Mary Reed McCall (18 page)

“Ah, yes—your leader,” Diana repeated, trying to sound as if she knew what he was talking about. “Silly me, but it seems that I’ve forgotten—what exactly is it that she leads you in?”

Frowning, Owin glanced at her again. “Battle, of course. I am one of
Chwedl’s
warriors.”

Diana stopped in her tracks at that, barely noticing that they’d reached the main door of the keep. “
Battle
…” She forced herself to nod knowingly, though her voice sounded as if it came from far away, thanks to the blood that had started pounding in her ears.

“We fight as often as possible for the freedom of our people,” Owin added, not seeming to notice her stunned stare as he guided her, weak-kneed, to a place where she might sit on the steps; ’twas a position for which she was profoundly grateful in the next moment, when she heard the rest of what he had to say.

“And a better warrior you’ll never find,” Owin added, looking out over the walls of Dunston to the mountains beyond, shaking his head in remembered awe. “’Tis why we call her
Chwedl
—a Welsh word meaning myth, or as you say in English, ‘legend’.” He swiveled his head to look at Diana again, his ebony eyes glowing with a passion and fervor she’d only ever seen sparking Aidan’s gaze.

“’Tis one of the reasons, lady,” Owin finished in a reverent voice, “that I joined her here as a protector. In truth I would die a thousand deaths in defense of her. For regardless of what your English king or your countrymen claim against it, the once and future king
has
returned to this life. Gwynne was born to lead all of Wales to freedom—the finest warrior ever to take breath—for she is the one, true Dark Legend.”

“D
amn it, Aidan, just deny it and be done with it.

’Tis too early in the morning for such foolery.”

Aidan stood before the hearth in his solar, leaning his arm on the mantel and staring into the cold gray ashes inside. Though the sun shone weakly through the shutters on the far wall, he hadn’t been to bed yet, and fatigue pressed in on his temples, adding to his black mood.

The churning in his gut was worse than before, too; it had begun the moment he’d been forced to release Gwynne from the celebration last night, and it hadn’t lifted since—a sick, hollow feeling that he’d had to grit his teeth and pretend didn’t exist as he’d returned to the great hall to face his betrothed, her father, and the rest of his guests. Clenching his jaw against it now, he swung his gaze to Diana, who sat on the elaborate carved bench near the table, her expression both nervous and accusing.

After raising a mocking brow to her, he looked back at Rex. “And where, exactly, did my dear sister supposedly
happen upon this…information that she decided to share with you?”

“Owin told me,” Diana snapped, every self-righteous inch of her demanding recognition. “Though he bears no blame, since he thought that I knew the truth already.”

“A belief I’m sure you encouraged in your own unique way,” Aidan said, flicking his gaze to indicate the clinging, provocatively cut gown she still wore from last night.

She gave him a black look, but before she could utter a fitting rejoinder, Rex broke in again.

“I told her ’twas ridiculous, but she was so insistent that I agreed to bring her to you, to let her hear you deny it herself.” Rex frowned. “However your silence is becoming as frustrating as her prating about outlaws and traitors. Just refute the allegations and let us all get back to bed where we belong.”

Aidan didn’t answer, his sardonic smile fixed, it seemed, as if it were frozen onto his face. Part of him wished that he could carry on the pretense and act as if he didn’t know what Diana or Rex were talking about; but another part of him knew that he could never do it. Indirect falsehood was one thing—an outright lie was another.

“I cannot refute it,” he said at last, his voice quiet as he held Rex’s gaze. “Gwynne is the Dark Legend, and I have been keeping her here under an assumed identity.”

“What?” his foster father choked.

“I knew it!” Diana burst out, shooting to her feet. Her hands clenched into fists. “You’re going to ruin us all with this—we’ll be executed for treason, just as Father was!” she cried, her words raking Aidan’s heart as surely as their shrill sound pierced his brain.

Rex hadn’t moved a muscle since Aidan’s confirmation of the charge, but now he lurched into motion, stepping forward to take Diana’s arm. “I think you’d better return to your chamber now, lass,” he said, leading her to the
door. “I need to talk to your brother in private for a few moments.”

“Nay.” Her eyes welled as she twisted in Rex’s grip to look at Aidan. “I want to hear him explain why he has done this to us. Why he has let lust override reason and honor. We will all end up paying the price for it! God help us, we will—” She broke down then, collapsing against Rex’s shoulder and sobbing so that her tears wet his shirt.

“Hush, child,” Rex soothed. “I will sort this out with your brother, you have my word on it. No more talk of tragedy, now. Go to your chamber and try to get some rest. I’ll speak with you later about this.”

Diana pulled back from him and sniffled a few more times, casting another wounded look at Aidan before she allowed Rex to lead her the rest of the way to the portal.

“Go on now,” Rex murmured, patting her on the back.

“And say nothing to anyone of what the Welshman told you or what was discussed in this room, do you understand?”

Wordlessly, Diana nodded, wiping the tips of her fingers beneath her eyes to remove the last traces of tears gathered there. Fixing her watery gaze on Rex, she pleaded, “You are the only one who might be able to make him see some sense. Promise that you’ll make him remove Gwynne from Dunston before ’tis too late.”

“I will straighten all of this out with your brother, Diana, never fear,” Rex cajoled, nudging her the rest of the way out of the room.

When the door had shut behind her, he turned to Aidan again, staring at him for a long moment before he finally said, “I think you have some explaining to do, son. Not the least of which is why you seem to think ’tis possible that this Welshwoman could be the Dark Legend. I saw Gwynne quite clearly last night. She is a beautiful
woman; I cannot believe that she is also England’s fiercest enemy.”

“Were you there when she threw Haslowe across the room?” Aidan asked dryly.

“’Tis beside the point. He was drunk. He could have slipped.”

“He didn’t slip. Gwynne tossed him.” The weariness pressed harder into Aidan’s temples, and he sighed, jabbing his fingers through his hair. “I know it sounds daft, Rex. Hell, if anyone had told me this same tale six months ago I’d have written him off as a fool,” Aidan answered.

“But I’ve seen Gwynne in action, the first time on the battlefield where we’d set up that surprise attack on the rebels two months ago.”

Aidan looked back to the ashes in the hearth. “Even at the moment when I realized it was her, I tried to convince myself that it was some kind of dream, sprung from my twisted imaginings. And it almost worked—until she sliced me with her blade.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “My arm felt the sting of her weapon as readily as my eyes saw the truth. Gwynne is the Dark Legend.”

His foster father scowled. “If that is the truth, then why haven’t you handed her over to the king to face the justice she so clearly deserves?”

Aidan looked at him, a bittersweet smile curving his lips. “Ah, yes. ’Tis the question of the hour, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it is,” Rex grated. “How about answering it?”

Aidan continued looking at him. “I cannot hand Gwynne over to the king for her crimes as the Dark Legend, because that is not all she is to me.”

Rex scowled more deeply. “You have qualms, then, about handing her over because she is a woman?”

“Nay—because she is a woman I loved. The same woman who was stolen and killed, or so I thought, by the Welsh rebels who attacked us in the wood beyond Dun
ston when I was a lad.” Aidan swallowed hard, struggling to keep at bay the memories of that morning and all of the painful, bitter feelings they evoked. Rex’s sympathetic gaze bore into him, and Aidan knew his foster father was remembering the little he’d been told of the events that had occurred just a few weeks before Aidan had come to live with him.

“Gwynne feels a similar connection to you as well, then?” Rex asked. “That is why she agreed to come to Dunston—to aid in hammering out a peace between her people and England?”

Aidan paused. “Not exactly. She doesn’t remember me, or anything about the first fourteen years of her life. She’s here because I convinced her that I need her in England for three months in order to dissolve the childhood betrothal I alleged between us. We’ve struck a peace for that span of time.”

“By the Rood, Aidan, what were you thinking to claim such a thing between you?”

“I have reason enough.”

Rex cursed under his breath, but Aidan continued his explanation, frowning, as he looked away. “My father told you about the raid in the wood that morning—that I took a Welsh arrow in the chest and was found later by Alana, incoherent, wandering the edges of de Brice land.” The backs of Aidan’s eyes felt like hot coals as he relived the moment in his mind.

“What he didn’t tell you, however, was that it was Gwynne who saved my life that day. We
had
pledged ourselves to each other in secret, that morning, full in the flush of young love. Right after, the Welsh warriors attacked. Gwynne could have run away and hidden when I was wounded, but she chose to stay and help me. The rebels were able to grab her because of it. She hit her head in the struggle, and they disappeared with her, carrying
her, lifeless, between them into the woods. ’Twas the last sight I had of her.”

Gritting his teeth, he finished, “Suffice it to say that, though I believed her to be dead, she apparently survived—only without her memory intact. She lost all knowledge of herself and of me. What the rebels did to her after that is anyone’s guess, but the result is that she believes herself to be the Dark Legend—and she has the battle skills to prove it.”

Aidan’s foster father shook his head. “By all the Saints, this just gets worse and worse,” he muttered.

“Aye, it does. ’Tis a pain that I’ve lived with for twelve years—now turned into a dilemma I’ve spent the past two months trying to resolve. You can see why I had no choice except to bring Gwynne to Dunston once I found her again. I owe her a life-debt, Rex, and I couldn’t very well repay it by handing her over to be executed.”

Rex let out his breath in a whistle. “Christ, I shouldn’t even be hearing any of this, Aidan. I am one of King Henry’s justiciars. ’Tis my duty to uphold the law—and there is a price on her head.” His eyes were shadowed with conflict. “Kinsman or nay, by rights I should be taking the both of you in for what I’ve learned here today.”

“I know, Rex, and I am sorry for it. I never wanted to involve you. ’Tis why I’d kept the truth from Diana as well, to protect her as much as I could.” Aidan gave a mocking smile. “I should have known that she’d suspect something eventually—and that she’d use her considerable wiles to get to the truth.”

“Aye, well, Diana can be handled for now; she’s too frightened about what may happen to gossip of it. But how many others at Dunston know the truth of Gwynne’s identity?”

“Most of my men, though they are sworn to silence.”

“And what makes you think one of them won’t decide
that the king’s favor outweighs the honor of his own word?” Rex argued.

“My men are loyal to
me
,” Aidan ground out, frowning as he met Rex’s challenging stare. “Besides,” he added more quietly, knowing the unfavorable reaction he was about to provoke, “several of their comrades’ lives weigh in the balance. They will not endanger them by talking.”

“Several of their comrades’ lives…?” Rex sputtered.

“What in blazes did you do, Aidan?”

“The men volunteered,” Aidan answered, striding over to the table near the window to pour a goblet of spiced wine. He needed something stronger to drink right now than ale, regardless of the early hour. “We traded with the Welsh. Four of my men for Gwynne, though she ended up bringing two of her bodyguards as well, at the insistence of an older warrior who was with her when I tracked her into the mountains.”

Aidan took a long drink, relishing the liquid’s bite as it slid down his throat. “I cannot hand her over to the king, because the bargain between us stipulates her safe return to her people for the safe return of my men. I must see her well back to Wales, or my men will die.”

“Damn it, man, then send her back to Wales now and be done with it!”

“’Tis impossible. I would only end up facing her in battle again, and I cannot—I
will
not—raise a weapon against her,” Aidan countered, swallowing the bitter taste that rose at the thought of that possibility. He directed his burning gaze on Rex again. “’Twould be poor repayment for the sacrifice she made for me all of those years ago.”

“What alternative do you have? Unless you plan to resign your position as the king’s leader against the rebels, ’tis your only option.”

“Nay, there is another possibility—one I’ve already commenced. I mean to make Gwynne remember her past
with me so that she will refute the Welsh on her own and cease to lead them in their rebellion against England.”

Rex stared at him, incredulous. “You cannot be serious…?”

“Aye—’tis the perfect solution. The king will get what he wants, and I will be able to fulfill my life-debt to Gwynne at the same time.” Aidan jabbed his hand through his hair again, blowing out his breath in frustration.

“God’s blood—first Kevyn, and now you…why does everyone seem to have such difficulty in seeing the benefit of this plan?”

“Because ’tis idiotic, that’s why.”

Aidan glared at him.

“What do you really think your chances are of succeeding in this?” Rex asked, returning his glare. “Each day that passes ’tis more dangerous to keep her here; you’re inviting trouble, just waiting for someone to discover who she really is. Diana is merely the first, for ’tis the nature of things that sooner or later the truth will out.” Rex cursed again. “How long has she been with you already—nearly two months? She hasn’t remembered anything yet. What makes you think she ever will?”

“I’ve seen glimpses of recognition—flashes of memory. I just need a little more time to bring it back the rest of the way, that’s all.”

“How much more time?” Rex demanded. “I want to know exactly how long you plan to let this go on, Aidan. ’Tis my neck stretched toward the chopping block now as well, you know.”

A rush of shame flooded Aidan, followed close by surging resolve. “You won’t be complicit in this, Rex, I swear it. You, Diana, or anyone else. ’Tis my choice. I will take full responsibility and face the consequences if it comes to that. It is just something that I need to do. I cannot explain it otherwise.”

After a long pause, Rex let out his breath and shook his head. “Much happens in this world that we do not expect, Aidan—outcomes which cannot be controlled by force of pure will. I fear ’tis another of your father’s legacies that you try to do so nonetheless, and have since you were a boy.” He shook his head again, muttering something about the sins of Gavin de Brice being visited on them all. But then he looked back at Aidan, grim acceptance etched in the lines of his face as he repeated, “So—how much more time do you need?”

“A month,” Aidan answered, conflicting feelings of gratitude and regret causing him to speak quietly. “I am close, Rex. I know I am. I will make her remember.”

Rex gave him a tired smile. “And what if it comes to naught, Aidan? What if she remembers and still chooses to continue leading the Welsh rebellion?”

Aidan looked away, not wanting to reveal just how often that same question had tormented him in the past weeks. “I will deal with that possibility when I am faced with it,” he answered. “But I cannot rest until I have done everything in my power to prevent her from returning to the dangers of the battlefield—or losing her life under the executioner’s blade.”