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Dera’s
place. She’d said there was too much danger—that she couldn’t ask
Dera to take such a risk.
    “ That’s
good, coming from you,” Dera had said. By that time, she’d been
feeling like they had a loaded catapult aimed straight at them and
held back by nothing more than a hair, and she’d been fairly
dancing with the need to get out and on her way. “Aren’t you the
one that stood up in front of Lord Marche and the whole King’s
Council and said they could burn you if only they’d let me go
free?”
    “ But that
was—” Lady Isolde stopped. “You’ve got Jory, Dera. You can’t risk
leaving him without his mother.”
    “ Maybe
not. But I’m not going to let Lord Marche’s men stroll in here and
kill him, either—or cart him off to be sold for some Saxon lord’s
slave.” Just saying the words made Dera flash hot, then cold, and
bitter bile rise in her throat. But she said, “And that’s what’ll
happen if you’re the one to go out there tonight. Think. What if
Lord Marche is there, one of the men attacking tonight? He’s not
like to recognize me—not in the dark, and when he’s probably had a
hundred whores since last we met. But you—he’d know you, all right.
And so would his men. If you were the one to go, and Marche or
anyone else recognized you—”
    “ All
right.” Lady Isolde still looked pale, and a bit shaky, but she let
out her breath and moved her head in a nod. “I don’t like it—but
you’re right. Just … be careful, Dera. Please.”
    The last
Dera had seen of her, Lady Isolde had still been sitting by the traitor Bevan’s body,
still holding his hand and touching his forehead whenever he
groaned. Which Dera would probably be glad about, if she ever made
it through the night alive. Just now, though, with the icy water
working its way down her spine and her lips and nose long since
gone numb, she was thinking Bevan was having a lot easier time of
it than he deserved.
    The owl called again, sending her heart
slamming so hard into her ribs Dera wouldn’t have been surprised to
hear them creak. She locked her hands tight against her middle, and
made herself go over the steps of the plan.
    Lord Marche’s men were camped on the shore of
Llyn Dinas. Lady Isolde had Seen enough of the area where their
wounded man had been shot with the arrow to be—almost—sure. Which
meant they’d be coming towards Dinas Emrys up the mountain track
from the river Glaslyn—the same track the merchants and traders
used.
    So here Dera was. Hiding in the bushes,
turning her fingers and toes into icicles, at the top of the
mountain track that led through the trees and rocky ground to the
river valley below.
    And then she heard it: from far down below, a
clatter of stone on stone, and then a muttered curse—like someone
had tripped over a rock or pebble and lost their footing.
    She’d
thought her heart had been beating hard before, but now it felt
like it was trying to jump out of her chest. Dera shut her eyes and
tried to breathe, like
she had before—but this time it didn’t help. She could hear more of
them, now—and closer. Heavy, booted footsteps and an occasional
grunt or rustle of branches coming up the path. They’d be on her in
a moment.
    She took another breath, and, before she
could completely lose her nerve, smashed her way through the scrub
of bushes and dry brush between her and the sound of the men.
    “ Lud’s
hairy ass!”
    It would have been funny, if she’d been in
the mood for a laugh. The first man stopped up short, swearing as
she emerged onto the path, and the next four in line plowed
straight into him like a children’s game of skittles. The first man
in line, though, grabbed hold of her wrist and hauled her towards
him, bending down so close she could smell the stink of onions on
his breath.
    “ Who are
you? What are you doing here?”
    This was the part of the plan she’d been
going over and over again in her head, practicing what she was
going to say