The absolute stillness of morning breathed through the window when Stilicho pushed open the door and trod slowly into the room, his head down.
Ilsa came to a halt, her hand on the other massive bedpost for support, her heart lodging in her throat and making it hurt. Her chest hurt, too. Her eyes ached. “He lives?” she breathed.
Stilicho lifted his chin. His eyes were red-rimmed and his face strained. “For now,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Ilsa tightened her hold on the bedpost as the air in the room beat at her in successive waves of soundless booming. “For now,” she whispered.
Stilicho’s eyes narrowed. He stepped closer to her. “My lady, look at me.”
Ilsa tried to lift her chin. Her head was so heavy. She clutched at the post with her other hand. “Oh, Stilicho…” she breathed, as black nothingness rose around her.
Chapter Twenty
The daylight against her closed lids was far too bright. Ilsa squeezed them shut and moaned.
“She wakes!” someone whispered.
Hands on her face. A damp cloth against her forehead, cool and smelling faintly of pine.
“My lady, can you hear me?”
Stilicho.
Fingertips patting her cheek. “My lady?”
Stop that.
“My lady?”
Everything in her body ached. Even her fingernails throbbed.
“My lady?”
“Arawn…” she breathed and this time she heard the word in her ears and not just in her mind.
“She asks for him!” A woman’s voice, filled with triumph and also despair.
“Move out of the way, all of you.” Another woman’s voice, this one filled with authority. “Give me the cup, there. Yes.” A hand thrust under Ilsa’s head. Her head was lifted and the metal of a cup pressed against her lips. “Drink, Ilsa,” the voice urged. “It will help.”
She opened her lips and thick liquid drizzled between them. The taste made her moan. The liquid continued to trickle, forcing her to swallow.
Her head was placed back upon the soft thing beneath it. Still she could not open her eyes. The lids were heavy, stuck together as if ice welded them closed.
“She will sleep now,” the strong voice said, from far away.
“I must speak to her, first!” Stilicho’s voice was strident.
“There will be time for that later.” The voice was even farther away, now.
Stilicho spoke, his voice sharp. Ilsa could no longer distinguish the individual words. Only the anger.
Stilicho, angry with another and showing it!
Why must he speak with her?
THE LIGHT WAS LESS dazzling the second time she woke. Ilsa found she could open her eyes, too, although it took enormous effort.
She sighed when she saw the screen beside the bed.
Arawn’s bed. They had brought her back here.
Something moved to her right. She shifted her gaze with effort.
Arawn himself sat there, in a chair which once was in her chamber. He sprawled, his legs thrust out, the boots digging into the rug. A blanket wrapped around him which she recognized from the queen’s bed. Had he slept in the chair, then?
His elbow rested on the arm of the chair, his head propped in his hand, as if he was weary beyond belief. His gaze turned inward.
“Arawn,” she breathed.
He sat up with a lurch, untangled the blanket with quick movements, his gaze moving over her face. “You’re awake…” He dropped the blanket on the chair and moved to the side of the bed and bent over it to study her. “How do you feel?”
“The babe…” she whispered, for her throat was parched.
Arawn’s gaze had been steady. At her murmured words, it shifted away.
Fright speared her. “Arawn?”
“The babe was lost,” he breathed.
“No…” Ilsa gripped the sheet beneath her in a desperate fist, as despair tore through her. Her eyes ached, unshed tears pressing them. Her agony was too deep for tears. “This is my fault,” she whispered, each word shredding her throat. “I didn’t believe the curse. I was arrogant. Now…all is lost.”
“You were not lost,” Arawn said, his voice as hoarse as hers. “The Lady could not save the child. You, she saved. You…me…so many others…” He swallowed.
“There were others?” Her horror grew.
Arawn straightened. “Gwen was the first. Now, many in the house and village are sick with the same illness.” Arawn’s fist curled. “Another plague,” he breathed. “One which does not bring the pox yet takes people just the same.”
Ilsa’s tears fell, then. “I have failed you,” she whispered.
Arawn’s gaze came back to her face, startled. He shook his head. “No, you have not. You live, Ilsa. Do you not see it?”
She stared at him. “See what?” she breathed.
Arawn’s other hand tightened into a whitened fist. “I am the cause of all of this,” he said woodenly.
Horror curled through her, making her heart thrum. “No,” she said weakly.
Arawn sank onto the edge of the bed, his strength leaving him. As she watched, his eyes glittered and filled. He closed his eyes and turned his head away. “I did this.” He choked. “Me. I am the only one who can bear any blame. I sought to keep harm away from you. I let no one near you, so it can only have been me who made you ill enough to lose the child.” He gripped his head with one big hand, his fingers digging into his temples, as if it ached. “I am truly cursed. I cannot keep you safe at all.” His shoulders shook. “The gods will take and take and take, no matter what I do.”
Even though her hand was heavier than iron, she lifted it and strained to reach his, where it rested on the covers by his thigh. At the first touch of her fingers, his hand curled, as if he would tear his hand away from her touch. She reached again and slid the tips of her fingers over his smallest finger, the only one she could reach. Ilsa gripped as tightly as she could and tugged. It was a pathetic, weak movement.
His hand shifted closer.
Ilsa took a firmer grip on it and held it against her chest.
Arawn’s gaze swung back to her. He no longer hid his face, even though his eyes were damp. His gaze skittered, barely able to meet hers.
“I was spared for a reason,” Ilsa said. “Clearly, we must try again.”
His grip tightened. “Why should we try?” he muttered. “There is no hope.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “I only know that when a robin loses an egg, or even a whole nest of eggs, she does not give up. She will build another nest next year and lay more eggs. I do not think she cares about hope, or even knows what it is. Even if she loses the nest again, she may succeed in the third year. If she gave up after the first or second year, then she would never reach the third year when she succeeds.”
“Your damn animals…” Arawn muttered, only there was a new light in his eyes. It wasn’t hope. She knew that. Perhaps it was simply determination.
He brought her hand to his lips and pressed them against her fingers. “Hope or no, we try again,” he said. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her hand again. “Thank you,” he said softly. He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand and got to his feet. He moved now with the snap and speed of old. “When I woke from my fever I was starving beyond measure.”
Ilsa’s belly gurgled loudly as she thought of food.
Arawn’s smile was strained yet it was there. “I’ll send someone to help you.” He walked beyond the screen, striding and calling for Stilicho. Voices murmured beyond the screen, telling Ilsa there were far more people in Arawn’s antechamber. Were they waiting for word about her? They would already know the baby was lost.
More footsteps and the sound of the big outer door opening.
Gwen moved around the screen, carrying a basin and cloths.
“Gwen!” Ilsa breathed, delighted. She struggled to sit up.
“You’re very weak,” Gwen told her, si
tting the basin on the chair Arawn had vacated. “You will be for a few days, as I was.” She dropped a cloth into the basin and squeezed the water from it.
“Arawn seemed fine.”
Gwen shook her head. “Whatever the sickness is, he was only lightly touched by it. You have been very ill. The baby…” She pressed her lips together. “The loss of the child made it worse for you. So you must take your time and rebuild your strength.” Gwen wiped her face. The water emitted the same stringent pine smell Ilsa remembered from before.
“He seemed so ill, when he collapsed,” Ilsa said wonderingly.
“Oh, he was weak as a kitten when he woke, the same as all of us, yet he was driven to rise from his bed, no matter what.” Gwen’s gaze met Ilsa’s. “When he learned about the baby and you, he left.”
“Left?”
Gwen nodded. “He got on Silvanus and rode into the forest. Three days he was there. When you called for him, the Lady sent Colwyn to find him. She knew where he was and she was right. Colwyn brought Arawn back.” Gwen turned her head. “The king sat in that chair and watched you and did not move away from this room until just now.”
Ilsa’s heart thudded.
There is no hope.
Arawn had sat in the forest for three days, considering the bleak future and his failure to help his people. He still held no hope, so why had he returned? It could not simply be because she had spoken his name.
Could it?
WHEN ARAWN RETURNED FROM the bath house, his skin still tingling from the heat and the oil and his cheeks freshly shaved, the women were helping Ilsa walk to her chair. The chair waited at the high, round table which had mysteriously shifted from some inner room of the house to his bed chamber.
The determination to cast aside a lifetime of Roman customs had gripped the household like a mania. Tables and benches replaced the divans and low tables in the triclinium. People no longer called the room a triclinium, instead referring to it as the dining room.
The oddly practical gowns Ilsa wore were now worn by all the women of the household, adjusted to match Elaine’s elegant adaptation, depending on their own inclinations.
Many of the men stopped shaving daily. They let their hair grow longer and didn’t comb it forward in the Roman fashion.
Arawn understood why his people did this. It was defiance, a shaking of their fist against the fates who delivered such misery upon them. If they no longer did what they had always done, perhaps they would no longer anger the gods, and the fates and their furies may smile upon them once more.
Arawn was pleased to see Ilsa had the strength to sit at the table, even if she was helped there. She had only woken ten days ago and Nimue had warned Arawn that her recovery would be longer than anyone’s in the household. Indeed, most of the household were already up and about.
Arawn came to a halt in the middle of his antechamber, watching the women fuss around Ilsa. They settled her in the chair, adjusted the folds of her gown about her knees and ankles and wrapped the warm cloak about her shoulders. Ilsa accepted the assistance without complaint, even though her helplessness would act as a burr under the saddle for a woman like her.
He was pleased to see her.
The sensation was still a novel one, even though it was not the first time he had experienced it. It was also too new for him to dare speak of it. It sat in his chest like a warm coal, red and glowing. If he revealed its existence to anyone, then maybe the petty gods who cursed him would see and take even this from him.
Perhaps he did not deserve this contentment. He’d sat beneath an oak in the forest for three days, without food and with little water, acquainting himself with the blackness of his nature and how everything he touched crumbled into ruin.
He had been driven there by the reminder that he was cursed, which he had almost forgotten in the press of affairs and the pleasantness of days with Ilsa in them. He’d sat beneath the oak and reminded himself it was not his lot to love others, not if the gods intended to take them away.
Only it was too late. He had forgotten his role and now he was being punished for daring to bring into his life what every other man and woman enjoyed every day.
Except, except…Ilsa was a part of his life now. If she did not die and not even Nimue would assure him she would not—then, if she died, it would be his fault.
If she did not die—and oh, how he longed that she lived!—if she did not die, then he must treat her as objectively and distantly as he had in the first days of their marriage. It was safer that way.
Even before Colwyn found him under that bleak, damp oak, Arawn had been preparing to return, to find what news awaited him.
Colwyn assured him Ilsa lived and Arawn staggered, reaching out to support himself against the trunk.
She lived!
Moments passed before Arawn thought to ask after the child.
On the ride back to Lorient, Arawn railed at himself. He must keep his distance once more. To draw close to her only brought the curse down upon her and everyone around her.
Only, when he saw her lying so still and small upon his bed, every iron intention melted. He’d sunk upon the chair, knowing he was too weak to defy the gods. Ilsa was in his heart and he wanted her there. He wanted her to stay there.
Arawn recalled the startling moment of realization now, as he stood in his antechamber and watched Ilsa prepare for supper and for his arrival. She had not seen him yet.
A light hand touched his arm. Nimue, Lady of the Lake, stood by his side. She had glided there in her silent way, undetected. Her gaze was calm.
“If there really is no hope, Arawn of Brocéliande, then it does not matter what you do or how you think, does it?”
Startled, Arawn considered her. He had long ago ceased to be surprised by what the Lady—no matter which Lady it was—knew of thoughts and feelings he spoke of to no living soul. “I suppose, no, there is not,” he said, thinking it through.
Ilsa saw him, then. Her smile was small and warm, unlike the polite expression she used for everyone else.
Arawn’s heart shifted. “How do I keep her, Nimue? How do I break this curse? There must be a way. Tell me.”
“It was not my curse, Arawn,” she said softly. “It was not Rhonwen’s either. She only saw the outcome.”
“My first-born,” he said bitterly.
“Take comfort in the fact that no man knows what lies in the future,” Nimue said. “Not even the gods who cursed you can control all fates.”
“You know the future. You control fates.”
“Even I must work around them, Arawn. Shall we go in? Ilsa looks worried.”
They moved to the table.
“Thank you, ladies,” Ilsa told her women.
Gwen touched Ilsa’s shoulder, then gathered up the other women and sailed from the suite. They would take their own suppers in the dining room. They passed the servants bringing the meal platters.
“You two look anxious,” Ilsa said, as the plates were laid out. “What were you talking about?”
Nimue sat on the small stool while Arawn took his usual chair. He glanced at the Lady, trying to warn her not to answer truthfully.
Nimue did not glance at him. She gave a small shrug, her expression rueful. “Only that I must return to my lands tomorrow. I am no longer needed here.”
“Oh,” Ilsa said, with a sad note. “You must?”
“There is much to do,” Nimue said. “We will see each other in Campbon the summer after this one, and it will be as if only a few days have passed when we do.”
Arawn shook his head. He had not told anyone yet, not even Elaine, that Ban’s claim to Benoic had been upheld by Ambrosius. No date for a wedding had been mentioned. Apparently, it would be decided the wedding should take place the year after this.
The servants left, closing the door behind them, leaving the three of them alone in the room.
Ilsa put down her knife. “Lady du Lac, if I may ask…” She bit her lip.
Nimue considered he
r. “You want to know if the curse is real.”
Ilsa’s gaze flickered toward Arawn. She looked back at Nimue. “Merlin said death would come. Only he said it would come to all first children. He did not say ‘first-born’. If I am to have another child…” Her cheeks tinged pink. “Then it would not be my first, would it?”
Nimue sighed. “I do not know,” she said, her tone honest. “Prophecy is a slippery tool. The more people who use it, the less clear the future becomes. I did not know Merlin told you that. For one like him to speak of children and matters of the hearth tells me my own sense of the future is true.”
Ilsa frowned.
“As usual, my Lady,” Arawn told her, “You have failed to answer the question.”
“If Arawn is so cursed, then why did he get sick, too?” Ilsa demanded, the words bursting from her as if she had been holding them back with great effort. “If he is the source of the blights upon the kingdom, then he should walk among the terrors unscathed. Yet he fell, just as we all did.”
“He was spared, just as you all were,” Nimue replied. “The gods spared you, Ilsa, so you can help Ambrosius win Britain from the usurper and the Saxons. He will need every hand in the next few years…even yours.”
Arawn’s gut tightened. His chest hurt.
Ilsa stared at Nimue, her eyes wide.
“There, is that a direct enough answer for you, my lady queen?” Nimue asked, with a smile.
Ilsa swallowed. “I am to help? Me?”
“We all will, in the years to come. History will call this Ambrosius’ victory, yet he will take the High King’s chair only because every willing hand across Lesser and Greater Britain raises him to it.”
Arawn shivered. “Years…” he breathed, excitement and hope bubbling in him. Nimue had spoken of years with Ilsa in them.
Nimue turned her head to meet his gaze. “Remember, to even glimpse the future is to change it,” she murmured.
His hope dimmed.
The sick, sinking sensation angered him. He shook his head. “I will no longer believe or listen to anything about the future or curses or hope. I refuse to. I will live only for this day as any other normal man.”
Dragon Kin Page 21