At fifteen, Kaetha was a year older than Archie, yet he was already a foot taller. Still, she wasn’t about to let her stature hinder her, nor the rough bark which scratched against her hands. She focussed on securing footholds, gripping branches and hauling herself higher, squirrels scampering away before her.
“Ha,” she said as she sat on a high branch and untwisted her red skirts, thinking how it would be so much easier if Gwyn let her wear a tunic with slits over a pair of trews as Morwena did, but Gwyn said it wasn’t Dalrathan enough. “You try doing that in an ankle length gown.”
Archie laughed as he caught up with her. “Maybe some other time.” His smile buckled. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Following his gaze, she saw two people approaching.
“Bit late for bairns to be out on the braes, wouldn’t you say?” A tall lass with frizzy, blonde hair squinted up at them, her muscular arms wrapped around bundles of firewood. The Clatcher siblings were only a little older than Kaetha; it was a stupid insult to call them bairns.
“Aye, Morag,” said the lass’s brother, Raghnall, who looked like a larger, uglier version of his sister, with uneven tufts of fluff growing on his chin. Two dead rabbits swung from a string in his hand. “I see Archie’s trying his luck with Lady Rich Lass. Look at him. His face red as a skelpt arse.”
“Away and boil your head, Raghnall. And I’m not a ‘Lady’,” said Kaetha, climbing to the ground with the agility of a cat.
Raghnall picked up her bag from the ground.
“Give that back,” she said.
“No.”
When she reached for it, he shoved her and she fell, her backside stinging against a thistle. “You might throw your fists around, Raghnall Clatcher,” she said, getting to her feet again and jutting out her jaw defiantly, “but it’s clear that you use your brawn because you have no brains.”
“I have more brains than you, you little bitch,” he said.
Her eyes flashed and she held his gaze. “I bet you can’t even read your own name.” She ignored Archie’s tugs at her sleeve.
“There’s no point to reading.” Raghnall sounded like he didn’t care but the flush spreading across his face suggested otherwise. “Bet you can’t either anyway.”
“Of course I can. I had a tutor.”
“Liar.”
“Ask my guardians, if you like.”
“We should go,” muttered Archie with a tentative touch to her shoulder. She ignored him.
Raghnall bore down on her, his face inches from hers. “Your guardian, Lady Morwena Trylenn,” he sneered, “is a witch.” He spat on the ground at her feet.
A fire flared up in her then and, without a thought, she slapped Raghnall hard around the face. He let out a cry of pain and dropped the rabbits to the ground. Archie’s jaw dropped and Morag stood blinking in surprise. Finally, Kaetha edged back a step. She looked at her palm and flexed her fingers. Her skin looked normal yet waves of heat prickled across its surface. A hand print was appearing on Raghnall’s face but it looked more like he’d been burned than slapped. He stepped toward her, raising a clenched fist and Kaetha’s breath caught in her throat.
“Enough, Raghnall,” said his sister.
He put his fingers to his cheek and winced.
“And don’t make such a fuss,” Morag added. “You deserved that, insulting her guardian and one of your betters.”
“Betters?” He spat again. “I’m better than some clatty witch!”
“How dare you call her that!” shouted Kaetha.
“She is though. That’s what people say.”
“What else are they saying exactly?” she said through clenched teeth, the fire of her anger tangled with icy threads of fear.
“Lots of things.” He lowered his fist now, a hint of a smile suggesting that he knew other ways to hurt her. “What other village has a Lady but no Laird? They say Morwena bewitched people to get that grand hall for her and her sister.”
“It was Queen Donella’s land to bequeath to whomever she wished and the king respected—”
“And farmer Underwood insulted her one day and next morning his cow gave no milk. And that fever that was going through the village a few weeks back – no one else caught it after Lady Morwena left on her trip. They say she goes to the devil’s court—”
“She goes to King Alran’s court—”
“And those Edonian carvings in the stones and things she wears. How do we know they aren’t spells and charms?”
“Don’t be stupid. Stones don’t have magic, they’re just—”
“I reckon your guardians could be behind what happened at Loch Eachburn two days ago too. That wave of water that flooded the fishermen’s huts, even reached our doorstep. When the water went down again, it left a trail of ice. In midsummer.” He turned to Archie. “Surely, you heard about that?”
Archie made a non-committal grunt.
Kaetha wanted to object to these absurd slanders but, in her outrage, speech eluded her and she just gaped, shaking her head.
“Fish floated up dead and rotten,” continued Raghnall. “Can’t trust Edonians. You’re all savages, servants of the devil, a bunch of filthy foreigners.”
“I’m not Edonian,” said Kaetha, though even as she said it, guilt twisted within her for feeling the need to separate herself from her guardians, Gwyn and Morwena, in this way. “I’m Dalrathan,” she continued, “my parents were from Bris.”
He squinted at her, his gaze tracing her face. “Strange. Another thing people talk about . . . How come you, an orphan, look so much like Lady Morwena?”
“I don’t know,” she croaked, her throat dry. “How come you, an eejit, look so much like a pig?”
He scowled. “People say you look like her because she’s a whore – and you’re her bastard. And a witch, just like her, more than likely.”
“You’re talking arse-haggis, you liar.” Heat rose in her
