by Anna Elliott
Isolde instantly pulled free, but Trystan held her a moment longer, hands on her shoulders, looking intently down into her face.
“You’re all right?” he asked.
Isolde nodded. “We’re fine. Both of us—Hereric and I.”
Trystan started to answer, but Fidach’s voice broke in. “As you see, we have kept your sister safe for you.”
Trystan stepped back from Isolde, wiping a trickle of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, turned to Fidach, and said calmly, “And I thank you for it.”
For a long moment, Fidach’s eyes rested on Trystan’s, and Isolde wondered whether it was only her imagination that the rest of the group seemed to tense in expectation, breath held. But then Fidach flung out his arms. “Come. You are safely returned. And not only safe, but successful. Tonight we feast in your honor. I insist.”
ISOLDE SAT ON THE STRAW PALLET in her own hut, combing out her damp hair. She had waited until all sounds from the rest of the crannog had ceased, all the singing and shouts and laughter from Fidach’s hut dying into silence. Then she had lit the hut’s single rush light and washed in Eurig’s battered tin tub, even unbraiding her hair so that she could rinse it free of dust and dirt. Now she was teasing out the tangles, wearing the shift, tunic, and skirt she’d washed the day before and feeling cleaner than she had since leaving Dinas Emrys.
A soft scratch sounded at her door, making her heart jump before she recognized Trystan’s voice. “It’s only me. Can I come in?”
Isolde sprang up and went to open the door. “Yes, of course. Come in. Down, Cabal.”
The big dog had been asleep on the floor but had woken with a snuffle at Trystan’s step outside the door. At Isolde’s command, though, and recognizing Trystan, he subsided onto the floor, head resting on his outstretched paws.
Trystan slipped inside, and Isolde shut the door behind him. They’d not spoken all throughout the long feasting in Fidach’s hut. The food—roast venison, bread, wild boar’s meat, and jars of ale—had been spread out on the floor, and the men had sat in a ragged circle all around. Isolde had been placed between Eurig and Piye, and Trystan had been at the far end of the crowded, smoky room.
Now Trystan seated himself on an open space on the hut’s wooden floor, and Isolde settled back on the pallet, curling her legs under her. There was a moment’s quiet, and then Isolde said, “Hereric’s recovering—he’s nearly well now.”
“I know. Fidach told me first thing. And then I looked in on him next door just before I came here. He was sleeping, but I could see he was better.” Trystan looked down at his hands, then up again at her with a quick, crooked smile. “I’m not sure what to say. Just ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem quite enough. But I do. Thank you.”
Isolde shook her head. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m just thankful that he’s alive and with his mind still whole.” She thought again of that night in the ruined villa, alone with Cabal and Hereric, when Hereric had first woken from the fever. The overwhelming rush of relief she’d felt when he’d formed a few signs, stumbling but coherent.
And then she felt a prickle of now familiar fear as she realized that the relief she’d felt then was only a pale, shaded echo of what she felt now at seeing Trystan here, within arm’s reach of her and alive. Still. The dizzying thankfulness that had made her run to throw her arms about him was still warm in her veins.
Trystan shifted position and winced, his mouth tightening, and Isolde thrust the thought aside, asking quickly, “Are you injured?”
Trystan stretched out his legs, leaned back against the wall, and shook his head. “Just stiff. And a couple of bruises. That’s all.”
Isolde studied him, taking in the set of his mouth, recalling the slight stiffness of his movements during the sword fight. “Bruises,” she repeated. Then remembrance struck her and she said, “I’m sorry—did I hurt you? After you fought Fidach—”
Trystan seemed to hesitate, but then shook his head again. “No, it’s all right. You didn’t hurt me. I was just surprised, that’s all. You haven’t done that since you were ten years old.”
Isolde felt a flush creep into her cheeks, but she made herself smile a bit. “Well, twelve, maybe.”
The rush light glinted on the stubble of gold-brown beard on Trystan’s jaw, and Isolde, meeting his eyes, had another of those dizzying moments where Trystan seemed to waver back and forth between stranger and someone she knew as well as she did herself. Like looking at a shimmering reflection in a shallow pool. She said nothing, though, and after a moment Trystan said, “I’m sorry if I scared you. I needed a way to end the fight without actually winning.”
Isolde had made herself look away, fearful that the unaccustomed, prickling undercurrents were about to enter the room again. She’d started to work the comb through the tangled ends of her hair again, but at that she glanced up. “You did slip on purpose, then? I thought so, but I couldn’t be sure.”
Trystan nodded. “I thought I’d better find a way to make it look like a draw. Not that I thought Fidach would kill me for beating him, but—” One side of his mouth tilted in a brief, grim smile. “I thought I’d be wiser not to try it. Fidach doesn’t like losing any better than the next man.”
“Less, I’d think.” Isolde frowned, then asked, “How did you block his blow so quickly, though? You kicked the sword out of his hand as soon as he tried to strike—almost before.”
Trystan was watching her as she combed through the ends of her hair; unbound like this, it reached nearly to her waist. At the question, he seemed to drag his thoughts back from a long way off and shook his head. “Oh, that.” He shrugged. “Fidach’s good. But he leads with his face—always has done.”
“Leads with his—”
“Tenses his jaw—grimaces—every time he’s about to strike a blow. Watch his face in a fight and you can usually guess at what he’s about to do.”
Isolde’s eyes rested a moment on the rush light’s flame, seeing again that savage, lightning-fast dance with swords. Then she closed her eyes to clear them of the image and said, turning back to Trystan, “You think we’re in danger here.”
Trystan looked up at her sharply. “Maybe. What makes you say it, though?”
Isolde set down the comb and started to separate the heavy curtain of her hair into three sections, working them smooth with her fingers until they were even enough to plait. The taut awareness that had brushed along her every nerve was gone—or at least held at bay. This was Trystan, whom she’d known as long as she could recall. Whom she did know better than anyone, and could speak to as easily as she did herself.
“I was watching you at the feasting tonight. You were eating left-handed—keeping your right hand always within easy reach of your knife.”
“Was I?” Trystan glanced down at the knife he still wore at his belt, then rubbed a hand across his face. He looked exhausted, Isolde realized abruptly, and she wondered where he’d been all these long days. “That’s more habit than anything else. Just a reflex, whenever I’m on edge.” He let his hand fall, then said, “And as to danger, I don’t know. I hope not. But—”
He broke off as a light, urgent tap sounded on the door outside the hut.
Instantly, Trystan was on his feet. He still moved stiffly, Isolde saw, and she wondered if he’d lied about not being hurt. He had the knife drawn from his belt, though, even as he crossed in a single quick stride to open the door. Isolde, too, sprang up and caught hold of Cabal’s collar as the big dog woke and rose with a low, rumbling growl.
Then, as the door swung open, she let out a breath of relief at the sight of Daka and Piye, their ebony faces outlined by the silver light of the nearly full moon above. Though the relief lasted only until she saw their expressions: grim and set as two twin masks.
“Daka—Piye,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
Daka glanced back over his shoulder as though checking for something, then turned back to Isolde. She thought there was something odd in the way he
held himself, in the way he raised his voice slightly to answer and spoke even before ducking through the doorway of the hut. But his words were calm enough. “Nothing wrong. Only Piye’s arm be bleeding again. Come to you, see if you can help.”
Trystan, too, must have been struck by something strange in Daka’s manner, for he stood still a moment, looking past them out into the night beyond. Then he gave the two brothers a swift, sharp look, all without relaxing his grip on the knife. He moved aside, though, letting Daka and Piye step into the hut’s small space.
Piye had one hand pressed to the wounded shoulder, and Isolde saw blood-soaked bandage peeping through the gaps between his fingers.
“Sit down.” She gestured to the pallet, then turned away to reach for her medicine bag. Trystan stood with his back against the panel of the door, Daka at his side. Piye sat as rigid and motionless as before while she unwrapped the saturated bandage from his upper arm. Then, as the final layer of wrappings fell away, Isolde stopped and looked up, first at Piye’s immobile face, then at that of his twin.
“I don’t understand. It looks as though the stitches I put in yesterday have been cut with a knife.”
Her first thought was that Fidach had heard of her treatment of Piye and ripped out the stitches as some kind of punishment. But Daka’s answer when it came surprised her even more.
“Yes, lady. I cut them before we come.”
“You cut them. But why?”
The line of Daka’s mouth hardened, turning his expression grimmer still than before. “Because better we have reason for coming to you tonight, if anyone sees us enter or leave.”
Trystan had been watching the brothers in silence, but at that he cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. “What’s happened?”
Daka turned to him. “Fidach. He plan to sell you to Octa tomorrow.”
For a moment, Trystan’s face was absolutely without expression. Then he said, “I see. How do you know?”
How do you know? Not, Isolde registered through the chill that gripped her, Are you sure? Plainly Daka and Piye were sure, or they’d not be here, risking themselves like this.
“Tonight. I see. Esar go—” Daka stopped, shook his head in frustration, then launched into a flood of speech in his own tongue, while Piye, from his place on the pallet, added a word here and there. Isolde caught the words Fidach and Octa, but apart from that, understood nothing at all. Trystan stood listening in silence, still with that utterly expressionless look on his face. Then, when Daka had finished, he said something in the same tongue—a question, Isolde thought—and Daka and Piye responded with another flood of words.
Finally, Trystan turned to Isolde. “He says that Piye was part of a raid on Octa’s forces two nights ago. That they caught a pair of Octa’s scouts, who gave them a story about a reward being offered for a black-haired woman traveling with two men, one Saxon, one Briton-born. They’d wit enough among them to realize that could fit the three of us—you and Hereric and me—well enough. Piye”—Trystan nodded in the young man’s direction—“made the rest of the raiding party swear an oath they’d not speak again of what they’d learned. He said he owes you a debt, though he didn’t say what the debt was.”
Isolde felt as though the floor beneath her was crumbling into the oozing black mud of the swamp outside as she struggled to take in all that Trystan said. She was remembering the odd looks Piye had given her after his return from the raid—comprehensible, now. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.
“No. He doesn’t owe me anything. Not really. Only that—” She stopped and shook her head again. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter, and I doubt we’ve time for me to explain. Go on.” And then, as Trystan started to answer, she added, “I didn’t know you spoke Piye and Daka’s language.”
Trystan stopped whatever he’d been about to say. His mouth twisted up briefly. “I don’t. They’re talking to me the way they would a two-year-old child. And they’d both of them likely be falling over laughing at my answers if the position wasn’t so bloody serious.”
At that, Daka’s grim expression lightened as well, and he grinned, white teething flashing in his dark face. He said something under his breath, to which Trystan gave a short laugh. “He says claiming I’ve the skill of a two-year-old insults the child.”
Trystan turned and answered Daka in the same tongue before turning back to Isolde, sober, now. “At any rate, one of the men—Esar, Piye says it was—apparently decided that Fidach’s reward for information was worth more to him than the oath he’d sworn. After the feasting tonight, he slipped back to Fidach’s hut alone. Piye saw him go and was suspicious enough to follow. He waited outside and heard what Esar told Fidach, and what Fidach said in return. Now Esar’s gone—on Fidach’s orders—to make contact with Octa and offer us to him. At a price, of course. They say—Piye and Daka—that they don’t know any more than that.” Trystan paused, then added, deliberately, “None of them, as far as I can tell, knows what Octa wants with us. Only that the pay was high.”
Isolde, her eyes on Trystan’s, nodded to show she’d understood the warning implicit in his words. Say nothing else—not even to Daka and Piye. The brothers already would be in danger because of what they knew. Letting anything fall now of Marche or Cerdic—or for that matter, who Isolde really was—would only make their risk that much greater.
Daka broke in, squatting down and gesturing to the floor. “I show you. Here. This be Octa’s army camps.” He drew out a small, round pebble from the scrip he wore at his belt and laid it on the wooden boards. “Here where we are now.” He took out a second pebble and laid it to the left of the first. “And here—word is, this be where Cerdic is. Waiting talks with Octa. A—” He stopped, frowning as he groped for the words. “Holy place? House for Jesus-women?”
“A convent?” Isolde asked.
Daka nodded. “Yes. That be. Word is Cerdic and Octa meet there. Cerdic come already. His armies nearby.”
For a moment the hut was silent. Then Isolde looked at Trystan and said, “We’ll have to leave. Now—tonight.”
Trystan’s eyes were still on the crude map Daka had made, and Isolde had the impression his thoughts followed some distant inner track of their own. But he tipped his head in a brief, wordless nod.
Isolde’s heart was beating unsteadily, but she said, “All right. You go and wake Hereric. I’ll stitch Piye’s cut again.”
Daka started to protest at that. “No time—” But Isolde shook her head and said, “If you needed a credible reason for coming here tonight, you’d better leave with credible proof that your visit was as innocent as you say.” She took up her medicine bag and handed it to Daka. “Here. Hold this for me. It won’t take long.”
ISOLDE PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR OF Hereric’s hut. She had given Piye and Daka a chance to get well away before leaving her own place, using the time to put on her traveling cloak and pack what she would take. She had forced herself to focus on choosing what to fit into the small traveling pack she chose, concentrating on folding each item neatly inside, fighting the feeling that she had been plunged once more into nightmare.
Clearly, they could bring only what they themselves could carry, and so she had in the end packed only her bag of medicines, a change of clothes, and what food she could salvage from the supplies brought from the ship. Some dried meat, a slab of hard, crumbling cheese, a few leathery apples. Then she had given Cabal the order he knew for silence, taken hold of his collar, and slipped out into the night.
Now, as the door of Hereric’s hut swung open, she heard the sound of Trystan’s voice. The only light in the small room was from the flare of the torches set around the crannog outside. Isolde couldn’t at first make out either man’s face, only that Trystan was crouched on the floor beside Hereric’s pallet. He was speaking in the Saxon language that was Hereric’s own, so that Isolde caught only a word here and there. Fidach …Hereric … and then, danger.
Trystan sat very still, his gaze, as far as Isolde coul
d judge, fixed on Hereric’s face. But she thought he was working to keep his voice as calm and controlled as it had been. Hereric looked at him, then shook his head and made a series of gestures. Isolde’s eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness now, and she understood more of Hereric’s reply. Hereric …slow …Fidach chase …you go …Hereric stay.
Trystan made a brief, jerky movement as of anger or frustration, though that, too, was instantly controlled. With the same still-muscled calm, he turned to face Isolde. “He says—”
Isolde’s gaze was fixed on Hereric’s face. “I saw. He said that he’s still too weak to get away. That he’ll slow us down too much if it comes to outdistancing Fidach’s men.”
And the awful thing, she thought, is that he’s right. She could see in the set of Trystan’s shoulders that he knew it as well. Without Hereric, they would stand a far better chance of getting away. With an effort, Isolde bit back the first words that rose to her lips—that Hereric had to accompany them. That he didn’t understand the danger. That they wouldn’t so much as consider leaving him behind. Whatever cruelties lay in his past had stripped Hereric down to a childlike inner core. She couldn’t insult him further by telling him he didn’t understand fully what he was saying now—or by refusing to allow him to choose his own path.
Swallowing, she turned to Trystan. “What will happen to him—if we do leave him behind?”
“I don’t know.” Trystan raised one hand, let it fall, and then shook his head. “He may be right, though. He could be safer here than if he goes with us. He’s worth nothing to Octa—so Fidach would have no reason to use him as a bargaining piece. And Piye and Daka and Eurig would do whatever they could to make sure he wasn’t harmed.”
And if they were to leave, it must be soon. Trystan didn’t say the words aloud, but she knew he thought them. She could see the wish for action, for haste in every taut line of his body—though he was holding himself still, keeping the urge under control.
Isolde nodded, answering the question Trystan hadn’t asked. Their eyes met and held, and then Trystan turned back to Hereric. There was just light enough that Isolde could see Hereric’s face: the flaxen-colored beard, the heavy-boned brow and cheekbones. The widely spaced blue eyes that looked out at the world always as though the soul behind them had been tested beyond endurance and retreated to a safe place, deep inside.