“Think I’m carrying your child? No, not yet. Of course I can’t be certain. Why do you ask?”
“If you have my child, that will make it that much harder for me if I must leave you.”
“That, again?” She yelped the words and stiffened in his arms. “I thought I told you, you are not allowed to leave me. Promise you will not!”
“I cannot give that promise. It is a very real possibility—I might be recalled at any time.”
“Yes but—so much has happened since you were sent to me. The contest, the destruction of the settlement…the loss of my parents. Our love for one another. Surely that changes everything?”
“I fear not. Were it up to me, Barta, I would never leave you. It is not up to me.”
She thought on that with an intensity he felt. “There must be a way.”
“I have tried to think of one. The spell that holds me—that allowed me to come here—might dissolve at any time.” Unless you guess who I am, he added silently.
“Unbearable.” She huffed the word. “It seems as if I have known you and loved you forever. How could I hope to endure losing you?”
He had no answer for that and remained silent. He felt her thoughts rushing.
At last she said, “But it is as I told you before: should that dire event occur, I can imagine no greater joy than having your child with me for always.”
“Barta…”
“Do you mean to tell me you intend never to make love to me again? Even when we lie together like this?”
Make love, as he knew very well, was what she called breeding. But it remained breeding, all the same.
“It would break my heart,” he told her, “to leave both you and my child.”
“I had not thought of that. Am I being selfish again? True, I’ve tried so hard to change.”
“You are perfect just the way you are. Perfect.” He licked her cheek, and she turned her head so their open mouths met once more, tongues tangling. This time when she broke the kiss they were both breathless.
“Surely, though, one more time won’t hurt,” she wooed.
He wondered. A hound, he nonetheless wore the body of a man, compatible with hers. Yet might it be possible he could not successfully breed her? Might the goddess have lent that protection against their eventual parting?
But there were so few protections in the world.
Barta whimpered, “We can do it the way you like best, like beasts.”
He quickened still farther and groaned. He did prefer her in that position, though front to front allowed him access to her beautiful mouth.
“I will take you,” she breathed, “any way you desire.”
Ah, and was this an opportunity to seize the autonomy Pith recommended? Should he impose his will on hers? A shocking prospect.
“Or,” she continued when he did not respond, “we might do it all the ways we’ve tried so far, one after another. You decide.”
He smiled wryly despite the fierce ache of his desire. “And if I decide not to breed you this night?”
“Breed me? That’s an odd term for lovemaking.”
“That’s what it is, Barta.”
“If you would withhold yourself from me, that’s your right. I do not command you.” She slid her hands downward from his hair, over his shoulders, around to his chest, and lower still. Her fingers wrapped around the hot, heavy length of him. “But why would you decide such a thing when we have a whole, long night ahead?”
Why, indeed?
He growled deep in his throat. If he must decide, he would choose as he always had—for the moment. Tomorrow would come, or it would not.
He turned her over beneath him, with gentle hands.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I say we should go back. Today—before the weather worsens and while we stand the best chance of reclaiming our land.”
Tally’s voice still sounded like that of a mere boy, but Barta had to admit he looked far more. A new strength had come upon her young brother and enfolded him like an invisible cloak.
He would need all his strength, she acknowledged, facing off against a scowling Brude in the morning light. Brude, too, appeared to have aged, the weight of his new responsibilities scoring lines into his forehead.
They stood in two decided factions, facing each other: Brude’s supporters and Tally’s. The tribe, as Barta had feared, was very nearly sundered in two, the last thing her father would have wanted and the last thing they needed now, when they were so few in number.
Brude, with his height and bulk of muscle, might make two of Tally, yet the boy stood straight as a spear and looked the other man in the eyes, awaiting his response.
Brude, in the past always quick to speak his mind, seemed to weigh his words before delivering them, standing with Avinda at his side and a number of the young warriors at his back.
“We will not make a challenge this season. Mayhap in the spring.”
“Says who?” Tally challenged.
“Says I,” Brude told him sourly.
“But you are not chief of this tribe. Not rightful chief,” Tally returned swiftly. “You stepped into the place merely because there was no one else. The rightful chief should be Wick, or failing him, me. Failing me, my sister’s son.”
“Your brother, whelp, has scuttled away, and your sister has no son. As for you—you are but a pup.”
Tally’s chin lifted still further. “One with a chief’s blood in his veins.”
Barta exchanged a look with True, with whom she stood shoulder to shoulder, their fingers linked. Nearly a fortnight had passed since the evening he’d agreed to make love to her, and they’d scarcely been apart. The deep wound in her heart, so she believed, had nearly closed beneath the balm of his presence and love.
She glanced at the others who stood with them while they waited for Brude’s reply: Gant just behind her, stolid and sure; Gede behind him, Rekka and her friends at Tally’s side.
Barta recognized that deep ties had also developed between Rekka and Tally. Had they already lain together? Yet her brother had barely fifteen winters.
And had been forced to grow up overnight. Her fingers twitched in True’s. Who was she to question?
True caressed her fingers comfortingly. She steadied where she stood.
“Our past,” Brude told Tally and the listening crowd, “has been swept away. I say the man best fit to lead must step into the place. And I am best fit to lead.”
“Are you?” Tally challenged. “Are you indeed? I say that is for the tribe as a whole to decide.”
“Yet, whelp, the tribe is no longer whole. You have managed to break it apart with your interfering. Now you would take a broken tribe to challenge the Gaels who may well be dug in back there, even as we are here.”
Pith stepped forward from behind Tally. “I am the oldest of us left alive,” he declared in his quavering voice, “and I have consulted with the gods on this matter. You can see where I stand—with Radoc’s family. The rest of you must make your own choices.”
The crowd buzzed as people muttered to one another. Brude’s dark eyes narrowed abruptly.
“Why, old man? Why do you wish to go back there and die?”
“And who are you, Brude map Edder, to question my ties to our land or my loyalty?”
Brude drew himself up indignantly even as Avinda shot him a look. “I question nothing. But land is land, and life is life. You all know me—I am the last to run. Yet winter is upon us. I say we gather our strength and hit the Gaels in the spring.”
“Winter is the secret season,” Tally declared, sounding so much like his mother Barta had to close her eyes a moment against a rush of memory and pain. “It is time for us who know this land to act. The Gaels will try and hold what they have stolen, yes. They will dig in and set a stout guard. But as we know from past experience, they will halt their battling—which is exactly why we should not. A series of hit-and-run raids, carried out mostly at night, with the forest to shield us—that i
s how we will defeat them.”
More murmuring, a rising current this time. Folk put their heads together even while Brude sneered. “Yes—because the last of our night-time raids worked so well, that your sister launched—that which began all this hurt and misery.”
Ah, thought Barta, was she never to live that down, even though she’d paid such a high price, her life shaken to its very roots?
True squeezed her fingers again as if he sensed her spike of agitation.
Tally refused to rise to Brude’s jibe. “My sister carries my father’s courage. That is why I propose she should act as head of our tribal war council.”
He got no farther. Even as Barta stiffened in shock, Brude lost the last of his stern self-control and bellowed, “Her? To lead us? Into disaster and more death, say I!”
“You may say what you will, Brude map Edder. I do not suggest my sister for war chief but as leader of a group that will include you and many others, to make decisions jointly.”
“You expect me to take advice from that traitorous vixen? I would sooner crawl into my own grave.”
“Now who threatens to sunder us?” Tally retorted. “We must all—all—work together if we are to succeed. If we keep retreating—”
“As your brother has?” Brude sneered. “Why do you not accuse him of cowardice, rather than me?”
“I do not accuse you of cowardice, Brude map Edder. Far from it. That is why I want you on my side. My brother, Wick, will find his heart and return. Master Pith and I have both Seen it. Meanwhile, Radoc’s house still stands. I am here to tell you so.”
Pride flooded Barta’s heart. Tally indeed embodied the best of both their parents.
She stepped forward, pulling her fingers from True’s. “And I.”
“I.” Gant moved to her shoulder.
“I.” Gede with a grunt.
“And I.” Now Pith’s voice did not quaver.
Brude stood confounded, his face thunderous.
Quietly, Tally spoke to the tribe’s folk rather than Brude. “Go you off and consider on this thing. Consult with your gods, your hearts, and one another. We will meet here again at nightfall, and you will give me—and Brude—your decisions.”
The crowd moved off slowly, Brude one of the last to leave, an ugly look in his eyes.
****
“Do you truly believe Wick will return?” Barta asked her brother hopefully.
True, who sat beside her, glanced into her face. They and several others had gathered around a small fire that did little to battle the chill. True could not see the position of the sun—low cloud cover prevented it—but he guessed sunset could not be far off.
Last night the first snowflakes had fallen. Had that been what prompted Tally’s bold stand, a prick from the spear of winter?
And was Tally right, calling for a return to their old lands, an attempt to reclaim them? True wished he knew, wished he could look ahead and see what would happen, how long the Lady would allow him to stay.
As if she felt his agitation, Barta slid her hand over his knee just the way she used to caress his head when he was a hound.
“I told Brude no lie,” Tally replied softly. “I have Seen it.”
“And do you supposed Brude will join with us if the tribe decides to go back?” Barta pressed. “Tally, you should not have placed me at the head of a war council. Brude will never agree to take orders from me. And we need his spear.”
“Then, Sister, you must find a way to get along with him. Trot out some of Mother’s tact, if you can.”
Gant smothered a laugh. “Tact? Barta? Tally, are you sure your wits have all returned to you?”
They all laughed but uneasily.
Rekka spoke up then. “I am proud of Tally.”
“And I.”
“I.”
“I.”
The avowals traveled around the fire, swift and fervent. Barta and Tally exchanged a heartfelt glance; it should have been a good moment, but for an instant foreboding gripped True’s heart. Just as if he had suddenly been granted the ability he’d wished for, to see ahead, he knew the tribe would decide to stand behind Tally, that they would be called upon to fight.
They would make a journey into darkness.
There beside the quiet fire, he caught his breath, knowing he would travel even into that darkness, so long as it be at Barta’s side.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A cold wind teased the back of Barta’s neck, sending chilly fingers through her clothing and down her spine. Snow stung one cheek and obscured what she could see of the Gaels’ settlement through the trees.
She could feel the others of her party all around her—True as ever on her left hand, the rest of their warriors, including Brude, silent as the trees. At her signal, an owl’s call, they would move—the third such raid launched in a seven-night.
The first two had been wildly successful, far more so than she could have hoped. This would be harder—the Gaels expected them now and had set a strong guard around the camp that used to be the Epidii’s own.
But even the most vigilant guard flagged in the pit of the night when the wind blew coldest, and Barta’s band could move very quietly indeed. As during the first two raids, they had their targets chosen—they would fell any guards they met before freeing the Gaels’ ponies and damaging their chariots.
The Gaels would not last the winter here. If they did, they would have to fight without their accursed carts, come spring.
She narrowed her eyes when she caught movement just ahead—a member of the Gaels’ guard walking his line. Far too predictable were these westerners, and she could smell his stink from here. No matter; he would be the first to die by her blade.
She heard True begin to pant beside her, and for an instant her grasp on reality wavered—time shifted and she thought she waited to enter the battle with Loyal at her side.
She shivered. A bad omen?
Surely not. The illusion of Loyal’s company could only give her strength.
She threw back her head and gave the owl’s cry. As silently as that bird in flight, her party moved forward through the trees.
****
“A great victory and no mistake.” Brude’s face shone with savage joy as he made the declaration.
So it was, and Barta could have chortled over it. For once everything seemed to be going the way of the Epidii. The Gaelic guard she’d earmarked had gone down—silently—to her blade. They’d stolen four ponies and destroyed a raft of chariots before slipping away, without losing a single man. Oh, they’d taken injuries—True, as she knew, had suffered two—but none too grave. And for the first time, as they stood around their own fire celebrating, even Brude seemed to have embraced the plan.
Barta eyed True, who bore a slash to one arm—not yet tended—and who lapped uncertainly at his cup of heather ale. No secret that he did not much like the taste of ale and would sooner have water.
But a celebration must include ale, and they did celebrate over the victory behind them—even gloated just a bit as the sun rose.
“The Gaels may follow us,” Gede proposed, a caution.
“They might well try,” Gant declared. “They cannot move as easily as we do through the forest, nor as quietly. They may try and track the ponies we loosed, but most of those scattered. I say bad luck to them.”
Barta met True’s gaze—bright hazel filled with golden lights—and knew what dominated his thoughts. Following each successful raid so far they’d made wild, passionate love fueled by the rush still coursing through their veins.
“Come, let us get that arm of yours tended,” she told him and towed him away by the hand, only half aware of the knowing smiles that followed them.
Had the tribe’s folk accepted True at last? Certainly he could not be more valiant in battle or less stinting in risking his own safety.
Before they even reached the edge of the trees where the Epidii hid their mobile camp, True dragged her to a halt and turned her to face him.
“Do you in truth mean to tend my arm?”
Breathless she answered, “That wound needs care.”
“Later, mayhap.”
“Better at once. I want to put on some of that salve I made—not as good as Mother’s but better than nothing. I know how strong you are, True, but poisoning can so easily set in…”
“Later,” he repeated. “I want you first. Want you, Barta.”
Her bones promptly turned molten. “I want you too. But it will take only a moment. I have the salve here at our bedside.”
“Hush.”
Barta went silent with surprise. Seldom did True order her to anything; rarely did he impose his will over hers. And what did she see in his eyes? Certainty, and a new confidence burning through the rampant desire.
“The arm will take care of itself,” he told her with emphasis. “I will take care of you.”
“Yes.” She did not consciously move forward into his arms, merely fell into the sense of belonging that always swamped her there, the heat of his mouth and the weight of him pressed against her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, mouths joined irresistibly. He carried her so through the misty trees to their bedroll, where he laid her gently.
Hazy and half mad with desire, she lay gazing up at him while he removed his clothing, revealing that long, lean-muscled body she’d come to know so well. Her mouth began to water.
“True…”
“Have I not told you to hush?” Affection spilled from him.
“I merely want to tell you how beautiful I think you are.”
He came down on top of her and began to unfasten her clothing. “I think you are the most beautiful person ever to walk on the face of the world.” His hands moved tenderly, dispensing with her tunic, uncovering her breasts. “But if you were not—if you had a scar across your face and had lost an eye, mayhap, like Pith—I would still love you and would still follow you.”
Barta’s heart clenched in her chest. “Oh, True.”
“Do you know why, Barta?”
Barta shook her head helplessly; she couldn’t imagine. With all her faults, how could she be worthy of this beautiful man’s company? Of his devotion?
Loyal and True Page 18