Warrior Princess

by Frewin Jones

  “Are you hungry?” she asked Rhodri. “Can you last a while longer before we stop to look for food?”

  “Yes, and yes,” Rhodri replied tiredly. He sighed as he gazed into the west. “I keep thinking of that bag of food you gave. It’s still lying back there somewhere. It seems something of a waste, what with my stomach thinking my throat must have been cut.”

  “Animals will find it and eat it,” Branwen said.

  “Ahh,” Rhodri said heavily. “Yes. I’m sure they will—and I shall comfort myself with thoughts of fat-bellied squirrels, too stuffed with my food to move.”

  Branwen almost smiled, but she was preoccupied with the threat of pursuit. At the very latest, Iwan must have been found at first light. Prince Llew would be wild with anger. He would have sent out half his army to recapture them. And it was likely that Gavan ap Huw would be among them. It made Branwen’s heart ache that she had not been able to explain her actions to the old warrior. It must look as if she had betrayed all his kindnesses. Perhaps a time would come for her to be able to put things right between them.

  She turned in the saddle, staring up at the towering peaks. “Prince Llew is sure to have sent some men this way. That’s why I’ve been avoiding the mountain road.” She was aware of Rhodri watching her in pensive silence. “But we can’t keep climbing like this. It’s getting too dangerous. We have to make for the road now.”

  “I agree,” Rhodri said. “It won’t be much consolation to me as I plunge to my death to think how cleverly I’ve escaped the noose.”

  Branwen nodded. “To the road then,” she said. “And let’s hope the saints are watching over us.”

  Branwen crouched low on a sloping spit of rock that jutted out over the mountain road. This was the last vantage point from which they would be able to look down into the west before the road began the long, twisting journey down the eastern buttresses of the mountains. It was late in the afternoon, and the low sun was pouring golden light over the distant plains; even the shadows seemed to be aswim with dark honey. She could make out few details, except that closer by, she could see occasional stretches of the road as it wound up toward her.

  She called down to Rhodri, whom she had left holding the reins of both horses while she scrambled up to check for possible pursuit. “The road seems empty.”

  “You almost sound disappointed,” Rhodri called up.

  She turned and slid down the stone to join him again. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m just surprised.”

  “We’ve been lucky,” Rhodri said, handing her the reins. “We had half the night to get a head start on them.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “We’ll ride on a little farther, then I’ll catch us something to eat while there’s still enough light.”

  Rhodri looked dubiously at her. “Are we to eat raw meat?” he asked. “I’m hungry, but I’m not sure I’m that hungry yet.”

  “No, we’ll stop for a little while. We need to rest, and so do the horses. I have firestones with me.” She looked at Rhodri. “Don’t worry, the meat will be cooked.”

  As the lowering sun sent her shadow spinning ahead of her, she glanced uneasily over her shoulder, unable to shake the growing feeling that pursuit could not be far behind.

  34

  BRANWEN HARDLY BREATHED as she crawled along on her belly, moving as silently as a snake through the long grass. The big buck mountain hare was sitting on a rock, enjoying the warm evening, its whiskers twitching and its long ears alert. Once killed, skinned, and cooked, she knew from experience that it would make good eating.

  She had left Rhodri with the horses, using all her skill and patience to approach the hare from downwind. Now she was ready. She fitted a stone into her folded slingshot. To kill the hare with a single shot, she would need to strike it cleanly between the eye and the ear.

  She whirled the slingshot and let the stone loose. There was a swish and a hiss, and the hare was stretched lifeless in the grass. She rose from cover and walked over to the dead creature. There was a small, neat depression at its temple and a smear of blood on its nose. She lifted it by the ears, turning at the slow clop of hooves.

  “You’re very good at that,” Rhodri commented as he approached, leading the horses. “Who taught you to hunt?”

  “My brother did,” Branwen said, looping her slingshot back into her belt. “He also taught me that taking a life is a solemn thing. We kill to eat, but the death must be quick and clean. To kill for sport or pleasure is a shameful thing, be it fish, fowl, or beast.”

  Child of the Spring

  Child of the Wood

  Chase flesh, fowl, fish

  But spill no blood

  No! I won’t think about that. I’ve left Rhiannon in her sacred grove. I’ve parted forever from the Shining Ones.

  “What is it?” Rhodri asked.

  “Nothing,” Branwen said, shaking her head. “I was just thinking it’s a pity I lost Geraint’s knife.” She stooped and lifted the hare by its back legs. “This fellow needs skinning and gutting.”

  “That sword might have come in useful after all,” Rhodri said.

  “Iwan’s sword, you mean? No. A sword would be too unwieldy. But I do need something with a sharp edge.” Her hand came to the golden comb in her waistband. “Gold is a softer metal than iron,” she said, holding up the comb and looking appraisingly at it. “And the points are not so sharp as a good blade, but it might do the job.” She looked at Rhodri. “Gather some dry stuff for a fire and enough stones to make a small hearth.” She crouched, laying out the hare belly up on the ground. “Oh, and some good, straight sticks,” she added. “To make a spit.”

  Rhodri was gazing thoughtfully at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Command sits well on you,” he said. “You’re a natural leader, I think.”

  “I’m a princess,” Branwen said. “I’m used to people doing what I tell them.”

  “I dare say—but it’s more than that.”

  “Get away with you,” Branwen said. “Find stuff to make a fire, or you will be eating your meat raw.”

  While Rhodri was foraging, Branwen got busy making the hare ready for roasting. She had just finished and was cleaning her hands and the comb on some moss when Rhodri returned, empty-handed but with an excited expression on his face.

  “I found a cave,” he said, pointing back the way he had come. “The entrance is narrow; but so far as I could make out, it opens out into a large chamber. It would make good shelter while we rest.” His eyes gleamed. “And there’s more. It was too dark to see much, but there seemed to be markings on the walls.”

  “What kind of markings?”

  “Drawings,” Rhodri said. “Come and see for yourself. It’s not far. I’ll fetch the horses.”

  Branwen followed Rhodri through the deepening twilight. The cave mouth was just a slot in a broken face of gray stone. It appeared suddenly through the trees like a slice taken out of the mountain by a giant’s ax.

  She peered in at the entrance; it was wide enough to take a horse through, and five times that in height. She was able to make out the gray walls and shaled floor close by; but darkness hid the rest, and she could see no drawings on the walls.

  “It’s too dark now,” Rhodri said, standing at her shoulder. “But I did see them.”

  “We could make a fire if you’d gathered the things I asked.”

  “I did.” He pointed to a small circle of stones close by the cave mouth. Dried leaves and twigs were piled in the ring.

  Branwen knelt and took the two flint firestones and the scrap of dried kindling from the pouch at her belt. She bent double, striking the flints together so that the sparks flew. It wasn’t long before the kindling began to smolder. She blew gently on it, carefully feeding more dry stuff in until a tiny white flame sprang up.

  She offered more fuel to the flame, and soon a merry blaze was dancing in the ring of stones. It reminded her of similar fires she had lit with Geraint in the forests of her childho
od, the two of them vying to be the first to make flame.

  Mother! My fire lit first!

  Branwen picked a flaming branch off the fire and went into the cave. Rhodri had been right: The cave was huge, stretching deep into the mountain. She swung the sputtering branch. Shadows jumped and crouched like prancing demons.

  She let out a long breath as she saw the drawings spread across a wide stretch of the smooth stone wall. The drawings were of animals, daubed in pigments of yellow and brown and red and black. Branwen walked slowly along the unfolding gallery of images, her heart hammering in her chest. She had never seen anything like this! The drawings were all jumbled together, some no bigger than her hand, others drawn so large that she had to step back to take them in.

  Although the forms were strangely proportioned, she could make out many familiar creatures. There were deer and cattle, sometimes with their legs spread out as though they were galloping, sometimes standing watchfully still, and sometimes with their heads down to graze. There were twelve-point stags, and wolves running in packs, and bears rearing up on their hind legs, and hares leaping one over the other. And there were fish. Birds. Dragonflies. Frogs. An endless array of beasts crept and prowled and ran and leaped and flew along the wall.

  “Who did this?” she wondered out loud. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

  “Neither have I.”

  Branwen started at Rhodri’s voice; she had not even realized that she had spoken her question aloud, and under the eerie enchantment of the drawings she had forgotten that she was not alone.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said. “But they scare me a little.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Then Branwen saw the people.

  They were brown and black, stick-thin humans—hundreds of them, it seemed to her, covering the wall from the ground to the height of her shoulder—and they were dancing under a bloodred disk drawn high on the wall at the very edge of the torchlight. Their jagged limbs were at strange angles, their heads featureless; but every head was tilted back, as if the dancers were looking up at the red disk.

  Branwen stepped back, bumping into Rhodri.

  I know this! But why? From where?

  “Branwen? Are you all right?”

  She pointed at the flat, red circle. “What do you think that’s meant to be?”

  “The sun?” Rhodri suggested.

  “Yes, of course.” The half memory faded softly away.

  “So? Shall we use the cave?” Rhodri urged. “We could bring the horses inside. There’s plenty of room.”

  “Yes,” Branwen said distractedly, mesmerized by the red globe above her head. “Yes, do that, Rhodri. But set the fire on the far side, over there—away from the drawings.”

  She didn’t know why, but she didn’t like the idea of being too close to the dancing people. There was a wildness about them that was too intense…too passionate. Too powerful.

  “How long should we stay here?” Rhodri asked, tossing a well-chewed bone into the fire and leaning back against the wall of the cave.

  “I don’t think we can risk the mountain in the dark,” Branwen replied. “The cave mouth faces east, so we’ll see the dawn early. We should leave then. At very first light.”

  “Time enough for our hunters to catch up with us,” Rhodri pondered.

  “I don’t think so,” Branwen said. “They won’t risk trying to cross the high pass at night, not if they value their necks and the necks of their horses.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Branwen frowned. “I think I am,” she said slowly. “I don’t know why, but I feel that our luck will stay with us.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Rhodri said, turning and stretching out on his back with his head pillowed on his hands. “I’ve slept in worse places than this in the recent past—and in better places with worse prospects.”

  Branwen licked her fingers clean of the meat juices. The hare had roasted well, and it was good to have a bellyful of warm food. The horses seemed content as well, standing by the wall deeper into the cave, with their reins tied loosely around a rock. While the hare had been cooking, Branwen and Rhodri had left the cave, pulling up armfuls of fresh grass for the weary animals to eat. It was meager fare, Branwen knew, and she promised them oats and barley when they came to Garth Milain; but for the time being, grass would have to do.

  “Tell me about your parents,” Branwen prompted. “How is it you have a father from Brython and a Saxon mother?”

  “I never knew my father,” Rhodri said. “He died or escaped or was killed before I was born. The story would change according to my mother’s mood. The only thing she never wavered in was that he was a man of Gwynedd, captured by the Saxons in the wars and taken to Northumbria as a servant. Sometimes she would say that his family came from Cefn Boudan; at other times she said he was captured there but lived in some other place.”

  “And how did your mother meet him?”

  “She was a bonded servant. She was no more free than he was.” On the surface Rhodri’s voice was quite calm, but Branwen could tell that the memories troubled him. “That grim old warrior of yours was a little out in his reckoning with my accent. I was born in Northumbria, but my mother came from the kingdom of Deira; and it was her accent that I picked up as a child.”

  “I’ve never heard of Deira,” Branwen said.

  “I’m not surprised. It’s a little coastal kingdom to the east of Northumbria. It is only allowed to survive because the king pays heavy tribute to Oswald.” He gave a grim smile. “Part of the tribute is paid in bonded servants. My mother was one of them. She met my father while working the estates of Herewulf Ironfist—and I was the result. At the age of six, I was taken from my mother and became part of Herewulf’s household. I never saw her again.” He sighed. “I would have liked to have known my ancestry. Am I of warrior stock? Was he a farmer or a smithy? A charcoal burner or a traveling bard?”

  “Is that why you were making for Cefn Boudan—to find out about your family?”

  “Partly,” Rhodri agreed. “And also to put as much land between me and old Ironfist as I could.” He gave a bleak chuckle. “And here I am heading back into his loving arms. What a marvelous sense of humor fate has; it’s a wonder we don’t all die of laughter.”

  “We should sleep now,” Branwen said. Beyond the stone lips of the cave, the world was black.

  She lay down, turning her back to the fire and curling up her legs. The last things she saw before closing her eyes were the dancing folk, capering under the bloodred sun.

  35

  NOT THE SUN—THE moon!

  A bloodred moon!

  Branwen awoke with a start. She had no idea how much time had passed, but a bright, silvery light was flooding in through the cave mouth.

  “You will run in a circle, Branwen ap Griffith, and I will be there. We shall meet again in the place where the men of mud dance beneath the moon of blood. And there you will learn the truth, and perhaps a little wisdom!”

  Rhiannon’s voice echoed in her mind, bringing her as sharply awake as a splash of cold water in the face.

  The silver light filled the cave, illuminating the paintings, making their colors glow and their outlines shimmer. The men of mud danced on under the moon of blood. Branwen looked away from them. The little fire was flickering weakly, and Rhodri was still asleep with his back to her. She stood up and walked into the light.

  It was deep night, but Rhiannon was there, standing in a pool of snowy shadow, one hand on the pommel of her horse’s saddle, the other held up with Fain on her wrist. She was standing absolutely still, staring into the east with her back to Branwen.

  “You brought me here on purpose,” Branwen said.

  Rhiannon’s voice was like water falling under starlight. “No, child. You brought yourself here. I merely foretold it.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To answer your questions,” Rhiannon said. “Or perhaps to watch
the sun rise over Garth Milain for the last time.”

  Branwen stepped forward, her hands tightening to fists. “What does that mean?”

  “In fire did you leave your home, in fire shall you return.” Rhiannon turned and looked at her with eyes full of silver light. “Did you think that by running from me you could run from your own fate? The world weaves a tighter web than that, child. Have you not learned that lesson yet?”

  Anger flared inside Branwen. “All I’ve learned is that you did nothing to save my brother when the Saxons cut him down. I will never follow you, Rhiannon of the Spring.”

  “A life lost, a life saved,” said Rhiannon. “Who is to judge the right and the wrong of it?”

  “You could have saved both of us!”

  “Yours is not the saved life of which I spoke,” said Rhiannon. “Not all the stars revolve around your head, Branwen.”

  This was confusing. “If not me, then who?” Branwen asked. “Whose life was saved?”

  “The boy in yonder cave,” said Rhiannon. “If not for me, his life would have ended with the coming morn.”

  “You!” Branwen exploded. “You did nothing! I saved him. I, alone, with no one’s help—least of all yours.”

  A faint smile touched Rhiannon’s lips. “And would you have saved him were he a stranger caught wandering in the woods of Bras Mynydd? Would you have saved him were he an unknown half-Saxon vagabond dragged into the fortress of Doeth Palas to be tortured and killed?” Rhiannon’s voice grew louder. “I set the events in motion that resulted in you meeting Rhodri.”

  “How?” Branwen demanded. “How did you do that?”

  “I sent the dream that filled your thoughts as you crossed the mountains,” Rhiannon replied. “The dream drew you away from the others and left you companionless on the high pass.”

  Branwen stared at her. The dream of Geraint! Rhiannon had put it into her sleeping mind? No!