Embers (5 page)

He was starting to learn.

Like Alina.

Treachery. He closed gritty eyelids but the vision he saw was not Goadel racing down the well-worn straightness of Ryknild Street. It was Alina's face. Not as it looked now, in its nun's veil, full of such suppressed anger and bitterness, but as it had been the first time he had seen it at Bamburgh.

She had been the most beautiful woman ever to step into that gilded hall, the Princess of the Picts. So fair of face but with the dark hair and the dark eyes that belonged to night, to the hours full of
wiccecrceft
and the private secret shadow world that only lovers shared.

It had been there for all to see, how beautiful she was, that she was formed for love. That had dazzled him. But what had fastened claws in his heart was that which had been hidden. What he only believed he had seen. Her fear of her fate, her desperate, hopeless wish to be free of it. Her apparent loathing for her betrothed.

The other thing that had undone him was the fact that he had known just what a tainted and vicious force Hun was. And he could not bear the thought of a woman like her being at the mercy of that. So he had— He closed his mind against what he had done.

The only reflections in the water were of his brother's mangled flesh. His brother, Wulf, who had sur-vived because of the strength of his will. It had been the mysterious power of the water that had led him back to Wulf . He had believed that Wulf was dead.

He had believed the same of Alina.

He plunged his face into the sharpness of liquid ice, breaking the images that held him like a spell. The merciless cold struck his skin, ran down his neck, streamed off his hair, soaking through the shoulders of his tunic. He opened his eyes.

He had made his decisions and nothing called back the past. The only thing that could be changed was what would come.

It would not be the bloody destruction of another royal feud. It would not be the wanton cruelty that had ravaged his home and his country under Osred's reign. People would not be killed and dispossessed and driven into helpless exile again.

He watched the moving water.

There were some things that could not be redeemed, and there were some things that could. There would be no more undeserving deaths.

Not even for the powerless Pictish hostage in Bamburgh, Alina's brother. Alina who— He moved, balancing himself on his aching left arm, unprepared for the force of the pain that shot through it. But it meant that his right hand was free for the
seax
. It would be much quicker than the sword.

The now familiar stealthy sound came again, but from the opposite direction this time. Behind and to the left.

He turned.

The knife, single-bladed, twelve inches long, deadly, embedded itself harmlessly in a tree.

"What," he bellowed, in a voice that would have split the heavens open, "are you doing here?"

There was a small space of silence.

"Dodging knives?" offered the phoenix of the ashes. "What about you?" Her shoulders were hunched into a thin, stiff line but her gaze met his, straight, like someone who had the right. "Why did you miss your aim?"

"What makes you think I did?" he yelled. "I could have split your heart in two at that distance."

"So you could."

Alina's eyes with their well-remembered matchless pride gave nothing, but he could sense the small waves of shock and fright inside her. His empty hand clenched. If he had not seen until a second later that it was her… She knew what the consequences would have been. It was there in every tightly held line of her body. But she said no more, did not so much as move.

He had seen the proof of her courage long ago, strong and high-hearted. Reckless, just like his. They should have been two of a kind.

But what she had used it for in the end… How had she managed to come here after him? Why had she appeared behind him, so silently out of the tree shadows?

She watched him, her head tilted back, her eyes unwavering.

"My guards let me come," she said, as though she could read exactly what was inside his head. "It was Cunan who argued. He… How shall I put this? He does not quite trust you. But there was not much he could say, in the end. I am both his sister and his princess. If he wanted to maintain the value of my rank before all you Northumbrians, he could not stop me. The other one merely grunted. That seems to be the full extent of his word hoard."

He felt an unruly gleam of amusement tug at his mouth. He could see the small scene playing out round the campfire. Just as Alina wished to direct it

He cut off the dangerous rush of warmth her elegantly practiced high-handedness always invoked.

The other one, Duda, would simply have followed her. Which meant that Duda considered Cunan the Pict's reactions to his sister and his princess should be allowed to play out. Just for interest's sake.

Duda, he would not have heard moving through the trees. Neither would she.

"I have brought this." She was holding a leather saddlebag by its strap. "The medicine bag."

It was perfect. There was no better pretext she could have chosen. The first white-hot reaction was to send her packing back to her guards. He suppressed it. The princess should be afforded the opportunity to play out her game as much as her brother.

Now.

He sat down because it was easier. He would not allow Alina the phoenix to guess how weary he was, how dangerously light-headed. He did not admit to the fever that scored its burning path through his body. He could not allow its weakness. There was no time. Too many people depended on what he did.

And perhaps, if she could not kill him off, she might decide to impress him with her good faith and do something that could see him through all that had yet to be done.

He watched her begin the next stage of the game.

She began to unpack what was in the bag.

Alina's hands shook.

It was not a good beginning for a scarce competent healer endeavouring to inspire confidence in her patient.

She bit her lip. He had decided not to kill her. Twice. But then he had always been cursed with too much honour. That was what it was. Nothing was going to inspire trust of her in those ice-bright, fever-bright eyes.

But she was beyond caring about what was in his head. Not just because of the exhaustion she felt. But because there was only one clear thought she could fix on out of the dealing and double-dealing nature of her second mad flight with Brand. She had to cure the wound before it killed him.

She scrabbled through the small hoard of medicines until she found what she sought. More precious than gold.

"There is poppy—"

"No."

Her hand wavered, its unsteadiness suddenly embarrassingly obvious. It had not occurred to her he would refuse. Stupid fool that she was. He did not trust her one inch. She had set that up herself.

Saint Dwyn. Did he not realize what was to come? How did he think he could face it if he did not… The gold-flecked eyes that held all the unabated fire that burned within, fierce beyond compare, gave her the truth.

It was she who could not face it. She swallowed gathering sickness. Perhaps if she admitted it, perhaps if part of his decision was for pride, he might agree.

"Then for my sake."

"You consider I should lose my senses for your sake?"

Northumbrians were bastards, with their double-edged words. She had forgotten quite what bastards they were. The way they struck straight through people without the need for anything so unreliable as a flying
seax
.

She forced her mind back out of the terrifying enchanted death trap of Bamburgh and into the present.

"Yes," she ground out, and then her voice hesitated. She could feel its constriction in her throat. "I do not… I find it difficult if… The less of the pain the sick person feels when I tend them, the easier it is for me."

"Nay, it is too late to feel less." The eyes were gold-bright, burning. "If I will abide it, you must."

And that was what they had agreed, from the moment the madness had begun: that they would abide the consequences of what they had done. Together. Always.

It was she who had broken the vow.

He began undoing the makeshift bandage bound over his sleeve, single-handedly.

Because there was nothing else she could do, she took the ends of the cloth from his hand. She tried to concentrate only on now.

"The sleeve will get in the way. You…you will have to take your tunic and your shirt off."

She cursed herself for stumbling over the words, such ordinary, practical words, but—

He stood up, reaching for the gilded belt buckle, garnet-crusted, wrought into the sinuous shape of a backward-looking beast. Shining colours caught the sun.

She folded her hands in the coarse wool of her skirts, and then she could no longer watch.

Of course it was not possible to have given your heart to a man, to have shared pain and grief and loss, to have felt the measure of his courage, all the mad tumult of his passion and your own confused and frightening response to it…and to know less than one of the virgin sisters at the nunnery.

He must not realize that. He must not know that her heart beat and her blood surged like white fire just at the thought of him. And that she was afraid.

He must have had enough time. She turned round.

She had her face schooled into its impassive, slightly disdainful mask. The mask that had hidden every personal thought she had ever had in the dangerous halls of Craig Phádraig.

She did not know where to look.

The first glimpse of his naked skin made her insides clench so that she could scarce draw breath. She had held his body in her arms, taken his kiss, felt all the wild pent-up passion of their dangerous flight.

She did not know him at all.

She should have done.

The tightly muscled planes of his body seemed carved and fitted together to define his maleness, to force her to know what all that strength and fierceness was about. She had never seen, never had to face that, not in this way.

Her mind numbed. That was what he was like. That was what he was. This was what she had loved with all that was in her, and yet never known. Never had the chance to know.

What would it have been like to have all that power and all that raw vital grace and all that fiercely drawn strength surround you, possess you? In the embrace that belonged to lovers. To know it with your body, feel the burning life of it and the maleness, and know no barrier. Just the total elemental completeness that existed between man and woman.

Her skin shivered with such thoughts. But she could not stop looking at him.

He took a step towards her, utterly unconcerned, completely self-possessed. Sunlight glinted on him. Sunlight and shadows.

She stepped backwards before she knew she had done it and nearly dropped all she was carrying. She saw the brief flash of surprise in his eyes. She looked away. But it was too late. He must have seen how she stared. Like a green-sick maid on her marriage night.

"Ready to begin?"

"Of course." Her voice, at least, was quite as cool and expressionless as became a princess of the Picts. Her face was back in its mask.

Too late. Her weakness had been placed in the open.

He sat down in the sunlight, so that she could see the wound. His movements were smooth and controlled and quite unhurried.

She looked at the blacked mess of his arm. It was appalling, blood-matted. Older.

"It was truly not the sword that hurt you."

She got a Northumbrian sound of disgust.

"The sword. You could not have hit a hay bale with that, let alone killed me. I have never seen anyone with an unhandier grip. You did not even have your thumb wrapped round the hilt."

"I… Then what was it?"

"Call it a parting gift. From some of the late King Osred's hired mercenaries."

"
Osred's
men?"

"Aye. You are going to spill that."

Her ringers tightened on the bowl of clear water and she could feel the heat rise in her face. How could he know what she thought? Damn him for that, for being able to see— She set the bowl down before she spilled the contents.

"King's men, or what was left of them after Osred had been killed."

"After—"

The knowing eyes raked her.

"Aye. After. Though they thought I had had a hand in his death. Obvious conclusion, is it not?" She looked down. "By that death, all that I had lost was restored, and now it is my kinsman who sits on the throne."

Her gaze tangled with the jewelled belt, lying discarded in the grass, glittering in the sun like a gold-crusted serpent.

"Changes of fortune come with no warning at all. Like regrets."

"Regrets achieve nothing." She picked up the bowl. She did not spill a drop.

Dealing with the wound took a long time. She hated every moment. She had to stitch it. She was aware all the while of how he watched her, despite the pain and the mess and the sheer unremitting awful-ness of what she did to him. It was as though she were on trial.

She thought at first that the test was the obvious one. Whether she planned harm or healing. So she was quite careful to show openly what she did, how she touched him, what herbs she used.

But there was something else. Something she had not fathomed and which she had neither the strength nor the will to think about.

It was all she could do to endure.

How he endured it, how he could even begin to think while all that was being done, how he could possibly have the ability and the sheer will to assess her, she did not know.

All she saw was what she must have known instinctively from the first, that his formidable strength lay not in the hard-chiselled muscles, but deep inside. The thought frightened her.

By the time it was over, she was sick to the stomach and every separate one of her muscles, already stiff from the long hours of riding, was shaking from the tension.

But it was finished, and in the end he had let her do what she would.

She had used all the skill that lay within her power and it would do no good.