Wonderful

by Jill Barnett

  A sense of dread came over him.

  It was filled with ale.

  Bile clogged his throat and he leaned over and spilled his stomach, heaving over and over and again.

  He wiped his mouth, then straightened and stood frozen. His hands hung limply at his sides. What good were they? He could wield a sword and mace and an ax, but he could do nothing to get to his wife.

  He felt as if the life were sucked from him.

  The breath he tried to take hurt. The air began to quiver in his chest. He could feel his emotions rising inside of him so furiously and with such power that it was all he could do not to cry out.

  Almost overcome by desperation, he walked outside his tent, needing the taste of air. He stood there and stared up at Camrose, the fortress he’d built to be strong and solid, impenetrable.

  His king’s pride.

  His heart’s destruction.

  The irony of it hit him hard and sharp and like a sword through his heart. The awful truth was that he could not break inside Camrose to save his wife. The place he’d built to keep her safe, now kept him out and kept her away from him.

  He caught sight of a flicker of light in the distant tower and was drawn toward it like a moth to flame. He walked across the field, past sleeping men, through the mud and over the shimmering red embers that were left from the campfires.

  His hungry gaze never left the strange distant tower light that no matter how far he walked, did not seem any closer.

  He thought he saw a shadow cross the window. A flicker of darkness against the golden light.

  His imagination? He did not know.

  He wished it were her, hoped it was her, walking there, as he was walking, pacing in front of the window, waiting for him.

  Just a sign, all he needed was a sign, so he would know if she was safe.

  It twisted inside of him, this doubt and feeling of helplessness, this eerie sense of loss and the pain of not truly knowing.

  The mind was a cruel thing; it played tricks on you. One moment you dreamed of holding your love. You could taste her, smell her, hear her voice, feel her touch. You awoke in a cold sweat because you wanted so badly for it not to be a dream, but to be real.

  Then you saw the reality.

  She was there, far away, yet so close. Helpless.

  And you were here. Impotent.

  He stood there for the longest time, remembering that his last words to her had been in anger.

  Finally the distant light dimmed, then flickered out, making the tower look like a huge black shadow of something that wasn’t really there.

  He closed his eyes against the emotions that swelled in him again. He hung his head in defeat.

  With nothing left to him, he fell to his knees in the mud and bowed his head over his tightly knotted hands, praying to God for another chance with her.

  For Clio, his Clio. Praying for the woman who meant more to him than his very breath, more than even his salvation.

  The next night they brought the monk to him. Brother Dismas was crying and wailing. He saw Merrick and stumbled across the ground, falling to his knees and sobbing.

  He babbled that they had sent him to the Red Lion. He was supposed to give him a gift from David ap Gruffydd.

  In his hands, he held a blood-soaked gown.

  Merrick stared at it.

  He knew the gown. ’Twas that ugly yellow thing Clio had worn on that first day at the castle. He stared at it for the longest time, feeling as if he were in the throes of a nightmare, not wanting to see what he saw.

  The blood. Red and soaked on his own wife’s clothing. Part of him, the so hope-filled part of him that still believed life was not the hell it seemed, hoped that she had given the gown to her maid … to someone. Anyone.

  “She is dead, my lord,” Brother Dismas wailed. “She is dead.”

  “Who?”

  “I saw her fall down the stairs. She tumbled and tumbled like a straw doll. But then it was so bad. She lay there in all this blood.” He raised the gown before them and shook it. “She lost the babe. In all that blood, she lost a babe.”

  “A babe?” Merrick grabbed him by the cowl and dragged him up from the ground. “Who? Damn you man! Who is dead?” He shook him so hard the man finally stopped bawling.

  Brother Dismas just stared at him as if he didn’t see him.

  “Who?” Merrick repeated.

  “I’m sorry, my lord, but your wife. I swear on the holy Cross it was Lady Clio.”

  Chapter 40

  Old Gladdys moved around the small room where Clio was kept prisoner.

  She had lost the child. She did not remember it, not exactly. She remembered screaming with pain, as if she were in some torturous nightmare, and she remembered Old Gladdys slapping her and telling her to shut up while she had straddled her and kneaded her belly again and again.

  She had not been beating Clio, but had been fighting to save her from bleeding to death. ’Twas a battle the old woman won.

  For Clio the days since had passed too swiftly when she slept them away, and too slowly when she was awake. Once she had gotten out of bed and climbed up on a bench so she could look out through a high arrow loop.

  She could see the campfires of Merrick’s men in the fields around Camrose. She could see the shadow of a tent. She knew it was his.

  He was out there. So close. Yet so far out of her reach. She garnered what little peace she could from the knowledge he was there, and lay in bed, doing as she was told.

  She looked up at Old Gladdys. “I have failed him, haven’t I?”

  “Your husband?”

  She nodded. “I could not help him. I failed in my plan to help, but more than that, I have failed him as a wife.” She stared at her hand clasped over the belly where her babe had been. The child she’d promised she would never sing lullabies to. She felt the sting of tears again, then raised her head and said, “There is no longer a child.”

  “You have not failed him. It matters naught. Your lord does not love you for the babes you could give him.”

  Clio rose to her knees and leaned toward the old woman. “Gladdys. Tell me. Please. There will be other babes?” She began to cry. “Please? You must know. I beg of you. Tell me like you told Gerdie the goose girl. Please tell me I can give my lord another son or daughter.”

  “’Twas a baby girl you lost,” Gladdys said. Before she turned away, Clio saw the pity in her old eyes.

  The look was almost more than Clio could take at that moment. “Oh, God in heaven, please … Tell me I will give him another daughter.”

  The silence and the meaning behind it hung there, a horrid thing, like a dead body that hangs from an executioner’s noose.

  The old Welshwoman gave her a direct and honest look. “I cannot. I wish I could, but I cannot tell you that.” She turned and knocked on the locked door. The guard let her out.

  A second later Clio heard the lock click and she was alone again.

  Clio wrapped her arms around her small body and began to rock, rock back and forth, back and forth, the way she would have rocked her child to sleep.

  A huge wailing cry threatened to explode from her chest. She gritted her back teeth together and her whole body shook. She continued to rock harder and faster and more frantically, as if she could rock away all of this horrible reality.

  It went on for the longest time, the deep black anguish, grief so overpowering that thoughts of any kind ceased to exist. ’Twas the same way her mind ceased to exist when it was on a plane where there was nothing but this unbearable empty ache.

  Finally her body, which was already weak and tired and sapped of everything, sagged back on the bed. She curled into a tight and protective ball.

  ’Twas nothing but a motion of pure futility when she pressed her knees to her chest and held on, almost as if she could keep safe the babe she had already lost.

  She buried her face in a pillow and cried and cried, until a blessed dose of sleep finally numbed her pain.

&nb
sp; It was dawn when they found him asleep in the dirt.

  “Merrick! Get up.”

  Merrick groaned and turned over, his arm flung over his eyes. He cursed viciously.

  “Damn you!” Roger said. “Look at me!”

  “Can you not leave me be, Roger?”

  “To wallow in your self-pity? I think not. Get up. Your wife needs you.”

  “My wife is dead.”

  “Your wife is locked in the tower.”

  He raised his arm and squinted at Roger. “How do you know?”

  “I know because that ugly old witch told me. She just escaped and came to us. She claims she has seen Clio, alive, and nursed her herself.”

  “She escaped and did not bring my wife?”

  “She could not get her out alone, not without causing suspicion. They have guards around her.”

  Merrick rolled over and buried his head in his arms. He took deep shuddering breaths.

  She’s alive. Thank you, God. Thank you. She’s alive.

  “Merrick?”

  He felt Roger touch his shoulder and turned his wet face toward his friend.

  “Aye?” His voice was muffled and scratchy with emotion.

  “Come, friend. All will be well. She is alive.”

  Merrick nodded, swallowing hard and trying to catch his quivering breath.

  Roger sank down on one knee and placed his arm around Merrick’s shoulder. He gave him a look of reassurance. “We have found a way inside.”

  Merrick moved through the tunnel slowly and quietly. His muscles were taut as bow strings. At certain moments he had to force himself to remember to breathe. He knew it would only take one wrong step, one small noise and they could give themselves away.

  Mining underneath the castle was dangerous, especially now that the moat was so massive. Collapse was almost certain, even in this weak spot where the eastern wall had not been completely finished.

  One small spot. A place that the old Druid had found and used to sneak out.

  When he saw her and heard that Clio was alive, truly alive, he had wanted to kiss the hag.

  Now, as he moved through the narrow maze of tunnels, some not reinforced with wood, he held the torch in front of him and hunkered down in the narrow sections that were barely wide enough to crawl through on hands and knees.

  Overhead he could hear the shouts of the battle going on above him. They were the shouts of his men, mounting a false attack meant to throw the Welsh off so he and Roger could use the tunnel to get inside.

  They did not speak, neither one of them wanting to make any noise that would give them away or perhaps even make the tunnel collapse. The timber they used to reinforce some sections was slim and old and not the best, but it was all they had to use with so little time left to them.

  They needed to strike swiftly.

  For years he and Roger had fought side by side and knew each others’ motions and thoughts so well. That experience served them well this time. They did not need to speak, but followed their plan and moved to the end of the tunnel.

  This was the moment with the most risk, when Merrick slowly used a small pick to cut away the last of the dirt. It was dry and dusty from the heat of the day and fell into his face and eyes in a fine dust.

  The cloud choked him and made him want to cough, but he could not, for there were Welsh guards just a few strides away, talking quietly as they patrolled the inner yard.

  He turned to Roger and raised a finger to his lips, pointed in the direction of the guards. He drew his dagger and put it in his teeth, then pushed himself up through the hole, scrambling over the edge and belly-crawling along the rim of the east wall and past the two guards.

  When they were out of hearing distance, he turned to Roger. “Free the men in the chapel. I’ll get Clio. I will signal you once she is safe. Then try to get the gates open from the inside.”

  Roger nodded and they separated.

  He made his way up the side stairs, dodging guards and hiding in dark corners. He moved to the area of the new section of the keep, then to the small room meant for housing weaponry.

  He got rid of the two guards swiftly, then used the keys to unlock the door.

  When he opened it, he stood there, looking at his wife. She sat on the bed braiding her hair and looked up, her face as shocked and frozen as he was.

  ’Twould have been easier to cut off his sword arm than to pull his eyes away from her.

  “Merrick!” Her voice was but a whisper and she struggled to get down from the small bed.

  He did not know who ran first, but she was in his arms, finally in his arms. He spun with her and ran, his dagger ready, with her clinging to his neck as he moved down the stairs faster than he had ever run in his whole life.

  They sped across the bailey and he pulled her with him to the tunnel. “Jump down,” he whispered, then followed her inside.

  He grabbed a torch that was farther inside the tunnel. Moved back and waved it to signal Roger and his men. Then he came back to Clio. “Can you run? Walk? What?”

  She looked into his eyes and nodded. She was crying silent tears. Neither spoke of the child.

  He grabbed her and they moved through the tunnel, crawling in some places. He dragged her with him in others.

  She cried out once and the ceiling spilled dirt and rocks. Water from the moat began to drip on them.

  He pulled her tightly to him, still on his knees from crawling through a short space. “’Tis not much farther.”

  He pushed her in front of him as they moved. He could see the other end. “Look. There.” He pointed and she turned toward the end.

  She looked back. “We made it!” Then her eyes flashed upward. She gasped.

  He felt the dirt above him rumble.

  The ceiling begin to fall.

  “Run, Clio! Run!”

  “Merrick!” she screamed.

  He reached through the mud tumbling down on him. He could feel her body. She was turning toward him.

  “No!” he shouted just before water and mud filled his mouth.

  He shoved her as hard as he could toward the tunnel’s end. Then a blast of moat water hit him so hard all he saw was blackness.

  Chapter 41

  Clio sat in a hard wooden chair at Merrick’s bedside, her head resting in the crook of her arms and her hands still threaded together in prayer.

  She did not know how much time had passed.

  Hours? Days? She seemed to remember the sunlight of the day and the coolness of the night, but that was all. She had just sat there, waiting and praying, as time lost any meaning for her.

  But Merrick did not awaken. He lay there, not dead but not really alive. His face still bore the bruises of the tunnel collapse.

  They claimed it had taken too long to dig him out. He should have been dead. She could remember someone saying he was as good as dead, for his mind was gone.

  She refused to give up. And she threatened to claw the eyes out of anyone who said otherwise.

  He had a cut on his jaw and dark bluish stains on his head, temple, jawline, and neck. His face was swollen. His lips were pale and chalky, almost as if they were frosted with ice. His hair was matted with dried blood and sweat.

  But he had no fever. If he had, she would have at least felt that he was closer to this earth than to heaven.

  She tore a piece of cloth from those stacked by the bed and dipped it into a small ewer of water on the bedside table. She wet his lips, then carefully wiped the blood and dirt from his face and neck, his body, his hands. Then his feet.

  Her mind drifted back to that night when he had first slept with her, claiming he was her new keeper. She remembered comparing their toes.

  She looked at them now. And her breath wouldn’t come.

  It took her long moments to control her shaking hands. Then she slowly dipped the cloth in the water and gently cleaned his face and his neck again.

  She wrung out the cloth, then turned back; leaning down, she touched her lips to his
. Lightly.

  He was breathing. She could taste his breath. Merrick’s breath. His chest rose and fell evenly, with breaths so shallow they were hardly there.

  ’Twas as if he were in so deep a sleep that he might never awaken. She sat there watching him breathe, almost afraid not to watch him. Because she was so terribly afraid that he would stop breathing if she dared to look away.

  His life was slipping away. Slowly.

  She reached out and took his hand in hers. She held it, stroked it, then threaded her fingers in between his. She clung to him that way for a long, long time, trying to keep him with her.

  In her mind it made precious sense to her that as long as they were touching, as long as she held his hand, he was still with her, still alive.

  “Merrick,” she whispered, needing to say his name aloud “I love you. I love you. Don’t leave me. Fight, my warrior. Please. Don’t give up on the most important battle you’ve ever had. For me. For us. My Merrick, please fight.”

  She held his hand to her own heart, pressed his palm flat against her chest, hoping to give him strength. It was an idea born of desperation.

  The longer she sat there the closer she came to believing what all the others had told her: she could not bring him back.

  She squeezed his hand and watch his face, looking for a sign. No matter how hard she squeezed his hand. He did not move. No matter what she said to him. He did not respond.

  She began to cry. Tears spilled onto her cheeks and made streaks; the sobs came from somewhere so deep inside of her.

  These were the tears she couldn’t find earlier. When he was trapped. When they all dug like madmen to find him, to pull him from the mud and water of the moat.

  The tears that wouldn’t come because she was so terribly scared for him that she didn’t dare cry. Until now.

  I hear you, my love. I hear you crying. You sound so far away—a maiden locked away in a tower by cruel fate and I cannot find any way to reach you. For some reason I cannot move.

  A knight who cannot move. Why? I fight battles. But I cannot fight if I cannot move. My body will not answer my commands. I cannot feel it. I do not know where my hands are. I do not know where my legs are. I cannot speak. It is as if my head were not part of my body, as if my mind were all that is left of me.