A Glimmering Girl (21 page)

“I like my wyrding ways.”

“As do I. You can be everything you are as baroness of Tintagos. Even more so! Can’t you see you’d be more powerful in a castle than in a cave?”

“No wyrding woman has ever had the chance to find out before.”

“Find out, Igraine. Marry me. Be my wife.”

“I don’t know…”

“I don’t know either,” he said. “But if we only ever act on what we know, nothing changes. There’s no progress. This is the time for the great leap of faith. You and I, Igraine. You and I. Lord and Lady Tintagos.”

“Lady Tintagos,” she said. “No, it sounds too strange on your lips—and mine. But to call you husband… that would give me more happiness than I could bear.”

He crushed her to his chest. “Then say yes and learn to bear it. The sweetest word. Say yes, Igraine.” He kissed her again. “We’ll make our own rules, our own world. Say yes.”

“Oh, yes, then. Yes!”

“Yes!” He jumped to his feet and pulled her up with him, kissing her forehead and both cheeks and laughing all the while. “Let’s go home, my love.”

My love.
It sounded wonderful.
Home.

Riding out of the Small Wood, they left the road to Nine Hazel Lake and turned onto the Ring. In the clear evening, the stars were blazing at the highest points overhead. In the west the bending, orange-red light of sunset glowed behind Igdrasil, making a stark black silhouette of the tree.

Igraine caught her breath. What would they say at Avalos? She’d have Kaelyn’s blessing, and Zoelyn’s disappointment, perhaps anger. What would Velyn think? Great gods… what
would
Velyn think?

And what of Wennie?

“What is this now?” Ross slowed his horse and moved beside her, concerned. “You spoke of banners. Oddly, the one flying over Tintagos at the moment isn’t mine.”

“What? Whose is it?”

“From this distance I can only see the colors are wrong.”

Igraine found the scoping glass in her mantle’s pocket. “Great gods.” Her heart leapt to her throat. “It… It must be royalty. There are two red lions. Look through this.”

She handed Ross the scoping glass, but instead of using it he reined in his horse and stopped altogether, his eyebrows drawn together.

“Where did you get this?”

“On Avalos, a present from Kaelyn. Why?”

“Never mind,” he said, still turning the glass in his hand. “For a moment I thought it was one I’d lost, but this was obviously made for you. The etchings match the flowers in your hair.”

“I wonder if it’s the one you lost.” In that moment, Igraine had no doubt that it was.

It’s yours,
Kaelyn had said.
I have seen it.

Bumbling, self-effacing Kaelyn. Always denigrating her own gifts, making her powers seem like nothing. Yet she knew so much—and so much she didn’t tell. The certainly dawned. All along, Kaelyn had been guiding Igraine to this moment, into the path of this man.

“The goblin added those etchings after it was given to me.”

“Yes, the goblin.” Ross shook his head, smiling. “What strange bride have the high gods sent me?” He raised the glass to his eye—and immediately lost his smile. “You were right about royalty, my love. That banner belongs to Queen Mathilde.”

« Chapter 20 »
The Falcon and the Dove

By the time they rode through the castle gate, the sun was gone but the keep was as visible as in the day, lit by hundreds of torches. Igraine saw that the Tintagos banner was still there, though it flew lower that of the two lions.

Every foot of ground was covered by men standing or on horseback, all dressed for battle. They surrounded a middle-aged woman whom Igraine assumed to be Mathilde and a youth seated on a horse beside her. The boy showed the putative queen no deference, and his calculating eyes stayed on Ross.

“Lord Tintagos, forgive our intrusion at this sad moment.” Mathilde spoke with the confidence of a monarch already crowned, using the royal
we
. “Our condolences on your loss.”

Igraine dismounted with Ross. She held both their horses and bowed her head as he moved forward and bent the knee before his royal visitor.

“Majesty,” he said. “You’re very kind, especially as you’ve so recently lost your own father. All of Tintagos grieves your loss.”

“Well said, and you’ll now have the chance to demonstrate your love for our father. With our son Henry”—she indicated the young man on the horse—“we would impose upon your hospitality a brief while.”

“You honor us, my queen,” Lord Tintagos said. What other answer was compatible with keeping his head? “You are most welcome.”

The stillness fell away and everyone in the keep burst into action, Mathilde’s retinue and the denizens of Tintagos alike. Each had a part to play, settling in the queen and her people. Ross turned, searching until his eyes landed on Igraine. He gestured to her, indicating she should come to him.

She smiled but shook her head. Not a good idea to introduce a wyrding woman to the queen of England. Ross made his eyes big with false exasperation, and Igraine laughed, but a blast from the horn of the watch interrupted their pantomime.

The queen’s guard protectively surrounded Mathilde, Henry, and Ross as a horse raced through the gate into the keep. Its rider was an overly tall, muscular young man with wild hair and sweat pouring down his face.

“Sir Ross!” he cried. “I have news!”

“It’s Lord Tintagos you address,” said a guard of the watch. He’d come down from the wall to stop the visitor if necessary, but he relaxed when he saw who the rider was.

“Lord Tintagos.” The young man gave Ross a friend’s look of sympathy and jumped off his spent and lathered horse.

“Let him pass. I know him.” Ross left the queen and went to the rider, clasping his forearms. “Braedon, what is it?”

“Stephen’s forces approach, sir—my lord.” Braedon bowed to Mathilde. “It’s known that the queen was headed to Tintagos to seek sanctuary. I’m afraid Stephen’s men intend to attack the castle and take you prisoner, Majesty.”

“He wouldn’t dare!” Mathilde said.

“Is Stephen among them?” Ross said.

“No, but his son Eustace is,” Braedon said.

At this intelligence Henry’s face became a mask, but Igraine saw untempered contempt in his eyes.

“They’re led by a priest, my lord. Bishop Quinn of Winchester.” By the look on Braedon’s face, his opinion of Quinn matched Igraine’s.

“Good work, Braedon,” Ross said. “Now, you will kneel before me.”

“My lord?” Confusion showed on the squire’s face, but he did as told.

“I should have done this long ago, Braedon,” Ross said. He turned to Henry. “Your Royal Highness, most humbly I beseech you, might I borrow your sword?”

Henry frowned and looked to his mother, who nodded her assent. The prince unsheathed his weapon and handed it to Ross—who raised an eyebrow when he saw it and shook his head, smiling.

The baron of Tintagos faced his former squire, and after three taps of the blade said, “Arise Sir Braedon.”

Applause erupted in the keep. The citizens of Tintagos appeared to know and like the young man.

“We’ll get you a suit of armor—and a fresh horse,” Ross said. He returned the sword to its owner with thanks.

“How much time do we have?” Mathilde asked Sir Braedon.

“Three hours, maybe four, before they reach Tintagos,” he said. “But they won’t attack until the daylight.

“I hope the legends of Tintagos Castle are true,” Mathilde said, “that it is impregnable, protected by your Brother Sun and Sister Moon.”

Ross and Igraine exchanged a look, and she nodded. She called to a nearby stable boy and handed off Ross’s horse, but she kept her own and remounted it.

Ross was with her before she settled, and he took hold of the reins. “Where are you going?”

“There’s something I have to do,” she said. “When I return, I’ll set wards over the castle. The queen will be safer if your forces meet Quinn’s outside the wall.”

“I can’t let you leave the keep,” Ross said. “Quinn could well have a forward guard out there, waiting even now.”

“No one will see me.” She spun her fingers in the air and said, “Obscure.”

“Igraine?” Ross blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Where…?”

“I’ll be back soon, my love,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

He was her husband now, in spirit though not in law, and she would do all in her power to protect him. Once she was out of the keep and beyond the castle gate, she tossed a glow ball into the air ahead of her horse to light the way and said, “Nine Hazel Lake.”

By morning, Mathilde’s small army and the knights of Tintagos were encamped in the fields to the south between the castle and Igdrasil. Scouts confirmed that in the night Quinn’s forces had made camp about three miles north of the Ring road.

Igraine had yet to return, but Mathilde was safe inside the castle, protected by the household servants, a rough lot, and by Prior Marrek, armed with rosary and poisoned dagger. He’d promised to lay down his life before he let that blackguard Quinn near her. After that, the prior was the only man of Tintagos Mathilde would allow into her rooms.

Ross paced in front of his tent. He always loathed this time, the hours and minutes before a battle, when all preparations that could be made had been made, and anything else was mere busywork.

Where was Igraine?

He took out the scoping glass and scanned the lands to the Ring road. The device even let him see somewhat into the woods above the road, but he didn’t see his love. He traced the apple blossom etchings on the outside of the glass. They were lovely. If truly made by a goblin, then Ross could never again think of goblins with fear or revulsion.

In point of fact, he’d never actually seen a goblin. Again, lesson learned.
Do not judge prematurely.

“Hello there.” Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he swung around to see his love standing with a bundle in her arms and mischief in her eye.

“Igraine.” He took her face between his hands and kissed her.

“My lord!” she said with faux embarrassment. “I think you’d better take me in.” And she motioned toward his tent.

“My lady, your wish is my command.” He held back the flap, then followed her.

“All is ready, I take it?” Igraine said. “You feel confident you fight for the right side?”

“Yes, and Mathilde’s son gives me all the more reason. He contains within him the mettle of his namesake. He’ll be a worthy king to succeed her. Stephen’s son Eustace favors his uncle Aethelos in every way. Self-absorbed, feckless—how did Lord Sarumen put it?—
so pampered he seems destined to be food for the fire
. I would not like to see Eustace on the throne.”

“Then I’m glad you’re for Mathilde.” Igraine handed him the bundle. “This is my gift to you, but I’m bound to return it when you’ve finished with it.”

He frowned as he unfolded the silk—then gasped. It was a sword. But not just any sword.

“But how…” Ross said. 

“
Excalibur
,” Igraine said. “My errand. I asked the Lady of Nine Hazel Lake for the loan of it. Take it into battle, Ross, and you can’t die, by—”

“By the law of the high gods,” he finished her sentence. He shifted the weapon from hand to hand, testing its weight, finding its balance. “Marvelous,” he said.
Oh, Ross, you self-confident fool. The world isn’t as you thought. It never was.

“There’s one more thing,” Igraine said. “I wyrded an extra spell into the sword. You can use
Excalibur
to perform one bit of magic, but only one.” She smiled. “A countermeasure against the possibility of magic forces within Quinn’s arsenal.”

“You think there might be dragons?”

“You say that as if you’d relish it.” Igraine laughed, absently winding the length of silk. “I think a corrupt wyrder or dark fae doing mischief in the mix is more likely.”

“You amaze me.”

“And I hope I always do,” Igraine said.

A blast from a horn stopped them, followed by more blasts.

“They’re coming,” she said. “I have to go.” She turned away, but he grabbed her hand and drew her back to him. “Stay,” he said. “I hate to think of you too far from me.”