Geraint

by Gwen Rowley

  Geraint rode with Enid in his arms. The horse plodded on slowly; men talked around them in low voices. It was peaceful.

  Enid stirred, though he’d thought her asleep.

  “Do you think that was the magic that the wizard warned us about?”

  “I know not, but it seems likely.”

  “He told us to deal with it now, to avoid heartache later. Surely we did that.”

  “The villains did it themselves.”

  He didn’t want to talk about danger anymore. He tipped Enid’s chin up, and kissed her.

  She whispered, “Though I yet have secrets that belong to another, I want you to believe you have my trust. I have something to show you.”

  “Do I have to wait until we make camp?” he growled, nipping at her lower lip.

  She gave a throaty laugh. “Aye, my husband, I want to be away from here.”

  WITH the threat to his wife still fresh in his mind, Geraint demanded that his soldiers travel several more leagues before they made camp for the night.

  He couldn’t stop watching Enid, who looked excited and far too pleased with herself. He was in for another revelation.

  He should be worried—but he had been able to accept everything she had already revealed. Her very differences were what had attracted him to her from the beginning, and he could not forget that. Surely she was trusting him more and more each day. He shut out thoughts of the disapproving world back at Camelot or Castle Cornwall, and thought only of the mysteries of his wife, revealed one by one, as if she were shedding garments.

  It was uncomfortable to ride when he was picturing his wife shedding garments.

  He spent their midnight meal watching her, and she was watching him. He noticed most gave them plenty of room, as if whatever was between them could not be interfered with. They didn’t speak as many around them gradually found their pallets. Enid’s maidservant started toward their pavilion hesitantly, and Enid told her to go ahead.

  Enid turned back to Geraint. “Shall we go?”

  He picked up a torch. “I have men stationed throughout this small woodland, up to a league away. We’ll be safe, I promise you.”

  She gave him a saucy grin. “But can we be alone?”

  “They have orders not to disturb us. And I promise I can be very quiet.”

  Side by side, they walked away from the encampment.

  After a while, Enid said, “You have probably noticed that I’ve been following the stream. Surely it must widen out to a pond somewhere.”

  He had been paying so much attention to the needs of his body that he hadn’t understood her confused expression. “Enid, most of these streams end in the sea.”

  By torchlight, he watched her wide eyes show the first hint of worry. “Then we need to go upstream, to find its source.”

  They reversed course, walking back the way they’d come, skirting the quiet encampment, and reassuring the sentries. As the forest closed around them again, the stream narrowed, forcing them to work harder to stay by its bank. The eager tension Geraint had earlier felt in Enid now drained away, and she seemed more and more panicked.

  In her haste to continue upstream, she walked into a branch that cut the smooth skin of her upper arm. Even the welling blood did not halt her.

  “Enid, stop,” he called.

  “But we have to keep going,” she said, turning frightened eyes on him.

  “What are you so afraid of?” he asked.

  He tried to touch her, but she ducked aside, hugging herself forlornly.

  “Dawn is only hours away. I can feel everything draining away already.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked patiently.

  “My magic gifts.”

  He frowned at her. “Why would they suddenly do that?”

  “I have to renew the magic every third night, or it will leave me completely. But I need a pond!” she suddenly cried, whirling around, ducking beneath the low branches of a tree, and starting away into the dark.

  “Enid, wait, you need the torch. You cannot see much by the crescent moon.”

  She didn’t stop, and he hurried behind her, bringing the light, but not any comfort. The stream was not fading, but it was not getting any larger either. She pushed aside branches frantically, and when he heard her sob, he caught her arm. He thrust the torch into the soft earth of the embankment, then put his arms around his squirming wife.

  “Enid, calm yourself,” he murmured into her hair, feeling the tension that stiffened her body. “The world will not end should the magic leave you. It wasn’t part of you to begin with. And as your husband, I will never let you come to harm.”

  “Nay!”

  Her voice was low, hoarse with desperation, and she pushed at his chest until he released her. The tears in her eyes made the need to help her rise into an ache. If only he could understand the mystery of her.

  “Geraint, I cannot let this go! I am the last resort of my people.”

  “Let me as your husband be their last resort.”

  She shook her head. “Your father has your loyalty, and although I know you want to be loyal to me, too, I fear in some things that can never be.”

  She was right, he thought with despair. Always in the back of his mind was the worry of his father’s reactions to her abilities and to her mysterious mission.

  “I have to find a pond,” she cried.

  She would have thrown herself into the dark, overgrown woods, but he stopped her, grabbing her upper arms and pulling her to him. He had never seen his wife in such a state.

  “Enid, please, I will help you, but you must calm yourself.”

  She trembled against him. “I can feel it fading,” she whispered forlornly against his neck. “’Tis calling to the moon, and there is no answer.”

  He looked into her grief-filled eyes. “Can we build our own pond?”

  She stared at him with incomprehension.

  “Is there any rule that says it must be a specific-size pond?”

  “I know not.”

  “Then let me try to help you,” he said, hoping his patient tone would calm her. “Find all the rocks you can, and we shall dam the stream right here, where the water comes down the cliff in a little waterfall.”

  She latched on to his idea with desperation, dropping to her knees to begin her search. They worked quietly to gather rocks, then discussed the best place for the dam. After another hour’s work, they’d created a small pond, several yards across, no more than six inches deep.

  “Will this do?” he asked, stepping back to look on their creation with satisfaction.

  But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was staring at the water, and the small reflection of the moon within it.

  And then she began to remove her garments. He could barely keep his mouth from sagging open.

  He made no move to stop her; with every item that dropped to the ground, he felt the tension in his body wind higher. He watched the thrust of her breasts, and the smooth slope of her stomach leading to blond curls. Her hips cradled the deepest part of her, where he ached to be. The last thing she removed were her boots, and as she tossed them aside, she was suddenly holding a dagger that gleamed in the moonlight.

  Before Geraint could move, she made a small slice in her finger. He realized at once that what he’d thought was the work of an opponent’s sword on her hands was actually self-inflicted. She even bore pain for her tribe’s benefit. He had never known such a woman.

  She held her finger over the small puddle of water, and the moment the first drops of blood hit the surface, he felt something in the very air around him, an awareness, a waiting. The blood sank instead of being carried off as it would in a stream.

  Then she lifted her arms to the night sky and called out in a language he didn’t understand. But the woods understood; he was surrounded by trees that began to sway with a wind that had not been there a moment before. Enid moved in time to it, her hair whipping and flowing. After several minutes of harmony with a wind that Gerain
t could see but not comprehend, she took a graceful step into the water.

  The very air seemed to crackle around her, and he saw sparks of light rise between her upraised arms. She suddenly seemed the embodiment of lightning that went up toward the moon, instead of coming from the sky. He lost his breath, lost all sense of reality as the body of his wife seemed to glow. He knew he should be afraid for her life, but his emotions seemed so remote.

  She turned toward him, and a gust of wind blew out the torch. They were left with nothing but the small crescent moon to see by, but it seemed to shine down on Enid with abnormal power.

  She was the focus of the lightning he’d seen twice before. She was in her element, a woman of the night sky, a goddess, with the majesty of the forest all around her. Her expression was serene and relaxed as she watched him, and in that moment, she embodied the seduction of every mystery of the earth. How could a man dismiss that?

  It was as if he were truly alive for the first time in his life, aware of all that was around him, things he never saw, never thought to understand. All that mattered was that she was his wife, in union with only him. He wanted her, and he had to have her now.

  Chapter 16

  THE power still tingled within Enid even as her joining with the moon faded away. She realized that the torch had died out, but she could still see Geraint by the light of the moon. He was watching her, and she waited for his condemnation or his acceptance. Their whole marriage hinged on this moment.

  His face was full of shadows lit from above. She could make out the jut of his nose and chin, and strangely even the hollow of his dimple, but not his eyes, in which she had hoped to read his emotions. His hands were fisted at his sides, and before she could wonder if he harbored anger, he came toward her.

  He tilted his head up, eyes closed as if in reverence, as if in longing.

  “Geraint,” she said with a gasp.

  Then he swept her into his arms, lifting her off her feet like the lightest flower. He pressed his face between her breasts, murmuring her name in a voice hoarse with need.

  She wrapped her arms about his neck, her legs around his strong waist, and with both hands lifted his face for a kiss. The joining of their mouths was full of a hunger long denied. She could not get enough of the taste of him. She moaned her desire into his mouth, then took his tongue into hers. It was a mimicry of mating that only made her need him more.

  Suddenly she found herself falling backward as he lowered her to the large, flat rock that rested next to the base of the small waterfall by their dam. He straightened and put his hands to his garments, then froze, slack-jawed as she arched her back, accepting the mist of the falling water on her skin. Her hair had come down and now cushioned her head, spreading out all around her.

  She watched through lowered eyelids as Geraint yanked off his clothing as if he were afire. When he was naked, the moonlight bathing every warm curve of muscle, he knelt between her thighs and put his hands on her knees. Slowly, he slid them up her body. She shuddered when his thumbs met in the curls hiding her sex, but he did not stop. He rubbed the skin of her stomach, now damp from the waterfall’s mist, but stopped just at the lower curve of her breast.

  She could not bear the separation another moment. She rose up and took him by surprise, lifting him and turning so that he was the one beneath. He stared at her wide-eyed as she moved above him. When he would have reached for her, she held him down with a grip the likes of which she’d never used on him before.

  He was helpless beneath her, and in their shared gaze, she saw that he recognized it, accepted it, even enjoyed it. Only then did she mount him, taking him deep within her, controlling every movement of their mating.

  She released his arms, and his hands came up to knead her breasts. Throwing her head back, she arched, taking him in ever deeper. As she lowered herself over him, hands braced beside his shoulders, she began to move in earnest, raising herself up and down. He came up on his elbows and took as much of her breast as he could within his mouth. The movement of his tongue, the pressure of their joined bodies, even the power of the moon shining down on her back, all combined to raise the threshold of her desire. It felt like magic once again, only better, suffusing her, surrounding her, taking her higher than she’d ever been.

  And then it crashed over her in ever rising waves. She shuddered beneath the battering of it, and through slitted eyes watched the passion take Geraint, too. He arched back on the rock, thrusting up inside her with a movement that rippled every muscle down his damp torso.

  At last she fell against him, her hair wildly covering him, and he caught her in a hug. Gasping for breath, she let him ease her to his side, though she regretted the loss of him inside her. With her eyes closed, she let the mist of the waterfall soothe her.

  He lay against her side, his thigh over hers. When he slid his arm beneath her head, she curled into him happily.

  In her ear, he whispered, “I have so longed to be one with you again, my sweet Enid.”

  She rubbed against him like a cat. “I, too, my husband.”

  She didn’t want to think of the problems of the world yet awaiting them, so she took his hand and held it to her breast.

  “I was so afraid what you would think of this magic,” she whispered.

  “When the lightning consumed you—”

  “Consumed me?” She turned her head to stare at him in puzzlement.

  “For just a moment, I thought you could not survive such a thing.”

  He kissed her shoulder, held her breast, caressing it gently.

  “And I thought if you died,” he whispered, “I would die with you.”

  “Oh, Geraint.” She did not think her body could contain her feelings of love for him. Did he yet feel the same?

  “But that was only a fleeting thought, for you stood so tall and proud as if you battled against the moon with your own power.”

  Her laughter was soft, happy, relieved. “I know not what it is that the moon and I do to each other. The Lady taught me, and I simply accept it for the lifesaving gift that it is.”

  “So that you can walk in my world, among my people, and not be harmed.”

  She nodded hesitantly, still watching him. His brows furrowed in thought, but she could not fear his condemnation, not after everything they’d just shared.

  “You know we must keep this a secret,” he finally said.

  She could feel his sorrow as if it were alive. “Aye, that I surely know. After all, I even kept it a secret from you, my beloved husband.”

  “My father could not accept such a thing in a future queen of Cornwall.”

  Deep inside, the tension she’d thought gone began to stir.

  “He would believe that I could be manipulated by this magic of yours,” he continued, “that the very kingdom itself could be jeopardized.”

  “But I would never do such a thing!”

  “He does not know that. There is always the worry that a woman’s wiles can affect a man, but this . . . this wouldn’t be understood.”

  She found herself imagining a future where her magic was revealed before all of Cornwall. As if in a play, she could see Geraint forced to choose between the sorceress they’d call her, or his very kingdom.

  Or would she be the one asked to give up everything that she was, in the quest to be his perfect queen? It always came back to her not knowing how to be the proper wife for him.

  But right now, he did not say such words. He only held her in his arms, until the evening air finally chilled them both. They rose to cover their damp skin with clothing. With flint and steel, Geraint relit the torch, and they returned to the encampment, where all was quiet at each fire. She watched him look about with relief.

  “Did you think something had happened while we were gone?” she asked, as they stopped beside her pavilion. They held hands like young lovers, and she didn’t want to let him go. “Thieves? Mercenaries? Wizards?”

  He grinned. “This journey has been so eventful that there�
��s always the chance for more.”

  “But not tonight,” she said with a smile. “Tonight the only magic was between us.”

  He kissed her lightly. “Sleep well.”

  She leaned against him for a moment. “I will miss you beside me.”

  “When we return, I shall tell the queen that she disrupted our marriage with a maidservant.”

  “And not to do it anymore?”

  He harrumphed. “I imagine that she has her way as much as she wants.”

  Amused, Enid bit her lip to hold back her comment—that surely a woman’s wiles were already affecting the king of Cornwall.

  AFTER their morning’s march toward the northern coast of Cornwall, they stopped for a midday meal. All heard the pounding of a horse’s hooves, and Enid, surrounded by men with their hands on their sword hilts, watched with curiosity as a lone man came into view from around a bend in the road.

  Laughter and relief moved through the soldiers, and she realized that the man was one of theirs. She had been talking to Lovell about the training he was doing with the other soldiers, but now she made her way to Geraint. Her husband did not see her approach as he waited. The messenger dismounted and bowed to him.

  “My lord, I come from your father, the king of Cornwall.”

  She could just see Geraint’s smile.

  “I know his title, Chatwyn,” he said.

  Chatwyn ducked his head. “Forgive me, my lord. But the king wanted you to know that the rest of his army has returned from Camelot and will be ready for the invasion at your word.”

  Invasion? Enid felt as if a cold wind swept around her, filling her with ice.

  Geraint, still unaware of her presence behind him, sighed. “Tell my father that I deemed this amount of soldiers all that is necessary.”

  “But, my lord, he said that when you move against the Donella tribe—”

  Enid could not help the gasp that escaped her lips. Geraint turned to face her, and she saw his confusion.

  “Enid?” he said in a questioning voice.

  “You are attacking?” she whispered, backing away as if she’d never really seen him before.