Kiss Across Kingdoms

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Kill him, kill him…!” The crowed was chanting the blood-thirsty demand.

  Sydney waited until the chant died out. Then she lifted her voice. “He’s too useful to kill,” she cried.

  Jeers and sounds of disappointment.

  She waited again for the volume to die before speaking. “I say we put him to work for Mercia, instead of Powys,” she declared. “I name him as my prize for winning for Mercia!” She shoved Alex forward again and tossed the knife away. It skidded and clattered across the stones.

  The noise was deafening as she headed over to the awnings where the two leaders sat. She stopped in front of them, trying to catch her breath. “I believe that Mercia wins the day.”

  “Mercia wins most handsomely, indeed,” Llewelyn said. He did not sound upset about it. There was even a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. His dark eyes considered Sydney closely. “How could we win against such a disarming weapon, my Lady of Mercia?”

  Aethelfreda gave him a polite smile. “You agree to the prize my champion has claimed?”

  “I would be hanged by my toes by your people if I did not grant the prize,” Llewelyn replied, inclining his head in a courtly manner.

  “Then we should return to my chamber to settle the terms of this agreement,” Aethelfreda said, getting to her feet. She waved to Wulfstan, who hurried over and bent his head to hear her over the noise in the square. “There are barrels of ale in the storerooms. Open them. A cup for whoever wants it, for as long as the ale lasts. We should let them enjoy this day.” She glanced at Llewelyn. “Your men should join the merriment, my Lord. They have earned it.”

  Llewelyn nodded toward the arena behind Sydney. “I believe they have decided that for themselves.”

  Sydney glanced behind her. The barrels and branches had been rolled aside and people were everywhere, shouting and talking to each other. Everyone was smiling, even Powys.

  Two of Wulfstan’s lieutenants were making their way through the crowd, a hand each on Alex’s arms, pulling him toward the awning.

  “Bring your man with you, Sunngifu,” Aethelfreda told her. “I want you by my side as we settle this.”

  Alex was hiding a smile. His eyes, though, were dancing with merriment.

  That was when Sydney realized that her prize for winning the fight was a slave of her own.

  * * * * *

  Servants brought Aethelfreda’s big chair in from the town square and arranged it opposite the slightly smaller chair that Llewelyn had spent the afternoon sitting upon, as his captains and Aethelfreda’s filed into the room and formed a loose circle around them.

  Llewelyn had barely lowered himself down onto the cushions, however, when someone pushed their way through the door into the small room, shoving people aside in his haste.

  It was a Powys man, unarmed, red in the face and sweating heavily under his cloak. He looked very young. “The Northmen are coming!” he cried. “Their sails have been seen on the south tributary of the Afon River!”

  Llewelyn sat up straight. “That will bring them within three miles of Mathrafel,” he said quietly. “How many ships?”

  “Twenty-five, they say.” The boy gulped.

  “That is an invasion force,” Aethelfreda said, just as quietly.

  The silence in the room was eloquent. Sydney could almost hear their fear. She glanced at Alex, who was standing just behind her shoulder as a good slave should. He shook his head just enough for her to see it. He didn’t know any more about this than she did.

  “Where is Rafe?” she whispered so softly even she could barely hear it. It would be loud enough for Alex to hear in this crowded room.

  Again, he shook his head. All the humor in his expression had evaporated.

  Llewelyn bent forward toward Aethelfreda, even though the movement must have pained his injured leg. “My Lady, even though Powys lost today, I would ask you to consider riding with me to meet this new threat. The Vikings know we are vulnerable. They are striking at the very heart of Powys, to remove us from the board so they are free to plunder their way into England itself.”

  Aethelfreda pressed her lips together. “We agreed upon this day of games to avoid the unnecessary bloodshed of our people. If Mercia does not ride with you to meet this threat, then we would be condemning those same people.”

  “We must ride at once,” Llewelyn said. He tried to stand up, then with a grunt, rose on one leg, the injured one resting lightly on the floor. “We must turn back the Vikings first. Then, when our western shore is secure once more, I will meet the terms of the agreement we reached this day. I will present myself to your high king.”

  Aethelfreda nodded at Wulfstan, who turned to face the room. “All hands! All arms! Gather at once! We ride at sunset!”

  “And I will go prepare my own men for the ride,” Llewelyn said. Two of his captains came forward to prop him up and help him walk.

  That was when Alex caught the back of Sydney’s elbow. “Quietly. Ease your way out of the room. We must ride even faster than these two armies,” he said softly by her ear.

  The room was emptying as people hurried away to pack and prepare. They were almost running. Sydney looked at Alex. “To where?”

  “To find Rafe. I think he’s in Mathrafel.”

  “Where the Vikings are sailing to?” Something shifted in her chest, making her heart hurt.

  “Yes, where the Vikings are heading. We must beat everyone there and pull Rafe out from under the war of three kingdoms.”

  * * * * *

  The window in the king’s chamber at Mathrafel gave a view down the valley toward the river that glinted in the distance, the water dancing in the last of the sunlight. Rafe was familiar with the view. Siorus had been staring out the window for the last three hours, motionless.

  Rafe shifted on the king’s chair. It was the only seat in the room. Siorus had released his bonds once they had reached the fortress, for his men guarded the door and the window looked down upon a hundred foot drop to the ditch far below the palisade that protected the hill the fortress was built upon. There was nowhere for Rafe to go.

  “They’re coming, aren’t they?” Rafe said at last. “That is what you are watching. Viking sails heading down the Afon. That’s why you sent the boy galloping to the east this morning. The Vikings are nearly here, weeks before the date you arranged with them.”

  Siorus glanced at him and said nothing. There was a troubled look in his eyes that confirmed Rafe’s guess.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” Rafe asked. “You’ve changed history. You’ve changed the way this was supposed to go.”

  “You and your doctor friend have done some changing of your own,” Siorus pointed out.

  “We were changing it back!”

  Siorus looked at him, startled.

  Rafe got to his feet. He couldn’t sit any longer. “You don’t understand, do you? The changes you have been trying to make to get even with whoever it is has trickled down to the future. That’s where we came from, the future that you made.”

  Siorus gave a small smile. “Then it worked,” he said softly.

  “Not anymore.” Rafe pointed at the window, moving toward it. “They’re here, much sooner than you expected, much sooner that I remember them coming. Now, not even you can guess what will happen next. We’re in a dark time where anything can happen. The future is anyone’s guess.”

  Siorus’ eyes narrowed. “I do not care how the future changes, as long as it does change. That will be enough.”

  “Plato should have kicked your ass out of his school,” Rafe raged. “You don’t get how dangerous this is! You have no idea how what you do now will affect the future.”

  Siorus shrugged and turned back to the window.

  Rafe brought the metal cup down on the back of Siorus’ head, as hard as he could. Unlike humans, a blow to the back of the head wouldn’t permanently hurt Siorus at all. He slumped to the floor with a satisfying grunt of pain and grew still.

  “
Your turn,” Rafe told him.

  He put the cup back next to the king’s chair, pulled Siorus’ sword from his belt and headed for the door. He had a whole fortress of Siorus’ men to wade through and no time to waste.

  Chapter Twenty

  Alex rode into the night and all Sydney could do was cling to her mare and follow as best she could. She was not nearly as good a rider as he and Alex could see the night far better than she could.

  They had ridden out of Chirbury as the last of the sunlight was fading. No one had challenged them. It would take more courage than a man had to question the acts of the Lady’s victorious champion and her new slave physician.

  However, the horses could not keep up the frantic gallop forever. Eventually, Alex let them slow to a walk and reached back to draw the mare’s halter forward so that Sydney was level with him.

  “Why do you think Rafe is in Mathrafel?” Sydney asked. They had not had time to discuss anything before leaving the burh.

  Alex pulled a flask up from his belt and unstopped it. “Here, it’s watered wine. The water was boiled so it’s perfectly safe.”

  She grimaced at the flat taste of the water that not even the sharp wine could disguise. It eased her parched throat, though and she was grateful for it.

  “I think Llewelyn’s captain took Rafe,” Alex said.

  “Siorus?” Sydney clarified, pronouncing the name carefully.

  Alex nodded. “Siorus was sent back to Mathrafel in disgrace because he did not support the king’s wish to compete in the games I proposed.”

  “You mean, Siorus didn’t like your idea,” Sydney amended.

  “Either way, the king sent him back home because he was getting in the king’s way. Siorus overplayed his hand. I think he resented my influence over the king so much he took Rafe just to spite me.”

  “He knows about us?”

  “He’s a vampire. There’s not much you can hide from us, remember?” Alex gave her a small smile. “He’s very old and wise as a result. I didn’t realize he was of the blood until he revealed himself.”

  “And he’s got Rafe?” She swallowed. “Would he kill him? Is he that pissed at you?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said shortly. “If he takes his time about it, the Vikings will have them both. I don’t think even Siorus expected them to move against England this soon.”

  “The Vikings will kill them, then?”

  “Or enslave them,” Alex said. He sighed. “Rafe has been through that once already in his life. I would spare him a second time if I can.”

  Sydney bit her lip. “It’s all messed up, now, isn’t it? The future, I mean. The Vikings are here early, the Mercians and Powys have negotiated peace…does anyone know what will happen next?”

  “I don’t think even Rafe remembers it happening this way,” Alex said before coaxing his beautiful white horse into another ground-swallowing gallop, leaving Sydney to follow as best she could.

  * * * * *

  When they were within a mile of the fortress and he could see the lights of the Viking camps on the river to the north, Alex slowed to a walk, then slid off his horse and grabbed the halter. He coaxed Sydney’s mare forward and pulled her to the ground, too, then pressed his hand against her mouth to indicate she should stay silent.

  He bent to murmur in her ear. “It’s a cold, still night. Sound travels too well. Follow me. We’ll circle around the fortress as far as we’re able to. I want to see what is happening there before I decide what to do next.”

  Sydney nodded. He could tell she was very tired by the stiff way she moved and the set of her jaw. She hated making allowances for her human weaknesses in front of him and Rafe, so he said nothing. Instead, he kept half an eye on her as she walked beside him. If she tripped or fell, he could catch her and then argue about leaving her somewhere safe.

  He tied the two horses’ reins to a tree, loosely enough so that they could crop on the grass at their feet. He patted Atiya’s nose affectionately and took Sydney’s hand.

  There was nothing moving in the night. No night creatures, no humans. Like the night Powys had marched into Mercia, the land had emptied of every living thing except the trees, escaping the oncoming army.

  Alex took the warning to heart and began to pick out his steps even more carefully, every sense straining.

  Instead, it was Sydney who spotted the sentries first. She tugged on his hand and pointed. Her human vision had seen the flickering light before he had noticed it. Light was not prey and vampire night vision was not drawn to it the same way a human would spot it as brightness upon an ocean of darkness.

  He bent to speak in her ear again. “Stay here. Hug the ground. You can’t move silently. I’ll check ahead.”

  She bit her lip. He could see that she wanted to argue with him.

  “You’re too tired,” he added. “You’ll lose concentration.”

  She nodded in agreement, her face unhappy. She was a realist, though. She moved carefully over to the nearest tree, lowered herself slowly to the ground and drew her knees up to her chest. Then she wrapped the cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face until only the fine point of her chin was visible.

  Alex squeezed her shoulder in gratitude, then made his way forward in the dark. Already, the sky in the east was starting to lighten. It would be dawn soon and he knew without doubt the Vikings were only waiting for enough light to attack the fortress.

  They had strung sentries out around the fortress in a loose circle, each one a dozen yards apart. It was an early warning system. The sentries would send up an alarm if anyone tried to sneak out of the fortress before sunrise. Individuals might be able to slide through if they were very good at moving across open ground in the dark, while armed men with their jingling mail and weapons would most certainly be spotted.

  Alex completed enough of a circuit around the fortress to be reasonably certain the Vikings had fully encircled it. Then he made his way back to where he had left Sydney, thinking hard. Dawn was painting the sky orange over by the horizon, while the rest of the sky was changing from inky black to a lovely indigo and fading into dark blue when he finally reached the tree.

  She was not there.

  Tamping down his fright, he bent to examine the ground at the base of the tree. Her boots were clearly outlined in the damp earth. They were not hurried steps she had taken. The trail lead east, back the way they had come.

  Alex backtracked, following her trail, as an early morning mist swirled around his legs and wreathed his head. Soon, he knew for certain what she had done and when the two horses appeared in front of him, parting the misty fingers, he was able to reach for Atiya’s halter with a calm expression on his face. “You went back for the horses,” he said as Sydney bent to offer him Atiya’s reins.

  “I thought you might need a fast escape.”

  Which he might well have done if she had not spotted the sentries in the first place. He pulled himself up onto Atiya’s back, then leaned over and kissed her. “I think that of the three of us, you have been the most effective.”

  “Effective?”

  “You have done more to influence change than anything I might have done.”

  “I did my best not to change anything, until you came along and said we should,” she pointed out. “Where are we going, anyway?” she asked as he turned the horse to the north.

  “There is a poor man’s hut, close by the border with Mercia, where we can hide out for the day, far away from the carnage the Vikings are about to deliver. If Llewelyn and Aethelfreda reach Mathrafel today—if they rode through the night as we did—then the fighting will be even more intense and there will be no room for innocent bystanders. Tonight, when the Northmen are either licking their wounds or celebrating their prowess, I will see if I can find a way to sneak into the fortress and find Rafe.”

  They rode for a mile or so before she spoke again. “What did you mean by my influencing events? Were you talking about being the Lady’s champion?”

&nbs
p; “Indirectly,” Alex said. “You became the lady’s champion because you stood up to the soldiers who attacked you. That took courage.”

  “It took training, which you and Rafe have given me. Twenty years of security work helped, too.”

  “Nevertheless, follow the events backward. The reason you were able to defeat me in the arena in a way that looked convincing and gave Mercia the victory they needed to maintain peace was because my foot slipped. Did you notice what we both lost our footing over?”

  “I was too busy trying to look ferocious and intimidating,” Sydney replied.

  “It was blood,” Alex said.

  “Ugh.”

  “To be precise, it was Tegid’s blood. Cola opened his belly wound with the blow from his shield and Tegid left a pool of blood on the stones, enough for us both to slide through it. The reason he had that wound in the first place was because you fought him off and sliced him open.”

  Silence.

  He glanced at her. Sydney was frowning, working it out for herself. “And I was there to fight Tegid because I had fought off Mercian soldiers in Chirbury and was brought to the Lady’s attention.”

  “Which is far more than either Rafe or I have managed,” Alex said.

  “Are you joking?” she replied. “You wrestled the leaders of two kingdoms and negotiated peace!”

  Alex grinned. “A fact we may all live to regret, yet. We no longer know what will await us when we jump back home.”

  Sydney looked startled, then thoughtful. He left her alone with her thoughts.

  They were close to Bran’s hut when Alex caught the scent of human blood. He halted and held up his hand in warning. Sydney stopped and watched him.

  Alex twisted around, sampling the air, determining a direction. When he had found it, he slid off the horse and headed for the big yew tree standing by itself, spreading shade for thirty feet around its twisted trunk. He bent underneath the canopy and walked silently over to the trunk. On the east side of the trunk a man was sitting with his back against the bark. His eyes were closed and he was softly snoring.