The Tower and the Emerald

by Moyra Caldecott

  ‘Live!’ he shouted as he worked, his heart breaking to see the state she was in, though as yet he had not recognized her through the mud and weed that clung to her.

  At last she was breathing, though not yet conscious, and he fell back to recover his own breath. It was then he saw it was Viviane. Joy leapt in his heart like a flame in dry kindling, and it was all he could do not to fall on her and smother her with kisses.

  He sat back on his haunches, gazing at her, her long hair matted and dark and interwoven with slime-weed, her gown torn and soaked in mud.

  There were runnels of blood where her skin had been torn, but she was alive and he had found her! He was both shivering and smiling, feeling this was perhaps the happiest moment of his life . . . asking no questions . . . seeking no answers . . .

  But moments break like waves and cannot be held back.

  He heard a sound behind him and turned quickly. It was nearly dark now and the figure that stood beside him was almost indistinguishable from the shadows. He sensed the malevolence rather than saw it. He had dropped his knife in the water when he had finally freed the girl from the weeds; his other weapons were on his horse a few paces to the left. The stranger was watching him intently. Whether he was armed or not was difficult to tell, but Caradawc did not feel like taking a chance. Cautiously he rose and stepped towards his chestnut, keeping his eyes warily on the dark figure. The man did not stir.

  ‘Who are you, sir?’ Caradawc challenged.

  ‘You know me well,’ came a voice as dry as dead leaves blown by the wind.

  ‘You are mistaken, sir,’ the young man said, but his voice faltered. How many more paces to his horse?

  ‘You know me as well as you know yourself,’ the other said and took a step forward.

  Caradawc turned swiftly and leapt across the remaining distance between himself and his horse. The chestnut trampled nervously, and Caradawc found that he could not get a firm grip on the weapons fastened to the saddle.

  ‘Whoa,’ he said softly. ‘Gently, friend.’ But the horse suddenly bolted, as he had done once before, apparently terrified. Caradawc swung round, determined to face the stranger with his fists if need be. The huge dark figure was very close now, shutting out what feeble light there remained from the day.

  ‘Hold, sir!’ Caradawc said warningly, raising his hands to ward him off. But the stranger continued forward until Caradawc could bear it no more, and lunged out.

  To his astonishment his arm met no resistance. Although the stranger appeared as solid as he was, his flesh had no substance. He came still closer, undeterred by the blow, and Caradawc felt an icy shadow touch him, then spread over him. Suddenly the figure was gone, and Caradawc was shaking with cold. It felt as though an iron fist had seized his heart and was squeezing it. He sensed himself sinking into a bottomless pit . . . falling . . . spinning . . . his voice crying out as though from a great distance . . .

  * * * *

  When Viviane opened her eyes she found Caradawc bending over her.

  ‘Ah, my love,’ she murmured softly, seeing how handsome he looked, how gently he lifted her in his arms. The full moon poured its light upon them, the river was like a sheet of silver. He kissed her, stroked her hair.

  ‘It has been so long,’ he whispered and his touch became rougher, more intimate. At first she did not resist, still half dazed by her experience. But then she remembered the eyes that had stared from Caradawc’s face in her chamber, the knife brutally plunged into Goreu’s back.

  ‘Idoc!’ she cried – but the sound was smothered as he kissed her. And, though a doubt still lingered, she let herself be taken.

  At the end, with her lover resting beside her, she rose on her elbow and looked down on his face in the moonlight. The features were those of Caradawc, but was there something about the expression – a hardness of line that belonged to an older man – a slight curl to the lip as though he was savouring a victory, not an act of love?

  The fear that had become her unwelcome companion since that ill-fated hunting expedition now returned. He was heavily asleep, and if she were very, very careful she might just be able to slip away. With tiny, imperceptible movements she eased herself away from him, rolling finally out of reach. She stood up silently, trembling with fear lest he should wake. But luckily he did not.

  She had no means of knowing which way would be the safest for her to take, but she thought it best to try to retrace her steps in search of Hunydd. To be a woman alone was bad enough, but without a mount her plight was really desperate. She began walking quietly, trying not to make a sound, but as soon as she felt she was out of earshot she began to run, stumbling occasionally on the uneven ground. She felt at her belt and was relieved to find that she still had the smith’s knife and the Green Lady’s little pouch containing the precious rose-crystal sphere.

  It was nearly dawn before she dared stop for rest. She had left the river and worked her way back as best she could in the direction she hoped would bring her to Hunydd. Exhausted, she could go no further. She found a sheltered place on a soft bank among bushes and fell asleep.

  When she woke she felt much refreshed. The morning sun was well up and everything sparkled – buttercups shining everywhere and birds busy about their business as though nothing untoward had happened. Cautiously she examined her immediate environment. In such a pleasant spot it seemed inconceivable that just a few hours before she had been fighting for her life against enchantment.

  After smoothing her dress as best she could, she followed the sound of trickling water and found a spring from which she drank thirstily before washing herself. Her hair soon began to dry in the sun, all its brilliant flame-like lights returning. Then she found a wild apple tree and ate heartily, though the apples were very sour.

  But where would she find Hunydd?

  As though in answer to this thought, she heard a sudden whinny, and a party of children came out of the wood, leading Hunydd amidst them and chattering excitedly at their find. Upon her back a slender green figure was riding. It waved cheerfully at Viviane, then seemed to dissolve into light and disappear. She stood amazed for a moment, wondering if she had imagined the figure, for the children did not seem to have noticed its presence, nor its disappearance. Then, as the party seemed about to pass her by without a glance, she pulled herself together and rushed forward to tell them that the mare was hers.

  They laughed. ‘Such a ragged peasant woman could not own such a fine horse.’

  Surprised, she looked down at herself. Certainly her fine white gown was no longer so fine or so white, and the cloak from the smith’s wife had been ragged to begin with and was worse now. Luckily, at this moment Hunydd pulled away from the children and came up to her mistress.

  Then they were curious, wanting to know why a lady like her was wandering about the countryside looking like a peasant. She told them she was escaping from a very wicked man, and asked them to direct her to the monastery she sought. One of the older boys said he knew the place she meant. It lay on the other side of the river. Her heart sank. She did not relish facing those murky depths again, but she followed where the children led, through meadows of tall grass, musk mallow and clover, through copse and barley field and, finally, to the river. From time to time she glanced uneasily over her shoulder, fearing that Idoc would find her again before she reached sanctuary. She could not shake off the feeling that he was even now watching her.

  * * * *

  When Caradawc awoke, both Viviane and Idoc had left him. The sun shone warmly on his skin and his chestnut horse, Osla, was not far away, cropping contentedly. He remembered nothing clearly after the dark hand had touched him, except the sensation of falling, and . . . but this he could not be sure of . . . a terrible yearning.

  He stood up and took his bearings. The river that had seemed so cruel and fearsome at sunset was placid and golden now in the daylight, willows growing along its banks. He must have lain there all night, because his limbs were stiff and painful. For a while he
paced up and down, stamping and clasping his sides with his arms, trying to get rid of the cramps and the lingering night cold. He wondered if anything he remembered had really happened. Had he indeed found Viviane, only to lose her again?

  He whistled and Osla came running, apparently unrepentant for having deserted him.

  ‘That’s a fine thing to do,’ he chided. ‘Run off when I need you most.’ But he did not scold him too hard, for he too had felt the icy clutch of fear. Neither he nor his steed would ever run from battle, but what they had faced the evening before was not natural – a grim wight sent from the dark regions to destroy them.

  He climbed on Osla’s back and set off along the riverbank, not knowing where to go or what to do next.

  Chapter 4

  The ferry and the rose-crystal sphere

  The children chose a different route to the river, much shorter than the one Viviane had already used, and their cheerful voices lifted her spirits. When they reached the ferry station the raft was over the other side, so they sat on the small jetty to wait, their legs dangling over the edge. From time to time there was a soft ripple, a curved flash of silver, and then a splash as a trout leapt into the air for a dragonfly and then fell back into its own element.

  At last they could see the raft returning across the water and the children pushed and jostled each other at the end of the jetty to have the privilege of catching the mooring rope. Viviane stood behind them, looking over their heads at the sturdy craft, more punt than raft, and the ferryman who stood wielding a long punt pole as he neared the bank. She noticed a large, flat oar lying at his feet, no doubt for use when in deeper water.

  She stroked Hunydd and murmured soothing things to her, more to comfort herself than the mare. Knowing now what lurked beneath the surface made her fearful of the crossing, though she had been on many a ferry before.

  To her surprise the ferryman was an old man, but, watching the way he manoeuvred his ungainly craft to the jetty, threw the rope and leapt after it on to the planks, she knew he was as fit and strong as need be for his work.

  ‘This lady has to cross the river,’ the children chorused, ‘but she has no coin. You’ll take her, won’t you?’ they cried. ‘Good old ferryman – you’ll take her, won’t you?’

  The man looked at her sharply, his expression clouding.

  ‘I take no one without payment,’ he said sourly. ‘I have a family to feed. If I let one go free, all will expect it.’

  ‘Just this once, old man – just this once!’ pleaded the children. ‘No one will see.’

  ‘Not even this once,’ he said firmly. ‘No payment. No crossing.’

  Viviane joined her pleas to theirs. ‘I swear I’ll return and pay you as soon as I have reached my friends,’ she said. She thought that surely the holy brothers and sisters at the monastery would help her when they knew her plight.

  ‘No payment. No crossing!’ he repeated sternly, standing with his arms crossed on his chest, glaring stubbornly at her.

  She looked round helplessly. She had nothing with which to barter. She could not and would not part with Hunydd’s saddle, nor the smith’s knife.

  Watching her closely and seeing what she was thinking the old man suddenly pointed at her waist.

  ‘I’ll have that green girdle,’ he said.

  Involuntarily she put her hand to the fine, strong, silk cord. It had been given her by the Green Lady and was surely some form of magical protection.

  ‘I cannot part with this,’ she said, thinking fast. Perhaps it would be better to give up the knife. It had come from no faery source. ‘You can have my knife.’ And she started to undo the belt to give him the knife and its sheath.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have a knife. I want the green girdle.’

  ‘You can have the leather belt and the knife,’ she said.

  But he was not interested, for it seemed he had set his heart on the girdle and nothing would direct his attention away from it. Viviane’s every instinct told her not to part with the girdle, yet she had heard that evil spirits hated crossing water, and apart from her determination to seek sanctuary with the Community of the Fish, she hoped by crossing the river to leave Idoc well behind her.

  Even as she hesitated a horseman was sighted by the children, and they shouted out that the ferryman would soon have another customer. Viviane looked back over her shoulder and, although the rider was still a fair distance away, she was sure it was Caradawc.

  ‘If only it was Caradawc,’ she thought desperately. But Caradawc inhabited by the soul of Idoc was more than she could bear.

  ‘You can have the green girdle,’ she cried hastily to the ferryman, ‘but only if you cast off now before that horseman arrives.’

  ‘He’s the wicked man she’s running away from!’ the children cried in delight, crowding off the jetty on to the bank to get a better view.

  ‘Please!’ she begged, her fingers trembling as she untied the knot the Green Lady had fastened so lovingly.

  The ferryman glanced speculatively from her to the rider and back again.

  ‘I’ll have the girdle and the knife,’ he said.

  ‘But, you said . . .’ she cried.

  ‘And the leather belt,’ he added.

  ‘All right!’ she almost screamed. ‘You’ll get them – but please cast off now.’

  He gave her a last amused look and released the rope from the post. He seemed to be moving deliberately slowly as he picked up the punt pole and put it in place to start. He looked at the rider rapidly approaching and then he looked at her – still hesitating to push the craft off.

  The horseman was obviously heading for the ferry, because he was galloping now and shouting for them to wait. He was near enough for Viviane to see without a doubt that it was Caradawc. She finally managed to undo the knot, and almost flung the precious green silk at the ferryman. He caught it deftly and, with a smile she hated, he swung it round until it fastened around his forearm like a snake.

  She looked back at Caradawc, tears streaming down her face . . .

  He was calling her name.

  Oh God . . . if only she knew! She would give anything for it truly to be Caradawc. But she could not be sure. Would she ever be sure again?

  ‘Go!’ she shrieked at the ferryman. ‘You’ve got what you wanted – now go!’

  He pushed off the craft at last.

  Caradawc reined up at the jetty, shouting after them. The children milled around him pummelling him and trying to pull him from his horse. Her anguished emotions were torn between wanting him by her side and dreading that she might discover he was once again inhabited by Idoc’s fell spirit.

  The young king, like a giant among dwarfs, managed to fling the children aside. Frantic to reach her, he dived into the water and started to swim towards her. It seemed to her the ferryboat was scarcely moving and the ferryman was delaying deliberately. Caradawc was gaining on them. She looked round angrily at the ferryman. He had a sly, unpleasant face, and his eyes were shining like beads. She could see the silk cord on his arm, and there was something horrible about the way it now seemed that the veined and knotted forearm was wound round the green cord, rather than the cord around the arm – almost as though he was absorbing the silk into his body.

  Caradawc had now reached the boat and was stretching up his hand to seize the side. He looked into her eyes, and she gasped. They were the sea-blue eyes of Caradawc, untroubled by anything but his love and concern for her.

  Then she rushed forward to help him, wild with joy – but the ferryman tripped her so that she fell sprawling on the deck. Then he struck the man in the water full in the chest with the punt pole. Her face almost on a level with Caradawc’s, she saw the agony that flushed across it . . . saw him gasp and flounder . . . saw him sink . . .

  ‘No!’ she cried, struggling to her feet. ‘Help him! Get him out!’

  ‘Make up your mind, lady,’ the ferryman mocked her. ‘One moment you want to escape him, and the next you want him for your b
ed.’

  ‘How dare you!’ she screamed. She tried to wrench the pole from him but he held it firmly. She saw his yellow teeth as he grinned. ‘Help him,’ she demanded. ‘I made a mistake. It’s not the man I thought it was.’

  ‘It’s too late now,’ the ferryman said callously. ‘The current will have taken him away.’

  Distraught, Viviane peered downriver. A dark shape that could have been a man or merely a log was being carried rapidly downstream, a scum of waterweeds and debris floating with it.

  The ferryman returned to his task. He set down the pole and pulled on the rudder rope with his bare foot, one toe very much longer than the others. With his hands he worked the paddle-oar to prevent the ferry drifting too far with the current.

  In despair Viviane stared at the river, too exhausted by the conflict of her emotions to think clearly. Then suddenly she remembered that she had received two gifts at the Green Lady’s chapel: there was also the rose-crystal sphere in the little leather pouch she had worn on the green cord around her waist. Terrified that she might have lost this too she turned to the place she had been standing when she had ripped off the girdle. The man presumably had not noticed the pouch, or he would most certainly have been interested in its contents. She searched discreetly and spotted it at last, lying where it had rolled against a coil of rope. The ferryman was still looking back in her direction and she could not make a move without his seeing her. If only he would turn . . . But he did not.

  Viviane stood up and, pretending to peer over the side towards their destination, she moved until her skirt covered the pouch. Then she staggered slightly and sat down on the coil of rope. Carefully, under the cover of her skirt, she retrieved the pouch and prised it open until she held the small rose-crystal sphere naked in her hand. She did not know how it could help her – only that it would.

  Gripping it tightly, she looked up at the ferryman.

  She caught her breath.

  Behind him stood a mighty being of bronze and yet of flesh, of darkness and yet of light. Upon the one skull he had two faces, one looking forward, one backward. Past and future seemed to flash through him like lightning, his eyes seeing what was not to be seen.