Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  The touch seemed to quiet the boy somewhat, for his sobs slowed. Beneath the bruises and the sheen of sweat and tears, his skin was dead white, but he drew a ragged breath and looked up at the other man with red-rimmed eyes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He spoke the Saxon language, but Isolde had learned enough from Hedda to understand that much—even low and broken as the boy’s voice was.

  The second prisoner gave Isolde a quick glance out of the corner of his eye. He was older than the boy by several years; she had time to see that much before he turned away. Twenty-four or twenty-five, maybe—as tall and broadly built as his companion, his face less battered and his hair a shade darker, somewhere between gold and brown. He seemed to hesitate again, but then dropped to sit in the filthy straw beside the boy.

  “No call to be sorry, Cyn.” He, too, spoke in the Saxon tongue, so that Isolde had to work to understand, guessing at the meaning of the words she didn’t know. “Here—you see this?” He stretched out his left hand and turned it this way and that, letting the lantern light play across the spread fingers. The hand was strong and well formed, with a swordsman’s muscled wrist, but Isolde saw that at least two of the fingers were twisted, as though the bones had been crushed and never properly set, and that the first joints on the middle and index fingers were gone.

  He was silent a moment, and then he added something Isolde thought meant, It was the same for me or I was just the same when this was done.

  His right hand tightened, briefly, on the boy’s shoulder, then fell away, and he sat in silence, arms locked about his raised knees, letting the boy’s choking sobs gradually fade and die. At last Cyn sat in huddled exhaustion, shuddering slightly, his head bowed.

  Isolde said gently, “Cyn? Is that your name?”

  The boy’s head came up with a jerk, his pale eyes flaring wide, as though he’d forgotten she was there.

  “I can set your wrists for you, if you’ll let me. And give you something to ease the pain.”

  Though she could understand some of the Saxon tongue, she spoke only a few words, and so she used Latin to address the boy. She wondered, for a moment, whether he would understand, but his brow furrowed, as though he were trying laboriously to translate the words into his own tongue. Then comprehension dawned in the watery eyes, and beneath the mask of dirt and tears and blood, Isolde saw a warring of hope and disbelief, wariness and fear. He turned to his companion and asked something in his own tongue, his voice quickening into almost eagerness for the first time so that the words came too fast for Isolde to understand. Do you trust her? maybe. Or, Can she be believed?

  His companion didn’t answer at once. Isolde could see his face more clearly now, though his chin and jaw were hidden by several days’ growth of beard. Above the beard, his cheekbones were sharply defined, his eyes deep-set and startlingly blue under oddly slanted gold-brown brows. He was studying her with a look that might have been hostility, or perhaps only appraisal, as though he was trying to decide for himself how far she could be trusted with Cyn.

  As their eyes met, though, Isolde felt a stir of something at the back of her mind—a quicksilver flash, like the tug of a fish on a line, gone almost before she was sure it was there at all. Almost it felt like the flashes of Sight that had come to her long ago—a sudden feeling of sameness, of familiarity, like the returning memory of a dream. The certain knowledge that the words she spoke or the sight she saw she had already spoken or seen before. And years ago, following the abrupt feeling of sameness, there would have come a quick, bright vision of what the future would bring.

  But nothing now followed that first quicksilver tug. No vision of the past, nor even any hint of what was to come, though the faintly dizzying quiver remained at the back of her mind, just beyond reach.

  Isolde shivered. “I’ll need help if I’m to set the bones,” she told the bearded man. “Will you give it—if Cyn agrees he wants it done?”

  The man’s gaze still held the look of wary appraisal, but he only stared at her, his face blank, until Isolde realized that unconsciously she’d lapsed into her own tongue. She repeated the question in Latin and saw a flash of anger cross the man’s face, the slanted brown brows draw together in a frown. The man started to speak, and Isolde waited for a curt refusal. But then he seemed to check himself and, still frowning, turned instead to Cyn, studying the young man’s face. Whatever he saw there seemed to make up his mind, for at last, his eyes still on Cyn, he gave a brief jerk of a nod.

  Cyn himself swallowed hard, then looked up at Isolde and spoke in stammering Latin, awkward and heavily accented. “I thank you, lady.”

  Isolde carried, still, the leather scrip of distillations and salves. She set it down on the floor and drew out the vial of poppy-laced medicine she had used before. There was a flicker of fear in Cyn’s face as she held it to his mouth, and he looked at his companion as though in panic.

  “It’s all right,” Isolde said quietly. “It won’t hurt you. It will make you go to sleep while I set the broken bones, nothing more.”

  The boy hesitated an instant longer, but then he let out his breath and swallowed the draft in a single gulp.

  “Good.”

  Cyn’s brow was still beaded with sweat, his skin the sickly yellow of raw dough, but some of the tension was gone from his frame. He wiped his mouth and rested his head against the stone wall.

  “The herb-craft…how…you learn?”

  Isolde went still, her eyes on the dancing lantern flame. That was another question she never allowed herself to ask. The healer’s craft, like the tales, was simply part of her, as she had been since she let herself remember. There was war, and her place was with the wounded. That was all.

  There were sometimes moments—moments like this—when she thought that she might have begun healing the wounded at first as a kind of atonement. Payment for a life she’d failed to save.

  But that, too, she never let herself consider for long.

  “I learned as a child, I think,” she said at last. She turned away, blinking to clear the imprint of the flame from her eyes. “That was a long time ago.”

  Cyn nodded. Already the poppy was beginning to take effect. His movements were slow, his eyes beginning to lose their focus, his head sinking onto the breast of his tunic. Then, abruptly, his head jerked upright, and Isolde saw his eyes widen and a dull, hot flush spread upward from the heavily muscled neck. For a moment she thought it was only the pain of his injuries, but then she caught the pungent smell and saw the wet stain spreading across his breeches, the puddle growing beneath him in the filthy straw.

  It often happened. As a sleeping draft took effect, the body lost control—of bowels or bladder, or both. But that would make no difference to Cyn. There had been shame in his look before, mixed with the bewilderment and pain, but now the utter, helpless humiliation that filled the dull eyes and broad young face was almost unendurable. And there was nothing Isolde could do. Nothing but turn away even more swiftly than she had from his tears and spare him, at least, the indignity of her seeing his shame.

  She bent her head, starting to unwind the strips of clean linen she carried in the scrip, and feeling a flash of blinding anger for the war—and the men—that had brought this boy here. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the second prisoner touch Cyn lightly on the shoulder and say something in their own tongue.

  The words—and what she thought they meant—made Isolde look up sharply, but they seemed to work, for Cyn gave a small, gasping laugh, the lines of fear and strain in his face easing a bit, his mouth relaxing into a watery smile.

  “But you—” Watching out of the corner of her eye, Isolde saw Cyn gesture at the other man’s shoulders, or maybe his back; she couldn’t be sure. “It’s my fault. If you hadn’t—”

  He stopped as his companion took hold of his arms, easing him down to lie on the straw-littered floor. “Never mind that. You think they wouldn’t have given me a turn in any case?”

  Cyn let out a
shuddering sigh, his eyes half closed already with the effects of the drug. Then, abruptly, his lids snapped open and he struggled to rise, speaking with desperate urgency, though his voice was starting to blur and this time the words were once more too quick—and too low—for Isolde to catch the sense of them.

  A question, though, Isolde thought, or maybe an admission of fear, for the bearded man put a hand once again on Cyn’s shoulder and spoke quietly in what seemed like reassurance.

  A tremor passed through the boy’s frame, but he swiped clumsily at his eyes, then nodded, letting the other man lower him back onto the straw. A moment later, his lids had slid shut. When his breathing was even and slow, Isolde came to kneel beside him, turning to the bearded man.

  “Can you hold him still while I work? He won’t feel the pain as he would awake, but he may still move or try to break away.”

  The man’s blue eyes met her own once again, the same shadow of hostility at the back of his gaze, and he seemed about to speak. But instead he silently bent to take hold of Cyn’s shoulders, pinning him fast against the straw.

  Isolde had set bones before, in rooms as filthy and stench-filled as this one. But these breaks were already more than a day old and had begun to knit themselves at stomach-twisting angles, wrenched out of alignment by the pull of muscle and sinew. She had to break them free before she could set them into place, and once, when the pulpy, jagged ends grated apart, Cyn half woke and gave an agonized, rasping scream that echoed long after in the stone walls.

  And at the sound, the sick anger Isolde had felt before broke suddenly free, this time nearly choking her. It had happened to her before—though not as often, now, as when she had first started caring for the battle-wounded men who fought with Con. But sometimes she would be suturing a sword cut, or lancing an infected wound, thinking only of the task at hand—and then all at once a wave of blinding, dry-mouthed anger would sweep over her. And she would be unable, for the moment, to remember that it was useless to hate the world of men and battle and war.

  And she had learned that at such moments she could scream, or cry, or curse the gods. Or she could call the men who’d inflicted the wounds every vile name she knew and get on with the job in hand.

  She had a formula of curses worked out, the words as familiar, by now, as those of the old bards’ tales. She could repeat it, too, almost as much without thinking, as she could the stories, until the anger retreated and she was once more able to look only at the wounds, and not at the men themselves, see only what could be done, and not the pain that doing it would cause.

  She’d learned, too, long ago, that she couldn’t stop the war. But she could sometimes, at least, stitch this one wound, set this one bone.

  She’d begun, muttering the words under her breath as she bent over Cyn’s right arm, when something made her glance up to find the older prisoner’s eyes on her. His face was still guarded, but Isolde thought that now there was a gleam of something that might have been amusement at the back of the clear blue eyes, and that his mouth was twitching slightly beneath the beard. With the taut control lifted, his face looked younger, closer to her own age than Isolde had thought before.

  “So,” she said. “You do understand the Briton language after all.”

  The man hesitated a moment. Then: “Some.” He spoke in Latin, as before, face unreadable, though there was still a flicker of amusement in his gaze. “Though ‘filthy, crawling whoreson bastard’ sounds about the same in any tongue.”

  The anger was only partially gone, and Isolde pushed the hair from her brow and sat back a moment on her heels.

  “Yes, well. I’ve not yet threatened to cut off the guards’ privates and hang them round their noses and ears. That was what you said before?”

  For a moment, the hard, wary look returned to the man’s gaze as though he was casting his mind back, trying to think what else she might have overheard. Then: “Cheered the boy, anyway. Made him forget he’d just pissed himself in front of a strange woman.” One corner of his mouth tipped up in a brief, half-unwilling smile and he jerked a shoulder. “When a man’s got your balls frozen in fear, insult his.”

  He stopped. The blue gaze turned at once distant and inward, and the smile died.

  Isolde watched him a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I’ve no doubt both of you have seen it actually done. That and worse, besides.”

  But when she bent once more to Cyn, she found, oddly, that though she felt again a twist of wrenching pity at the sight of the shattered wrists, the anger had faded at least enough that she could go on.

  The lantern cast only the poorest of light, forcing her to rely almost entirely on touch to draw the bones into alignment. By the time she’d finished the right wrist and moved on to the left, her back and ribs were sticky beneath the wool of her gown and she had to blink sweat out of her eyes.

  The bearded man hadn’t spoken again, and had kept all but motionless throughout. He must, though, have been at sickbeds and operations like this before, for he kept up a steady, even pressure on the boy’s shoulders or arms, moving only when Isolde asked him to shift position or turn Cyn so that she could better feel the bones. And when she’d tied the final wrappings of linen about the left wrist, she found him watching her once again.

  Isolde sat back on her heels, smoothing the damp hair away from her brow. He’d been kind to Cyn, whatever else he might be. And he had already endured at least three days in this foul place, just as much as the boy. She gestured toward the forgotten tray of bread and cheese.

  “Eat. I can bring more for Cyn to have when he wakes. He likely won’t want much, but you should see he drinks something, at least.”

  The man gave another short nod, stretching his muscles as though to relieve the stiffness of kneeling over Cyn, then reached for the water jug, took a long draft, and sat back, leaning one shoulder against the wall. He moved still, Isolde saw, with that slight, wary stiffness, as though tensing his muscles in expectation of pain. Not until he reached for the slab of coarse brown bread on the tray, though, did she see the marks on his shoulders, just visible above the neckline of his tunic. Angry, evenly spaced red welts. The marks of a whip.

  “I can give you a salve for that,” she said quietly.

  The bearded man had torn off a hunk of the bread, chewing and swallowing quickly, as though the bite was the first food he’d taken in some time, but at that he looked up at her sharply, eyes wary, his body instantly stiffening. Then he shook his head. “No. Besides”—he laughed shortly—“not much point. Only give the guards the fun of opening it up for me again if it starts to heal.”

  He paused, his eyes meething hers, and Isolde caught another flash of anger at the back of the hard blue gaze. “Like Cyn’s wrists.”

  “Like Cyn’s—”

  Isolde’s eyes went to Cyn, lying where they’d left him amid the filthy straw. She could understand, now, the man’s hesitation when she’d offered to set the broken bones. Though in the end he’d said nothing to Cyn.

  The bearded man answered as though she’d spoken the words aloud, his voice turning harsh, though whether the anger was for her or the men who’d done it, Isolde couldn’t tell. “I didn’t tell him, no. Though I’m not sure whether it’s not crueler this way. The guards will just come in tomorrow and break them again.”

  Isolde drew in a sharp breath, and the man, watching her, said, “You didn’t know?”

  “No,” Isolde said. She was seeing again the badge of Cornwall’s blue boar on the tunics of the guardsman now outside the cell. More of Marche’s men. I should have known, though, she thought, turning to look down at Cyn’s now neatly bandaged arms. I know what men—even good men—are like in times of war.

  Some of the anger in the man’s look seemed to seep away, and he rubbed a hand along the line of his jaw. “No, you wouldn’t, I suppose.” He shot her a quick, unreadable look from under the slanted brows. Then he said, letting out his breath, “Never mind. You meant well. And you’ve given the boy a night’s
ease, at least.”

  Isolde frowned. “Who did this? Marche himself? Or only his men?”

  Instead of answering, he said in a voice that was a shade too calmly controlled, “Marche? Marche is here, then, at Tintagel?”

  Isolde nodded, and he was silent for a moment, face still, his gaze once more turned inward, as though he followed some private train of thought. Then abruptly he looked up. “No. It wasn’t him. We’ve seen no one beyond the guards outside the door. They share duty with two others.”

  He looked away, shifting as though trying to find a comfortable position without letting his back touch the wall. Isolde’s eyes went again to the angry hatches on his shoulders, their edges crusted with blackening blood.

  “What did Cyn mean when he said it was his fault?” she asked. “That you’d been hurt because of him?”

  The bearded man gave her another unreadable glance. “Why should you want to know?”

  “I might be able to help.”

  “Help?” The man gave another brief, mirthless laugh. “And just what help do you think you can offer? Cyn and I were dead men from the moment we set foot inside these walls. You going to see it’s a nice sharp knife they use to cut our throats?”

  Isolde only kept silent, her eyes on his, waiting. And after a moment, the man let out a sigh, half weary, half impatient. He sat full in the circle of lantern light now, and the flickering glow picked out the taut lines of strain and fatigue about his mouth and eyes.

  “All right,” he said. He raised a hand, rubbing the line of his jaw beneath the beard. “The guards had got to work on Cyn. And I…” He paused, the grim smile twisting his mouth. “I said the same thing to them you heard me tell Cyn. Made them angry enough that they got started on me instead.”