The Grail King (2 page)

The garment was finely made, of long, soft wool lined with sable, the stitching so precise as to be invisible. The clasp was a gold pin with an ingenious guard designed to prevent the point from pricking the wearer.

She carried a small leather satchel. The front flap of the bag was decorated with the image of a prancing cat, of all things. He tried to ease it from her arms, only to find the strap threaded under her right arm and across her left shoulder. After a futile attempt to free the strap’s frozen buckle, Owein simply drew his knife and cut a clean slice through the leather. He placed the bag on top of the cloak.

She wore a voluminous tunic of pale yellow wool with a geometric design embroidered in gold thread along the edges. Even wet, the garment was impossibly soft and fine. Unfortunately, it was also impossibly belted and pinned. The sleeves were fastened from shoulder to elbow with a series of tiny clasps. A gold-threaded girdle encircled her waist, cinching the tunic in multiple tiers of draped fabric at the bust and waist. Owein supposed the effect was meant to be alluring, and perhaps it might have been, if the dress were not wet, wrinkled, and spattered with mud.

He fumbled at the girdle’s tiny clasps with blunt fingers, cursing under his breath. What idiocy prompted Roman women to bind their clothing so tightly? He managed to spring two buckles free, but the clasp of the third snapped in his hands. The sleeve pins were even smaller, and the lass’s shivering didn’t make his task any easier. Six pins on each sleeve; he broke three of the twelve.

He swept the small pile of gold aside. Obviously, this woman’s family didn’t lack for coin. Which made her presence in the high country near to impossible. Had she been traveling the Roman road along the coast? If so, how could she have strayed so far from her companions? A woman of her status might even have had a military escort. Owein didn’t relish the thought of opening his door to a cohort of Sempronius Gracchus’s Legionaries.

He lifted her small hand, chafing it in an effort to urge the blood to flow. She shivered, a small cry escaping her lips. He passed a hand over her brow, urging her expression to relax. Her lips parted again, and this time a softer, more feminine moan emerged.

It was not unlike the sound made by a woman while coupling.

Cursing under his breath, Owein pushed roughly to his feet. He was accustomed to solitude, not supple young lasses stretched before his hearth. The floral scent that clung to her skin was not an inducement to detachment. His body was responding, violently.

He dragged his pallet and winter furs to the hearth, positioning them as close to the flames as he dared. Straightening, he frowned down at the woman. He would have to finish the task of removing her wet clothes.

His loins stiffened further at the thought, even as his scowl deepened. How low he’d sunk, to lust after a Roman woman—and one not even conscious enough to curse him for it! But then, two twelvemonths had passed since he’d buried Eirwen. Perhaps the fact that his body could produce a cockstand this painful only proved he wasn’t yet as dead as his wife.

Ignoring his discomfort, Owein crouched at the lass’s feet and tugged off her frozen footwear. She wore boots crafted of thin leather, finely tooled and decorated with pearls at the ankles and toes. He shook his head in disgust. Hardly suitable for a Roman town house, let alone a trek through the mountains in winter. At least she’d had the sense to don woolen stockings beneath them. He peeled them off one by one. Her feet were like chunks of ice, and the tips of her toes were white.

Her dress came next. Lifting her torso, he stripped the wet wool from the lass’s body. She wore a linen undertunic, devoid of decoration but so finely woven as to be translucent.

Owein stared, his eyes drifting to the puckered circles in the center of the lass’s breasts, the dusky dark triangle between her thighs. Drawing a shaky breath, he crushed the hem of the undertunic in his fists. He drew the garment over slender legs. Her belly was flat, her hips slim, almost boyish. Her breasts were small enough to disappear into his hand.

He’d always preferred delicate lasses. His palms itched to touch her.

He resisted the impulse, easing the tunic over her shoulders with an efficient motion. Again, a heady floral scent teased his nostrils. In the dead of winter, this small Roman woman smelled of spring. A bead of perspiration slid between his shoulder blades. He wanted to look at all of her, drink her in, but he forced his gaze to her face as his arms slid beneath her naked body. For an instant she lay soft and yielding in his embrace. Then a shudder passed through her body.

The chill from her skin penetrated his overloaded senses. He transferred her quickly to his pallet and drew up the furs, swaddling her from neck to toe. A foray into his oaken chest yielded the remainder of his inventory of bedcoverings—two thin woolen blankets. He covered her with those as well.

He lifted her sodden hair from her neck, fanning it toward the fire. The long braids were snarled and wet, but the color was dark and shining. Beautiful, her tresses would be, once dry and combed free.

Another tremor gripped her body. She moaned and clutched at her blankets, turning to one side, instinctively seeking the fire. Owein caught a glimpse of a small, rounded bottom as he adjusted the blankets. Easing to his feet, he watched the flickering light play across her face. Part of him wanted to reach out and run a finger along the outer curve of her cheek. The less foolish part of him wished he’d never laid eyes on her.

He knew well that the fire and blankets were not enough to prevent the corruption of her frozen toes. He dug in his mind for the remedy Rhiannon had used when he’d been a small lad. He’d wandered too far from the village during a snowfall. When he’d returned, he’d been unable to feel his fingers. He shut his eyes against the memory of his older sister alternately scolding and kissing as she’d wrapped his hands in warm, wet wool.

Rhiannon had been twelve years his elder, the only mother Owein had known. Even though his difficult entry to the world had orphaned them both, his sister had loved him fiercely. The memory of that love might have brought a smile to Owein’s lips, had it not reminded him of all the Romans had stolen.

With precise motions, he set about the task of heating water. Hanging his cauldron on its tripod frame, he raked a portion of the fire into position beneath the vessel and filled it with snow from outside his door. While it melted, he rummaged again in the oaken chest. He emerged with several ragged lengths of wool, singed at the edges. Would his dead wife approve of his using her handiwork to give aid to a Roman woman? His chest felt hollow as he dipped the cloth into the warming water.

The lass drifted closer to consciousness. Her shivering was constant, though not as violent as before. A good sign, Owein thought—her body was seeking to warm itself. He crouched and wrapped her feet in the wet cloth, heating her skin, then drying it quickly.

He warmed her hands next, running the pad of his thumb over her palm and fingertips, searching for gray patches that indicated her skin had frozen past saving. He was relieved to find none. Experimentally, he circled one of her slight wrists with his thumb and forefinger. So delicate, and her palms, though red with cold, were soft and uncallused. The floral scent of her skin mingled with the musty odor of the wool.

She was a fragile blossom flung from a Roman garden into the wilderness. His brows drew together as he tucked the furs around her. Somehow, one of her hands remained in his, even after she’d been swaddled. As the night hours passed, he sat silently, chafing her soft skin with the roughened pads of his fingers. The chill of her body seeped into his soul, seeking his warmth.

It was not a welcome feeling.

Clara came awake suddenly, gasping, her body shaking like a miller’s sieve. Her hand was immersed in searing heat. She jerked back, to no avail. Something … no,
someone,
held her.

Someone
was a man. A beast of a Celt—large, rough, and ruddy of complexion, with long red hair and a braided beard. Backlit by the flickering light, his mane glowed about his face like a halo of fire. A single thin plait hung from temple to shoulder, the end secured with a strip of leather. His eyes were a clear, brittle blue, like broken glass.

He had the look of a warrior about him. His broad chest stretched his buckskin shirt to the extremity of its rough seams. Despite the winter chill, the shirt had no sleeves, leaving Clara to stare at the corded muscles of his arms. He was in the prime of his manhood, sculpted like a statue of a god. The import of this observation settled over her like a blanket of frost.

He was not the man she sought.

She stirred, trying to lever herself upright. The fur coverlet slid across her skin. Her
bare
skin. Abruptly, she lay flat again, all but gagging on her panic. Straw poked through the coarse mattress, scratching her naked thighs and bottom. She was completely unclothed beneath the furs, and the wild man who must have removed her clothing was watching her closely.

He seemed to note the exact instant she recognized her vulnerability. One corner of his mouth twitched, and his gaze sharpened. The rough pad of his thumb scraped almost imperceptibly over her palm.

Clara was unprepared for the sensations the small movement brought. A pull deep in her belly, itching on the tips of her breasts. Something of it must have shown in her eyes, for his blue gaze flared, flicking downward, as if he
knew.
Though fur swaddled her body, revealing nothing, Clara’s cheeks heated.

To her amazement, so did his.

Quickly, he dropped her hand and averted his eyes, busying himself with a fire that did not need tending. She watched as he prodded the blaze with a twisted stick. Flames leapt, but the heat seemed far away. She was chilled to her bones, to her very soul. She wondered if she would ever be warm again.

A dark sense of hopelessness assaulted her. Had she failed in her quest? She’d been sure the mountain she’d approached had been the Seer’s. She’d followed Aiden’s instructions exactly, but then the storm had struck, and she’d become disoriented. It was all too likely that she’d lost her way.

She wanted to sob her frustration. But she would not do that, here, before this wild stranger. There were scars encircling his wrists, as if he’d once been bound. Was he an escaped criminal? Keeping the blankets carefully wrapped about her body, she struggled into a sitting position, wincing as her tender palm scraped the dirt floor.

“My hands,” she said, swallowing. “And … and my feet. They are afire.”

The Celt’s brow furrowed. “They are … frost.” He paused. “No. Frozen.” He spoke the Latin haltingly, with a strong accent. His scowl deepened as he searched for his next words. “Will hurt … a while longer … but ye will not be scarred, I am thinking.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” she answered in Celtic, trying her best to imitate Aiden’s mountain lilt. If she treated the barbarian like a civilized man, perhaps he would act the part.

A quick flash in his blue eyes betrayed his surprise. “Ye speak the language of the Celts?” he asked in his own tongue.

“Yes,” she replied. “Though the pronunciation of some words eludes me. I learned from one of my father’s …” Her voice trailed off.

He exhaled a sharp breath. “Slaves, ye mean to say.”

The contempt in his voice rankled. His statement was an accusation, one she couldn’t deny. “The lessons were freely given.”

He snorted, the corners of his mouth drawing downward.

She studied him from beneath her lashes. Once again, the sheer size of him overwhelmed her. Again she found herself comparing him to a statue—larger and more perfectly formed than a common man. But he was not sleek and smooth like the statues that graced the forum in Isca. No, this man was rough and solid, with a dangerous look about him. His long red beard and mustache hid the nuances of his mood. With a sudden vengeance, she wished them gone.

She clenched her fists so tightly her fingernails bit into her palms. She hated that she was defenseless before him. Consciously, she straightened her spine. Father had always asserted it was the worst folly to show weakness before an enemy.

She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you. I’ll be on my way as soon as I might.” She drew a breath and met his gaze. “What have you done with my clothes?”

He gestured to a heap on the floor. “They are wet.”

“And my satchel?” she said in alarm. “Did you …”

“Your wee bundle is there as well,” he said, eyeing her. “Nay, I didna paw through it.”

She blushed. “I didn’t mean …” But she had meant it, and his expression told her that he knew. He was no fool, this barbarian. The silence lengthened between them, growing thick and heavy until she could bear it no longer.

“I lost my way,” she said. “It was stupid of me, I know, but the trail I was following ended, and then the storm began …” She drew a breath. “I’m seeking a wise man. A Druid.”

At the Celt’s scowl, she clutched the blanket more firmly to her breasts. “I was told he lived in this valley. Do you know of him? If you show me the path to his door, I’ll be gone as soon as my clothes are dry.”

He raised his brows. “Ye’ll nay be going far, lass. Not chilled as ye are. Your feet willna bear even your slight weight, not for a day, at least.”

As if to underscore his assessment, a shiver overtook her. Her body was ice cold, as if a winter storm still raged inside. She barely felt the fire, though beads of sweat stood out on her companion’s forehead. The musk of his perspiration reached her nostrils. It was an intimate smell, one that caused her to shift away.

“The old Druid,” she persisted. “He’s a Seer. He can find things that are lost or stolen. Surely you know of him. Does he live nearby?”

To her surprise, the Celt stood abruptly and gave her his back. “There be few Druids left alive,” he said without turning. “Your army has done a fine job of putting them to the sword.”

Clara stared at the back of his head. Again he spoke the truth and again she had no answer. But she had no choice—she had to gain his cooperation. She
had
to find the Seer, and it was likely this man could lead her to him.