Runes and Red Sails (Queenmaker Book 1)(8)
“We go to him tomorrow, and ask him to meet with Osric. Take demands to him, bargain with him, whatever will make Osric listen. We follow and take Osric, alive if we can,” Ceolwen continued.
The Eorl pondered this for a moment, stroking his beard once more. “And how do we get to Caelin without Osric finding out?”
“They cannot follow all of us,” Ceolwen said. “You and I both go out with our guards, and Aelfhild sneaks out in secret to Caelin.”
A lump rose in Aelfhild’s throat. She would serve as best she could in most things, but she was no spy. And Ceolwen had not even bothered to ask. This side of her mistress was usually directed at other people, and Aelfhild squirmed beneath its weight. But perhaps Cuthbert was right—those that sat on the throne did not do so with clean hands or a spotless conscience.
Cuthbert sucked mead from his whiskers. “That leaves a great deal to chance, and the girl may not be—”
“If you have a better idea, cousin, I would hear it gladly,” Ceolwen cut in.
The girl may not be what? Aelfhild did not appreciate any of the words that might complete that thought, nor the tone, especially since she was sitting within a stone’s throw of the man. In truth, she wished Ceolwen had let him finish, but she of course said nothing. There was more at stake here than her pride, such as it was.
The Eorl rose, nodding. “Let me think on it. But I grow tired and hungry! No more talk of plots and sneaking for now; time to sit and eat.”
The table was prepared at the Eorl’s order, and supper served. It was country fare, the kind that stuck to the ribs: roast lamb and mashed turnips drowned in butter. Less mead was served than on the previous night, and conversation was sparse. Aelfhild felt that she should have been more scared, somehow. None of it seemed real; the plotting was just another story repeated in hushed tones by the maids in the Great Hall kitchens.
Partway through the meal, Cuthbert stood and left the table without a word. He returned with a bundle of old rags under his arm which he spread out on the bench beside him. There were several leaf-bladed daggers on the cloth, and he handed one first to Ceolwen and then one to Aelfhild. The weight of the situation crystallized around that weight of iron as soon as it touched her palm. The hilt was cold and oily to the touch, and Aelfhild dared not draw it from the sheath. This thing had one purpose, and she was now a part of that. She shivered.
“Dangerous times,” the Eorl said. “Do not draw the blade unless you are ready to use it.”
He retired to his bed not long after, saying little more. Servants came to clear the table, and his warriors went off to their beds as well. Two stayed behind, bolting the doors and sitting by the fire to keep watch. Ceolwen and Aelfhild left them to their duty.
Before they got to their chamber, Ceolwen placed a hand on Aelfhild’s shoulder. “Aela, I know I am asking much of you…”
Aelfhild heard the hesitation, the doubt, in that quiet voice. She tried for something reassuring, something confident and powerful, but failed miserably. “I will serve as best I can, my lady,” was all she could squeak out.
Ceolwen’s voice rose as she leaned in. “We cannot afford to be afraid.” But just whom she was trying to convince was unclear.
5
Aelfhild dreamt of a hallway. She could feel that it was a dream from the beginning, sense it from the way the colors shifted at the edge of her vision and the sound swirled around her completely decoupled from direction. The hallway itself shifted in size and shape, dwarfing her in one instant as it stretched onward and upward for leagues, then collapsing to just barely allow her passage. There was a doorway at the far end, silhouetted in light and the only fixed point, and she was drawn toward it.
The palm of her right hand itched, a twinge deep below the skin. She flexed her fingers into a fist. She could not look away from the glow ahead.
Beyond the doorway she found a room, or at least a space. There were no walls that she could make out, no ceiling or floor. In the void floated a writhing ball, a tangle of gnarled vines and jutting thorns. The vines were green, but not the fresh hue of spring—they verged on black in places, splotchy and putrid. She glimpsed flashes of white beneath the twisting brambles.
There was a voice. Countless whispers rose around her on every side to form two words.
Wake. Up.
She awoke slick with sweat. Her dress and blanket were soaked through and sucked at her flesh as she tried to peel them back. The darkness in the curtained bedchamber was total, as was the silence. She rubbed her thumb across her right palm, but felt nothing on or below the skin. The itch was fading but not yet gone.
The dream had been all wrong. Not a nightmare, for she had not felt frightened. But she recalled fever dreams brought by childhood illness, and that feeling that the waking world was a hair’s breadth away, glimpsed through a gossamer veil, yet utterly unreachable. This dream had been the same: lucid but flat, as though she could peel back the tapestry and glimpse the artifice behind.
The dank air of the hallway lingered in her mouth and nose. The tendrils were seared onto the back of her eyelids. And the voice.
There had been urgency in the voice, a warning. Whether it had bubbled up from within her or had been placed there by the Gods, she was uncertain. The Gods had never before spoken back to Aelfhild, and she had not the faintest idea of how to proceed.
From time to time it happened that a man or a woman would wander, ranting and screaming, through the streets of Cynestead, accosting passersby with incoherent shouting about visions and signs. The commonfolk said they were touched by the Gods and listened for omens; the nobles called them mad and locked them out of sight. Aelfhild had seen one such woman in the market before guards had lifted her withered body from the street and hurried her away. She remembered the sunken face rent by muddy fingernails in a vain attempt to drive out the divine voices, and she shivered.