“No,” he answered softly, almost to himself. “No, I’m a long way from home. Where are my clothes? My belongings?”
“Your clothes were a mess. They are being cleaned and repaired. I don’t know about any belongings. I’ve not seen anything, but I will ask later. Now keep still. This will hurt a little.” She peeled the cloth away. Dodinal tensed, wincing. It hurt a great deal.
“Looks good,” Rhiannon said, nodding. “The infection is completely clear. It was bad, already starting to putrefy. You were lucky they found you when they did, else you would not have lasted the night. If the infection hadn’t got you, the cold would have. I’ve never known a winter like it.”
“The boy. He’s your son.” It was a statement, not a question. The child was the image of his mother.
“Yes,” she said, with a smile that was as much sadness as love. “Owain. My only child. He wandered off. Put on some of his grandfather’s clothes when no one was looking and left. He’s never done anything like it before. If you hadn’t come along…” She broke off and quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Well, Owain told me what you did. How you fought. You saved his life.”
“And now you have saved mine,” Dodinal answered, a little more gruffly than he had intended. He was a man who was never at ease listening to others when they spoke from the heart. Sometimes he wondered if that was because his own had died along with his parents. For years after that terrible night, all he had felt was hate, a seething rage that had consumed him like wildfire. Even now, many years later, the hate smouldered deep within him. Perhaps these days he needed a little more provocation to bring forth the flames, but it was there all the same. “A life for a life. We’re even.”
She did not answer. Her fingers tenderly probed the skin around the wound. Dodinal flinched. He had not looked, but could picture the torn flesh and the bruising that surrounded it. He had been hurt many times, but always in battle; clean wounds that had healed quickly. This one was different. Perhaps it never would heal properly.
No matter. His quest would continue regardless.
“Where is the boy now?”
“Asleep. He scarcely left your side for three days. In the end I had to force him into bed. He was just about dead on his feet.”
Dodinal remembered something else. “You say he told you what happened. Yet in the woods he made no sound, not even when the wolves attacked. I assumed he was incapable of speech.”
“He speaks only to me. Owain is not like other children. They all think he’s strange, and even though he’s my son and I love him, I suppose in his way he is. Sometimes I wonder…”
“Yes?”
She hesitated. Then, brusquely: “Nothing. He has his health and that’s all that matters. I’m going to put a fresh poultice on the wound. The infection has cleared, but the skin is still swollen. I have some already made up so I might as well use it.”
Dodinal noted how deftly she steered the subject away from her son but did not pursue it. “Could you bring me some water?”
“Of course.”
She took the empty beaker away, returning shortly with the water and a wooden bowl. The liquid was stale and tepid, but it tasted as sweet as Camelot’s finest mead as it flowed down his parched throat.
The poultice was like warm mud as Rhiannon gently spread it over his skin. It stank to high heaven,5 the reek even worse than the infusion he had drunk. While she worked on him, Dodinal looked around to try to gain a measure of his surroundings. The fire burned bright enough in its pit to show four walls around him and a thatched roof above his head. Snowflakes swirled in through the smoke-hole, melting in the rising heat. Beyond it lay nothing but darkness. He was not in the corner of a larger building, as he had supposed. Rhiannon and her son appeared to have the place to themselves.
He wanted to know the whereabouts of his clothes, his sword, his shield, his pack. But as he was going nowhere just yet, the questions were not pressing. They could wait until his throat had recovered.
Dodinal wondered about the boy’s father, who was nowhere to be seen and whose name had not been mentioned. Again he decided against asking. It was none of his business and, besides, as soon as he was strong enough, he would be on his way. There was no reason for him to get involved in these people’s affairs.
“There,” Rhiannon said as she wrapped the cloth around his leg and tied it. “You should be back on your feet in a day or two.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“Idris has asked to see you, when you feel up to it.”
“Idris?”
“Our brehyrion.”6
“Brehe —?”
Rhiannon smiled at the attempt. “In days long gone it meant ‘chieftain,’ if that is easier for you.”
Dodinal nodded. Many of the settlements in the borderlands had been founded long ago by the fractured remnants of the great tribes that once ruled these lands. Some traditions remained. Land and leadership were handed down from father to son, their lineages long forgotten, lost in the mists of time.
Rhiannon said, “You don’t remember him?”
“No. Should I?”
“It was Idris who found you in the woods. I’m not surprised you don’t remember, you were far gone by the time they carried you back here. The fever had taken hold. You called out several times while you slept.”
“What did I say?”
“Nothing I could understand.”
Dodinal was relieved to hear it. He did not want Rhiannon or her people to know who he was or why he was wandering the forest alone during the hardest winter in memory. He swallowed the last of the water. The burning in his throat had eased.
“So why does this Idris not come to see me?”
“Oh, he wanted to. But I told him he had to wait until you are strong enough to go to him. He always listens to me.”
The mischievous smile that flitted across her face suggested a closer bond between Rhiannon and Idris than that of healer and chieftain. Perhaps he was the boy’s father.
“I’ll fetch more water,” she said. “Are you hungry?”
He had not been, but no sooner had she asked than his stomach growled and saliva flooded his mouth. “Yes.”
“Then I will bring you something to eat, too. The better rested you are, the sooner you will be up and about.”
With that she was gone. Dodinal heard a door open, and an icy blast of wind made the fire gutter and dance before the door was slammed shut. There was nothing he could do other than stare at the ceiling and listen to the whistling of the wind as it found the gaps in the walls and insinuated itself under the thatched roof. The weather was showing no sign of improving.
He was alone with his thoughts for only a few minutes, before the door clattered open and Rhiannon hurried in, puffing in the cold. She held a cloth-covered wooden bowl with both hands and had to back into the door to close it against the raging gale.
The moment she stepped inside, Dodinal smelled the food. The aroma was far more pleasant than the foul infusion she had persuaded him to drink. His mouth watered and he licked his lips hungrily. He did not care what was in the bowl; he would eat it regardless.
“I’ve brought you some cawl.” Another unfamiliar word. She removed the cloth and handed him the bowl and spoon. “Here. We don’t have much to share, but it’s better than nothing.”
Dodinal thanked her and set about eating. The cawl was a stew of meat and vegetables in a watery broth. The meat, cured and dried to last through winter, had softened somewhat during cooking but still required a lot of determined chewing. The vegetables were tender, so he ate them first to silence the grumbling in his belly. When they were gone he turned to the meat, chewing and chewing until he could swallow without choking, drinking the broth directly from the bowl to wash it down. Finally he was done. His stomach, while not full, had at least ceased its gurgling protests.
“I don’t think I have ever seen anyone eat so fast.”