Thief (26 page)

That was the problem with women. They saw things men didn’t even know took place.
If
they took place. “That sounds like bardic nonsense.”

“Our eyes touched. They spoke when we dared not. You didn’t just want me to return to Trebold with you. You needed me to.”

The observation hit its mark, taking Caden unawares. Aye, he’d needed to do something for someone. It was his escape from the prison of his guilt and misery.

“If I was to help your mother, I needed you to come along. I suppose that’s true enough,” he mumbled. But he’d admit no more. Sorcha had already heard and seen more than he wanted anyone to know.

“If you say so.”

“I do.” He could see she wasn’t convinced.

“And the following day, you acted as if the weight of the world had been lifted off your shoulders. You were almost childlike in your joy … years younger.”

Aye.

“And when we danced, it was as though we were meant to be together.”

No. This dreamy nonsense had to stop. “Like I said before, I needed you to come with me for your mother’s sake. If the hard approach didn’t work, I knew the charm would.”

Sorcha’s abrupt silence whipped at Caden’s conscience. Just as he was about to change his tack, she sighed. “I see.”

She didn’t. But Caden allowed her to think she did. And it made him miserable, something comforting in its familiarity.

Chapter Twenty-six

The shadows of the forest darkened as the long day approached its close. Sorcha had to watch her step as she walked beside Elfwyn on the downhill slope. She liked the animal well enough, but so help her, if Sorcha ever rode again, it would be too soon. Surely her hips were disjointed, held together only by aching muscle. It was small wonder she could walk at all.

“We’ll be home soon,” she promised, petting the gentle horse and talking to her as she did from time to time. “You said we’d be home about sundown didn’t you?” she asked Caden.

“Aye, I’ve been smelling wood smoke for nigh over the last two miles.”

Neither of them had spoken much since Caden had made it plain that the relationship between them wasn’t one at all. That they were just traveling companions for as long as it took him to unite her with her mother.

The pigheaded buffoon!

Sorcha knew better, even if he didn’t. She trusted her instincts, born of spending hours singing for people from all walks and of all temperaments, reading them like a priest his parchment. She remembered how caring Caden had been when she’d been ill. And jealous of Owain’s attentions. So much so that he’d refused to leave her alone in Owain’s company.

So she let Caden stew in the guilt-laced juice of his own making, speaking only when she had to for nature’s call or a hunger stop along the way. Indeed, his long face almost made her pity him.

How like her father he was. A man with regrets from previous mistakes and full of bluster to hide a heart as big as he was. Cynric once told her that Wulfram had turned from a savage to a gentle bear in Aelwyn’s hands. Putting the word
savage
and her father in the same breath was hard to imagine; he loved people so. And Sorcha, of course, was his little girl, no matter that she’d grown into a young woman.

“Watch how a man treats his mother or any children when you decide to chose a mate,” Wulfram once advised her.

“And there is the river Lader,” Caden announced, drawing her from her nostalgia. He pointed ahead to where the setting sun cast a red glaze on a ribbon of water beyond the thinning brush and thorn.

Beyond the water were more woods like those they’d passed through all day, both uphill and down. Oak, birch, ash, and maple shedding their leafy coats, evergreen interspersed and thicket beneath, all crisscrossed with wildlife paths. It was those running parallel to the road that they’d traveled, keeping to cover.

Sorcha looked hard into the forest beyond. There was no sign of habitation. Just more trees and thorn. “Where is Trebold?”

“Upriver. But we’ll cross here and follow the water to the main ford. Just in case we’ve uninvited guests waiting there,” he reminded her.

Sorcha stopped abruptly, folded her hands, and bowed her head as she’d seen Eavlyn do. “Great Heavenly Father, neither one of us are practiced at being Christians. We’ve much to learn. But from our heart of hearts we ask that You clear the way for us, that we might arrive safe and sound. You’ve seen us safe thus far, and we count on Your Word that You will never leave nor forsake us. In the name of Jesus who died for us, that we may live, amen.”

“Amen,” Caden chimed in. For the first time since he’d made a fool of himself that morning, his long features softened. “And well said, milady. You’ve a way with words.”

“Are you certain it’s not bardic nonsense?” she shot back.

Instead of answering, Caden took the lead once more, his face impassive as a stone.

Sorcha followed with Elfwyn’s rein in hand and a hint of a smile on her lips.

Easy to read as parchment, Caden was.

Caden’s decision to cross farther back had been a sound one. Had they not, they’d have run smack into the campfires awaiting them on the yon side as they neared the edge of the woodland, where the tavern sat nestled in the shade of a circle of oaks. While its yard beyond and the meadowland cleared along the river crossing bathed in the light of the waning moon, the firelight’s glow filtered eerily from the other side through a low mist where the cold night air hugged the sun-warmed river. The men who moved round the fires looked more like shadow creatures, but Sorcha knew better. She could catch bits and pieces of their mead-soaked conversation amidst the occasional yap of their dogs begging for food.

Saxons. And if she could make out the banner fluttering near the fire, it would likely have Elford’s black wolf’s head on it, with its fierce red eyes. The same as that on the ring in her bag. Glancing sidewise at her companion, she shivered within the confines of Tunwulf’s
and
her own cloak.

“I suppose God didn’t see fit to listen.” Disappointment soaked her words as the water had done her boots when she and Caden had ridden Elfwyn across the water a mile or so back.

“He saw fit to keep them on the yon side of the river,” Caden noted.

Catching an odd note in his reply, she followed his gaze to where the tavern sat, its hide-covered windows lit with the promise of food and warmth within. There were men standing outside the door, but that wasn’t unusual in a tavern setting.

“What’s keeping the Saxon over there?” he asked himself aloud. “Unless the tavern is full of Cymri warriors.”

“Is that Arthur’s banner?” There
was
some sort of flag flying near the inn door, but, oak being the last to let go its bronze leaves, the trees overhead shadowed its markings. Sorcha had heard of Arthur and his mounted cavalry. His name evoked awe, even among the Saxon. He would surely keep Tunwulf at a distance.

But Caden shook his head. “It’s not white, but some darker color.” He turned to her, grim. “Milady, the safest thing to do is to keep on traveling.”

Sorcha groaned aloud. She was tired, hungry, cold, and wet.

“Or wait the night out until we see if there is friend or foe in the tavern,” he offered.

And they were so close to her mother. Her home. “I say they are friends to keep the Saxon at bay.”

“
Or
Tunwulf has gathered his entire warband and camps on both sides of the river to cover all routes. We were detained three days,” Caden pointed out.

Sorcha ignored the possibility. “I prayed,” she said simply. “God would not deliver us into Tunwulf’s hands. We can sneak around and enter the tavern from the b—”

A dog barked near them, cutting her off. Too near.

Caden swore beneath his breath. “A patrol.”

But whose? Sorcha soothed an uneasy Elfwyn by stroking her quivering, warm coat.

The dog roared again, then yelped, as though someone had pulled back on its leash.

“
Gestillan, hund!”
Someone demanded it stop in the Saxon tongue. There was a low exchange of words. Branches snapped with further movement through the trees behind them. Evidently Tunwulf—who else could it be?—had a patrol on
this
side of the river.

Caden nudged Sorcha. “I want you to mount Elfwyn and, when I say so, make straight for the tavern as hard as you can. Get inside at any cost.”

Sorcha allowed Caden to lift her onto the mare’s back and sought the strap stirrups with her toes. “What are you going to do? We could both ride that short of a distance.”

“I’m going to lead the men away from you. Now go!”

Before Sorcha could protest, Caden slapped Elfwyn on the buttock. The mare, already unnerved by the Saxon hound’s presence, bolted forward with such force that Sorcha had to hold on to her mane and grasp her with her knees with all her might just to keep from falling off. Low branches whipped at her face as the horse broke into the clearing in a gallop.

Behind her, she heard Caden shout something vulgar in Saxon regarding the legitimate birth of the patrolmen, and the woods erupted. By the time Sorcha gained control of Elfwyn, she was almost to the barns to the left of the tavern. She ventured a look over her shoulder in time to see Caden break free of the trees and unsheath his sword.

The dog reached him first, a massive, muscled, angry hound like the ones the Saxons turned loose on the Cymri foot soldiers in battle. The animal lunged at Caden’s throat. Sorcha caught her breath and reined Elfwyn in short of flying into the darkness of the barn. It looked as if the dog might succeed in its vicious attack, but suddenly Caden sidestepped and swung his sword with both fists, pommel first, knocking the dog hard out of its path. It yelped once and crashed to the ground beside the man, where it lay still.

But now the Saxon patrol emerged. Four men circled the lone warrior. And what a magnificent warrior he was, bathed in the light of the waning fall moon. He put her to mind of a caged lion she’d once seen at a fair in Eboracum, no intent to run and every intent to kill. If Sorcha didn’t know better, his footwork might have been a dance instead of a wary assessment of who might charge him first.

And if they charged him at once …

There was no need to finish the thought. Sorcha had no intention of letting the worst happen. She’d run enough. She was cold, hungry, wet, and now more angry than frightened.

She roared to the top of her lungs. “Die, you dogs!” And dug into Elfwyn’s sides with her heels. Evidently the mare had had enough of retreat as well, for Elfwyn reared to paw at the air, and, with a great thrust of her back legs, the horse leapt into a charge worthy of a bard’s praise.

Sorcha could do nothing but hold on for her life.

Straight into the circle of predators she rode, barely missing Caden as she scattered the men. Groping for the reins she’d lost in order to keep her seat, she managed to turn Elfwyn again and aimed the snorting beast at them as they regrouped.

“Get away, woman!” Caden shouted as he attacked one of the men with a vicious sword swing. Iron clanged. Sparks flew.

But Elfwyn was undaunted. It was as though the warrior spirit of the poor bedraggled beast had suddenly been set free. Two of the men knelt and braced long spears against the ground, intent on running the steed through, but the closer her thundering hooves came, the better they thought of it. Both dropped their weapons and ran, but not soon enough. Elfwyn ran one over as if that had been her intent all along. The other retreated into the woods.

Sorcha lunged for the reins again as the mare slowed enough to trot into a turn. It was only then she saw that she and Caden no longer faced four men, but many times that number. They mustered from inside the tavern like angry bees, shields clashing as they formed some sort of line. All except one.

A big hulk of a man with wild yellow hair and an equally wild beard lumbered toward where Caden fought with the last standing attacker. His tunic, half-pulled on in haste, was black with something white hidden in the folds. As he ran, he gained momentum, though he’d still not drawn the sword strapped to his waist.

And if Sorcha had any say, he wouldn’t. She nudged Elfwyn forward just as Caden plunged his weapon into the belly of his opponent.

Four down and one giant with an army to go. Sorcha wondered fleetingly as Elfwyn’s hooves pounded into the ground if anyone would immortalize this last battle in song….

The giant reached Caden.

And embraced him.

Beyond them, the line his army formed moved toward the river, where a few Saxons from the other side tried to ford it. A shieldwall, it was called. She’d heard her father and Cynric speak often of holding the line, the push and crush of bodies sometimes so tight it was impossible to use their weapons.

God had answered her prayers. He’d sent an army of black-clad warriors to hold Tunwulf across the river. Amazement assembled the pieces slowly in mind.

Too slowly.

Sorcha reined in Elfwyn as Caden and the blond giant turned their faces toward her. Their eyes widened, and, as if in slow motion, they broke apart from each other. But Elfwyn couldn’t stop. Not before plowing through them with a smash of muscle against muscle.

Sorcha’s shriek caught in her throat. She pulled back on the reins in desperation to get the horse to stop.

Elfwyn did.

Sorcha did not.