Gwalchmai would have to know that the message was from me; that meant I must leave something of mine. The brooch. He would remember that. I fumblingly unclasped it and balanced it in my palm. Medraut and Morgawse were the real danger; what did I have of theirs? Eivlin still had the sword.
“Eivlin, give me Medraut’s sword.” She hesitated, looking at me questioningly, and I said, “I don’t know how to use it properly, and nor do you, so it’s no use to us.”
“It’s worth money. You’ll need that.”
“This is worth more.” Eivlin reluctantly handed me the sword. I weighed the hilt of it. It was indeed a good sword, for as much as I knew about swords—which, after my time in Camlann, amounted to something. The blade was narrow, of fine-tempered steel. I looked at it, and at the brooch, then slid the sword blade over one side of the ring of the brooch, under the central pin, and over the other half of the ring. It bent the brooch a little, but I hoped I made my meaning evident. Now, how to warn him of Rhuawn? I felt about my belt, but I had nothing of Rhuawn’s. Rhuawn was Dumnonian. Was there any way I could use something specifically Dumnonian? No, and I was Dumnonian too. Not that, then.
I stood, my feet growing wet from the dew, cold and sick and sleepy, trying to drag an answer out of a murky mind. The birds sang more loudly. The pony stamped.
Rhuawn was a member of the Family; the Family was…was…
Members of the Family sometimes wore a sprig of hawthorn through their cloak pins, to remind themselves of Baddon, where the hawthorn had bloomed when they drove back the Saxons. As plainly as if he stood there, I remembered Bedwyr’s servant Amren telling me the tale of the hawthorn at Baddon. I looked around.
“Eivlin,” I said, “I need a sprig of hawthorn.” She stared.
“It’s part of the message.”
“I will bring it, then. You put the rest of your…message in the place.”
“Give me a leg up, then. I do not think I can climb it.”
With some struggle and a great deal of dizziness, I managed to clamber into the fork of the tree, and Eivlin went off to find the hawthorn. I leant back against one branch to rest a minute.
“Rhys. Rhys. Wake up.” I opened my eyes and found that the east was touched with the palest rose. Eivlin stood under the oak with a branch of flowering hawthorn, white in her arms. She looked lovely as a day in spring. I muttered something, and she handed me the hawthorn. I twined it about the hilt of the sword and put the whole arrangement in the hollow of the branch. The sword stuck out a little, so I smeared some of the old leaves over it so that it would not shine, and jumped down. I collapsed when I hit the ground, and Eivlin helped me up.
“I need to sleep,” I told her.
“Indeed, if you fall asleep while I’m down to the end of the meadow and back, you do. But we must reach the main road first.” She helped me back onto the pony, and we continued on.
When we reached the main road it was nearly mid-morning, and the sun had dried the dew. We found a hard bank and led the pony across it and into a brake, hidden from the road. Eivlin took some bracken and swept the bank, unnecessarily, I thought, so that anyone following would not be able to tell that we had left the road. She seemed certain that Morgawse would send some of Lot’s warriors after us. I dragged myself off the pony and lay down. My head was throbbing but, for all my weariness, I no longer felt sleepy. Eivlin came back from sweeping and lay down beside me.
“We must not rest long,” she whispered. “We must be away this afternoon. And do wake up before evening. Rhys, I want to talk to you before I die.”
“You’re not going to die,” I said irritably. “Why should you die?”
“My lady will send a demon to kill me,” she said simply. “Ach, I know you will tell me that she tried to kill your lord and failed. Well, but your lord, perhaps, can fight demons. They say his sword is magical. I cannot fight so. I was cursed before ever I was born, from my father’s deed I was cursed.”
“You’re not going to die,” I repeated. “Morgawse is not the only power in this great world. Eivlin, if you are so sure you are going to die, why did you save me in the first place? Your lady is just as sure to kill me!”
“It was my fault you were in danger,” she said, in a very small voice. “My lady told me to bring you to Medraut’s house, and to tell you that your lord was there. I knew that she meant you no good, and yet I brought you there, and told you that, and then…” Her breath caught on itself. “She wished to…do dreadful…things. And I was to help her. And when she was beginning, I said to myself, ‘Eivlin, here is the one man who has taken no notice of your curse. Here is a man, no warrior, but a servant like yourself, who has helped you freely, who can turn a phrase just so, and has just such a smile: and because of you, and his trusting you, he will be dead and damned.’”
“But she couldn’t damn me,” I broke in. “Kill she can, but the other is beyond her.”
Eivlin shrugged a little: I felt the movement through the bracken. “Well, I knew that she would kill you horribly. And I could not endure it. So I went and told Ronan to take the horses home, and I hit Medraut on the head and cut you loose. It is better to die honestly, at least. And you keep saying that you are a Christian and have your own magic, so hers cannot hurt you; I think you will escape her.”
I turned my head and looked full at her. There were tears on her cheeks, runnelling the smudges on her face. Her fair hair was limp, dirty, and disheveled. I thought her more beautiful than any woman on earth.
“You won’t die,” I said, and hauled myself up on one elbow. “As God in Heaven is just, you will not die. Believe me…” I put out my hand clumsily to touch her shoulder, just to comfort her, and suddenly she came into my arms and began to cry. I held her, and she put her head down on my shoulder and sobbed loudly while I stroked her hair and made soothing noises. For all the danger and weariness, for all my aches and sickness, that was one of the fullest moments of my life.
TEN
Eivlin fell asleep in my arms, still crying, and I was asleep very shortly afterwards. I had wanted to stay awake and just hold her for a while, but it was a matter of minutes before I was snoring. When I woke up the late afternoon sun was lying heavy on the brake and the road beyond it, and Eivlin was not beside me. I sat up and looked around. Neither Eivlin nor the pony were there. I had a moment of sick terror, thinking that Morgawse had sent a demon and that Eivlin was gone—but then I tried to imagine what a demon would do with the pony, and the bad minute passed.
I stood up carefully. My head still hurt, but not as badly. Gingerly, I fingered the back of my skull—there was one big lump, caked over with dried blood, which was exquisitely agonizing when I touched it. That must be the result of Medraut’s blow, if Medraut had indeed been the one who hit me. Above it was a smaller lump, doubtless from hitting the floor after Rhuawn hit me. My sister Morfudd always used to say that I had a thick skull. Well, with such treatment I needed it. I wondered how Medraut’s head felt.
There came a crackling noise in the bushes. I set my hand quickly to my knife and backed away out of sight. But it was Eivlin, leading the pony. I sighed with relief and stepped back into the open.
“You frightened me, when I woke and found you gone,” I told her.
“Did I indeed?” She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, smiling. She had washed her face and carefully straightened her hair, and had stuck a wild rose in the clasp of her dress. Very pretty she looked. “I only wanted to find some water for the pony.”
“For us too, I hope.”
“Oh, to be sure. There is a stream just down the hill. Come, I can wash your head.”
I took a couple of hesitant steps forward, and she waited, holding out her hand. I took her hand, feeling at once embarrassed and very pleased, and we strolled down to the stream, leaving the pony tethered to a bush.
“You look
very pretty,” I told Eivlin, remembering how my sister liked to have this commented upon.
“Do I?” she asked, in the tone that means “So! You noticed.”
“Truly,” I responded. Eivlin smiled smugly and checked the rose to see if it was falling off.
The stream was fresh from the mountains, fast running over a rocky bed, and cold to make your teeth ache. After I drank from it Eivlin washed my head, which hurt and made me dizzy again, though she was gentle. When she finished, we sat a few minutes looking at the stream and listening to it gurgle.
Eivlin sighed and leaned against me. “It is a fine day to die on,” she said softly. “I could almost be glad. I am glad: I am away from her, at last, and I am with you, and it is a fine, honest way to die.”
“You’re not still dreaming about that!” I said, irritated, “I have told you, you’re not going to die.”
She only laid her head on my shoulder and tickled the palm of my hand. I became a little more irritated.
“You won’t die,” I repeated. “Why do you think you should die?”
“My lady said I would.” She sat up straight again. I wished she hadn’t.
“Well, your lady said I would die, too, but you don’t seem to think I will.”
“You! Well, but you fought off her spells and her witchcraft for hours, right in her very presence. She thought it would be easy to govern you; she thought it would all be done in half an hour, but at the end she was so tired she could not even slay us both when she saw us escaping.”
“Maybe that means her spells aren’t all that you think they are.”
“Not so! Rhys, I have seen her…” She stopped, then went on more quietly, “And besides, I am cursed from my birth, and I have been her servant. For her to kill me is nothing, a snap of her fingers. And I do not have any of my own magic to protect me, as you have magic.”
I wondered what she meant for a moment, then understood. “If you mean Christ, you can be protected too, if you believe. Here, we can stop at the first monastery or hermitage we come to, and you can be baptized, if that will stop your talk of dying.”
“What? What’s that?”
“It’s a…” I remembered my previous disastrous explanations of another sacrament. “It’s a kind of magic to free someone from past curses.”
Eivlin looked dubious. “Is it a complicated spell? Can’t you do it? Is there much blood?”
“I could do it, I suppose. I think it’s allowed. But it’s better if a priest does it.”
“One of your Christian druids?”
“No, a priest is…never mind. But there’s no blood at all. All that is necessary is that you believe in Christ—I told you about him, didn’t I—and they pour water on your head.”
“Where’s the magic, then?”
“It’s not exactly a spell, it’s a…well, the water means that the curse is washed away. I had it done to me when I was a baby. My mother says I howled, but I can’t remember it, of course, though I’ve seen it done for my cousins.”
Eivlin sighed and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “I do not see how it would help against my lady. But if you think it is a strong magic, perhaps it may.”
I thought of Morgawse, and for all my well-learned catechism I wondered whether Eivlin was right to be afraid. Sacraments are not magic spells, and, whatever they may mean to her spiritual state, could I be sure anything would alter the effect of Morgawse’s very strong earthly magic? But firmly I told Eivlin, “It’s a magic against Morgawse. You won’t die.”
Eivlin looked at me steadily, then sighed and stood up, brushing off her skirt. “Ai, perhaps. But we must be gone, then, to find one of your priests, because it is late in the day.”
Reluctantly, I too stood up, and we went back to where we had left the pony. He was busily consuming every blade of grass within range, just as though he had not grazed most of the day.
“Your turn to ride,” I told Eivlin. “I can walk.”
“‘I can walk,’ says the man, and he with a lump on his head as big as my fist! Indeed, you will not walk; you will ride and try to get better.”
I protested, but not very convincingly. My head did ache, and the short walk up the hill had started it throbbing. The advantage of my sickness was that I didn’t notice how hungry I was, although the last meal I had eaten was breakfast, the day before. But I wondered how Eivlin felt, and if she had had any supper. She was doing all the walking, and I could not think it good for her.
We started off down the road westward. “We will go to Caer Segeint,” Eivlin said firmly. “It is a big town, and a port, as I well know, having spent the night there when we first arrived in Gwynedd. If my lady has sent messages there, it is a good place to avoid messengers, and most of the men there spend their lives doing nothing else.”
I assented to the plan, though I would have preferred to go to Caer Legion, which I knew. But I could see Eivlin’s point, and it was a good one. “And after we reach Caer Segeint, what?” I asked.
She was quiet a moment. “Perhaps we could sell the pony and take a boat down the coast?”
I groaned inwardly. “How much would it cost?”
“What kind of boat are you used to using? For myself, I know a bit about curraghs, but that is all.”
“It is better than I can do. I was in a boat once in my life, crossing from Dumnonia to Caer Gwent, and I had no liking for it then. We’d have to hire a boatman as well as a boat, and, for myself, I know I have no way to afford it.”
“You have only once been in a boat? How…”
“I am not an islander. My family’s holding is near the Mor Hafren, and the only water we need to cross is a river. I think we should take the pony on down the coast into Dyfed, and claim protection there in the Emperor’s name. Dyfed isn’t too friendly with Gwynedd, and they’ve fought invaders from Erin enough to hate anyone who speaks Irish—though they’ll have to make an exception for you.”
Eivlin shook her head. “We travel too slowly. The ones my lady has sent after us will certainly catch us if we try to go all the way to Dyfed with only one pony. Do we have enough for a horse?”
I checked my possessions. Three bronze arm-rings, one enameled; and one gold ring Gwalchmai had given me at Camlann. Then there was my cloak—the weather might be warm enough to sell it. If we made the pony a rope bridle and sold the leather one, and rode bareback, we might have enough to buy one horse. But then we would have nothing to buy food with. I sighed. “We can travel fast and not eat, or we can have our bread and ale and a slow journey.”
“Even so? Perhaps we can steal a horse.”
“Steal? We will do no such thing.”
“Och, Rhys, we need a horse. Come, if you will you can see that the horse’s owner is paid afterwards.”
I didn’t like the idea of stealing from some poor farmer, but she might be right. I struggled with my conscience a moment, and wondered what my father would say about it.
If he were in my position, I decided, he would take the horse.
“Very well, if we pay him back. But don’t you think we could avoid anyone Morgawse sent? If the south road’s as empty as this one, we’ll know someone’s coming long before they reach us.”
“Unless Medraut comes.” Eivlin became very serious.
“You do not think he might be badly hurt, then?” I asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “If he is sick, my lady will find some way to heal him quickly. And he can use sorceries to find us…”
It had the sound of truth. “Then we will have to steal a horse. Or two horses, and leave the pony; and we can hope that they haven’t passed us already.”
Eivlin nodded. “Unless you only need one horse,” she added in an undertone.
“You are not going to die, remember? Come, let’s hurry and see what
we can find before dark.”
The afternoon was one of those long, slow afternoons of late spring that make one realize the summer is not far off. The mountains were all green, or blue with distance, with no snow to be seen anywhere. When the land to our right fell away we could see the Irish Sea, calm and blue-gray in the sunlight. Eivlin eyed it wistfully. She still preferred the idea of a boat.
It is a strange thing, but for all that we were flying for our lives in a foreign land, tired, hungry, sick in my case and afraid of imminent death in Eivlin’s, we were cheerful as a pair of larks. The afternoon was beautiful, and it seemed as though it might well last for ever. We had escaped and were free and in love, so why not be happy? The sight of the sea started Eivlin telling stories about the Ynysoedd Erch, and I responded with tales about my family, and we laughed like a couple of idiots at a fair. The sun slipped down the sky only gradually, slanting into our eyes and lengthening the shadows behind us.
“And so,” Eivlin concluded one story, “Eoghan fought a great and mighty and terrible fight against Ronan, to make up for the boat race, and he thrashed him thoroughly; for, except for Medraut, he’s the finest fighter in Lot’s warband.”
“Medraut’s really a good fighter, then?”
“By the sun! From the time he first entered the Boys’ House for training, he seemed a greyhound among housedogs, or so say all the warriors. And yet…he does not fight much. Those he wishes to use, he charms, and through them he makes all the other warriors obey him. They are all afraid of him, because he can ruin a man’s standing with a few words, and set all the others against anyone he wishes, and then there is the sorcery. Why once, to be sure, he…”
Eivlin abruptly stopped, and also stopped walking, staring ahead of her.
“He what?” I asked.
“Rhys…” she said. I looked ahead of us. I could see nothing but the empty road in the evening sun. I wondered if she’d forgotten something and left it in the brake where we slept.
Kingdom of Summer Page 20
