Highland Dragon Rebel

by Isabel Cooper

  The next day brought no relief from her tension. The woman owned no animal larger than a goat, certainly nothing a man could ride, and so she and Madoc rode together again. He sat in front this time, shifting the balance of their weight to give Shadow a change. Moiread, not the horseman he was, held on to his shoulders, felt firm, lean muscle shifting beneath armor and clothing, and swore again in the privacy of her mind.

  If she offered this up, she was owed a considerable number of years out of purgatory—perhaps even enough to make up for the rest of her life, both as she’d lived before and as she planned to go on. Had she been a better woman, that idea would have brought her joy. She’d been no such thing for three centuries, and she doubted she’d improve any time soon.

  At least they’d only another day to go. Surely they’d find their needed privacy in that day! If not, Moiread thought she might build the damn inn herself.

  * * *

  The town they reached the next evening was the largest Madoc had yet seen. Salt and fish joined the other odors of human habitation, while seagulls circled the market along with the ever-present sparrows and pigeons. Here in the south, on less rocky terrain, the houses were largely wood, rather than earth or stone as they’d been in Scotland.

  They were properly in England now. The voices of those around them rose and fell differently, and the coins Madoc got in change when he paid for their food and lodging bore Edward’s face rather than Robert’s or Alexander’s. The young king stared up at Madoc from the silver, his hair falling around his shoulders and his gaze sharp. Despite his words to Moiread about kings and the English in general, Madoc shook his head and swept the coins into his pouch as quickly as he could.

  They had plenty of England yet to travel through before they reached the gateway to their next destination. He had best get used to it and simply be glad that they’d come upon a town large enough to have an inn. He was glad for the sturdy walls, for it was raining again, and for the fresh bread that was all he could eat for supper.

  “Bread and water?” Moiread asked quietly, herself spearing a chunk of fish on the end of her knife. “Are you feeling ill, devout, or mistrustful?”

  “None of them, in truth. For what I do tonight, I must spend the day on the simplest fare.” It was a pity, for the fish smelled most tempting, and their meal the previous night had not been either elaborate or ample. “Anything else can muddle the senses in this kind of work.”

  “Ah,” she said. “There’s a reason, then, to get that work done first. Other than a decent sense of what’s important, that is,” she added and grinned.

  Riding in the spring sunlight had darkened her face, which had already been too swarthy for fashion. The contrast made her teeth very white when she smiled and her eyes a very bright blue: a shade that brought to Madoc’s mind the way they’d glowed when she’d been poisoned, but which stirred no comparable fear in him. Sitting across from him that night, she was thoroughly in control of herself and all human.

  Watching her, Madoc yearned to test that control—not to the point of transformation, nor as remotely close to it as she had been in Erskine, but to make that tall, strong body writhe and to hear the teasing in her voice change to the most pleasant sort of begging. He put a hand on hers briefly, as if he were making a point, and said, “In the larger way of things, you’re right, but the rest of the evening feels very important to me.”

  * * *

  There was not much room in their room, but it would suffice for both their purposes. Immediately, Moiread made more by shoving the nightstand against the window. The nightstand was barely tall enough to be an obstacle, but she doubted they’d get intruders climbing two stories. Similarly, when she barred the door and stood with her back against it, she did so more out of a sense of thoroughness. Outside did not hold the real danger tonight.

  Madoc, barefoot and with sleeves rolled to his elbows, set small silver candlesticks on the floor, then placed a pure white candle within each. Between them, he spread a white cloth and a square of fine parchment on top of it. He set several vials of ink to his side and a raven quill on top of them.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, looking up at Moiread. The shadows fell across his face, blurring his features.

  “Aye,” she said and loosened her sword in its sheath. Reprisal usually wasn’t physical, but Moiread remembered her sister-in-law’s tales of an angry wizard sending demons through thin air to strike at her. One never knew in these matters.

  She watched Madoc light the candles and sniffed the sweet, light aroma of beeswax. Resin and cloves soon mingled with it as he un-stoppered the first vial of ink and, with quick, neat gestures, drew the first lines of a pentagram on the parchment. He began to chant too. Moiread’s magical knowledge left out many of the words he used. Some were Latin, but others were not, and she didn’t think Cathal would recognize them either, familiar as he was with Arabic.

  Blue ink came next, then silver. The scratching of the pen fell into rhythm with the chanting. Power tingled along Moiread’s spine, and her hand tightened on her sword.

  Madoc sat back finally and laid down his pen. Slowly, carefully, he took the most ornate of the amulets from the pouch at his belt, placed it squarely in the center of the parchment, and uttered one final long word.

  With that, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the ground.

  * * *

  Hanging in blackness, weightless and bodiless, he watched images form and dissolve in front of him. None were clear; dense fog seemed to surround everything, and the shapes were stretched and distorted, seen through the medium of Beings not used to fitting their sight to human limitations.

  John, killer for pay, handed out the replicas to the men who were mostly dead now. They joked, slapped backs, and talked about what they’d buy with their payment. A few looked leery of the talismans, and the others mocked them for it.

  A man passed the lot of cheaper amulets to John. The fog didn’t let Madoc see his face clearly, but his tone and gesture both were impatient. “Hire whoever you need. This should be adequate,” he added and set a pouch of money on the table between them.

  In Erskine, John poured poison into two glasses, then slipped out the kitchen door, shucked the robe, and bolted for the edge of town.

  The world began to draw Madoc back to it, and he fought against the pull, holding on to the darkness with all his strength. There were more answers here, if he had the will to find them.

  The patron held up the original amulet. Now Madoc glimpsed dark eyes and hair, as well as thin lips. “You’ll need to follow them. Take this token… ’Twill make it a simpler task.”

  Then the patron stood at a workbench. Candles blazed in the pentagram surrounding him, and blood flowed into its lines. The headless black rooster lying outside the shape eased Madoc’s momentary horrified suspicion. Still the man’s face was blurry, but he wore a sleeveless white robe, such as rites often required, with a low neckline, baring a wide ring of scarred flesh that circled his throat. The outlines were unclear there too, but the scar itself was definite.

  The man held up his work and smiled.

  Perhaps there was more, but Madoc knew he couldn’t see it. With the last of his energy, he spoke the words that dispersed the spell harmlessly, thanked and dismissed the forces aiding him, and they cast him back onto the inn floor.

  The first things he saw were Moiread’s eyes. She knelt next to him, but made no move to touch him at first. “Back?”

  “So I believe,” Madoc said, trying to stand and finding his body heavy as lead.

  Moiread’s arm was at his back then, and he was not too proud to lean on it. “You look wretched.”

  “And you’ve the sweetest tongue of any girl I’ve met,” Madoc replied, laughing weakly. “In truth, I’d not tried that with stone before, nor with anything that was itself magic. It cost more than I had expected.”

 
“Aye,” said Moiread. “I’d like to think you’d have warned me if you’d expected this. Into bed with you now, before my arm gives out.”

  He was only too happy to comply and sank into the deep straw mattress with only one regret. “I’ll not be any good to you tonight, I fear.”

  “Over my life,” she said, “I like to think I’ve learned a wee bit of patience.”

  She stretched herself out next to him, and her presence was almost as welcome as the bed itself.

  Eighteen

  “Smells like dye, even from this distance,” Moiread whispered, her breath sliding over Madoc’s ear like warm silk. A thrill went through him at the sensation, despite his persistent weariness and the deeply unromantic nature of their surroundings.

  Those surroundings, alas, demanded attention. Madoc nodded and stepped away from the fence where Moiread leaned, back into the ring with the horse trader and the gelding he was showing. The horse was taller than Rhuddem had been, and a bit leaner than Madoc would have liked, but not obviously swaybacked or knock-kneed. Until a moment ago, he’d thought that the gelding’s glossy black coat was a sign of decent health.

  He ran a hand along the horse’s neck. The gelding stood calmly for the touch. His temperament at least seemed reliable, a more important matter than usual when Madoc would be riding alongside Moiread. Under Madoc’s fingers, though, the hair did feel a touch stiffer than he might have expected.

  “You can pet him after you buy him,” said the dealer, a lanky man with enormous eyebrows and almost no nose.

  “Let me trot him around,” said Madoc.

  The dealer rolled his eyes, but put a battered saddle on the gelding’s back and an equally worn bridle in his mouth. “Tack’s extra,” he added, to Madoc’s complete lack of surprise.

  Trotting wasn’t bad. The gelding didn’t have the most comfortable gait Madoc had ever felt, but he didn’t stumble, and his wind seemed sound enough. It helped that the ground in the pen was flat, but it was packed dirt, without the soft bark some men put down to disguise lameness. Perhaps the dealer hadn’t heard of that trick; perhaps he didn’t want to risk too much. Being the only horse trader in town would make a man conspicuous as well as give him advantages, and good citizens could be quite vengeful to a dishonest merchant.

  Madoc dismounted, listened again to the horse’s chest, and took a step back to eye his stance. The beast was doubtless older than the dyed coat would suggest and would win no races, but he would serve well enough. “Ten shillings,” Madoc said.

  “Where you’re from, could be,” the dealer replied with a snort. “Twenty-five.”

  “Twelve.”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Thirteen,” said Madoc, rapidly losing patience, “including the tack, and I’ll not take soap and water to the poor painted beast until we’ve left.”

  The eyebrows drew down, as did the mouth. “That’s a damned lie.”

  “And would the constables say as much?”

  “They’d more likely want to know where you came by the money,” said the other man, casting a scornful eye over Madoc. There was a fair amount to scorn. Madoc’s clothing had once been good, but after two days of riding, a night sleeping rough, and a battle in the woods, it was more ragged than not. “I might take an interest myself, Taffy, if you don’t take a better tone with me.”

  The slur almost put Madoc’s temper over the edge, almost provoked him to test the truth of the dealer’s statement; yet the man spoke with confidence, and he knew the town. Out of the corner of his eye, Madoc saw Moiread draw herself up, but she made no motion or sound as his eyes locked with the horse dealer’s.

  “Nineteen,” the trader finally said. “With tack. And that’s final.”

  Winning mattered less than being gone in that moment. Madoc dug his purse out of his belt pouch, counted out nineteen shillings, and dropped them into the trader’s outstretched hand, trying to avoid touching the man any more than he could help. He took hold of the horse’s reins and began to lead him toward the gate.

  Falsely jocular, the dealer called from behind him: “Now remember, you ride that beast. You don’t eat it or swive it!” He cackled at his own joke.

  Moiread met Madoc at the gate. She didn’t walk too closely, lest she frighten their new acquisition, but Madoc could hear her plainly when she spoke. “Aye, well, I’m sure he knows the latter from painful experience.”

  * * *

  “You can keep your temper, then,” Madoc teased as he and Moiread re-saddled the horses by the bridge leading out of town. “No buildings afire or noses broken. I call that a small miracle.”

  She laughed back at him, glad that he was in a jesting mood again, and comparatively soon. “I manage well enough when I have to, and it wasn’t me he was insulting, was it?”

  “You made no such distinction at Hallfield.”

  “Ah, but we were there for days. I couldn’t have lifted my head among the other men if I’d not fought.” Moiread swung up onto Shadow’s back. She briefly felt odd, and cold, without Madoc pressed against her, but she knew that would pass. Certainly one rider apiece was easier on the horses. “And I wasn’t likely to lose our only chance to buy a horse today thereby.”

  “Among other things,” said Madoc. He caught Moiread’s eye as he mounted, and she knew they both had the same thoughts—that the local lord could be as unsympathetic as his tenant, that they wanted to waste no time explaining themselves to even a fair-minded man, and that they definitely wished nobody to go through the saddlebags. “I confess I’d have been tempted to violence myself, had I been free to follow my own whims.”

  As they rode over the bridge, the horses’ hooves ringing steadily on the stone, Moiread laughed again, but thoughtfully. “Save when I was at war, I nearly always have been,” she said, omitting her childhood and a few of the tasks Artair had set her. “And then I led men, though under higher orders.”

  “Spoiled, some might say,” Madoc said with the same joking lilt as before and the same gleam in his eye when he looked at her.

  “Oh, aye. My nurses should have beaten me far more, and you’ll not find any to say otherwise. If I’d not had Douglas and Agnes to squash me from time to time, I should have turned out far worse, I daresay.”

  “God forbid.”

  Moiread chuckled, but she wondered. She’d come to England as a soldier and a commander. In times of peace, she’d come as a lady, well-mounted and well-clothed, with her father’s coin at her belt and the knowledge that mortal men, unprepared, could do little to her. At the worst, she could always play dead, or transform and fly away. It had never come to that.

  Constraint, in most of its forms, was new to her. She thought briefly of what it might be like to spend every day bowing to it, to know she had as little or less recourse than they’d had with the horse dealer, and to deal with worse than slurs.

  “Weighty matters?” Madoc asked.

  “A bit. Endurance. Rebellion. They’re both easy for me, in the end. Easier.”

  She wasn’t really surprised when he nodded and filled in the rest. “Somewhat easier for you than for me, perhaps. Likely easier for both of us than for them.” Madoc waved a hand toward the town behind them. “That may be one of the reasons for lordship. We’ve time and ability to see further, and decide with those on our side.”

  “That could be,” she said, but she thought it was a question to which she’d return.

  * * *

  As if the horse trader had been a mortal and unpleasant version of the visio dei, Madoc began to notice other similar reactions. Not all the English they met were hostile, and none of those approached the dealer’s crudity, but notes of suspicion and bitterness did crop up, and it was usually Moiread who bore the brunt of them.

  When they met with other travelers, her voice would often draw surly looks from one of the party. At the inn where they spent the n
ight, where little accommodation and many guests forced them to unwilling celibacy in the midst of the general crowd, one of the other patrons picked up his drink and moved across the room once she spoke.

  On such occasions, Moiread’s face was unreadable, and too many eyes on them kept Madoc from speaking a word of sympathy or offering what comfort she might find in his touch. She fell silent more and more in company, and he felt the guilt of it as he had when she’d drunk the poison—that he had taken her from her home and into lands of hostile strangers.

  When they were alone the next day, he managed an awkward apology and was surprised when she smiled easily at him. It was a rueful smile, but one with no great pain in it, as far as he could tell. “I’m the foeman, aren’t I? Kindness would be more of an insult, in its way. We fought well enough to be worth the hating.”

  “And it bothers you not to ride into enemy territory? Or what was, recently?”

  She laughed, shaking her head so that her hair shone in the sun. “I’ve done the same many a time, and nobody’s trying to kill me now. Or, not as an army. And, I think, the further we go into England, the further we’ll get from the master of those assassins, if John hired them at Perth and his master gave him the means.”

  “From his voice, John wasn’t Scottish,” Madoc said. The man hadn’t had any clear accent that Madoc could place. He wished he could have shared his vision, so that Moiread might have been able to weigh in.

  “Not by birth or breeding, perhaps. But if the master got word of our survival after Erskine and then met John in Perth, he couldna’ easily be quartered anywhere else. At least, I’ve heard of no magic that could let a man travel so fast.”

  “Nor have I,” said Madoc. “But I don’t know all the spells there are.”

  “They say, back home, that witches fly in sieves,” Moiread said with a laughing sort of contemplation. “That sounds damned uncomfortable to me. But you make a good argument. Yet it seems more likely that I’m right and we’ve seen the last of these killers, or at least that you have.”