Wengest and Rowan had been gone for three days, and Ivy was starting to worry. The morning after her encounter with Wengest, she had woken to find the bed next to her empty, and Nurse nowhere in sight. Wengest’s bower, too, was empty, and she was forced to acknowledge they must be together somewhere. She was met with stony silence from Wengest’s retainers, and her meals were brought to her wordlessly in her bower every day.
Wengest had clearly ordered everyone to tell her nothing.
By the fourth day, she had grown sick of waiting in her bower and walked down to the gatehouse to see if she could charm somebody into divulging something. Once again, she was met with resistance. So she went down the slope and walked for a little while around the base of the fort. She saw travelers and traders come and go; the whole world buzzing on as it always had.
Ivy felt young and foolish. She wished she had never pursued Wengest, and she certainly wished she had never said anything about Rose’s infidelity. It was so clear now that it had been the wrong thing to do. Most of all, though, Ivy felt afraid, because the consequences seemed as though they would be very serious. Bluebell would punish her without mercy. Her hopes of a happy, comfortable life would flee from her fingertips.
Her foot hit a soft patch of ground, and she stepped back and swore softly. Cow shit. Her silk slipper drenched in cow shit. She slipped her shoes off and threw them on the ground, then found a place to sit and put her head in her hands to cry. It wasn’t her fault! It was Rose’s fault. Rose should never have taken a lover. Rose was a queen; she should have known better. Perhaps Bluebell would be angrier with Rose than Ivy. Perhaps Ivy would escape blame altogether. Right now, she wanted to be back home in Fengard with Uncle Robert and Aunt Myrtle. She was sick of being herself.
Hoofbeats in the distance drew her attention. She looked up and saw a small retinue approaching. She recognized Wengest’s standard. Wengest was back! Relief flooded her body. She stood and strained her eyes to see Rowan, sitting on Nurse’s saddle. But there was no Nurse, and certainly no Rowan. Wengest was returning only with two soldiers.
She hurried down toward the road to greet them. Wengest barely slowed when he saw her.
“Wengest!” she called as they thundered past. “Where is Rowan?”
“Go back to your bower,” he grunted, without a backward glance.
Ivy stood on the road in their wake, tears welling in her eyes. He wouldn’t have harmed the child, would he? No, of course not. Nurse hadn’t returned, either. They were somewhere together. But why take them away from Folkenham?
Ivy swallowed hard. It was to punish Rose, wasn’t it? And Ivy knew she needed to be far away from Nettlechester when Rose returned.
Her bare feet were soft on the hard road. She returned to her bower and immediately began to throw her clothes and shoes into her pack. Sighere had left for Blickstow nearly a week ago. She wished she’d gone with him. But she wasn’t afraid to travel alone.
The door to her bower burst open and Wengest stood there, surrounded by sunlight. She froze, a linen shift rolled up in her hand.
“Ivy,” he said, not meeting her eye.
“Wengest,” she replied. She began to understand he was ashamed of what they had done. If he was angry at her, it was partly because he had lost his head with her. “Where is Rowan?”
“With Nurse.”
“And where is Nurse?”
“With Rowan.” He folded his arms in front of him. “They are both safe and comfortable. I love my daughter, Ivy. I would not punish her for her mother’s wrongs.”
Ivy felt compelled to defend Rose. “Only a little wrong, surely.” She held her index finger and thumb a little apart. “No more wrong than what you were doing with the serving girl. Or with me.”
Angry redness spread up his neck. “Don’t you dare compare our situations! I am a man and a king. She is a woman. A mother.”
Ivy shrank back.
He took a deep breath. Collected himself. “I can’t have you here,” he said.
“I’m going,” she replied. “I’ll leave today.”
“You can’t travel alone.”
“I don’t mind. I—”
“I am organizing something. Prepare yourself to travel in the next few days. In the meantime, stay out of my sight.”
“I will,” she said, stinging with shame and guilt.
He nodded curtly, then left.
Ash hesitated at the top of the path, looking down at Unweder’s house. The chill of the gully was on her cheeks. Here, it was cold like winter, as though spring had passed Unweder by. The hedges were bare, and a few mottled-brown-and-yellow leaves still hung from the branches. She had a sense of standing on the edge of a precipice. And yet what was she to do? She couldn’t be alone. Not forever. And she was certain he could help her understand her power. If she had to be in exile, and if he had said he would welcome her back, was this not the perfect place to be?
She went down the path and knocked at the door. No answer. Knocked again. Then gently pushed it open.
“Unweder?” she said softly. Inside, the house was warm. Embers still glowed in the hearthpit. Unweder wasn’t here. She felt lost suddenly, as though it was a sign and she wasn’t meant to be here. She turned, intending to leave.
On the long bench, several small jars stood in a line. Curious, she approached. She picked one up. Empty. The others, too, were empty. She wondered what they were for. She wondered what kind of undermagic Unweder practiced. She put the jar down and turned away from the door. Hanging from nails around the house were small charms and decorations: pottery shapes on ribbons, small mirrors, straw and feather weavings. She approached and lifted from a nail a long piece of string with a tiny clay pot on the end. It had a cork in the end. She put her fingers over it, then changed her mind. Unweder might be annoyed if she spilled whatever was inside. Hanging it carefully on its hook, she looked down and saw a large wooden chest. The latch wasn’t closed. She reached for it to open it.
The door swung open. “Don’t touch that!”
She whirled around, heart thudding in her throat, red-faced with guilt and embarrassment. Unweder stood there with a brace of rabbits in his good hand.
“I was going to put the latch down,” she stammered.
He strode over and pushed the latch down himself. “Promise me you won’t touch that. Everything else is yours to see and explore. Just not that chest.” He was short of breath, and she wondered if he had sensed her and run back from wherever he was.
“I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Your things are private, of course.”
“I trust you.” He went to the bench and laid down the rabbits. “I’ll explain later.”
“You don’t need to explain at all.”
He smiled at her. “I’m so glad you’re back.”
She smiled too, cautiously. “You don’t mind?”
“No. You are very welcome to be here and to stay as long as you need to. I can make you a bed on the floor here by the hearthpit.”
Ash wondered if she should doubt his intentions, but she pushed the thought away. If Unweder had any sexual desire in his body, it was slight and it was buried. She recognized this about herself, too: She was not formed for love and family as other women were. “I will earn my keep,” she said. “I can hunt and fish. I can grind flour and make bread. Whatever you need.”
“We can work together,” he said, carefully putting the little jars aside. “When you’ve settled in. I expect you need to grieve the loss of your family.”
She frowned. “They’re not dead.”
“They are dead to you, no? You can’t see them again?”
Words stopped up in Ash’s throat.
He approached. His tone was gentle. “I don’t mean to be cruel, but you need to understand what you are doing. What you have already done. You have left the world as you know it. And now you will build a new world, starting in here with me.”
Ash felt afraid of him then. His insistence weighed like lead, and she had a desperate urge to run away.
But then he smiled again. “There’s no right way to feel, Ash. Take your time. I am quiet and I am out a lot during the day. You take your time deciding what you want. And you can leave whenever you like, though I would be sorry to see you go.” He indicated the rabbits. “Would you care to help me prepare dinner?”
The routine tasks helped. Skinning and gutting the rabbits, preparing the turnips and carrots, chopping and boiling and stirring. Then, when the stew sat in its pot cooking and thickening, they sat opposite each other by the hearthpit and drank a cup of mead each. The smell of meat and spices made her stomach pang.
“Last time you were here you said you had many questions,” he said, “though you only had time for one.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Would you like to ask me another?”
She shifted on her stool, crossing her ankles in front of her. Her bare feet caught the fire’s warmth. “Very well. Why can’t I control this power?”
“Give me a specific example.”
“My sister Bluebell has been asking me for weeks if I can see my father’s fate. I get glimmers, but no clear picture. And yet, when I was in Thridstow, I often had visions of other people’s fates. People far less important to me.”
“All undermagicians have the sight, lesser or greater, and none of them seem capable of turning it on themselves with much success. But the sight is only ever a forerunner of what is to come, the power that eventually fills you up and comes direct from the Great Mother as her gift to you. Some do grow better at prophecy, but it is not everyone’s gift.” He shrugged. “I’m the same. I get flashes, often trivial. Nothing of moment, and nothing when I most want to know.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes.”
“Does it not drive you mad with frustration?”
“No. That isn’t my gift. I stopped trying to develop the ability a long time ago, and if you stop trying it will wither away. You may feel the occasional dull urge, or you may try to bend your mind to it and make yourself ill. Either way, if it’s not your gift, there is nothing you can do.”
For some reason, this thought filled Ash with incredible relief. She imagined Bluebell asking her to see the future, and simply saying, I can’t. That isn’t my gift. But then she remembered Bluebell wouldn’t be asking such things of her ever again.
“What is your gift?” Ash said.
“It’s complicated. I’ll explain another time. What do you think yours is?”
Ash bit her lip. “I’m not sure.”
“You have no idea?”
“I have an idea, though I’m frightened to say it in case I’m wrong. In case you form expectations of me I can’t fulfill.”
“I have no expectations of you.”
Ash dropped her voice, though she didn’t know why. “I can see elemental spirits.”
“Good.”
“And I can…I can tell them what to do.”
He went very still, though he was still smiling at her. “Also good. Very good. A very useful skill to have.”
“What does it mean, though? Why would I have this power? They don’t like it. They seem both fascinated and repelled by me, but my voice controls them as forcefully as a yoke on their necks.”
A short silence. Unweder considered her in the smoky room. “I can’t answer that now. But as you focus and develop your talent, it will become clear.”
“Really?”
“Really. Focus on what comes easily to you. You will learn other abilities, but you are formed for something by the Great Mother’s intentions. If it is elemental control, then let it be that, and relax.”
Knotted muscles in her back began to release. He could help her. He already had. He had a wide view, the perspective she had been lacking. That those fools at Thridstow had been lacking. That her sisters, despite their good intentions, had been lacking. Unweder knew. Unweder could help her.
Exhaustion, mental and emotional, made her bones weak. She ate a little, then Unweder made her a bed and she curled up in it gratefully.
In the morning, before Ash opened her eyes, she was aware she was somewhere new by the smells. She remembered the previous day, the pain of leaving her family behind, and tried to burrow back into sleep where nothing hurt.
But it was full daylight, and Unweder was nowhere to be seen. She rose and went to the door to look outside. No, she was definitely alone.
She turned and caught sight of the chest Unweder had forbidden her to touch yesterday, and frowned.
It seemed he didn’t trust her after all. He had put a box padlock on the latch.
Late-afternoon shadows and a tired horse told Rose she had to stop. Since she had drawn closer to the border of Nettlechester, the roads were busier and the inns more frequent. She paid a stable hand to take her horse and found a bench at the inn to order a meal and a drink.
The serving woman who approached her was trailed by a small girl, perhaps a little older than Rowan. Rose’s heart twinged, seeing the child’s poreless skin and liquid eyes.
“Hello,” Rose said to the little girl.
She sank behind her mother’s skirts. The serving woman put a hand in the child’s hair. “It’s all right, little one,” she said. She smiled at Rose. “A few of the patrons have been annoyed that I have her here with me tonight. She’s caught the rough end of a few tongues.”
“But she’s only a child.”
“She’s slowed me down. But my husband’s away and my sister offered to look after her, but then she got sick.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t leave her at home alone.”
“Of course not.”
“It’s only one night. Her father’s home tomorrow.”
“Are you helping Mama?” Rose said to the little girl.
She nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve been carrying plates.”
“Good for you.”
As she waited for her food, Rose watched the serving woman and her child. Here she was, a queen. She wore gold brooches and beads from exotic lands far away. And she would exchange it all to be a serving woman in an inn on the road out of Littledyke, who had her child with her and the child’s father coming home tomorrow.
What waited for her back in Folkenham? She had almost changed her mind, a day out of Bradsey. She had almost headed for Stonemantel, to find Heath and tell him what had happened. Because an awful suspicion was growing inside her that Wengest had moved Rowan away from her deliberately. Every morning, Rose studied her daughter in the seeing-loop. She had finally come to rest in a rough-looking bed in a shadowy room, and was always alone and crying. Calling out, sobbing. Rose was certain she saw her little mouth forming the word “Mama” over and over, and she had to put the loop deep in her pack so her heart didn’t break. But if Wengest had moved Rowan, what was the reason? Where had he taken her?
The hot nerve quivered in her heart. Her eyes followed the little girl and she felt tears slipping down her cheeks. Deep breaths. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as she feared. Wengest would never hurt Rowan. Some benign explanation awaited her, surely. But until she knew what that explanation was, she would keep moving as fast as she could toward home.
Willow liked a simple life. Her days started early, before Heath was awake. She stole away every morning in the grainy dark before dawn to pray outside the front gate, begging the angel voices to come to her. Sometimes they did, with a whoosh of gray wings clattering and a tumble of words falling sharp and golden through her senses. And sometimes, there was nothing but the grindstone of her own brain. Afterward, though, she would return to the farmhouse and stoke the fire, make the morning’s bread, tend to her father and his soiled bedclothes, then start the dinner. She and Heath fell into a comfortable, if not companionable, routine. They spoke to each other little and he spent most of his days outdoors, tending to horses and hunting food. At night she slept on the floor of her father’s room while Heath slept by the low-burning hearth.
On this particular day, she woke with a prickle in her senses that told her today would be different somehow. A vague wariness infused her as she slipped past the sleeping Heath and let herself out into the burgeoning morning. She paused a few moments on the doorstep, glancing around her. Nothing moved that didn’t always move, like the branches and leaves and waking birds. Yellow light lay just beyond the horizon. Sweet floral smells were damp in her nostrils. Seeing and hearing nothing out of the ordinary, she moved off up the front path and made her way across dewy grass to the front wall and gate. She checked behind her once more, then decided that surely this prickle simply meant that Maava was working in her and that he or his angels would speak directly to her this morning. Excited, she was light of step as she made her way to her usual place on a collapsed pile of stones, sat, and withdrew her triangle to pray.
Maava, my lord and protector, speak to me this day that I might—
A small cry made her lift her head. At first she was put in mind of a baby bird, but when she heard it again she realized it was a child. She rose and followed the sound, across the rutted muddy path and into the woods. She strained to hear, wondering what great work Maava was calling her toward. The cries were hitching, uneven, and then one mournful word emerged. “Rabbit.”
Willow found him a few moments later, a little dark-haired boy whose eyes roved and fixed on nothing. She caught him about his thin shoulder and said, very softly, “What ails you, child?”
He turned his face to her. It was covered in snot and tears. “Rabbit,” he said again.
Had he lost a pet rabbit? That hardly seemed grave enough to be the work of Maava, but she told herself to follow and trust, gave him a little push ahead of her, and said, “Show me.”
Their feet crunched on leaf-fall and popped on dead twigs. The boy navigated by brushing his fingers over tree trunks, and Willow came to understand he was blind. A blind child! The angels were certainly at work here.
Not too far distant, in the woods but well hidden, they came to an encampment. Willow’s heart grew cautious as she saw the long figure of a sleeping man lying on a worn moleskin. She hesitated while Eni pressed forward. When he realized she wasn’t behind him anymore, he turned and said, “Rabbit.”
So the man’s name was Rabbit. She advanced warily, then got her first good look at the man.
Not any man. As her gaze focused and she looked beyond the travel dirt and pale sickliness, she recognized her stepbrother.
“Wylm!” she cried, hurrying close now and kneeling at his side.
His eyes flickered, then opened. She took note of his sweating upper lip, the febrile gleam of his eyes, then remembered the dream she’d had about him and blushed despite herself.
“You must help me,” he said. He extended his left hand, and she could see a festering wound barely covered by a filthy bandage.
Willow realized he was seriously unwell. “Can you walk? You must come with me back to the farm.”
Then his eyes focused on her. He drew his brows together and said, “Willow?”
“Yes, it’s me. The farm is only ten minutes’ walk. Can you make it?”
“No, no. I cannot. I…” He trailed off, licking his lips.
Willow glanced back toward the house, even though the view was obscured by trees. Heath was there. Maybe he could come and fetch Wylm.
Eni was close, almost leaning against her arm. His eyes darted around like fish in a pond. “Who is the boy? Is he blind?”
“Yes,” Wylm said. “I have rescued him. We have traveled so very far and now I fear I will not survive this infection.”
“You will, for I have been sent here by a force greater than illness and death. Wait here. I will get what I can for you. I think…I think I know how to treat an infected wound.” Countless times the little cuts she caused on her own body had grown red, and once one had even filled up with a volcano of pus. “My sister Ash left medicine.”
“Anything you can do will help me, but I must ask you, please…don’t tell anyone I’m here.”
“Why not? Heath may be able to—”
“You must listen to me, for I am desperate and death is near. Don’t tell them.”
Willow opened her mouth to ask again, then stopped, chiding herself. It was no use asking questions when he was so ill. If he had good reasons, he could tell her when he was well. She was vaguely aware that Bluebell didn’t like Wylm, and perhaps it was something as simple as that. So she said, “Very well, but I have nobody to tell.”
“You are alone?”
“Heath is still with me, but Bluebell and my other sisters have left.”
He visibly relaxed. So it had been Bluebell he feared. She supposed many people did.
“Still,” he said. “Don’t—”
“I’ll say nothing. Now rest and I will return as soon as I can.”
He nodded, closing his eyes.
Willow hurried back through the woods to the farmhouse. Heath was still asleep, but he stirred and rolled over when she came in. Any moment he would open his eyes. She went to the shelf above her father’s bed where Ash had put the pots and potions she used. The little stone pot full of oily balm was there. She had been instructed to use it if her father had developed any infected bedsores, but so far the king had been magically free of such things in his unnatural stasis. She also found the pot of honey and crushed coriander seeds that would take down Wylm’s fever. Willow put the pots in her apron then tore the bottom off her father’s cloak for a bandage. In the kitchen, she seized the rest of yesterday’s bread and some cold pheasant that had spent the night under a linen cloth. With these things and a skin full of clean water, she was halfway out the door when Heath woke.
“Willow?” he said blearily.
She paused, heart hammering. Why did she feel so guilty? This was Maava’s good work she was performing. “I’m going for a walk,” she said, with cool righteousness.
“Very well.”
Then the door was slamming closed behind her and she was outside. Dawn had cracked over the horizon and golden light flooded among the trees in the wood. Into the forest she went, as Maava intended.
Think. Think. Wylm tried to clear his foggy brain. Bluebell was gone, but Heath was still here. He couldn’t ask Willow to take him in, although shelter and a fire and medical care were the stuff of his desperate fantasies. Willow said she had some of Ash’s medicines and Ash had studied such things so perhaps, perhaps he would survive this. Then what? If Willow healed him and then revealed his presence, he was still foiled. He wanted to take Eni and flee, but he could barely sit up, let alone walk. No, he had to make this situation go his own way somehow and if only his mind wasn’t so darkened with feverish clouds…
He slipped into delirious sleep again, pinned beneath fiery cliffs, watched over by a formless shadow. Then flickered once more into wakefulness, hearing her footsteps returning.
“Hello?” she called. Her voice was soft, girlish. She had food. Medicine.
“Hoy,” he managed in return. “This way.”
She emerged through the trees a few moments later. Straight-backed, long-limbed like Bluebell, but in every other way different. A strange distractedness to her gaze, as though she were listening to voices nobody else could hear.
“Here,” she said, kneeling with him, “take some of this. It’s honey and coriander and some other medicine Ash knows about.” She hesitated, then unstopped the bottle and held it out to him.
“How much?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said, faltering. “All of it, perhaps?”
He struggled to prop himself on his elbows, and she tipped the pot to his lips so the medicine dripped into his mouth. It tasted sweet at first but left a bitter aftertaste.
“How long have you had the infection?” she asked, indicating he should lie down again. She reached for his hand and unwrapped the wound.
Wylm tensed against the expectation of pain. She was not gentle. “It has been nearly a week since I received the wound. It looked a little better for a time, when I had it in seawater every day. But traveling on land with the lad, fiddling with dirt and ropes…” He winced as she turned his hand to the light to look at it closely.
“And your fever?”
“Three days now.” Or was it four? Or two? Time melted into itself. He knew he had seen Eni eating leaves this morning. They must have run out of everything.
“Let me clean this wound and dress it. It may hurt. Tell me about the boy, and how you came to be here in the woods, while I work.”
Wylm turned his face away, gritting his teeth as she poured water on the wound and started dabbing at it fearlessly. The pain was like fire. Worse than fire. He didn’t want to tell her anything. He still thought he might run the moment he was better.
But then she leaned forward, and a triangle on a chain slid out from underneath her dress and he remembered the time he’d seen her praying. Remembered what she had said earlier about a force greater than illness and death, and in a moment of clarity like the sun piercing the clouds, he knew how to turn this situation to his advantage.
“I found Eni at his dead father’s house—a friend of Bluebell’s—on a millet farm just out of Blickstow. He can hear, but he understands almost nothing. His eyes don’t work, either. A blind orphan? I couldn’t leave him. It would have been wrong in the eyes of…well…”
Willow frowned, concentrating very hard on the task in front of her. “Grit has embedded itself in the wound. I’ll have to dig a little.”
“I trust you,” he said. Excruciating pain followed, but then relief as white-yellow fluid poured from his hand and onto the blankets beneath him.
“This millet farm, was it manned by a fellow named Sabert?” Willow asked.
“I didn’t ask his name.”
“A stocky dark-haired fellow?”
“He was in his death throes when I encountered him, but yes, that seems a good description.”
“I met him there once,” Willow said, “many years ago when I was a child. I rode there with Bluebell. He seemed kind. It is sad that he is dead. I think I remember a small boy. This must be him.”
“Yes, it must.”
“You have grown, little one,” she said to Eni kindly, then turned her attention back to Wylm. “You mentioned seawater.”
“I cannot tell any more tales,” he said. “I am tired.”
Willow nodded. “I am sorry. I’m wearing you out.” She wrapped the wound more gently, and he had to admit he already felt in less pain, in less hot fog. “Will you consider coming back to the house with me?”
Wylm concentrated hard to make sure the false words came out as smooth as truth. “I cannot. Bluebell hates me. I know she is your sister but she found out I…Willow, can I trust you?”
“I…yes. Yes, you can.”
“She found out I still practiced the trimartyr faith of my homeland.” He had, in fact, never practiced it, but he knew enough of the lore to convince her. “How could I not? Was I to accept eternity in the Blacklands simply because of whom my mother married?”
Willow froze, her little mouth a round O of surprise. “You do?”
“And I know you say Bluebell isn’t at the house, but every pair of ears that hears about me is also a pair of lips that will tell her, and she will find a way to punish me. So I must stay here, and I must trust you because I think…I know that you, too, are one of Maava’s good children.”
“I am,” she said boldly, quickly. “I do owe my sister loyalty, but my greater loyalty is to Maava and always will be. Here, I have brought you food and clean water and will do so morning and night until you are better and I will never, ever tell.”
He smiled and she didn’t smile back. It was odd. As though thoughts of her religion had robbed her of the ability to attend to social niceties.
She climbed to her feet, touching Eni on the head. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Fear nothing.”
“I don’t,” he said. But he was lying.
Nothing felt as good as doing Maava’s work, and day after day Willow returned to Wylm—morning and night as promised—and fed him and Eni. Wylm’s color began to return; the wound grew less hot and pustulant. Freed from constrictions on what she said, she enjoyed retelling stories from trimartyr law for Wylm and Eni, and she reflected on what a liberty it was to be able to speak freely to somebody about her beliefs. She hadn’t had such freedom since she last spoke with the trimartyr preacher who had converted her.
On the fourth morning, she grew tired of her own voice and he was sitting up and brightening, so she asked him about the sea journey he had alluded to on the first day.
He hesitated for a while before speaking, as though measuring his words carefully. His dark, intelligent eyes met hers smilingly. “Will you not be bored by men’s business?”
“Not in the least. Here, give me your wounded hand. I will clean it while you speak.”
“Eni,” Wylm said to the boy, “go find some kindling for tonight.” He waited for the boy to shuffle off then put his hand in hers. “Some things will upset him to hear, perhaps. Let me remember: I had been at sea for two days, then on the river for two before I came here. Eni and I were captured by raiders, and taken to King Hakon’s lair on Ravensey.”
Her mind reeled. “No! King Hakon is real? I thought he was just a character made up to frighten children.”
“As real as you or me. And a nightmare to look at.”
“Go back. Why did he capture you? I don’t understand.”
“They thought for some reason that Eni was Bluebell’s son. The dead man, Sabert you called him, he was her lover.”
She felt her face warm at the word “lover” and hoped he didn’t notice. “Is Eni my nephew, then?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t any of the noble beauty of your family.” He looked away. “Forgive me for saying something so bold.”
The flush in her cheeks intensified. She focused very hard on her work. “Go on. Hakon. What happened? Is he a monster?”
“He certainly looks monstrous. In any case, we made ourselves free. I am certain that Maava was guiding my hand when I managed to escape the island with Eni on a fishing boat. The first day was fair, but then gray clouds rolled in and the sea surges tossed us this way and that.”
Willow turned his hand to catch the morning sunlight and see if she had cleaned it properly. Satisfied, she washed it with clean water again and held it still a moment for the morning air to dry it. She became very aware that it was Wylm’s hand she was holding. Wylm whom she had dreamed of, who was now telling of his heroic escape from the monstrous Crow King. “Go on,” she said.
“I left in such a flurry of panic. I packed blankets and skins, but forgot we needed water. When the rain started, the boy was cold and wouldn’t stop shivering, but at least we managed to collect enough water to drink.”
Willow glanced around, aware that she had stopped hearing Eni’s footfalls. He traveled well without his sight.
“I had to manage the sails with a wounded hand. The rope got away from me once in a stiff wind, pulling the wound open again. I thought it would never stop bleeding.”
“Hold still,” she said, unstopping the pot of lotion she had brought with her and slathering it on.
“I knew where you had gone. Eni’s father told me.”
“Eni’s father? But you said—”
“Yes, he told me everything before he died from a wound Bluebell herself inflicted in a jealous rage.”
Willow’s heart thudded to a stop. “What?”
“He told me…” His voice dropped, as though he was afraid somebody may be nearby listening. “He told me Bluebell had confessed to having poisoned her father on purpose because he was going to convert to the trimartyr faith.”
Willow couldn’t speak, as though her lungs were reluctant to draw in the air upon which the awful words hung.
“I’m sorry, Willow. I know you think highly of your sister.”
Did she think highly of Bluebell? She found her terrifying, unyielding, yet with an uncommon kindness toward Willow. There was nothing confusing or hidden about Bluebell, and Willow found it almost impossible to believe that she would kill her own lover and then try to kill her father, especially as she appeared to be going to great lengths to heal him.
Or appear to be trying to heal him. Who was to predict what heathens might do? She tried to make her heart hard.
Wylm continued his story. “I sailed that little boat for days down the west coast of Thyrsland, looking for landmarks. It is a desolate coast, Willow. Gray mud and the skeletons of trees. A journey through a dead place. But I brought the boat in at the mouth of a muddy river, the Gema River, two days’ journey north of here on foot.”
“You walked? In your condition?”
“I walked.” He nodded. “I walked with the boy. And I grew more and more ill. But I found you. At last.” He looked at the bandage. “And you have helped me.”
“You need to rest,” she said, reluctantly releasing his hand. She needed to get away, needed time to think through all he had told her.
“Thank you, Willow,” he said, and he looked uncertain though she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t understand men very well and she couldn’t read his expression.
At that moment, Eni came stumbling back through the trees crying with an open mouth. He was covered from knees to nose with thick mud.
Willow climbed to her feet quickly and grabbed him. He resisted her a moment, then allowed himself to be comforted. “What happened? Did you fall?”
Eni sobbed wordlessly, but the tears in his trousers and the scrapes on his palms told the story he couldn’t.
“The poor lad. He usually gets around so well for a blind boy,” Wylm said. “I will take him down to the stream later and—”
“No,” Willow said quickly. “Heath doesn’t know him. I will take him home with me and give him a warm bath and tend to his scrapes.” She could feel his ribs under her comforting hand. “And give him something to eat. You need to rest, and rest you shall. I will bring him back when I return with your evening meal.”
“But what will you tell Heath?”
“I will lie for the good of a hungry child,” she said, putting some steel in her voice.
Willow touched Eni lightly on the arm. “Eni,” she said, “would you like to come inside with me? I can make you some food.”
Eni swayed slightly. “Rabbit?” he said.
“That’s me,” Wylm told her. “That’s what he calls me. Rabbit needs to sleep. Rabbit is sick,” he said to the boy.
“After you’ve eaten and had a warm bath, we will come back and sit with Rabbit for a while,” Willow said. “All right?” She reached for his hand, and he let her take it and pull him to his feet.
Wylm was already turned on his side, eyes closed. “Sleep now,” he said. “I must sleep.”
“I’ll be back,” she said.
“I know,” he answered.
Eni dragged his feet across the road, so Willow used her warmest voice. “I know you don’t want to leave Rabbit, Eni, but I will make you some warm porridge and wash your clothes and clean up those scrapes.” She leaned closer and wrinkled her nose. “Yes, you are quite smelly. You can help me hang out your clothes on the lemon tree behind the house. It’s a lovely sunny day.” She remembered he couldn’t see, and couldn’t think of what else to say. But she did notice he had settled.
She opened the door, gears in her head turning over. Maava wouldn’t want her to lie if she didn’t have to, but neither could she tell Heath the truth. Wylm’s story about Bluebell didn’t fall outside the realm of possibility. Bluebell loved blood; everyone knew that. Somebody so enamored with death was out of tune with Maava’s love. And certainly, Bluebell more than anyone was invested in keeping the trimartyr faith out of Almissia. What wouldn’t she do to ensure that she became queen? Come to me, angels. Maava, send your emissaries. I need to know the right thing to do.
But no angels spoke, and when she looked at the dirty, skinny boy in front of her, she decided to choose the humane thing. She sat Eni at the hearth. Heath was nowhere to be seen, but he had started a fire before he headed out and oats were already cooking in a hanging pot. She stirred the pot, all the while studying Eni’s face. He looked nothing like Bluebell. The ring on his finger, her father’s insignia, was the only thing that suggested he might be related to her. She wasn’t sure what to think.
Willow bent next to him and began to untie his shirt. “Come on,” she said, “I’ll give you one of my father’s shirts.”
When Heath returned, Eni was sitting in one of the king’s shirts eating oats, skinny scabbed knees and shins emerging from the bottom, in a sunbeam near the back door. Willow was rubbing lye soap on his grubby clothes over a tub.
Heath paused, looking at Eni curiously. Willow’s pulse seemed thick in her throat.
“Willow?” he said, not turning from Eni. “Who is this boy?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I found him wandering in the woods this morning while I was out looking for mushrooms. He’s blind and simple and injured and lost.”
Heath knelt in front of Eni. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Rabbit,” Eni said.
“I don’t think he knows his name,” Willow answered, “but with your permission, I will walk to the village with him this afternoon and see if I can find his mother.”
Heath climbed to his feet once again. “Just be careful. Don’t tell anyone who you are or where you are staying.”
“Of course not.”
Heath was halfway over the threshold when she called him back.
“Heath?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think…Who do you think did…that…to the king?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it might have been somebody close to him?”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you?”
“I don’t know. Just like you. I don’t know.”
Then Heath was on his way, and Willow went back to scrubbing Eni’s clothes and listening for angel voices to tell her whom to trust.