“Aye, ’twas much worse. When I found her, the bedsheet was twisted about her neck and her lips were blue.”
“Pollux.”
Marcus experienced a wave of pure terror. “If you hadn’t been sleeping nearby …” He couldn’t finish the thought. His fingers clenched; he felt like striking something. “This is my fault. I should have listened to Rhys. I should have sent her to Avalon.”
“Ye could not have known.” She reached out, as if to touch his arm, then at the last moment seemed to think better of it. “Ye did what ye thought best, out of love. And Avalon is hardly the safest haven right now.”
“I appreciate your saying that, even if it’s only to ease my conscience. Thank the gods you heard her in time. Did she cry out?”
“Nay. It was most strange. She did not utter a sound until I called her from her trance. If she hadn’t fallen from her bed, and if I hadn’t been lying awake, I would have heard nothing. Perhaps the Great Mother was watching over her after all.”
“I can only hope that’s true.” Marcus unclenched his fist and rubbed the back of his neck.
“She is fine, Marcus. Tomorrow I will begin her lessons. And I’ll stay in her room at night, until I am sure she has mastered them.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course.”
He exhaled. “Thank you.” He looked at her more closely, taking note of the dark circles under her eyes.
“You were awake? I’m surprised. During supper, you all but fell asleep atop a plate of cod.”
“If I had done so, the sauce would have awakened me,” Gwen said wryly. “My tongue burned unmercifully after eating that. What was in it? I dared not ask, for fear of offending Rhiannon.”
Marcus chuckled. “It’s
liquamen.
Fermented from anchovies, brine, and salt. We Romans pour it on everything. Rhiannon did not like it much at first either.”
“And now she does?” Gwen asked dubiously.
“She tolerates it.” He sobered. “Why couldn’t you sleep? Was the room too cool? The mattress uncomfortable?”
“Nay, not at all! The fault was mine. I often have trouble sleeping. ’Tis a problem that’s plagued me ever since …” Her voice trailed off.
“Since?”
She drew breath. “Since the night ye and Rhys rescued me.”
“Then it seems we share an affliction. I haven’t slept much since that night, either.”
Her startled gaze met his. He watched her wonder whether or not to pursue the opening he’d given her. Apparently the answer was no, because she half turned to her chamber door. “I should try again to sleep.”
The wise course would have been to let her go. But somehow, he couldn’t. “No. Please. Stay with me.”
She turned back, brows raised. He summoned an easy smile. “Why should you go back to bed? After all that’s happened, you won’t sleep tonight, any more than I will. Surely the ceiling beams aren’t that fascinating.”
She hesitated. “Just what do ye propose I do instead?”
“Talk to me,” he said promptly. “But not here.”
He extended a hand, but she did not take it. “Where?”
“The kitchen. I’ve been working all night and I’m starved. That’s why I was in the house in the first place.” He chuckled. “I’ll feed you as well, I promise. You’re in sore need of it. Will you come? Please?”
She tilted her head and touched a finger to her lips. “Since ye ask so politely, aye.”
He laughed then, and she did, too. She put her hand in his, and he fought to conceal his reaction to the contact. She’d be out of his life—and married to another man—as soon as he forged her sword. But for as long as she was living under his roof, he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to be alone with her.
To his surprise, she didn’t take her hand from his as he led her out of the sleeping wing of the house and into the entrance gallery. They passed the formal receiving and dining rooms and Rhiannon’s hearth room; the kitchen lay beyond. When they reached it, he reluctantly dropped her hand.
He busied himself rummaging around in a cupboard for a tallow taper. Touching it to the banked coals in the oven, he used the flame to light one of the hanging oil lamps.
A cozy glow settled over the room. Gwen’s gaze skimmed over the long table and the bank of brick ovens. Three tall ovens were for baking; the other two were waist high, topped with iron frying grates he’d made himself, years ago. Shelves held clay pots and copper bowls, and jars of herbs and spices. Bronze and iron skillets of all sizes hung from hooks overhead. A bronze-bladed knife with a bone handle—another example of Marcus’s work—gleamed on a chopping board, beside a wooden mortar and pestle and a pebble-studded bowl used for making soft cheese. A washing basin and bins for firewood and charcoal occupied either side of the door leading to the vegetable and herb gardens. He watched Gwen’s eyes go round as she took it all in. No doubt cooking facilities on Avalon were far more primitive.
He pulled out one of the high stools flanking the table with a flourish. “Your throne, my hungry queen.”
Gwen laughed, and sat. He felt her eyes on him as he inspected the contents of several cloth-covered bowls and platters, the apple barrel, the cheese chest, and the bread and pastry cupboards. He piled his selections on a platter, then lifted a pitcher and filled two large mugs with
cervesia.
Gwen shook her head, a smile playing about her lips. “Do ye always eat so much in the middle of the night? Even after all ye ate at supper? There will be nothing left for breakfast.”
He pretended offense. “Would you have me starve?” A mischievous voice in his head prompted him to lean across the table and pitch his voice low. “After all, I have to keep up my strength if I’m to be of any use to you.”
A becoming blush stained her cheeks, but to his surprise, she didn’t back away from his teasing. “I have no doubt your … strength … is equal to any task.”
Gods.
Was she flirting with him? He set down his mug with a thump. “Don’t you?”
“Nay.” Her teasing demeanor ebbed far too quickly. “I sensed your strength that night,” she said quietly. “When ye carried me from the cave.”
He didn’t know if her oblique reminder of the wolf he’d encountered in that cave was meant to entice him or warn him away. Studying her, he thought perhaps she didn’t know, either.
The silence between them stretched into awkwardness. He reached for a plate piled high with fried dough dipped in honey.
“Try one,” he said, sliding the platter toward her. “These are my favorite.”
“Oh, nay. I couldn’t. I’m not hungry.”
Marcus frowned at her. “I can’t imagine why not. You’re as slender as a sapling and you ate hardly anything yesterday. You probably had even less during your journey here. It won’t do you any good to get sick.” He snagged one of the pastries between his thumb and forefinger and held it out to her.
She took it with a sigh. “I suppose you are right.”
“I often am. It’s a talent of mine.”
That earned him a laugh. “Arrogant man.”
Leaning forward, she bit into the pastry while he still held it, her lips closing hardly a hairsbreadth from his fingers. Drawing back, she chewed slowly and swallowed. “ ’Tis delicious.”
Marcus’s gaze clung to a drop of honey shining at the corner of her mouth. When the tip of her tongue darted out to catch it, he nearly groaned out loud.
Hades.
Perhaps he should have let her go back to her bed—alone.
He ate the other half of her pastry—a simple act that seemed suddenly steeped in intimacy. A question hammered in his mind. He formed a casual version of it on his lips.
“Did you really tell no one in Avalon that you meant to come to Isca?”
She blinked. “I told ye I did not.”
“No one at all? Not even … your betrothed?”
Her jaw dropped. “But—I am not betrothed!”
He met her gaze frankly. “Rhys told me you were.”
“My brother should not have said such a thing. ’Tis not true. No matter how much he and Cyric may want it.”
Marcus’s chest expanded as his lungs filled. “You don’t like the man your grandfather has picked for you?”
“Oh, I like Trevor well enough. He is a fine man. Everyone on Avalon holds him in high esteem. He’s broad and strong, but also kind and respectful.” She grimaced. “And quiet. ’Tis as if the man must pay in silver for each word he utters.”
Marcus reached for an apple. “He sounds boring.”
Gwen sighed. “The other women adore him.”
“But you do not?”
She shrugged. Marcus’s mood lightened rapidly as he bit into his apple. He made short work of the fruit, tossed the core in the rubbish bin, and applied himself to the bread and cheese, handing thick slices of both to Gwen. “Eat this. All of it.”
She did, and washed down her meal with a long draught of
cervesia.
Meanwhile, Marcus swallowed seven honey confections.
“Ye must have truly been working hard,” Gwen said, a smile in her voice.
“I was. I’ve done two days’ worth of work in half a night. There’s a commission—a set of daggers—I needed to complete before I start on your sword.”
“And did ye finish?”
“Yes. Tomorrow I’ll deliver them and use the money I get to purchase more ore. When I return, we’ll discuss the design.”
He drained his mug. He was surprised to find he was actually looking forward to the challenge of forging a magic sword. Especially if Gwen’s Light could help him smelt
chalybs …
“Do you know much about ironworking?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Very little. We do not have an iron forge on Avalon. It would be difficult to get enough fuel, even if we had a smith, which we do not. I work only in silver, and small quantities at that.” She slipped a finger past the neckline of her tunic and drew out a chain that held a silver pendant. “Just enough for this.”
He studied the Druid pendant. “It’s like the one you made for Breena.”
“I craft a pendant for every woman Rhys brings to Avalon.”
“And the men receive tattoos of the same symbol?”
“Aye.”
He examined her pendant more closely. “You couldn’t have made this one. It’s far too old.”
She dropped the charm back inside her tunic. “Ye have a good eye, Marcus. This pendant is the pattern for the others. My great-grandmother crafted it. She was one of the twin Daughters of the Lady. Has Rhys told ye the story?”
“A little. The Lady came from the East a century ago, carrying the grail Owein and Clara searched for last year. It belonged to a powerful carpenter prophet.”
“That’s right. Her ship ran aground on Avalon in the days before the Romans drove the Druids from the sacred isle. She was heavy with child, and soon after gave birth to twin Daughters. One became my great-grandmother, the other, Clara’s.”
“And now you both are expected to bear more Daughters, to continue the Lady’s line.”
“That’s right. The Lady’s magic passes to her female descendants. That’s why Cyric is so anxious that I wed. Truly, I was very happy when Clara’s ancestry was discovered and she came to Avalon. It enabled me to avoid my own handfasting.” She grimaced. “For a while longer, at least.”
“You don’t wish to marry at all?”
“ ’Tis not that.” She worried her lower lip with her teeth. Marcus’s eye was drawn to the movement. “I know ’tis my duty to join my magic with that of another Druid and bear a Daughter. Trevor is as fine a man as any. He is quite eager to wed me.”
Marcus could well imagine he was. But he obviously didn’t deserve Gwen. If he did, Gwen would not be here in Isca, conversing with another man in the dead of the night.
“Why haven’t you accepted him? Why did Rhys tell me you had?”
“I cannot say what is in my brother’s mind, but as for me … Trevor does not know of the wolf. I cannot marry him with such a secret between us. But I am not ready to tell him.” She crushed her last bit of bread into crumbs. “I’m not sure I ever will be ready, but the time will come when I must.”
“Well,” Marcus said carefully, pushing the plate containing the last honey pastry in her direction. “At least you don’t have to think about him while you’re here.”
Gwen’s startled eyes met his. A moment later, a reluctant smile curved her lips. She reached for the last sweet. “I suppose I do not.”
Gwen fell asleep just before dawn, with Marcus’s words wrapped around her like a blanket.
You don’t have to think of him while you’re here.
Not of Trevor, nor of her future as his wife. Nor of the Elders’ anger, nor Cyric’s decline. Nor Rhys’s inexplicable deception. For a short time, while she lived with Marcus and his family, she could forget all that turmoil. She would think only of the Lady’s sword, and the man who would forge it.
It was almost noon when she awakened from the deepest sleep she’d enjoyed since her captivity. She hastened to the hearth room, where she found Breena and Rhiannon sitting at the table. Breena worked the pestle of a small stone mortar, grinding a pungent root, while Rhiannon mixed dried herbs from several piles, tying them into small squares of linen.
They greeted Gwen as she entered. The great mastiff lying by the hearth was less amenable to her presence. Its lips drew back in a snarl. When Gwen met its gaze calmly, it heaved to its feet and slunk out the door, head low and tail tucked between its hind legs. Breena’s puzzled frown followed the animal. “That’s odd. Titan is generally quite friendly.”
Gwen shrugged, not surprised at all. As a rule, few animals other than Ardra and Hefin tolerated her presence. She studied Breena’s face. The lass seemed much recovered from her ordeal of the night before, in the way that only the very young could manage. Her eyes were calm, and her cheeks had regained their color. Rhiannon, by contrast, looked weary.
“ ’Tis good to see ye looking so well,” Gwen told Breena.
“I have no headache, or fatigue, as I usually do after a vision. I have your magic to thank for that, I think.” She paused. “Father told me you agreed to teach me spells to take away the pain.”
“Aye. Marcus asked me yesterday to give ye lessons.”
“It was Marcus’s idea? I can hardly believe it. He hates magic.”
“He loves ye,” Rhiannon chided. “It distresses him to see ye suffer. And Gwen will be teaching ye the Light, after all. Not Deep Magic.”