“Now you’ve seen for yourself your friend is on the mend, you can leave him in peace,” she told the boy as she wrapped his cloak around him and pulled on her own. “He still needs plenty of rest. Don’t worry, you’ll see him again.” She turned to Dodinal. “I’ll return soon.”
The knight picked a shard of nut from between his teeth. “Don’t feel as if you have to for my sake. Your place is with your son. You should spend your time with him, not with me.”
“I will, but later. First I want to clean the wound, perhaps apply another poultice. You look much better this morning; it’s obviously done you good. You might be up and about sooner than I thought.”
That prospect alone was worth any amount of foul-smelling muck smeared on his leg. Only a day had passed since the fever broke, and already he felt like tearing out his hair with boredom and frustration. He felt his spirits lift at the thought of moving on.
Rhiannon was likeable and caring and there was something about the son, his oddness notwithstanding, that Dodinal found strangely beguiling. Perhaps it was because they were both outsiders. But they were not a good enough reason to stay. He was not a part of their lives and had no interest in becoming one.
When Rhiannon returned she brought his clothes, folded and carried in a neat bundle in her arms, with his boots balanced on top. “All mended, as I promised,” she said as she stooped to place the pile at the end of the bed. That done, she took off her cloak and hung it up. “Not quite as good as new, but close.”
“You did this?” Dodinal said admiringly. The ripped leggings had been expertly stitched, likewise the tear in the front of his tunic where the wolf had leapt on him.
“Not me,” Rhiannon laughed. “There are women in the village who can work wonders with a needle and thread. Yes, I stitched your leg, that was straightforward enough. The rest I left to them.”
Dodinal frowned. “And my belongings?”
“You mean your sword? Don’t worry, it’s safe with Idris. I would have brought it with me, but I already had enough to carry and the ground is icy underfoot. It could have been dangerous.”
Dodinal nodded, placated for now. The sword was not just another weapon. “Very well. And my shield and pack?”
“I have not seen them and they have not been mentioned. You must have dropped them before Idris found you.”
“Damn,” he said softly. The shield he could live without, but losing the pack was a blow. It had contained the last of his store of dried meat, a hand axe to cut wood for shelter, some knives, and a flint and steel together with kindling to make fire, along with other oddments that had been of use. Without it, surviving the weather and wilderness would be an even greater struggle.
“I’m sorry,” Rhiannon said. “But there’s no chance of finding them, not now. The snow will have covered them and the tracks the men made bringing you here.” She hesitated. “For a wandering wild man, your clothes are well made.”
Her raised eyebrows asked a silent question that Dodinal did not answer. “You should turn around while I dress,” he said instead.
She crossed her arms and tilted her head to one side. “You can wait until after I’ve left, or better yet, when you have fully recovered. Now keep still while I see how that leg is coming along.”
Dodinal did as he was told. This time he felt no embarrassment as she uncovered the stitches and prodded the flesh around the wound. There was very little pain. “Very good,” she said. “I don’t see the need for another poultice. The swelling has almost entirely gone.” Her voice turned serious. “Do you always heal this quickly?”
“Hard to say. I have never been mauled by a wolf before.”
She ignored his attempt at levity. “There is something strange about you, Dodinal. You’re not like any man I know.”
“In what sense?”
“In every sense.”
When Dodinal made no reply, she did not question him further. Instead she busied herself retying the cloth, brought him a beaker of water and made sure there was enough wood on the fire. “I’ll leave you to rest. Sleep if you can. The shadows under your eyes tell me you are not yet fully recovered.”
He felt a sudden need to talk. “Stay a while.”
“That isn’t possible,” she said, with no hint of apology. “It was different when you were sick. Now you are awake, it wouldn’t be right for me to be here alone with you.”
So that was it. “Fair enough. The questions can wait.”
“I will bring food later. Owain wants to see you again.”
As she reached for her cloak Dodinal impulsively asked, “Where is the boy’s father?”
The question stopped her in her tracks. In the charged moment of silence that followed, Dodinal regretted blurting it out; he hadn’t wanted to cause offence. To his relief she smiled, a small, sad smile. “He died four years ago, when Owain was little.”
“I’m sorry.” It was the best he could manage.
“He was taken sick,” Rhiannon continued unprompted, looking at Dodinal with eyes that saw only the past. “It was nothing at first: he complained of feeling tired, and we thought nothing of it. Then he lost his appetite. If you knew Elwyn like I did, you would have known then that something was wrong.”
She sat on the bench and ran a hand through her hair. “The weight began to fall off him. So I gathered healing plants in the forest and persuaded him to eat them, which was no easy task. He was as big a baby as you.”
Again came that fleeting smile, and in it, Dodinal saw the great love that husband and wife had shared.
“But it made no difference. As the weeks passed he became weaker and weaker until he could not stand on his feet unaided. Owain was four then. Old enough to know that his father was ill, but too young to understand his father was dying.
“He lay in his bed for weeks. He was the toughest of men, my Elwyn, but night after night, he would cry out with the pain of it. When the end came, the tears I wept were as much of gratitude as loss. I could not bear to see him suffer. Does that sound selfish to you?”
“Not at all,” he said softly. “No man deserves to die that way, let alone a brave man like your husband.”
“Thank you,” she said, getting up from the bench. “Now perhaps you can understand why I will always be in your debt for saving Owain. Without him, I would have no reason to live. And I suspect it’s also why he is so desperate to be around you all the time.”
“Because I remind him of his father?” To his surprise, Dodinal found the idea did not sit uneasily. After all these years, he still could not think of his own father without an aching sadness.
“Because he needs someone to look up to.”
Uneasy, Dodinal cleared his throat. “Then he would be better off looking up to others. I am hardly a shining example.”
“Oh, I think you are. You just haven’t realised it yet.”
She turned abruptly and took her cloak from the peg, a clear indication there was nothing further to be said on the matter. “Now, remember what I told you. Try to sleep if you can. I’ll bring whatever food can be spared, when it is ready.”
Time passed maddeningly slowly once she had left. Dodinal tried to sleep, but the tumbling thoughts in his head kept him awake. Finally he could tolerate it no longer; despite Rhiannon’s admonitions, he pushed the furs away and set about getting to his feet.
He did so slowly and carefully, using the wall for support, not wanting to risk tearing the stitches that bound the wound shut. Even then it was not easy. When he was finally standing, dizziness overcame him and he had to wait for it to pass.
Once his head was clear, he tested his right leg, putting as much weight on it as he dared. Satisfied it would not collapse under him, he took a few tentative steps past the fire. A pot of simmering water was suspended from an iron tripod over it, and a smaller pot stood in the ashes at the edge, containing what looked like the muddy remnants of the poultice. He shuffled across to the door, overwhelmed by an impulsive desire to see, feel and smell the outside world.
The wind threatened to tear the door from his grasp. It buffeted him, making his hair and beard dance. Cold cut through the light clothes he wore, and which he now suspected had belonged to poor doomed Elwyn. Snow blew into his eyes, concealing much of what lay beyond the doorway. Through the swirling haze he could see the
