“Swords?” Marcus’s mouth twisted in disdain at the mention of the primitive weapons.
“Aye, swords. That’s what you’ll face out here. Even your legions train with swords. They know they can’t always rely on tech. As you saw on Samhain the most basic mechanisms can fail you out here. Sharp pointy objects tend to be much more reliable.”
“Right.”
Devyn had gone still. He was closed off to me, increasingly so since we arrived in Oxford, but anyone could see he wasn’t jumping at the idea. But neither had he outright refused. Devyn and Marcus hadn’t spent much time together, certainly not alone, and neither seemed to be champing at the bit to do so now.
Callum picked up on the new tension in the room, his broad smile appearing.
“It’ll be good for you boys to have a bit of a knockabout.”
That was what I was afraid of.
The next day, the two of them took off together while Callum and I headed back to that sodding courtyard.
Chapter Eight
“Why don’t we take a break for a minute?” Callum’s voice was patient despite the frustration I knew he was feeling too; we had been at this for days and I hadn’t been able to command even the tiniest fraction of magic that I pulled into myself. “Maybe it would be easier if we knew a little bit more about each other, build up a bit of trust, eh?
“What’s the point?” I asked peevishly. “In a few days we’ll leave here, and I’ll never see you again.”
I would never see anyone again. I uprooted my life for some stupid Celt who was blocking me out, my parents had disowned me, I ruined the life of the man I was about to marry and, I paused in dismay, now I couldn’t even do the thing that was the reason for all that and command a bit of damned magic.
“Life is long, little girl,” Callum admonished me gently. For a big man, he never seemed to raise his voice or speak too loudly. He was at all times even-tempered, an erudite scholar in the body of a bear.
I exhaled, pushing myself to my feet and walking across the well-worn rug to the window in the wide stone wall. I curled up on the polished window seat looking out across the warm stone of the city in the red light of the setting sun to the forest we had barely escaped. We had escaped though; we had made it and were still alive. I drew in a deep breath.
“You knew Devyn when he was a child,” I prompted quietly, half turning back into the room and lifting my chin long enough to see Callum’s raised eyebrow and half-smile. Damn. I wasn’t supposed to show interest in Devyn.
“That’s not really a question about me, but yes, I knew Devyn as a boy. I was a tutor to him and –” his hesitation was slight “– his friend. Mischievous boys they were, always up to devilment. Clever too, the pair of them. Always competing, pushing each other, but as likely to impress their tutor with frogs in his pockets as heed their lessons.”
I smiled. I could see Devyn as a child getting up to no good and I had caught glimpses of the humour and restlessness that would have led a little boy into naughtiness.
“Once, I came on the pair of them having built a bridge across the goose pond. They were sending across his cousin, a little girl, to test the sturdiness of the bridge before they put themselves in danger. Oh, the uproar when her mother saw her darling daughter covered head to toe in mud.” Callum chuckled at the memory.
“And when they were older?” I asked, curious about what Devyn had been like before I met him – or at least before he had taken up residence at the periphery of my life.
Callum sobered, the laughter washing out of his face. “Well, they weren’t such good friends anymore… not like that.” He looked away into the past, his dark eyes sombre in memory. “He’s told you why he was in the city? What happened when he was a boy?”
I nodded casually.
“After what happened, Devyn didn’t talk much, or at all really, for years after. Gods help him, I don’t know that anyone much cared. With her ladyship lost, the light was gone out of our hearts, and the sight of him just made it darker. The other boys pushed him about a bit, and he took it – not the way for any boy to survive in a castle full of warriors.”
“What about his friend? Didn’t he help him?” I was horrified. It hadn’t been Devyn’s fault. His father was the one who had failed to protect my mother; Devyn had only been a child. A child who had watched as a lady he loved was killed, and the baby he adored was also ripped away.
“No, his friend didn’t raise a hand against him, but he didn’t help him either. I saw him watch as other boys – older boys – punched and kicked Devyn on a daily basis. He said and did nothing.”
“What a little shit.” My heart broke for the much younger Devyn, even as I noted that Callum hadn’t mentioned intervening himself either.
“Humph. Wasn’t a good time for anyone. Anyway, the time came some years on from the death of the lady and her daughter that they came to clear out the nursery. Devyn still attended lessons though he never did anything more than sit in his chair like a sullen pup. When he heard the men down the hall and realised what was happening, he tore out of there like his arse had been lit on fire.
