The Witch Queen's Secret (6 page)

Apparently she was idiot enough to have expected it,
though. She’d not realized it. But the solid lump of ice that had
been sitting in her gut since Glaw had ordered the men to make camp
for the night told her she hadn’t—really—thought she was going to
have to fall back on any of those worst-case plans she and
Lady Isolde had
made.

She touched the oilskin packet she had sewn
inside her shift. That was the only good thing about all this; the
men hadn’t bothered searching her. And why should they? It wasn’t
like she was much threat to them.

Now all around her, the men were moving,
scratching and stretching themselves, chewing on their own slabs of
the hard bread. The blue-eyed serving man had dug out an ale skin
and was carrying it round for the men to take swigs from in turn.
The gray first light of early morning was filtering down through
the tree branches, and she could see their faces more clearly than
she had the night before. Hard faces, hard eyes, skin weathered and
scarred by years of fighting and living out of doors. Most wore
Marche of Cornwall’s badge: the Blue Boar. But she thought some of
them must be Saxons—some of Marche’s foreign allies. They were
dressed different from the others, in badly-cured wolfskin cloaks
and fur-trimmed boots, and they kept to themselves, muttering in a
harsh-sounding language Dera didn’t understand.

The
serving man had finished handing out the food and drink, and now he
was sitting cross
-legged
by the fire, oiling and polishing the blade of one of the men’s
swords. Which Dera saw now was crusted and stained a rusty
red.

She could
feel the soggy pellets of bread trying to rise up out of her
stomach. No.
No no no.
She
couldn’t think about whose blood was on that blade. Couldn’t think
about whatever village of women and old men and children these men
had just come from, because if she did, she was going to turn into
just one more woman gibbering with fear in front of Glaw and the
other men’s swords.

No one was paying much attention to her. Dera
felt cold all through, but she looked down at her bound hands and
wondered what her odds would be if she tried making a run for
it.

About as
good as a fish in a barrel. Flailing around through thick forest
and tripping over rocks and roots and branches with her hands
tied—she’d be lucky if she got fifty paces before they caught her
again. Or worse; two of the band were oiling wicked-looking
crossbows. Probably the same
ones that had shot Bevan.

Dera clenched her teeth to keep them from
chattering and thought about how lucky it would have been if last
night’s anger could have lasted her through the morning. Then she
jerked her head up as a man stumbled through the trees. One of the
scouts Glaw had sent out the night before. At least she thought it
was him—his clothes were torn, and his face was so bruised and
smeared with blood his own mother might have had to look twice.

“
Patrol—King Madoc’s men, from the fortress.” His chest was
heaving, and the words came out in whispery gasps. His eyes scanned
the group until he found Glaw. “Caught us east of here. Near where
Lord Marche and the other men were camped. Lord Marche heard the
fighting. Came to our aid. Got Madoc’s men pinned down so they
can’t get back to the fort. Looks to be the whole of the garrison
Madoc had at Dinas Emrys—or nearly all. Lord Marche says get the
men together and come at once and we’ll end this. Kill ’em and then
take the fort.”

Dera heard the words—but it was like they
went into her head, rattled around, and then left with her thoughts
scrambled like they’d been beaten up with a whisk. She felt like
she was standing and watching herself sitting there amongst a band
of fifty armed men. With her hands tied, and her mouth full of
half-chewed hard bread. Just waiting for one of them to—

“
You want
me to kill her?” One of the band already had his knife to her
throat. He’d thought of it, too. That if they’d got Gwion and the
rest of Madoc’s men pinned down, she wasn’t any use to
them.

Glaw looked at her—about the same way he’d
have looked at a slug, or the mess a dog had left behind. Then he
said, “Where’s King Madoc? Word is he and his war band are away on
Ynys Mon. Is that true?”

Dera swallowed and felt the knife bob up and
down on her throat. But she managed to nod. “I suppose. ’S’what I
heard, anyway. But it’s not like he writes me letters, you
know.”

Glaw stared at her again, his eyes flat as
metal. And for the space of a heartbeat, she knew this was it. She
was going to die here. Never see Jory or Cade or Lady Isolde
again.

Then Glaw said to the man holding her, “Let
her go. She may still know something useful about the fort’s
defenses. If she gives any trouble or slows us down too much, we
can always kill her then. But for now, she comes with us.”

* * *

DON’T SLOW DOWN. Don’t slow down. Dera kept
saying the words over and over to herself as she made herself keep
moving, following the leather-covered back of the man in front of
her. She’d heard what Glaw had said. Glaw was leading the band
east, skirting around the rocky rise in the land that had Dinas
Emrys at the top. And if she didn’t keep up, she’d be dead in less
time than it would take one of them to spit in her face. But she
felt like her legs had been turned into over-cooked porridge. Like
she was stuck in one of those nightmares where you run and run
until your heart’s like to burst, but never get anywhere. Her legs
moved up and down and her nose ran and her head throbbed. But the
scenery on either side of her never changed—and the back of the man
in front of her was getting further and further ahead.

Maybe she should give up. Just sit down here
and die.

Dera bit down on her lip, trying to push the
thought away, but it was like a blister on her heel or a thorn
under her clothes. What did she think she could do, even if she
managed to keep up with the pace Glaw had set? Gwion and the rest
of the men would still be killed. Jory and Cade and Lady Isolde
would still die when Dinas Emrys fell.

The touch on her arm made her heart seize up,
and she had to swallow a scream. But it was only the servant. The
blue-eyed, half-witted one. He and she were the last in the line.
And he’d just taken her arm and gave her a little push to speed her
along, helping her over the dry scrub and dead, fallen logs that
littered the ground.

Dera’s throat felt dry as a donkey trail in
summer. The serving man had never made it around to her with the
skin of wine. She swallowed. The men up ahead weren’t worried about
making noise; the crashing they made as they stomped their way
through dead brush and brittle branches was enough to cover the
sound of her voice. “What’s your name?”

The bearded man looked at her blankly, face
vacant, eyes unfocused. She licked her lips, glanced up at the men
ahead to be sure she wasn’t falling too far behind, and tried
again. She gave him her best effort at a friendly smile. “Is there
a name I can call you by?”

Another blank look.

All right, she might as well get to the
point. “Will you loan me your knife?”

If she could just get her hands free, she
could take her chances on running. The half-wit wouldn’t care
enough to follow. And Glaw’s men might not either—not with the rush
they were in. If she were free, she might be able to get up to
Dinas Emrys. Warn Lady Isolde and get Jory—

The serving man blinked. “M–mmmy knife?”

Dera squelched down an urge to take him by
the shoulders and shake him till his teeth rattled. “Yes, that’s
right.” She looked up at the men ahead of them and then risked a
quick jab with her bound hands at his belt. “Your knife.”

The man blinked again, then looked down at
the leather scabbard on his belt like he’d never seen it before.
“This knife?”

Dera shut her eyes and took a breath. At any
rate, that had settled one thing. She was going to live. She wasn’t
going to let this conversation be the last earthly memory she
had.

She opened her eyes again—and then almost
stopped dead with surprise, because after what felt like a year of
slogging along, watching the man in front of her getting further
and further ahead, she saw he was now closer. She was catching up.
And he didn’t seem to be having too easy a time of it. She couldn’t
see his face, just his back and shoulders, but he was stumbling a
bit, walking hunched over like he’d a pain in his gut.

And then, all of a sudden, he staggered,
dropped to his knees, and then pitched forward onto the ground,
retching. The man ahead of him had fallen, too. And warriors all up
and down the line were swaying and tripping over their own feet,
coughing and vomiting into the dead leaves. Glaw, up at the head of
the line, had fallen, too. He was bellowing something about poison
in between heaves.

Dera
stood frozen, feeling again like her arms and legs had been
disconnected from the rest of her. Then, as she stared at all the
sick and writhing men, a voice in her head sounded.
This is your chance,
fool. Run!

Bound hands or no, that was true. She gulped
down air, started to turn. And the serving man’s hand clamped down
on her wrist.

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

The blue eyes weren’t unfocused anymore. They
were clear and fierce-looking as he stared into her face. He wasn’t
stammering anymore, either. And his fingers felt like some wild
animal’s jaws had got hold of her.

“
I’m …
I’m Dera.” Her thoughts felt like caged squirrels, furiously
churning round trying to get free. But one thing was clear enough.
This was the man who’d poisoned all Glaw’s band. Up ahead, Glaw was
still yelling about poison, though his voice was getting raspy, and
weaker, too.

Dera swallowed. “I’m from Dinas Emrys. I
mean, I’ve been staying there. Me and my boy. Jory—he’s just past
two. I’ve been working caring for the wounded. When I’m not with
Jory, I mean. Because Lady Isolde—”

It was probably lucky the bearded man stopped
her. She could have gone on forever and not managed to make any
kind of sense. But all of a sudden the man’s grip on her tightened.
“Lady Isolde is here? At Dinas Emrys?”

Dera took a breath and nodded. “That’s right.
She’s the one that gave me the job of being her helper—because we
hadn’t anywhere else to go. And she wanted to come out here
herself, but I said—”

The man stopped her again. “Wait a moment.”
His voice was quieter, now, and he looked a bit less fierce. “Let’s
start over again. I’m sorry if I frightened you. Just”—he glanced
at the fallen men littering the trail— “tell me from the beginning,
as quick as you can, how you came to be here.”

Well, he hadn’t killed her—or even threatened
to kill her—yet, so that was maybe a good sign. It put him one
notch above Glaw, anyway. Dera took another breath and told him
everything, from Bevan’s staggering into the infirmary to her
coming out and waiting at the head of the river path for the men
she and Lady Isolde had been sure would appear.

She’d expected him to look at her like she
was crazy when she told the part about Lady Isolde Seeing Bevan’s
thoughts. But he just nodded, like it wasn’t anything he hadn’t
heard before. Maybe he knew the stories about Lady Isolde. He
seemed to know her name, anyway.

His face was hard, though, by the time she’d
finished, his eyes like chips of flint above the gold brown
beard.

“
Traitors
at Dinas Emrys? Are you sure?”

Dera’s teeth were chattering, both with cold
and with trying to block out the sounds of the groaning, grunting
men on the ground. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything for sure.
But where there’s one, there could always be more—that’s what Lady
Isolde said.”

The man looked at her a moment, like he was
trying to make up his mind about something. Then he nodded, eyes on
hers. “Look, I know you’ve no reason to trust me. But do you think
you could just pretend to yourself that you do? Long enough, say,
for me to get some answers here? I swear if you stay here and don’t
try to run away until I come back, I’ll either get you to safety or
give you the chance to make a run for it, whatever you’d like.”

Dera
still felt like her blood had been turned to ice water. But she
studied the serving man’s face and then said, “I suppose if you can
pretend to
be
a fool, I can
pretend to trust one.”

The man’s teeth flashed in a grin, white
against his beard. “Fair enough.”

The smile had gone, though, by the time he
made it to the front of the line where Glaw was lying on the
ground. And his face was grim enough to have been carved out of
stone as he hooked the toe of his boot under Glaw and rolled him
onto his back.

Dera dropped down onto a fallen log, hugging
her knees to her chest and blowing on her hands. She’d have
expected the blue-eyed man to bully Glaw. But instead he talked to
him, quiet and straight. Said he was dying, and it was likely to go
on for some time and hurt something fierce. But he’d give him a
quick death and a warrior’s end if Glaw’d tell him what he wanted
to know.

Dera couldn’t hear what Glaw said. She was
too far away for that. And besides, one of the men on the ground
was thrashing, crying out for his mam. Dera couldn’t remember
deciding anything. All of a sudden, she was just there, on the
ground, holding the poisoned man’s hand. Which was lucky, maybe.
This wasn’t the kind of thing she’d have wanted to think about for
long.

He seemed like he quieted a bit, though, at
her touch. So she put her hand on his forehead the way she’d seen
Lady Isolde do. And she started to tell the story Lady Isolde had
told weeks ago, when she was stitching up Cade.