Medieval Romantic Legends

by Kathryn Le Veque

“Will you tell me about them?” Nell would have asked him about his dreams days ago, but he’d been ill, and she almost hadn’t wanted him to share them with her because once he did, they’d both be laid bare. While they’d admitted the truth to each other, what that truth entailed, and what they were going to do about it, wasn’t at all clear.

  “Do I have a choice?” Myrddin said, and then he smiled, taking the sting out of his words. He gestured to Nell with one hand.

  She closed the door behind her, and then walked to the pallet on which Myrddin lay and knelt on the end of it.

  Myrddin pushed himself upright and braced his back against the wall. “All right.” He scrubbed at his face with both hands. “Talk to me.”

  “My dreams have changed.”

  “Have they?” he said. “How?”

  “Except for that first instance, I’ve always fought as you when I dream. But since before you went to Rhuddlan, it’s been different. Sometimes you’re not even there. Last night, more men filled the clearing than before, and there were no archers. In fact—” she paused, trying to think how to say this, “—although you were there, you didn’t die.”

  “Really.” Myrddin dropped his hands to his lap. “And that’s different?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Certainly, I have no interest in dying just yet.” They sat silent for a moment, before Myrddin said, “I don’t just want to save King Arthur because I want to save Wales—I have this odd idea that if I save him, I save myself.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to die by a Saxon’s sword,” Nell said.

  “In my dream last night, I didn’t have Cadfarch,” Myrddin said. “That might be the first time. And since just before I met you, I haven’t worn a mustache.”

  Nell’s eyes widened. “And that’s my fault! But I didn’t know!”

  “No,” Myrddin said. “Only because I didn’t tell you, and yet …”

  “Does that mean that the actions we take in the real world change our dreams, which in turn indicates a new course in the future?” Nell said. “Does it mean we’re making progress?”

  “What is progress?” Myrddin said. “We have no idea if everything we’re doing right now is exactly what we need to do to ensure that King Arthur dies on December 11th. There’s no reason to think otherwise.”

  “Except that if King Arthur’s death is inevitable, why dream?”

  Myrddin snorted under his breath. “You’re assuming these dreams don’t come from the devil.”

  “Oh, yes,” Nell said. “I thought it at first, of course. I told my father of the vision the first time I had it. I ran home, screaming of the battle I’d witnessed and the dead men. Once past the clearing, the world reverted to what it had been. But when my father searched, he found nothing by the river. He was afraid for me, then.”

  “Did you ever tell a priest?”

  “Did you?”

  Myrddin gave a sharp laugh. “No.”

  “So what did you do?” Nell said. “Up until now, I mean.”

  “I came to serve the king as soon as I was able,” Myrddin said. “But otherwise, I ignored the dreams. I drank.”

  “You drank.” Nell strove to keep her voice even. “And what good was that supposed to do?”

  “Goddamn it, I don’t know!” Myrddin said. “Who am I to change the world? Who am I to have these visions?”

  Nell bit her lip as she looked at him, realizing she’d pressed too hard. “You’re Myrddin. Why not you?”

  “What about you, then?” Myrddin said, still angry. “You were doing no more than I. Less, in fact. You were leaving Wales.”

  Nell looked down at her hands folded in her lap and then back up at Myrddin. “No, I wasn’t.”

  “That’s what you told me.”

  “I lied.” Nell forced herself not to look away from Myrddin’s face.

  “You lied.” He mimicked the flatness in her tone.

  Nell nodded. “I was going to Rhuddlan, as I said, but my intent was to enter the castle.”

  “For what purpose?” Myrddin said. “As a spy?”

  Nell shrugged. “Not exactly.” She glanced away, unable to maintain eye contact. Now that it came to it, perhaps he’d find the truth far worse than his basest suspicions. She felt his gaze on her, and still she wouldn’t look at him. “I wasn’t a nun anymore, you know.”

  “Christ!” Myrddin leaned forward to grab her chin. “You weren’t going there as a spy! You were going as—as a—as a whore!”

  There it was, the truth at last. Nell pulled away, pummeled by Myrddin’s horrified stare. She shrugged again. “It was an idea.”

  “My God! What were you thinking?”

  “I’ll tell you what I was thinking!” Nell said, her anger flaring. “The solution to our problems certainly wasn’t to drink myself into a stupor every night. I was going to get close to Modred! And kill him if I could! It might even have been easy—just a knife in the back after I refilled his goblet. I might not even have had to sell myself to do it.”

  Myrddin’s mouth was open as he stared her.

  Nell gritted her teeth, determined to tell him everything. “My sisters had already suffered worse at the hands of Wulfere’s soldiers. It was the least I could do! And it was the only thing I could think of that I could do to change the future.”

  Myrddin leaned forward and gripped her arms. “You must have realized that Modred’s men would have killed you immediately afterwards.”

  “Of course.”

  “Christ!” Myrddin blasphemed again. “That was the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard!” He shook her. Once. While she glared at him, trying to hang on to her anger even though tears pricked at her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but then he put one finger to her lips to stop her, his voice softening. “And the bravest.”

  With that, she couldn’t hold back the tears. They spilled out the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks. Myrddin made a ‘tsk’ noise from between his teeth and pulled her to him. Nell wrapped her arms around his waist and sobbed into his chest.

  “Sweet Mary, mother of God, that you would think that was your only choice,” Myrddin said. “You would have died.”

  “That was, in part, the point,” Nell said. “By then I would have done anything. Anything to stop the dreams. Anything to stop King Arthur from meeting Edgar by the Cam River.”

  “Thank God I found you. I wish I’d done so long ago.”

  “You didn’t know of me,” she said. “Better that I’d tried to find you. Silly of me not to think of it. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll ever bow to a Saxon lord again!”

  The fierce tones of Lord Gruffydd carried loudly through the wall. Nell froze in Myrddin’s arms. As Gruffydd’s words sank in, they eased back from each other. Nell wished she could see right through the wall to the other side.

  “We’ve had little choice—” another voice said.

  “He’s talking to Cai,” Nell said.

  “You have had a choice!” Gruffydd hammered at him. “You would rather see Wales fall under the Saxon boot than lose an acre of what you possess? Even if Modred wins this war, you have no guarantee he will confirm you as Lord of Gwynedd. Look what has happened to Edgar of Wigmore!” Gruffydd sounded so much like Arthur, it was as if he’d become a different person.

  “That’s just one instance—”

  Gruffydd cut off Cai again. “One instance that we are to take as an example for all of us! If he can do this to his loyal cousin, the man who stood by him through every war this century, he can do it to any of us.”

  “You’ve stood at Modred’s side many times,” Cai said, still defiant and forceful. “Why not now? Why not this time?”

  “Because he betrayed me with my wife!”

  The silence in both rooms was deafening. Gruffydd had married a much younger woman after the death of Owain’s mother. His confession had Nell holding her breath, one hand clenching and unclenching around Myrddin’s a
rm. Surely they must realize that the walls had ears?

  Finally, Cai spoke again. “How do you know?”

  “She told me that he’d asked for her. When I confronted him, he laughed. He admitted he’d taken her.” Now, Gruffydd lowered his voice, forcing Nell to lean in to hear the conversation better. She pressed her ear to the wall that separated the two rooms. “He thinks he controls me.”

  “Admittedly, Modred consorts with many women,” Cai said. “It is well known.”

  “But never my woman,” Gruffydd said.

  “I can see that you are confirmed in your opinion.” Cai returned to his normal speaking voice. “I will not try to change it.”

  “And you?” Gruffydd said. “You stand beside your brother for all to see, yet you mean to tell me that you spy for Modred?”

  “I do not spy.” There was a distinct clunk against the wall. Nell imagined Cai had pressed Gruffydd to it, and she shrank back, as if Cai might be able to sense her through the wall. Ten heartbeats passed and then feet retreated across the floor. A door to the hall slammed.

  “I see,” Gruffydd said, presumably to himself.

  “I don’t see. Are we to understand that Cai’s faithfulness is a front? A sham to gain power and land?” Nell turned to Myrddin, whose jaw was set in a more grim line than she’d ever seen it.

  “Yes. That is precisely what we must understand. It is as it has always been. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  “You could tell King Arthur.”

  “Just like I can tell him about our dreams? He would not believe me, could not believe me without proof.”

  “Then Bedwyr or Geraint,” she said.

  Myrddin shook his head. “Not yet. We still have time.”

  “We hope we still have time,” she said.

  Part Three

  Of Men and Dragons

  Chapter Sixteen

  21 November 537 AD

  “Has it occurred to you that any one of these men could be your father?”

  Myrddin turned his gaze on his son, amused to find the boy’s eyes alight with mischief. “No,” but then he amended, “not for many years.”

  “Since my step-father’s death, I wondered about you often,” Huw said. “My mother told me that you served in Arthur’s forces when she knew you, but that wasn’t to say you still did. Or were even alive. I’m sure there are many Myrddins throughout Wales who wondered at the boy who questioned them about their activities when they were younger.”

  “I wish I’d been there, son.” Myrddin rested a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I can’t say it often enough.”

  “You’re here now,” Huw said.

  “So who looks most like Myrddin, Huw?” Nell sidled over to Huw and looked with him. “Huddled in the corner are those cousins named Rhys and there’s three Gruffydd’s over by the high table.”

  The other great men of Wales had come far for the meeting. Many had vacillated between Arthur and Modred over the years, depending upon who had the upper hand. Could it be that position now belonged to King Arthur?

  “Stop it, Nell,” Myrddin said. “My mother dabbled with a pig farmer. If he were noble, she would have named him.”

  Nell laughed, ignoring his protest. “I hate to say it, but I think you resemble Modred a bit.” At Myrddin’s glare, Nell laughed again. “I doubt, however, that he’s your father, as he was just four years old when you were born and even for him, that would have been mighty precocious.”

  “Thank heaven for small mercies,” Myrddin said. “How would I ever live that down?”

  They surveyed the company a while longer, and then Bedwyr and Geraint appeared. It was almost time to start the meeting. Men began filling the seats around the tables in expectation of King Arthur’s arrival.

  “Modred would murder half the people in this room, given the chance,” Nell said.

  “And how many of them will turn to him anyway, seeing an opportunity, whether tomorrow, next week, or—” Myrddin glanced at Huw, who had moved a few feet away in response to another man’s query, “—if Arthur falls?”

  Nell met his eyes, showing sympathy for what could be, squeezed his hand, and headed for the rear of the hall and her herb hut. She’d made noises about dressing in her male garb so she would be allowed to stay in the room, perhaps to serve as a page, but Myrddin had dissuaded her of it. Whether she remembered it or not, these men knew her as a former nun, and all hell would break loose if someone exposed her as a woman when she was thus disguised.

  The commotion subsided. King Arthur had ordered the tables arranged in a large square, and a sense of equivalence, if not equality, permeated the room. The king took his seat with Geraint and Bedwyr on either side of him as was his custom. Cai sat opposite Arthur, some twenty feet away, more in the position of a rival than a brother.

  As a mere knight, Myrddin was lucky to be in the hall at all. With Huw, who was doing his best to make himself as unremarkable as possible, Myrddin found a place against the wall where they could see the faces of both brothers. Unfortunately, their spot turned out to be two spaces down from Deiniol. It was too late to move, so Myrddin stayed where he was and resolved to focus on the proceedings.

  King Arthur had designated Anian, the Bishop of St. Asaph, as convener of the Assembly. Anian had spent as many years opposed to Arthur’s rule as for it, but when he’d greeted the king upon his arrival at Garth Celyn, he’d said that he’d come to his own conclusions about who should rule in Wales and that the excommunication to which he’d been a party was not the Will of God. In matters of faith, he would follow his conscience as he always had.

  Anian began with an opening prayer, calling the assembly to silence. At its completion, he made a show of unrolling the letter to the Council that King Arthur had received back from Modred on November 8th and read it aloud. The letter was short and said, in a nutshell, that Modred wouldn’t discuss what had happened on Anglesey or the status of the four cantrefs of Wales, nor would he offer the council any promises in exchange for peace other than that he would deal with them mercifully as befitted an overlord. Anian then read the secret terms Modred had conveyed to Arthur and Cai, to which they had already responded.

  By the time Anian’s voice fell silent, the room was in an uproar. Many of the lords had heard rumors of what the letters contained. Cai had made no secret of his (false) new-found hatred of Modred, but Arthur hadn’t shared the exact wording with any of his barons since that first day, wanting them all to hear it at the same time. Now, King Arthur himself had to rise to his feet to silence them.

  “I’ve already responded to Modred’s letter, as has my brother.” Arthur nodded his head to Cai, who raised a hand, in acknowledgement of his action. “As the bishop has just explained, Modred demanded that we, in exchange for peace, give up all claim to our lands in Wales and our patrimony, and to leave our subjects in the hands of the Saxons. We have, of course, refused.”

  Again the uproar and King Arthur raised his hand to settle the room. Every man perched on the edge of his seat, even those who’d never wanted to listen to the king before.

  “As a council, we must respond to Modred’s letter with one voice,” Arthur said, “but before we do, it is important that each man be allowed to air his opinions, grievances, and suggestions freely, in the company of his peers. From this hour, we all rise, or we all fall, together.”

  That calmed the assemblage somewhat. The Welsh were a more egalitarian people (at least among the elite) than many peoples, and everyone was used to this method of resolving problems. Thus, each of the lords stood in turn to state what he had won or lost in the war with Modred since the council had last met, and what he thought of Modred’s letters. Nobody was happy; the list of grievances against the Saxons grew longer with every man who spoke. Once these preliminaries were over, Anian stood again.

  “King Arthur has asked me to open discussion regarding the future of Wales,” he said. “If she is to have a future, now is the time to speak of it.”


  Utter silence fell. Then, to no one’s surprise, it was Cai who rose to his feet. “I have something to say.”

  “By all means.” King Arthur gestured that he had the floor.

  “What I want to know,” Cai said, his voice level and conversational, “is why the Council has not disowned Modred long since?” He lifted his hand to show the scroll of paper he’d received from Modred. “Is this any kind of letter to send to a member of his own family?”

  “No!”

  Myrddin craned his head to see who’d spoken, whether a supporter of Cai, or just one of the many men who knew injustice when he saw it. A number of men shook their fists, presumably at Modred.

  Huw leaned in to whisper. “That was Owain ap Gruffydd.”

  Myrddin glanced at Huw. “You don’t like him.”

  “I don’t like traitors, even when they’re on my side.”

  Myrddin smiled, hearing the echo of Cedric in Huw’s voice.

  “I say we throw off that yoke, once and for all,” Cai said. “It is well and good that we defeated the Saxons at the Strait, but Modred doesn’t yet believe himself defeated. He thinks us beholden to him, a people in rebellion. He is already measuring his head for the crown. He has called my brother a usurper, when it is he who seeks to take the crown from us!”

  “Excommunicate, by God!” That was Gareth, whom Myrddin had never pegged as one for spontaneous outbursts.

  Cai nodded. “What gives Modred the right to stand between us and our God?”

  “No right!”

  Far more heads nodded and there were more clenched fists than before. Even Huw was moved, his hands gripping his knees and his back stiff as he hung on every one of Cai’s words.

  “I say no! I say we should be free of the constraints that Modred imposes upon us. No half-Saxon lord has a right to our throne!” Cai gestured to his brother. “King Arthur has no heir of his body, but that is not to say that he doesn’t have an heir of his heart!”

  At those final words, the men around Myrddin swallowed hard, Cai paused, and Arthur gripped his goblet so tightly his knuckles whitened. Cai leaned heavily on the table, supporting his weight on both hands, and Arthur stood. When he spoke, his voice was gentle.