Guinevere's Gift

by Nancy McKenzie

  “I lift mine eyes to the hills,” she whispered, “from whence cometh my help.” The people prayed with her for their deliverance, but the prayer in the queen's heart was more personal. Dear God, I cannot choose between my daughter and my kingdom. Merciful Lord, deliver me from the choice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  An Arrow in the Dark

  Through the blowing dark, Peleth labored up the hill behind the castle. His sides were slippery with wet and his legs heavy with mud. The familiar, light weight of the girl he carried easily enough, but the stranger behind her had an uncertain seat. He had to adjust his stride at almost every step to keep the man from sliding off.

  Guinevere kept a firm hold on the lead rope to help him balance, stroked his neck, and murmured to him to keep his spirits up. He'd been a warhorse once; he was trained to endure. She did not worry about Peleth or even about Marcus, bobbing like a cork behind her. His arm about her waist was tense and sometimes pressed against her hard enough to hurt, but she could not blame him for being unable to relax. No one could learn to ride by galloping uphill in the pelting rain without a saddle to cling to or light to see by. He was a stalwart enough companion, speaking seldom, and then only to direct her to the right path.

  Her only worry was Elaine. She could not let them have Elaine.

  All the times she had been cross with Elaine, had suffered from her bossiness, had thought ill of her in her heart, now passed before her memory and filled her with shame. Elaine had befriended her from her first day in Gwynedd. At a time when Guinevere's world had shattered around her, when she had been devastated with grief at leaving her father and her homeland forever, Elaine had accepted her instantly as a bosom companion, had taken her by the hand and led her into the busy whirl of a new life. She needn't have done it. Elaine was the queen's only daughter and might well have felt annoyed, angry, or even jealous at this unasked-for addition to the family. Instead, she had welcomed Guinevere with open arms. Ailsa and Elaine, between them, had made it possible to begin a new life in Gywnedd.

  Guinevere lifted a hand to her face to wipe away tears and found her cheeks already streaming with wet. The hood of the cloak was too big and blew back into Marcus's face whenever she tried to pull it forward. That her eyes were blinded hardly mattered, since she could see next to nothing in the gloom and didn't know where they were going. She might as well let herself weep and give vent to her fears. The abduction of Elaine was too dreadful to comprehend. The injustice of it made her hot with rage. Elaine was but eleven years old.

  “Pull up,” Marcus said behind her. “We're near the turning.”

  They slowed to a walk, and the rain, which had been coming at them before, now fell straight down. Guinevere pulled her hood forward again and received a cold sluice of water down her back. Shivering, she had reached for her cloak to pull it tighter around her when a hiss of movement came out of the dark and something thudded into a tree beside them.

  “Christ!” swore Marcus. “An arrow! Get down!”

  He slid off the horse and drew his sword. Guinevere stared at the shaft protruding from the tree trunk at her elbow and pulled Peleth to a halt.

  “Wait!” she cried, as Marcus reached for the lead rope. “It's a friend, I think.”

  He stared at her blankly. She turned, and from the trees on the other side of the path stepped a slender figure in a wolfskin cloak with another arrow already notched to his bow. Marcus was between them at once, sword raised. He was soldier enough to realize his disadvantage. The stranger's arrow could reach farther than his blade. Uneasily, he lowered his weapon. “Who are you, in the king's name? And what do you do here?”

  Guinevere reached out to touch his shoulder. “Marcus, don't fear him. I know him.”

  Marcus ignored her. He knew at once that this was one of the Old Ones, a primitive people gone now from all but the highest hills. But primitive or not, this young man was armed with a weapon he was skilled at wielding. He was dangerous. “You, there. What do you want? I mean you no harm, but you must let us pass. We are on the queen's business and have no time to spare.”

  After a long moment, the bow sank to the young man's side. He glanced up at Guinevere and mumbled something guttural.

  “Does he not speak Welsh?” Marcus cried. “Tell him to back away!”

  “He speaks Mountain Welsh,” Guinevere replied. “Do you know it?”

  Marcus shrugged. The language he had heard sounded nothing like the Mountain Welsh he knew.

  “His name is Llyr,” Guinevere continued. “He is a prince among his people. He means us no harm. Shall I ask him to put down his bow?”

  “Let me try.” Marcus faced the figure clad in wolf skin and fumbled for the words of a language he had not spoken since childhood. “Sir, I serve the king. Put down your weapon. I mean the princess no harm.”

  The odd prince glanced quickly at Guinevere for reassurance, then not only unnotched his arrow but unstrung his bow and, fixing his dark gaze on Marcus, laid it down on the sodden ground. Now Marcus had the advantage. It would take twice the time to ready the bow again as it would take to cross the path and strike a swordblow. Marcus met the challenge of those fierce, dark eyes and wondered, as he made the stranger a respectful bow and sheathed his sword, how on earth the girl had come to tame so wild a creature as this.

  He waited while they spoke together, catching fewer than half the words at first, but more as the conversation continued. There was urgency in their voices, and it was clear that the young man was arguing with the princess. They must know each other well, Marcus realized, to interact so freely. Then he remembered the girl's habit of riding about in the hills unescorted. He grinned to himself. Queen Alyse would be furious.

  “Come, Marcus,” Guinevere called. “It's time to go. Llyr will give you a leg up.” She made a basket of her hands and demonstrated this to Llyr.

  “Does he know where Sir Darric's men are stationed? We have to get past them unobserved.”

  “Yes,” Llyr said, addressing Marcus and enunciating clearly so Marcus could understand him. “Two men on horse-back rode up this trail a little past moonset. One of them carried a bundle of blankets, a bundle with yellow hair.”

  “Moonset!” Marcus grumbled as he trusted his foot to the young man's hands. “How can he see the moon on a night like this?” He landed more or less on the horse's wet back and slid his arm around Guinevere's waist. The Old One glared at him with fierce disapproval.

  “They live so close to the heavens,” Guinevere said, “they don't need to see the stars to know where they are. To them, it's like knowing left from right.”

  “Light with thee walk,” Llyr said, saluting.

  Guinevere raised her own arm in response. “Dark from thee flee.”

  Glancing over his shoulder, Marcus saw the young man pick up his bow, restring it in a flash, and disappear into the gloom.

  “He thought it was me, you see, in the bundle, and he followed them up to a cave in the hills.”

  “Followed on foot?”

  “Of course. He can track anything. When they dismounted, and he saw it wasn't me, he came back down to find me and let me know. He was going to try to get into the castle somehow, but then he heard us coming. He thought you were one of them, one of Sir Darric's men, following with me. He stopped us the only way he could.”

  “Damn near killed us both,” Marcus muttered, but his voice was more amused than angry. He remembered the latent threat in those fierce black eyes and smiled to himself. He recognized jealousy when he saw it. “Where's he gone now?”

  “Back to his clan to summon their help in rounding up Sir Darric's men.”

  Marcus gasped. “You've started a war?”

  “No, no. I asked him not to kill them, just to tie them up and take their weapons. He tells me most of them are boys and scared of the dark. It shouldn't take the Old Ones very long.”

  Marcus laughed aloud. “And after that, he will come to the cave.”

  Guinevere looked
at him over her shoulder. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “That's easy. Because he's in love with you.”

  He felt her stiffen.

  “Is that the turning ahead?” she asked coolly. “There on the left?”

  “Aye. That's the road to the north and the pass to the Longmeadow Marshes.”

  Without any movement on her part that he could detect, the horse turned to the left and picked up a canter. Marcus abandoned any attempt at conversation and focused all his attention on staying astride the slippery, bouncing back beneath him.

  When Guinevere next spoke, her words seemed to come from a great distance. “Llyr is my guardian,” she said. “That is all.”

  Marcus smiled to himself. She sounded exactly like Queen Alyse.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Cave

  It was cold in the heights. The rain had stopped, and a small breeze trickled down from the mountaintops. Guinevere shivered. The cloak she had borrowed was not as thick and warm as the soldier's cloak Stannic had loaned her, and her clothes were thoroughly damp. There was little protection from the breeze, for at this height, the trees had not yet leafed out. This was a land of rocks, scrub, stunted evergreens, and barebranched hardwoods, a cold and forbidding land far above the fertile valleys, home to hawks, vultures, wolves, goats, and Old Ones.

  She slowed the horse to a walk, for the trail was steep, narrow, and twisted around boulders and rocky outcrops. The need for hurry oppressed her, but it was dangerous to go at a faster pace. Her only consolation was the realization that the going had been just as slow for Jordan and Drako.

  “Stop here,” Marcus said softly. “We're close now.” He slid off the horse, landing with a grunt and a slither of loose stone. Guinevere, too, found her legs stiff with cold and difficult to manage for the first few steps. Marcus led her off the trail and into a copse of juniper. “Stay here and out of sight,” he said, “while I climb up beyond those rocks and take a look around.”

  She protested at first, not wanting to stay behind now that they had finally come to their journey's end, but Marcus prevailed. He was going only to scout around, not to reveal himself, not to attempt any action. Jordan and Drako had two horses with them, he reminded her, and someone had to stay with Peleth and keep him quiet.

  Guinevere watched him go, then shrugged off her cloak, shook the water off it, and began to rub Peleth down. He was warm from his exertions and could not be left standing barebacked in the fitful breeze to grow cold and stiff. When she had dried him as best she could, she covered his back with the cloak and nestled up against him to share his heat. Her shivering had almost stopped by the time Marcus returned.

  “They're up there,” he said tensely. “They've built a fire, and Princess Elaine is with them. They've got her wrapped in blankets at the back of the cave, but I can't tell whether or not she's bound. They've got their bedrolls with them and supplies. The place is a camp, of sorts. A wide cave, but shallow, no good for wolves or wildcats. They've used it before.”

  Guinevere stared at him. “How do you know?”

  “I tracked them there last week on orders from the queen.”

  Whether it was the lifting clouds or the lack of a forest canopy Guinevere did not know, but she could see him much better now.

  “Queen Alyse knew all the time it was Sir Darric?”

  “No. But she knew that cattle and sheep leave tracks.”

  “But there were no tracks. That's what everyone said.”

  “There were tracks if you knew what to look for,” he said gently. “And she knew that perfectly well. So she sent me to find them and follow them, but in secret. That's where I've been for the past five days.”

  The girl's wide eyes looked black in the dark. “And this cave is Sir Darric's camp? Right here in the hills above the castle? I wonder he dared!”

  Marcus grunted. “He has nerve and to spare. This was a staging area. There's a makeshift pen on the hill behind the cave where they rested the animals overnight before the long trek downhill to the Marshes. I wager that's where those two scoundrels up there have put their horses. I saw no sign of them, but I didn't go around back.”

  “Well, I am ready for anything. Let's go.”

  “Bring your cloak. It's getting toward dawn, and the air is chill.”

  But Guinevere shook her head. “I've got to leave it on Peleth or he won't make it back down tonight. I'll be all right as long as I'm moving.”

  To this, Marcus objected, and no amount of argument could sway him. Finally, Guinevere consented to wear his own cloak. “It'll only be in my way in a sword fight,” he said. “And you're sure to catch a chill without it. I'd rather stay in the queen's good graces, if it's all the same to you.”

  Guinevere grew grateful for the cloak as she climbed the twisting trail behind him. The breeze was sharper now, and Marcus's cloak was thick, warm, and fairly dry. The breeze carried smoke with it and the damp, acrid smell of wet wood, wet wool, and horses.

  They came upon the cave quite suddenly around a bend in the trail. The fire at its mouth burned and spat, shedding more smoke than light. Guinevere wondered how they had managed to light one at all, since there couldn't be a dry stick left in the forest after so much rain. Perhaps they had some tinder and dry wood stored within the cave. Behind the two men in the foreground, she could dimly see the stone face at the back and a huddle of blankets piled against it, a huddle of blankets with yellow hair.

  She crouched beside Marcus behind a boulder. “I see her,” she whispered. “How do we get her out?”

  “We've got to disarm those two first.” He nodded toward Jordan and Drako, one on either side of the fire. Jordan was sitting cross-legged, whittling something with his knife and drinking steadily from a hip flask. Drako lay curled on his side, snoring, an empty wineskin in his hand. Marcus turned and considered her. “How strong a stomach do you have? Do you fear the sight of blood?”

  She straightened her shoulders. “I'll be all right. But you can't just go in there, Marcus, and challenge them. It's two against one, and if they kill you, where will Elaine be then? Where will I be? We've got to make them come out, one by one. I can help you do that. I'll be a decoy.”

  Aware of her intelligence, Marcus bit back the hot refusal that rose to his lips and asked her to explain her plan.

  “If you show yourself,” she said, “all they need do to disarm you is drag Elaine out and put a knife to her throat. So you must stay hidden. In those pines over there, perhaps? I will go far enough into the light for them to see me. I have no weapon; they won't be afraid. They'll think it's a chance to capture the queen's ward and strengthen Sir Darric's hand. One of them will probably stay with Elaine, and the other will come after me. I'll let him chase me into the pine grove, where you can cut him down. The other will likely come out when he hears the sounds of fighting, so I hope you can deal with the first one swiftly.”

  Marcus estimated the distance between the cave mouth and the pines. “Can you outrun him, princess? He's a young man and strong.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I'm fast.”

  He remembered those flying feet going past him in the queen's garden and acknowledged the truth of it. “But once you show yourself, they'll know you're here. If I don't kill Jordan fast enough, or if he kills me, they'll both come looking for you.”

  Guinevere gulped. “We could try throwing stones to get their attention,” she said weakly, “but they might think it was soldiers coming and try to use Elaine for protection. I don't want Elaine frightened any more than she is now. I'm . . . I'm willing to take the risk of being seen.”

  Marcus thought hard. It was not a risk he was willing to take for anyone else but the queen's daughter. Guinevere's plan might work for the first ruffian. Marcus was confident he could stop any man in his tracks if the fellow didn't know he was there. It was the second man he worried about. The second man would be alert to danger, would suspect an ambush, would know he was not facing a force of any size, and would
have his sword drawn. But he could think of nothing better. He would prefer to charge straight in and take them by surprise, but the risks were too great. The girl was right about that. If he failed, he left her and the queen's daughter alone in the heights with two armed traitors. They needed Elaine to blackmail the queen. The gods only knew what they would do to the ward.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Let's get over into the pine grove and plan the ambush. Follow me.”

  The pine grove proved to be well suited to their purpose. A ring of trees surrounded a little clearing on the edge of a low cliff. The landslide that had created the cliff had taken a score of pines down with it, and the trees lay some forty feet below, protruding from the rubble like the spine of a giant hedgehog with their dead spikes pointing upward.

  Marcus peered over the edge of the cliff and shuddered. “If I can't kill him myself, I'll push him over. That's a death trap more certain than any I could devise.”

  There was enough room in the clearing for a sword fight and enough space between the living branches for Guinevere to hide. All that now remained was to lead the men into it, one at a time. Guinevere looked at Marcus standing at the cliff's edge and, for the first time, saw him as a soldier might. That he was tough, wiry, brave, strong, and capable she already knew from her night's adventure, but she had forgotten that he had only one useful arm. She had forgotten, too, how short he was, how unlike a warrior in appearance. She swallowed in a dry throat. Jordan and Drako were almost twice his size.

  She shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around her. It was too late now for misgivings and, after all his help, unkind to have them. A thousand things go could amiss with any plan. They could only do their best and hope it was enough. She gripped the edges of the cloak to still her trembling hands.

  “I'm ready. Shall I go now?”

  Marcus came over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “You don't have to do this, princess. You're a brave girl; you've proved that to everyone. Why not let me charge straight in and take my chances? I'm not without skill, you know.”