by Grace Martin
I moved away from the chimney, scooting across the tiles until I was sitting next to him. ‘You haven’t hurt me,’ I said softly. ‘It was the Empress. She was filling my head with lies.’ I put my hand over his fist and soothed the fingers until they relaxed. ‘What if there’s something wrong with me, though? What if I’m broken? What if I won’t ever be able to let you touch me?’
‘Then I don’t care,’ he replied stubbornly. ‘I love you, as you are today, and if that means I can’t touch you, then I can accept that if I have to. I’ll love you all my life. No matter what, Emer.’ He looked up from where both my hands were entwined with one of his, my fingers small and fine against his broad palm. The power in his gaze nearly flattened me. It struck me in the heart.
‘Then I think I love you too, Caradoc.’
He closed his eyes and bowed his head like he was praying.
‘Kiss me, Caradoc,’ I said, feeling as bold as brass, even though I knew it wouldn’t last long. ‘I just said I love you, don’t you think I deserve a kiss?’
‘Not if it will frighten you.’ I still had a hold of his hand. I caressed the palm and lowered my head to plant a kiss in it. His other hand came up to hover over my hair. He sighed, a little unsteadily and whispered, ‘I wish I could show you how beautiful it is to love.’
My heart pounded. ‘Then show me,’ I said, suddenly reckless. ‘Show me. Take away my fear. Kiss me, Caradoc.’ I had already started to breathe faster.
His hand lowered to thread his fingers through my hair. Then, to my surprise, he turned to lay back against the tiles. ‘You kiss me, Emer, if you want to.’
I had never felt like this in my life before. He lay there, looking up at me and smiling. There was nothing more appealing than that smile. I leaned over him and laid a hand on his chest. He looked relaxed, but his heart was pounding and somehow that made me feel better. I lowered my head and kissed him, the small tendrils of hair that curled loosely around my face falling against his cheeks. One of his hands came up to stroke my hair, the other trembled as it caressed my arm lightly.
Never in my life before. Never before had my heart pounded with desire, never before had I yearned to press myself close against someone else, never before did I long to twine myself around him, belonging to him and owning him all at once. Something had woken inside me. I lowered my body to lie against his. Finally, his arms came around me and he kissed me deeply until I was dizzy with pleasure.
I was ready to surrender myself to him there and then as his hands stroked passionately over my body. I whispered it to him with words that trembled over his skin. He buried his face against me for the longest moment and my hands twined in his hair to hold him even closer. Then he pulled away and rose up onto his knees beside me.
I looked up at him and raised my arms languorously above my head, inviting in a way that was instinctive and irresistible. He came back to me for another kiss, another caress until I called forth a cry that seemed to come from his soul. His lips shaped mine one more time, before he drew away again.
‘Not here,’ he said, his chest heaving as he battled against every seductive wile I could imagine, which probably wasn’t many, but they were all sincere.
‘Why not?’ I murmured.
Another kiss. ‘Because I love you. Because the roof isn’t the most romantic place and I want to make this so special for you.’ And another kiss. ‘I want to make love to you in a bed. I want you to be my wife. I want to be able to kiss you in public and hear you whisper that you love me without any fear. I want to look back on tonight when we’re old and grey and remember that I made tonight special for you. As much as I want you, this isn’t how your first experience of love should be, a frantic tumble in the dark with no thought but for the pleasure of the moment.’
By then I wanted him badly and I would have let him take me in the centre of the ballroom. I didn’t care about a special place. All I wanted was a special man and that was Caradoc. I whispered, ‘I love you.’
That earned me another kiss and a devastating caress, then he was moving away to sit beside me while he tried to control himself. ‘Then come to me tonight,’ he invited. ‘Come to my room at midnight, when the Princess and Sir Cai are gone and the celebrations are over.’
‘Why don’t you come to my room?’ I asked.
‘Because I want you to come to me of your own free will, and if you get too scared then I don’t want you to feel like I’m forcing you.’
‘Oh, Caradoc.’ And I’d thought I was recovering some of my composure when he went ahead and said things like that.
He gave me his hands and drew me into a sitting position. My silk gown was probably in ruins and it was going to take magic to bring it back to a decent state. I ran my hands over the dress to fix it. Caradoc helped, smoothing his hands over the fabric and sending magic through it to make it beautiful again. Then again, he smoothed his hands over more than fabric and he had a wicked look in his eye that made us both chuckle. Our hands tangled and he leaned forward for one last kiss.
‘I’ll never forget tonight as long as I live,’ he whispered, his lips still close to mine.
And then I remembered that I was supposed to be running away with Aine tonight. I sighed heavily.
‘What is it, Emer?’ he asked, his voice low and tender.
‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘I just… I kind of made a promise to Aine ‒ that I’d ride with her as far as Caillen tonight. She ‒ she’s nervous too, I suppose.’
Caradoc sighed too, then. ‘Then you must keep your word,’ but, oh, my, the sigh he sighed when he said it! We got to our feet.
‘I’ll be back long before dawn,’ I promised. ‘We’ll ride to Caillen then I’ll return to you. I will come to you tonight, I promise. I want to be with you more than anything.’
He wrapped me in a tight embrace and I realised he wasn’t as under control as I’d thought, as he whispered fierce words of love into my ear.
We made our way separately back to the ballroom.
Chapter Nineteen
Aine and Sir Cai were due to leave around midnight. A little bit before that, Aine was allowed to leave the ballroom so that she could change from her magnificent wedding dress into travelling clothes. As the Bach Chwaer and basically permitted to go wherever the hell I wanted to go, I went with her. I sent Gwen away, telling her that I would help Aine with her clothes.
Aine and I both got changed, Aine out of her magnificent wedding dress and I out of the much-abused pale violet silk gown. Both of us changed into travelling clothes, me into Aine’s nondescript brown leather and Aine into my blue leather tunic. Then we went downstairs, calling each other by false names in a way that felt disturbingly familiar to me.
Aine came with me into the stables. Sir Cai held me tightly by my arm, but I went with him obediently enough. I didn’t do anything to make him think that I wasn’t the docile and meek Princess Aine. Aine disappeared into one of the stalls and quickly and quietly turned herself into a horse. Sir Cai didn’t even notice that she was gone.
Maldwyn was already there, standing beside his master’s horse, holding the bridle. Another stable boy was there, holding a different horse. This was where the acting really began.
‘I’m not riding that!’ I cried. ‘I’m going to ride my own horse.’ I turned towards the stall where Aine was waiting for me in her equine form. ‘This is the horse that I’m going to ride.’ I turned to the boy. ‘Saddle the horse for me and be quick about it!’ I was going to have to be careful that I imitated the shy Princess Aine, and not the domineering Princess Aoife, but it was plain to see which role came more naturally.
It appeared Sir Cai didn’t mind me acting like a diva. He looked on indulgently while the stable boy ran around, swapping the saddle from the first horse to the second. I suppose he thought it made him look good, to have a wife who could demand anything she wanted from other people.
It didn’t take very long for the boy to saddle the horse. To tell the truth, it was much less t
ime than I was comfortable with, before Sir Cai and I were both mounted and riding out of the gates.
He didn’t say anything as we rode, not that I had expected that would have long intimate conversations on the way. I also hadn’t realised that Maldwyn would be riding with us. It had been stupid of me to forget him. I still wasn’t entirely sure how I was supposed to incapacitate Sir Cai, especially without much magic since I hadn’t had much time under the moon yet. The further we rode into the dark, the more nervous about this whole endeavour that I began to feel.
We must have been riding for an hour when I realised that we weren’t heading towards Caillen. We must have taken another road at some point, but in the dark I hadn’t noticed. The only reason I realised was because I could hear the not-so-distant thunder of the ocean.
‘Have we taken a wrong turning somewhere?’ I asked.
‘No, Princess, we haven’t,’ Sir Cai answered. He didn’t even turn his head to look at me.
‘But your land is to the south. I can hear the sea and that means that we have been riding to the east.’
‘Your ears must be deceiving you, Princess.’
‘Deceiving me, nothing! I can hear the sea!’
‘How can you hear the sea when we are travelling south?’
‘Where are we going?’ I asked sharply. ‘You said that your land was in the south. If we’re not riding south, then I have a right to know where we’re going.’
Sir Cai gestured to me. ‘Come closer, my sweet.’
‘Be buggered if I will.’
The next thing I knew, my horse gave a startled whinny and nearly lost her footing. She took half a dozen quick steps towards Sir Cai until he was close enough to reach out a swift arm and grab me by the neck. ‘I would prefer it, my sweet, if you didn’t speak again. If you irritate me any further, then I will make sure that you never speak again.’
He let me go and kept on riding away, but I was left gasping and choking, both my hands clutching at my throat from the pain of his grip. Maldwyn had been riding a little way behind us. He rode up to me now, drew his horse alongside mine and whispered, ‘Please, Princess, do as he says. You don’t want to make him angry, believe me.’
‘I believe you,’ I rasped.
We continued riding east. Now that I was paying attention, I could see from the stars that we were indeed heading due east. The sound of the sea grew ever louder in my ears and soon I could taste the tang of salt and smell the fish in the air. The road twisted a path into a forest. Sir Cai and Maldwyn just continued riding. I had no choice but to accompany them, but I was growing more apprehensive by the moment. I had thought that we might stop at an inn somewhere and I would be able to slip away without Sir Cai noticing. It looked less and less likely that we were going anywhere near civilisation. The lands east of Rheged were desolate places, rumoured to be haunted by the ghosts of mourning maidens.
Eventually, Sir Cai called a halt. He dismounted and so did Maldwyn. Maldwyn took both horses by the bridle and headed off further down the path until he was out of sight. Sir Cai came and stood beside my horse and held out his hands to me.
‘Now, my sweet, the time has come,’ he said and my blood ran cold. It had never occurred to me that he would consider consummating the marriage here in the forest. I thought that I’d had more time. I realised that we were in a little grove of trees. They stood in a neat circle around a grassy clearing.
‘Where are we?’ I asked, trying to disguise the quiver in my voice. I dismounted from the horse, but I ignored the hands he stretched out to help me. At least in the clearing there was enough moonlight to see around. Enough moonlight to see that only a short distance away, past a single row of trees, the earth dropped away into a cliff against which pounded the relentless sea.
‘You are home, my sweet,’ he said, sweeping out his arm to indicate circle of trees around us. ‘I think it only fair that you meet your sisters.’
The trees moved in a sudden gust of wind – it was worse when I realised that only some of the trees were moving in the wind. If I listened closely, I could hear them whispering. I didn’t think I wanted to hear what they had to say.
‘They aren’t trees, are they?’ I asked. ‘Trees don’t whisper.’
‘No, even in the shape of trees, they still gossip like old women.’ He walked around the circle of trees, reaching out to touch the trunk of one and ducking to avoid the flailing branches of another. ‘Step into the centre of the circle, Princess. I can’t promise that this won’t hurt, but I can promise that it will be quick.’
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I need your magic, Princess. Unfortunately, I need all of it and there won’t be anything left of you except a distant voice and another living tree to wave its branches when there’s no wind. You are mine now, legally, to do with whatever I wish. This is what I wish. If you won’t step into the centre of the circle, I will make you do it. Now move.’
I moved into the centre of the circle, not because he told me to, but because that was where the moonlight was. I was angry that I’d wasted my scarce magic on something as silly as fixing my dress earlier, because I knew I was going to need every bit of my magic in the next few minutes. This wasn’t going to take long. Only a few minutes and at the end of it either he would be dead, or I would be a tree, whispering into a wind that wasn’t there.
Sir Cai drew a wand from inside his tunic. I stared. That was the same wand Maldwyn would later use as an adult. Maldwyn must be around here somewhere.
‘Maldwyn, help!’ I shouted, the words sticking in my throat. ‘Help, please!’
Then I caught sight of him, just beyond the ring of whispering trees. He stared at me and shook his head. ‘No, Princess,’ he whispered.
Sir Cai just laughed. ‘Forget it, Princess. Maldwyn is my squire. This isn’t the first time he’s been to the grove.’
‘You’re both monsters,’ I breathed. I could barely see Maldwyn’s face in the dark. ‘How does such evil grow in a child?’
‘Shut up!’ Sir Cai snapped. ‘Boy, go back to Rheged. Send news that we were attacked by one of the Camiri war bands that wander this area. Tell them that the Princess is dead and I barely escaped with my life.’
Aine paced nervously in place. Maldwyn turned, mounted his horse and rode away. I could still hear the departing beat of his horse’s hooves as Sir Cai raised his wand to the moon. Light wisped towards him in pale streaks from above. I’d never seen anything like it. I was even distracted by it, until I saw a similar light twisting its way from my body, into Maldwyn’s wand.
I shouted, ‘No!’ like that was going to make a difference and threw myself towards him.
I couldn’t move a muscle. I was bound in the circle of moonlight. I looked down. My feet were already beginning to take root. Raising my hands, I saw that the fingers were already lengthening into twigs. Then I just screamed.
Aine came up behind the knight. She reared onto her hind legs and lashed out with her hooves. She struck him right in the centre of the chest and he was thrown backwards. His heels scrabbled in the messy sand and scrubby grass at the edge of the cliff. He screamed, one long, terrified scream, all the way to the sea.
Aine changed back into her own form and rushed over to me.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
I muttered something that was as close as I could get to being coherent. All I could think of was her bravery and the way that she’d saved my life.
‘Emer, your poor hands.’ She took their twiggy, misshapen forms in her own beautiful hands and drew in a deep breath. Sir Cai had drained my magic completely. After the fight with the dragon, I had so little magic left that it hadn’t taken long at all to leave me empty.
The process of turning me back into a human was a long one. It’s one thing to turn yourself into an animal, it’s another thing entirely to change someone else, and while Aine was powerful, she was completely untrained. It was an interminable hour before I could even
remove my feet from the earth and Aine and I were both collapsed, gasping on the ground.
Aine looked around at the trees, then raised her voice to speak to them. ‘Who are you all?’ she asked. ‘Who were you? I promise you, I will speak your names to your families and ensure that they know what happened to you.’
The grove went silent for a moment, and then something that I would remember all my life. Silence, then the recitation of names. One after another, all the way around the circle, the trees named themselves and bowed to Aine.
‘Justice has been done to the man who did this to you,’ Aine said grimly. ‘I don’t know how he did this, but I tell you truly that I will do everything in my power to try and free you again.’ All around us the trees whispered and waved, and from a long way away, there was the sound of weeping.
Aine must have been exhausted from the fight with Sir Cai because she didn’t offer to turn herself back into a horse for the trip home. I was so stunned by what she’d done that I didn’t think it was right to ask. We walked along the road together in the moonlight. I may have swaggered a bit. I felt like we could rule the world between us.
Up until the moment when they grabbed us.
I hadn’t even heard them. They pushed us to the ground and tied our hands behind our backs. We were still walking beneath the trees and there were shadows everywhere. There was only just enough moonlight to highlight the darkness. They rolled us over and when we tried to scream, they stuffed gags into our mouths.
They didn’t speak, didn’t shout to one another or shout to us, they only laughed a bit, giggled amongst themselves. In the scant shards of moonlight I could make out half a dozen men. Even Aine had no magic left and all we could do was kick and writhe and try to wriggle away, screaming in the back of our throats as some of them held us down, while the others opened their trousers.
