the blanket around her. She breathed in deeply, savouring the smell of wood smoke layered over top of the scent of her mother, spicy and sweet with the lingering odours of the many herbs she used in her work as a healer.
“I thought you’d be angry with me,” Brenna said. She huddled down on the floor next to the small fire. She looked up when her mother took the single stool across from her and her chest tightened when she saw the sadness on her mother’s face.
“I thought I would be too.” Wynne shook her head. “But you are a woman grown now and you must do what’s right for you. Although I had hoped …”
“I told you I wouldn’t run away,” Brenna said, angry now. “Not and leave you here to take the blame. He’d kill you!”
“Quite likely.”
Brenna squeezed her eyes shut at the pain and sadness and grief in her mother’s words.
“But you would be away from here, you would have a chance at a better life. It would be worth it to me.”
“But not to me! How could I leave knowing that it would cause your death?”
“But it wouldn’t be you who killed me, remember that.” Her mother’s voice was little more than a whisper. But it was an old argument, one that her mother knew she would never win.
“Mama I told you about Beldyn’s promise to me. He will do it. He will.”
“Yes. The promise of a ten year old boy who has been terrorized more than you could possibly know.”
Brenna opened her mouth to reply but her mother’s sad smile stopped her.
“I know that Beldyn means what he says, daughter. But it’s many years until he is a man and with that father who knows what kind of man Beldyn will become?”
Brenna dropped her head to her knees and let her long hair fall over her eyes, hoping to shield her tears from her mother. Beldyn had to survive, he had to come find her, he had to. She couldn’t let go of that faint hope because without it she had none.
“I’m sure he will do as he says,” Wynne said gently. “Now, let’s go over the prayers and passages that my mother taught to me. There is little enough of her that I can pass along, so I need you to remember. After that we’ll go down to the workshop and make sure you have all the herbs you’ll need. Cook’s son hears that the lady of the house you’re going to is heavy with child and ill with it.”
Brenna sighed. She straightened up and shrugged the kinks out of her shoulders. “Let’s start with the one for my eyes,” she said. “That’s the one I need the most.” And she wondered, as she did every time she said the short prayer, why it was her grandmother had taught her mother this particular prayer when her mother clearly had no need of it.
“You mustn’t forget to say it Brenna, every morning.” Wynne gripped her arm hard and Brenna nodded. “And remember not to let anyone hear you.”
“I know, the old gods aren’t welcome everywhere.”
“Nor are witches.”
“But we’re not witches.”
“There are those who would call us that because we know the ways of healing.”
“And because of my eyes,” Brenna added. Not for the first time she wished she’d been born with her mother’s eyes - two clear blue eyes filled with kindness and intelligence.
“Yes, because of your eyes,” Wynne agreed. “Say the prayer now; I can see a little green showing in your eye already.”
“Wise Ush,” Brenna began her voice a low whisper. “Let all see what is not. Two brown eyes and no trace of one green.”
“Good,” Wynne peered at Brenna’s eyes again. “They’re both the same brown now. Finish with the other passage and meet me in the workroom. I have a present for you.”
As she watched her mother climb down the ladder to the stable below Brenna quickly started to mumble the second phrase. “Brothers by the throne …” The words came automatically, with no sense to them that she could make out. Her mother claimed no more understanding of it than she had, but said her mother, Brenna’s grandmother, had insisted she learn it and pass it down to her children. Brenna had not heard her mother speak the phrase for years - she claimed she could no longer form the words – but she knew them well enough to know when Brenna had made a mistake. Wynne had schooled Brenna harder in the two prayers than she had in the arts of healing. And she’d been a firm taskmaster for that.
Brenna put her one dress into her pack and slung it over her shoulder. She was still in the dark tunic and breeches she’d worn on the roof and she saw no reason to change. She wanted her new owner to see her as a youth, a non-woman whose only value was her healing skills. She hoped not to share the fate of her mother - forced into the bed of her lord and master. It was a faint hope she knew. Duke Thorold’s glances at her told her he had noticed her passage into womanhood. No doubt the only thing stopping him from taking her to bed was his belief that he had sired her.
Brenna stepped out over the edge of the loft and placed her foot on the ladder rung. This was the last time she’d ever do that here, she thought sadly. Likely the last time she’d share a space with her mother. She paused for a moment then spied the blanket she’d discarded by the fire, the one that smelled so much of her mother. She stepped back onto the loft floor, scooped up the blanket and tucked it into her pack. She hoped Mama wouldn’t mind, hoped she wasn’t consigning her mother to months of cold, but she needed to take her smell with her, needed to wrap herself in her mother’s essence.
“Where’s the whelp? She was to be ready at dawn.”
Brenna froze at the sound of the duke’s voice booming in the quiet of the stable. She couldn’t hear what her mother said in reply but she recognized the soft tone, the slow cadence designed to placate and calm. She’d heard her mother speak to Duke Thorold in that same manner countless times.
“I don’t care that this is your last day together, witch. She’s not yours and has never been yours, as you’ll both truly know after today. Now where is she?”
“I’m sorry my Lord Duke. I’m coming.” Brenna tried to keep her voice steady as she hurried to the ladder and took the steps two at a time.
When she reached the floor of the stable she hefted her bag onto her shoulder. Then she turned towards the door to the workroom. Duke Thorold’s bulk filled the doorway, the fine rich silks and furs no doubt keeping him warm despite the cold air.
He took a step toward her, his glare making her duck her head, but after a moment she lifted her head and met his eyes. She knew it would enrage him but she hoped it deflected the Duke’s anger from her mother to her, gambling that he wanted to hand her over to her new master unmarked.
“You insolent child,” Duke Thorold took another step toward her and still Brenna held his gaze. “How dare you taunt me?”
Brenna could see her mother’s worried face behind him, her head shaking no as she looked on.
Finally Brenna lowered her head. It would help neither of them if she pushed Thorold into a rage. “I’m sorry my Lord Duke, I thought you might want to confirm that I am free of blemishes or marks.”
Duke Thorold took one more threatening step and Brenna saw Wynne slide out behind him.
“I apologize as well my Lord,” Wynne said as she dropped into a low bow. “It was I who delayed Brenna’s parting. I have one more thing to give to her but I needed to fetch it from the workroom.”
“And what is it you wish to give her?”
“Just my work knife, my Lord,” and as Brenna watched Wynne held up her sheathed knife to the Duke. “It was my own mother’s gift to me before I came here.”
“Your knife.” Thorold snatched it out of her hand and drew the blade. “Since I own you, anything you own is mine.”
“But it was my mother’s. The only thing of hers that I have.” Wynne’s voice was so quiet Brenna could barely hear her, but she saw her mother’s back sag as her head dipped lower.
“This is a very fine knife, witch,” Thorold said. He ignored Wynne’s bent form as he held the blade up to the torch light. “You should have given it to me long ago. I
shall punish you for that, my dear.”
“No!” Brenna hadn’t meant to speak it out loud, hadn’t meant to give that single word so much force, but as Duke Thorold drew himself to his full height and turned all his attention to her Brenna breathed in, almost in relief. She slipped her bag off her shoulder and let it fall to the dusty stable floor. Then she looked him straight in the eye.
He would kill her. She knew it by the anger she saw fill his eyes, the cold smirk he wore as he stepped over her mother, who had sunk to the ground, eyes round with fear.
“No my Lord, please no,” Wynne sobbed and clutched at his leg as he moved past her. Thorold shook his foot free and then kicked out, the toughened leather of his boot thudding against Wynne’s shoulder and spinning her backwards to land hard against the door frame.
“Leave my mother alone!” Brenna shouted, her fear burned away by her rage.
“And what will you do about it?” Thorold stopped three steps from her and laughed. “She’s mine, as are you. I could kill you both and no one would care.”
“You’d kill your own flesh and blood?”
“My dear wife has been insisting I get rid of you for years. I don’t think she much cares how I do it.” He held up the knife, her mother’s knife, so it flashed in the torch light. “I think this will work nicely, don’t you?”
Despite her fear, despite the clammy sweat she felt trickle between her breasts, Brenna stayed where she was, head up, eyes on him as he