labored breathing changed to the death rattle. Bramble was almost angry with him. It seemed impossible that he should be lying there. He was so strong! He was too full of life to let a nothing like Red overcome him. Each labored breath dragged the air from her own lungs, so that it felt like she was dying, too. She needed him to get up. Get up! she pleaded silently. But his breaths were weaker, the rattle more pronounced. Her eyes were full of tears, but they were Red’s tears, and his heart, beating fast, and his lungs at last dragging breath into them. She wanted to reach out and touch Acton, to at least ease his passing, but of course Red did not respond to the thought. She had never felt so helpless, not even when the roan was dying in her arms. At least she had been able to comfort the roan in his last moments.

Asgarn reached out and ripped the brooch from Acton’s cloak. He gave it to Red, and put a hand on his shoulder. “That was well done. Keep this in memory of a great deed that must remain secret.”

Red nodded. His heart was slowing, his eyes clearing as he wiped tears away. There was a sense of freedom from pain and pressure, as though Acton’s death had lanced a boil.

“You know where to put the body?”

“Aye.”

Asgarn clapped him on the shoulder again. Playing the part of the warlord, Bramble thought bitterly.

“Loyalty will be rewarded,” he said. He shrugged his cloak back into place and strode out of the cave without a backward glance. Red looked down at Acton. Blood was seeping out of his back and spreading across the cave floor, but he was still breathing, just.

Red bent and took him under the arms. Bramble had so wanted to touch him, but not like this… not to take him to his grave. Red began dragging him to a passageway in the back of the cave, the same passageway that Dotta had led Gris down, the one she had told Bramble to remember.

Bramble braced herself for the long, winding path down to the painted cave, but the waters came: as slow and inexorable as funeral music, as strong as winter. The water covered her, smothered her, stopped her breathing as Acton’s breathing was stopping. She had killed him, and now she was dying, and that was as it should be. She was content with that; so when the waters receded and left her high and dry under the trees of the Forest, it seemed like a betrayal.