A Bright and Terrible Sword Read online

  I gazed at Charlotte as she lay at the very rear of the wagon, against the backboard. One of her plaits had come unfastened from around her head and it lay on the blanket, thick and shining coppery red. In sleep the pinched look left her face. I should not have spoken to her as I had. Her daughter may or may not have been a bastard; my son certainly would be unless I could reach Maggie and marry her. Charlotte clearly loved my father and had probably tried to comfort him for his loss, which was just what Maggie, in her acerbic way, had done for me after Cecilia’s death. How could revile Charlotte for her actions and yet treasure Maggie for hers? No, it was my father who deserved reviling, not this woman.

  When Kelif began to snore, perhaps lulled by sunshine or the motion of the wagon or sheer boredom, I touched Charlotte’s outflung hand. She woke instantly, gasping, and looked around for Rawnie. The wretched child still slept.

  I choked out, ‘I am sorry for what I said.’

  Her face lit up, with no trace of grudge-bearing. ‘That’s all right, Roger. I know Rawnie and I must be a shock to you. And I hope you will believe that Rawley—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

  ‘All right.’ Some of the light went from her face, but she continued to smile at me. When she sat up, the loose braid swung across her face. She groped among the blankets in the wagon bed, looking for the wooden hairpin to put her braid back in place.

  I said, ‘May I ask you some questions?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you know where they are taking us?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘I know almost nothing. Why were you and Rawnie captured? Is either of you …’ I glanced at Kelif, but he still snored. I kept my voice low. ‘Do you or Rawnie have talent for the soul arts?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I don’t know why these hisafs took us.’

  I could think of only one reason: their connection to my father. I still did not know how you keep a hisaf imprisoned in Galtryf, or anywhere else, when he could escape bodily to the Country of the Dead, unless my father were chained night and day to a half dozen of the Brotherhood as I was to Kelif.

  Charlotte gave up the hunt for her hairpin. She took down the other braid, unwound them both, and began to comb out her hair with the painted comb from her pack. I had to look away. Just so had Cecilia combed out her shining hair by a campfire, and Maggie in the taproom of our inn. In such a moment a woman looks intensely feminine, vulnerable, and desirable.

  ‘Roger,’ she said very low, ‘do you know where they’re taking us, and why?’

  All morning the wagons had been climbing increasingly steep hills. We were leaving, or had left, The Queendom for the higher terrain of the Unclaimed Lands. Presently, I knew, the landscape would become even wilder, dotted with ravines and cliffs, until it once more levelled off into high, peat-laden moor.

  ‘Roger?’

  ‘I think,’ I said, forcing the words past my suddenly tight throat, ‘that we are going to Soulvine Moor.’

  The wagons halted at noon for a midday meal. I could not eat, nor could Charlotte. Both of us knew what happened on Soulvine Moor; I had experienced it twice before. First Cecilia had died there. Then I had almost died, stretched out and bound on a flat rock while the drum sounded its deadly rhythm and the knife was held to my throat by the old man with green eyes. Only the dogs had saved me, the dogs and Tom Jenkins. Yet although I feared death as much as the next man, it wasn’t the thought of death that churned my stomach and tightened my throat. It was the sure knowledge of what the Soulviners would then do to my body. How they would use it in their obscene ritual, symbolically ‘drawing strength’ from their victims’ flesh in the land of the living, exactly as they did from their souls in the Country of the Dead. And would some hisaf of the Brotherhood then cross over to sit me in a circle, to watch as I was consumed by a spinning vortex of grey fog? And my chance at eternity lost for ever …

  Charlotte’s gaze met mine only once during that uneaten meal. Immediately she looked away. I knew that she could not bear to see mirrored in my eyes the knowledge I saw in hers. Instead she watched Rawnie, and for a moment I almost transcended my own fear in the greater one she must feel for her child.

  For my child was still safe. We were not headed towards Maggie at Tanwell, but in the opposite direction. The Brotherhood did not know about her, or my son. And when I was dead, they never would. Charlotte had no such consolation.

  And Rawnie no such fears. She was less obnoxious than usual, but not from fright. At first her behaviour made no sense to me, and then it did.

  As soon as we were unchained from the wagon for the noon halt, Leo reappeared. Evidently he was still in charge of Charlotte and her daughter, and evidently he still did not relish the task. Probably he expected more kicks, more insults, more noisy resistance. He underestimated Rawnie. So did I.

  She must have remembered what I said to her at breakfast: ‘If you’d really wanted Leo to let you stay unchained, you shouldn’t have called him a “stinking evil hisaf”. That’s hardly the way to get people to help you.’ As soon as he freed her ankle from its long chain, she smiled at him.

  ‘Thank you, Leo.’

  He started in surprise.

  The four of us, stiff from sitting in the jolting wagon, climbed down and were led to the woods to relieve our bladders. Since there were no women to attend Charlotte, Leo must do it. The scowl stayed on his face; probably he didn’t like turning his back on Rawnie, but Straik had ordered that she and Charlotte be treated with all possible respect. However, before they entered a thick grove of trees, Rawnie laid a hand on Leo’s arm. They were close enough that I heard what she said.

  ‘I’m sorry I was so difficult last night and today, Leo. It’s just that I was scared. I’ve never been away from home before, not like you, and I don’t know how to be brave.’ A pathetic smile. ‘You’ve been all over, I know, so it’s different with you, because you’re an actor. When Mama told me, I couldn’t hardly believe it. An actor! You must have done such wonderful things!’

  Charlotte stared at her daughter with disbelief, Leo with suspicion. Rawnie disappeared modestly behind the trees.

  She returned before her mother did, walked up to Leo, and clasped her hands before her beseechingly. ‘Can I make a bargain with you? If I am really, really good all the rest of the day, would you do some acting for me when we stop tonight? Not a lot – I know somebody like me can’t expect somebody like you to give a free play – but just a tiny bit of one scene?’

  ‘No,’ Leo said.

  She lowered her head and whispered, ‘I understand. Great actors don’t do acting for free.’ Her whole small body reflected penance and disappointment.

  ‘No, they don’t,’ Leo said. But he stood a little taller and a smile lurked at the corners of his mouth.

  Suddenly Rawnie brightened. ‘But I can pay you! I have two pennies all my own!’

  He smiled. ‘Two whole pennies? Really? Such a fortune!’

  ‘I know you probably get hundreds of silvers for acting, even gold pieces!’

  ‘Well … yes.’ He was, not unexpectedly, a convincing liar. ‘But do you really promise to cause no trouble at all? None?’

  ‘None!’ She was transfigured; light shone from her face; she rose on her toes with excitement; she almost levitated. ‘Oh, Leo, would you?’

  ‘I make no promises,’ Leo said loftily. Charlotte returned and we were once more loaded into the wagon. Rawnie held out her foot for the chain. She looked at Leo as if he were a prince, a hero, a god.

  Once he had gone and the wagons and men had resumed their march south, Rawnie glared at me. ‘What are you staring at, Roger?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. In truth, I was comparing her to my other half-sister, Katharine, whom I had murdered. Katharine had been mad, and she had been used by the Brotherhood for their own ends. She had killed people. Rawnie had been loved and sheltered all her life, and she was clearly not mad. She was in complete control of her devious s
elf. But she seemed just as unpredictable. I didn’t like her, I felt no kinship with her, but neither could I stand the thought of what awaited her on Soulvine Moor.

  Late in the afternoon we halted on a rise above a poor, hardscrabble farm in the Unclaimed Lands. Usually in such wild terrain the farms were far apart, but this one had several ramshackle dwellings and a larger-than-usual goat shed. Peering over the high side of the wagon, a movement which strained the short chain between Kelif’s wrist and mine, I saw figures far below. A woman raised her face to us, then scurried into one of the huts. Two more women carried a bucket of water from a mountain stream. Children dashed around, chasing each other.

  Straik and two of his men went down the hill, returning later with their arms full of bundles and leading two goats. Food, I guessed, bought from whatever meagre supply the farm had, in return for coins rarely seen here. Straik strode to the wagon, followed by Leo. Straik said to Kelif, ‘Watch him well.’

  Kelif’s sleepy eyes opened wide. ‘Be ye—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘The men are all gone on a long hunt. And this circle is ready. Leo—’

  Leo said, ‘I want to go with you.’

  ‘No. Your job is the wife and daughter.’

  ‘It is my right. I would be in command here but for your—’

  ‘No,’ Straik said. He started down the hill towards the farm, followed by every man except Leo and Kelif. Leo scowled fiercely. Rawnie made a movement towards him, studied his face, and subsided into her corner. No flattery would work just now. My stomach tightened until it felt a hard stone.

  ‘This circle is ready.’ I knew of only one kind of circle Straik could have been referring to, and it did not exist in the land of the living.

  The Brotherhood reached the farm. I rose to my knees to watch over the wagon side. Kelif rose with me, which somehow frightened me even more.

  One of the men grabbed the first woman he reached. She screamed, which brought Rawnie upright. I said sharply to Charlotte, ‘Don’t let her watch!’ Charlotte grabbed for her daughter, but it was Leo who shoved her back into the corner and kept her there.

  The hisaf bound the woman’s hands behind her and carried her to the closest hut. The other men did the same, catching and carrying women and children into the same hut. I heard one woman shout ‘Run!’ and two older children vanished into the woods. The men did not chase them. Screaming continued to come from the hut, so at least the men were not slaughtering their captives. Instead they methodically carried something from that hut, from all the huts. At first I thought they were stealing more supplies, but the bundles were not food.

  They were infants.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Rawnie cried. ‘Let me up!’

  ‘If you move,’ Leo said, ‘I will hit you.’

  ‘I don’t care!’ Rawnie said.

  Scuffling behind me, but then Charlotte’s voice shrilled high-pitched with fear. ‘If you don’t stay still, you know what I shall do!’

  No more scuffling. The men below had imprisoned everyone in the hut. In the area between huts, worn to bare earth by many feet over much time, they carried six infants. The babes’ wails sounded thin and high on the errant breeze. Straik and two others vanished.

  I knew where they had gone. No matter the punishment from Kelif, I bit my tongue and crossed over.

  Darkness—

  Cold—

  Dirt choking my mouth—

  Worms in my eyes—

  Earth imprisoning my fleshless arms and legs—

  Kelif and I stood in the Country of the Dead. Huts, goat shed, screaming women had all been left behind. In the dell, under the unvarying dim light of this side, sat a circle of the Dead. Beyond them the fog was thick as soup, although the air surrounding the circle was clear. Each of the unliving heads was obscured by more thick, vibrating grey fog, and in the centre of the circle spun a humming vortex. Faster, faster …

  Three hisafs appeared, each with an infant on either arm. I could barely glimpse them through the fog. Then a clap of noise like thunder, light brighter than the sun, and the Dead vanished, sucked into the vortex.

  That was all I had time to see. Kelif gave a great bellow, seized me, and we were again back in that terrible place between countries, that eternal grave. This time it seemed to go on for ever, although probably that was only my own horror. Then we were back in the wagon, peering over the side. A moment later the hisafs reappeared, infants still in their arms. The babes’ cries had ceased. The hisafs laid them, inert and tranquil, in a circle on the ground.

  Kelif cuffed me on the side of the head and I staggered against the side of the wagon, unable to fall because of the chain between us. The blow hurt, but not as much as what I had just seen.

  So it was true, what Mother Chilton had told me so long ago. ‘Don’t you understand? Life and death are both part of the web of being, and both have power. When power is made to flow unnaturally from death back to life, as Soulvine Moor is doing, there must also be a flow in the opposite direction. Or else the whole web will become more and more disturbed, until it is destroyed. There are terrible times coming, more terrible than you can imagine.’

  That time was here. I had just seen it. Soulvine Moor had sucked the power of the eternal Dead into themselves, to use in their quest to live for ever. They had thereby robbed eternity from the Dead in that circle. To balance their theft, they had taken life from the infants, putting the babes into the unchanging, quiescent trance of the Dead. That was why the Country of the Dead had not been disturbed into storms and quakes, as it had when I had brought back the Blue army. Soulvine was preserving the balance in the web of being, so they could go on plundering it for their own gain. ‘Everything has a cost,’ Mother Chilton had said, but she had not said the most monstrous part. Sometimes the cost is paid by the innocent.

  Which did not include me. If I had not meddled with death, if I had not brought back Bat and Cecilia and the Blue army, if I had not carried Tom and Jee and the princess across the grave – then would any of this even be possible? Mother Chilton had told me that the war with Soulvine Moor began even before I was born – but how much had I advanced it?

  All those infants, neither dead nor alive … all those grieving parents …

  Behind me Charlotte said tremulously, ‘Roger?’

  Kelif growled, ‘Get back down, ye.’

  Leo said anxiously, as well as with rage that she was a cause for anxiety, ‘Rawnie, I would not really hit you.’ Which meant, Don’t tell Straik I threatened to do so!

  Rawnie said in her new, warm, lying tone towards Leo, ‘That’s all right. I’m sorry.’

  I was back in the world of captives, of complicated politics, of solid wagon and hard-edged trees, of clear unfogged summer air. But I had seen what Soulvine Moor was doing. My father’s hisafs and the web women – whatever they were doing to stop Soulvine Moor was not, apparently, succeeding. I did not see how it could. Life and death, both, were under siege.

  I sank down against the side of the wagon, turned my face to the rough wood, and spoke to no one for the rest of the day.

  9

  It was twilight before we halted for the night. Probably Straik wanted to put as much distance as possible between the Brotherhood and the farm plundered of its babies’ life force. The first stars had already appeared. A half moon rose, buttery yellow. The horses had been labouring all day as they climbed uphill and now they stood, panting and covered with foam, as men rubbed them down and watered them. Leafy trees had given way almost entirely to tall pines and then to more scrubby ones, and I knew we were nearing the end of the Unclaimed Lands and the beginning of Soulvine Moor.

  Straik and his men, including Leo, were in a jubilant mood. They built cooking fires. They bathed naked in a frigid mountain stream, shouting and laughing, men who acted as if victory were close at hand. In contrast, Charlotte and I barely spoke nor moved, avoiding each other’s eyes. Charlotte sat by the fire with her head d
own and her hands clasped tightly together. She seemed frozen with fear.

  Not so Rawnie. She concentrated on Leo, watching him so intently that my gaze, too, was drawn to him, and I saw things I had not noticed before. His swagger and self-importance I had set down to an actor’s confidence, but now I saw that some of the other men – not all, but some – deferred to him as well. They listened as he talked and laughed. The talk was light: of women, of inns in The Queendom, of ale and wine. But Leo was listened to, and when he interrupted another’s speech, the other man instantly fell quiet.

  I remembered what Leo had said to Straik: ‘I would be in command here but for your–’ Your what?

  Straik said, ‘Leo, give us a song.’

  ‘Perhaps later.’

  ‘Now,’ Straik said, and it was an unmistakable order.

  The two men locked gazes, and it was Leo who looked away first. Sulkily, all laughter gone, he unwrapped his instrument. His head bent over it as he sang, so that I could not see his face.

  Although you to the hills do flee,

  My love you can’t escape.

  Your heart, my sweet, belongs to me

  Though you may change its shape.

  Never, never will I cease

  To follow where you go,

  And ever, ever will I be

  The hound upon your doe.

  Do what you will and what you can,

  Employ the arts you know—

  Ever, ever will I be

  The hound upon your doe.

  His voice was as clear and strong as when he’d sung the song to me, and the words as chilling. But when Leo raised his head, it was not me he stared at but Straik, and the look was a challenge.

  Straik laughed. ‘A pleasant enough tune. If we fail in this war, you can always earn your living singing for pennies in alehouses.’

  Leo flushed. ‘I’m no alehouse singer. I was an actor.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you were very fine,’ Straik said jeeringly. ‘For now, you’d best escort Mistress Rawnie to the woods again. She is squirming.’