by Anna Elliott
Isolde drew a steadying breath and nodded. “We’d better change the wrappings again,” she said. “They’re nearly dry.”
In an effort to bring down the fever, she had stripped Hereric to a loincloth and wrapped him in rags soaked with cold water likewise drawn up from the sea. He would shiver for a few moments after the cloths were wet, but so far his skin remained burning hot, the fever unbroken. At first he’d been able to take a few sips of ale from a skin Kian produced, but now, sunk in deep unconsciousness as he was, the liquid only dribbled uselessly down his chin when Isolde held the cup to his cracked lips.
They finished wrapping the freshly wet cloths around him, and Hereric’s body convulsed with another violent fit of shuddering. Then, for the first time since they’d carried him aboard the boat, his eyes flickered open and fastened on Isolde’s face, and his hand came out, grasping, fastening at last in a desperate grip on her wrist.
Isolde froze. For a moment, she was back in the great carved bed at Tintagel. The hand on her wrist was Marche’s hand. But Hereric’s eyes were fixed imploringly on her face, and so she stayed rigid, absolutely still, forcing herself to breathe, to slow the frantic drumming of her heart until memory receded, the sudden upwelling of terror and helpless rage subsiding. It’s so much easier in tales, she thought. In tales, the story ends—is over, finished and done. But in life…
In life, she was left with a tale that seemed to repeat itself inside her, unceasingly, with every hour.
Hereric was still shivering, his teeth chattering, but he lifted one hand and made a series of feeble signs, eyes still on Isolde. Not wanting to break the moment of conscious contact, Isolde kept her eyes on his and took his other hand in her own. Without turning, she asked Kian, “What did he say?”
Kian cleared his throat before answering. Then: “He’s asking if you’ll tell a story for him. Like you did for Bran.”
Isolde looked down into Hereric’s bruised, sunken eyes, and seemed to see flashing before her the faces of all those others she’d watched die at Marche’s hands. Con…Myrddin…Bran. She pressed her eyes closed a moment, and the flashing fragments of memory quivered and settled on a vision of Myrddin. Of the old man’s sightless, sea-blue eyes looking up at her from above a blood-soaked white beard.
“THAT’S HER ANSWER? THAT I REAP only what I have sown?”
I watch as the king paces the length of the room, whirls, and paces again, the skirt of his ermine-lined robe billowing out behind. The marks of years—and of battle—on him are plain. A hardness about the jaw, a network of broken veins under the weathered skin.
And yet he looks not so different from the boy I saw crowned. Nearly twenty years ago.
“And is that,” I ask, “so unjust a claim?”
Arthur’s face twists. “Perhaps not.” He gives a bark of angry laughter. “Maybe I should have listened more to the prating of the priests after all. I remember them saying something about the sins of the fathers.”
And then he rounds on me, eyes suddenly narrowed. “You saw this, Myrddin. You told me that death was bred from such deeds as mine.”
My brows lift. “I thought you had no faith in the Sight.”
“I don’t. I didn’t. But—”
Arthur the King stops, an angry flush of rage running up his face. “Damn you, Myrddin, will you answer the question!”
I sigh. “Perhaps I did see. But only you can alter what will happen from this moment on.”
Arthur’s face works again. “You expect me to give way? Britain’s High King made a common cuckold?”
All at once I feel tired. Tired and old. The calf muscles on my lame side ache with the long walk and the winter’s chill.
Is fate what lies within a man? Or is his character written by his fate?
“No. I would not expect that.”
A SHIVER RIPPLED THROUGH ISOLDE. MYRDDIN’S voice. She’d never heard him before. And did that mean that he yet lived somewhere beyond the western wind? Or only that he, too, was dead and gone with all the rest.
Hereric’s hand still clutched at her wrist, his skin hot and dry on hers. And she could feel, still, the tiny threads of panic skittering through her blood, diminished, now, but still there. She thought of Trystan, imprisoned now at Tintagel. Or dead. The guards he’d taken on to let her escape would have small reason to leave him alive. She thought, too, of watching Brother Columba offer Trystan the healing she’d not been able to bring herself to give.
No, she told herself furiously. You’re not going to let Marche take that, as well. Or claim yet another life.
She took Hereric’s face between her hands, fixing her gaze on his.
“Hereric, listen to me. You’re not going to die. Do you hear me? You’re not going to die.”
From behind her, she heard Kian make a wordless sound, as of faint protest, but she ignored him and went on, her fingers pressing into Hereric’s temples, her eyes locked on Hereric’s pale blue gaze, her voice fierce. “You’re not going to die, because I won’t let you. Do you understand?”
Hereric’s fever-glazed eyes stared blankly up at her, but Isolde worked to keep her gaze steady on his, refusing to let any doubt—any fear—creep back in. For a long moment, all was silent. Then Hereric let out a shuddering sigh, his head moving in brief assent against the pile of skins.
Isolde let out her own breath and relaxed her grip, smoothing the hair gently back from Hereric’s brow. “Good,” she said. She took one of his hands in hers. “Now I’ll tell you a tale.”
She was silent a moment, hearing the faint, distant echo of that wind-carried voice. Then: “This is the story of Myrddin, whom men call the Enchanter. Myrddin, who prophesied for kings and set Arthur himself on the throne.”
Hereric’s mouth curved in a ghost of his usual slow, spreading smile, and Isolde wiped his forehead once more with a cold cloth, then began.
“Long ago, Vortigern, who was then Britain’s High King, sought to build a tower at Dinas Emrys. But though every day his men would pile stones to build the tower’s walls, every morning they would find the stones had crumbled to the ground. And King Vortigern’s magicians told him that the tower would not stand until its foundations were sprinkled with the blood of a child born without a father.”
Isolde paused. Hereric’s lids had slid shut, and in spite of her fierce assurance a moment before, a chill ran through her as she watched the rise and fall of the big man’s chest. His breathing was light and shallow, with a pause after each indrawn breath, as though his body tried to decide each time whether to stay alive yet awhile or yield.
She went on, though, telling of how Vortigern’s men had found Myrddin—sired, so his mother claimed, by a spirit of air. And of how the boy Myrddin had saved his own life by proving to Vortigern that the fortress walls were shaken by the battles of two dragons in the earth below, one white, the other red.
Almost the words seemed to speak themselves through the mingled haze of her own fatigue and the hot smoke of the lamp, falling into the cabin’s stillness, coiling like the chambers of a seashell, like links in a golden chain.
“And as the king and all his counselors looked on, the white dragon lashed out with teeth and terrible claws, so that all thought the red must surely be slain. But the red dragon rose up, fearsome once more. And when the battle was ended, the white dragon lay dead at the red dragon’s feet. And so, Myrddin told the king, the future was foretold. The Saxons might hold sway over Britain for a time. But the red dragon of Britain would be victorious in the end.”
The tale went on. Isolde’s throat grew dry, and once Kian wordlessly handed her a cup of wine, but she took only a sip, then set it aside. She told all the tales she’d ever heard of Myrddin the Enchanter. Of the Pendragon and Lady Ygraine. Of Myrddin’s sword test, by which Arthur, son of Uther, became Britain’s High King.
Finally, Isolde stopped. The cabin was still, the boat beneath her rocking gently to and fro with the lapping waves. She was silent, remembering how, as she’d w
atched Myrddin walk away from her in the chapel at Tintagel, she’d felt as though she stood at the twilight of an age.
“Make up a story for me,” Myrddin had said. “Make the one of the fair-folk who enchants me away a beautiful maid.”
Hereric’s eyes were still closed, and his face had a white, remote look that sent a fresh chill down Isolde’s spine. As though he’d begun already to draw away. She swallowed hard.
“And so at last there came a time,” she said, “when Myrddin’s work in the world was done. And so one of the fair-folk came to carry him away. She was—”
Isolde’s voice caught, and she swallowed once again. “She was beautiful. As beautiful as the spring. As beautiful as dawn. She might have taken any man to husband. But she chose Myrddin—Myrddin the wise—to dwell with her in a cave of clearest crystal deep in the heart of the hollow hills. And there are some—”
She paused, then said, her voice steady, “There are some who would say that the time for enchantments and magic in Britain was at an end. But Myrddin dwells in the hollow hills still, in a land of crystal and silver and gold. And plays his harp. And sings his songs. And those who listen may hear him yet, in the sound of the sea and the wind.”
Isolde stopped and closed her eyes as the final words seemed to hang, echoing, in the air. She’d lost all sense of time as she spoke, and now the very walls of the cabin about her seemed insubstantial, shifting and strange, as though she’d crossed part of the way with Hereric along whatever path his spirit took as it drew toward realms beyond. All was silent, save for the rasp of the sick man’s labored breath and the lap of the waves, and she tightened her grip on Hereric’s hand as though with the touch she might keep him with them, draw him back toward life.
Then, a moment—or an hour—later, Kian touched her arm.
“He’ll be all right now.”
Isolde looked up, blinking.
“He’ll be all right,” Kian said again.
Slowly, Isolde rose. Her legs were stiff and cramped from hours of kneeling beside the bed. But when she bent over Hereric, she found Kian was right. His breathing was deep and even, and there was a glitter of sweat on his heavy brow. The fever had broken.
Isolde swayed a little, and would have fallen if Kian’s hand hadn’t shot out to catch her by the arm. His voice, when he spoke, was still gruff, but he steadied her and set her on her feet before taking his hand away.
“Best go get some rest. I can sit with him in case he wakes.”
Isolde hesitated, but Kian had already drawn up a rough wooden stool to the side of Hereric’s pallet of skins and was settling himself.
“Go on.” He jerked his head at Isolde. And then he looked away and added, his voice still rough, “You’ve done a good night’s work here.”
Outside on deck, she found that Cabal had scrabbled a kind of nest for himself out of a pile of tattered sails, and Isolde lay down beside him, drawing a fold of the rough, salt-stiff fabric over them both. The dawn was just breaking, the eastern sky turning to gray. Isolde’s every muscle throbbed with weariness, but all the same she lay a moment, listening to the waves lapping against the bow and staring up at the fading stars above.
The stars will still shine tomorrow.
She was thinking again, though, of Trystan sending her this way to meet with Hereric and Kian.
A verse she’d heard Father Nenian read floated through her mind. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
And a life for a life? Does saving Hereric’s life, she thought, do something to atone for what I did to Trystan?
Chapter Twenty-five
ISOLDE WOKE AND LAY A moment, disoriented, before she remembered where she was. Whatever she’d been dreaming of had gone—though it seemed to hang just out of reach. And as it hung there, she felt something stir behind the concealing wall in her mind.
Isolde sat up abruptly, pressing her hands to her eyes and shivering, once, convulsively. Then, when the last echoes had truly gone, she went to the cabin door and looked in. Hereric still lay on the pile of skins, Kian beside him. Both men were asleep. Hereric’s mouth was slightly open, his head tipped back, while Kian sat with his chin sunk on his breast, lost in the sleep of deep physical exhaustion.
As soon as Isolde took a step toward him, though, the older man’s eyes snapped open and he sat up, knife at the ready. Seeing Isolde, he relaxed, slipping the knife back into his belt.
“Soldier’s habit,” he said, nodding at the weapon. “Learn to sleep lightly, too—last to come awake usually means the first to die.”
“Is Hereric all right?”
“Seems to be. Hasn’t opened his eyes or stirred since you left him. Feels a bit cooler, though.”
Isolde crossed to lay a hand on the big man’s brow, then nodded. “You’re right. The fever’s gone.”
Kian nodded. “Got some ale into him, too, a while ago.” He rose with a grunt, arching and stretching his back, then shook his head. “I must be growing old. Never found it so hard to stay awake on sentry duty before.”
He paused, then, with something of the gruff awkwardness of the night before, said, “Come and have something to eat. You must be half starved.”
Isolde started to say she wasn’t hungry, then realized that wasn’t true. She was more than hungry. Her stomach felt hollow with lack of food. She hesitated, looking down at Hereric’s sleeping face, the broad planes thrown into relief by the sunlight that slanted in through the cabin door. But there was little she could do for him, now. What his body most needed was rest and the simple healing power of sleep.
“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”
KILTING HER SKIRTS, ISOLDE WADED ASHORE to wash her face and hands in a tiny stream that ran down the beach into the sea, scrubbing the blood from her hands, combing out and rebraiding her hair. When she returned, she found that Kian had spread out a meal of bread, dried fish, hard white cheese, and ale on the deck. Cabal was beside him, and Kian was speaking to the dog in a low voice, Cabal responding with soft snuffling sounds and occasional thumps of his tail. Kian looked up as Isolde came to seat herself beside him against the rail.
“He’s a good dog, this. A hunting dog, is he?”
Isolde nodded. “My husband’s hunting dog—and war-hound, as well. That’s how he comes by the scars on his back.”
Kian’s eyes went to Cabal’s smoothly muscled coat, tracing the crisscrossed lines that marked the healed cuts of Saxon swords. Then he looked up.
“Heard the king your husband was a fine fighter, too. Good man on a horse, so they said.”
Isolde held out her hand to Cabal, who came at once to sit beside her and press his wet nose against her palm. “Yes, he was.”
They ate without speaking, the only sounds the steady beat of waves, the whine of the wind, and Cabal’s contented gnawing on a bone. When Kian had done, he leaned back, fumbling for the knife at his belt, then took out a small chunk of driftwood and began to chip at it with the point of his blade. Isolde, watching, saw that it was the carved figure of a bird, the neck arched, the wings outstretched, seemingly just poised for flight.
“A seagull?” Isolde asked, breaking the long silence.
Kian nodded acknowledgment. With the tip of his knife, he started to make a series of tiny chips, creating the effect of feathers along the outstretched wings. “Can’t stand the bloody creatures, really. Make the devil of the noise with their screaming—and they’re forever dropping their filth all over the boat. Still…” He shrugged. “The wood seemed to want to take on that shape.”
“It’s very good,” Isolde told him.
Kian shrugged again. “Picked up the habit on campaign. A good many hours to fill—not much to do between marches and battle.”
“Were you in the army long?”
Kian was silent, frowning down at the little carving and flicking another chip off the unfinished wing before answering. “Enlisted as a boy. Some of the men in my unit were conscripted, but I chose to march. My father’d been an
army man—fought for Agravain’s father. Won his plot of land as reward for service.” He stopped, lifting one shoulder slightly once more. “So I signed on to fight under the same banner.”
He paused, and Isolde wondered whether he was remembering that she was, after all, still her father’s child. But Kian only squinted hard at the beak of the little bird in his lap and went on.
“I fought—and I traveled. Must have marched the whole length and breadth of Britain twice over. Even crossed over to Gaul, once. When Arthur was called over there to fight for Rome.”
He paused. This time the recollection of Modred’s name could hardly be avoided, and there was a silence while the memory of that time and the ending at Camlann hung in the salt-scented air between them. Still, Kian didn’t look angry—only thoughtful—and after a moment he went on, more to himself than to Isolde, the tip of the knife still flicking rhythmically at the carved wing.
“That’s how I met Trystan—and Hereric. After Camlann, soldiering was the only trade I knew. I signed on as a mercenary to Gorlath, one of the petty chiefs in the north country. Almost Pict country—at the edge of the great Roman wall.”
Isolde looked across at him, surprised. “Trystan was serving under Gorlath as well?”
Kian nodded. “Started out as a horse trainer. He’s a good hand with the horses, Trystan is. He was a calvaryman, though, by the time I met him.”
“How old is he?” Isolde asked. “Do you know?”
Kian frowned and shrugged. “Twenty-four? Twenty-five? He’s never said. Young to be leading troops, but he’s had a soldier’s training, somewhere or other. And he’s educated.”
“Educated?”
Kian jerked his shoulder dismissively. “Can read and write and all.”
“And you?”
“Me?” Kian looked surprised, but then he shook his head and said, with comfortable indifference, “Not a word. What use have I for all that? I can handle a sword and a knife and a bow and arrow, if I must. That’s enough for me.”
