Читать книгу The Queens of Innis Lear - Tessa Gratton, Tessa Gratton - Страница 20

AEFA

SOMETIMES AEFA OF Thornhill thought she was not hard enough to survive Innis Lear, but when such doubts plagued her, she remembered what her mother would call her, and take heart.

My little mushroom.

Mushrooms weren’t generally thought to be pretty or resilient, but they appeared overnight, kissed into being by the sweet lips of earth saints who returned to the island only for secret dancing. Or so her mother had liked to whisper when Aefa climbed into bed with her, nose wrinkled and begging for a new nickname. Mushrooms are born of the damp earth, fed by starlight instead of the sun. They are both stars and roots, and they are never alone. When have you come across a single mushroom? Never! What a lovely thing to be, my little mushroom: never alone.

Aefa missed her mother.

At least Alis was alive, though hidden deep in the White Forest. She’d railed against Lear three summers ago, calling him foolish and dangerous, mad in his obdurate grief and old age. Only the king’s love for his Fool had saved Alis, buying her the opportunity to flee. And only the star prophecy that the sanctity of the White Forest itself must be maintained saved it from the king’s soldiers. There was a refuge at its heart now, held by the witch Brona, and Alis was there, safe but unable to leave lest she be caught and imprisoned, or worse, exiled forever from the island.

That was how Aefa’s clandestine meetings with the witch had begun: to pass letters for her mother. It was just as well Elia had abandoned her companion to sneak into the Summer Seat alone, for it left Aefa free to go where she wished, unseen.

The town of Sunton was a collection of stone cottages arrayed about a square and surrounded by portioned fields and shared grazing meadows. It clung in a raindrop shape along the low, sloping moors. The tip pointed toward the standing stones perched at the northernmost bluff overlooking the Summer Seat promontory, then curved against the King’s Road that led all along this southern cliff coast toward Port Comlack and Errigal Keep at the far eastern edge of the island. Aefa made her way along the road openly under the sun, swinging a basket in her hand and humming one of her father’s more ridiculous songs about kings and snails. She skipped across the muddy furrows in the dirt. Villagers smiled at her from their yards, women mostly, hanging laundry and sewing in the bright daylight while children dashed here and there, chasing goats and chickens. It was exactly like the village in which Aefa had been born, down to the capped well in the town square, to which she headed directly. Her memories of Firstday blessings at the holy well of Thornhill were dim, as it had been twelve years since she’d attended, and nearly ten since the wells were capped all across Innis Lear, but she remembered the scent—the dank, stony smell of moss and rootwater, and the shiver as a star priest flicked drops onto her face. She’d sneezed once, and it made her mother scowl, but her father had laughed.

The cap on the Sunton well was an old wagon wheel covered with lime wash and set with small gray river stones in a spiral pattern. Lovely and simple, and no doubt those still devout considered it a symbol of the path down and down and down to the water, as if they could still touch it. At the south rim, where the spiral began, Aefa crouched. In the cap’s shadow, there ought to be a box tucked against the foot of the well. But only a small lizard darted away at Aefa’s seeking touch.

With a huff, she stood. She supposed she could circle around town once or twice, or return tomorrow and hope Brona had found a chance to come.

“Aefa.”

It was the witch, her deep voice fond and laughing.

“Ah!” Aefa gasped, twirling with a delighted smile. “I didn’t miss you after all.”

The two women ducked together, embracing. The witch of the White Forest handed Aefa a small stoppered vial before they parted. She was a powerfully built woman with strong hands and a lovely tan face; loose black curls bound under a hood of vibrant red that matched the paint touched to lips as plump as her thighs.

Tucking the vial into a pocket of her skirts, Aefa said, “The princess is already inside the keep. I wish I could have brought her here to see you. She never speaks of you anymore, or her own mother, or truly much of anything but the stars. I’ve not caught her whispering to any flowers or wind in two entire years, Brona.”

The witch’s dark brow bent with sorrow, and she gazed toward the Summer Seat. “Be sure to put the rootwater in her mouth.”

“I slip it into her wine, or sometimes her breakfast. Shouldn’t she notice?”

Brona shrugged one shoulder. “She likely does, she only refuses to admit so, for many, many reasons.”

“Is she afraid?”

“No doubt.”

“I want to tell her,” Aefa said ferociously.

“And if you did, what would she say?”

Aefa imagined Elia’s face, her bright, black eyes. You have to listen to the island, Elia, Aefa would say, and those careful eyes would lower, perhaps flick up to the sky, or to the horizon, and the princess would take one of the great, deep breaths she used to quash the overwhelming song in her heart. But then Elia would make a sad, pretty smile, and move to some other conversation, some other answer, as if Aefa had said nothing at all.

The witch touched Aefa’s knuckles, and said, “She’ll ask you, when she’s ready. You’ll make sure she knows you have the answers?”

“I snap fire sometimes, out of air, to remind her.” Aefa pursed her lips. “She disapproves.”

Brona’s eyebrows lifted.

“She is afraid,” Aefa corrected herself, barely whispering.

“That’s good, little mushroom.” Brona smiled at Aefa’s darting glance. “Alis is well. She’s cultivating a long vine of sweet peas with charming purple flowers and a tendency to giggle at bluebirds.”

“Father wants to see her.”

There Brona’s expression closed off. “Then he should come see her. Nothing to stop him.”

After a pause, the women shared a knowing grimace. There was everything to stop the King’s Fool from a visit to Hartfare. The witch sighed. “But listen, Aefa, he will see her soon enough. All who were riven will soon return to their center.”

Aefa’s lips parted in wonder, for though the witch’s tone did not alter, the words held the weight of magic. “Is that a star prophecy?”

“I do not read stars,” Brona said with delicate distaste. “It is only the gossip of trees.”

But the witch turned her head east, and all her body followed, until Brona faced the rising land, staring as if she could see beyond it to the ocean channel, and past even that, to Aremoria.

“Even …?” Aefa whispered.

“Yes.”

A thrill straightened Aefa’s spine, and she danced a little in place. This would delight the princess, make the fire she was so afraid of flicker again and burn. “She’ll be so happy!”

“No,” Brona said suddenly, grabbing Aefa’s wrist. “She won’t be. But she will survive.”