The Beast of Caer Baddan (53 page)

“Well,” Owain said, impressed. “And who taught you to do that?”

“Mama did!”

“A very wise mama,” King Irael said.

Owain glanced over at Leola to see her reaction, but her head was down again and her own eyes dropped to the sewing in her lap. He did not know what to think of it but that she did not wish to look on him. He only noted it and turned his attention back to his little daughter.

Leola felt a mixture of joy and sorrow. She was glad for the child, whom she had never seen so consumed with happiness. She was glad for King Irael, for she could see how he dearly loved his son. Yet she was also grieved for herself.

Here
was a people to whom Leola did not belong, to whom she could never belong, by whom she was sure she was unwanted. For although she was apart from the women of Anlofton, they were still Gewissae as she was. Yet, in this Britannae castle in a Britannae city, surrounded by Briannae rulers, she was the intruder.

I should not even be here.

Although, seeing him with the babies the night before had given her some confidence.

He shall love his sons even if he does not think of me as his wife.

Leola remembered what Gratianna had said about her father's attitude towards her and had to smile at the confirmation of it.

Of course he would care for his sons. He adores his daughter even though he did not bother to marry her mother. But then, what was it that put such agony in his eyes?

Leola did not understand any of it.

Gratianna slid down to the floor and ran over to where Leola sat.

“Look, Mama!” the child squealed. “Tada’s home!”

“He is,” Leola replied, not knowing what else to say.

“He is! He is! He is!” and she danced around in circles until she was dizzy. “Euginius! Ambrosius!”

Then she ran to the cradle were the babies lay. Her voice became
so soft as she spoke to them that Leola barely heard her words.

“Our Tada is home,” she whispered.
“Smile. You have to smile. Our Tada is home.”

Her hand reached into the cradle and stroked their pale cheeks.

“Careful-” said King Irael.

“There, Father,” Leola said, in haste. “No fear. Look how gentle she is with them.”

“Sic,” the king said, still unnerved.

I shall find a way to cure you.

Leola glanced over to Owain to find him staring at her. She quickly looked the other way back to Gratianna’s cooing.

“Your mother was a twin,” the king said to Leola, as if to distract himself from Gratianna's activities. “Are there any other twins in her family?”

“There is,” Leola replied, and when she started to talk, she could not stop her hurried voice. “My aunt Redburga, my mother’s twin, also had twins herself. She had twin boys, Octha and Osgod, another son, Garrick, and then twin girls, Erna and Ead. I never asked my mother but I often thought that Garrick must have had a twin as well who died in infancy.”

Leola’s thoughts went to the piles for rotting heads where she was sure the boys’ skulls still lay.

“The boys are dead now,” she said absently.

Owain continued to stare at Leola with a long unwavering gaze, as if he was trying to find something revealing within her eyes.

She suddenly thought how alike he was to his cousin Britu.

“You, Euginius,”
came the Gratianna's voice. “You look like Tada. And you, Ambrosius, you look like Mama.”

“What is that, Child?” King Irael said, in confusion.

“She is speaking about their eyes, Da,” Owain replied.

Leola was startled by his voice.

“Euginius has green eyes,” Owain said. “Ambrosius has blue eyes.”

“Oh!” the king said in surprise. “Ambrosius has blue eyes. You are right. He does.”

But Leola only half heard these words.

So what am I, a slave or a wife? I shall not know how to act towards him until I know what he is thinking.

The evening brought Owain no closer to a conclusion about the woman he had married. He watched her, and she avoided his gaze, knowing full well, he was sure, that he sought her attention. This was a game he was both unaccustomed to and certain he would lose.

If only she would look up at him and see that he was the same as he had been before. He was still the man who had made love to her over eight months before, made her blush, and giggle, and sigh. He wanted her to sigh like she had when he touched the soft skin, part her lips as if begging for more when he sucked on them, and whisper his name in that musical voice as she had again and again when he caressed her. It frustrated him that she should now cower under his gaze.

He felt that he was not himself, and had been placed in some other creature's heinous body.

As the sun set, Owain watched silently from one of the windows in his bedroom. His eyes followed Leola from a furious bonfire in the courtyard, which the servants had assembled for no apparent reason.

Her long hair was only constrained by two slender braids from her temples and whipped behind her in the breeze. The baby in her arms snuggled comfortably into her soft neck.

Owain wished to go down to her and touch that neck and run his fingers through that hair. Yet somehow, prudence demanded that he keep his distance.

He noticed the figure of a man shrouded in the darkness by a long black cape. The man crept along the wall, out of the view of the servants and guards in the courtyard, and slipped into one of the windows that had not yet been closed for the night.

Owain did not wait for another thought. He left the window from where he watched, went down the stairs, strode through the front hall, and came to the opened door of the first sitting room.

Leola was standing by the hearth, nursing Ambrosius in her arms. It was clear to Owain that she did not notice the cloaked man who was approaching her.

“There, my dear,” she whispered to the infant. “You shall be strong like your father.”

Owain's quick eyes caught the gleam of a long knife in the hand of the stranger.

Leola giggled as the baby clung to her breast.

Owain stepped forward and slipped his right arm around the man's slender neck and secured it in the crook of his left. The stranger raised his knife to strike Owain's exposed arm, but Owain's left hand pushed hard forward on the back of the man's head. A loud snap, like the breaking of a tree branch, filled the sitting room. The stranger sank to the floor, dead, and his murderous weapon dropped beside him.

Leola gasped and whimpered as she looked on the body of the assassin, perhaps realizing that both she and the infant had been very close to death. Her eyes traveled up to Owain's, and he felt that he could see the full of her heart within them.

It was afraid, saddened, and horrified.

Owain turned his back on her in an instant and strode out to the front hall.

“There is a dead body in in the sitting room,” he said to one of the servants there. “A Dobunni, I suspect, from the color of his hair. Get rid of him.”

Owain did not wait to see that it was done, but went back upstairs and shut himself up in his rooms.

Leola dropped onto one of the cushioned benches and gasped for air. Her left hand cradled the fussy baby in her arms. Her right was still behind her, trying to grasp at an apron knot that was not there.

Leola had considered stabbing that strange Britannae, Prince Cadfan, who had come into Holton to speak with the earlmann. She had wounded Raynar, the ridend, when he tried to strangle her at the creek. She had even attempted to kill Owain, after he had her wash at that
same creek. Then there was the Britannae knight, Sir Catocus, who had come into Anlofton, with whom Leola had finally succeeded in ending a life.

But now, in the comforts of her home, surrounded by servants, guards, and a massive wall, it had never occurred to her to be cautious. She was caught completely unaware, and both she and her youngest child could have died.

The knife, Owain's knife, which she had taken from his tent, was peacefully set under her pillow in her bed.

I shall keep it with me forever.

The guards entered the sitting room, bowed to her, and hauled the dead assassin away. Leola did not give them any notice but felt a relief when the body was gone. The images of death filled her mind until she was sick.

I shall not dwell on those! I shall be at peace!

As her wild heart slowed its pace to resume a normal speed, she thought how very fortunate she was that Owain was both alive and home.

If only he would believe it his good fortune that I am his wife.

Her saddened heart told her he never would.

Owain had married her in haste because he believed that he was to die. His newfound life now made that action a grievous mistake.

He was her master, and she was his slave, and that relationship would never be altered.

King Irael ran into the room, interrupting her grave thoughts.

“Leola!” he cried, his voice panicked. “Are you hurt, Daughter?”

“No,” Leola replied. “And neither is Ambrosius.”

That was all she could answer, for the full weight of two horrors now overfilled her weary heart. She wept and gasped for air, sobbing aloud with every breath. The king wrapped his arms around her and rocked both her and the baby at her breast back and forth until they were both quiet.