Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  “Why? Why can’t I be with Devyn?”

  What was it that made it impossible for us to be together?

  “Devyn’s future is not certain. He has enough problems – keeping himself alive is more than enough.” She eyed me assessingly. “That was a lot of power you pulled in yesterday. I know Fidelma didn’t think you were more than a latent but…”

  I bit my lip. Fidelma had been wrong. I had to count on the likelihood that Bronwyn didn’t know in any great detail what had happened in Londinium. But she knew who Devyn had been in search of and if she had realised I was indeed the one he had sought, she would have said something already. I wanted to trust her but I had promised.

  “I’m not sure what happened or if I could actually have done anything with it.”

  Bronwyn inhaled deeply before pursing her lips and returning to the topic of Devyn’s fate. “Whatever hope he has is in getting back to Mercia quickly and then delivering you and Marcus to York.”

  “What’s in Mercia? Will we be safe there? Will Devyn? Why can’t we be together there?”

  Bronwyn looked at me, her face lined in concern.

  “You just can’t. He left a mess behind him; it will be enough for him to deal with that. The last thing he needs is to turn up with a city latent on his arm. Especially one he thought was…” She shook her head. “Devyn is helping Marcus and you’re merely along for the ride. Whatever was between you is a complication he can ill afford.”

  “If that was supposed to clear things up, it really hasn’t,” I told Bronwyn sourly as she turned and started to head back up the hill, making her way across the golden leaves on the forest floor.

  Bronwyn turned, her mouth pulled down. “I’m sorry. I know it’s confusing. Oh, and Cassandra… you mustn’t reveal your magic any more than you already have. That girl you helped escape the city was one of the most powerful latents we’ve ever seen. Her discovery was a surprise, and there are those who fought over her bitterly. The arrival of a second one of you could be seriously disruptive to the balance of power. It’s just best if you keep it hidden for now. Especially from Gideon.”

  “Why Gideon?” Gideon had hurt Devyn and seemed to follow no one’s orders but his own, but he was with Bronwyn, so why couldn’t he be trusted? “Isn’t he your friend? Don’t you trust him?”

  We were almost back at the camp and she stopped once more, looking in the direction of the tall cloaked figure striding across the glade, his long hair loose in the breeze.

  “My friend? Maybe. Do I trust him? Not at all.”

  I looked over at Devyn, sitting on the black horse ahead of us with Bronwyn. Yesterday had taken its toll on him. We had made good progress, the Britons paying little heed to his injury. He had been exhausted when we finally made camp last night and was asleep as soon as he had eaten. Given his natural propensity to be taciturn, and with the injury as well as our argument, I wasn’t sure I had seen him utter a word since Marcus had closed his wound. He barely looked my way, and had given no sign that he thought at all about what happened the other night. I, on the other hand, was a mess. My stomach folded in on itself every time I recalled what had happened in that tumbledown barn, and while my conscious mind was aware that Marcus’s leaking passions had ignited the incident, it was impossible to draw a line between what had come from Marcus and what had come from me.

  Whatever had precipitated the whole mess, it was the aftermath that washed over me like unrelenting waves crashing against the shore. The rejection from deep within Devyn hit me again and again, sometimes soaking me through, sometimes threatening to knock me over with the unexpected force of it. Screw him. Screw all of them. Particularly the handsy giant who held me close to his chest in the misty rain of the late afternoon. I elbowed him and turned to throw at him the ire and bile that consumed me, directing it at Gideon for lack of a more deserving target. Gideon’s eyes creased and he pulled me tighter to his hard chest. Oaf.

  I wasn’t the only one reacting to Devyn; the dozen or so warriors in Bronwyn’s group all watched him. While ostensibly Marcus was the prize that everyone in the country was looking for, it was Devyn who attracted the most attention. Gideon’s lack of repentance at wounding a man he knew was no real threat to Bronwyn was baffling; it was as if, once the opportunity had presented itself, he had been unable to resist taking the shot. The others also reacted strangely to Devyn’s presence. When they weren’t busy staring at him, they pretended he wasn’t there at all. Was this an indication of what awaited him? Was the treatment he had received as a child as nothing to the reception he would receive now?

  Why was I still worrying about the turd?

  My bones hurt from the jolting sway of the horse, and holding myself stiffly away from the body behind me wasn’t helping. Though I was certainly grateful that my feet were being given a day off. Being in company also allowed me to relax; what I realised now was that constant vigilance against the next attack was exhausting.

  I tried to piece together what little I knew to make sense of it all. The Britons were not as united as they had appeared from the other side of the wall. The country beyond the imperial province was divided between various kingdoms. Devyn was from Cymru which was to the west of us, while we were headed north towards Mercia.

  I had assumed Anglia and Mercia were allies. They had both been ruled by the same house for a period; the two Houses of Plantagenet had joined forces to form the Rose Union, the central force that had finally pushed the Empire back, leading to the dominance of the Tewdwr dynasty. It appeared that alliances had shifted in the centuries since.

  It sounded like reaching the Mercian capital would see us protected from the York forces who pursued us. I didn’t know a great deal about the Mercians. They didn’t usually attend the Treaty Renewals, mostly keeping to themselves, and as far as I knew were little involved in the warring that frayed the Anglian–Cymru border. Mercia was left alone by the other kingdoms, no doubt for fear of the famed power of the Lady of the Lake. Devyn hadn’t spoken of Kernow to the southwest, but I knew that was where Bronwyn came from. But was she here as a representative of her region or as Devyn’s cousin? What her relationship was to the Mercians was unclear, even as she rode in their company.

  I ground my teeth in frustration at how ill-informed Marcus and I were. Devyn had barely spoken on the road since Oxford, apart from instructing us as necessary. Marcus had also been totally shut down. I sighed. Maybe our current circumstances were an improvement… or not, I thought, as a slice of pain leaked through my connection with Devyn when Bronwyn’s horse’s gait jarred his shoulder. It caused me, in turn, to stiffen and pull away from the thug who had injured him.

  Explanations from Devyn as to what the Anglians wanted had been met with tight lips, though he had admitted that Marcus was their primary interest and they would mean him no harm. He had warned that falling into their hands would not be ideal for either of us though, especially with the risk that more people might discover my true identity. No more had been forthcoming. Devyn had promised Matthias that he would deliver Marcus to York, where his ancestors were from, but he was insistent that we should get to Carlisle first, then deal with York from a position of safety.

  I wondered if I should try to interrogate my travelling companion but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I combed over the titbits of information to see if I could make any more connections as we made our way across the countryside in the wintry grey light of the day. Bronwyn had said that this Gideon was a friend, though not one she trusted. Why didn’t she trust him?

  My head hurt. Devyn was barely speaking to me, Marcus had retreated into his grief once more and wasn’t talking to anyone, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask the warrior behind me, with his scar and his glinty, watchful eyes. I would just have to wait and try Bronwyn when we made camp. In the meantime, my mind played with the facts like a nagging tooth.

  I had completely melted into the broad-chested warrior by the time we stopped to make camp.


  “Wakey-wakey” was whispered into my ear, the breath warm against my cold skin. I started awake; we had ridden on in the dark, the early evening an inconvenience we could ill afford. We had continued on in the pitch-dark countryside, moving more slowly with a view to caring for the horses, but we had not been able to camp as early as the winter sun had set.

  As he dismounted behind me, I sat helplessly on the horse, pretty confident that when I got off this creature, I was going to crumple in a heap on the muddy ground.

  Gideon looked back up at me, assessing my situation, and without asking put his great paws around my waist and swept me off the horse. He held on to me while I found my balance, using the moment to step into me, crowding me against the horse. I glared up at him. What did he think he was doing? He leaned down to me.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, mocking my lack of thanks for his help. Exhausted beyond measure, I just glared harder. He chuckled as he released me and stepped back.

  Back on solid ground, my eyes did what they were best at and looked for Devyn. I didn’t need the connection to read the anger emanating off him at Gideon’s little display; his fists were clenched as he watched, narrow-eyed.

  Good.

  I looked up and to Gideon’s surprise flashed him my choicest smile, my hand coming up to touch him lightly on his chest as I stepped around him. He instantly looked suspicious and, somewhat cynically, I felt, for a man who had only just met me, surveyed the camp to see who that little display had been for. I cursed myself for my tired stupidity. So much for not drawing attention to myself and Devyn, but hopefully our little byplay had been missed by the rest of our audience. I steeled myself not to seek him out and made my way over to Marcus. To my shame, I realised that after all the drama yesterday, once he had stitched Devyn up, I had no idea what had happened to him. I wasn’t sure I was yet over my anger at him that it was his fault Devyn had been in a fight at all. Or at his escapades of the night before. I didn’t know what to feel. It was exhausting and, once I met his eyes, irrelevant.

  Marcus looked deeply unhappy. I slipped my hand through his to give him comfort, and immediately felt guilty that it crossed my mind that doing so helped with our official story that we were together. Motives within motives within tangled webs.

  That ceased to matter as Marcus’s hand wrapped around mine, and he responded with a slight smile.

  “Hey, there.”

  “Hey yourself,” he returned, as he watched the warriors bustle around, prepping the camp. “What’re a couple of citizens like us doing out here in the wilderness with this lot?”

  Bronwyn’s men were busy tying up the horses, putting up canvases between the trees, and collecting firewood. But then again, as I thought about it, I realised that they weren’t Bronwyn’s men… They were Gideon’s. It was Gideon they looked to for instruction. My assumption had been based on the way the group had followed her lead yesterday. But that could have been because she was the one who had picked up the trail or because, title-wise, she was the most senior, but she was most definitely in the company of the Mercians rather than in charge.

  “I have no idea.” I smiled at Marcus. The Briton outfits supplied by Callum had been appropriate in the more refined collegiate parts of Oxford, but they did not help us blend into this group at all. They were the Celts that I had envisaged as a child come to life: large wild men with long hair and beards and tattoos liberally adorning arms and necks and, in some cases, faces. Even Bronwyn looked like she belonged with them with her long, wild black hair and cloak, striding about busily. Marcus and I stood apart. Always apart.

  “How are you?”

  Marcus looked taken aback at the question, which stung. Was it so hard to believe I was checking he was okay? That was unfair. For the first time really since we had left Londinium, both Marcus and I were not on the edge of exhaustion. The days trudging north in those awful boots had most definitely taken their toll on me, but dealing with the effects of that while still recovering from burnout had pretty much depleted whatever energy Marcus had left at the end of every day.

  “Marcus.” I laid my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so caught up in my own stuff. You’ve had… I’m sorry. Truly.”

  “For what exactly?”

  I looked at him, and around at the camp. I shrugged. What could I say? He hadn’t wanted any of this. He didn’t deserve it. He was a good person and all he wanted was to treat his patients and be left alone. Now, because of me, he was here amongst these Mercians who told us nothing and being hunted by those who I realised might actually be his allies. While Devyn and I couldn’t fall into Anglian hands for some specific, secret reason, Anglia was likely to be Marcus’s destination. His Plantagenet ancestor had been from the House of York.

  I tried another tack. “Are you feeling better?”

  It was his turn to shrug as he leaned against the trunk of the tree sheltering us from the never-ending rain.

  “Yeah, mostly. Better than I was in Oxford.”

  “But not well enough to deal with Devyn’s injury?” I asked.

  He pushed himself away from the tree angrily.

  “I might have known that this show of concern for me was really about him. It’s always about him.”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” I started. I honestly hadn’t, but I couldn’t deny that most of my day had been spent worrying about Devyn. I grabbed his hand as he made to stride off.

  “Please wait, Marcus. I really was asking.” I stopped and tried again. “I mean, of course I’m worried about Devyn; we’re travelling hard and he is wounded.” Through no fault of his own, I added darkly in the privacy of my mind. Apparently it wasn’t so private as the look on Marcus’s face and his tug to get me to release him indicated that my thoughts were pretty evident on my face.

  “Which is not my fault.”

  “What? If you hadn’t gone off and—”

  I pushed down my anger. There was a series of events that had led to Marcus storming out of that barn and we did not need to get into a full-blown argument here in full sight of the Britons, who already seemed far too interested in our conversation.

  “Marcus,” I sighed. I had spent my life waiting to be with this man, had spent the summer getting to know him. We were friends, but the burn in our blood at this late stage of the handfast made it difficult because our tempers rose too quickly to the surface.

  “I don’t think I’m jealous of you and her.” I spoke the thought unguardedly as the idea swirled in my brain. It was easy to dismiss the night he’d spent in the arms of another woman as Bronwyn made excessively clear she had no desire to repeat the experience.

  “What?” Marcus struggled to follow the tangent in our conversation.

  “I think the handfast is making us both a little crazy. We’re friends… or we were,” I amended, at the slightly sceptical light in Marcus’s eye. “I want you to be happy. I know things are all over the place right now, and my uh… interactions with Devyn haven’t helped. But we need to get through this by sticking together.”

  Marcus paused before replying, contemplating what I was saying. His hand came up to cover mine where it still rested on his arm and his thumb rubbed thoughtfully along it.

  “I really was just asking if… Are you okay?”

  He nodded, looking down at me, his green eyes transparent and open.

  “I know you’re worried about Devyn,” he said. “Truth be told, I am myself. I don’t know why I wasn’t able to do more to heal the wound. I felt pretty good the last few evenings when I was helping you. But your blisters were superficial; Devyn’s wound is deeper, and it just doesn’t seem to want to respond. I know that sounds odd, but it’s like it’s blocking me.”

  He dropped his hand from mine, looking uneasily over to the camp.

  “I’d better get my paws off you before he does more damage by trying to come over here and kick my arse,” he said on a lighter note.

  “Well, actually, I need to talk to you about that,�
� I said, drawing a deep breath. Marcus was not going to like this. “We can’t let anyone know I have magic and we need to act like we’re together. That is, we can’t let anyone know that Devyn and I… They think I’m here as your match anyway… or betrothed, as they call it.”

  His face darkened with each word that fell out of my mouth.

  “I’m sure they don’t. Not after that little display yesterday.”

  “Nothing happened.” At least, nothing had happened because despite having a knife in his shoulder, Devyn had hauled himself off the ground to my side before I could unleash my rage.

  “Yeah. Just as well they don’t know what happened in Richmond,” he said, referring to the storm I had rained down on the sentinels who had pursued us in our first failed attempt to leave the city. Failed because of the handfast bond which had led to Marcus inadvertently alerting them to my departure.

  “Right,” I said. “I would do the same if they hurt you.”

  “Would you?” His eyes were hollow.

  This time when he pulled away, I didn’t try to stop him.

  Chapter Twelve

  I rejoined the rest of the group at the camp, such as it was – some waterproof coverings strung from tree branches providing cover from the relentless rain. I don’t suppose it rained more here than in Londinium, though it certainly seemed to. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in fully dry clothes. The completely natural materials didn’t help either and I thought wistfully of my city clothes. The only room left around the fire that the Britons had got going – in a remarkably short time – was either beside Devyn, who was stretched out against a fallen log, or by his attacker. With an inward grumble, I chose to sit beside the ass who had put the hole in the man I loved.