Indeed, they were traveling in the direction of Warkworth. Instinct told him that it must be Marcella, and if that was the case, she was coming from Blackwood, and the extrication had gone according to plan. He’d yet to reveal the plan to her sisters, because he hadn’t wished to raise their hopes. In fact, he hadn’t even told Wilhelm, because Wilhelm could keep no secrets from his wife. He didn’t know who the fourth rider could be, but it wasn’t Morwen. That witch wouldn’t be traveling alone, unless it was her manservant. And nevertheless, this was a big country, and, in fact, it could be anyone—Eustace, included.
He didn’t say so, however. If, for an instant, Wilhelm thought there might be danger en route to Warkworth, God himself couldn’t keep the man from returning home. Nay, he had long ago learned to follow his gut, and his gut said to let this go, and continue their mission.
It went against his sense of propriety to steal a dead man’s coins, so he left them where they were, knowing good and well that they would be gone with the next passerby.
So be it. Better it should go to someone in need. He had plenty of his own.
“Do you know to whom these lands belong?” asked Wilhelm, still studying the landscape.
Giles peered about, and said, “I’d gander ’tis a Royal Forest, perhaps Morfe, south of Wellington and Amdel?”
“Beauchamp’s seat?”
“Perhaps,” said Giles as he nodded. “The idiot. Word came whilst I was still at Wallingford… he met his end at the end of Blaec d’Lucy’s blade.”
“Will he be punished?”
“D’Lucy?” Giles shook his head. “Nay. To the contrary. He’s been raised to Earl by order of King Stephen. His brother renounced the seat.”
“Will Duke Henry honor it?”
Giles shrugged again. “Who knows, brother.”
Wilhelm scratched his head. “What of Beauchamp’s land?”
“Haven’t a bloody clue,” said Giles. “He’s survived by a sister, who’s, in fact, wed to Blaec, so I don’t know how it will reconcile. What I do know, however, is that Stephen will take his counsel from Duke Henry, and Duke Henry will not welcome the opportunity to reward Stephen’s barons. Rather, he’ll award lands to those who supported him.”
Wilhelm pointed down to the corpse. “Think he’s one of the men who rode out with Eustace?”
Considering everything, Giles peered over at the dead man’s horse. The animal might slow them down, but it would be cruel to leave it to fend for itself. “Could be,” he said. “But if so, I’d warrant it wasn’t Eustace who killed him. That greedy bugger would have taken his coins.”
“Probably,” said Wilhelm, with disgust. “Could be this one left him and met a poor end on his own. With Darkwood so close, there’s no telling what skamelars lay in wait.”
“Very true,” said Giles, and then both their gazes slid one toward the other. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Amdel lies empty?” asked Wilhelm.
Giles nodded. “Aye.”
“Do you think Eustace might be there?”
“I don’t know,” said Giles, lifting his brows. “Let’s go see.”
Dinogad’s shift is speckled, speckled,
Made from marten pelts.
‘Wee! Wee!’ Whistling.
We call, they call, the eight in chains.
Marcella’s Welsh lilt was a trace more apparent now as she sang. But it wasn’t only the diction of her words… the song was oddly familiar, leaving Rhiannon with an inexplicable note of dread…
When thy father went a-hunting,
A spear on his shoulder, a club in his hand,
He called the nimble hounds,
‘Giff, Gaff; catch, catch, fetch, fetch!’
“That song,” she said, trying to place it.
Marcella shifted her dark eyes. “‘Dinogad’s Shift,’” she said, and sang the verse again in their native tongue—far more eloquently than Rhiannon could ever have.
Pan elei dy dat ty e helya;
Llath ar y ysgwyd llory eny law.
Ef gelwi gwn gogyhwc.
Giff gaff. Dhaly dhaly dhwg dhwg.
The paladin smiled then, and for the first time since meeting Rhiannon, that smile lit her lovely green eyes. “My mother used to sing it to me when I was a girl,” she explained.
“Seems to me I’ve heard it before.”
“Aye, well… no doubt you have, Lady Blackwood. Your mother enjoyed it, too.”
Rhiannon tapped a finger to her breast. “My mother?”
The paladin nodded, though it was impossible to imagine Morwen as a wee girl enjoying anything so achingly sweet as a lullaby. That was not the woman Rhiannon knew, and if Morwen had ever even once sung Rhiannon a song, the memory was long overshadowed by all the atrocities she’d committed since.
Nay, indeed, there was nothing tender in her memories of Morwen. But Rhiannon supposed she still could have heard the song through Elspeth.
Of all her siblings, Ellie was the only one who’d ever really known their maternal grandmother, and for all that Rhiannon had received Morgan’s gifts, she’d never once met the good lady face to face—a fact she was sorely aggrieved by, if not for the blessing of a hug, then for the sake of her Craft.
There were few souls remaining who’d studied the Old Ways. People no longer believed in faefolk. Or even the wonder of ordinary magik—the birthing of a babe, the life-giving warmth of the sun, the gathering of dew in the curve of a leaf, or in the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a moth.
Magik, in truth, was not so uncommon as people were accustomed to believing. All living creatures had some ability within them, be it a simple sense of knowing, or the ability to heal (far less extraordinary than people presumed). The minds of men, whether they knew it or not, were very attuned to the aether.
Rhiannon sighed heavily, only to find that Marcella was still watching her—always watching, as though she were a specimen under a philosopher’s glass.
All the while, Jack rode behind them, silent and thoughtful—as he had been since departing the brook.
Marcella turned for an instant to regard him, and then, after a moment, returned to her tale.
“The song was written about a warrior of the Britons led by Urien ap Cynfarch. Do you know him, perchance?”
Rhiannon gave the paladin an impish smile. “Alas, I never had him for tea,” she jested, and Marcella laughed, a nice sound that filled Rhiannon with something like joy.
It was the first time in all her life that she’d had a confidante besides one of her sisters, and she was beginning to discover that she liked it. Marcella was brusque betimes, but no more so than Rhiannon, and she was most definitely the sort of woman someone would want on their side—fierce, loyal and smart. “’Tis a widow’s lament?”
“Nay, nay… not so much a lament, as her praise. In the song, she fashions her babe a beautiful smock made of pelts that her husband hunted for her before his death.”
“Because, definitively, that is all a man should ever be remembered for,” quipped Jack at their back.