The Witch Queen's Secret (3 page)

Dera felt her jaw drop open. Lady Isolde must
have misread the look, because she said, still speaking quick-like,
“You can say no if you don’t like the idea. I know it’s hard,
seeing what battle does to these men. Treating wounds all day.”

Dera took a breath and got her voice back.
“Say no? I’d have to be soft in the head to say no to an offer like
that. I just—”

Lady
Isolde stopped her before she could finish. “I have to be honest,
Dera. Because you’ve Jory to think of. And because of … because of
what happened to you three months ago
because of me. You know the stories told about
me—you know what I’m called. If you stay here and help me, there’s
always a danger you’ll be accused of witchery, as well.”

Her eyes met Dera’s, and a shiver slid down
Dera’s spine, because she did remember—remembered being dragged in
front of the King’s Council when the Lady Isolde was put on trial
for witchcraft. All because she’d escaped from Lord Marche, after a
day and a night of being his wife.

And yet Lady Isolde had stood up there, right
in front of all those men with their axes and fur cloaks and broad
swords, and said, clear and strong, “Let Dera go, and I’ll confess
to the charge.” And she would have done it, too. Would have gone to
the stake and burned for a witch, just so Dera could go free.

Dera could feel the words wanting to spill
out of her, now, to ask Lady Isolde why she’d done it. But she
said, instead, “Surely things are different now, my lady. You were
the one who proved Lord Marche a traitor—warned the King’s Council
in time of what he planned.”

“
Maybe.”
Lady Isolde’s mouth twisted again, though it wasn’t in a smile,
this time. “But I’m not exactly holding my breath on the changed
public opinion lasting. Especially not with the way the war has
been going, these last months. Our armies driven back and back into
the last strongholds in these hills. Cornwall and Powys lost to the
Saxons and”—Dera heard her voice waver just slightly as she spoke
the name—“Lord Marche.”

Dera didn’t know what made her do it. She was
just a common camp follower. And even in her old life, it wasn’t
like she’d ever been anything like on a level with Lady Isolde. But
something about the look in Lady Isolde’s face made her touch Lady
Isolde’s hand and say, “Are you … are you all right, my lady?”

Lady Isolde’s eyes went wider. Like that
question had startled her even more than her own laughing had. She
was quiet a moment—and even when she spoke, she didn’t answer,
exactly. Just looked down at the man they’d just finished bandaging
and said, “There’s always a chance he’ll be one of those who gets
better, isn’t there? Even if it’s only a tiny one.”

Somehow that brought the lump back to Dera’s
throat, and she swallowed hard.

“
Are you
a witch, my lady?” The instant the words were spoken, Dera could
have kicked herself for letting them slip out. She hadn’t even
known she was going to ask the question until she heard herself say
it. And now she’d just bollixed her chances of actually getting to
stay here good and proper.

But Lady Isolde was still looking down at the
wounded man, and if she was angry it didn’t show. She shook her
head. “No. That’s what’s so funny.” Her voice didn’t sound like she
meant it for a joke, though. “My grandmother was Morgan, daughter
of the Pendragon. You’ve probably heard of her. The great
enchantress. That’s what all the fire tales call her. She taught me
about the Sight. But I … gave up any power I had. After the Battle
at Camlann. When my father killed King Arthur, and died himself.
Everyone said it was a judgement from the Christian God. Because my
grandmother Morgan—my father’s mother—was an evil witch, who’d
ruined all Britain with her spite. That’s what the priests and …
and everyone else claimed, at least. And my grandmother … she died,
as well. Of the plague that followed the battle. So I gave up the
Sight. I’m sorry for it, now—because whatever else my grandmother
was, she wasn’t evil. But the Sight’s never come back, except once.
Other than that one time, I just … just pretended to have it. To
make the council afraid of me. Because I was completely on my own
after my grandmother died. And a woman on her own in a time of
war—” She stopped. “Well. You know what it’s like—even better than
I do, probably.”

Lady
Isolde stopped again, and finally looked up at Dera. She didn’t
speak. And as the silence stretched, Dera could have almost
screamed with thinking,
Here it comes, she’s not going to let us stay
after all.

But Lady Isolde said, “Does that make a
difference in whether you want the job of helping me here?”

Dera’s
breath went out in a rush that felt like a bellows. “Saint Joseph’s
hairy left
toe
, I don’t
care if you boil newts and turn men into frogs, so long’s you let
me and Jory stay.”

And then she stopped sharp. Because she might
not know a whole lot of fine ladies, but she was pretty certain
that wasn’t how you were supposed to talk to one.

Lady Isolde laughed, though. Still with that
little wrinkle of surprise about her eyes, like she was only just
starting to remember how it was done.

“
Trystan
used to say that. Well, something like it, anyway. When I had to go
off for lessons with my grandmother. He’d ask if I’d have learnt
how to change him into a toad when I was done.”

Her eyes had gone distant, like she was
seeing something a long way off. Dera tongued the cut on her upper
lip, then risked saying, “Trystan?”

Lady Isolde shook her head, and her eyes came
back from wherever they’d been. “A boy I knew growing up. He was a
… a friend. The only friend I had, really. But that was a long time
ago. He’s gone now.”

* * *

“
MABON’S
BOLLOCKS!” Cade’s eyes were watering and his mouth was screwed up
like he’d been punched in the gut. “This tastes like—”

Dera managed to catch the cup he’d been
holding before it could spill onto the floor rushes. “Like what? Go
on—tell me what you were going to say.”

“
Right,
I’ll do that.” Cade gave a wheezing cough and wiped his mouth with
the back of his hand. “You think I’ve forgotten that you’re the one
who changes my bandages every day—and brings me my
meals?”

Dera laughed, and Cade caught hold of her
hand. “Dera, I—”

Dera had spent she-didn’t-know-how-many hours
sitting next to him like this, on the floor beside his pallet in
the infirmary. He’d been here at Dinas Emrys nearly three weeks,
now, since his fellows had carried him in with the sword cut to his
belly, and Dera had helped Lady Isolde with stitching him shut.
Part of that he’d been clean off his head with pain and fever—Dera
had been nursing him a week before she’d even found out from him
that his name was Cade, and that he was an archer in the High King
Madoc’s war band.

But if only one in twenty men survived a
wound like his, he seemed bound and determined to be that twentieth
one. Because he was getting better. His fever was gone, and Lady
Isolde said the wound was healing well. And this morning, Dera had
helped him sit himself up a bit to drink the bowl of broth she’d
brought.

She felt like she knew his face almost as
well as she did her own, by now. Better, really, because even if
she’d had one, she’d not have wanted to spend much time looking
into mirrors; the glimpses she got in whatever streams or pools she
happened to wash in showed her quite enough.

Cade had a good face. Not handsome, exactly.
But strong-looking, with a square brow and a good firm jaw, and
lines about the corners of his eyes when he smiled. She knew his
expressions, too. And the one on his face as he looked at her now
was the expression that meant she was going to have to put him off
yet again.

Before Dera could pull her hand away, though,
Lady Isolde’s voice behind her said, “Dera, do you—” and then
stopped. When Dera turned, Lady Isolde was looking from her to
Cade, her gray eyes gone a little wide.

Not that she said anything. Just finished her
question about one of the simples brewing in her workroom, and then
stood aside to let Dera pass when Dera jumped up and said she’d
come with her, straight away.

Only when they were alone in the workroom,
picking over a bushel of dried St. Patrick’s leaf to be used for
drawing the pus out of festering wounds, did Lady Isolde say, kind
of hesitant-like, and without looking up, “Cade seems like a … like
a good man.”

Dera felt her cheeks heat up. Which was
funny, considering what she’d done in full view of half the men in
the King’s army. And Lady Isolde had only seen her holding Cade’s
hand. But still, she said, “I’m sorry, my lady. I’m done with … I
mean, I wouldn’t take pay for … I hope you’re not angry?”

“
Angry?”
Lady Isolde looked up at that, eyes gone wide all over again. “Why
would I be angry? And I didn’t think you were”—Dera saw a bit of
color creep into Lady Isolde’s cheeks, as well— “What I mean is,
that you’re not a servant here, Dera. You can do what you
like.”

That was
true enough. She’d even tried to get Dera to drop the
‘
Lady’ and just call her
‘Isolde’, but Dera couldn’t manage it yet.

Three
weeks, now, that she’d been at Dinas Emrys. Now that the first thaw
of spring had come, there’d been trouble with Irish sea raiders on
the Isle of Ynys Mon—settlements
pillaged, women carried off for slaves, and
villages burned—and King Madoc had marched out with most of his war
band to meet the raiders’ attack. Dinas Emrys was quieter, now, and
less crowded with so many of the fighting men gone. Dera had heard
whispers among the wounded of what could happen if there was an
attack now that the fort’s defenses were down. But everything had
been quiet, so far. The men whose wounds they treated were the ones
that lived through the journey in horse carts or wagons to Dinas
Emrys.

Dera still wasn’t about to stitch up a sword
cut or set a broken bone. But she’d gotten so that she could mix up
some of the easier ointments and salves on her own. And she’d
stopped having to run out and lose her breakfast when she had to
help Lady Isolde lance a poisoned wound.

Now Dera took a breath. She loved the way
Lady Isolde’s workroom smelled: spicy and earthy all at once, warm
from the brazier they used to melt the goose grease for ointments
and boil water or wine for the simples and drafts. Just breathing
in the air always made her feel lighter, somehow. Easier. Like a
clenched knot in her chest she hadn’t even known was there was
starting to come untied.

She and
Jory had their own straw-stuffed pallet on the floor in the corner,
with a curtain hung round to keep out the chill and a box to hold
their belongings. Jory was in the kitchens, now, playing with the
cook’s little girl, who’d taken a fancy to him. But Dera could see
the little carved wooden
horse Lady Isolde had given him a few days ago for his own,
lying on top of the blanket on the pallet. He slept with it at
night—and woke up with the print of it in his cheek, as often as
not.

“
He wants
me to marry him.” She hadn’t realized she was going to say it until
she heard herself blurt the words out into the workroom’s
quiet.

“
Oh.”
Lady Isolde looked startled. Not shocked or disbelieving. Just a
bit taken aback, like she hadn’t considered that before. She looked
up from the leaves they were sorting, and said, again, “He seems
like a good man.”

Dera realized she’d got her hand clenched
round a fistful of the dried leaves. One of the stems was digging
into her palm. “What if he’s not, though?”

Lady Isolde looked up quick. “You think he’s
not?”

“
No. I
mean—” Dera felt like the words were lumps of rope, choking her
before she could work out how to turn them into what she wanted to
say. “What I mean to say is, you’re caring for wounded soldiers
from sun up to sun down. You know what they’ve seen and done. They
have to kill day in and day out. Kill or die. Can any man go
through that and not be turned into a monster?”

Dera
saw
Lady Isolde’s
knuckles go white around the handle of the mortar she was holding.
“I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t mean—”

Lady Isolde shook her head. “No. It’s all
right. But I don’t know the answer.” Her gray eyes went unfocused
just for a moment, as she looked across at the glowing brazier
where she’d set a copper pan of water to heat. “I wish I did. I
thought—” she stopped and stood quiet a long moment. Then she said,
“The boy I knew when I was growing up. Trystan.” Dera could see her
mouth turn downwards, like it hurt her to speak the name. Though it
wasn’t the same way her face changed when she had to say ‘Lord
Marche.’ “Trystan was one of my father’s most trusted fighting men.
He was leading a war band before he was sixteen. And he never … he
never stopped being honorable or … or good, no matter how many
battles he fought in, no matter how many raids he led. Not that
he’d ever have told me just what had happened during the
fighting—just what he’d done. He was very … private, always. He
kept his feelings to himself. But he … my father’s spear men all
jockeyed and fought to be put under his command. Because he’d never
once let one of his warriors be taken prisoner. If they were
captured, he got them back, every one, no matter what risks he had
to take to do it. ‘No man left behind.’ That’s what he used to say.
If a man was wounded, they took it in turns to carry him. If a man
was killed, they brought his body back to be buried with warrior’s
honors at home.”