Blood Witch (3 page)

It tasted divine.

And when it hit Alaysha's stomach she
immediately felt suffused with heat. She clamped her mouth closed
so fast on the nausea she heard her teeth clack together.

"It seems as though this is a day of firsts."
Saxa's dry tone was the only thing that gave Alaysha the strength
to keep the broth in. It was several moments before she could shake
her head to refuse a second spoonful.

Saxa was adamant nonetheless. "You will eat this
entire bowlful, Alaysha."

Alaysha jiggled her head back and forth.

"Yes, you will. Spoon by spoon. It might take
hours, but you will do it."

Alaysha eyed the spoon and Saxa made a moue of
frustration. "Then you will have that leg of lamb you asked for and
a mug of ale." She laughed outright then. "You warriors. So strong
of mind except in the face of sickness." She scooped another
dribble of broth from the bowl. "More soup, or would you like that
leg of lamb?"

Alaysha squeezed her eyes closed and willed her
stomach quiet. It didn't exactly obey, but it didn't outright
rebel. She nodded and opened her mouth slowly.

It was torturous going, but by the time she had
emptied the bowl – it turned out it was only six spoonfuls –
Alaysha felt strong enough to have Saxa ease her to a semi reclined
position against a back of barley pillows. She thought she could
smell lavender.

"It strengthens the spleen," Saxa said when she
mentioned it. I have it sewn into all our pillows.

Alaysha wasn't sure what a spleen was or why it
needed strengthening, but it was pleasant to have the tang of scent
drift to her nostrils when she moved, even slightly.

"Where is the heir?"

Saxa gave her clouded look. "He sleeps in the
nursery."

"Yuri didn't want him near me," Alaysha guessed.
She scanned the cottage and noticed the cradle was gone. The place
it had rested when she was first brought in was painfully devoid of
infant like items. There was even a layer of dust as though Saxa
refused to walk into the space. "How long has he been away from
you?"

Saxa looked up sharply. "I see him everyday. I
feed him. Nurse him. Theron sees to him when I'm not there. He just
isn't allowed –"

"Near me," Alaysha finished. "But you are."

The young woman's face softened. "You're wrong
to think that. I volunteered, Alaysha. Yuri isn't asking me to do
something because he believes I'm expendable. He allows me to be
here only because I agree to keep Saxon away."

It was odd for a boy in Yuri's tribe to be named
for its mother. Alaysha was surprised he allowed it. "Saxon? Son of
Saxa? Why not Yuron, son of Yuri?"

"My mother's people," was all the woman said for
a time, and Alaysha had to prod her.

Saxa pursed her lips as though she didn't want
to answer, then said, "Few of them survived the conquest, few
enough that most of them are all gone now, but we still keep the
traditions, what of them we can, alive."

Alaysha couldn't imagine the great Yuri allowing
his son to be named for a woman, and a frail, willowy thing like
Saxa at that. "What did you do that made Yuri bow to such an
unusual request?"

"Tears have magic," she said.

Of course. Alaysha would have expected no less
from a woman. Resorting to tears was sometimes too often a handy
tool. She'd not been allowed often to the Keep or the Court, but
she'd watched people in the courtyard plenty enough when she wasn't
killing for her father and managed to sneak through the walls, a
veil over the lower part of her face, or a hood pulled tight so the
good people of Sarum wouldn't see the tattau. Many a man had been
bested by a quiet tear. Still, the small bit of esteem she felt for
the woman began to wane and she couldn't keep the scorn from her
tone.

"So you wept?"

Alaysha was surprised when Saxa chuckled instead
of reacting with hurt at the insult.

"The magic works both ways, dear witch." She
patted Alaysha's cheek. "It was not I who shed the tears, but
Yuri."

Alaysha looked Saxa over as she toddled about
the cottage, setting fresh bowls on the table and pulling a pottle
from a trap door in the far corner. From it she poured viscous
brown ale into a tankard that she set on the table next to the
bowl.

"Why aren't you in the Keep?" Alaysha asked and
Saxa paused thoughtfully. She stared down at the table she'd set
and finally offered Alaysha a shrug with her answer as though it
was an obvious response.

"I'm here because I want to be here. I asked
Yuri for my own floor. He gave it to me."

"Makes it difficult to be his Emiri."

"I have no intention of helping him rule the
city."

"But the heir –"

"Saxon will learn, but he will be formed with
the understanding of harmony first. Not fear. Not hard duty. He
will know the way of the people his father conquered and be all the
better for it."

It sounded as though Saxa had been watching Yuri
for long enough to understand his cold way of rule. "And Yuri
agrees to this?"

Again, that shrewd smile, both coy and knowing
at the same time. Alaysha began to understand how Yuri might be
managed by woman such as Saxa. She looked delicate, but beneath was
a strength that reminded Alaysha of a slender branch in the
wind.

A noise caught her attention and she knew then
that several men were outside. Gael entered first, ducking his head
and scanning the room quickly. He nodded to the doorframe behind
him and Yuri strode in. He wore the
Circlet of Conquest
atop his white hair, and he
took it off and gripped it, the thick fingers tapping the points.
He wasted no time on Alaysha, but moved to pull Saxa against him
and bury his nose in her hair.

"You smell of stew and garlic."

Saxa pulled away. "I've made your favorite."

He strode to the hearth and peered in the pot.
"Lamb," he said.

"Lamb stew to be exact. Black rice. No
potatoes.
"

Bodiccia puts too
many of the damned things in."

Saxa grinned with
pleasure, making her eyes crinkle. "I have fresh bread too. Come
this morning from the ovens." She spread her arm toward the table
and nodded at Gael who pulled the chair for Yuri.

Alaysha had the
feeling she was no more than a spirit in the room; no one so much
as looked her way. While it was nothing new, she had expected Yuri
to come see her, not just to eat a humble stew that Bodiccia could
have made far more substantial with all the rights she had to
Yuri's kitchen. Alaysha thought of the gargantuan woman, who was
the only one Yuri trusted to cook for him, the woman who had killed
as many men as any other of his warriors, and she smiled. Aedus had
bested the warrior woman with feet as fleet as a ferret's. She
could smell honeyed hare even now, feel the stickiness of it on her
fingers as Aedus had passed it to her, their stolen fare from
Bodiccia's fire. It seemed so long ago now.

For a time the
only sound was of the three scraping bowls and smacking on bread.
Alaysha's stomach gurgled and she realized the bit of broth she'd
eaten had given her enough strength to realize she had an appetite.
Once her stomach growled so loudly she thought she saw her father
pause in dipping his bread into his bowl, but then Gael passed him
the pottle of ale and they went on eating. No one looked her
way.

She had time to
watch them, even though Yuri's broad back was turned her. It was a
torturous thing to be present in a room, and not to be included.
She watched as her father touched Saxa's hand time and again, as he
flicked her plait from her shoulders when it fell forward. Alaysha
thought it tiring.

"Has the bucket
gone dry again?" Yuri asked as though it was a logical train of
conversation when nothing had been mentioned at all for long
moments.

Gael nodded toward
Alaysha and her heart fluttered with the hope of being noticed.
"There it sits," he said.

Saxa put her hand
on Yuri's arm. "Full."

Yuri nodded in
appreciation even as Gael sent a scathing look toward the bed. "She
had me fetching a dozen times a day, not to mention Saxa."

Alaysha thought
she heard Yuri chuckle. "You can be grateful you were able to keep
fetching then."

He pushed away
from the table, finally; the brother and sister both eased up as
well. "Good, then. It's time enough." He leaned to kiss Saxa on the
forehead. "You can have Saxon after three more moon rises," he said
and nodded imperially at Gael. "Take the witch to the yard
today."

Gael scowled but
said nothing.

Alaysha's heart
dropped. It seemed Yuri had come all this way just to ignore her.
She should have known. Still, she couldn't help trying.

"Father?"

Yuri turned to her
as though he hadn't known she was even there. His eyes from across
the distance could have been grey, not the lake water blue she knew
they were. She knew he didn't like the use of the title, but he
didn't correct her like he usually did.

"I would like to
meet the other witch."

He shook his head.
"You are too weak yet; you've lain here too long." His attention
went again to Gael. "Get her ready," he said, then he strode to the
door without so much as a glance back over his shoulder.

"That went well,"
Saxa said, beaming after he'd left as though she'd won some game,
but Gael kept his scowl and prowled about the room with such
conviction Alaysha wondered why he'd bothered lugging the water for
her in the first place. Saxa finally growled at him to keep still;
he plopped himself on the stool by the now-dying fire and waved
irritably toward the bed.

"How am I to get
her up and about?" His tone revealed his annoyance. "She's useless.
Can't even sit up properly."

Alaysha shifted
subtly against the pillow. "I can hear you." She complained, hoping
the two of them would include her but was rewarded with no more
than a shrug from the wide shoulders.

"I have better
things to do than play nursemaid."

Saxa's voice was
nearly a whisper, but Alaysha heard it just the same. "You aren't a
nursemaid, brother; that's my role. You are rehabilitator – a far
grander – and far more dangerous duty."

He made his lips
rattle together in disgust. "Dangerous," he said. "You overestimate
the girl's power."

"It's not her
power I speak of," Saxa said, and Alaysha understood even if Gael
didn't that if she failed to regain her strength and recover
suitably enough for her father, Gael's life would be forfeit.

Chapter 2

It took a bit of doing, a lot of cursing, and a full
bowl of soup for Alaysha to finally stand. When she did, it was
shortly after vomiting an entire bowl of broth onto Gael's feet and
she looked up at him carefully, knowing the sweat was beading on
her forehead.

"I haven't vomited
since I was a babe," she said by way of explanation.

"Then it seems
you've selected an equally infantile moment and manner to do so
again." He lifted his nose to the air while Saxa hurried to cleanse
his boots of sour lamb chunks.

"It's too soon,"
Saxa worried. "You won't even make it to the door."

"I'll make it,"
Alaysha said and she thought she heard a low hum come from Gael's
chest.

"Stop coddling
her," he told his sister.

Alaysha felt
bolstered enough to take a wobbling step. The accompanying pain in
her side took the breath from her lungs.

Gael glanced down
at her. "I've got you," he said, and Alaysha let the water in her
legs ooze to the floor. She would have fallen, except Gael did
indeed have her. Just being able to let her strength go for a
moment gave her back her lungs.

"I can do it," she
said and kept her gaze hard on Saxa's face. The smoky brows were
scuttled down in concern, but at least the face wasn't terrified.
Rather, it spoke of cautious confidence.

Alaysha took
another step. The pain still shrieked its existence, but at least
she was prepared for it and kept her legs. The wooziness was
another tale entirely, and she determined that she would take a
step and another until she had convinced them she wasn't worthless.
Even as she thought it, she found herself wondering why she
cared.

Gael took a step
toward the table, and Alaysha took one, carefully, with him. It was
odd not to have her body do exactly as she willed without extreme
effort. She would have been discouraged by all the energy it took
just to make such small, insignificant steps, but she wouldn't show
weakness in front of this condescending man or the woman who had
showed her kindness despite the very real danger to her that she'd
undoubtedly faced each day that Alaysha was under fever.

She sweated and
she cursed, and eventually she made it to the table, where Saxa had
a tankard of spiced and honeyed ale, cooled by the earth storage of
the food pit.

Nothing ever
tasted so good. She even shot a grin at Gael who grinned back,
however fleetingly.

"Get me some of
that stew, Saxa," she declared when she saw the smile slink from
Gael's face, "I feel like chewing on some meat."

To her surprise,
it was Gael who strode to the pot and spooned out four lumps of
meat then grabbed for a trencher of bread.

"Here." He thrust
it at her, then made for the bucket next to the bed and brought it
close to the table within easy reach for her. "When you're done,
we'll make our way to the well."

He gave her a
queer look before striding to the door.

The meat was
tender and delicious, with a stewed-in flavour that sat on the back
of Alaysha's palette.

"What spice did
you use?" she asked Saxa. "It's hot but sweet at the same
time."

Saxa looked
pleased. "Herbs. And it's two. The first one lingers but a moment
and introduces you to the second. That's the one you taste now. I
call it the bottom. It grows on the edge of the mountain on the
shady side."