The Seasons of Salt

Chapter Fifteen

Ma’d forgive anything that day. She did not shout at Cerissa for running off when she saw her returning riding triumphantly upon Da’s shoulders like a knight upon a charger. Nor for the mud stains on her second-best dress. She just threw herself across the courtyard and into Da’s arms as he lifted Cerissa down and wrapped his arms about his wife. She’d put her hands on either side of his face, crying tears, and had buried her head in his neck despite all the household watching and all she usually had to say about propriety.

Da had let Sy carry his big war-sword, Cleftwaters, home and Sylas was struggling with the weight of it as he carefully hung it up upon the wall in the Great Hall, and Jonnah was standing tall and man-like beside Da, trying to pretend he was just as grown-up as those men that came back from war.

Da had clapped Gerinson on the shoulder and called him brother affectionately, and he normally only did that when the mead was on him, knocking their foreheads together as all the Bridgenford warriors did in greeting. Da said they had a lot to catch up on, but Cerissa had slipped her little hand into Da’s big one and he had just said, “aye, I meant later lass, do not worry. I would not miss out on my welcome first!” and he had swung her up in his arms again and carried her into the halls that were warm and roaring with welcome for him. Ma sent the kitchen maids scurrying back to their cellars and firepits to prepare a hasty feast  – and had sent down to the village to draw the musicians they usually had on the fae days (actually a weaver, miller, and a couple of tanners by trade) to come and help them celebrate tonight when the festivities would begin. And her eyes had scarce left Da’s the whole time, as if afraid he might slip off again if she let him out of her sight.

Beaversbane came to life again. The whole house of it seemed to brighten as Da came home. The folks hurrying through it did it quicker, calling to each other merrily, and laughing loud. They wrapped their arms around their own loved folks and disappeared off down the corridors bound up in each other arms and nobody said owt about it. Jeric Fluter had even lifted his new wife over his shoulder screeching and screaming and carried her up the stairs. They had only wed before he left for war and he had gone off to battle the week after. Jonnah scowled after them, went to stop him crossly, but Da stopped him.

“She’s screaming, Da!”

“No, lad. She’s only playing. She’s not hurt, I swear it. You’ll understand it when you’re older, boy.”

And Jonnah had scowled deeper. He did not like being told he was too young. He thought he was so old, being ten and all.

The musicians came trundling up before the evening fell certain, and the servants had put the tables up in their old positions. Da sat up in the centre of the High Table, Ma proudly beside him, and everyone called and danced around the hall as the music played and the cups went round. Cerissa did not want to eat, she was too happy. She danced, swaying her skirts about the hall, skipping along the long benches which ran the halls with Jonnah and Sylas and the other children of Beaversbane. Gerinson sat beside Da talking quiet and earnest and once Cerissa felt Da’s eyes resting on her anxiously. She beamed at him, and he grinned back as if he had never been away.

She snatched at pieces of honey-bun and lombards as the servants passed them round, eating them as she danced, spraying crumbs everywhere. Sylas whirled her around by the waist wildly and Jonnah danced with her the formal dances their tutors taught them, until everything felt manic and thunderstormy inside her brain, and she laughed until she thought she might be sick.

At last, Da stood.

The musicians stopped abruptly and the dancing petered out. The hall quietened slowly and everyone stared at him.

“Well, lads,” he said. “We won.”

The world roared. Folks stomped their feet, banged their cups, threw their arms around each other and touched forehead to forehead, cheering and thundering with victory.

Da held up his hands.

“Not everyone made it,” he said quiet, solemn. “We lost some good men out there on the battlefields, and we remember them tonight. Their blood was not spent in vain.” He raised his glass and everyone echoed it until the halls were ringing with hard consonants and sullen vowels.

“No more will the children of these lands know what it is to fear dragon-fire or hag-magic,” he said. “No more will we chafe under the hand of a weak and wanton king. Bridgenford will know peace, prosperity and plenty. I say again, their blood was not spent in vain.” He raised his glass again and again the hall echoed the phrase back to him, louder now, swelling with a vicious victory.

“Men fought hard for their loved ones those dark days. Their blood stopping the bridge of Holdfast turned the tide of war. It was Bridgenford blood which held the gates against the mighty men of Brenin and Deai. It was Bridgenford blood which held fast when others would fain have run – it is Bridgenford blood that snatched the victory. Hear me well, oh gates and towers, hear me well oh fens and glades; their blood was not spent in vain!” He was shouting now and the hall shouted back, roused and rowdy. Sylas was screaming out the words, red in the face, and Jonnah was cheering them along too, his arm wrapped tight over his little sister’s shoulders.  

“The Fae will walk when the river runs,” Da shouted.

“And yet the river ran!” The world screamed back.

“Give us another song to dance to, boys. The night is young yet,” called Da and the musicians obeyed as the world danced brighter. Da held out his hand to Ma and swept her to the middle of the floor and many other folks joined them. Mostly it had been the children and the young maids and stable boys before, but now older folks came down too. Even Gerinson came down to the floor, with Lady Jinny, one of Ma’s closest friends, whirled about in his arms.

“May I have a dance, Da?” Cerissa asked after Da had whirled Ma around the floor a couple of times. Da hitched her up high in his arms, sitting her on one of his strong forearms so that her legs dangled precariously from the floor.

“Well now,” he said. “It’s a bit late, is it not? Should be in bed by now, should you not, little plague?”

She threw her arms around his neck in answer.

“I should be in bed, at any rate,” he chortled, his great chest rumbling underneath her.

“Come, my Lord, surely you will drink another cup with us!” wheedled a man Cerissa did not recognise. He was deep in his cups already, leaning heavily upon his friend. His face was flushed and his hair was disarrayed.

“I fear not, Minton. But do not go dry on my account. More wine!” he roared to the hall at large and the rafters echoed with the replying chants, the floors churning with thundering feet, cups banged on wooden tables in approval. He winked at his wife and walked for the door, soft and silent. Sylas leapt off of the table he was running down to join him, and Jonnah, dancing stiltedly with little Lady Dressila, bowed and made his excuses as he saw them leaving. He fell in beside them and slipped out of the door of the Great Hall. Da winked and nodded them over to his solar on the other side of the vestibule with a finger to his lips, and silently they crept away from the excitement still growing behind them. The hall seemed quiet with the echoing festivities shut behind closed doors, and their little traipsing footprints sounded right loud as they crossed to the other side of the vestibule and through the door into the hallowed solar they were never allowed in – unless they were in trouble, of course.

The last time Cerissa had stood here before Da’s great writing desk she’d been standing next to Sylas and both of them had been severely tongue-lashed for putting frog-spawn in Pippy’s shoes. Pippy had refused to let them go out and play in the rain, even though Da had said they could, and she was being unfair and it was not right that grown-ups could not get punishment too when they were not being just. But Da had not seen it like that. He had scowled at them with real fury, none of his pretend-bearishness, and none of their reasons had saved them from his wrath. Sylas had been sent to the whipman and Cerissa had been bound to her chambers for a week in penance with nowt but a book of Fae-hymns and religious reflections for company to help her become a better child. She’d have gladly switched punishments with Sylas. She’d had another four days of solitude after his stripes had finished healing. 

Still, they were here for a happier reason now. Da pulled the great chairs away from the desk and settled them one on either side of the hearth. A great fire was crackling there already and the small room was aglow with it, cosy and quiet and bright. Ma took one of the seats and Da took the other and Sylas and Jonnah and Cerissa settled on the floor by their feet, like dogs rolling about on the rugs. Da threw a blanket at them and they cuddled up together cosily as he told them all about his adventures. He described Holdfast down at the south-west with such great detail that Cerissa could almost taste the stale stench of the siege camp air in her mouth, and shuddered with fear as Da told them stories of his battles and sieges. Ma pursed her lips a little, she did not like Da encouraging them like this, but she kept her peace. And it was not real in here anyway. In here it was cosy and warm, with the flickering fire in the grate and the smoke rising up away from them. Under the hood of the great fireplace and the crackling fires, darkness browbeating the stone beyond, these daring adventures were a lot older than the ancient legends he usually told them. Distant and unreal.

“And then,” he finished jovially, “I was riding down Marchbent road, within very eyesight of my long-awaited home, when suddenly I was ambushed by three hideously frightening little monsters hurtling up towards me to devour me. And before I could so much as draw my sword they were upon me!”

Cerissa giggled. “How did you defeat them, Da?”

“I remembered the old advice of your Great-Grandma, Cerissa, back when I was but a little lad, small enough to drown in a puddle. She said, if a monster catches you and will not let go,” he reached down and scooped her up into his lap, making her wriggle and squirm with laughter, “then you just need to kiss it, here, and here, and here, and pop, it will turn back into a plaguesome little child.”

Cerissa laughed, wiping his whiskery kisses off of her face and settled herself more firmly on his lap.

“And then you came home,” she finished for him. “The end.”

“We hope it’s not the end,” he laughed. “Not for a good while yet.”

“But the war is over now?” Ma said anxiously from her own chair. “Officially.”

“Aye. Burtlett had a hasty battle-field coronation. I daresay he’ll plan something more elaborate in due course, but for now, it’s finally over.”

“What happened to the old king?” That was Jonnah, solemn and serious, still on the floor, his eyes fixed on Da’s.

A flicker of a frown crossed Da’s face for a moment, but when he spoke his voice was wicked and confidential. He leant forwards in his great chair, his eyes darting between his sons’ until Cerissa was almost tipped from his lap – and would have been if his hands had not been holding tight on to her.

“I do not know for certain-sure, lad, but they said on the war-camps that they caught him fleeing like a craven via the water-gate one dark night. He’d dressed himself up as the queen and had his bairns with him, one in each hand. Apparetly he thought we might let him pass if he was wearing skirts. But our brave men were far too canny for that, they saw right through him.” He paused dramatically, then added; “’Twas the beard that gave him away, they say.”

All his children burst out into giggles at the thought of it and Da laughed his big-bear laugh. Even Ma tittered a little and said, “Oh, Brynn, you are awful sometimes.”

“That’s not true though, is it, Da? It’s just silliness.”

Da’s smile strained a little, Cissa thought, and he shuffled his grip on her up a bit, settling her more cosily on his lap.

“Who can ever tell, Jonnah? These stories will go around, and I’m not the one who caught him. I do not rightly know how he was captured in the end. All I know for sure is that Glengower took Royce’s crown upon his own head and stuck poor Ferris’ upon the pikes above the Deai Tower for all to see. It’ll stay there right many years, I reckon. You’ll probably see it when I take you off to court, lad.”

“But we’re not going to court now, are we?” Cerissa asked quickly, and he hugged her tight, pressing a big Da kiss in her hair.

“No, lass. Not yet. Not for a while yet. For one thing, you’re not fit to be seen by the queen, girl. What’s all this I’ve been hearing about you going swimming in the Dowsitch at midnight, eh?”

“I was not swimming! I was dunked!” Cerissa said indignantly and Da laughed again.

“Aye, that sounds just like the sort of thing someone who was caught swimming at midnight would say.”

“What happened to the little prince and princess?” Jonnah insisted down there by the fire-edge. “They did not lose their heads too, did they?”

“Who do you think we are? We’d not kill a child for his father’s crimes.”

“But is Lord Glengower not -”

“King Burlett now, Jonnah,” Ma said primly.

“Yes, King Burlett, is he not worried that Prince Jemry will want to take his father’s crown back?”

There was an anxious pause and Da seemed to be struggling to think on what to say for a moment. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times and then said;

“Prince Jemry is…he is not …no one will follow him to press his claim, lad. They…cut him. He’s not able to sire children anymore, or form his own dynasty any longer, and no one wants to have another crown-scuffle in another fifty years when he’s dead. Burlett is a stronger, safer bet. And, though mayhap his claim is weaker, coming through from his mother’s side, people are looking for safe right now. Besides, Glengower has betrothed his eldest to the little Ferris princess, and that will solidify the Ferrises back into the crown-line again. Everyone will be happy in the end.”

“Except for the king.”

“And the witches,” Sylas added, staring into the fire. Da flinched. Cerissa could feel his body stiffen angrily under his shirt. She looked up at him, but his eyes were fixed on his youngest son.

“Well, that can only be a good thing. We do not want the urach being happy. They only delight in misery.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

Sylas hugged his knees tighter to his chest. Jonnah sent him a sharp look sideways, but did not say anything and Cissa felt the burden of sisterhood falling on her shoulders instead.

“Are they so very wicked, Da?” she whispered, her little hands creeping imploringly into Da’s, pulling his sharp, and hard-thought gaze away from Sylas and onto herself instead. His gaze softened immediately, and he brushed a strand of her Dowse-hair off of her face.

“Aye, they were. They crept inside folks’ heads and made them do and believe terrible things. Made them think they were surrounded by enemies on the battlefield when they were in their own dining hall, until they had slaughtered every one of their own kin, and woke up back to their own mind to find themselves covered in the blood of their children and wives.”

“Brynn! Do not tell her such things!”

“It’s the truth and she needs to hear it. They all do.” His eyes had strayed to Sylas’ again. Sy burnt but did not drop Da’s gaze, defiantly.

“They can fill your body with such pain that it feels like you are turning inside out, and they feed off of that pain, strengthening upon it. They can drain you of blood and use that blood to bind you to their will. They can curse the very ground you walk, turning it to ash and thorn. And worse of all, they steal babbies out of their cribs for their dark sacrifices – and there is nowt worse on this earth than that. Many a poor woman has had reason to wail as the shadows slipped into their huts and carried off their little kin, and there was but nowt they could do on’t. They sometimes even lure young mothers to the woods and cut the babe out whole, eating it before her as she bleeds out.”

“You will give them nightmares, Brynn. Stop it!”

“They can talk as sweet as you like, Sy lad. But we’re nothing but bloodsport for them. You start tolerating evil in the land, and it comes back to find you in the end, that’s all.”

Sylas burnt brighter, but he still did not drop Da’s gaze.

“The Fae are right powerful too,” he said. “And that word you always use for them.”

“Capricious. Aye, they are. But the Fae love Bridgenford. Not necessarily the folks upon it, you understand, but the heart of the county itself. The urach do not love owt. And if a thing is incapable of love, it is incapable of truth and kindness and mercy.”

“And mercy is the better part of justice,” Cerissa murmured. It was something Da said all the time. He breathed out a laugh and pressed another kiss to her forehead.

“Aye, lass. Time out of mind, it is,” he murmured. There was a moment’s pause and then he said; “Right, off to bed, the lot of you. Sylas, I’d like a word with you before you go, you wait here please. G’night Jonnah. And fair night to you too, little lass.” He gave her another kiss to the temple and then tipped her off of his lap at last, and she stumbled down to the cold stone floor. She cast an anxious look at Sy, but Ma was already bundling her off firmly before she could say owt.

Cerissa threw off her second-best dress hastily, donned her night-gown and tucked herself into the covers as soon as she was in her own chambers and Ma did not say owt about this unusual willingness to obey. She was too anxious to get back to Da, Cerissa thought. She waited until she heard Ma’s footsteps pattering away down those lady’s stairs and then threw herself out of bed again. She tiptoed as silent as she could out along the corridor and up the servant stairs at the back, up to the nothing-space where she wriggled along the beam to the hole and peered through it. Da and Sylas were going at each other something awful, and for a moment she longed to slip down there and stand between them. They looked so alike, red-faced and stiff, Dowse-hair disarrayed as they railed together. Ma had not returned after all. She did not like it when they shouted at each other.

“I’m starting to think you want these dreams,” Da was yelling. “Think it makes you special, do you, boy?”

Sylas’s face got all scrunched and angry. His fists clenched down by his sides.

“It’s not me! I’m not the one haunting her!”

“You’re not trying hard enough not to have them though, are you?”

“You cannot help what you dream, Da!”

“You like her, and I’ll not pretend that does not worry me.” His voice had dropped suddenly low and weary, as if all the anger had gone out of him at once. Sylas stared at Da, shocked and uncertain. He was not expecting Da to go soft.  Sylas took a tentative step forwards towards Da, and Da let out a soft, weary smile. He wrapped an arm around Sylas’ shoulders and pulled him into a hug, his spare hand resting on Sy’s Dowse-hair, ruffling it affectionately.

“I do not like her,” Sy’s voice was defiant but quiet. Cerissa had to lean forwards against the beam to hear it properly. She strained her head so that it almost crept through that thin c***k in the ceiling wattling.

“They can be…bewitching,” Da said. “They can make themselves appear how they want to. They can make themselves seem beautiful and kind. But I know there’s a smart boy in there somewhere. I know I’ve taught you better than that.”

 Sylas suddenly burst into tears. He buried his face in Da’s chest and Da ran his hand over the back of Sy’s head, hushing him.

“She said she knew me, Da. She loved me when I was a man. And she seemed so sad and helpless. It’s not that she’s pretty, Da, it’s just that she’s so sad.”

“And poor gallant Sylas could never resist a damsel in distress, eh?” Da’s voice was kind and jovial once more, and Sy sniffed a little, wiping his face. He seemed stronger again now.

“I did not tell her anything, Da.”

“I know you did not, lad.”

“Why does she come to me? She never comes to Jonnah or to Cissa.”

Da opened his mouth a couple of times and shut it again unspeaking. He looked a little like a fish. Then he sighed.

“I do not know for certain-sure, but I’ve got a fair idea. And when you’re old enough to hear it, I promise I’ll tell it you.”

“I’m old enough now!”

Da just laughed. He pressed a big Da kiss on Sy’s head and breathed in deeply.

“Go to bed, boy,” he said. “And dream of nothing but all the mischief you’re hoping to make and all the thousand ways you will drive me to my watery grave with hairs of silver and white.”

“Goodnight, Da.”

“Goodnight.”

Sy went to the doorway and then paused. He ran back to Da and threw his arms around him wide.

“I am glad you came home safe. Home’s not the same without you.”

Da just laughed again and pushed Sy towards the door a little more firmly. The door shut behind him and the room went to silence.

“Goodnight, Cerissa,” Da added after a moment’s pause, loud enough to travel up to the ceiling with a pointed sternness. Cerissa gave a little squeak and scampered away across the beams and back to bed. She passed Sy on the dark bound corridor, the sounds of the revelry still drifting up to them in the darkness, but neither of them spoke, and soon the night had claimed them both once again.