Chapter 38
We spend wintertide hibernating like all wounded creatures.
Fenna’s injuries have healed but I worry about the scars left in her mind, on her heart, for she still hasn’t forgiven herself for crumbling before the god-hounds.
I tell her that what was done to her was inhuman and no one should be subjected to such treatment, that no one should ever have that visited upon them let alone by men claiming to be representatives of the church.
I tell her that I do not blame her and nor does Rhea; that she did not ask to be tortured; and reiterate that I’d have done the same thing in her place.
‘But you didn’t,’ she replies. ‘You didn’t give up Rhea. You healed me when you could have left me to suffer and die. You didn’t do those things. You died instead.’
‘To be fair, that was never my intention. If I’d thought about it, I might not have antagonised Brother Loic quite so much. It was almost worth it.’
She looks at me shrewdly. ‘You did die and I can see the darkness limning you, Mehrab, it’s like a scorched silver, almost like blurred lightning, a mark left behind after a burning. I can see where you’ve been.’
I shake my head, lower my voice. ‘I didn’t go anywhere, Fenna.
Yes, my soul slipped out but it stayed on my corpse until it got stuffed back in.
’ I don’t tell her about that terrible fear, that I’ll never be able to leave this body behind ever again – that there’ll be no release for me, that Lady Death will never turn her gaze on me.
In the end, I tell her that she has to set her pride aside – that it’s made her vulnerable.
She had assumed she would never give away the secrets she kept, but she’d also never been hurt like that by such men, never been tested in that way – and you cannot know what you will say until someone is stripping the skin from your back and breasts.
Her apprentices who’d chosen death had their own bravery, certainly, but they’d not been tortured.
She who has lived through that and keeps living, takes the opportunity to be better? No greater bravery than that.
Ari and Matthias are well, although Gida and Deva tell me they still wake screaming some nights.
I tell them it will fade with time. I had a Very Serious Conversation with Thaddeus Peppergill one evening in his study; he asked if the rumours were true, had I died?
I asked if he felt more comfortable talking with a witch or a dead woman and he couldn’t quite decide.
But he did agree that there was no place in Berhta’s Forge for god-hounds.
Apparently Brother Loic had told of his plans to build a church in the village, to create his own personal parish rather than go on hunting for Rhea.
Why undertake a wild goose chase when one could settle in such a lovely spot?
How fortunate then that the huntsman had dealt with the god-hounds and what little remained of them had been buried deep in the woods.
There will be no god-hounds in Berhta’s Forge, and the witches in my cottage in the woods will not be bothered or harmed.
Tieve visits weekly. Her mother agreed, eventually, that her daughter would do well from an apprenticeship and Reynald, although initially sceptical, tells me he’s impressed with how quickly the girl picks up new skills, retains knowledge.
She and Ari are rebuilding their friendship, slowly.
That, like all things, will take time for such connections are fragile things and can be snuffed out unexpectedly.
She brings news of the village when she comes and tells how Orin fares, running the smithy in Faolan’s place aided by another blacksmith who worked with Faolan when the workload peaked.
She says that the blacksmith is sorely missed by his friends, his good deeds frequently recounted in the inn of an evening, and the mothers of Berhta’s Forge have set up a roster for bringing food to Orin’s home at least until he can arrange for a housekeeper.
Tieve says that some nights she’s seen him saddling his father’s stallion and setting off into the woods despite the snow, in the direction of Night’s Barrow.
And I see the lad there some nights too, when we’re both visiting someone we love who’s changed forever.
It’s not very exciting, what with Faolan’s hibernating, lying on one of the biers, eyes closed, unmoving, but breathing.
There is much involved in mending a god.
The lad is, I think, doing better; he is trying to be better.
Some nights I arrive after him, and hear him speaking to his father, words I hope Faolan can hear, that he will recall when he’s awake.
Those nights, I sometimes leave without disturbing them.
Other times, I make a noise before I enter to give him a warning, then Orin and I talk about how he can best make amends and re-earn the trust he’d squandered.
And I hope he realises that although no one can replace his mother, I’ve come to care for him.
I hope he understands, at last, that he’s loved.
The baby, now glorying in the name of Flora, does well.
Very well indeed, though her growth has slowed, thankfully, to a more reasonable pace.
She’s the size of a two-year-old now, but her temper remains sweet and serene.
If she finds herself watched, in her cradle or bouncer, or crawling or doing her best to take her first wobbly steps, she will laugh, a great raucous sound, and flowers bloom in her thick brown hair, a riot of colours.
I wonder if this will continue through her life or it’s something she’ll be able to control when she’s older.
For now, it’s a delight and with no witnesses other than us, it’s harmless enough.
One day, perhaps, Rhea will take her to the Black Lake, ask the mari-morgan for them both to be taken to the green woman because Flora shares blood with that old god.
If I have returned, perhaps I’ll go with them.
And Rhea herself has changed from the scared, sulky girl who first came here.
She’s calm and poised, gentle with Fenna, which alternately moves and irritates the older woman, but they get along well enough together and the cottage is harmonious if a little cramped with four of us in it.
Soon this will not be a problem. Rhea delights in her child, but I sometimes catch her watching the girl with an alertness I think all mothers wear when they realise their daughters are not their doubles – nor are they meant to be.
And, knowing what a fearsome thing it is to live as a woman and a witch, their fear for their offspring is so much stronger.
I wonder, some days, whether this contributed to my mother’s feelings about me – not for but about; that I was so different from her, and my sister, from the simplicity their lives had because they were without magic.
Perhaps she was simply afraid of me, of what my life might be.
Afraid for me, perhaps. She might say, if she were to learn all I have done, all I’ve become, that she was not wrong in her fears.
But Rhea, I think, will not be like that.
I think she will not be inclined to try and crush her strange, glorious, blooming daughter into a safe and ordinary shape.
Whenever she leaves the cottage or enters it, Rhea touches the face of the green woman above the door, and lifts Flora up to do so as well.
One day, I go alone into the snowy forest. I ride the feather-foot bay, Eadig, with a sled dragging behind him.
I take an axe and a flask filled with a hemlock draught.
In that grove, I at last do what I should have done years ago: I pour the hemlock on his roots and sing his secret name as he drifts off to sleep.
He does not wake when I use the axe. I turn him into firewood, weeping the whole time, then load up the sled and deliver one or two of those long-burning logs to each home in Berhta’s Forge because to leave him to rot in the grove would be wasteful, a desecration, and the green woman would never forgive me.
This way, many households benefit. I do not feel better afterward, but at least I don’t feel worse.
I have not unshrouded the cottage. Maybe I will and maybe I won’t, but I know Fenna can cast the veil if need be.
And I like to think that the god of the hunt will keep a watchful eye on the place.
I believe they’ll be safe. But there are horses enough if they have to run, there’s funds hidden away if required.
They have the maps I drew for them. They have Rhea’s fire.
They can call on the green woman, whom I’ve seen some nights when I roam, moving through her Great Forest once more, unmarked and unmolested.
Not a word of thanks, but a nod of her head, and after all perhaps that’s enough when she gave me another chance at life.
I talk, one night, to the mari-morgan by the Black Lake. I scry, one last time, for the city of my birth to see what I might learn. And I ask the mari-morgan what she might know, for all the waters of the world are joined.
And at last, on the first day of spring, I saddle Rosie and fill a pack. I say my goodbyes and trot into the forest. There are things I must do, mistakes I must unmake, and a long way to go before I begin.
* * *
Weeks later, I at last lead Rosie to the edge of the forest and find myself staring at the demarcation line between the old past, the recent past and the future.
Between making and unmaking, old and new.
It seems such a small thing, so thin that line, yet now it’s here, so hard for me to lift my foot and cross.
And this forest, home for so long; or perhaps not home, not truly. Perhaps merely a refuge, a place to mark time? Until I was prepared to render my tithe. Either way, it’s time to pay the piper. I take a deep breath of woodland air – this woodland, my last for a while – and prepare to step out.
‘You didn’t come to find me.’
I spin about, looking for the source of the voice, but it’s not as if he’s hiding himself, not now.
Mounted on a horse that’s taller than my head, a great grey-brown beast woven of vines and leaves and branches, the reins living things that writhe and snap (no less eldritch than the bone horse, but certainly more beautiful), he is whole again, clad in animal skins.
I can see the shadow of the man he was when I first came here, met him, mated with him; and also the shadow of the dark half, the killer god.
Both of them in there, in the eyes, but they’re wrapped within a different man.
A different being. The hands holding the reins no longer have swollen arthritic fingers, the veins in them less obvious, although the top joint of the left little finger is missing.
Not precisely youth coursing through him, but a younger vitality certainly. No less beautiful.
‘No. You were sleeping. Mending.’
‘You knew where I was.’
‘I visited when I could – visited on cold nights when my old bones should have been abed. Did you expect me to climb up beside you on that stone bier? Sleep with you there?’ I won’t admit to him that I’d thought about it.
From his expression, he did expect that but knows it’s foolish. Unreasonable. He sounds a little plaintive when he asks, ‘Didn’t you know or even suspect? When we were together? What I was?’
‘Oh. You didn’t even know yourself. And while your fucking was certainly efficient it was hardly godlike…
’ I remind myself this isn’t the man of the last two decades, with his patience; I remind myself that gods are petty, jealous things, quick to take offence.
But he laughs. He laughs and the part of him that was mine, that found joy in small things, shines through.
‘I will miss you, Mehrab. I’ll miss you, old woman. ’
‘And I you, old man, or parts of you at least.’ We grin at each other like idiot teenagers, and for a moment I yearn for him, to touch him again, taste him, smell him, feel every part of him. But mortals who mate with gods seldom do well in the bargain.
‘You didn’t say goodbye.’
‘No. I’m not overly fond of goodbyes. But look after your lad, he needs you. Be kind.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘And keep an eye on my little family – do try not to marry one of them.’
‘Stay with me, Mehrab,’ he says. ‘Stay. Be my consort. You remade me, let me give you what gifts I can. I’ll make you a goddess.’
And I’m tempted for the briefest of moments.
My skin smooth and taut again, my breasts high, my hips a little narrower, my waist a cinched-in thing.
The love of a deity, perhaps offspring, the thrill of the hunt, watching the world change as civilisations rise and fall beyond the forest, watching generations of folk who worship us come and go, watching those who bear a little of our blood do brave and terrible deeds.
But I have tasks, things to do, other obligations weightier than rolling in the bed of the god of the hunt.
I smile and shake my head with genuine reluctance. ‘I have atonements to make, old man. Liens on my soul longer than my connection to you. Apologies and amends to commit. And leagues and leagues and leagues to travel before I do so.’
‘Then come back. Promise me that, old woman. Surely you can give me that.’
‘Perhaps,’ I say and smile, then turn and step over the border, out of the tree line, from the cool darkness into the bright and terrible light.