Page 84 of The Cornish Princess
Fae.
She blinked, and the things he’d told her scattered like dust in the wind. Moreover, when she tried to ply him with more questions, she found she hadn’t any to ask.
“It’s too far to walk to Trevena from here. We’ll have to go back for horses,” he said, and Gwendolyn nodded, noting with a pang in her heart that he didn’t suggest it should be to check for survivors. Clearly, he really didn’t believe there would be any.
He looked at her then, and Gwendolyn saw not the arrogant creature she’d first met, but the friend she’d come to know. His heart was there in his pale blue eyes and this, too, squeezed at hers.Gods.She admired the firm features of his noble face, the confident set of his shoulders that bespoke such power and ageless strength.
There was so much Gwendolyn longed to say—I’m sorry,for one—but the words wouldn’t come.
To her shame, she had dis-served him… merely because.
She’d once told herself she admired hisfaefolk, and yet despite that she knew for herself what it felt like to be forsaken for what other people perceived, she had treated this man with the same contempt.
“I can go quicker without you,” he suggested.
“I’ll not remain here.”
To that, he nodded, his lips lifting at one corner, as though he’d already expected her to answer that way, and he said, without argument, “Stay close.”
The village wasn’t far.They arrived at the edge of twilight, with the sun only just waking. A soft blush lit the horizon, painting her uncle’s village a dusky shade of rose. Smoke rose from the landscape, like a smoldering brume arising from a warm,piskiepool.
Whoever those men were, they were gone now, but they’d left nothing intact. The garner was consumed, and Gwendolyn hadn’t the stomach—or the heart—to look inside. If there were any survivors at all—perhaps the children down the well, no one remained.
Her uncle’s home was burnt to the bedrock. Within the rubble, they spied several charred bones, though it was impossible to say to whom they belonged. The fire was spent already, but the embers still burned hot, making it impossible to sift through the remains. Though at least there was no need for a pyre; these bodies were already consumed.
Gruesome as it was, they spied the top of a man’s head, with one long arm twisted before it. Evidently, one of those raiders had been trapped in the shaft, with his torso buried and his head exposed to the fire—at least she hoped with all her heart that it was a raider, and not her Uncle Cunedda, meaning to follow them down.
The stable, too, was destroyed. There were no horses to take. However, Gwendolyn discovered her bridle and satchel hanging on a small wooden horse, most likely set aside when the farrier was fixing her mare’s shoes. Inside the satchel, much to her horror and relief, she found the prunes she intended to show her father.
Her belly protested loudly, having gone so long without sustenance, but more than the ache in her gut, the one in her heart could not be denied. Still, she held back more tears as she considered her part in this travesty. What would she tell her father?
She had lied about the reason she’d come to Chysauster, and now so many good people were dead. Someone would have to return to give them a proper funeral.
Satisfied that nothing could be recovered, they made their way south to Ia’s farm in funereal silence. Only once arrived, they found it, too, abandoned.
Most likely, Ia’s father had spied the village smoke, or heard the war horns, and rushed his family to shelter. There were many caves along the shoreline, and perhaps this was where they’d gone. They would return to discover they had no liege lord, and no one left to defend them—at least until her father could award these lands to another of his vassals.
Lamentably, they would also return to find they were minus two horses, though at least their animals seemed well enough in the interim. A few goats roamed about a small enclosure, a fat hog wallowed about a mud hole, and a lone hen scratched around a small but sturdy coop. Gwendolyn didn’t like to think herself so savage, but it was all she could do not to take that hen and swallow it whole.
Fortunately, she discovered a few eggs inside the coop and took those inside to boil. There, she found a small kettle and a dying fire in the hearth. She rekindled the flame, set the eggs into the pot, precisely as she’d watched Lowenna do, then returned to the stable to choose the two strongest horses for the journey home, fully intending to repay Ia’s father the instant she could.
In fact, she would trade him two for one, and if her father objected, she would stand her ground. The old Gwendolyn mightn’t have known how to boil an egg, or how precious a single hen was, but she was changed—all things were changed. Her actions had consequences, she realized only belatedly—even the most inconsequential decisions.
A swim in the pool with Bryn could easily have cost a dear friend his life, and Cornwall its alliance with Loegria. Her uncle and his family had paid in blood for her journey to Chysauster.
Perhaps at one time she and Bryn had marched along those shoals, searching for peregrines, but she was not seven any longer. She was seven-and-ten, a woman betrothed, with an ailing father and duties she must withhold.
“Let me see to your leg,” Málik demanded.
“It’s fine,” Gwendolyn said, as she saddled the second of two mares.
He arched a brow. “Your leg, Gwendolyn.”
Gwendolyn, too, lifted a brow, wondering when precisely she’d ceased to be “Princess” in his eyes. But this was not entirely unwelcome. With him, she’d much rather be Gwendolyn.
“You’re right. ’Tis healing,” he said, only after making her sit on a bench and unraveling the bandage to peek beneath.
“As you said, ’tis only a flesh wound,” she allowed, with a hint of a smile. “I shall live.”
