Chapter Fifteen
The village of Caerywell nestled in a natural basin between two rugged mountain ridges. The approach led up through a ravine and then across a pass before opening out into the valley, and both the entry to the ravine and the pass were guarded.
The first set of sentries recognized Taz and let them into the ravine. The second held them at the pass. Their spokesman said, speaking in Cymraeg, “We recognize you, Taliesin Ddraennen. We do not know the woman. You will wait until Lord Hebog comes.”
Night was falling. Taz had hoped to be safely behind walls before it was dark, in the cottage he shared with several others.
“The lady is the partner Hebog chose for my mission,” he said. “Her father was a martyr for the cause.”
“Then Lord Hebog shall speak for her,” the spokesman said. “We wait.”
There was no point in arguing. Hebog did not encourage innovation and independent thinking here in the Caerywell valley, and only reluctantly permitted it on missions because distance loosened his grasp and forced those who worked for him to make decisions themselves.
Because his instincts were screaming that her fluency in her new language was a secret best kept, at least for the moment, Taz turned to Sephie and translated the conversation for her, ignoring the sneers from the guard over Sephie’s lack of Cymraeg.
Because of their bond, perhaps, she seemed to understand and to read his intentions without letting any questioning show on her face or in her posture.
Or maybe they’d been through so much already that he was transparent to her.
He preferred to think it was their mage bond and their singing that made her able to read his thoughts.
Bless the lady. She listened to Taz intently, as if she was hearing the guard’s words for the first time, and merely said, “I trust he will not keep us waiting all night. Shall we sit, Taz?”
She selected a boulder from a tumble of them just inside the ravine, and perched on it, her knees and ankles together, her back straight, her hands clasped in her lap. She looked the perfect English noble lady.
Taz copied her in choosing a boulder, though he did not for a moment believe that his posture when seated was as elegant as hers.
“I hope not,” he said, replying to her former comment about waiting.
If he knew his mentor, the response time would depend on how curious Hebog was about where Taz and Sephie had been since escaping the Baradines.
He must have been very curious, for they could not have been waiting more than fifteen minutes when torches came into view and then the shadows under them resolved into the shapes of people, still half-hidden in the darkness, but with flashes of detail in the flicker of the torch flame, a profile here, dark eyes there, a pair of broad shoulders somewhere else.
Taz rose to his feet. After a moment, Sephie did the same, just as Hebog arrived. He stopped in front of Taz, and he spoke to him first. “You are back, Ddraennen. Why did you leave your post? Where have you been? And why did you bring this woman here with you?”
“The mission was compromised, Hebog,” Taz said. “Miss Thornton and I escaped before we could be questioned and took refuge with the fae. Now that we’ve left the forests, we have returned to report.”
“You have been gone for six weeks, Ddraennen.” Hebog sounded indignant. “And now you return to report?”
“Time has little meaning in a fae forest,” Taz said, deliberately using English. “We returned as quickly as we could. We could not have made better time had we walked from Sussex.”
Sephie nodded. “We would have been caught before we were half a day’s journey from my cousin’s hall, had the forest not agreed to conceal us.”
“Is it your place to speak, Miss Thornton?” Hebog asked, frowning.
He switched back to Cymraeg. “I suppose the pair of you had better come in. Ddraennen, I already know that Miss Thornton was discovered putting spy flowers in Lord Baradine’s study.
Did you manage to find anything out before Baradine discovered the trick? ”
“No, sir,” Taz admitted.
Hebog gave a dismissive snort. “You shall give me a full report in the morning.” To the sentries he ordered, “Let them in.” He marched away, with his attendants following him.
“Come,” said Taz to Sephie, still in English. “Let me find you shelter, a bed, and something to eat.”
“And a basin of hot water for a wash, Taz,” Sephie begged.
*
Lord Hebog was a horrid man. Sephie had been predisposed to dislike him, after hearing how he had treated Taz, but her negative feelings about him were reinforced when he reprimanded her for speaking at their first meeting, and firmly cemented by what he said when he interrogated her and Taz the following day.
Taz, according to Hebog, had done everything wrong.
He had failed to retrieve any useful information.
His magic with the flowers—which Hebog called “that silly little trick”—was ill-conceived and doomed from the outset.
And after it had been discovered and Sephie had been locked up, Taz should have either stayed and pretended ignorance, or—if he did not trust Sephie to keep silent about his involvement—abandoned her and fled the estate.
“You lost sight of the mission, Ddraennen. Losing the female would be unfortunate for her, but would hardly affect the cause. Losing you would be a waste of years of training, even if your mage gift is rubbish.”
Sephie had been pretending incomprehension throughout the conversation, following Taz’s lead.
He repeated the essence of what was said in English, to support the idea that she didn’t know what was being said, and she followed him into the village, surrounded by Hebog’s followers.
One of them was the man from Wales who had recruited her to the cause.
She nodded to him, and he inclined his head.
Just before Taz handed her over to one of the female villagers to be shown to a guest room the previous night, he had whispered, “Something tells me we should keep your knowledge of Cymraeg a secret between us.”
So far, it had not been difficult. The villagers spoke so quickly she found herself catching fragments of meaning and having to knit it together, so she missed subsequent parts of the conversation although—in thanks to their spell—it was getting easier and easier to understand as time passed.
What she did understand was largely the ordinary conversation of people working together—“Pass me the onions,” “Was that Owain I saw you with last night?” “Be careful with that pot,” and the like.
Comments about Taz were largely complimentary—the women in the cottage where she was staying all liked him. As for Sephie herself, they were suspicious about her, but her offer—in English—to help with the morning chores had won her a grudging acceptance.
The first real challenge to her masquerade of ignorance was Hebog’s insult to her friend. Taz’s mage gift was rubbish, was it? How ridiculous.
“Miss Thornton is the partner you gave me, Hebog,” Taz retorted. “Is it not our policy that we never leave anyone behind? She works, like me, for Cymry’s freedom, and her father was a martyr for the cause.”
Hebog snorted. “Lord Percy was a paid mercenary. Ymrs promised him the Findlater dukedom in return for his help to capture the catalyst. And even with that incentive, even in his own castle, he could not manage the task. Why Owain saw fit to involve the man’s failure of a daughter, I do not know.”
“No one could have foreseen that Lady Mary would sniff out my flowers,” Taz pointed out. “The fae say that lindwurms can smell malign intent, but even they were surprised she detected my flowers and decided they were a danger—from two floors up while still little more than a baby.”
This time, Hebog’s snort was not followed by an insulting speech countering what Taz had said. Instead, Hebog glared at Sephie and spoke to her for the first time since his reprimand last night.
“Well, Miss Thornton. I suppose this village is not what you are used to.”
It was the kind of remark that did not have a correct response.
Sephie didn’t give it one, instead saying, “I am grateful for your hospitality, my lord. And that of your people.” Who had not been particularly welcoming, but nor had they been hostile.
The bed was comfortable, at least. The washing water had been hot, and both dinner and breakfast more than adequate. Simple, yes, but delicious.
Another snort. “You realize you are useless to us now,” Hebog said. “Your only value was your relationship with the dragon lord, and now that he knows you were working against him, your identity is a liability rather than an asset.”
“Then I shall need a new identity,” Sephie replied.
That surprised the man. His eyes widened and his snort this time was more of a hum. He rallied, though. “I suppose you think we owe you one, girl.”
“I do, rather,” Sephie said. “I might not have found out information of much use to you, but I sacrificed the relationship with the only family I have left and the life I was living in the attempt. Does that count for nothing?”
Hebog scowled. “You are in no position to make demands, Miss Thornton.”
“Not a demand, but a request,” Taz said. “And, of course, Miss Thornton might be useful in the future, not only for her relationship to Lord Baradine, but for her ability to remain cool in an emergency, and for her mage gift.”
Hebog returned to snorting as a form of communication, and backed it up by saying, in Cymraeg, “Her mage gift is of even less use than yours. So useless that her father forbade her to use it in order to retain her fertility to attract a suitor.”
Sephie had a sudden dread of the use Hebog might imagine for the bard mage gift, a sudden certainty he was not to be trusted with their secret. She held her breath, willing Taz to keep their power to himself. Whether he somehow felt her wishes, or whether he had the same idea, he didn’t speak up.
A few more insults and Hebog announced he had no further time for them.
“You can stay while I decide what to do with you,” he said. “We have an important meeting that will take all my time over the next few days. Be off with you now, and stay out of trouble.”
They emerged from the little manor house that was Hebog’s home, and strolled back to the village. “You didn’t tell him about our bard mage gift,” Sephie said.
“No,” Taz said. “I could feel your resistance. You are afraid of what he would do with us if he believed that our music has real power.”
“Perhaps I am wrong,” Sephie acknowledged, “but yes, I do fear letting him know about us. Ours is an enchantment power, in its way. So far, we have only used it to entertain, and for useful things like my understanding of Cymraeg, or even making our escape successful, but…” She could picture riots and more, should a pair of bard mages choose to sway crowds in the direction of violence.
As for individuals, if they tailored a song to a single person, who knew what they could cause him to think, feel, and do?
Taz showed he had been thinking along the same lines. “It could bring peace to a riot, or to a disquieted heart. Or the opposite.”
“The church and the law are very hard on enchanters who manipulate crowds. Or people. But I have the sense that Hebog would not care about that,” Sephie said.
Taz nodded. “You are not wrong, Sephie. Hebog thinks the cause is worth any sacrifice, but what if the sacrifice is taking from others the very freedom for which you are fighting?” He was silent for a moment and then said, “There are good people on both sides.”
“Hebog,” said Sephie, “is not a good person.”
Had she gone too far? After all, Taz saw Hebog as his savior and his mentor. But Taz was nodding his head. Slowly, as if she had articulated something he’d felt but had never said.
“He would say that good people do not win wars,” he said, but not as if he agreed with the concept.
“Is it winning if all that happens is that the poor people on the bottom exchange one bad person for another?” Sephie asked. And Taz did not answer.