Dawnflight (12 page)

Cynda left the room. The secret remained locked within Gyan’s heart.

THE FOLLOWING morning dawned as bright and calm as its forebear had been dismal and wild. A mantle of snow was proof, despite the tradition that declared Àmbholc as the first day of spring, that winter remained unbroken. But the sun’s radiant promises streamed from the heavens. Like the cycle of death and birth, the advent of spring was inevitable, and just as jubilantly celebrated.

Gyan’s cough was gone. Her announcement won a critical stare from Cynda, followed by a flurry of motion as she felt Gyan’s forehead, cheeks, and neck.

“Bad tidings.” As Gyan began to protest, Cynda grinned. “I’m going to have to send you back to your duties. Can’t have you lounging around here with so much to be done.”

Laughing, Gyan flung a pillow at her would-be tormentor, who deftly caught it and tossed it back. Feet draped over the side of the bed, she flexed her arms. “Does this mean everything? Sword practice too?”

“Aye, sword practice too.” Cynda expelled a noisy sigh. “Mind you don’t overdo, though, or you’ll just end up back here.”

Gratefully, Gyan donned her battle-gear for the first time in more than a sennight. Small wonder she hadn’t forgotten how. Hefting her practice sword, she was dismayed at how heavy it seemed.

“Don’t worry, my dove. Your full strength will return soon.” Cynda patted the doves on Gyan’s arm. “Just give it time.”

So this illness was determined to leave its legacy. Gyan knew only one sure remedy: weapons practice. And taking this medicine would be a pleasure. She bid Cynda a cheery farewell and left her chambers.

In the corridor, Per favored her with a warm hug, although for an instant he seemed strangely hesitant, as if he feared she might break.

“Gyan! I’m so glad to see you’re feeling better.” His practice sword bounced against his leather-clad thigh as they resumed their pace. “Are you well enough for a bout?”

Against Per, who always managed to win, even on her very best days? No, it would be much wiser to recover her strength against the practice posts. Per would have to wait for another day.

They reached the main entrance and stepped outside. Snow was beginning to retreat before the sun’s steady advance, leaving glistening mud like the track of a monstrous worm. The yard was a slushy mess from wagons and animals and people passing through. The practice fields didn’t appear to be any better. Yet Conall, Airc, Mathan, Rhys, and several other pairs of warriors were engrossed in mock combat, doubtless glad not to be penned inside the feast hall.

She was about to tell Per of her decision to practice alone when an unusual sight caught her eye.

“Well, Gyan? Are we going—”

“Shh, look.”

Across the compound, a knot of slaves rethatching a building had climbed down to rest. But this was no ordinary rest period. Rather than trying to devour as much food and ale as possible, the men seemed more interested in someone standing in their midst. When the slaves’ overseer ordered them back to work, four Breatanaich remained: Dafydd, Katra, and their two oldest children. They crossed the yard slowly, heads bowed. Their third child, the infant born a few days after Samhainn, was nowhere to be seen.

Dafydd, Gyan realized as the family approached, was singing. More like chanting, actually, so low that the words were impossible to determine. But even when he drew close enough that she should be able to understand him, she could not. The chant was not Breatanaiche, but it evoked that same sense of the divine she had discerned in the slaves’ song.

In Dafydd’s arms rested a short, rough-hewn oak coffin.

Hand to mouth, Gyan gasped. She turned to her brother. “What do you know about this? When did the bairn die?” Although Dafydd and his family were well out of earshot on their way to Arbroch’s main gate, she didn’t raise her voice above a whisper. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Per took her hand. “It happened three—nay, four days ago. You were so ill, Cynda thought it best not to upset you.”

She pulled her hand away and gazed at the mourners in tortured silence. The bairn, conceived in slavery yet born in freedom, would never know the delights of this world. Or the next. The Old Ones had no use for children in their realm.

Caledonaich believed the spirits of children walked the earth, their bodiless voices creating special music: the whisper of the brook, the sigh of the willow, the wail of the wind. A bleak eternity indeed.

For this reason, the death of a child was beheld as a tragedy, like the late spring frost that kills the flower before it can bear fruit. A Caledonach child was never mourned quietly, and the family never mourned alone.

Not so with Dafydd’s wee son.

Feeling tears well in her eyes, Gyan wiped them away. She couldn’t fathom the calmness of Dafydd and his family in the face of their loss. Didn’t they realize the bairn’s spirit would never know rest? Or did they believe in a kinder fate, one that offered eternal peace even to children?

Could this god of Dafydd’s grant such a wish? For the sake of the child and his family, she hoped so.

Dafydd, Katra, Mari, and young Dafydd disappeared through the gates. Gyan watched even after they were well beyond sight. The bairn’s death triggered the memory of the night of the prophecy in all its brutal detail. For the first time, she fully comprehended how much power the memory—and the prophecy itself—held over her. It was not a welcome feeling.

She shook her head to banish the scene. Letting a handful of mere words control her life was absurd. The High Priest didn’t say when she would die. Each day, then, deserved to be lived to the fullest. Beginning with that swordfight Per wanted.

But before she could move, a sharp crack and a startled outcry caught her attention. She traced the sounds to the building the slaves had been rethatching. A man atop one of the ladders had lost his footing when the rung supporting him broke. The ladder lay on the ground, useless, while the man clung to the thatch and his fellow workers scrambled to bring another ladder to bear. Too late; he lost his grip and fell. The ground cut off his scream.

Without realizing where the command had come from, Gyan found herself sprinting, not toward the accident as Per had done, but to the infirmary. At the first physician she saw, she stopped only long enough to blurt out what had happened, and ran off. Only by the sound of an extra pair of pounding feet did she know the physician was following her. But, as Cynda had predicted, Gyan’s accursed sickness spawned an overwhelming urge to cough. When she halted, hands to knees and gasping, the physician stopped beside her, but between coughs she waved him on. The spasm passed, and she continued walking as briskly as she dared.

By the time she reached the scene, her cough was under control, but the crowd wasn’t. She couldn’t believe the number that had gathered in such a short time, children and animals included, and they were leaning forward and writhing and wriggling and standing on tiptoe and shoving and yapping and anything else they could think of to improve the view. Even many of the priests had come to investigate. Of the physician there was no sign; presumably, the people had had sense enough to let him through. Seeing the fallen slave from her position behind the mass of bodies was impossible. But if he were alive, he wouldn’t remain that way much longer if the crowd didn’t back off to give him air.

She cleared her throat and, in the best command voice she could muster, ordered everyone not directly involved to return to his or her duties. Obedience was not swift at first, but as people realized who had spoken, they began, reluctantly but respectfully, peeling away like layers from an onion. She stood her ground, arms crossed and expression stern, until the only folk to remain were Ogryvan and Per, the priest Vergul, the slaves of the work party, their Caledonach overseer, a woman slave with three children, and, of course, the physician and his patient.

Gyan recognized the slave as Rudd, one of the most skilled of the slaves at Arbroch. Small wonder he’d been up on that ladder. He was lying on the ground and very much alive. His head was thrashing, and groans escaped from between gritted teeth as he flailed both fists against the ground in obvious pain. The physician was massaging his legs, which were curiously still. More than once, he asked Rudd to try moving them, but despite the slave’s exertion, nothing happened. Rudd’s wife, Gweneth, knelt at his head, stroking his temples as tears coursed down her cheeks. The children, none older than ten, stood quietly behind their mother, their faces displaying a mixture of sadness, confusion, and fear.

She approached her father and gave him a questioning look.

Fingers to chin and frowning, he slowly shook his head. “It’s bad, lass. His back—he’ll never walk again.” He laid a hand on Gyan’s shoulder and Per’s. “Come. There’s nothing more we can do here.” Sorrow dominated his tone. His hands fell away as he turned to leave. Per fell into step beside him, but when Gyan didn’t, Ogryvan glanced back. “Gyan?”

As with the impulse to fetch the physician, she felt a distinct urge to stay. But what more could she do? The children. The sight of the poor waifs, with their father lying in crippled agony before them, wrenched her heart. Fist in mouth and eyes wide, the youngest shrank from Gyan to cling to her mother’s tunic, but the older two didn’t seem to mind when she knelt to wrap an arm around each of them. Blinking away tears and afraid her voice might betray her, Gyan gazed up at Ogryvan with a look she hoped would convey the idea that she would leave only after she had given what comfort she could. With a nod, he motioned for Per to follow him to the training area.

The physician rose and ordered the construction of a litter. The movement from the work party in response to their overseer’s commands seemed obscene when weighed against the fact that one of their number would never be able to do even the simplest tasks.

“You’re giving up?” Gyan asked the physician.

“I might be able to help his pain, but—” Sighing, he ran a hand through his graying hair. With a glance at the grieving family, he beckoned Gyan to join him. She gave the children another hug, stood, and walked to where he had moved, a few paces away from the man’s feet. He whispered, “My lady, I’ve seen this sort of injury before. Too many times. Different variants but all with the same result.” Helplessness and frustration invaded his gaze. “The best physician alive couldn’t heal an injury like this.”

Though she wanted to deny it, for the sake of Rudd and his family, her heart confirmed the stark truth of the physician’s statement. She glanced at the stern-faced Vergul, then at Rudd. There was no use asking for divine intervention. No Caledonach priest would pray for a Breatan. And even if the gods consented to listen to Gyan, she could pray all day and half the night to no avail. As a Breatanach slave, Rudd laid so far beneath the Old Ones’ notice, he might as well have been born a sparrow.

And yet, Gyan realized with growing incredulity as she peered past the physician’s shoulder, praying was exactly what Gweneth seemed to be doing. Gweneth had shifted to cradle Rudd’s head in her lap, palms pressed flat to his cheeks. Her head was bowed so far that her chin rested on her chest. Her lips were moving, but if any sound was emerging, Gyan couldn’t hear it. Even the children had struck similar poses.

Didn’t they realize the futility of their actions?

The sound of running drew Gyan’s attention. Dafydd, fresh dirt caked to his hands and fresh grief marring his face, was approaching. His family—what was left of it—wasn’t far behind him. Apparently, they’d returned from burying their bairn to learn of the accident; with as many people as Gyan had had to chase from the scene, she wouldn’t have been surprised if all Caledon found out within the sennight.

But what did surprise her was to see Dafydd drop to his knees, clasp Rudd’s hand without taking the time to wipe the dirt from his own, and begin to chant. Soft and reedy at first, the sound gradually swelled until his voice seemed to pulse with confidence. Katra and Gweneth blended their higher voices with his, to stunning effect. It didn’t matter to Gyan that the words were unknown to her. If this divine-sounding music couldn’t charm the One God into helping this unfortunate man, then nothing could.

Careful not to give any outward sign of what she was doing, she added her own silent prayers for the man’s recovery. To whom she was praying, she wasn’t sure. The Old Ones couldn’t be bothered with the plight of a foreign slave, and the One God certainly had no reason to heed her, either. But that didn’t prevent her from hoping some good would come from her supplication.

A bizarre thought crossed her mind to ask Rudd to move his feet. Skepticism wrinkling her brow, Gyan glanced around. The physician was directing the placement of the completed litter, the slaves were doing his bidding, Dafydd and the women were singing, Vergul was regarding the singers with patent disgust, and the work party’s overseer was standing several paces away, looking increasingly impatient to get his men back to their roofing work. Where, Gyan wondered, had that thought come from?

But when it repeated, stronger, she acted upon it. Two slaves stooped to move Rudd to the litter, but she ordered them to wait, knelt beside him, and gave voice to her strange mental command. Rudd winced and clenched his fists. When no movement occurred, she was disappointed for him but not surprised. After a few seconds, a look slowly spread across his face—not of pain but of consummate joy.