Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms Read online

  “Camp followers,” one of the soldiers told the princess, with a curl of his lip. “Looking to sell their bodies or scavenge the dead. More trouble than they’re worth. Come the battle, they’ll be wanting protection, and we’ve little enough of that to spare.”

  At night, the princess lay awake in her canvas tent and listened to the groans of pleasure from the tents around her, mingled with the usual snores and cries. Men were a loud bunch, at rest or no. They would meet the enemy tomorrow or the next day; blood would not be put off for long. She felt her sword hand clench around empty air. Only two weeks as a knight, and she ached without a blade to hold.

  On their fourth day, a dark-haired woman joined the followers’ ranks, lingering just at the edges of the slow-moving crowd. She had a mass of tangled hair, a hooked nose, and thin, rose-red lips. Strange runes and symbols were inked across her arms and the palm of her left hand was painted green.

  “A woodwitch,” a soldier told the princess, before spitting on the ground. “They stain their hands to show they serve the earth. An ill omen, she is. They honor no kings, and have no loyalty.”

  The princess studied the witch as she walked beside her, the slant of her mouth, the crease of her thick eyebrows. The witch did not look back.

  By the end of that day’s march, rumor of the witch had spread through the ranks, and there was much talk at supper of killing her while she slept, or seeing how much gold it would take for her to spread her legs like a common woman. The princess had nothing to say to this. After a fortnight spent training and living alongside these men, she was used to such talk. She ate her dried meat and hard bread in silence, the mockery turning to thunder, only thunder, rolling in the distance.

  By the fifth day, the woodwitch had an eye bruised green and purple, and the enemy was upon them.

  Once upon a time, when magic ran like fault lines through the earth, a daughter was born to a great king. She was not the princess of songs and stories; flaxen haired, fine boned, fairest of them all. No, this princess was tall and strong, and her mother died giving life to her. She was raised by her brothers, more at ease on a horse than a throne, and could wield a sword more skillfully by ten than many men by twenty. She had a strong jaw and a sweet voice, and many said (with hushed tones and pitying eyes) that she was the very image of her father in his boyhood.

  These were times of violence in the kingdom, for the prin cess’s father had been at war with the king to the south for nearly twenty years. One by one, the princess’s brothers waved to her as they rode off to battle, and one by one their bodies were sent back, wrapped in golden shrouds. Rarely did they die on horseback, for the enemy was craven and unnatural. The South favored sorcery to swords, and the princess’s brothers died of fever, died coughing, died vomiting from sicknesses no godly man could name. Rumors spread that the king’s line was cursed, that none of his seed would ever ride away from battle. The king grew bitter and vicious in his grief, locked himself in his chambers for months on end, and still men fought for him, and still men died.

  The princess saw her father for the last time on her twenty-first birthday. He came to her bedchamber, found her hunch shouldered and sullen after fighting with her handmaids for the hundredth time. Her corsets were too loose about the chest, too tight about the hips. Her skirts were torn from riding; her fine dresses misshapen from the strength of her shoulders and her arms.

  “It would have been better if you were a boy,” the king said, voice leathery as the covers of long-forgotten books. “You might have been a soldier, then. Might have fought for me as your brothers did.”

  The princess turned from her mirror to see him standing in her doorway, beard tangled and gaze dull. She had loved her brothers, but there was a time when she had loved him most of all—loved to hear him speak of death and honor, loved the blue fire of his eyes as he toasted the downfall of their enemies, the red wine that spilled like blood from the corners of his mouth.

  “It would be better had you been a boy,” the king said, “than the creature you are.”

  “What creature is that?” the princess asked, voice shaking.

  “I would rather have no heirs at all, than one daughter who does not know her place.”

  The door closed behind the king, but to the princess’s ears it sounded like the falling of an axe.

  She had watched her brothers ride away so many times, knew the prideful angle of their jaws and the stiff arch of their spines. She could lift a longsword with one hand, and still throw a dagger in the other. She took one of those daggers now, and raised it to her throat. It ran like water through her thick blonde hair, carving it off easily below her ears. When she tilted her jaw and arched her back, she barely recognized herself. She had no breasts to bind, but she bound them anyway. Then she stole her brother’s leather and mail, found a swift horse and a dull sword, and went off to break a curse.

  The battle raged for the rise and fall of two moons, and when at last the enemy ran staggering from their sight, the princess found herself slick with sweat and blood. She had cut down two men, she knew that much. Maybe more. One had his throat slit open, wet red roses blooming over the dry earth. One had her sword buried in his belly, opened up around her blade like rotten meat. The princess had been sick after that, but the ground was so mired in filth, the air so ripe with smoke, that no one had taken any notice of her.

  There were fewer of her number than before, and as she stood amidst the thinned crowd of the injured and the dying, she realized that her leg was bleeding.

  Cursing, she tore a strip from her tunic. The cut was high and deep, rending both skin and muscle. Even as she bound it, blood spilled from the bandage like dark fingers, the pain enough to make her dizzy. She had felt numb before, fueled only by pure and terrified survival, but in the aftermath of battle all her injuries were making themselves known. Her muscles screamed with exhaustion, her ribs throbbed where she had been kicked. She took a hesitant step, and felt bile at the back of her throat.

  She wondered if her brothers had felt like this after battle. She wondered if she was a true knight now, now that she had stopped a man’s heart.

  “That wound needs seeing to.”

  The princess did not know who spoke until she noticed the dark-haired witch a few yards away, moving like a dancer between the crows and carrion. The princess ignored her, pulling the binding tighter. The witch was not looking at her, crouched and peering into the mouth of a fallen soldier. When she jerked her arm, the princess realized she was pulling teeth from the corpse, strange pinching tools clutched in one hand and a rattling bag in the other.

  “It is ungodly to desecrate the dead,” the princess said, despite the heartbeat of pain running from her leg to her throat.

  “The dead don’t need their teeth.” The witch stood, brushing off her skirts. “And the eyetooth of one killed in violence can be used as a charm against drowning.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “Not if a sailor believes it.” The witch looked at the princess then, bird-black eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  At last, the princess thought, and then felt alarmed. Those words meant nothing. She had been waiting for nothing.

  “The battlefield is no place for a woman,” the princess said, because that was what a true knight would say.

  “I am ministering to the wounded.”

  “You are mutilating corpses.”

  “Bit of both, then.” The witch came closer. “I tell it true, m’lord. That wound will fester if not tended. I’ve seen men lose their legs to shallower cuts.”

  “I have bound it. I can see to it myself.”

  “Aye, bound it in your own rags, you have. In a fortnight, it will be black and you’ll be begging for your friends to take a blade to it.” The witch knelt suddenly, digging her hands into the soil. After a moment, she rose again, thin fingers clutching damp, gray earth.

  “Beggar’s clay,” the witch said, meeting the princess’s eye. “It will draw the sickness out.”<
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  “I have no need of your black magic.” The thought of those hands against her skin made the princess feel nauseous. She hunched her shoulders, ready to be sick, but there was no food in her belly. She sank to her knees and heaved, dryly. The ground was spinning again, and the princess lay down on her back, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them, the witch was peering down at her.

  “Lie still, for I do not wish to cut you.” With a flash of silver, the witch sliced through the meager bandage with her dagger. The princess flinched, trying to force the other woman away.

  “Lie still, I said,” the witch hissed, spitting into her hand before smearing the clay mixture against the princess’s thigh. The relief was immediate, and the princess almost let out a gasp in her true voice, a breathy female gasp that would have revealed her immediately.

  Luckily, she composed herself in time. She had been playing this role for too long to let a kohl-eyed crone unmask her now.

  “There now,” the witch murmured. “Bind soft cotton over the clay, and change it nightly. In two days’ time, the pain will ebb. In a moon, the scar will fade.”

  “Away from me, madwoman.” The princess scrambled backward, putting distance between them. The witch still knelt before her, eyes wide and curious.

  “As skittish as a colt, you are. And no more than a lad, I’d bet my throwing stones on it. I’ve never seen a grown man with eyes so blue.”

  The princess cast her blue eyes toward the ground. Many knights had thought her a boy before this; it was as good a disguise as any. Still, she remembered the witch’s rough hand on her thigh, and felt a tremor run through her. It might have been fear, but it did not feel like fear.

  “Fare thee well, then, my errant knight.” The witch rose, wiping her clay-covered hands on her skirt. She tossed a look over her shoulder as she strode off into the smoke, and the princess watched the corner of her mouth curl, like the whorls of black ink marking her forearms.

  ‘An ill omen, she is,’ the princess thought, and her thoughts had the same low pitch as her voice these past few weeks. Already she was forgetting what she truly sounded like. Or perhaps she’d always sounded like this—gravel throated and weary. Perhaps this life was her truth now, and the other was nothing but a dream. A fairy tale.

  They went to meet the enemy along the southern border, ten days’ ride from the carnage of that first battle. The princess waited for dark magic to sweep like fever through the camp, but so far their strength had held.

  “No thanks to her,” the knights whispered, sneering toward the woodwitch who followed behind them. At night they burned sweetgrass and wild sage as offerings to their king. The princess hung back, offerings unlit. She knew, with a certainty cold as iron, that her father wanted none of her prayers. Since she had run, there had been no news from the palace of a missing princess. Perhaps he was keeping her secret safe, protecting her in what small way he could. Perhaps he had given her up completely.

  In the trembling fire of offerings, the princess caught sight of a familiar, flame-limned profile. The witch sat at the edge of their party, shoulders drawn together against the cold. Already, the princess’s leg had begun to itch with healing, the skin no longer swollen and pink. She often found herself looking to catch the woodwitch’s eye, hoping to offer a nod of gratitude, an acknowledgment of her service. The witch never looked at her, however, and the princess had to content herself with indirect angles: the heavy slope of her brow, the elegant hook of her nose. She was indeed a witch of songs and stories, though she had no warts to speak of, and could not have been much older than the princess herself. Still, there was something about her to make children quake in their beds. Or at least something to make the princess quake, lying frantic and awake in her windblown cloth tent, aching for a blade to hold.

  “The errant knight.” The witch laughed low like music as the princess rode up beside her. “I did wonder how you fared.”

  “Not dead yet,” the princess said, tangled in that laugh as if it were a web.

  “As I see.” Even as she said it, the witch did not look at her. “And your injury?”

  “Healing well.” The princess blushed even as she thought the words, but forced them through her teeth. “Thanks to you.”

  “Thanks indeed. Would that your company shared your gratitude.”

  The princess forced herself to look the witch full in the face, searching for any sign of cruelty. Her heart stuttered in her chest as if she were cutting throats; if anyone had hurt this woman, the princess did not know what she would do.

  “What happened?” she snarled, teeth catching on her lips, “Who was it? Tell me his name and I’ll…I’ll…”

  “You’ll fight an army, will you?” The witch laughed again, though there was no longer music in it. “Never fear, lad. I can handle myself with a dagger.”

  The princess had slowed her horse to keep pace beside the woman. She could feel him trembling between her legs with the urge to run, and she petted his neck. They’d been together since she took him from her father’s stables with promises of oats and sugar.

  “A fine beast,” the witch said, reaching up to trace her fingers through the horse’s chestnut mane. “Wherever did you find him?”

  “He was my father’s,” the princess said, a lie she had told countless times. “A farmer, he was.”

  “How came a farmer’s son to this endless war?”

  “I wished to serve my king and vanquish his enemies.”

  The witch was silent for a moment, looking away with a wry twist of her lips. “And what does a farmer’s son know of enemies?”

  This was a conversation the princess had had before. She knew her lines very well.

  “The Raven’s Gate is ours by right. Those lands belonged to our ancient kings, not the godless men that claim them now.”

  “Are you so sure of this?” the witch asked. “I have heard legend that the Gate belonged to the Green Men of the South since time began.”

  “Those are the legends of Green Men.”

  “And your legends are your own.” The witch brushed a thick lock of hair from her eyes. The princess watched it slide through her hand. “Who can say where the truth lies?”

  The princess had no response. Such talk was treasonous, and likely to get a man’s throat cut.

  “The South is building a great weapon with which they mean to take our lands from us.” That was a safer subject than the ambiguity of history. The threat from the South had been common knowledge since the princess was a child. Mothers warned their sons against Southern traders; rangers at the borders lit lanterns through the night to keep unseen enemies at bay.

  “What shape does this great weapon take? Or have you not seen it?” The witch kept her voice low.

  “Of course I haven’t. But there have been spies, scouts—”

  “Who have spoken to you?”

  “No, but who have spoken to our…commanding officers. Our king.”

  “Ah.” The witch nodded. “And they would have no cause to lie.”

  No cause but the Raven’s Gate, the princess thought, the mountain range said to be rich with minerals, and easy access to trade routes with the Islands. But surely—surely her father would not have spent so many lives for such a cause. Blood right, honor, certainly, but not gold.

  “The South cast spells on our men, and killed the princes,” the princess said, counting her brothers’ names silently in her head: Nathyn, shy, fond of science and math and stray dogs. Elias, the archer, beloved by princesses and peasant women alike. Bertrand, strong and tall and thirsty for blood. Leif, the youngest and the sweetest, who gave her hand a kiss as he rode past her window on his way to war.

  “Pray for me, sister,” he called up to her, “I shall see you again before the lilacs bloom.”

  Leif, who had taught her how to swing a sword, taught her where to cut a man if you meant to kill him. Leif, two years her elder, who had curled up in her bed at night when thunder roared like a wounded beast. The en
emy had killed him, and all her brothers before.

  “Spells? What spells do you speak of, boy?” The witch interrupted the princess’s thoughts.

  “The fever that overran the army, five years ago. The flux that killed the youngest prince.”

  “Mercy.” The witch touched her green hand to her heart, then to her lips. The princess followed that motion with her eyes—wordless, helpless. “The flux was the result of tainted rations. That meat was old and rotten, and the commanders knew it full well. If you would blame anyone for that, blame your king.”

  “Those words are treasonous,” the princess spat, turning her horse to face the witch. The witch stopped in her tracks, but she did not bow her head. Instead, she met the princess’s eyes with her own—not bird-black at all, but chocolate brown. In this light, the princess could finally see them clearly.

  “Treasonous to whom?” the witch asked. “I should know the truth of it, I was there as those boys died.”

  “You were—”

  “Don’t look so surprised. I’ve been following armies and healing men longer than you’ve been a soldier.”

  “And yet you could not heal a dying prince.”

  The witch frowned, drawing her thick eyebrows together. “There were many men I could not heal, too many to count on fifty hands. Was this prince blond haired and green eyed? Was he gentle, with freckles on his cheekbones?”

  “He—” the princess started and then stopped, choking the words back. “I do not know. I’ve only heard stories of his death.”

  “Pity,” the witch murmured, “It is always a pity when gentle men die.”

  The princess dug her heels into her horse, and rode away. She did not look back at the witch, and she knew the witch did not look after her.

  Two days away from the southern border, the army came across a slow-moving river. The men held their supplies over their heads, wading through the water with their horses behind them. Some of the younger ones went back to help the camp followers cross, carrying wee babes in their arms and old women on their shoulders. The sun was out, and when they had cleared the far banks, the army rested for a while at the forest’s edge, as if war was nothing more than a bad dream on a beautiful day.