Morning's Journey (61 page)

“Gyan, my dove—”

My dove.

She had not believed she would ever use the old endearment again. Pain savaged her heart. “I should be begging your forgiveness.” Pulling back, she clapped a hand over her mouth, choking on another sob. “If—if you can.”

Gyan gripped Cynda’s shoulders gently but firmly. “Of course, I forgive you.” When Cynda refused to look up, Gyan gave her a little shake. “Grief made me blame you in part for Loholt’s death.” Sighing, she bowed her head. “That was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

Nearly two decades ago, Cynda had lost her bairn and her husband to the killing fever; well did she know how grief could maul the soul. “Fret not about me, my dove, but set your heart at rest.” She grasped Gyan’s hand. “What of Lord Angusel? Have you forgiven him?”

Anguish dominated Gyan’s face. “It may be too late for that.” Their gazes held for a long moment. Finally, Gyan said, “The pain—it does go away, doesn’t it?” The raw yearning in her eyes wrenched Cynda’s heart.

She squeezed Gyan’s hand. “In time, aye.” Recalling how she’d learned to overcome her losses, she added, “Keeping busy helps.”

“I don’t think the men would appreciate my way of keeping busy.” A sardonic smile bent Gyan’s lips. “Yet they did seem to relish last night’s activities, so perhaps—” Smile fading, she pulled her hand from Cynda’s grip. “I must check on them.” She moved toward her belt and boots. “And find Angusel.”

While Cynda cinched Gyan’s sword belt, she pondered the idea of encouraging her to rest. The darkness around her eyes proclaimed the need, even if she remained too stubborn to admit it. The strength of purpose in Gyan’s movements as she donned her boots and straightened her battle-tunic, however, bespoke a different need, one no less vital to her soul’s healing.

Gyan flung her cloak in place and, Cynda was dismayed to notice, casually pinned it with Lord Urien’s old jet-eyed bronze dragon. What had become of Lord Artyr’s bonding-day gift, Cynda hadn’t a clue. Unsure whether to inquire about it, she asked instead, “What shall I tell Lord Artyr if he comes here looking for you?”

A confusing mix of emotions—fear, sorrow, uncertainty, regret, dread, annoyance—flashed across Gyan’s features. “I am going to the field hospital and then the battlefield.” She lowered her eyebrows. “If the Pendragon desires speech with me, he can seek me there.”

Coldness gripped her gut as the breeze created by Gyan’s departure enveloped her. Whatever was amiss between Gyan and her consort, Cynda vowed to help them resolve it. To atone for her part in Loholt’s death and truly feel worthy of Gyan’s forgiveness, it was the least she could do for either of them.

ASTRIDE MACMUIR, Gyan surveyed the Dhoo-Glass battlefield from the pine-crowned ridge where the charge had begun, searching for the one warrior who had made it possible for her to be there.

Soldiers in the valley were collecting adornments, usable weapons and armor, and separating friend from foe for burial. Arthur’s men comprised the majority, though she recognized Gawain and other Manx Cohort troops among them while their companions recuperated in the field hospital or the barracks, depending on their skill and luck. Mounted patrols discouraged thieves and the morbidly curious.

Everywhere with impunity hopped raucously greedy, impartial, midnight-feathered scavengers.

Stonn had been safely stabled, but Gyan could find no sign of his rider in any of the places she’d searched.

At the western end of the battlefield, a huge pit had been dug for dead Breatanaich and Caledonaich. Though it wouldn’t see nearly the same numbers as the Sasunach pyres, the grave was filling rapidly.

Most of these soldiers had sacrificed themselves to protect the lives and lands of strangers. She refused to believe Angusel had too.

A few women, some with squalling bairns riding their hips, lingered in wretched anguish near the pit. Hooded monks consoled the living and performed rites to send the valiant to eternal rest. If Dafydd worked among them, Gyan couldn’t tell. The monks’ chants lent a somber chorus to the mourners’ wails and the violent percussion of the soldiers’ labors.

The requiem coaxed a familiar tingling to course through her. Eyes closed, she silently recited the Caledonach warrior’s lament.

A warrior is slain today, ne’er to fight another day…

The pyres, the common grave, taking items from the dead of both armies…
all his foes around him lay, the price in crimson blood to pay…

It seemed so hideously impersonal.

None was comelier of face, wielding sword with braver grace; no bolder lover did embrace his lass, and none can ever take his place.

She understood the reasons well: custom, expediency, space limitations, and economics. She hoped she had masked overt signs of being affected. The moisture in her eyes dictated otherwise.

Leaders, she realized with abrupt clarity, were never meant to become hardened to war’s tragic aftermath lest they forget its primary purpose as a method of enforcing peace.

Now fights he in the Otherworld, helmet golden, sword of pearl, bright banner proudly unfurl’d, dark minions into hell forever hurl!

The lament never would be sung for her son.

And because of her rash actions, it never would be sung for the warrior who had failed to save him.

Her heart felt as wrung out as damp linen.

Angusel she might never see again, but the monks reminded her of one final service she could perform for Loholt. She spurred Macmuir into a breakneck plunge down the hillside, an echo of the previous night’s battle frenzy thrumming in her veins. She might have enjoyed it if grief weren’t throttling her soul.

“God’s wounds!” shouted a familiar voice behind her.

As the ground leveled, she halted Macmuir and twisted in the saddle to watch Arthur careen to the valley floor and rein his borrowed horse to a sliding stop beside her. With his cloak fretting in the breeze, sunlight exploded off his bronzed shoulders in a blazing aura.

“How many went lame in the charge?” His expression’s fiery intensity made him seem less like her consort than Nemetona’s.

She studied the steep, rock-strewn terrain and shrugged. “I haven’t seen the reports yet.” His disapproval smote her with palpable force. “It was a calculated risk. Something Gideon the Hebrew might have planned.” Mentally, she girded herself for his inevitable rebuke.

He surprised her with a chuckle. “The Lord indeed granted you a miracle.”

Obtaining Angusel’s forgiveness and other such miracles seemed far beyond reach. Achieving peace with herself topped the list. Eyes watering, she looked away.

“Your victory didn’t leave me a lot to do. The Saxons at the beachhead were exhausted. We took few prisoners.” Sorrow lurked within his quiet words and not, she suspected, because of an easy win.

Nearby, a soldier swiped at a raven. The bird flapped lazily out of reach and fluttered down to peck at another corpse, gulping gobbets of flesh. Gyan grimaced.

“My victory? You don’t intend to claim the credit?”

“The bards may insist on giving it to me, but I know you did a brilliant job. That hell-bent charge must have been divinely inspired.” He groped inside a pouch dangling from his belt and withdrew a shining object. Her eyes widened with surprise spawned by recognition. “You have earned this, Comitissa Britanniam.”

“‘Lady-Companion of Brydein’?” she asked. Arthur, as the legion’s war-chieftain, was called Dux Britanniarum, “Duke of Brydein.” She’d never heard of this other Ròmanach title.

“That is one interpretation. Another is ‘Countess of Brydein.’”

“An army designation?”

“More than a hundred years ago, the men filling the post were titled Comes Britanniarum.” He offered her the cloak-pin. “I am officially reinstating the office.”

“Ha. As what? The war-duke’s bedchamber accessory? Heir-bearer? Chief shield-polisher?”

He rolled his eyes. “As my second-in-command, effective at once. We will conduct a formal ceremony in a few days, in conjunction with the presentation of unit and individual awards.”

Her irritation rose. She craved love and forgiveness from him—and intimacy, if she hadn’t driven him into someone else’s bed. Not military accolades.

A wailing bairn reminded her of her destination. Leaving Arthur holding the cloak-pin, she jabbed Macmuir’s flanks and raced off.

She didn’t get far.

“Commander Gyan, come see what I found!”

Suppressing a sigh, she reined Macmuir toward the shout. Gawain cradled something in his upturned palm, which he surrendered to her.

“What is that?” Arthur asked as he joined them.

Hefting the garnet-studded treasure, she asked Gawain for the body’s whereabouts, and he pointed to a headless corpse. “Prince Ælferd Wlencingsson, the Saxon commander. We extracted the name from one of the wounded prisoners,” she explained to her consort. She dropped the buckle into Gawain’s hands. “Put it back exactly as you found it, Gawain, and remove the body to Port Dhoo-Glass. It’s not to be stripped and burned with the others.”

“Now, Gyan—” Arthur began.

She knotted her eyebrows. “For what I have in mind, that body must not be looted.”

“What, exactly, do you have in mind?”

“A way to inform the Saxons of their invasion’s outcome by receiving a gift from me: Ælferd’s body. His headless body, of course. I will not surrender my prize.” Her glare defied Arthur to disagree. “And I will personally compensate you for the value of the prince’s gear and adornments, if that is your concern.”

He regarded her for a long moment but didn’t countermand her order. She wheeled Macmuir about and kicked him into a canter to put the battlefield—and her consort—behind her as fast as possible.

Chapter 31

A
RTHUR WATCHED GYAN’S diminishing form, his hopes for a joyful reunion dwindling just as rapidly. The brooch’s weight dragged at his palm. He tightened his fist and cocked his arm.

“Lord Artyr!”

He lowered his hand and glanced toward the shout. At the valley’s edge, Cynda stood struggling in a soldier’s grasp. He stashed Gyan’s brooch in his pouch, rode over to them, and dismissed the soldier. Cynda glowered at the man’s receding back before returning her attention to Arthur.

“My men have orders to keep the battlefield clear until burial detail is finished,” he said in Caledonian. “What are you doing here?”

“Gyan needs to rest. I came to tell her.” She glanced westward, in the direction Gyan had disappeared. “Where did she go?”

He couldn’t share his guess about her physical destination with Cynda. Of her emotional whereabouts, he felt far less certain. Gyan could have succumbed to anger, pride, grief, despair…“I don’t know.”

“You will follow her.” Not a question but a command.

“She needs to be alone.”

Cynda snatched the bridle and held it firmly. “Dog spittle! She has been alone, my lord, separated from clan and consort and most of her kin these past two turnings of the moon. It has helped her”—she spat, causing the horse to fidget—“that much.”

Good point. And his vow to rescue Gyan from her grief wouldn’t be worth a lake of dog spittle if he let her moodiness best him.

“You win, Cynda.”

She released the bridle, and he tightened his grip on the reins. “Nay, my lord.” She flashed a grin. “You and Gyan win.”

As he set spurs to the gelding’s flanks and the animal cantered forward, he earnestly hoped she would prove to be right.