by Lola Rebel
But that wasn't going to cut it, and she knew it. Whether they accepted that excuse or not, she realized, she wasn't happy with it herself. She wasn't happy with the idea that she was being relegated to the back, hoping for mercy from two sides who didn't trust her.
So when a messenger came calling for her, the same boy who had brought her back to the cart the first time, she could feel the weight lifting off her shoulders. It was better than anything she could have hoped for, because at least now things were moving again. She could figure out what was going on.
He had set up his table and his chairs again. He must have gotten them out quickly, perhaps the second or third thing that was done in the camp. The tents weren't all erected yet, but Valdemar looked completely settled.
He was facing away from the entrance as she came in, but he didn't waste a moment in turning to regard her, gesturing toward the seat before her. She took the seat and tried to look around, to get as much detail as possible from her surroundings.
Would they raid tomorrow? It seemed as if they didn't set up quite so completely when they were just going to move on in the morning, but this was completely arrayed out.
What sort of information was she supposed to get from this, that would please Leif and Eirik? The third, Ulf, scared her the most of all. Silent most of the time, but even larger than Gunnar. He looked every bit the large, powerful Northman that had served as a boogeyman from her childhood. And every bit as terrifying.
She blinked when she heard him speak, finally. She hadn't been listening. "What?"
"The injured. How are my men doing?"
She tried to decide how she should answer. They clearly wanted to pretend to be out for the count, out until things settled down in camp. That could be days, or it could be weeks. The tension could keep building until they left her on her tiny rock, and went back to wherever they came from.
But if she lied, what were the odds that he would know? She tried to decide, but… it was too great a risk.
"They're healing," she said softly. "I would say—"
A voice from outside called in, speaking their foreign tongue. Valdemar called back, and she turned to see a barrel-chested man that she didn't especially recognize. They spoke for a moment, then the second man left and she turned back to Valdemar.
"I would say a week, perhaps, before they can walk. More before they're fully healed."
The guess was conservative, but it was as accurate as she could make it, she thought. So why was she so afraid of retribution? Was she a miracle-worker, capable of healing the sick with a touch of her hands?
Well—aside from the one. She had to fight to keep the smile off her face, but then the memory of what she'd done came back and chased the humor away. That ship had already sailed, for her. Now she had to deal with the fallout, come what may.
Valdemar thought about that for a long time. "I hear that you had a visit from some of my men."
What was that supposed to mean? She decided not to answer, nor to ask him what he meant. He would tell her, or he wouldn't.
"It would be a terrible pity if they were thinking that they might be able to stage some sort of rebellion. A man might get hurt, thinking ideas like that. I would hate to think that you got involved with the wrong side. You've made so many good decisions in the past."
She shuddered at the thought. She'd done anything but, and the more time that passed the more sure she was. The edge was leading the knife, now, and if anything there would be much, much more bloodshed.
How could she say that, though? She couldn't, that much was obvious. So she kept the thought to herself.
"Did you have any other questions for me?"
"Just one," he answered. "What will you tell your friends, when they come back to talk to you again?"
Whatever they want to hear, she thought, but she didn't say it aloud. "Nothing."
"Good," Valdemar said, carefully putting his knife on the table and loosening his coat just a bit, to let out the heat. "You be sure you do that."
He called out and the boy came back in, and Deirdre was guided back to the medical wagon. She wasn't safe here. That much was abundantly clear, but how could she get around it? She closed her eyes and tried to think clearly.
She had only so many tools at her disposal, and so many of them were gone. She'd had someone she could lean on for protection. He hadn't been reliable, so she took a gamble. Gambled that with him out of the camp, he would see things from a different perspective, and he'd come back seeing things the way she saw them.
But she was becoming increasingly convinced by the day that she'd gambled wrong. Things were only becoming more dangerous here, and out there, who knows what he was thinking about her, except that it was almost certainly not good.
Deirdre looked at her supplies. They were running low, but she could at least make them last for these two, at least another few days. If she made them stretch, then she could get them to the point where their wounds were more-or-less closed up.
But then there were the herbs that she couldn't use. The ones that had nothing at all to do with the healing she had been doing. They were important to her work, but not to her patients.
She needed answers. That much was clear. If she was ever going to use what little remained of her focusing scents, she needed it now.
Getting a spark was the hardest part, but she pulled out the knife that she'd hidden, and used a bit of flint, and with some effort she managed to get them burning. Then she hid the knife again, careful as she could, and she waved the bundle around the wagon, taking deep breaths.
The smell was horrible. It always had been, and now was no different, but it was one that she was used to. That very smell was an important one in her work, because it was what helped her to see more, to feel more, to do more.
Then, silently, she watched the sky. Felt the air on her skin, and let herself drift away. Of all the divining, she hated weather-watching the most. It moved slowly, and she had trouble finding specific interpretations.
With the sky clear, and the air cold, what was the difference from one day to the next? It didn't matter that she couldn't figure it out, though. She had to try, or else she was useless, and flying blind.
She looked up again, letting herself look. She saw Gunnar. She was sure it was him, practically saw his face writ large.
What was that? How was she supposed to interpret it? She was probably adding too much of herself. Deirdre took another deep breath, inhaling the powerful smell, and then looked up again.
He was still there, perhaps even clearer than before. That was the only clue she was going to get, it seemed, which might as well have not been a clue at all.
Then she gasped out loud and cursed herself for a fool that she hadn't thought of it sooner.
Gunnar's legs gripped the horse's flanks and he kept his body low. Why so many so-loved these infernal beasts, he would never know. But then, he was going much faster, even as the horse moved nowhere near its fastest. He had no idea what the animal's abilities were, and particularly no desire to test them.
What good would a dead horse do him, after all? No good at all. So he kept his body pressed low in against the horse's neck and struck a quick trot. It might have been two days more, or longer, before.
Now he would have to rest the horse, so he couldn't go through the night, but the distance he would make up with the animal's unfailing speed more than made up the difference. He would have to time his rejoining.
At night, they would have guards, but he knew as well as anyone how to get around them. But if he arrived during the day, there would be precious little time to make plans or discuss. No amount of cunning was going to get him through the camp in the middle of broad daylight without being seen.
And as soon as he was seen, he would be in for a fight. He mentally checked that he felt the weight of the sword belt tugging on his hip. Yes, he'd remembered it. Good. The sword itself was unfamiliar and strange, but it would make all the difference in a fight.
He had been following the tracks, but it slowed him down. A bright-red flower was tied 'round a tree branch.
He remembered seeing Deirdre pull them when he'd gone through the forest with her, the day of the first ambush. Now here it was around a tree branch, it didn't leave much to the imagination.
He got back on the horse, mindful now to look for a second. Nobody would have left a flower tied like that for no reason, nor would they have tied only one. It was a sign, and if he didn't miss his mark…
The second confirmed it, and the third confirmed it again. These flowers seemed to follow the trail very exactly, spaced every mile give or take. Perhaps once every half-hour's march, he guessed. Interesting.
The only person who would have had a supply of them, though, was Deirdre. If she'd wanted him left for dead, why would she signal like this? How would she get free long enough to do it? Often enough?
None of it made sense, but he tried to push the thought out of his mind. He didn't have time to worry about that. He was on the move now. Too many questions, and Deirdre the only one with the answers.
That meant moving quickly. He kept going, only checking the soft dirt every so often, to confirm. Another flower. And then another. The flowers were changing, now, as she started to run low on stock of the red ones.
How far behind was he? Would he know in advance, if he just followed the trail?
He thought for a moment as the horse continued, then cut right. He could still see the flowers from four hundred paces, but it might give him enough separation when it counted to get around them in this thicket, and if they returned to open rolling hills, then he would be able to keep the high ground.
There was plenty to worry about, he thought. What if he were caught, what if Deirdre got hurt? What if there was another ambush, and they weren't prepared for it this time like they had been the last?
What was Deirdre doing, and why would she leave signals for him after her betrayal? How would she have known he was following behind?
Eighteen
It was a warm morning, one of the first of the year, but Deirdre didn't notice that. She had far too much else on her mind. When the three came back around as the sun rose, waking her with a hand on her ankle, she sat up with a jolt.
Already, threats from both sides had started to echo in her mind. If she told them anything, would Valdemar know? Was one of them working with him? If not, then how had he known?
She tried to keep her face impassive, waited for them to speak. Even still, the thoughts raced through her mind. If she didn't tell them whatever they wanted to know, then they were committed to making her life hell. She'd been told so in not remotely uncertain terms, and she believed it.
For a long time both sides watched the other, neither speaking. What were they waiting for? What was Deirdre supposed to do? If she'd known what they wanted then she would have given it to them. But she didn't know, and that made her situation that much more painful, prolonged the silence that much more.
"How was your meeting?"
The question almost sounded sarcastic, in the way that it was so… almost pleasant.
"I didn't tell him anything," she blurted. She didn't know what else they would want to know, but that was the first thing that she knew could get her into a lot of trouble. So it fell out, almost before she even knew what was going on.
"If you had, we wouldn't be here. Isn't that right?" Leif's voice was low and hard, and she shuddered at the sound of it. He left out the fact that he would have taken more than one person with him, but somehow Deirdre didn't miss it.
"I suppose not," she agreed, not sure how to react. When would they finally ask their questions? How long would this go on for?
She blinked back the thoughts and with a deep breath, drew herself back up to her full height and when she opened her eyes again she had control of herself.
"What was he doing when you went in?"
She tried to remember. His back had been to the entrance, and he had been doing… something, with his hands. She tried to think harder, to remember what had been on the table, to remember what he had been doing.
But there was nothing. She hadn't looked. She'd been too busy trying to take in the entire surrounding. She shook her head.
"I don't know. He was facing away, and I couldn't see what was in his hands."
Eirik nodded as if he were confirming the story, in spite of the fact that he couldn't have known.
"And what did he ask you?"
"He asked me about you. Not your names specifically, but he knew that someone had been to talk to me and that they were asking for me to spy."
"What did he tell you to say?"
"Nothing. He didn't tell me anything, but…" her voice cracked under the pressure. "He'll kill me, I swear he was going to kill me."
She wasn't sure what she was supposed to have told them. The truth was one thing, but the truth was that he hadn't given her much to go on. He'd made some menacing comments, and given her a few hard looks.
But when she looked back up and watched their eyes for a reaction, they held none. She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. All she wanted was to be free from this situation. Both sides wanted to ask all of these questions, questions that she had no answer for and no idea how to respond to.
Would this have happened if Gunnar were still here? Even if he hadn't challenged Valdemar to his revenge-duel, the threat of it would have kept everyone in line, she thought. But she had needed him gone, and the consequences were what she had to accept because she'd done what had to be done.
Leif spoke again. "We'll be in touch. Keep an eye out. If you think we'd like to know, well, remember it."
Deirdre nodded sleepily. She hadn't been able to fall asleep the night before, worrying and waiting. She had to hope that Gunnar would find them somehow. Tracking them, or something.
And she had to hope that when he did catch up with them, that he would understand why she'd done what she had, because the more time that went by the more that she wasn't sure that she understood it herself. She shuddered at the thought.
How much would they try to squeeze her? It wasn't fair, but she'd brought it all on herself. She drifted to an uneasy sleep, and was awoken again by someone's hand on her. She turned hard. The boy was there. He had an expression she didn't like, but when he told her to follow there was no choice but to obey.
Valdemar wasn't facing away from the entrance to his tent, this time. He was sitting in his chair, lounging back, and he had an oddly contented smile on his face.
"I hear that you had a visit this morning from your new friends," he said. "I hope you didn't tell them anything."
"I don't know anything to tell them," she said. It was the truth.
"That's fine, but you remember that." He got up and walked around beside her. He had a mannish, earthy smell that she picked up on as he came closer, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body.
She tried not to want him to give her space, tried not to panic from it. Whatever was about to happen, she had to grit her teeth and bear it, because if she didn't then she was a dead woman.
"I've done a lot of thinking." His voice was low, now. Nobody outside could have heard it. It made her knees wobble. "You are useful to me, as a healer. But what if you could be more useful?"
Deirdre closed her eyes and prayed that this wasn't about to happen.
"What if you were to be my spy, instead of theirs? That could be useful, couldn't it?"
Deirdre's heart skipped a beat. That hadn't been what she expected to happen, and it made her mind race. What if she'd wanted it to? What if she was going crazy? Why had her mind gone straight to— to that?
She tried to answer, tried to soothe his ego. That's such a wonderful idea, she tried to say, or
Whatever you demand, my Lord. But her throat was dry and tight and she couldn't get the words to come.
"Why don't you earn their trust with a little bit of information? Why not tell them that when Gunnar arrives, I've got a plan to deal with him, and there's nothing that they can do about it?"
"What?"
"Tell them this. That I've learned the secret of how to hurt him, how to hurt him for real. And that when the time comes, it's not going to be a little scratch on his stomach or a little poke in his ribs. Tell them that I'm going to kill him, and that they're going to watch."
Her mind raced. "If I say that, they'll want to know how."
"You don't know how I'll do it, but you know that I have a poison that can kill him."
She turned, conscious once more of their closeness. "You don't mean—"
"It would be very upsetting for them, I think, and especially for Gunnar, if they were to find out where I had gotten that information. They might think that you were in league with me this whole time, and that would certainly be a shame."
She could see it in his eyes. He wanted her, wanted to reach his hand out and touch her, and the only reason that he didn't was that he was holding himself back. She took a step away, hoping that the distance would rein him in further.
He smiled, called in the boy, who came in and started to guide her out, his hand on the small of her back. Valdemar called to her softly as she was guided out.
"Make sure that you don't make any mistakes, I'd hate to see you in distress!"
And then she was out again, and the question burned in her mind, what she was going to do to get out from under his thumb.
It wasn't remotely pleasant to ride, but the horse was ultimately a good one, he had to admit. It wasn't hard to see where they were going, now; they must have decided that he wasn't following any more, or perhaps things had gotten a little bit tense with the raiding party.
