Page 13 of The Bear's Heart

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“If I let you take her.” Melwas’s voice oozed menace. “Then I want a guarantee from you– from the man of God you claim to be– that I will be left unharmed. That Arthur will march away from here with his army and leave Dinas Brent and my Summer Country untouched.” He gave me an angry shake. “Or I’ll send just a few parts of her back with you right now.” From the sheath on his hip, he pulled out a dagger, a long, evil blade that caught the glow of feeble light from the winter sun. He set the point against the side of my nose. “And we’ll start now, with this.”

The point pricked my skin and warm blood ran down my cheek, salty on my lips, the smell of iron strong in my nostrils. My treacherous stomach began to heave.

“I repeat my warning,” Jerome said, apparently unmoved by my imminent danger. “If you harm a hair on her head, and that includes her nose, then Arthur will hunt you down like the dog you are.” He might have been discussing the weather with an old acquaintance. I had to admire his sangfroid, but acknowledge that I didn’t share it. I couldn’t stop shaking with fear as the point of that lethal dagger dug into my nose.

“You’re a man of God,” Melwas spat, gobs of spittle striking my cheek. “If you give your word, then I expect you to keep it– and make sure he does the same.” His angry glare looked impotent now. “Do I have your word?”

Jerome pursed his lips in thought.

What was there to think about? The man was about to slice off my nose. Tears mingled with the blood now, even though I’d been trying hard not to cry. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Olwyn wringing her hands in terror. It wasn’t her nose in peril. Did she fear his recriminations if he had to let me go?

The silence was absolute as every man’s gaze rested on Jerome.

“You have my word as a man of God,” the Abbot said.

The dagger dropped from my face and he released my bruised arm. My hand went up to my nose automatically and came away wet with blood. I stepped away from Melwas.

“Come here, child,” Jerome said, holding out his hand to me.

Glancing sideways at Melwas, I stepped up to the Abbot, and he set his hand gently on my shoulder. “Get up behind Corwyn on his horse. Be quick about it.” He never even looked at me, but held Melwas’s furious black eyes with his own, as though he feared that if he were to look away, Melwas might change his mind.

Corwyn stretched a hand down to me, and I took it. The garron wasn’t large, but she looked sturdy. My legs were still shaking. When Corwyn gave me a pull there was little I could do to help him, but his brute strength got me up onto his horse behind his saddle. The skirts of my gown rode up to my knees as I sat astride, revealing my tall, soft leather riding boots. Locking my arms firmly around Corwyn’s waist, I held on tight, my cheek against the comforting rough cloth of his cloak. I didn’t care that he was only a lowly layman who’d been quite mean to me when I’d been his prisoner. Now he was one of my saviors, and I couldn’t hold on tightly enough.

Jerome held out his hand to Melwas. “Thank you,” he said, as Melwas grudgingly took it. “You have my word, my Lord Melwas.” A murmur of something that might have been agreement echoed through the watching warriors.

Melwas’s eyes flicked sideways and I followed his gaze to Olwyn, who was trying to make herself as small as possible. He licked his lips in what could only have been anticipation.

I lifted my head. “Wait!” I said imperiously, fighting to keep the tremor out of my voice and regain the gravitas of a real queen. “I need a servant, and this woman has served me well these three days.” I pointed at Olwyn. “I want to take her with me to serve me at Din Cadan.”

I’d deliberately used the word servant. I was counting on the fact that Melwas might think making his mother my servitor would be a suitable punishment for her, rather than wanting to torture her himself. She didn’t glance up, but her narrow shoulders hunched a little more. She couldn’t have looked more like a potential servant if she’d tried.

There was a long silence. Only the wind coming in across the salt flats from the sea whispered in the eaves of the hall behind us.

Melwas’s mouth curved into a caricature of a smile. “Take her,” he said. “Do with her as you will. What do I care?”

Jerome held out his hand to her. “Come, Mother, sit up behind Calum.” He led her to the second layman and helped her up to sit behind the man, her thin arms around his sturdy waist.

Without another glance toward Melwas, Jerome sprang with surprising agility into his own saddle, his bare calves and heavy ankle boots exposed as his habit rode up. He turned his horse sharply downhill toward the gates. Corwyn, and Calum, the second layman, followed behind him.

Chapter Six

“You did what?”Arthur shouted, his face suffused with rage.

Jerome stood in front of him in the forest clearing, his expression calm as ever, hands neatly folded into the opposite sleeves of his habit. He didn’t answer. Arthur knew exactly what he’d done.

Standing to one side of Arthur, I held Olwyn close in the circle of my arms as she shook with fear. “It’s all right,” I whispered. “Arthur’s not like Melwas. He’s just angry about the conditions Jerome’s agreed to.”

We’d ridden down the hill and taken the narrow causeway through the marshes to the forest edge, where the track widened considerably. None of it was recognizable. On my way to Dinas Brent, which had now retreated to a distant hill in the grey of the afternoon, I’d been too frightened to take anything in.

At the forest edge, guards Arthur had posted signaled our arrival on ahead and we came upon Arthur’s camp about two hundred yards inside the forest.

As we rode into the wide clearing where they’d made camp, in overgrown fields around the clustered, ramshackle buildings of a long deserted farm, Arthur came striding to meet me, closely followed by Merlin. Slipping from Corwyn’s horse, I ran into Arthur’s arms, tears of relief streaming down my face. As he held me close, his face buried in my hair, I clung to him, breathing in the scent of sweat and horses and campfires that I’d feared never to smell again.

“It was my fault,” he said. “I should never have entrusted you to those three. I should have paid more attention to who I was sending to escort you.”

“You couldn’t have known.” My voice was muffled against his cloak. I was willing to forgive his oversight now that I was safely back in his embrace. He bent his head and lifting my chin, kissed me on the lips. I reached up to touch his cheek, hungry for comfort.

But then Jerome told him what he’d agreed to in order to get me away from Melwas, and Arthur was not pleased.