A Soul of Steel

by Troy A Hill

  Fortunately, the family’s food stores and root cellar were well away from the carnage. Gwen hummed as she tossed together a stew. She held out a wooden spoon full of the broth toward me.

  “I forget sometimes,” she said as she realised her mistake and sipped it herself.

  “My cooking skills disappeared about the same time as my taste for real food.”

  Cadoc found us several hours later. Fortunately, we were on the far side of the shed, where the shadow of the trees would make a fair camp spot for the men later on. Pine needles and leaves had leave a soft blanket across the ground here. He sniffed the air.

  “Miladies have warmed my heart, and set a rumble in my belly,” he said. “We’ve smelled the stew among the smoke. The men are grumbling they’re hungry. Even the guilders.”

  “We’ll serve in a short while,” Gwen said with a smile. “How is the digging?”

  “We’ll be a few more hours. Another to get the last two graves deep enough, then we’ll have the guilders lead the burial rites.” His gaze shifted toward the animal pens outside. “You ladies might survive on a bowl of stew, but our men will be hungry enough to eat that bear the guilder's other party is chasing. Perhaps we should have some chicken as well?”

  “Two? Perhaps three?” Gwen suggested.

  “I will take care of that,” he said. “Although I’m not sure which I prefer less, digging, or plucking chickens…”

  “I can help,” I offered. That had been one of my chores as a young girl. Not my favourite task, but many a feather had been plucked by my little fingers back then. I had done so many the muscled memory come back quickly. Just don’t ask me what spices went best on the chicken, or how long to cook it, nor how close to the fire to cook it without burning. Chicken hadn’t been on my diet for the last six centuries. I would imagine I was plucking the guilders instead of a defenceless chicken.

  22

  Negotiations

  Gwen picked a few feathers from my cloak on our way to the graveside. We both made sure we had our crosses out on our chests before we reached the guilders. They and the Penllyn men stood around the graves.

  The Seeker himself led the prayers for the dead. His accent in Latin wasn’t close to what I had heard as a child in Rome. But, hearing the words of my childhood language, no matter how badly sung by him, brought a little joy, despite the grim nature of our task.

  He had, though, a tone of voice that reminded me of many of the merchants I had dealt with over the years. Sweet and light. Eager. He would try to sell water to a drowning man. If his target died too soon, he’d try to sell to the family of the deceased.

  What he wanted to peddle here wasn’t just religion. I knew from personal experience how these Witch Hunters talked wasn’t what they delivered. Their tales of morality and justice was always cloaking more sinister goals of power and corruption. Guile and deceit. I hoped Bleddyn was wise to their methods. Surely, as Lord Penllyn he’d dealt with such slimy peddlers of lies before?

  I hadn’t been able to get close to Lord Penllyn to warn him. The best I could do was sound out Cadoc, or grumble to Gwen across our mental link. She smiled and told me to trust Bleddyn.

  Once the dead had been lowered into the graves and more prayers said by the guilders, Bleddyn and Cadoc each threw handfuls of earth onto the corpses. Our guards, along with the guilder guards used shovels and some roughhewn boards they ripped from the shed walls to push the soil back into the graves.

  Bechard and his servant steered Bleddyn back over toward the fire. The Seeker continued on his quest to re-ingratiate himself with the lord of Penllyn while Gwen finished up the last of the meal preparations. I found my hand drifting closer and closer to Soul’s hilt as I listened to him weasel-word the benefits Penllyn could receive from the guild, if only Lord Penllyn would see his way build a stronghold for them near the abbey.

  “Dearest,” Gwen’s thoughts interrupted me. I pulled my hand from under my cloak as she frowned at me. “The dishes we pulled from the farmhouse could use a good scrub to make sure none have any blood on them.”

  “Afon already washed them,” I sent back. I kept my gaze on the Seeker. The world would be a better place, I decided, with one less guild chapter in it.

  “Do you trust a man to know what clean is?” She smiled. I sighed. “You can trust Bleddyn to protect our secrets,” she added. “Just don’t trust him with a dishrag.”

  She was right. Not only did I not trust Afon’s quick dash with a rag in the creek to have cleaned the dishes, I needed to have my attention elsewhere. Away from the guilders.

  Cadoc saw me gathering the plates and came to lend a hand.

  “Grab the kettle,” I suggested, and waved at the large pot with hot water. He used his cloak to wrap the handle and protect his hands from the heat.

  “Any chance your father will give in?” I asked, once we were set up by the stream.

  “Not likely,” he replied. He let the hot water drip for a few seconds before he gave the plate a rinse in the stream. “But father is good at listening. He likes to let everyone have a chance to state their case before he makes a pronouncement.”

  “But…” I passed him the last plate and moved onto the wooden cups.

  “No buts,” Cadoc said. His tone serious. “When Father told me some of their men accosted you in the borderland, his eyes were cold, almost as cold as Emlyn’s get. Had that happened in Penllyn, we would have driven the guild out of here immediately.”

  I kept my eyes on the kettle of water. Remembering my time with Onion Breath did little to blunt my anxiety. My stomach tightened with the memories of that damned silver knife, and the sharp, lingering pain he had inflicted with it. I shivered, dropped the mug I had just washed back into the kettle. I had to lean on the rim of the pot to help me get my body back under control.

  Cadoc put his hand on mine. His eyes were full of sympathy. I gave him a weak smile.

  “We have too many friends in the cantref,” his eyes shifted to Gwen, then back to me, “that we want to protect from them.” His voice was a whisper. Just loud enough for me to hear. “You have my word that father has your back. Penllyn protects our friends, and you proved that when you helped me protect our people from those spirits.”

  His eyes didn’t leave my face.

  “Thank you,” my voice squeaked as I tried to talk through the lump in my throat.

  “Friends help each other,” he said, and took the mug I had dropped out of the kettle.

  Bleddyn and the Seeker sat on opposite sides of the fire. Their men sat in an uneasy truce to either side. The only guilder who seemed out of place was the old one. Lecerf. He didn’t sit much, but paced around the farm. He seldom spoke, and the other guilders seemed happiest when he was elsewhere.

  “We’ve always got younger sons of landholders looking for a new farm,” Bleddyn told the seeker. “I would rather have this valley farmed than place a guild house here.”

  “But a guild house would occupy little land here,” Bechard said. He waved his hands to indicate the full valley, then pulled them close together. “We would need only a modest amount of space.”

  “But,” Bleddyn added, “you’ll want the tenants to produce for you, instead of for their landholder. That lord will come to me, looking for more land, and I’ll have to pull from someone else’s holdings to make up for it.” He lifted his mug. I smelled ale, not mead in the men’s cups. Lord Penllyn wasn’t in the mood to share his good drink with the guilders.

  “Our people have a comfortable life here in Penllyn,” he added, looking across his mug. “We have the church already established. Our Bishop takes only what he needs for his monks and gives much more back in the way of education and comfort to our people.”

  “Our needs would be smaller than his,” Bechard said. He wasn’t whining, but I sensed that the negotiations he had been working on all day had exhausted his desire to be civil. There was an edge to his voice. One I hadn’t heard before.

  “You said yourself
that the pagans in Mercia would be your priority,” Bleddyn said. “Penda of Mercia is the ruler you need to seek.” He took a drink and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Our bishop sees to our people’s moral needs very well. The pagans are in Mercia, not in Penllyn.”

  The seeker wisely pursued his own mug. He watched Lord Penllyn for a moment then stood and drifted away to where his servant paced out near the graves.

  Bleddyn looked my way and winked once. I smiled back at him. He had my back with the guilders. Neither Gwen, Ruadh, nor I needed them anywhere in the cantref.

  He set his mug down and pulled out a knife. Instead of attacking the guilders, he picked up a piece of wood he had found. He had already shaved it down. What he was making, I had no idea. As long as it wasn’t land for the guilders, I was content.

  Afon drifted out of the shed, and came back to squat by the fire. All three of the guilder guards sat and nursed their own mugs of ale. Gerallt had Rhys, with a bow in hand walking a slow perimeter guard around the farm. Only three of our guards sat with the guilders and Bleddyn.

  Afon reached out and scattered a handful of grain across the fire. It crackled and popped as the flames ate the kernels.

  “What is the meaning of that?” a whiney, high pitched voiced sounded. My gaze swivelled to where Bechard’s assistant, Lecerf had stepped into the firelight. My gut tightened every time I caught him watching me.

  “Grain, milord,” Afon said. His eyes darted toward Lord Penllyn, seeking approval in the face of Lecerf’s scolding. “We burn it to help the dead find their way from their graves up to heaven.”

  “Such Pagan ways will not be tolerated,” the old guilder pronounced in his high, whine. “Prayers of the true faith are all that is needed. We should try you for your heathen ways.”

  “Perhaps we should return with you, milord Penllyn,” Bechard said as he stepped behind his compatriot. “We need to educate his grace, the bishop, about the old pagan ways of his flock.”

  “Perhaps you should come back with us,” Bleddyn said. He still held the hunk of wood . He slid his knife to cut a large shaving from the edge the piece. It curled toward the Seeker.

  “His grace could call a council of the bishops of the Cymry church, and you could explain to all of them at once how you know better than they what our people need in their spiritual life.”

  Bechard straightened to his full height. He was tall, but still half a hand shorter than Bleddyn or Cadoc. The seeker kept his eyes on Lord Penllyn. Bleddyn didn’t shift his gaze from the seeker. Neither spoke for a moment. Bechard spun on his heel and drifted back out into the night.

  23

  Empty

  “That won’t be the end of them,” Cadoc said the next morning. Gwen and I stood with him and watched the Seeker and his men head back toward the borderlands and Mercia.

  “Bechard doesn’t want to take on your bishops just yet,” I replied.

  “Cymry bishops and those in the Anglo lands rarely see eye to eye,” Gwen said. “The bishop of Canterbury has probably let him know their authority in church matters ends before Cymry lands begin.”

  “Why the split?” I asked. “Isn’t it one religion?”

  “While the Anglo lands went pagan after Rome’s withdrawal two centuries ago,” Gwen explained, "the Cymry remained Christianised. The church here developed their ways and habits differently than how such progressed with clergy on the continent. The Roman clergy had only recently paid attention to Britannia again. Where customs have drifted apart, both sides believe they are in the right. Neither side wants the other to tell them how to live nor when to pray.”

  “I noticed the monks cut their hair differently here,” I thought back to the haircuts I had seen on the abbot and his brethren. Shaved to the front of the ears and long in back. A far different style than the ring of hair that European monks had adopted.

  “Sadly,” Gwen said, “haircuts, and the dates of lent and Easter are two of the most divisive points between the Cymry and Anglo clergies. Of all the good they could do for the people of Britannia together, they bicker like children over small details.”

  “If a haircut will keep the Anglo bishops from forcing that Seeker and his guild on Penllyn,” I said and shot her a smile, “I’ll personally shave every monk’s head in the abbey.”

  Cadoc laughed.

  “I’ll tell uncle he has a new barber for his monks,” he said. His eyes drifted to Soul belted to my hip. “Though, I suggest using a smaller blade than you normally carry. You’ll scare the monks if you pull that on them.”

  We broke camp once the Guilders were gone. Cadoc sent Siors and Gerallt off toward the nearest village to share the news of the empty farmstead.

  “Have the friar in the village send word to Lord Alun,” Bleddyn instructed as they turned their horses to the west. “He’ll shift his tenants as needed to make sure the land is worked as it should be.”

  “We’ll catch up with you by nightfall,” Gerallt said.

  Bleddyn rode with Gwen and I as we headed southwest, skirting the border between Penllyn and the borderlands.

  “They guilders said they’re chasing down a mad, frothing bear” I said to break the silence. Bleddyn nodded but didn’t comment.

  “You don’t believe them?” I asked. He shrugged.

  “Perhaps they are,” he said. “What we saw at that farm…”

  “That was more damage than I’d expect from a bear,” I said, and glanced at Gwen.

  “I could not get a sense of what kind of creature it was,” she said. “Normally, all animals leave a trace of their passage on the land, and I can sense that. But there, the energy of death, of carnage was so great that it overshadowed all other traces.”

  “It didn't kill the livestock,” I added. Bleddyn nodded, but stayed silent, his eyes off on the distance. After a moment, he spoke, barely above a whisper.

  “I can’t protect my people if I don’t know what we face…”

  After we stopped for a midday meal and rested the horses, Bleddyn rode beside Rhys in the lead while Cadoc and Afon rode to the rear. Gwen and I led the pack horses, with leads attached to our own saddles. None of us, not even Afon was talkative. The morbid discovery at the farm, along with the presence of the guilders yesterday, had taken the spirit of our group.

  We were in a shallow valley later in the day when Bleddyn slowed to let us overtake him. “Notice anything odd about the far hill on the left edge of the range?” he asked.

  Gwen and I shaded our eyes and I let out a whistle like the one’s Bleddyn punctuated his statement with. His mannerisms rubbed off on me this trip.

  “More discoloured patches,” I said. “Another graveyard?”

  “We’ll find out shortly,” he said. “Or rather, you two ladies will with your holy senses. I told Rhys to head that direction. No rush, though. We need to let Gerallt and Siors catch up with us by this evening.”

  An hour later, we stood atop the hill. Bleddyn pointed out the square lines of several stone building foundations covered with scrub and moss. The site had been a former hilltop fort.

  “Probably Roman,” Bleddyn said. “Too uniform. Too regular, both in shape and distance.” A few trees and a lot of scrub had grown in the area.

  “If the legions were anything,” I said, “they were disciplined and uniform. Generals hated to see a wall that wasn’t lined up with all the others.” I grinned at him. “But, I suspect much of that was to give idle soldiers more work tearing a wall down and setting it up again.”

  Gwen had already begun a search with her magical senses. I kneeled next to her and linked our minds. We sensed a similar scene to the first blighted area. We found more traces of that dark magical residue where it had pulled the skeletal corpses away. Gwen again confirmed they appeared to be from the time of the Roman occupation about three or four centuries before. One grave was still occupied.

  “Why leave only one?”

  Gwen shrugged when I asked. She stood and began a circuit of the hill, loo
king for anything that might give her a clue about the graves. With the sun out, I decided to find some shade. Even though the goddess sent me energy, I didn’t want to seem impolite and draw too much.

  Fortunately, there was one large oak still standing on the hill. Stumps of many others were rotted. Their fallen trunks riddled with insect bores and tunnels. The one lone tree stood solitary sentinel on the hilltop. I spread my cloak on the grassy hilltop and leaned back against it.

  Cadoc climbed the hill and suggested we wait here until the others caught up. Bleddyn agreed, and wandered down the hill toward Afon and Rhys. They had the horses down at a stream. Lord Penllyn helped them pull saddles from the mounts. Then they checked their hooves and legs, giving each a good rub down.

  “Nice view,” Cadoc said and sprawled next to where I sat in the shade. I stayed quiet. The day before still bothered me, as did the empty graves below. We sat that way, quiet, watching the others for several moments.

  “Father says you studied with the same sword master that Emlyn trained with,” Cadoc said. I wasn’t sure where the conversation was leading.

  He had pulled out his belt knife earlier and twirled it on its point on a piece of bark. The babble of the brook down the hill added a counterpoint to the sound of birds singing in the tree above us. I didn’t understand bird-speak. Gwen probably did. I’d have to ask her. They might have been complaining about our presence under their tree.

  “Father had me study with Emlyn as I was younger,” he continued. “Afon and Emlyn are the only two that challenge me among our guard.”

  I stayed silent and let him finish his thoughts.

  “I love how Enid has taken to it as well, though I fear she’ll not have time eventually. Children will come,” he said.

  I remembered what Gwen said about his bride’s condition, but stayed quiet. Evidently Enid hadn’t been far enough along in her cycle to know. I didn’t want to tell him. That was Enid’s news to share once she herself knew.