by Mia West
“How should I tell him to help you?”
“Not me, Arthur. You. The pendant will tell him he can trust you.”
“He doesn’t know me. And he wouldn’t defy Lord Uthyr.”
“I know you, and I know him. A lord’s oath and his actual loyalties are sometimes not the same.”
Incredibly, his mother kissed Elain on the head. “Thank you.”
Elain smiled shyly. “Of course, mistress.”
Arthur looked at the metal disk in his palm. It looked like a coin, bearing what might once have been a man’s profile, worn smooth by thousands of fingers and thumbs. “I’ve ruined everything for you and Gwen. I’m sorry.”
Elain closed his hands around the pendant. “We’ll be fine, Arthur. You need to take care now. Go to Rhys.” The shirt caught her eye then, and she laid a palm to his chest. “Should I tell him?”
“No!”
Both women flinched.
“Don’t,” he said. “He has to believe I don’t want him.” He swallowed hard. “It’s the only way he’ll take his rightful place.”
His mother looked away. Elain watched him for a moment longer, as if he might change his mind.
Not on this.
Finally, she nodded and pulled her hand away. “Goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye. Thank you.” He held up his fist. “I’ll show this to Rhys.”
“I’m going to go back to Gwen. Be well. Mistress Britte, may I ask you something outside? A woman’s matter?”
He was still standing in the middle of the room, mutely clutching the pendant, when his mother came back into the house a few minutes later. She nodded toward his fist. “Put that somewhere safe. I have provisions for you.”
As he was stowing the pendant, the front door opened again. His foolish heart lurched, hoping to look up and see Bed, but it was Matthias who ducked under the lintel. Arthur shoved his disappointment deep into his pack with the old coin.
His father handed him a cloth sack, smaller than he’d expected. “A few things you might need. You know all of them.”
“Thank you.”
“He’s for Black Rhys’s,” his mother said.
Matthias’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
“Elain was just here,” his mother said. “She gave him a token to show to Rhys for help.”
His father’s shoulders relaxed at that. “That’s good. Very good. You’ll do it, won’t you?”
He supposed he should, though Rhys’s holdings were too close, only a couple of lords away.
But he could give his parents some small measure of peace.
“I will.”
They nodded, and his father stepped up to embrace him. “I love you, son.”
His entire life, he’d suffered his father’s embraces. That was how he’d taken them—as something Matthias was prone to doing and which he’d had to accept for a few seconds each time until he could wriggle free.
Now that he was a man, that boy was back, but for the first time, he didn’t want to pull away. Instead, he clung to his father, felt the muscles of his back tense in the effort of his hold. He smelled like the herbs in his apothecary. “Love you too, Papa. I’ll send word.”
“Do.”
When he did pull back, his mother was there, giving him no time to draw a full breath before hugging him tightly.
He couldn’t remember her ever doing this, not when he was a boy, not when he’d left for his first skirmish. Not even after his wedding. She seemed to be making up for the lack now, locking him against her sturdy body. “Oh, Arthur,” she said, and he tried not to hear all the raw, burred edges of her voice.
The village lay quiet when he stepped onto the path outside. Most were still in the hall, probably, murmuring about the spectacle he’d given them.
He bid his parents goodbye quickly, while he could still say the words, and started walking. Away from the house and the hall. Past his family’s house. The smithy. Lord Uthyr’s new house.
Away from the shock on Bedwyr’s face when Arthur pushed him off.
Away from the sight of Huw and Cai restraining him.
Away from the blood bond he’d given, and which Bed had accepted and returned in good faith. With unbending devotion and an open heart.
With every step, Arthur tried to close his own heart.
When that failed, right about the time the shepherd’s hut came into view, he just tried to put one foot in front of the other, over and over, silently begging Bedwyr’s forgiveness with each step.
Chapter 19
The armory floor was cold.
It had long since seeped through his trousers, but the numbness Bedwyr felt had nothing to do with the hard-packed earth beneath him.
He couldn’t stop seeing the blank expression on Arthur’s face when he’d refuted him. Bedwyr had thought he knew every expression Arthur had. He knew when he was up to some mischief and when he was feeling cocky. He knew when Arthur was too proud to ask for help or admit a mistake. He knew the ferocity of the face Arthur wore in battle, and the sparking look of lust that replaced it as soon as the fighting was done. And he knew the expression that looked like agony but was followed immediately by wonder, every time Arthur came.
But this mask tonight… Arthur might as well have been one of the straw mannequins in the training yard, his face had seemed so smooth and featureless. He had looked straight through Bedwyr as if no one had been standing there.
No one of consequence.
His only comfort was in hoping it had been a mask. Slouched against the armory wall with a heavy shackle around his wrist, he found the thought meager comfort. Arthur was still gone. Bedwyr looked at the pad of his thumb and the fresh scab there, now the only evidence he had of their blood bond.
That, and the way his belly felt as if someone had run him through and left the blade lodged in his gut. Why hadn’t he made a proper oath to Arthur? The oath he’d wanted to make?
A scuff of footsteps sounded outside the door, and then Cai stood there.
When they’d dragged him in here and bound him, Cai had offered to take the first watch. No point. If Mistress Britte had forged the shackle, there’d be no getting free from its hold. She’d created Arthur too, after all.
“Need anything?” Cai asked. His bravado of earlier seemed to have fled, leaving his hands and boots restless.
Swamped with guilt, Bedwyr hoped. “Piss off.”
Stubborn as well. “You all right?”
How had they ever been friends? “What do you think?”
“I think you’re free.”
“What?”
Cai stepped toward him. “He’s reckless. No care for anyone around him. He could have ruined you.” He flung a gesture at Bedwyr’s short arm. “He did, almost.”
Glaring, he raised the arm in question. “Your brother is the only reason I’m able to fight again.”
“Because Lord Uthyr told him to do it.”
“And you’d have done the same?”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
He looked away, tried to ignore Cai’s looming presence.
No such luck.
“You can still fight.” Scuff, scuff. “We can go back to the old way. You and me, side by side.”
He stared at the man. “Shieldmates?”
A spark lit and Cai took another step into the armory. “Yeah. Just as before.”
“You think we can be shieldmates again, as if nothing’s changed?”
“Well, I’ll have to switch to your right side, but—”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Cai drew back, frowning. “No.”
“You think I’ll stand with you, against anyone?”
“Don’t you want to fight?”
At this moment, he wanted to kill. “Did all that talk of loyalty mean nothing to you?”
“Loyalty?” Cai lifted his hands. “Why do you think I did this? You were my shieldmate. My friend, Bed.”
“He’s your blood. Your brother.”
“You’re the only brother I ever wanted!”
He leveled a hard look at Cai. “You’ve lost two of us, then.”
They stared at each other, breaths clouding the cool air between them. When Cai shifted once more, Bedwyr braced for a retort, but Cai only drew himself up and nodded to someone approaching. “My lord.”
A few seconds later Uthyr appeared in the doorway. “Go home, Cai.”
Cai looked at Bedwyr, then back to Uthyr. “I told Huw I’d watch—”
“You’re dismissed.”
Even as he nodded, Cai looked about to say something else. He didn’t, though, only glanced at Bedwyr once more before leaving. Uthyr watched him go, then turned to Bedwyr and stepped into the armory.
Strange how so many of Bedwyr’s old instincts had dulled over the past year. In this moment, for instance, he felt only a ghost of the inclination to rise to his feet when his father entered a room.
Or even address him.
Uthyr crossed the space to stand over him. Bedwyr met his eyes with sullen defiance.
“Why did you do it?” his father asked.
“Because it was the truth.”
“Fact and truth are two different animals.”
“Same animal, in this case.”
His father studied him for something, but only the gods knew what it was. “I gave you what you wanted.”
This again. “You hired a stranger.” Didn’t feel right to say so; she’d become a friend. Where was she now?
Uthyr scoffed. “I’m not talking about Elain. I’m talking about looking the other way when you four decided to share a roof.”
“Looking the other way? You demanded proof of consummation.”
“Am I a fool?” He waited as if Bedwyr might have lost his mind enough to call him one.
He hadn’t, quite.
Uthyr crouched down before him. “Did it never occur to you that a warlord has the authority to prevent such a living situation?”
“You would’ve had to admit something strange was happening.”
Uthyr laughed. “I wouldn’t have had to admit a damned thing. I could have made any number of claims, and you wouldn’t have been able to darken the threshold at all.”
Bedwyr looked away. His father had the right of it; his word was law. Yet he’d let it happen. He had given Bedwyr what he wanted, in his way.
Bedwyr tried to reconcile this new knowledge with the man before him. “Thank you.”
Uthyr’s features hardened. “Fine way to repay me.”
“There’s no shame in it,” Bedwyr blurted. Part of him wanted to haul the words back into his lungs, impossible as that would be.
“There’s no shame in it,” Uthyr repeated. His jaw worked. “Who do you think was Tiro’s advocate when he returned to this place with Philip in tow?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” his father said, “half the village wanted to string them up or run them off, including my father. And there wasn’t only the one couple but two. Gods’ blood, Bedwyr. They were lucky I’d already succeeded Emrys.”
“You?” he sputtered. “All I’ve ever heard from you is that it’s disgusting and unnatural.”
“Words.”
“Words that shaped me.”
“But not enough to spare you, eh?” His father regarded him intently. “Yes, I said those things. Because people here are rigid, boy. And frightened of differences. Sometimes they’re scared enough to kill. I’ve walked a fine fucking line for the past two decades, ensuring the safety of those four men. But they were valuable additions to our people, so it was important I do it. It required discretion, and they understood that. When you moved into that house, I thought the two of you would at least know how to bolt a fucking door.” Uthyr threw his hands up. “I banished one of my best warriors tonight.”
Bedwyr slumped back against the wall. Was that truly what had cost them everything? One unthrown bolt? If they’d only checked it, would he be deep asleep right now, holding Arthur against him?
No. If they’re remembered tonight, they would have slipped up sometime soon. They’d grown careless, high on the success of their supposed ruse.
Still, discretion? “Tiro was fucking a man. So was Marcus Roman, and everyone knew it.”
“None of them was you.”
“What does that matter? I can’t succeed you. Not with this.” He raised his stump.
“Succession isn’t the only reason a father protects his son.”
Bedwyr looked at him, surprised.
Uthyr glanced away, squinting. “I had the pleasure of a visit from Mistress Britte this evening.”
It seemed a sidewise thing to say, but then Uthyr rubbed a thumb into his shoulder and winced, and Bedwyr was intrigued. “What did she say?”
“I think you can imagine how the first few minutes went. The smith can be…forceful when she’s angry.”
“She has every right. I wish I’d seen it.”
“Well, you’ll be gratified to know she might have cracked one of my ribs.” His hand dropped to rub his side, though he seemed more reflective than in pain. “After she railed about Arthur, she started in on you.”
“What about me?” He hadn’t had much direct interaction with Mistress Britte, beyond her role as armorer—she didn’t invite it—but he’d thought her fair-minded.
“She said I should let you go.”
Bedwyr lifted his shackle. “Thank her for me. It’s not going to be a comfortable night.”
“No,” Uthyr said, looking at him closely, “she said I should let you go. To follow Arthur.”
A treacherous arrow of hope pierced him. Bedwyr straightened.
“Tell me something,” Uthyr said. “What is he to you?”
Blood.
Fire.
Life.
His nails bit into his palm. “I won’t tell you before I tell him.”
A slow, resigned smile. “So he’s your blacksmith.”
Bedwyr’s hand fell slack, and he stared at his father.
The years of antagonism. Uthyr’s barbs, Mistress Britte’s retorts. Uthyr’s smugness, Britte’s prickly nature.
Her fearlessness in confronting him.
His undeniable respect for her.
“You and Mistress Britte?”
Uthyr laughed wryly. “There is no and. Never has been. Only one fool in the arrangement.”
What had his father said to him that night he’d nearly caught Arthur in his bed? Something about some men having to do without a passion match.
His father was doing without, but not because he hadn’t found one, or sought several lesser ones to replace it.
Uthyr sighed. “I’m here so that your arrangement might at least have two fools in it.”
Gods.
“And because I can’t take many more of those blows to the ribs.” He winced again as he rose.
Bedwyr stood. His knees complained, but it was nothing to the clamor in his chest as his father worked open the shackle and tossed it aside.
Bedwyr clenched his hand, needing…something more. “What will happen to Gwen?”
“Well, she’s not likely to quicken, is she?”
He held his tongue.
His father waved it aside. “She told me tonight, how they put it over on Old Mabyn. So I suppose Gwen could remarry.”
Should he tell his father about Elain and Gwen? He couldn’t imagine his reaction. Or, rather, he could and was afraid it would result in Elain being sent away. Whatever became of their connection now, it was theirs to reveal or not.
“Do you doubt my ability to look after my daughter?”
“You married her to Arthur.”
“I wed her to her best friend. Compared to the prospects at Rhys’s this year, it was a good match.”
“What if Cai had won the challenge?”
“He would have gotten the house. And that’s all. Gwenhwyfar’s never taken to him.”
That was true enough. She’d never had the e
asy words for Cai that she’d always had for his younger brother. Bedwyr had attributed it to her being closer in age to Arthur, or because they’d nursed together.
“It would probably be best if you two stayed away for a while,” his father said. “Let this blow over. Go…sow your oats. See other parts of Cymru. But make yourselves useful: kill some Saxons.”
“Thank you, Ta.”
Uthyr nodded. “Mistress Britte told me to give you something else.”
“What?”
“Lancea.” His father shrugged. “I assume that means something to you.”
Elain’s nickname, given to her at Rhys’s.
Arthur was northbound.
Bedwyr wrapped his father in a bear hug. It made the man groan, but then Uthyr’s arms came up around him, squeezing like a vise.
“If you’re going to make something between you, forge it too strong for anyone to challenge.”
Bedwyr’s throat threatened to close.
“Are you going to tell me where you’re going?”
“No.”
Uthyr snorted against him. “I’ll wait for the tales to reach us, then. See that they’re not dull.” He squeezed Bedwyr one degree more, then clapped him on the back and stepped away. “Go,” he said, his voice gruff, “before I change my mind.”
Bedwyr went.
~ ~ ~
The third time Arthur tripped over a stone in the path, he went down hard and stayed down. He lay on the ground, the night sky blurry, his gear askew, and his knee screaming in pain, and he wept.
Bawled, in truth, like a babe in arms, except there were no arms here to shelter him. Only the tilted sky and cold earth, neither of which cared that his heart had cracked in two.
It was gone, all of it. Everything he’d known, everyone, miles behind him. But they weren’t miles he could ever retrace. He couldn’t go back. He would never set foot in the village again, nor smell his mother’s workshop. He would never sit in the meeting hall to listen to Tiro spin a tale. He couldn’t even visit his grandfathers’ tomb, as it rested on Uthyr’s lands.
He’d told his parents he would send word when he reached Black Rhys’s, and he knew they thought that someday they might travel to see him there. But he wouldn’t be able to stay at Rhys’s. No lord worth his oath would let Arthur hang about when Lord Uthyr visited every year, so the prospect of sending a message home gave little comfort.
