“We need to get to Carlisle,” Devyn stated after a moment.
“You won’t make another day without the right herbs,” Madoc said flatly.
“I guess we’re going to pay a visit to my uncle then,” Devyn said wryly.
Madoc looked him up and down, assessing the man he had last seen as a boy, instead of the patient he had been so far.
“Not without speaking to your father.”
Devyn’s jaw clenched at the suggestion.
I put a calming hand over his heart, but far enough away from the bandaged wound that I could put some pressure on it.
“He’s not well, Devyn. I mean, he’s better; Marcus has treated him. The illness is gone but he has been chronically ill for so long…” I clarified. Madoc frowned at me, seeing no need to take the pressure off by informing Devyn of his father’s recovery. A fact which Madoc seemed to need constant reassurance of, checking up on his former patient one of the only reasons he had left this room since Devyn’s arrival. “He has waited such a long time to see you again.”
He looked down at me and I could feel his body unclench… a little. His eyes were dark with emotion as he looked down at me and nodded.
“Fine, I will speak with him before we go.” I could sense his dread at the prospect, but before I could even offer to accompany him, he made his preference clear. “Alone.”
He was much stronger but still needed Madoc’s support to make it to the great hall. I went with them that far, so I saw Rhodri’s face when he clapped eyes on Devyn for the first time – the hope and regret, the love and shame, all mixed together and practically pouring out of him. For a man who had lived with being shunned for decades, he sure didn’t do too great a job at concealing his emotions. I guess, when you’ve stood at the edge of death for so long, and the person you love most in the world walks back into your life, it’s time to put aside the masks that pride makes us wear.
At the other end of the spectrum, meanwhile, stood the son, also on far too familiar terms with impending death, but I didn’t need to see Devyn’s face to know it would be completely expressionless. Devyn did not want to do this. He believed what people said and thought about his father.
Did he know about the magically bound vow? He had never mentioned it, and I wasn’t sure it would make a difference to him. I couldn’t imagine a single thing I could say to make Devyn vow to put something else before my life. Every fibre of his being was tuned into what was safest for me, including his own heart. There was no part of me that didn’t believe that also extended to his own life and limbs.
Bronwyn was visibly relieved at the sight of her cousin more or less standing on his own two feet, and she stood hesitantly beside her uncle, unsure whether to stay or go. This was a matter I quickly cleared up for her and the others who loitered in the hall. I informed everyone that they needed to pack as we planned to be on the road within the hour to reach the medical supplies that awaited in Conwy.
And so we were. When we passed through the hall there was no sign of Rhodri, and Devyn awaited us in the courtyard. Gideon sent half the Mercians home to Carlisle with a message for the king to explain our detour. The rest of us made a beeline for Conwy.
Conwy Castle was imposing, to say the least. It loomed over the landscape, a formidable grey fortress commanding the coastline. It was a forbidding place built to repel enemies – hopefully also a place of sanctuary for those considered friends.
Would we be received as friends? I certainly hoped so. After all, the prince of Gywnedd was Devyn’s uncle; he was family. But what did that prove? Those I had called family had discarded me like a trendy trinket gone out of fashion. Where once I had been the Shelton family’s prized jewel, when my star had crash-landed onto the sands of the arena, they had been nowhere to be found.
Rhodri loved Devyn, but he believed – as the rest of Briton society did – that his line was disgraced and there was no way back for them. What honour Devyn had won back by pledging fealty to the King of Mercia after the death of the lady had been irretrievably forsaken when he had broken his oath to go in search of the baby he believed still lived. That these sins had been committed when he was still a child was ignored. What was I thinking? Sins? They had been no sins of Devyn’s; bearing the blood of a traitor was no fault of the son. As for his crime of believing that the lost lady still lived, surely returning with me would wipe the slate clean?
I needed to speak to him, to tell him that I knew who I was… and that the secret was out and on its way to York via Callum. But I knew better than to talk about these heavy secrets while we were surrounded by warriors. That some of our companions had figured it out couldn’t be helped; I wouldn’t spread it further.
We had emerged from the endless forests to the miracle of the sea this morning, and Bronwyn had laughed at my delight. She had dismissed the grey-blue rolling waves that lapped the shore as so much less than the open ocean that she had grown up with in the southwest. She described sweeping cliffs and vast stretches of golden sands with waters that changed from the exquisite turquoise of the ring that adorned her finger to violent, dark swells that rose amidst the anger of storms. Apparently, the stretch we rode along
