Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  Isolde paused again. The boy Bran’s eyes were closed. His breathing was faint and labored, and she saw that bubbles of blood had formed between his lips once more. When she pressed his hand gently, she thought she felt a brief, answering press of his fingers against hers, but the pressure was so faint she might only have imagined it, wishing it there.

  “‘Do not grieve for me,’ the king said. ‘But though my body will lie here in Ireland where I laid down my life, take my head with you back to Britain. Carry it with you to London and bury it at the White Mount, with its face toward Gaul.’”

  A slight sound made Isolde glance up. Trystan still knelt at Bran’s side, while Hereric crouched at his head, as before. Now, though, she saw that Kian had returned and come to stand beside them, his scarred face a harsh, remorseless mask in the dying fire’s light. He didn’t speak, though, and after a moment she went on, telling of how King Bran’s men found, on their way back to London, a fine feasting hall, where they paused to rest, and, charmed by the song of a flight of magical birds, they forgot all mortal misfortunes and their grief for their king and even their longing for home.

  She couldn’t tell whether Bran still heard her or not. He was breathing still, but the rise and fall of his chest was so slight as to be almost imperceptible, and when she squeezed his hand his fingers felt cold and lifeless, and she couldn’t even imagine an answering press against her own.

  “They stayed in the feasting hall for eighty long years, but the time passed so swiftly and merrily that it seemed to them no longer than a few short days. But one day, one of the seven companions opened a door in the hall, and there, in the distance, lay Cornwall. And at once, each one of the seven felt the weight of his loss and his grief for all those who had perished in Ireland. And more than anything, they grieved for their king. And so all that was left for them was to set out for London, to bury King Bran’s head as he had asked.”

  Isolde stopped. The wind from off the water lifted the hair from her face. She felt the light, slender little body she held quiver slightly, the breath whistling painfully in Bran’s throat. She bent to kiss the boy’s brow, cool, now, as his hands, and clammy to the touch.

  “At last they reached the White Mount, and they buried their king’s head as Bran had asked. But such was the power of the mighty King Bran that in death he guards the land of Britain as ably even yet. And so as long as his head lies there at the White Mount, undisturbed, the land of Britain will be safe, protected by Bran the Blessed, Britain’s king.”

  As Isolde spoke the last words, Bran’s eyes opened. For a moment, his gaze met Isolde’s, and she thought he smiled. And then his lids closed, another shudder shook him, and Isolde knew that what she held was an empty shell and nothing more. At first, no one moved. Then Trystan leaned forward and gently crossed the boy’s arms over his breast. Isolde felt a hand fall heavily on her shoulder, and turned her head to see Hereric standing beside her.

  The big man was weeping as openly and unashamedly as a child, tears streaming down his broad cheeks, and Isolde wished, for a moment, that she might cry, as well. The lump of ice was still lodged tight in her chest, but her own eyes were burning and dry as she looked down at Bran’s face, the soft mouth and fringed lashes, the ragged patches of hair. He’d survived slavery, survived a winter of fighting wolves for battlefield carrion, only to die here, in her arms.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should never have agreed to come here with you. I knew there was danger from Marche’s guard.”

  Beside her, Trystan started to answer, then checked himself and turned instead to Kian. Isolde, watching him, had the impression of anger, tightly controlled beneath his deadly even tone. “The other one?”

  Kian shook his head, face grim in the pale moonlight. “Got away. Had a horse waiting on top of the cliff. No chance of catching him up on foot.” Kian stopped and jerked his head again, this time toward the bodies of the other guards that lay sprawled on the beach a short distance away. “But the rest are dead. I checked.”

  Trystan nodded and blew out a breath through his teeth. Then: “The one that got away will be back, though, once he’s met with reinforcements.” He glanced at the sky. “I doubt they’ll risk another attack before morning, but we’ll have to be gone by then. Hereric”—he turned to the big man, laying a hand on his shoulder—“you’d better gather as much wood as you can find.” His mouth twisted. “We’ll give Bran his fire, at least, before we move on.”

  Hereric dragged a blood-smeared fist across his eyes, leaving a trail of rusty red across his cheek and brow. Then he nodded and stumbled to his feet. His breath still came in ragged sobs, but he moved off down the beach, his body bent, his head lowered, scanning the sand for driftwood. Kian watched him a moment, then looked down at Bran’s body, frowning.

  “I thought Bran’s people were Christian folk—the ones he had before he was taken slave, I mean. Never heard he believed in the Saxon gods and Waelhall and underworld battles.”

  Trystan shrugged. He wiped the blade of the knife he still held against his tunic and slipped it back into his belt. “It was that or tell him he’d spend eternity with Jesus in Heaven singing and playing a harp.” His mouth twisted briefly. “Which would you rather if you were ten?”

  Kian nodded, and Isolde thought the harsh planes of his face softened as he looked down at the slight frame she still held.

  “Comforted the boy, anyway,” he said gruffly. “He died well.”

  Trystan followed his gaze and was silent. “He did.” Then he looked at Isolde. “Will you tell us, now, just why Marche should have his guard out after you?”

  Isolde studied his face, thrown into a harsh relief by the light of the cook-fire beyond and the moonlight above. “Why should I tell you?” she asked at last.

  “Why?” A muscle jumped in Trystan’s jaw, and the fury she’d sensed in him before slipped briefly beyond his control. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we’ve just been attacked and Bran killed. I’ve a right to know what for.”

  Isolde couldn’t even summon up any answering anger. As he himself had said, he’d kept her here, planned to use her as a bargaining piece if the need arose. But the frightening rush of betrayal she’d felt had slipped away, leaving nothing behind but an aching, gray exhaustion. She shifted Bran’s body gently, feeling the sharp bones of his shoulder blades press against her through the folds of her gown. Then, with her free hand, she reached to push the windblown hair from her eyes.

  “All right,” she said wearily. “I’ll tell you the whole.”

  Trystan listened in silence, and when she had done, he said only, “That explains why Marche is so anxious to lay hands on you. If you did manage to get proof of what he plans, he’d be torn apart by the rest of the nobles and petty kings.” He was silent a moment, frowning, his eyes on the pebbled sand, and when he spoke it seemed half to himself. “But I don’t see how they could have known you were with us.”

  Kian, too, had been listening in silence, but now he cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since Isolde had begun. “Needn’t have been her they came here for.” He spoke half-unwillingly, as though reluctant to admit that the fault for the attack could have been other than Isolde’s, but he went on, “Could have been you they were after, you know, Trys. You escaped the same time as she did—Marche would have told his guard to hunt for you, as well. And they thought you Saxon-born, from what you said. So they’d have been asking about a Saxon man, yes?”

  Kian paused, rubbing his scar with the back of his thumb. “Well, Hereric’s that, clear enough—might as well have ‘Saxon’ stamped on his forehead. And if anyone saw Hereric on the road and set the guardsmen on his track, it would be a stupider lot of men than Marche’s guard that couldn’t follow him here, the gods bless him and all poor—” He stopped. “And all like him.” Kian shook his head. “He’ll have left a trail like a herd of cattle over a field of new fallen snow.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  ISOLDE WATCHED THE GREEN AND b
lue flames dance and lick at the still, small form that lay at their heart. It was a small fire; Hereric had been able to gather only a bare heap of driftwood. But it was enough. The figure in the center glowed orange, outlined by the flames.

  Hereric, the tears still running down his broad face, had carried Bran’s body to the pyre himself, had watched as Trystan knelt to kindle the blaze, then moved to stand and watch the fire do its work, his eyes reddened and dull.

  Trystan had watched the flames in silence, but now he turned to Hereric and Kian. “We’d best be gone.”

  Kian, standing beside him, grunted agreement. “The boat, I suppose?”

  Trystan’s eyes strayed once more to the fire, then he looked away, lean face set. “You and Hereric go and make a quick pass around the top of the cliff and the road. Make sure things are quiet for now. And then we’ll see the boat ready to sail.”

  Kian nodded, but Hereric seemed not to hear. He was still staring dazedly at Bran’s pyre, his arms hanging slack at his sides, a trickle of blood from the fight running unheeded from the corner of his mouth.

  Trystan let out his breath in a sigh, and then, still limping, he moved to Hereric’s side and laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder.

  “We gave Bran a send-off any warrior would have been proud of. Nothing else we can do for him now.”

  Slowly, Hereric’s head turned toward Trystan, and then his gaze seemed to clear. He stood blinking at the other man.

  Trystan nodded. “Good man. Go with Kian, now. I want to be sure we’re not going to be set on again before we start loading the boat. I’d go myself, but with this leg I doubt I’d make it halfway up the cliffs.” He glanced down at Hereric’s belt. “What happened to your knife? No, never mind”—this as the big man started to make a stumbling sign. “Here—take mine.”

  Isolde was silent as the two men turned and vanished into the surrounding dark. The little pyre had been built well; by the time the flames died, the little body within would be nothing but gray ash and charred bone. Her eyes were stinging from the smoke, and only when she raised a hand to rub at them did she realize she was shaking, shivering from head to foot.

  She drew her cloak more tightly about her, then turned to Trystan. “And now that you know I can bring you nothing but further danger, am I free to go?”

  Trystan didn’t answer at once. In the fire’s orange light, Isolde saw that he had a darkening bruise over one eye, and a narrow cut running the length of his jaw on the same side. At last he asked, “And if I did let you free? Where would you go?”

  Isolde raised a hand again to rub the sting of the wood smoke from her eyes. She was, she realized, too tired to argue anymore, and so she said, “I’ll go on—try to find the goldsmith Ulfin I spoke of. The one in Coel’s employ, who carries knowledge of Marche’s arrangement with the Saxons.”

  Trystan’s slanted brows lifted. “Alone?”

  “How else?”

  “How—?” Trystan stopped. Then: “You’ll go alone.” He grimaced. “Yes, right. And if you happen to meet any wolves on your way, be sure to give them a good poke in the eye with a sharp stick, will you? You’d stand just about as much chance of surviving that as—”

  And then he broke off abruptly, as, from somewhere above them there came a shout, followed by a high, wild scream.

  Trystan swore under his breath and started for the upward path at a run, covering the ground more quickly that Isolde would have believed his injuries could allow. She followed, scrambling up the rocky incline in Trystan’s wake. Her lungs burning, her heart pounding from the climb, she reached the top of the slope and saw Trystan standing a few paces away and staring at the man’s crumpled body that lay in the scrub just ahead.

  Kian was already starting to sit up, groaning a little and clutching his head when Trystan reached his side. The older man’s scarred face was ghastly, bloodless lips drawn back in a grimace of pain, eyes unfocused and still half closed. As Trystan took hold of his arm, though, he shook his head, groaned again, and then struggled upright.

  “Trystan.” He spoke thickly, between raggedly drawn breaths. “Came at us…out of nowhere. Two of them…I…wasn’t looking. Got me—” He grimaced. “Got me before I could even get a hand on my sword.”

  The line of Trystan’s mouth tightened. “And Hereric?”

  “Gone…took him…on horseback.” Kian’s face twisted again. “Saw that much before I fell.”

  Trystan swore violently again, then, as Kian flinched, shook his head. “I wasn’t blaming you. On horseback, you say?”

  Kian nodded. “Rode off at a gallop.”

  “Following the road?”

  “Not as far as I could tell. Heading east.” Kian gestured across the expanse of flat, open ground stretching away from the cliffs and the ocean’s edge.

  Trystan let out his breath. “No point in trying to follow, then. They’ll be long gone. And in the dark, over rough, dry ground, we’d never pick up their track.” He was silent, frowning in the direction Kian had pointed. Then: “Any idea who they were?”

  Isolde could have gotten away. Slipped off into the darkness before either of the men knew she had gone. She stood in a deep patch of shadow cast by a boulder at the top of the track they’d ascended, and if Trystan knew she’d followed him up from the beach, he had entirely forgotten her presence by now. And Kian didn’t even know she was there. What kept her there she didn’t know, but all the same she stood silent, her back against the rough face of the rock, watching the two men.

  Kian was shaking his head. “Didn’t get a good enough look at them to tell whose colors they wore. Good fighters. That’s all I can say for sure. And well mounted. Rode off from here like the wind.”

  Trystan nodded grimly. “Likely more of Marche’s men, then. Must have taken Hereric for me—of all the bloody evil luck.”

  Kian frowned. “I’m surprised he’d bother—Marche, I mean. If the woman spoke true and he’s planning—”

  “Marche doesn’t like losing.” Trystan cut Kian off before he could finish. “And an escaped prisoner—whoever he is—is a loss.”

  Trystan was silent a moment, then seemed to rouse himself with an effort, for he shook his head and turned to the other man. “How badly are you hurt? Can you stand?”

  Kian shifted, lips tightening to hold back a grunt of pain, but then nodded. “Reckon so. Just give me a hand up, will you?”

  He was sweating and panting for breath by the time Trystan had raised him to his feet, and he swayed a moment, one hand braced against Trystan’s arm, but he regained his footing and at last straightened his shoulders.

  “All right, now.”

  Even in the moonlight, Isolde could see the swelling on Kian’s temple, the flesh darkened and angry, trickling blood. Kian wiped at the blood with the edge of his sleeve. “We’ll go after Hereric in the morning, then?”

  Again Trystan was silent a space before replying, and Isolde saw indecision flicker across his face. Then he seemed to make up his mind. “No,” he said. Kian opened his mouth to protest, but Trystan held up a hand. “No,” he said again. “I’ll go.”

  Kian had been gingerly flexing his muscles, testing for further injury, but at that his whole body went abruptly rigid.

  “I want you to take the boat,” Trystan went on. “You won’t be able to manage open sea, not on your own. But you can work your way along the coast—follow the currents as much as you can.”

  A heavy line had appeared between Kian’s brows, and now it deepened, dents of anger appearing at the corners of his mouth, as well. “You’d try to keep me out of battle—like some untried boy or squealing maid? When it was my fault Hereric was captured? If I’d been more on guard—”

  “Stop.” Trystan’s voice was curt, but he laid a hand on the other man’s arm. “And how do you think I feel, man? When I’m the one that sent him up here? When they likely took him for me?”

  Kian stared at him a long moment, his face wooden. And then he pressed his lips tight tog
ether, a swallow rippling the corded muscles of his throat.

  “I understand.” Slowly, he unbuckled his sword belt, and offered it, sheathed weapon and all, to Trystan. “Take my sword, then, if you think I’m too old and unfit to wield it anymore.”

  Trystan let out an exasperated breath. “I think you’re tough as old boot leather, and stubborn as a cross-grained mule.” He squeezed Kian’s shoulder briefly, then let his hand fall. “Keep your sword, you old fool. That’s not why I said I’d go after Hereric alone.”

  Kian’s face was still stony, but the hand holding out his sword belt slowly fell. “Why, then?”

  Isolde, watching from her place of concealment, thought Trystan looked as though one more weight had been added to a load already difficult to bear. He shifted his weight, trying to ease the strain on his injured leg.

  Trystan tugged a hand through his hair. “Because I’m the one Marche’s men are after. They don’t know you from King Arthur or Christ Himself. I went out as spy alone—and got captured for it. And if I hadn’t, Bran would be alive and Hereric wouldn’t be wherever he is now.”

  Kian’s voice, when he spoke, was quieter, the rasp of anger gone, but Isolde saw that his look was as implacable as before. Not a man, she thought, to relinquish duty lightly. As he would have to have been, to have fought on her father’s side at Camlann.

  “That may be. But I don’t remember swearing an oath to follow your orders. I’m my own man. And if I choose to go with you after Hereric, I will.”

  Trystan started to speak, then instead let out his breath in a long sigh. “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t order you to let me go alone.” He stopped and held the other man’s gaze with his own. “I can ask you, though.”

  There was a silence. Kian shifted position, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing.

  “And you are asking?”

  Trystan tipped his head in a wordless nod.

  Kian eyed Trystan speculatively, his mouth still pressed into a hard, flat line. At last, “Why?” he asked again.