Chapter Sixteen

Kella could no more believe her eyes than Alyn. Without the imposing weaponry hanging from every peg, Kella wondered if they were in the wrong abode. An inviting lamp-lit room with a fire glowing near the foot of a newly polished box bed welcomed them. More garlands of fresh flowers had been strung along the beams overhead, lending their fragrance and color, while the mattress had been stuffed with new heather till it rose almost as high as the bench at the foot.

Against the wall, the customary month’s supply of honey mead was stacked next to the small table where her father used to dine when he wanted privacy. On it was a platter of loaves, fruit jams, and cheeses. Right there under that window, she used to sit and listen to tales of his wondrous adventures or how he’d courted and adored her mother.

More than ever, Kella knew this was right.

“I can’t wait to see Da’s face when he learns we’ve wed,” she said as Alyn carried her through the door and put her on her feet.

“’Twould be a sight.” Alyn went straight to the honey mead and took out a bottle to fill one of the matching goblets set out on the table.

It was hard to tell what he really thought about her father’s survival. Fear kept Kella from pressing it. Lorne’s death had been witnessed beyond doubt. But no one had seen what had happened to her father. He’d simply vanished.

“Should I go outside while you dress?” He glanced at her nightdress, which had been hung on a peg over the few belongings she’d brought from Carmelide. The peg on his side of the bed, where his things were stored, held nothing.

That nothing fanned fire to her face. “You’re my husband,” Kella replied. ’Twas his right to remain. Though she’d never disrobed before any man, not even Lorne. Theirs was an intimacy stolen one night in the queen’s own garden … in the shadows of the very trellis where Alyn had taken that kiss.

Begone, Lorne, begone! You’ve no place here now.

“Were I a proper husband—”

Like your prince. Alyn didn’t say it, but Kella heard the insecurity between his words.

“—you’d have a servant to help you.”

And this would not do.

“Just turn your head,” Kella instructed. “I’ll not have you ridiculed for your gallant consideration.” Which would surely happen, should someone see the groom waiting outside. “Or listen to you ridicule yourself.” She sniffed. “Proper indeed! You are more than proper, Alyn. You are God-sent.”

Kella meant it. Aye, she still grieved. But because of Alyn’s godly assurance and noble sacrifice, she was not without hope. God had provided for her and her child through a man she held dear.

While Alyn helped himself to the mead and squatted by the fire, Kella hastily worked at the laces of her gown. Try as she might to loosen them, they would not cooperate with her fumbling fingers. She felt for the troublesome knot until her arms ached.

“Husband.” She bowed her head in hot-cheeked surrender. “I need your help.”

“Are you certain?”

Kella huffed with impatience. “It’s either that or go fetch toothless Annie.”

“Heaven forbid!” Alyn shot to his feet in mock alarm and hurried to her. “Let me have a look.”

Kella determined not to shrink from Alyn’s fingers as they worked at the knot. Two women warred within her one skin—one demanding she withdraw into a cocoon of grief lest she betray Lorne, while the other would have her repay this man for rescuing her body, baby, and soul from her shame. Both were right.

“There you go,” Alyn announced, his expression perfectly rakish. “Glad to oblige.”

“You’d think you’d done that before, Father,” she teased. At least he had in his youth with a certain milkmaid. Though why Kella should think of it now was beyond her. Besides, at sixteen, what laddie wouldn’t naturally choose the company of an experienced—and willing—milkmaid over a petulant fourteen-year-old?

Perhaps they both played a game of nerves. But he’d started it.

“I’ve untied many a knot since I was a wee laddie,” he replied, refusing to rise to her bait.

And hadn’t she had a right to be nervous? This was her first time. At least, as a bride filled with shyness and insecurity. With Lorne—faith, ’twas so quick and done, there was no time for the sweetness of getting to know each other. Nor was there a long-established bond to play upon like that between her and Alyn.

Kella pulled her linen nightgown over her head and shed her dress and undershift, so that when they dropped, the other covered her. Plain with ruffles about the neckline and cuffs, it wasn’t her best, but she’d not packed for a wedding night. After some hasty adjustments, she slid beneath the covers.

“Your turn.” She gave him mischief for mischief. “Should I cover my head?”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary for my part.”

Undaunted, at least on the surface, Alyn rose from his haunches by the fire and unfastened his belt, which he laid across the table. Leveling a smirk at Kella that flushed her face, he lifted his tunic over his head.

His bindings were gone, though a nasty bruise remained where the brigand had struck him. But it was the cabled rippling of his torso that caught Kella’s eye. Her fingers remembered that surprising strength from the other night, the kind that gave him the grace and agility of a cat in fight or dance.

Lorne had been a strapping bull of a warrior.

Oh, why could he not stay away tonight? How could Kella give herself to one man while haunted by another? Alyn dropped to the edge of the bed and unlaced his boots. His stockings came off with them, landing on the floor where they may.

She closed her eyes, inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers permeating the room. But when her husband pulled the covers back, her eyes flew open, and she flinched as if expecting a lash. She couldn’t help herself.

This is my husband. I will give myself to him because he is good and it is right, no matter how wrong it feels. Lorne is gone. God, help me lay him to rest in my heart.

Grinning as if he knew something she did not, he nudged her hips with the back of his hand. “Move over, you two.”

Only then did Kella realize he still wore his trousers. “B-but—”

Alyn slid beneath the covers and propped himself up on one elbow. “My dearest Kella,” he said, tugging the blankets up to their chests, “you are a beautiful, desirable woman. I’ve thought of none other since the kiss we shared in the garden.”

Kella remembered most heartily the shock, the forbidden discovery.

“But your heart belongs to another, and I know you do not love me in the same way that I have come to love you. So, until that day”—he cleared the huskiness from his throat—“I shall wear these braccae to bed and beg your indulgence if the wool is uncomfortable.”

God be thanked! If ever there was a more considerate man on this earth, Kella knew him not. Alyn not only spared her now but offered time to bury Lorne’s memory.

“Oh, Alyn, I do love you!” Overcome with gratitude and relief, she drew his face down to hers and kissed him, a short but wholehearted effort. “And I pray, husband, that I will be worthy of your untold patience and generosity.”

“You already are, wife.” A shaft of pain grazed his smile as he rolled away and turned his back to her.

“Your ribs are hurting,” she surmised. How could they not after the foolrede of carrying her here from the hall? “Should I fetch the liniment from your bag?”

“My ribs are fine.”

“You should have kept the bindings on.”

“Kella,” he snapped, all semblance of patience gone, “for the sake of all three of us, I pray you, please, just go to sleep.”

Sun bathed the barnyard where Glenarden servants packed Alyn’s and Kella’s belongings into a cart hitched to a small but sturdy highland pony. While horses would be faster, the cart lent credibility to their charade as a priest of the Celtic Church and his wife bound for Fortingall at Queen Heilyn’s bidding. Not that Alyn wore his unbleached robe of the church, which always drew attention and, hence, could slow them down. Instead, he counted on the common dress allowing them to blend in with the traveling mercers on their way to various local fairs now taking place.

Though a quarter of their honey mead had been consumed, their first week as husband and wife had not been one of idle days of holding hands and long impassioned nights, but one of preparation for the journey north and exhausted sleep. They would sorely miss Daniel’s company, guidance, and strong arm, but there was a mission to be accomplished. Two, for Alyn had told Kella about Arthur’s strange fit and his asking Alyn to get a feel for the political inclinations of the villages they passed. Serving the Dux Bellorum and his queen appealed to Kella’s adventurous side, making life as the wife of a priest far more interesting.

But then, she’d learned her husband was no ordinary priest, but a man of many facets. While he devoted time to God, leaving their bed before daybreak and retiring long after she’d fallen asleep at night, he’d also spent time skillfully fashioning a false bottom in the cart with equally aged wood to hide the sacred volumes entrusted into his care. Kella dutifully saw that their travel clothing was washed and mended and personally reinforced the hidden pockets sewn into his travel cloak.

“In case we need a little magic,” he’d explained.

It was amazing, the things Alyn had learned to do with what looked to be little more than different sorts of dirt, although when she’d encouraged him to show everyone how he’d started a fire without flint and steel, he’d refused.

He revered the study of God’s creation yet seemed to fear it at the same time. Even now, Alyn carefully rolled up his alchemy box into the pallet that Brenna had made them for Kella’s comfort. Between that, the wagon, and a tarred cloth covering large enough to protect the wagon from inclement weather, they could endure nights when hospitality wasn’t available or offered.

Considering they would travel alone and without protection, both Alyn and Kella devoted their afternoons to weaponry practice with the sword, knife, lancea, and staff. So between that and the fact that they retreated to their love nest as soon as the children were put to bed, snickers and speculation as to the nature and future of their marriage abounded. If only the good folk knew that when her father’s door closed at night, naught went on behind it save sweet, exhausted sleep.

Magnus, the captain that her father had trained and left in charge of Glenarden’s guard, was as merciless with them as Egan. The exercises were rigorous and his combat fierce. Kella’s staff practice and swordplay were confined to a pell, which could not strike her back. Nonetheless, several hours’ combat with a wooden stave padded the thickness and height of a man had made her realize how inadequate her few hours a week spent in swordplay with Gwenhyfar had been.

Alyn had fared better against Magnus. The masters at the School of Wisdom included wrestling and combat games in the schooling, for the development of the body as well as for the mind and spirit. His lightness of foot made up for his slighter mass against the more powerful Magnus, but if Alyn misstepped, his trainer would have had the killing blow if not for skilled restraint and Alyn’s mail shirt.

Kella’s short sword was also hidden beneath the wagon seat. Alyn’s staff lay within easy reach. As did a small sewing bag containing tiny pattern pieces that Kella and Brenna had cut from remnants of linen. Since only Ronan, Daniel, and Brenna were aware of Kella’s condition, they’d worked each morning in the privacy of Egan’s hut. Not only would the bairn’s forthcoming wardrobe be a distraction on the journey, it would hone the skill of someone more accustomed to the pen than the needle and provide for the baby.

And now that the time had come to leave, Kella was almost dizzy with anticipation. She was renewed, strong as Maeve of legend and ready to ride into battle with a child as hearty as she. “Just rest when you need to, nourish yourself and the babe,” Brenna had advised, “and remember that your father wouldna’ have you risk yourself or the child for his sake.”

Kella asked the healer if she’d any hint of Egan’s welfare or harm, but alas, the answer was nay. “Sometimes we must go with faith,” Brenna told her. “It is good that you can search for Egan while serving the Dux Bellorum and his queen, but keep in mind that God has a plan for you, Alyn, and the babe. You must accept that Egan may have already fulfilled God’s plan.”

“But I don’t feel his loss in my heart. Could it be God’s way of telling me not to give up?” Kella argued.

“All things are possible, Kella. Just be alert for God’s nudges and follow them.”

How Kella adored her sister-by-law for not shattering her hope. And for the teas and concoctions to ease the travel and protect the pregnancy. If only Brenna could explain how to recognize if the nudges be of God or of her own stubborn will.

God, I am so grateful that I have seen Your presence in my life again, Kella prayed as Alyn checked and double-checked the cart and contents. As much as lay upon his shoulders, he strove most to see to her and the babe’s comfort. Like a promise from tomorrow, a laughing Conall and Joanna raced about the yard with the dogs and Fatin, who, after much wheedling on their part, was being left in their care. Ronan approached the wagon from the keep, laden with a huge basket, most likely foodstuffs, his wife beside him.

“There,” Alyn announced. Still standing in the cart, he jumped and tested the ropes till he was satisfied his precious box could not possibly be jostled or slide loose from the sideboard to which it was tied.

“I still don’t know why we don’t leave that here,” Kella told him. “We aren’t going north to start a laboratorium.”

“Or maybe we will. We will need a place to live.”

His grin gave Kella second thought. Surely he wasn’t proposing accepting an appointment in the north among those tattooed savages who’d murdered Lorne and—she was loath to think it—possibly her father. He was nearly three weeks gone now. Besides, they had the land Alyn had given her as a bridal gift. It would provide modest support.

“Or maybe we’ll need medicine or …” Alyn’s voice trailed off at the blast of a horn announcing the arrival of someone. Judging by the coded blast of the trumpet, it was more than one rider. A rain last eve allowed no dust to rise beyond the stockade walls from the hooves of their steeds, but Kella could hear them now, like a distant thunder.

Da!

Kella tried to shove her hope down as she waited for the identification process to take place. But upon hearing the guard’s “From Strighlagh” shout down to Ronan, who handed over the food basket to Alyn, Kella started running for the gate.

God had sent Alyn. Was it too much to hope—

The gate opened, admitting seven weary riders, each clad in the white tunics with the red dragon emblem and scarlet capes of Arthur’s guard. The horses had been ridden hard, their coats shining almost black with perspiration, and froth gathered round the bits they chewed.

Kella reached them first, addressing the man she assumed to be their leader. “Have you news of Egan O’Toole?”

She knew from his bewildered look that he did not.

“I’m here to seek Queen Gwenhyfar, milady, though I did not see her banner flying with Glenarden’s.”

Gwenhyfar? Kella mind reeled with confusion. The queen should have been in Strighlagh well before now.

“That is because our cousin is not here, sir,” Ronan told him. “Was she expected to stop at Glenarden?” The question was not unreasonable. Gwenhyfar often visited her cousin’s family en route to or from Strighlagh.

The man’s face blanched. “Then ’tis better if we speak in private, milord.”