by Headlee, Kim
“First the Pendragon and now you! What will Gyanhumara steal from me next?” The girl made a careless movement with the jeweled comb, catching an ebony tangle and making his mother wince. “One more slip, and it’s back to kitchen drudge duty for you.” She cut off the maid’s stuttering apology with an impatient wave of the mirror.
Angusel held his peace. It didn’t matter that the Pendragon never had been Alayna’s to begin with or that Angusel’s decision to swear allegiance to Argyll had been his alone. Once she latched onto an idea, she never let go.
As he stroked the silken fur, Eala began purring. When his hand stilled, she butted it imperiously. Smiling, Angusel resumed his duty.
“What if this new loyalty conflicts with the good of Alban? What will you do then, my buck?”
“I—I don’t know, Mother. I hadn’t really thought—”
“I suggest you give it some attention.”
He stared at her in astonishment. Caledonach warriors had been swearing fealty to the leaders of other clans for generations. While hostilities flared occasionally between member-clans, the Confederacy prided itself in the strength of its unity—unlike the ever-feuding Breatanach clans. He failed to recall any stories of a Caledonach trapped in a clash of loyalties.
Yet this didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.
Why was she so concerned about his reactions? Did she suspect neighboring Argyll of planning to snatch Alban lands? Or was she hatching a similar plan? For revenge, perhaps, because Gyan had won the Pendragon’s affections? Angusel fervently hoped not. Gyan and her consort had trouble aplenty from enemies like Urien and Colgrim without Alayna tainting the mix.
On the other hand, what if desperate need drove a move against Argyll, say, during a plague or famine? What would he do then? Under whose banner would he fight?
His gut clenched as the desire to stay home challenged his oath.
“And look at you, Angusel,” she said, switching topics as blithely as a butterfly flits from thistle to clover. “Fighting in battles, and not even a proper man yet.” Cocking her head to survey herself from a different angle, she fingered a lock that framed her face. “When will you take care of that little detail, hmmm? Once you complete the trial, I can petition the elders to name you chieftain. Your combat experience will make ratification quick and easy.”
He scratched the wound left by the Angalaranach arrow.
Becoming a man by Caledonach law meant passing the deuchainn na fala, a test of courage, stamina, and wits. Not even battle was considered a substitute for the “trial of blood” prescribed by law for the warrior-born.
While a hostage and later, after the Pendragon had granted his freedom, there’d been neither the time nor the place to conduct the trial. The Isle of Maun offered many wonders, but a forest wild enough for the test didn’t number among them.
There was, however, an overriding issue.
Eala stood, stretched, mewed, and touched her nose to his face. “Gods, I don’t want to be chieftain,” he whispered into the twitching ear. She settled into his lap as if in agreement.
“What was that, son?”
“This summer, Mother. Mayhap before Lugnasadh.” With luck, the delay would give him time to figure out how to avoid the destiny she had chosen for him.
“At Arbroch, I suppose?”
“Makes sense. I know our lands too well.”
“Just like your father. He preferred to do things the hard way.” Her lips thinned into a grim line. “Look where it got him.”
In his first battle, Guilbach mac Leanag of Clan Tarsuinn had earned the Breatanach title Gwalchafed, “Summer Hawk,” the name he bore proudly for the rest of his life. Gwalchafed died in a border skirmish against Uther’s troops when Angusel was four.
He tried to summon his father’s face, but it remained blurred, colorless. The only detail he could recall with any clarity was the Alban Lion tattoo roaring across Gwalchafed’s shield arm. Angusel had loved to touch that tattoo; it always seemed as if he were petting a real lion. His mother wore the same pattern, of course, but it had never felt the same—physically or emotionally.
Tears stung his eyes, and he blinked them away. Had he been alone, he wouldn’t have bothered.
The keening over Gwalchafed’s body, his mother’s as well as his own, he never would forget. He suspected revenge had driven her attack on Abar-Gleann. With Uther’s son untried as a leader of men…
How wrong she had been.
“Mother, I just—” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “I want to make you proud of me.”
After thrusting the mirror into the maid’s hand, Alayna turned, smiling, and stretched her arms toward him. Gently, he dislodged Eala from his lap. She bore the treatment with casual feline indifference as she leaped onto the cushions of a nearby couch to begin grooming her hinter parts. Angusel rose and stepped into his mother’s embrace.
“I know, son.” Her sigh warmed his neck. “Whatever happens, you always will.”
Chapter 15
MORGHE SAT ON the curved, backless gilt Roman curule chair beside her mother, looking down upon their clansmen and doing her best to appear at ease. The judgment session had stretched into hours, and Morghe needed to take a walk, preferably toward the midden. She rapped her nails on the chair.
Ygraine cocked an eyebrow. “Patience, daughter.” She gave Morghe a slim smile reminiscent of Arthur’s. “Above all, a lady must cultivate patience.”
The next case involved a pair of farmers and a dead cow. Fingertips tented, Ygraine listened to both accounts. Owen claimed Liam had stolen the cow from him and planned to butcher it before he could discover his loss, which Liam protested vehemently. According to Liam’s story, the unfortunate animal had died near the shared border of their pastures, and Owen had dragged the carcass through a gap in the wall to make it appear as if Liam had stolen it. Owen, of course, denied Liam’s accusation.
Ygraine questioned both men on the size and health of their herds, and the condition of the border wall. According to Owen, the wall needed repair, but the rubble made it too difficult to pass from one side to the other, especially when burdened with a dead cow. Liam claimed a wide enough gap existed to commit the deed.
Ygraine leaned toward Morghe, lowering her voice. “What say you, daughter? How would you resolve this dilemma?”
Morghe eyed the farmers. Both men appeared equally sincere; both stories equally plausible. Confidently pitching her voice for the farmers to hear, she told Ygraine, “I would inspect the wall. The men’s stories are at odds on this point, and it’s easy to verify.”
“Perhaps too easy.” Ygraine’s gaze hardened upon the farmers. “Don’t you agree, Owen?”
A startled look crossed the farmer’s face. He began fidgeting with the cap in his hands, turning it like a wheel. “Begging your pardon, Chieftainess, I do not understand your meaning.”
“Do you not?” Ygraine rose, and so did her voice. “Which of you,” she asked the assembly, “journeyed here with this man, Owen, to hear my judgment and then act upon it?”
The people looked around, murmuring. When no one confessed, Morghe’s doubts increased, but she’d seen her mother use this tactic often enough to prevent her skepticism from taking over quite yet.
She noticed a man at the back of the hall, edging toward the doors. Ygraine ordered the guards to bring him forward. Owen blanched as his accomplice blurted out that he had agreed to return to the wall’s gap with a cartload of rubble to make it appear as Owen had described.
“Mercy, my lady!” Owen cried. “Your wisdom stopped me.”
“True enough. Your intent, however, was clear. You swore false testimony. That is a crime against your neighbor, your chieftainess, and your God. You must make peace with God however you might, but you shall make restitution to Liam of the best cow of your herd. As for your chieftainess”—she tapped a finger on her chin—“add one-fourth again as much to your next tax levy.” Ygraine waited while the scribes completed the
ir notations. Later, this would be calculated and entered into the rolls, and the district’s tax collector would verify that Liam had received the cow. “I pray this will help you resist such temptations in the future.”
Owen bowed. “My lady is most gracious.” Oddly, he sounded relieved. Morghe had expected him to be resentful.
She turned to her mother as Owen, trailed by Liam, threaded through the crowd. “You were within your rights to imprison him. Why didn’t you?”
“He has a farm to manage and a family to feed. They’d have been sore-pressed to do it without him.” Ygraine inclined her head at a group huddled near one of the firepits, the widows and orphans being sheltered at Caerlaverock. “I don’t need to increase their numbers.”
That Morghe understood. “But how did you know Owen was lying?”
Her mother chuckled as she sat and arranged the folds of her gown and clan mantle. “Experience. Knowing my people in a way that comes only by being out among them as often as I can. No,” she said as Morghe drew a breath to speak. “I didn’t know about that section of wall, but I know Liam is a tidy farmer. He must have cleared the rubble, perhaps intending to mend the gap later that day.” She patted Morghe’s hand. “The best thing you can do for yourself and your people, daughter, is to get to know them.”
Morghe nodded thoughtfully. “No wonder your popularity waxes by the year, Mother.” She meant it.
Ygraine uttered a rueful laugh. “Fate robbed me of the chance to teach Arthur about life. I’m thankful this didn’t happen with you.”
As Ygraine prepared to call for the next case, the doors burst open, and a Picti-garbed messenger strode into the hall. He thumped fist to breast in a legion salute. The Brytoni crowd shrank from him, exhibiting emotions ranging from dislike to revulsion. The courier ignored them.
Ygraine bade him approach, and he obeyed.
Rather than presenting a scroll, the messenger said in good Brytonic, “Chieftainess Ygraine, your son, the Pendragon, requests the presence of his sister, Lady Morghe”—he gave a respectful nod in her direction—“at Arbroch, Seat of Argyll, until June.”
“Arbroch? Until June! But why—”
Ygraine waved Morghe into silence. “Did Arthur state a reason?”
“Nay, my lady.” He said to Morghe, “The Pendragon did instruct me to tell you that all will be made clear when you arrive.”
Not if she arrived, but when. Resentment reared. She gazed imploringly at Ygraine. “Please, Mother, don’t—”
Don’t—what? Don’t let Arthur order her about? Don’t let him take her from Ygraine’s tutoring, as when she had been Merlin’s pupil? Don’t let him keep using her as a political pawn? She sighed.
Ygraine gave her a reassuring smile. “June isn’t even six months off. Is that so bad? You can spend time getting to know your sister-by-marriage and resume your wedding preparations when you return. In fact, I will look forward to it.”
Six months! Not now! Not when she was learning so much, with more yet to learn. Then the reason for Arthur’s summons and its secrecy smote her.
She abolished her resentment with a slow smile. “No, Mother. It shan’t be bad at all.”
FINGERS GRIPPING the cold pewter tray, Niniane sighted her destination, wishing she could keep as tight a grip on her emotions.
Any soldier or servant in the praetorium could have delivered the message and the uisge, his favorite beverage. She wondered why she’d volunteered. A simple desire to help, yes, nothing more.
She chided her foolishness and quickened her step.
From down the hall came a series of clicks, each followed by a muted exclamation; whether of triumph or defeat, she couldn’t tell. The sounds originated from the chamber she sought. Its door faced her as she tried to face how she felt about the man inside.
After balancing the tray, bearing a carved pewter pitcher and a pair of matching cups, on the palm of her left hand, she took a deep breath and knocked.
“Ave,” said a voice from within.
As bidden, she pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold, glancing around with a physician’s eye for detail.
Upon initial inspection, a visitor to the spacious workroom might offer a reasonable guess regarding its occupant’s vocation. A jet crucifix as long as a man’s arm gleamed starkly against one lime-washed stone wall. Before the glazed, unshuttered window stood a scribe’s easel and vacant stool. The easel displayed a scroll opened to a section Niniane recognized as a half-finished Latin prayer. The untutored might admire its illustration: monks scything a wheat field. Dust motes swam in the stream of late-afternoon sunlight as it splashed against the manuscript. An orderly array of goose quills and inkpots covered the small table nearby.
The much larger table in the room’s center hosted several damp clay tablets and iron styli of varying lengths and thicknesses, as well as stacks of parchment, a knife, and more quills and ink. A brass platter of bread crusts, cheese rinds, an apple core, and an empty amber-colored glass goblet crowded into one corner. The goblet’s color announced its nobility, for the vast majority of glassware to be found in Brydein was green—so much so that the Brytoni words for “green” and “glass” differed by the addition of a single letter. A cluster of unlit bronze lamps hung on a chain from the beam overhead.
The workroom of a high-ranking clergyman, indeed, but that assessment represented only the partial truth.
Scrolls peered from tall willow baskets and competed for space on shelves lining the walls. While many contained treatises of Christian doctrine, others described architecture, astronomy, history, mathematics, medicine, philosophy.
And warfare. On the worktable, a tiny, wheeled catapult stood atop a sketch of its counterpart, its finger-size firing arm erect. Pebbles littered the tiles at Niniane’s feet.
The siege engine’s designer hunched over the drawing, tapping quill to chin. Softly, she cleared her throat.
Bishop Dubricius favored her with a warm smile. No lust, no passion, not even a hint of desire, exactly the sort of smile she found attractive…and terrifying. Thank God he couldn’t hear the stuttering of her pulse.
“Come in, come in. And please mind the stones.” He waved his quill at the floor and, mercifully, returned to his notations.
Upbraiding herself for acting like a moonstruck maiden, she picked her way around the stones. She set the tray on the table and poured two rounds of uisge. One she gave to Bishop Dubricius, along with the sealed parchment. His fingertips brushed hers, and she felt warmth rush to her cheeks. She left the other cup beside the pitcher.
“Cai will arrive soon, Your Grace. He’s seeing to his horse.” She hugged the tray to her chest. “I thought you and he might like something to warm the blood.”
“Ah, Niniane, many thanks.” He opened the message. After studying it briefly, he set it on top of a stack of parchment leaves and drained the cup. “You’re a blessing to this household.”
“You are most kind, Your Grace.” Lowering her eyes, she couldn’t stop her smile. “As always.”
MERLIN HEARTILY wished she’d quit acting so bloody formal. Bad enough to use his ecclesiastical honorific in public, but even in private…why, he knew for a fact Arthur didn’t get that sort of treatment from her.
Such incomprehensible creatures, women.
Perhaps a different approach might relax her manner.
He fingered the rim of his cup, trying not to dwell upon the fetching way in which a few chestnut curls had escaped her wimple to frame her angelic face. “How are your studies progressing?”
“Very well, thank you. Especially the writings of Hippocrates and Galen.” Sadness stole the wistful yearning from her expression.
“But?”
She sighed. “A touch of homesickness. It’s nothing, Your Grace.”
“I understand, Niniane.”
She had journeyed to Caer Lugubalion to nurse Gyanhumara’s head wound and stayed to help treat men—even prisoners—recovering from injuries receive
d during the Scotti invasion. Early winter storms had trapped her at headquarters until spring.
Merlin had offered her lodgings and access to his personal library in exchange for her healing skills, which she’d accepted readily enough. For him, the arrangement couldn’t have been better. Niniane’s herbal teas could cure everything from a bellyache to a hangnail, and her salves worked blessed marvels upon overworked muscles.
How he’d survive after she returned to Maun and her priory, he didn’t care to contemplate.
The door flew open and hit the wall with a resounding thump. In paced a stocky man, crunching heedlessly across the pebbles, trailed by a Scotti slave carrying an oil ewer.
“What’s this all about, Merlin?” Cai glared at him. “Dragging a man from his hearth in the dead of winter—bloody indecent, it is!”
Merlin chuckled. “Good evening to you, too, Cai. Please forgive my insensitivity. In addition to the original reason for asking you here”—he lifted the parchment Niniane had brought him from atop a pile of scouting reports—“I have word from Arthur.”
Cai’s face brightened. “Well? When does he return?”
“I should leave.” Tray in hand, Niniane started for the door.
“No, stay, Prioress. Please.” Merlin gestured to a chair. “This may interest you too.” As she perched on the chair with the tray in her lap, he said, “Arthur plans to winter with Gyanhumara.”
“What?” Cai roared. Standing on tiptoe to reach the hanging lamps, the slave shuddered. The ewer almost slipped from his three-fingered right hand. A few drops splattered the documents beneath. “Watch what you’re doing, you stupid oaf!”
Cai cuffed the man’s ear. Stammering an apology, the slave clutched the ewer to his chest and lurched from the room.
