The opening of the outside door brought silence to the room. Everyone looked up to see Cadfael walk in, looking around with interest. His cloak swirled around him and his sword knocked against his leg. He seemed to bring in with him a hint of the cool air, a scent of horses, smoke and wine. It was a masculine smell and foreign in this room.

  The women dropped their eyes to their work demurely and waited. Lynette did, too, her heart skipping along a little faster. He could only be here because of her.

  Cadfael cleared his throat. “Queen Maela,” he acknowledged.

  “Good day to you, Cadfael,” Maela returned.

  “My lady Vivian,” Cadfael continued. “I wonder…if you would be so kind to lend me the services of your ladies. I have a tear in my tunic and no woman to take care of it.”

  Vivian stirred. “Lynette, perhaps you could repair the tunic in the storeroom and let us return to work?”

  Lynette picked up her basket and got to her feet. It was a reasonable request. While a man of rank stood in the room, the women could not turn their backs and work. Without looking at him, Lynette murmured, “This way, my lord,” and moved over to the inner storeroom. There was a curtain across the entrance, which would cut his view into the workroom.

  She closed the curtain behind him, her heart jumping. There were shelves on three side of the room and a little sorting table, which left little space. Cadfael seemed to fill the space even though there was a little room to step around him and move to the table.

  The looms set to work again, on the other side of the curtain. After a while, the weaving song began, too, only the women were tra-la-la-ing, instead of singing the words.

  Lynette smiled to herself and held out her hand. “The tunic, my lord?”

  Cadfael reached up and slid the pin from the brooch on his shoulder and the cloak fell away. He bundled it and put it on one of the shelves.

  Then he unbuckled his sword.

  With horror, Lynette realized that the tunic he wanted her to repair was the one he was wearing.

  She didn’t realize she was backing away from him until her shoulders bumped against the shelf behind her. Her dismay must have shown on her face, for he paused with his knife belt in one hand, the tunic hanging loose from his shoulders. “You have nothing to fear from me, remember? You are not a Saxon.” He kept his voice down, so it would not travel beyond the curtain. The merrily clacking looms covered the small sound he did make.

  She could see the tear in the tunic, now. It was where the shoulder met the arm, a long rip with tattered edges.

  Cadfael fingered it. “I wouldn’t bother you with it, only the edges keep catching on my cloak and tear more each time I take off my cloak.”

  It was a perfectly acceptable request, even reasonable. Lynette held out her hand. “Give it to me.” She did not move closer to him. The room was already felt too small for her comfort.

  He nodded and took off the tunic and held it out to her.

  Lynette stared at the undershirt he wore beneath. There was an identical tear in the wool, only not as long. The edges of the wool were unraveling.

  Her heart beat faster. “How did you tear the tunic?” she asked. Her voice sounded remote.

  Cadfael leaned forward slowly, as if he was trying to avoid startling her. He placed the tunic on the table and straightened, then looked down at the rent in the undershirt. “Knife, I think. I don’t quite remember. Perhaps a spear head? I came round after the fight was done, bleeding everywhere.”

  The tunic and undershirt had no blood on them. They were washed and unstained.

  She had seen her mother mending her father’s clothes many times in the past. Until this moment, she had never connected the mending with the making of the tears. Swords, knives, spears, arrows and the Saxons’ favorite, axes. There were more ways to kill and maim than there were ways to fix such wounds.

  “I should stitch the shirt, too,” Lynette said, forcing volume into her voice. “Otherwise, the wool will unravel and you’ll have no shirt left at all.”

  “I see.” He hesitated, then with quick movements, he stripped the shirt, too.

  She might have stared at his heavy chest and thick arms, except her gaze was drawn to the angry red scar on his shoulder, right where the tears in his tunic and shirt had been.

  He traced her gaze and ran the tip of his finger over the scar, from top to bottom. “Embarrassing, for the High King’s battle commander, no?”

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Lynette said.

  “I cannot afford to. This one was nearly my undoing. It was a good warning to keep up my guard. And my shield.” His smile was brief.

  The silence that built reminded Lynette why they were both squeezed into the tiny room. She held out her hand for the undershirt and he dropped the soft wool onto it.

  Unable to meet his gaze, she selected thread and a needle, then gathered up the stitches and loose ends of wool, tying them off so they would not unravel. The construction of the sleeve, with a square inset at the bottom, made her pause. She spread the sleeve to better examine it, her heart hurrying. “I know this style shirt. They don’t make shirts this way in the south. This is from the north.”

  “True enough,” he said evenly. He had his arms crossed and leaned against the thick door frame. The leather leggings hung from tight hips. His stomach was flat and strong with muscles. So were his arms. The tendons flexed in them as she looked up. Was he clenching his hands, hidden behind his elbows? The expression on his face was smooth and neutral.

  Lynette brushed her fingertips over the shirt sleeve, her eyes pricking with tears. Her throat ached with a sudden and unexpected longing to see the rugged peaks and valleys of home and to take in the crisp air.

  Only, that would never happen. She would never return home, for one of the unspoken expectations of her time in Maridunum was that Gwilym would find her a suitable husband—a war duke or perhaps a king or prince if she was lucky. They would take her to their home, instead, and that would become her new world.

  “There is a reason they make shirts that way, where I come from,” Cadfael said.

  Where he came from? Lynette blinked her eyes rapidly to disperse the tears, then looked up at him. Her throat was too tight with tears to speak.

  He nodded, as if she had spoken, anyway. “My wife explained it to me, once. The looms are smaller than they are here in the south, for lumber strong enough for a large loom is rare in higher plains. The shirts are put together with many pieces, instead of three large pieces, as they make them down here.”

  Lynette nodded, for she had made dozens of shirts just like this. The sleeves were four pieces each, the body another four pieces, front and back. The seams made the garment stronger and warmer.

  She kept her hands moving, repairing the tear. “Your wife made this shirt?” she asked when she could speak once more without revealing her upset.

  “Not that one, no,” he said quietly. “There are none left now, that she made. Ygraine died many years ago.”

  “I see. Ygraine…she came from the north, too?”

  His answer did not come at once and she did not press him for it. Lynette focused on her stitching instead.

  “There is a place in the north, that is so wild and so mysterious that some say it is where the gods walk,” he said. “The lake there ripples when there is no breeze. The mountains sing on certain days and there are crags the birds will not fly near. Men speak of giant white wolves who guard the doors to the underworld that a man might find there if he looks properly.”

  Lynette shivered.

  “Sometimes,” Cadfael continued, “the peaks are wreathed in mist and clouds and they seem far away and cold. Sometimes, though, they are clear and so close you have only to reach out your hand to touch them. The streams that run from those peaks are clear and cold. To drink from them makes a man courageous and a woman beautiful, so now all the women of the north are of a beauty unsurpassed, while the men of the north are sought as warriors who never fail.”

  Lynette might have laughed at the tale he was telling, except that she had heard such tales all through her childhood. To listen to someone relate the stories now, as she worked on the shirt, seemed to take her back to the hearth where she had heard them all the first time.

  “There is a mountain there that challenges the strength of a man,” Cadfael continued. “They call it Cader Idris. If a man dares sleep upon its slopes, he will wake either mad, or a poet. North of Cader Idris lies the grandest mountain of them all. Y Wyddfa, where giants walk. One of them smashed his hammer into the earth, a long time ago, for the rocks he threw up can still be seen, a stony crown scoring the ground. That is the land where Ygraine came from. I, too. Tal-y-llyn, on the shores of Llyn Mwyngil, where they say the gods linger still.”

  The silence throbbed.

  Lynette’s heart would not stop its heavy beat. “Did you sleep upon Cader Idris?”

  Cadfael smiled, his gaze looking inward. “Once, long ago, when I was young and foolish. My friends challenged me and…well, I do not like to lose.”

  “So, you are either mad or a poet.” Lynette had already decided he was a poet, for the spell he had just woven, when speaking of his home, had prompted visions of snowy peaks, clear running streams and the song of the wind playing across them all. The scent of snow in the air and farther west, the scent of the sea. When the wind was right, the smell of salt drifted across the land.

  Lynette cut the thread and held out his shirt. “The circle of stones where the giant smashed his hammer. That is Bryn Cader Faner, yes?”

  His fingers curled about the shirt. His gaze met hers, startled. “You know the place?”

  “I do.”

  The shirt slid from her fingers as he took it back. “You read about it, then. No, you heard it when men spoke of it, while not seeing you were there.” There was a teasing note in his voice.

  “I grew up in Tomen y mur,” she replied.

  His brow lifted. “At the feet of Y Wyddfa. They say that place is holy, that gods linger and whisper their messages and that is why the Romans abandoned their fort, there.” He busied himself putting the shirt on. Lynette reached for the tunic and smoothed the edges of the rent together before beginning to stitch it closed.

  “Your father is Mostyn, then? One of Vortigern’s war dukes,” he said.

  “You would know him, I think.”

  “I do.” Cadfael tugged the shirt down, then inspected the repair. “A good man. A good fighter.” He frowned and his gaze came back to her. “I judged him to be violently loyal to Vortigern. How is it you are here?”

  “With a Roman king?” Lynette finished.

  “Well, yes.”

  “My mother arranged it. Gwilym is her uncle.”

  “I’m sure she has other uncles, ones who are in higher in Vortigern’s favor.”

  “Yet she sent me here.” Lynette focused on her stitching, for she would not explain her mother’s reasoning to Cadfael of all people. In the south, with Gwilym’s people, you will not draw Vortigern’s eye, her mother had explained, the day she broke the news that Lynette would join Gwilym’s court.

  “Then we are both strangers here, aren’t we?” Cadfael said.

  Lynette looked up at him, noticing yet again the blue of his eyes. There was a strength in his face that said he had endured much and would bear more. “We are a long way from home,” she agreed.

  He bent, bringing his lips to hers.

  A proper lady would shrink back, out of his reach, Lynette told herself. A gentle woman would run as far from him as possible. A true lady would be horrified he pressed unwelcome attentions upon her. A lady would not have put herself in the position where he could.

  She did none of those things. Frozen, she let him kiss her. Her heart squeezed and her breath caught as his mouth touched hers, for it was a gentle brush of his lips. For such a big man, a warrior, she would have expected a kiss from him to be as rough and harsh as any other man’s kiss.

  He did not grind his mouth against hers, bruising her flesh. It was the lightest of kisses, barely there at all.

  Yet her heart turned over and her breath escaped in a ragged exhale.

  He pulled away from her, just enough so he could look at her. He seemed puzzled. The pulse in his neck jumped.

  Lynette pushed to her feet and kissed him. There was no decision behind her action, only pure wanting. She would experience that gentle touch once more. She would taste him again. She would taste him properly.

  She wound her arm about his neck, to help her reach his lips, for he straightened in shock. With her other hand, she steadied his face, feeling the rasp of whiskers against her palm. Her fingertips, though, smoothed over soft flesh.

  She pressed her lips against his and breathed her delight into him. Holding herself against him like this, she could sense his rock-like strength.

  Cadfael stirred. His arms came around her and he pressed her back until the shelves halted her. Still he moved, until the length of his body was against hers, holding her up. He kissed her, his hands about her face. It was still gentle, although there was no softness to this kiss. He plundered her mouth. His tongue stroked her lips and pressed inside, as his fingers stroked the flesh of her throat.

  Lynette’s thoughts fractured and scattered. Instead, she became a purely sensory creature, absorbing the pleasure he gave her with the simple touch of his lips and the fine stroke of his fingers.

  Until he groaned and grew still.

  Lynette drew in an unsteady breath. Her whole body throbbed with the power of the kiss and she blinked, for the light in the little storage room was now overwhelming.

  Cadfael stepped away from her. He held up his hands, his palms toward her. She understood. Stop. No further.

  Silently, he picked up his sword and knife belt and his cloak, bundling them in one arm. Then he reached for the partially repaired tunic, too, and pulled it from the table, his gaze locked on hers.

  Lynette wanted to protest that the mend was incomplete. Her voice failed her. There were too many emotions in his face and his eyes for her to understand all of them, although the one she did recognize stole her tongue.

  Guilt.

  He rammed the tunic on top of his cloak, turned and shoved the curtain aside, then strode from the room, across the bigger workroom, to the outer door and tore it open.

  The door swung shut behind him, leaving Lynette standing at the storeroom door, her heart racing, her body aching with unfulfilled need and her thoughts bouncing off each other.

  The women all stared at her, their eyes big. All, except Vivian, who smiled and bent her head back over her work.

  Chapter Eight

  It was cold outside, more so than it had felt when he stepped onto the verandah and explained to the guard why he sought entry to the women’s workroom.

  Cadfael shoved past the guard, back onto the tiles. The guard gave him a startled look, his eyes sliding down to the bundle in Cadfael’s arm.

  Nothing had changed out here. Men still moved through their sword practice in disciplined ranks, their movements measured by older, more experienced warriors. Servants and slaves fed the pigs and goats. Grooms brushed down horses out in the sun, where their coats gleamed with good health and care.

  In the far corner by the abandoned barrel, Mervyn and five men who looked to him sat on the edge of the verandah, their swords sheathed and cups in their hands. The minimum daily practice every man undertook as soon as he was strong enough to hold a sword in one hand apparently did not apply to Gwilym’s oldest son.

  Mervyn had been sprawled in the same place when Cadfael emerged from the stable after seeing to Mars and crossed the yard to the women’s quarters. Mervyn’s eyes were bloodshot, yet his focus seem unimpaired by the wine.

  After two days of avoiding the prince with curt excuses, Cadfael thought Mervyn now understood Cadfael did not want a petty princeling hanging from his elbow—not one with a reputation for cowardice, who wanted only to enhance his own reputation by lingering beside Cadfael, where he could catch Vortigern’s eye.

  Cadfael would have to walk behind Mervyn and his men to reach his quarters. At this moment, he didn’t care. As he moved down the long verandah, his thoughts focused upon what had just happened.

  Why had he kissed Lynette? He had never been tempted to kiss another woman, not since Ygraine had passed. He’d bedded plenty, both whores and willing maids, yet he had not kissed any of them.

  He had not made a conscious decision to take the kiss. He had been moved by learning Lynette was of the mountains, just as he was. It didn’t explain why he had kissed her, though.

  His heart thudded unhappily, guilt swirling in his belly and making his head hurt.

  He ignored Mervyn when he reached him and moved along the verandah to the door of his borrowed room, at the furthest distance from the women’s quarters. He had his spare hand on the left-hand side of the door and was about to push it open, when Mervyn spoke, behind him.

  “Look at him, tail between his legs. Can’t bed a woman, can’t even get his clothes back on before she tosses him.”

  The other five sniggered obediently.

  The thudding in Cadfael’s head exploded, spilling fury through his blood and wiping all thought.

  He dropped everything he carried and leapt at the princeling, his hands reaching for the man’s throat.

  The gasp of the others warned Mervyn, who spun and staggered to his feet, out of the way.

  That was good. That was fine by Cadfael. He pushed off the edge of the verandah with his boot, flinging himself at the man. His shoulder rammed into Mervyn’s belly, forcing the air from his chest in a forceful grunt.

  Mervyn landed on his back in the muddy yard. Pigs squealed and scurried out of the way. The men thrusting their swords into imaginary enemies spun on their heels, alerted.

  Cadfael got to his knees, pushing himself up with his hands on Mervyn’s chest. He gripped one hand with the other and swung, the back of his fist connecting with the man’s jaw.

  Mervyn grunted again and spat blood. He surged up onto his feet, his bloodshot eyes filled with fury.

 

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