Rhiannon (13 page)

Before Madog could get enough breath to begin to scream
again, Simon said pleasantly, “Now you know I am in earnest. I will ask you
again what you have done with Lady Rhiannon. I will take your left ear next,
then your balls, then a finger at a time. You do not need to worry about
bleeding to death, you know. I will make a fire and heat my knife and sear your
wounds so that you will live.” He paused a moment and then added bleakly, “I
will be very, very careful that you live.”

Tears ran down Madog’s face mingling with the blood, and he
shook his head mutely from side to side. In his first shock and terror he had
not believed Simon could know he had anything to do with Rhiannon, and for a
moment more he believed that if he still claimed ignorance after losing an ear,
Simon would believe him. However, when he saw Simon lift his foot to secure his
head for the removal of his other ear, he understood that Simon knew for
certain what he had done. The “witch” or her familiar had somehow informed
against him.

“I will show you,” he screamed. “I did not kill her. I did
not even hurt her.”

In that moment Simon almost lost his prisoner. Relief at
hearing that Rhiannon was still alive struck him like a physical blow. He
turned pale and his hand loosened on the noose that held Madog. Utter
desperation lent the man more swiftness and perception than was natural to him.
He rolled over, stumbled to his feet, jerking the noose out of Simon’s lax
fingers, and started to run. The attempt did not succeed. In ten strides Simon
had caught up with him and put his foot on the trailing noose, throwing him to
the ground.

Madog screamed again and lashed out with his feet as Simon
bent to retrieve the noose, but Simon merely grabbed the cross garter higher up
and pressed the point of his sword into Madog’s neck—but not hard enough to
draw blood. The unspoken threat turned Madog’s screams into whimpers mixed with
assurances that Rhiannon was unharmed.

“If I find her alive and unhurt,” Simon said, “I will do no
worse to you.”

“Will you let me go?” Madog pleaded.

“I cannot do that,” Simon replied. “Do you think I have
forgotten that you murdered Mallt? However, that is no affair of mine. Whether
you are punished at all and what your punishment will be is Lord Llewelyn’s
business. Now get to your feet and take me to Lady Rhiannon without more talk,
or I will begin again where I left off with you.”

“I will die anyway,” Madog wept. “She is a witch. She cursed
me.”

“You are an idiot,” Simon responded in a disgusted voice,
prodding Madog ahead with his sword. “Lady Rhiannon is no witch. She has no
power of cursing. Now bring me to her at once. And do not think to lead me
around in circles. Whatever happened to my lady took no more than the time from
early dawn to the time of breaking our fast—where I saw you. If you do not find
her in half that time, I will have your manhood off instead of your ear. You
deserve it for laying a hand upon her.”

Madog plunged ahead, knowing that Simon would not repeat his
threat but would carry it out. Simon’s face was as rigid as that of a corpse
and his eyes were terrible. That, Madog thought, was the will of the witch. For
that reason he made no attempt to delay but found the path Mallt and Rhiannon
had taken that morning. They went much more quickly than the women had because
Mallt had slowed progress as much as she could. A few minutes’ swift walking
brought them to the place where Madog had attacked Rhiannon—a patch where the
earth, twigs, and dry leaves were scuffed and disturbed.

Here Madog hesitated and turned his maimed head toward
Simon. “You are ensorcelled,” he whispered. “That is how you know what I did
and why you did not hear her curse me. You were right there beside her in the
cove. Do you not remember?”

Simon burst into bitter laughter. “Idiot! Dolt! How could
she curse you even if she was a witch? Neither of us knew who was there. My
horse scented you. I tell you Lady Rhiannon has no power of cursing. She was
afraid, that was all, and cried out what she thought would protect us. And I
knew what you had done because I heard you talking with Mallt. Now go ahead.”

Madog did not dare disobey and started to move off the path
in the direction he had carried Rhiannon, but he whimpered, “She did curse me.
I felt it. I could not eat and my breath choked in my throat…”

“You are twenty times a fool,” Simon raged. “You feared the
effect of a curse and felt the effect of your fear.” He prodded Madog harder.
“Quick, before I lose my patience and give you a reason to move more swiftly.”

The grimness of Simon’s voice warned Madog to hesitate no
longer, and Simon’s conviction made Madog begin to wonder whether he had not
jumped too fast to a conclusion about Rhiannon, misled by Mallt. He was not
sure; he still
felt
Rhiannon was a witch—she was so strange—but perhaps
she had not cursed him. In any case, his fate at Simon’s hands seemed far more
certain than his fate at Rhiannon’s, and he hurried along the way he had
carried her. He was terrified that he would lose his way, for he had been
careful not to break branches or step on soft ground, but his hunter’s eye had
unconsciously marked a lightning-riven tree here and a dead, oddly gnarled one
there, as when he cached a kill too heavy to carry back alone. Spurred by
panic, he found his way almost without a single hesitation to the great fallen
log.

“There on the other side,” he gasped, shaking with terror
because he did not know whether to hope or to fear that Rhiannon was dead.
Either way, Madog knew he would suffer.

Simon could not endure to waste even the few moments it
would take to tie Madog securely, and he did not dare try to control him at the
same time that he released Rhiannon. Madog had not said how he had secured her,
but Simon did not need to be told that she was bound or chained. If she had not
somehow been imprisoned, she would have made her way back to Aber. Perhaps
there were even others in the plot. They might have been warned by Madog’s
voice and their incautious approach and be hidden, ready to attack.

“Go around,” Simon urged, and when Madog bent to climb over
the trunk, he hit him good and hard on the head with the flat of his sword.

As Madog fell, Simon dropped the noose and leapt over the
log. He let out a roar of rage when he did not see Rhiannon, and turned toward
the unconscious man. Even as he did so, his eye caught the disturbed earth
around the hollow under the fallen tree. A less cursory glance showed the trail
where Rhiannon had pushed herself along the ground. For a minute or two Simon
could not see anymore. Tears of relief had flooded his eyes. Despite Madog’s
assurances that he had not harmed Rhiannon, Simon feared he would find her
dead, that the man had only been buying a few minutes more of life with his
lies. The fact that there was a trail, that Rhiannon was not immediately to be
seen in the vicinity, was proof that she had strength enough to escape.

Shakily, Simon knelt to examine the ground with care. Then
he sighed with relief again. There was no sign of blood. Probably Rhiannon had
not been stabbed. The exertion of getting out of the hollow and humping herself
along the ground was considerable. Any wound would have bled. Simon glanced
toward Madog, but the man had not moved at all. Then Simon realized Rhiannon
could not have escaped in that slow, painful manner if anyone had been guarding
her.

Simon knew quite well that he should now bind Madog’s feet
and secure him to a tree, but he could not bear to waste the time. If he did
not find Rhiannon in the next few minutes, he told himself, he would return.
Just now, finding her was more important.

“Rhiannon,” he shouted, “it is Simon. Where are you? Can you
hear me? It is Simon.”

When Rhiannon dropped into the black pool of
unconsciousness, her body reacted automatically to satisfy its needs. Relieved
of the panic of her conscious mind, she began to breathe more easily. By the
time Madog spotted the fallen tree, she was conscious. Fortunately, the first
thing of which she became aware, after her realization that she was not
smothering, was the jolting discomfort of being carried. Full memory of what
had happened and that she was tied hand and foot followed. Rhiannon realized
she was being abducted.

As far as Rhiannon knew, she had not an enemy in the world;
the only reason she could grasp at was that she might have been taken for
ransom. Her father was fond of her, and her mother loved her dearly. Either one
would pay ransom for her. However, if she had been abducted for ransom,
Rhiannon knew she would not be harmed.

Soon after this hopeful idea took hold of her, Rhiannon felt
herself set down on the ground. She listened intently but could make little of
what she heard because the cloth over her head muffled the sounds around her.
One thing became relatively sure, however. She had been taken by only one
person. At this moment, Rhiannon was convulsed by a combination of rage and
embarrassment. She, to be taken in so obvious a snare. No, Mallt and her
partner would make no profit. Rhiannon resolved she would escape if it was the
last thing she did.

When Madog tumbled Rhiannon into the hollow under the log,
she was briefly frightened until she realized it was not deep enough to be a
grave. She managed to roll onto her stomach with her face inward, and it was
soon clear that her abductor was taking great care not to pack dirt over her
face. Striving for patience, in case the man was waiting to see whether she
would try to escape, Rhiannon counted to one thousand slowly. Then she could
wait no longer. She had to rid herself of the discomfort of the gag.

Rhiannon dropped her chin as far as she could and pushed
with her tongue. At last she slid the thong over her lower lip. Setting her
teeth so that it could not slip back into her mouth, she began to rub her cheek
against the ground to push the thong over her chin. As she worked, Rhiannon
began to feel cool, damp earth on the back of her neck. That meant that she had
managed to lift the cloth as well as push down the thong that tied it around
her head. With renewed vigor she began to scrape the cloth downward and
forward. Finally, when she lifted her head, the cloth fell away completely.

Although Rhiannon’s neck and back ached from the peculiar,
confined movements, she was so thrilled by her success that she did not pause a
moment before turning us much as she could to her side, bending her knees, and
feeling with her feet for a solid surface. This was not far to seek, for the
trunk of the tree curved into the ground immediately adjacent to the hollow in
which she lay. Bracing her feet, she straightened her knees. There was
resistance at her back where Madog had packed earth and dead leaves around her,
but several strong pushes with legs made very powerful by years of coursing
game forced the blockage aside. Rhiannon’s head and shoulders emerged from the
hollow.

It was extremely difficult, Rhiannon found, to balance when
one’s feet were tied together and one’s hands were bound. She had discovered
this while she was levering herself upright against a tree. Having spared a
moment to listen and be assured that no one had noticed her partial escape, she
chose a level spot and jumped. Landing safely but painfully on her turned
ankle, she balanced herself, looked for another spot, and jumped again.

At first her eagerness and anxiety grew with each foot of
progress. Because success seemed within her grasp, she feared more acutely that
her abductor would return to snatch it away from her. She began to choose
landing places farther and farther apart. At last she overestimated her ability
and fell. The bruises were painful, the disappointment and effort needed to
regain her feet more so. It was clearly impossible for her to get far enough
away to elude pursuers in this manner. Moreover, she was leaving a trail that a
blind man could follow. Thus, it would be better to find a sharp or rough
enough rock on which she could rub her hands free.

This was less easily done than said. The soil of the forest
was rocky enough, but years of blown soil and fallen leaves obscured any but
the largest stones. These, moreover, were smoothed by millennia of wind and
rain. The only place a sharp-edged rock might be found was in a stream, where
the freshets of spring tumbled stones over each other so hard that they cracked
or tore rough rocks from the earth of the banks.

Biting her lips to keep back useless tears of frustration,
Rhiannon turned back toward the tiny stream that ran by the fallen tree where
she had been concealed. Painfully, carefully, she hopped along on her bound
feet, feeling them grow deader and deader as time passed. Her heart sank with
each moment. The movement was keeping some life in her feet, but her hands were
dead already. Even if she found a stone, how would she be able to draw her arms
across it when she could not feel where her hands were?

Panic seized Rhiannon. Frantically she hopped back toward
the stream she had—just as frantically—hopped away from when she first escaped.
Panic then engendered carelessness, and she fell again. This time she lay
weeping for some time, too hurt and too frightened to struggle further. Her
head ached, her whole body ached, as much with fatigue as with her bruises.
Hopeless, weeping, Rhiannon slipped where she lay into the deep sleep of
physical exhaustion.

Dimly, after a long time, a dream voice called to her,
It
is Simon. Can you hear me?
but her dream was of captivity and pursuit and
treachery, and she whimpered softly, afraid even in her sleep to respond to
that seductive hope of safety.

When Simon had no answer to his call, fear for Rhiannon
gripped him again. It did not seem possible to him that, bound as she must be,
Rhiannon could have gone farther than his voice would carry. A hundred deaths,
each more horrible than the last, flashed through his mind. Without another
look in Madog’s direction, he set off to follow Rhiannon’s trail. However, he
was hardly out of sight of the fallen tree when he saw her lying on the ground.

“Rhiannon!” he cried. “Beloved!”

So close as he was, his voice was too loud to be mixed into
a dream. Rhiannon’s eyes opened. “Simon,” she breathed, “oh, Simon! How did you
find me?”

He did not bother to answer that, turning his attention
first to cutting the thongs that bound her hands and feet, then to taking her
in his arms and holding her so tight that she gasped in pain. Indeed, although
her arms were too numb to move, Rhiannon pressed herself as tight as she could
into his broad chest. After a little while, however, she lifted her head and
smiled. Simon was shaking. Apparently he had been more frightened than she.

“Simon, I am all right,” she assured him. “I was not much
hurt, except for a few bruises from falling. But how did you find me?”

He began to tell her how Math had wakened him and he had
grown uneasy, thinking she was away too long.

“You were right. Mallt asked me to take her into the forest
to gather herbs. I should have been back soon after sunrise.” Her eyes flashed.
“Wait until I get back to Aber. I will teach that Mallt to connive with
ransom-seeking abductors. I—”

“She is dead,” Simon said, “and Madog…oh, good God, I forgot
the man completely.”

He got to his feet, lifting Rhiannon in his arms as he rose,
but when he got back to the fallen tree, Madog was nowhere to be seen. On the
way he had told Rhiannon briefly what had happened.

“But why?” she asked as he set her down. “It is quite mad.
Surely he did not think he could force me to marry him—”

“He did not want marriage,” Simon said, examining the ground
near where Madog had been lying. “He believed you had cursed him. He was the
one who made Ymlladd uneasy when we were at the cove yesterday.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Rhiannon sighed, “it is all my fault! How
sorry I am, and how useless it is to be sorry. Mallt also thought I was a witch
because of my stupid habit of talking to Math. She heard some silly words I
said in jest… And now she is dead, poor foolish woman.”

“And just as well, too,” Simon retorted in a hard voice.
“You are a fool if you waste any grief over her. She knew what Madog intended,
and if she really thought you a witch, it was her right to accuse you—”

“Do not be silly, Simon,” Rhiannon said softly and sadly.
“How could a nobody like Mallt find the courage to accuse Prince Llewelyn’s
daughter of being a witch? It cannot be unknown that the same kind of rumors
were afoot about my mother—and Llewelyn lay with her notwithstanding. I am a
favorite, too…”

“Mallt was a mean, vicious bitch, and the world is none the
worse for her loss,” Simon said comfortingly, but his voice was absent. He had
found Madog’s trail.

The question occupying his mind while he comforted Rhiannon
was whether it was worth pursuing Madog. Simon was not sure he could catch up
to him if he carried Rhiannon, and he would not consider leaving her alone even
for a minute, much less for the time it would take to pursue Madog and drag him
back. Nor could Rhiannon come with him under her own power. He knew that
feeling was returning to her hands and feet because he had noticed she was moving
her arms and legs uneasily as she sought to relieve the pain of the blood
returning. Still, it would be some time before she could walk.

Rhiannon realized what must be going through Simon’s mind.
“Go after him,” she urged, “not for me, but because a man who would murder his
own partner in crime is an evil thing. Poor Mallt. I am not afraid to stay
here. Leave me your knife. I will soon be able to use it.”

“Oh, no! You will not go out from under my eye until I have
you back safe under your father’s.”

“You will not tell him! No, Simon! No!”

Simon swung her up into his arms. “What do you mean ‘no’? Do
you think I intend to allow Madog to get away with trying to leave you alone to
die of suffocation or starvation, not to mention his outright murder of Mallt?
Even if I were so soft-headed as to agree to that, how do you suggest I explain
your condition? If you think I can smuggle you into Aber without anyone seeing
you, you are mad.”

Rhiannon thought that over and sighed. “Could you not?” she
begged. “I do not mean not to tell my father about Madog. He must know that
Mallt was killed. But…”

“Rhiannon, do not be an idiot,” Simon said. “What do you
want me to do, stuff you under my tunic and say I am a pregnant woman?”

She laughed at that, but persisted. “I will soon be able to
walk. All you have to do is go back and report Mallt’s murder. Just do not
mention me at all. I can say I had a fall.”

“Of course,” he replied sardonically, “and in the ravine—or
whatever you fell into—the roots of the trees tangled themselves around your
wrists and ankles. Rhiannon, you will bear the marks of that binding for a week
or more. You may be able to hide the bruises from Prince Llewelyn himself, but
one of the women will see. It will come to his ears—everything does. Can you imagine
how angry—and hurt—he will be?” Simon paused and then said, “Do not be so
selfish, Rhiannon. You may be indifferent to the danger to you, but Llewelyn
and I are not.”

“Selfish!” Rhiannon exclaimed. “Man! How dare you! So that
you may be easy in your mind, you will bind me faster than Madog did. You would
chain me hand and foot and mind to a bower. But when the trumpets blow for war,
you will run to them. What woman dares to say, ‘There is danger; do not go to
it’? ‘Duty,’ you will answer, but—”

“It is not true,” Simon interrupted.

“What? That you run to war as to a festal merrymaking?”

“That I wish to chain you,” Simon rejoined hotly, setting
Rhiannon down on a convenient rock so he could look at her while they argued.
“I do not go to war alone against all my enemies. That is all I ask of you.”

Rhiannon looked so stricken at these words that Simon
paused.

“Have I so many enemies?” she asked softly. “I have never
intended harm to any man or woman.”

“Perhaps enemies is the wrong word,” Simon allowed, and he
could not help smiling as he added, “especially among the men. But—”

“You need not fear that I will be taken by surprise again,”
Rhiannon said with a touch of bitterness. “I will not easily forget this, and I
will be on my guard.”

That was true. The frown of worry on Simon’s face
disappeared. He knew Rhiannon’s woodcraft to be the equal of any Welsh
huntsman’s, which was to say a miracle of perceptiveness. There was always the
danger of an arrow shot from concealment, but a whole army surrounding her could
not really protect her from that kind of attack. Then his eyes narrowed.

“If you desire, I will say nothing to Prince Llewelyn,” he
agreed, “but neither will I lie to my overlord. If he questions me, I will tell
him you bade me not to answer. Will this content you? However, I will not leave
you alone. If you wish to walk into Aber on your own feet, I will wait with you
until you are able. Of course, that means that Madog will most likely escape.
He need only find a woodsman’s hut and say he was set upon by outlaws.”

Rhiannon could see the wicked gleam between Simon’s narrowed
lids. Her own eyes glittered with rage for a moment, and then she burst out
laughing. “Devil! Clever devil! You know I could not lie to my father any more
than you could. And he
will
ask. You are quite right. Someone will tell
him I am all bruised.” She flexed her fingers weakly and set a foot to the
ground, but the ankle turned and she winced with pain. “Very well,” she said,
“I am ready to be carried home, but—but do we have to tell Llewelyn about the
idea that I am a witch?”