As she walked on, though, even the memories of a lost life drained away. Soon all Diana was aware of was the forest itself and the muffled quiet. Her mind rested. She was alive to the world around her. She inhaled the pleasant musky smells that drifted up as she disturbed rotting leaves, heard the rub of branches against each other, and enjoyed the hues of green, brown, gray, black and the shadows that hid the deeper parts of the forest from her gaze.
Diana paused to gaze at a natural clearing off to her right. It was open to the sky and snow had fallen on the ground there. Since they had entered the forest the sun had come out, for now it shone down on the undisturbed snow, which shimmered and dazzled her. Surrounded by the deep shadows of the forest, the clearing glowed. It beckoned.
Diana moved off the trail, ducking branches and trunks, stepping over saplings and fallen boughs. A branch snagged the thongs in her hair, loosening them with a painful pull. With impatient tugs, Diana removed them completely and tucked them into her belt. She stepped into the small clearing and paused at the edge of the snow. She didn’t want to disturb the flawless cover. She looked up.
Sunlight streamed through the break in the canopy. She wanted to feel it on her face. She stepped onto the snow, moved to the center of the clearing and turned her face up.
The sun was weak but without the wind it touched her face warmly. Off to the side was a pale sliver of white. The moon. The hour was growing late and the moon would soon be lost to the day sky but Diana was pleased to see it there. The moon was hers, after all. The old Roman goddess Diana was both a hunter and the moon goddess.
It was like standing inside a down-turned glass. Diana could see out but nothing could touch her here. No thoughts of the real world beyond the trees troubled her. She sighed a deep sigh of pure contentment. A smile touched her lips, tugging the corners. She kept her face turned up to the sun.
Time stood still.
* * * * *
Alaric ranged far from the wagon trail in search of the larger, heavier deadfalls that would provide the longer burning logs. He took ten men with him. Each time they found a decent cache of wood, Alaric left one or two men to deal with it and pushed on.
Eventually alone, he found a large fallen branch, as thick as a man’s waist, which he decided to come back to. But first he wanted to explore a little.
It was pleasantly warm under the canopy, away from the biting wind. Forests did not frighten Alaric as they did the poorer, superstitious folk. He had grown up under the shadow of a great forest and played among the ancient boles as a child. This one reminded him of home.
A yearning to be home struck him with unexpected force. He wanted to hear familiar accents, to see the huge Great Hall with its massive stone hearth roaring and all the dear faces that would be gathered there. The women of his people were famed for their natural beauty and he longed to see a woman with white skin and long flowing hair, a welcoming smile, gentle manners and perhaps a harp which she would play for him while he looked out the windows of the Great Hall and watched the sea throw itself against the unscalable cliffs that protected his family’s ancient home. He could almost smell the sharp salt of the sea.
He shook his head to clear it of such nonsense. All he could smell was the rot of leaf litter and green growing things. It had been a while since he had heard the fall of a distant axe or the sound of voices or movement through the trees. He turned reluctantly and headed back.
He had a job to do here before he could allow himself the indulgence of returning to the Great Hall in Wales. He had learned how to dismiss memories of home from his mind. Only in the moment before battle was joined, when he could see the eyes of the enemy and hear their war cries, would he let the memories swell and feel the rush of fierce anger because the enemy wished to take those memories away from him, from all Britons.
But the memories would not fade as obediently in this green and dark forest as they normally did, so when he saw the woman in the clearing ahead, for a moment he believed she was a vision stolen from his heart.
She was standing perfectly still in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by dazzling snow and bathed in pure light. Her face was lifted up toward the sun in joyous supplication. From Alaric’s angle, he could see nothing more of her than the sharp angle of her cheeks and the long folds of a cloak that trailed the ground. Spilling out over the back of the cloak was the most wondrous tumble of hair—the ebony of a Celtic woman, shiny and rippling with a life of its own, reaching more than halfway down the cloak.
Alaric stayed perfectly still lest he disturb her. His hand itched to bury itself in the thick shiny curls of her hair and his soul sighed with pleasure. The picture she made eased his heart.
From the opposite side of the clearing came distant voices, calling. The woman dropped her chin and turned her head a little, questing. Perhaps because she was in a clearing, the sounds bounced off the trees and she couldn’t locate the source. She swiveled slowly, her head cocked, listening.
Turn to face me, Alaric coaxed silently.
Finally, she turned to face his direction, her features lit with the radiant light.
Diana.
The fact slammed into his brain and the impact echoed in his heart. Alaric gasped. He was too far away for her to hear the tiny sound, especially now the voices were growing louder.
Despite his shock, or perhaps because of it, Alaric found himself unable to tear his gaze away from Diana. It wasn’t until he recognized the note of alarm in the voices drifting toward them that the spell was broken.
* * * * *
Diana kept turning in a slow circle, searching for the direction of the cries. She heard panic in the voices. She stopped and listened, trying to make out words. The speakers were drawing closer. Soon she could hear them pushing through the trees. There were a number of them and she recognized Rhys’ distinctive growl.
Closer still, someone crashed noisily through the undergrowth noisily, hurriedly. They were very close.
“Get around it, I said! Cut it off! Use the axe, for the love of Mithras! He’ll go straight through that puny blade!” It was Rhys again, bawling orders at the top of his lungs.
A prickle of apprehension brushed her. What was “it”?
The lead person had nearly broken through into the clearing. Bracken waved and saplings leaned but she could not see the man who bent them.
Far behind, Diana glimpsed Rhys. He saw her and lifted a hand and waved it to one side. “Get out of the way! It’s a wild boar. He’s injured!”
Now she knew the reason for the snuffling progress of the “person” crashing toward her. She froze. What direction would take her out of the way of the marauding boar?
“Diana! Hurry!” It was Alaric’s voice. She heard him push into the clearing behind her. She spun around to find him already at her side. He dropped the long axe he carried, scooped her up and ran straight toward a gnarled old oak.
“Hold on,” he commanded. Shockingly, she was boosted up—thrown, in fact—toward a thick branch jutting out higher than his head. The power of his throw was enough for Diana to land on her knees on the broad platform. She threw her arms around the trunk of the tree to prevent herself from falling right off over the other side and looked back.
He had already spun away from the tree and was striding out into the center of the clearing, pulling out his knife. As he reached the snow, the boar pushed out into the clearing. Alaric snatched up the axe.
By the long tusks and his huge size, Diana judge the boar was old and probably a fierce fighter to have lived so long. His red eyes glowed ferociously. Under one eye a deep gouge bled freely. The scent of blood, even his own, would be driving him mad. He was looking for an enemy, driven to attack. Alaric stood in the boar’s path. His knife was clenched between his teeth and the axe was lifted, ready to strike down.
The boar saw Alaric and screamed. The sound echoed through the forest and Diana shivered. The boar changed his direction, charging straight for Alaric. The man kept his gaze on t
he creature, his face was still. There was no worry there, or fear. He was totally absorbed in the task at hand.
Diana could not guess what Alaric planned to do. He would be mad to try to stop the boar simply by bringing the axe down and hoping it would hit the creature heavily enough to halt it. No man was quick enough or strong enough to stop a charging boar with one blow.
The boar’s mouth opened, showing yellow teeth. Saliva flowed from the corner. He was a spear length away from Alaric’s legs. Alaric lifted his arms high over his head, holding the axe at the apex of a swing. His cloak fell back and Diana saw the muscles in his arms bunch, gathering power.
At the very last second, just before the boar’s snout touched his leg, Alaric swung to one side. As the squealing beast charged past, his jaws snapping together, Alaric bought the axe down on the back of the boar’s neck. His whole body bowed with the effort of the blow.
The squeal turned into a high endless scream but the boar kept moving with the axe buried deep into one shoulder. Alaric hung on, transferring his grip to one hand. With the other he took his knife. The boar began to buck at the end of the axe.
Rhys and half a dozen other men burst into the clearing.
Alaric lowered the axe handle to the ground, forcing the boar down and put his weight on the handle, trying to keep the thrashing boar pinned down. He walked along the handle until he was close enough to drop on top of the boar. His arms went around its neck, behind the powerful gnashing jaws. The boar’s scream intensified and he began to buck against Alaric’s trunk and thighs. Alaric worked his knife up against its throat and slashed sideways.
The squealing abruptly ceased.
Diana shut her eyes so that she would not see the gush of blood. She rested her head against the tree. Her heart was skittering along with a speed that hurt and made her dizzy.
“Well I’m glad you were there. The creature would have got clean away, otherwise!” Rhys sounded calm again.
“Plenty of meat for supper, I’m thinking.” That was Griffin’s light tones.
“A bit tough, I think.” Alaric did not sound at all ruffled. “This one was a clever old man. But he’ll provide a meal’s worth and more besides. Rhys, do you want to organize getting the carcass home?”
“Aye, sir.” Rhys bawled out orders to the other men and the clearing was filled with the bustle of activity and many voices.
Diana kept her eyes closed and continued to hug the tree, her mind calming, her body recovering. Suddenly she yearned for the fanciful Otherworld she had been ripped from by the appearance of the boar. It had been a pleasant haven, free of worry. The serenity had been intoxicating.
“Diana.”
She opened her eyes. Alaric stood below her perch. The clearing was empty once more, the boar gone, leaving a scarlet patch in the scuffled snow.
“Ready to come down?”
Diana nodded, not sure that she could find her voice. She untucked her legs and found her knees and hips were stiff. She had been in that position too long. Her shins ached where they had been pressed against the rough tree trunk. She sat on the branch, lowered her legs toward the ground and found there was still quite a drop. Propping her weight on her hands, she lowered her hips over the edge of the branch. All at once her strength gave out and she slithered to the ground. Her legs wouldn’t hold her and she sank down until she was sitting on the ground at the base of the tree, her cloak billowing around her.
She looked up quickly to check his reaction to her weakness. She was prepared to see condescension there. But his face was impassive. He held out a hand. “Here.”
The absence of scorn allowed her to grasp the offered hand. She was lifted up to her feet. The speed and smoothness of the lift spoke of untaxed power. She found herself standing barely a hand’s width from him and had to lift her chin up to look him in the eye.
“Thank you,” she told him.
It happened then. Diana felt something shift. The clearing became again that enclosed Otherworld. She heard the muffled silence of the forest, the remote singing of the wind far above their heads.
She saw Alaric with the eyes of a stranger. She saw the powerful soldier’s body. She recalled the skill and experience that he had used to deal with the boar and her gaze fell upon his thick, muscled shoulders and arms. She remembered how the muscles had flexed as he had fought the boar.
He was lifting his hand, bringing it toward her and Diana held her breath. What was he going to do?
He did something simple and unexpected. His big hand slid with surprising grace and gentleness under the curtain of hair that hung down the front of her cloak and lifted it up and back over her shoulder to let it run over the back of his hand and fall away. His gaze came back to her face.
Diana could see the familiar markings of the warrior who had been plaguing her life—the heavy brows that rushed together all too often, the eyes that gleamed with scorn or amusement. But the two aspects would not combine to show her the face that she was familiar with. Instead she saw only a stranger, whose motives were unknown and whose actions were unpredictable.
She noticed small lines at the corners of his eyes from being constantly narrowed in concentration or laughter. There were lines that ran from nose to chin, skirting the corners of his mouth—lines that his thumb often bracketed when he was thinking, while the rest of his hand propped up the strong chin and curled around to touch his throat. The skin over his cheeks looked soft, even tender.
She became aware of his scent—musky, warm. It created an impulse to sway closer to him to breathe in more.
He was looking at her in a way that she had never seen before. It was as if all the fire in his eyes had been banked, ’til only glowing white coals were left—the fiercely hot coals that could melt iron if it was thrust deep inside them.
The hand that brushed her hair back hovered next to her cheek, so close she could feel the warmth of his skin. As clear as a shout, the knowledge came to Diana that he wanted to slide his hand back into her hair and to touch her skin with his fingertips. But he did not move.
They might have stayed balanced at that exquisite moment forever, for Diana could no more move than he could. Her whole body willed him to touch her.
Alaric’s chest lifted with a long breath and he withdrew his hand. He stepped back from her, breaking the balance.
There came the sound of quick light steps and Diana looked to her left. Minna was rushing toward her, her face contorted with a jumble of fear, relief and the need for comfort. Her slight body slammed into Diana’s and her thin arms wrapped tightly around Diana’s waist. Her face buried into her midriff. Diana patted her back.
“I’m fine. It’s all right,” she soothed. She pushed her hair out of the way impatiently.
* * * * *
Alaric watched the two sisters, cursing himself for indulging in fantasies. He saw Diana push her hair aside as she crooned reassurances to Minna. Her hand crept to her belt and withdrew a bundle of thongs. With quick automatic movements, she pulled her hair back and wrapped the thongs along its length, then she coaxed the girl toward the wagon trail.
Just as they reached the edge of the clearing, Minna looked back at Alaric. Her face was passive but Alaric was suddenly sure that Minna had seen him standing next to Diana, his hand in her hair.
Moving slowly, he picked up the axe and cleaned it with a handful of leaves. It was barely midmorning and they still had a wagonload of wood to find and cut, yet he already felt a tiredness as if he had been fighting Saxons for a full day.
Chapter Seven
“Damn it! Alaric! Catch that strap!”
The alarm in Rhys’ voice snapped Alaric’s attention back to what he was doing, just in time for him to see the strap holding the heavy bundle of logs give way. He snatched at the end of the leather but missed.
With a heavy creak and groan the ends of the logs fanned out onto the frozen earth. The strain was too much for the binding at the other end of the logs and it broke with a wet snap. The fi
fteen or so logs—each as big as his thigh—spilled out onto the ground, jostling each other. Alaric threw himself backward to avoid having his feet crushed.
He hit the ground with a thud that jarred up through his elbows and rear. “Son of a whore!” he muttered, sitting up.
Rhys threw the reins of the horses to Griffin and strode over to Alaric. “For Mithras’ sake! Why didn’t you catch the damn thing before it gave way?”
Alaric gingerly felt his elbows. “Sorry.” He glanced at Griffin. The lad stood patiently at the horses’ heads, watching curiously. He apparently did not share Rhys’ choler.
At Alaric’s simple apology, Rhys sighed and ran his hand through his grizzled hair. “Are you injured, sir?” he said awkwardly.
“No.” Alaric held out his hand and Rhys helped him to his feet. Alaric brushed off snow and dirt. “Although by rights I should be. I wasn’t watching.”
“Aye, I’ve noticed you not watching,” Rhys muttered. He began to pick up the logs and restack them. Alaric helped.
They were about two hundred paces from the wall of the villa. It had taken them most of the morning to walk to the forest, pick suitable trees and chop them down. Now they were nearly done.
They would have been closer to done if only Alaric had kept his mind on the work at hand. Since the wood-gathering expedition, he had been incapable of remaining focused on a task. Instead, he would find his mind somewhere far away. Often, it was thoughts of home. Just as often, he would find himself recalling the odd events in the clearing three days ago.
He knew why he kept puzzling over the latter. He wanted to understand why people had acted as they did. It didn’t make sense to him. Minna’s face when she had stared at him over Diana’s comforting arm troubled him. There was something at work that he could not see.
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