by Myers, Karen
She made herself nod silently to the guard. Had they been peeking in on her periodically to see if she was awake? She shuddered at the thought of lying there helpless under their gaze.
A few minutes later, there was another knock and, after a brief pause, Gwythyr entered, alone. She saw the guards posted outside before he shut the door behind him.
She rose and curtsied, as a young girl would to an elder. My best strategy is to let him think I’m too young to be dangerous, she thought. And maybe I am, she considered, ruefully, but I won’t give up without a fight. Now is not the time for that, however.
She ventured a wavering, uncertain smile. “My lord, I don’t understand. Why have you done this?”
Gwythyr gestured at her to take a seat, and he sat down himself and contemplated her. “Be assured, my lady, I won’t harm you. We are to be wed when the time comes.”
She heard him adapt his tone as for a child. “I mistrust the promises of kings and princes, and so you will spend that time here with me, and we will get to know each other. When I defeat Gwyn in a few weeks, then we shall marry with all dignity, and you will give me sons.”
Rhian had no difficulty looking shaken at this.
“I know you are very young,” he said, “but you are the daughter of royalty and I am sure you know your duty. Your home in Annwn will be familiar to you, and your duties light.”
He glanced around her rooms. “There is no reason for your stay here to be unpleasant. If you wish for anything—clothing, entertainments—just let the guards know.”
She cleared her throat. “Thank you for your kindness, my lord. I’m sure you will understand that this is all very strange to me. I hope you will let me learn what is to be expected of me. A man of your experience…”
She broke off, wishing she could make herself blush on demand, but there were limits to her simulation of a shy young girl.
“I do have one request, my lord.”
He nodded magnanimously, willing to hear it.
“I would like to be able to walk about out of doors daily. Perhaps in that garden?” She gestured at the window.
Gwythyr smiled at her in approval. “I am pleased with your acceptance of our future. It well merits such a small reward.”
He rose, and she did, too, flattering him subtly as royalty, not to sit in his presence when he stood. “I will arrange access to the garden for you.”
She had saved the most important question for last and ventured it now.
“Where are we, my lord?”
He looked down at her with all the gravity of his age and position. “At my seat in Gaul. We’re in Calubriga.”
Her heart sank. This was a famous fort in Armorica, across the water from Britain. They’ll never find me here. Edern and Gwyn must be frantic. And George must be looking, too.
He woke up.
His mouth was moist and he licked his lips, then he did it again, enjoying the sensation. The bright colors around him moved randomly and he turned his head to follow them. It made him dizzy to move his head quickly, his heart pounded and his skin chilled but that passed.
He looked down at the shapes in his lap and thought he might be able to move them. He made the effort. He raised his hand and admired it, its complex motion, its asymmetry. As he curled and uncurled the fingers he saw the colored trails they made in the air and waved his hand about to make more of them. Did they come from the finger tips, or were they in the air already? What was the name of that color, he wondered, the one on top.
So beautiful.
There were meaningless noises somewhere. “Too much, this is useless.”
He ignored it and watched the movement of color and light for an endless amount of time.
And then he woke up.
It was dark, and very loud. He could hear a pounding in his body, his heartbeat, and it accelerated as he panicked. His breathing roared like an ocean storm. His skin was clammy and cold, and he shivered hard.
There was a touch on his cheek and he flinched from it like a blow. He tried to move his arms but they were tied down. He threw his body around in the chair until hands came and restrained him.
“Drink this,” a woman said, and he swallowed his awareness down with the liquid.
And then he woke up.
He raised his right hand and saw a bruise. How did I get that, he wondered. Why am I lying in bed? What room is this?
What’s the last thing I remember? He thought hard. Darkness and noise and panic. Before that?
There was nothing before that.
He flung himself off the bed and staggered. A woman had been watching him, and now she rose from her chair and approached. He raised a hand automatically to ward her off.
She said, “You’ve been hurt. I’m here to help you.”
Something about her voice made his heart speed up, and he backed away. What was he doing here? Who is she, do I know her?
Who am I?
At that thought, he panicked. It was empty, inside his head. Cement floors, no furniture. Smelled like stone dust.
He looked frantically for a way out, any way out, to find an answer.
“Guards,” she called, and three men entered the room. He fought them off ineffectually, and they held him until he exhausted himself struggling.
The woman sighed and walked to the open door. Outside, a man asked, “Why is this taking so long?”
“He’s mostly human,” she said. “Getting the dosage right is no simple thing.”
“You should just kill him and be done with it.”
“If I can win him over willingly, with his powers intact, it’ll be worth it. You’ll see. I have plenty of time.”
“This is your affair. I wash my hands of it.”
The woman returned and stood in front of him, shaking her head. She brought with her a twig lit from the fire, and used it to burn some bound leaves that she removed from a pocket and held before his nose. A pungent smoke arose and the guards averted their faces. He tried to hold his breath, but one blow to the belly by a guard forced him to exhale and suck it in. Two breaths was all it took.
And then he woke up.
I’m still here, he thought, same room. His heartbeat was steady. The same woman with her long auburn hair watched him from the same chair and nodded in satisfaction as he looked around slowly. Was it a dream, last time, he wondered.
Everything was quiet.
He sat up in bed and looked at his hands, at the flicker of the flames in the fireplace.
He felt his face. A beard was growing. Was that normal? Did he shave?
What did he look like?
The woman walked over to his bed and took him by the hand. She gently tugged until he got out of bed. Then she led him to a mirror on the wall, a small piece of polished metal. “Is this what you were looking for?”
He looked. It was not a face he recognized and he could feel his heart catch, but it smoothed out again and the fear went away. He clutched at his chest and then dropped his hand.
She smiled.
“There was an accident,” she said. “Do you remember it?”
He shook his head. “Do you remember your name?”
He stared at her. Name? He couldn’t match that to anything, and he felt again the start of a panic that was strangely smoothed away.
He tilted his head in puzzlement.
“What do you remember?” she asked, coaxingly.
He opened his mouth to reply but something held him back and he closed it again without a word.
“Never mind,” she said. “We’ll work on that together.”
She scared him, she knew so much more than he did. He didn’t want her to see that.
“Come, sit down.” She led him by the hand again and guided him to a chair.
“My name is Angharad,” she said, leaning close. “I’m your wife.”
She reached out and patted his knee.
CHAPTER 20
Each day, Rhian received an early visit from Gwythyr and they took
their morning meal together. She dressed like a young girl every time and carefully fostered his impression of her as compliant and harmless.
He made her skin crawl, and she thought about why, when she was alone. He was not unhandsome, in his older way, confident of his strength and power. After all, he had occasionally bested her foster-father, and she knew that took both skill and courage. He did not treat her badly in this captivity.
But she never forgot she was a prisoner, his only interest in her the claim to legitimacy, the link to Lludd’s line. And how could it be otherwise, with the difference in their ages? If this were a deliberate marriage alliance, one to which she’d been raised, a benefit to her family, well, she might have considered it. But not to her foster-father’s enemy, given away as a favor without her consent.
And in any case there was Brynach to consider, and consider him she did. She tried not to—who knew how this might end—but she couldn’t help it. It fueled her determination to escape.
She would have to get herself out of here. A rescue was unlikely, even if they knew where she was. She’d been saving bits of her meals in preparation, food that would keep and travel well, like dried fruits, cheese, and hard breads.
The first thing she’d asked for was sewing gear, declaring she needed to modify the clothing he’d provided for her. She cannibalized her ruined ceremonial gown and hid it in the wardrobe, the back of the gown with its missing patches facing the wall. The first thing she made was a thigh harness for her larger knife from the material and she felt much comforted by its presence.
She hid the food in a sack made from the same stuff and cached it above her window casement, since she assumed her rooms would be searched from time to time.
The next item for her needle was a pack for her escape. She used a doubled layer of cloth from the gown for that. At least the color would blend in well in the woods, she thought, even if the material wouldn’t stand up to much wear. It had to be large enough for the food, the one pair of dainty low boots among the provided shoes, and travel clothing. She didn’t think the flimsy stockings would do her much good, but they were all she had, so she added as many pairs as she dared from her stores. They would expect a certain amount of waste, but she didn’t want to excite suspicion.
Breeches from a brown woolen underskirt had been easy enough, though there’d been a moment of panic when Gwythyr walked in unexpectedly and she’d had to cover her work with a second gown she’d prepared as a decoy.
Her shift would serve as a shirt, torn off short, but an overgarment or jacket had her stumped for a while. The only cloak she’d been given was lightweight and bright red on both sides. She robbed some brown burlap curtain lining and used that as an outer skin for a jacket, then she quilted more of her gown lining to the inside where it would be protected from external wear and provide insulation. This early in the spring the air was still cool and she would need the warmth, especially at night. The result was clumsy and bulky but she thought it would do.
Today, for the first time, she moved her escape pack with everything except the food and jacket. She threw the red cloak over herself, clutching it shut with one hand, while the other held the pack under the front of the gown through the pocket slits. If she stooped over a bit and no one searched her, it wasn’t obvious. She was intent on smuggling it out of her rooms to a hiding spot somewhere in the garden, where it would be safe from search. She planned to add her jacket in a separate trip, and then the food. All that would be needed then would be to save more food and plan for the escape itself.
She’d spotted a niche in the rock grotto near her favorite bench and yesterday she’d casually wandered over and explored it with a long stick. It had seemed large enough to hold her filled pack, and the dry leaves inside encouraged her to think it was watertight.
After the relocation of the pack, she walked casually to her bench and sighed in relief. The rest would be easier to conceal as she smuggled it out. She smiled at her accomplishment. By tomorrow she could begin to consider how exactly to get away, and her pack would be all ready to go with her.
As she sat on the bench in the weak spring sunlight, she surveyed the possibilities again. This garden was bounded by one other building and the wall of the castle itself. The postern gate on the outer wall was out of sight of her seat, but she had wandered over there before and seen the two guards on duty, night and day. She’d smiled at them and walked away, not wanting to test their patience until she was ready to act.
The other building was an old square tower, four stories tall but only two rooms wide, with two windows on each floor, for the side that faced the garden. The windows had wide balconies on the upper two floors. Nothing moved in them, and the place seemed to be empty.
In fact, the whole castle seemed to be barely occupied, at least in this back corner. The garden itself had a wall that stretched between the two buildings, enclosing it up against the outer wall. She wasn’t ready yet to start probing at the points that were guarded from her, since it might damage her persona of compliance, but that time would come soon. She needed to know what was outside this little area of freedom that had been granted to her.
Still, this would do. She had her pack and a weapon, everything she needed, once she was ready to leave.
He could remember everything that had happened, but only for the last few days. He’d played back the conversations he’d heard that didn’t make sense at the time. Now he could make out the words, but they still didn’t mean much to him.
He was wary of the guards whose restraints and blows he vividly recalled. They occupied a danger zone in his unfurnished memory. One thin stranger he took for another sort of guard had looked him over yesterday. The woman brought him in.
She’d told him to stand up and remove his shirt. The man took an interest in his back, which mystified him. He could feel scars there but didn’t know what it looked like. As the man stepped up to examine him more closely, he moved forward involuntarily. He couldn’t help it, couldn’t make himself stand still.
The man laughed. “His body remembers, even if he doesn’t.”
The voice made him deeply uneasy.
The woman smiled and said, “I thought you might like to see him like this.”
He nodded. “Different methods, different results. I wish you luck with this.”
She’d dismissed the man then, to his relief, and closed the door behind him. Then she encouraged him to sit down and talk with her. She always wanted him to speak but it seemed like too much trouble. He wanted to please her, but every time he started, the impulse died out.
He’d tried speaking when he was alone, but he had the same trouble. Had he always been this way? He didn’t think so, or she wouldn’t be so disappointed. She’d know, wouldn’t she?
This morning he’d walked out onto the balcony and stumbled, spilling the drink she gave him at their meal together. He didn’t want her to be upset with him—she seemed to be angry all the time—so he hid it and pretended to finish the empty glass, to please her.
All afternoon he’d sat quietly in his chair, thinking.
What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I remember anything? Is she my wife? I have no feeling for her, that doesn’t seem right. When she kissed him, nothing happened. He thought that was wrong, but he wasn’t sure.
He knew water was wet and fire burned but there was so much he seemed to have forgotten. How did I meet her? How long have we been married? I can’t always have been like this.
He spent hours of each day looking out at the little view his balcony gave. He was high above the ground, four stories up, high enough to see over the outer walls to the tops of the trees beyond. There was barely enough room for a few steps, but it felt good to be out-of-doors. Below him was some sort of garden. He wanted to walk outside. Maybe he’d ask her about that, next time.
Yesterday he’d seen someone outside, down there. He stood up now and walked to the balcony. No one was there. The bench in view was empty.
He cam
e back in and walked over to the door. Sometimes there were guards on the other side of the door and they told him to go back inside. Sometimes there was no one and the door didn’t open. Which would it be this time?
He turned the handle and the door opened, but no one was there. Something new to consider, he thought. He wandered out into the corridor and followed it to the staircase. There was only one way to go, and down was how to get outside, he knew that much.
The stairs stopped and he faced another latched door. He opened it and blinked at the sunlight. When his eyes adjusted, he saw the bench. He walked over and sat on it, then leaned back and raised his face to the sun, closing his eyes. So many new events to furnish his hollowed out mind.
Maybe he’d ask his wife to come out here to talk to him, instead.
Rhian looked forward to her afternoon time in the cold spring garden. It gave her the illusion of freedom, to be out-of-doors with no guards in sight. She was later than usual today and hastened down the path.
She was surprised to see someone there before her, a man on her favorite bench. Not Gwythyr, she hoped, don’t let him have found her chosen spot. It would never be so pleasing to her again if it was him.
She slowed her steps, then realized it couldn’t be Gwythyr. He was too broad, and not dressed warmly enough for the day, just in his shirt. She ran to him in delight.
“George! What are you doing here? Did they capture you, too?”
He turned his face away from the sunlight to look at her, his head tilted sideways in slight puzzlement. He made no sign of recognizing her. He hadn’t shaved in days.
Her heart sank. What was wrong with him?
She sat down next to him, and he regarded her gravely. “George, talk to me.”
He opened his mouth as if to speak but said nothing and closed it again. There was still no expression in his face, but she was close enough now to see that his pupils were dilated. Whatever this enchantment was, it included drugs.
