“I wanted to deliver you to my father myself,” he mumbled.
“I am sure Selwyn would have been happy to let you capture me if he had come with you. You should not have come alone. It was stupid.”
“Do not dare speak to me like that!”
“If talking back is the only way to keep you awake, then I will do it,” she said sweetly, looking back at him so he could see her smile.
The sun had disappeared completely in the last half hour and the temperature had dropped noticeably. Between the cold, her injured ankle, and the probable beating (at best) that was waiting for her in the city, Isabella was in no mood to smile. But for the sake of keeping the boy at least partially engaged in the conversation, she did it.
Regardless of her efforts, he offered up no rebuke for her smiling at such a time, no sarcastic retort for her tone. Needing to change tactics, she waited for a moment before asking her next question.
“How is your mother?” Her voice came out softly and sympathetically, more so than she had even intended.
“She will recover soon,” he responded tightly.
“Good. I am glad.”
“Are you?” he gave a humorless laugh.
“Yes, Young master, I am.” Gritting her teeth, she prompted the horse to go faster. “Your mother is cruel to me, but I understand she is not well. I have never wished harm on her.”
It was a lie to be sure. But the truth that Isabella had spent the better part of the last two months wishing she could wallop the fat lady of Shaftesbury was immaterial at the moment.
“You know,” she continued, “my mother was also unwell. For a long time. The people of … our lands loved to gossip about her. Sometimes the other children would say cruel things to me that they heard their parents say.”
Even now, Isabella had to brace herself against those memories. She had studiously avoided thinking about her mother—or even any event that occurred while her mother was alive—for years. More than a decade spent shoving all traces of Monica Savala-Jaramillo away. But ever since the fairy circle…
“What did they say about her?” Wyrtgeorn’s hoarse question startled her out of her reverie.
“They said she was crazy.” Her voice was getting thicker. “They said she was … that she brought shame to my father.” Isabella did not know the Saxon translation for the word those bitchy housewives and their bratty children had branded her mother with. The word that rang out in whispered snatches of conversation whenever Monica excused herself from a room: Embarrassment.
Sniffling a bit, Isabella leaned closer to the warmth of the horse’s neck.
“Was she a good mother?” For the first time, the boy’s young voice held a note of kindness, and even eagerness—a need to hear the answer to his question.
Not bothering to hide her tears, Isabella looked back at him, meeting his eyes, which were just as wet as hers. “Yes. She was a wonderful mother. And I loved her very much.”
Not breaking away from her gaze, Wyrtgeorn nodded his head ever so slightly. “My mother is wonderful. And I love her.”
Isabella wondered briefly if she would have behaved any differently towards Annis if she had met Wyrtgeorn earlier. “You’re lucky you still have her,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “And I swear to you that as long as I live, no further harm will come to her.”
The soulful look in the boy’s eyes combined with the pain in his face made him look older, and it truly dawned on Isabella how short and cruel life was in this time. At fourteen he had probably already suffered so much loss, and given the upcoming battle with the Danes, he could end up losing so much more, perhaps even his own life—assuming he lived through his current injury. How awful that a simple broken leg could kill a person.
Turning back to the grass ahead of her, she concentrated on keeping her ankle straight as the ground beneath her became increasingly hilly. The horse’s seemingly excited quickening of pace confirmed what she suspected: they were almost home.
***
The unnatural silence of the Great Hall pricked Thorstein’s ears as he paced as close as he dared to the only burning fire in the cavernous room. It was all he could do to keep hysteria from overcoming him as he waited for Lord Cædda. The sun had long since sunk into the horizon and the smothering darkness obscured the doorway to Cædda’s chamber; he would not be able to see his lord approaching.
There had not been one second of sleep for Thorstein since Father awakened him last night. The bells had finally sounded in Shaftesbury in the early morning to rouse all the men to their task—the task of finding Deorca. The pretended bishop’s body had been dragged into town and Cædda himself had unceremoniously screwed his mangled head onto a spike on the city wall for all to see.
Everyone had been so caught up in the excitement in fact, that it had taken the majority of the day to realize that Wyrtgeorn, Cædda’s son and heir, had absconded from the city with his newly-acquired young stallion. Thorstein had spent his entire day in the stables tacking horses for the search parties, and had thought nothing of it when Wyrtgeorn came into the barn, tacked his horse, and left. He was the heir to Shaftesbury, after all. No slave in his right mind would question where he was going.
But now, after his day of unending toil and misery, Thorstein knew he had been wrong not to stop the boy, or at least report the event. Why else would he have been summoned if not to be punished? His stomach had been twisted in knots for an hour and, with the thought of the head on the city wall, Thorstein had spent most of his time waiting for Cædda in prayer.
“You look tired, Thorstein.”
Soft and weary though it was, Cædda’s voice jolted Thorstein violently, halting his pacing; he looked up to see his master walking slowly toward him, the flickering firelight casting ghoulish shadows across his face.
Cædda looked awful—bedraggled and unwashed. His sunken eyes drooped sadly, and the normally bright amber of his irises seemed to have dimmed to a leathery hue. He had looked relatively tired these two months of war preparations, but his current mask of despair was so much worse.
Willing his aching legs into motion, Thorstein moved away from the warm fire pit and quickly crossed the distance to his lord, kneeling down as he came to a halt in front of him.
“My Lord, I beg your forgiveness!”
As he knelt on the soft earthen floor staring at Cædda’s boots, Thorstein held back tears. The only other time he had been forced to beg forgiveness was five years ago when—as a frightened boy of 12—he had tried in vain to stab Garrick with a sword he could barely lift. When Cædda had spared his life, he vowed he would never fail his master.
“Forgive you?”
Cædda’s gentle whisper and the feeling of his palm on Thorstein’s head surprised him, but not nearly so much as when his master, thane to King Alfred, knelt down to his level.
“My wife is alive only because of you. If you had not discovered her when you did, she most certainly would have died. The mother of my children would have died,” he swallowed hard, “bleeding and freezing and alone on the floor. I owe you everything.”
For the first time in his life, Thorstein raised his eyes and looked directly into those of his lord, astonished at what he had just said.
“But Master Wyrtgeorn—”
“That boy will be dealt with when he comes home. You are not his nurse.” He was quiet for a moment, giving a gentle squeeze to Thorstein’s shoulders, which suddenly felt small and frail beneath Cædda’s hands.
“You are no longer my slave, Thorstein Stellansson—you are my friend. And I am forever in your debt.”
Thorstein’s mouth gaped like a cod fish, choking on the frantic battle between utterances of thanks and protestations. Before he could compose himself enough to speak, a soft moan came out of the darkness from the unseen adjoining chamber; both men turned towards the pitiful whimper.
“How is my Lady Annis?” Thorstein whispered, suddenly aware of Cædda’s tightening grip on his shoulder.
&
nbsp; “She is in pain, but there is no fever, and no puss. Hilde and the chiurgeon both say she will recover. But she will need rest.”
Thorstein nodded and both of the men slowly rose to their feet.
This was the most time he had ever spent alone with Lord Cædda. The unfamiliar intimacy of it all made him uncomfortable and oddly afraid. If Cædda really meant to free him, did that mean he would have to leave Shaftesbury? Everyone and everything he knew was here. When Deorca came back, she would certainly need him. Shaftesbury was where he belonged.
“My Lord, there you are.”
Sigbert’s booming voice only barely preceded his brisk entry into the Great Hall, his sackcloth robe billowing around his ankles. He had a rolled piece of parchment, unsealed, that he carried in his hand like a club. His face was cemented in a mask of paternal exasperation, which—along with stern rebuke and warm encouragement—was one of his more common facial expressions. The anxious blanch that drenched Cædda’s face at the priest’s appearance, however, was something Thorstein had never seen.
“Father,” Cædda choked out, “Thorstein and I—”
Sigbert made a cutting motion across his neck with the hand that held the parchment. “No, Cædda, this cannot be put aside for later. The king needs to be apprised of what has occurred here so he can give instructions—to say nothing of your people. They have been chattering all day, with the rumors getting worse and more outrageous with every hour. There’s talk of Dane spies and incarnations of the devil himself. They need to hear from you—”
“And what should I tell them?” Cædda exploded like a lid from a boiling cauldron, prompting a yelp from one of the dogs who had been sleeping at the far end of Hall.
“Who do I say this man among us was? How do I explain that I, their lord, was so easily fooled by an imposter? And what do I tell the king?”
At his last sentence, Cædda’s shoulders crumbled, and he stumbled past Thorstein to the nearest bench at the table.
“My lord—”
“Do you know what they are saying?” Cædda snapped off Thorstein’s attempt at consolation.
“They are saying that Deorca was the one to see that he was an imposter. That it was she who raised the alarm and she who sent Thorstein to protect Annis. While I did nothing!” His enormous fist crashed into the table, splintering the wood into a jagged cleft.
“He will take Shaftesbury from me.” Cædda’s whisper was so soft, Thorstein was not certain he had heard correctly.
“He will not, Cædda.” Sigbert’s voice was soft, but firm. “Why would he, when you were so wise to deploy your woman slave as a spy to detect the imposter?”
The priest crossed the few remaining feet to where Cædda sat and bent slightly, smoothing open the parchment roll on the table, careful to avoid the jagged edges of the fist crater.
“You see, My Lord? You detected his treachery, and took great care to prove his guilt before condemning him, going to the extraordinary lengths of capturing a Dane warrior—the murderer of the bishop—to confirm your suspicions. You acted decisively, strongly—as all good lords should. The king will be most pleased when he receives your message.”
The lie rolled so smoothly out of Sigbert’s mouth that it took a moment for Thorstein to remember that it was not God’s own truth. What was he doing? Thorstein had never known Sigbert to lie. Not to anyone, not for any reason. But here he sat telling their lord to lie to the king—God’s chosen representative in this land—and had written the lies with his own hand in the script taught to him by the church. This was not right.
He stood frozen to the ground, gazing at the two older men who seemed to have forgotten he was even there. Sigbert’s face lay blank, as Cædda’s slowly lifted into in an expression resembling hope.
“But others will say…”
“You did not want to raise the alarm, and you told your suspicions only to me,” Sigbert cut in.
And who would disbelieve a priest? Thorstein thought bitterly, his ears growing hot despite the cold. Certainly not our pious King Alfred.
Silence rested in the hall for only a moment, allowing all of them to hear another soft moan drift out of the adjoining chamber.
“And what do I tell Annis?”
“The truth, My Lord,” the priest gently grasped Cædda’s forearm where it rested on the table. “You will tell her that you killed the man who dared touch her, that you drove his head onto a spike yourself. You will tell her that Thorstein saved her very life, and that Deorca saved yours, as the spy was here to kill you as well. You will tell all this to the town, and when Deorca returns—”
“What if she never comes back?” Thorstein called out, louder than he had intended. “What if Danes find her? Or even other Saxons? She has had a full night and day and yet another night to run.”
Sigbert’s eyes hardened as he turned his attention to Thorstein. What was that look for?
“Deorca will return to us. God has revealed it to me.” His voice went hoarse at this proclamation, and the priest’s eyes misted slightly. “Deorca was sent to us by God Almighty, and she will return here.”
Thorstein had never seen him like this. Quite the contrary, Sigbert had always expressed a certain cynicism regarding men who claimed to have heard the voice of the Almighty. He said, more often than not, it was the sign of a distracted mind rather than piety. But he sounded so certain.
He loves her.
The realization slithered through Thorstein’s mind, prompting a heavy red curtain of rage to fall across his sight as he looked at his priest, his friend, bending over Lord Cædda with a look of stony determination on his face.
How had he not seen it? When he had come into the rectory that day, Thorstein had so scrutinized Deorca’s face, looking for hidden feelings for Sigbert, that he hadn’t even looked at the priest who, as Thorstein now recalled, scurried from the room as quickly as a rat fleeing a burning kitchen.
Thorstein saw it all now—how Sigbert had intervened with Lady Annis for her, had gone frantically looking for her when the pretender had been discovered, and was now telling Lord Cædda to lie to the king, all to protect the woman he loved.
But she doesn’t love him back. I would have seen it…
Thorstein’s poisonous thoughts were interrupted when the clang of the church bell echoed through the Great Hall. It did not clang to announce the hour or a call to service; it pealed over and over in the night, screaming to the whole burgh that someone was approaching the gates.
“You see,” Sigbert smiled and stood to his full height, puffing his chest out. “She has come home to…us.”
Cædda stood up alongside Sigbert and the two made their way out the Hall, leaving Thorstein alone—alone in the dark. He had heard the pause in Sigbert’s sentence. He knew what the priest had wanted to say.
***
For a brief shining moment, Isabella allowed herself the fantasy that she and Wyrtgeorn would be able to slip quietly into the city with only the gate guards being the wiser. She imagined one of them scurrying to the Great Hall to alert Cædda while the other clapped her in chains and led her to the jailer’s pens. Then she would be able to sleep, soundly and deeply, while Wyrtgeorn received treatment for his leg and interceded with his father on her behalf.
But that pretty fiction deserted her as the bells shrieked from behind the stone walls that stared menacingly down at her.
“They announce your return, Young Master.” Isabella tried to hide the quaver in her voice, but didn’t quite succeed. Despite her fear, she would just be happy to not have to walk on her ankle anymore.
“He’s going to be so angry with me,” he said grimly. Wyrtgeorn’s pale and weary face had not shown much expression throughout the journey back to the city, other than the occasional grit of pain. But through his blank expression his voice revealed that, unbelievable as it was to Isabella, he felt just as frightened as she did.
A massive creak filled the air, momentarily drowning out the sound of the bells, as the woo
den gates pulled slowly apart. Even from half a kilometer away, Isabella could clearly see Cædda standing just beyond the gates. Each step brought her lord more clearly into view, and she fixed her eyes on his face, squinting with all her might in the hope of seeing anything resembling compassion.
The entrance to the city was alight from a line of torches along the sides of the road, and she could see a small crowd gathering behind Cædda, who was wearing an impenetrable blank expression. Unable to look at him any longer, Isabella raised her eyes up—up to city walls. Up to the ramparts…
Where the eyeless, mangled head of Emilio Bernal stared gape-mouthed into the darkness of the night.
Dear God, please don’t let me die. Isabella’s heart pounded so viciously in her chest she felt sure Cædda would see it through her clothing. As she crossed the short bridge over the mini-moat, her throat was seized by a hysterical sob. There was no stopping the whimper that escaped her mouth, and Cædda and those men closest to the gate had certainly heard it.
She let go of the horse’s bridle and let the impatient animal stride ahead of her through the open gates. Isabella watched as Cædda’s eyes squinted in confused irritation, then widened in worry as he saw that Wyrtgeorn was injured. He jerked his head back toward Isabella with a look that very clearly asked if she had been the one to maim his son.
“My horse fell upon me, Father,” Wyrtgeorn said weakly, as if in response to the unspoken accusation. “There was a borough in the ground. That woman came to help.”
Isabella stood frozen just inside the gates, watching the scene unfold in front of her. Cædda casually reached up and grasped his son’s hands where they laid on the saddle and told him to ride to the chiurgeon’s house, and that they would talk again soon. The boy did as he was told and the flanks of the horse disappeared down the road. Cædda turned his head slowly back until his eyes settled menacingly on Isabella.
It was silent. The bells had ceased their alarm, the gates had settled into a stop, and all the waking people in the town stood quiet as death beside the road, watching their lord stride toward her.
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