Morning's Journey (The Dragon's Dove Chronicles Book 2)

by Headlee, Kim

  He cocked a questioning eyebrow at his nephew.

  “I want to return to Tanroc’s infantry unit,” Gawain stated.

  “Not one of its turmae?” Arthur asked. “They could use another fine horseman.”

  “Call it a respite from the saddle sores, sir.”

  Perhaps even a respite from Gawain’s recent Dunpeldyr memories, though now bloody well wasn’t the time to confirm that detail.

  The Pendragon approved Gawain’s request but denied Per’s: “The Horse Cohort needs its prefect.”

  “Then appoint another one.” Per stood beside Gyan. They exchanged a look; hers was one of irritation underpinned with the barest hint of affection. Per regarded Arthur frankly. “She needs me, whether she realizes it or not. Blood is thicker than”—he pulled off the red-ringed bronze dragon and held it up—“this.”

  Battling back a sigh, Arthur accepted the piece, wrapped it with Gyan’s, and regarded his brother-by-marriage. “Guard her back well.” His gaze shifted beyond Per, Gawain, Rhys, Conall, Mathan, and the other volunteers. “Gyan, you also have one new recruit.”

  The crowd parted. When the identity of this “new recruit” registered, dressed in black Caledonian armor, with freshly bandaged wounds and saddle packs looped over his arms, Gyan looked ready to refuse. Gawain and the Argyll warriors looked ready to lynch the lad.

  Arthur leveled a glare at the men, and they eased their stances. Crossing his arms, he regarded his wife. “Angusel goes to Maun, or you, Gyanhumara nic Hymar, do not.”

  Angusel’s countenance fell. “Lord Pendragon, I thought I—”

  “In the Dragon Legion, soldier, you go where your commander orders.” Arthur directed his gaze upon Gyan. “Understood, Commander?”

  Gyan thinned her lips. “Understood, Lord Pendragon. Aonar goes to Maun.” She removed Arthur’s cloak and thrust it at him, keeping Urien’s damned badge clenched in her fist.

  As Arthur sadly took the garment from her, the fury smoldering in her eyes declared that she would not soon forget his intrusion upon her authority. Or forgive him for it.

  SURROUNDED BY his escort, Urien urged Talarf into a trot, anxiety and resentment ravaging his heart. He ran a gloved finger beneath his gold-inlaid leather headband to release the sweat that had collected there. Not even a crown of inch-thick solid gold could make him forget the scar it concealed.

  The main road to the God-forsaken Argyll border was the last place he wanted to be, but with Accolon overdue by a week, he needed to learn why.

  He’d hoped to meet Accolon along the way. The border, however, stretched for miles. If Accolon were being pursued, he’d surely avoid the roads.

  Talarf pricked his ears, tossing his head and wrestling with the bit. Urien tried to listen for other sounds, but the noise made by his company drowned everything else. He squinted down the road.

  The traveler appearing from around the bend looked like hell, slumped over his horse’s neck, with his face buried in the mane, one shoulder swathed in a dirty bandage, his clothes torn and dingy. The horse shuffled along, head drooping, barely lifting its hooves.

  Urien halted his escort and ordered two men forward to investigate. The traveler raised his head.

  “My lord!” shouted a soldier, looking back at Urien. “It’s—”

  Accolon, Urien mentally finished as his guard uttered the name aloud. He couldn’t dismount fast enough.

  Mindful of the wounded shoulder and possible injuries concealed by Accolon’s clothes, the men eased Accolon from the saddle as Urien and the rest of the escort approached. While one soldier saw to the needs of Accolon’s horse, Urien waved the others back so he could tend Accolon himself and, with luck, glean some information.

  “Chieftain Urien.” Accolon grinned wanly as Urien, supporting his good arm, helped him sit on a fallen log. “Well met.”

  “Well met, indeed.” Urien made a show of examining the bandage. “Done?” he whispered.

  Accolon nodded. He shifted on the log, grimacing.

  “Trouble?” Urien pointed a nod at the wound.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  With this being neither the time nor place to extract details, he deemed it best to concentrate on other matters. “Witnesses?”

  “Dead.”

  Urien felt his eyebrows lift. “Anyone I might know?” The whore, perhaps, killed in the struggle over her baby? While it would deny him the pleasure of watching her beg for her life, he would not complain if good fortune landed upon his doorstep.

  A fly tried to alight on Accolon’s wound. He slapped at it, none too gently, Urien thought. The pest reeled, recovered its flight, and buzzed off. Accolon sucked in a breath, wincing, and slowly blew it out. “No one of consequence, my lord.”

  Elation surged through Urien’s veins.

  He indulged in the fantasy of seeing Gyanhumara, broken in body and spirit, cowering at his feet. He would take from her what he’d always craved, what had been rightfully his. And, oh, how he would savor the taking.

  Pitching his voice for the others to hear, he said, “I can’t do anything more for your wound, Accolon. We need to find a physician.” He gave his friend a reassuring grin. “You’ll be well and whole before you know it.” For Accolon’s ears alone he added, “Then you and I will celebrate your success.”

  UNLIKE THE first time Gyan journeyed on this road, she had nothing to celebrate. Then, the world had seemed fresh and exciting, bursting with promise and adventure. The road had led to her soul’s mate.

  Now, her soul’s mate lived leagues away, immersed in his own concerns. Death allied with guilt and remorse to stalk her waking hours and haunt her sleep. “Adventure” lost its meaning, and the only promise she cared about was of being reunited with her wee bairn in the realm of the One God.

  Her hand dropped to her hilt as she jolted along, caressing the grip’s cool, familiar ribs, provoking the temptation to usher that promise into reality. “Life” was another meaningless word; she’d become a liability to her clan, consort, sword-brothers…and her son. But Loholt had no reason to welcome an eternal reunion with her. Pain savaged her heart, and her grip tightened reflexively.

  Too numb to live and yet too frightened to die, she surrendered to the journey’s dictates.

  The sixth night found the company at the gates of Port Dùn Ghlas. Gyan’s spirits lifted a little at the prospect of speaking with Bedwyr. Unfortunately, he was out on patrol and not due back for several days. Nor were there enough warships at port to transport Gyan, Per, Niniane, Niniane’s escort, and the Manx cavalry reinforcements, along with their mounts, remounts, and supplies, to Maun. Gyan greeted this news with stoic resignation. She had abandoned her remaining emotions at Arbroch like excess baggage.

  She didn’t confide in her brother or the prioress. Per wore a mask of forced cheer, and she couldn’t risk breaching his barriers for fear of crumbling her own. Prioress Niniane displayed naught but kindness and caring, but by her request to stop at nigh unto every roadside shrine, Gyan surmised the holy woman was working through some inner turmoil, too. This left private prayer, but the One God seemed impossibly far beyond reach.

  Concentrating on present needs, she insulated herself from the past as best she could. Each cold stroke of wind and rain upon the back of her neck galvanized her awareness that Urien would have to be dealt with, but not until after she’d collected incontrovertible proof, a daunting task regardless of the rewards. So she shut herself off from the future as well as the past and threw what energy she could summon into surviving each day.

  Arthur hadn’t exaggerated about the plague at Caer Lugubalion, she learned from the men of Niniane’s original escort detail, all recently recovered from the illness. No one who’d survived the first infection caught it a second time, so their commander had selected them for this duty to reduce the risk of spreading the plague.

  The company was walking their horses when they reached the fork where the road split to follow opposite banks of the Sol
uis Firth. Here the group splintered, with Niniane’s escort and the nun Dorcas returning to regular duty at legion headquarters, and Gyan, the prioress, Per, and the rest of the warriors pressing on to Dùn Càrnhuilean. Gyan gave the order to mount and dismissed the Caer Lugubalion escort with her thanks, envying their shorter journey.

  Torchlight atop the guard towers flanking the Dùn Càrnhuilean gates blazed like twin beacons. Night had long since fallen when Gyan’s unit arrived. Chieftainess Ygraine led the unit that met them in the main yard, as if they had been expected.

  “Of course you were, my dear,” Ygraine responded to Gyan’s query. “Arthur’s courier arrived two days ago.”

  Gyan felt her face go ashen. “Th-then you know…?” She stopped, fearing her voice would betray her.

  Arthur’s mother fired off a rapid set of commands to her men. Reeling with emotional and physical fatigue, Gyan appreciated the way Ygraine took charge of the quartering and provisioning of Gyan’s warriors and their horses. Ygraine delivered Niniane into the care of the house priest, who offered to conduct her to guest clergy quarters adjacent to the chapel. Gyan instructed Niniane to meet the company in the courtyard at dawn.

  “So soon?” Ygraine sounded profoundly disappointed.

  “My command awaits,” Gyan said briskly, hoping she wouldn’t prove to be a liability to them, too.

  Ygraine gave her a slow nod. “Come, then. We must talk.”

  Must we?

  Ygraine led her into a nearby building. Though built of stone, timber, and thatch in Breatanach style and heated with hearths and braziers, and though the ivory Càrnhuileanach Unicorn reared upon everything from wall hangings to the soldiers’ badges, the elegant Ròmanach furnishings induced comparisons to Caer Lugubalion’s praetorium.

  “Why does Arthur favor this foreign heritage by choice?” Gyan wondered aloud, and in the next breath wished she hadn’t. Ygraine paused to give her an odd look. “I thought his namesake and ancestor, Lucius Arturus Castus, was a Bryton who only earned his Roman citizenship by right of surviving twenty years in their army.”

  Ygraine smiled, and they resumed their course. “Castus was a namesake but not an ancestor. Uther liked ‘Arturus’—mainly for that centurion’s military record—and I invented the Brytoni form, ‘Arthur.’”

  “Which means…?”

  “Uther’s Bear. But our cub prefers to earn respect rather than relying upon family connections.” Ygraine must have sensed Gyan’s puzzlement, for she continued, “Arthur carries the blood of Roman emperors through the Aurelii.”

  Gyan felt her mouth drop open. “Marcus Aurelius? That Aurelia clan? The monks taught me he was one of Rome’s wisest rulers.”

  “And his brother and coemperor, Lucius Aurelius Verus, and their father, Antoninus Pius, the emperor who ordered construction of a certain wall of your acquaintance.”

  Those names jarred Gyan’s recollection of the monks’ lectures about Marcus Aurelius’s son and successor, Commodus, who was reputed to have been as cruel and dissolute as his father had been merciful and circumspect. Between the cruel man and the man responsible for erecting an earthen barrier between Gyan’s people and Arthur’s, it was no wonder Arthur had never mentioned his Ròmanach ancestry to her.

  The thought vanished with the dawning realization that Ygraine had chosen to live amid myriad reminders of her dead husband. She shook her head in awe of the woman’s strength of spirit.

  They entered a guarded chamber—Ygraine’s private workroom, to judge by the many tables stacked with parchment leaves, scrolls, and bound volumes. A scribe sat at a lamplit table, squinting over a page, the scratching of his quill making the room’s only sound. Ygraine dismissed him with a word and a smile. He rose, bowed to both women, and closed the door behind him.

  “How do you do it?” Gyan asked as she dropped into a chair.

  “Do what, dear?” Ygraine retrieved a gold-embossed silver pitcher and a pair of matching goblets from a nearby table and poured two measures.

  Gyan pointed at the goblet Ygraine gave her, the hanging oil lamps, the marble busts, the mosaic floor, and the backless, curved-legged chairs. “Everything you own must remind you of him. Your husband. How do you live with all those memories?”

  Ygraine’s smile adopted a sad cast. “It isn’t always easy. They are a part of me, and I cannot escape them. Not even the bad memories, although, thankfully, those don’t plague me as often as they once did.” Her expression turned blunt. “What I cannot escape I have embraced.” She twined a finger in the length of black cord supporting her gold dragon pendant. “Even celebrate.”

  “You and Uther had—what? A score of years together?” She suspected her words sounded more accusatory than she’d intended.

  Caressing the undulating dragon, which flashed in the lamplight, her mother-by-law nodded. “Good years, too. For the most part.”

  Gyan whispered, “I didn’t have two moons with my bairn.” Cradling the goblet in her hands, she bowed her head and shut her eyes against the threat of tears. Her breasts ached abominably. She set the goblet aside and hugged herself tightly. In spite of the pressure, she could all but feel Loholt’s tiny mouth working busily at her nipple, recalling her intense wonderment. Asleep, he’d looked so cherubic. A strangled gasp caught in her throat. She clenched her teeth.

  Arms encircled her, and she leaned into the embrace. Memories assailed her of Cynda, the only mother she’d ever known, who headed the list of those she’d alienated by her grief.

  The sobs would not be denied.

  Ygraine said nothing, did nothing other than hold her close, stroking her bobbed hair until she’d cried herself out. Her tears soaked Ygraine’s tunic. She straightened, scrubbed her face with impotent fingers while resolving to carry a cloth for these unexpected and altogether too frequent outbursts, and gave her mother-by-law a weak smile. “I am sorry about your tunic, Ygraine.”

  “Hush, it will dry.” Ygraine casually brushed at the spot. “Feeling better, daughter?”

  Daughter. A common title, but one Gyan had never heard from another woman, not even Cynda. It left her unprepared for the emotions coursing through her soul. With a single word, the woman whose name reminded her of the sun had woven into her void a thread of light.

  She offered a thin smile. “Thank you…Mother.”

  Ygraine’s eyes brightened with sudden tears as she smiled and patted Gyan’s knee. “I will pray the Lord will bless you and Arthur with more children.”

  Words fled. She couldn’t tell her mother-by-law that Arthur was someone else whom she’d alienated, and that she had no idea how to repair that rift. Nor could she tell Ygraine that the One God had stopped listening to her pleas. Ygraine’s daughter she might be, but the divine silence surely proved she no longer was God’s.

  With a parting hug and a murmur of thanks, she took leave of Ygraine and followed a servant down the corridor to the guest chamber. In the torchlight, she noticed a faint scar on the servant’s neck, the legacy of years spent in a Caledonach slave-collar. It reminded her of someone else who had lost an infant son to death, not temporarily to politics.

  And if he couldn’t help her wrest answers from the One God, then no one could.

  THE GROUNDS of St. Padraic’s Monastery lay deserted, which seemed odd to her until she glanced at the sun and realized the brethren and students probably still crowded the refectory for their midday meal. She headed toward the Sanctuary of the Chalice.

  The graves nestled between two wings of the cruciform church had settled since her last viewing of them, when they’d been freshly dug. Stone crosses had replaced the wooden ones and were carved with knots, Christian symbols, and names. Gyan visited each grave.

  Some names she recognized, like her first tutor, Brother Lucan. With trembling fingertips, she traced the grooves of his Ròmanach name, Lucianus. It proved easy to remember Lucan in a more cheerful setting, not as a bloody, lifeless face.

  With other names, she could summon only a single
grisly image.

  A few names stimulated no memories at all. To these fallen heroes, she gave an extra measure of thanks for their sacrifice.

  Loholt had been sacrificed for her too: sacrificed to Urien’s lust for revenge. Her heart clenched. Feeling the all-too-familiar sting of tears, she bolted around to the church’s entrance, dragged open one of the doors, and slipped inside.

  DAFYDD CHECKED himself to Brother Stefan’s halting pace as they ambled from the refectory to the church. Stubborn pride would have forced Stefan to match Dafydd’s pace, but Dafydd didn’t wish to cause the crippled man further discomfort. Instead, he contented himself with the brisk, salty coolness of the afternoon breeze, listening to Stefan’s reports about the students’ progress.

  At the base of the church’s steps, Dafydd paused, frowning. Stefan cast him a puzzled glance. “Something wrong, Abbot Dafydd?”

  “We have a visitor.” Dafydd pointed at the right-hand door standing ajar. He recalled the letter and cage of pigeons he had received by way of a trader the day before, and guessed the visitor’s identity and needs. “Brother Stefan, please resume your duties. I’ll meet you in your workroom presently.”

  The master of students eyed him but made no comment. Dafydd waited until Stefan had begun hobbling toward the library before continuing up the steps and into the church.

  He stopped inside the door and pulled it closed, searching the candle-lit chamber.

  Silence dominated. No person interrupted the floor’s expanse of gray slate. The Chalice sat undisturbed on its golden platform. The tapers’ flames burned unwaveringly, and the incense-burners discharged straight wisps of spice-scented smoke as if the air hadn’t stirred in a millennium. No shapes lurked behind the choir screen. Nor could he see anyone beside either of the sanctuary’s main statues, those of Padraic and the Virgin. He widened his search.

  If not for glimpsing a cloak’s hem, he would have missed the hooded figure standing on the far side of a column near the altar. The person neither moved nor spoke.