by Sarah Zettel
She was striking together the flints over a small heap of dead grass when the hawk made its second kill.
Triumph, joy, breaking bones and red, red blood. She wanted that blood. She needed it, for her own ran no more in her veins and its absence was like the absence of light. She felt that, she understood it with the whole of her being as the hawk rose again with her prey tight in her talons. If she ate now, Elen would know her satisfaction. Her heart would beat hard with exertion and delight. She would be repleat with the blood and the kill.
Her hands shook so hard, the flints slipped from her fingers. Geraint looked up questioningly. She only shook her head, and picked up the flints again.
I will master this, she thought as she struck the stones together again and again. I will become used to it and the strength of it will fade. It will.
It must.
The fire caught at last, and Elen laid on the tinder and then kindling. Even as she fed the flames, she felt the hawk returning. She stood, staring up at the sky, until she saw it. Her heart beat was strong, steady and compelling. She was full with her feasting and her flight. It was only a mild annoyance to have to let go of the pheasant she carried so it fell with a thump at Elen’s feet. The hawk skimmed past, heading straight for the trees, easily finding a branch, and lighting down. She looked toward Elen, seeing her clearly. They stared at one another. Elen knew precisely where the hawk was although her body’s eyes could not pick out the bird’s form from the mottled tree bark at this distance. Elen was breathing hard, as if she had in her body been flying. Now that it was close again, now that she could sense her own heart easily again, some measure of calm slowly returned.
It was then she realized Geraint had come to her side, and that she had not felt him near her. He looked at her now, his face filled with concern.
“It will pass,” she told him. “It is already fading.”
It will come again. You should tell him that too.
But she did not. She picked up the pheasant. “May I have the knife? Our meal will take some work yet.”
She saw clearly he was disappointed with this trivial statement, but he gave her the knife and kept his silence. Elen cleaned the bird and spit it on green sticks to roast in the fire that had burned down to its coals. The scent of the cooking fowl was so delicious as to be maddening, but not as maddening as the sight of the offal had been, or the feel of the bones under her fingers. She hunched by the fire tending their meal while Geraint cut branches to make a shelter from the leather awning he’d found in the blanket roll. He laid the blankets down, making a pallet for each of them, and, she noticed, leaving as discrete a distance between them as the tiny shelter would allow.
When the bird was cooked, they ate it gingerly with their fingers, sopping its juices with the good bread and sharing the beer skin between them.
Through the whole meal, Geraint kept his silence. At first, Elen did not mind, but gradually the silence began to weary her. She wanted, no, she needed, human contact, to wash away the memory of the hawk’s hunt and the elation it brought her.
She looked toward the bird. The sun was sinking toward the horizon now, and she was sinking toward sleep, secure, well-fed, content. Her heartbeat grew slower and heavier.
“Calonnau,” said Elen, almost to herself.
Geraint looked up.
“Her name.” Elen nodded toward the tree where the hawk waited. “Calonnau.”
Geraint appeared to consider this. “Heart?”
Elen nodded. “You speak our tongue well.”
He set his bowl of bones aside. Elen looked away from them, concentrating on Geraint’s face. “My uncle Arthur insisted we learn as many of tongues of the land as the monks could stuff into our heads. I’m not as fluent as Agravain, or Gawain.” He paused, watching the shifting colors of the coals for a moment. “There was something Urien said, when he held us together I did not understand.”
Elen knew exactly the words he meant. They were old, and not commonly spoken. She pulled her knees up toward her chest, wrapping her arms around them. The cold deepened within her. “Kynnywedi ar liw ac ar oleu.”
Geraint nodded, and waited.
She could lie. He did not know, and he did not have to know. His ignorance could keep her free of this much at least. But no lie would come to her, and Geraint was still waiting. “It means … many things. It means given without consent, or abducted …” She bit her lip, and then she said. “It means because he is lord of the land, I may be given to whomever he dictates without my consent or that of my kin.”
Geraint’s face and silence were stony. “That is not law.”
“It is.” Tears stung her eyes. I will not cry. “He is …” Mother, dead on the floor. Yestin’s sword in Urien’s fist. “He is made chief of Pont Cymryd by conquest. By the law of our people, for seven years, I am your wife.” Given before witnesses, hooting and jeering at her, with her people killed, captured and scattered, her mother dragged away and buried she knew not where, if she had been buried at all. But still, there was not a judge or chief in the west lands who would say that Urien had not conquered and held what he had taken.
“For seven years?”
She nodded. “At the end of that time, I may leave you if I wish it.” She looked at the stained and batterered skirt covering her knees as she said this. Somehow she could not look at his face and speak of leaving him.
After a long moment, Geraint said, “I think the bishop at Camelot would not approve of these laws.”
“Then tell him to argue with Urien,” snapped Elen. “Arthur does not rule here yet and your white Christ did nothing to stop the slaughter of my family. For seven years no man of my people will see me as other than your woman.” The tears came now, for anger and for loss, that Urien had stolen even this from her, and for the part of her that rendered unable to lie to this man about this thing.
But Geraint just accepted her anger, absorbed it and acknowledged it for what it was. It neither startled nor shocked him. “Lady,” he said softly. “What would you of me?”
“Nothing.” She wiped the tears away for shame. He had seen too much of her tears. She looked at the twilight sky instead, and listened to the sounds of the nightjar rising from the meadow. Soon the evening star would shine and the moon would rise. It was getting colder. “There is nothing to be done but what we do now.”
Geraint laid another stick on their fire. He watched the flames cradling the fresh wood. Her gaze traced the line of his jaw beneath its black beard. She saw the way the firelight reflected in his eyes, the broad slope of his shoulders and the way of his arm rested on his thigh. She told herself to look away again, but she could not make her gaze leave him, and so she was still watching him when Geraint turned, and met her eyes.
“I stood beside my brother Gawain when he was married,” said Geraint. His voice was hoarse and Elen felt her lungs, throat and hands all tightening at his slow, careful words. “He wore green silk and a gold belt about his waist and a gold chain over his shoulders, and his bride Risa was all in red and gold. Queen Guinevere walked with her. The court ladies sang in chorus to accompany Risa to my brother and even … even Agravain looked content as the High King put their hands together and took their pledge one to the other. She was so brave, so proud, so beautiful, and smiling as if she looked on Heaven itself, and my brother’s face shone with the pride and wonder of it all.” He paused. “When I stood with you, that is what I wanted for you. That was what was in my heart, and I promised …” He dropped his gaze, looking down to his calloused, sun browned hands. “I promised God that was what you would have one day. That when the work we had was done, I would …” He faltered. “I did not know what he had done then. I did not know …” Abruptly, Geraint got to his feet and walked away.
Elen stared after him. He waded out into the meadow grass, and stood there, his back to her, facing the southern mountains. At his sides, his hands opened and closed, knotting themselves over and over again into fists. His shoulders h
eaved and shuddered with the strength of his breathing.
Leave him be. You have no place or right to do otherwise. You will only make things more difficult.
Despite this counsel, she got to her feet, and she crossed the distance between them. She stood beside him, looking over the retreating foothills, doing nothing but be next to him, feeling the cooling air and the evening breeze, hearing the noises of night growing louder as the light grew dimmer.
“I told myself I would not speak of this.” Geraint hung his head. “I have never before had trouble guarding my own tongue.”
“How could we not speak of it?” She tried to say the words lightly, and failed. “We are here, together. What happened … happened.”
“Yes. What happened.” He whispered those words to the evening, and then he turned to face her. “Elen … Lady … I must know. Do you see yourself as wife to me, here, now, as we are?”
Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. No, she meant to say. No, of course not. What happened was forced and false.
Yet, she knew the law. She had watched her father, and her mother uphold those laws. She had always known one day she would sit in judgement herself and she had striven to learn how to judge well. She had never thought to live outside her people and her lands, or to be governed other than by the old ways.
But she was not the Fair Lady. Law was not blood and bone to her. It could be broken. She could deny it. People did. Judges and chiefs denied it and bent it as they chose. She was trying to deny it even now. She was a human being and free to make that choice. What had happened was not right. It was one more wrong worked on her by her enemy.
But it was real, and she had not lied. It was she who had told Geraint that what had happened had its foundation in law. If she held that law in such light esteem, why had she done that?
“Yes,” she whispered. “I do.” Because I am daughter of my people and cannot be otherwise. To even try would be the ultimate falsehood. I will not give Urien that. Never that.
Geraint let out a long shuddering breath. He still did not look at her.
She tried to guess at what he must be feeling. His sense of duty was strong, she knew that much, but they had not been married according to his customs, or the dictates of his god. He could not feel as she did. But surely, he would at least look at her as he told her that. If he did not acknowledge the marriage, that would give her freedom. He could cut this cord. He did not have to wait the seven years. That would be best. Surely that would be best.
Surely. She could tell him that. Her tongue did not move.
“I thought I knew hatred before,” whispered Geraint. “I thought I knew it when I saw you in his arms. But that was just the shadow. This is hatred. This is the wish to see another soul in Hell. That he should force you …” Words choked him. His face was livid. “That he should force what would have been the sweetest of all gifts, what I would have striven for with all my might.”
The fervor in him rocked Elen back. She wanted at once to comfort him. He did not deserve this pain. But what comfort could she offer? Tell him. Tell him there is a way out for him. “You will not feel so for long,” she tried. “You do not …”
“No.” He cut her off, shaking his head. He looked to the woods, he looked to the heavens, and in the end, his gaze came back to her. “Elen, I love you.” His voice cracked. He was close to tears. He stood before her and he trembled. But slowly, slowly, that trembling eased, and he was master of himself again, and yet the strength of of his words did not diminish. “I loved you when I first saw you at your mother’s side. I loved your grace, and your strength and the light in your eyes when you looked toward me. It was because of my love I made the high king let me return to Pont Cymryd and because of my love that I did not leave with my brother. All I have seen of you has only deepened that love. If it is a fool’s love, then so be it. I am a fool, and I will live and die one, for I will live and die with my love for you.”
What could she say? She could not turn this away … and yet she could not accept it either. To do so would be to accept what Urien had done to her, to them. Worse, it would be to welcome it. No good could come from his evil.
Tears threatened again. She felt split in two, as when Morgaine had plunged the sword into her, but this was worse, because this was as if she’d begged for the blow. Her mind was so full of swirling, raging thoughts, she felt as if it would burst. Her hands had gone cold as ice.
“I don’t even know if I can love,” she said bitterly. “Love is ruled by the heart, and my heart was taken from me.”
“So was mine.”
She did not deserve this pain. Neither did he. He loved, she did not, could not doubt that, but what did he love? She was shattered and bloody. How could she ask him to cleave to her as she was?
“Elen,” Geraint turned fully toward her. “What do you want?”
The question startled her. She wrapped her arms around herself. What did she want? She wanted blood. She wanted Urien and Morgain dead as pheasants at her feet. But he knew that, and she did not think that was what he really meant, and there was more she wanted beneath that base hatred. “Warmth. Wholeness. Freedom. I want … to be free of my hate, and my shame.”
“You have done nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Perhaps not, but it is there all the same.” She looked up into his blue eyes and saw how exactly their color mirrored the color of the darkening sky over them. “I want you to have never seen me helpless or afraid. I want to be rid of this geas and this need for vengeance. I want to be fair and proud and easy in my home with you seeing all that is best of what I have and what I am.” This was not reason. It was beyond reason. Now she was the one who was trembling because the truth was threatening to burst free, and she could not with all her strength hold it back. “I want to be free to love you, Geraint.”
Whose hand reached out first? Elen didn’t know. She just knew Geraint pulled her close and he kissed her, and she returned that kiss, and in it was her pain, her desperation and her confusion, but it also held all that was the depth of her need for him.
Then it was over, and he drew back, but he did not let go.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, because it was right that he do so. He was giving her the chance to pull away, to stop this thing here. If she did, he would stop too. She saw that in his eyes. “I had no right. I’m sorry.”
Let him go. Let him be free.
But she did not want him free, and she did not want to stop. She wanted the passion she saw in those blue eyes. She wanted the love that lay beneath it. She wanted to give him the love and the need that ran through her veins. She wanted so much she could scarce breathe for the strength of her wanting.
“Be you my husband, Geraint” she whispered. “I will be your wife.”
He smiled. She realized she had never really seen him smile before, and that smile was full and warm and it lit his face even in the darkness. “Be you my wife, Elen,” he answered. “I will be your husband.”
They kissed again, and it was joyful. Life itself was in that kiss and the sweetness wrapped around her with his embrace and Elen pressed against him and his heart beat against her breast and she took that heartbeat into herself and returned it over and again as the night covered them in its darkness and the stars came out to stand guard over the marriage bed they had made for themselves.
Chapter Eleven
Customarily, when Morgaine, called the Goddess, the Sleepless and the Fae, rode out from her home, she went in stealth and disguise. This time, she chose to ride in state. Two score men marched in procession with her, wearing bright blue cloaks trimmed with beaver fur. Her tall, black horse had a blue blanket beneath its saddle and blue ribbons hung from its gleaming harness. Blue ribbons also adorned the spears her men carried, showing them to be ceremonial, for all their tips were sharp and keen. The four women who rode behind her on grey palfries also wore blue, with more blue ribbons plaited in their dark hair and woven into crowns.
Morg
aine herself wore a gown of rich black. The sleeves fell to her fingertips and the hems trailed nearly to the ground. Silver girdled her waist and wrists and banded her brow. Straight and proud, she rode through the open gates into Gwiffert’s stronghold.
For all he was called the Little King, Gwiffert pen Lleied was a man of stature, golden-haired, blue-eyed and of lean and delicate bones. Frequent and warlike exercise, had made him strong and broad in the shoulders and trim in the waist. The clothing he wore was of deep, blood red, well-fitted. A golden chain hung from his shoulders, the links made in the shapes of hunting hounds. A golden torque circled his throat, made to look like a tusked boar, chased with silver and with garnets for eyes. In his right hand, he held a spear as another man would have held a staff. Its tip glittered black and keen in the summer sun. Its butt resting on the toe of his boot. Its shaft was banded with silver and carved with runes that Morgaine itched to read and understand.
With Gwiffert stood an impressive host of disciplined men, all in leather corslets and armed with sword and spear. Closest to him, however, were eleven men in mail coats with silvered grieves on their shins and silver cuffs on their wrists. Each of them wore a helmet that concealed their face down to their jaws. Each was made differently, and gave the wearer the appearance of a horned demon. Their swords were naked in their hands, held in salute for her procession as they came to a halt before the master of the stronghold.
A servant hurried forward and placed a stool for her feet. Morgaine dismounted and came forward, making her curtsey before Gwiffert, who bowed in return.
“Morgaine, Uther’s Daughter,” he said. “You are, of course, most welcome here.”
Morgaine arched her brows. “Of course?”
At that, Gwiffert only smiled. He beckoned to another servant who came forward with a silver tray holding gilded cups of red wine. Morgaine took the one offered her and she and Gwiffert saluted each other and drank. The wine was warm and richly spiced, but all the tastes were familiar ones. Morgaine smiled now. She had not in truth thought Gwiffert would offer poison, but he was not one to be trusted, or underestimated.
