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Cathy’s skin chilled, her fingers trembled. Did they recognize she was a woman? Did they recognize she didn’t actually speak their language? Had she done something that betrayed that she was from a different reality—or time?

Too late now, she told herself again. She needed to help Andor, one way or another. “Help,” she said, still in a low voice that she hoped would resemble a man’s. “My friend’s injured.”

They exchanged a glance, and the older man nodded. “Where is he, son?”

Son? Cathy’s shoulders relaxed, and she pointed at the bush.

“Let us go, Brother Aethelred,” the older one said. They turned the donkey and followed Cathy.

CHAPTER FIVE

Through a splitting headache, Andor rose to consciousness. Above him was a darkening sky, half of it indigo, the other half golden and pink. In that golden-pink half, was a beautiful female face.

Svana.

No.

Not Svana.

Svana’s eyes were green and her hair brown. The hair and eyes above him were not. And though the face was as soft and lovely, it was not hers. His heart ached at the memory that he would never see his wife’s face again, and he quickly shut away the feeling and the ghosts that still haunted him.

Everything shook and swayed under him. He lay on something soft yet prickly. Wheels rumbled against the road.

The woman’s gentle gaze comforted him.

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”

Her cool hand rested on his forehead. With an odd feeling of safety, he fell back into darkness.

When he next woke, he lay on something soft and comfortable, covered with a blanket. Through his eyelids which were still closed, light protruded and made his vision pink. It was quiet, although he thought he heard someone breathing. His hand slowly crawled under his pillow where he usually kept his scramasax.

But the short sword was not there. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

He was in a small room with a stone floor and walls. Daylight fell through a small window. A wooden cross hung on otherwise bare walls. Across the room from him, by the wall, stood a wooden bench on which slept a tall teenage boy covered with a blanket. Andor lay in a bed fit for a grown child, his feet hanging over the end.

A distant pain pounded in the back of his heavy head. His thigh throbbed and burned. He was so weak, as though he had not eaten or drunk for ages.

Every part of his body thirsted. He turned his head and saw a clay jug and a cup standing on the stone windowsill. There must be water.

Andor tried to sit up, but his head spun and he had to hold on to the edges of the mattress, or risk falling off the bed.

“Hel,” he groaned.

The boy stirred and lifted his head, revealing big gray eyes with long eyelashes.

Andor remembered those eyes. It was not a boy. It was that madwoman, Cathy, who claimed to be betrothed to him.

Then he remembered fighting. He had thought he’d died, but here he was with this strange woman again.

“Water,” he croaked.

“Right away.” She rushed to the window and poured water into a cup, then held it for him. Andor gulped the cool liquid down and did not think he had ever tasted anything as good.

While she was refilling the cup, he glanced at her again. The bright-pink armor was gone, and she wore the clothes of a Saxon man. She smelled like one, too—an unwashed one.

She gave him another cup, and he drank it.

“More?” she asked, but he shook his head.