Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
LOCKE
Aweek passed, and then two, yet the witch never came.
Rory had found a small cave, its narrow mouth all but hidden under a shimmering veil of honeysuckle as wildflowers, buried in the side of a fir-covered hill.
“We’ll stay here,” she’d said as she helped him inside, busying herself with making a soft nest of sweet-scented grass and horse blankets.
“I’ll have to set the horses loose, as there’s no way to keep them hidden, but we should be safe enough, until you’re healed enough to travel. ”
She’d been lying. Locke could tell by the way she kept her voice light and airy, the way she deliberately made eye contact with him as she smiled, too calm and too kind for her normally serpentine smiles.
He’d rather liked those smiles, he decided – so cold and cunning and deliciously cruel – as long as that cruelty was directed at anyone but him.
“All right,” he’d said, because there hadn’t seemed to be much point in arguing with her, not when he’d all but begged her to leave him behind, and she’d refused.
Besides, he was half-blind with pain and exhausted to the point of death, and didn’t feel up to the argument.
So he’d simply said, “All right,” laid down on the bed she’d fashioned for him, and promptly fell asleep for two straight days.
When he’d awoken, it was nearly dusk of the second day, and he found that she’d cleaned his wounds and changed his bandages thrice as he’d slept.
She’d also, it seemed, slipped out and procured rations for them from a nearby village – brown bread and cheese and dried salmon.
“There’s berries from the woods as well,” she’d said.
“Fresh water too. You need to drink, and eat.” She’d sniffed. “And bathe – sooner rather than later.”
“No soldiers?” He’d asked after drinking deeply from the flagon of cold, clear river-water.
“Not any longer.”
Locke huffed out a laugh. “You shouldn’t be leaving a trail, my lady.”
“Why,” she asked, “do you constantly take me for a fool, Lord Locke? I cleaned up after myself rather nicely, I’ll have you know.”
“I beg your pardon. I was under the impression that was dear Finn’s job.”
Rory sniffed scornfully. “We’re still alive, aren’t we? So stop questioning me and concern yourself with your own problems.” She’d sniffed again. “Most urgently, your hygiene. You smell awful.”
“Funnily enough,” said Locke through a mouthful of bread. “They did not deign to give me rose-scented baths during my time in the tombs. I know, I know – I can scarcely believe it myself.”
“I’m finding it difficult to remember why I bothered getting you out of those tombs,” said Rory, and he’d laughed at that, out loud and full-bellied, the kind of laugh he’d never believed he’d laugh again a few short days ago as he lay chained in the mud, dying alone in the dark.
Still they’d continued, day after day, night after night, Locke sleeping and eating and sleeping again, Rory watching and waiting, murmuring together in the in-between times.
Both of them healing, in their own ways.
Still Aoife never appeared, and slowly, slowly, they relaxed.
One warm summer afternoon, almost a month after Rory had appeared in the shadows of the dark tomb in which he thought he had been destined to die and saved him, Locke awoke from a long, lazy nap and felt, for the first time, fully, brilliantly, impossibly alive.
He sat up, glancing around the small, moss-covered cave, seeing it with fresh eyes, now unblurred by fever or pain or dread-filled dreams of being buried alive in the darkness, racked with longing for one final glimpse of the sun and the fields and the land he had loved so much.
It was rather homey, he realized, this musty little cave – the two soft nests of grass and blankets and sweet-smelling bell heather, a few low-burning candles nestled into the crevices and cracks of the stony wall, two pairs of worn leather boots piled together by the mouth of the cave.
His gaze caught and stilled on a handful of slightly wilted, bright yellow gorse blooms, placed in a shallow dip in the rock, the sharp tips of its thorns glinting in the candlelight.
It moved him, that small touch of beauty – the flowers and the thorns together.
Locke pushed to his feet, shoulders hunched to avoid scraping his head against the low roof of the cave, and shuffled outside, blinking against the late afternoon sun, glancing down when his bare foot brushed against something enormous and furry and…alive.
“Oisín’s beard.” Locke stumbled backwards, tripping over a gnarled tree root and landing hard on his back.
He shoved himself up on his elbows, heart thundering with panic, as the black-and-blue furred hell-hound lifted its monstrous head from where it lay sprawled in front of the cave, sunning itself, and eyed him imperiously. “What in the name of all –”
A malicious snicker, and he swiveled to see Rory lying on her back, arms tucked behind her head, crimson hair free-flowing and glossy in the grass, her eyes closed against the brilliance of the bright summer sun. “Lord Locke,” she said without looking at him. “You remember Failinis, do you not?”
“Are you laughing at this?” Locke sprang to his feet, his muscles protesting at the swiftness of the motion.
Still, he thought. Still, it was progress, and a miraculous one at that, even this weakened return of his old litheness, his former strength.
“I swear to the gods, Rory, if that thing tries to take a bite out of me, I’ll –” He floundered for a moment, his complete lack of any form of weaponry dawning on him even as he spoke.
The hellhound, meanwhile, sniffed once and then promptly seemed to lose interest, flopping down in the grass with a breathy woof.
Locke sank down next to Rory in the grass and shot her a scowl. “I’ll be upset.”
“Oh well,” she said. “We can’t have that, can we? How would I ever recover from my grief?”
“Arse,” he said, amiably enough, and she laughed once before settling back down into the grass, her bare feet stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles, humming to herself as a few stray wisps of soft white clouds drifted overhead, barely visible through the thick tapestry of greenery crisscrossing overhead.
Locke remained sitting, elbows on his knees, staring at her. “Where’d he come from? The hellhound?”
“His name is Failinis,” she said. “And I don’t know. He showed up a little while ago, tail wagging. I suppose he caught my scent and hunted me down. We’re friends, he and I.”
“Oh, I remember. Where are his two friends?”
She shrugged, and they fell quiet, the only sound that of the rumbling river and the whispering wind high above them in the trees.
He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from her – the faint flush the brightness of the sun brought to her moon-pale cheeks, the languid drape of her arms in the grass, the easy breathings. He had never seen her so calm, so relaxed.
“You thanked me,” she said after a long, lazy moment. “When I rescued you, from the tombs.”
“Obviously. I am, after all, a gentleman.”
“I never did,” she said. “Give you my thanks.”
“Whatever for?”
“Keeping your vow.” She turned her head to look at him, their noses so close they were almost touching, and he found himself once more transfixed by the dark swirling silver of her eyes, like river-stones washed smooth by the churn of the never-ceasing current.
“You swore to be the sword in my hand and the shield at my back, and so you were – you saved my life, outside of the cave of cats.”
“Actually, I did it twice. Perhaps you should thank me twice.”
“Once will suffice, I believe,” she said. “So. Thank you, Lord Locke.”
He hesitated for a moment, then reached out to take a strand of her hair lying loose and tousled on the grass, running it through his fingers. “Well, what choice did I have? If anyone shall have the killing of you, it’s to be me, don’t you know.”
Something flickered in her silver eyes, something that, had she been any other woman, he would have believed to be affection. “I feel the same, Lord Locke.”
“As long as we’re in agreement,” he whispered, then rolled over to cradle her sun-warmed cheeks in his hands and kissed her, light and sweet, and for a moment, she kissed him back, long and searching, before pulling away to nestle back down in the grass.
He took the hint and exhaled sharply before sitting back up, so he could admire the sharp, clear-cut lines of her cheekbones, the languid flow of her body, the grace of her bare ankles and smooth calves stretched out before her.
“Is this your plan then,” he said. “To kill me slow, by teasing me to death with the thought of you?”
A sharp smile tugged at the corners of her lips as her eyes fluttered close. “Perhaps.”
“You seem different,” he said abruptly, again struck by the serenity exuding from her, an unshakeable quietude which she had never before seemed to possess. “Calmer, now – more composed.”
“Because I was so very hysterical before?”
“Hardly. You were always so cold, but there was a storm within you, simmering just beneath the surface, but now – now you seem to have soothed it.”
She didn’t open her eyes, but he could tell she was pondering the question, a subtle furrow appearing on her smooth brow. “Don’t be deceived,” she said after a moment. “I am hardly docile.”
“Perish the thought,” he said, all a-fire with the urge to reach out and brush his thumb across those lips, to thread his fingers through her glorious hair.
“I prefer you feral, I think.” She smiled again, a hint of the serpentine curling over her lips, and he settled back down in the grass, both relieved and unnerved.
“So what was it like?” He asked presently.
“Magh Meall, and the plains of eternal delight? I’m rather hoping to hear that the rivers run rich with wine and the wearing of clothes for pretty youths is strictly forbidden. ”