by Anna Elliott
Isolde’s eyes went to his right arm, cradled protectively in the left, and she saw that the shoulder was twisted, set at an angle that must be agonizingly painful.
Hardly, she thought, an answer to prayer. Unless God meant to keep any besides her from dying in the attempt on Tintagel.
At her side, Cabal whined anxiously, and she put a hand on his head. Then she said, “I’ll need help to get the joint back into place. I’m not strong enough to do it on my own.”
She’d performed the operation before, on a few of the men with shoulders or hips dislocated in battle. Usually it took at least two, herself and Hedda working together, to pull the joint back into its socket. And despite his age, Kian’s back and shoulders were as heavily muscled as any soldier’s.
Kian’s eyes opened at that and he scowled. “Help? And just where’s that going to come from out here?”
Isolde knew his anger was for himself, not for her, and so she said, steadily, “I’ll have to send Cabal back for Brother Columba, that’s all.”
Kian’s brows rose in disbelief, but he was in too much pain to argue. Isolde turned to the big dog beside her and spoke in a low voice, holding his brindled head between her hands. Then, when Cabal had started off at a gallop, covering the ground in easy, loping bounds, she slipped the cloak from her shoulders and used it to blanket Kian, who had started to shiver convulsively.
Isolde, looking down at him, felt a prickle of fear slide down her spine. She was not at all certain, in fact, that Cabal would know what to do—or that Brother Columba would guess at what the dog’s appearance meant and follow him back here.
How long they’d sat in silence she didn’t know, when Kian spoke again. “Not much chance I’m going to help you get into Tintagel.”
“No.” Isolde looked out over the gray, barren landscape. “No. I’ll have to go alone.”
Kian’s eyes snapped open. “Go alone? Have you gone out of your head?”
A series of memories flickered before Isolde, one by one, like shadows cast on a fire screen. Marche, chill and triumphant, accusing her of sorcery in the king’s council hall. Marche, his face swollen and mottled with fury, standing over her in Tintagel’s prison cell. Herself, lying in the great carved bed with its tapestried hangings—
She stopped herself, looking out at the smudge of rosy dawn on the horizon to clear the memory from her mind.
“Perhaps,” she said finally. “But I don’t see what other choice we have. I’ll have Cabal with me. And if you give me your knife, I’ll be armed, at least.”
Kian’s brows shot up again, but after a moment he fumbled with his good hand for the knife at his belt. “You know how to use this?” he asked as he handed it to Isolde.
Isolde grasped the hilt, and for answer sent it with a sharp flick of her wrist flying toward a tree that was growing out of a cleft in the rocks. It struck the gnarled trunk with a solid trunk and hung, quivering. She looked down, then in spite of herself smiled faintly at the look on Kian’s face.
“I can juggle, too,” she said. “Three balls at a time.” Then she added quietly, her eyes steady on Kian’s, “I’ll get him back for you. If he’s still alive.”
There was a long moment where neither of them spoke, and then, slowly, Kian’s tight mouth relaxed a fraction and he jerked his head.
Isolde helped Kian to lie back and did her best to stabilize his right arm with his leather belt so that the injured shoulder wouldn’t be jarred during the wait. Gentle as she tried to be, Kian was unable to keep back a groan, and Isolde said, “It won’t be long, now. We haven’t come that far from Brother Columba’s. He and Cabal should be here soon.”
Kian grunted. “I’ll do. No one’s ever died of pain—you learn that much in battle.”
Isolde fixed her eyes on the strip of windswept land that marked the route to Tintagel, bleak under a leaden sky. “And were you ever frightened?” she asked after a moment. “Before the battle began?”
“Frightened?” Kian gave a short laugh. “Every time. Trick is never to let it show. Convince the enemy you’re not afraid, and you start to believe it yourself.”
ISOLDE STOOD IN THE SHADOW OF a crag on the headland, looking across the causeway that led to the gates of Tintagel. Cabal had, after all, returned to them, with Brother Columba following as closely as he could behind. She’d left Kian in Brother Columba’s care, with his face still gray and sweat-sheened, but with the shoulder pulled back into place, the arm strapped with linen bindings to his side.
Between her and the causeway lay the encampment of soldiers, the fighting men of the councilmen’s armies that couldn’t be housed within Tintagel’s barracks. All was quiet, though here and there campfires burned among the shadowed war tents and from time to time the salty night wind carried a drift of laughter or a burst of song. The castle walls stood out, black and jagged as broken teeth against the black of the sky.
And Marche, so far as she knew, was somewhere inside.
Isolde started to take a step forward. And couldn’t. Cold sweat was prickling on her neck, and she couldn’t move so much as a muscle. She thought, I can’t do it. The sun will come up and the soldiers in the encampment will waken, and I’ll still be here. Because I can’t take another step toward those walls.
And then, soft at first, then rising, she heard the voice.
I STAND AT THE KING’S BEDSIDE, looking down. He’s still as death, though not yet quite gone. Soon, though. His skull is splintered, the gray tissue within laid bare.
I’ve thought of this moment for years. Whispered, again and again, what I would say to Arthur as I watched him die. But I feel…empty. A cruel trick of the gods, that when the gnawing canker of hurt is finally gone, there is a void left behind that aches as much as the wound.
The gray, puckered lids of the man before me flicker, then open, and eyes, black as my own, slowly focus on my face. A spasm crosses Arthur’s brow, and his throat works.
“Morgan…for God’s sake…I raised the boy. Loved him. Made him my heir. What more could I have done?”
For a moment, the furious hurt blazes again, burns bright as ever before. But then it dies to a heap of gray ash. “Nothing,” I say, my voice flat. “There was nothing more.”
FOR A LONG MOMENT AFTER THE final words died away, Isolde sat still, one hand clutched tight on Cabal’s collar. She wondered briefly whether the voices of the past would always come to her this way. Morgan’s voice again, though again the words were gone.
And yet she felt oddly steadied, all the same. Slowly, Isolde pushed the sweat-damp hair back from her brow and looked up, toward the towers of Tintagel, rising against the night sky and the moonlit sea. No other choice, she thought, but to go on.
ISOLDE LOOKED UP THROUGH THE DRIFTING mist at the castle’s looming gate, at the wooden sentry boxes that dotted the battlements and the occasional guardsman passing on patrol along the top of the walls. If she had had only herself to consider, she might simply have walked openly up to the gates and demanded that the sentries take her to the council, come what might.
But I can’t, she thought. Before all else, I’ll have to try to find Trystan and get him free. That way, whether she succeeded or failed with the council, survived or faced the burning she’d escaped before, Trystan might have his own chance at escaping with his life.
Cabal stood at her side, head cocked, ears raised and alert. Isolde rested a hand briefly on the big dog’s neck, then motioned him into position in front of the gate. Her palms were slick with sweat and her heart was beating hard, but she drew breath, scrubbed her hands across the folds of her cloak, then gave Cabal the signal he’d been taught to mean “alarm.”
There was a brief moment’s pause. And then Cabal threw back his head and howled, loud and long, the sound rending the night stillness, rising eerily above the sounds of the wind and the waves. He howled again…and then again. And then, slowly, the heavy wooden gate swung open and a man stepped out.
The sentry was one of Con’s own
men, though Isolde didn’t know his name. A younger man, with freckled skin and a shock of fire-red hair.
“It’s the king’s hound,” Isolde heard him call back to companions still inside the walls. “There, now, good fellow,” he said to Cabal. He held out a hand, palm up. “What are you doing out here, hey?”
Cabal, recognizing a friend, snuffled into the guardsman’s outstretched hand, but he put back his ears and dug his paws into the ground when the soldier tried to pull him toward the gate.
“Come on, then. You don’t want to be shut out here.”
Cabal gave a low growl, and Isolde heard the guard let out an exasperated grunt. “Come out here and give me a hand with him, will you?” he called over his shoulder. “He won’t budge.”
Grumbling, a second guard moved through the gate. “The king’s hound? What’s he doing out there, then?”
“How do I know?” The first man was still bending over Cabal, trying to pull him by the collar. “Come on. We can tie him up inside and keep him with us for—”
The rest was lost to Isolde. She’d slipped through the half-open gate. Cabal would be safe. Though now, she thought, I’m entirely on my own.
Chapter Twenty-seven
HER HEART POUNDING HARD ENOUGH to make her vision blur, Isolde reached the foot of the north tower’s stone staircase and looked around a corner at the corridor that held the prison cells. Two guards were on duty, one on either side of the cell door, and a rush of relief swept through her. Trystan must be alive. He must be, she thought, or they’d not have posted a guard.
But she had still to get past that same guard. Slowly, Isolde retraced her steps, climbing to the top of the stair. Then, leaning against the cold stone wall, she pressed her eyes briefly closed. She had, somehow, to make the sentries leave their post, but her mind was a useless blank. She could scream, of course, as she had before to get free. But that wouldn’t keep the guards away long enough. Then, from the stables to her right, came the soft whicker of one of the horses, clear in the night stillness, and Isolde opened her eyes.
Isolde pushed open the stable door, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dark. The wooden gates at the ends of the stalls were closed, the stables silent, save for an occasional rustle of straw from shifting hooves, or a sleepy mutter from the travelers and poor folk asleep, as before, on the floor above. She moved softly along the row of stalls, then peered over the wooden gate at the animal within, one of Con’s warhorses, a black stallion with a blaze of white on his brow.
She hesitated, feeling a moment’s compunction. But the horse wouldn’t be hurt, only frightened. And she could think of no other way. She set her teeth, took up the first of the clay ale pots she’d brought from brew house before coming here, and then hurled it against the base of the black stallion’s stall.
Instantly, the great animal reared and whinnied, startled out of sleep by the splintering crash. Isolde bit her lip and threw another pot, then another. The stallion bucked and screamed, kicking out with its hind legs against the back wall, crashing against the stall’s wooden sides as it stamped and tried to wheel round. The other horses were waking, and, infected by the black’s angry fear, they began to buck and scream, too, kicking out and butting against the sides of their stalls.
Isolde heard startled shouts and muffled thuds as the noise woke the sleepers above, but she didn’t wait. Heart pounding, she was out of the stables and pressed into the building’s shadows, holding her breath as she watched the north tower door. All around the great court, soldiers were calling out, shouting, running toward the stables, but she stayed still, eyes still fixed on the tower entrance. It was possible—more than possible—that the prison guards might not respond to the alarm. But she’d done all she could. She could only wait.
After what seemed a lifetime, she saw the two guards emerge, exchange a brief word, then set off at a jog toward the stables, as well. Isolde didn’t let herself stop to think. In an instant, she had slipped out from the shadows and was at the north tower’s entrance, steadying herself on the wall to keep from falling as she ran down the stairs.
ISOLDE LIFTED THE CROSSBAR AND SWUNG the heavy cell door open. The smell hit her first. A sickening, sweet, smoky smell. Like charred meat. The rays of the torches from outside slanted through the open doorway and fell across the man, bound by heavy ropes to a rough wooden chair. Trystan’s arms had been pinned behind him at an angle that made Isolde’s stomach clench. His face was invisible, his head sunk on his breast. His tunic had been torn off him, and there was blood on his chest. And his shoulders—
Isolde shut her eyes briefly, then, drawing in her breath, forced herself to look again. The skin of his shoulders was raw with the raised marks of a whip, crisscrossing the half-healed scars of the earlier wounds. And interspersed with the bloody lash marks were what she knew to be burns, oozing and crusted all around with blackened skin.
She’d thought him unconscious, but at the sound of her involuntary gasp, Trystan’s head lifted, and the blue eyes, dull and bleary, fixed on her face. His mouth was swollen and cut, and when he spoke his voice sounded hoarse, blurred, and almost drunken.
“Isa…what…?”
“Quiet—there’s no time.”
She could still hear the frightened cries of the horses in the distance, and the shouts of men as they fought to get the animals under control, but she knew the guards wouldn’t stay away long.
She knelt beside Trystan and drew out Kian’s knife from the girdle of her gown. Her hands shook, so that it seemed to take an impossibly long time, but at last the ropes binding Trystan’s legs slipped to the floor. Trystan’s head had slumped to his chest again, and he took no notice as Isolde rose and went to work at the ropes about his wrists. Then, when his arms were free as well, Isolde took hold of his arm and shook it, hard.
“Get up. We’ve got to get away from here.”
Slowly, Trystan’s head lifted, and he blinked. Then, gradually, his gaze cleared and focused and he seemed fully to take in the fact of her presence.
“Not…a dream, then.”
He shook his head as though to clear it. Then, more sharply, he said, “Jesus Christ, what are you doing here? You haven’t been hiding in the grounds all this time?”
“No—I got away.” Involuntarily, Isolde’s eyes went to the burn marks on his shoulders, and Trystan’s gaze followed her own. His mouth tightened.
“A branding iron,” he said. “They wanted—Marche wanted—to know how you’d gotten free.” His breathing was still unsteady, and his chest heaved briefly as he fought to control it. Then he went on, speaking between his teeth. “And where you’d gone. I couldn’t tell them. And now it doesn’t matter. Because you’ve returned.”
His voice turned harsh with fury. “Mother of God, why come back? I told you to run—to get away.”
The need for haste was a hard, constant pulse in Isolde’s chest, and at that the control she’d been holding fast snapped and broke on a wave of answering anger. “And leave you here to die for me? Is that what you would have done?”
His eyes, hard and blue, met hers. “Obviously not.”
The breath caught in Isolde’s throat, but she said, shortly, “You make your choices, and I make mine. And I’ve chosen to come back here.” She stopped. “Now, unless you want Marche to get to work on you again, get up. The guards will be back at any moment.”
“Wait.” Trystan swayed as he rose to his feet, his face ashen and his mouth tight with pain, but he caught hold of Isolde’s arm, his grip hard and biting through the sleeve of her gown. “I want you to promise me something.”
His face was beaded with sweat, and he drew a breath before going on. “Once before you gave me a knife—to use on myself as a way of escape. If we’re caught—if there’s even a chance we’re going to be captured again—swear you’ll do the same again. Leave me the knife—then run. Take whatever chance you have of getting yourself free.”
Isolde’s eyes moved once more over the lash wounds on h
is back, the oozing burns, the score marks of ridged flesh left on his wrists by the rope. She’d accomplished not even half of what she’d come to Tintagel to do, and she’d come too far to turn back or run away, whatever happened after this. But she nodded and drew Kian’s knife once more from its sheath. She pressed the tip of one finger over the blade, then, with the bead of bright crimson that had sprung up, made the ancient mark of binding, first over Trystan’s heart, then over her own.
“I give you my blood oath I’ll leave you the knife.”
A blessing, in a way, that he was so far gone in exhaustion and pain. Trystan seemed not to notice that she’d given him only half the promise he’d asked. For a long moment, their eyes met, and Isolde knew the unspoken thought was in both their minds. That these might well be the last words they spoke. Trystan started to speak, then stopped and raised a hand as though about to touch her. Instinctively, Isolde stiffened, and the moment was broken. Trystan drew in another ragged breath and turned toward the open doorway.
“All right. Let’s be gone.”
ISOLDE PUSHED OPEN THE HEAVY WOODEN door with a creak of hinges that sounded like a scream in the still, darkened corridor. She held her breath, but neither footsteps nor alarm came, and she pushed the door open entirely, so that a breath of the cool, faintly spicy scent of herbs washed over them from the darkness within.
“Wait a moment. I’ll get a lamp lighted.”
The room must not have been touched since she’d fled Tintagel. Isolde fumbled a moment in the darkness, but the small oil lamp was where she’d left it on the long wooden counter, flint and striker ready to hand. She lighted the wick, and the room sprang into view all around them. The hanging bunches of flowers and herbs, the stacks of clay dishes and neat rows of pots and jars.
She had bolted the prison cell behind them before leaving the north tower, and, miraculously, they’d met no one on the journey across the darkened courtyard and through the halls to her workroom. With luck, Trystan’s escape would go undiscovered until morning, at least.