The Witch Queen's Secret

by Anna Elliott

“MABON’S BOLLOCKS!” Cade’s eyes were watering and his mouth was screwed up like he’d been punched in the gut. “This tastes like—”

  Dera managed to catch the cup he’d been holding before it could spill onto the floor rushes. “Like what? Go on—tell me what you were going to say.”

  “Right, I’ll do that.” Cade gave a wheezing cough and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You think I’ve forgotten that you’re the one who changes my bandages every day—and brings me my meals?”

  Dera laughed, and Cade caught hold of her hand. “Dera, I—”

  Dera had spent she-didn’t-know-how-many hours sitting next to him like this, on the floor beside his pallet in the infirmary. He’d been here at Dinas Emrys nearly three weeks, now, since his fellows had carried him in with the sword cut to his belly, and Dera had helped Lady Isolde with stitching him shut. Part of that he’d been clean off his head with pain and fever—Dera had been nursing him a week before she’d even found out from him that his name was Cade, and that he was an archer in the High King Madoc’s war band.

  But if only one in twenty men survived a wound like his, he seemed bound and determined to be that twentieth one. Because he was getting better. His fever was gone, and Lady Isolde said the wound was healing well. And this morning, Dera had helped him sit himself up a bit to drink the bowl of broth she’d brought.

  She felt like she knew his face almost as well as she did her own, by now. Better, really, because even if she’d had one, she’d not have wanted to spend much time looking into mirrors; the glimpses she got in whatever streams or pools she happened to wash in showed her quite enough.

  Cade had a good face. Not handsome, exactly. But strong-looking, with a square brow and a good firm jaw, and lines about the corners of his eyes when he smiled. She knew his expressions, too. And the one on his face as he looked at her now was the expression that meant she was going to have to put him off yet again.

  Before Dera could pull her hand away, though, Lady Isolde’s voice behind her said, “Dera, do you—” and then stopped. When Dera turned, Lady Isolde was looking from her to Cade, her gray eyes gone a little wide.

  Not that she said anything. Just finished her question about one of the simples brewing in her workroom, and then stood aside to let Dera pass when Dera jumped up and said she’d come with her, straight away.

  Only when they were alone in the workroom, picking over a bushel of dried St. Patrick’s leaf to be used for drawing the pus out of festering wounds, did Lady Isolde say, kind of hesitant-like, and without looking up, “Cade seems like a … like a good man.”

  Dera felt her cheeks heat up. Which was funny, considering what she’d done in full view of half the men in the King’s army. And Lady Isolde had only seen her holding Cade’s hand. But still, she said, “I’m sorry, my lady. I’m done with … I mean, I wouldn’t take pay for … I hope you’re not angry?”

  “Angry?” Lady Isolde looked up at that, eyes gone wide all over again. “Why would I be angry? And I didn’t think you were”—Dera saw a bit of color creep into Lady Isolde’s cheeks, as well— “What I mean is, that you’re not a servant here, Dera. You can do what you like.”

  That was true enough. She’d even tried to get Dera to drop the ‘Lady’ and just call her ‘Isolde’, but Dera couldn’t manage it yet.

  Three weeks, now, that she’d been at Dinas Emrys. Now that the first thaw of spring had come, there’d been trouble with Irish sea raiders on the Isle of Ynys Mon—settlements pillaged, women carried off for slaves, and villages burned—and King Madoc had marched out with most of his war band to meet the raiders’ attack. Dinas Emrys was quieter, now, and less crowded with so many of the fighting men gone. Dera had heard whispers among the wounded of what could happen if there was an attack now that the fort’s defenses were down. But everything had been quiet, so far. The men whose wounds they treated were the ones that lived through the journey in horse carts or wagons to Dinas Emrys.

  Dera still wasn’t about to stitch up a sword cut or set a broken bone. But she’d gotten so that she could mix up some of the easier ointments and salves on her own. And she’d stopped having to run out and lose her breakfast when she had to help Lady Isolde lance a poisoned wound.

  Now Dera took a breath. She loved the way Lady Isolde’s workroom smelled: spicy and earthy all at once, warm from the brazier they used to melt the goose grease for ointments and boil water or wine for the simples and drafts. Just breathing in the air always made her feel lighter, somehow. Easier. Like a clenched knot in her chest she hadn’t even known was there was starting to come untied.

  She and Jory had their own straw-stuffed pallet on the floor in the corner, with a curtain hung round to keep out the chill and a box to hold their belongings. Jory was in the kitchens, now, playing with the cook’s little girl, who’d taken a fancy to him. But Dera could see the little carved wooden horse Lady Isolde had given him a few days ago for his own, lying on top of the blanket on the pallet. He slept with it at night—and woke up with the print of it in his cheek, as often as not.

  “He wants me to marry him.” She hadn’t realized she was going to say it until she heard herself blurt the words out into the workroom’s quiet.

  “Oh.” Lady Isolde looked startled. Not shocked or disbelieving. Just a bit taken aback, like she hadn’t considered that before. She looked up from the leaves they were sorting, and said, again, “He seems like a good man.”

  Dera realized she’d got her hand clenched round a fistful of the dried leaves. One of the stems was digging into her palm. “What if he’s not, though?”

  Lady Isolde looked up quick. “You think he’s not?”

  “No. I mean—” Dera felt like the words were lumps of rope, choking her before she could work out how to turn them into what she wanted to say. “What I mean to say is, you’re caring for wounded soldiers from sun up to sun down. You know what they’ve seen and done. They have to kill day in and day out. Kill or die. Can any man go through that and not be turned into a monster?”

  Dera saw Lady Isolde’s knuckles go white around the handle of the mortar she was holding. “I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t mean—”

  Lady Isolde shook her head. “No. It’s all right. But I don’t know the answer.” Her gray eyes went unfocused just for a moment, as she looked across at the glowing brazier where she’d set a copper pan of water to heat. “I wish I did. I thought—” she stopped and stood quiet a long moment. Then she said, “The boy I knew when I was growing up. Trystan.” Dera could see her mouth turn downwards, like it hurt her to speak the name. Though it wasn’t the same way her face changed when she had to say ‘Lord Marche.’ “Trystan was one of my father’s most trusted fighting men. He was leading a war band before he was sixteen. And he never … he never stopped being honorable or … or good, no matter how many battles he fought in, no matter how many raids he led. Not that he’d ever have told me just what had happened during the fighting—just what he’d done. He was very … private, always. He kept his feelings to himself. But he … my father’s spear men all jockeyed and fought to be put under his command. Because he’d never once let one of his warriors be taken prisoner. If they were captured, he got them back, every one, no matter what risks he had to take to do it. ‘No man left behind.’ That’s what he used to say. If a man was wounded, they took it in turns to carry him. If a man was killed, they brought his body back to be buried with warrior’s honors at home.”

  She looked down at her own hands—though Dera didn’t think it was her fingers she was seeing. Dera said, “You don’t get the chance to talk about him much, do you?”

  Lady Isolde looked up and gave a little twist of a smile, though her eyes were sad. “Never. I never talk about him.”

  Dera could tell just by looking that this story didn’t have a happy ending. But she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “What happened to him? If you don’t mind my a
sking, I mean.”

  “Mind?” Lady Isolde shook her head. “No. I don’t mind. He was captured at Camlann—at least I think he was. I thought he must have been killed, because he disappeared—no one had word of him. But then … just a few months ago … he appeared again. He’d been a Saxon slave. And now he’s an outlaw … a mercenary, fighting for whichever lord offers the highest pay. But”—she looked up at Dera and smiled just a bit again— “but he saved my life for me. Twice over. And the men he was with—the other outlaws—were loyal enough to him that any one of them would have laid down his life for Trystan’s. So maybe that’s your answer. Or as much of a one as there can be.”

  Lady Isolde stopped again and was quiet a moment more. Then she looked at Dera again. “I’ve never once seen your Cade out of temper—even when the sword cut was giving him the most pain. Fire tales are all full of heroes who are raised up to noble greatness by suffering terrible griefs or horrible wounds. I tell the stories myself—and maybe it helps the wounded men to hear them. But it’s all nonsense, really. Suffering doesn’t make anyone noble. If a man is mean-spirited and petty, in nine cases of ten he’ll only be meaner and pettier with a sword cut or a crushed arm. But what suffering can do is show a man—or woman—for what they really are.”

  “If Cade’s all that decent, what does he want to marry me for?” Dera heard her voice shaking and locked her hands together. “My luck’s not that good.” Now that she’d started talking, it felt like she’d tapped into a cask of sour ale, and the words had to pour out until the cask was dry. “My husband—Jory’s da’ was a mean, drunken brute. And half the men I service are the same as he was—the only difference is I’ve only got to put up with it for an hour—or less—most of the time. But I don’t trust any man to be different—not one that wants me. Part of me wants to marry Cade. Just like part of me knows he really is a good man. But I can’t let myself believe it. I’ve never even let Jory meet him—because what if something goes wrong? It would be just my luck if Cade died—or changed his mind and didn’t want me after all—and then Jory got his heart broke.” Dera felt her fingers clench. “I didn’t used to be like this. I used to be braver. But now I … even this—living at Dinas Emrys—I’ve spent all the weeks Jory and me have been here telling myself I can’t get too fond of it, or anything else, because if I do it’ll get taken away.”

  “I—” Lady Isolde’s hand moved, like she wanted to push the words away but didn’t know how. Finally she said, “You love Jory, though.”

  “Aye, well.” Dera felt her mouth tilt up into a half-hearted kind of a smile. “Never was much good at following my own good advice. Hearts are meant for loving, that’s what my mam always said.”

  Lady Isolde looked away, like she was trying to clear a memory out of her eyes. Then she said, “You’ve never told me about your mother.”

  “Mam was”—Dera felt her eyes start to prickle, so she swept up a handful of the Saint Patrick’s leaf and dumped it into the mortar’s bowl— “she made her living same as I do. Always told me my da’ could have been any man in Britain who’d had enough to buy her a hot meal or a jar of ale. But she was merry, like—always laughing. Could turn anything into a joke or a game. Even when we didn’t have enough to eat, she’d find the fun in it somehow. We’d play we were lost in a Faerie mound, and didn’t dare take a bite of food for fear we’d be trapped there for good.”

  “She sounds lovely.”

  “Aye.” Dera blinked hard. “She was. Died when I was sixteen. That’s when I married Jory’s da’. I’d no family, no friends. And my mam always told me I wasn’t to go her way, earning my bread on my back. I was going to be a lady. Or at least respectable, with a proper settled home of my own.” Dera felt her mouth twist around the edges again. “You can see how well that’s all turned out.”

  Lady Isolde touched Dera’s arm. “She’d be —” and then she stopped sharp as the door to the workroom opened so fast it banged against the wall, and a man staggered in, one hand clenched around a bloodied rag he’d got pressed against his chest.

  * * *