Uther made a sound at the back of his throat. “Who would have thought such a beauty laid beneath all that mud, the day we met her, hmm?”
Shock jolted Arawn, making the wine in his cup lurch. There was too little of it left to spill and betray his surprise, for which he was grateful. Arawn gripped the mug, as the memory of that day flicked through his mind, a series of images and impressions.
Had the fates put Ilsa on his path? Or had she in truth merely been the next suitable woman to cross it?
It was hard to tell, for now he saw her as Uther just did. Now he saw her with the blinders removed. Ilsa was almost a stranger in comparison to the urchin covered in mud he had hauled out of the forest three years ago. When had this lovely woman taken her place?
Arawn’s heart creaked in his chest and he covered his confusion by lifting the mug and drinking the last of the wine and wishing there was more.
Maela parted from Ilsa and joined her husband by the two tall chairs at the head table. Ilsa moved through men, who silently parted to make way for her, her eyes on Arawn. Her hips swayed in an enticing way that heated his blood and…other parts.
She watches me and no other man. The realization made his heart work even harder.
Uther clapped Arawn on the shoulder. “I’d call you a lucky bastard, only you might take it the wrong way,” he breathed into his ear.
Ilsa came up to them and held up her hand to Uther, who took it and bowed over it with grave politeness. He did not hold her hand for too long, or let his fingers wander over her skin.
“Uther,” Ilsa acknowledged, her chin up.
“Queen Ilsa. Did you sharpen your arrows today? I understand there is a place for you in this man’s war.”
Arawn did splash the last dregs of the wine this time. He looked from Ilsa to Uther and back. “What do you mean, there is a place for her?”
“Yes,” Uther said, smiling. “And not on a hill overlooking the arena, the way Merlin will undoubtedly see out the battle.” His mouth turned down a little. “Have you not heard, Arawn? Maela takes her women into battle and has offered Ilsa a place in the queen’s cohort. Apparently, she could not make the offer quickly enough. Ilsa had barely dismounted.”
He patted Arawn’s shoulder again and added quietly, “I wish you good luck when you tell her no.” He laughed and walked away.
Arawn turned stiffly to face Ilsa.
Her small face was still. She did not smile.
“Is this true?” Arawn asked. His voice was strained.
“The women patrol the flanks, that is all,” Ilsa said. “Maela’s captain explained it. Women cannot fight armed men directly. They are not strong enough. They let the stallions do most of the work. That is why they need me. There are no archers in her cohort.”
“The Saxons send their women into battle,” Arawn said, his voice dry. “You seek to emulate them?”
“I seek only to help Ambrosius in any way I can. That is my role and my duty, Arawn. Nimue told me that.”
“Your duty is to me and my kingdom. Going to war is too dangerous, Ilsa. I will not allow it.”
Her blue eyes, so like Uther’s and Budic’s and others of her kin, flashed sudden heat. “We agreed you cannot hold back the curse by locking me up. If the curse determines I must die in battle, then even if I sit beside Merlin on his hill, an arrow will find me.”
“You do not believe in the fates and the curse!” Arawn said, fighting to keep his voice down and his tone constrained. There were too many people standing around them. They could not leave, either. It would be an insult to their hosts to leave before the first toast.
“If the curse exists, it doesn’t matter what I believe, does it?” Ilsa said bitterly. “It has not mattered since the moment you married me. You came here to fight for Ambrosius. If I cannot change the curse then why can I not fight, too? It will find me wherever I may be.”
He could find no chink in her argument. None. The heat in his chest swelled, rushed to his head and beat there.
“I forbid it.” His voice was distant. It was a stranger’s voice.
“Why?” Ilsa demanded, the single word a whiplash in return.
“Because I am your king and you will obey me.”
“Ambrosius is my High King. I am here to serve him.” She whirled and hurried away.
She was small and fit between men, slipping into openings, while Arawn stood with his heart and mind reeling.
Ilsa had just told him no. No one had ever told him no. Not since he had taken the crown.
Ilsa disappeared before Arawn came to his senses. He dumped the cup on the nearest table and hurried after her, making slow progress for he did not slide between shoulders with her grace and ease.
Outside the hall, though, there were far fewer people hurrying along the corridors and he could move faster. He picked up speed, until he was on the verge of running. He headed for the cramped chamber which was theirs for the night and was rewarded with a glimpse of her veil fluttering behind her as she turned the last corner.
Arawn did run, then.
She must hear his bootsteps, yet she did not stop. She did not hurry her pace, either.
Arawn gripped her arm, halting her. She was light and easy to turn. He pushed her against the wall and slapped his hand against it, close by her head, his fury boiling over.
Then he saw the tears.
There was not just one or two, or a solitary drop. She was crying, her body shaking with it.
His anger checked.
“I cannot go on being merely the answer to your curse,” she said brokenly. “I cannot bear the burden it puts upon me. I must find a purpose of my own.”
“Then learn medicine or magic or…” He stopped, his chest heaving. His heart ached. “Why must it be this?” he ground out.
“Because Nimue said I must. Because I am good at it. Because I believe in Ambrosius, just as you do.”
He did believe. It had nothing to do with dragon stars and fates, magic and prophecy. It mattered not that Ambrosius was the son of the last true High King. Even if Ambrosius had been a foundling, a bastard of low parentage, Arawn still would have followed him here to Britain because in his bones, he knew Ambrosius had the skill and the leadership, the determination to win Britain back from the Usurper and hold it against the Saxon hoards.
He knew it. Ilsa knew it. Who was he to deny her what he wanted for himself—a chance to help Ambrosius claim the High King’s throne?
Arawn kissed her. The impulse came from somewhere other than his mind and when his lips touched hers, he knew it was a true one. Ilsa’s soft mouth opened beneath his and she breathed a sigh into him.
As the kiss grew heated and the air shifted between them and thickened, Arawn lifted her and carried her the eight paces left to their door and took her inside.
ILSA WOKE AND LISTENED to the dawn chorus, which was muted here in the middle of Calleva, with an army camped around it scaring most of the birds away. There were few calls and warbles.
She laid on her side, naked. What was more, Arawn laid beside her, his big body as naked as hers, pushed up against her back. His flesh was hot where they touched. His arm was tucked over her and his hand curved beneath her.
Ilsa held her breath. She had woken many times with Arawn still in the bed beside her, for sometimes he fell asleep before he could return to his own chamber. He had never held her against him once their joining was complete, though.
Last night, he had not let her go. Her body felt the exertions of the night. And in the night, while she had slept, he had pulled her against him once more.
His hand shifted and eased under her shoulder, then lifted and turned her so she was on her back and looking up at him. Arawn’s black eyes studied her. “Must you do this?” he asked softly.
Ilsa didn’t need to ask him what he referred to.
“Would you turn aside, if I demanded it?” she asked.
He smiled.
“I mean it,” she insisted. “Would you, if I
asked?”
“I am a man. It is my lot to fight wars.”
“It is my lot to fight in this one,” Ilsa told him.
Arawn’s smile faded. “I will worry. I won’t be able to fight, knowing you are in it.”
The strained note in his voice said he spoke a truth from deep in his heart.
Ilsa held his face. “No, you will not,” she whispered. “When the enemy is upon you, you will forget everything but the task at hand and that is the way it should be. My fate was sealed when you married me, Arawn. You cannot change it. I cannot. Let us do some good with our time, instead.”
He considered her, his brows pulled together tightly. Then he nodded. “I will still worry,” he muttered and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Doward, in the end, was not a battle but a mere skirmish. The skirmish changed the world for Ilsa, one last time.
They reached the forest around the double peaks of Doward six days after setting out from Calleva, for a company that large could not move fast. Ambrosius was content with the speed, for the reports coming back from his scouts and spies said Vortigern was still tucked tight in the hillfort.
Some said he was afraid to emerge, because Merlin had sent the fear of gods and fate upon him.
Merlin had been one of the scouts Ambrosius dispatched from Clausentum as soon as the ship ground against the wharf stones. He had been captured by Vortigern’s own scouts and taken to confront the High King.
There, he had confronted Vortigern alone. He foretold the fall of Vortigern’s kingdom and Vortigern himself.
Not knowing he had the son of his enemy in his hands, Vortigern ejected from his keep the wizard who spoke such black prophecies. Merlin had waited upon the road for Ambrosius to find him and report in.
Vortigern, cowed by Merlin’s prophecies, remained in Doward, the greatest fort in the southern lands. Ambrosius did not seem bothered by Doward’s reputation, though.
Ilsa rode with the women’s cohort in the center of the company. They were placed just behind the commanders and senior officers, including Arawn, who kept Ambrosius company at the front of the line. Maela’s cohort consisted of twenty-five women skilled with horses and with an aptitude with blades. The women came from all corners of Mabon’s kingdom. They were base-born, poor, the wives of rich traders. Even Maela’s royal companions were a part of the group, for Maela had selected her women with this military function in mind.
Twenty-five women fell far short of a traditional Roman cohort, although Maela refused to call her group a band or unit or any other name which would diminish their role. “We are a military group. Cohort will do,” Maela explained to Ilsa. “Perhaps we will one day fill the ranks enough to meet the Roman definition.”
It did not seem to bother Maela that she rode to war against her father. One night around the campfire, Maela told Ilsa and her women the full story of Vivian and Lynette and Cadfael. She explained how Vortigern’s deal with the Saxons had caused Cadfael to shift his allegiance to Ambrosius…and Maela, too.
Maela also told them the story of Boudicca, the queen of the Iceni, who had led her people in war against the invading Romans. Ilsa had heard the story before, as a tale told at night, before sleeping. She had not realized it was true, or that many of Boudicca’s descendants could be traced among the Celts and Britons alive today.
Ilsa would have liked to have related the tale to Arawn, to measure his reaction to the idea that British women had fought in wars long before Maela thought of it, only Arawn stayed with the officers surrounding Ambrosius.
She regretted that her insistence upon riding to war had put this distance between them. She wanted more of the night they had spent in Calleva. Arawn had never been that way before, not even after the child had been lost.
Only, if they were to fulfill their purpose here and support Ambrosius, then it was better that Arawn pretend she was not among the queen’s cohort. Ilsa could concentrate on learning the drills Maela could only describe while they were traveling.
At night, Maela would draw lines in the earth at her feet to expand upon her daylight descriptions and the patterns came together in Ilsa’s mind. The power of the flank units was their speed and maneuverability, made even greater because the women’s lighter weight upon the stallions allowed the horses to move faster and with great flexibility.
The stallions were all war horses, trained from infancy to fight for their riders. They used hooves and teeth and their weight to kick and bite and knock the enemy off his feet. Once a man was down, they could quickly trample him to death. Even a kick from the stallion’s hind legs could maim a soldier so he would not get up again. A kick to the head could kill him. The horses had been trained to aim for the head.
Mercury was trained for war, too. He would work for her as faithfully as any of the stallions Maela’s women rode.
Mostly, it was a matter of clinging to the horse and coordinating his efforts with the others, although Ilsa would also be able to use her bow to pick off any enemy fighters who were farther away and trying to outflank Ambrosius’ men.
At night, while Maela spun her stories, the women worked on leather jerkins, stitching small metal plates to them. The jerkins were long, worn down to the knee, and split front and back, so when they were astride their horses, the sides protected their legs.
When they fitted Ilsa with the jerkin they had made for her, Ilsa felt the weight of it like a shadow in her mind. This was real. She would soon be a warrior, fighting a battle where, curse or not, she might die.
Sleep did not come easy that night. More than once, she resisted the need to find Arawn among the sleeping men and talk to him.
The next day, they filed into the Doward valley, with its sharp sides of rock face and narrow crevasse floor.
“A fine place for an ambush if ever there was one,” Cadfael observed in a voice which carried back to the women, for the air was still and hot as if it was the middle of summer, not autumn.
“The scouts have cleared out anyone lingering in the valley,” Ambrosius replied. “There is only us.”
As if his words were a signal, the valley in front of the head of the column erupted with men screaming for blood. They fell upon the company with their swords and knives raised, their eyes filled with mad fury.
More burst from the low scrubby trees to either side of the company. The ambush was real.
For a moment, Ilsa froze—not with fear but with disbelief. It didn’t seem possible that the battle had been joined now. Here.
The blood-curdling cries of the men running at them with their blades lifted was real enough, though. Isla fumbled for her bow and reached back for an arrow, her fingers uncooperative.
Then Maela grunted and leaned forward in her saddle, one hand holding herself up, her blonde hair shining in the sunlight. An arrow pierced her shoulder, the black feathers jutting from between the metal plates of her jerkin.
Ilsa’s fear evaporated. Cold calmness descended. She grabbed Maela’s reins and tucked them beneath her knee, fitting an arrow and tracked the closest enemy, a man with an ax, who leapt into the air to bring the ax down upon a head—it didn’t matter which head.
Ilsa fired with deliberation, putting all her strength into the shot. The arrow pierced the warrior’s neck, above his armor. He dropped instantly to the ground, not even taking the three or four steps a deer usually did.
She glanced up and down the line. The entire valley was a writhing mass of fighting bodies, squashed into the ravine together.
One of the other women—Jascilla, Ilsa thought—gave a harsh cry of her own. She threw herself out of the saddle, her leather clad body flying through the air, her knife held out. She landed against the chest of a warrior, who grunted and staggered back, his big hands flailing as he tried to get a grip upon her and toss her away. Jascilla clung with her knees, raised her knife and buried it deep in the man’s neck, then tore the knife sideways.
Bright red blood spouted. The man went down, Jasc
illa on top of him.
Behind him, another warrior came running, his eyes blood shot, his teeth black, his fury driving him.
“Kaila!” Ilsa cried. She jumped onto her saddle cloth and balanced there. She met Kaila’s eyes and pointed at the racing warrior. “Together!”
Kaila jumped onto her saddle as Ilsa was and nodded.
“Now!”
Together, they threw themselves at the warrior, a side each. The man toppled backward, screaming his frustration.
As soon as Ilsa could get her knees under her, she yanked her knife from her belt and jammed it into his throat, then yanked sideways, just as Jascilla had.
The gurgling, bubbling sound the man made didn’t touch her. She scrambled out of the way of the blood gushing from his neck. So did Kaila.
Running footsteps warned Ilsa. She spun, her knife out, to meet the next attack.
It was Arawn, his sword bloody, his face grimy. He came to skidding halt, his eyes widening as they moved from Ilsa to Vortigern’s man behind her, who had finally grown still.
“I heard you scream…” Arawn said, his voice almost bodiless.
“I screamed?” Ilsa said.
“You did,” Kaila said, grinning. She wiped her brow with her wrist, her hand dripping blood which wasn’t hers. “Makes a man’s balls shrivel just to hear it,” she added.
“There’s more of the enemy, yet,” Ilsa said, hefting her knife.
Arawn came closer. “The fighting is over. It was just a few dozen, designed to slow us down so word can get back to Vortigern.” He dropped his sword and pulled her into his arms and held her.
He trembled.
Ilsa stayed still, her heart thudding, even though her body was tense, ready to leap to fight another enemy.
Arawn took her face in his hands and held it so he could meet her eyes. His gaze moved over her face. “I love you,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “I don’t give a damn who hears it. I don’t give a damn about curses or breaking them, or even this great purpose of ours. I only know I love you and that nothing else matters but you.”
Dragon Kin Page 26