“Maybe too direct. Bronwyn is no fool. York is on the roads hunting them and if they were to try and cut her off, they would have taken that road. It’s what I would have done.”
“You would know,” grumbled the old healer.
“What if she came on the old roads up to Ellesmere? It would be longer, which explains why they’re not here yet, but it would have been safer,” Gideon suggested.
“Why would a princess of Kernow ride in fear of York? Why would they be in danger from your father’s troops?” Lord Rhodri had been a warrior in the service of the Lady of the Lake once; he would understand more about the tensions and alliances that made up Briton politics than I could ever hope to. What was it that seemed off to him? Since leaving Oxford we had ridden in fear of York, fortunate that when they finally caught us Callum had led them, and their focus had been on the immediate threat to all our lives rather than their original mission.
“Your son rides with her.” Gideon shrugged.
“What would York want with Devyn? He is worth nothing to your father,” said Lord Rhodri.
“No, but you have something that is of worth.” Nobody needed to turn to look at Marcus. York was scouring the countryside for the three of us and if they found Devyn they would be unlikely to let him go. And when the steward discovered that the Plantagenet prince was sitting behind the fortified walls of a Gwynedd castle and that Callum had had us within his grasp and let us go, he would not be happy about it. Having Devyn would give him leverage.
“I don’t know how that poison got on my knife, but I do know that my father will not overextend himself to ensure that the Griffin doesn’t die from a wound I gave him.”
Gideon delivered this casually from where he leaned against the wall, as if he were speaking of matters which he could scarcely be bothered to discuss, but there was something about the very casual nature of his tone and posture that seemed overdone to me. It did bother him that Devyn might die of the dagger wound he had dealt. Not for Devyn’s own sake perhaps, but because killing him had not been Gideon’s intent and he bristled at being used that way. Or maybe it was because he wanted to ensure Devyn lived for my brother’s sake, though either way it didn’t really matter. I believed that if Gideon set out to find Devyn, then find him he would. That was good enough for me.
Lord Rhodri surveyed Gideon steadily.
“I have no fresh horse to give you.” Apparently Devyn’s father had drawn the same conclusion. “Take your own, but go through Chirk on your way. The De Laceys will give you some horses and I’ll write you a letter of safe passage. Perhaps not a full introduction, though. They bear the steward little love.”
“Few outside Anglia do,” Gideon acknowledged.
Madoc pulled some parchment from the travel bag that still hung from his shoulder, quickly followed by a quill and a small pot of ink. Sometimes it shocked me anew how thoroughly the Britons had managed to hold off the advances of the modern age so completely. Surely ink in a ballpoint pen wouldn’t be too great a concession to the technology of the Empire? It wasn’t like it was a computer tablet. Was it sheer stubbornness or was there a reason why they stuck to the barest of conveniences?
There was a notable shake in his hand as Lord Rhodri wrote his letter for the family at Chirk Castle. Nobody else seemed to observe the difficulty he was having as he turned away to conceal a suppressed cough. Gideon, having retrieved his cloak and sword from wherever they had been stored, accepted the completed note and with a nod to me strode out of the hall.
“Marcus?” I called as soon as Gideon and Madoc had left the hall. I might be entirely at a loss when it came to the politics of this strange and foreign land, but I had waited before calling attention to Lord Rhodri’s condition until the man he considered no friend of his house was gone.
I threw a concerned look towards Devyn’s father, indicating that Marcus needed to take a closer look at him while the druid was absent from the hall. Maybe Marcus’s assessment of how advanced his illness was an underestimation of its progression.
“Can you help him?” I asked as Marcus checked his vitals. The older man was slumped in his chair, exhausted from the façade he had maintained in the presence of the younger warrior.
“Lord Rhodri.” The healer had returned. “Out of my way, boy.”
He pushed past Marcus as he bustled through, anxious to serve his lord. “Rhodri, what have you done?” he muttered to himself as he reached for his travel bag once more.
“Was trying to save… Not much left,” Lord Rhodri managed to say.
I frowned. What was he trying to save?
“You damned fool,” Madoc grumbled as he put whatever he had taken from his bag into a cup of water on the table nearby and, supporting his lord’s head, helped him to drink.
Marcus’s gasp was audible as Devyn’s father revived almost immediately. I could barely believe my eyes. Yesterday I hadn’t even noticed the symptoms of the illness that Marcus had managed to catch. But this morning, in the space of twenty minutes, he had gone from seeming fine if frail to fully symptomatic, displaying the signs I recognised all too well from my time in St Bart’s hospital, the symptoms of one with mere days to live… to almost fully recovered within minutes.
“What—?” Marcus could barely get the words out. “What was that?”
“Ha! We have something that all your fancy medicine doesn’t, eh?” the healer taunted Marcus.
“Please, I’m
