The Beast of Caer Baddan

by Rebecca Vaughn

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  “Very well then,” Leola said, with a warming smile. “I am going out to the garden. Would you like to go with me?”

  Gratianna shook her head from side to side as a decline.

  “God keep you,” she said, and ran off down the passageway.

  Leola walked out to the front hall, but as she crossed the wide floor, something caught the corner of her eye.

  Through the open door of one of the sitting rooms on the other side, she saw King Irael's white face and clenching hand. His eyes were wide with horror, and his lips moved as if he might cry out.

  “Father!” she cried, but her steps were too slow to be of any assistance. “Help! Help!”

  Perhaps the servants could not understand the words but the panic in her voice was clear. Leola pointed to the silent king, and all of the servants rush to his side. They laid him down on one of the cushioned benches and brought water and wine for him to drink. The steward yelled something to one of the servants, and that man rushed out the fount door.

  He has gone for a healer. This is serious indeed.

  Leola’s hand moved to make a cross.

  “Mistress?” Gytha said. “Sit down over here.”

  She took Leola’s arm and directed her into one of the other rooms.

  “What has happened to King Irael?” Leola asked.

  “The steward said that it is his heart again,” Gytha. “Hopefully the healer shall hurry.”

  Leola rubbed her protruding stomach.

  “I hope the healer can help,” she said.

  For his sake as well as my own.

  Leola did not know what she might do if King Irael were to die. His disapproving sister might wish her dead. That horrible son of hers, Prince Britu, might be willing to kill Leola. Leola did not know and prayed that she would never find out.

  The next day brought no better news of the king's condition. Throughout the night, his heart had stopped and started again with irregularity. He could no longer raise his head, but instead lay still while the healer rubbed herbs on his chest and head and forced foul tea down his reluctant throat.

  Leola prayed again for him, for that was the only thing she could do. When she finished, she made the sign of the cross, from her head to her heart and from her right to her left.

  On the morning of the second day, Leola found the king's condition improved and his manner grew cheerful.

  “Come in. Come in, Leola.” King Irael said, with a broad smile on his tired face. “I am told to rest and eat soup, so you must now eat meat for the both of us.”

  Leola had to smile at his jesting. “We were very worried for you, Father,” she said.

  “I have had far worse and lived,” the king replied. “Sit down here beside me. I have been ordered not to move but I can still talk.”

  She came into the sitting room and sat down on a chair by the bench were he lay. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “You are a Christian?”

  “Yea. I am. How did you know?”

  “You cross yourself when you pray.”

  “I do, don't I?” Leola said, and smiled again. “I think you must be the first Britisc to notice that.”

  Yet once she had spoken she knew that there had been another before. She suspected that she had made the sign of the cross when she had been sitting in the dark mead hall. She now wondered if Owain had seen that.

  “My parents converted when I was quite young,” she said aloud. “I do not remember it. They brought me up in the old way but also as a Christian.”

  “I was raised in the old ways, the pagan ways, as well, but they were Brythonic and Roman,” the king replied. “I converted to marry, for Elen was a Christian. My sister Severa and our younger brother also converted at that time, and one of my uncles had converted before, but our parents never did. My wife's family had been Christian for a long time even before it was legal to be.”

  Leola realized that he was very different from the Saex cynings, whom she knew had many wives all at once. King Irael had only one, and even when she died, he did not remarry.

  “Where were you born?” the king asked.

  “In Holton.”

  “And your siblings?”

  Leola struggled to find the words that she meant to say. “I had twin brothers younger than me, but they died soon after they were born.”

  “My younger brother died in an accident a few years ago,” the king said.

  They talked on about family, death, and war. Leola explained to him how her father had been sued in court when their goat went wild and injured a neighbor's son. The earlmann paid it out in full for him and had allowed him to repay him slowly with a part of his income every month. Then small pox had spread through the busy town of Hol and claimed many lives, including both of her parents’. Ardith, the earlmann’s daughter, had befriended her even when her status in the community had sunk to a lowly servant.

  King Irael recalled Owain's training out in the field as a boy, and the first wild boar Owain had fought.

  “He never recovered from his mother's death,” the king said. “It broke his heart. As his death has broken mine.”

  Leola felt a pang of sorrow for him.

  “Father,” she said, hesitating.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Are you ill because of Owain's death?”

  King Irael became quiet, retreating into his thoughts and for a moment Leola thought he was ignoring her.

  “I have always been physically weak,” he said at last. “Ever since that horrible fever in Gaul. War here in Glouia and my wife's death made me weaker still. And gave me gray hair. Owain was the last thing I had to live for.”

  Leola took him gently by the hand. “But you have Gratianna and this baby both,” she said. “That is much to live for.”

  “True,” he replied. “And you, Daughter. I have you to live for as well.”

  Leola's heart swelled up with joy.

  “It is just so difficult to reject both sweets and meat!” the king cried.

  He laughed, and she had to laugh as well.

  Owain squirmed in discomfort.

  “You are too warm, I think,” said that strange voice.

  It was so absent and haunting, as if it really did not expect an answer of Owain but enjoyed conversing with nothing at all.

  “Da,” Owain moaned.

  Where was his father? Where were his friends? For that matter, where was Owain himself?

  “Da,” was the only thing that escaped Owain's tired lips.

  “You are angry with me, Da,” Owain said.

  He had felt his father's grave eyes on him the entire ride back to the city. Now that they were inside the bath house, out of the presence of their clansman, Owain wished for either confirmation or contradiction of his suspicions.

  “No, never,” King Irael replied.

  “Then why are you solemn?” Owain asked.

  “You are so young to possess so much power, my son,” King Irael replied. “You do not have the maturity that usually accompanies it.”

  “You think I act like a child,” Owain said, annoyed.

  “I think you should try to consider a situation more before you call others to fight,” the king replied. “There were six deaths today, and that is a great victory, but I wonder if there needed to be six.”

  “What would you have had me do?” Owain asked.

  “Seek first the peaceful way,” the king replied. “If war comes to you, fight it and win it, but do not call men out to fight you. There is an invisible wall between hero and tyrant, a wall that my own father did not realize he had crossed. See that you never make that fateful step.”

  “Of course, Da,” Owain replied.

  “Here,” King Irael said.

  He took one of the rings off of his right hand and placed it in the center of Owain's palm.

  “What is this, Da?” Owain asked.

  “
It is the ring that my grandfather had made for me when I married your dear mother,” the king replied. “It was formed to match the design on Calybs Sword of Togadum. I want you to have it.”

  “But-”

  “Take it.”

  The king embraced Owain once more.

  “Now get out of this armor and take a long bath,” he said, with a laugh. “You smell like grass.”

  The king strode out the door, leaving the servants began to undress Owain.

  Owain mind was so consumed by his conquest, his mother's memory, and the ring in his hand that he soon forgot his father's important words.

  Chapter Thirty One: A Plot

  “Excuse me, King,” the steward said. “Eisu Lord of the Dobunni to see you. Do you want me to let him in?”

  “I shall go to my room and get my sewing,” Leola said.

  “Very well, then,” King Irael replied. “Send him in.”

  Leola went out, and the steward called the guests in to see the king.

  Lord Eisu was a tall broad shouldered man of five and thirty, with a tanned face and dark brown hair. He was dressed in the robes of a prince, with a colorful mantle draped around him and soft slippers on his feet. Prince Inam came in behind him dressed in armor as he had been before. They bowed.

  “God keep you, King Irael,” Lord Eisu said.

  “God keep you, Lord Eisu,” King Irael replied. “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “To unfortunate news and disquieting rumors. I heard that you were ill, in fact, that you might not live long.”

  King Irael laughed. “No. Fate is against that, it would seem.”

  “I thank God then.”

  “Please, sit.”

  Lord Eisu and Prince Inam took the chairs opposite of him.

  “I should not wish to distress you, with your illness, King,” Lord Eisu said, “but my chieftains are angry with these new appointments of yours. The Mayor of Gloui a Silarae and the Mayor of Ceri a Catuvelanni. It is an affront to the Dobunni people.”

  “Do not be offended, Lord Eisu,” King Irael said. “I chose those men because of their abilities not their tribes.”

  “I know that well, King,” the lord replied. “But my chieftains do not understand. They wish for an explanation of me. I could silence them but where is the harmony of that?”

  “No. No. Of course not,” King Irael said. “What would you have me do?”

  “Attend the Circle of Chieftains this month,” Lord Eisu said. “Show them that you respect us as any other tribe. Show them that you are concerned for them as their king. That you have forgiven and forgotten the past.”

  “That is a wise counsel, Lord Eisu.” King Irael replied. “I shall attend the Circle of Chieftains of the Dobunni.”

  “Good. You are sure that the travel shall not be too exuberant for you?” the lord asked.

  “I will be up in a week, Lord,” the king replied. “It shall be a slow journey but not a difficult one. You may depend upon my presence.”

  “Thank you, King Irael. God keep you.”

  “God keep you, Lord.”

  The guests rose, bowed to the king, and departed.

  King Irael called his scribe to him to mark the date, lest he should forget it.

  As Leola strode back down the passageway toward the front hall, she heard two men's voices whispering to each other just ahead of her.

  “King Irael must die, Eisu,” one said.

  “Patience, Brother. He shall,” Lord Eisu replied. “On the twenty eighth.”

  “Then, we shall do it?”

  “Silence. Say nothing here.”

  Leola saw the men whom she assumed were the Lord of the Dobunni and his brother, Prince Inam. Prince Inam glanced past Lord Eisu into the passageway and stared right into Leola's eyes, as she stopped out of the darkness.

  “Has she heard me?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  Lord Eisu looked over at Leola, but the concern in his eye soon melted to pleasantries.

  “It matters not if she hears, Brother,” Lord Eisu replied. “She does not understand any of it. Look at her. She is a Saxon barbarian. She might know Brythonic, but certainly not Latin. We are safe.”

  They turned to her then, and with gracious bows, greeted her in Brythonic.

  Leola smiled, guessing they had said “God keep you,” and nodded her head to them.

  Then they departed in silence.

  Leola's slow steps took her back into the sitting room, where King Irael waited.

  “Father, was that Lord Eisu?” Leola asked.

  Her heart was beating fast, pounding in her chest. She felt her hands shaking and clenched them to be still.

  “He is,” King Irael replied. “And one of his younger brothers, Prince Inam. It is only politics and soon shall pass.”

  She stared at him and saw from his worried expression that he read her fear on her face.

  “Daughter! You are pale!” he cried. “What is it? The baby?”

  “No,” she gasped.

  What shall I do? I must tell him, but will he believe me?

  Leola returned to her seat and bowed her head that he might not see the dread rising up in her eyes.

  “He said he was going to kill you,” she said.

  “What?” King Irael said, with a start. “Why do you say that?”

  “They spoke of it briefly in Latin. They did not know that I understand it.”

  “Of course they did not,” the king replied.

  He was silent as if contemplating her words, and Leola thought him oddly calm for one who was marked to die.

  “What else did they say?” the king asked.

  “Something about a number,” she replied.

  “The twenty eighth.”

  Leola nodded. “I don't understand what they meant.”

  King Irael took a deep breath and rubbed around his collar bone. He seemed to be in more physical pain then mental turmoil.

  “On the twenty eighth of each month, the Circle of the Chieftains of the Dobunni meets,” he said. “Lord Eisu has just requested that I attend this next one, in two weeks.”

  “What shall you do?” Leola asked.

  “I shall have to forgo the pleasure,” he replied, and gave a hearty laugh. “I'm not a rash young boy to go rushing in where I know there is danger. I have done my fighting. That is all. Do not think of it again, Daughter.”

  Leola breathed a sigh of relief. She did not believe that such a sick man should take that risk. But she had to wonder why he believed her over great princes of his own people.

  “What is it, Leola?” he asked, sensing that it still troubled her.

  “You never questioned his disloyalty, Father?” she asked.

  “I have no reason to doubt your honesty,” he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders. “Besides, Lord Eisu proved long ago to be opportunistic.”

  Leola noticed how quiet and absent he became as he said those words.

  “Now, put it from your mind,” the king continued, brightening up once more. “We shall talk of other things.”

  “Gratianna?” Leola said.

  She found the child curled up into a tiny ball between an overgrown ash tree and the garden wall.

  “What is wrong, Dearest?” Leola asked.

  “What?" Lady Gratianna sobbed.

  “Why do you weep?”

  “I killed him!” she screamed.

  Leola was horrified at these words.

  Killed him! Killed who? How could a three-year-old child possibly kill someone?

  “What are you talking about, Dearest?” Leola asked.

  But Lady Gratianna was too upset to give an intelligible answer.

  “Grandfather!” she finally cried, and continued to weep.

  “Shh, there,” Leola said. “Don't be sad. He is going to be well again.”

  Leola knelt down in the grass and tried to comfort Gratianna, her heart turning in pain over the sight of such a little child in so much agony.

  “No!” Gra
tianna screamed, batting her hands away. “I wanted him to die, and now he shall die and it's my fault!”

  “What? Why? Gratianna-”

  The girl showed her what was hidden in the folds of her skirt. It was a smooth oval shaped gray stone.

  “What is this?” Leola asked, confused as to what a rock had to do with King Irael's illness.

  “A wishing stone!” the child cried.

  “Oh, of course,” Leola said, although she did not know what that was. “What is wrong with it?”

  “I turned it over every night so that grandfather would die! And now he is sick and shall die!”

  You what? Why would you do that?

  But Leola realized that chastising the child would not produce the answer she required.

  “He is not going to die right now, Dearest,” Leola said, trying to soothe her. “Let us turn it over every morning and say a prayer for him to live.”

  Gratianna stared at her with two huge questioning eyes.

  “I… can do that?” she said.

  “Certainly you can,” Leola replied, with an assurance she did not feel. “It is a wishing stone, after all.”

  “It is…”

  “And you wish for grandfather to live,” Leola prompted.

  “I do!” and the child laid it down on the ground. “Please let grandfather get better because I don't want him to die anymore.” She looked up at Leola as if to say, “Did it work?”

  “There,” Leola said. “All better now.”

  “Really?”

  “I believe so.”

  “I love you, mama!”

  Gratianna scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around Leola's neck.

  “Oh!” Leola said, her eyes swelling with tears. “I love you too, Gratianna.”

  She did not know if the child had been encouraged to call her that by her nurse or King Irael or if she had come up with it on her own. Whichever way, Leola did not care. Gratianna was now her own. That was all that mattered.

  “You are not dead, I think,” said that strange lacking voice. “Not dead. You must rest now, you must.”

  Owain felt a rough blanket cover him and a gentle hand on his burning forehead.

  “You must sleep, I think,” the voice continued.