Chapter Eight #3
Rowan leaned forward, nose to nose. “Then don’t pay the ransom. If I am held captive, consider that I have not earned my kingship.”
“And let a Vatell hold our king?” Jura shouted back at him. “We will wipe out the Vatells for such an insult. We will—”
She broke off because Rowan kissed her. He could think of no other way to make her be quiet, and Jura responded with all the energy she had built up in her anger at him.
His big hand caught the back of her head and turned her head around to give him better access to her lips, and he kissed her passionately, deeply.
“Do not fight me, Jura,” he said against her cheek. “Be my wife. Stand by me.”
She pushed away from him. “If being your wife means standing to one side while you lead my people into slaughter, then I will die first.”
Rowan straightened. “I have a task given to me by my father and I mean to fulfill it. You may think war is the only way to solve this problem, but there are other ways also. I just pray that these Irials get more from their marriages than I have.” He turned to leave.
“No!” she said, catching his arm. “I beg you, do not go through with this. The people trust you. I saw their eyes and they will follow you. Do not lead them to their deaths.”
“There is only one thing I want you to beg me for. Other than that, you are my wife. You are to comfort me when I return from battle, to see that I have hot food and perhaps someday to bear my children. I do not plan to run my country according to a woman’s counsel.” He left the lean-to.
Jura stood inside the dark, cool place for a few moments and tried to settle her raging anger.
The man had to be stopped. She knew they would follow him, for they had reacted to him as she had that first day at the river.
She would have followed him then if he had asked her to, but now her head had cleared and she could hear him instead of being blinded by his beauty.
She had to do something to stop him. She started out of the lean-to but someone blocked her way. “Cilean?” she whispered in disbelief.
“Yes,” Cilean answered. “Could we talk?”
Jura was aware of the noise of the crowd outside and she felt some impatience to be among them. Perhaps she could stop the people from following Rowan.
“Do you still hate him?” Cilean asked softly.
Jura’s anger was too close to the surface. “I thought you believed I wanted him for my own, that I betrayed my friend to get him.”
“I was wrong,” Cilean said. “I was jealous.”
Something in her tone made Jura calm down. “Jealous? You love him?”
“Yes,” Cilean said simply. “I loved him from the first. He has a good heart, Jura. He is kind and thoughtful and now he is willing to risk all to unite the tribes. He knows he could be killed.”
“And he could take a few hundred Irials with him,” Jura said. “A noble purpose will not save their lives when Brita attacks them.”
“Perhaps she won’t. Perhaps God will help King Rowan as He did when he opened the gate.”
“What?” Jura gasped. “God does not protect bad leaders, he kills them and their followers off. Cilean, you cannot have completely lost your mind. You cannot believe Brita will allow three hundred Irials to cross her borders and send them greetings—except in the form of arrows.”
“I am going with him,” Cilean said. “I heard his shouting to you that he would go alone to her first and I am going with him. You know I spent three years as a Vatell captive and I know a way to get to Brita’s city through the forest.”
“You will be killed,” Jura whispered.
“It is a chance I have to take because what he wants to do is right. And, Jura, mark my words, he will try to do it whether I go with him or not. You should have seen him on the way to Escalon. He rode up to those three Zerna boys as if God had put a protective cloak about his shoulders. And he faced Brocain without a guard, and he demanded that Brocain give him his eldest son. And Brocain obeyed him. Jura, you should have seen him.”
Jura shook her head. “I see him every day and I see the way he makes no attempt to learn our ways but insists we learn his.”
“That’s not true. He knows our language, our history. He dresses like us and—”
“He dresses in clothes my mother made for Thal.”
Cilean stepped forward. “Jura, please listen to me. Give the man a chance. Maybe he can unite the tribes. Think of it! Think of being free to ride without a guard. He talks of trading goods instead of stealing.” Her voice lowered.
“And think of trading with other countries. We could wear silk like his sister Lora.”
“That…!”
“Jura, please,” Cilean begged.
“What can I do to help? He can go dancing with Brita for all I care. I just don’t want him leading my people into slaughter.”
“Go with us.”
“What?” Jura yelled. “Go sneaking about where I shouldn’t be and sacrifice my life to the dreams of some fool of an Englishman I don’t even like?”
“Yes,” Cilean said. “It is our only chance. If we can get Brita alone and let him talk to her, I think she might listen. I think the man could talk a mule out of its skin.”
Jura leaned back against the stone wall. If she went with him, it would surely mean her death. No one could sneak up to Brita’s city and capture the Vatell queen without being caught—and tortured.
But what if they won? What if by some twist of fate they were able to get to Brita and allow this silver-tongued king to talk to her? Could Rowan persuade her to send her young men and women to marry the Irials?
“Think how strong we would be,” Cilean said. “If we united only the Irials and the Vatells, we would have twice the strength of any other tribe.”
“Don’t tell Geralt that,” Jura said, and wished she hadn’t. It sounded a bit like she wasn’t loyal to her brother. “Have you talked to the Englishman yet? Who else would go besides the three of us?”
“Daire, of course,” Cilean said. “Brita hasn’t seen her son since he was a boy. She won’t hurt him.”
“Unless she considers him more Irial than Vatell. Who else?”
“That should be enough,” Cilean said. “We don’t want a crowd. The fewer we are, the quieter we will be. Now, shall we tell Rowan? That is, if we can get him away from the women. Perhaps it’s good I’m not married to him because I think my jealousy would overwhelm me.”
Jura looked out the doorway. The sunlight on Rowan’s hair made him easy to see, but now he was surrounded by pretty young girls who couldn’t seem to resist touching this blond king.
Rowan had that innocent look men wear when they want to appear helpless so they can get whatever they want from a woman.
“Jealous of a gaggle of silly girls?” Jura said under her breath. “It will take more than that to make me jealous. Come, let us tell him our plan—our last plan on earth—before he starts talking again and persuades a hundred mothers to abandon their babies to follow him.”
· · ·
Rowan’s blue eyes almost turned black. “The earth will open up and deliver its dead,” he said softly. “The sky will rain blood. The trees will wither and blacken. The stones will turn to bread before I go sneaking into Brita’s camp accompanied by two women and my wife’s former lover.”
Jura gave Cilean an I-told-you-so look.
“Rowan, please,” Cilean said, “listen to me. I know the way through the forest. Daire is Brita’s son and Jura is strong and agile and—”
“A woman!” he shouted. They were inside Jura’s aunt’s house away from curious ears. “Don’t you Lanconians know the difference between men and women? A woman cannot fight.”
“I did a bloody good job when I won you,” Jura shot at him.
“Mind your language,” he snapped, then looked back at Cilean. “I will take my own men. I know them and they will obey me. You will draw us a map. Daire may come also if I do not have to watch my back for his blade.”
“Are you accusing Daire of—” Jura began, but Cilean halted her.
“I will draw no map. What I have I carry in my head. Meeting Brita in secret is your only chance of getting her to listen to you and only I can take you to her. Daire will go because she is his mother.”
“But my wife stays here,” Rowan said with finality.
“No,” Cilean said. “Jura goes with me. Just as you work well with your men, Jura and I work well together.”
Jura leaned back on her stool, her back against a wall. She knew who was going to win. Cilean had something Rowan wanted and Cilean wasn’t going to give it away for free.