The Witch Queen's Secret (7 page)

Lady Isolde was right. Dera shivered, and
wiped sweat from the man’s brow with a corner of her sleeve. She
didn’t know whether this man especially wanted to hear about a
Water Horse. But it was better than sitting in silence, all alone
with your own thoughts and a dying man—or trying to think up what
you could say.

She’d made it halfway through the story when
the serving man came back. His knife was out—and even though he
must have cleaned the blade on leaves or dry grass, he’d missed a
smear of blood on the hilt.

“
Are you
all right?” He crouched down next to her.

She rubbed her eyes and realized there were
tears on her cheeks, though she didn’t know quite why. The man
whose hand she’d been holding was unconscious—or dead.

She looked around at the bodies on the
ground. Even the cold couldn’t mask the smell of vomit, or of the
ones who’d lost control of their bowels. But they’d died quick,
anyhow.

Dera
stood up.
Her head felt
funny and light, like it was about to roll off her shoulders, and
her hearing buzzed. She sat down again on the fallen log and looked
at the man in front of her.

“
They
were … they were bad men.”

The blue-eyed man shrugged. There were tight
lines around the corners of his mouth. “No worse than many
others.”

“
Doesn’t
make what they did—what they would have done to
me—right.”

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck,
like the muscles ached. “And if God knows whether that makes giving
them all nightshade right, I’ve yet to hear an answer from Him.” He
turned away, picking up the traveling pack he’d dropped on the
ground, re-sheathing his knife. Then he turned back to her. “I’m
sorry.” He reached out, like he was about to put a hand on her
shoulder, then thought better of it and let his arm fall back to
his side. “I said I’d get you to safety—and I will. If that’s what
you want. And I won’t try to stop you if you want to make a run for
it on your own. But I need to get word to King Madoc. It was true
what you said? He’s on Ynys Mon?”

Dera
swallowed again, then nodded. Then managed to get her thoughts
enough in order to say, “I have a message for him. From Lady
Isolde—it’s stamped with her own seal and everything. Because she
knew he wouldn’t trust a message from just anyone.
Lady Isolde said if only we
could hold out until he and his warriors could get here, they’d be
able to drive back Marche’s men.” Dera touched her ribs, where the
oilskin packet brushed against her skin with every
movement.

The blue-eyed man stared at her. “You have
this message? From … Lady Isolde.” She thought his voice changed
just a bit as he said the name. But then he said, quick-like, “Let
me have it. Please.”

Maybe she was a fool to trust him. But you
had to trust someone, sometime. Mam had always said that, too. Dera
reached down into her bodice and ripped the few stitches that had
held the packet in place. “Here it is. But you’d still have to get
it—”

“
That’s
all right.” The man’s fingers closed round the packet, and then he
gave a queer sort of whistle—too short trills, and then a longer
one. And before the sound of it had even died away, another man
stepped out of the trees onto the path.

Dera
didn’t seem to be able to feel any more shock or surprise. If one
of the great enchanter Merlin’s dragons had stepped out onto the
path, she’d probably have just nodded and asked him
How d’you
do
. And now she stood,
staring, while the blue-eyed man talked to the newcomer. Though
‘talked’ wasn’t quite the word.

The second man was huge—broad-built and tall,
with corn-colored hair that fell to his shoulders, and a long, fair
beard. A Saxon-born, plain as the nose on his face. And he didn’t
talk in words. The blue-eyed man was giving him instructions,
telling him he’d got to get this packet and the letter inside to
King Madoc, who was with his warriors on Ynys Mon. He wasn’t to
stop for anything—even an hour’s delay was too long. And the big
Saxon man was answering in some kind of finger-talk. Moving his
hands in a way that must have meant something, because the
blue-eyed one was nodding and answering like the Saxon had actually
spoken.

Then, finally, the Saxon man nodded, clasped
wrists with the serving man, and turned away, vanishing into the
trees.

The blue-eyed man came back to Dera. “He’ll
see King Madoc gets the message. Now”—he held out a hand— “let’s
get you back to Dinas Emrys.”

Dera stared at his hand. The fingers were a
bit crooked, like they’d been broken once, years ago. And she could
see a pattern of scars on the back, all the way up to the leather
guard he wore on his wrist. She took a breath, then she put her
hand into his and let him pull her to her feet.

“
AND HERE
I AM.” Dera stopped to take a breath. She’d managed to keep her
voice from shaking while she’d told the story. Though maybe that
was because it still didn’t seem quite real. Back here, in Lady
Isolde’s workroom, with the dried herbs rustling in the rafters,
and the big dog Cabal snoring in a corner, the whole of the night
she’d spent out in the woods could have been just a bad
dream.

Lady Isolde hugged her again. “And thank the
goddess you are here, safe and unharmed.”

They were all safe. That was another part of
all this that didn’t seem quite real. Dera had been asleep on her
feet by the time the blue-eyed serving man had left her at the
outer ramparts of Dinas Emrys. But she’d gone straight to where
Jory had been having his afternoon nap on the pallet in Lady
Isolde’s workroom—and then she’d crawled right in next to him and
gone to sleep herself.

She
hadn’t meant to, but she must have slept right through the night.
Because when she’d woken, morning light had been coming in through
the window and Jory was already up and gone. And
Lady Isolde had been there, with bread and
cheese and mead, and wanting to hear the story Dera had been too
tired to tell the day before.

So she’d started in on all that had
happened—meeting Glaw and his men and all the rest. And before
she’d got halfway through with the story, a rider had come running
in to say that Dinas Emrys was safe. Gwion and the other men had
held against Marche’s men. And King Madoc had arrived with his war
band in time to drive them back—and with enough losses that Lord
Marche wouldn’t soon return.

Now
Lady Isolde
pulled back from the hug and said, “But I don’t understand—this man
who rescued you. You said he went to join Gwion and the
others?”

Dera nodded. “The last I saw of him, that’s
where he said he was headed. He said until King Madoc got here,
they’d have need of every fighting man in holding off Lord
Marche.”

“
But who
was he?”

“
I don’t
know, my lady.” Dera might have a guess—but she had to keep it to
herself, since before he’d left her, the man had made her prick her
finger and swear on her own life she’d not tell Lady Isolde
anything about him—not what he looked like, nor nothing else that
might give Lady Isolde a clue as to who he’d been.

A sound from the garden outside the infirmary
made her look up. Not that the garden was much more than mud and
plants wrapped up in cloth sacking at this time of year. But when
Dera looked out the window, she saw Jory and Cade, covered in dirt,
the pair of them—and digging for worms, they must be, because Jory
was squealing and holding up a big, fat wriggling one.

“
I’m
sorry.” Lady Isolde came to stand next to Dera at the window. “I
know you were worried about him meeting Cade. But Jory was asking
for you while you were gone—beginning to get frightened because you
weren’t here. And Cade came in, and—”

“
That’s
all right.”

Cade looked a bit pale under the smears of
mud, and he was leaning on a wooden walking stick. But he was
grinning.

Beside Dera, Lady Isolde said, “You’ve made
up your mind about Cade, haven’t you.” She didn’t even say it like
it was a question.

Dera watched Jory jump up and land with both
feet in a puddle of rainwater. “How’d you know?”

“
Because
you’re much braver than I am—you always were.” Lady Isolde’s voice
sounded—not quite sad, but quieter than usual. But she put an arm
around Dera’s shoulders and hugged her sideways. “I’ll miss you—but
I’m so glad.”

Jory had seen her in the window. He was
waving and shouting, “Mam! Mam!”

Dera
waved to him. But then she turned back to
Lady Isolde. “Do you … your powers. The Sight, you
called it. Do you have it back, now?”

Lady Isolde looked away, down at her own
hands. “I don’t know.”

“
You
don’t—”

“
I don’t
know.” Lady Isolde’s mouth twisted a bit, and Dera saw her fingers
tighten together in a knot. She looked up. “I told you you were
braver than I am, Dera. I haven’t tried—I haven’t tried to See
anything. Not since that man Bevan … since he died.” She swallowed.
“I keep thinking … why wouldn’t the Sight come back before this? I
used to try to summon it—but it never came. Why now?”

“
Maybe
you didn’t really need it before.”

“
And I do
now?” Lady Isolde’s smile was a bit easier. Though the sadness
hadn’t left her eyes.

Dera took a breath. “Your friend—the one you
were telling me about. The boy you knew growing up. Trystan.” Dera
thought Lady Isolde flinched just a little bit when she said the
name, but she kept going. “If you had the Sight back, maybe you
could See him. See what’s happened to him, I mean. Where he is
now.”

Lady
Isolde just looked at her. But then, slowly, she nodded. “I
suppose. The Sight shows
may be
and
has been
and
will be
. And
sometimes all mixed together. But—”

She stopped. Outside, Jory was still
shouting. “Mam! Mam! Mam!”

“
You
should go out,” Lady Isolde said.

Dera
swallowed. And then she said, “I wish you … happiness,
La
— Isolde.”

Dera thought for a moment Lady Isolde’s eyes
looked shiny with tears. But then she smiled. A real smile, this
time. “And I wish the same for you.”

Dera looked back just once before she got to
the door of the room. Lady Isolde was still standing by the window,
leaning her head against the wall. But then she turned and looked
up at the high shelf with the bronze bowl—the one with the ancient
markings on it Dera had seen before. Men with horns, and serpents
swallowing their own tails. Dera saw Lady Isolde take a step
forward, reach out and lift the bowl down.

And then she turned away and went out into
the garden with Jory and Cade.

###

Thank you for reading The Witch Queen’s
Secret!

A longtime devotee of historical fiction and
fantasy, Anna Elliott lives in the D.C. Metro area with her husband
and two daughters. She is the author of the Twilight of Avalon
trilogy published by Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint.
Visit her at www.annaelliottbooks.com. Look for other FREE stories
from the Twilight of Avalon universe on Smashwords. (Coming
September 2010.)

E-mail:
mailto:[email protected]

Webpage:
http://www.annaelliottbooks.com

Blog:
http://www.annaelliottbooks.com/wp

Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/annaelliott

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/anna_elliott

T
RYSTAN AND ISOLDE’s story continues in …