The kind of understanding he wanted was far beyond his reach. It made no difference to what he had to say.
"Alina, what happened now was not your fault. It was mine. I was wrong in what I did. No." He stopped whatever she would say because the guilt would not allow it. "What was so wrong was to think that the past has any hold over the present that…that there was still something that bound us. It is over. The past is dead."
"Dead." Her voice sounded like the thinnest thread, one that would snap for breathing on it.
"Aye. The past is dead between us." he said again, as though chanting his way through some spell that would have the power to end what he could not. "All that was done is buried. I will not follow its path again and neither will I hang its weight on you like some endless burden."
"Dead."
Her hand ripped at the small pale flowers turning to seed. The lamed finger snagged uselessly at a thickened stem, unable to break it. His hand covered hers before she did herself harm. Impulsive, reckless gesture. But the impulsiveness seemed embedded in him where she was concerned, the urge to act with a speed that did not negate thought, but merely outstripped it.
Pain jarred down his injured arm and her hand stiffened under his. She must not even want to suffer that much contact from him. But he knew what was right. She would cause damage to herself.
"Let go of the stem. You cannot break it."
"No." She stared at the crushed plant, at her hand, anywhere but at him. "I do not want to let it go." Her eyes fixed on the woody stem and the nondescript flower heads as though that provided her only anchor to the earth.
"Then just stay still." He kept his voice steady the way he would with a wild colt. The hand under his stopped moving. "That is better. Just stay still." He opened his hand when he was sure that she would not move. So that she could be free of him. "I will—"
She let go of the plant and caught his hand, still not looking at him, but moving fast. Her fingers scrabbling at his, clumsy and uncontrolled, like someone blind seeking their way by touch.
He watched her fingers, stunned, and then he realized why she would touch even him. She was so alone; her only kin the predatory creature Cunan, and she had such dangerous choices to make. Cunan would, of course, make her choices for her given the chance. But Cunan played for his own gain, not hers. Did she realize that? That her kin would betray her?
Cunan wanted to get her to Goadel. He would do it by stealth or by force if he could.
He stared at the fragile half-clothed form, the thin hand clutching at his. Her consent would be unnecessary to Cunan, her painfully made choices irrelevant.
She said she had chosen Modan's life. She must want to hold to that because she had also made the choice to warn him that their watcher was back. It seemed that in this she was true.
Life would be so much easier if she were true.
He heard it. With a hunter's training. Duda's teaching overlying an instinct that was deeper than thought's reach. He did not think it was Goadel's watcher who sought the chance to come on him unaware. Not this time.
There was no doubt who it was. He was already moving with casual speed when both parts of his mind furnished another truth, beyond what he could believe.
Alina did not know.
They were fools.
Oblivious. The silence with which he had achieved his aim had been masterly. He had forced his way through the trees with a stealth even the disgusting dog-eared Saxon peasant set to guard him would not have been able to match. And he had found them.
The low sun showed him the Northumbrian. On his feet. Light caught skin. His sight could not take it in. The carved handle of the knife dug into his palm. But his hand was shaking so much he could not unsheathe the blade.
And then he saw. The man was still half-clothed. The last of the sun's rays picked out the whiteness of the fresh binding on his arm where the wound was.
Cunan forced his hand to relax. The woman was not even close to him.
There would be time enough to deal with the debaucher. Just let them cross the border into Northum-bria.
She was sitting on the grass in her green riding dress. She was fully clothed but her dark gleaming hair streamed over her back, its abundance shamelessly uncovered before the Bernician.
She shifted in the shadows. For one moment of blackened rage he thought that she was adjusting her clothes. But then she turned and he realized she must have been repacking the saddlebag that held the cures.
He forced breath into his lungs. She was not looking at the lecher. In fact, she seemed to avoid it.
He let the breath go.
Alina was not like her mother with that show of untouchable coldness hiding secret debaucheries. She was frail, yes, foolish and in want of correction after what she had done. But there would be someone to do that. Soon. Someone who had the right.
And this time she would be loyal to her kin. He knew it.
She looked up even as the certainty formed in his head, as though his thought had called her. Her gaze seemed to drift over him and then away.
His own gaze followed Alina's.
The Northumbrian was throwing on his shirt.
Such an ordinary thing. But as the linen sheeted over the other man's flesh, he saw what lived in her eyes.
Alina stared at the dying embers of the fire and beyond it at the dark hunched shapes that were sleeping human forms: Cunan, Duda, the rest of Brand's men. She slept slightly apart from them. Near Brand. It might have looked like a sign of possession, of connection. To someone who did not know.
She huddled tighter, and the coldness and the isolation wrapped round her, familiar to her as her own skin, as inescapable. The fact that he was there, a hand's reach away from her only made the isolation more complete. She could not feel his warmth. Not now.
She closed her eyes and her body trembled. But not from the familiar cold. From what she had done with him. And what she had not done. What she could not do, and what she had wanted. And not wanted.
The thoughts would kill her, in the silently breathing dark. They were like madness.
He was not hers, the frightening, lethally beautiful creature lying beside her. The fierce, knowing body and the mind that was so ruthlessly direct, the heat and the anger and the terrifying gentleness were not for her. If they belonged to anything, it was to memory, to an image of a woman who was no longer her, who never truly had been her.
In four or five days, it would be over, this enforced closeness that was no such thing. She would be at Bamburgh and King Cenred would send her to Craig Phádraig. If she was lucky.
Brand would have the place that he belonged to, beside his king, with land and wealth once more at his back, and this time unthreatened. He would have peace. That was worth more than gold. Perhaps more than love.
Certainly more than the terrible kind of love she could offer.
He had said the past was over.
It was.
Her body ached for him.
Duda was missing his leather jerkin.
Brand watched rags twitch and resettle as though their owner wished some other covering were there.
So did Brand.
He suppressed an urge to twitch on his own account, in case his half-dressed henchman saw it. Or anyone else who might be watching. Or not.
So far, his men had not trapped Goadel's spies. All he had were snatched words overheard in the dark. He had no idea whether the stolen words meant what he believed. But it was all he had, the only time anyone had got close to Goadel's men.
The unknowing was likely to drive him moon-mad. He was not made for it.
The horse lunged, answering instantly to the unconscious urging of his body.
Patience was not something he had.
He curbed the stallion, slid a hand over the thick neck, the quivering muscles. It was like fighting him-self, the urge to release, power dammed too long into action, pure, direct and unstoppable.
He watched Duda and, without the conscio
usness of thought or impulse, or even will, Alina.
Patience was something life forced on you.
Not yet— Something changed in the air. He was not even looking at the crowding shadows of the trees. Yet he knew.
It would happen. Now. After two days of uneventful riding. While they were still in Mercia, entering the narrow stretch of land between the high hills to the west and the marshlands of the east coast.
It was so clear that Brand could not understand the obliviousness of those around him. The air pulsed with the knowledge. Fate's web. He watched Alina and, more closely, Cunan. Nothing could be seen in either face. Or in the faces of his men.
Yet the danger was there, something tasted. His blood surged. The response instant, familiar, burning him with the need to take the danger head-on, conquer it.
The fierce, double-edged joy of the risk lured him, spoke in a siren voice to the place inside him that was empty, the part that sought danger before it came. Because life held nothing else, certainty least of all. But he never gave in to the lure completely. It was something to be used to slake the emptiness, but its power had to be controlled.
It would not master him. If it did, it would take all he had and it would be worse than death.
His men knew what to do. He had made sure of that.
He told Duda the jerkinless, with one flick of his eyes, caught the flash of irritation in return. He crashed the reckless grin. It was worth a purse of silver to know before Duda did.
Yet the knowledge was uncanny.
Duda worked with a hunter's senses that were more finely tuned than most men's. But Brand's knowing had sprung from something else. Something that he had not acknowledged before the moment he had been aware, without reason, that his brother was still alive.
His mount sidled, catching the fire from him. He steadied it one-handed.
Athelwulf had said what had happened had been wyrd. Destiny. Athelwulf, who worked only in the realms of intellect.
The web of fate, spinning out.
Alina.
He did not look at her, at the soft green gown that had come apart under his hands, at the maddeningly fluttering stream of her veil, the dark rippling mass of her hair beneath.
He watched, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.
Duda moved closer to Cunan. The man with the shield slung across his shoulder moved closer to where Alina would be. What shocked was the primitive force of the urge to knock that man aside and place himself next to the Princess of Craig Phádraig.
It is you who should be afraid. It is you who are in danger.
As ever, she was right.
The danger was to him, not her, and his closeness could only bring a threat to her that would not otherwise be there.
He forced his mount to drop farther back, slowing its pace and mastering its eagerness. He let himself droop slightly in the saddle as though he were weary and the wound still troubled him. The pretence was less difficult than he would like.
He curbed every impulse, both instinctive and trained, to fight, to seize the initiative, to defend if not attack. Even to move. He held still, kept to the sunlight where he could be seen. Looked ahead, where the threat would not come from.
Nothing happened. While he waited, like a pig for the spitting. His mind could feel it. The bite of fire-hardened iron penetrating his body, splitting muscle and sinew.
It was Duda who broke, turning his shaggy head to look at him. Brand cursed inside because it could have made Alina look. But she did not. She stared ahead, her spine rigid. But she was aware of him. He knew that without the slightest sign.
His gaze met Duda's, its meaning unmistakable: look away. He did not know what else was in his face, but one grubby hand made a sign of the cross, then more surreptitiously a sign against enchantment just to be doubly sure. He blocked the word berserker out of his head.
His blood pulsed. The risk goaded him. The rush of that was so strong in him it would take all, mind and sense and the power to control thought.
If he let it.
Duda looked away.
He wished suddenly that he knew whether he was right. He wished Duda was wearing the protection of patched leather that smelled of horse and nameless years of accumulated sweat. He wished he could take the fates by the throat and ensure the life of every man here, and of every man who would ever give him the dues of fealty.
He wished he could pay all the debts that came with honour. He wished he could believe in a future.
Alina.
He turned the horse slightly. There was no room for the smallest error in what he did. Too many debts. He used only his knee to guide the restive stallion, keeping the reins loose.
The movement exposed his back fully. It was the perfect shot. Now. In the clearing, with sun beating on him, casting his shadow forward.
He did not know whether he heard it, or felt it on the tightened edge of awareness, the faint whirring disturbance of the still air. He twisted his body, even though there might not be time, hoping that the arrow would strike obliquely, that the head would stick, that open metal links would be sufficient protection. That he would not be disabled.
He could see even through the fractured second that was all he had, how Duda was already moving away, how the other man, the one he had to trust, had flung himself, shield in hand, at Alina.
The last, unbelievable thing that he saw before he fell was the surprise on Cunan's face.
The impact of the blow stunned. It was knife-sharp, greater than he had bargained for. It was not beyond his capacity to manage, could not be.
He slid forward across the horse's neck in a fall that was less controlled than he wanted, gripping with thighs and knees until the muscles strained. He forced his hand to let the reins go. He could feel the shock rippling through the powerful animal muscle underneath his body.
But the horse was trained. It responded. He stopped the fall, tried to control the horse's urge to bolt after the others who thundered past. He whispered the names of Northumbrian saints into its ear as he watched hooves disappear across the rough ground, moving with planned speed.
He added a further prayer to the full panoply of the saints of Britain that they found something.
The second shot had been harmless. He forced himself to wait until they were out of sight. He would not—Alina screamed.
He slid round, hitting the ground on balance, the jarring pain through his back scarce felt. She was struggling against the man he had set to hold her the way she had struggled against him in the nunnery, with the same complete and mindless force. Like a battle rage. Like the echo of the force inside himself.
It was the kind of force that took account of nothing outside itself.
Until later.
"Cease."
They saw him. Alina's body went dead still. Her face turned the colour of chalk. The face of the man, Eadric, was wild-eyed. He had hold of her arms.
"Let her go."
There was no point in holding her trapped. She could not get to Goadel's men now. Her chance was gone, stopped by the man he had sent to save her skin.
Besides, she would not move. He could see it. The wild rush of strength must have drained out of her with the knowledge that the moment was lost.
The rush of that terrible power still beat through him.
She just stood, like a creature of fine white stone, the sun outlining every pure and beautiful line of her form, her head tilted at that maddening angle that made him want to smash something. Or strangle her slender neck. Or finish what they had started regardless of whether she wished it or no.
She looked as brittle as glass. Something that had to be protected from breaking.
He thought the black weariness inside would kill him.
Eadric's grass-stained hands were still on her arms as though he thought she might shatter. His transparent eyes bright with all the useless unnecessary urge to protect that ran in mockery through his own veins.
"I said, let her go." He did not know what
was in his voice, but something made Eadric drop instantly to his knees, head bowed.
"Lord, I meant no wrong but if I have done it you may punish me as you will."
The boy had seen scarce more than twenty winters and had an unspoilt heart. His face had turned the colour of ash. The tearing anger and the guilt turned inwards where they belonged, familiar as his own skin.
"Nay, you have done no wrong. I owe you a debt for saving the lady's—" Honour? Decency? Her beloved brother's neck? "For keeping her life."
He reached down to pull Eadric to his feet. Eadric looked up as his hand closed over an arm and he saw the expression in the fear-widened eyes had changed into the one thing he could not face, the loyalty that was no longer his due.
"I would not have harmed the lady." The words came out in a rush. "But you charged me with her safety and she would have gone to you and I knew, you told me, that the danger would be yours and that we… Lord?"
His hand had frozen, like rock covered in ice. It quite probably bit painfully through Eadric's hide. He could not tell.
"It is true," said the singing voice of Craig Phádraig behind him, equally nervous. "It is not your man's fault. It was mine. I thought you were… I thought you would be killed."
His sight vanished. Just for an instant, darkness shot through with fire that had an uncanny edge, like something that belonged in another time. Such coldness all round him, dragging at him. And Alina's voice shouting.
He did not actually fall. He would not let himself and it was just a split instant, and then control was back.
"Lord, let me help you." It was Eadric, his transparent face creased in anxiety.
"No—"
"Please." Alina. Her black eyes were like twin pools of night in her white face. He could not look at her.
"No. Leave it. Just break the arrow shaft." The discomfort was bearable. The wound was not serious but if they removed the arrow there would be blood. He did not know how much and there was no time for that now. He could hear the sound of hoofbeats on the rough ground. His men returning.
"Lady, I can do it."
Eadric moved behind him. There was a brief tearing of his flesh as the arrow head dragged. Then nothing. He left Eadric to look after Alina. He could not look at her face because of what he might see there. Because of what he might believe.
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