The Briar Crown, page 1
The Briar Crown
Copyright © 2023 by Helen Rygh-Pedersen
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either of the author’s imagination or they are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by HRP Publishing
eBook ISBN: 978-82-93831-10-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-82-93831-11-2
Cover Design: AK Westerman
@akorganicabstracts
First edition: January 2023
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also by | Helen Rygh-Pedersen
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Thank you for reading The Briar Crown!
Notes
Acknowledgements
Also by
Helen Rygh-Pedersen
Series
Riverda Rising:
Waking Ursa Minor
Picture Books
A Whiff in the Woods
Short Stories writing as
H. Rygh-Pedersen
Heifer
In loving memory of
Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Gibson
Chapter 1
The sound of the whip ripping at naked flesh echoed around the square. The hissed intake of breath that accompanied the strikes of the metal cord soon turned to spittle and blood-laced expulsions of pain as their owner lost his battle to remain silent.
Roslyn wanted to close her eyes, to look away from the face contorted in pain, but she dared not. There were too many soldiers—too many of the Oderberg bulldogs staring into the crowd, making sure each and every one of them understood the cost of disobeying the crown. Sour saliva filled her mouth and she wanted to spit. She swallowed her feelings down in revulsion and leant back into the muscular chest that was propping her up as the scene seared her eyes. She risked a quick look up at Eik and saw his bearded chin set squarely, brown eyes staring straight ahead. His heart was pounding with rage; she could feel it through her bodice. He gave her arm a tight squeeze and she lowered her gaze back to the stage just as a soldier shifted his spear in his hand at her lack of attention.
Finally, when the sentenced number of lashes had been administered, the leader of the troop of soldiers stepped forward. He grimaced slightly as the young man’s blood blotted the edge of his polished steel boot.
“Let this man’s punishment of twenty lashes be a reminder to all Domovnians: use of magic will not be tolerated. The next man, woman or child to be found practising any form of hexery will be executed before his majesty, the king, at Novlada.”
A hushed murmuring spread around the crowd that had been forcefully gathered that morning. The soldiers had arrived, all polished steel, red capes and feathers in their metal helmets, before most people had made it out of bed to start the day. They’d near beaten down the doors of anyone who failed to answer and dragged the inhabitants of the small woodland village into the streets in various states of dress. Roslyn had been dressing, ready to sneak out of her lover’s house when they’d arrived. Eik had put his arm around her protectively as they followed the crowds of confused villagers into the square, an unusual but much appreciated gesture of public affection.
“All hail King Casimir!”
“HAIL!” the soldiers barked back at their commanding officer, striking the butts of their pikes into the dust, drowning out the half-hearted echo of the townsfolk.
Roslyn looked around as, now the punishment was over, people began drifting back to their daily lives, sending worried backwards glances to the bleeding figure on the scaffold. She followed their gaze, gripped her satchel tightly and made to step towards him, but a firm hand grabbed her elbow.
“Ros, I know you want to help Dmitri...” Eik turned her around so that her face was level with his chest and wrapped his trunk-like arms around her. “We all want to help him, but we can’t. Not until they’ve gone.”
There was a rustle in the crowd and a small woman, grey hair flying out from under the folds of her barely tied kerchief, hurtled towards the troop leader.
“I demand you let me tend to this man!”
The guard towered above her and folded his arms over his chest. “And just why would we do that, Domovnian?”
“Because if you do not, he will die.”
The guard shrugged. “What’s that to me? Perhaps you would like to join him? If you even so much as think of using your powers—”
“I have none!” the small woman shouted back. Roslyn’s heart swelled with pride at the sight of her mentor, Hedda, scolding the Oderberg soldier like a schoolboy. “I am one of the many humans who just so happen to live in this land that you have tramped all over with your big steel boots! I am also a healer, so if you wouldn’t mind...”
The guard, somewhat taken aback, looked around for confirmation. A few of his men who were permanently stationed in the ghetto nodded their heads. Hedda pushed past him and flew up the steps to the scaffold and Roslyn breathed a sigh of relief that her friend would be well tended. She turned her attention back to the man who held her in his arms.
Bowing her head, Roslyn felt the warmth of him through his cotton shirt and scratchy woollen tunic. “They are always here! The blood from one victim hasn’t had chance to dry before they pull someone else up there for punishment! What did he even do, Eik? We’ve known Dmitri since he was a boy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly!” She paused and then raised a hand to her mouth, muffling her words. “You don’t think... He’d never be so foolish as to join the rebellion, would he?”
Eik pulled her into the crook of his arm and manoeuvred her away from any potentially prying ears. She couldn’t have resisted even if she’d tried. He steered her out of the main square and down a side alley between the bakery and the church.
“No, he wasn’t a rebel. Dmitri didn’t mean anyone any harm, but he was a fool. He’s been obsessed with some Oderberg girl two villages over. Last night he thought he could woo her by turning her lawn into a bed of—”
Roslyn’s mouth fell open as she remembered the young Bloomer’s affinity with flowers. “Daffodils. And they whipped him for it? For being in love?”
The clomp of boots silenced their hushed words and prompted Eik to lean down from his enormous height, scooping Roslyn into a loving embrace. His lips pressed against hers, whiskers scratching her chin as a couple of soldiers traipsed past the entrance to the alleyway. One of them made a crude “Oi, oi” as they passed, but other than that, they were left to themselves.
Roslyn’s heart was pounding from the fright of the soldiers, but the man looking down at her mistook it for something else. He smiled sadly and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Some people aren’t as lucky as we are, falling in love with someone we’re supposed to.”
Heat flushed her cheeks pink and she looked away, untangling herself from the young man and trying to lighten the moment.
“Who says we are in love?”
Eik opened his mouth and tried to look offended, but couldn’t help smiling when she grinned back up at him.
“Ah, yes, that’s it. You are just using me for your own selfish pleasures.” He slung a heavy arm around her shoulders and they made their way along the alley into the street. “Talking of which... When can you use me for your pleasure again?” He looked up and down the street as she bit her lip in a wince.
“Look, about that—” She started to let him down gently when he cut her off, oblivious to her sudden shyness. Although she enjoyed the attention and the way his kisses usually made her feel, she wasn’t really in the mood. Not when a young man was near bleeding out because he had dared express his own affection.
“Anyway, Ros.”
“Roslyn.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. I have to...” He looked around again somewhat nervously. “I have to do something.”
“What?”
“I’ll come by later, and we can finish this properly.” His lopsided grin and the bulge in his britches, which he pressed her hand to, left her with no illusions of precisely what he meant to finish later.
“Where are you going?”
He ducked down and planted a kiss on her unsuspecting lips, silencing her before rushing off down the street, weaving in and out of the crowds. He gave a wide berth to any Oderbergs lurking on corners.
Roslyn scoffed. She’d known Eik all her life, and they’d grown even closer the last year, but never had he left her standing
Shifting her satchel on her shoulder, she set off, following the immense form of Eik as he tried to disappear into the hubbub of the crowd which, for such a large man, she had to admit he was doing extremely well. She almost lost him several times, but then caught a flash of his brown curly hair by a thatched roof or glimpsed the blue tails of his tunic trailing him around a corner.
He was leading her in a merry dance around the village. He occasionally doubled back on himself, forcing her to press herself into a doorway or behind a water barrel so that he wouldn’t see her. His face was etched with concern and, Roslyn noted, a new sense of determination she hadn’t noticed before. What was he up to?
Finally, Eik turned into a ginnel toward the edge of town. The narrow alleyway that sat between a row of cottages and the wall that the invaders had wrapped around the entire settlement to keep them in, was filled with piles of rubbish. Roslyn followed and crinkled her nose. The stench that wafted up made her gag. Tearing her eyes away from her prey, she looked down to pick a path through the unidentifiable, stinking brown globs that covered the dirt floor and was dismayed to find that when she looked up again, he had vanished.
“Oh, bugger,” she swore, not entirely under her breath. Roslyn screwed her hands into fists and placed them on her hips. Where was he? There was nowhere he could have gone as the ginnel stretched on far into the distance, running almost the entire circumference of the village wall. She should still be able to see him.
Sighing and picking up her pale green skirts, she wandered further into the rubbish, looking around for any sign of an entrance. There was nothing, only a wizened old man curled up on a potato sack; it looked like he had crumpled in on himself. He hid his legs beneath layers of hessian, but even the disguise could not hide the fact that they were not of average stature. Her heart went out to him. Sitting up, he leant against a splintered apple crate and squinted up at her with rheumy eyes. He had folds of dirty fabric wrapped around his head in lieu of a cap.
“Are you lost?” His voice croaked with age or lack of water, or perhaps both.
“No, but my friend is. Have you seen a tall young man with curly brown hair and a beard come this way in the last few minutes?”
The old man looked up and down the ginnel and shook his head. Then he laughed with a toothless grin.
“Not here now, is he, apple seed? Must’ve disappeared.” He leered at her in a sing-song way. Roslyn rolled her eyes and was about to turn away when the old man’s tone changed. “Seen lots of young men disappearing round here of late. They don’t notice me, of course, just think of me as a sack o’ spuds in their rush of rebellion.”
Roslyn tucked a strand of her mousy brown hair back into her kerchief and shook her head. “No, no... Eik wouldn’t join the rebellion.” But even as the words left her lips, a kernel of doubt took root within her.
The beggar cackled. “Are you sure about that, little apple seed?”
She sniffed and crossed her arms under her chest. “Of course, I’ve known him forever. And wrong Affinity, by the way.” She motioned to her embroidered sleeves.
The old man shrugged. “But how well do you know him? Things—and more importantly, people—aren’t always what they seem.” He reached out a greyish, gnarled finger and pointed to another crate on the other side of the alley.
As Roslyn approached, she noticed it was crooked, not flush against the wall as she had assumed it to be at first glance. She scooped her skirts up around her knees and crouched to get a better look. A soft breath of musty air came from the crack, wafting up a dark staircase and carrying with it dust motes that sparkled in the morning light. There was a distant burble of voices, muffled and indistinct, as if the speakers were in another room further away. She turned to the beggar again, who inclined his head a little to the left. Forgetting the grime that lined the ginnel, she tiptoed further along the wall, the voices getting clearer with each step. Before long, she stood above a grate that curved from the rubbish-laden ground part way up the once whitewashed village wall, now stained green with the passage of time.
As she peered into the gloom between the bars, it startled Roslyn to see a meeting hall filled to the brim with people huddled together, glancing around furtively as they spoke. Completely forgetting her previous concern about the muck, she knelt on the ground beside the grate, trying to get the best view possible whilst at the same time staying out of sight.
The ceiling was low, the ancient mortar barely holding the bricks in place above the heads of those in attendance. They were mostly men, dressed in work clothes, practical but still proudly traditional: sleeves embroidered with their Affinity plant, denoting their status in society; bell-bottomed trousers fastened just below the knee; leg wraps fastened in place by a bronze pin of their plants. A few of the older men wore thick capes, the spring morning still chilly.
Several women were scattered within the haphazard rows of seats, dressed much as she herself was, their plants noted on their sleeve and skirts, heads scarfed; however, the cut of their cloth set them apart. Roslyn was limited to the roughest of homespun linens and wooden clogs, but not these women. The number of velvet strips sewn on their skirts betrayed their status, as did the fine leather of their shoes and the twinkle of their sparse but much-prized jewellery.
One woman laughed a little too loudly and Roslyn furrowed her brow at the dark-haired beauty. Her olive skin glinted with the powdery sheen passed down from the Ancestors, the dryads and naiads from whom their powers came. Rose Troyand was a literal thorn in Roslyn’s side and had been since childhood—prettier, smarter and one of the most powerful Bloomers, to boot. The only thing Roslyn had managed to best her in was gaining Eik’s attentions, but how long that would last was anyone’s guess.
The noise of someone clearing their throat sounded and all the heads turned to stare up at a man at the front of the hall who was speaking. Roslyn’s eyes followed their gaze past the smoking tallow lanterns and her jaw dropped.
The young man who had just been teasing her about their nocturnal activities paced the floorboards. The boy from her childhood was gone, replaced by a man whose eyes blazed with passion and fury. He slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand as he spoke to hammer home his points.
“Too long has this gone on, too long!” The assembly nodded as he spoke, murmuring agreement, scowls etched into the faces of the villagers she knew so well. The effect transformed them into something else, something dangerous.
“Another Domovnian whipped, and for what? For professing his love for a girl with flowers! Since when was courting a crime?”
“Since twenty-five years ago, if it involves the Affinity! They can’t stand the magic the Ancestors blessed us with,” a voice from the darkness shouted back at him. Roslyn didn’t recognise it, but it had the croak of an older man about it—a man who had been there at the time of the invasion, a man who had survived and remembered.
“And we will stand for their cruelty no more!” Eik’s voice rang loud and clear over the hubbub. “Now is the time to strike. Now is the time to join forces with the rebels, to unite under the Domonov banner once more!”
A hush fell, the gathering looking at each other with worry. The croaky voice sounded again. It became louder as the speaker moved towards the leader of the meeting, and Roslyn realised it was Old Voloshka, his cornflower blue eyes heavy with sorrow in the gloom.
“Young master Devero, the Domonovs are dead. Every last one of them was killed that night at Eluha. I was there. I saw them slaughtered before my very eyes, heard their cries, their screams...” The hunched figure closed his eyes and shook his head with the subtlest of movements to banish the memories. “There is no one to carry their banner; no one for us to rally behind.”
“Poor ol’ bugger.” Roslyn jumped at the voice in her ear. Unbeknownst to her, the beggar had crawled from his hiding spot to perch at her shoulder. He ignored her fright. “Did you know he used to be a servant of the Domonovs? Yes! They say he only survived because a stone from the ramparts fell on his leg as the palace burned around him, and he passed out with pain, so they thought he was dead!”
Roslyn shuddered.
“He crawled over the rotting corpses days later and told everyone what had happened, or at least the parts of it he can speak of...” the beggar paused, and she noticed his eyes had wandered into a dark place of memory, his voice lowering to a bass rumble. “No doubt there are many more horrors we shall never learn of, for they are too terrible to live again, no words enough to convey them.”
