Rexanne Becnel (21 page)

“Cleve! Where were you all day?” the child asked. He smiled up at the man in a way that clearly revealed the depths of his affection, and Wynne at once berated herself for becoming sidetracked from her original goal. She sent Cleve a speaking look, willing him to somehow rebuff Arthur. Gently, of course. Just firmly enough so that Arthur did not invest even more of his emotions in the wrong man.

But Cleve ignored her. He knew precisely what she wished him to do, but he very deliberately refused to comply. Wynne watched as he squatted down to face Arthur on the child’s own level.

“Hello, my boy. How did you enjoy this long day in the saddle? Still convinced you wish to be a knight and spend your life astride?”

“I didn’t get tired at all,” Arthur boasted. “And my bottom doesn’t hurt either.”

Cleve grinned, glancing up at Wynne as he did so. “Just wait until tomorrow. Then we’ll see if you sing the same song.” He looked back at the boy. “Tell me, did you see any new types of birds?”

Wynne wanted to stalk away in anger—to hide her pain from Cleve’s probing gaze. How could he be so cruel to Arthur? She understood that he might wish to punish
her
, but not Arthur. So why was he courting the child’s affection in this way? It would only make their separation far worse for the child.

Then, however, she recalled his odd suggestion that she stay in England. Even though she’d turned him down, she’d been very close to succumbing to his sensual appeal. Oh, how very, very stupid she was, she realized as complete understanding came to her. He wanted her to stay in England for his own personal reasons. For his own very intimate and physical reasons. That was what this was all about. He was going to make it as hard for her to leave him as possible, and he was not above using the children to help him do it.

Her mouth gaped open at the realization, then snapped shut when she recognized how easily—how willingly—she’d been playing into his hands. What an absolute fool she was. What a complete and utter goose.

It wasn’t as if she’d not been approached by well-favored men in the past. She’d been pursued by two or three handsome and eligible lads from the village. But she’d been smart those times and she’d kept both her heart and her wits well in hand. Why couldn’t she be as smart with this man?

“… but if Offa’s Dyke is so easy for us to cross, I don’t understand. How does it keep the English on their side and the Welsh on theirs?” Arthur was asking when Wynne focused once more on their conversation.

“Well, it’s not so hard for a few men on horseback to cross it. But an army, well, that would be more difficult. The carts, the wagons of supplies, and also the siege engines can’t be brought across a steep-sided ditch nearly so easily.”

“Oh.” Arthur pondered that a moment. “A bridge would have to be built.”

“That’s right. Or else the Dyke dug down and used to fill in the ditch.”

“But then
both
armies could go back and forth.”

“Bright lad.” Cleve grinned at Arthur and then again at Wynne. “You’ve got the makings of a true soldier here, Wynne. One who will think with his head before he strikes with his sword.”

Wynne only frowned more fiercely at his words. If Cleve meant to irritate her endlessly, he was succeeding very well, for Arthur was beaming under the attention and praise from his idol.

Yet anger was but one of the emotions roiling within her. More and more she was feeling trapped. Outfoxed. Defeated by this bold Englishman with his handsome face, seductive words, and breath-stealing kisses. Her defenses were becoming weaker, and her own plans to defeat him appeared nigh on to impossible. Only one hope remained for her, and that was to prevent him from proving that any of her boys were sired by this English lord of his.

No, that was not her only hope. She must also hope and pray—and struggle against any temptations to the contrary—that she could continue to resist his ever-bolder advances.

He did not mean to cooperate where Arthur was concerned. Indeed he clearly meant to use Arthur in this struggle between the two of them. Well, so be it, she sighed. She could accept any adversity so long as she still had hope. And she did still have hope. She did.

“Arthur may have all the makings of a soldier,” she said, dismissing Cleve with a haughty lift of her head. “But for the moment he appears more suited to fetching water. Gather the other children, Arthur. I have chores for all of you.”

Cleve ruffled the boy’s brown hair and rose to his feet. “Aye, lad. Do as Wynne says. I, for one, am hungry enough to eat a bear. We must all help her prepare the meal.”

Wynne waited until Arthur raced away before she fixed Cleve with a carefully aloof and appraising eye. “So you expect me to prepare your meal. I commend you for your bravery, Sir Cleve. Or do you intend to let Arthur test-taste your food before you partake of it?”

His dark eyes gleamed with devilment. “You will not try the same trick again, witch. Too many of us are watching you now.”

“How smug you are.” She laughed. “I need but a pinch of witch seed to lay you low. No more than I could easily hide beneath my thumbnail. Are you so certain you wish to take that chance?”

She noted with pleasure that his smile wavered just a bit, and a shadow of uncertainty showed in his eyes. “You are more talk than anything else, woman. We shall all of us eat from the same pot. You cannot take the same chances here that you did at Radnor Manor.”

He might as well have thrown one of his steel-and-leather gauntlets at her feet, so blatant was the challenge he put before her. Her eyes narrowed and glinted with a fiery blue light of their own. “I shall enjoy bringing you low more than anything I have ever done in my years as Seeress.”

He grinned as if her threat did not faze him in the least. “Lay me low? I would like nothing better, my sweet Welsh witch. Perhaps tonight?” he finished with a hopeful tone in his voice and a hot gleam in his eyes.

Wynne, however, was not amused. Ignoring the disturbing warmth in her belly, she glowered at him.

“Gloat now, Sir Fool. But we shall see who gloats in the end.”

“Yes,” he replied to her stiff, retreating back. “We shall soon see.”

T
HEY CAMPED THE SECOND
evening just beyond Offa’s Dyke, on English soil. Cleve and his men were relaxed and boisterous that night, lighting a huge fire to celebrate their homecoming, though they were still three days’ journey from Kirkston Castle. Even Druce and Barris joined in the high spirits, and the children were hard-pressed to stay in their beds, given the gay songs and rowdy laughter coming from the fire.

“England is a very merry place,” Arthur said from his end of the tent they all occupied.

“Everyone does seem very happy,” Isolde agreed.

From her position, seated on a rug just inside the tent opening with her arms wrapped around her knees, Wynne could see the dark silhouettes around the dancing flames. “I suppose anyone—even an Englishman—is happiest on his own homelands. Though were they to live any length of time in Wales, they would fast change their opinion,” she added.

“Are we supposed to be sadder because we’ve left Wales?” Bronwen asked.

Wynne smiled ruefully and reached through the darkness to where she knew the little girl lay. She rubbed Bronwen’s knee. “No, I don’t think we have to be sadder, sweetheart. We can miss our own home and yet still enjoy our journey. ’Tis quite an adventure for us, and we should endeavor to learn as much as we can from our time in England. Such as improving your skills in the language.”

“We learned a—”

“—new word today,” the twins said.

“I heard you speaking with Derrick,” Wynne said.

“Ned taught me the word
whore
,” Madoc boasted.

“What! He taught you a word like that?”

“Well … I mean, sort of. He … he said it to Marcus, and I asked him what it meant.”

“And what did he say?” Wynne demanded.

“Well, he … he said it was a woman who kisses lots of different men. Lots and lots of them.”

Wynne felt a small relief at that, but her anger did not abate at all. A group of hardened soldiers was poor company for such young and impressionable children as these. Not for the first time she wondered why she’d relented to the girls’ pleas that they be allowed to come along. Bad enough that the boys
had
to come. She should have left Isolde and Bronwen with Gwynedd.

But it was too late now for second thoughts. She must make the best of things, and her first order of business tomorrow would be to speak to Cleve about his men’s foul language before her children. Hopefully he would respond better to that than he had to their aborted discussion about Arthur’s affection for him.

The very thought of that conversation—especially the note on which it had ended—caused her stomach to knot. He was so insufferably confident! It would be best if she had Druce there to back her up. Cleve would not dare be so bold with Druce there.

Yet Druce’s involvement in this whole business was not entirely without suspicion. She recalled something Cleve had said to her that night in the stable when the storm had struck. He’d promised Druce that he would not take advantage of her. Druce! As if he were her father or brother. But it was not Druce’s protection that bothered her, for to be honest, she appreciated that. But there was something else implied, something that disturbed her enormously.

Was Druce aware of Cleve’s personal interest in her? And if so, did he actually approve?

Wynne straightened up and squinted toward the fire. She heard Madoc whisper something to his brother, but he received no reply. The children were finally dozing off, it seemed, but Wynne was wide awake, and her mind turned round and round this absurd hew possibility.

It was one thing for Druce to act the part of her brother when it came to protecting her and her children. Both their lifelong friendship and the fact of their common Welsh heritage demanded no less of him. But to seem to give approval to some Englishman who courted her—if what Cleve pursued could very loosely be termed courting—was going much too far. The very idea made her blood boil.

First thing tomorrow she would set Druce straight. Then once he was sufficiently reprimanded, the two of them would approach Cleve FitzWarin.

A bark of laughter drifted to the tent, and she glared at the men who made merry. Someone stood up across the fire, and she recognized Cleve. His wide shoulders and long dark hair set him apart from the rest. He lifted a mug and said something she could not make out. The others laughed and lifted their mugs in reply. Then they all drank.

Cnaf
, she brooded. Knaves, the entire lot of them. She turned away, pulling the flap of canvas down to close them off. But even as she lay on her mossy pallet and pulled her cloak over her shoulders, she was keenly attuned to every sound the men made. Every muffled word, every laugh or toast, only blackened them further in her eyes. Were it not for their necessary part in maintaining the human race, she decided, the world would be better off without any men in it whatsoever. There would be no wars. There would be no need for weapons or armor or even destriers. Nor castles, moats, or dykes. The world would be a peaceful and pastoral place, with no voices raised in anger, nor fists either.

But even as she counted the sins attributable to the male of the species—of
all
the species, rams and stallions and bulls included—she could not shake one immutable fact: Life would certainly be dull without them.

“Wynne … Wynne.” It was Druce’s impatient voice that roused her from discordant dreams of towering castle walls overrun with wild mistletoe vines. Only the mistletoe sprouted roses every now and again, and it grew so fast that she became caught up in the vines, trapped within the dark walls of the massive castle. When Druce’s voice broke through to her, she clung to it as if it were a lifeline.

“What … what is it, Druce?” she mumbled as she sat up and pushed her hair from her eyes. Then, when she recognized the urgency in his tone, she blinked the sleep away. “Is aught amiss with you?”

“Not me. No. But one of the Englishmen is ill, and two others of them….”

She poked her head out of the tent. “Ill? In what way?”

He shrugged. “He has puked his guts out the whole night long. And two of the others are beginning to feel the same way.”

“They probably just drank too much.” She thrust the wild tangle of her dark hair from where it fell once more over her eyes. “And it serves them right. I heard the lot of you, carousing long after more sensible persons would have sought out their beds.”

But Druce shook his head. “No, ’tis not the pounding head of too much drink. I’m feeling that right enough myself. But Marcus, he has a fever. And now Richard and Henry do as well. He’s sick, Wynne. All three of them are. Can you help them?”

Wynne stared past him toward the figures huddled around the remnants of the fire. In the pale gray light of early dawn the men appeared almost ghostly. Mist hugged the ground so that the man who lay curled on a crude pallet was barely discernible. The agitated cry of an oriole echoed from somewhere beyond, and a squirrel chattered, then skittered up the trunk of a towering beech, its tiny claws making a scratchy sound against the bark.

Morning was here, though the children yet slept. But what an interesting morning it would prove to be, the wry thought came to her. She’d not yet had the chance to use any of her potions on her enemies, yet here they were, falling ill but a stone’s throw from the Welsh border. She almost laughed. How fitting.

She crawled from the tent, then shook off the last vestiges of sleep and rose to her feet. The ground was cold and damp, but she ignored that.

“So, three of them are struck low. But then, what could be expected when they seek to steal a child of
Cymru
from his home?”

Druce peered at her suspiciously. “Wynne, have you done something to cause this illness?”

“Of course not,” she answered, though she smiled smugly. Let him wonder. Let them all wonder.

“Bedamned, Wynne. But this is foolish beyond anything you’ve ever done before.”