Fire & Water
Ashe: Book Two
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TBCChapter Four
Ashe had side-stepped composed, and gone directly to nuts. She had no awareness of the fever that had taken an immediate and inexorable hold on her. Close to happy – the fever had made her a little delirious – she made her way along the flattish base of the valley in the general direction of the temple that she had seen before. For no reason she could explain, the temple had become the sole object and intention of her travels. Once there – just touching the wall like a child playing tag – she would be free to turn around and head back to Betany.
Ashe had forgotten the injury that had led to Gowdie’s absence. It is possible that she had even forgotten setting out on her travels in Gowdie’s company. In the first hours of isolation, Ashe’s thoughts had continued to worry at the issue of Gowdie’s attack on her. Gowdie might have said – and had said, repeatedly, and as she apologised – that Ashe had not been in real danger, but Ashe knew better. She had seen the fierce glow in Gowdie’s eyes: had it not been for a burst of supreme self-control on Gowdie’s part, the next injury wouldn’t have been so comparatively minor: a second bite and Ashe wouldn’t have been bleeding, she would have been dead. Almost a day on from the conversation and Gowdie’s leaving, Ashe could not even recollect how she’d hurt her hand.
*******
Ardan woke early and sat bolt upright in bed as the memories of the previous night came flooding back. Rhea, on the broad bed across the room, slept on peacefully. It was evident that no spectres haunted her dreams. Ardan threw back the blankets and went out into the morning to assure herself that the world as she knew it was still in existence, and that the thing from the previous night’s excursion had not caused the sun to be blotted out.
The sun was still shining. It shone on Ardan and eased her mood a little. It shone on Alexis, who was under armed guard and approaching Caer Arianrhod. It touched Laure’s face, as she stumbled about the remains of the palace, her skirts dragging in the dust. It shone on Gowdie as she made her way along the well-beaten road that led up to the city and the castle. It shone on Betany’s face as she stood at her window, looking out and wondering where Ashe might be.
It shone on me, too, but that was hardly surprising. I smiled and let it go on shining.
********
Looking back on the occasion, some time later, Betany wondered why she had bothered to read Alexis’s scroll, let alone respond to it. Gowdie would have been enraged at the action, and Ashe might have looked cold and stunned, but Betany had gone ahead and ordered that Alexis should be brought to Caer Arianrhod.
Now the prisoner stood just inside the main hall of the castle, and there were guards at the heavy doors, inside and out. Betany regarded her guest. She would try to be fair, and to make her tone as gracious as she could. This was a woman whose partner had just died. The Gods knew, Betany was never going to mourn Calypso, but the woman before her now would. I know how I would feel if Ashe had died... That thought she would use to structure her treatment of Alexis. She signalled to her to approach.
The travelling chains that constrained Alexis were not heavy nor cumbersome, but they were intricate and extremely strong: they allowed not the slightest chance of breaking free. Betany, keen to get the interview over and done with said, “Alright, Captain.” She was willing to allow Alexis her former rank in Calypso’s army. “In accordance with your missive – which was couched in the terms of a demand rather than a request - I have had you brought here. Now get on with it: why did you have to see me?”
Alexis stood up straight and as proud as she could manage as she faced Betany. Gods, but it was hard to stand in a situation of inferiority before the leader of Caer Arianrhod. It might be wholly necessary but oh, Gods, it rankled. It burned. She said, “I’m sorry about the phrasing.” Betany waited patiently. Alexis said, “I suppose this must look like a trick but it isn’t one. You already know that Calypso is dead. What you may not know is that she and I had a connection that allowed for some feelings and thoughts to pass between us. This being the case, I knew that she was dead the moment that she died and I know that she didn’t die naturally. Oh, she wasn’t well, of course: Ashe saw to that.” She glanced up at Betany then and saw just how thin was the ice on which she was skating. She dropped the issue of Ashe and said, “Even then Calypso should have lived on for years. But some one, or some thing, got between her and her chance to see old age. Whatever did that is either connected to or in possession of a greater power than I have ever known. It’s a power that I can feel growing. It is a power of a sort I have neither known nor imagined and to be entirely honest,” looking directly into Betany’s dark eyes, “it is a power that frightens me.”
Betany frowned and thought for an instant. It was part of her role to rationalise any view put to her, no matter how odd it might sound, and because she distrusted Alexis she went out of her way to listen properly. Understanding burst through. She said, “You want to form an alliance with Caer Arianrhod, don’t you? That’s the reason for your message.”
“Thank you, Betany. I wasn’t sure how I would communicate my intentions and you’ve saved me the trouble. Yes. An alliance. An alliance formed out of necessity. Betany, you have to understand how I feel about Mercia: I was born there and my family dates back twenty generations. Gods, we’ve been there longer than the reigning family. It was my family that first began the walls that surround the city, and it’s the city’s blood that flows through my veins, or I flow through its. I feel that strongly about the place and yet I am telling you that suddenly I want only to get as far away from it as possible. Fuck it, how can I put it more clearly? How about this: my lover’s ashes will be scattered there and I still never want to go back there. The sense of growing wrongness is that strong. If you ask me to go back or die, well then Betany, I’ll opt for death.”
It might be a trick but Betany didn’t believe that it was. Perhaps Alexis had known what would be her best mode of attack: Betany’s passion for Caer Arianrhod was one of her defining features. She said, “An alliance.” Then she smiled.
Alexis said, “I thought that I might make you laugh at the idea, but I also knew that you would at least listen to me.”
Betany said, “You must forgive this question: is all this part of your reaction to Calypso’s death? Some kind of bizarre displacement activity?”
Alexis shook her head. “I haven’t even begun to mourn for Calypso,” she said, and something in her voice rang true. “When I can, and when I start, believe you me, my grief is going to tear me apart. I can’t grieve now because I don’t understand what is happening. I’m a soldier like you, Betany. There are times when no matter how passionately one feels, that sensation must bow down before the altar stone of the current situation. When this is over – if it ever does finish – I will mourn for Calypso. But my loss isn’t what’s at issue here, even if I knew she was dead the very moment she stopped breathing. I know that massive changes in Mercia are only a matter of time away. I am suggesting that we join forces, because whatever this is, it won’t be contented with eating Mercia: it’s after the whole fucking world.”
Betany watched her, curious and a little worried. She thought: Alexis seems to be massively changed. But isn’t that the least one would expect? The Gods know, if I lost Ashe, I’d metamorphose. “Was Calypso the first victim of the force that’s going to eat Mercia?” Her voice was entirely without irony.
“I think it’s possible. I don’t know. I was aware of the change before Calypso died; it wasn’t her death that set it loose on Mercia but it might have been her dying that did. Things are going to get very bad. I’d like to survive them and I want my lover’s death avenged. Ashe hurt her but she didn’t kill her. Calypso should still be here. It isn’t right that she’s dead, and now things are just going to get worse and worse. I know that. I just hope I can convince you.”
“Do you think that you can do anything to stop this happening?”
“I don’t know. No. Alone I can’t do a fucking thing. Whatever it is will just bat me out the way and eat me. Allianced with Caer Arianrhod, allianced with you, maybe there is something that I can do.”
“You think that I should welcome you in here and give you the freedom of the city? Alexis, I can’t see myself doing that. I still don’t exactly trust you. There’s no earthly reason why I should. Among other things, you killed Ashe.”
A heavy silence fell. Alexis looked at Betany. Yes, she had killed Ashe. Of course, the world being the fucked-over site that it was, somehow Ashe had come back to life. Come back to life and kicked the shit out of her and more or less crippled Calypso. Betany was right: there was not the slightest reason in the world for her to trust Alexis in any way. She took a deep breath and a last shot at persuasion. She said, “Oh, Gods, woman! I know full well what I did. And I’m not asking you to welcome me, let alone give me the freedom of the city, nice as that would be. What I’m asking is that you take me on as an advisor to you during the next few months. I don’t know how you’d account for me; and if it makes matters easier, I’ll spend all the time from now until you need me – because you will need me – in a fucking cell. I won’t fight, I won’t corrupt and I won’t try to get away. I will be able to help you, Betany, I know that, even if I can’t persuade you to believe it. But before you give in to your innermost desires, and have kicked out or killed, know this: if Ashe was here, I know that she’d accept my support.”
Betany did laugh then. Laughed out loud. “You can’t be serious. You honestly think that Ashe would support you in this crazy notion?” The door to the hall was opening but Betany paid it no attention; she was too busy staring at Alexis.
“Ashe would want you to ally with Alexis.”
The voice came from a little way off. It sounded sad and serious. Betany broke off and stared at the broad-shouldered figure who approached.
In human form, coated with mud, clothes torn, deep scratches showing on hands and face – and all other exposed flesh – with grimly-serious expression and the tracks of old tears weaving patterns through the muck on her face, Gowdie walked slowly toward the other two.
As she reached the steps that led up to Betany’s chair, she dropped to her knees and bent her head. She only raised her gaze to meet Betany’s when the leader of Caer Arianrhod came down to her, put a gentle hand beneath her sister’s chin and tilted it. “Gowdie?”
The next word was almost out when Alexis’s cool tones cut across the moment. It was a relief to be so distracted, even if Gowdie was supporting her. “Gowdie, have you… eaten Ashe? It rather looks as though you have.”
Betany stared from one to the other. Gowdie’s head had dropped forward again. Her voice when it came was gruff and uneven. “Sister, I beg your pardon.”
Oh, no… Betany stared at her sister. She knew that Gowdie and Ashe hadn’t always gotten along so well: it had been a calculated risk, sending them off together, but surely things couldn’t have reached that pitch? Her voice as steady as she could make it, Betany said, “My pardon? What… What has happened? Gowdie, where is Ashe? Is she alright?”
Alexis looked at them both and thought for a moment. Then she smiled faintly and nodded with satisfaction. “She attacked Ashe, at any rate.”
“Attacked Ashe?” Even repeated the words remained meaningless.
“I don’t know what happened.” Gowdie’s face was ashen. “It’s never happened before. Never in my whole life! And I wasn’t even angry. Hardly even cross!”
“Gowdie, get up. Please. Get up.
“No.” There was no way that Gowdie was ever standing again until she knew herself to be pardoned. Either Betany forgave her or there was nothing left to live for. “Ashe told me to come to you. I wanted to… hang myself. I… tried…” Nothing was going to drag from her further details on that. She said, the words coming clumsily: “Ashe stopped me. She said that she forgave me but that I must come back to you. She said that you would need me. Ashe wanted me to warn you, too. She said… she said that if I had no control over what happened, then… what I did, any karg could do. She said that I must tell you that.”
Betany stared at her. In her mind there rose up the terrifying image of half the population of Caer Arianrhod falling upon the other half and devouring it. She felt sick.
“Ashe said that you would understand, that a message would reach you.”
Betany looked at Alexis. Alexis said, “My cue, I think. I think that on this occasion I’m Ashe’s message. But don’t hold me responsible for this. I did try to warn you.”
“You weren’t exactly clear about what the risk was.”
“Because I didn’t know for sure! I could only suspect, and explain to you what little I’d felt. Besides, Betany, even if I had known about this, would you have believed me if I told you that your sister’s race had suddenly become a monumental risk to its own country?”
Betany drew a deep breath. Her voice colder than Gowdie had ever heard or Alexis could ever have imagined, she looked again at Gowdie and said, “Is Ashe… alright? What did you… ?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
A long silence. Betany felt hatred like a cold stream passing over her. She thought: she’s my sister and I love her. But if she has killed Ashe I will do the same to her.
Gowdie was looking down again. She spat out the words as if they were poisoned. “I… bit… her… She wouldn’t let me see how bad the damage was. Betany, she wouldn’t keep me by her. I didn’t want to leave her. She said that I must come back to you.”
Alexis had kept quiet by a real effort, and now her thoughts came rushing out. “She wouldn’t keep you by her? Gods, I’m surprised she let you live. What do you have to do to get Ashe to lose her temper these days? Set fire to her? Hit her on the head with a rock?” She laughed contemptuously. “And she thought that your sister would want your help? Gods! Your help? We might as well all spear ourselves in the foot in that eventuality. What are you going to do to help the country other than reducing the risk of overcrowding by eating half its population? I can’t quite see how that’s going to be a positive contribution.”
Gowdie growled then. The growl was pure karg and it froze Alexis’s grin, and it made Betany’s blood chill. Gowdie stood up, biting the growl in half and turning a furious but desperate and still fairly human face toward her sister. “Lock me up, Betany.” She looked shocked and exhausted. “Just put me in a fucking cell.”
Alexis had recovered her savoir faire. She said, “This gets better and better. Next time, advertise. We’d make a killing on tickets.”
Gowdie flew at her. Betany was aware of action so fast it blurred. The space between them was as nothing, and in a single movement Gowdie had Alexis down on the ground, Alexis’s head banging painfully against the wooden floor, the breath knocked clean out of her lungs. Gowdie’s teeth were ripping through the heavy material of Alexis’s cloak and she was only a layer or so away from Alexis’s throat. She shook Alexis like a terrier with a rat, and it took the two guards that came running at an order from Betany to haul Gowdie off Alexis and hold her, struggling and snarling even as she remained human. In those short minutes Betany accepted the inevitable. She said to the guards, “Take Gowdie to the cells.” Hard to believe the words she was speaking. “And… chain her, please.” She watched in horror and disbelief as her sister was unceremoniously dragged from the room.
Alexis got cautiously to her feet and gently felt the back of her head. All traces of amusement gone she said, slowly, “Gods… I can’t believe it.”
“No?” Betany had to fight to keep her voice from trembling. She returned to her seat just in time: her legs were unsteady and her heart was pounding. Unseen by Alexis, the two soldiers who had replaced the guard and her sister, Betany pressed a reassuring hand on her stomach, just beneath her slightly swollen breasts. She had regained her poise. “I believe it. I just can’t…accept it.” She thought of Ashe and for a moment she shut her eyes.
*******
The party of apprentices, wearing heavy cloaks and carrying even heavier packs, en route through the deep snow to the Word of the Red Temple, had stopped to gather breath and brew saffron tea when Ashe came out of the trees and almost fell over them. She had not known of their presence, and they were equally shocked by her arrival. They reacted – some of them – with a show of rather clumsy aggression. It was only their leader who did not put a hand to the hilt of her sword. The two archers of the party had each set an arrow to their bow string.
A potentially difficult situation was simplified by Ashe’s passing out. Her blood was too hot and moving too fast, and she’d been virtually running through the snow. Ashe didn’t even know how quickly she had been moving: she would have assumed a slight stroll, if anyone had asked her.
Hero ran forward. She put a hand to Ashe’s throat and felt the fury of the pulse beneath her fingers there. She unwrapped the now filthy bandage wrapped around Ashe’s wounded hand and examined the wound. The infection was evident. Hero frowned and addressed the situation with her usual decision: in a matter of moment some of the water heated for saffron tea was instead being applied to Ashe’s hand, and a fresh dressing. The apprentices had been stirred into positive action. Two of them prepared a rough bed on which to lay Ashe, while the others gathered more wood for the fire, descending to the lower slopes in order to do so. Hero kept two of the apprentices with her – Fallon because her nursing skills were excellent, and Coll, because her nursing skills were abysmal – in order to use one and hopefully to educate the other.
Ashe regained her wits while preparations were sill underway. Fallon smiled kindly at her, but Coll regarded Ashe as one might a rabid karg. Hero, for her own part, addressed Ashe cheerfully and gently. “This will help, but you will need some work done on that. A bite, was it? Well, we are on our way to hear the Word of the Red Temple.” Ashe stared at her. “Come with us. They will be able to help you there. They are skilled in all the arts, medicine especially. They will be able to help you.”
Coll, eyeing Ashe with doubt that bordered on paranoia, laid a dressing, fresh from the boiling water, across Ashe’s palm. Ashe drew in her breath in a single, frenzied gasp and Hero smacked Coll sharply round the head, knocking her down.
“Next time I’ll put a boiling dressing on you, Coll, and we’ll see how you like it.” She looked at Ashe and said, “I am very sorry. Coll has a large void in her life where her manners should be. That will never happen again.”
Coll picked herself up, and dusted herself down. Fallon watched her. She knew very well that Coll did not take kindly to reproofs of any sort. Things had not been good between Hero and Coll since the trek had first begun, and although so far no apprentice had ever been rejected before even reaching the gates, Fallon thought that her friend might be the first. That would represent a huge social embarrassment for her family. Had Hero not been so very much taller and broader than the girl, Fallon had half-expected her friend to take a swing at her. She tried by means of eyebrow-raising and serious frowns to convey to Coll her concerns and succeeded only in making Ashe smile. Coll only threw her one of her finest, “what the fuck are you on about?” looks.
Fallon had returned to the primary reason for the group’s stopping, and was brewing saffron tea. She poured some into a cup and then, with Hero’s nodded approval, added a dash of red powder and stirred the mixture vigorously. She then dropped into the dark liquid three perle seeds. They had good restorative powers, even if the brandy they made was illegal in Plethe as well as Lascar. This last ingredient Hero missed. Fallon let the mixture cool for a moment before presenting the cup to Ashe.
Ashe sipped the liquid warily, found it good and drained the cup. It felt to her as if the liquid warmth ran through her mind as it did her body. A wave of clarity and explanation spread through her and she thought: Gowdie. Ashe watched as Fallon made a very effective job wrapping up the bitten hand and then strapping the injured hand to the opposite shoulder. “To slow the flow of the poisoned blood,” she told Ashe, rather proudly.
Hero came up to them to assess Fallon’s work and then approve it. “You did that very well.” Fallon blushed. Hero looked at Ashe. “Fallon you know, and Coll too.” She looked enquiring at Ashe. She had no intimation of who Ashe was: Hero might be one of the youngest medicine-workers known to Plethe, but her powers of insight were unimpressive.
Ashe smiled politely and gave her name. It seemed to ring no chord in Hero, for which Ashe was very grateful.. She put out her undamaged hand toward Hero, winning a smile from her and from Fallon.
Hero said, “You are still feverish. You will be, until the poison works its way clear of your system. Ashe, you shouldn’t be alone in the mountains. Will you travel with us for a while? But then again, are you fit to walk? We could make up a litter for you. Or do you think that - ”
Ashe saw the look of subdued fury on Coll’s young face. It was clear that the girl registered this act of kindness with frustration and ire. Ashe could almost read her thoughts: here was yet another fucking obstacle in Coll’s road to wherever they were going. She didn’t want to stretch that patience still further, and said, “Thank you very much but I don’t want to intrude. I would be… delighted to walk with your party for a time, but I have no need of litters or further attention. I don’t want to hold you up, and I know that I would.” She glanced at Coll, who turned away, mouthing something that was not a compliment.
“Too fucking right.” The words were not spoken quietly enough; Hero’s hand shot out, and would have backhanded Coll again, had Ashe not shot out her injured hand – the pain was like a knife cut – catching Hero by the wrist.
She said, gently, “She’s right: I’d only keep you back.” This fresh pain was enough to bring the sweat out on her forehead. Fallon slipped an arm around Coll’s shoulders and led her by main force. Ashe watched them for an instant and then turned to Hero.
Hero – a little chastened by the speed of Ashe’s reaction (it would be days before those bruises faded) – said, “We are on our way to the Word of the Red Temple. It is a trip that selected members of our country take every five years.” Ashe looked enquiring and puzzled. “Let’s walk on and I can tell you what we’re doing out here in the snow,” Hero added. Ashe was happy to oblige.
The fires lit on which to brew the saffron tea were damped down and extinguished, and for a while Ashe walked with Hero at the head of the group.
“So,” she smiled at Hero. “You were going to tell me the reason for your journey.”
Hero nodded. She fixed her gaze on the far horizon and said, “After a very strenuous and demanding process of recruitment, every five years our city chooses twelve of its most promising children to be trained as apprentices at the Word of the Red Temple. We escort them there and if they are accepted, (not all are, I still have doubts about your clumsy nurse) they remain for a year, being trained. At the end of that time they will go out alone into the wider world, where they will demonstrate and share the lessons they have learned.”
It all sounded very useful, Ashe reflected, so why did the sound of the practice bother her? She found herself half recalling some memory deep in her skull that was sounding an alarm bell. She sighed: it might be only the fever misinforming her.
Hero continued, unaware of Ashe’s hesitation, “Coll is perhaps not the most promising apprentice. Sometimes I think that she should not be on this journey at all.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Ashe, blandly enough. She might be feverish but she could still think. She found Hero’s voice – the tone as much as the content of her words – set up an uncomfortable and off-putting vibration inside her own head. She walked on for a while before saying, “With your consent I’ll walk with you and your party today at least. Tomorrow I think you’ll probably be going on without me.”
For a moment Hero said nothing. She looked at Ashe’s hand. “You didn’t like my treatment of Coll, did you?”
Ashe smiled, and thought: I’ll have to be very careful around this one. She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve just never been keen on people getting… hurt.”
Hero said, “Although she is a daughter of one of our city’s oldest and more famous families, I have instructions to be particularly… firm with her.”
Ashe thought: ah, so the word these days is firm. She remembered sharing a class with Laure in the days when no-one dared lift a hand to the princess. However, Ashe, being an outsider and perceived by some as of an entirely separate and unequal race, had suffered more than her fair share of blows, and those days still rankled. Ashe wondered if she’d ever be free of anger and regret. Probably not: she knew herself too well. Ashe thought: you might forgive them but you can’t ever forget. She said, “And they never go back home once they’ve completed their training? That seems a little harsh.”
“They are all here because they want to be, Ashe. Ours is a very decided and fixed race: everyone knows exactly what they may not see again. Who they may not see again. To be taken into the Temple is a… huge honour, Ashe. I am only surprised that this is the only such discipline I know of.”
Ashe just nodded. Hero continued, “The Word of the Red Temple offers an education and an enlightenment second to none.”
“Do they accept apprentices only from your city?” She added, “I’m sorry; I don’t even know where you’re from.
“Yes,” said Hero. “Our home is Plethe.” Ashe looked politely blank. “Plethe is sited some way from where Mercia’s border meets Lammor. We have our own structure, system and government. We stand quite independently, much like the people of Rath Bel.”
Ashe’s eyebrows went up. “Rath Bel?”
Hero smiled. “Teinne, the leader of Rath Bel, sets the standards for much of the land. Neither Mercia nor Lammor can equal them in terms of learning, elective policies and involvement in the arts.” Ashe sighed: learning and elective policies made her teeth ache. She was all too familiar with them: growing up in Lammor as Laure’s companion, she had been steeped in education. Ashe was wondering – again – about her own roots when Hero appeared to read her mind and asked, “Where are you from, Ashe? Mercia?”
“Mercia?” With an effort Ashe kept her temper. She gave Hero an wholly artificial smile and fought back the words that wanted to rush out: Of course she’s not Mercian, you fucking idiot! She’s ex-Lammoran, former companion to the princess of fucking Lammor, and we have not the slightest idea of where her life began! “No, I’m not from Mercia.” She didn’t even like saying the word. Ashe wondering how she must appear to Hero. Nothing about her suggested wealth or status; Ashe was marked out only by the fact that she wore a mass of fine scars that marked her from head to foot, and thankfully it had been a long, hot summer and the sun had done what it could to conceal those marks. “Caer Arianrhod,” she said, “is my most recent address. Before that I travelled. It’s a while since I’ve had a fixed abode.”
The name of Betany’s city rolled easily off Ashe’s tongue, and the pleasure she took in speaking the words did not get past Hero. “Caer Arianrhod,” she replied. “I’ve heard of it. I hear that the castle from which it is ruled is one of the most striking pieces of architecture. But was it not involved in a battle with Mercia and Lammor, earlier this year? I seem to remember that. Were you involved in the dispute?”
Ashe thought: you could say that. Instead she glanced up into the sky and asked, “Is that an eagle? It’s such a long time since I’ve seen one.”
Fallon had joined them. She heard Ashe’s question, looked upwards and said, “It might be an eagle. Or a raven.” Innocent of Hero’s question and Ashe’s desire to change the subject, she added, helpfully, “This area is famous for ravens.” Ashe could have hugged her.
Hero opened her mouth to speak and Ashe wiped the smile off her face quickly enough to add, “Ravens! Right. I should have remembered them. They do that amazing thing, don’t they?”
“They tumble.”
“Yes. They do.” The Gods bless them, thought Ashe. They tumble. So do I, but I don’t always get up again.
*******
“That was the worst nightmare I have ever had,” said Ardan. She was still a little overawed by the awfulness of the previous night’s experience. Rhea was stirring a sweet-smelling concoction over the stove in her room. “I swear it makes me want to give up sleep forever. Gods, Rhea… That woman… Her voice… I was so scared. Rhea, are you… Weren’t you frightened?”
Rhea raised her eyebrows. “Frightened?” She smiled. “Ardan, I’m always frightened. No-one with sense takes that mixture without knowing how much they risk in the process. Being a wise-woman or a seer, or being apprentice to a wise-woman or a seer, is not a safe life.”
Ardan nodded. “I know. You told me that and I believed you. I just… I didn’t know how bad it could be. Who was she? She was going to kill me. She would happily have killed us both, I think.”
“Ardan, before we talk about the woman, there’s something you need to think about. I didn’t realise just how badly what happened last night would…affect you. Now I want you to go and think. Remember, you don’t have to be my apprentice. You can leave here any time you wish to. You can walk away and not come back and I will think your decision entirely sensible. Wholly rational. There is danger here, real danger. I think that you could help me to fight it, but I only want you by my side if that is where you want to be.” She hesitated. “Ardan, the woman we saw, I think I know who she is, but I am not wholly sure. What I do know is that she may mean the death of one or both of us. After we’ve had breakfast, I want to you go on an errand for me. After that you may tell me what you have decided to do.”
She reached into the steaming dish with a ladle and filled two cups. Into one – unseen by Ardan – she dropped some little black seeds that sank to the bottom of the cup where they would dissolve. It was this cup that she handed to Ardan with a smile and a gentle nod and the advice to drink it before it went cold.
Ashe might have wondered at that move, had she been present to witness it.
*******
Gowdie, restrained and in a room with bars at the window and an almost unbreakable wooden door between her and the world, threw back her head and howled. Betany, on her way to the cell to visit her sister, hesitated for an instant, unwilling to admit, even for a moment, that she might be a little afraid.
*******
Ashe ended up walking with Fallon. After a while Fallon said, “Thank you.” Thank you for stopping Hero, earlier. Thank you for not letting her hurt Coll even more. Ashe heard the words inside her head. They felt like birds flying; geese crossing a winter sky on a shiver of wings, and she thought: how very clever. I didn’t know that she could do that. No wonder the silence had been easy. And, oh, Gods, I am going to have to be really careful about what I’m thinking.
*******
Life is much easier when you have already hardened your heart to useless and unproductive feelings. It makes life easier and lighter, for want of a better word, once you have hardened your heart against the prospect of love. It’s a dangerous word, also a stupid one. There will be no space in the time to come for stupid words or stupid emotions..
Or little sparrows, whose skulls are all too friable.
Last night tired me more than I expected. Still, that was the first time I ventured out into someone else’s world, and I must remember that such worlds can be demanding. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever sits down to consider the full potential of any action. I suspect not. I am not the first second sister to live out the years in secret, hidden from view and experience, but I suspect that I might be the first of my kind to make profitable use of the time allowed them. When I first became aware of my potential, and began to frame little requests – shy little requests, with an accompanying smile of a sort I swear never ever to employ again – I could not believe that they would happily supply me with every book I ever asked for, once I had learned that through books lay my salvation and my destiny. Within this comparatively small and vulnerable skull lies so much knowledge! I could journey as far as the stars – I imagine – if I so chose. But although the stars are pretty and inconsequential, I do not want to rule the sky. I do not want to rule the world…
Not today, anyway.
*******
Rhea thought: Berrach. That is her name.