Only the water was soothing.
She was thirsty, but it would hurt too much to turn her head and look for something to drink, so she concentrated on noises instead. A faint sough of wind. The cries of waterfowl. The splash of water as if she were on a boat, except her boat wasn't rocking. And the gentle breathing…
Of a man.
She forced herself to turn then, gasping at the pain. There was someone sitting in the dimness of what appeared to be a crude hut. Even in shadow his profile was unmistakable. Arden Caratacus had been watching her sleep.
"Morrigan has come back," he whispered.
She was confused by the name. "Where am I?"
"A safe place. A healing place."
She lay back. "I hurt so much."
"That's because the best bear the most pain."
"Oh."
Then she fell asleep again.
When she came awake a second time, her entire body felt like a vast, rotting bruise. It was dark, the hut still. She could hear Arden's soft breathing on the other side of the enclosure, asleep. Pale moonlight filtered through the wattle, weaving a silver tartan on the floor, and again there was that odd sound of wavelets rippling. Trying not to groan, she stiffly sat up and put her eye to the wall. There was water on the other side, a lake or bay. A corridor of white, reflected light led across it: the hall of the moon. Maybe they were on a boat, a boat gone aground. Maybe she wasn't alive after all.
Something touched her lightly. A hand.
"Here, something to drink," he whispered.
Then he left her alone again.
When Valeria awakened the next time, she was hungry. Sunlight again, a small window open to scrubbed blue sky. Arden was gone. She stood and staggered, momentarily dizzy, her bare feet on rough wood. She was wearing a woolen tunic that came to her calves.
A window revealed a small lake, its surface reaching under the floor where she stood. Reeds grew in nearby shadows, and bright birds, red and black, darted there. Shuffling to the other side of the little hut, she found a door and opened it. A wooden ramp led to a grassy shore, a curtain of alder riffling in the wind. Geese were feeding in the shallows. She was on a dock, suspended on pilings. The hut was like a little island, the water making a moat. A catwalk connected it to another hut on pilings, a short distance away.
She wondered, illogically, if she'd been abandoned. Then she saw Arden walking along the lakeshore, a pole over one shoulder and two fish hanging from the pole. He waved to her-as if this strange habitation were the most natural thing in the world-and in moments he was treading good-naturedly across the boards of the ramp to join her, his cheerful stride making the planks thump.
"You're up!" he greeted. "And sooner than we hoped. You've got the stamina of a Brigantia. The mettle of a Morrigan."
"I've got the bones of an old woman and the muscles of a baby," she replied softly. "I feel like raw meat. Where are we, Arden?"
"A crannog. My people like the protection of water, so we build small islands or platforms for refuge. You were too badly injured to take back to Tiranen, so we brought you here."
"How long have I been here?"
"Three days."
"Three days!"
"That boar gave you a beating. Have you looked at yourself?"
"No."
"Your entire side is purple."
Valeria nodded, beginning to remember now. "I thought he was going to kill me. Such a vicious-" She stopped. "And how did you see my side?"
"We had to get your bloody clothes off you."
"We?"
"Kalin helped too."
"Kalin!"
"He's a healer, Valeria. It's his broth that's brought you around."
She didn't remember any broth. "It's not right for you two to be looking."
"We couldn't bear the stink of you."
She was embarrassed, grateful, and resentful at her dependency. She changed the subject. "Where's Savia?"
"Taking over Tiranen, I suppose. When she heard you'd been hurt, she told me exactly what she thought of me, which you can well imagine. I think you'll recover faster away from her, so in her boredom she's got the rest of the clan under siege. She wants to convert and reform us at the same time."
"That sounds like Savia." She was beginning to remember. "And Hool?"
He looked at her gently, reaching up to touch her cheek as softly as the fox cape that had wrapped her neck on her wedding night. She shivered.
"Alive, Valeria." So startling, that touch. Her name on his lips. He caressed her skin. "Saved by your courage. He's in the hut next door, taking strength from your own healing. You will get well together."
She blinked. "Can I see him?"
The Celtic hunter was on the same kind of straw mattress she had found herself, his skin pale and his frame shrunken, as if the near passage of death had collapsed him in on himself. At first he seemed confused by his visitors in the shadows, but then he recognized the young woman and cracked a smile. "Morrigan," he croaked.
She knelt by him. "It's Valeria, Hool."
His hand reached out and grasped her forearm, the grip still surprisingly strong. "The others told me what you did."
"Let you get trampled, it looks like."
He coughed a slight laugh and then lay back, still in pain. "I owe you my life, lady. Saved by a woman! For that, I give you my spear."
"Don't be silly-"
"I give you my spear in debt for my living. It marks you as a Celt."
She blushed. "I'm only a Roman."
"Not now. You're one of us."
Valeria shook her head. "That will only be when you're well, Hool. When you can take your place in the hunt again. Let me help you to get better."
"You are here. It's enough-" He was drifting off, slipping back to sleep.
"And your survival helps me."
He lay still, breathing slowly.
She stood, shakily. "I'm tired now, Arden."
He took her elbow. "Yes. Rest some more."
Valeria was young, and impatient to heal. The next day she began to move about, appalled at her discoloration but relieved she was still alive. She dipped into the lake, the shock of cold water countering the pain of her injuries. She'd had an adventure! In time she'd be well. Then she visited Hool, checking his dressings. He too seemed to be healing, without infection, and had lost none of his good humor. These were a tough people.
The crannog's ramp could be raised like a drawbridge, and now that Valeria had strength enough to lift and lower it, Caratacus instructed she do so. As a result she felt curiously safe in her hut: the ramp up, a gap of water between herself and the shore, and herself sitting gratefully in the summer's sun. How peaceful it was here! How removed from the cares of the world, after the recent tumultuous days of fear and emotion! She liked to watch the alder as it was riffled by the wind, or study how the trees lent their green color to the water. The crannog let her stop thinking. This, she knew, was why the man had brought her there.
He wanted her to think less and feel more.
He wanted her to understand the Celts.
A day and a night went by, and then she saw someone approach again, strange and yet familiar. She touched the rough hemp of the drawbridge rope, uncertain what to do.
It was the druid, Kalin. She still feared the priesthood's reputation.
"Will you make me swim, Roman lady?" His hood was back, his smile disarming.
"Where's Arden?"
"He'll be along soon enough. I've brought you some gifts, but if you want them, you'll have to let down your little bridge."