by Anna Elliott
“Ah, yes. Cynlas of Rhos,” he said. “And his son.” The Irish king’s gaze moved to Bedwyr at his father’s side, and he paused. Then, “You had, though, another son once, I think? I would be careful, my Lord of Rhos, in your place.”
For a moment, Cynlas was utterly still, then he half rose from his seat. His face had gone bloodless to the lips, leaving his skin mottled with red and white.
“You—” he began hoarsely.
Dywel of Logres, beside him, laid a warning hand on Cynlas’s arm. “No. Not worth it.”
Dywel was a tall, strongly built man, with a square, slightly blunt-featured, handsome face, dark eyes, and a ready, if slightly vacant, smile. A big, simple, good-tempered man, slow to anger, who cut his food into tiny pieces and spoke with a slight lisping awkwardness because most of his teeth had been lost to battle or age. And yet Isolde remembered Con telling her stories of how in setting foot on the battlefield, Dywel was transformed, like one of the skin-walker warriors in the ancient tales, who shifted shape to take on animal form.
She herself had set the broken arm of one of Dywel’s fighting men after the fighting last year in Gwent. The man had been wounded by Dywel himself, because in the heat of battle, his vision clouded by the red warrior’s mist, he scarcely knew friend from foe. But then, she thought, Dywel is a king without a land. The kingdom of Logres had been lost to the Saxons in the years after Camlann, leaving Dywel with nothing to lose in a fight save his own life.
Now Cynlas jerked at Dywel’s touch, then turned and stared at the other man as though he’d forgotten Dywel’s existence. Then, “You think I—” he began.
The exchange had caught the attention of the lower part of the hall; Isolde saw the men of Cynlas’s war band turn to watch their lord and begin to mutter angrily amongst themselves. And for a moment, she felt a now-familiar, almost physical revulsion for everything about the banqueting hall. The acrid smoke of the fire, the scent of sweat and unwashed bodies and roasted meat and ale from the drinking horns.
And for men who, Briton or Irish or Saxon, knew only one thing, so it seemed. How to fight, to kill, to hurt—how to carve one another up into bloody, aching pieces—and then send the fragments home to be either buried or stitched together as best their women could.
“I think you will sit down, my lord Cynlas.” Madoc, too, had risen from his place and now broke in before Cynlas could finish, biting off each word. “And unless what you’re about to say is an apology to Lord Goram, I think you keep still.”
There was a long moment’s pause, while the eyes of the two men locked. Then, slowly, Cynlas sank back into his chair, and Madoc turned to King Goram, though he raised his voice enough that it would carry to every corner of the now silent hall.
“You ask, my lord Goram, what the threat from Octa and Marche has to do with you, across the sea. But the sea between Ireland and Britain is not wide.” Madoc paused, then added evenly, “You of all men know this well.”
Isolde thought a half reluctant flicker of humor appeared in the Irishman’s small black gaze at that, but he kept silent, and after a moment Madoc went on.
“If war parties can cross from Ireland to Britain, they can also cross the other way. And—” Madoc stopped. “And as I have likewise already explained, Britain is willing to offer payment for the services of whatever spearmen you send.”
Madoc’s scarred face was set as he spoke the final words, and Isolde knew what the humiliation of that offering cost him. He went on, though, after only the briefest of pauses. “I and the men of my council agree that a tenth share in the levies collected in each of our lands will be paid you for every hundred count of men.”
Goram raked his fingers through his graying beard and grunted. “Send a thousand men, then, and I’ll take the whole of what you bring in.”
Madoc gave him another level look, then inclined his head. “Just as you say.”
Goram was silent for the space of several beats, then he said slowly, “A weighty decision. With your permission, my lord Madoc, I will seek the will of the gods in this.”
Madoc seemed to hesitate, but there was little he could do but give his assent. He jerked his head again in brief agreement, and King Goram turned to where Isolde now saw an old man in the robes of a druid had come to stand at his side.
“Hywell. What do your gods say? If I should send my spearmen to fight Octa and Marche, would it be victory or defeat they would meet?”
The druid was a small man, his back stooped and crooked with age, his face like a living skull, yellowed flesh clinging to his bones above a stringy gray beard. He wore a filthy, tattered druid’s robe, the white color gone gray with dirt and age, and his grizzled hair was greasy, tied in a multitude of tiny braids. He had been staring at the floor, thin shoulders hunched, lips moving silently as though in meditation or prayer. At Goram’s question, though, Hywell started and raised his head, darting what Isolde thought was a nervous, half-cringing look at the Irish king. He was silent, then bowed, first to King Goram, then to the hall at large.
Then Hywell turned to the curtained doorway at the back of banqueting hall, calling out an order. And—Isolde stiffened, registering the sound—from somewhere behind the curtains came the frightened bleating of a sheep or goat.
IT WAS A GOAT. THE ANIMAL was dragged in by a boy as ragged and filthy as Hywell himself. A brown-and-white kid with soft brown eyes and a slender neck. Hauling on the rope about the goat’s neck, the boy pulled the animal to where Hywell stood before them in the open space between the high table and the lower hall. But the druid didn’t even glance at either the goat or the boy.
Hywell’s clawlike hands were upraised, his bearded face turned up, his eyes closed, and his lips moving once more as though in silent prayer. Then, slowly, he began to spin, first in one direction, then the other, slowly, at first, then ever faster, until his matted hair and beard flew out, his tattered robes becoming a single whirling blur. He screamed, once, a high, piercing shriek that ran up Isolde’s spine—for all she doubted very much that Hywell could have read the will of the gods if it had boomed in a voice like thunder through the hall.
And then, abruptly, Hywell stopped, staggered, steadied himself, and drew from some inner fold of his robe a bronze-bladed knife.
He gestured again, and the boy dragged on the rope once more, drawing another frightened bleat from the goat as it was forced to its knees. Hywell lifted the knife, and murmured a few words in the old tongue, eyes on the animal before him and a dribble of spittle at the corner of his mouth.
Isolde, watching, realized that she was far more distressed than she would have been if the exchange between King Goram and Cynlas of Rhos had ended in a fight with swords. Likely, she thought, that was a terrible reflection on her as a healer, but true all the same.
She looked down, staring at her own clenched hands, but she couldn’t block out the sound. The dull thud as Hywell’s knife thrust struck home, the goat’s frightened, piteous bleats as it lurched to and fro across the floor in its death throes. Isolde’s nails were biting hard into the palms of her hands, her knuckles white, before at last, after a final, bleating moan, silence fell on hall.
When she looked, she saw that the goat had collapsed near the far wall, slender legs splayed, and that already Hywell was crouched beside the body, his hands wet and red to the wrists as he spread the entrails apart.
“The signs are plain.” Hywell rose to his feet, wiping his bloodied hands on his robes and turning back to the room at large. “My lords. Marche and his troops are preparing to attack from the north. A mighty force.” He turned, rheumy eyes fixed on Goram, cracked, dry voice thinning in the open space of the great hall. “My lord Goram. You must not send troops to Britain’s aid. A fight against Marche will reap only death and defeat.”
For a long moment after the druid had finished, no one moved, no one spoke. And then a murmuring buzz went round the hall as the men of either party began to stir, darting uneasy glances this way and that, exc
hanging angry mutters.
Isolde, sitting with her hands still clenched on a fold of her gown, hadn’t intended to speak out. But then she happened to glance at King Goram, his eyes dark with a satisfied, complacent look as he surveyed the hall and the blood-smeared body of the goat.
“Then the gods are wrong,” she said.
Isolde saw the heads of the men on the lower benches turn in her direction, saw Hywell himself stiffen, a flicker that might have been either anger or fear crossing his skull-like face. Goram, though, too, had turned and was eyeing her up and down, a look of speculative calculation as his dark gaze.
“I have heard of the Lady Isolde, granddaughter to Morgan, the enchantress of Avalon,” he said at last. “You, then, are the Briton Witch?”
Isolde saw the pit his question opened at her feet and asked herself why—after a lifetime of sitting through occasions of this kind—why in the name of all Arthur’s companions she couldn’t have kept her temper one night more. She was still angry, though. Both for the killing of the goat—and for the memory of Marche’s daughter—and because she was supposed to be considering the gain she might win for Britain by marrying this man. She returned Goram’s gaze. “Perhaps I am. You, then, are the Irish Tyrant?”
She saw several of Goram’s guardsmen stiffen on their lower benches, and for a moment Goram himself was utterly still. Then, abruptly, he threw back his head and gave a great, booming laugh, his whole body shaking beneath the silver wolf’s pelt cloak.
“The Irish Tyrant,” he repeated. “Perhaps I am.” Then he stopped and eyed Isolde again, keen dark gaze fixed on her face as he leaned back once more in his chair. “So, then, Lady Witch, what do you say? Do you promise me a victory if I send my spearmen to battle against Octa and Marche?”
“No. I never promise endings.”
Goram stroked his beard. “It seems, then, that your powers of foretelling are of less use than Hywell’s.”
“Perhaps.”
“And yet you tell me that Hywell’s gods are wrong?”
Isolde willed the memory of her last night’s dream and the morning’s water vision away. If it crept over her now, she’d not be able to match King Goram’s even tone.
She lifted one shoulder. “Either that or that Hywell was mistaken about the signs. It must be difficult to read the future in a goat’s intestines.”
Out of the corner of her gaze, she saw the old druid make a quick, spasmodic movement, then stop at a quelling look from King Goram. She thought amusement flickered once more in the Irishman’s eyes, though his brows rose, and he lifted his drinking horn to his lips, still watching her face.
“You speak as though you were certain.”
“I am.”
Goram was silent a beat, his gaze narrowed, then he said abruptly, “You were wedded to Marche, so they say.”
“I was.”
“And is that, then, why you can guess”—Goram’s voice laid slight emphasis on the word—“at his next move?”
Isolde saw again the trap he’d laid at her feet. But if she’d come to this moment by losing her temper, she could at least now refuse to be drawn. She lifted one shoulder again. “Perhaps.”
For a long moment, Goram’s eyes met hers, and then he shook his head. “You’ve spirit, at any rate. Enough that I’m almost sorry to refuse what you and your party request. But not enough to change my mind.” He shifted again, transferring his gaze from Isolde to where Madoc sat at his side. “My regrets, my lord Madoc. But my answer is no.”
HE’D DISLOCATED THE FIRST AND MIDDLE fingers of his right hand; it was obvious once the swelling started to go down. He’d done it before—though it had been only one finger that time. He’d pulled the bones back into place himself then as well.
He wasn’t looking forward to repeating the process, but his options were limited. Either do it himself or—what? Ask Isolde, if he actually managed to talk his way past whatever guard was posted?
Night had closed in around him; the air was chill, pale moonlight slanting through the thick canopy of branches overhead. Trystan tipped his head against the tree trunk at his back and tried to think what the cursed hell he would say if he did get inside the fortress gates. If he actually did see and speak to her again. The thought was part like a swallow of raw spirits, part like a wound torn raw.
Trystan looked down again at his hand and let out his breath. Might as well get it over with.
The pain made bright specks of fire dance before his eyes and sweat break out on his brow, but he got the first bone back into place. He set his teeth, then took hold of the second one.
That was harder, but at last he felt the finger joint slip back into place, and the pain was better after that. A kind of blunt pounding that spread upwards along his arm. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, broke a couple of loose sticks apart for splints, then sliced a strip off the hem of his traveling cloak to use for a bandage. He finished wrapping the injured fingers, then had to hold the end in his teeth so that he could tie it off with his free hand.
He lifted the bandaged hand before his face; there was just moonlight enough to survey his own handiwork. Isolde would have done a far neater job, but it would hold.
Trystan stared out into the deepening shadows as the figure that walked in and out of his dreams night after night rose before him. A girl, small and slight and fine-boned, with raven black hair and milk-pale skin and widely spaced gray eyes.
Christ’s blood, he thought. You sound like some bloody harper’s song. And one of the less inspired ones, at that.
An outlaw and a Saxon mercenary—to use the least tainted of the words he might have called himself by now—and the Lady Isolde of Camelerd. It was—what was the word he wanted? Laughably futile?
He stretched his legs out and leaned back, closing his eyes. The ground was hard and damp beneath him, but he’d slept in far worse spots. That was his life, the life of a man who lived as mercenary and outlaw both. You fought for whoever would offer the highest pay, kept on the move, never allowed yourself to sleep deeply or long unless you wanted to wake with a knife at your throat—or in your heart.
Tonight, though, even the half-waking doze he trained himself to maintain at will eluded him, and he found himself instead staring up at the scraps of night sky visible through the leaves and thinking of Isolde, seeing her face still in his mind’s eye.
Against his will, he imagined the shadow girl’s gray eyes widening at the sight of him, saw her running towards him, throwing her arms around his neck, and laughing the way she had when she was a child.
Trystan muttered a disgusted oath. Yes, right. And Arthur might wake from the dead and come charging out of the hills to fight Saxons again. Trystan shook his head. He should have stuck to pulling dislocated finger joints back into place. That had been a walk on a summer’s day by comparison to the realization that he was going to have to see her—speak to her—again soon. And not tell her he’d been in love with her all their lives.
An owl’s soft, mournful call from somewhere in the trees nearby made him stiffen, then relax, though from long habit he kept his hand on the hilt of the sword at his belt and scanned the surrounding darkness for any sign that he was not alone.
Trystan shifted again, tracing the pattern of moonlight-silvered branches above and trying to remember a time when he hadn’t felt this way about her. They’d known each other practically since they could walk, so he supposed there must have been one. But as far back as he could recall, it was just there, like his right hand or arm.
He let out his breath. “And may the gods help you and all fools too stupid enough to know a hopeless cause.”
Somewhere off in the darkness to his right, a voice spoke. “May I be of some assistance, friend?”
Trystan jerked upright, wondering whether he was losing his mind. He’d never yet encountered a god who answered a cynically muttered invocation with a polite cough and offer of aid. But he supposed there was always a first time.
“EASY, YOU
BLASTED BEAST!”
Kian’s horse, a brown, raw-boned gelding, had drawn up sharply at the sound of a bird’s call in the trees overhead, snorting and tossing its head and dancing in place. Kian jerked hard on the reins, and the horse subsided with a final shake of its head. Then, wiping the rain from his eyes with the back of his hand, Kian glanced at Isolde, mounted beside him on her own black mare.
“Bloody creature. Suppose that’s what comes of being an infantryman. Never feel right on anything with four legs.”
They had departed Caer Gybi at dawn, together with Madoc, Dywel, Cynlas, and all the rest of their combined war bands, crossing back from Ynys Mon to the mainland in the shore ferrymen’s round curricles. Madoc had left horses under guard on the mainland shore two days before, and riding they had crossed the shifting sand dunes and the shimmering salt flats where small rivers emptied into the sea. Isolde had looked back, just once, across the glittering silver-blue water towards the shore of Ynys Mon. The tide had been on the ebb, the stretch of rocky shingle and sand along the coast a ribbon of yellow beneath the green plain of land that had once been—but was no longer—the site of the druids’ oak groves and sacred pools.
Now they were out of sight of the holy isle. They had crossed a wooded valley and come far enough that the deep green-blue expanse of sea could no longer be seen, far enough that the air no longer held a faint mud and salt tang. Ahead of Isolde, a long line of mounted men threaded a way through the winding forest track that led back to Dinas Emrys. The men—soldiers and councilmen alike—were squinting to see through the misting rain that drifted through the dense canopy of spring leaves above.
Kian, Isolde thought, watching him, had recovered far better and more cleanly than she could even have allowed herself to hope. Isolde had seen little of him in the days he had spent at Dinas Emrys before the meeting on Ynys Mon. Kian had kept to himself, appearing only briefly in her workroom when the dressings on his lost eye needed to be changed, his face gaunt and set tight. And if he still relived the loss in nightmare, he never spoke of it to Isolde.
