“It looks like you play childish games,” she sighed sadly.
“If you say so, druid,” he said dismissively.
She stepped towards us and took his hand off my chest, for which I was grateful, despite the odd fleeting moment of—
No, there was no fleeting moment of anything. The sooner this oaf was no longer touching me, the better. The fact that even a corpse would welcome his clever touch was irrelevant.
My relief was momentary as he rested his hand back on my stomach.
“The time for childish things ends soon.”
With one last look at the man behind me, she was gone.
As soon as her footsteps faded, I threw off his hands and whirled about.
“What in Hades was that?” I hissed. But I pulled up short as I took in the expression on his face. Gideon, whose impassive features rarely revealed more than his usual cavalier smirk, looked like a crushed little boy as he stared in the direction Fidelma had taken.
“Gideon?” Without thinking, I lifted my hand to his face to soothe the pain I saw there.
His hand caught mine before it could reach him though, a more familiar arrogant expression now in place.
“What’s this? You interested in a little more, Cat?” He stepped closer to me once again, this time for nobody else’s benefit but his own.
“Aargh.” I ground my teeth, refusing to acknowledge that his proximity was bothering me. “My name is not Cat.”
“You wish me to call you by the name the Romans used for you? No, my lady. I will not. The Griffin calls you Cass; it is not so dissimilar and you don’t object to him?” An eyebrow challenged me to explain why Devyn was allowed to be the exception. “Besides, I like it. You are a hissy little thing.”
“Get off me.” I had never felt more in need of hitting anyone in my life. The desire to knock the knowing smirk off his face was overwhelming.
“As you wish, m’lady.” He stepped away. “But if you ever need a little warming on a cold night, I’d be happy to oblige.”
And with a knowing wink that said he was well aware that I wasn’t as indifferent to him as I pretended, he was gone. Insufferable, odious, arrogant—! My brain couldn’t supply the adjectives fast enough for my fury. What was that all about? I loathed him. Whatever was between him and Fidelma baffled me but was not my greatest concern.
The lingering warmth of his touch on my belly was wearing off and I rubbed the heel of my hand across my front just to wipe away the last traces. The whole thing had been strange. Druids. The only thing even more incomprehensible than a Celt.
That evening, there was a change in tone from the almost casual question-and-answer sessions of the preceeding evenings.
“Lords and ladies, you were assembled here to judge the case of Devyn Glyndŵr who broke his oath to the Lakelands. Lord Devyn, you gave your oath to Mercia following your father’s exile, is this true?” the High Druid asked.
“It is.” Devyn stood tall and alone in the centre of the room.
“What was that oath?” Every bone in my body tightened at Fidelma’s question. They had spent the last few evenings concentrating on what had happened since Devyn left, and now they were going back to the beginning to discuss the offence itself.
“To serve the Kingdom of Mercia until my last breath.”
“An oath you then broke?”
“Yes.”
Even though everyone in the room was more than aware that Devyn had left his lord, there was still an audible intake of breath as he responded.
“Why did you forsake that oath?” Fidelma’s attempt to remind the court of his good intentions was cut off as Lord Montgomery interjected. As an Anglian, his stance had been much more martial than the others’ throughout the trial, focusing on obedience and allegiance and so on.
“What does it matter why he broke his oath? His word was given – the highest bond in our society. If I cannot believe in the integrity of the fealty and promises given to me or the loyalty that I owe to my people in return, then all would fall asunder.”
“He was a child when he gave his word,” Llewelyn objected.
Fidelma leaned across the table, raising her palm for silence.
“Devyn Glyndŵr, do you feel you were too young to be bound by the oath you gave?”
“No.”
What was she doing? Dammit, why wouldn’t Devyn say anything to defend himself?
“Why then, did you forsake it?” the druid probed.
“I believed I had a prior obligation.”
“What was that?”
“My duty to the Lady of the Lake is gods-given and, as such, I believe takes priority over my sworn word,” he replied matter-of-factly. He wouldn’t lie to this court, I realised, no matter how crazy his answers would appear to them.
The lords looked at each other.
“What duty could you owe to the lady so many years after her death?” Fidelma had tested me in Londinium and had deemed me no more than a powerful latent. She had no idea that he had succeeded in his quest. This line of questioning about why he had abandoned his oath to chase ghosts would make him look reckless at best and utterly unhinged at worst.
“I did not believe her to be dead.” Devyn’s tone was implacable and it was easy to visualise now the intractable boy he had once been, whose insistence on the impossible had so maddened a grief-stricken court.
Rion Deverell’s face was stony as he became the centre of attention, all curious to see what he made of Devyn’s insistence that his mother and sister weren’t murdered all those years ago.
“You believe the lady was captured and kept in Londinium all these years?” Fidelma clarified.
“Yes.”
This time, the High Druid herself looked at Deverell for his reaction.
“If the lady were alive, your father would have said so. As the Griffin, he would have been able to sense her. He would have been driven to go
