by Holly Taylor
But now it was time to free his sister, and he was focused on that alone. “We are ready,” he said quietly. “Yrth, you are prepared?”
The old Druid nodded. His gray eyes glittered with anticipation in his weather-beaten face. “I am, King of Rheged.”
Once that title had made Owein wince in shame and guilt. But those days were past, smoothed over by the love of his wife. So he smiled instead and nodded at the Druid. Although he had not known Yrth long, he knew that this Druid had been one of the five that had followed Aergol to High King Arthur to offer their allegiance. Yrth had been a highly respected teacher in Caer Duir for many years and, in spite of the fact that the old man was a Druid, Owein had liked him instantly for the wisdom in his eyes and the calmness of his spirit.
At his nod Teleri and Gwarae left the room with Yrth, one in front of and one behind the old Druid.
Owein nodded to Geriant. “Let’s go,” he said to the man who had loved, who still did love, his captive sister.
Sanon kissed them both lightly then pulled her long dagger from her belt. Trystan pulled out his short sword with a steely hiss. Owein turned at the door for one last look at Sanon. She smiled at him, her heart in her dark eyes.
TELERI LED THE way, with Yrth behind her and Gwarae last. They made their way silently down the twisting stairs of the guard tower. They reached the bottom and Teleri stood to one side of the door, motioning for Yrth to stand next to her. She nodded to Gwarae and he opened the door a crack. He put his eye to the crack, then stepped back, motioning that the way was clear.
Teleri stepped out first, her bow slung across one shoulder, a long gleaming knife in her hands. The courtyard was quiet as they rushed to their left and took cover behind the silent bathhouse.
She glanced behind her and saw the shadowy forms of Geriant and Owein glide the opposite way, toward the ystafell.
“The fools are all in the hall,” Teleri whispered furiously.
Yrth’s brow rose at her tone. “I would have thought we wanted it that way,” he said quietly.
“Ah, Druid, you simply don’t understand this beautiful woman here,” Gwarae said with a grin. “If she was still lieutenant here in Caer Erias things would not be so sloppy. Guards would patrol the courtyard, not simply be limited to the towers.”
“And every last torch would be lit,” Teleri said, still angry. “Why, only every other torch on the walls is lit. Anyone could be up to anything in the courtyard! If I had my way—”
“Which you will again, cariad,” Gwarae said. “For we will take it all back.”
“So we will,” Teleri said firmly. Almost as an afterthought, she went on, “And don’t call me cariad.”
“Why, for a moment I thought you were going to let me do that without scolding me,” Gwarae quipped. “I almost had hopes.”
“You can take your hopes and—”
“Pardon me, Yrth,” Gwarae said, turning to the Druid. “But could you hold this?” He snatched the bow from Teleri’s hands and handed it to Yrth. Then he reached out and pulled Teleri to him, and fastened his mouth over hers. For a moment, a very brief moment, Teleri struggled. But then she seemed to melt into Gwarae’s embrace. After a long, lengthy kiss, Gwarae raised his head. He seemed surprised and shaken but did not loose Teleri from his arms.
Teleri smiled up at him, her gray-green eyes almost soft. “And did you think I would never let you do that?”
“After all this time, I feared so,” Gwarae breathed.
“Then why did you try?”
“I assumed you would not kill me here, but wait until later.”
“I do have plans for you later,” Teleri agreed. “But I don’t believe you will object.”
“Did you really believe that I have been playing a game with you?” he rasped.
“Of course. That’s why it took me so long.”
“Teleri ur Brysethach, I love you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. At last. At long last. “Gwarae Golden-Hair, I love you.”
Gwarae bent his head to kiss her again, but Yrth’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“While I enjoy the course of true love as much as anyone, I think you had both best concentrate on the task at hand,” Yrth breathed, nodding toward the shadows by the ystafell. From the darkness a white cloth fluttered.
“The signal,” Gwarae whispered. “Now, Druid. Now.”
SANON AND TRYSTAN halted at the bottom of the watchtower stairs. They took up their places on either side of the open doorway, hidden in the shadows. Sanon squinted toward the bathhouse.
“Why,” she said with delight, “I believe that Gwarae has caught his quarry at last.”
Trystan glanced over and grinned at the sight of two shadows twined together. “Took long enough,” he grumbled, but he smiled faintly as he said it.
“I must say, the timing could be better.”
Trystan shrugged. “It happens when it happens.”
“Trystan,” she began, then stopped.
“Yes, my Queen?” he asked softly.
“Be a friend to Geriant,” she said. “My brother might need one very badly.”
“Enid will come back to us,” Trystan said, for he seemed to understand everything that Sanon did not know how to say. “She’ll come back. And Geriant will be whole.”
In the shadows behind the ystafell a white cloth fluttered.
“The signal,” Sanon breathed. “Now, Druid. Now.”
GERIANT AND OWEIN stood in the shadows that pooled behind the ystafell. Above them the windows of Enid’s rooms were shuttered from the outside, for Morcant always had the shutters closed at night. Wan candlelight flickered fitfully in the cracks between the shutters.
She’s in there, Geriant thought, and closed his eyes briefly at her nearness. She was so close to him, after all this time. At last he had come to rescue her, to take her from this place of pain and terror and humiliation into the light of Mabon’s bright sun. The time had come, at last.
She was no longer the Enid he had known and loved. He had seen that clearly when he had caught that brief, sweet glimpse of her in the courtyard this afternoon. The girl she had been was dead and gone. The woman that the lovely, spirited, generous girl had become was unknown to him.
He had thought, deep in his heart, that this would be so. And he had thought, deeper still, that perhaps it would matter to him—this change. But it had not. When he had seen her he had known, as he had known from the beginning, that she was the one. She was the woman he was born to love. And if he could not have her, he would have no one.
He pulled a slender coil of rope from his tunic. At one end was a lead weight wrapped in dark cloth. At Owein’s nod he slung the weight attached to the rope over his head once, twice, three times, then threw. The rope arched high overhead then began to descend. In its descent it looped around a protruding roof beam just over one of Enid’s shuttered windows. The weight wrapped the rope around once, twice, three times. The cloth adequately muffled the sound.
Geriant tugged at the rope and it tensed and held. He nodded to Owein that he was ready.
“Go,” Owein breathed.
Geriant wrapped the slack around his upper arm and shoulder. Lightly, quickly, he walked up the wall, hanging on to the rope. When he reached the shutter he put his eye to the crack.
Enid had tears on her face as she paced back and forth across the room. She hugged herself tightly, her jaw clenched hard as though to hold back screams. She was dressed in brown riding leathers and her auburn hair was braided tightly to her skull. Every few moments she impatiently dashed away the tears that continued to fall.
Geriant’s heart broke a little more when he saw her in her bravery, her fear, her hope and her despair. Oh, Enid, he thought to himself. I have come. Cariad, I have come for you.
Geriant turned to look down at Owein. He gave a nod to indicate Enid was within, and was alone.
Now, Druid, Geriant thought as he turned again back to the window. Now.
A
T GERIANT’S SIGNAL Owein pulled out a white kerchief from his tunic. He glanced back to his left, to the open door of the watchtower and the hidden forms of Sanon and Trystan that he knew stood there. He looked back, further still, to the dark bathhouse, to where he knew Teleri, Gwarae, and Yrth waited. He turned and looked up at Geriant.
He raised the kerchief and waved it.
Now, Druid, he thought. Now.
YRTH WAS OLD, over seventy now. He had served the Mother for almost all of his life, having been brought to Caer Duir when he was only six years old. He had been a student, a journeyman, and a full-fledged Druid. When he was fifty, he had returned to Caer Duir as a teacher of the almanac. His whole life he had been happy and satisfied, serving Modron the Mother with his gifts and skill.
When he had first understood that the Archdruid had plans to once again make the Druids preeminent in Kymru, he had rejoiced. The Mother would again be supreme, as she had been in lost Lynonesse, before ever there were Dreamers or Bards or Dewin. When the Coranians invaded and he understood the price of that preeminence, he was less pleased. But still he had thought that the Mother would bless their efforts. But She had not. The land had given little in the few years since the invasion. The harvests had been scant and the winters had seemed longer and colder. He had doubted still more and, when approached by Aergol, he had been more than ready. At first, when he had determined to follow Aergol and reject all the Cathbad had stood for, he had been afraid that the Mother would take back the gifts she had bestowed on him at birth.
But it was not so. His gift was as strong as ever. And because he had used these gifts for so long, he had no need to concentrate, to finger the dwyvach-breichled, the bracelet of Modron that encircled his wrist. It was not even necessary to close his eyes. But, because he always did so, he briefly touched the emerald set in the golden torque around his neck. Then he reached out with his mind to the stable some hundred feet away.
THE WOODEN BAR that closed the stable doors lifted and hovered briefly, then gently floated to the ground. The doors opened inward. After a few moments, a wisp of smoke floated out of the upper loft. Inside the stable, horses snorted. The smoke became thicker, and the horses began to neigh loudly. The doors of their stalls opened all at once, and the horses screamed as they rushed from the stable. Hungry tongues of fire began to lick their way to the roof as smoke poured off the building.
One of the guards in the east watchtower cried out and another guard came out of the tower, speeding toward the hall at a dead run. He opened the hall doors and shouted. Warriors came boiling out, shouting for water, shouting to watch for enemies, some with blades drawn or spears in their hands, some with tankards of ale and bread in their fists.
From the ystafell General Baldred, King Morcant, and Bledri rushed out of the building to behold the fire.
The courtyard was in chaos, as Owein had intended. He nodded to Geriant and the Prince swiftly unlatched the shutters, throwing them open wide. Enid rushed to the window and Geriant guided her hands to the rope. At his direction she grabbed the rope and jumped from the windowsill. She slid down into Owein’s waiting arms.
“Owein,” she sobbed as he held her close. “Brother.”
“We came for you, Enid. I am so sorry it took so long.”
Enid continued to weep as he set her on her feet but she stood straight and steady. “Now what?” she asked.
“To the watchtower,” Owein nodded. “Then away from this place. We will go out the tower window with ropes. Then make our way to the west wall where some Cerddorian are ready to help us over. March is waiting on the other side with horses for us all.”
“All?”
“You, me, Teleri, Gwarae, Sanon, Trystan, our Druid, and, of course, Geriant.”
“Geriant,” Enid said softly as she turned to the Prince. “Geriant. Thank you.”
Geriant bowed briefly but did not speak. The sheen of tears glittered in his blue eyes, but he smiled at her.
“Come,” Owein said. “We must be going.”
The three of them ran swiftly to the watchtower, bent low. Sanon and Trystan stood on either side just inside the door, weapons ready.
“Go,” Trystan said, nodding to the stairs.
“The others?” Owein asked.
“Upstairs already,” Trystan answered.
“Any trouble?” Owein asked.
“Gwarae had to kill a guard who almost blundered right into them,” Sanon answered. She nodded toward the bathhouse. Huddled against the wall in the shadows between the fortress wall and the bathhouse lay a darker shadow. “But no one else saw.”
Then Trystan looked briefly out the door and what he saw made him grip his sword tighter. “Hurry. General Baldred appears to have seen something he does not like.”
Owein glanced out the door. Trystan was right. General Baldred was not looking at the stable, but was eyeing the watchtower instead. Had he perhaps seen the Kymri reenter? It was too dark for him to know who was in the tower, but if he had seen anyone go back in, he would have wondered who it was, since all the Coranians were coming from the buildings, not going into them. Baldred, unnoticed by his companions, pulled his sword and walked quietly toward the tower and the open tower door.
“Go,” Trystan said again. “Baldred is mine.”
“He is mine,” Owein said grimly. “He killed my mam.”
“He is mine,” Enid said tightly. “He and Bledri and Morcant. They belong to me.”
Sanon sighed and pulled her dagger from her belt. Without a word she threw the dagger in a swift, underhand cast. The blade gleamed briefly in the light of the fire as it sped clear and true through the smoke, burying itself in Baldred’s gut. The General dropped to his knees, clutching the knife’s protruding hilt, then slumped forward to the ground, burying the blade deeper still into his dying body.
Trystan, Owein, and Enid stared at Sanon. “There was no time to argue precedence,” Sanon said crisply. “Now, we go.”
As they silently made their way from the fortress the far-off strains of a hunting horn—the horn of the Wild Hunt—sounded faintly in their ears.
ARTHUR REACHED OUT to move the raven with the fiery opal eyes across the tarbell game board. But as he touched the piece his hand froze. He cocked his head as though listening to something, something Rhiannon could not make out.
The scar on Arthur’s lean face whitened momentarily. Then he looked over at her and smiled. “Enid is free,” he said simply.
“Thank the gods,” Rhiannon breathed.
The torque of emerald and sapphire, of opal and pearl and onyx, glowed around Arthur’s neck in the golden light of the game room. The pieces on the tarbell board glittered and gleamed. Arthur picked up the raven that represented the Dreamer, and moved it forward, placing it in the black square where the Dewin with eyes of pearl had rested. He picked up the Dewin and set it to the side of the board, then looked back at her.
Rhiannon returned his gaze squarely, but she did not really see him. Soon she would be able to leave Cadair Idris, in the dead of the night, to journey to Sycharth. Somewhere in the woods outside the city Gwydion wandered, lost and disoriented, possibly wounded, certainly ill. Her heart ached knowing that he waited for her, weak and bewildered. But she had not been able to leave before tonight, not before Enid’s rescue had been completed.
Gwydion had begged for her to come alone, so there would be no witnesses to his weakness and humiliation. And that was so very like him. So very like the man she loved. For she admitted it and was at last determined to live with that truth. She did love Gwydion ap Awst past all reason, past all logic, past all hope of true happiness. She loved him and she would not leave him to his enemies. Not while she still had breath left in her body.
Arthur’s dark gaze made her wonder if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Without a word, for she feared that if she spoke the shaking in her voice might betray her, she rose from the gaming board. It was time to go to her chambers and change for her journey.
&nb
sp; “Rhiannon,” Arthur said softly as she made her way to the door.
She turned her head to look back at him as the door opened.
“Yes, Arthur?”
His dark eyes glittered. “It’s your move.”
Chapter
* * *
Ten
Tegeingl
Kingdom of Gwynedd, Kymru
Bedwen Mis, 500
Merigdydd, Tywyllu Wythnos—morning
There are strangers in town.”
When Madoc did not answer immediately, General Catha continued. “Find them,” he said to the King of Gwynedd, as one would order a dog to hunt.
Madoc’s cold blue eyes narrowed, but he knew better than to challenge Catha’s tone—or his authority. “What do you mean, there are strangers in town? There are always strangers, here and there.”
Catha sighed to himself. The morning sun that streamed in through the windows of the ystafell burnished his blond hair to a golden sheen, but his light blue eyes were cold and frosty. His proud, handsome face clearly showed the contempt he had for the man who called himself the King of Gwynedd. For Madoc would have been king of nothing without the Coranians behind him. There were times, Catha thought, when it appeared Madoc forgot that. This was perhaps one of those times.
The floor of the audience chamber was polished to an almost deadly sheen and scattered with beautifully woven rugs in blue and brown. Bright banners stitched with silver and sapphires hung on the walls between the windows. On the canopy over the high-backed chair where Madoc sat a hawk, stitched in silver, spread his wings and his sapphire eyes glared. Catha looked back at the hawk balefully. The hawk had no authority here in Gwynedd. The only authority now was the Coranian boar, sign of Catha’s master,Havgan, the Golden Man, the man who was, essentially, Madoc’s master also. For without Havgan, Madoc would be nothing more than a lord in Gwynedd, half-brother of the ruling king.
