From Lynette’s seated position on the cloth, Cadfael’s war horse seemed huge. She made herself stay where she was, even though she wanted to shrink away from the blowing beast.
Cadfael leapt from the horse, his face dark with anger, a long knife clenched in his hand.
She had expected anger. Now she must deal with it.
He lunged across the cloth and gripped her hair, drawing her head back. The knife blade slapped against her throat, forcing her to stillness. It did not stop her heart from slamming against her chest.
“Give me a reason why I should not draw this blade deep and wide,” he demanded. His voice with thick with fury. He bent low over her, so that all she could see was his blue eyes, the deep lines radiating from them and the rough whiskers of his chin.
There was a scar under his chin. An old one, faded and pale.
He had demanded a reason to spare her. It was difficult to think. She had never in her life had a knife pointed in her direction, let alone a blade held at her throat. One quick slice and she would die.
Lynette made herself speak calmly even though her teeth wanted to chatter. “I am Vivian’s favorite companion. Kill me and you would upset the entire household. Vivian would see to it. I do not think you want to ruin your king’s efforts to recruit Gwilym with a hasty action like this.”
“Vortigern is my king. Perhaps the pleasure of slitting your throat outweighs my care for Mabon’s cause.”
“His cause is Vortigern’s. You are not so disloyal you would abandon your responsibilities for a single moment of pleasure, for that is all it would be. A cut, a gush and the deed would be done. I would no longer know anything of this world while you would remain a man bested by women.”
His growl rumbled in his throat and her heart leapt. Had she pushed too far? She had judged him a man who preferred frank speech. He had abandoned coquetry in the courtyard in favor of speaking his feelings. Perhaps he only liked truth he arrived at himself. Slapping him with it appeared to have the opposite effect.
She braced herself.
He straightened with a jerk. “Christ, you are a cool one!” He flung the knife. It landed point up in the grass by the stream, swaying.
His back was to her. Lynette closed her eyes and let out her breath. Relief ran through her veins, making her tremble. Another deep breath. Then she opened her eyes.
Cadfael bent and snatched up the saddlebag. “What are you doing out here?”
“Leading you away from Maridunum.”
He scowled. “Do not stretch my tolerance too far.” He pulled out her knife and turned it over. “The blade is too short to be useful, for one who wanders about by herself.” He dropped it to the cloth and dug again. He pulled out the rolled parchment and turned it around and around, looking at it. He held it toward her. “What is this?”
Lynette was puzzled. “A letter, of course.”
“That is all? A letter? Who would send the likes of you a letter?”
“My mother.” She frowned. “Do you not read, my lord?”
He glared at her. “You do?”
“Of course.” She shrugged.
He lowered the saddlebag, letting it hang from his hand. The one that held the letter gripped the roll. His knuckles whitened. “Who are you?”
“Lynette, my lord.”
“Who would teach a daughter to read?” he demanded.
“My mother,” she said.
The hand holding the letter dropped, too. He stood staring at her, as if his thoughts raced.
She reached for the letter. It pulled away from his fingers without resistance. She smoothed the dent he had made in the outer layer. “Everyone calls Saxons ignorant, because they cannot read or write. The real reason they don’t write things down is because there are no letters for their language.”
He let out a heavy breath as if she had walloped him in the back. “Saxons?” he breathed, his voice tight.
“They tell stories and sing songs and that is how they remember,” she added.
“How would you know such a thing?”
“I read it in a letter spies sent to my father.” She made herself smile at him even though the fury still radiated from him like heat from a brazier and her own heart thrummed with unnamed fear. She was not yet safe from his retribution. Even though his knife was over by the stream and his sword was strapped to his horse, he was still dangerous. “If I can read and write, surely that means I am not your enemy?” she added.
Cadfael dropped the saddle bag and took three steps away from the cloth, while his horse lifted his nose from the grass, to see if his master was returning to him. Cadfael’s steps were unsteady, as if he was drunk.
He whirled and came back, his hands fists by his sides. He stood breathing heavily at the edge of the cloth. “How did you know?”
“Know, my lord?”
“How did you know that reminding me the Saxons are my real enemy would steal my anger?”
“Did it?” She shook her head. “You told me in the courtyard you cared for nothing but slaughtering Saxons. I am not Saxon. I only want to avoid your knife…or your hands.” She eyed his fists.
He flexed them self-consciously, as his throat worked. “There is a town in the north…” He cleared his throat. “There was a town in the north. Cair Dain, it was called. Up near Catterick…do you know where that is?”
“Yes. That is close to the Saxon Shore, is it not?”
“Indeed,” he said dryly. “Half a year after the Saxons had driven the Picts back behind the wall, they raided all through that land. Whole villages were burned to charcoal.”
Lynette’s gut tightened. “I have heard men talk of such raids, before,” she admitted.
“Have you? Then you might have heard of the valor of the Britons who fight the Saxons who dare step onto British soil, beating them back to their Shore and their long houses.”
“That is usually the way the stories go.”
“Only, on this day, not a single Briton raised a hand. Not a weapon was unsheathed. The Saxons flowed over the land like water and nothing stopped them.” His voice was hoarse. “No word reached us. No alarm was raised. Survivors said the Saxons took their time, raping and drinking, cutting throats and using men to practice their archery. They stripped every barn and stable and larder, piling their loot upon carts to carry back home, before they put a torch to the remains…” He looked away.
“Who of yours was in Cair Dain?” Lynette whispered, staring at the profile of his face, the strained lines and the old agony it portrayed. Everything about him—his distress, his anger—told her he had lost someone that day.
“My wife,” he whispered. He closed his eyes. “My son,” he added.
Lynette dared not speak. There were no words of comfort she could offer him.
His eyes stayed closed. “I found their…them, afterward,” he said. His voice was strained, but stronger. “To this day, the smell of burning flesh makes me too ill to stand.”
Lynette shuddered and held back her moan of horror. She got to her feet, picked up the flask and pressed it into his hand. “Drink,” she whispered.
He looked at the flask. Then he unstopped it and gulped the wine. He tossed the empty flask onto the cloth and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His gaze met hers. “The only care I have left in the world is to put my sword into as many Saxons as I can.”
“The lady Vivian is not a Saxon. Her affairs are of no threat to you or Vortigern. I give you my word on that.”
He laughed. It was not a happy sound. “You give me your word?”
She met his eye. “As a Celt and a Briton.”
“You omit naming yourself a servant of Vortigern,” he pointed out.
Lynette hesitated. “It goes without saying,” she said as off-handedly as she could and gave a shrug.
“Does it? You called him Vortigern, not the High King, or King Vortigern.”
Lynette dropped her gaze.
“You are pro-Roman,” he concluded.
“I don’t know what I am,” she said truthfully. “I suppose, as he is the High King, I am for Vortigern, yet…”
Cadfael laughed again. This time there was amusement in it.
“Why do you laugh?” she demanded.
“I laugh at the spectacle of a woman trying to decide where her loyalties lie. As if they matter a damn in the scheme of things.”
“You think a woman cannot have an opinion?”
“About politics? No.”
Irritation touched her. “I read, I listen. I naturally form an opinion. I can tell you that Vortigern is as much a blight on this land as the Saxons—” She tried to suck the words back inside her, to take them back. It was too late. They had been spoken.
She lifted her chin and looked at him.
Cadfael nodded. “So, the truth comes out. No wonder you hide here in Maridunum. You keep good company.”
“If the company I keep makes me no different from them, then you have no need to single me out, do you?”
Cadfael pursed his lips. “You are not Saxon, nor are you one of their spies, not tucked away in this place. I give you that. You are hiding a secret, though. Perhaps I should unravel it to keep myself entertained while Mabon lingers here.”
“When you learn the truth, perhaps you would be kind enough to share it with me.” She blinked, surprised at the degree of bitterness that sounded in her voice.
Cadfael considered her, his hand at his chin. “You don’t know what your lady does, any more than I do.”
“I know little more,” Lynette admitted. “Which I will not share with you,” she added hastily. “What I do know makes no sense and Vivian refuses to explain herself.”
“Yet you risk your neck to lure me here, so she can tend to her secret, anyway,” he finished. “You are loyal, aren’t you?”
“I am sworn to her service,” Lynette said stiffly.
“Did you swear your fealty before you knew you would be asked to seduce men in her name?”
Lynette felt her cheeks heat. “I have made no attempt to seduce you,” she pointed out stiffly. “Unless a woman’s conversation is considered to be seduction,” she added.
Cadfael smiled. It was unexpected, and Lynette caught her breath. The expression wiped away the worn expression in his eyes. He looked younger. Carefree. Perhaps even happy. Cadfael the Black had momentarily departed. “Every man back in Maridunum would tell you that a woman signals by her conversation an interest in a man. That interest opens the way for the man to press his advantage. You are too sophisticated a woman to not understand that instinctively.”
“You are saying I should have walked up to you on that barrel and kissed you, for all the difference it makes.”
“Oh, there is a difference,” he assured her. “I would not fail to notice a kiss from you.”
The words strummed between them.
Lynette could not pull her gaze away from his eyes. They grasped her attention and held it, to the point where she could hear nothing but the thud of her heart. Her whole body pulsed with it.
His gaze shifted and dropped.
To her lips.
Her heart fluttered weakly. She made herself speak. Her voice was also weak. “Then perhaps I should have kissed you, for that would have held your attention, while my mere conversation failed to.”
For a moment more, he studied her. She couldn’t move.
Then he turned away. “Pack your things. I will escort you back to the palace. It’s getting late and we’re a long way from the town.”
“Not really,” she told him, as she bent to pack away the meal and stuff it into her saddle bag, along with the cloth she had been seated upon. “I came around in a great curve. There is a shortcut through the end of this valley, back to the town.”
His scowl rushed back into place, as he picked up his stallion’s reins and perversely, Lynette was pleased to see it. She felt as if she had escaped by the narrowest margin.
The sensation stayed with her all the way back to Maridunum, as she tried to resolve the riddle. What, exactly, had she escaped from?