by Janzen, Tara
He would have saved her life if he could have, but all the fighters of the Quicken-tree and Carn Merioneth together hadn’t been able to hold the keep against Gwrnach and his war band. All of the Quicken-tree had been unable to save Nemeton. There had been only one victory for Rhuddlan that night. Deep in the caves, much deeper than the place where Moriath had used fire to protect the ancient ones, he and another had drawn the ether up from the earth and the tides and had sealed the doorway to the pryf’s dark maze; and by so doing, had sealed their own fate.
They had not had a choice, not with Rhiannon dead and Nemeton dying and all of Carn Merioneth in flames and overrun by men. The union of the two, forged in the crucible of the dragon wine, was of the Sun and the Moon, was the weir of balance, and it had been torn asunder. The sanctity of Carn Merioneth had been breached. With chaos ruling above and all of the Quicken-tree on the run, the gateway could not be left open and vulnerable.
For fifteen years they had been exiled from the land beyond the labyrinth, unable by themselves to break the seal. Nemeton, their Beirdd Braint, a privileged bard, had been lost to them, but Rhuddlan knew another always came. In time, in time.
And so, in time, another had come. Dain Lavrans, a mage who, Rhuddlan knew, didn’t fully understand his own adeptness and skills. There were subtle levels of power within himself that Lavrans had yet to discover, and others he had yet to control. The paths to such discovery and control were wound throughout the Hart Tower, hidden within the structure and yet blatantly exhibited for those who could see. Certainly Lavrans had found enough of interest to keep him in residence.
The Dane had been the one to open the Druid Door, closed tight and unbreachable for all the years since Nemeton’s banishment. The feat had been beyond the skills of the hundreds who had tried, hoping to gain Baron D’Arbois’s favor and his prize of gold. Lavran’s success where so many others had failed had brought him the double-edged blessings of Rhuddlan’s patronage and Madron’s scrutiny. So far, the sorcerer had survived both.
Now the north was again in turmoil, and they had need not only of Lavrans, but of another like Rhiannon. Rhuddlan doubted if the woman riding the Cypriot would suffice. There was strength in her, to be sure—he felt it even from a distance—but no softness. She would break before she would bend, doing none of them any good.
The mists ahead of him swirled with a gust of warm air, earthy and rich, startling the woman. He followed her wary gaze to the mouth of the cave, and a surge of excitement laced with unease pulsed into his veins.
Someone was trying to break the seal, someone with an unsure touch. He’d sensed the stirrings of Ddrei Goch and Ddrei Glas in the deep beyond, and he’d felt the crude power of the one calling them ripple through the earth and rouse the pryf. ’Twould be good to go home again, but not at the cost of having strangers invade the dragon nest.
Chapter 10
Lanterns were tied to tree branches throughout the grove, glowing like low-hung stars and warming a night wind filled with the scent of budding flowers and the soft nickering of horses. People were here and there amongst the rowans. Ceridwen had glimpsed Edmee in one of the groups, seeming quite at home. The maid had lifted a hand in greeting and smiled before going about her business. A few people were making camp under the huge, graying oak that rose up at the base of a densely wooded limestone cliff, the western defense of the hidden place the Quicken-tree called “Deri.” To the east and north of the grove the trees and thickets gradually grew into an impassable tangle of vegetation called The Bramble. The river guarded the south.
Ceridwen learned all this during the meal, surrounded as she was by women pleased to talk about their home. There were apple trees in the wood, they told her, and hazelnuts grew close by, along with dewberries and mulberries. Grain they harvested from the wild grass.
’Twasn’t wheat, Ceridwen thought, taking another bite of the small cakes they’d served. Nor barley, oats, or rye. The cakes weren’t spiced, yet were nonetheless flavorful. The flavor of what, she couldn’t guess.
“You’ve been hurt,” a woman named Moira said, her fingers stroking the scar along Ceridwen’s temple. Moira had a cherub’s face composed of soft curves, rose-blushed cheeks, and grass-green eyes. Her hair was a honey brown and plaited into a crown around her head. Like all the others, her tunic was made from a cloth with patchwork shades of gray and green, though in better light Ceridwen noticed the gray shimmered more like silver and the green shifted hues with every movement of the cloth, not that there was much cloth to move. The women’s tunics were far shorter than anything Ceridwen had ever seen, falling to just past their knees. Startling enough, but nothing like the shock she’d felt when an inadvertent glance had shown them to be wearing braies with their hose en coulisse.
Convents were not courts of fashion, yet Ceridwen couldn’t fathom that women’s clothing could have changed so drastically in fourteen years. The dresses she’d seen at Wydehaw had seemed normal enough.
“Is this Dain’s healing work?” Moira asked, her fingers again stroking down the side of Ceridwen’s face.
“Aye,” she said, and wondered at the lightness of the woman’s touch. ’Twas as if the tips of Moira’s fingers were warmed by an inner fire.
“’Tis good work,” Llynya said, her hands busy as she combed and plaited Ceridwen’s hair into the little braids she’d promised to make. A thousand at least, she’d sworn, mayhaps more. The sprite had claimed Ceridwen for her own, staying close to her where they all sat on thick rugs in a lean-to of woven willow wands. The rugs were of exceptional quality, uncommonly soft and heavy and woven in the most intricate sinuous patterns. Ceridwen could scarce keep her hands from rubbing along them.
“Aye,” another young woman said, “but he should have brought her to us.” She clicked her tongue and reached out to touch the scar. Her fingers, too, felt warm and soothing.
“We weren’t here yet, Elen,” Llynya said, her voice like birdsong in Ceridwen’s ear.
“Then Madron should have sent for me, at least,” Moira said. “Elen, bring me the rasca salve.”
The younger woman excused herself and went to do as she was bid.
“Madron could not have known,” Ceridwen said. “My own traveling companions didn’t know what had happened to me until well after Lavrans had locked me in his tower.”
Moira dismissed the explanation with a wave of her hand. “Madron knows everything.”
“Locked?” Llynya asked, her confusion showing in the tilt of her head. The tumbled mess of her coal-black braids and twigs shifted with the gesture. For all the care and attention she was lavishing upon Ceridwen’s unruly curls, she’d given no notice to her own. “The Druid Door has not been locked for years.”
“I’ve brought Aedyth’s salve,” Elen said, returning from the neighboring lean-to. “’Tis her newest batch.”
“This will set you right.” Moira smoothed a dab of the stuff onto Ceridwen’s skin, but the patient’s interest was focused on Llynya, who obviously knew something about the damn door.
“It won’t open,” Ceridwen said. “I’ve tried. The latch lifts, but the door won’t open.”
“Did you speak the magic words?” Llynya asked, her nimble fingers making quick work of one plait after another, each bound with the tiniest strip of silver-gray cloth.
“I know no magic words.”
“Ah, there’s your problem.” The girl laughed and leaned forward, placing a kiss upon Ceridwen’s cheek. “You must get Dain to teach you the magic words.”
Ceridwen lifted her hand to where the kiss warmed her skin. Sweet green-eyed child. There was much she wanted to learn from Dain Lavrans, especially in magic words, though she had yet to approach him on the subject. She looked around the grove, searching until she found him near the oak.
He and Rhuddlan sat on the leaf-covered ground, apart from the others making camp in the maze of the giant tree’s roots. The gnarled curves swept as high as a man’s waist close to the trunk, providing
shelter and privacy. The boy Shay was acting as their cupbearer, taking the two men murrey, small cakes, and flagons of warm honeymead dipped out of a cauldron set amidst a circle of banked coals in the middle of the grove. Dain and Rhuddlan appeared deep in conversation over the small fire burning in the brazier set between them.
“He has one very special word he uses,” Llynya said, her voice growing thoughtful. “’Tis a strange one, it is, ‘sezhamey.’ ’Twas what he said the first time he opened the door and won the tower and the gold.”
He had not mentioned gold to Ceridwen, nor anything of winning his richly appointed tower. Would that she could have such luck and be left alone the way he was, with rooms to spare and no overlord. The night wind came up, lifting a portion of his hair and carrying it like a veil across his face. He smoothed the loose strands back and brought the whole length of his hair over one shoulder, securing it with a smoothly twisted knot.
Her gaze danced over him, following the lines of his cloak from where it broke at his shoulder and draped his torso before pooling on the ground. One of his legs was bent to support his elbow in a casual pose. Tawny leather boots, cross gartered with more of the same, reached to his knees. His tunic was black, his chausses forest-green like his gambeson, and his every move was fluid, full of the sorcerer’s grace.
Llynya liked him well enough, calling him O Great One. For herself, Ceridwen didn’t need to like him. Neither did she have to stare at him every waking moment he was in her presence, surreptitiously watching him from beneath her lashes, always on guard to shift her gaze should he glance her way—but she did.
“Sezz-hamm-ey.” She tried the word out on her tongue. She would use it the next time she faced the door alone.
“Oh, aye, that’s good. He’s a great magician, he is,” the sprite continued. “Why, I’ve seen him bring up roiling clouds of smoke from the bare ground. He can turn fire into rainbow colors and make the stars fall from the sky.” She bound the loose ends of another tiny braid and parted off another section of hair. “I saw him dance with lightning once. ’Twas amazing.”
Ceridwen stared at the girl in astonishment. Dance with lightning?
“Now hold still,” Llynya gently chided, pushing Ceridwen’s chin around to keep her braidwork even.
Ceridwen’s gaze immediately returned to Dain. Dancing with lightning. She could well imagine how amazing such a sight must have been: Lavrans calling down a deadly bolt of sky fire and taming it to his will, his dark robe billowing in the wind, his face alight with the force of nature’s blazing radiance—and the lightning, twisting and turning a path across the earth, the air sizzling in its wake as it fought the reins of his magic.
By the grace of God, that was the trick she needed, whatever the cost.
~ ~ ~
Dain let his last sentence trail off into silence, noting that his friend was not listening. Rhuddlan’s attention and his eyes, whose irises were so clear a gray as to be almost colorless, the hue saved only by the verdant rim reflecting into the middle, were fixed across the grove on Ceridwen ab Arawn. Flames from the campfire cast a tracery of shadows across Rhuddlan’s profile, alternately concealing and revealing his high brow, finely chiseled cheekbones, and narrow jaw. Blue paint covered a strip of his face from just above his eyebrows to the bridge of his thin, slightly upturned nose, running from temple to temple and into his pale hair. ’Twas a badge of his high standing, the same badge Dain wore on the night when he became Quicken-tree.
He looked past Rhuddlan to where Ceridwen sat among the women, and he knew what held the other man’s gaze. She was lovely, ethereal with her hair reflecting the moonlight. The feeling of contentment in the camp had softened her eyes and brought a liveliness to her features he had not seen before. He’d felt the same his first time in the hidden forest where Nemeton had once held sway, as if he’d come home. The Quicken-tree had generous spirits and a rare talent for bringing strangers into their midst and making them part of the fold or, more precisely, part of the warp and weft.
Llynya was braiding her hair. Madron would give him hell for that, but he wasn’t going to stop the sprite. A woman alone needed all the protection she could get from whatever quarter. He was glad they’d come, though it seemed Rhuddlan had nothing more urgent to speak of than the growing of trees and how far to extend The Bramble this coming year, the careful work the Quicken-tree did of weaving each bush and shrub into the next. He had spoken no more of the trouble in the north, but Dain was acutely aware that Ceridwen’s future lay in the same direction.
“How fares Elixir and Numa?” Rhuddlan asked, returning his attention from across the grove.
“Well, as always.”
A smile curved one corner of the Quicken-tree’s mouth. “If I’d known you would call them so strangely, Dain, I would have given you their true names and insisted you use them.”
“Numa has taken a fancy to the maid,” Dain said, grinning himself.
“Aye, she’s always been a smart one.”
Dain made a noncommittal sound, his gaze having drifted back to the women.
Moira finished with the salve on Ceridwen’s face and reached to unwrap the bandages he’d used to splint her ankle. ’Twas too soon. He made a move to rise, but Rhuddlan’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“Moira will do her no harm,” the Quicken-tree leader said. “The lady needs to be tended.”
Dain hesitated but a moment before sitting again. “By her own admission,” he said, “she is no lady.”
“She has gentle manners and a fair face,” Rhuddlan observed. “What more needs a lady?”
Dain laughed. For all that his friend had been staring at the maid, there was much he had not seen. “A less sharp tongue is counted a necessary virtue by many, and yon maid’s tongue is sharper than a well-honed blade.”
Rhuddlan turned aside to pick up the flagon of honeymead Shay had propped against the roots. “Her mother’s was the same, when ’twas needed,” he said, refilling his cup.
The statement fell into a pool of silence... and sudden understanding. Dain should have known.
Thoroughly bemused, he drained his own cup in one swallow. He gave his friend a measuring look, and as he did, he realized it was much the same look Rhuddlan had been giving Ceridwen all night, apparently with good reason.
“Wasn’t me you wanted at all this e’en, was it, Rhuddlan?”
“You’re good enough company.” The reply was typically oblique.
“How did you know I had her?” Dain asked, refusing to be dissuaded.
“Moriath,” he said, calling Madron by a name only he used for the witch.
“Ah,” Dain murmured. “So the witch arranged our meeting in the wood.”
“No.” Rhuddlan took a long draw off his cup, then wiped his sleeve across his mouth. His was a face that hid the years, retaining the freshness of a youth Dain knew to be long past by the streaks of gray blended into Rhuddlan’s silverish-gold hair. “She is still expecting you, probably none too charitably by now, but I wanted to see the woman taken from Usk Abbey.”
Dain didn’t like the sound of that. He thought the chit’s life was complicated enough without drawing the interest of yet another, especially another man.
“I have not known you to bother yourself with lost brides of Christ, Rhuddlan. What is she to you?”
Rhuddlan’s answer was a long time coming and arrived in a voice full of ill fortune. “Not enough of her mother’s daughter, for my needs. Nor enough of her mother’s daughter for what lies in her path.”
The words were no sooner spoken, the breath of them still on the wind, than a frisson of prescience skittered upward from the base of Dain’s skull and rolled over into a fleeting vision: serpentine coils moving through dark obscurity at unfathomable depths, their power great and ponderous.
The sight held him for an instant, no more, creating a strange pulling tension in his limbs before he shook free. Disconcerted, he reached for the flagon.
“And what have
you seen in her path?” he asked, easing the question into a semblance of calm. His damned gift of sight never gave him a clear vision. Aye, he could have told Ceridwen that he had magic, just not enough. ’Twas the first time he’d felt tangible force with one of the murky pictures, though. That unusual turn he attributed to being in Nemeton’s grove. The bard had left traces of magic everywhere for the unwary to trip upon, a subtle insight Jalal had despaired of him ever discerning. He never had in the desert, not even with Jalal there to guide him, but Dain had no other explanation for some of the happenings in Deri, including those on Beltaine that drew him back year after year to a wildness he was never sure he would survive.
Rhuddlan gave him an inquisitive look. “More important, I think, is what you have seen.”
Dain didn’t answer the implied question. The Quicken-tree leader’s intuition unnerved him at times, reminding him too much of his desert master.
Rhuddlan relented and lowered his gaze to the small fire they shared. “I have seen danger in her path,” he said. “Danger, hardship, and trouble.”
The trouble part Dain understood. The maid was the very essence of trouble. He himself could distill it no finer. Nor was hardship difficult to accept. Everyone’s life was full of hardship.
But danger was altogether different, implying a threat.
“Danger from what, or whom?” he asked.
Rhuddlan shrugged. “Mayhaps herself.”
“She is not foolhardy,” Dain assured his friend, “only desperate.” And more keenly intriguing than he ever would have imagined when he’d first seen her hanging from D’Arbois’s chains. Everyone in Wroneu Wood and half the people out of it wanted the maid. No wonder she was skittish, being tracked as she was, and being caught all too often. Numa had known her worth, sensed it immediately with her female intuition.
