Authors: Pamela Freeman
“They’ll be safer here than in Wooding, so near the fort,” Maryrose had said, and Bramble had nodded agreement. Yes, Carlion
was much safer. So they had thought. But now there were no safe places anywhere, and the dead could rise with axes in their
hands and kill, and nothing could stop them. Except Acton, maybe. She forced down the choke of grief and concentrated as her
sight cleared. If she had to live every second of Acton’s life, she would.
They were down at the beach, sure enough, in Turvite, on a cold still day. Late autumn, maybe. But where before fishing boats
had been drawn up on the shingle, now there were boat cradles reaching high ribs that seemed to mimic the cliffs around the
harbor. Three of them. They were holding the skeletons of larger versions of the boats Acton had rowed down the river. But
these, it was clear, would have masts as well as oars. They were long, flat-bottomed boats with high prows and sterns, a shape
much like the reed boats of the Lake People, but bigger. Ships.
She was inhabiting a man, and she was so inured to it by now that when he hitched his trousers to get a more comfortable position
for his privates, she didn’t even wince. She thought at first that it was a stranger, but then the man reached out a hand
past the cradle rib to touch the side of the ship and she recognized the hand. Baluch, but a Baluch so enraptured by the ships
that he had not a single part of his mind to give to music.
“You’ve done well while I’ve been away,” a voice said. Baluch turned and there was Asgarn, wiry hair bristling with energy,
blue eyes bright with admiration. He, too, was entranced by the ships.
Acton’s voice replied from behind Baluch. “We’ll be ready by summer.” Baluch turned as Acton slapped the side of the ship
as Bramble would give a friendly slap to a horse. “We’re collecting cargo now. I’m sending trappers out during winter for
pelts and I’ve got a lumber crew in the forest picking out fine hardwood. That’s scarce in the Wind Cities, the old men say.”
Asgarn nodded. “Next year we might have grain as well. Bone carvings, too, when our men have more time.”
Baluch added, “Metalwork, once the forges are set up. I’m sending out a message inviting charcoal burners to come to T’vit.”
Asgarn looked skeptical. “Why would they leave their steadings to join you?”
Baluch traded glances with Acton, and abruptly the music was back, a low horn note. Bramble was good enough at deciphering
his thoughts now to know that the note — and the look — meant warning. But Acton grinned at him. Not reassuring, just shagging
cheeky. Acton knew that whatever he was about to say would cause a stir.
“Because here they’ll be living in a free town.”
Asgarn frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means that T’vit is governed by a town council. Like the Moot, but permanent. It decides how the town is run. The council
is elected by the people who live here.” With an air of getting it all out, even the worst, he added, “Including women.”
Bramble thought Asgarn might have an apoplexy, he turned so red. “Are you insane? And what do you mean, ‘is’? Have you set
this up already?”
Acton nodded. “It’s going well. I’m the head of the council at the moment, of course, but in time I may be able to hand it
over altogether.”
“Did you consult the Moot about this?”
For a moment, Acton looked very much like his grandfather. The same stubbornness. “They gave me T’vit. I can do what I like
with it.”
“Give away your power? What kind of fool does that?”
“One who doesn’t want it,” Baluch said.
“Then hand it over to someone who’ll use it properly! Not a bunch of traders and… and
charcoal burners
!” Asgarn took a step closer to Acton and reached out a hand in supplication. Bramble thought that he really did want Acton’s
understanding. That he respected him enough to want his support. “Can’t you see the opportunity we have here? This country
is
empty.
We needed the Moot before because we were all crowded up ham by haunch and we had to have a way of resolving disputes. But
there’s so much land here that each chief could rule a vast territory, rule without concerns about how his decisions would
be greeted by others. There could be
real
power, not negotiations and bargains and paying compensation because a cow cropped another man’s pasture! Can’t you
see
what we could have?”
Acton was staring at him with a frown. Bramble tensed. This was the moment, then. This was the time when Acton helped establish
the warlords. No wonder she’d never liked Asgarn. Baluch, however, didn’t seem to pay much attention. He looked back at the
ship instead of at Acton, smoothing his hand over the planks of the keel. Bramble could have hit him. Look at them! she thought.
Look!
“The Moot has served us very well,” Acton said. Baluch looked up and nodded agreement.
Asgarn set his mouth. “One man ruling a large territory would be better. A clear line of command, a clear area of responsibility,
each chieftain able to work for his own good and secure his own power.”
So there it was, spelled out. The warlord’s creed. Bramble was sickened by it, and yet felt curiously exalted, because Acton
was shaking his head. “Have you discussed this with the Moot council?”
Asgarn hesitated, and Bramble knew what that meant. He’d been sounding out the members of the council, doing deals, finding
out what each man most wanted. Acton waited.
“Not in full council, no,” Asgarn said. “But I am sure they will see the truth of what I say.”
“That may be. But I think I will have a few words to say as well.”
In Baluch’s head, the warning music rose sharply at the look on Asgarn’s face.
“Perhaps we should go together,” Asgarn said slowly. Baluch put a cautioning hand on Acton’s arm. Acton grinned at him.
“Baluch reminds me that we have much more to do here if we want to take the dragon’s road in Spring. I will follow you to
Wili’s steading for the Mid-Winter Moot.”
Asgarn nodded sharply, turned on his heel and headed up the shore toward the houses of T’vit. Acton and Baluch watched him
go.
“Don’t trust him,” Baluch said.
“I don’t,” Acton replied. “But I didn’t think he was mad enough to destroy the Moot.”
“He’s never forgiven you for Sebbi’s death.”
Acton’s eyes clouded. “I’ve never forgiven myself.”
“What will you do at the Moot?”
Acton grinned, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. “It’s a different kind of battle. I’ve watched Harald fight that fight
enough times to know how it’s done. Don’t worry. The Moot will survive.”
Bramble was astonished and elated that Acton had refused Asgarn’s arguments, but she was also confused. What had happened
to change things? To make Acton a warlord, to have him help set up the warlord system? What had they offered him that had
won him over?
She didn’t have time to speculate further, because the waves on the beach rose suddenly and crashed over her, tumbling her
into darkness.
There was warmth on her shoulder: warm lips, moving, kissing, a tongue touching. Her side was pressed up against something
warm, all down her naked flank there was warmth. For one long moment, Bramble simply felt it; heat, comfort, teasing pleasure.
Something loosened inside her and relaxed. Then a hand stroked down from her shoulder to her breast and she realized: Acton!
That’s Acton’s hand!
At the same moment sight came back and she saw him, gold head bent to kiss the soft flesh above her breast, hand cradling
the breast itself. Get me out of here! she shouted in her mind to the gods, but they did nothing.
Then the woman pushed him away. Bramble felt a combination of emotions from her — affection, unease, a lingering pleasure
mixed with revulsion. It was so much like her own emotions that she couldn’t quite tell where the woman’s feelings stopped
and her own began. Acton sat up and looked at her ruefully, as though he were aware how she felt. He had shaved off his beard.
She wondered why. It made him look younger.
“Oh, Wili,” he said regretfully, “was it that bad?”
Wili smiled carefully. Her eyes pricked with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. Bramble could sense that she didn’t want
to hurt his feelings; but that she wanted to be out of that bed and dressed, securely, with trousers and belt and a good strong
knife at her waist.
“Not
bad,
” she said. “Well, I had to do it, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again.”
A light broke on Bramble and she thought, they just made his son. The son of the woman who would have nothing to do with men,
except that she tried it once with Acton . . .
He grimaced. “I’m sorry. I did the best I could.”
She reached out and tousled his hair, making him look like a five-year-old. “It was a good try. But —”
“It’d be different if you loved me.”
“Or if you loved me? I don’t think so.”
His face clouded. Wili drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. She felt safer that way. Calmer. The feeling of wanting
to cry faded from Bramble’s mind.
Wili risked letting go with one hand and touched the back of his arm.
“If I loved you the way I loved Friede,” he said, “it would have to make a difference.”
Wili made a noise of disbelief. “I doubt it.”
He was offended, but she smiled grimly. “You didn’t love her,” she said simply. “She knew it.”
He sat up straight in indignation, the blanket falling away to show his muscled chest. “I did!”
“Ha!” Wili seemed to take some satisfaction in cutting him down to size. “You liked her. Maybe you were fond of her. Maybe
you wanted her. But you didn’t love her.”
He looked worried, perhaps sad. “Did she tell you that?”
“She did. Not that she had to. I could tell. If she’d gone to your bed like the rest of them you’d never have given her another
thought!”
“That’s not true! Friede was… different.”
“Because you thought she needed to be protected. She hated that, you know. She didn’t want to be protected. That’s why she
loved Baluch. He never protected her. Didn’t think she needed protection.”
Acton looked down at the bed and stayed silent for a while. “I don’t understand love,” he admitted finally. “All women are
beautiful, even the ugly ones. All of you are delicious.”
“We’re not honeycakes,” Wili said quietly, but not to interrupt him.
“Friede was my friend, and that felt different from all the others.”
“So maybe you just called it love, when it was friendship all the time.” Wili patted his hand. “Friendship’s nothing to be
ashamed of.”
He looked up and smiled, mischief gleaming. “Do you think I’ll ever love?”
“Not while you go around bedding every woman you meet!”
He grinned, mischief growing, and was clearly ready to tease Wili about being one of those women. Time to change the subject,
girl, Bramble thought, and Wili did think a lot like her, because immediately she said, “What is the Moot saying?”
His face became serious. “I have ratification for the free towns, to be set up like Turvite, with town councils elected by
the people. I have agreement that there will be no thralls.”
“How did you get that?” she asked, astonished.
“Fear. I used that traitor Uen as an example. We are too vulnerable, here in a new land, to have men with us who are not oath-sworn,
who do not have a stake in our future here.” He smiled slowly. “It took some time, but they agreed. Now we just have to re-establish
the All Moot and I can go back to actually getting some work done!”
So, Bramble thought, it
was
his idea to get rid of thralls. That was well done. But was fear his real reason, or was it something else? Free towns, no
thralls — how could that come from the man who established warlords? Did he simply get voted down? She was tired of being
confused about him. She wanted some solid sense of what he was really like. Something beyond fighting and politicking and
taking revenge. Or was that all there was to him? She didn’t believe that. Mainly because of Baluch and Wili. They didn’t
think that, and they were not fools.
Wili laughed at him and asked, as she had asked once before, “How are the boats coming along?”
The gods were not interested in his answer because the waters rolled over her and dumped her down a cascade. Bramble was falling,
and falling, with nothing solid to hold on to.
As soon as she came to herself, she knew that she was not with Baluch. This was a much taller man who moved heavily, shifting
from foot to foot with a perceptible thump. For the first time she became aware of how lightly Baluch moved, how easily his
body obeyed him. She hadn’t noticed before because it was how her own body moved, and so she had just accepted it. But this
body was clumsy, lumbering. A big man, with big muscles, she thought, and weighed down somehow, not just by the heavy winter
clothes he wore against the biting cold.
He was standing in a wood on a hill, a spur of pines on the edge of a much greater forest. He looked down to a steading, a
snow-covered collection of houses and barns surrounded by pasture and some fenced fields, although pasture and ploughed ground
looked alike under the thick snow. Bramble realized that it was Hawk’s — that is, Wili’s — steading. She had not seen it from
exactly this angle before, but she was sure. There were some figures, well wrapped up, moving between house and animal barns.
A woman emerged and shook out a blanket. Bramble recognized her: Wili. Her pregnancy wasn’t showing yet, so not much time
had passed. Wili had named the child Thegan, she remembered. He had finished what Acton started, the invasion of the Domains,
right up to the Sharp River. Wili stood upright and looked up the slope, shading her eyes. Two children raced out the door
past her and she called them back.
The sky was gray, but there was no wind. The man Bramble inhabited put up a hand to shake the snow from his collar, and she
saw that he had copper hair springing thickly on hand and wrist. Maybe the one who had been in the boat with Acton, whose
friend had died? Red. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure, because the only emotions she could sense were
grief and fear, combined. It was a familiar grief, constantly refreshed, and it was threaded with guilt, because he was still
alive.