Ilsa had lived all her life in the big cottage in the clearing by the side of the road, a mile from the village. She had walked this road many times. Rounding the last curve before the clearing appeared, seeing the thatched roof of the cottage hove into view, had always comforted her.
Now, though, the sight of the house made her uneasy and not only because she sat behind a king and rode beside the brother of the true High King. Throughout the summer, returning home had lost its charm.
The horses trotted around the bend and the white walls of the cottage came into view. She saw it as a stranger might and as these men would see it.
The whitewash on the daub was no longer clean. Dusty summers and dry winters had coated the walls with fine gray dirt. The clearing, which had once bloomed with wild orchids and soft clover underfoot was now a parched, bone-white patch of dirt. The woodpile lay scattered from her searching for smaller logs to split. The ax leaned against the chopping block where Ilsa had left it. Rain barrels were tipped on their sides, showing empty interiors.
Thatch on the roof was dry and faded to a silver, blank sheen, except where the smoke issuing from the smoke hole had stained it brown.
The crickets that had once lived in the grass around the house were silent. The frogs which liked to squat in the mud around the base of the rain barrels were gone, just as the mud had gone.
The only sound in the clearing was the trample of hooves. As they came to a halt in front of the house, a hawk screeched as it dived upon prey among the trees on the edge of the forest that circled about the house. The loud, raucous note made Ilsa jump.
“Bigger than I expected,” Uther murmured as he jumped to the ground with careless ease and tossed the reins to the man beside him.
Arawn held out his arm for Ilsa to use to climb to the ground.
She pushed herself backward, dropping to the earth on the wrong side of the horse. She wrapped the cloak about her once more to smother the cloud of fine dust the mud gave off. The dust choked her throat.
Her heart skidding along like a frightened colt, Ilsa moved out from the horses and pushed the door. Unlike most of the cottages in the village which still covered their doorways with hide, this was a real door, made of local oak, with metal hinges that had come all the way from Britain.
The hinges screeched as the door swung open. They had been making that sound for the last two years. Even metal had grown warped from the heat of the summers. Ilsa’s mother had rubbed pork fat into them, to no avail. Ilsa had stopped hearing the sound until this moment.
The cottage was warm from the heat of the fire in the pit in the center of the room. The aroma of the meat curing in the roof above the fire was the strongest scent. Her mother had a way with herbs that made the scent of curing meat mouth-watering, only there had been no herbs to collect for months. Instead, the smell was gamy.
Both Uther and Arawn followed her into the cottage even though she had not opened the door for them to enter. They stood a pace inside the door, looking around.
Ilsa pulled the bow from her shoulder and the bag of arrows and hung both on the dowel rammed into the strut closest to the door. She hesitated, then untied the cloak and took it off. With a nervous motion, she hung it on the same hook, then brushed down her tunic, tugging it back over her hips and straightening the belt hanging from them.
Her arrival and the sound of people moving into the house stirred no one. It did not surprise her. Arawn, though, raised a brow. “Your family…?”
She nodded toward the sleeping platform. “Stay here,” she told him. “I will speak to them, first.” She moved around the two men and over to the sloping ladder up to the platform and climbed it swiftly, uncomfortably aware that both men watched her.
The pallet was big, taking up most of the platform, with room at the foot and one side for her parents to move around it. It was a thick mattress of straw, covered with good blankets. There were pillows stuffed with wool findings and covered in linen her mother had spun and woven herself from flax grown behind the house. The oil lamp sitting on the chest in the corner held oil scented with wild lavender.
Up here under the roof, the air was even warmer. In winter, the sleeping platform was cozy.
Her mother, Non, sat on one of the cushions, her back against the chest and her eyes closed. Ilsa suspected she was sleeping. She touched her mother’s thin shoulder to rouse her, then turned and crouched beside her father.
Pryce’s one good eye was open. It was bloodshot and filled with pain. “Who is here?” he whispered and winced at the effort. The other eye, the one which had been lost when an arrow pierced it, had the lid drawn down and stitched in place by the surgeon who had saved her father’s life. The stitches had long gone. The scars they left were white and pale against his heated skin.
“You must come down and speak to them, Father,” she told him. “It is important.”
He moved as if he would rise from the bed, then fell back and scrunched his eye closed. “I cannot. Bring them here. Someone from the village?” His voice was weak, but even.
“No, not from the village.” She hesitated. “It is a king, father.”
His eye opened again, settling on her face. “A king? Here?”
She nodded.
“Budic?” he breathed, for Budic was his lord and lord of this village.
“Arawn,” she replied. “Prince Uther is with him.”
“Uther…” He struggled to rise once more and fell back again with a choked sound.
Ilsa rested her hand on her father’s shoulder. “Stay there,” she murmured and got to her feet. She moved to the edge of the sleeping platform and looked down at the two grand lords standing in her poor house. “My father cannot rise. You must come up here.”
Uther raised his brows, amused.
Arawn did not hesitate. He climbed quickly. With a sigh, Uther followed him.
Arawn straightened as he stepped off the ladder. His head connected with the thatch ties and he bent again. He moved over to where Ilsa stood. As the roof was higher there, he could stand. He turned to look at the pallet where her father laid. His gaze took in her mother’s complexion and her slitted eyes. She was still a handsome woman, despite her gray hair and the fine wrinkles about her eyes. Her eyes were a clear blue when they were not clouded with pain, and her jaw was still fine and strong and her shoulders square.
She watched Arawn with a confused expression. It had been this way for several days, now. Her mother’s mind wandered.
Arawn crouched down beside Ilsa’s father. “Good day to you, sir.” His voice was quiet.
Her father swallowed. His mouth twitched. “I am no lord,” he breathed. “Forgive me for not standing. I cannot.”
“Forgive me for intruding upon your home at such a time,” Arawn said. “These times we find ourselves in, though, are why I am here. You would see them gone, yes?”
Her father nodded. “All men of good conscience would.”
Arawn nodded. “Then I ask you to allow your daughter to marry me, so this curse that blights our lands can be broken.”
Pryce drew in a sharp breath, then coughed. The coughing wracked his weakened body. He winced and grasped at his head as the movement jarred it, still coughing.
Uther hissed and drew away from the pallet to stand at the top of the ladder, his arms crossed. Impatience burned in every stiff line of his body.
Ilsa dropped her knees to the pallet and pushed her hands beneath her father’s shoulders, to help him sit. Her lifting made him hiss in greater pain. The coughing would not abate until he was sitting, though. She must move him.
Arawn saw what she was doing and assisted. They propped her father against the wall. His head hung, his chest heaved and his breath rattled in his throat.
When Pryce recovered enough, he lifted his head. His eye narrowed, gleaming suspiciously. “Why would a king want to marry my Ilsa?”
“A cursed and desperate one,” Arawn said, his tone flat. “One who will do anything to help his
people. The breaking of the curse laid upon me and my lands will be the savior of your own, too.”
“Marrying Ilsa will break the curse?”
“It might.” Arawn did not hesitate to speak the qualification. “Or it might not,” he added. “Either way, you will never want for anything ever again. You and your wife will live comfortably and well. Even if you wish to stay here, your needs will be more than met.”
Pryce turned his head, wincing, to look at his wife. Non’s eyes were closed once more and her lips moved, as if she spoke softly to herself.
Pryce closed his eye. “Your intentions are honorable, king?” he whispered. “This is not some cruel jest?”
“No,” Arawn said flatly. “This is no jest. I will wed her properly and in sight of all men and she will be treated as queenly as any great lady would. I promise you that.”
“Then you do not do this for a moment of pleasure. You will not discard her when you have had your fill?”
“Father…” Ilsa breathed. “He is a king. Such sport is beneath him. You dishonor him by even considering the possibility.”
“He keeps the company of a man who, it’s said, is a champion of such sport.” Her father’s voice was dry—from more than lack of water.
Uther rolled his eyes and turned his back.
Arawn smiled. His eyes danced with amusement and the mirth changed his appearance. He was no longer the dark, brooding man she had first seen over the top of his stallion’s head. He was a happy man…a younger man than she had first taken him for.
It was a startling perspective. Ilsa stared at his face, tracing the hints of youth that cares and worries had all but erased.
“Your daughter is generous and you are wise, sir,” Arawn told her father. “There are kings who would reach for what they want and use any means to take it, including insincere marriage vows. I am not that kind of man. I would not take this step at all except that the needs of my people drive me to it. You are right to question my motives. I assure you, your daughter will be honorably treated if you agree to this.”
Pryce studied the king, taking in his dark features, the pale cheeks above a stubbled jaw, the fine wool mantle, the embroidered linen tunic over thick wool trews and soft deer hide boots. The gold hilt of his sword and the silver knife at his belt.
Then her father’s gaze returned to the king’s face. “I believe you,” he whispered.
“Thank you.”
“Because I believe you, I must refuse your offer, highness. It would be dishonest to accept it.”
Arawn frowned.
So did Ilsa. “Papa, how can you say no?” she breathed.
“I did not say no, I said I cannot accept.” Pryce’s gaze slid toward his wife once more then came back to Arawn. “To be cared for to the last of our days, to see my wife carefree and comfortable…it is a tempting offer. Only, Ilsa is not mine to give away.”
Ilsa gasped. She realized she was sitting on the bare boards next to the pallet and could not recall getting there. She stared at her father…at the man she had thought her father until this moment.
“You are not her father?” Arawn said sharply, rising to his feet.
“No, king, I am not.” Pryce said it firmly.
Uther laughed.
Arawn’s gaze moved to Ilsa. His thick brows came together. “It matters not at all,” he said, speaking to her father. “The man who made her is not here to claim her. You had the raising of her. You are father in all but seed. My offer still stands.”
“You would gainsay King Budic, highness?” Pryce asked, his breath wheezy.
Uther’s laugh was louder and longer this time. “She’s Budic’s bastard?”
Ilsa drew in a breath that seared her throat and tightened it. Her chest hurt. Her mind swam. “I am not yours?” she whispered.
Pryce met her gaze. “I had all but forgotten it and if wishes could have made it so, you would be my daughter for true but I cannot gainsay my king.”
Ilsa closed her eyes as they stung. “Papa…” She could say nothing else.
Uther came up behind Arawn. “This resolves the matter more simply than I thought. Budic is still in the summer house at Carnac. I will ride to Budic now and put it before him on your behalf. He can have no objections to you marrying her when he has kept her tucked in the northern corner of his kingdom all these years. You’ll be taking her off his hands.”
“Your wife was at Budic’s court?” Arawn asked Pryce.
“Handmaid to the queen,” Pryce breathed.
“And you were in Budic’s army?” Uther asked. “Your daughter—Ilsa—said you were an archer?”
“Aye. ‘til an arrow stole my eye. King Budic was generous. This cottage and free access to his trees if I took his fallen mistress as my wife and raised the child well.”
Both lords swiveled to look at Ilsa’s mother. She sat now with her gaze on her hands as they turned in her lap. Ilsa noticed, not for the first time, her mother’s generous mouth and the clear line of her jaw. The smoothness of her skin and the blue of her eyes that Ilsa shared. Ilsa had always taken pride in her mother’s fine looks,
A lady-in-waiting, one who had turned the head of a king.
“She was clearly Budic’s favorite, once,” Uther breathed. “Helping them now would earn his thanks, at least.”
“I do this for something other than his thanks,” Arawn said, his tone dry. “As you instigated this day of derangement, you must end it by sealing the deal for me as you suggested. Take half my men and ride for Carnac. Speak to him tonight.”
Uther nodded. “Done,” he said, moving back toward the ladder. He lowered his head as he moved until he crouched over the top of the first rung. “And you?”
“I go to Lorient and I take Ilsa with me. We will be wed as soon as I find a priest to do the deed, so I suggest you ride as you are wont to do and challenge the wind, Uther.”
Uther nodded, then was gone.
Arawn turned to look down at Ilsa where she sat on the floor beside the bed. From outside, Ilsa could hear the mutter of the men and the stamp of horses, then the clatter of hooves as they gathered themselves for the ride.
“Collect your things,” Arawn said, his gaze bleak. “We leave at once.”
Chapter Five
The anger Ilsa saw in the king’s eyes did not extend to her parents. Then she corrected herself—Arawn was kind to her mother and the man her mother married. He shouted at the dozen men standing and sitting about the dirt in front of the cottage, ordering two to ride into the village and buy water—whatever there was at whatever price. He sent two more riding immediately and with all haste to Lorient to send word that he would return shortly.
“What do your family need to get by for just the night?” Arawn asked her, as he stood in front of the cottage and watched the men depart, while the others prepared their horses.
“The water…and the deer,” Ilsa said, eyeing the carcass hanging over the rump of the hunter’s horse. “Although they are too ill to butcher it.”
“That is a task for tomorrow and for stronger hands,” Arawn said in agreement. “I will send people to care for them until they are strong enough to travel, then they can live in Lorient, or stay here.”
“They will stay here,” Ilsa said. “Neither of them like the noise of a big town.” She thought of the one time they had traveled to Vannes when she was younger. Vannes was a big town, the seat of Budic’s kingdom and his winter quarters. Its bustle, the people, the noises and the busy streets had made Ilsa’s family uneasy. They had all breathed in relief upon passing through the gates and into the countryside once more. As chancy as the open country was these days, her parents would still choose to stay here.
Arawn’s gaze settled upon her. “So? I will have servants arranged for them. A guard, too. They can travel here with the wagon I send. The wagon will have all I can spare.” His voice was even yet his jaw worked even when he did not speak.
Ilsa wanted to ask what troubled him. It could only b
e something that had happened in the last few moments. Everything that had happened had to do with her. She was to blame. His discovery that she was illegitimate had angered him, perhaps.
The fact sat in her chest, a cold lump of hardened clay. The man she had thought of as her father for all these years was not her father at all. He was even more honorable because of it. He had served his king with a rare loyalty. He had taken care of her and her mother better than many true fathers cared for their own.
She moved back into the cottage and found the sack they used to carry produce from the village when they went to the market. If Arawn spoke truly, then her mother and father would have no need to barter for food at the market ever again, while she had need of the sack.
Ilsa opened the small chest that sat beside her sleeping shelf and removed her single gown, mantle and veil, and the two combs her father—that Pryce—had made from walnut for her birthday. She laid her good shoes and leather girdle on the bed beside them. Now the chest was empty.
She examined the girdle. It was worn and the buckle was loose. The leather showed wear at the point where she knotted it and the end curled because of her habit of running it through her fingers. The leather was stained from handling and wear. There was not a single adornment on the thin leather.
She could not be seen in a king’s house wearing such a belt. Only, she had no other. Surely she could acquire another that would be more suitable? There would be far grander accessories available in Lorient, she was sure. How she should pay for them was another question added to the many she had about her agreement with Arawn.
Hesitantly, she put the belt back in the chest. The worn shoes, too.
The gown was of softest linen, the best quality her mother could spin and weave. It was a pale golden color that her father—Pryce—no, her father, she decided gripping the folds of the gown. Her father, Pryce, had told her the gold in the gown matched the gold in her hair, which he seemed to notice more of than anyone else. When Ilsa saw herself reflected in water and, once, in a bronze mirror, her hair had looked red and uninteresting. The curls tickled her face and she never saw gold in those strands.
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