Her lack of reaction challenged Mervyn. He pulled off his furled cloak to free his shoulders and settled into his work. The belt snapped out over and over again, hitting her arms, her back, her buttocks, her legs.
Lynette curled her hands into fists and tightened them, her nails digging furrows into her palms. She flinched each time the belt landed.
Then the belt caught Vivian in the side of the knee. She crumpled to the floor, her knee unable to hold her anymore. Mervyn instantly struck her back and along her legs. He was sweating, now, and swinging the belt with all his might. The cracks it made against Vivian’s skin sent shudders up Lynette’s back.
Vivian cried out and rolled over to protect her back, her arms up. She curled up her knees.
“No, stop this! I beg you!” Ninian cried. She threw herself across the floor to crouch over her daughter, protecting her.
Everyone sucked in a breath of shock.
Ninian threw up her arm, as Vivian had. “She will lose the baby if you continue this…this madness!”
Mervyn lowered the belt. He was panting. “Perhaps that’s best,” he murmured. His face was red, which made the new scar stand out darkly.
Another soft gasp greeted his statement.
Ninian crossed herself and twisted to look at Gwilym. “Husband…please…stop this. In the name of God in his heaven, stop. She is your daughter.”
Gwilym raised his hand. “Perhaps that is enough, Mervyn. It is clear she won’t tell us. Not if she hasn’t screamed the name by now.”
Mervyn looked disappointed. He scowled at Vivian and his mother. “She won’t tell, but this one will.” He lunged, moving fast and gripped Lynette’s wrist.
She cried out, surprised. Mervyn ground the bones in her wrists with his grip. He hauled her over to where Vivian lay and slapped the belt against Lynette’s thigh.
She moaned, shocked at the pain of the blow. The belt had barely made contact, yet the point where it had touched her skin burned.
Mervyn swung the belt again. “You know what I want to hear. Tell us the name of the father and I will stop.”
“I don’t know!” Lynette screamed. She looked around the room, for a sympathetic face, for someone to step in and stop this. Folant, whom she once thought a sensible man, merely crossed his arms, watching with interest.
“Then I will stir your memory,” Mervyn told her. The belt snapped out again. This time, her wrist. She cradled it, breathing hard.
Lynette would never be able to properly relate the next few minutes in their entirety. She lost track of the blows. The pain they imparted joined together to form a shrieking agony that ran from her toes to her head. She sank to the floor, her eyes weeping tears of pain, her arm up to protect her head.
Instead, Mervyn attacked her back. She arched and cried out, then brought her arm around protect it.
The belt whistled again. The side of her face grew instantly numb, while the bones behind her skin pounded.
She dropped to the floor, her face shielded, sobbing. She couldn’t help it. The pain was too much.
Vivian laughed. It was a soft sound that grew in volume. It was a mad sound.
The belt grew still. From under her arm, Lynette could see the puzzled expressions everyone wore as they watched Vivian laugh.
Vivian pushed herself up on one hand, her laughter tapering to nothing. She wiped her eyes. “You are all so worried about the father! As if he might be any man! Oh my Lord, you are such fools!”
“You will explain yourself, daughter,” Gwilym said. His voice was icy.
Vivian sat up. “I thought to spare you and mother,” she told Gwilym. “Yet you refuse to believe me when I say the father cannot possibly be a threat to you.”
“Why is that?” Gwilym said, in the same soft, dangerous tone.
“You leave me no choice. I must shame myself to relieve your anxiety,” Vivian said bitterly.
Lynette didn’t have the strength to lift her head and look at Vivian’s expression. She sounded sincere, though.
“You are already shamed, daughter,” Gwilym replied.
“I warned you,” Vivian replied. “In the spring just gone, during the nights of the full moon…do you remember? The moon was larger than we have ever seen it. When it lifted above the horizon, it was blood red. Everyone said it was a sign.”
Lynette poured all her will into lifting herself from the floor. She propped herself up, her head hanging. From the corner of her eye she saw many people making the sign of the cross. Others were making far older signs. Strong signs, to ward off magic.
“It was the first night of the moon when he came to me,” Vivian continued. Her voice dropped into the cadences that poets used when they told their tales. Vivian certainly had her audience as captive as any bard. No one moved, not even Mervyn, who watched her with narrowed eyes.
“He was the most handsome man I have ever seen. He glowed. Light shone from him as if the sun was held inside him. It dazzled me and it frightened me. At first, I would not let him come near me. He spoke with a wonderful voice, though, and reassured me.
“On that first night he merely spoke to me. I did not discern what he wanted. He said I was the most beautiful woman he had ever chanced upon and that he only wanted to spend time with me.” There was a note in Vivian’s voice that told Lynette that this part of the story was true.
Others nodded around them. They believed her, too. After all, the entire household had watched Vivian bewitch men with her beauty for years.
Vivian glanced around the room, measuring her audience. “After that first night I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. He had spoken—only spoken, just as he had said. He kept his word. I thought he was a good man…if he was a man. Only, I was unable to tell anyone about him. It didn’t occur to me that he had laid a spell upon me.”
More mutters and more strong signs against magic, carefully hidden from their pious queen.
“On the second and third nights he appeared in my room, shedding his glorious silver light everywhere. My lady, Lynette, did not see him. She slept as the dead do until morning. On those nights, he laid with me.”
The mutters this time were stronger. Gwilym’s kingdom was nominally Christian, although in times of trouble, folk called upon the older gods for help. Vivian used that primeval instinct to convince them she spoke the truth.
“On the third night, after he had…afterward,” she amended with a coy hesitation, “when I would speak with him and learn more about him, for I thought myself in love with him…that was when he disappeared, right before me. He and his light were gone.”
The muttering was spreading. “I knew then,” Vivian said, lifting her voice, “that I had laid with no man at all. Yet I could still tell no one. I did not even remember him until just now, when Mother invoked the name of God…and my tongue was suddenly free.”
At this, there were many more crosses made than older signs. Vivian had involved her mother’s God to avoid conclusions of heresy and witchcraft. A man wreathed in silver light, who she only remembered when someone appealed to God would keep everyone from thinking of devils and darkness.
Ninian shrank back from her daughter, continuously crossing herself.
Mervyn threw out his hand. “Father, you don’t believe this, do you?”
Lynette swiveled her head carefully, feeling the ache from blows that had reached her neck. She assessed the room. It didn’t matter what Gwilym believed. These people believed Vivian’s story. They were nodding and talking quickly. Some of them even looked pleased.
“Father!” Mervyn cried, moving toward him. “I beg you, do not accept this ridiculous tale. She is lying!”
Vivian leaned toward Lynette, her lips close to Lynette’s ear. “You must run.”
Lynette looked at her, startled. “And leave you to face this?”
Vivian shook her head. “I am safe. They will not dare touch me now. Only, they will want to punish someone for this. You know what men are like. You must go. Now, before they recov
er from their surprise and pull their wits together.” She pushed on Lynette’s arm.
Lynette wasn’t sure she could move. It hurt too much.
“Do you want to die?” Vivian said, her voice low and forceful. “Go!”
Lynette pushed herself into motion. It did hurt. Each shift and flex was agony…although she was able to move. She glanced around. The door at the back of the room was near. Folant stood by the public door and Mervyn pleaded with his father.
Lynette rose to her feet and took a step, grimacing. Her body shook. Another step. A few more. She pushed through the ring of people and pulled at the door handle. No one paid her any attention. They all watched Mervyn implore his father to not believe his sister.
The door swung open. Lynette stepped inside, her heart booming in her chest, adding more pain.
Shuddering, her breath wheezing, she hurried down the dark passage. There were no windows, just a few candles along its length, that fluttered and died whenever a door was opened along its length.
Lynette was familiar with the corridor. In the dark, she ran her fingers down the wall to guide her. At the far end was a blank wall. She felt over the wall until she found the lever and unclipped it. The wall wavered open a few inches and fresh air fanned her face. The ancient postern door would have been used by the Romans who owned this house as a backdoor escape if enemies came through the front door.
No one had ever thought to question why there was a passage running down the back of the house, connecting rooms that were already accessible via the verandah. Vivian had wondered, though. She had found the answer. The postern door was a secret she had shared only with Lynette.
Lynette stepped out and breathed deeply. It still hurt to breathe, although now she was moving, the pain was receding a little—enough to let her continue. She reversed the lever which closed the door, then tucked it back inside. With the door closed, it looked like a blank section of wall, identical to the rest of the house on this side.
Her feet picking up speed, she moved through the trees, heading uphill. Like the townsfolk, she would head for the hills in this time of trouble.
It was a hard climb, for the undergrowth beneath the trees had reached mid-summer’s full growth. She didn’t dare use one of the worn paths where she would be easily seen. She just had to make the summit of this first hill and she would be away safely.
Branches slapped and scratched her and the undergrowth pulled at her dress. She was wearing light indoor shoes and twigs and pebbles bit into her soles.
Lynette was close to the top of the first hill, the steep one right behind the palace, when she heard shouting.
“Then where did the bloody woman go?” That was Mervyn’s voice.
Someone answered him in a lower tone.
“We’ll look in the hills first. She can’t have got far. That fat pony of hers is still in the stable. Hurry up.”
Her heart squeezed and climbed. Panic was a silvery thread in her veins. They would pursue her! She was on foot and Mervyn’s war horse had been bred for speed as well as stamina.
The fear pushed her onward, making her hurry despite the claw of vines and leaves.
She burst through into clear land, the turf cropped close by sheep and goats. Shepherds and goat boys brought their flocks into the hills for the sweeter grasses. Ahead was the path that most of the household used to scramble up the first steep slope.
The last time Lynette had escaped into the hills with someone following her trail, she had wanted him to find her. She had been on a horse and used the path where the prints would be clear and easy to find.
Now, though, she must hide her trail. She was on foot and her soles were light things, leaving little imprint behind. That would help.
Mervyn, though, was a good hunter. He had turned to improving his hunting skills when his father refused to send troops to Vortigern’s wars, taking out his frustrations upon the deer and boars and wild fowls.
Lynette skipped across the sandy path and moved up the hill behind it. She would be exposed until she reached the top and must move fast. The path took the easiest slope to the top. The direction Lynette took was far steeper.
Scrambling for footing made her legs and back ache. Her breath came faster.
She reached the summit just as the thud of hooves sounded on the path, far below. Lynette threw herself up the slope and rolled behind a clump of heather, to lie and watch.
Mervyn and Padrig galloped along the path, risking their stallions’ necks. Mervyn’s big hunting bow was strapped to his horse, the top of it jutting up behind him.
Lynette waited until the two had passed beneath her, then she could wait no longer. Once they reached the summit, they would cast about for a direction to follow across the valley.
She turned and looked across the shallow valley herself, picking out her route from rocky patches to trees, to clumps of bushes, through anything that would hide her from their view. The challenge now was to reach the other side of the valley without being seen. From there, while they cast about for signs of her direction, she could move freely.
Lynette ran.
She had no cloak, her shoes were light and she wore no veil, for she had been in the privacy of the workroom when Ban had come for her. Her dress one of the finest linen gowns she owned, chosen this morning because the day had promised to be hot. That promise was being fulfilled now. The sun beat down on her head and back. She could feel her hair pins loosening as she ran. The elegant back knot would not last with this energetic movement. When she had a moment, she would pull all the pins and braid it to keep it out of the way.
At each disguising tree and bush, Lynette paused to recover her breath and look for Mervyn and Padrig. She was fortunate that Mervyn did not have his big dog, Birr, with him. Like many of Mervyn’s dogs did, Birr had disappeared one night in early summer and had not been seen since. Lynette considered it telling the man was incapable of holding the loyalty of a dog.
She made the crest of the next hill and paused behind a gnarled oak to check behind her.
Mervyn and Padrig were quartering the far side of the valley, looking for her trail. When they found it, they would come for her quickly. Now, though, she had a little time. Lynette eased over the summit of the hill, keeping trees at her back whenever she could.
On the other side of the hill, she ran once more. She kept her pace slow, so she could maintain it. She avoided open spaces and used rocky ground whenever it was available.
The afternoon stretched on.
At the top of another crest, Lynette paused for a longer rest, eyeing the sun. Until the sun went down, she would not linger anywhere for long. If she made it to the night, then she would pause to consider her options. For now, she must stay ahead of Mervyn.
Beneath her, at the lowest point of the valley, was a copse of willows she remembered.
Lynette stared at them, vexed. She had veered south and was now not far from the coast. Instinctively, she knew that to be caught between Mervyn and the coastline would be a trap. Perhaps, though, she could use the unintended swerve as a form of misdirection. Mervyn would presume she was trying to reach the easier footing the shore provided. Or he would think she was heading for Lecarum, the next town to the east of Maridunum.
She had not caught sight of Mervyn and Padrig since the first valley, when she had watched them casting about for signs of her. However, she did not for a moment wonder if he had given up and gone back to the palace. She had only to recall the fury in his eyes as he’d wielded the belt to guess he would continue the chase for the rest of the day.
What she counted upon was Mervyn’s preference for the good things in life. He liked his wine and he liked eating. He’d had no time to pack food and drink. She hoped that when he got hungry enough and the setting sun told him dinner would be ready at the palace, he would tire of the chase and return home.
Lynette bolted for the willows. Already, her throat was contracting at the thought of drinking from the little waterfall beyond
them.
Instead of rounding the willows as she had before, she pushed inside the copse. Her progress was immediately hampered by vines and creepers and thick undergrowth. She patiently stepped around and under and through. The last of her pins were snagged and yanked from her head and her hair came loose. She stopped long enough to tear a strip of linen from her sleeve and braid and bind her hair to hang down her back.
Then she pushed on. If Mervyn did find her trail into the willows, then he would guess she would move directly through them to the other side. He would search that side of the copse to pick up her trail once more. Lynette bent her direction to the right, to emerge where the stream ran closest to the trees. She could hear the trickle of water already.
She waited at the edge of the willows for a long moment, listening carefully. Birds chirped and crickets clicked… no other living thing made a sound.
Lynette moved out to the creek and laid down and drank until she thought she might be sick. She rested for a moment or two, then drank again. She had nothing to carry the water with her. She had to take her fill now.
Then she tucked the hem of her gown into her belt and stepped into the water and waded upstream. She clambered over slippery rocks and was wet from head to toe, which was refreshing. It also meant she could not step out of the stream until she was far away, for she would leave a trail that the worst hunter in the world could follow. If she stayed in the water long enough, though, Mervyn would never find it.
The stream ended at the top of the valley, among mighty oaks. Lynette stepped out of the shallow rivulet the stream had become, then moved up to the crest before shaking herself off and taking stock.
The sun was lowering toward the horizon. It was growing late. Lynette looked around, deciding on a direction. It should be the unexpected one. She had tried to make Mervyn think she was heading for the coast and the villages and towns along it.
Heading deeper into the hills, where there was no one, made no sense.
Lynette therefore turned to look to the north and the endless vales there. Far to the left was a summit she recognized. The hermit’s cave. It would be empty now. There would be wood for a fire and water in the spring. Perhaps, even a scrap of food left behind.
Once and Future Hearts Box One Page 13