by Carol Browne
He took half a dozen steps backwards so nobody would hear him as he whispered to the blade. Then he offered the weapon, hilt first, to the highest-ranking elder. “Llewellyn?”
The old man regarded him with a puzzled frown. Godwin’s unflinching gaze, however, drew him to his feet. He approached and grasped the hilt of the sword. Godwin bared his left arm.
“Cut me. As hard as you like.”
Llewellyn’s eyebrows lifted in horror. “I cannot! Aidan, there is no need for this!”
“Do it!” snapped Godwin.
The elders stiffened round the fire and became as silent as stones. Then Llewellyn moistened his lips.
“I cannot do it,” he said.
“Then let me do it!” said Aled. He ran up and snatched the sword from Llewellyn. “I will try this heathen’s mettle, and I am stronger than you!” A smug smile stretched his lips. “Shouldn’t you brace yourself, brother?”
“Get on with it,” said Godwin. “I haven’t got all day.”
Aled’s grin faltered, and then a cruel frown scored his brow. He lay the cutting edge of the blade on his brother’s naked flesh, and with obvious relish, he sliced the sword along Godwin’s arm.
Godwin felt the drag of the blade, and its dull scrape set his teeth on edge.
The elders gasped in sick horror, and a flash of lightning ripped through the sky and lit up the night.
Aled and Llewellyn both looked in disbelief at Godwin’s arm, and he held it out for them all to see. There was no cut, no injury of any kind.
Godwin repossessed the sword and stepped to the edge of the shelter. He struck at one of the sturdy stanchions that held up the wooden roof. It offered no resistance, and the sword cut through it. The elders recoiled as the roof collapsed on one side, lacking the broken spar’s support.
“So there!” snickered Grimalkin.
Perhaps he should chide himself for showing off in front of these people, but Godwin was unaccustomed to such a feeling of power, and he wanted to savour it.
Llewellyn stepped forwards.
“No one can doubt your identity now, Aidan,” he said, “so if you refuse to lead us, we must decide what we are to do.”
Something shifted the old man’s gaze. Godwin turned to see Angwen and Trystin walking towards the shelter. Both of them were soaked to the skin.
Angwen stepped into the shelter, a distraught look in her eyes. “Morvyth is dead.”
Her gaze was directed at the elders, but she was looking straight through them. Godwin heard gasps of shock behind him as the elders digested the news. Angwen turned towards him, but embarrassment prevented him from holding her gaze for long.
Aled strode up to his sister. “Here is our new leader.”
Angwen shook her head. “No, it was Morvyth’s wish, her dying wish, that Aidan be our chief.”
Godwin avoided the elders’ eyes. On top of everything else, would he now be forced to disregard a dying woman’s last, desperate wish?
“How can he lead us?” protested Aled. “He is a stranger, a Saxon spy, a heathen!”
Angwen glared at her brother. “Aidan is a warrior. Morvyth believed that when our people fight back against the Saxon hordes, only men like Aidan can lead us.”
Godwin gaped in horror. Battling against the Saxon hordes? As well might an ant try to hold back the ocean!
“When Aidan’s friend has disposed of Vieldrin,” Angwen continued, “we must begin our search for our people, for they are strong and many in number. Aidan will lead us west to their strongholds, and we will flourish as before. Then we will prepare for the war that will rid us of these Saxons forever.”
Everyone but Godwin welcomed these words. It was so remote from what really concerned him. He wanted to know where Elgiva was, what was happening to her. Unable to endure another moment, he left the shelter. Lurching into motion, Grimalkin lumbered after him.
The rain was now transforming the earth to a sticky slime that foiled all desire for haste. He had barely measured out three yards when Aled intercepted him.
“Where are you off to, Saxon-lover?”
Rage erupted in Godwin’s breast. Lashing out with the back of his hand, he sprawled the youth in the mud, and before Aled could get to his feet, the lethal tip of Taranuil was resting against his throat. Aled’s eyes were round with fear.
“Carve his tripes out,” suggested Grimalkin.
Godwin couldn’t help smiling at this. Aled clearly mistook his amusement for a sneer of cruelty, and his lower lip began to tremble.
“I have only to say one word,” Godwin said, “and I’d have the power to cut you into a hundred pieces, and with no more effort on my part than it takes to cut up a rotten apple, but because you’re my brother, I’ll spare you. It’s your youth that makes you so insolent. But Aled, mark me well. That won’t excuse you forever. You’ll have to learn some tact and humility if you wish to live as long as these elders. Now get up, you arrogant little worm, and be assured, the next insult you hurl at me will be your last, I promise you.”
Aled gasped with frustrated anger, but he was powerless to protest. Dragging himself from the mud’s wet clench, he shambled back to the fire.
Godwin turned to the elders with a weary sigh. “You have to play along with Vieldrin while those entrusted with the task do what they can to cause his downfall. You’ve done your part by sheltering us. As for the question of choosing a leader, I refuse to accept the title and grant that honour to Angwen, if she will take it.”
They were hanging on his every word, and for the first time in his life, he felt fully the master of a situation. His confidence took him by surprise.
“You can’t remain as you are,” he said, “insular and suspicious. There are changes happening in this land, and they won’t pass you by forever. My knowledge of the Saxon ways might have helped you fight them, but that self-same knowledge tells me such a fight would be useless. The Saxons are here to stay, and they are unstoppable. But there are other ways of defeating an enemy apart from slaying him in battle.” He hoped they understood, but the elders merely stared at him.
With that, he walked away, squelching through the mud, and made for Angwen’s hut. Trystin and Grimalkin followed, like his personal retinue, and Angwen hurried to join him. She caught him by the sleeve. With a frown of vexation, he turned to face her and rivulets of rainwater ran into his eyes, forcing him to squint so that his sister appeared as little more than a benighted blur. But he was relieved not to see her eyes; they were bound to be raw with entreaties.
“Aidan, do not leave us,” she said. “Not after so many years apart. God has sent you to us.”
“Perhaps he has,” said Godwin, “but you misread his purpose, sister.”
“Aidan, brother . . . ”
He seized her by the shoulders, determined to make her understand, but a flare of lightning showed him her face, livid with pain and loss. He grasped her hand and made for the hut.
Together, they stumbled into her dwelling, and Angwen rekindled the fire. Before Godwin could close the door, Grimalkin squeezed her way over the threshold and stood against a far wall. Godwin caught Angwen looking at him askance, clearly puzzled by his lack of reaction to the pony’s intrusion, but he didn’t have the energy to explain. He merely closed the door behind Grimalkin and moved to the fire to warm himself. For a time, he and Angwen stood in an uncomfortable silence while steam plumed from their wet clothes.
“Angwen—”
“Aidan, I—”
“No, Angwen, listen, please. I’m leaving as soon as Elgiva returns.” Godwin met her gaze, and she blushed. “I think it’s best.”
“Forgive me, brother.” She looked away.
“No, Angwen.” He relaxed and put his arm around her. “It’s you who must forgive.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “How were we to know?”
Godwin sighed. “I’ve wronged you, sister.”
She frowned at him, searching his face.
“Yes,” he sai
d. “Before I knew we were brother and sister, I was false in my dealings with you. My heart and my duty lie elsewhere. I’m already married. I have a Saxon wife.”
“A Saxon wife?”
“Angwen, you are still very young, and when this evil is removed, your people will be able to travel and trade again. You’ll find someone to help you lead them.”
She nodded, but the gesture lacked conviction.
“I’ve too many duties elsewhere,” he said. “Not only a wife, but children, too. And leadership ill becomes me, Angwen. This is your destiny, not mine.”
Clearly uncertain, she chewed her lower lip. He hugged her to him and stroked her hair.
“You told me once that your village was dying and you’d lost too many elders,” he said, “but that’s no reason for despair. It means you can start afresh. Some of the old ways may have been lost, but they aren’t always the best ways. You need to find new ones, and I know you have the strength to do it. I ask you to take this burden from me, in the name of the blood we both share.”
She studied his face and then smiled and hugged him. “I gladly accept, then, brother, because it is your wish, but I shall always think of you as leader of this tribe, no matter where you are. I will lead the tribe on your behalf, and your humility will be my guide.”
He kissed her brow, and it struck him how like Elgiva she was. Both were too young to be weighed down by frightening responsibilities, yet both had unquenchable inner strength, and neither of them knew it. Both of them needed his love and support. How cruel that he must choose between them. Crueller still that he had to abandon his long-lost family yet again.
Deserting people had become a way of life for him.
For a while they stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, as if they knew this embrace would be their last.
She lifted her eyes to his. “Will you return to us?”
“Who knows what the future holds?”
“God be with you, brother,” she said, in a small, but courageous voice.
“And with you, sister,” said Godwin.
She stepped towards the door, and then she looked back, smiling. “You are wrong, Aidan.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Leadership becomes you well.”
With a sigh, Godwin turned back to the fire just as Trystin entered the hut carrying a basket, which he set upon the floor beside Godwin. It was a few moments before he realised the elfling was offering him some bread. He put his arm round Trystin’s shoulders.
“I’ve been ignoring you, haven’t I? I’m sorry, Trystin.”
“I did say he was bored,” snorted Grimalkin. “Not that anyone gives a mare’s cuss.”
Godwin refused to be baited. “The storm’s here for the night, Trystin, and unfortunately for us, we’re far too kind-hearted to leave a poor creature out to fend for itself, so we’re holed up here with some rather dubious company until it stops.”
“I was thinking the same myself,” said Grimalkin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Elgiva had to be near the top of the hill by now, but blinded by rain, it was hard to tell. The hill was steeper and taller than it had appeared from the ground, and before she had even reached it, she had braved Vieldrin’s enchantment and broken through, and this had cost her dearly. During her ascent, the loose shale shifted constantly underfoot, while sharp rocks scraped the skin from her hands. Only blind determination kept her toiling upwards in defiance of her exhaustion.
A loud concussion in the sky made her heart leap into her mouth, and she had to rest again while blood pounded in her ears. Too many rest stops. She must keep going.
She closed her hand around Siriol, and it answered her need with a glow of heat. It had to be Bellic. It had to be. Because if not . . .
She strained to see through the helm-cloud that covered the top of the hill, but it hid the summit like a cloak, concealing whatever promises her fevered mind had imagined. All she could do was clamber on. She ignored the smart of her bruises and cuts, the pain in her lungs, and the flashes of lightning. She was almost there; she had to keep moving.
A hint of light at the top of the hill flooded her mind with relief and hope. She heaved herself higher, and spasms of pain tormented her arms and shoulders, while the guttural boom of thunder roared at her toiling form. She stopped and squinted through the darkness.
Some yards ahead, a tall, dark shape stood on a narrow ledge. A cave behind the figure gave off a warm and inviting glow. The figure bent towards her, and its long robe fluttered in the wind, the trailing sleeves and voluminous hood hiding its face and limbs.
“You have come this far, my child,” said the figure. The voice was familiar, yet it had a strangely hollow quality. “A few feet more, that is all.”
She struggled on in desperation, scrabbling for holds on the slippery rocks, and her breath sobbed in her throat. “Please,” she begged. “Your hand!”
“Alas, I cannot!”
“But I can’t make it. I can’t!”
“Do not surrender now, my child. A little more effort, and then you can rest.”
The figure turned and was gone. She tried to call him back, but her voice was a feeble croak. With one last pained exertion, she managed to reach the ledge. Crawling on all fours, she entered the cave, collapsed on the floor, and let out a groan of relief.
Then, like a stone, she dropped into darkness. It covered her like peace, and she lay for some time in welcome oblivion. At length, she heard a caring voice, and it lifted her into the light.
“Forgive me, child. I can do nothing to remedy your distress.”
Elgiva lifted her head, and her senses drew into focus. In front of her, the heat of a cheery fire bled warmth into her bones. When the tightness in her chest had eased, she sat up and scanned her surroundings.
The cave was bleak, its only sign of habitation a trestle bed, but the bare frame showed it hadn’t been used. The rear of the cave tapered away into blackness, and only an overhang of rock protected the cave from the weather. To her surprise, Elgiva saw a raven sitting on a ledge, and to her right, chewing its cud, was a goat with curling horns.
“Greetings,” croaked the raven.
“Greetings,” bleated the goat.
Hidden within the folds of his robe, the figure watched her across the fire. “You like my little refuge, Elgiva?”
Still puzzling over the figure’s companions, Elgiva nodded.
“Ah, these are my friends. Rork the raven brings fire in his beak.” He indicated a pile of spills lying on the floor. “Eswen the goat carries wood up the hill. But lately, I have not needed fire, except to signal my presence. No need for fire to warm my bones, when I have none to warm. You chose a bad night to visit me, child.”
“Lord Bellic, or should I call you Uncle?”
The dark hood nodded in answer.
“By Faine, I’m so happy to see you!”
“You do not see me,” he said. “Come nearer the fire and dry yourself.”
“Uncle, remove your hood.”
“I cannot,” he said. “I am not in the flesh. I appear to you in spirit, while my body lies sleeping elsewhere. You know I am in fetters, chained by a spell I cannot break.”
“Oh, Uncle Bellic!” Her voice cracked with emotion, and hot tears burned her eyes. How she longed to embrace this kindly old elf who had taught her, protected her, loved her.
“I used to come here in body, too. In sooth, I had thought to bring you here and teach you the uses of magic. Things did not turn out as planned, did they?” he said. “My dear, you have been gravely ill. Alas, poor child, I lacked foresight. Is this what I have brought you to?”
“No, Uncle Bellic. Don’t blame yourself.”
“You have been touched by evil magic. Tell me about it, Elgiva.”
“Vieldrin.” She paused and drew a deep breath. “But I’m free from his spell now, Uncle. That’s not what I need to discuss. There isn’t time. I need your help. So many things I need to ask.”
>
“You have the Lorestone?” asked the elf-lord.
“Yes, I have the Lorestone, Uncle.”
His hood bobbed in satisfaction. “Then all is not lost.”
“But nothing is gained!” she protested. “A parchment with the stone bore a clue to the whereabouts of its name. Without its name, the Lorestone is useless.”
“Faine would not wish it to be used without effort. Where is this parchment, Elgiva?”
Elgiva looked away. “Vieldrin has it.”
“I see.” He considered this fact for a moment. “Do you remember the words of this clue?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Try, Elgiva.”
Elgiva did her best to recall the verse written on the parchment. She felt like a child again, repeating the morning’s lesson.
“The important part is about a sacred grove, a sarsen ring, where Nine Wise Men are heard to sing,” she said. “There stands the tallest, like a tower, beneath his feet, a word of power. That’s all I can remember.”
“It is sufficient,” said Bellic. “Well done.”
“But, Uncle, there’s something that worries me,” she said. “You believe I am the one ordained to wield the stone, but perhaps you are mistaken.”
“Why so?”
Elgiva thought hard for a moment, trying to remember more of the verse that had been written on the parchment.
“The beginning of the verse was something like, ‘The stone’s discoverer, orphan and slave,’” she said, and then she remembered where she had heard that before. Kendra had recited it from her leather-bound book. “For one thing, I didn’t find the Lorestone. It was found by my friend, Godwin, a Briton who bears a magic sword.”
The elf-lord flinched under his robe, as though her words were blows. “Then I have erred. Alas, I misread the Ninth Book!”
“Perhaps the discoverer and the wielder are one and the same, or perhaps not.” Trystin was also present when the stone was found. Another orphan and slave. She decided to keep this to herself.
“If my conclusions have been false, I hope you can forgive me, child, but if it is any consolation, I still believe you are the one destined to use the Lorestone.”
