The Cornish Princess by Tanya Anne Crosby
ChapterTwenty-One
The night grew long and cold—colder than a miner’s knob. Still Gwendolyn persevered, even as she teetered in the saddle, her mood turning sour as sorrel.
Meanwhile, Málik rode taller even as she slid lower, until at long last, she collapsed atop the horse’s withers, with the pommel stabbing her in the belly, though sadly, it wounded her pride far more than it did her belly, and not even that prompted her to cry halt.
Make no mistake, Gwendolyn understood she was being unreasonable, and still she persisted, until after a while, Málik sidled up beside her and plucked her from her mount, like a berry from a bush, placing her before him on his mare, far too close for comfort.
“Rest,” he demanded.
Rest?
Rest!
“I need no coddling,” Gwendolyn complained, as he dragged her back to rest against his leathered chest. “Considering that my father put me in a saddle when I was only two, I am in little danger of falling from this mount. Nor do I care to tussle with you. Please, unhand me!”
Releasing her at once, Málik said evenly,“Forgive me, Princess. I’d not have it said you came to harm on my watch.”
“Fret not,” she reassured. “I am now awake.”
Wide, wide awake, every inch of her body attuned to the creature at her back, his proximity filling her with nearly as much irritation as it did chagrin, and nearly as much titillation as it did warmth—more, she was horrified to confess.
What was worse, this close to him, she could actually smell him, and she discovered that his essence was curiously appealing—like rain… and wood.
By now, the moon had risen to its highest point, and the air was bitterly cold—far too cold to be traveling without provisions, although at least it wasn’t raining as it did so often this time of the year. Gwendolyn took comfort in that.
Admittedly, something about Málik Danann severed every measure of good reason from her mind and heart. Deep down, Gwendolyn suspected that even this sojourn to Chysauster had more to do with him than it did with Bryok, or even her cousins. If only he’d not come into their lives, she would be snug in her bed, dreaming of Prince Loc…
But mayhap not.
Feeling guilty for pushing them so hard, she peered back at the two guards who had accompanied them, noting their squinty eyes and bent backs.
Unfortunately, this time of the year it was warm enough by day, but night still harbored a vicious chill. If she’d taken more time to prepare, she might have brought a proper tent for the journey, knowing they’d spend at least one night beneath the stars.
Instead, she’d been in such a rush to leave that she hadn’t even secured gifts for her cousins—three sisters from three different mothers.
Her uncle Cunedda had no sons, despite that he’d married four different wives.
Sadly, his new wife, Lowenna, could carry no child to term—mercifully for her, because despite that they were girls, her cousins were all born with such enormous heads their births had resulted in the deaths of their mothers. Luckily, by now all three had grown to match their heads, even if their hearts were still far too large.
Gwendolyn couldn’t wait to see them.
Last year, she’d brought them a curious red dye called kokkos, made from crushed insects from An Ghréig. They’d sewed themselves three dresses that year and went about looking like triplets. This time her head was too filled with… other things. She would arrive empty-handed, except for the missive from her father.
An ocean-scented breeze swept by, raising gooseflesh, and Gwendolyn shivered. Inconceivably, the man at her back wore only thin black leathers, with hosen, and a modest cloak—precisely as he’d arrived during midwinter. And still his body was as warm as a low-burning brazier. So warm, in truth, that despite that it vexed her to do so, she slid back in the saddle so her back was pressed firmly against his soft leathers.
Just like that, she rode with her teeth clamped to keep from chattering, and her lips pursed, only wondering why her tongue would not stir, when there was no way they could travel the distance without resting their horses or taking respite. Indeed, the surest way to get Málik to put her down would be to assent to his request to make camp. And yet she did not.
Once more time, she peered back at the guards, and this time relented. “We should stop,” she said, and added, “For their sakes.” How prideful she was.
“For their sakes?” he asked, with an unmistakable note of amusement.
Gwendolyn nodded. “Indeed.”
“It couldn’t be you are weary?”
“Of course, I am!” she confessed. “Aren’t you?”
“Nay,” he said blithely, and Gwendolyn bristled, wishing she’d stopped when he’d first suggested it. Now he would perforce make her beg. “Naturally,” she said.
And there it was, again, that low, throaty chuckle he smothered before it could find his beautiful lips—lips that appeared so lush and soft and generous, until he opened his mouth, and filled it with sharp words to match his sharp teeth.
“You’ll fare better on the morrow if you rest now,” he advised.
They would all fare better, but Gwendolyn longed to see him grovel. “I do not need a keeper,” she assured.
“And yet you have one. But though I am not your first, I’ll not be undermined,” he said, and Gwendolyn gritted her teeth, uncertain which of these veiled insults most displeased her.
She did not undermine Bryn. Nor was Bryn her lover—first or second or otherwise, as implied by the tone of his voice. “If you are referring to Bryn,” she said, “he was never my keeper—nor my lover.”
“A least we are agreed you undermined him,” he argued. And deargods, she had. Although she wished more than anything to protest, she couldn’t. And regardless, Gwendolyn needn’t answer to Málik, nor to anyone else.
By Cornish law, on the night she gave Loc her torc, she became a woman unto herself, beholden only to her word, which she willingly gave to Prince Loc. “Tell me,” she demanded. “When all is said and done, do you answer to me, or do you answer to my father?”
There was a lingering note of mirth in his voice that grated on her nerves. “Unless my ears deceive me, Princess, this appears to be a trick question?”
“It is not,” Gwendolyn said primly. “It is quite simple, really, and I’d like to know where your loyalties stand.”
“At the moment, I am sworn to you,” he said.
“And yet I never saw you swear any such oath.”
Silence.
“If I ask you now, will you bend the knee?”
“I find it interesting, Princess. First your concern for the guards, now you wish to see me on my knees? Art certain this isn’t your way of begging a halt for the night?”
“I beg nothing.”
Gwendolyn loathed the way he made her respond—as though a harpy lived inside her skin—someone she didn’t recognize. And still he made no effort to answer, nor did he stop, and Gwendolyn was prepared to leap from his mount, ready to be away from him.
Trotting along beside them, her mare was clearly fatigued. Proffering another glance over her shoulder at the guards, she found them riding with shoulders slumped, and despite that, Gwendolyn persisted, “You seem to be ignoring my question, fae.”
“Which question, precisely?”
“Will you bend the knee?”
“There is only one reason I have ever found to bend the knee… and ’tis really quite pleasurable. Would you like me to demonstrate?”
Gwendolyn’s cheeks heated, though she didn’t entirely understand his meaning. Enough to say there was a note to his voice that suggested if she made a complaint to her father, he might lose his head. “Well?” she persisted, overlooking his suggestion.
“I bend the knee to no man,” he said finally, and Gwendolyn lifted a brow.
“As you can hardly have failed to note, I am not a man.”
“Neither any woman,” he added.
“Not even to my father, the King?”
For a long, long while, he didn’t respond, and then when he did, all puckishness fled from his tone, and he said soberly, “My loyalty is to Pretania, though I care deeply about the King’s welfare.”
“And mine?”
“And yours.”
Some of Gwendolyn’s anger deflated—only a little. But there was a certain verity to his words… a truth as elusive and ancient as the faerie glens. If indeed he were true-blood fae, he would have been not only one of the original conservators of this land, but perhaps its maker as well. After all, it was the fae—whether one called them Sidhe, fae, or elf—who were Cornwall’s true forebears. She wished she had the nerve to ask him directly, but alas, she did not. Instead, she fought a tug of war within herself, thinking him yes, thinking him no.
Being children of the gods, all these lands—from Ériu to Land’s End, to the farthest reaches of the Caledonian confederacy—were once created for those even-tempered creatures whose armament of choice was magik, not swords.
They had already vanished from Pretania long before Gwendolyn was born. All the stories she’d ever heard came from the Awenydds, and these were tales told by the dawnsio.
The Tuatha Dé Danann were said to have descended upon Ériu from a place called Tír na nÓg—the Land of the Ever Young—bornebyships that were carried upon a sea of blood clouds, ushering in a darkness that lasted three days and nights. From four sacred cities, they carried with them four great talismans, all graven with spells. The first was the Sword of Light, which was forged in Finias, and belonged to Núada Airgetlám, the Tuatha’an king, who’d named it Claímh Solais.
It was a fiery sword of glowing light that was said to render the bearer invincible when it was wielded, and could deflect weaves of power, depending on the requirement of its wielder—with the sole exception of balefire, which eventually killed Núada.
The second talisman was the Lúin of Celtchar, fashioned in Gorias, and known to some as Lugh’s spear. This was a long, flaming lance that must be kept with its head in a vat of blood to prevent it from igniting and consuming its wielder. Made from darkened bronze, and tapered into a sharp point, it was fastened to a rowan haft by thirty rivets of gold.
Then there was Dagda’s Cauldron from Murias.
This talisman was said to be kept to this very day in Ériu, and it was a blessing to its house, for none with a pure heart was ever sent away with an aching belly.
Last, there was Lia Fáil, hailing from Falias. This was the crying stone upon which the true kings of Ériu were crowned, and the stone no longer cried Danann.
Of the four talismans, three were said to remain in Ériu. One, the sword, was lost, never to be seen again. And yet, with talismans like those, it was no wonder Ériu had thrived so long beneath the Tuatha’an rule. In fact, it was said that, during this time, even mortals lived longer—a thousand years and more. Under the hand of the fae, the land prospered, nourished by sacred pools like the one that graced their glen. But as the tale would have it told, the Tuatha’an arrogance grew to such great proportions that the gods sent the sons of Míl to teach them a lesson in humility.
Before that Ending Battle was fought, it was agreed the victors would choose the spoils, and when the time came to choose dominions, the sons of Míl chose the half of Ériu that lay aboveground, forcing the Tuatha Dé Danann into the Underworld.
Manannán himself escorted them there via the Sidhe mounds, after which he raised an enchanted mist to conceal them from mortal eyes.
This was why the Tuatha Dé Danann were sometimes known as fae or Sidhe—fae for the Faeth Fiadha that concealed them, Sidhe for the mountains that swallowed them whole.
Never intended to be polite, “elf” was the appellation given to them by the sons of Míl, who’d named them “white beings.”
The man riding at her back could easily pass for such a “white being,” with his silver hair and icebourne eyes. And yet his armament of choice was not magik, but a sword.
Unwittingly, she reached up to pull a curl of her own hair between her fingertips, considering the fae who’d descended upon her crib.
There had been two, an elder and a younger, called Esme. Her mother and Demelza had stood watching from the threshold as the two chittered over Gwendolyn’s crib. Demelza once told her both were extraordinary—skin translucent like stardust, with eyes that burned with the light of two suns. And upon smiling, both revealed sharp, savage teeth—and this, too, reminded her of Málik. If he opened his mouth and looked at her in a certain way, his entire look was transformed… Savage. Wild. Untamed.
For a moment, Gwendolyn embraced the silence, scarcely aware that she’d relaxed against his chest, until she felt his chin settle atop her pate. The feel of it softened the armor around her heart. No matter his attitude, he had willingly come to serve her father, and no matter if he did so with such egotism that it disgusted her to her core, there was no crime in that.
Furthermore, as annoying as he could be, he had without protest accepted a position as her Shadow, even despite that this was not the promise made to lure him to Trevena. This was not so prestigious an occupation as one might suppose. It was far more rewarding to be a Mester at Arms, or a mentor to the Elite Guard, but if one must serve as a Shadow, it was more prestigious to serve as a guard to the king himself. In serving Gwendolyn, he suffered all the bother and aggravation—long hours, often thankless, with few rewards to speak of—and truly none of the glory. It was for that reason Gwendolyn had treated Bryn so much like a brother, and she’d tried so desperately to make sure he took time for himself.
This was also why she’d coaxed him to the glen that day and now… Gwendolyn was ashamed to say that at the instant, she wasn’t missing him at all.
Poor Bryn.
Nor could she explain it, but she’d hardly thought about Prince Locrinus since his departure a few days ago, even with the heavy torc and chain about her neck—and really, it was so much heavier than hers, fashioned so that no one wearing it could forget it was there.
Indeed, with half the day gone in the saddle, and Trevena long in their wake, the Promise Ceremony seemed years away.
Up ahead, distinguishable as a gnarled silhouette against a waning moon, there was a small tree atop a mound. This seemed like a good place to rest for the evening.
“Shall we stop there?” asked Málik, as though he’d read her mind.
“Aye,” Gwendolyn relented. “Let’s do.”
In silence, they left the road, ascending the hill, until they reached the tree. There they settled the horses, and Gwendolyn took her cloak, then found a dry spot, though not before remembering the rest of the stolen prunes she’d placed in her satchel.
There were plenty enough remaining. Keeping some for herself, she dropped a handful into each of the guards’ satchels, and another in Málik’s—a peace offering.