If Willow had her way, she would never leave the chapel. The flashes, the sense that Maava was close, had grown more and more intense. All else faded away in her mind. She no longer yearned after angel voices; she no longer cared that she was in Blicstowe having ousted her heathen sister. Maava was coming, and she bent all her will towards dragging Him across the divide between her world and His. Sometimes with the power of her mind, sometimes with the power of her blood. Other times, with the blood of those who refused to take Maava as their saviour. She had grown very attached to the old bowerhouse, the scarred ground, the faint metallic smell of blood in the air.
But Hakon had other ideas about how she should spend her time.
‘You haven’t shown your face among the soldiers, among the citizens, for over a week,’ he complained. ‘Stop praying for a few hours and tend to your people.’
It was a splendid day, the kind Maava sent to remind His followers that He was magnificent. She was humming in her head as she approached the city square in her grey dress and with her hair tugged back severely under her scarf. She noticed a woman at the edge of the square, talking to a guard frantically. The guard, who could not speak the woman’s language, spread his hands and shook his head. Willow sized the woman up. She wore layers of bright colours and two strings of amber beads. She clearly came from one of the wealthier families.
Willow approached and the woman shrank back.
‘What is it?’ Willow asked her, in her own language.
‘My son is sick,’ the woman said, clearly terrified of Willow. ‘The healer who usually sees him has been taken to help in the infirmary today. But my son needs him. All the other healers are …’
The woman didn’t finish, but Willow knew what she meant. She had rounded up the healers and imprisoned them. So many of them were steeped too deeply in heathen magic. The only ones she had left, she had forced into work in the infirmary.
‘Your clothes are too bright,’ Willow told the woman. ‘Do not think you can rival Maava’s magnificence with them.’
‘I do not seek to,’ the woman said quickly. ‘I seek to celebrate His glory. Please, Queen Willow. My boy is fifteen and he has had fits all his life, and –’
Willow cut her off with a gesture. ‘Your clothes are too bright,’ she said again. Then, remembering that Maava had great mercy, she exercised great mercy herself. ‘I will go to the infirmary myself and find him and send him. What is your name?’
‘Briga. Thank you, my queen. Thank you.’
‘But first, remove those bright clothes.’
‘Remove …’
Willow snapped her fingers. ‘Here, take them all off.’ She reached for the front of the woman’s dress and began to unpin it. ‘We will burn all these, and you will wear something more fitting for a trimartyr pilgrim.’
‘My queen, I cannot go naked about the town.’ Her dress fell and pooled at her ankles, leaving a bright blue undershirt.
‘Take it off,’ Willow said. ‘And hand me those beads.’
A loose crowd of soldiers had gathered to watch and jeer, and Willow hated them for being so base. Her goal was not to shame the woman but teach her a lesson about Maava’s love. Still, she did not stop them as they hooted wildly when the woman lifted her shirt off, and handed it to Willow. She stood naked except for her shoes in the town square, and the cold air had made gooseflesh of her skin.
‘Will you send the healer now?’ the woman asked, through her tears, hands crossed over her body in a futile attempt to cover herself.
‘Don’t be so weak,’ Willow said. ‘Save your tears. Go home and wait.’ Willow waved dismissively and then handed the clothes and beads to the nearest guard. ‘Set fire to these right here. I expect to see a pile of ashes when I return.’
Willow turned away from them and made her way to the infirmary, which was located in the old barracks. She pushed open the door, letting light in. Eyes turned to her. The maimed who had no homes to go to, the ones who were still in the protracted process of dying, the ones who had fought off infection for weeks but were now finally succumbing to it. A skinny old dog slunk towards her, tail low and wagging.
Willow looked down as the dog sat at her feet. ‘What do you want?’ Then recognition stirred; this looked like one of Bluebell’s dogs.
‘Where did this dog come from?’ she demanded of Thorkel, the retired general who had retrained as the Crow King’s physician.
‘A stray, my queen,’ he said, leaving the bedside he was attending and pulling the dog away. ‘She’s very friendly and cheers up the injured.’
Willow narrowed her eyes. All war dogs looked the same to her; bred in the south, big and brown with heads like blocks. She lifted her eyes and looked around. ‘Is the heathen healer here?’
Thorkel called across the room to a fellow who stood as still as a stone, clearly terrified.
Willow switched to the Thyrslander language and called to him, ‘Briga’s son is having fits again. Go to her and make sure you attend to your trimartyr prayers.’ She held up a finger. ‘No more heathen nonsense.’
‘Yes, my queen,’ the healer said, and untied his apron. He slunk around her as though she were a spider.
Willow advanced into the room, and the dog padded off to curl up at the feet of a man rolling bandages by the fire.
Thorkel came to Willow’s side. ‘I had not expected to see you,’ he said.
‘Why would you?’ People always said such stupid things. If their minds were turned to Maava, they might make better conversation. She knelt at the side of a man with only one arm. ‘What happened?’
‘His arm was injured so badly we had to remove it,’ Thorkel explained. ‘He’s been battling an infection ever since.’
‘Have you prayed?’ she asked the injured man.
He nodded vigorously.
‘Not hard enough,’ she said, and bowed her head and turned her thoughts to Maava.
This one? she asked Him. Does he deserve to live? He has served my husband’s army, which took Blicstowe from my wretched family.
Maava’s voice did not bloom in her ears. Willow stood, a little sadly, and said, ‘I’m sorry. I tried. But I think you’re going to die.’
The man looked stricken and Thorkel clearly had an opinion that he wasn’t expressing, because his mouth turned down. He was wise enough to shut up though, and continued to lead her around the room. At length, they returned to the man that the dog had clearly chosen as her favourite.
‘And what is wrong with this man?’ she asked. The man wouldn’t look up at her. She couldn’t bear defiance. It was often a marker of secret heathen beliefs. She kicked his foot. ‘Hoy.’
‘He’s deaf, my queen,’ Thorkel said.
‘He’s not blind and I’m standing right in front of him. Ha, there. So you’ve decided to meet my eye, have you? He doesn’t have much of a sword arm, Thorkel.’
‘We believe he may be a steward, perhaps to a warrior who has died. He has cracked four of his ribs, but he helps me all he can. He is a good man.’
‘A deaf steward? Whoever heard of such a thing? He’s little use; perhaps he ought to have died so the warrior could live.’ She turned to the man again. ‘Do you accept Maava as your saviour?’ She found herself hoping he would say no. Defiant heathens deserved to be bled on the altar of Maava.
Thorkel intervened, made a triangle symbol with his fingers. The man nodded softly, calmly. Made the symbol too and mouthed the word Maava.
‘Well, then,’ she said, bending to pat the dog’s head. ‘I suppose you will find a way to be helpful to His cause. And you can communicate with him well enough, Thorkel? Does he have a name?’
‘I call him Helgi. He reminds me of my son.’
‘Oh, the one that died?’
Thorkel nodded.
Willow placed a hand on the old man’s arm. ‘Do not be sad. I know Helgi died before you took the trimartyr faith, but if you pray hard enough I’m sure Maava will fetch him out of the Blacklands and send him to the Sunlands. Keep faith. I will pray for you.’
‘Thank you, my queen,’ Thorkel said.
Willow had grown bored with all this talking. She wanted to get back to her chapel. She turned towards the door and as she did so, a voice – clear and ringing – in her mind said, They speak of Avaarni.
She snapped her head around and eyed Thorkel. ‘Did you say something?’
He looked at her puzzled. ‘I thanked you.’
‘Yes, yes, but after that.’ She didn’t stay to hear his answer, because she knew it had not been Thorkel who spoke. It had been Maava; that voice that had slid behind a veil had now become strong and clear. She began to run towards the chapel, but then her senses prickled and she pulled up. Voices, low laughing.
Behind the infirmary. In the gap between it and the wall that separated the houses of the wealthiest of Bluebell’s thanes, empty now, as families had fled on the night of the invasion or been put to the sword. This was where a number of Hakon’s highest ranked had chosen to make their homes, much to Willow’s distaste. This was where she could hear the voices. Quite clearly: Modolf and Ragnar, two of Hakon’s most trusted advisors.
‘… but she thinks she is seeking a boy, so it is no lie.’ This was Modolf. She could smell the strange citrus scent of the tobacco he smoked in his pipe.
They speak of Avaarni.
Willow crept silently towards the wall and listened.
‘She will kill you if she finds out,’ Ragnar said, laughing. It sounded as though he was enjoying a pipe too. She imagined them passing it between them, casually, as though they were not committing treason. ‘So you haven’t searched for the child at all?’
‘Why would I? Nobody in our nation is going to take a Thyrslander child as their leader; and no matter what our crazy queen thinks, girls don’t turn into boys.’
‘Does Hakon know?’
Willow’s skin prickled. Please say no, please say no. Without a king, she could not be a queen. Maava did not allow women to rule.
‘No, I wouldn’t put him in such danger. The bitch is so demented she’d probably cut him into bits, and she’s almost as dangerous as her sister. The Storm King’s seed must have shot out of him fully armed.’
Ragnar laughed. They continued in their smutty imaginings, calling Willow crazy and deluded and insinuating Hakon was weak for letting her become so powerful.
Deluded? When it was Maava’s voice who had led her to their treason? It was she who should be laughing.
She returned to her bowerhouse, to find Hakon half-dressed, running through sword drills.
‘Husband,’ she said, ‘could you have Modolf and Ragnar meet me in the chapel at noon?’
‘Why?’
‘I need to explain something to them.’
Hakon dropped his sword’s tip and shrugged. ‘As you wish.’
She came to stand in front of him and grasped him around his right wrist. He looked startled. They rarely touched.
‘Hakon,’ she said. ‘Do you believe Avaarni will come back to me, as a boy? To rule?’
He smiled crookedly. ‘Is that your greatest desire, my wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I believe it will be so, for you believed we could take Blicstowe and look.’ He lifted his free hand. ‘My greatest desire has been met. I have all faith in yours.’
She let him go and nodded once. ‘Then you must let me do what I must do.’
‘I always do.’
Willow headed to the chapel to pray, and to prepare to spill more blood.
Skalmir felt boneless after Willow left. He slumped over his knees, making Thrymm lick his face worriedly.
Thorkel patted his shoulder and said something in Is-hjartan, then let him be.
She was so like Bluebell. Her hair was mousier, she was not as tall and her face a different shape; but that gaze – hard, uncompromising – Skalmir had seen it a thousand times on the face of his wife. He liked to think that Bluebell’s hardness was tempered with kindness, loyalty. But this must be how she appeared to her enemies. A terrifying machine of death.
He raised his head, looked around the infirmary. What was there for him but to wait for Blicstowe to be liberated? Was he a coward? Should he creep into Willow’s bower and cut her throat? Should he smuggle himself out on a cart of the dead and find Bluebell? The walls seemed closer than they had before. Snowy had passed his days in the infirmary quietly, as though there wasn’t war and death outside.
Now, after meeting Willow, it felt closer than ever.
Modolf and Ragnar came unarmed and Willow made quick work of them. She had almost been disappointed that Ragnar hadn’t a weapon on him. She would have enjoyed a fight; a wound. Instead, the moment she had run Modolf through, Ragnar had scrambled for the door. A thrown knife in his back stopped him in his tracks. He fell to the ground and Willow grasped him by his ankles, dragged his struggling body back to the altar, and driven her sword directly through his heart. The blood that flowed out of him was dark, dark red. Almost black in the dim room. He and Modolf bled and bled, and the life left them as she told them how they had betrayed Maava, but she didn’t know if they heard. They made no sound nor motion.
Willow knelt in their blood and prayed.
I heard your voice. I know you are there.
An hour passed. Another. The blood grew sticky on her clasped hands. Over and over she called Him, and at length felt something gathering, as though the air was crystallising around her ears.
She lay on her stomach on the altar, face down in all the blood, her hands hanging on to the triangle Hakon had made for her. And she begged.
‘Maava, come to me. Come to me. Come to me.’ Her voice grew hoarse.
The air grew denser.
Her body began to prickle. Perspiration burst out of her pores and ran like rivers over her.
The atmosphere thickened, collecting around her eyes and her ears, pressing on them.
Then a huge crack, and the pressure released. Willow opened her eyes and looked up. She saw silver light, and her breath caught in her throat.
The light coalesced into vaguely human form. Her eyes bugged. ‘Maava?’
As she said His name, the human form resolved. At first she couldn’t make out His face; it was both familiar and handsome, and an unrecognisable blur of sharded light. But the more she focussed on the familiar face, the more clearly He took form. Until all the silver light dropped away and she found herself lying on the floor, soaked in blood, at the feet of a sweet-faced young man with dark hair and eyes. He reminded her a little of Wylm, Avaarni’s father, and a little of Æthlric, her own father. Even a little of Uncle Robert. As she thought about these resemblances, His hair and eye colour shivered and changed and resolved again, as though He was making His appearance up as He manifested.
‘My lord,’ she said.
Maava leaned down to grasp her hand, and His skin was oily like butter. She gripped hard and He pulled her to her feet, blood dripping off her hands. He smiled, and His face changed and shifted again. It grew more familiar now, more sure of itself.
‘Willow,’ He said. ‘Here I am.’