Of Men and Dragons (The Lion of Wales Book 3)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “What do you want?” Nell said.

  Deiniol gazed at her through narrowed eyes and then spit out the truth—maybe for the first time ever. “I’ve caught him now. He can’t get away with his treachery this time. He’s always had it easy—the one touched by God, the one everyone always trusted and believed, and for whom everything came easy. He’s a nobody! He took from me what was mine!”

  That was such a different perspective from the one that Myrddin had expressed, Nell couldn’t reconcile the two. She met Myrddin’s eyes, trying to speak without speaking and discover a way out of this predicament in which Myrddin’s throat didn’t end up cut.

  “Let him go, Deiniol,” Huw said.

  Huw was drawing his sword, despite the danger to Myrddin when, a finger to his lips, Gareth appeared out of the darkness of the stalls. He approached silently from behind Deiniol, his sword out, and he pressed the tip into Deiniol’s back. “That’s enough.”

  Deiniol started.

  “Your grievances have no place here,” Gareth said. “Let Myrddin go.”

  Deiniol clenched and unclenched his hand in Myrddin’s hair, and then eased up on the knife. He straightened and slipped it into the sheath at his waist. “My lord.” He bowed stiffly in Gareth’s direction.

  Myrddin swung around to face him. “The next time you touch me, I will run you through, even if it would anger my lord and yours!”

  “Why are you here, Deiniol?” Gareth placed a hand on Myrddin’s chest and stepped between the two men.

  “Lord Cai believes we have a traitor among us. He charged me with discovering his identity.” Deiniol gestured towards Myrddin. “Who but a traitor would leave Garth Celyn in the middle of the night?”

  “You know what Modred did to me,” Myrddin said, “and what it took for me to escape.”

  Deiniol smirked. “I admit, to suffer those wounds simply to put on a show would imply an unprecedented devotion to duty, even for you, Myrddin.”

  “There are men among the king’s company who are more deserving of your knife than I. Including your own lord.”

  Gareth shot Myrddin a quelling look. “How long have you been following Myrddin?”

  “Long enough,” Deiniol said.

  “Be off.” Gareth threw out a hand and stepped back. “Your duties lie elsewhere.”

  Deiniol gave Myrddin an evil look but turned away, disappearing through the far doorway of the stables.

  Gareth turned back to Myrddin. “I heard what happened with King Arthur. I’m sorry.”

  “You set me up,” Myrddin said.

  “Myrddin—” Nell took his arm. She’d never seen him this angry. Gareth’s appearance, instead of easing his temper, appeared to have increased it. He was vibrating with the effort it took to contain it.

  “I did not foresee this outcome,” Gareth said. “But I do not believe all is lost. Cedric could be a valuable ally. Even Edgar might turn out to be sincere—I find it more likely now than before I knew of the alliance between Cai and Agravaine, since Edgar despises them both. I take comfort in the fact that you, of all people, are going south to determine the truth.”

  Myrddin’s jaw remained set. “I, at least, will do my duty. We will see you along the Cam at the king’s camp—or I will see you in hell.” With that, he threw himself onto his horse and urged her out of the stables.

  Gareth moved to help Nell mount, and she opted not to shake him off. Still, she couldn’t quite be civil. “I don’t trust you. You are far too concerned about your own neck.”

  “And your man is too noble for his own good.” Gareth paused. “I’m glad of it.”

  Nell looked at him for another heartbeat, and then pulled at the reins, turning her horse’s head to follow Huw and Myrddin. Geraint waited for them by the wicket gate, having apparently missed the exchange in the stables entirely. It was by his power that they were leaving, and he’d sworn to assuage Arthur’s anger when the king discovered their absence.

  “May God go with you,” Geraint said, as they passed through.

  Chapter Five

  6 December 537 AD

  “You were right not to leave her behind.” Huw leaned across the space between him and Myrddin to murmur the words. “It’s always better to do as Nell suggests.”

  “I heard that.” Nell gave Huw her sweetest smile. “But you are correct.”

  The three of them were jogging along well down the old Roman road to Brecon. The weather had eased, turning warmer and bringing overcast skies and threatening rain instead of the snow of the past days. Huw and Myrddin flanked Nell, as her escort and protectors. Even masterless men would find the prospect of attacking two armed men and a nun daunting.

  The eastern slopes of the Cambrian Mountains were as rugged and barren as their northern counterparts, but as they followed the road eastward, towards the farmlands along the Welsh border, the air warmed further. The snow was reduced to pockets, mostly tucked into the northern slopes of the hills.

  Nell was looking forward to reaching Brecon not long after nightfall, which always came too early this time of year. They’d slept safe but not overly warm in a series of castles and hunting lodges that linked Eryri with Powys and whose castellans were loyal to Arthur. She was cold, tired, and smelled of horse—and they hadn’t even arrived at the hard part yet.

  They’d skirted the hill of Yr Allt to the north of the Usk river valley and were continuing east, expecting nothing untoward, when up ahead a horse whinnied, the desperate pitch carrying through the still air. The sounds of men shouting and swords clashing followed.

  Huw slowed to listen. “That can’t be good.”

  “Definitely not,” Myrddin said.

  The two men shared a glance and then spurred their horses forward. Nell hung back, knowing that she would only hinder the men in a fight. Twenty yards ahead, Huw outpaced Myrddin, his sword held high. In that formation, they rode around a corner, heading towards the ford of the fast-running Cilieni River, swollen from the autumn rains. Another eighty yards farther on a dozen men battled—or what remained of them. One group had caught another in an ambush at the ford.

  Dead men and horses lay in the water. A cry rose in Nell’s throat at the sight of a lone man in Cedric’s colors standing astride another, who sprawled on the ground, unmoving. The knight held off four others in red and white surcoats from a good position, even if a desperate one. In order to reach him, his enemy had to climb the bank leading up from the river.

  In the excitement of the fight, only one of the men noted them coming and half-turned in his seat. He had a single heartbeat to register Huw’s approach, without even time to raise his shield to defend himself, before the boy swung his sword in a mighty sweep of his arm and severed the man’s head from his body.

  “Huw!” Nell found her voice, afraid Huw would barrel right into the other men and fall under their combined assault. The taste of fear was sour in her mouth.

  But Huw was a good soldier and, while his horse carried him another few steps down the bank, he was able to recover. Before he went into the water, Myrddin caught up with him. In parallel formation, the two men charged towards the three remaining soldiers, two of whom were struggling to turn their horses in the river. The third was still intent on running the lone defender through.

  One of the attackers danced around Myrddin. Their swords connected. To Nell’s eyes, it was the same as she imagined any other fight: hack, slash, twist, each trying to gain advantage over the other. Then Myrddin’s horse found a hole, and her leg twisted. Going down, Myrddin threw himself from her back, barreling into the man he was fighting to bring him off his horse and into the water.

  They landed with a terrifying clunk, instantly soaked, their boots filling with water and their soaked clothing adding to the weight of their mail. The man’s head hit the stones under the water, and he lay stunned, with the wind knocked out of him. Myrddin pushed up on one knee and, having lost his sword and shield in the fall, drove his fist into the man’s jaw.

&nbs
p; At first the man’s head fell back into the water, but then he coughed and sputtered and tried to rise. Myrddin held his head under the water for a count of ten to subdue him, and then he grasped his arm and began to haul him to the far bank of the river.

  Huw, meanwhile, had dispatched his opponent. Bleeding from a mortal wound, the man lay on the southern end of the ford, before floating off of it, heading downstream. Turning away, Huw urged his horse out of the water and up the bank towards the final enemy soldier.

  That man noted Huw’s approach. Rather than continue to fight a battle he might not win, and having dispatched Cedric’s last knight, he spurred his horse eastward, down the road that led to Brecon. Huw visibly warred with himself as to whether or not he should follow, and then he didn’t. Instead, he dismounted and fell to his knees beside the body of the man who’d had such a staunch defender.

  “It’s Lord Cedric himself!” Huw looked back at Nell, still on the other side of the river.

  Myrddin dragged his combatant up the slope and dumped him half-in and half-out of the water. Forcing herself to push aside the violence she’d just witnessed, even if the memory of it would haunt her forever, Nell trotted her horse into the river and across the ford. Once up the other side, she dismounted and crouched opposite Huw.

  “Let me.” She felt for a pulse, which was hard to discern as her own heart still beat in her ears, her outward calm a false front for the choking horror inside her. “He’s alive. His heart is strong.”

  Soaked, Myrddin limped up the bank. After a brief inspection, he rolled the body of Cedric’s defender off his shins where he’d fallen. “The wound is here.” Myrddin gestured to a slash across his right thigh, not dissimilar to Myrddin’s own healing injury. The stroke had slid in just under his mail armor, cutting the thick muscle but not the bone or tendon.

  Long ago, Nell’s husband had explained to her why so many soldiers were wounded in the same way when fighting well-armored opponents. A man must direct his attack toward legs or faces, or deliver crushing blows, because it was nearly impossible to pierce an opponent’s mail in hand-to-hand fighting.

  In this case, Cedric’s opponent would have driven his weapon underneath Cedric’s shield while Cedric was astride his horse. The man then hoped to deliver the killing blow once he’d put Cedric on the ground, but Cedric’s man-at-arms had protected him from that.

  “He’s out of his senses. Perhaps he hit his head.” With gentle hands, she removed his helmet, set it to one side, and then felt at the back of Cedric’s head. She glanced at Myrddin who’d slumped beside her on the ground and looked a bit green around the edges too. “Give me a moment to get my supplies.”

  Myrddin sat with his legs splayed in front of him, spent. His horse had righted herself on the far bank and now stood, one leg lifted, on a grassy verge. If her injury was a sprain, they might be able to save her. Otherwise, it would be more humane to slit her throat right now.

  “I’ll see to her.” Huw met Nell’s eyes, acknowledging their joint concern for Myrddin’s well-being.

  “Thank you.” Nell removed her healer’s pouch and flask from her saddlebags and returned to Cedric.

  Myrddin, meanwhile, was regaining control of himself. While she crouched again beside the wounded lord, Myrddin grabbed one of the linen scraps from her bundle and ripped a strip off of it with his teeth. Nell held the flask of alcohol above the wound, hesitating, knowing that if Cedric was at all conscious when she poured it on him, he would leap from the ground, shrieking in pain. As it was, when she tipped the liquid over the wound, Cedric’s body stiffened, his back arching. And then he bucked.

  “Help me hold him!” Nell said.

  Myrddin dropped the bandages on top of her leather pouch and pressed down on Cedric’s shoulders while Nell mopped up the remaining liquid and smeared calendula salve along the length of the wound.

  “You sew him up,” Myrddin said. “You’ve the finer hand.”

  She nodded, while adding, “Riverside medicine. Not my favorite.” With a hand that didn’t tremble, she threaded her needle.

  Myrddin leaned in to hold together the edges of Cedric’s skin above his right knee while she sewed. Then he lashed the bandages around Cedric’s thigh and, with his stronger hands, tied them. About the time Myrddin finished, Cedric opened his eyes.

  “I know you.” Cedric looked into Nell’s face. “Am I in heaven?”

  “I’m a nun, not an angel—although I’m not even that anymore.” With a swipe of her hand she removed her headdress. Her thick braid swung loose, the end tied with a leather thong.

  Cedric turned his head as he sensed Myrddin on the other side of him. “It’s you.” He blinked.

  “Myrddin, again, my lord. I’ve come with Huw, my son.”

  “Ah,” Cedric said. “He found you, then.”

  “He did.”

  “Help me up.”

  Nell opened her mouth to protest and then closed it. Riverside medicine was not subject to the conventional rules of healing. The man needed to stay prone, but the sun had set and the light was fading. None of them wanted to be caught out at the windy ford once it grew dark, fair game for marauders, both animal and human.

  With Nell’s help, Myrddin levered him to his feet. Upright, Cedric surveyed his dead companions. “Did any of my men survive?”

  “None that I know,” Myrddin said. “One of the enemy fled, and we chose to care for you rather than follow him.”

  “Under the circumstances, I can hardly protest,” Cedric said.

  Nell was glad to see that his dry humor was still in evidence, despite his pain. “Are we going to talk about whose men they were?” She studied the man Myrddin had felled, still lying by the river. He’d begun to moan, and he put a hand to the back of his head.

  “Their colors tell me they belong to Arthur,” Cedric said, matter-of-factly, “but your presence here makes me question it.”

  “Thank you for that.” Myrddin walked down the bank, his boots sliding in the mud, to the injured man-at-arms. At his approach, the man opened his eyes.

  “Just because a man wears certain colors, doesn’t mean they belong to him,” Nell said. “Remember Modred at Shrewsbury.” At the battle where Cedric’s father died, Modred had deceived him by raising a friendly standard. He’d allowed Modred’s men to get too close and ultimately trap his entire army.

  “Such was my thought.” Myrddin’s tone was as flat as Cedric’s had been. He squatted beside the injured man and spoke in Welsh. “What’s your name?”

  The man didn’t answer, and his eyes remained unfocused. Myrddin repeated the question in Saxon.

  “Carl.” The man’s face had been flushed when Myrddin first crouched beside him, but now it paled, and he twisted towards his left side, his pain evident.

  “Was it truly your mission to kill Cedric ap Aelfric?”

  The man didn’t answer. All of a sudden, he just ceased to be.

  Myrddin checked his pulse. “He’s dead. I didn’t think I’d done enough damage to kill him.”

  Nell refused to chastise herself for the fact that she didn’t seem to care that another man had died and turned to Cedric, all business. “You shouldn’t be able to stand, but given that you’re doing it anyway, can you ride?”

  “Of course,” he said, and then amended, “with help.”

  Just then, Huw returned, leading a single horse: his own. His face said, I’m sorry.

  Myrddin sighed and stood.

  Cedric’s own horse had strayed along the river bank, cropping the short grass along its fringe. Huw and Myrddin retrieved it, along with another, whose owner no longer needed it, for Myrddin. Between the three of them, they managed to get Cedric astride with Nell behind him, to hold him should he weaken.

  “You all right?” Myrddin asked her, once she was seated.

  She gazed down at him, warring between disbelief and humor. “I held you like this. I’ve been around you long enough to get used to wounded men.”

  Myrddin gr
inned back at her, and then he mounted the extra horse himself.

  Despite their efforts, it was immediately clear that Cedric couldn’t ride one mile, much less the eight that would bring them to his castle at Brecon. His head lolled back onto Nell’s shoulder.

  “Is there anywhere else we can go?” Nell said.

  Myrddin had brought his horse closer so he could brace Cedric with his right hand.

  “There’s a small manor house not far ahead, perhaps a quarter of a mile,” Huw said. “I’ve ridden by it a time or two.”

  “Its owner was one of my men,” Cedric said, his voice a rasp. Was, meaning dead.

  They plodded forward, Nell clutching Cedric around the waist, Myrddin with one hand out, holding Cedric’s shoulder, and Huw leading the way. The horses picked their way along the road and then, within a dozen yards, they reached a trail and turned onto it, following it north. A half-mile on, they found the house of which Huw and Cedric had spoken, squatting in a clearing amidst the trees.

  It wasn’t quite what Nell expected for a manor house, although it was a cut above the huts that dotted the countryside, in which lived families like the ones who’d worked her father’s land. Still in good condition, despite being abandoned, the house was roughly built, one story and a half high, with a wooden door and one shuttered window. Beside it sat an empty paddock, fenced with wooden poles, and a barn. The house might even have a wooden floor instead of dirt.

  Anxious to get Cedric to safety, they approached the house, ghostly in the moonlight that filtered through the shrouding trees. They arrived at the deserted front door, and Myrddin dismounted to allow Cedric to slide off the horse into his arms.

  Despite the possible indignity of it, Myrddin bent forward and threw Cedric over his shoulder. Huw lashed the reins of their horses to the stockade fence to prevent them from escaping, while Nell reached around Myrddin and lifted the latch to allow them to enter the house.