Wonderful

by Jill Barnett

  Chapter 21

  Drinking was just the thing on Clio’s mind. Not drinking the wind, however, but instead her duty to provide her own bride ale.

  Bride ale was supposed to be special—a gift to the wedding guests from the mother of the bride. She had no living mother, but she certainly had pride.

  What a wonderful idea she had hit upon! Of course she would make the best bride ale ever. She secretly hoped her recipe would finally be the magic one, the one she and so many others had sought.

  What better wedding gift to give her husband and his men? The same invincibility as had the ancient Druid warriors, the ones who had sent Caesar and his legions running back home.

  So she lay on her stomach across her plush new bed, her bare feet waving in the air impatiently as she thumbed through Sister Amice’s notes and recipes.

  Had she told anyone what she was planning, they might have claimed she was counting her eggs as hens.

  She could just hear them now.

  “That Clio! What a silly goose of a girl she was, making her bride ale when no wedding day had yet been set.”

  But Merrick had said they would wed within a fortnight. She had no cause not to believe him. He had not lied to her since his return.

  Besides, she rationalized, he was the one who volunteered the information and in a casual, offhanded comment.

  Chest after chest had been brought to her chamber. She had not known what to look at first. The closest one was filled with lovely cloth, the like of which she had never seen. She almost crawled inside the huge chest as she rummaged through bolt after bolt of fine cloth.

  “There is only one more delay for our wedding,” Merrick had said.

  She remembered thinking to herself at the time, what was he saying now? She’d been almost impatient while looking in awe at fabrics so sheer and thin that she’d felt as if she were looking through the precious window glass at a cathedral.

  “Wedding?” She’d paused. Did he say wedding? She’d poked her head out and asked, “Our wedding?”

  Merrick had just disappeared around the entrance to the solar with the master builder running at his heels.

  She’d dug her way out of the chest and stood quickly, slapping her hair from her face in time to see the top of his head disappearing down the stone stairs.

  “Merrick! Wait!” She’d run to the staircase. “What thing is delaying the wedding?”

  But she’d gotten no response. He had disappeared, called away by the master builder.

  Once again.

  So now, as she lay on the bed, she propped her chin in her hands and scowled, thinking of the last few days. She had not seen him since she’d spied on him from the battlements.

  She was beginning to wonder with no little irritation if she should disguise herself into a stone brick. Or a bucket for the new wells. A guard for the portcullis or the builder’s drawings for the bridge spanning the wider moat.

  Then she would have more of Merrick’s attention. And she needed his attention if she was to pry some more of those wonderful kisses from him.

  But after a moment her annoyance just drifted away. She should be more tolerant, more understanding. If for no other reason than to repay him for his kindness to her, his care and his gifts.

  Sighing, she glanced back down at the notes lying on the bed before her. Within a few short lines she read where the good sister had written of Trefriw and the chalybeate, which Sister Amice translated as special spa waters of Wales that were rumored to have healing properties.

  Spa waters? Healing properties?

  She quickly turned a few more pages and found another suggested ale recipe. She read the ingredients slowly. When she was done, she raised her bead and tapped a finger thoughtfully against the small cleft in her chin.

  A moment later a small frown line appeared in her brow. She began to chew on her lower lip and nervously twisted her mother’s ring on her finger. Her expression changed quickly, in a mere snap of the fingers. Her look became dovelike. Peaceful.

  Then she smiled. My, my, my, she thought. Perhaps it was a good thing her betrothed was so very busy.

  Merrick rode with a few men toward the coast. Roger was beside him, having no trouble keeping pace with Merrick’s hard riding atop the best horse he could get saddled quickly.

  After riding Aries and the Arab, the poor beast beneath him seemed a puny excuse for a mount. Had Merrick had the Arab horse, he’d have caught Clio by now.

  “Why the hell did you give her a wagon?” Roger asked.

  “I don’t know.” Merrick mentally called himself every kind of fool. The truth was he had given her the specially ornamented wagon as part of her bride-price. He had heard that ladies adored such things. He wanted to please her.

  At the time he had been remembering how her body glistened in bath water while her defiant expression dared him to look at her. Even burying himself in the castle renovations for days had not driven the image of her from his heated mind.

  He had been thinking with no sense, but with his nether head. He did not know whom he was angrier with, Clio or himself.

  From the corner of his eye he caught Roger’s stare. “After being shot with a Welsh arrow I wrongly assumed that she would not be stupid enough to take off alone again.”

  “Alone? I thought that Welsh hag was with her.”

  “Aye. ’Tis the same thing. The old woman is mad.”

  “I’ve seen that old woman. She winked at me, blinking one black eye. I tell you, it scared the bloody hell out of me. I wasn’t certain if she was flirting or giving me the evil eye.”

  “You sound like that fool monk Dismas.” Merrick remembered when Clio was ill, he had seen that hint of intelligence and lucidity in those black eyes of Old Gladdys’. And there was that pot of salve, which had healed Clio so swiftly she had spent a good week causing him more trouble. “I think the woman is harmless.”

  “Harmless? Hell, Merrick, all she has to do is wink once and she could scare off even the Devil himself. Considering that, I suspect Lady Clio is safe with the hag.”

  Merrick wouldn’t believe Clio was safe until he could touch her and see for himself. He kept picturing her running from those men, the arrow, the blood, and hearing her scream.

  The memory just made him spur his mount harder, up and over a hillock and down a broad valley that looked out over the bay. He rode as hard as he could, getting every ounce of speed from the horse.

  He was across the valley in no time and cantering down toward a brown ribbon of road that cut through the coastal cliffs. He caught a flash of red and slowed his mount. He reined in.

  There, on the road below, was a lumbering red wagon shaped like a huge sausage. The driver was dressed in black robes and had a white dandelion fluff of hair that bounced in the breeze like carded wool.

  Strapped to the wagon were what looked like huge water barrels. As the studded wagon wheels with their golden paint and ornately carved spokes rolled over the road, dirt and dust clouded up behind it, and all the way up on the ridge, he could hear the barrels banging like Celtic war drums against the wagon’s hollow side.

  In his anger, he hoped Clio was safely inside, getting a pounding ache in her head from the racket. He stared down at it and almost laughed at the image. There were so many water barrels it looked as if the poor oxen were pulling all of Cardigan Bay behind them.

  Roger rode up and reined in, cursing him for a fool. “You’re going to kill that poor beast you’re riding.”

  “No,” Merrick said through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to kill this horse.” He drew his sword and used it to point down at the wagon, where a small and familiar blond head had just poked out of the wagon’s window. “If I kill anything, Roger, it will be her.”

  Chapter 22

  It did not take all of her wits for Clio to know that she was in trouble again. She clung to the wagon window and just stared out toward the east.

  The way Merrick and his men were bearing down on them gave her a
small idea of what his enemies must face. Red Lion pennants waved in the sea breeze like flags of warning. Merrick rode hard, so swiftly he was halfway down the hillside, a good five lengths ahead of his men. You could not miss the bright bloodred lion on his surcoat. His cape billowed out behind him like dark wings and made him look like the Devil himself riding out of hell. The ground shook with the thundering sound of horses running over the low coastal hills as if they had wings on their hooves. Dust clouded up behind them and shouts from their riders pierced the air like barbaric battle cries.

  Clio looked out the wagon window toward the driver’s box. Even Old Gladdys—who had more mettle than Eleanor herself, now the queen mother—didn’t test the patience of Lord Merrick and his troops. She reined in the ox team with some Welsh babble before Clio could lean farther out the window and order her to do so.

  Merrick rode straight toward Clio. At the edge of the coast road, he reined in. Before the mount had stopped, he leapt off and strode toward her, his look as black as the cape he wore.

  She was half-hidden behind a huge water barrel with a plugged top that had taken both Old Gladdys and her a good hour to roll and grunt and stuff inside the wagon. Altogether that day, the two of them had gathered ten full barrels of spa waters, enough to brew the bride ale for the wedding of a queen.

  Chewing her lower lip, she peered over the splintered edge of the barrel. Merrick was not a happy man.

  He tore open the door with such force that the wagon rocked. The door slammed against the side of the wagon and Clio flinched. Her arm slipped and her elbow hit the barrel; it wobbled and the top loosened and tilted.

  A small bit of water sloshed over the barrel rim. Merrick reached out and steadied the rocking barrel with the flat palm of one of his huge hands.

  He was silent, pointedly so. He just stood there with his arm braced against the barrel until it stopped wobbling.

  Meanwhile he looked at her like a dog who had a cat treed.

  His brawny body filled the doorway. He was breathing as if he had been running hard.

  ’Twas a sight, for sure.

  She stared at his face. Odd, she did not know someone’s jaw could be clenched that tight. She would wager his teeth ached.

  “Get out.”

  She chewed her lip for a moment longer, weighing her slim options. She raised her chin and looked at him, then said, “I don’t think so.”

  She settled back against the soft leather seat back and spent an inordinate amount of time brushing imaginary wrinkles and dust from her gown. After all, she was most likely safe; the barrel was a bit of a shield.

  He stuck his big black head inside the carriage and bellowed, “Tell me, woman! Do you sit up in your solar and plot these fits of defiance to test me?”

  “What fits? I do not know what you are talking about.”

  “This … This … nonsense!” Merrick waved his arm around in the air as if she should understand exactly what he was speaking of. “God’s feet and hair!”

  She stuck her nose in the air. “You are swearing, my lord.”

  “I know.” He glared at her, gripping the top of the door rim with white knuckles. “It feels damn good, too.”

  She turned away and looked out the other window, wondering what he would do next. She could not have more obviously ignored him.

  After a moment she could hear the whispers of his men, the shuffling of horses, and Sir Roger’s pointed whistling.

  “Clio.” Merrick’s voice was sharp and clipped and strained when he said her name. ’Twas so very different from the tone he had used when he had kissed her softly and with such warmth and tenderness. She knew he could be tender, and because of that she believed he would not harm her.

  She turned her head very slowly; her eyes met his for a flash. Something passed between them that was strong and elemental and made her belly flip-flop. Her heart sped up and she found herself breathing harder.

  Strange, since she had not been running either.

  But as she watched him, waiting for him to make the next move, she could see there was nothing tender in the manner of the man who stood before her. He tore his angry gaze away and drove a hand impatiently through his hair.

  He began to pace in front of her, locking his hands behind his back as if he needed to keep them from encircling her neck and squeezing hard.

  His anger seemed to be like a live thing. His neck was a deep dark red, just as her father’s had been when she had been banished from court by Henry’s angry queen, Eleanor.

  Merrick paced faster and faster, his long strides turning more stiff and his manner growing more agitated with each step he took.

  He spun around and stopped suddenly, then he was filling the doorway. “Do you not understand what you have done, woman?” His loud words bounced like thunder in the close confines of the wagon interior.

  “You needn’t shout,” she said in the same arrogant and touchy tone that had always confused her father when he was angry. “I have ears. I can hear you, my lord.”

  “Do you? I don’t think you can hear me. Otherwise you would not keep disobeying my orders.”

  She tried to look thoughtful and intelligent. She kept her voice even and calm to counter his bellowing and show that she was the more reasonable and sane party, the one in control. “I do not recall any orders you gave regarding the gathering of spa waters.”

  He just stared at her.

  She gave him a clear and honest look. “How can I have disobeyed an order I never received?”

  Merrick looked as if he was mentally counting … or praying … or cursing. His lips were moving, but no sound came out.

  “You are very angry.” Pointing that out only made his neck redder. “Did you tell me I could not gather spa waters?”

  “Why,” he hollered, “in the name of Saint Swithun’s sword arm, would I ever think that you would be overcome with the sudden need to gather blasted spa waters?”

  “For my ale, of course.”

  “Forgive me,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “But I must have overlooked the dire need for spa water when I decreed that you were not to leave the castle unescorted.”

  “I brought an escort. Old Gladdys.”

  Merrick stared at the old Welshwoman with a look that said he thought she was about as useless as silk pillows on a battlefield.

  Meanwhile, Old Gladdys was winking at him and mumbling in Welsh.

  Sir Roger moved his mount closer to Merrick. “Watch yourself, my friend, or you might grow warts on your nose tonight when the moon is high.” His voice was light compared to Merrick’s dark and gritty one, the same one that had been yelling at her.

  Clio smiled at Sir Roger. He gave her a quick shake of his head, as if to warn her not to push Merrick too far.

  Old Gladdys, who was still sitting on the driver’s box, seemed completely unmoved by anything anyone was saying. She was too busy trying to make them believe she was casting Druid curses. The meaning of Gladdys’ lyrical Welsh words hit Clio and she gaped at her. The old woman had just said something about the warts growing someplace other than on Lord Merrick’s nose.

  Clio felt her skin flush.

  Scowling, Merrick turned back to Clio. “What did she say about me?”

  “I don’t know,” Clio lied. She would not translate those words.

  Old Gladdys laughed wickedly and began to hum a Druid chant. With much drama she turned her black-eyed gaze on Sir Roger and stared at him the way Cyclops eyed a fat, tasty stable mouse.

  Merrick looked from Clio, back to the old woman, then back to Clio, whom he pinned with one of those dark looks of his. “We have four new wells at Camrose. There is plenty of water to use for your ale.”

  “Not Trefriw. “

  He acted as if he had not heard her. She knew he did not understand her, so instead of showing his confusion, he did the manly thing—planted his hands on his hips and proclaimed an edict. “I can see this is a futile conversation. You leave me no choice, woman. I will strip you
of the duties of brewing and hire an ale maker.”

  “No!” She couldn’t stop her panic and didn’t try to hide it with the arrogant tone she used when she was arguing with a man. “I need something to do, Merrick!”

  His expression flickered slightly when she used his Christian name.

  “I must have a purpose. Some purpose.”

  “You do have a purpose.”

  “No,” she shook her head, “I do not.”

  “You will be my wife.”

  “I need something to do!”

  “Believe me, you will have plenty of duties.”

  “But you do not understand. I must have my own purpose!”

  “I believe, woman, that your purpose is to drive me mad!” He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the ground. “Perhaps I already am mad.”

  “You’re starting to shout again.”

  “Do not change the subject.”

  “I am not changing the subject. You were shouting.”

  “Get out of the wagon. Now.”

  She was trying to think quickly, to find another topic with which to confuse him. But her wits left her. And his look was not pretty.

  “Do not make me drag you out.”

  “You would not be so cruel.”

  “I promise you I will drag you out of that wagon, then tie you with that length of rope across my saddle, and make you walk home behind me.” He paused, then moved his face closer to hers and gritted, “That is if I don’t decide to drag you along behind me.”

  “You would not do such a thing.”

  “I give you my word, Clio. What I will do, you will not take any pleasure in. Now get down or you will walk back to Camrose.”

  She sighed, loudly, to show him she still had some small amount of power. It worked. He looked annoyed.

  “I cannot move from the corner with this water barrel in my way.”

  “Crawl over it.”

  “I cannot. Here, wait and I’ll try to move it a little …”

  “Don’t push on it!” He bellowed.

  He reached for the tilting barrel.

  She saw the panic in his eyes. Too late.