Now that Vivian was not here, Maela hunched over her embroidery, her head down. The parting of her hair on the top of her head was neat and smooth. Lynette stared at it, wishing the other women would cease speculating about Cadfael. They didn’t understand, they had no idea what drove him…
“Let me arrange your hair, Maela,” Lynette said loudly, standing up.
Maela lifted her head, her blue eyes widening. “My…my hair.” Her hand came up to rest over the end of one braid. “Is there something wrong with my hair?”
The other women did not rush to explain. Lynette didn’t want to be the cruel one to point out how Maela’s braids marked her as Saxon and kept Celts and Britons at a distance. Instead, she moved over to the cupboard where the brushes and pins and ornaments were kept and pulled out the small basket and brought it back to the table.
As Lynette sorted out pins and ornaments, Maela took in the hair arrangements of the other women. Mabyn, with her curls piled high and bound with a strip of fine, soft linen. Olwen, who raised her hand to her hair and pushed at the coil at the back, the soft curls about her face brushing her wrist.
Maela turned back to the table. She examined Lynette’s hair, with the high knot and the curls tumbling down her back. “I see,” Maela said softly. “Perhaps…yes, Lynette. You are kind to offer.” She picked up one of her braids and put her fingers about the end of the thong holding it in place. She hesitated, then with a sharp tug, she unraveled the thong, then quickly separated the strands.
While Maela worked on the second braid, Lynette brushed out the first. Maela’s hair was soft and thick. The braids had imparted a series of kinks and waves that would serve just as well as the curls that some women put into their hair with warm pokers.
Maela stayed still as Lynette brushed and curled and pinned.
The looms started up again. They made sporadic, uneven clacks. From the corner of her eye, Lynette could see the other women were watching with avid curiosity as she transformed Maela’s hair.
Olwen came over to the table and placed a wire crescent there. “Here, this will do well in her hair.” The crescent had a series of pretty blue stones wired along its length. With most of Maela’s hair caught up on top of her head and the thick excess trailing down behind, the crescent could secure the locks at the front.
Maela’s hands were tightly fisted in her lap. If she had worn braids her entire life, then it would take courage to abandon them. She was not a stupid woman. She understood what it meant. Yet she was submitting to the change.
“The braids would be good for traveling, especially in the way you traveled to get here, like a soldier,” Lynette said, attempting to ease her discomfort.
“My goodness, yes,” Iva added. “I had not thought of that.”
Maela shifted on the stool. Her discomfort was growing. She drew in a breath. “Cadfael is such an angry man, isn’t he?” she said, her voice overly loud.
She was changing the subject.
Lynette frowned.
“Is that why they call him the Black, do you think?” Mabyn asked.
“He has reason to be angry,” Lynette said stiffly.
“He does?” Olwen said, her surprise lifting her voice.
Lynette chided herself. She had been indiscreet. Now, though, she must continue. To refuse would rouse their curiosity. They would prod and tease and ask inappropriate questions of the men and perhaps of Cadfael himself, if she did not.
“His wife and son were murdered by the Saxons,” Lynette said. “Burned to death in their house, after the Saxons were finished with them.” That much, she did not have to explain. Everyone had heard the stories of what Saxons did to unarmed and helpless women and children. “No one tried to stop them. Not a single British soldier came to their aid. The entire village was raised.”
“No one helped? Not at all?” Mabyn asked, her voice high with distress.
Lynette’s heart thudded. She could still see Cadfael’s face as he had related the story. His distress and deep anger. The pain in his eyes. “No one helped,” she said grimly.
“When was this? Where?” Olwen demanded.
“I don’t know when, exactly. It was many years ago. Cair Dain, the village was called.”
Maela gasped. She yanked her hair out of Lynette’s grasp and surged to her feet, to spin and look at her. “Cair Dain?” she repeated.
“Yes, that is what he called it,” Lynette replied.
Maela’s face drained of color. Her freckles stood out, as her skin took on a grayish cast. “Danum,” she whispered. Her eyes turned up and closed.
Lynette lunged and caught the girl as she crumpled.
Chapter Nine
“What is Danum, anyway?” Olwen demanded as the women cleared the worktable of their sewing. She helped Lynette lift the limp Maela to the table. Mabyn slid a folded cloak beneath the girl’s head.
“It sounds Latin,” Mabyn said, staring down at Maela’s still figure.
“Perhaps it was the Roman name for Cair Dain?” Lynette suggested.
“The Saxons use the Roman names for places,” Iva said. “They won’t use our names. Might rot on their tongues if they do.”
Maela stirred and moaned. Then she rolled over and pushed herself up on one arm. Her face was still devoid of color. She hung over her arm, her head down.
“Careful, she’ll vomit,” Mabyn said.
A bowl was thrust beneath Maela’s head. She clutched it, breathing hard. After a long moment, she sighed and sat up properly. She pressed her forehead into her bent knees. She trembled.
“What do you know about Cair Dain?” Lynette asked her, settling her hip on the edge of the table so she could face the woman.
Maela lifted her head. Her loose locks spilled around her face. “I had forgotten about Danum. All these years…until just now when you said the name. Then I remembered. It meant nothing when I was young. Now, though…” She swallowed. Her eyes glittered with sudden tears.
Everyone else remained perfectly still, as if they were afraid to interrupt her.
Lynette wanted to shake her and demand she tell her everything, at once. Instead, she waited, as everyone else did.
Maela wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I was…I could not have been more than ten. Perhaps only eight or nine. There was a meeting in my father’s hall. A secret meeting, I think. My father and a Saxon delegation.” She swallowed. “They were giants. Hairy, filthy beasts and they smelled…”
The woman shifted uneasily. Talk of Vortigern and Saxons together tended to do that to the strongest man.
Lynette glanced at them impatiently. “Everyone has always known Vortigern invited the Saxons here. This was years ago, she said. Be quiet and let her finish.” She looked at Maela. “Go on. You were at that meeting?”
“My mother was there. She was…she spoke Saxon, of course. And she spoke our language. The Saxons did not. She translated for my father, for he spoke only a little Saxon and didn’t want to be misunderstood. My mother put me in a corner and told me to stay still and silent as a mouse. I was too young to understand, but I was…” Maela glanced around the room. “I was afraid of my father and I didn’t want him to see me there and get angry, so I stayed silent as my mother insisted. The men talked, back and forth—it was slow because my mother had to explain what each had said to the other. I heard everything they said at least twice and often four times over. I think that is why I remember it so clearly.”
“Remember what?” Olwen breathed.
Lynette glared at her.
Maela frowned. “You must understand…it meant nothing to me then. I didn’t know the Saxons were our enemies. I didn’t even know they were Saxons. They spoke my mother’s language, that she had taught me as our secret language. I thought they were merely interesting. Smelly, but interesting.”
Olwen shifted impatiently.
Lynette wanted to do the same thing, although she contained herself. Maela was talking herself through the memory, putting it together
even as she told them. Reinterpreting the events now she was an adult with a wider world view. To hurry her would not help.
Maela looked at her knees. “The Saxons…I suppose the one who did all the speaking must have been Hengest. He demanded payment for something. They kept talking about the north. And the Picts. They argued over numbers.”
“What sort of numbers?” Lynette pressed.
Maela pressed her hands to her face. “Towns and villages,” she said, her voice muffled. She pulled her hands away and looked at Lynette. “They argued over how many towns and villages.” Her throat worked. “They agreed on one town and ten villages, then settled in to argue about which ones. Caer Dain was one—Hengest called it Danum and my father called it Caer Dain. Afterward, Hengest went away. He was very happy.” Her shoulders shook and she covered her face again. “My father gave them a town and ten villages to pay for them driving the Picts back north of the Wall. My father.”
The silence that gripped the women was complete. They all stared at Maela, their horror open upon their faces.
Lynette couldn’t remember getting to her feet. She stared down at Vortigern’s daughter, sickness swirling in her belly.
Olwen caught Lynette’s arm and squeezed it. “You cannot tell him,” she said quickly and urgently, her voice low. “What point is there? It was years ago, just as you said.”
Mabyn nodded. “There is no point stirring up the past.”
“It isn’t the past for Cadfael,” Lynette said, her voice hoarse. “He still lives it, every day. He deserves to know who is truly to blame for Caer Dain.”
Iva, who was older and often an unexpected source of wisdom about men, said, “He won’t thank you for telling him.”
“He’ll kill you,” Olwen said flatly.
Lynette nodded. “He might. Though, I couldn’t live with myself if I don’t tell him.”
She moved over to the warp winding racks next to the looms and plucked her cloak from the peg and threw it around her shoulders.
No one tried to stop her leaving.
* * * * *
The rain that had been threatening all morning began as Lynette picked her way across the muddy yard. Rain fell in big drops, as if a god had tipped a bucket upon them.
Under the eaves of the stable, four of the grooms stood shivering, their arms around themselves.
“Why don’t you go inside?” Lynette asked them as she shook the rain from her cloak and hair.
“We dare not,” the oldest said and shivered again. “He’s in there.”
Lynette frowned. She pushed the leather covering the door aside and ducked into the stable. It was a tall, large building, with an owl roosting at the end of the roof beam and doves fluttering during the day. The floor was a thick mulch of hay, refreshed daily. Dozens of stalls ran up and down each side of the back end of the stable. At the front, where the big doors opened to allow the entry of hay carts and wagons, there was an exercise and grooming area. Normally the grooms lingered here, where it was warmer than outside thanks to the beasts kept in the stalls.
Lynette moved through the corridor between the stalls. There did not seem to be anyone in the stable at all. A horse moved at the front of the building, snorting softly. All the others were still and silent.
The rain drummed on the roof overhead.
Her heart worked weakly. The illness still clutched her. She suspected it would not leave—not for a while, at least.
One of the last stalls was empty. There was something hanging over the low wall that separated it from the next stall. As she drew closer, she recognized it. It was Cadfael’s undershirt, clean now and hung to dry. Beneath it was a bucket half-filled with water that he would have used as a wash tub.
She took a few more steps toward the opening into the exercise area. Now she was closer, she could hear the constant swishing sound of a brush against hide, moving fast.
Lynette paused, as fear grabbed at her throat.
He’ll kill you.
She closed her eyes. Better to turn and go back to the workroom. Cadfael had gone this long without knowing the truth. What would it serve now to tell him?
Only, she would want to know. If the Saxons had ever navigated through the mountains to strike at her family, she would want to understand why it had happened. She would want to know every event that had built up into that terrifying conclusion.
Especially, she would want to know it wasn’t mindless bad luck that the Saxons had happened upon her town and taken a fancy to the few riches to be found there. If they had been directed to raid her parent’s town, she would most certainly want to know, for knowing made a difference.
With a deep breath, Lynette pushed herself into taking the last few steps that would bring her into the exercise area.
Cadfael was brushing his stallion, as she had suspected. He was bare chested and his back had more scars than his front. Scars she had seen in plenty. The bruises, though, looked vicious. They were already emerging and were an angry, intense purple.
The stallion saw her and threw up his nose, warning his master.
Cadfael whirled, the brush in his hand. His chest rose and fell. The scowl was firmly in place.
She lifted her hand, just as he had done, palm out. No words came.
Cadfael wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Did you come to tell me how foolish I am? Because I am aware of that, thank you.” He turned back to the horse.
“Is that why you scrub your stallion’s hide so hard? Because you feel foolish?” Tell him! she raged to herself.
Cadfael had the brush raised once more. He hesitated, then patted the horse’s withers with his other hand. He dropped the brush and tossed it into the corner. Then he stalked to the door where she stood.
Lynette shrank back.
He rolled his eyes at her and bent and picked up his tunic from the pile of cloth sitting on the floor. His cloak was there and his knife belt. His sword leaned against the wall.
Cadfael shoved his arms into the tunic. There was a soft, ripping sound and he paused. With a sigh, he finished putting it on and glanced down at the enlarged tear. His bare arms looked odd. Every man Lynette had ever known always wore a long sleeved undershirt beneath their tunic. In winter, they would wear more than one.
“Why are you here?” Cadfael demanded of her.
Tell him.
Lynette swallowed. Her throat clicked. She swallowed again. “I heard something…” Her voice was scratchy.
Cadfael laughed. “In the way you have, when men don’t see you.” He bent to pick up his belt and paused, his gaze on her. He straightened. “Your face is pale. What is it you heard?”
Tell him. You must tell him.
“About…Caer Dain.” She could not lift her voice much above a whisper.
Cadfael’s face closed in. His eyes shuttered. It was like watching a storm roll across the sky, the black cloud covering everything and turning day to night.
Cadfael the Black.
“What of it?” He spoke softly, but she trembled anyway.
“Maela,” she made herself say. “She was there, Cadfael. She heard it all and she has no reason to lie or make something like this up. It makes terrible sense once you know. It explains why no alarm was raised…”
“Maela was at Caer Dain?”
“No, no, she was there when her father…oh, God, Cadfael…” Lynette gripped her hands together.
Cadfael stood still, his gaze not moving from her face. “What of her father?”
“He arranged it! Caer Dain was payment for the Saxons pushing the Picts back to the north!”
It was as if he did not breathe. As if he had been turned to stone. Cadfael stared at her. Through her. For dozens of heartbeats he held still. Absorbing it.
Lynette couldn’t move, either. Fear locked her into place, holding her feet to the ground.
“Vortigern…” Cadfael whispered. His eyes squeezed shut. He shuddered.
He took a single step closer to her and Lynette sh
rank back. The rough planking of the wall halted her, while Cadfael still moved in wavering steps. He reached for her…no, past her and down.
With a strangled cry, he pulled his sword from the scabbard and whirled, brandishing it. He quivered, looking for any enemy, as the one he wanted to confront was not here. The blade whistled through the air.
Lynette’s fear closed her throat down. Her chest ached for her heart worked far too fast. She should turn and run but couldn’t move. Her legs would not obey her.
Cadfael spun again, bringing his sword up high—the attack position. He saw her and paused, the sword quivering. His eyes widened, as if seeing her there was a surprise to him.
The sight of her had made him pause.
Lynette made herself move. Toward him.
Cadfael held still, breathing hard, the sword over his head.
Lynette reached up to his right arm and pulled on the elbow, which was as high as she could reach. It was like tugging on a tree branch. There was no give in it. Yet his arm lowered. Slowly.
She brought it down until she could reach his fists. She separated the left from its grip on the sword hilt, then pushed the right hand and his sword down by his side.
The beats of her heart were so close together they melded in one hard, painful spike in her chest. She was still afraid, although now she knew what she must do.
She raised up on her toes and took his face in her hands.
Cadfael’s gaze met hers. His breath escaped in a hard exhale. He knew what she intended to do, too. He did not stop her.
She kissed him, pressing herself against his tense body. He held every muscle taut, locked by fury he could not give vent to. Even his lips were unresponsive. They were warm and soft, though. Lynette kissed each one, then stroked them with her tongue. She pressed inside his mouth.
His sword dropped to the earthen floor with a muffled thud against the hay. His hands came around her waist, gripping it. He lifted her and carried her backward until her back was once more against the wall, making her gasp.
Cadfael pressed his mouth to hers. The kiss was hard. Relentless. His big body pinned her to the wall while his lips covered her face in tiny kisses and caresses before capturing her mouth once more. His tongue drove into her.
Once and Future Hearts Box One Page 9