The Witch Queen's Secret (5 page)

She closed her eyes, and the muscles in her
throat bobbed up and down as she swallowed, like she was trying to
keep herself from being sick. Then she looked up.

“
King
Madoc is on Ynys Mon with his war band. That’s only a day’s ride
from here. If we could send one of the men left on guard here to
get word to him—”

Then she stopped, eyes gone suddenly wide.
“But that’s just it. We can’t. Where there’s one traitor, there may
be others, as well. That could be what … what Marche meant, when he
said Bevan was no use to them. Maybe they’d found another warrior
at Dinas Emrys willing to turn his coat for payment. If that is
true, I won’t be able to see it—because Bevan doesn’t know himself,
and never did. But that means—”

“
Even if
we can figure a way to tell someone—ask one of the men to get word
to King Madoc—we could be handing ourselves over to a traitor, like
turkeys waddling straight up to the chopping block,” Dera finished
for her. Sometime, without her noticing, the men must have ridden
out, because the fortress was quiet, now. The infirmary walls
seemed like they were pressing in around her, and Dera wasn’t doing
any too well at getting a breath herself.

“
All
right,” she said. She made her voice sound more certain than she
felt. “Here’s what we’ve got to do.”

Present day …

N
OW WATER—from
the morning’s sleeting rain—was dripping off the branches overhead
and down the back of Dera’s neck. She pushed off from the tree
trunk, and wished she dared stamp her feet to keep warm; her toes
felt like they were getting jabbed all over with pins.

She’d gotten herself into this—the whole plan
had been her idea. Though Lady Isolde had wanted to come in Dera’s
place. She’d said there was too much danger—that she couldn’t ask
Dera to take such a risk.

“
That’s
good, coming from you,” Dera had said. By that time, she’d been
feeling like they had a loaded catapult aimed straight at them and
held back by nothing more than a hair, and she’d been fairly
dancing with the need to get out and on her way. “Aren’t you the
one that stood up in front of Lord Marche and the whole King’s
Council and said they could burn you if only they’d let me go
free?”

“
But that
was—” Lady Isolde stopped. “You’ve got Jory, Dera. You can’t risk
leaving him without his mother.”

“
Maybe
not. But I’m not going to let Lord Marche’s men stroll in here and
kill him, either—or cart him off to be sold for some Saxon lord’s
slave.” Just saying the words made Dera flash hot, then cold, and
bitter bile rise in her throat. But she said, “And that’s what’ll
happen if you’re the one to go out there tonight. Think. What if
Lord Marche is there, one of the men attacking tonight? He’s not
like to recognize me—not in the dark, and when he’s probably had a
hundred whores since last we met. But you—he’d know you, all right.
And so would his men. If you were the one to go, and Marche or
anyone else recognized you—”

“
All
right.” Lady Isolde still looked pale, and a bit shaky, but she let
out her breath and moved her head in a nod. “I don’t like it—but
you’re right. Just … be careful, Dera. Please.”

The last
Dera had seen of her, Lady Isolde had still
been sitting by the traitor Bevan’s body,
still holding his hand and touching his forehead whenever he
groaned. Which Dera would probably be glad about, if she ever made
it through the night alive. Just now, though, with the icy water
working its way down her spine and her lips and nose long since
gone numb, she was thinking Bevan was having a lot easier time of
it than he deserved.

The owl called again, sending her heart
slamming so hard into her ribs Dera wouldn’t have been surprised to
hear them creak. She locked her hands tight against her middle, and
made herself go over the steps of the plan.

Lord Marche’s men were camped on the shore of
Llyn Dinas. Lady Isolde had Seen enough of the area where their
wounded man had been shot with the arrow to be—almost—sure. Which
meant they’d be coming towards Dinas Emrys up the mountain track
from the river Glaslyn—the same track the merchants and traders
used.

So here Dera was. Hiding in the bushes,
turning her fingers and toes into icicles, at the top of the
mountain track that led through the trees and rocky ground to the
river valley below.

And then she heard it: from far down below, a
clatter of stone on stone, and then a muttered curse—like someone
had tripped over a rock or pebble and lost their footing.

She’d
thought her heart had been beating hard before, but now it felt
like it was trying to jump out of her chest. Dera shut her eyes and
tried to
breathe, like
she had before—but this time it didn’t help. She could hear more of
them, now—and closer. Heavy, booted footsteps and an occasional
grunt or rustle of branches coming up the path. They’d be on her in
a moment.

She took another breath, and, before she
could completely lose her nerve, smashed her way through the scrub
of bushes and dry brush between her and the sound of the men.

“
Lud’s
hairy ass!”

It would have been funny, if she’d been in
the mood for a laugh. The first man stopped up short, swearing as
she emerged onto the path, and the next four in line plowed
straight into him like a children’s game of skittles. The first man
in line, though, grabbed hold of her wrist and hauled her towards
him, bending down so close she could smell the stink of onions on
his breath.

“
Who are
you? What are you doing here?”

This was the part of the plan she’d been
going over and over again in her head, practicing what she was
going to say until she knew it by heart. But practicing on her own
was one thing. Now she was standing here in the dark and freezing
cold, with the man’s fingers digging into her skin and the rest of
his companions all coming up to stare at her, as well. And there
must have been fifty or more of them, all armed and helmeted,
stinking of sweat and ale and wet leather. She didn’t see Lord
Marche anywhere among them—and surely he’d have been at the front
if he was here—but that was about the only good thing she could
make out about this all.

Dera swallowed, forced her mouth to open—but
no sound came out. She felt like a giant hand was wrapped around
her chest and starting to squeeze.

“
Well?”
The man’s voice was a growl in her ear. “Answer me! Unless you want
me to slit your throat.”

He’d do it, too. He’d got his knife out and
was holding it just under her chin. Dera could feel the point
pricking her, and a hot drip of blood starting to trickle down her
skin.

And all of a sudden—maybe it was the blood,
or the thought of Jory asleep in the fortress above them—or just
one of those miracles of the Christians—all of a sudden all the
fear was burned straight out of her by a flame of pure anger that
started under her breastbone and spread until even the tips of her
fingers felt warm. If she could have grabbed the knife away from
this man and stabbed him in the guts with it, she would have done
it.

Dera took a deep breath and then said the
words she’d been practicing. “Don’t hurt me—please. I’ve got news
of Bevan.”

It was fury, not fear, that made her voice
shake—but the man holding her didn’t know that, and it must have
made for a good effect, because his hold on her relaxed a bit.

“
Bevan’s
dead.” He shook her a bit, but not as hard as before.

“
Not yet.
He will be, but he’s not dead yet. He made it up to Dinas Emrys—and
then he squealed like a piglet about what you’ve got
planned.”

That sent up a rumble of muttered curses from
among the ring of men listening, and the man holding Dera—he must
be the leader—swore under his breath then shook her again. “So
where do you come in, eh?”

Dera clenched her teeth before she could say
that if he wanted to get her talking, he could do better than
shaking and jerking around like he’d a pair of weasels in his
drawers.

Jory. Imagine she was trying to beg food for
Jory, and they’d neither of them eaten in days. She’d plenty of
practice with that, these last two years.

“
I heard
him talking—to Lady Isolde and that captain of King Madoc’s guard.”
She hoped she’d got enough of a whine into her voice. “And I saw
what happened afterward—could hardly miss it, with all the shouting
and fighting and carrying on. Gwion and the rest of his men rounded
up the traitors—and now they’re up there, just waiting for you all
to come and hand yourselves to ’em like rats walking into a
trap.”

Dera spoke quickly. Lies sounded better told
in a rush—she’d learned that, too. If she spoke fast enough and
didn’t give people a chance to think, they hardly ever noticed her
story had as many holes as her traveling cloak.

It was too dark now to see much of the man’s
face—but he didn’t ask her just how Gwion had worked out which
among his men where the traitors. He just scowled—she could see
that well enough—and said, “So you came on here.”

“
Well, I
thought you’d be grateful, like.” Dera let up on the whine and
tried a smile—the one she gave when she was trying to get a man to
pay her to be kind to him for a night. “For the warning, you know?”
She held out her free hand—the one the man wasn’t holding—and
rubbed the fingers together.

“
Oh, did
you, now?” The man bent his head and peered into her face, his
teeth bared, and Dera tried again not to gag at the stench of his
breath. “Let me tell you, me and my men have just dealt with a
whole village full of women of your kind. You want me to tell you
what I did to the eyes of the girl who—”

“
For the
Dagda’s sake, Glaw,” came a voice—a whispered hiss—from somewhere
in the back of the group. “Just cut her throat and let’s get
on!”

“
Not so
fast.” The man holding Dera—Glaw, she guessed his name must
be—answered before her heart could give more than four or five
panicked thumps. Which she supposed she could thank him for. “She
could be a spy. Iuan—Devlin.” Two of the crowd of men snapped to
attention as they were addressed. “Get out and scout the fortress.
See if what she says is true.” He tightened his grip on Dera’s arm
and dragged her backwards, away from the cleared path and towards
the trees. “Until they’re back, we all of us stay right
here.”

* * *

DERA WOKE to someone poking her in the ribs.
Sometimes when she woke, it took her a moment to remember where she
was and how she’d come there. But this morning—more was the
pity—she remembered right away everything that had happened the
night before. And when she opened her eyes, she found it was a
man’s boot that was jabbing her. And the man attached to it—a tall,
wild looking man with blue eyes and a gold-brown beard—was looking
down at her.

“
Up,” he
grunted.

Dera dragged herself upright, every muscle in
her body fairly screaming after a night on the cold hard ground.
“And a good morning to you, too, Sunshine,” she muttered under her
breath.

The man gave her a long look, but turned away
without saying anything more. He was—so far as she’d been able to
tell from watching him and the other men the night before—some sort
of slave or servant here. He’d been put in charge of cleaning the
weapons, keeping the swords free of rust, clearing the ground for a
fire and digging the privy hole. He was young—not more than
twenty-five or so. And not bad looking. At least, so far as Dera
could tell under the beard. He was tall, well-built, with hair
between blond and brown tied back in a leather thong.

But he’d a funny, vacant sort of look about
his eyes, and a stammer when he talked—and an awkward, jerky way of
moving, like a puppet on short strings. And the rest of the men,
the leader Glaw included, talked to him like he was some kind of
half-wit.

Took a wound to the head in some battle,
maybe, and it had addled his wits. It happened, sometimes.

Now he shuffled over to a traveling pack,
pulled out a hunk of bread, and tossed it into Dera’s lap, though
he didn’t look at her again.

The bread was rock hard. And so coarse ground
there were bits of grit in it from the miller’s grindstones. And
she could scarcely get it up to her mouth, because her hands were
tied together at the wrists, and her fingers were so numb with cold
they felt ready to fall off. Not to mention a trip to the privy pit
would have been nice.

But at least she was alive. Dera gnawed away
on the cold, stale crust. The scouts weren’t back yet, so Glaw
hadn’t—yet—slit her throat. And none of the men had even tried
anything with her during the night. Glaw had given orders that they
were all to be on strict guard in case of attack, and that if he
caught any man with his pants down, Glaw’d have his guts for dog’s
meat.

“
Besides.” Glaw had smacked his lips. “All this’ll be over
soon enough. There’s surely plenty of fine women inside Dinas
Emrys, ripe and ready for the picking.” He’d jerked his head in
Dera’s direction. “And you can have her, then, too. Win the fight,
and then you can all have her at once for all I care. But not
tonight.”

One or
two of his spearmen had looked at her like they might be thinking
about it, all the
same.
But they’d lost interest after she’d started in with the cough Lady
Isolde had made her practice before she left—the one that made her
sound like she had the white plague.

Now Dera
forced down another mouthful of the bread. She’d have been an idiot
to have thought that Glaw and his men would give up on attacking
Dinas Emrys on her word alone. What had she expected? That they’d
say, “Oh, well, all right then, Lord Marche’ll surely understand it
can’t be done. And thanks very much, Dera, for the
tip-off
”?