by Anna Elliott
“GWYN.” ISOLDE BENT OVER THE SLEEPING girl and touched her lightly on the arm.
Scarcely any of the other travelers in the loft had so much as looked up when Isolde had pushed aside the screen of blankets and gone to wake the kitchen maid. It’s times like these, Isolde thought, that set men and women the most alone. Too exhausted—or too full of their own cares—to spare a thought for anyone else, and wary of sparing even a glance for one in need, for fear they might be called on for aid.
Gwyn sat up with a start, blinking, her eyes bleared and puffy with sleep, black hair tousled and littered with bits of straw. Her gaze moved to where Dera lay with the child beside her, a fold of cloth now covering the tiny face.
Gwyn sucked in her breath. “Dead, then, my lady?”
Isolde nodded. “Dead. Go, now, and tell Father Nenian that the child will need burial.” She stopped. “Tell him the child was born alive, and that I baptized it with the vial of holy water he gave me to use at such times.”
The girl Gwyn, her brow furrowing, looked slowly from the bundled form to Isolde, and Isolde saw the shadow of doubt flicker across the clear hazel eyes. “Must have died almost as soon as it was born,” Gwyn said. “I never even heard it cry.”
Isolde nodded. “You were sleeping very soundly,” she said calmly. The babe…” Isolde hesitated briefly. “The babe bled to death when I cut the cord. But you can tell Father Nenian that the child has been baptized as a true Christian, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He need not fear to bury her in consecrated ground.”
When Gwyn had gone, Isolde went back to Dera’s side and sank down beside her in the straw. The other woman’s eyes were closed and her lids looked puckered in the lantern’s flickering light, her lips still bloodied where she’d bitten them during the pangs. Isolde didn’t know if she would care whether or not the child was buried with other Christians. But it was worth the lie, if it gave her any comfort at all.
Isolde rubbed the knotted muscles at the nape of her neck and closed her eyes. The story she’d told of the child’s death meant, too, that there would be another spate of rumor—another tale of the Witch Queen’s ill magic to be whispered about the servants’ hall. But all she felt for now was the ache of exhaustion as her body relaxed, and she could only think that, for now, at least, she need not move.
When Isolde opened her eyes she found Dera, whom she’d thought asleep, looking at her. Dera’s eyes were dazed and tired, but aware.
“Is the pain too bad for you to sleep?” Isolde asked.
Dera’s head moved in faint negation. “Not so bad.” She was silent a moment, dark eyes straying listlessly to the timbered roof above, then coming back to Isolde. “He were a good man, your husband the king,” she said suddenly. “I were sorry to hear he’d been killed.”
The words caught Isolde by surprise, but she nodded. “Thank you.”
“Kind, too. Not that he ever came to me for his pleasures,” she added quickly. “You needn’t fear for that.”
Isolde bent and slowly smoothed the blanket, drawing it up and tucking it more tightly around Dera’s shoulders. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
Dera’s tongue touched one of the torn places on her lip. “But they say you’re wedded again now, lady. To Lord Marche that was.”
Isolde watched the play of shadow over the loft’s walls. “Yes.”
Dera swallowed. “Take care, then lady.” Her words were beginning to slur, with the poppy and her own fatigue. “He’s mean, that one.”
A spreading cold traveled through Isolde’s veins. “You know Lord Marche?”
“Paid me for a week’s service a while back. Couldn’t believe my luck, at first. Usually you’re lucky to get an hour, never mind a night. But—”
Dera shook her head. “Ran away from him the second day. He’d have killed me for it, if he’d caught me. And there’s few in the army that would even bother to spit on the body of one more dead whore—let alone stop him from cutting my throat. But—”
She broke off, fumbling clumsily at the neck of her gown. When she had untied the laces, she drew the sweat-dampened woolen fabric aside to bare one breast. “You see that there?”
The flickering lamplight showed a pair of puckered scars crisscrossing one another in the soft, pale flesh. “I was lucky, though. Heard afterwards from another girl what happens if he can’t manage with you at all.”
Her eyes were starting to lose focus, and her tone was drowsy, remote and almost unconcerned. “I saw a stallion, once. Gone lame in one leg—couldn’t mount the mares. So he’d savage them. Bite their necks till they bled.”
Dera stopped again, a shadow of a frown flickering across her brow with the effort of going on, her eyes already starting to slide shut. “There’s men that hurt you because they’re born rough and don’t know no better,” she said. “And there’s men that hurt you because they’ve not had a woman in weeks. And then…then there’s men that hurt you just for the joy of seeing if they can make you cry. Lord Marche—he’s one of those.”
Isolde waited until the woman’s breathing had deepened and slowed, then bowed her head and rested her forehead on her hands, fighting the fear that was crawling through her. A mercy, she thought, in a way, that she’d been summoned to Dera’s side as she had. The immediate urgency of the job before her, and the rhythm of familiar tasks, had kept her, for the most part, from thought of anything else. Now, though—
As though from a long way off, Isolde heard in the loft’s rustling stillness the echo of her own words, spoken to Marche not even three days before.
Try it. I swear on my husband’s soul I’ll put a knife through my heart before I wed you or any other man.
The edge of the cross-shaped scar was still visible above the low neckline of Dera’s gown, rising and falling with the steady rhythm of her breathing. Down and up. Up and down.
Isolde realized abruptly that she was scrubbing her hand across her mouth again and again. Listen to the pain, she’d told Dera. She’d learned that four years ago, lying in bed, her skin tight and burning with the fever, while Father Nenian muttered his prayers and anointed her with his holy oils.
But this was different. She’d felt, then, achingly empty, like a throbbing shell. Now she felt as though she’d shattered like glass, and try as she would she couldn’t fit the pieces back together.
And Hunno, she thought, is waiting below. Waiting to take me back—
The wind outside must have shifted, for the voice came suddenly, blocking out all else from Isolde’s ears.
I’VE HEARD MY LADIES SPEAK OF childbed, but I didn’t know it would be like this. Mine must be harder than most. It must. I cried at first, but I’m too tired for tears now. If I died, I wouldn’t mind. Women do die in childbirth. Why not me?
Another pain comes on, and I hold on tight to Morgan’s hand, hearing her grunt in discomfort as my fingers clench on hers.
“Help me,” I say. “Please. Make it stop.”
She wipes my face, holds a cup of wine to my mouth. I can see her biting back impatience—though she’s sorry for me, too, I know.
“It will be over soon. You’re nearly there.”
Another pain hits, and all at once something bursts inside me and there’s a rush of water, hot and wet, on my thighs. Someone is screaming—I suppose it must be me.
My body is tearing, bursting open with a burning like fire, and I’m screaming…screaming. And then something hot and solid and slimy slithers onto my legs. At last—blessedly—the pain is gone.
Morgan’s voice comes from a long way away. “You have a daughter.”
Slowly, I open my eyes. With quick, practiced hands, Morgan is untangling the baby from the pulsing cord, lifting her, thumping her on the back. The baby’s face is red, her eyes tight closed, her mouth open in an angry cry as she waves tiny fists. Morgan puts her on my chest.
A child. A daughter. My daughter. But she doesn’t feel like mine. I look at her and feel…nothing at all.
>
I prayed for a child, every day, from the time I was fourteen and sent by my father to wed Arthur the King. Prayed on my knees I might give him an heir. Shared his bed and looked the other way while he bedded every fair-faced lady, every giggling serving maid. And now—
“Does it ever seem to you, Morgan, that our God must be a cruel one?”
“Yes.” Morgan’s voice is hard, without expression. “Yes, it does.”
The baby stops crying at last and opens her eyes. Wide and gray, like the sea. I stare into the little face. My daughter. Mine and Modred’s.
“Isolde. Her name is Isolde.” And then I lift a hand and trace the fine swirl of dark hair on the baby’s skull. “Poor little girl.”
FOR A MOMENT AFTER THE VOICE faded, Isolde was still, the echo of her mother’s voice still in her ears. Strange, she thought, that I know it was hers. Gwynefar had fled to take the holy woman’s veil almost as soon as Isolde was born. She, at least, could have no part in the memories Isolde had locked away. Isolde drew in her breath, making ready to move.
And then she stopped, as her eye fell on the trapdoor in the loft’s wooden floor. The trapdoor used by the stable boys to fork straw down to the horses below.
ISOLDE STOOD AT THE REAR ENTRANCE to the stables, rubbing the fingernail that had torn when she’d pulled the trapdoor open. She’d bruised one shoulder in the fall into the straw below, but she was now at the door that led to the brew house and the armorer’s shed. And those areas, she thought, would be safe, deserted for several hours to come.
She eased the door open, then froze, heart lurching at the sight of a man seated on an upturned barrel in front of the armorer’s lean-to, his back to where she stood. She held her breath, not daring to move. But the creak of the door hinges had already been enough to make him turn.
Ector the armorer swore violently, his heavy gray brows drawing together as he recognized Isolde. “Sweet bleeding wounds of Christ! Haven’t you got anything better to do than to come hunting me down the moment I get free of your infernal poking and jabbing?”
The relief that washed through Isolde was so intense she felt momentarily sick. With all her strength, though, she willed every trace either of relief or of fear from her face, willed her voice to be steady and calm.
“How did you get out here? You oughtn’t even to be up from bed, much less out in the cold this way.”
The old man wore only a pair of leather breeches, worn shiny with age, and a threadbare tunic. He seemed, though, to feel no trace of cold, despite the chill sharp enough to raise gooseflesh on Isolde’s arms.
“How?” Ector jerked his head at a wooden crutch that lay on the ground at his feet. “Walked, didn’t I? Thought I might get a bit of peace after listening to half a hundred men moaning and groaning and farting in their sleep all night long. Might have known it was too good to last.”
Isolde swallowed. “I’d better have a look at your foot. See how the wound is coming on.”
Ector scowled and gave a short, irritable grunt, but he didn’t resist when Isolde knelt on the cobblestones before him and began to unwrap the bindings on his foot.
“This is beginning to look better,” she said after a moment. “How do you feel?”
“Feel?” Ector snorted violently. “Still got a great dirty hole in my foot, haven’t I? Not to mention rheumatics from lying day in and day out on a cold stone floor—and I still want to heave my guts up every time I think about them filthy maggots you put in. Not that there’s much to heave, what with a week of eating the pig-swill that passes for food in that infirmary of yours.”
Isolde started to rewrap the bandages. Her hands were gradually regaining their steadiness, and her voice, when she glanced up at Ector, was nearly her own. “But apart from that, you feel well, do you?”
There was a brief silence, and then, for the second time since she’d known him, she saw a gleam of reluctant humor appeared in Ector’s rheumy dark eyes. One side of his mouth twitched.
“Oh, yes. Apart from that, I’m ready to fight the Saxon army myself with one arm tied behind.”
He broke off as quick booted footsteps sounded on the stones of the passage behind Isolde. Isolde felt herself go hot, then cold. There was no time to try to flee. No time even for a word to Ector, though she doubted whether that would have done good in any case. It was sheer instinct that made her duck behind Ector into the armorer’s shed—instinct, rather than any hope she might escape discovery that way. If the man approaching was Hunno, Ector would tell him where she was. He had no reason not to speak—and every reason to stay in favor with Marche and his guards.
The interior of the shed was dark, the central brazier silent and cold. The walls were hung with the hammers and sharpening tools of Ector’s trade. Isolde stood near the entrance and heard the man’s voice, just outside.
“My lord King Marche’s orders. We’re to find the lady Isolde. You see any sign of her out here?”
Not Hunno, but another guard. Hunno must have discovered her absence and alerted some of his fellows. The silence before Ector replied seemed to go on for an eternity. Isolde waited, and was distantly surprised, now that the moment of discovery had come, to find that she wasn’t afraid. If she felt anything, it was anger that all she’d done had gone for nothing.
Through a chink in the shed’s rough slatted walls, she could see Ector turn his head slightly, frowning, rubbing his ear with one big, callused hand before he spoke.
“The lady Isolde?” he repeated. Slowly, he shook his head. “No, not a sign of her—nor anyone else till you came along.”
“You sure? You’ve seen no one at all?”
Ector grunted, thin shoulders twitching irritably. “Last I checked I wasn’t blind. There’s been no one. And what would the lady Isolde be doing out here at this time of day, anyway?”
The guard didn’t answer that. Instead he asked, his voice edged with sudden suspicion, “And just what are you doing out here yourself at this hour?”
Ector snorted, and Isolde could picture his scowl. “Think I was appointed king’s armorer because I know how to whistle? There’s a sight to be done with this new threat from the Saxons they’re talking of. Came out here to work. Which I’ll do, if you’ll let me get on with it in peace.”
When the roaring in her ears subsided, Isolde was still standing pressed up against the shed’s outer wall, and Ector was in the doorway, his bent, wiry frame outlined against the pale morning light outside.
“You can come out now. He’s gone.”
Slowly, Isolde followed him out of the shed, Ector leaning heavily on the wooden crutch, hopping to keep the injured foot off the ground and swearing under his breath when toe or heel brushed against the cobblestones. With another grunt, he lowered himself back onto the barrel and sat, arms folded across his chest, head tipped slightly back and the injured foot extended. Reaction had begun to set in, and Isolde couldn’t, at first, have spoken. Then she drew in her breath and met Ector’s dark gaze.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
Ector was silent a long moment, his eyes steady on hers. His face looked in this early gray light like an image carved in one of the weathered god-stones that stood on the moor. Then he shook his head. “Whatever chance it is I’ve just given you, lass,” he said, “I hope you’ll put it to good use.”
Book II
Chapter Fifteen
IT WAS THE FLARE OF light that woke her. The light, and the man’s hand, heavy and hard, clamped over her mouth. The hand was rough, smelling of onions and dirt and sweat, and Isolde’s stomach clenched in panic even before she opened her eyes, even before memory swept back and she remembered fully why she should be afraid. Instinctively, she twisted, struggling to break free of the man’s grasp, kicking, trying to lash out, but she found she couldn’t move. Her hands and feet were tied, knotted together with something stiff and hard that cut into her skin.
One hand still over her mouth, her captor held her at arm’s length, so that she saw
his face for the first time, and, strangely, her first thought was one of almost dizzying relief. Not Marche.
Not even one of Marche’s guards. This man was fair-haired, broad-built and tall and unmistakably Saxon. Nor did he look hostile. His eyes, fringed with thick, pale lashes and showing pale blue in the glow of the campfire behind him looked curious—and, oddly, a little nervous—but nothing more. Isolde’s eyes moved from him to the fire, and she saw that there was a figure crouched beside the fire’s circle of light. A boy of ten, or eleven, maybe, whose black hair and small, wiry frame marked him a Briton as surely as his companion’s build identified him as Saxon-born.
Struggling to quiet the frantic beating of her heart, Isolde looked from the boy to the man, as the memory of the past several hours returned. First standing in the little yard at Tintagel, dazed with shock at what Ector had done. And Ector saying, “If all you’re going to do is stand there, I might as well give a shout and call back the guard.” Then cautiously making her way to an arched gateway from which she could look in at the great court. And, finally, drawing the hood of her cloak over her head and slipping into a crowd of refugees shuffling out of the stables to take to the road again.
The back of her neck had prickled as she passed out of Tintagel’s gates, under the eyes of Marche’s guard. But no one had stopped her—or even spared her more than a passing glance. And so she’d walked. First as part of the group, and then alone, along the track that led away from Tintagel, across the grassy headland and finally onto the windswept, barren moor.
Toward sunset, she’d found a cluster of trees growing in the shelter of an ancient road-metal quarry. Their branches were bare at this time of year, but they offered some cover, at least, and a shelter from the bitterly penetrating wind. She’d wrapped her cloak around her and been asleep almost at once, too exhausted even to try to eat any of the food she carried.
It was still night, now. The sky was black, without even a hint of the dawn, the stars and faint silvery crescent of a moon still bright.