The cave was closer to the river valley than she liked, which perhaps meant it was the ideal place to head. Mervyn would not expect her to circle around and come back to the Maridunum valley.
And tomorrow, she might be able to sneak into town and steal a horse, or find passage on a ship…
It would take a long time to reach the cave. It would be thoroughly dark, with only the moon to guide her once it rose. That might also work to her advantage. Mervyn would, she hoped, give up once the sun sank. If she kept moving after dark, he would never find her.
* * * * *
Lynette reached the cave long after the quarter moon had climbed high above. She was tired beyond belief, her thoughts drifting erratically. Only the notion of warmth and water kept her going. Otherwise, she might have dropped where she stood and slept out in the open, despite the risk.
It was black in the cave. Not even the moonlight penetrated. Lynette felt ahead, her hands out, her heart thudding. When she stubbed her toe on the rocks around the fire pit, she oriented herself. A step or two to the right and she found the sleeping shelf. Then, around the walls to the slender tunnel at the back where she had found the firewood.
She patted the logs in the dark, feeling for one with the most bark to peel for kindling and came across a pile of softness and warmth… She snatched her hand back, her alarm pushing her heart into her throat.
Nothing moved. There was no reaction to her touch.
Carefully, she put her hand out again and found the softness once more. She explored it with both hands.
Fur…and braid. And here, a button.
Ambrosius had left hers and Vivian’s cloaks behind, folded neatly.
Lynette took them back to the shelf and shook them out. She laid on one, pulled the fur over the top of her, pillowed her head on her arm and slept instantly.
* * * * *
The numbing blow of a heavy-handed slap across her face woke her. Lynette cried out, disoriented and blinded by the flames of a torch held close to her face. She threw up her hand to shield herself.
“Get up, slut,” came the growled command.
Mervyn’s voice. They had found her. Against all expectations, Mervyn had trailed her through the night.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her off the shelf.
Lynette moaned. While she had slept, her body had stiffened and now every limb felt like iron. It hurt to move.
Mervyn gave her no choice. She found her feet and straightened, wincing.
Padrig stood by the mouth of the cave, another flaming torch in his hands. He glanced out into the night, then around the cave with nervous, jerky motions. “Let’s go, brother. We have her.”
“Relax,” Mervyn told him. He bent and thrust the torch among the old coals and leftover wood in the fire pit. It caught and the flames jumped. He dropped the torch on top, to burn. Then he turned to consider Lynette.
He looked tired and dirty. The anger in his eyes canceled both. What drove his fury? What had pushed him to follow her trail at night, as he had? He would have had to walk the trail, bent low with the torch ahead of him in order to not miss any sign. What would make a man so determined?
“I could take off my belt and begin where I left off,” Mervyn said, his tone conversational. “Or I might use my knife. A slice here. A cut there. Or you could save yourself from all of it by telling me what I want to know.”
Lynette trembled. She had vastly underestimated Mervyn. She had misunderstood.
Only, he misunderstood her, too. “Even if I knew, I would not tell you,” Lynette said. She kept her voice low so he could not hear it shake. “It would not be my secret to reveal.”
Mervyn hit her. The blow came without warning. His fist shot out, smashing into her jaw. Her head snapped to the left and her teeth crunched together. Bright pain flared and she tasted blood. She had bitten her tongue.
Lynette swayed on her feet, bent over with her hands on her knees. Her head rang. She could hear nothing. She spat the blood onto the fire, breathing hard. “Why do you care who the father is?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse and muffled because of the buzzing in her head.
Mervyn’s hand slid under her chin and lifted it, raising her so she was standing once more.
Her heart pounded.
Mervyn’s smile was small and nasty. “Why do you care? You are a woman. These things are beyond your ken.”
“I have no interest in such matters, of course,” Lynette lied. “If you explain it, then perhaps I might understand why I must betray the princess.”
Mervyn rolled his eyes. “You are stupid, woman. Any man would grasp the problem immediately.”
“Yes, I am ignorant of politics,” she agreed, with a modest simper.
Mervyn came closer. “I would have the father’s name now. I have no intention of waiting for him to arrive in Maridunum and claim the throne for himself, no matter who he is. The crown is mine.”
Mervyn, Vivian’s little brother. He had lived his entire life with the knowledge that whoever wed Vivian could supplant his claim if they were strong enough or of sufficient rank.
As Lynette chided herself for not seeing this before, Mervyn sank his fist into her stomach. She had no time to brace herself. He drove deep, stealing her breath and knocking her off her feet.
Lynette sprawled in the dirt, a moan pushing out of her. She had no breath to spare to scream.
“Mervyn!” Padrig hissed, at the entrance. “We can’t stay here. This place is haunted.”
“Oh, just shut up your whining, will you?” Mervyn spat. “Go outside if you’re that afraid.”
The toes of Mervyn’s boots stopped in front of Lynette’s nose and she struggled to bring an arm up to protect her face.
“You will tell me,” Mervyn hissed, bending to speak in her ear. “There is no one here to stop me, this time.”
With supreme effort, Lynette found the air to speak. “You will kill me once I do.”
“Oh, I will kill you anyway,” he said, his tone cool. “You are not leaving this cave, woman. I can make it quick and clean, if you tell me now. If you do not, then death will be slow to arrive and the time between will make you wish it would hurry.”
He picked up her arm, the one protecting her face. She winced, waiting for the kick.
Instead, a quiet snick sounded. Cold metal pressed up against the side of her finger. She shuddered at the touch and tried to pull her arm away. Mervyn held her arm still. The knife didn’t move.
“Tell me,” he crooned. “Tell me, or you lose your finger, first.”
Lynette wept, her fear driving her to it.
She clung to the single fact that might sustain her. She would not tell Mervyn the name of Vivian’s child’s father, because the future of Britain depended upon it remaining a secret. Vivian had told her so and she trusted Vivian.
If Lynette could remain strong until the end, she would help save Britain.
So she closed her eyes and waited for the pain to come.
From the entrance to the cave came a soft thud and a tired sigh.
Mervyn let her arm go. “You!”
“Dogs and children hate you, Mervyn. Do you think wearing a crown will make people love you?”
Cadfael. It was impossible, yet it was his voice.
Lynette struggled to roll over and prop herself up. She looked up.
It was Cadfael, in the flesh. He stood in the mouth of the cave, his cloak furled over his shoulders. His sword and his knife were in his hands. Dawn light showed pale in the sky beyond the cave. With the light behind him, his face was lit only by the weak flames, yet his eyes seemed to blaze with a fire of their own.
He was dirty with the dust of the road, his boots splattered with mud, his chin bristling with russet whiskers. To Lynette, he had never looked more glorious than he did in that moment.
Mervyn rounded the fire, putting it between him and Cadfael.
Cadfael stepped over Padrig’s body, stalking inexorably toward Mervyn, undeterred by the flam
es.
“You can’t touch me!” Mervyn squeaked. “I am a prince!”
“I am not here,” Cadfael said softly. “Lynette will swear to that and Padrig didn’t see me at all. The ghosts of the hermit’s cave were your demise, Mervyn. You should go to your grave knowing that few will mourn your loss.”
“You would kill me for nothing?” Mervyn shrank backward as Cadfael stepped right over the fire.
“You can call it nothing if you want,” Cadfael told him. “You harmed a woman. An innocent. Death is the least you deserve.”
Mervyn must have seen the implacable intention in Cadfael’s eyes and realized he could not talk Cadfael out of it. The smaller man fumbled for his sword and lunged at Cadfael, the blade out.
It seemed to Lynette’s pain-clouded eyes that Mervyn cooperated with Cadfael. Cadfael stepped closer to the man, brushing the sword away with his own. Mervyn lifted his chin, exposing it. Cadfael thrust the knife into the soft skin beneath.
Mervyn’s eyes bulged. His mouth opened.
Cadfael yanked the knife out.
Mervyn fell heavily to the ground and didn’t move again.
Barely before the body landed, Cadfael whirled away. He threw down the knife and sword and hurried around the fire to where Lynette lay. He dropped beside her and picked her up gently and settled her on his lap.
“You are here…” she whispered.
“Barely in time, but yes.” He brushed tendrils of her hair away from her face.
“I don’t understand. How is it you are here?”
His lips touched her temple. “You have led me on a merry chase this night. Actually, you led Mervyn on the chase. I merely followed where he led me. It didn’t occur to him that a hunter can also be the hunted. When the fools pushed into the night carrying torches, I could have left Mars to follow and slept in the saddle for all the challenge it became.”
“You followed them? Why?”
“To find you. Folant told me what had happened and gave me the direction. I knew it would be impossible to find you unless you wanted me to. You grew up in the mountains. You know how to use the countryside to hide. So I followed Mervyn instead. When I saw the trail swing to the north and head toward the river, I knew where you had gone and I could safely close the gap.” He closed his eyes. “I was nearly too late. A moment longer…”
Lynette raised her hand to rest it against his chest and assure herself he really was here. Pain flared at the movement.
She felt soft cloth beneath her fingers and the warmth of his body below that. Her fingers caught against a raw edge and she smiled. The tear remained. He had not found another women to do that service for him.
“I still don’t understand,” she confessed. “How did you know to come to Maridunum at all? It all happened so fast…no word could have reached you in time. How did you know I would need help?”
He grew still. Wary. She could feel it in the way his chest and belly tightened.
“I didn’t know,” he said, his voice low. “I knew nothing at all until I arrived at the palace and found it in an uproar and Folant told me where I would find you. I came to Maridunum for you, Lynette. I couldn’t stand my life a moment longer without you in it.”
Lynette’s heart came to a shocked, numb halt. She stared at him.
Padrig stirred and groaned.
Lynette clutched at Cadfael, fear blooming. “I thought he was dead!” she whispered.
Cadfael laid his fingers against her lips and shook his head. Then he got to his feet and lifted her in his arms and carried her outside.
The dawn was painted red and the day grew brighter. Cadfael climbed down from the shelf in front of the cave to where he had hidden Mars. He put her on Mars’ back and gripped her knee as she swayed. “Can you sit by yourself?”
“I think so.”
“Only for a while. I will take care of Padrig, then take you…somewhere. Then we will talk.”
“Just promise you will return to me,” she whispered.
He kissed her. “I will return to you, my lovely Lynette. If for no other reason than that you sit upon my horse.” His smile was warm. “Although there are a thousand other reasons and I will name them, one by one, later.”
She shivered as he hurried away.
Chapter Fifteen
From the hermit’s cave, Cadfael rode north at an easy pace to spare Mars, as the sun rose even higher. It was the unexpected direction, he explained. It was also the opposite direction from where Maridunum lay.
When a small river halted farther progress, Cadfael lifted Lynette to the ground and put her back against a mighty oak that hung over the water. He made a fire on the bare ground, in front of her. Then he boiled water and tended her wounds.
It was a surprise to Lynette that she had a split lip and that Mervyn had laid open her brow with his first blow. She had not noticed the blood, in her panic and fear. Later the ache in her bones from his blows and her exertions yesterday had masked the minor cuts.
As he worked to clean her skin and inspect the cuts, Cadfael told her what he had left behind in the cave.
“I knocked Padrig out again. I hung Mervyn by his feet and drew a sign in the dirt below his head that everyone knows is the devil’s. Where you had been laying, I poured a line of ashes shaped like you. Then I waited outside the entrance for Padrig to stir.”
“Oh dear…poor Padrig,” Lynette murmured. “He was terrified of the ghosts.”
“I used that fear,” Cadfael said grimly. “He stirred, got to his feet and looked about the cave. He let out a scream that would induce panic in a rock and ran from the place. His face was whiter than snow and his eyes big and round.” He sobered. “Padrig is a good man and he’ll be a better one not living in Mervyn’s shadow.”
He got to his feet and dropped the bloody rag he had been using into the fire. He delved into his saddlebags again. “Hungry?” he asked her.
Lynette did not think she would ever be hungry again. Yet her belly swirled and gurgled loudly.
Cadfael laughed. “Me, too.”
He made a simple porridge with ground oats, hot water and dried fruit. Lynette ate carefully, her lip throbbing, using the only spoon. Cadfael ate with his fingers, scooping the oats from the bowl they shared.
As the bowl emptied, Cadfael grew restless. He stirred and got to his feet. He put more wood on the fire. He repacked his saddlebags. From his profile, Lynette could see his eyes were narrowed, deepening the lines at the corners.
“Cadfael,” Lynette said, to catch his attention.
He lowered himself to the ground in front of her, staring at her toes, in their now-ragged slippers. “Any other man would just take you away.” His voice was low. Strained. “A man would consider you his by right of conquest. I cannot bring myself to that. Not with you.”
Her heart lurched. “You do not want me?”
“I want you to want me,” he breathed, lifting his head to meet her gaze. “I like it better when you are free to think for yourself and act accordingly. That is why I came to Maridunum. I wanted to ask you if you would consent to be mine.”
“Yours?”
“My wife.” His gaze was steady. “For nothing less will do. I love you, Lynette. I have spent the last…all of summer, refusing to believe it. I did not think I would ever love again. You, though, have given me love and hope that there is a chance yet for a better life. Because of you, I have found purpose beyond the mindless slaughter of Saxons. I would be a fool to not grasp that with both hands.”
Lynette drew in a breath that shook.
“Please say yes,” he added, his voice low.
“Oh, Cadfael, of course I say yes,” she breathed. “Had I known you wanted my agreement, I would have walked to Calleva to give it to you. I believed you considered that night to be just…just a night…”
He kissed her, halting her words. The kiss deepened. Sweetened.
Until Lynette gasped in pain and he tore his mouth from hers, his brow etched, his gaze on the
wound in her lip. “I hurt you…”
She cupped his jaw, feeling the rasp of whiskers against her skin. “Mervyn hurt me. I truly thought I was about to die. You have given me my life back.”
He kissed her palm. “You have done that for me.” He sat back on his heels, took her hand and stroked it. “Until I rode into the middle of the hysteria in the palace yesterday, I assumed that if you said yes, we would return to Calleva. Now, though, that isn’t possible.”
“Because everyone will believe the ghosts killed me in the cave.”
“Yes.” He got to his feet. “Only Folant saw me in the palace yesterday. Everyone was too panicked to take note. So only Folant knows I was in the area. He will put it together. He will guess what happened in the cave was my doing. If I have the measure of the man, I predict he won’t say anything. He will let everyone accept it was spirits or devils who saw to Mervyn.”
“Folant didn’t want to hurt me,” Lynette said, remembering the king’s hall. “He explained it to me instead. He tried to convince me I should tell the truth, instead of beating it from me.”
Cadfael nodded. “He was concerned about you. He sent me into the hills because he could not go himself. He can’t raise a hand against Mervyn. I, though, am not sworn to Gwilym and was free to act. Folant could not push me out of the courtyard fast enough.” Cadfael patted Mars’ nose. The stallion snorted and nudged him for more.
“If we can’t go to Calleva because everyone thinks I am dead, then where can we go?” Lynette asked.
Cadfael patted Mars’ nose thoughtfully. “It was a coincidence that I came north, but perhaps it was fate that pushed us this way.” He looked at her. “Vortigern sent word at mid-summer. He wants me to return to Deva.”
“That is what Ambrosius asked you to do,” Lynette pointed out.
“And it has sat ill with me all summer,” Cadfael admitted. “I cannot stomach the idea of serving Vortigern, not even to help Ambrosius. The secret would sour in me.”
Once and Future Hearts Box One Page 14