Kingdom of Summer

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “I couldn’t do that, even if I were willing,” I said. “Gwalchmai’s sword is an otherworldly weapon, and they all say that it burns the hand of anyone else who tries to draw it. It even has some otherworldly name.”

  “Its name is Caledfwlch,” Medraut broke in. “May it soon be shattered! But it will not burn the hand that draws it when it is given freely. You will do as you are commanded.”

  “Be silent,” Morgawse told him, very softly and sweetly. Medraut stopped as sharply as a fox when it hears a hound, and slunk back in silence towards the wall. I realized that he was terrified of the Queen, and felt bolder myself.

  “It is no matter whether or not the sword burns my hand,” I told Morgawse. “I will not help you. Try Rhuawn—but you can’t be too sure of him, or you wouldn’t be asking me. Is it that you have to keep him deluded? Well, try your sorceries on me, if you think they will work. But I say this, that I am a Christian man from a Christian kingdom, the servant of a good lord, of a great Emperor, and of the most high God: and I will not grovel to the mere Queen of Orcade.”

  Medraut gave a slight jerk, as though about to rush forward and strike me, but he checked himself and looked at Morgawse. She merely smiled once more. “Again, fine words. But say what you will, for all of your lords and gods I may do what I will with you now, and I will that these things be done, and I will make you do them. Medraut!” She languidly raised one arm and extended a forefinger, a thin, fine, strong finger like Gwalchmai’s.

  Medraut was only too ready. He rushed forward, grabbed me, set me back on the stool and began to tie my arms behind me. I looked at Eivlin out of the corner of my eye. She was huddled by the door, her hand pressed against her mouth, her blue eyes wide with misery. “I didn’t know they would hurt you,” she had said that afternoon. For the first time, my anger with her lapsed. She certainly wasn’t pleased with the results of her treachery. Could I believe that she had not been lying to me all along, as Medraut had, but that she had merely obeyed her lady’s orders without questioning them, because of her terror? My eyes had been sliding more and more fully upon her, and they met hers directly. She put her hand down and stared, stricken, her lips moving faintly. I looked away quickly. But I could believe that she had been merely a tool, frightened and ignorant. It was some comfort to know that such a person as Eivlin existed, and that she was not just a performance intended to deceive. And yet, she was still a tool.

  And Morgawse wanted to make me a tool for betraying Gwalchmai, as Eivlin had betrayed me. Medraut finished with my hands and tied my legs to the legs of the stool. I set my teeth and waited.

  Morgawse unfastened the gold bands that held her hair, and it fell over her shoulders and down her back. She ran her fingers through it, tossed her head. Very black, her hair looked.

  “Pretty,” I commented, trying to ease my terror—and annoy Medraut—by being insolent. “Do you pull out the gray hairs every morning?”

  She did not trouble herself to reply, but spread her hands and chanted something to begin the rite.

  I have never been able to tell anyone exactly what happened in the next few hours. It is not that it was so painful or so disgusting as to be unspeakable—it hurt to some extent, and was unpleasant, but no more than some sicknesses. Nor is it even that I found it shameful and revolting—though, God knows, I did, and still feel hot when I think of it. But my memory of it is blurred and, to tell the truth, I have never tried very hard to remember, since such things do no good to anyone, neither the sufferer, nor the hearer, nor, in fact, the performer. I fought Morgawse. She sang, and threw things on the fire, and made patterns, and tried to glare me into submission with her eyes. I set my teeth, knotted my fingers together behind my back, and fought her harder. She went on with the sorceries. I felt as I had in my dream, as though I were struggling in a black ocean, a numbingly cold force that drove down on me or tried to drag me under. I thought of my family and our farm, picturing them down to the cattle in the barn and the swallows in the thatch. I thought of Camlann. I thought a good deal of Gwalchmai, whom I could not betray. I thought of all of them at once, holding them like the words of a prayer: everything I knew of light and order and joy and love; and I looked back at Morgawse with my teeth set, and did not give in.

  But she went on with it, on and on, and I began to feel that I was suffocating, and had to gasp for breath. My mind grew blurred about the edges, chilled. I twisted my fingers in the ropes around my hands, feeling my palms slick with sweat. The dim little hut swam in my eyes, and the fire blurred the way it does if you watch when you’re half asleep. It all seemed unimportant and remote. I had trouble remembering names—who was the Emperor? my brother? my lord? I felt a great way away from all of it, and my life seemed the merest hair-line distinction from my death. Almost it seemed as though I could step out of that dim hut in Gwynedd into a whole bright and lovely universe, the Kingdom of Summer from Gwalchmai’s song. I felt as though, if I looked, the wooden walls would burst into leaf, and the birds of Rhiannon begin to sing. But that feeling I fought as well. It was necessary (why?) that I resist, for someone (who?) would be hurt if I didn’t. My head drooped; I raised it again and looked at Morgawse. Her eyes beat at me like waves beating against a cliff. A crumbling cliff. But her face was dripping with sweat, her hair wild and disheveled. She held a long dagger with both hands, and the blade was smeared with blood. It was my blood, from some while before, but I looked at it indifferently. Nothing mattered. Only to hold…on…

  “You will set the trap for him,” she said, for the thousandth time, “and then, then, finally we will be revenged on him, Medraut and I. And when his mind has snapped we will give him back to Rhuawn, who will take him to Arthur. And Medraut will go too, very loving and concerned. And then! Rhuawn is ours in some measures, Gwalchmai will be a cruder sort of tool, and there will be others. Medraut will bring them. Just as others will join Maelgwn in his secret alliance, and wait until the Family is at war with itself. Then will the shield-wall be broken and the gate of the stronghold be battered down; then Arthur will die.”

  She stood, radiant of darkness, horribly beautiful and appallingly certain. But nothing she said seemed to mean much beyond the confines of that hut. I stared at her and was unable to think or feel anything at all.

  She began to smile, triumphantly, and raised the dagger. The walls flickered like a candle in the wind. I drove my heels against the floor and stared numbly back. Morgawse seemed to brush the ceiling, a black wave cresting and about to break.

  “Medraut!” said the Queen. “Now!” I leaned back, scarcely able to see her. “Medraut!” The tide ebbed a little. Dimly, I was aware that Morgawse was glancing about. I slumped on the stool. “Medraut! Where are you?” The Queen lowered her arm, only the dagger blade flashing as it moved. Then she turned away, crossed to the door, and left. I could not even think that she had gone to look for him. I could not think. The world before me was all dark, but I felt as though that other world lay under and around. I looked at nothing, waiting to see it flower around me.

  The door opened again, but it was not Morgawse. It was Eivlin; somehow, even in the dimness, I recognized her. She darted across the hut, dropped to her knees behind me, and the next instant I felt her hard, desperate strokes against the ropes. I went on looking at the wall. I could neither understand nor care about what was happening—and yet I remember it very precisely.

  She had my arms free, then my right leg. My right foot was asleep, and I curled my toes until they tingled painfully. The half-sensed music in the air seemed to grow dimmer, fading away. I shook my head.

  The ropes holding my left leg gave, and Eivlin jumped to her feet, grabbed my right arm and pulled at me. I stood, wavering, beginning to wonder what was happening. Eivlin stooped and picked up something she had set down when she cut the ropes. It was a sword. She drew my right arm over her shoulder and half dragged me over to the door and out of it. The moon was
shining down on the threshold, and the night air was chill and damp. I stopped, looking at the sweet light.

  “Come on!” hissed Eivlin, and dragged on my arm furiously. I began to stumble forward again. A little distance from the hovel a small pony was tied. There must have been horses, something told me, and there should have been a guard watching them; but there was only the one shaggy mountain pony. Eivlin rapidly untied its reins and caught the bridle.

  “Come on!” she hissed again. “Get on.”

  Still not quite sure what was happening to me, I tried to mount, became dizzy, and had to stand leaning against the pony’s side, pressing my hand over my eyes to clear them.

  The little beast flicked its ears back and looked pleased, and I began to laugh. Eivlin exclaimed angrily in Irish and tried to pull me into the saddle by force, and, eventually, with her help, I managed to scramble up. Eivlin took the bridle, looped the reins under her arms, glanced hurriedly back over her shoulder—and froze. I looked back too, and saw Morgawse standing in front of the hut.

  Something stirred in me, and I leaned dizzily from the pony, seizing the sword from Eivlin’s motionless right hand. Eivlin shrank against the pony’s side.

  Morgawse began walking towards us, slowly.

  I lifted the sword as though it were a cleaver, noticing for the first time that it was Medraut’s. I would fight, I thought—and then noticed that I was not tied hand and foot this time. I grabbed Eivlin’s hair and drove my heels into the pony’s sides. He snorted, shied so that I nearly fell off, and started away. Eivlin was dragged along, abruptly coming to herself and staggering up against the pony, shivering like a scared rabbit.

  “You will die!” Morgawse screamed from behind us. “Both of you. You, vixen, you will die before the evening of this coming day. And he will die too, this lover of yours, soon enough!”

  I kicked the pony into a trot, glancing back. Morgawse was not following us, only shouting, “Do you think you can return to Degannwy? Maelgwn’s men will keep you for me.” Her voice rose, climbing into a shriek of rage. “Go, by all means! You have merely delayed his death, little fool, and caused your own. Go!” Eivlin jerked the pony’s bridle and began running, and he started to trot a little faster.

  I could feel the little animal warm between my legs, and the smooth, worn leather of saddle and harness. Eivlin’s hair was pale in the moonlight. I looked up. The moon was softly blurred, a half-moon of spring, like a yellow apple, and the night sky was deep and soft, hazed with a little mist. The mountains lay about, silent black bulks, with only a few of the far peaks still ashimmer with the last snows. Over the smell of horse and leather I could catch the scent of wet grass, and the air told me that it wasn’t long before dawn. And something in me leapt into heaven like a skylark as I realized that, contrary to all expectation and probability, I was actually alive and in possession of my own senses, headache and all. I wanted to sing, but the only song I could think of was Gwalchmai’s song about the Otherworld, mixed up with hymns from home in a ludicrous fashion because I couldn’t remember the words to it. It made me laugh, and once I began laughing, I couldn’t stop. Eivlin looked at me sharply, her eyes gleaming in the dim light, and I laughed harder, which gave me shooting pains in my head.

  “It is no matter,” I at last managed to gasp to her, by way of reassurance. “Morgawse has not stolen my wits. Oh Eivlin, Eivlin, what did you do with Medraut? And what about the guard?”

  “There is nothing to laugh at!” She was sharp and unhappy. “Medraut went to see why I was so long in bringing wood for the fire, and I hit him on the head with a piece of firewood: I do not know whether he is alive or dead. As for Ronan, the guard, I first of all told him that my lady wished him to take the horses back to Degannwy and return at sunrise, but that he must leave one horse. Ach, I couldn’t even think of what to say what the one horse was for—but he didn’t ask, only left at once. He was unhappy to be there at all. Then I went back to the hut and waited behind the door until my lady came out, and I hit her on the head too, but I couldn’t hit hard, because I was afraid of her.”

  “Two horses, you should have said, and we could have ridden off like rulers of the world. Eivlin, you are the signet ring on the hand of Daring, you adorn the earth as the moon adorns the night…” I wanted to quote more songs to her, but she only snapped, “Enough of that. We must be far, far away from here by morning.”

  I fumbled for the pony’s reins, realized that Eivlin had them, and looped my hands in its mane instead. What with the headache, the sorcery, and the escape, I was light-headed enough to want to try galloping. With Eivlin up on the saddle. As though the pony could gallop with both of us. “Go where?” I asked, restraining myself.

  “Caer Segeint! Caer Legion! Anywhere! But we must find the main road first, and then you must ride away as fast as you can.”

  I was going to ask, “And what about you?”, when something else hit me and I asked, “But what about my lord?”

  She stopped, and the pony took another step, then halted, tossing its head in disgust. Eivlin stared up at me. “Your lord? It isn’t his life I’m selling my own to save. Let your lord find his own way of escape.”

  I frowned at her. “I was in danger because I would not betray Gwalchmai. How can I run off and abandon him to Morgawse?”

  “Och, Rhys, Morgawse cannot still have the same plan, if you are gone, and Medraut is dead.”

  “We don’t know that Medraut is dead. I’d stake my head he isn’t. And they still have Rhuawn.”

  “My lady has said that your lord no longer trusts Rhuawn as he did. Come, he’s in no more danger than you yourself, and what’s a lord? You can find plenty another man to serve, or you can go back to your clan. Didn’t you hear my lady? We cannot go back to Degannwy. Maelgwn’s guards would not let us through the gate.”

  My better sense told me that she was right about Degannwy, though I felt ready to fight it single-handed, and me too sick to walk far. But I knew one thing. “I will not let Morgawse do as she pleases with Gwalchmai. He must be warned.”

  “Man, man, you are mad! Do you throw away our lives for this warrior, this man who only uses your service?”

  “He is my lord, and I serve him because I chose to; and he is worth my loyalty. I like Gwalchmai. I would even call him my friend, if a lord can be called a friend. He must be warned. And besides, I am his servant. If I flee when he needs my service, where is my own good faith?”

  Eivlin was shaking her head. “Not so, not so. Rhys, my lady is most terribly powerful. We must get very far away. That is, you must, for I know that my lady will kill me by a curse, before the evening of this coming day, just as she said. By the sun, by the earth, and the sky and the sea, by your own god, Rhys, don’t let it be that I die for nothing. If we go back to Degannwy, you will die, he will not be warned, and Morgawse will kill me when I have accomplished nothing. Let us hurry. Come, we must reach the road before it is light. Morgawse will surely send Lot’s men after us, secretly.” She tugged on the bridle again, and the pony moved forward.

  I again fumbled for the rein, wanting to stop the animal.

  “Eivlin, my lord must be warned. What do you mean, Morgawse will kill you by a curse? She can’t do that. We must get a message to my lord…” I stopped suddenly, remembering what I had seen—had it only been that morning?

  Eivlin halted again, and the pony jerked impatiently on the bridle. “But I will die!” she said, angrily and tearfully. “And you will die too, and all for this warrior who cannot look after himself! But if we must…”

  “We don’t have to,” I said. “Gwalchmai has a place he looks for messages sent to him from the Emperor. We can leave a message there. It is on the way to the main road.”

  Eivlin looked at me, astonished, then hopeful. She began walking again, in silence.

  The world was a pre-dawn gray when we reached the forked
oak, and the first birds were beginning to give experimental chirrups. The exhilaration of the escape had worn off, and my head hurt a great deal, so much so that I felt sick. I was tired, too, tired enough to want to collapse under a tree and not get up for a week. I looked at the oak. I had told Eivlin to leave a sprig of pine by the track where we turned off. I thought that Gwalchmai had said pine for an urgent message. Yes, pine for an urgent message, holly for an ordinary one.

  “The place is the hollow where that big branch joins the main trunk,” I told Eivlin. She dropped the reins and skipped over to the tree, then looked up it. “Can you climb?” I asked hopefully.

  She looked at me as though I had said, “Can you fly?” Gwalchmai had said there weren’t many trees in the islands, and what trees there were, I supposed, would be climbed by boys more than by girls. I wearily struggled off the pony and staggered over to the tree. I didn’t know whether I could climb it. I could try.

  “What will you write your message on?” asked Eivlin.

  “Write?” I said, and suddenly I realized that I didn’t know how to leave a message. “I can’t write,” I exclaimed.

  “Och, indeed! He cannot write, but has come here out of the way to leave a message! I thought all Britons could write, all that speak Latin.”

  “Maybe most townsmen can, but I’m a farmer,” I said. “Where would I learn to write? Can you write?”

  She only snorted. I gathered that writing was uncommon in the Ynysoedd Erch.

  I stared at the oak and dredged my aching head for ideas. I had never really wanted to write before, but I wanted it then. But it was no use wishing. A pine cone meant that Gwalchmai’s letter had been received; what would mean “Beware of Rhuawn. Medraut and Morgawse tried to kill me, and will try to drive you mad”?