Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  “That and your gown. It’s cut too low to be the dress of a farmer’s wife. And you’d better try and wash your face a bit more thoroughly, as well,” Isolde added, “before you stop to beg aid again. You’ve still a bit of paint on your mouth.”

  The other woman glanced down at her half-bared breasts, the skin gray with dirt and streaked by the ash of cook-fires beneath her woolen shawl, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand, frowning at the smear of red ochre that came away on her skin.

  She shrugged. “Well, there was no water to be had on the road this morning, so I had to do the best I could with the dew gathered on the grass and leaves.” She sighed, rubbing the small of her back with one hand, then looked from the coins in the other palm to Isolde. “You’ll be wanting the coins back, then, I suppose?”

  Isolde studied the woman’s face, weary beneath the wine-colored stain, despite the laughter and the wide-mouthed grin. The child beside her looked tired, as well, the bones of his small face prominent and sharp.

  “What are your names?” she asked.

  The woman looked startled. Then: “Mine’s Dera, my lady. And this here”—she put an arm about the boy’s shoulder, pulling him close—“this is Jory.”

  “Keep the coins, then, Dera—they’re yours. And come and sit down, both of you. You look as though you’d be glad to be off your feet for a time.”

  DERA LET OUT SIGH AS SHE sank down onto one of the wooden benches that stood against the courtyard’s southern wall, outside the entrance to the stables. She took the bread and cheese Isolde had brought over from Father Nenian’s stores, then hefted her son onto the bench beside her.

  “Ah, that’s better.” She stretched out her legs, showing ankles that were puffed above the worn leather of her shoes, then followed Isolde’s gaze to the tightly stretched front of her gown and rested a hand on the mound of the unborn child.

  “A nuisance, that’s what it is. Makes it hard to keep up wi’ the army when they’re marchin’ to a new town. And hard to earn a living, besides. Men—even soldiers—bein’ not so eager to take their pleasure from a woman that’s swollen up like a cow wi’ the wind in her belly, you understand.”

  Her touch on her belly was gentle, though, and her face had softened, a brief, distant smile curving her mouth.

  “Where do you come from, if not Perenporth?” Isolde asked. She held out another chunk of bread to the boy Jory. Half sullen, half wary, he watched her, then, as though fearing the offer might be withdrawn, shot out a hand and snatched the bread, cramming it into his mouth nearly whole, then flinching as his mother cuffed him lightly on the ear.

  “Young lout! Have you no better manners than that? Anyone would think you’d been raised in a cow byre.” Dera shook her head, but then, with a sigh, settled the child comfortably against her side, her hand moving from her belly to rest lightly on Jory’s matted dark hair, smoothing it back from his brow. She looked up at Isolde.

  “We’re from Gwynedd, my lady. Near Deva. That’s where this young heathen”—her fingers curled lightly around the small head resting against her shoulder—“was born.”

  She took a mouthful of bread herself, winced as though her teeth gave her pain, then leaned back and went on. “I had a husband there—that much was true enough. And a filthy, drunken brute of a man he was—like the devil himself when the drink was on him, which was most of the time. The boy’s his.” Dera stroked the dark hair again. “About the only good he ever did in all his born days—and the only good I ever had of him, that’s certain sure.”

  She paused, then went on. “It was Irish raiders that killed him, though, not the Saxons—a year ago, come Imbolc time. Spilled his guts on his own hearth because he was too stubborn—or too drunk—to give up on the fight. And the best day’s work the Irish scum ever did, I’d have said, except that it meant my boy, here, and I were put out to starve—seeing as they burned the house down and took all the crop we’d stored. And my people were all long since dead and gone.”

  Dera stopped to take another bite of bread, swallowed, then continued. “Anyway, I didn’t see much hope of getting another man to wed. Not without he was an apple off the same tree as the first one. There’s not many would want to wake up to this”—she touched the mark on her cheek—“every morning in bed beside ’em—unless they were the sort o’ man no woman in her right mind would take to wed. Besides”—she gave Isolde another flash of the brown-toothed grin—“thought if I was going to have to play servant to a man’s codpiece, I might as well get paid for the job. Your good lord’s army was passing nearby at the time—on the way south to where the fighting was then—and I thought I’d never have a better chance than that. So young Jory, here, and me, we followed along.” She shrugged. “Not been a bad sort of life, take it for all and all.”

  Dera cocked an eyebrow. “Soldiers don’t wash so often as most, maybe, but they’ll pay well for a woman once a battle’s done, and without bein’ too particular whether she’s a mark on her skin so long as she’s willing and doesn’t smell too bad and has a pulse in her veins.” She paused to brush bread crumbs from her lap. “Not a bad way of getting by. Though it’s harder, now that the weather’s turned cold an’ the child’s so close to bein’ born.”

  “Is the father—?” Isolde began.

  Dera gave a dismissive shrug. “Might’ve been any man—well, not any man in Britain, maybe, but any one in Britain’s army, for sure.” She drew the shawl more tightly about her shoulders and sighed. “I’d a purge I take regular, like, o’ course. But it doesn’t always work. And what with the war and the travel, I wasn’t paying my bleeding no mind. So by the time I got to know this ’un was on the way I was feeling it move a bit and, well…”

  She lifted her shoulders again. “Couldn’t get rid of it then. Not when I was starting to get to know it, like. But no, I’ve nothing to hope for from any man in the way of help wi’ the poor mite.” She shifted, as though seeking to ease the strain on her back, and her hand moved again to rest lightly atop her swollen belly.

  “It’s quiet today at least, praise be. Been kicking me night and day these last few weeks, but now it’s given me a bit o’ peace. No kicks at all I’ve felt since yesterday supper time—first decent night’s rest I can remember.”

  But she gave the mound of the child another caressing pat, and Isolde saw the same soft, distant smile touch her mouth. “Must be a little maid—no boy ever treated ’is mother so well, eh?”

  She looked up, waiting for agreement or response, but Isolde didn’t speak. She felt, all at once, as though she couldn’t breathe, as though her chest were suddenly crushed by an iron hand. She swallowed, then rose abruptly to her feet. “I’ve…left orders that those who wish to shelter here for a time are to be given what room we can spare—in the stables, mostly, and the barns.” Her voice sounded strange in her own ears, and she stopped, her eyes going from Dera to the boy beside her and back again. Then: “I must go now. But you’re welcome to stay as long as you choose.”

  Dera gave her a faintly puzzled frown, but then nodded. “That’s good of you, lady. We thank you—and for the bread and the coins, as well.”

  “LADY ISOLDE.”

  Startled, Isolde turned to find that Coel of Rhegged had come unnoticed to stand at her side. In all the years she had known Coel, in all the years he had attended Con’s council and led his men to fight at the king’s side, she could remember no time when Coel, first and most loyal of Arthur’s men, had spoken to her directly or addressed her by name. With an effort, she pushed aside all thoughts of the woman she had left—and all other memories—and acknowledged his bow.

  “My lord Rhegged. Good day. You are well?”

  Coel was dressed, this morning, in the blue tunic and fur-lined cloak he had worn the night before, but his face looked bloodless in the courtyard’s cold, gray light, the skin almost translucent and stretched like parchment across the bones of chin and brow. He held himself as though he fought against some inner pain, and she sa
w that he pressed a hand tightly against his side. But he nodded.

  “Very well, I thank you, Lady Isolde. But I would ask a word with you, if I may.” His voice sounded weaker than it had last night, with a thready note of age she had never heard in it before.

  “Of course. But please, come indoors. You should not be standing out here in the damp and the cold.”

  Coel gave her a brief, rueful smile that for an instant warmed the grim set of his face. “Do I look so old and infirm as that, then?” He shook his head, drawing the folds of his cloak more closely about his shoulders with one hand. “No, thank you, lady. I’m well enough. It’s only that these old bones don’t take to keeping vigil in a fireless chapel so well as they did years ago.”

  “So you kept the vigil? You and the rest of the men?”

  Coel nodded. “We did. Midnight to dawn on our knees before the altar—offering prayers for a miraculous sign.” There was a current of irony in Coel’s voice that made Isolde glance up sharply, but then he added, more quietly, “Not that I would have begrudged my lord Constantine a vigil for his last night among us here.” He paused. “The young king is to be buried at sundown, I understand.”

  The corners of his mouth were tightly folded, and his golden eyes were weary, the hooded lids papery. Watching him, Isolde felt a flicker of that same chill she had felt with Brychan the night before, that here was another man, likely an honorable one, that she could not let herself believe spoke true. She nodded. “He will.”

  Coel was silent a moment, his eyes on the door of the chapel at the far end of the courtyard. Beyond it, outside Tintagel’s walls, lay the churchyard where Con would be buried at the end of the day. Then, abruptly, Coel seemed to rouse himself, for he turned back to Isolde and spoke with something of his usual decision, quick and strong.

  “Will you come with me, Lady Isolde, out onto the headland? We ought to be able to speak privately there.”

  Chapter Nine

  IN THE YEARS SHE HAD lived at Tintagel, Isolde had seen the sea in many moods. Had seen it still and smooth, the sunlight dancing on the waves. Today, though, under the gray and heavy skies, the sea below the headland boiled, the waves pounding, slashing at the rocky shore. Here, out in the open, the wind was stronger, tearing at her hair and whipping the folds of her cloak around her with a force that made it hard at times to keep her footing. But she and Coel were alone. Only the gulls that circled and screamed above might hear what they said.

  Coel stood beside her, his eyes, too, on the pounding waves and on the jetty of clawlike black rocks that stretched out toward the horizon. The walk had tired him; he breathed with difficulty, his hand white-knuckled on a fold of his cloak, and his lips were blue-tinged and tight, as though some inner pain had gripped him again.

  “The edge of Britain—and the edge of the world itself, it sometimes seems to me,” he said at last. He turned, slowly, back toward land. “And a perilous time for us here, where the Saxons have pushed us nearly into the sea.”

  Isolde turned as well, so that the wind was now at her back, and looked out across the windswept, grassy plain of the headland to where the walls of Tintagel rose gray against the sky. On a jut of land to the east stood the great circle of stones built by the ancient ones for a reason long since swept away by time, and below them, past Tintagel itself, stretched the farmlands and villages of Cornwall.

  “A perilous time, as you say.”

  Coel was silent for a moment. Isolde had the impression that he was gathering strength, battling back whatever hurt or weakness he had suffered with the climb, and when he turned to face her again, his voice was stronger, his manner more his own.

  “You will be wondering, Lady Isolde, why I asked you to come here. But I wished to speak to you, and what I would say, I would have none among those now at Tintagel hear.”

  He paused, frowning, as though searching for words. Isolde waited, and at last he said, “Kings live by knowledge—knowledge of the lands they rule, of the lands bordering their own, of the men who rule them. Knowledge brought in by whatever means we can make serve—it’s the only way to survive.”

  He stopped again, and Isolde said, “You are speaking of informers—spies.”

  Coel gave her a sharp glance from under his brows. “You are not surprised?”

  Isolde moved her shoulder slightly. “I have lived my entire life at a royal court, Lord Coel. There are few things that would shock or surprise me about the means those in power use to keep order in their lands.”

  Instead of answering, Coel studied her face a long moment, and she caught in his gaze a flash of the same pity or compassion she had seen the night before. “You are full young,” he said at last, “for the burdens you carry, Lady Isolde.”

  His tone was unaccustomedly gentle, and Isolde felt the hard knot of loneliness she’d carried these days since Con’s death split open—a sudden, overwhelming wish that she might tell Coel everything flooding through her.

  She could tell him now, lay the whole burden of Con’s death, her suspicions of Marche, her own fears, upon the shoulders of the man at her side. She stopped herself, though, before she could speak.

  By the look of him, she thought, Coel of Rhegged has cares enough already. Unfair to add further cause for worry. Besides, only a fool or a child trusts entirely on so slight an acquaintance as his and mine.

  “Perhaps,” she said at last, her eyes on one of the circling gulls. “But what I have I can bear.” She turned back to Coel. “Go on, please. What is it you wish to tell me?”

  Coel seemed to hesitate, then nodded and looked out again across the white-crested waves, so that all she could see of his face was the curve of one hollow cheek and the line of his mouth, still set and stern.

  “Very well. I have made it my business to know what dealings my fellow kings and rulers have among themselves. Where their messengers are sent and, if possible, what intelligence they carry. And I would wager my sword and my shield that they do the same—for me and for the rest of their fellows on the king’s council.”

  He paused, then went on. “In any army, among any king’s force of fighting men, there are those whose loyalty can be bought. And the Saxon kings are no exception—not when they use Pictish raiders and Irish mercenaries to swell their ranks in battle.

  “I received word yesterday from one such—one of those who will sell information about those he serves if the price is worth his while—that messengers from one of the men on the council have been received at the royal court of the Saxon king Octa of Kent.”

  Isolde stiffened. “Which man?”

  She saw Coel’s jaw harden. “Marche.”

  Then, when Isolde made no reply, he gave her another keen, appraising look. “This news seems to surprise you no more than my talk of spies.”

  One of the gulls circling overhead banked and then dived, plunging toward the sea. Isolde followed it with her eyes. “Lord Marche, too, I have known all my life.” She paused. Then she turned back to Coel. “You spoke, though, of your informer as a mercenary—one who would betray his king to the highest bidder. Do you trust his word on this to be true?”

  Coel was silent, and when he spoke the weariness was back in his eyes, the weight of age in his voice. “Trust him? No. I can only say that I’ve always found the man’s information reliable in the past.” He paused. “My informer also claimed that Marche was planning something. Massing troops secretly at his garrison at Castle Dore. Now, the message was brought me by a man I’ve used before as private messenger. A traveling goldsmith. Ulfin, his name is. His craft—and a rare fine metalworker he is, too—offers him an excuse to journey widely. And to call on the keeps and castles of the most powerful in the land to peddle his wares.”

  Coel paused again. “I’ve sent him to Castle Dore—to find whether Marche is indeed assembling troops in secret. Whether that part, at least, of what my informer claimed is true.”

  Isolde nodded slowly. “But you do believe, then, that Lord Marche is seeking an all
iance with the Saxons? With Octa of Kent?”

  “Marche would not be the first man to decide that an alliance with the enemy would win him greater power than continuing the war.” Coel stopped, then added, his voice a careful blank, “Vortigern, to name but one such man.”

  Isolde went still, but then nodded and said quietly, “True.” But it is not Vortigern, she thought, whom Coel is thinking of. Vortigern, who betrayed his king to league with the Saxons and was betrayed by them in his turn so long ago that scarcely anyone living remembers him now. For if Vortigern sought alliance with the Saxons, my own father did just the same.

  Aloud she asked, still looking out toward the sea, “Does anyone else on the council know of what you have learned?”

  Coel shook his head. “None.” His brows drew together. “The days following a High King’s death are dangerous ones in any land, let alone one as besieged as Britain now. There’s a gap in power that brings out the worst in the men left behind—as you saw last night in the council hall.”

  He hunched his shoulders against a gust of wind. “The lines of authority must be redrawn, new alliances formed. And there are none on the council I would absolve absolutely of the wish to seize power for themselves—or of being a part of whatever Marche plans.”

  Isolde turned to face him. “And yet you trust me?”

  Their eyes met for a long moment. At last Coel said, unexpectedly, “I knew your father, you know. Few knew him better, though I say so.”

  Isolde didn’t reply, and after a moment Coel turned and gestured to a place where a rise in the land and a jut of boulders formed a place of slight shelter.

  “Come, we can sit down there and be out of the wind. If you will hear what I have to say?”

  His speech was still nearly as quick and decisive as it had been, his chiseled face as proud. But Isolde saw the thready beat of a pulse in his temple and the dents of weariness about his mouth—and read, too, in the golden hawk’s eyes something that in another man might almost have been a flicker of appeal. She nodded.