What she could see were several bodies sprawled in the dirt, two inside the gatehouse and a third ten paces from Nell’s hiding place. That body lay face down in the mud. Nell assumed this sister was dead along with the others until the woman moved a hand. Nell sprang to her feet, sprinted the distance between them, and fell to her knees beside the woman. She turned her over to reveal Ilar’s battered face.
Ilar opened her eyes. “Nell.” She raised her hand to touch Nell’s chin and then dropped it.
“What—?” Nell stopped. It was pointless to ask what had happened. Any fool could see it.
“Annis is dead. All the others,” Ilar said. “I thought you died in the chapel.”
“We used the tunnel. Mari and some of the novices are safe in the barn this side of Coed Mawr.”
“Coed Mawr?” Ilar lifted her head as if she wanted to stand and come with Nell; as if she hadn’t bled out through the long gash along her right side. “No—” She fell back and moaned, rocking her head from side to side.
“What’s wrong? ‘No’—what?” Nell grabbed Ilar’s shoulders, wanting to shake her, but her hands came away bloody. She stared at her fingers, and then at Ilar’s face. Ilar had closed her eyes again.
“They know of it.” Ilar just managed to get out the words. “Annis told Wulfere about the tunnel—” Her head sagged to one side, spent.
Nell put a hand to Ilar’s neck. Her pulse faltered and then stopped. Nell sat back on her heels, straightened Ilar’s dress, and wiped her hands on the damp cloth of the skirt. Her stomach rebelled to know that even though no trace of blood remained, she could still feel it on her fingers.
Swallowing hard, she pushed the thought away. She had no time for a more proper remembrance and rose to her feet, searching the landscape for any sign of Wulfere’s solders. Why did I leave the barn? They’ll have no chance without me!
No movement caught her eye, either at the convent or in the distance, but then—There! Along the road! A company of Wulfere’s men rode northeast, away from their camp and towards the spot where Nell had hidden her companions.
“No!”
Nell screamed the word. Knowing it was useless, that she’d never reach the barn in time, but unable to stop the cry or her tears from tumbling down her cheeks, Nell ran back the way she’d come. She stumbled and sobbed through the muddy fields and stands of trees, only staying on her feet over the rough terrain because she couldn’t bear not to—until reason reasserted itself.
She pulled up, having run two-thirds of the distance back to the barn. Breathing hard, as much from horror as from the exertion, she rested her cheek against the smooth bark of a willow tree, cool against her flushed face. She tightened her arms around the slender trunk, holding on for dear life, and gazed across the last two hundred yards to the entrance to the barn.
She had led her sisters to safety, only to abandon them to their fate. The completeness of her failure overwhelmed her as Wulfere’s soldiers hauled the helpless girls and women out of the barn, arms wrenched behind their backs. When Wulfere’s men had pillaged and burned the convent the night before, the majority of the women they’d encountered had been older or weakened like those in the infirmary. These were more to their liking.
Her sisters’ screams echoed across the fields and into her ears; Nell sank to her knees in the long grass, her arms around her waist and her head bowed. She couldn’t help them nor watch any longer. She leaned forward and sobbed.
Chapter Three
4 November 537 AD
“Get over here, Myrddin!”
I urged my horse across the clearing, through the ankle-deep snow and towards Gawain, the captain of my lord’s guard. He resembled a greyhound, whip-thin but muscled …
“I fear the weather will turn worse this evening.” Lord Aelric tucked his fine, grey cloak closer around himself. “You’ll have a cold ride home.”
Myrddin blinked at the man, his breath choking him, trying to recover from the sudden shift in perspective. He gritted his teeth, stunned by the dramatic transition from dream state to consciousness. The vision of his defeat at the church had come so clearly to him, passing in front of his eyes with such intensity that he’d forgotten where he was. That had never happened to him before.
“Rain in the lowlands; snow in the hills,” Myrddin said, in Saxon, thankful that Aelric hadn’t noticed his inattention.
The battle had occurred only in his mind—in a flash of understanding—and hardly ten heartbeats had passed in the real world in the time it took for him to fight and die inside his head. Myrddin took in a deep breath to ease his pounding heart. The vision had been clearer and more real than any he’d experienced before. Myrddin knew, even if he was loath to admit it, that his dreams pressed on him more every day. They were getting worse—not to mention more demanding in their urgency that he do something. Yet as little more than a journeyman knight in the king’s company, he didn’t know what that something might be.
He maintained his seat on his horse, Cadfarch, and rode between the two grey standing stones that marked the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen. This was the highest point on the road that led from Garth Celyn, King Arthur’s seat on the northern coast of Eryri, east to Caerhun and then across the Conwy River into the part of Gwynedd controlled by Modred. They’d reached the high moor, long since denuded of trees, but the windswept countryside provided a magnificent contrast to the mountains behind them and the sea in the distance. Rain was normal for Wales this time of year, and every time of year for that matter, but it had abated today.
Myrddin’s answer satisfied Lord Aelric, who continued to saunter down the road with Myrddin, their horses at a steady walk. Three other knights followed. Myrddin hadn’t spoken to them since he’d led them out of Garth Celyn, and they’d been content for him to entertain their master.
“I’ve never liked passing among the pagan stones,” Lord Aelric said, once the stones lay behind them and the company had headed down the hill towards the Conwy River valley, still green in places despite the imminent winter weather. “I’ll suggest that Lord Modred pull them down in due course, once your king has bowed to the inevitable.”
He shot a glance at Myrddin, a sneer on his lips. Lord Aelric was baiting Myrddin and waited to see if Myrddin would respond to his arrogance. Aelric had no qualms about speaking his mind and keeping any Welshman in his place, one far below his. Myrddin kept his face expressionless.
As he’d just reminded himself, Lord Aelric was counselor to Modred, and Myrddin was a middle-aged warrior, worn around the edges from a lifetime of warfare and rough living. From an impoverished, if noble, beginning, he’d risen among the ranks of Arthur’s company. Thanks to his reckless courage as a young man, King Arthur had knighted him after a battle in his twenty-fourth year. At the time, it had served to increase Myrddin’s devotion to him. Since then, that devotion had been tempered by a certain, frank realism. Twenty years of war—and dreams of death—did that to a man.
“The populace will object, my lord,” Myrddin said, his voice mild.
Aelric sniffed, indicating what he thought of the populace. Myrddin smoothed the mustache that grew along each cheek, less flamboyantly than many a Welshman’s but still of considerable size. Then it struck him that in his dream, he no longer wore it. Had that always been the case? Myrddin had dreamt the fight so many times he’d memorized it. Or thought he had.
Twenty miles later and after hours of stilted conversation—such that Myrddin feared he’d bitten right through his tongue in his attempts to contain what was in his mind—the road connected to another one running north/south, which would take Aelric the remaining miles to Denbigh. By the time they reached the crossroads, the sun had nearly set. Although Aelric urged Myrddin to continue on to Denbigh Castle, he declined. His king had given him his orders and they didn’t include dinner in Modred’s hall—in a castle that a few weeks ago had belonged to Arthur’s brother, Cai. That Cai had been more treasonous than not over the years was beside the point, sinc
e he again fought at King Arthur’s side. Myrddin didn’t think he could have stomached any more of Aelric’s company anyway.
The troop of men flowed around Myrddin without a second look. As they disappeared around a bend, he gazed after them, unseeing. The first time he’d had the dream of the king’s death—and his own—he’d been no more than twelve. At the time, he’d come awake shocked and alert, with his heart racing, although part of him had thrilled at the vision of the future, of battle, and that he’d fought for Arthur.
He’d had the dream perhaps a dozen times between twelve and twenty. Fifteen years ago, however, the dreams had begun to change, becoming darker in intent, richer in color, and yet more stark, the white snow standing out against the blackness of the forest. They’d also grown more detailed, more urgent and, unfortunately, more common.
Lost in thought, Myrddin drifted to the edge of the road and into the trees that lined it. Cadfarch willingly cropped the grass that crept between the stones, unconcerned when Myrddin dismounted to leave the reins trailing. The war horses in Wales were bred smaller and more versatile than their Saxon counterparts so as to more easily navigate the rocky and uneven ground on which the Welsh lived and fought. Many a night Cadfarch had slept outside rather than in a stable.
At first, Myrddin sat on the edge the road, his knees drawn up. Then, as darkness descended, nearly complete since clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon, he lay on his back and stared upwards into the nothingness.
Over the years, Myrddin had learned to push the dream away, denying it, even as it dogged his steps. Yet, because it had come so much more frequently in the past year, every week certainly, sometimes every day, he could no longer ignore it or take it as casually as he wished. Just two days ago, Myrddin had downed enough wine and mead to blind a giant in hopes of heading off the vision, only to awaken halfway through the night in a cold sweat.
Even as he pushed the events of December 11th aside, going about his business as if that day wasn’t fast approaching—as if the dream was just a dream—he’d finally begun to admit the truth.
It wasn’t just a dream.
Myrddin focused on the leaves above his head. Who was he to see like this? He was a nobody. His mother, the orphaned daughter of a landless knight, had lived as a lady-in-waiting in the household of a minor Welsh lordling. She’d birthed him out of wedlock. The Welsh ignored illegitimacy provided a father acknowledged his offspring, but Myrddin’s mother had died at his birth before she revealed his father’s identity. Consequently, he grew up an orphan in the lord’s house, living off the scraps of the high table and grateful to have received even that.
At the same time, Myrddin was Welsh. It was in his blood to see. Didn’t the priests speak often of the native saints, whose visions had led them on despite the death and despair that surrounded them? Myrddin snorted under his breath at that thought. He might be many things, but a saint wasn’t one of them.
Myrddin could have lain beside the road the whole night, his limbs growing stiff from the cold ground despite the warmth of his wool cloak, if a woman’s scream hadn’t split the air and forced him back to life. The depth of fear in her cry carried her panic through the trees to where he lay. Myrddin was on his feet in an instant. He threw himself onto Cadfarch’s back, turned him in the direction from which the sound had come, and urged him forward.
Myrddin couldn’t see a damned thing in the dark, but Cadfarch’s eyes were more capable than his at night. The horse raced unerringly along the road at a gallop, his head pushed forward and his tail streaming behind him, while Myrddin pressed his cheek against the horse’s neck.
Ahead, off the road in a cleared, grassy patch, a torch flickered, revealing the shapes of three people hovering over a fourth. The woman hadn’t screamed again, but she writhed on the ground before them and even managed to lash out with her foot at one of the men, who cursed aloud. “St. Dewy’s arse! I’ll teach y—”
But the man didn’t finish his sentence. As Cadfarch’s hooves pounded on the stones of the road, the three men rose to their feet and turned to look at Myrddin. One reached for his sword, but the other two men were unarmed, having strapped their weapons to their saddlebags in preparation for molesting the woman.
Myrddin raised his sword and swung it at the armed man, who stupidly chose to stand his ground and catch Myrddin’s sword against his. The force of Myrddin’s blow threw him backwards and, before he could recover, Myrddin flung himself off Cadfarch to land hard in the grass.
Without pausing for breath, Myrddin slipped his sword under the knight’s ribs. The blade slid in easily since, while the man may have worn a sword, indicating his high status, he’d neglected his armor this evening. Perhaps, like his companions, he thought he’d have little need of it, and it would only hinder him in his carousing.
Myrddin pulled the sword from the man’s midsection and looked around for more men to fight, but the other two were already away. Well-horsed, and in train with a third horse, now masterless, they raced north along the road to Rhuddlan, preferring an ignominious departure to facing down an armed and angry knight.
The woman crouched in a ditch where she’d come to rest, her hands in front of her mouth and her eyes wide and staring. The dress she wore might once have been fine but the men had ripped the fabric from neck to waist, revealing her shift. At least no blood marred the front. Her eyes were shadowed but Myrddin didn’t know if the cause of that was the torchlight or men’s fists.
“It’s all right.” He spoke in Welsh, guessing at her nationality. “You’re safe.”
“I never thought—” she began in the same language, and then stopped, swallowing hard. “I didn’t think anyone would come.”
“I heard you scream.” Myrddin took a step nearer and though the woman shrank from him, she didn’t run away.
Moving slowly, as if she were a wild animal rather than human, Myrddin put a hand under her elbow and urged her to stand. Once upright, the top of her head didn’t even reach his chin. Then he stepped back, thinking to keep his distance so as not to frighten her.
“Let me take you home.” Myrddin checked the road. No sign remained of the men who’d run but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by, waiting for a second chance. It made sense to hurry.
The woman didn’t respond, so he grasped her left arm and urged her towards Cadfarch. Her feet, thankfully still shod in well worn-boots, stuck to the earth at first, but he got her moving and was glad that she wasn’t in such shock that she ran away screaming. Myrddin had lived a long and varied life, but even for him that would have been a first.
Myrddin bent to wipe the blade of his sword on the tail of the dead man’s cloak and then sheathed the weapon. The torch the men had carried sputtered in the grass beside the man’s body, so Myrddin picked it up in order to hold it close enough to illumine both the woman’s face and his. The light had almost burned out, but he still needed it. He wanted her to see that he wouldn’t hurt her, and he needed her to talk.
“Tell me your name.” He lifted the torch high. “And where you’re from.”
The woman pulled the ends of her torn dress together and then crossed her arms across her chest, shivering in the night air. Myrddin loosened the ties that held his cloak closed at the neck, removed it, and swung it around her shoulders so that the fabric enveloped her. She clutched at it while Myrddin lifted the hood to hide her hair which had come loose from the chignon at the back of her head. He didn’t bother trying to find her linen coif.
Myrddin gazed at her and then swept his eyes up and down to take in her appearance from head to foot. It was only then that the woman finally raised her eyes from the ground. They were a deep green that complemented her hair, and Myrddin acknowledged that he was correct in his initial assessment: she was beautiful.
He guessed that she was close in age to him, although she could have been younger. The events of the night had hollowed her cheeks and eyes but time and warmth could reveal her youth. Her diction, given the
few words she’d spoken, was that of an educated woman.
“My name is Nell ferch Morgan. And I have no home.”
“But you must have once,” he said. “Did the Saxons turn you out of it?”
That, of all things he could have asked, garnered a real response. To Myrddin’s relief, it wasn’t tears she expressed, but anger.
“I come from the convent at Llanfaes, on the Island of Anglesey. The Saxons burned the Abbey to the ground and defiled the grave of Queen Gwenhwyfar.” Nell spit out the words, her biting tone compressing all her hatred of the Saxons into one sentence.
“You’ve come far.” Myrddin didn’t even blink at the Saxon sacrilege. Their barbarity was well-practiced and well known among his people. “Where is your father? Your family?”
“Dead,” she said.
“And the rest of your sisters?”
“I don’t even want to say.” Nell looked away from Myrddin now, her sadness conquering her anger. “They’re dead too. I knew of what the Saxons were capable, but we were too vulnerable—too unprepared for when they came. I managed to hide a few of my sisters at first, but—”
“But what?”
Nell gazed down at her shoes again, and a tear dropped onto the rough, brown leather covering her left foot. “I left them. I thought they would be safe in a nearby barn, so I went to see what had become of the convent after we escaped. To find other survivors. In my absence, the Saxons found them. And—and—” Nell stuttered, swallowed hard, and finished, even if Myrddin already knew what she was going say, “—took them.”
Myrddin studied Nell’s down-turned head, going over her tale in his mind. The garrison at Garth Celyn had smelled smoke blowing across the Strait, but the fog and rain had been so unrelenting, they’d not known what was happening. Perhaps, in Myrddin’s absence, the king had received word of this atrocity today. “You must come to Garth Celyn.”
Although she’d expressed no fear of him up until now, Nell paled. She shook her head and took a step back. “I don’t think so.”
Medieval Romantic Legends Page 39
