The Well of Tears

by Trahan, Roberta

  Alwen searched her son’s face for the source of the knowing she sensed behind his words, but found evidence only of his affection and empathy for her. “And what is it you sense?”

  “You are suffering, just the same as the rest of us. Maybe even more.” Rhys repositioned himself so he could look directly at her, allowing his gaze to acknowledge her disfigured fingers. “You’re entitled to take the time to care for your own wounds.”

  “I’m fine,” Alwen assured him, tucking her afflicted hand under the folds of her skirt. “But it does seem the harder I try to relax, the more awake I become. And I do need to rest.”

  “Of course you do,” he said, lifting the aleberry pot. “Drink enough of this and you’ll sleep.”

  “No doubt,” Alwen laughed. “But too much drink will put me so out of my wits I might not remember my dreams when I wake.”

  “Ah.” Rhys pulled to a stand, barefooted and blanket caped. “Then it’s time for me to be on my way, and leave you to get a night full of rest or dreaming or whatever it is you need the most.”

  “I suppose that would be best,” she conceded, reluctant to let him leave. “But my heart will rest easier, now, even if my mind will not.”

  With a wink and a grin, Rhys was gone, though she suspected he was not headed straight to the barracks just yet. Alwen did in fact feel more at peace than she had in days, despite the unhappy news Rhys had brought her. She did not need the scrying stone or the dream-speak to know that times would turn terribly worse before they turned the slightest bit better. Nor was there any more to be done than what had already been set in motion.

  The Stewardry remained united, under Madoc’s law, if not under his rule. She would see that his tenets were upheld, despite whatever unrest there may be. The Circle of Sages would be joined, somehow, though Cerrigwen had put that piece of the prophecy at risk. Though there were battles yet to be fought and betrayals to be overcome, Alwen believed that the prophecy would prevail. If she had learned nothing else from Madoc, it was that trust in the greater good was, at times, the only hope.

  And so, Alwen decided, let the fates unfold. What was to come would come, and she had faith that the wisdom she needed would be given to her when the time was right. For the moment, maybe even what was left of the night, evil was at rest. So then, perhaps, could she be.

  Alwen turned her gaze to the hearth, meditating on the golden glow emanating from the alder logs. She gave into the mind-numbing warmth of the flames, sinking deep within herself. Soon her thoughts wandered away, slipping into oblivion like mist escaping her grasp. Consciousness thinned until it was like the gossamer veil that separated one world from the next. All she needed do was let it unravel, and then there would be nothing left standing between Alwen and the dream fields.

  * * *

  Alwen stood upon an altar stone, robed in black velvet trimmed with gold. The gauzy haze that filled the chamber peeled away to reveal four indigo-cloaked-and-hooded devotees kneeling beneath her. Though the figures were faceless, they were known to her. Each had claimed a position in the circle in front of one of four rune marks on the marble sill surrounding the Well of Tears. Tallowsoaked torches illuminated the hollow, and a hawk perched on a rocky ledge in the shadows at the edge of the gathering, standing sentinel and bearing witness.

  With her arms raised wide toward the sky, she called upon the ancient gods, invoking their presence in the cavern. “When one arc ends another begins, and thus, the Circle is forged.”

  The ritual was complete. Alwen stepped down from the altar stone and approached the frozen tarn. Kneeling with the others at the edge of the well, she drew a bone-handled dagger from the velvet pouch at her waist. She drew the blade across the palm of each hand in a single, sure swipe and waited for the blood to run. Alwen then placed her hands, palms down, upon the glossy black crust that capped the well.

  Madoc, Alwen’s mind whispered.

  In answer to her summoning, the cavern trembled. The icy surface of the well wavered, and Madoc’s visage appeared beside her reflection on the surface. Again, the cavern trembled. The stampedearth floor of the chamber shuddered, and a thick, snowy vapor formed above the tarn. Frigid air turned humid, and with a hiss, the surface of the well dissolved and the waters were once again clear and lipid. Alwen reached into the well, and when she withdrew her hand, she was holding Madoc’s staff.

  Darkness closed in and then receded. Alwen next found herself adrift in a cloud of mist. No matter which direction she turned, a gray fog enfolded her. Suddenly, Madoc appeared at the edge of her vision, beckoning her toward a stand of witchen trees. The grove appeared both near and distant, within her reach and yet far beyond her grasp. In the next moment, she was bathed in moonlight, in a clearing at the heart of the stand. A hawk shrieked from above.

  Before her stood an altar stone, dressed with indigo velvet trimmed in gold brocade. Upon the altar laid four gleaming silverand-gemstone pendants, positioned flat in a circle, side by side.

  The keys to the realms.

  The jewel at the center of each pendant radiated with an inner light. The glow of each jewel swelled, growing stronger and brighter until they converged in a blinding flash of white.

  When the flare subsided, Alwen saw a figure standing in the glow, behind the altar stone. A dark-haired man in a white cape waited. He held the bearing of a king. Alwen stepped forward and placed Madoc’s staff in his outstretched hands.

  The prophecy.

  Alwen was overcome with joy. Peace spread over her, like the unfurling of a sheltering wing. Contented in the knowledge that the wisdom she needed awaited her, Alwen drifted beyond the dream fields into a healing sleep, where broken hearts were mended and wounded souls would be restored.

  Thirty-Five

  “Sovereign.”

  A whisper pierced the veil of sleep, pulling her back. “Sovereign!”

  Alwen straightened with a start, struggling to focus her gaze. She felt as though she were half in the waking world and half still in the dream realm. It took a moment to be certain she had fully returned. Alwen began to sense the presence of someone new. “I have a visitor.”

  “Yes.” Glain stood over her, looking horrified. “He and his men simply appeared at the gates.”

  Alwen pulled to a stand and stepped round the divan, waving Glain ahead. As sovereign, she would receive formal audience from the High Seat mounted on the rotunda in the central chamber of her suite. Her guest waited just inside the outer doors.

  “I was not expecting a woman.”

  Before her stood Hywel, son of Cadell, ruler of Seissyllwg and soon to be high king of all of Cymru. Though his cape was brown, Alwen immediately recognized him as the man in her dream. “I was not expecting you at all,” she smiled. “At least not yet.”

  Alwen crossed to the small rotunda in the center chamber and took her place in the sovereign’s chair. She gestured toward the hornbeam and hazelwood desk beneath the double-transom window on the far wall and the more ordinary chair that stood behind it. “Sit, so we may speak plainly.”

  Hywel obliged without comment, pulling the plain slatbacked hornbeam chair so that it faced her throne. Even in routine movement, he had a stag-like grace that bespoke surety of purpose and physical confidence. He presented himself with unusual maturity, though he was barely older than Rhys. Alwen noticed his left hand gripped the tanned leather scabbard belt clasped at his waist. A habitual gesture, she deduced, a sign of stress.

  “Tell me, Hywel, how it is you’ve crossed the veil.” She watched him closely, assessing him. Coarse brown hair tousled around a dignified countenance, framing a barely bearded angular jaw and dark, deep-set eyes that darted from point to point, overlooking nothing. Alwen felt strength in him. “How did you find your way here?”

  “Madoc showed me the way through the veil, though in the past I have entered through the cave, unnoticed.” He glanced at Glain. “When we found the tunnels blocked, we came knocking at the gates instead.”

  Alw
en nodded, careful not to show her surprise. Aslak was not the only soul Madoc had entrusted with the secret passage, after all. It made sense that Hywel of all people should have access to the Fane such as he needed.

  Hywel folded his lithe frame to perch on the edge of the cushioned chair, hands on his knees, assessing Alwen in return. “Madoc has always afforded me refuge in the temple. My men and I are in need of its protection tonight.”

  “And you shall have it. Fane Gramarye will always be open to you.” Alwen waved her hand at two silver cups warming on the hearth, awaiting their fill. “I keep ready a small supply of a particularly fine mulled ale. My own brew, in fact. Glain will pour for us.”

  Though everything about Hywel’s outward appearance was common — from his plain riding clothes and wool cape to his well-worn boots — the man himself was anything but. His noble lineage and upbringing were evident in his posture, but Alwen sensed something darkly reckless barely restrained beneath the refined visage.

  “So.” Hywel politely accepted the cup Glain offered him, but he did not drink. He leaned back in the chair, giving the appearance of being at ease. “Madoc is dead, and you are now keeper of my fate.”

  “That I am.” Alwen folded her hands around the bowl of her cup, brandishing Madoc’s signet ring. “More importantly, Hywel, I am your ally.”

  “My only ally, it seems.” Hywel’s smile had a sardonic twist to it. “I have more enemies than friends. My father is dead and my own brother is in league against me, though that,” he snorted, “was unavoidable.”

  “A heavy burden, to be predestined a man of greatness,” Alwen acknowledged. “And the stuff of rivalries.”

  “Power is the stuff of rivalries, Sovereign,” Hywel countered. “The having of it, and the keeping of it.”

  “So it is.” Alwen took a sip of her aleberry. She sensed his thoughts to be organized, strategic, his emotions strictly controlled. Indications of a clever and highly disciplined mind, but what of his character? “However, you do not yet hold the power of which you speak.”

  “I will.” He was quick to assert himself and fully convicted in his entitlement. “It is my birthright, my destiny.”

  “Yes,” Alwen said, still observing him with care. She wondered if his pride and self-possession were founded on arrogance. To get a true sense of his nature, she would have to force her way deeper into his psyche, but Alwen decided to wait for Hywel to reveal himself to her. “And your privilege.”

  Her comment evoked a twinge of umbrage — evidenced by subtle symptoms that only she would notice, like the minute elevation of the pressure in his veins as his pulse quickened, and the tightening of the muscles of his throat.

  Hywel raised his cup to his lips and swallowed its entire contents. “I am a man of honor, Sovereign, a king with a vision of greatness, not only for himself, but for his people. I am but humble means to a glorious end. I serve the prophecy with the same devotion I require of those who serve me.”

  Alwen nodded, reassured by his sense of duty. “I do not doubt your honor, Hywel. Nor do I dispute the nobility of your motives.” Alwen took another sip from her cup, measuring him. “I wonder, though, if it is in your nature to accept any counsel other than your own.”

  Hywel grinned, finally revealing the self-awareness Alwen had been seeking. “Not that I have discovered, as yet.”

  Alwen smiled but did not soften the point of her words. “You must learn to rely on the experience and talents of others. You will never reach your throne without my wisdom, nor will you be able to hold onto it without the guidance of the council we have pledged to your reign.”

  “I know the prophecy, Sovereign.” Hywel held out his cup, expecting it to be refilled. Glain complied and then returned to witness the exchange from her place near the hearth. “Perhaps even better than you. It is, after all, the missive that governs my entire existence. I accepted its promise and all that it requires long ago.”

  “But what about trust, Hywel.” Alwen was ready now to speak of her truest concern. “Before you can accept someone’s advice, you must first have faith in its merit.”

  Hywel frowned, sobered by a subject that obviously tormented him. “Trust is something I have learned not to give. It must be earned.”

  Alwen hadn’t needed to reach very far into his mind to understand the price he had paid for his innocence. Hywel prized trust and loyalty, for their moral value as much as in self-preservation. Sadly, he had known them in such rare measure that now he questioned their very existence. “I suspect the earning of your confidence is very nearly impossible.”

  “There are a few souls who have succeeded,” he allowed. “Though not quickly, or easily. It seems, however, that I have no choice but to hand my trust to you.”

  “Yes, well.” Alwen felt empathy for him. “Circumstances being what they are. Still, I do respect your dilemma, having recently faced such a situation myself.”

  Hywel spat, “Machreth.”

  Alwen nodded, thinking also of Cerrigwen. “You see? Already we have a shared cause.”

  “Indeed.” Hywel raised his cup to her. “The beginnings of our own alliance.”

  Alwen tipped her goblet in answer to his toast. “I would like that, Hywel, a bond between you and I that is founded on something more than the obligations of the prophecy.”

  “A mutual enemy is a start, I suppose.” Hywel grinned again, this time giving a glimpse of genuine warmth, evidence to Alwen that he possessed the capacity for compassion and kindness. “I expect that, given time, you and I will come to closer terms.”

  “As do I,” she agreed. “Time, however, is something upon which we may hope, but not rely. It may happen that you are called upon to lay your faith in me before you are ready. Will you be able to do this?”

  Hywel paused a long while, weighing her logic against his reservations, and then decided to make a new stand. “I will.”

  “Well then” — Alwen beckoned to Glain for more wine — “we have what’s left of this night to learn about one another, to find more common ground upon which we can stand, together. Where shall we begin?”

  Thirty-Six

  The unnatural stillness just before first light sent the skin of his forearms crawling. Finn MacDonagh rubbed at the gooseflesh and stamped his boots just to affirm his own presence with the crunch of the icy mulch underfoot. His nose twitched at the whiff of a rank scent, as though something had crawled under the brush somewhere close and died. A sinister spot, he thought.

  Bitter winter air had laid a black frost during the night. The slick, spindly limbs of the naked oak hung low and heavy overhead. Daybreak forced the fog to retreat into the trees, but it lingered at the edge of the copse in defiance of the light. As though to shroud some horrible sight.

  His woodsman’s intuition hopped a-twitter, and Finn cast a furtive glance about in anticipation of some unseen threat. They had been following Cerrigwen’s lead for days, wandering the magical maze that was the White Woods. He had begun to worry about what they had left behind. Did anyone know they had gone? He had also begun to worry she had lost her way. This far into the thick of it, nary a forest dweller could be seen or sensed, but the woods were far from silent. A fervent murmur from deep within a nearby witchen grove grazed his ears, and Finn felt his gut clench and chuck over in dread.

  He glanced cautiously at his son. “What unholy fettle does she bring on us now?”

  Pedr frowned. He reached out to pat his chestnut gelding, but the skittish animal would not be soothed. His horse snorted and shied sideways, and Finn’s bay scuttled up against the trunk of an old tree. The silver mare, though, stood fast.

  “We’ve been here too long,” Pedr said. His voice was hoarse and tensed to a boyish pitch by anxiety. “It’s time to move on.”

  “This is no place for dawdling, you’re right about that. Stay with the horses. I’ll go.”

  “Da,” Pedr whispered.

  Finn tethered the bay and turned back to look more closely at his s
on. He was bothered by the fear so plain in Pedr’s bright blue eyes. “What is it, lad?”

  “I don’t like this. It doesn’t feel right, none of it.” Pedr swallowed hard and tried to hide his jitters. “Just be careful.”

  While he lacked his father’s years of seasoning, Pedr had known his share of trials and trails. His gut was always dead-on. He possessed a strong intuition — like his mother, rest her soul — and it made him a more leery man than most. Though sometimes Pedr might be a bit too cautious, this was new ground for both of them. Finn had the same concerns.

  He laid his hand on Pedr’s shoulder and gave what he hoped was a reassuring wink. “I won’t be a minute.”

  Finn picked his way through the mist and the moonwort, peering into the thicket. It was damned dark in the brush with naught but a mouse trail to chase. Still, Finn could follow his ears well enough.

  In a small but well-hidden clearing at the heart of a hemlock stand, Finn spotted a dark huddle swaying to the cadence of an eerie chant. Sunlight pricked through the dense canopy and went dry.

  He pushed through the bracken into the open and approached warily. As he drew nearer, the mumbling grew strong enough for him to recognize as something vile and evil. His heart began to race.

  In her left hand, Cerrigwen clutched a slender bone-handled blade. From the outstretched, downturned palm of her right, thick drops of her blood reddened the runes she’d carved onto a small square shard of oak bark. Sensing him, Cerrigwen turned slightly to snicker at Finn through wild, knotted tendrils of honey-brown hair, which he noticed for the first time were streaked white with age. Or strain, he thought.

  “Always take time by the forelock, Finn,” she rasped. “A moment’s hesitation can cost a man more than his life.”

  Finn shook his head, bewildered by her words. Her tired, amber-colored eyes were darkened and crazed with some unspoken torment. He scarcely recognized the woman kneeling before him. In all their years together, he’d never professed to understand her, but now she frightened him.