“I am not stopping you,” she mimicked in a singsong voice. “Men!” she huffed. “You are all the same. So stubborn. So foolish. You are lost, aren’t you? That is why you ended up here. But I bet you were too proud to ask for directions. My husband was the same. He would never ask for directions either.”
“I am not lost. I am just passing through,” Merton stated.
“My husband used to say that as well. But the truth was, he was always lost. Come on,” she walked towards him and yanked the fur away from him before he knew what she was about. Immediately he began to shiver, for the air had a desperate bite to it.
“Get up,” Tegan commanded. “I am not leaving until you do.”
“Then you are going to have a long wait, aren’t you?” Merton said, and he closed his eyes and feigned sleep, although he could do nothing to stop his teeth from chattering.
“Where are you going?” Tegan asked mere moments later and the next thing he knew she had sat down beside him and pulled the damp fur over them both. She then had the audacity to rest her head on his shoulder as if it were her right.
Merton sighed in frustration and flinched away from her, which earned him a gentle punch and a warning to stop fidgeting. She then made herself at home on his shoulder again. Here he was, The Devil, the man everyone had feared, and now this woman, this complete stranger, thought him so harmless that she could lay her head upon his shoulder. And to make matters worse, she thought he would be happy about it. He would have stood up if his legs didn’t hurt so much. So instead he flinched away from her again, which caused him considerable pain, but it did nothing to dislodge her head.
She was a flea he concluded moments later as he gave up trying to free himself from her. She was annoying, irritating and hard to get rid of. “Chysauster,” he said, hoping that would be the end of it and she would leave him alone. “I am going to Chysauster,” he was confident that she would have absolutely no idea where that was.
“You are bloody lost then,” Tegan chuckled beside him. “You are going in completely the wrong direction…”
So much for his confidence.
“…But I wouldn’t recommend going there. The place has been abandoned for years. I am telling you; there are only the ruins that those bloody Romans left. Tell me, what was wrong with our houses? Nothing, that is what. But those Romans couldn’t stand to live like we did. Not tough enough you see. They had to build their big fancy villas out of stone. Did you know they had heated floors? Heated floors. Can you imagine what that must have been like? Do you think you would burn your feet if you walked around barefoot? And those Baths, they had a thing for them, didn’t they? Of course, they took over our sacred wells, took advantage of our hot springs and turned it into something they could sell. They completely ignored our ancient Molmutine Laws. I guess they thought they knew better. But I ask you this, what kind of people puts a price on water? Says it all, doesn’t it? But they feared death, didn’t they? Couldn’t make head nor tail of us, charging into battle without armour. They don’t understand death. That is their problem. They think it is something to be feared.”
“It is,” Merton answered quietly, “and it isn’t. But it is our destiny, each and every one of us will die.”
“You speak the truth,” Tegan said. “Come on,” she pushed him with her shoulder as if she were an old companion, a lifelong friend. “Wait out the storm in my home and then I will draw a map for you, so you can find Chysauster when you are ready to leave.” She rose to her feet again and picked up her sticks. “I put your horse in my paddock, my mare is not particularly taken with him, but she will get used to it. Did you know that horse of yours woke me up this morning? He gave me the fright of my life — no one expects to wake up and find a horse in their house.”
“My horse?” Merton looked to where he had tethered the beast. The tether was still there, but the horse was long gone. The wolf must have frightened him, although he could not recall hearing the horse thunder away in fright. “I am going to kill him,” he muttered under his breath.
“I am sure that would be very satisfying but not particularly practical,” Tegan stated and then she frowned. “You aren’t the sort who enjoys beating an animal are you? Because I won’t have any of that.”
Merton didn’t grace that with an answer, he just stared moodily at the empty tether.
“Are you getting up or not?” Tegan asked, frowning down at him.
He knew he had to get up and he knew that now, thanks to his horse, he would have to take up her offer of shelter. Merton prepared himself by inhaling sharply and then breathing out slowly. His teeth caught his lower lip and he braced himself for the pain as he tried to rise. On the first attempt he was not successful and he glanced up at Tegan to see if she was watching him, but she had turned her back and was watching the sun as it rose in the sky. He took several steadying breaths before trying again. This time he was successful. Merton rolled his shoulders, trying his best to loosen the knots, but little good it did. He took a step forward and swayed alarmingly. He reached out and leant against the Standing Stone as he desperately tried to keep his balance.
Tegan had turned back around and was watching him. He dreaded seeing pity in her eyes. But when he dared to look into them, she merely raised her eyebrows at him and grinned like a playful toddler. He saw her glance at the pinned-back cloth of his tunic where his arm should be, but she did not comment. Instead, she waited patiently for him to sort himself out. When he tried once again to walk, he felt his knee give way, and before he knew it, she had handed him one of her sticks.
“You use that,” she commanded as her arm slipped around his waist, “and I will use you and my other stick. It dismays me to say I cannot walk without my sticks — Jenna has made sure of that. So if you fall, we both will, which will probably be a source of great embarrassment for you, but I think I might enjoy it. It has been a long time since I was on top of a man.”
“I cannot support both of us,” Merton stated, there was no humour in his eyes from her words. He wished he didn’t need the bloody stick. He wished he could help her, but he couldn’t.
Tegan let go of him and took a step back. “Then I shall have to make do as best I can,” she sounded annoyed, and her eyes sparkled in anger.
“I am grateful that you came to find me,” Merton said. “And I am thankful that you are offering me shelter. But I have trouble carrying my weight. I can not support another.”
Tegan’s gaze seemed to soften. “I have some skills as a healer. I may be able to help you.”
“No one can help me. I am cursed,” Merton replied. “I was thrown out of the Church. And now God has abandoned me.” He had not meant to say the words with so much malice. Sampson had been good to him, as had all the monks. The Church wasn’t all bad.
“So you are a disgraced Christian. I may just like you yet,” Tegan giggled like a young woman, and there was mischief in her eyes. She must have been quite a handful in her youth. Damn it all, she was quite a handful now. But this was no laughing matter.
“It would be better if you didn’t like me,” Merton said.
“Don’t you have a high opinion of yourself?” Tegan stated with a small frown. “You have no right to tell me who I can and cannot like. If I want to like you, then I will.”
“Liking me will get you killed,” Merton held her gaze, hoping to see a flicker of fear in her eyes at his statement. But no, she held his gaze, she didn’t even blink, and it was him that looked away first.
“I once thought like that,” she said. “My story is a long one, and someday, if I have a mind, I will tell it to you. But, know this, like you, I have had to bury friends and family. I have had to bury people that I love. I too have wondered if the gods had abandoned me. I thought I was cursed—”
“You don’t understand,” Merton interrupted her, how could she possibly understand? He had failed the woman that he loved, and there was no coming back from that.
“Why don’t I understand?” Teg
an asked. “Is it because of my age? Old age doesn’t make you a fool you know. I know what grief looks like and I can see it in your eyes as plainly as I can see the sun in the sky. I would take a wild guess and say that your woman was murdered, and you got those scars from trying to save her.”
“I would say it was none of your business,” Merton’s words held a hint of anger in them now. He would not discuss Amandine with her. He would not discuss Amandine with anyone.
“You are right. It is none of my business. But you know what, your horse was none of my business either. But when I saw him, in my house, without a rider, then I made it my business to find out what had happened. Where would you be now, if I had not? There, I have given you something to think about now, haven’t I? Now shut up and let us get home before the first snow falls. I have never met anyone who talks so much as you do. You are beginning to give me a headache.”
Merton had long since given up searching the horizon for any signs of a house. Instead, he looked to the windswept grass and concentrated on not catching his foot on one of the many molehills that dotted the immediate landscape. He had lost his footing on more than one occasion and had fallen to his knees. Tegan had teased him, telling him that he was one of those rare people who could fall over air. She had tried to make light of the situation, and it had helped. Merton had, instead of cursing at his misfortune, felt encouraged to get back on his feet. Tegan didn’t once sigh with annoyance or call him clumsy for slowing her down — for, despite her corn, she could walk remarkably fast. She used humour instead, gentle mocking that had no hint of malice. “There he goes again. What is it like down there with the worms? It must be good, you are always down there. I think I might join you. Now is there a particular way I should fall? Or do I just have to, you know, collapse in a heap?” And although Merton didn’t want to laugh, he had, and the sound had felt not only foreign to him, but strangely painful. It had left him with a deep sense of guilt in his heart. How dare he find something amusing after everything that had happened. But it was impossible not to laugh when travelling in Tegan’s company. She said the most outrageous things, things that no woman, let alone a woman of her age, should know. If asked, Merton would have said that Tegan’s humour was as contagious as the pox and there was no charm that could be had to stop her.
In the soft frost covered ground, Merton could clearly see the indention of his horse’s hooves. He assumed that Tegan had followed the tracks in her search for the rider of the horse who had made himself so at home in her house.
Whoever she was, this Tegan was a tough old boot. She didn’t complain once about her pain, although she limped dreadfully. Merton marvelled at the fact that she had walked so far to find the owner of a horse when she could have easily stayed at home by her fire. Most women wouldn’t have bothered, especially one who obviously found it so difficult to walk. He was grateful to her — despite her apparent insanity, her prophecy’s, and her unhealthy obsession with hating anything Roman — because he would have truly been in trouble if she had not found him. He would have become another one of those lost souls who wandered the moor. But on the bright side, at least the wolf would have got his meal.
“I told you it wasn’t far,” Tegan said moments later.
Merton stopped and stared. In front of him was a wood. There was no sign of life, no birds, no squirrels. Nothing moved in the trees. The trees themselves looked like logs waiting to be felled and thrown into the fire. A few of the trees accommodated the dark green leaves of an ivy plant, but even the ivy looked downhearted. Tired. Sad. Dead leaves that were in various states of decay littered the floor. This could not possibly be where she lived — there was nothing here. Nothing. He raised his head and saw a small wisp of smoke, evidence of a fire.
“Not far, not far,” Tegan spoke with encouragement, and the pair of them pushed on. The frozen leaves crunched underfoot as they made their way into the wood and a strange chiming sound came from the branches. Merton glanced upwards but could see nothing. The deeper they went into the wood, the louder the sound became, but now it was more like ghosts crying out, “stay away, stay away.” Finally, he caught sight of several wind chimes, hidden amongst the branches and he held back a smile. This woman, whoever she was, used the fear of the moor to her advantage.
By the time they reached the dilapidated old roundhouse in the middle of the wood, Merton was sweating, and his chest felt tight. He stopped and looked at the building. The thatch was old and in need of repair. There were patches of fresh wattle and daub on the walls, but in his opinion, the whole house needed pulling down and rebuilding. A cross, made of rowan, and bound with red thread, had been secured over the doorway. Arrowheads that had long since rusted were nailed around the entrance of the door, to ward off burglars. And around the base of the roundhouse, fennel grew in abundance. No doubt planted there to ward off evil spirits. The evergreen leaves were a stark contrast to the dullness to the many Rowan trees that surrounded the house. Rosemary also battled for dominance, but in this instant, it seemed that the fennel was winning. Tegan was taking no chances. Her house was as protected as she could get it.
Silver grey chickens chatted to themselves while they ran free-range in the clearing. They raked the frozen earth with their feet while watching the world with curious eyes. A pig squealed with delight when he found a fallen acorn in his stall. And a very shaggy black and white goat, who had the most impressive set of horns, was desperately trying to chew through her rope, while her offspring jumped and sprang from one tree stump to another.
A horse whinnied, and Merton saw his beast. His horse was prancing around in a small clearing, showing off to a timeworn grey horse with a bowed back — her riding days were long gone. The mare was, like her owner, pretty, despite her age. His horse pranced around the mare again, in answer the mare pinned her ears back, snapped once at her new companion, and then pretended indifference, although she kept a very close eye on her unwelcomed visitor. She may be old, but she wouldn’t have some foolish colt tell her what to do in her paddock.
A big black cat with eerie yellow eyes meowed. In his mouth was a dead mouse, which he ceremonially dumped in the doorway, before running over to where they stood. The chickens flapped their wings in panic, and they eyed the cat with suspicion. The cat, however, had no interest in the chickens. Instead, he wrapped himself around his mistress’s ankles and began to meow quite pathetically, until Tegan bent down and scooped him up in her arms.
“This is Lowen,” Tegan said introducing the cat. “Lowen, say hello to Galahad.” The cat meowed again. “Galahad, say hello back, it is only polite.”
“I am not saying hello to a cat,” Merton stated with conviction, he may have fallen on hard times, but they were not that hard.
“Yes, you bloody will,” Tegan reprimanded. “Or you will not step one foot inside my home.”
Merton didn’t have the energy to argue with her, so he said a very reluctant “Hello.” Although by doing so, he felt like the biggest fool this side of the sea. If his men could see how far he had fallen… He hoped that he wouldn’t have to introduce himself to the rest of her collection of animals because there was no way he was going to talk to the pig.
“I don’t think our guest likes you very much, Lowen.” The cat meowed again as if in agreement. “No he doesn’t,” she talked to the cat as if he were a baby. “He is probably a dog man. Men usually are. Oh dear, Lowen, what are we going to do with him?”
“Do you always talk to your cat like that?” Merton asked, he couldn’t bear to hear the baby talk; it ripped up his insides and made him feel sick with longing. He had a young son that he had not seen in months and a dead daughter that he had never seen at all. He missed them both. But his boy, Tanick, was better off without him. He wasn’t fit to be a father — he never had been.
“Of course,” Tegan answered. “He is very intelligent.” She spoke to the cat, not to Merton. “You’re a clever pussy, aren’t you? You are my clever baby.” She kissed the top of the
cat’s sleek head. “You know all about the Roman Empire and their barbarian ways, don’t you my darling boy?” The cat meowed as if in agreement.
“I am glad to hear it,” Merton said with a hint of sarcasm. “I cannot imagine you with a stupid cat that didn’t know anything about the Roman Empire. Heaven forbid.”
Tegan chuckled at his words. “You mock me boy, but Lowen is a good friend to me. A loyal one. And I think we both know how hard those sorts of friends are to come by. And in my experience, animals are better companions than people. People always want something, animals just ask for food and a tickle now and then. You love a tickly don’t you my Lowen? Oh yes you do, yes you do.” Tegan frowned and looked at Merton. “Now I come to think of it, animals are not that different to husbands — as long as you keep them well fed and pet them occasionally, they will stay content.”
Tegan was looking at Merton as if she was expecting him to agree with her. “If you say so,” Merton said cautiously, but it appeared he had said the right words for she smiled.
“I do say so. Now stop all this jabbering. I am cold, and Jenna is hurting something fierce, let us go inside, slip off our shoes and get drunk.”
10
Tegan drew back the tatty, dirty curtain that was hung in place of a door. Merton prepared himself for the worst. If the outside was anything to go by, he dreaded to imagine what the inside was going to be like. He feared she would have a collection of small furry animals living in her house and that she wouldn’t be one for housework.
Merton hesitated in the doorway, and he was overcome with a strangely irrational fear. It was the same sensation that he had experienced when Sampson tried to persuade him to cross the threshold of the church. Instinct told him that he didn’t belong here and to cross the threshold would be the most grievous of sins. Merton glanced back towards the wood and the path that they had taken to get here. He was at a crossroads, he recognised it for what it was, but which path should he take? What could this old woman and this ruin of a roundhouse offer him that the Church could not? What could she give him that Yrre could not? He should tack up his horse and get the hell out of here. But damn it all, he was tired, and hungry, and lost. He had been lost since that dreadful day at Benwick Castle. Hell, the truth of it was he had been lost long before then. Merton could feel the warmth of the fire pit, and it drew him forward. This house felt welcoming, more so than the cold church had been.
The Du Lac Princess: (Book 3 of The Du Lac Chronicles) Page 10
