She reaches across the table, bracelets jangling. ‘More tea?’
Shipwright holds out the cup. ‘You’re ducking me, Thorn. What happened to him?’
Thorndaughter fidgets with her bangles. The tea splashes.
She leans back in her chair, turns her head to the side. ‘The forest took him.’
Shipwright straightens, her face clouding. ‘Hedied? Oh, Thorn.’
‘Not died,’ she interrupts, eyes flashing. ‘Taken. Given. He was the bridegroom of last year gone. Gone to the stag now.’
Shipwright drinks again, the brass hammering around the cup’s rim warm as a spinner.
‘I always thought that was just a Burner tradition, Thorn. Dress the prettiest boy up, send him off into the green.’ She waves a hand. ‘Renew the forest. They did a similar thing at the Aesteringon the first day of full sun. Green ribbons around the birch trees. Singing.’ She grins. ‘Shroud never could hold that tune.’
Thorndaughter shakes her head, earrings catching the glow of the fire, her ears briefly dripping gold.
‘Not just tradition, salt-chuck. Ritual. Every four year a boy given to the forest.’
Shipwright sets her cup down and studies her hands. Raising her head she asks, ‘But they’re not dead?’
Thorndaughter shifts. The chair creaks as she resettles. Small embers fall from her pipe onto her thighs, fast patted out. ‘No, not dead. But not living as they were. The forest takes them. The god in the forest. The god thatisthe forest. The white stag.’
Shipwright shakes her head. ‘I don’t totally follow.’
Thorndaughter leans forwards, reaches out a hand, levers herself up slowly, the weight of her whole body against Shipwright.
‘You remember fifteen year ago you came. What did I say to you then?’
Shipwright squeezes her hand. ‘Thorn. I’m too old for that. My memory’s a leaky dinghy.’
Thorndaughter says nothing in reply, but leads her to the side of the pavilion, where red silk curves down to the sod. There’s a cabinet there, delicate, beautiful. She reaches into her kirtle, takes out a key and fumbles with the lock.
‘I told you and the bone-binder that we could do nothing beyond the forest. That we were bound to the forest. Sheltered by it. That’s why we couldn’t help, against the thing in the mountain. Against the Empire.’
Shipwright nods. ‘Ever since the bladedrinkers. I remember now, yeah.’
The lock clicks, and the lacquered doors swung open. Golden patterns of leaves and thorn.
Thorndaughter stoops, reaches in, and takes out a long thin glass case.
‘Our god lives in the forest. And he needs our boys to keep him strong. To keep us safe.’ Her large face softens with tears. ‘Every four year.’ Her voice is as low as the brazier’s coals, herfingers moving slowly over the glass and the objects inside.
She turns to Shipwright, holds out the case. ‘I keep what I can of them.’
Shipwright gently takes the case and sees curls of hair, each neatly bound, and labelled. The ones on the left faded almost to paleness, those on the right still brown, and russet and black. She looks up at Thorndaughter, and the tears running down the wood-witch’s face.
‘Oh, Thorn. I’m so sorry.’
Thorndaughter points to a name. ‘My own boy, the prettiest ever, gone near twelve year ago. Can’t even read his name now. Can’t even recall what it was.’
Shipwright squints at the labels as the text on them swirls and blurs. Only the very rightmost remains in clear focus – Willowtooth.
She hands the case back.
‘You can’t even remember them, can you? Because of what Crowkisser did. Because of the south.’
Thorndaughter nods, placing the case gently in the cabinet, before she locks it and returns the key to her kirtle.
