“If Lyonesse lets me,” I corrected her, grimacing at this new responsibility.
“Oh, she will; just give her time to warm up to you. All you have to do is be good for a while.” She winked.
“Does no one else notice her behavior? Certainly Lyonesse must be aware.”
“Elaine is adept at keeping to herself anything that might upset her parents,” Isolde explained. “She knows what best suits her strategically. Her parents love her in a way I will never understand, and she returns that love by being to them exactly what they want—the model of virtue. But every so often, her carefully crafted mask slips, mostly in private. Beware of her jealousy and remember you are dealing with a mind more fragile than most,” she warned darkly. “But she has been well lately, so hopefully she will not cause us any grief.”
Isolde grew silent, no doubt ruminating on the slim likelihood of a peaceful winter with us all cooped up under one roof. I seized the opportunity to change the subject.
“Why do you let Lyonesse treat you like a slave?” I asked bluntly, surprised at how easily I spoke my mind around this girl.
“It is her way of teaching me humility,” she answered with a deep sigh, showing no sign of offense. “I’ve grown used to it. I matured faster than Elaine and Lyonesse began to see me as a threat—or rather, as competition for her daughter,” she corrected herself. “That was when she began insisting I walk behind her family and ordering me about.” She exhaled loudly through her nose. “I’m surprised she still lets me dine at table with them. I go along with whatever she wishes—attending Mass every morning, doing tasks she finds distasteful during the day, and praying on my knees every evening with the rest of the family.” She pointed a slender, pale finger at me. “You’d do well to take a lesson from me in that. The same will be expected of you. You may be a future queen, just like me, but in this house, you are little more than a servant.”
I stood, crossing to stand in front of her, enraged by the future her words painted. “I am no servant. You may have accepted your fate, Isolde, but I will do no such thing! I am a priestess of Avalon, and I will not pretend to worship their god. I will demand the respect I deserve as an equal to their daughter in all things.” My face was hot, blood boiling. “I may not have come here under my own volition, but that does not mean I will relinquish control of my life.”
To my great annoyance, Isolde smirked. “To whom will you protest? Your father? He sent you here, believing it best for you. To Avalon? They have no say in matters of family. Your life is not being threatened. You are not being harmed.” She shook her head, exasperated. “You are missing my point. You do not fight them—that is what they want. Rail against them in your mind all you like, but do not show it; they sense rebellion like a falcon knows his prey. If you want to live in peace, you will keep your thoughts to yourself and go along with them until such time as someone asks to be betrothed to you.”
The mention of an engagement sent another stab of pain through my heart and my eyes welled with tears, deflating my self-righteous anger. I had been engaged only a few days ago. When I looked up into Isolde’s eyes, a connection formed between us, two prisoners bonded by a common fate.
“And you,” I asked quietly. “When will Pellinor find you a mate?”
Her eyes grew soft, watery. I had hit a nerve. “Who knows? Elaine is his top priority and now with you here…” Her voice trailed off and she began to pace again, a thoughtful silence spreading out between us. “If they do not match me soon, my family will be angry.”
She was so quiet I had to strain to hear, and I wondered if she was merely thinking aloud, talking to herself, but she paid me no heed.
“If I were at home, my mother would have me engaged by now,” she continued in the same low tone. “That was the whole point of the peace treaty, to unite Britain and Ireland through marriage. But I have resources. My people have watchmen stationed throughout the city.” She ran the knuckles of her right hand along her mouth, thinking. “Should too much time pass, any one of them could whisk me away under cover of darkness and the treaty would be void because Pellinor failed to uphold his end of the bargain and obtain for me a husband. Then I would be free to marry whomever I choose.” She stopped at the window, looking out over the sea toward Ireland. Her eyes were glittering now, a plan forming in her mind. “My mother would not deny me love. Then someday, when I am Queen of Ireland, I will be able to repay what Lyonesse and Pellinor have given me. They will regret treating me so.”
Suddenly, she seemed once again aware of my presence. Her attention focused on me, and she let her hand fall to her side. “I suppose we all live in a fantasy world from time to time,” she said apologetically, her lips twisting into a half smile, half frown.
Gracefully, she descended into the window seat and I joined her, suddenly weary.
“We are going to cause quite a stir in their pious little world, I can feel it.” There was conspiracy in her voice. “Now, if it won’t cause you too much pain, I’d love to hear about the man who was worth risking your inheritance for.”
While the cold, soaking rains wrenched the last of the leaves from the trees, Isolde and I spent time getting to know one another. When I asked about her life before she came to Corbenic, she was evasive, but I learned she had a mother she practically worshiped, a younger sister she adored, and a younger brother she loathed. She, in turn, was very interested in my childhood, asking about every detail. As a result, I found myself forgetting she was Irish—and therefore, my enemy—and telling her things I would otherwise keep to myself.
“The thing I miss the most is being able to hold a sword,” I told her one quiet afternoon. “I cannot find the words to explain it, but when I do, nothing else matters. The weapon and I dance, and the rest of the world falls away.” I remembered my last lesson with my mother and cousin Bran, only days before the attack that shook my life to the core. Although Bran was taller than me by an arm’s span and twice as strong, I had disarmed him in only three moves. “My mother would be highly displeased if she could see how my skills have deteriorated, thanks to Avalon’s policy of nonviolence and my father’s prohibition.”
“Maybe she can.” Isolde’s eyes were glimmering when she looked up at me. “And I may have a solution for you.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me.
Mine arched in response. “Isolde—” I said her name slowly, as though approaching an unfamiliar animal. “I don’t know what you are thinking, but I know I do not like it.”
She slid off her seat, graceful as a cat, wagging her index finger at me as she approached. “Don’t be so quick to judge. It so happens that the son of Pellinor’s weapon’s master owes me a favor. I may be able to talk the master into training you. If”—she touched me lightly on the nose—“you promise to keep it a secret.”
I was at a loss for words. Isolde had a solution for everything. “Of course,” I croaked, eventually. “How soon do you think you can arrange it?”
Her grin signaled she was already up to no good. “I will talk with him tomorrow. My guess is you’ll be sparring again before the week is out.”
I still do not know what words Isolde used to charm Guildford, the weapon’s master, but she was true to her word. He agreed to give me covert lessons if I agreed to teach his son to read. He didn’t know what terms were specified in his own contract with Pellinor and did not want his son to suffer the same fate. He had dreams for Liam to become a warrior and win his own land one day. If he could read, his lot in life would be all the stronger.
The next evening, Isolde and I met the well-muscled swordsman and his boyishly handsome son in the barn of a farmhouse just outside the castle gates. It was close enough for us to sneak there unnoticed—it seemed Isolde knew a myriad of ways in and out of the castle—yet far enough from the prying eyes of court to evade suspicion. After all, who would question the ringing of blades on the weapon’s master’s property? Passersby would rightly assume someone was getting in some extra practice. What they would never
guess was who.
We would occasionally vary our location so as not to arouse suspicion—one day the lower paddock, the next a clearing in the woods—but as the days went by, the barn proved to be the place with the least interruption or cause for prying eyes.
Nearly a month into my training, on a cold, clear morning, we reached the safety of the barn just as the sun broke over the horizon. I usually sparred with Liam while Guildford instructed, so I was surprised to see Guildford suited in leather armor, warming up with basic footwork and a few practice swings.
“Blessings of the day to you, ladies,” he greeted us in a warm baritone.
“And to you as well,” Isolde answered, sneaking a quick peck on Guildford’s cheek before he could protest.
I smiled, still shy in the presence of so great a man. Guildford’s name was known along the western coast of Britain from Cornwall to Rheged because he had trained most of the men who successfully fought off the Irish for the last twenty years. The irony of Isolde being my means to him now did not escape my notice.
Though his shoulder-length hair was streaked with gray and his face deeply lined, he had the agility and strength of a man half his age, and the prospect of facing off with him made my stomach clench.
Guildford must have read my expression. “Come on now, lass. We have only until the church bells toll. Get ye ready.”
I threw Isolde a questioning look as I shed my cloak, tucked the hem of my tunic into my belt, and donned my own protective leather breastplate.
She read my meaning and casually asked what I had been too intimidated to ask. “I thought Liam was challenging Guinevere today?”
“Liam needs time to study what Guinevere taught him when last we met. He’s been needed to help secure the last of the harvest and mind the slaughter. Isn’t that right, son?”
Liam looked up from the board on which he was slowly tracing letters with a crude stylus. His cheeks and throat reddened at the attention. “Yes, Father. More hands keep the beast of winter at bay, or so Mother says.”
Isolde sauntered behind him, trailing her finger across his shoulders as she passed. She bent low over his left shoulder and surveyed his work. “He’s doing well. Guinevere will have him reading and writing in no time.” Her breath ruffled the hair at his ear.
Liam’s blush deepened.
Isolde sat down on the bale of hay next to him, guiding his hand when he struggled.
As I went through my own brief warm-up, I wondered at the nature of the favor Liam owed her. He wasn’t yet old enough to join Pellinor’s army and I hadn’t seen him about the castle, so how had they met? It really could have been anywhere, given that Isolde had lived here for so many years, and by her own admission, Lyonesse’s guard was not always as close as it was now. But since he was obviously attracted to her, I could only assume she had used that to her advantage.
Guildford skimmed the tip of my sword with his own, a subtle bid for my attention. As we did with each new technique, he took me through the whole sequence once, explaining both offense and defense as we flowed through the movements.
I began with my shield outstretched, sword drawn high as I readied to strike. I brought down my sword, aiming for Guildford’s head, but he stepped forward, blocking me with his shield, and putting me on the defensive. He held my sword fast, pushing against it with his shield so that I could not release it to strike again. Quickly, he raised his own blade, thrusting at my face, and I instinctively raised my shield arm to deflect. The jolt shot down my arm and into my teeth as the sword glanced off. Guildford took advantage of my momentary shock to change tack, using the motion of my defense to propel his sword toward my thigh, while also swatting aside my sword with his shield.
“That is only half the sequence, but I want you to learn both sides of it now. Once you’ve practiced, we’ll put it together with the pattern I showed you at our last instruction and see if you can disarm me.”
Leaving me to practice as both fighters in this duel, Guildford sat on a barrel, halfway between Isolde and me, so he could correct my technique as I practiced.
“Do you really mean what you said last week?” Without preamble, he resumed the conversation they let fall last time we scurried back to the castle. “How could it possibly be done?”
“Of course.” She waved a hand airily as if swatting away a fly. “I would not offer if I was not intending to keep my word. When I return home, at least one of you will come with me. I will send for the others as I can.”
I wanted to stop and consider the implications of what Isolde was saying, but to do so was a potentially dangerous distraction. I tried to focus on my training as their conversation whirled around me like so many dragonflies.
“But how will you do it while keeping Lyonesse in the dark? You know if she found out, she would lash out in ways you cannot even imagine.”
Isolde shook her head. “She need not know. I have connections in the kitchens, the stables, even in her own bedchamber. The family will not discover my plan until it is too late to stop it.”
Liam paused in his studies. “You will break Pellinor’s heart, you do realize that.”
I stopped then, sword mid-swing, and turned to the boy, surprised at his astute interjection. He was gazing at her with a strange combination of infatuation and concern for his father’s master.
Isolde, for her part, appeared shaken, a tiny line of worry marring the space between her eyes. She bit her lower lip as if the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. “I know,” she finally responded in a small voice. She swallowed hard. “It pains me to betray him so, but I cannot let years of injustice go unpunished.” She looked up at Liam, eyes seeking his approval—or maybe it was his forgiveness she wanted. “I put no one in danger by what I am planning to do. I could easily wage war, but instead I chose a more subtle form of revenge.”
Guildford made a sarcastic sound. “Yes, how noble of you. You merely rob their household of the best servants and craftsmen, weaken them from within.”
I went back to dueling with my shadow then, uncertain whether Guildford meant his words in jest.
“Do you wish me to send for you or no?” Isolde’s tone was haughty. She clearly thought him serious and was hurt by the thought.
“I do, I do.” Guildford sighed. “I simply wish I did not have to betray my master in the process.”
He must have stood silently, for in the next moment, I heard the crunch of his boots as he came toward me.
“Ready?” He picked up his sword, assuming a standard opening stance.
I nodded, mirroring him.
We went through the sequence again, in the same roles. When we reached his jab for my thigh, I blocked it and brought up my sword, forcing him back. I swung horizontally around my right side, and Guildford lifted his sword and shield in response, using both to absorb the brunt of the blow. Stepping to my left, I repeated the strike on the other side, harder, forcing his defenses upward, exposing his now vulnerable groin area. I touched the tip of my blade to the area just below his armor to signal where my thrust would have landed.
Guildford clapped his hands together. “That was well done indeed.”
Isolde put an arm around me as I bent to examine Liam’s writing, my chest still heaving from the exertion of the fight. My eyes had made it only halfway down the page before a bell tolled in the distance, signaling the beginning of the morning prayer that preceded Mass.
“We must be off. There is little time to change before we meet Lyonesse and Elaine for daily devotions,” I said. No matter how many times we did this, I would never lose the fear of being caught, the sheer panic at the thought of Lyonesse’s reaction to my forbidden activity.
But Isolde was as calm as ever. While I stripped off my armor and did my best to straighten my wrinkled dress, she tousled Liam’s hair and pecked him on the cheek. “Be a good boy and practice your letters—for me.”
Liam smiled self-consciously. “Anything for you.”
I embraced Guildford. “T
omorrow, then?”
He nodded. “Indeed.”
“Remember, I keep my promises,” Isolde called over her shoulder.
That’s what I’m afraid of. I began my morning prayers then and there, begging the gods as I ran toward the castle that whether Isolde left for Ireland as a new bride or struck out on her own as she had threatened to do, it would not bring calamity on Pellinor’s house. For I was part of that house now, and as much as I was growing to love her, I did not want to see her thirst for vengeance bring pain to those who held my future in their hands.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Winter 496
Snow was gently falling from the pre-dawn sky, covering man and beast alike in a thin film of white powder. We were gathered in the courtyard outside Pellinor’s castle in the early morning darkness, along with the rest of the village, to celebrate Candlemas, the first day of spring, though it came in what felt like the depths of winter. In my religion, it was a day dedicated to the goddess Brigid, who was the patroness of women’s mysteries, especially childbirth, as well as fire and all forms of poetry and inspiration. In the Christian world of Corbenic, however, the feast commemorated the day the Virgin Mary, obedient to the laws of her own religion, went to the temple to undergo ritual purification after giving birth and present her son to God and the temple elders.
“Why, oh why, must this tradition be conducted outdoors?” I muttered to myself through chattering teeth. I stomped my frozen feet on the equally frozen ground and noted a little less feeling in them. I had been cold all morning, for we woke to find all of the fires in the house extinguished. As was custom, they would not be lit again until after Mass.
“Mortification, is that what they call this?” I asked Isolde, who was nearest to me in the long line of white-cloaked, half-frozen women.
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