Between Two Fires Page 10

  “No, I mean why are you here, sitting next to me?”

  “Isn’t it obvious, Your Highness? You’re the only woman in the hall not yet dancing.”

  I pick at my meal, still not deigning to look at him. What must I do to make him leave me alone? Something Morgan once told me arises in my mind.

  “My husband says that you steal cattle and ravish peasant girls. Is that true, Sir Artagan?”

  He suddenly grows very still.

  Perhaps if I get Artagan to show his true aggressive nature, Lord Griffith will see why Morgan wanted to lock up the Blacksword in the first place. Instead, Artagan pulls a thread of twine from around his neck, clenching it in his fist.

  “I only took cows from rich barons, and gave them to poor villagers who didn’t have enough meat to last the winter.”

  “And what of defenseless womenfolk?”

  “The only girl I ever knew who was ravished was my sister, and that was the Saxons’ work before they killed her.”

  Artagan presses the token into my hand. A small, soapstone figurine of a young girl. The tiny idol suddenly feels heavy as a boulder in my palm. I shut my eyes. The screams from the night the Saxons took my mother reverberate in my ears.

  Artagan rises to leave before I put out a hand to stop him.

  “That was unkind to say to a man who once saved me from Saxons. Forgive my hasty words.”

  “Your husband and I do not see eye to eye, but I thought you might be different.”

  “Because I come from Dyfed?”

  “Because your mother was of the Old Tribes, like my own.”

  He departs without another word, leaving me speechless in my seat. I rarely hear mention of my mother by anyone, let alone from a stranger. How could this hedge knight, of all people, know of my mother? Artagan has dark hair like myself and hails from the Free Cantrefs. I ought to have guessed that the blood of the Old Tribes runs strong in him.

  My temples throb. I still hold the tiny figurine in hand when Griffith saunters back to my table, well into his cups. He downs another mouthful from his drinking horn before spying the soapstone figure in my palm. His gaze darts to Artagan across the hall.

  “Don’t judge Artagan too harshly, my Queen. He may run afoul of the laws of kings, but here in the borderlands he has saved many a villager from Saxon raiders.”

  “Are you not afraid I’ll tell my husband that you harbor the Blacksword here?”

  “Morgan knows my loyalty is ironclad. If he sends me the reinforcements I ask for, I won’t need the help of outlaws like Sir Artagan, now will I?”

  He gives me a fatherly smile. Griffith has a point, but Morgan has no troops to send. Not now, anyway. Perhaps I can convince Lord Griffith that my husband will send him more men once summer comes around again. It stands to reason Morgan will have more soldiers by then, especially between planting and harvest time when the farmers can leave their lands for a few months. But I must be careful not to make promises my husband may not be able to keep.

  I rest my hand against my chin. Morgan should have sent someone else on this mission. Queen or no, I know about as much of diplomacy as a shepherd girl. No move I can make seems to be the right one.

  Rising from the bench, I skirt the circle of dancing revelers. Both Rowena and Una twirl among them. Artagan has his back to me, sipping from a mead horn beside one of the crackling hearths.

  Perhaps my husband and brother-in-law have heard false rumors about this hedge knight. The Blacksword admitted to stealing cattle, whether for good reasons or no. But how could a man who wears a remembrance of his fallen sister be a villain?

  I sigh, unsure what to do. My stepmother always says a queen should seek to weave peace amongst rival knights and kings. If I can be nothing else, at least I can be a peace-weaver.

  “I believe this is yours.”

  I hand the trinket of the soapstone girl back to Artagan. He turns, half-startled as the firelight reflects in his warm blue eyes. I offer him my other palm and motion toward the dancers.

  Artagan blinks, looking me up and down with surprise. He nods with a cautious smile. The handsome hedge knight takes my hand, my fingertips abuzz under his touch. My heart pumps faster. The revelers make room for us in the circle, everyone clapping hands in time with the music of pipes and drums.

  Rowena and Una exchange looks, doubtlessly amazed that I’ve linked hands with Artagan Blacksword, of all people. He proves himself light on his feet, staying right beside me as the circle moves faster and faster. Amidst the clapping and swirling tune, we gently collide more than once, our hips and hands touching at any given point. Artagan grins at me and I cannot help but smile back as the room spins around us.

  Our steps quicken to the rhythm of stomping feet, each of us more than once hooking arms with different dancers before returning to our original partner. Thankfully, I manage not to trip over my own feet too much as Artagan leads me through the revolutions. He lifts me by the hips at one point, as though I were light as a feather pincushion. My feet don’t touch the ground.

  The set finally ends with a boisterous crescendo. I fall into Artagan’s grasp, my heart drumming against his ribs. We unwind our arms from around one another, his muscles flexing beneath his threadbare shirt.

  The two of us take a break beside a nearby table. I gulp down a chalice of mead as I catch my breath.

  “I can’t remember the last time I danced like this, not since I lived at Dyfed.”

  “You move swift as a pixie, Branwen.”

  “That’s Queen Branwen to you, sir,” I reply in a jovial tone.

  He purses his lips in a half-smile as I turn away to pin back the loose ends of my hair. Rowena and Una give me sly, sidelong looks. Heaven help my brashness! Half the chamber must have watched us, and me barely wed a few months to my husband back in Caerwent. Every servant girl’s tongue within a hundred leagues will wag over this.

  So much for my cordial attempt to make peace. My husband will just as likely go to war knowing Artagan Blacksword held me in his arms, even if only for a moment. It was just a dance.

  A bugle call interrupts the merrymakers as a herald races into the hall. Lord Griffith pushes his way through the crowd, demanding to know the meaning of the interruption. The guard’s skin turns white as milk, his lips all atremble.

  “My lord, we sighted torches outside the gates! The Saxons! They’ve come!”

  * * *

  A hundred balls of flame encircle the palisade, coiled around the fort like a fiery dragon. The Saxons surround us on every side. Lord Griffith, Artagan, and I observe the iron-helmed barbarians from between notches in the upper bastion walls. My stomach turns over at the scent of pitch and pine tar from the Saxons’ smoldering torches. Griffith pounds his fist against a wooden embrasure.

  “I warned the King of this! Little wonder no one believed me, I hardly believe it myself.”

  “I thought Saxons don’t go to war this late in the season,” I reply.

  “They don’t. Not in my memory, but that was before the Fox and the Wolf.”

  My skin turns cold at mention of the Fox and the Wolf. Along the dark riverfront, just before the tree line, two broad-shouldered warriors cluster beneath dripping firebrands. One sports red whiskers beneath his helmet; the other is immensely tall with a long bronze beard. The chieftain brothers, Cedric and Beowulf.

  I stare at the two Saxon brothers across the glade, frozen like a hare before the hunter. Artagan pulls me down behind the stockade bulwarks.

  “Keep down!” he whispers. “If the Saxons realize you’re here, they won’t lift the siege until they’ve taken you captive.”

  “Artagan’s right, my Queen,” Griffith adds. “I’ve hardly a skeleton force to withstand a siege anyway.”

  “It’s almost as though they knew I would be here,” I murmur to myself.

  “But that’s impossible,” Artagan replies. “We didn’t even know you were coming until you arrived this evening.”

  The spy. I thought I
left such intrigues behind when I departed Caerwent, but evidently whoever continues to secretly plot my downfall has tracked me to the Dean Fort. I dare not voice my fears aloud, no longer certain whom I can trust.

  Lord Griffith places a palm on my shoulder.

  “We need to get you to safety,” he says.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I reply, trying to sound brave. “Besides, they have us surrounded.”

  “There is a way,” Griffith says.

  He leads us into a corner of the main hall. Servants dowse hearth fires while others rush by with spears in hand. I cross myself, knowing none of us may survive the night. It already seems like centuries since warmth and mirth filled these darkened corridors where we feasted and danced only minutes ago.

  We crouch behind several casks that smell of dry grain. Lord Griffith pushes an empty barrel aside, pulling up a trapdoor beneath the dirt floor. He illuminates the hole with a torch.

  “This passage leads out past the walls and into the woods. With any luck, you may escape.”

  “Me? What about you and your people?”

  “My Queen, there’s no time. Only I know of this passage and only a few can use it before the Saxons discover some have escaped. My men and I will distract them, defending this fort as long as we can. Sir Artagan will go with you.”

  Artagan and I exchange equally wide-eyed looks. Artagan aims a finger at Lord Griffith.

  “I like you, Griffith, but I’m from the Free Cantrefs and I don’t take orders from you.”

  “If the Saxons discover the Queen has escaped, she’ll need someone to protect her. I can’t spare any men as it is. No arguments! You two must leave now.”

  Artagan hangs his head. He seems to want to stay and fight. Maybe he just doesn’t want to escort me through night woods overrun with Saxons.

  Lord Griffith and I stare one another down. Does he honestly expect me to desert at the first sign of danger? Is that what a matriarch of the Old Tribes would have done? Part of me would surely like to make a run for it, the part of me that just wants to live and breathe another day. But Griffith and his people are my subjects now, and as such they are my responsibility. I cannot just leave them here to die.

  A heavy clanking of metal on wood thunders from outside the fort walls.

  Clack, clack, clack.

  Dust falls from the roof beams. Peeking through a chink in the timber bulkheads, I glimpse the horde of Saxons outside banging their weapons against their round shields. My heart races as the deafening sound abrades my eardrums. The savages’ torches loom closer.

  Artagan whistles loudly between two fingers. His small band of green-clad warriors joins us in our dark corner of the main hall. They nod grimly as he explains the situation to them, their eyes falling on me.

  My palms begin to sweat. Artagan draws his sword and grabs my wrist, motioning for me to follow him into the tunnel. I pull against him as I shake my head.

  “I’m not going. I cannot leave my household thanes!”

  “We haven’t time for servant girls and a priest!”

  “They’re like family to me.”

  The Blacksword grimaces, but loosens my wrist. To my surprise, he goes into the yard and calls out to my companions. Ahern, Padraig, Rowena, and Una soon cluster beside us. I meant what I said about them being family to me. Lord Griffith puts a palm on my shoulder, his insistence starting to wear down my resolve.

  “Please go, my Queen. Someone must get word to the King about what’s happening here.”

  With a heavy sigh, I admit that Lord Griffith has a point. I gaze up at my falcon in the rafters. Although I am loath to part with my bird, Griffith needs her more than I do.

  “Send my falcon to Caerwent with a note as well,” I reply. “She might get through to my husband if we do not.”

  Of course a Saxon archer may well shoot her down, and I may perish in the woods first.

  “Go, Branwen,” Griffith says calmly. “We still stand a better chance of alerting your husband if we loose the bird and send you through the forest. I’ll not have my king’s new bride captured on my watch.”

  Realizing that time is wasting and neither Griffith nor Artagan plan to budge, I reluctantly nod in agreement. Griffith wraps his arms around a large barrel.

  “I’ll seal the entrance once you enter the tunnel. After that you’re on your own. Godspeed.”

  Artagan ushers me into the tunnel while I call back toward Lord Griffith.

  “I’ll get word to the King,” I promise. “He’ll send help to save your fort.”

  He smiles at me like a man who knows he is doomed, but will soon see heaven.

  “Farewell, my Queen.”

  One by one, we each pile into the dark hole. Lord Griffith places the first barrels over the tunnel entranceway behind us. The last thing I see is the older man’s face, the eyes of a man who will meet his maker tonight.

  My vision slowly adjusts to the dark tunnel, devoid of light save for a sliver of twilight glowing at the far end of the passageway. Groping our way through the subterranean corridor, my hands brush wet earth and gnarled roots. The heavy thud of countless footsteps rumbles overhead as the Saxons besiege the fort. Our small company snakes single file toward the dim light.

  Gasping for air, I pray I won’t perish inside this narrow tomb. No one should ever see the inside of their own grave.

  My palm brushes something slick, a worm or grub. The clamor of battle rages through the ground overhead as the Saxons storm the palisade with a roar. Artagan stops when we reach the end of the passage.

  “Wait here.”

  He disappears, crawling up out of the hole. I start to follow, but a deluge of pebbles and dirt collapses in his wake. The earth stinks like a pigsty. I cover my nose, my eyes tearing up at the stench. Where on earth does this tunnel let out? After what seems like an eternity, Artagan returns and sticks his hand down toward me.

  “Quickly! The Saxons linger close by.”

  Rising up out of the pit, I claw to the surface while Artagan lifts me up by the arms. Coughing as I crawl into the moonlight, I look up to find myself surrounded by woods and several gray mounds. The buzz of flies leaves little doubt as to our location. We’ve come up in the middle of a dung heap. Despite the fetid smell, I must give Lord Griffith credit. Who would ever search a dunghill for a secret entranceway?

  As I roll over in the grass, gasping for fresh air, Artagan clutches me close to the ground with a palm over my mouth. I struggle under his grasp, trying to breathe. He shushes me and points toward the torches of the fort, only a few hundred paces away. All the air seems to rush out of me.

  Less than a stone’s throw from us, a gang of Saxon warriors observes the fort while a hundred of their kinsmen scale the battered walls. Two war-captains converse in their barbaric tongue, shouting commands to their underlings who loosen torches of fire toward the timber palisade.

  It’s the Fox and the Wolf.

  Artagan gradually removes his palm from my mouth. Cedric the Fox and Beowulf the Wolf stand close enough for me to count every link of their chain mail. All they have to do is turn around and they will see us.

  The rest of our party ascends from the tunnel, quietly fanning out into the trees with Artagan and me. A few of the Free Cantref warriors eye the backs of the two Saxon war-chiefs, brandishing their spears under the moonlight. Artagan shakes his head and motions for them to get back. His men reluctantly retreat deeper into the woods. Fine as it would be to strike down these two Saxon war-chiefs, if we did so, hundreds of their howling warriors would be upon us in an instant.

  Creeping slowly back into the trees, I cannot take my eyes off the burning fires kindled along the fort walls. Scores of good Welsh men and women will die tonight, all the while trying to protect me. I should be there, standing beside Griffith and his thanes.

  Instead, I stop in my tracks as a large twig snaps underfoot. My blood seems to freeze in my veins.

  Cedric and Beowulf turn around. Their eyes widen, poss
ibly guessing who I am by my dark locks and green eyes. Artagan grabs me by the hand as we both bolt into the depths of the forest.

  The Saxons raise a cry behind us. Arrows whistle after us in the dark, embedding themselves in trees mere paces from our heads.

  Artagan shouts commands to his men, pairs of us splitting up into separate groups as we descend into the timberlands. The better to confuse our pursuers and hopefully divide their numbers in order to even the odds a bit. I catch glimpses of Rowena and Una, both paired off with other men as they go different directions into the nocturnal groves. Artagan and I separate from the others as we run through dark thickets and briar patches. Thorns snag my hair and claw at my cheeks, but I do not stop. The torches of the Saxons glow behind us.

  Months of sitting on pincushions and sleeping in feather beds have not prepared me for a midnight run through the wilderness. Despite my heaving breath, I push on until my lungs burn. I used to run all day as a child along the strands of Dyfed’s shores, and I’ll not lose a footrace now that my life depends upon it. I pause only to tear the hem of my gown beneath the knees, lengthening my stride as I take to my heels once again and follow Artagan through the labyrinth of trees. The clash of swords and spears echoes through the woodlots behind us. I do not stop to look back.

  We finally stop at a stream trickling through a quiet dell. I sink to my knees, bent over the brook as I cup mouthfuls of water in my palms. The frigid water stings my throat, but I cannot swallow enough of it. Artagan searches the woods with his eyes, the distant murmur of battle fading. He grabs me by the arm and pulls us into the creek, cold water splashing about our ankles.

  “What are you doing?” I demand. “We have to find the others.”

  “We’ll cross paths with them later. First, we have to move upstream to cover our tracks. I need you to trust me.”

  Staggering to my feet, I follow him through the shallows. I’ve little choice but to trust him anyway. Without a guide, I might wander these woods in circles. I stumble blindly over river stones while the stars glow fiercely overhead.