Legend of the Lakes

by Clara O'Connor

  I sat back down slightly dumbfounded that he was not just telling me something, but at where he had started. His mother had left him. Was he telling me this to explain why he had been so angry at me for not being there for my own child? I had wanted to make conversation, but instead I found myself jumping headlong into too deep water to find that the current was going to take me where I would have been too much of a coward to go myself. And what was even more shocking was that I had company. Gideon looked almost as taken aback as I was.

  He smiled ruefully – at me, at himself, who knew? Nonetheless, he ploughed on.

  “I was angry at her, angry at my father for letting her go, angry at the world for taking her when I still needed her. I was never high in my father’s affections. You’ve met him. He’s… well, he already had two sons and felt that the women of the castle were too soft on me. ‘Poor motherless pretty-boy’, he called me.” Gideon said it in a way that felt like it was something he had heard all too often.

  “Well, you are pretty,” I said in an effort to lighten the mood that had descended. He was undeniably attractive, even with the scar that ran across his cheek. As a child he must have been the object of every woman’s tender heart. I had no doubt he had never lacked for female attention.

  “I had a friend.” He ignored my compliment. “She was the daughter of one of my father’s friends, and we grew up together. We were close.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Not like that,” he said. “Not then, anyway. Alice was my best friend, and the only person I cared for. Then, when she was seventeen, she was betrothed… to my brother. I was furious. They had taken away the one person who was mine. The one person I cared about. I was angry at them, and I was angry at her. Well, I was fifteen. I stomped around that entire summer and discovered the solace that can be found in the arms of women. In some ways, it was a most educational time.” He smiled. “But their attentions just widened the hollow feeling inside, and twisted—” He exhaled deeply. “I shouldn’t have done it. It was…”

  “What did you do?” I prompted, as he struggled to get the words out. But even as I asked them I knew. “Oh no, Gideon…”

  I could see it in his eyes, in his shame.

  “You slept with her? But she was going to marry your brother,” I said, aghast. “Why? For revenge?”

  “Yes.” The old Gideon was back, darkly defiant, indifferent to anyone else’s opinion. I flinched in reaction to that look. How could he? He had used his face, his body, to seduce his friend and ruin her life.

  He ran a hand across his face and groaned. “No.”

  I waited futilely for him to continue.

  “If not for revenge, then why?” I prompted.

  “I wanted her to pick me,” he finally got out. “I suppose I thought that if we were together…”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, my father discovered us.” He shrugged. My heart ached for him. I was jealous of this girl, whoever she was, but mostly I was just sad for the confused, messed-up kid he had been.

  “But wait, how did you get the scar?”

  “I told you. My father found out. Loyalty, family, honour, these are not just words in the house I grew up in.” A look of self-contempt flashed across his face as he ran a finger down the length of his scar. “Unfortunately for me, he wears a signet ring on his left hand.”

  I recalled him commenting on a cut on Callum’s cheekbone when he had met us on the road in Cymru after letting us flee Oxford to evade the York troops coming for us. Gideon had said something about Callum having disappointed the steward.

  “I dishonoured everything he believes in and he threw me out.” He shrugged. “So here I am.”

  His eyes defied me to judge him.

  “And the girl?”

  “Oh, she married my brother,” he said.

  Who was I to judge anything?

  “So you made your way to the Lakelands?” I asked.

  “Eventually. I took my time getting here. I spent a while in Alba – my mother was from there and I had some notion of finding her. I spent some time in the Dùn Èideann court fighting and wenching until my welcome ran out. When I arrived here, my reputation preceded me, but Rion was going through a bad patch himself so he took me in and we had a wild time of it for a few years. Eventually, he started to become the wise and careful man we know today.” He shrugged. “I had nowhere else to go, and he was… so I stayed. There you have it. My whole sorry story. Is that what you wanted?”

  I stood, crossing to him. I leant over and, laying my hand on his cheek, kissed the other scarred one. I understood. He had loved his friend, as he had loved his mother, and she had left him. They both had. I felt twisted inside at his story. No wonder he looked at me with such contempt. I had been a terrible mother, as his had been. He had lashed out at this girl when she, too, had abandoned him. Did he still love her? Was that why he had agreed to marry me – because he couldn’t have the woman he really wanted?

  I eased away from him, but his arm encircled me and pulled me back down to his lap where he kissed me. The kiss was deep and true and searching, and I kissed him back. It wasn’t chemistry or passion that fuelled it but something deeper, a connection beyond the physical, beyond the mystical. He was asking me a question in return, and I realised I wanted to answer it.

  The book thudded as it hit the floor.

  I deepened the kiss with the answers that eddied through me.

  I made my way down to dinner early in the first thing that had come to hand in my wardrobe, weary after seeing in the spring equinox at Penrith. Working with the lines had become a constant battle, and turning back the tide of discordant, polluted notes was exhausting. I had thought Gideon would come as he now sometimes did but he hadn’t and I was sorry that I hadn’t asked him to. Now I was eager to see him, to simply be in his presence.

  Today had been a bad day. I felt I had helped, but I was shattered and looking forward to being alone with my—

  I stopped short and corrected myself. With Gideon and Féile.

  They hadn’t been in our rooms so I had embarked on a fruitless traipse around the castle, up and down halls and stairs, asking everyone I passed, but they were nowhere to be found. They ate in Rion’s rooms sometimes, but his study had been empty. Given it was nearly dinner time, I returned to my room to tidy up and then took my place at the high table.

  A couple of warriors came in, nodding to me as they took their seats lower down the table. I recognised Alec, Rion’s captain of the guard. He was tall and thin-legged, even though he was often the first and last at meals. If the hall were ever to be attacked, it seemed it would at least have one staunch – if surprisingly skinny – defender.

  The hall gradually filled up but I remained on my own at the high table. Rion was the punctual type, and it was late in the evening. Féile would have to go straight to bed.

  Callum smiled at me a little tightly as he took his usual seat not too far away. Snuffles was at my feet, but there was still no sign of his tiny mistress. Dinner was served despite Rion’s absence, and a number of the guard slipped away from their table, including Captain Appetite, who could hardly have managed to inhale his meal before leaving.

  A strange tension snaked its way through the hall.

  Snuffles poked at my feet with his nose, a trick that all too often earned him scraps from Féile’s plate; I had spotted Rion handing down choice pieces of food on occasion with a wink to his niece who knew the dog was not supposed to be fed at the table.

  The dog didn’t usually try it with me, but he seemed insistent tonight. I lifted him onto my knee, and he immediately tried for my plate, which was strictly off limits.

  “Hey, there, Snuffle-pup.” I pulled back from the table and attempted to distract him by patting his silky hair, but he was insistent on trying to get to what was a great deal of food going to waste as I remained the only one at the table.

  “What’s going on? Has no one fed you today?”

 
; I picked at a piece of meat, and he snaffled it down. He had never been the most discreet eater, which was one of many reasons why he wasn’t allowed at table. Once he had eaten his fill, he turned his dark, melting eyes up at me.

  “No, pup, I don’t know where they are either,” I said to him.

  Putting him on the ground, I made for the door… where there were no guards stationed to ask. There were always guards at the entrance to the main hall, and they were somehow always aware of everyone’s location. Sometimes I wondered if they had someone who went around giving and receiving updates.

  They hadn’t been there when I arrived either.

  I made my way down to the main entrance.

  A few scattered guards were making their way hurriedly across the courtyard. Not walking with purpose, nor running in alarm, but there was a stilted urgency, like they wanted to run but were restrained, and slightly directionless. As I watched, one man stopped and cocked his head before turning on his heel and heading back in the direction from which he had started.

  “What is going on?” I demanded, intercepting him.

  His eyes widened as he took me in, and he rocked back on his heels.

  “Ah…” He looked around as if the answer might present itself or he would be rescued by one of his fellows who could deal with the Lady of the Lake, of whom they were all somewhat wary. My fault, really. I was often gone, and when I was here, I kept to my little family circle.

  “My lady.” He looked down at his feet, which he was edging off, one and then the other, uneasily. “We’re looking for the little ’un.”

  “What?” His voice had dipped low and he mumbled the last. “The lit urn?”

  That made no sense. Why would Rion be sending his men to look for an urn? Dread pitched into my stomach. The whole castle was out looking and Snuffles was still clinging to my heels. The pampered pooch who had never known hunger had not been fed.

  “Where is my daughter?” I asked of the alarmed guard.

  He shook his head, lifting his hands helplessly.

  “How long?” I asked. “How long has she been gone?”

  I could barely hear the words, directed as they were at the cobbles on the ground. “Since morn.”

  The world stuttered to a stop. It felt like every thought drifted slowly through my brain, time stilling to give me a moment to take it in. To think. She’d been missing since morning. Since morning.

  I had come back just after sunset and she had already been lost for an entire day. How did a two, almost three-year-old get lost in a city that hummed around her existence? They had lost their last… She was doted on, watched carefully – on the odd occasion she scratched her knees I was subjected to reproachful looks for days.

  From people I knew were half afraid of me.

  How had nobody told me?

  Breathe.

  The guard in front of me backed away, nervously throwing his eyes skyward.

  Breathe.

  “Cass.” Callum stood in front of me, holding my shoulders. At least I think it was Callum. The person touching me barely registered and I felt as if I would fly apart, my senses scattering as if to find her, each piece going in a different direction. “Focus, girl. Come back, come back. No good to anyone like this. Does thou hear me, girl?”

  I needed to blink.

  Callum.

  I pulled each spiralling part of me back in tighter and tighter until I was present once more.

  “Callum.” I gripped his arm, hard. “She’s gone?”

  “Nay, lass,” he reassured me. “Little ’un’s just gone exploring, what a to-do, all this clatter and fuss. She’ll be curled up like a kitten in some cosy corner at this hour.”

  “Right.” I focussed. Of course. How far could her little legs go? They were all out scouring the countryside. Fools! She was here. Of course she was.

  “I found Devyn before, with my mind… Can I do that?” How had I done that before?

  “When? How?” Callum sounded skeptical.

  “When he was on his way to Castle Brân we didn’t know where he was and my mind was able to cross the distance to find him,” I recalled.

  “You were able to locate him without any indication of where he was?”

  “Yes, I… No, I followed the druid. Madoc led me…” I trailed off. “What use is any of this if I can’t help her now?”

  Callum’s mouth turned down. “Magic doesn’t solve everything. But we will find her. All will be well.”

  I marched back inside and started in her room. She was so small. How far could she go? I knelt down on the hardwood floor and checked under her bed. It was tossed and ruffled, drawers already opened, wardrobe wide with clothes piled on the ground. Someone had already torn through here. Someone desperate. Why hadn’t they found her already?

  I picked up the clothes, in case she was under them.

  They smelled of her, the summer breeze, flowers and hope of which she was made up. I buried my face in them.

  I would wait. I would wait right here. Féile would be tired when they found her; it was nearly night time. I would wait right here. Last time… last time I had followed and that was why they had hurt him. To hurt me. If I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t followed, maybe things would have turned out differently.

  I sat on the little bed, her clothes, her smell all around me. This is where I would wait.

  Minutes passed, hours, the sound of footsteps toing and froing in the hall. Voices, rumbling. None came in though. No one carried a tired little body with dark curls trailing messily down her back after her unexpected adventure.

  I had to hold on. They would find her.

  The door pushed open. My heart leapt at the sight of Gideon in the doorway. But his dark face was in shadow and his arms were empty.

  “Where is she?” I asked calmly.

  He shook his head, his shoulders lifting wearily in a shrug.

  His energy was tense. That casual stance turned menacing, coiled, just looking for a target to unleash on.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded. “Why haven’t you found her?”

  Gideon just looked back at me with flat eyes.

  “Catriona, we’ve been looking all day and all night. She’s gone,” Rion said, entering the room from behind the dark warrior.

  “Gone?” I echoed.

  “We’ve been everywhere. We think she’s been taken,” Rion said the words like they were new to him, like he couldn’t believe he was putting them together.

  I whirled on Gideon.

  “You,” I snarled. “You are supposed to protect her, to keep her safe. That’s your job. What are you good for if you can’t…?”

  Gideon, his eyes coming alive and blazing with unleashed rage, took a step forward, his instinct always to engage, to attack. He stopped, his lip curled. His eyes snagged behind me to the empty little bed. The bed he had tucked her into, where he read to her, so many nights, so many more nights than me. I hadn’t kept her safe. All this work and I hadn’t even been here. I hadn’t been here when she needed me. Who had taken her?

  I pushed that away. I couldn’t deal with that yet. But I could take that stricken gutted look off Gideon’s face. He didn’t get to be wounded. There was no time for that. He had already had so much time with her. Now he needed to get her back.

  I barged into Gideon’s chest. He looked down at me as he fell a step back under my physical attack.

  “I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to see you until you have her. Go and get her, go and get her!” I could hear the accusation, the bile of jealousy and fear that soured my tone as I commanded him to do more. I could see every bit of trust, and whatever it was that had been between us, break and seep out of him. He had lost everything today. My daughter was gone from him and until he got her back, so was I.

  Rion pulled me back to him and held me tightly. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see, everything will be fine.”

  I shook him off, all my anger, all my hope, directed at the immobile Gi
deon.

  “What good are you?” I demanded. “I hate you! You have failed. Again.”

  “You hate me?” His brow quirked as he stepped into me. “What an interesting way you have of showing it.”

  “Stop this.” Rion stepped around me, putting himself bodily in front of Gideon.

  “She’s gone,” Gideon said hollowly to his oldest friend.

  “It’s like you’re cursed.” I laughed, half beside myself, the thought coming out of nowhere. Gideon was beholden to no one, loved no one, and yet it seemed every time he did he lost the woman he loved.

  Gideon’s head snapped back. His eyes glazed over as Rion turned to look at me, horrified at my words.

  “Doesn’t that make us quite the pair.” The scar pulled at his cheek as he smirked cruelly. “I have done everything so that Féile would have a mother. And what good are you now, despite everything?”

  “Despite everything?” Despite all the work he had put in. I couldn’t breathe. My throat felt as if it was closing in on itself. “You are only with me so that my daughter can have a mother?”

  “I know what it is to be without one. She deserves more.”

  “Enough!” Rion roared. “Stop this. Tearing into each other won’t help bring her back.”

  I whirled away, reeling, everything within me collapsing on top of the hollow void inside me.

  It was a lie. When had I started fooling myself? Believing that he wanted me for me, that it was more than just a physical thing? I knew he had been forced into this marriage, knew he cared for nothing, that he’d had plenty of female companionship before I came along. I had thought, felt, as though he wanted me, as though he felt something for me in return.

  What did it matter now?

  I laughed and looked back at him with that warrior’s body, the hunter’s spirit, and that handsome scarred face. Amber eyes observed me insouciantly.

  I was nothing but a tool, a weapon that could be wielded against the Empire. One that had become brittle, and he had merely done what any careful warrior did with a tool in preparation for war.

  Now, war was here. And they had stolen my baby.