Once and Future Hearts Box One

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Once and Future Hearts Box One Page 19

by Tracy Cooper-Posey


  Then her father’s gaze returned to the king’s face. “I believe you,” he whispered.

  “Thank you.”

  “Because I believe you, I must refuse your offer, highness. It would be dishonest to accept it.”

  Arawn frowned.

  So did Ilsa. “Papa, how can you say no?” she breathed.

  “I did not say no, I said I cannot accept.” Pryce’s gaze slid toward his wife once more then came back to Arawn. “To be cared for to the last of our days, to see my wife carefree and comfortable…it is a tempting offer. Only, Ilsa is not mine to give away.”

  Ilsa gasped. She realized she was sitting on the bare boards next to the pallet and could not recall getting there. She stared at her father…at the man she had thought her father until this moment.

  “You are not her father?” Arawn said sharply, rising to his feet.

  “No, king, I am not.” Pryce said it firmly.

  Uther laughed.

  Arawn’s gaze moved to Ilsa. His thick brows came together. “It matters not at all,” he said, speaking to her father. “The man who made her is not here to claim her. You had the raising of her. You are father in all but seed. My offer still stands.”

  “You would gainsay King Budic, highness?” Pryce asked, his breath wheezy.

  Uther’s laugh was louder and longer this time. “She’s Budic’s bastard?”

  Ilsa drew in a breath that seared her throat and tightened it. Her chest hurt. Her mind swam. “I am not yours?” she whispered.

  Pryce met her gaze. “I had all but forgotten it and if wishes could have made it so, you would be my daughter for true but I cannot gainsay my king.”

  Ilsa closed her eyes as they stung. “Papa…” She could say nothing else.

  Uther came up behind Arawn. “This resolves the matter more simply than I thought. Budic is still in the summer house at Carnac. I will ride to Budic now and put it before him on your behalf. He can have no objections to you marrying her when he has kept her tucked in the northern corner of his kingdom all these years. You’ll be taking her off his hands.”

  “Your wife was at Budic’s court?” Arawn asked Pryce.

  “Handmaid to the queen,” Pryce breathed.

  “And you were in Budic’s army?” Uther asked. “Your daughter—Ilsa—said you were an archer?”

  “Aye. ‘til an arrow stole my eye. King Budic was generous. This cottage and free access to his trees if I took his fallen mistress as my wife and raised the child well.”

  Both lords swiveled to look at Ilsa’s mother. She sat now with her gaze on her hands as they turned in her lap. Ilsa noticed, not for the first time, her mother’s generous mouth and the clear line of her jaw. The smoothness of her skin and the blue of her eyes that Ilsa shared. Ilsa had always taken pride in her mother’s fine looks,

  A lady-in-waiting, one who had turned the head of a king.

  “She was clearly Budic’s favorite, once,” Uther breathed. “Helping them now would earn his thanks, at least.”

  “I do this for something other than his thanks,” Arawn said, his tone dry. “As you instigated this day of derangement, you must end it by sealing the deal for me as you suggested. Take half my men and ride for Carnac. Speak to him tonight.”

  Uther nodded. “Done,” he said, moving back toward the ladder. He lowered his head as he moved until he crouched over the top of the first rung. “And you?”

  “I go to Lorient and I take Ilsa with me. We will be wed as soon as I find a priest to do the deed, so I suggest you ride as you are wont to do and challenge the wind, Uther.”

  Uther nodded, then was gone.

  Arawn turned to look down at Ilsa where she sat on the floor beside the bed. From outside, Ilsa could hear the mutter of the men and the stamp of horses, then the clatter of hooves as they gathered themselves for the ride.

  “Collect your things,” Arawn said, his gaze bleak. “We leave at once.”

  Chapter Five

  The anger Ilsa saw in the king’s eyes did not extend to her parents. Then she corrected herself—Arawn was kind to her mother and the man her mother married. He shouted at the dozen men standing and sitting about the dirt in front of the cottage, ordering two to ride into the village and buy water—whatever there was at whatever price. He sent two more riding immediately and with all haste to Lorient to send word that he would return shortly.

  “What do your family need to get by for just the night?” Arawn asked her, as he stood in front of the cottage and watched the men depart, while the others prepared their horses.

  “The water…and the deer,” Ilsa said, eyeing the carcass hanging over the rump of the hunter’s horse. “Although they are too ill to butcher it.”

  “That is a task for tomorrow and for stronger hands,” Arawn said in agreement. “I will send people to care for them until they are strong enough to travel, then they can live in Lorient, or stay here.”

  “They will stay here,” Ilsa said. “Neither of them like the noise of a big town.” She thought of the one time they had traveled to Vannes when she was younger. Vannes was a big town, the seat of Budic’s kingdom and his winter quarters. Its bustle, the people, the noises and the busy streets had made Ilsa’s family uneasy. They had all breathed in relief upon passing through the gates and into the countryside once more. As chancy as the open country was these days, her parents would still choose to stay here.

  Arawn’s gaze settled upon her. “So? I will have servants arranged for them. A guard, too. They can travel here with the wagon I send. The wagon will have all I can spare.” His voice was even yet his jaw worked even when he did not speak.

  Ilsa wanted to ask what troubled him. It could only be something that had happened in the last few moments. Everything that had happened had to do with her. She was to blame. His discovery that she was illegitimate had angered him, perhaps.

  The fact sat in her chest, a cold lump of hardened clay. The man she had thought of as her father for all these years was not her father at all. He was even more honorable because of it. He had served his king with a rare loyalty. He had taken care of her and her mother better than many true fathers cared for their own.

  She moved back into the cottage and found the sack they used to carry produce from the village when they went to the market. If Arawn spoke truly, then her mother and father would have no need to barter for food at the market ever again, while she had need of the sack.

  Ilsa opened the small chest that sat beside her sleeping shelf and removed her single gown, mantle and veil, and the two combs her father—that Pryce—had made from walnut for her birthday. She laid her good shoes and leather girdle on the bed beside them. Now the chest was empty.

  She examined the girdle. It was worn and the buckle was loose. The leather showed wear at the point where she knotted it and the end curled because of her habit of running it through her fingers. The leather was stained from handling and wear. There was not a single adornment on the thin leather.

  She could not be seen in a king’s house wearing such a belt. Only, she had no other. Surely she could acquire another that would be more suitable? There would be far grander accessories available in Lorient, she was sure. How she should pay for them was another question added to the many she had about her agreement with Arawn.

  Hesitantly, she put the belt back in the chest. The worn shoes, too.

  The gown was of softest linen, the best quality her mother could spin and weave. It was a pale golden color that her father—Pryce—no, her father, she decided gripping the folds of the gown. Her father, Pryce, had told her the gold in the gown matched the gold in her hair, which he seemed to notice more of than anyone else. When Ilsa saw herself reflected in water and, once, in a bronze mirror, her hair had looked red and uninteresting. The curls tickled her face and she never saw gold in those strands.

  The soft yellow gown was the best linen her mother could make. It was nothing like the tunic Arawn wore, which was of a linen so fine the warp and weft threads
were invisible. His tunic had been bleached to a fine white. His undershirt was a dark blue color Ilsa had never seen before.

  She fingered the soft linen folds of her dress, then put it back in the chest. Then, with a convulsive movement, she put the veil and pale gray mantle back in the chest, too.

  It left her with the pair of hair combs. She ran her thumb over the carving at the top. Lavender and poppies and a butterfly.

  Ilsa got to her feet, dropped the lid of the chest closed and moved back to the door of the cottage. She looked up at the platform. Nothing was visible from down here.

  She picked up her cloak and put it on. After another hesitation, she grabbed her bow and arrows. She pushed the hair combs into the arrow bag and slung the items over her shoulder, then stepped out to where Arawn sat upon his big stallion, waiting for her.

  Ilsa closed the cottage door. The hinges squealed. She pressed her hand against the door.

  “My lord, we must hurry if we’re to make Lorient before the gates are closed for the night,” a soldier said, his tone urgent. The other horses moved about the clearing with restless steps, anxious to leave.

  Arawn leaned down toward Ilsa and held out his arm. “Hurry,” he said.

  Ilsa pressed her lips together.

  Arawn leaned closer, so his voice would reach only her. “I will not have it said I married an unwilling woman. Take my hand and at least appear to be pleased with the arrangement.”

  He thrust out his hand again.

  His words startled her and prodded her into gripping his wrist and hoisting herself up to settle behind him on the stallion’s back. As before, she gripped his belt, unwilling to be more forward than that.

  Arawn said nothing else. The horse wheeled and bolted forward and Ilsa clung as best she could. There would be nothing worse than falling from his horse and further delaying them. She didn’t know how far away Lorient was, for she had never been there. She did know it was on the bank where two mighty rivers met, the closest point the Brocéliande kingdom came to the open sea, three miles away.

  The journey to Lorient was a wild ride of hammering hooves, blowing horses and streaming wind. It grew colder as the sun dipped toward the horizon and Ilsa was glad to be wearing the thick cloak and to be behind Arawn. He grew warmer as the air grew colder, although she still would not let herself touch him. She was too aware of the dried mud that adorned her cloak and her.

  She did not see their route, for the remaining soldiers gathered about the king and rode close beside him. Brown cloaks, pale blue sky and the occasional tree was all that was visible.

  When the road sloped sharply downward, she clutched at Arawn, caught off guard.

  “Hold on,” he said gruffly, the first thing he had said since they had left the cottage.

  As the horses clattered down the descending road, for the first time Ilsa saw over his shoulder into the river valley before them. The river was wide and slow, mightier than the stream which served Brandérion. Where the road met the river, a stout jetty jutted.

  The horses galloped onto the jetty, then onto a pontoon that rocked wildly at the sudden weight of horses and men. The pontoon was large enough to take all of them. Two of the men swung out of their saddles, picked up the bottom of two ropes connecting the pontoon to the jetty and hauled on it.

  The pontoon shivered and inched away from the jetty, while the top rope crept toward the jetty at the same speed. The two ropes were just one, which curved over a wheel on the jetty and traveled back to the pontoon.

  Arawn’s horse turned, prancing and snorting, giving her a view of the ropes extending across the river to a jetty on the other side. The ropes and pulleys made a simple navigation and steering system.

  A third man, then a fourth, climbed from their horses to the deck of the pontoon and hauled on the same bottom rope, moving them along faster. The other jetty approached quickly. The horses jumped up onto the jetty, the riders mounted and they got underway once more.

  The sun was on their left and almost touching the horizon. The horses climbed a short slope onto a road that drove through trees so directly Ilsa wondered if it was an old Roman road, like the spear-cast straight road leading to Vannes.

  The road drilled through trees. The men relaxed now they had crossed the river and didn’t guard their king so closely. Their distance let Ilsa take in more of the countryside they passed through. The trees were interrupted by cots and houses and tiny villages that they rode through without pause or slowing down.

  Then, abruptly, the road sloped down to another river, this one smaller. On the other side of the river the road climbed the high banks and ran for another half mile until it reached a great town.

  Ilsa stared at the town, fascinated. It reminded her of Vannes. They both had ramparts of rammed earth, which in better years would be covered in grasses and gorse. High palisades with sharp points thrust from the ramparts. Like Vannes, a deep ditch surrounded Lorient’s ramparts. Stones and more sharpened logs thrust up from the sides of the ditch. Anyone unfortunate enough to fall into the ditch would spear themselves upon one point or another, or dash themselves against the rocks.

  From her vantage point at the top of the river bank, Ilsa saw large sections of the wall running parallel to the river they would cross. The wall turned in a big curve to follow the line of the larger river they had already traversed. No trees hid the rivers from the view of anyone standing in the towers along the wall. Towers were mounted over the wall. Braziers burned inside the tower rooms and silhouettes of guards moved in front of the flames.

  Four towers framed two sets of gates. The gates each faced one of the two rivers. At the moment they stood open. By the quickening of the gait of the horses, Ilsa suspected the gates would soon be closed.

  Surely they would open the gates again for their king? Were they so afraid of the night they would not let even Arawn and his men inside once the gates had closed?

  It was another question to add to her list.

  A ferry waited at the bottom of the bank. The broad, flat boat had low sides the horses could easily step over, although they shied and snorted protests as they were led aboard.

  Arawn hoisted Ilsa to the sand bank. He swung down from his stallion and patted his nose, then talked to him softly as he led him toward the boat and coaxed him to step into the flat bottom.

  The ferryman dug his pole in and pushed the ferry out into the water, his shoulders working hard.

  The entire crossing, the horses’ eyes rolled nervously, as the boat swung and turned. The current was swift here, although the ferryman didn’t seem worried.

  Ilsa gripped the corner of Arawn’s stallion’s saddle cloth and held her teeth together. She wanted to roll her eyes and jump about like the horses. She had only seen a large town like this once in her life and had not enjoyed it.

  This was a measure of what was to come, she realized. It was just one of the changes she had agreed to let into her life. When Arawn had been trying to convince her to marry him, deep in the forest, she had not considered that agreeing would bring about such differences.

  She studied the approaching town. From here on the water, the town standing upon the promontory between the two rivers looked tall and forbidding. They approached from the east. Already, deep shadows cast over the town on this side. Beyond the forbidding fence, nothing showed.

  What had she agreed to? What was before her?

  The horses leapt happily out of the boat when it crunched upon the shingles on the other side of the ferry. The men murmured among themselves. A soft laugh sounded. They were glad to be home, too.

  Arawn climbed back upon his horse and held out his arm for her to swing herself up. He didn’t look at her. He gazed upon his town. As soon as she settled, he touched the stallion and the obedient beast shot off once more. Everyone followed.

  The flat, smooth road from the ferry rose along the bank at a gentle slope. The surface was good, hard earth, tamped well, with no holes or big stones to trip horses or break c
art axels.

  At the south-facing gate, the larger of the two, the road pivoted and ran straight to the gate. A plank bridge crossed the ditch. A walkway ran over the gates and guards stood over newcomers to inspect them.

  A shout went up when they recognized Arawn. The riders behind him replied.

  In front of Arawn’s horse, soldiers scattered, getting out of the way in a hurry. They passed through the gate.

  The street they galloped along ran directly to the center of the town. Houses and buildings sat on either side, all of them grander than anything Ilsa had ever seen. They all seemed to blaze with light. Men and women and children lingered in front of the houses and shops. The shops were closing for the night. More people headed for home, moving along the edges of the street and only glancing up briefly as the pack of horsemen shot past.

  Columns of stone and red-tiled roofs broke up the prosaic thatched roofs and white walls.

  Order and straight lines were everywhere Ilsa looked, from the hard edges of the stone verandahs, to the sharp corners of the buildings, the angled roofs and the road itself. Nowhere did chaotic nature show.

  Even here, the lack of water showed. No grass or weeds grew in the poor, packed dirt between buildings.

  The road carved into the side of a low hill with a flat, broad top. The slope of the road was mild enough to be managed by carts and horses.

  Distinctly styled buildings dotted the top of the hill. If the buildings had not been made by Romans, they had been made by someone who understood the Roman way with houses. This, then, must be the king’s house.

  The walls were whitewashed. The roofs were all curved clay tiles, with sharp slopes and angles everywhere. On this side, facing the town and the road up to the buildings, none of the walls had any windows. As the road climbed, though, more of the big buildings came into view. The main building had three wings, all with four stories. The ground floor was wider than the floors above, with a roof jutting over a deep verandah. The verandah had waist-high walls and slender columns holding up the roof. Ilsa could not see beyond the half-walls for the verandahs were twilight dark. Lamplight and firelight showed at the many windows and doors along their length.

 

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