Song Hereafter

by Jean Gill

  After Estela tied the leg at the top to stop the blood flowing, she chose a scalpel, and focused only on the science of each cut, to do the minimum damage around the metal that rose like a demon whale from a red sea.

  She disciplined her unruly thoughts. The metal pointed upwards in the air from a broader base. Triangular? It would help to know, to visualise what she was cutting out and make sure she got all of it. Just one tiny sliver of metal left in the wound would kill.

  She licked the sweat off her upper lip. ‘Did anybody see the blow?’ she asked. ‘Know what this metal is?’

  Orders were given, a man left the room, and Estela waited, observed the wound, till she knew each pore of torn skin, for what seemed hours.

  Breathless, the man returned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘All they saw was a man on the ground, stabbing upwards, hitting my Lord in the thigh.’

  Upwards stroke. The gash below, the metal embedded above. But what shape was it below the surface?

  ‘That my Lord be killed by such a weakling!’ The Welshman’s contempt rang clear. ‘He broke his own sword against a wall, running from us!’

  Estela frowned in concentration. Broken sword. Metal pointed tip. What shape would break off? She looked at the jagged shape, imagined a man on the ground holding the tip of a sword, looked at the part she could see.

  ‘Triangle,’ she said aloud, with the broken base dragged along, into the skin. She looked at the angle of the point and she set to work.

  ‘DONE,’ ESTELA SAID, easing her back as she stood up. How she ached from working crouched or kneeling. If only they’d had a table! But no, her first surgery had to take place in a Welsh castle without the basics of civilisation. Which left the last question. What should she use as a poultice to keep infection at bay? She could mash herbs... or...

  ‘Honey,’ she told the ashen-faced Rhys. Bring me a jar of honey from the kitchen and clean linen from my saddle-bag.

  John Halfpenny and Lord Maredudd were duly basted in honey and bandaged in linen strips. Like two piglets for roasting, thought Estela, regarding her work with satisfaction. Malik would be very proud of her.

  Chapter 20

  Estela sat, invisible, on one of the two stools which had been brought to the makeshift sick-room. The other was empty as Lord Rhys was sitting on his brother’s mattress, holding his hand.

  Her patients were apparently asleep so Estela chewed the end of her quill, then bent over the traveller’s guide.

  ‘What are you writing?’ Rhys asked quietly.

  She’d been mistaken: she was not invisible.

  ‘Advice for travellers,’ she told him.

  ‘Read it to me.’

  Sleep

  The capacity to sleep in any circumstances is a virtue when travelling. A paillasse is a luxury for the bones but can be a torment to the flesh as the straw is a haven for parasites of all kinds.

  ‘Dragonetz is lucky to have such a wife.’ Rhys looked at her in frank admiration. Maybe she had misjudged his attitude to women.

  He continued, ‘If I could find a woman as beautiful, who had such a good memory and could scribe my words to preserve them for the future, I would count myself fortunate.’

  Estela’s mouth had been open to thank him for the compliment. She closed it again.

  ‘He’s gifted, isn’t he,’ observed Rhys. ‘He has a way with words. A luxury for the bones and a torment to the flesh,’ he quoted. ‘So true.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Estela, tight-lipped. ‘He is, and he does.’ She bent her head over her writing. It was either that or behave like a Welshwoman, rushing at him with teeth and nails. Which would not make for a peaceful sickroom and her patients’ health, so she dipped her quill again and concentrated on ways to prevent and to soothe irritating stings and bites. Like words, she thought, carrying small doses of poison.

  Maredudd stirred and Rhys was instantly attentive to his brother. The brothers spoke in Welsh but Estela understood the gist of their exchange and the love between them needed no translation. Rhys asked whether Maredudd needed anything, gave him water to sip, mopped his brow.

  John Halfpenny lay with his eyes closed, as irrelevant as Estela, while Rhys blamed himself and the universe for what had happened to Maredudd.

  ‘We should beget the next generation before we run out of brothers,’ Maredudd attempted to deflect Rhys from his litany of ‘might-have-beens’. He must have heard Rhys’ compliments to Estela. Intended compliments.

  ‘Marry?’ Rhys was taken by surprise. Then he smiled. ‘You’re the elder. You first.’

  Maredudd tried to shake his head and winced at the pain caused. He must still be suffering from the tension of the surgery, separate from the wound healing. ‘I’m not brave enough! Only think what happened to the last brother who married!’

  Rhys’ face darkened but he followed the lighter path of the conversation, to entertain Maredudd. ‘Who would you have me wed, then, brother?’

  There followed a crude and lively discussion of suitable – and very unsuitable – candidates, which would have added useful Welsh to Estela’s vocabulary had she been able to note and memorise it.

  ‘Mair would have you back,’ teased Maredudd.

  Rhys said something that sounded like swearing. Then he looked up at Estela, ‘You should have had her executed – she’ll cause you trouble one day. You can’t tame a fox.’

  Maredudd suggested more brides, enjoying his brother’s discomfort.

  Then Rhys paused, silenced by something Maredudd had said.

  ‘Maybe Powys,’ he conceded. Estela knew that Powys was the Welsh realm in the middle of Gwalia, lesser than the great regions of the north and south, Gwynedd and Deheubarth.

  ‘That would be Gwenllian ferch Madog, daughter of Powys,’ mused Maredudd. ‘Madog would be keen enough to wed Deheubarth, that’s for sure. Best make an offer before Gwynedd gets the same idea! Why not send to Madog that you wish to try the girl? Have her sent to Dinefwr and if she falls with child, make the marriage?’

  ‘And send her home if she’s not fit?’

  ‘Give her the choice of staying if she prefers. She’d find a man soon enough, even if she’s barren. She’s a pretty thing.’

  Rhys thought about it. ‘And Madog would appreciate the gesture, us being willing to keep her, even if she’s not meet for marrying.’

  Estela thought of Gwenllian, a pretty girl in Powys, who would be a princess if fertile and a puterelle if not. A girl with the same name as Rhys’ legendary mother and the challenge of taking her place with a man who loved women in ways that barely remembered their names. Estela shivered though she was not cold, and drew her cloak tighter around her, refastening her pathfinder brooch, tracing the runes of the futures possible.

  ‘What about Gwynedd?’ asked Maredudd.

  ‘It is time,’ Rhys told him. ‘We hold St Clears and Tenby, we are at the gates of Ceredigion and it is our land. It is time we took it back from those northern murderers. Make them pay for Anarawd.’ No question now of keeping conversation light.

  ‘But Owain Gwynedd had no part in that,’ objected Maredudd.

  ‘A man is responsible for his brother’s actions.’ Rhys was adamant. And a woman wondered Estela. Must a woman pay for her brother’s actions?

  ‘Ceredigion is ours by right. Gwynedd helped us take it back then kept it for themselves. Whichever brother matters not! They are all treacherous northerners, in bed with the English and the Franks, allied with whoever pays the most! I don’t give a fart what Gwynedd thinks of us being allied to Powys because by then we’ll hold Ceredigion too.’

  ‘Give me two weeks and I’ll be fit to ride with you,’ said Maredudd, barely able to turn his head after such a tiring conversation. Estela would have intervened if she dared but she knew Rhys well enough to hold her tongue.

  ‘No, let me do this for you, for us. I have proved myself in command and you must not ride before you’re well or your fierce doctor will use one of her sharpest blades on parts I value.’ A jerk
of the head in Estela’s direction. So, he was aware of her listening.

  ‘It won’t matter what I say,’ murmured Maredudd, exhausted.

  ‘No,’ said Rhys and kissed him.

  Within a day, most of the men left to wage war against the men of Gwynedd and take back their old realm of Ceredigion. If they won, Rhys and Maredudd could return home, celebrating the restoration of the kingdom their father and grandfather had lost. If they did not win, they would need their surgeon.

  Estela knew she should say nothing more than Godspeed to a man leaving for war. Say nothing that will haunt you if he doesn’t come back, was the code they lived by, women such as Layla and herself. But the words came, despite her.

  ‘Will it end, Dragonetz? We are so deep in Welshness now, I find myself swearing like the coarsest of the camp followers, and in their own language! Will we ever go home?’

  He tilted her chin, met her eyes with his own, deep, black, unreadable. If she didn’t know he loved her, she would never tell from his eyes. But she knew.

  ‘We will take Ceredigion,’ he promised her. ‘When Rhys and Maredudd go home, we will go with them to Dinefwr, tell them what they will gain from making peace and alliances with King Henri. Then we will go home.’

  If you win. If you survive. If Rhys and Maredudd don’t turn on us. Unlike his, her eyes played traitor and told him all the ifs in her mind.

  ‘I know,’ he told her and crushed her to him, so that afterwards she found bruises from his hauberk. ‘I know.’

  ‘Inshallah,’ she murmured, summoning a smile as weak as any Maredudd had bestowed on his departing brother.

  KNOWING THAT THE CAMPAIGN against Ceredigion would take more than a week, perhaps more than a month, left a guilty peace lying over the castle. Fewer mouths to feed meant less work, and the tension over the home-coming could be postponed. Limbo was a quiet place, where Estela could tend to her patients, sit with them, and, as they recovered, converse with them.

  ‘Why did you not leave us to go home?’ she asked John Halfpenny.

  ‘They don’t appreciate my jokes,’ he quipped.

  She just waited until the serious answer came.

  ‘I fled from Stephen’s men and want to be sure King Henri holds the power before I risk returning.’ He was quiet. ‘Now I be so close, I be in no rush to find out how much has changed.’ Estela understood. There was more than his profession to take up again from where he’d left off. To hope that he could do so. He’d been away for years. Was his wife still alive? Still waiting for him?

  It was easier to think of the professional than the personal. ‘Your skills will always find you work,’ she told him. ‘And King Henri is acknowledged. You heard what Rhys said.’ Keeping the mind strong heals the body faster. As always, Malik’s words guided Estela, however far away he might be in body.

  Maredudd was listening with interest. He was weaker, and recovering more slowly, but that didn’t prevent him groaning more at Halfpenny’s jokes than at his bandage being changed.

  When Estela told Dragonetz that she would draw Maredudd close, this was not what she had in mind but she would make the most of them passing their days together. Maybe she could still carry out her first plan, when he had recovered enough.

  ‘Your brother, Anarawd. What happened?’ she asked him, curious to know more about these brothers and their history.

  Maredudd closed his eyes as he retold the story. ‘It was over ten years ago. After our father’s death, Anarawd was Lord of Deheubarth and he asked help from Owain, Lord of Gwynedd, to oust the Franks from our lands of Ceredigion. Fierce was the battle, but short-lived, with berserker Vikings on our side too, adding their crazed strength to our own. The Franks surrendered but Owain Gwynedd and his vile brother Cadwaladr kept Ceredigion for their own.

  Anarawd and Cadell, the next in age, counselled diplomacy and Anarawd offered his hand for Owain’s daughter, thinking to renew our blood ties and regain our lands through marriage.’

  He opened his eyes, stony. ‘He was murdered by Owain’s brother Cadwaladr. Not by his hand directly – the coward! – but by his men. Not even Owain could bear the stench of such kin-killing and Cadwaladr fled like the white-livered rat he is, all the way to England. If they stop fighting each other and ride against Deheubarth, or even against Gwynedd, Cadwaladr will be at the head of Frankish troops.

  My mother came from the north but she had none of their trickery. She fled her own people to marry my father and every time since, when we have formed an alliance, they have betrayed us. Owain is no more to be trusted than his brother.’

  ‘I should not have asked,’ murmured Estela, fascinated but worried over her patient’s agitation.

  ‘My brother grows angry when I say so but our family is cursed. To lose our mother in such a way!’

  ‘I too lost my mother when I was very young.’ Estela struggled to speak the words aloud. ‘She is still with me, in all that I do.’

  Maredudd gave no sign of hearing her as he followed his own thoughts, bitter as wormwood. ‘With her my two brothers, barely sprouting hairs on their chin. Morgan, killed. Maelgwyn, captured, and we’ve never found him. Then my father, a year later, struck down by God.’ He listed them on his fingers, a fierce gesture at each name. ‘Then Anarawd murdered by his Gwynedd kin! And Cadell!’

  He stopped.

  ‘I thought he was on pilgrimage?’ asked Estela.

  ‘God struck him too. First with a murderous gang and stout sticks, then with piety. He survived the one but the other will not leave him. When he gave Rhys and me the governance of Deheubarth, he made it clear that his return would change nothing. If he returns.’

  Five brothers, thought Estela. And only one left. She too had one brother. And none left.

  ‘What you have, with Rhys...’ she began.

  ‘Is everything.’

  She could not tell him he was lucky. But she could think it. She could think that it was her family that was cursed. And she could pray that its bad blood would not touch her son. I will not let it! She called on memories of her mother, her strength, her sweetness and her wisdom. All that was in her blood too, and in Musca.

  ‘Your mother, Gwenllian, must have been very special,’ she said, gently, testing, as if excising an infected place with Malik’s sharpest scalpel.

  ‘She was.’ Maredudd’s face softened and he talked about the woman others called the warrior princess, the woman whose name men cried in battle. To him she was Mam, and he missed her.

  ‘She told us magical stories and invented some herself.’

  ‘Tell me her stories,’ she said, and the chamber filled with legends; the lady of the fountain, the cauldron of the underworld, King Arthur and the winning of Olwen, dreams and dragons.

  Days passed in nursing and talk, until John Halfpenny had run out of jokes and Maredudd would no longer accept being confined to the sick-room.

  The moment of truth came when the stitches were removed and Estela heaved a sigh of relief at clean wounds, knitting together well. Maredudd’s sigh of relief was less professional. He’d turned a whitish-green while Estela was snipping and pulling – thank God for greased thread!

  ‘If this is how you treat a man kindly, remind me not to annoy you,’ he told her faintly.

  That seemed to be a good moment for Estela to ask her favour, to return to the plan she’d made to draw Maredudd close enough that he’d listen to her – and Dragonetz – on political matters.

  He frowned. ‘It is not seemly,’ he said. ‘If your husband will not do it for you then no other man should.’

  ‘He is not here,’ she said. ‘And I want to surprise him.’ She could see he was weakening, attracted by the novelty of the idea. ‘Somebody taught your mother,’ she pressed the point.

  ‘And look what happened to her!’ was the bitter retort but she could see him thinking, wanting to test what was possible, be his own man while Rhys – and Dragonetz – waged war elsewhere.

  ‘Unless you’re afraid you’ll
lose?’ she challenged. The bargain was sealed.

  RAMON BERENGUER WAS holding council with his commander. He re-read the letters on his table.

  From El Rey Lobo: the Almohads were in their fifth year of siege against Granada, which could surely not hold out much longer, or so the Wolf King feared. When it fell, the south of Hispania would be in the hands of these extremists, who would stop at nothing to wipe out their fellow-Moors who’d settled here for generations. Who would also wage war against any Christians blocking their way to gaining territory.

  Thanks to Dragonetz and Malik, the alliance between Ramon Berenguer and the Wolf King was solid and El Rey Lobo provided a strong buffer between these murderous newcomers and the kingdoms of Aragon and Barcelone. For now, Ramon’s army was not needed to support his ally. Which was just as well, given the other news on the table.

  The next papers brought a smile to his face. His long dance between alliance and enmity with the Republic of Genoa had left the merchant state – or pirate state, as many would say – in financial difficulties. Would the Comte de Barcelone like to purchase the Genoa shares in Tortosa? Ramon had dutifully shared Tortosa and its trading riches with his two partners when they had won that city back in the Reconquista, five years earlier. The Comte de Barcelone had been careful with his coffers and would very much like to help Genoa in their time of need. Now, he had the chance to buy the controlling shares. Let the bartering begin! He would finally gain control of Tortosa, a very useful trading post near the mouth of the River Ebro.

  He skimmed news of the Holy Land. That Baldwin had taken control of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his mother, Queen Mélisende, did not affect Hispania. In the last crusade, Ramon had waged holy war in Hispania and, given the news from Granada, he thought that there would be enough of God’s work to do in his homeland. He would have loved to see Jerusalem but his duty dictated otherwise, and Ramon had never been Oltra mar. Not that the new Pope showed any sign of raising a new crusade. He too had enough unrest closer to home.