Ivy could hear the sea’s melancholy roar as she quietly closed the door to her bowerhouse behind her and stepped out into the night. Inside, in their warm bed, her boys slept on. If Hilla noticed Ivy leaving, she said nothing about it. She was a woman who knew when to keep her mouth shut.
The moon was bright, outlining the clouds. Ivy pulled her cloak closer against the cold and hurried across the garden and down toward the stables. Durwin was on duty tonight, so it was safe for her and Crispin to meet. A coin in the stableboy’s warm hand and he gave her his broad smile and slipped outside to wait in the cool night air.
Crispin was already inside, up high in the hayloft, waiting for her. Sconces burned on the walls, giving the space a warm glow. The smell of horses and hay, comforting and raw in her nostrils.
“He’s a good lad, is our Durwin,” Crispin said as she reached the top of the ladder and fell into his arms.
“Come here,” she said, fingers already at his belt.
Ivy had seen, too close for comfort, the misery an illegitimate child could cause a mother, a family, a kingdom. She and Crispin had their fun carefully but no less passionately. The cold outside was immediately forgotten in his warm embrace. As he unpinned the front of her dress, her fingers and lips traced over his broad shoulders and big arms, his hot skin, so different from Gunther’s withered limbs. With Crispin, she embraced life and youth, not age and death. She couldn’t be blamed for seeking him out again and again.
Nearly a year now. The longest she had ever chosen to stay with anyone. Of course it helped that he was captain of Gunther’s city guard, and was stationed right here in the duke’s compound at Seacaster.
Crispin’s lips were on her breast now, his thick dark curls under her fingertips. Slowly he ran a hand under her skirt, up her thigh, and then he began to massage that soft, hot place where all her pleasure seemed to condense and catch fire. Steady, steady, the pressure growing under his expert touch. Gasping, she arched her spine and he pinned her down hard against his hand, making sure she took every last drop of bliss.
By this stage he was so hard with desire that it took only a minute to pleasure him, too, and then they curled, half naked, around each other, nose-to-nose in the warm stable as the sea wind thundered over the roof.
“You are beautiful,” he said.
“I love being with you,” she sighed.
“Love won’t help us,” he said.
“I know.” Neither of them ever mentioned what would happen after Gunther died. Crispin had no suspicions that she was the cause of her husband’s illness, and she never spoke to him about how desperately she wanted to be free of her marriage. To mention Gunther was to ruin all the fun.
She wasn’t without guilt about her husband’s long illness. When she’d started, she’d only wanted to make him sick. She couldn’t remember now what small slight she’d wanted to punish, as it had been over a year ago. But then his illness had given her the space and freedom to imagine a future without him. Almost without meaning to, she had kept going, until his death was inevitable and she had grown used to the idea that she would cause it. Soldiers killed all the time; Bluebell had probably killed hundreds of men. That’s what families of kings did. Her one little killing—of an old man who had hardly any time left anyway—barely rated a mention.
“I have to go to Folkenham tomorrow,” Ivy said, fingers twining with Crispin’s. “King Wengest is remarrying, and Gunther cannot go.”
His thumb stroked her palm softly. “I shall miss you.”
“I wish you could come. Could we make some excuse why I might need the captain of the city guard to accompany me?”
“They’ll send you with some younger fellows. I will have to stay.”
“I won’t feel as safe without you.”
“You’re safe on the road between here and Folkenham,” he said, laughing. “It’s the busiest trade route in Thyrsland after the Giant Road.”
“I won’t feel as happy without you,” she said, with an exaggerated pout.
He kissed her bottom lip. “I saw your sister when she came yesterday.”
Bluebell had raced off that morning. “She’s ugly, isn’t she?”
“There’s no doubt she hasn’t your beauty, my love, but if you took away the scars, the broken nose, she would have been a handsome woman.”
“Her tits are made of iron,” Ivy said, stupidly jealous.
Crispin laughed loudly and then pinched her bottom and called her a naughty, silly thing, and they fell to kissing a little more. Then Crispin lay on his back and Ivy propped herself up on her elbow and took a piece of straw and drew soft patterns on his forehead and cheeks with it.
“I used to hate her, you know, in my youth,” she said.
“Your sister?”
“Bluebell. Yes. I hated all my sisters really. Except Ash. And Willow was tolerable before she found Maava and lost her mind.”
“There’s a lot to admire about a leader like Bluebell,” he said. “There isn’t a warrior in Thyrsland who is her equal, and we all know it and love her for it, and hate her for it with the same hearts.”
“I don’t hate her anymore,” Ivy said. “I see now that she simply does what she thinks is right for our kingdom. She said something to me just before she left…” Ivy trailed off, not wanting to talk about Gunther’s impending death openly.
“Go on.”
“When Gunther…”
He nodded, indicating he understood.
“She wants me to take control of Seacaster immediately. She says I have to secure it for the boys.”
Crispin considered this carefully. “It’s good advice. Your husband has a cousin south of Withing who might make a claim, and I can think of at least two of the thanes that come to every feast night who might think they can take charge because Gunther’s sons are so young.”
Ivy felt the first thrill of her potential power. “So I would simply say—”
“You are ruling in your sons’ names.”
“And to those who say women can’t rule?”
“Ivy,” he said, his eyes intense, his hand reaching up to touch her cheek. “You have me. And while you have me, you have control of the city guard.”
“And together we could have control of the most important harbor in Thyrsland.”
He dropped his hand, his eyes rounding as though he was momentarily afraid of his own ambition, just as she was of her own. Then she smiled at him, and they both laughed and kissed again.
“Who knows the future?” she said, lightly. “All I know is poor cold Durwin is going to be most unhappy if I don’t let him back inside soon.”
“Good night, my beauty,” Crispin said.
Ivy pulled her clothes together and descended the ladder while Crispin stayed to dress himself. Outside, she whispered a soft good night to Durwin, who smiled at her in his simple way and wished her a peaceful night’s sleep.
But Ivy had too much to dream about.
Every inn in Folkenham was full to overflowing with people who had come from all over Nettlechester in the hope of glimpsing the king and his new bride. This was all terribly inconvenient for Ivy, who’d had to take a room half a mile’s walk from Wengest’s hall and then carefully keep the hem of her new midnight-blue dress from becoming mud-spattered on the way across town to the celebration.
Wherever she went, she turned heads. Women admired her gown, and men admired her figure. But she found she didn’t take the pleasure in their interest she ordinarily would. What did it matter if a man passing on the street found her pretty? It was really only Crispin’s opinion she was interested in, and that thought sent her into smiling remembrances of their times together. She wondered, not for the first time, if she might be falling in love.
It was still broad daylight when she arrived and was ushered in. She answered many questions about Gunther’s health and feigned sad optimism to them all, finding she quite enjoyed the compliments about her courage and her kindness. As the hall filled and grew hot, she saw her father arrive with his full retinue and hurried over to bow to him and take his arm.
Her greeting died on her lips as a barrel-chested man of about forty approached, wiping mead from his beard and pointing an accusing finger at Athelrick.
“You have a thick hide, showing yourself here,” the man slurred. Obviously, he had already been partaking heavily of the celebratory mead.
Athelrick drew Ivy protectively close while his retinue closed around him, some reaching for their swords. But Athelrick waved them down with a calm hand. “No, no. It is a king’s business to hear how he has failed. Tell me, sir, what is it I have done to upset you?”
The barrel-chested man was taken aback by Athelrick’s calm demeanor. He stumbled over his words. “They say Blackstan has fallen to Hakon. They say his raiders have been in every quiet corner of Littledyke, moving southward. Will you do nothing? Will you sit on your hands while we fall victim to those fiends?”
“Our garrisons at Merkhinton and Harrow’s Fell are—”
“They go around the garrisons. In tiny bands or in their dragon-head ships. If they are in Littledyke, then Nettlechester and Tweening are in danger. Your realm is farthest from them. Will you sacrifice all of us before you act? You must raise an army with Nettlechester and you must go after them.”
“An army? For a small band of raiders?” Athelrick smiled blandly. Ivy could tell he thought the man a drunken fool. “Well, that is a good suggestion and I will talk to King Wengest about it. But for today, I think I shall let him marry in peace.”
“You are not—”
Athelrick gave a subtle nod to his second-in-command and stepped aside, drawing Ivy with him. His retinue blocked the drunken man’s access to him, and they slipped toward the tables.
“Is it true, Father?” Ivy said. “Are Hakon’s raiders on the move?” She thought about Seacaster, so far north in Nettlechester.
“It’s true that some men, with Hakon’s flag, killed Blackstan’s family. But they were easily dispatched by your sister and were few in number.”
His eyes flickered in a way that told her his calm words were at odds with an unquiet mind. She didn’t want to think about it, not today, so instead she said, “Sit by me, Father, for I haven’t a husband here and you haven’t a wife.”
“Soon Wengest will have two,” Athelrick said in a low, disdainful tone, but allowed himself to be led to one of the highest mead benches.
It was true that Wengest now had two wives, but the first—her sister, Rose—had been put aside after her infidelities had been revealed. Unfortunately, it had been Ivy who had revealed these infidelities, but she’d been very young and could surely be forgiven by now. She’d forgiven herself, at least. Though she had no idea if Rose ever would.
The chatter in the hall grew louder and the smells of cooking filled the thick air. Ivy talked gently with her father about nothing important: weather, travel, who brewed the best mead in Blickstow. She and her twin, Willow, had been raised apart from the rest of the family, on the warm south coast with their maternal uncle. Athelrick had always intimidated her, with his stature and his kingly gaze, but today he seemed mellow, happy to talk to her. And Ivy was happy, too: As Athelrick’s companion, she was seated near the front of the room, and not all the way at the back with the random cousins and half-remembered friends.
Finally, Wengest entered with his new bride, trailed by the portly preacher. Ivy stifled a laugh, then glanced at her father, who was doing the same. The new bride, a princess of Tweening named Marjory, was a pinch-browed girl no older than sixteen with a complexion so spotted her face glowed pink. Greasy strands of straight hair escaped her headscarf. Her dress—undyed wool as was the trimartyr fashion for weddings—hung on a body that looked as though it had been fashioned from ropes: skinny and boneless. Her hunched shoulders under Wengest’s strong hand told of her reluctance for this union.
“She’s no Rose,” Ivy said, close to Athelrick’s ear, and he had to suppress his laughter.
The ceremony was very boring and pious, as were most things to do with trimartyrs, and then the music started and the revels were on. Heat and noise, slabs of meat in thick gravies and plates piled high with turnips and carrots and bread pudding and flowing mead. Ivy’s stomach was bursting and her head was spinning, but she allowed herself to be carried along on the joyous atmosphere in the firelit room.
“Come along, Ivy,” Athelrick said as the evening grew dark outside the shutters. “Let us go and pay our respects to the new queen of Nettlechester.” The quirk at the corner of his mouth told her he took delight at the new wife being so inferior to Rose. She placed a hand on his arm and approached Wengest’s table with him.
She had managed to avoid Wengest since that awful day when she had exposed Rose’s infidelity, but with her father on her arm she wasn’t so afraid of him saying something cruel. Indeed, he seemed to be in quite a merry mood and welcomed them to his table, introducing his bride with a flourish.
“Queen Marjory of Nettlechester,” he said, “I present you to King Athelrick of Almissia and his daughter Ivy, who is also the Duchess of Seacaster.”
The girl stared at them sullenly and Wengest grew impatient with her. “Come along, Marjory. One doesn’t fulfill the duties of a queen with scowls. Smile, girl.” He poked her in the ribs and Marjory curled her lip so Ivy could see her teeth.
“How is Gunther?” Wengest asked, seeming to remember him for the first time.
“He is still unwell, but I hope for improvement soon. I will tell him you asked after him. I am sure it will cheer him, King Wengest.”
Now Wengest turned to Athelrick and said, “And how are all your other daughters, Athelrick?”
“All well,” Athelrick said cautiously. “Those that are accounted for.”
Wengest held his gaze a moment too long, and a challenge passed between them. Almissia and Nettlechester had traditionally been enemies, and perhaps would be again if they didn’t share blood now in the form of little Rowan. Ivy, frankly, had her doubts that Rowan was Wengest’s, but she seemed to be the only one who’d noticed. King Wengest was known as a man with a large heart and large passions. He loved his daughter and he had loved Rose. He didn’t love Marjory; that was clear enough.
“How is Princess Bluebell?” Marjory chimed in, with an expression of superiority and distaste on her face.
Ivy felt her father stiffen: Had his favorite daughter been insulted?
“Why, I saw her just recently,” Ivy answered smoothly and sweetly. “She looked very well, and very tall and very fierce as she always does. I’m sure she would have stayed but she had to race off at the request of a person named Snowy—though with a name like that, perhaps it was a horse.”
“Snowy?” Wengest asked urgently, his brows twitching.
Ivy felt that familiar sinking feeling. “You know Snowy?”
Wengest smiled to cover whatever he was feeling. “Your sister and I have many mutual acquaintances.”
Athelrick had grasped her arm. “Let’s return to our seats, Ivy,” he said.
They made their farewells and her father chastised her softly for talking about Bluebell’s business to Wengest, but he didn’t know who Snowy was, either, so perhaps it would all be fine.
And then, in the midst of the clatter and chatter, the door opened and a messenger stood there and Ivy knew—she knew—it was for her. One of the thanes hurried over to the messenger but Ivy was already standing up. The messenger and the thane conversed, she was duly pointed out, and the messenger approached with his head bowed.
“Yes?” she asked, and could barely hear her voice over the crowd.
Athelrick grasped her hand and squeezed it firmly.
“I am sorry, my lady. Your husband, Gunther, Duke of Seacaster, is dead.”
Wengest was making his way toward her through the crowd. Her head felt light. She fell back onto her seat and Athelrick caught her, and the thought crossed her mind that she was probably very convincing as a new young widow; nobody knew that her head spun because the weight of her actions had struck her with full force.
“Bring her some water!” This was Wengest, supporting her from behind, while she leaned unsteadily on her father.
“I will be…I will be fine,” she managed. “But I need to go home.”
“Of course, Ivy,” Wengest said. “Return to your boys.”
“At first light I will return to Seacaster,” she said, her voice growing stronger. And once there, she would advise Crispin to empty the chapels and form a standing guard around Gunther’s hall, while she took control of the city. The weight of what she had done must have its counterweight in what she did next.
Ivy hadn’t poisoned her husband for nothing.
More people came to visit Gunther dead than ever had alive. To Ivy, they seemed like wolves closing in, sniffing the breeze, searching for prey.
Gunther looked very old lying there, his white hair scant on the pillow, his bony body folded into a noble pose on the rich red fabric that had been laid across his bed. Elgith had dressed him while Ivy was on her way back from Folkenham, and he wore a deep-green tunic and breeches, bordered all around with gold thread. It seemed a waste to bury him in it, but Ivy had no desire to redress him. I will never see him naked again, she said clearly in her mind, and the thought cheered her immensely.
Though that brooch was certainly not going into the ground. Garnet and gold, two birds gripping each other. She knew he had it from his grandfather, and that it was his favorite piece. Maybe he had even told Elgith he wanted to be buried with it, but it was far too beautiful and precious to abandon in the mud. Ivy searched about quickly on his dresser, found a plain silver brooch instead, and swapped them over. She pinned the garnet-and-gold brooch inside her sleeve and straightened Gunther’s tunic. The door to his bower opened, and Ivy tensed. Who would it be this time?
She turned. His face was familiar; his name escaped her: a second cousin of Gunther’s who owned seven hides of land outside the city walls. He was round in the middle, gray at the temples, ambitious to his marrow.
“My dear Ivy,” he said, advancing, taking her hand. “My sorrow at the passing of my cousin is only exceeded by my pity for his widow.”
She offered a little smile. It was the third time today she had been oiled with false sympathy. “You are too kind, though forgive me. In my grief and distress I have forgotten your name.”
“Garrat, your departed husband’s second cousin. We met at your wedding and I was at both your sons’ devotions to Maava. What a shame the boys are not older and cannot take over from their father. A heavy responsibility, indeed. And yet Gunther’s family should retain the leadership of Seacaster. It is too important a town to entrust to…just anyone.” He fixed her with his dark gaze, and she tried to hide her open loathing for him.
“You’ll forgive me,” she said, turning away. “But such discussions…my husband is not yet in his grave. Decisions will be made in due course.”
“Of course, of course,” he muttered, but remained standing there behind her for a long minute before finally slipping out.
Ivy took a deep breath. All of them—not just Garrat but the other distant cousins, counselors, thanes, who had already come to offer their sympathy with hunger in their eyes—would soon know how little their words meant to her. If she was strong enough.
“You are strong enough,” she said out loud, softly. Then louder, “You are strong enough.”
The door opened again, and she knew by the smell of cheese and incense that it was the young preacher, Albus.
“It’s time, Ivy,” he said gently.
She stood aside, and a group of men walked in and picked up the pallet that Gunther lay upon. She followed them out into a blustery, sun-drenched afternoon. Hilla, the nurse, was outside with her boys, and Ivy took them by their little hands and began their solemn procession.
The people of Seacaster lined the streets. Some had bowed heads; some made jokes among themselves. Children fidgeted and made noise while their mothers shushed them, and Ivy was so proud of her boys—dressed so beautifully in yellow and blue—who seemed to understand the gravity of the occasion and stayed serious and silent the entire route.
The mighty city gates opened ahead of them, and Gunther was carried out of the city and down the earthworks, out toward the burial grounds of his ancestors. Albus had made no objections about the funeral adhering so close to the common faith. He’d said as long as he could pray to Maava, he didn’t mind if Gunther was buried in his ship as his father and grandfather had been. Gunther had always been a reluctant trimartyr, going along because of his loyalty to Wengest.
The large pit had been dug the day before, the ship already lowered into it, filled with pots and plates and weapons and armor. Somebody had strewn flowers into his grave and Ivy wondered if it had been Elgith and why she had loved Gunther, who seemed to Ivy a slightly foolish, perpetually irritated old man with nothing interesting to say.
They lined the edge of the grave as Gunther’s body was carried to its final resting place in the prow of the ship. Ivy surveyed those who had gathered. Her hair whipped across her face. From down in the harbor, she could hear the gulls calling. The city guard stood by on the other side of the pit, Crispin armed but helmless amid them. He didn’t meet her eye, and she was gripped by a powerful feeling of being lost, swamped by troubles too big for her.
“Why is Papa going in that ship?” Eadric asked in a clear, bell-like voice.
Ivy intended to crouch by him and hug him, but overbalanced and fell onto her bottom. A gasp ran through the crowd, and people rushed to help her, assuming she had collapsed. Ivy waved them away, crying, aware that she was playing the role of the heartbroken widow to perfection.