by Joy Nash
Basket thudding against her thigh, she swerved onto the trail that afforded the thickest cover. It skirted the swamp, disappearing into a heavy fog. No ordinary morning mist, but part of the spells of protection Cyric had woven around Avalon. She prayed her grandfather’s magic would hold.
The mist closed about her like a mother’s arms. She ran until a stabbing pain in her side forced her to draw up short. Another mooring place was just ahead; the Druids maintained several such hidden refuges. If Gwen’s luck held, a raft would be waiting. But she couldn’t risk leading her pursuer to Avalon.
Dropping into a crouch behind a curtain of willow fronds, she strained her ears for the Roman’s footsteps. She let out a long sigh when she heard nothing. Had she eluded him, then, even without magic?
She waited, barely breathing. The birds that had been startled by her passing renewed their morning songs. Even then, she remained motionless a while longer, until she was sure the threat of discovery had passed. Finally, she took a deep breath and rose, murmuring a prayer of thanks to the Great Mother. She made her way through the thick mist to the dock, where two blessed rafts bobbed gently against a mooring post.
“Gwen?”
She shut her eyes and halted, expelling the air from her lungs in one sharp breath. Goddess, not Trevor. Not now. Not when her magic was gone and her mundane senses overwhelmed.
“Gwen? Is that ye?”
What was Trevor doing on this side of the swamps so early in the morning? Belatedly, Gwen realized her haphazard flight had taken her to the edge of his carefully hidden barley field. One of the rafts was Trevor’s; he always kept his craft in this mooring place while he tended Avalon’s crop.
His firm footsteps came up behind her. Constructing a smile on her lips, she turned, her fingers clutching the handle of her basket far tighter than necessary. Trevor was a large man, tall and thick with muscle. Rhys had encountered him on the far northern isles of Caledonia last summer, and had brought him to Avalon at the first frost. Eleri and Siane called him handsome, and even Dera, who was handfasted with Howell and should not notice such things, smiled widely when Trevor came near. Gwen supposed the man was striking. His eyes were a piercing blue. His waist-length blond hair was bound so tightly in its queue she wondered if his scalp ached. His beard and moustache were braided in the northern style, and he wore a silver torc at his neck, the adornment of a chieftain or king. But he spoke so little, as if words were jewels and he a poor man.
“I sought ye afore dawn.” Trevor’s northern burr held no hint of anger. But then, of course, it wouldn’t. Trevor never lost his temper. Never.
“Did ye?”
“Ye were gone.”
“I left early to search for bindweed. ’Tis more potent, ye know, if gathered under the moon, with the flowers open.”
“Ye shouldna be here alone.”
“Ye are alone,” Gwen observed.
Trevor sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, then seemed at a loss as to where to place his hand. Finally, he anchored it on his hip. The pose gave him the look of a disapproving husband. Gwen’s irritation grew, though she knew he’d done nothing to provoke it.
“Cyric forbade your wanderings,” he said at last.
“Cyric need not know.”
“Ah, Gwen.”
The two words communicated a wealth of frustration and reproach. Sudden guilt swamped her. She had promised Cyric she would stay on the isle. It was a promise that had proven impossible to keep. She could not risk shifting into wolf form in the middle of the village common!
“I … I had trouble sleeping.” That, at least, was not a lie. Since her captivity, she’d not slept through a single night.
“Ye could finish Eleri’s pendant. Rhys brought her to us two moons past.”
“I cannot do that at night. It would disturb the village.”
“ ’Tis dangerous, Gwen, wandering outside the mist. What if ye cross paths with a soldier from the Roman camp?”
Trevor had no idea his fear had already come to pass. She didn’t wish him to guess, so she forced a laugh. “The Romans bundle themselves tight in their camp after dark. Their sentries are blinded by their own torches.”
Trevor laid a hand on Gwen’s arm. The unwelcome touch jolted her to the core. “Your safety is important to Avalon. After we are handfasted and the babes come, this need to roam will pass.”
Gwen forced a swallow down a throat suddenly thick with dismay. Trevor might be dull, but he was a good man, loyal and steady. His magic was of the earth, pure and strong. Under his influence, living things thrived—plants, animals, children. She should be glad he wanted her as his wife.
Cyric had asked for the union. And in truth, Gwen liked Trevor. Or at least she had before Cyric announced his wish they should handfast. She knew little about Trevor’s past in the northland, for he did not speak of it, and Rhys would not elaborate. She suspected he’d endured much, for his eyes held shadows. But he was not ruled by them. Unlike Gwen, Trevor had banished his demons. His hand on her arm grew unbearably heavy.
“Do not fear for me.” Her tone was deliberately willful. A man like Trevor did not want a willful wife. “I go where I will. No plodding Roman will catch me, I assure ye.”
She’d thought to annoy him with her defiance; her words summoned an opposite effect. His blue eyes darkened; he leaned close, his palm traveling up her arm to her shoulder. “Ye dinna need to be so strong, lass. Nay with me.”
Sincere affection thickened his accent. For a brief moment, Gwen imagined coupling with him. She’d never lain with a man, but she knew enough of the way between a man and a woman to picture the deed. He would be gentle.
Marcus Aquila would not be gentle.
Great Mother, where had that thought come from?
Trevor’s fingertip drew circles on Gwen’s nape. Her stomach turned to cold lead. Even so, she might have forced herself to smile up at him, if not for her secret. Trevor knew nothing of the wolf; if he did, he would not want her.
“Gwen, I know ye dinna feel for me as I do for ye, but …”
She shifted her basket to her other arm, dislodging Trevor’s hand without seeming—she hoped—too blunt about it. She made a show of squinting at the dawn.
“The sun rises swiftly. Mared will worry when she wakes and I am not there.”
Trevor sighed and stepped back. “I’ll take ye home, then.”
“Nay. Finish your work in the field. I do not need ye.”
“ ’Tis my duty to protect ye.”
“Nay, Trevor, ’tis not. I—”
“Cyric wants us to wed.”
Gwen bit her lower lip. “Aye, I know that well enough. But Trevor … do ye not want a marriage born of love?”
“I do love ye.”
It wasn’t what she’d meant, and Trevor knew it. The man might not be garrulous, but he was no fool.
“I would not make ye happy,” she said gently.
“Let me be judge of that.” When she didn’t reply, he plowed on. “Cyric grows frail. I know the duty of taking on the role of Guardian when he passes weighs heavily on your spirit. I would help ye with that burden if ye would but let me.”
“Trevor, can ye nay see that—”
The screech of a merlin interrupted her words. The bird flew low out of the mist, narrowly missing Trevor’s head.
A genuine smile sprang to Gwen’s lips. “Hefin!”
She extended her arm; the merlin alighted. The bird ruffled its wings and cocked its head, blinking. Hefin was Rhys’s companion, as Ardra was Gwen’s. Her twin could not be far.
“Is my brother in the village?” Gwen asked Trevor.
“Aye, he arrived before dawn,” Trevor said, clearly not pleased to have Gwen’s attention turn from talk of handfasting. “He wasna happy to find ye gone.”
“I imagine he was not.” Gwen sighed and turned her attention back to Hefin. The bird was one of the few animals, other than Ardra, that did not cower in fear of the wolf. The small falcon shared a mag
ical bond with Gwen’s twin, but with her magic dimmed, she couldn’t feel it.
Gwen looked at Trevor. “I would seek my brother alone. Would ye excuse me?”
Trevor’s disappointment was clear, but Gwen knew he lacked the self-conceit for protest. She felt his gaze on her as she climbed aboard one of the rafts. Hefin took wing when she lifted the long pole laid crosswise atop the craft.
Trevor’s outline faded as the mist closed about her. She felt a twinge of guilt at treating him so poorly, but her regret was small compared to her relief at leaving him behind. She inhaled, filling her lungs deeply with damp, fragrant air. Thank the Great Mother, she was free of the man, if only for a while.
It was hard to breathe in the face of such unfaltering decency.
Chapter Two
“Marcus, why do you stare so at that wolf?”
Marcus Ulpius Aquila started at his half sister’s exclamation. The silver wolf figurine slipped though his fingers and fell to the scarred surface of his worktable with a thud.
He swung his head toward the door with a scowl. He hadn’t even heard her enter the smithy. “By Pollux, Bree. Must you sneak about so? You’re disturbing my work.”
Breena snorted and tossed her head. She’d made a valiant attempt to tame her wild russet locks, but the ladylike coils she’d pinned at her nape were already beginning to unravel. Marcus couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Having passed her fourteenth year, his little sister thought she was a woman.
“You’re hardly working. The furnace is cold.”
Marching past him, she peered around the wooden screen that shielded a rumpled bed from the rest of the room. It was the only soft place in a building constructed of stone, slate, and heavy timber. “You slept here again last night, didn’t you? You know Mother hates it when you don’t sleep in the main house. And she’s so fretful about everything these days.”
That was certainly true. His stepmother was with child, more than halfway through her term. The pregnancy had been a shock, both because of Rhiannon’s age—forty—and the fact that she hadn’t carried babes easily, even when young. Breena had been the only child she’d managed to carry to birth, a month too soon, at that. Three other babes had not survived past their quickening.
“I wasn’t sleeping.” At least, not more than an hour or two. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the wolf. “I was drawing. I didn’t want to disturb the household by coming to bed.”
Breena eyed the fallen figurine. “What is it about this wolf, Marcus? Every time I come out here, you have it in your hand.”
“It’s nothing,” Marcus mumbled, scooping up the wolf and setting it on the shelf with its companions. Making animal figurines out of scraps of silver, iron, and bronze left over from more functional items was a hobby of sorts, begun when Breena was young and Marcus was just discovering his passion for working metal. He’d made most of the figures for her.
Except for the wolf. He’d fashioned that piece last spring, upon his return from Avalon.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” The words came out sharper than he’d intended. His habitual good humor was in short supply this morning.
But Breena had never been one to take quick offense. Her smile was suspiciously sly as she held up a covered redware bowl he had not noticed earlier. “I brought you this.”
He eyed the offering with grave mistrust. He’d heard the gate bell ring, but hadn’t thought much of it at the time. “Please do not tell me that’s another of Lavina’s cream puddings.”
Breena set the bowl on his worktable. “Aye, brother, it is. With honeyed figs this time.” She gazed at Marcus thoughtfully. “Do you think perhaps she wants a portly husband?”
Marcus swore under his breath. “Is she still here? Is Mother demanding I greet her?” Rhiannon never allowed him the luxury of avoiding a female visitor.
“Luckily for you, Father took Mother to town to visit Morwenna and her new babe. They were gone when Lavina arrived. I told her you’d gone to town as well, but I’m not sure she believed me—she gave a very hard look across the yard to the forge. If there’d been smoke curling over the roof, she would have marched out here to investigate.”
Marcus rose abruptly. “Why can’t the woman understand I don’t wish to marry her?”
“Perhaps because you haven’t told her?” Breena suggested with characteristic sarcasm. “Really, Marcus, even I had begun to think you were considering the idea. You’re never anything other than friendly to her.”
“What else am I to be? Rude? It’s not as if I dislike her. It’s just that I don’t wish to marry her. She looks at me as though I were her next meal.”
Breena burst out laughing. “Oh, come now, Marcus, don’t pretend to be the shy virgin lad. You know what to do with a woman.” Her tone turned a shade darker. “You and Rhys certainly spend enough time at that broth—”
“Stop,” Marcus interrupted, holding up a hand, as if such a gesture could halt one of Breena’s tirades. “Stop talking now, Bree. I will not discuss brothels with you.”
He frowned. “In any case, one has nothing to do with the other. Brothels are entertainment; marriage is … not. Getting married would change my life.”
“For the better, in my opinion. Ever since Clara chose Owein over you, you’ve barely glanced at a respectable woman.”
Marcus was silent. True, Clara Sempronia had declined his offer of marriage in favor of a Druid handfasting with Rhiannon’s younger brother, Owein. Breena had latched onto the idea that Marcus was still brooding over the rejection, and Marcus hadn’t denied it. But the truth was, he hardly thought of Clara these days. An entirely different woman filled his mind.
He turned away. “I’m not interested in marrying. At least,” he amended, “not right now.”
“Lavina is pretty, and kind, and intelligent. You could do far worse.” She stuck a finger in the bowl and brought a dollop of cream to her lips. “And you must admit, she makes a lovely pudding.”
“Once she realizes I’m not going to marry her, she’s liable to leave out the figs in favor of belladonna,” Marcus grumbled.
Breena laughed and pushed the bowl toward him. Marcus ignored it. He watched as his sister crouched to retrieve several balled-up sheets of papyrus he’d thrown on the floor.
“Leave those,” Marcus told her.
She only shook her head as she gathered the trash and pitched it into a barrel he’d reserved for that purpose. “Really, Marcus, the pig barn is neater. How can you think while surrounded by such clutter?”
“I like clutter. Neatness stifles my imagination.”
“I suppose you must be right, since you seem to thrive amidst chaos.”
“Just as you thrive in Father’s library.”
She crawled under the worktable for another crumpled drawing. When she resurfaced, Marcus snatched it out of her hand and tossed it in the air. Breena jumped to catch it, but missed. The wad landed on the ground and bounced under the worktable, coming to rest very close to its original position.
“See? That drawing knows where it belongs, even if you don’t.”
Breena laughed then, and he laughed with her. The vast difference in their preferences for neatness was a long-running joke between them.
Still smiling, she settled herself on Marcus’s stool and smoothed her skirt over her knees. Pulling an uncrumpled sheet of papyrus across the table, she bent her head to examine it.
Marcus gave a sigh of mock exasperation. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Of course. We live on a farm. I always have work to do.”
“Then go do it.”
“In time, brother, in time.” Leaning close, she peered at the drawing of a sword and its accompanying notations. “What’s this? A new commission?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Marcus shrugged. “It’s just an idea.”
Breena’s eyes lit up. She loved his “ideas.”
“Tell me,” she demanded in the imperious tone sh
e’d perfected when she was five years old.
He chuckled. “It’s a new type of sword, Bug.”
She shot him a dark look but didn’t comment on his use of her childhood nickname. “But it’s so oddly proportioned! The blade is too long.”
“It’s not a gladius. Or a Celt sword.”
She looked up, interest kindling in her eyes. “Then what, exactly, is it?”
“A new design. My own.” Her enthusiasm sparked his. He reached for a second and third sketch and arranged them on either side of the first. “This is a gladius,” he said, pointing to the drawing on the left. “It’s short, light, and easily maneuvered. The Celts prefer a longer blade.” He tapped the drawing on the right. “But with length comes increased weight, making the weapon harder to control.”
“But your new sword is even longer!”
“Yes, but it’s thinner as well. That will make it easier to handle. It will have the reach of a Celt sword, but weigh no more than a Roman sword.”
Breena’s brow furrowed as she compared the three designs. Marcus watched her with true affection. His half sister was no typical girl. Her interests were not anything one might describe as womanly. She could read and write both Latin and Greek. When she wanted entertainment, she did not shop for imported silks and shoes. She studied Aristotle and Euclid.
“It won’t work,” she declared after a moment. “The slender blade won’t be able to counter the strike of a heavier blade. It will break.”
Trust Breena to focus on the heart of the matter. “It won’t,” he told her. “Not if I succeed in smelting bright iron.”
Breena’s blue eyes fixed on him. “Bright iron? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s the latest talk at the blacksmith’s collegio. A very hot furnace produces a stronger, brighter iron. The new metal is properly named chalybs, after an iron-working tribe in Anatolia.”
“If this chalybs is so wonderful, why aren’t all swords made of it?”