The Witch Queen's Secret (4 page)

She looked down at her own hands—though Dera
didn’t think it was her fingers she was seeing. Dera said, “You
don’t get the chance to talk about him much, do you?”

Lady Isolde looked up and gave a little twist
of a smile, though her eyes were sad. “Never. I never talk about
him.”

Dera could tell just by looking that this
story didn’t have a happy ending. But she couldn’t stop herself
from asking, “What happened to him? If you don’t mind my asking, I
mean.”

“
Mind?”
Lady Isolde shook her head. “No. I don’t mind. He was captured at
Camlann—at least I think he was. I thought he must have been
killed, because he disappeared—no one had word of him. But then …
just a few months ago … he appeared again. He’d been a Saxon slave.
And now he’s an outlaw … a mercenary, fighting for whichever lord
offers the highest pay. But”—she looked up at Dera and smiled just
a bit again— “but he saved my life for me. Twice over. And the men
he was with—the other outlaws—were loyal enough to him that any one
of them would have laid down his life for Trystan’s. So maybe
that’s your answer. Or as much of a one as there can
be.”

Lady Isolde stopped again and was quiet a
moment more. Then she looked at Dera again. “I’ve never once seen
your Cade out of temper—even when the sword cut was giving him the
most pain. Fire tales are all full of heroes who are raised up to
noble greatness by suffering terrible griefs or horrible wounds. I
tell the stories myself—and maybe it helps the wounded men to hear
them. But it’s all nonsense, really. Suffering doesn’t make anyone
noble. If a man is mean-spirited and petty, in nine cases of ten
he’ll only be meaner and pettier with a sword cut or a crushed arm.
But what suffering can do is show a man—or woman—for what they
really are.”

“
If
Cade’s all that decent, what does he want to marry me for?” Dera
heard her voice shaking and locked her hands together. “My luck’s
not that good.” Now that she’d started talking, it felt like she’d
tapped into a cask of sour ale, and the words had to pour out until
the cask was dry. “My husband—Jory’s da’ was a mean, drunken brute.
And half the men I service are the same as he was—the only
difference is I’ve only got to put up with it for an hour—or
less—most of the time. But I don’t trust any man to be
different—not one that wants me. Part of me wants to marry Cade.
Just like part of me knows he really is a good man. But I can’t let
myself believe it. I’ve never even let Jory meet him—because what
if something goes wrong? It would be just my luck if Cade died—or
changed his mind and didn’t want me after all—and then Jory got his
heart broke.” Dera felt her fingers clench. “I didn’t used to be
like this. I used to be braver. But now I … even this—living at
Dinas Emrys—I’ve spent all the weeks Jory and me have been here
telling myself I can’t get too fond of it, or anything else,
because if I do it’ll get taken away.”

“
I—” Lady
Isolde’s hand moved, like she wanted to push the words away but
didn’t know how. Finally she said, “You love Jory,
though.”

“
Aye,
well.” Dera felt her mouth tilt up into a half-hearted kind of a
smile. “Never was much good at following my own good advice. Hearts
are meant for loving, that’s what my mam always said.”

Lady Isolde looked away, like she was trying
to clear a memory out of her eyes. Then she said, “You’ve never
told me about your mother.”

“
Mam
was”—Dera felt her eyes start to prickle, so she swept up a handful
of the Saint Patrick’s leaf and dumped it into the mortar’s bowl—
“she made her living same as I do. Always told me my da’ could have
been any man in Britain who’d had enough to buy her a hot meal or a
jar of ale. But she was merry, like—always laughing. Could turn
anything into a joke or a game. Even when we didn’t have enough to
eat, she’d find the fun in it somehow. We’d play we were lost in a
Faerie mound, and didn’t dare take a bite of food for fear we’d be
trapped there for good.”

“
She
sounds lovely.”

“
Aye.”
Dera blinked hard. “She was. Died when I was sixteen. That’s when I
married Jory’s da’. I’d no family, no friends. And my mam always
told me I wasn’t to go her way, earning my bread on my back. I was
going to be a lady. Or at least respectable, with a proper settled
home of my own.” Dera felt her mouth twist around the edges again.
“You can see how well that’s all turned out.”

Lady Isolde touched Dera’s arm. “She’d be —”
and then she stopped sharp as the door to the workroom opened so
fast it banged against the wall, and a man staggered in, one hand
clenched around a bloodied rag he’d got pressed against his
chest.

* * *

IT WAS AN ARROW WOUND; Dera could see the
broken-off wooden shaft poking through the wool of his tunic after
Lady Isolde had jumped up, reached the man’s side, and lowered him
onto the floor. No time to get him into the infirmary. He was half
fainting, his eyes rolling back in his head. And he was big, too.
Broad-built and tall, with a neck like a bull’s and his belly
rounding out the front of his clothes. Too heavy for them to
carry.

Lady Isolde had already taken out her knife
and was slicing the bloodstained shirt away from the arrow shaft.
The man groaned and thrashed, nearly knocking the knife from her
hand—and Dera realized she was still sitting at the worktable,
gaping like a fish.

“
Do you
want me to—”

Dera had started to kneel down so that she
could keep hold of the man’s wrists, but Lady Isolde shook her head
no, even as she put the knife down and started wiping blood away
from the wound.
“No, it’s all
right. I can manage. We have to get word to Gwion—the captain of
King Madoc’s guard. I don’t know who this man is or where he’s come
from—but he’s wearing Madoc’s colors, and this arrow wound is less
than an hour old. If the fortress’s outer defenses are under
attack, the guard has to be warned.”

* * *

LADY
ISOLDE WAS
still kneeling beside the wounded man when Dera got back; she
looked up when Dera opened the door. “Anything?”

Dera shook her head. “Everything’s quiet.
Gwion has his guardsmen out doing a search and fanning out from the
outer walls—but there’s been no sign of anything amiss, he said.”
She nodded at the man on the ground. “Just him.”

The man had fainted for good and all now, it
seemed. His eyes were closed, the lids puckered and sunken, and
when Dera dropped to kneel by his other side and touched his hand,
the skin felt clammy and slack. “Can you help him?”

She already knew the answer, though. She’d
been watching Lady Isolde treat wounded soldiers for nigh on three
weeks, and she knew what the look on Lady Isolde’s face meant now.
It was the tight, clenched look that meant the man they were
working on was going to die.

Lady Isolde bit her lip. “See where the
arrow’s gone in?” She gestured to the blood smeared shaft just
under the man’s ribs. Bright scarlet blood was still pumping out
around the wound. “The bleeding gets worse every time his heart
beats. He’d only bleed to death faster if I tried to get the arrow
out. And it’s pierced his lung, as well. Do you hear that?”

Dera tilted her head and did hear it: the
whistling, bubbling sound every time he tried to take a breath.

“
So
nothing we can do?”

Lady Isolde raised a hand and brushed the
man’s greasy, grizzled hair back from his forehead. “Just help him
die.”

* * *

“
DO YOU
RECOGNIZE HIM?” Dera asked. They’d been sitting in silence a time,
the only sounds in the infirmary the harsh rattle of the man’s
breathing. Outside, Dera could hear the fighting men who guarded
the fortress shouting to one another, getting ready to move out and
search for whoever it was had fired the arrow. She realized her
belly was tight, knotted up with expecting every moment to hear
those shouts turn to the battle screams and clashing swords that
would mean Dinas Emrys was truly under attack.

Lady Isolde nodded. “I think so. He’s one of
King Madoc’s men, of course. But stationed here. I’ve seen him on
the ramparts at night. His name is”—she stopped and frowned with
trying to remember— “Bevan. That’s it. Bevan.”

Almost like he was answering that, the man’s
eyelids flickered. He was an older man, fifty, or thereabouts, with
a nose that had been broken at least once, and purple veins like a
spider’s web across his cheeks and nose.

He let out another groan, and for a moment
Dera thought he was going to wake. He slumped back an instant
later, though, his eyes still shut. His skin was gray, now, and the
hand Dera was holding felt colder, and still slack as a dead
eel.

Lady Isolde put a hand on his forehead. And
then she jerked her fingers back, like the touch of his skin had
burned her. “He was a traitor.” She was staring down at the man’s
face, her face gone white to the lips, and Dera didn’t even think
she knew she’d spoken. “He was paid to let a war band of Marche’s
men into the fortress. But he went to them, demanding more money.
And they shot him, instead. He”—Lady Isolde shut her eyes— “Marche
said they’d already gotten as much information from him as they
needed, and he was no use to them now.”

Dera realized she was sitting and gaping—like
a fish—again. She swallowed and said, feeling a bit surprised that
her voice sounded nearly the same as it always did, “How do
you—”

“
I saw
it.” Lady Isolde was still chalky pale, and she was staring at the
big man on the floor like she couldn’t believe he was real. “When I
touched him. I saw the whole scene. Him—this man here—asking for
more gold. And Ma— Marche”—she stumbled a little over the name—
“ordering one of his archers to shoot. It was a cross bow bolt.”
One of her fingers touched the shaft in the man’s chest. “He was on
horseback, or he’d never have gotten away. But the horse bolted.
They didn’t dare follow him too close to the fortress for fear of
running into one of the guard patrols and giving themselves
away.”

Her voice was wavering, and she looked up.
“How—how did I see that? The Sight is supposed to be gone. I gave
it up. Years ago.” The words tumbled out, faster and faster. “I Saw
Marche three months ago—that’s what gave me the evidence to prove
him a traitor to the Council. But I thought—”

She was staring up at something above Dera’s
head, and when Dera turned, she saw there was a shelf that she’d
never noticed before, high up on the infirmary wall. The shelf was
empty except for a bronze bowl. It looked old—old as the stories
about dragons. And it had designs etched into the signs. Dera could
just make them out. A man with a deer’s antlers growing from his
head. Twisting leaves, and snakes making hoops of their bodies by
swallowing their own tails.

Lady Isolde had locked her hands tight
together, like she was trying to keep them from shaking, but Dera
saw the shivers ripple through her from head to toe.

Dera hoped she never had to be as brave as
Lady Isolde was. And she’d never yet managed to call her ‘Isolde.’
But now it didn’t matter—she put her arms around Lady Isolde as if
she were Jory’s age and hugged her tight. “There, now, lovey. It’s
all right. Nothing to hurt or to harm. All’s well.”

Which wasn’t true, any of it—but it seemed to
help a bit, because after a minute, Lady Isolde stopped shaking and
pulled away a bit. “I have to go—I have to tell someone about—”

“
You
can’t!”

“
But
Gwion should—”

Lady
Isolde had already started to get up, but Dera stopped her,
squeezing her wrist hard, because the blank look in Lady Isolde’s
eyes was scaring her. “What are you going to say? Tell a passel of
soldiers to please listen to you and do as you say because a magic
vision told you? You want to be burned to a cinder? Because that’s
what’ll happen if they put
you on trial as a witch again.”

Some of
the empty look went out of Lady Isolde’s eyes. Her hand was
shaking, but she reached up and scrubbed a hand across her eyes.
“You’re right. Goddess, I know you’re right. And yet we can’t risk
it. I can’t risk
not
telling. If
Dinas Emrys does come under attack—”

She straightened, like she was trying to get
up again, but Dera pushed her back. “Not yet. Just”—she waved a
hand at the man on the floor— “see what else you can find out.
That’s only sense, isn’t it? See if there’s anything else you can
learn before you go rushing off to tell.”

“
I—” Lady
Isolde swallowed. Then she nodded, still a bit shaky-like. “You’re
right. It’s just—” she looked down at the man Bevan’s face. “It
feels wrong. Using him like that—to gain information—when he’s
dying.”

“
Maybe
he’d be glad. Maybe he’s sorry for turning traitor, and would want
to help you to make up for what he’s done. Anyhow,” Dera added, “No
one deserves to die alone. And if someone’s got to hold his hand,
it might as well be you.”

Lady Isolde’s face was still white, but her
mouth turned up just a bit, like she was trying to smile at that.
“Thank you, Dera. I’m glad”—she stopped and squeezed Dera’s hand—
“I’m so glad you’re here. All right.” She took a breath, and Dera
saw her stiffen, like she was trying to brace herself. Then she
slipped her hand into the wounded man’s. She shivered again, but
this time she didn’t jerk back.

After a moment, though, she shook her head.
“All I’m getting is what he’d planned to do with the gold he was
paid. Women and—” she stopped. “And I can feel the pain he’s in.
It’s … terrible. He’s finding it harder and harder to get a breath,
and”—she stopped again, and just lightly rested her free hand
against his brow— “and he’s getting colder. He can’t feel his feet
anymore.”