The Stolen Bride

by Tony Hays

  “Aye,” laughed Bedevere, “and he bunched the supplies together like a novice. I see now what you did. You used the burning of the supplies to distract them while you slipped into the Castellum.

  “But what is going on up here that concerns you so? So there are a handful of rebels, here. Perhaps some mercenaries as well, but they could never hope to take the Castellum.”

  And that was when young Ider proved that he learned his lessons well. “Of course, with Arthur’s and everyone’s attentions here, it would be easier to install Druce in Doged’s seat. Mordred would find fewer defenders, and if he did conspire with the Saxons in the plot against Ambrosius, then it would make it easier to rid them of him.”

  “I fear the day when you turn your mighty mind to evil,” I jibed Ider, whose eyes grew wide.

  “Malgwyn, I would never—”

  “I know.” Turning then. “There are not enough Saxons for real trouble, but more than we would desire. Druce’s troops are young and untested, but these mercenaries concern me. We do not know how seasoned they are. We must not so much abandon Castellum Dinas, but we must drive our enemies away, crush them, and make our face once more a factor in affairs at Trevelgue.”

  “Bah!” Kay exploded, swinging a long arm about Doged’s hall at Dinas. “Forget Trevelgue. We need to run down these animals and crush them all. They have challenged the consilium, brought the Saxons among us, and must be slaughtered.”

  While I shared Kay’s zeal, my immediate concern was breaking the siege and making certain that Arthur had made it safely to Trevelgue. But my old friend had too long been out of command and lusted for it like a young man would for a maiden, though why I never knew. “There are plenty of enemies to share, Kay. Have no fear. Do you have a plan, Bedevere?”

  My square-jawed companion grinned. “If you will command a troop, aye.”

  * * *

  Bedevere’s plan of battle was complicated, but it could work. We knew that their numbers were just short of ours. It would be a magnificent fight by any measure. Castellum Dinas had three entrances—one to the west, one to the north, and one to the east. That in the east was the least guarded.

  ’Twas Ider who came up with the grand idea, and while it was genius, it was decidedly brutal. A rider was sent out to treat with their chieftain. A young boy, barely old enough to sit a horse; another might be killed out of hand.

  The entreaty read: “With your explosive siege machines, our position is untenable. Allow us one hour to vacate the fort and it is yours.”

  I was guessing that they would wait no longer than a half hour. And all this while, we slipped our men a few at a time through the eastern gate, hidden in growth, and no one could observe completely. But our enemies were anxious, and anxiety counted for much. They accepted our terms.

  And true to my word, at half the hour they stormed the western gate, pushing it back easily. Saxons, mercenaries, Druce’s men, all milled about the interior, searching in the huts, reveling in our supplies, their own so recently lost.

  As the last of the men streamed in, I saw that their leaders, mercenary and Saxon, were beginning to frown. Not a defender was in sight.

  But their frowns turned to horror when a squad of our strongest lads slammed the main gate shut, bolting it from the outside.

  Thus our enemies were devoid of any order or organization. Ider and Kay were given the honor to command the assault from the parapets. What men were outside the fort were easily killed, and Bedevere and I finished those up. Then we climbed the parapet and looked down on the carnage below. The mercenaries fought well: I will give them that. Ider himself accounted for the one that had treated us so roughly. The Saxons were pitiful creatures, seeking escape. I descended the parapet and sought out Ceawlin and found him trying to crawl into a barrel.

  “Malgwyn, don’t!”

  Bedevere could have been speaking to the dead.

  I strode across the battle, now broken into single combats, until I neared Ceawlin.

  “Saxon!”

  He ceased his sniveling and, to his credit, faced me like a man. “You should have died with your men,” he growled in that guttural tongue. “For all that you are worth now is to clean scraps from the table.”

  “Then,” I said, “I will clean them well, with one arm. Your mother had better brought you into the world dead, than subject us to your tortures. But where God has erred, I will set affairs straight. And I will begin with you.”

  Ceawlin snatched up a spear and a sword. I held but a sword, but it was one that I had wielded with skill before. “I should have killed your whore-child then, one less of your offspring to curse the world.”

  My sword hummed through the air before he finished, sending him dodging to his left.

  “You are not fit to breathe the same air as she. She is an angel and you are but the shite of the Devil. Were she here, I would let her kill you, for you are more match for child than man.”

  We circled each other, knowing that this time there would be no escape. One or perhaps both of us would die on this ground. At that moment, I hated no man on earth more than him.

  “We have a name for you among our people,” he said, breathing a little heavily.

  “That is nice,” I said. “You are not thought of enough by our people to merit a name.” His old milky eye blinked, and I just missed the point of his dagger, so swift was his thrust.

  “I will feast upon your testicles tonight, though they be but dried prunes.” He smiled.

  “I would feed on yours but, alas, our medicus judges that you have none.”

  Our banter served only to mark our nervousness. We were not frightened but eager. “Smiling Malgwyn” had returned, and this time I was pleased.

  “But I will feast upon your heart. Anyone who shields himself behind a child is a coward and no more.” I would never forget this same pig’s face hiding behind Mariam’s, his dagger at her tender throat.

  Around us, the clash of iron dimmed. Our thrusts and parries quickly became the only sounds echoing from the wooden and stone walls. Indeed, the chairs on the parapet rattled with each blow. What had once been a savage battle had now become a single combat with two hundred avid spectators.

  He was strong. I give him that. We matched blow for blow. I had never danced so agile as I did that day, dodging his spear and his sword. But I made him dance as well. Early on, I noticed Ider, out of the corner of my eye, about to rush forward to aid me, but Bedevere held him back. And I was glad.

  Confined to one arm, I had long ago built up its strength. But Ceawlin was no weakling, and he was equally skillful with either arm.

  As I dodged the slash of his sword, the gods were with me and my own blade struck behind the handle of his dagger, ripping it from his hand and sending it flying.

  But I paid for my success. The point of his sword ripped through my tunic and opened a gash down my back. My back was already wet from sweat, but I could easily feel the thick warmth of my blood soaking my tunic.

  “You bleed easily,” Ceawlin taunted me. “See that you don’t lose all of your blood before I have the chance to drink it.”

  “The only blood you’ll be drinking is your own.” But even as I said it, I felt the weakness that comes with loss of blood. The storm of the night before had yielded to a bright sun, and though we craved such days, the heat sapped my strength as quickly as did my wound.

  I have written elsewhere of my attitude toward superstition, ghosts, spirits, magic. Let me say here only that there are things in this world that I cannot explain. That hour, that minute, that second at Castellum Dinas was one. Just as I had resigned myself to Ceawlin’s sword, a voice sounded.

  It said: “You have a son.”

  Something sparked within me, and I looked up swiftly to see the Saxon pig rushing me, his sword well behind his head, at the beginning of his death blow.

  And though my back was on fire, and though I wasn’t certain that I had the strength to take another breath, I swung my sword up with
my one arm and thrust it forward, taking Ceawlin in the chest.

  As the blood gushed from his mouth, surprise forever marking his face, I thought for a fleeting second that he had never had a chance. Once he committed to that final charge, he was a dead man, his momentum alone impaling him on my blade. Only a handful of Druce’s men and Saxons were still standing. They dropped their weapons and begged for mercy.

  Bedevere looked to me.

  I rejected their plea.

  “Malgwyn,” Ider scolded me, “the Christ preaches mercy.”

  “There is a time and place for mercy. This isn’t it.”

  With that settled, I spun around looking for the voice that had moved me to action. “Where is she?”

  Ider rushed out. “Where is who?”

  “The woman who hailed me.”

  “What woman?”

  Of two things I am absolutely certain. A voice did hail me, a woman’s voice.

  And there were no women there.

  “Malgwyn, you have lost much blood,” Kay laughed, “and your senses with it. Come, let Ider bandage you. We have yet more work to do.”

  I said nothing else about it. My companions already had enough reason to question my sanity. I walked up to Ceawlin to retrieve my swords, his eyes forever open and his mouth now a font of crimson. His death was assured four winters before when he took my Mariam as a hostage. With what little strength I had left, I wrenched the blade from his carcass and spat on him. He deserved no better.

  I let Kay lead me away from the massacre. We did indeed have more to do, but that depended almost completely on Arthur having reached Trevelgue safely. I would not wager a Roman denarius on that. We had no time to waste. The sun was riding low in the western sky, and every moment we tarried was another moment stolen from Arthur’s life, I feared.

  * * *

  Of the two hundred and more men under Druce’s command, none were yet standing. Although Druce himself could not be found, I no longer considered him a factor. I suspected his own men had turned on him or he had taken to the forest to hide.

  We had lost fifty to sixty men, men we could not spare. Arthur, if he was still alive, would not be pleased at the death of the Saxon embassy. I did not care. Our laws and customs controlling embassies and guests demanded great penalties for violating a safe-conduct or killing one of your own guests. But by fielding soldiers, no matter how few, they had violated the laws of diplomacy as we knew them. Arthur would see that finally, and the Saxons would whine and cry but do nothing to avenge Ceawlin.

  I could not spare the time to search for Sulien and Daron, and they were nowhere to be found in the aftermath of the battle. Sulien was a good and loyal companion. Daron had already seen enough tragedy to last a long lifetime. I regretted it, but they knew the hazard.

  As Kay, Bedevere, and I took two troop back toward Trevelgue, I considered the situation. We had left Ider in command at Castellum Dinas, as we could not afford for even a remnant of Druce’s army or the gray-clothed mercenaries to coalesce.

  Arthur had left portions of one troop at Trevelgue when he launched his ill-advised trip to Tyntagel. But what had happened to them in the wake of his “disappearance” and David’s attempt to usurp his power I did not know.

  David.

  I had forgotten about that snake.

  “Bedevere, did you see David during the battle?”

  My friend screwed his face up. “No. I would have used the excuse to kill him if I had. Why?”

  I explained to him and Kay about my interview with David, which I should have done before, but the excitement of our escape, the revelation that Merlin yet lived, and the battle had combined to drive it from my mind.

  “This is good news,” Kay interrupted. “We can now charge him with treason and get rid of him.”

  I shook my head. “As much as I’d love to, Arthur had disappeared and with Mordred still held for the murder of Doged David was the senior lord of the consilium. While I heartily disagree with his actions, I often feel the same about Arthur’s. No, I suspect that he made certain to leave their camp when our message arrived. He could not be seen to be party to accepting the surrender of a consilium possession in league with consilium enemies. That would be treason.

  “I doubt that he would do anything with the troops Arthur had left behind. Ysbail, however, is not going to be pleased with the real murderer of Doged. Indeed, I believe she is going to be highly displeased.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she is in love with him, I fear.”

  “Then they conspired to kill Doged,” Kay concluded.

  “Oh, no. I don’t believe that she will doubt the truth, but she will be very reluctant to act on it. Having submitted to Petrocus on her right to rule, I believe that when he embraces the logic and allies himself with us, she will be unable to do anything but have the killer put to death. Which is sad because I too like him.”

  Neither of my friends asked his name, and I did not offer it.

  Despite the important questions still to be answered—Ysbail’s right to rule among them—I felt satisfied, relieved. Such a feeling was not unusual in survivors of battles. But more than that, I could finally see an end to our mission. The destruction of Druce’s army would effectively end the rebellion, no matter how Petrocus ruled. The Saxon embassy was eliminated, Doged’s murder resolved. We had bought time for the exploitation of the minerals and ores at Castellum Dinas. And we had ensured that whoever ruled in these lands, they would be dependent on the consilium to stay in power. Happily, our losses had been minimal, if personally tragic. I knew that I would never forget Sulien’s and Daron’s sacrifice, and I mourned them as I would members of my family.

  My satisfaction exploded in a heavy, satisfied sigh.

  * * *

  An hour later, we were well on the road to Trevelgue. I was a little surprised, because the lane we traveled was mostly deserted. If events were bad at Trevelgue, I expected to see the people deserting the town, but word would have spread of the battle at Castellum Dinas and perhaps people were avoiding it. The stretch of road we were traveling was in open country, an occasional farmstead dotting the landscape. In the distance, where another lane emerged from a distant wood joined with ours, we saw a single rider atop one horse and leading another. We were too far away to see whether it was a man or woman and how it was garbed. Bedevere dispatched a ten-man patrol to our southern flank as a precaution and increased our pace.

  As we drew closer, I noted with interest and not a little surprise that it was the strange, dark man with but one eye, the merchant. I had meant to question him, but events had moved beyond my control. And the need seemed hardly important at that moment.

  We met him after a few more minutes, and I saw that two bundles were tied tightly to the back of the horse he led. His skin was dark, but not so dark as Africans, more like those of the Holy Land.

  At the edge of the black patch covering his missing eye, I could see a hint of tanned, puckered skin. But his smile was genuine and he seemed pleased to see us, raising a hand in greeting and bringing his horse to a stop.

  “My lords. You would be Lord Bedevere, Lord Kay, and Master Malgwyn, councilors to Arthur, the Rigotamos.”

  “You are well informed,” Bedevere returned.

  “I am Daoud, a poor merchant, living far from home. I had hoped to meet you earlier, but business called me away.”

  “You have not been at Trevelgue?” I asked, more to pass the time than anything else.

  He shook his head and spoke in his deep bass voice. “No. I left the morning after you arrived. A customer offered me double the price if I could replace an item he had bought from me and lost. While my work sells well, I cannot refuse double the price. It was a task to find the materials, though. That is why I am just now returning.”

  “Some precious metal?” Kay asked.

  “In a sense. I had the silver for the fibula he needed, but it had an agaphite stone and I had none handy.”

  My heart ski
pped a beat. “A fibula? Of silver and agaphite?” Suddenly nothing seemed settled.

  Daoud nodded solemnly. “Strange. I only sold two and both customers lost them the same night.”

  And then I remembered that brief mention of a second fibula, a few words in another life it seemed. “Quick, man! Who wanted the replacement so earnestly?”

  Kay, Bedevere, and Daoud looked at me as if I were crazy. But when Daoud answered, adding, “You must know him. His men are the ones wearing the gray tunics,” a chill ran through me and my heels dug into my horse’s flanks and the old girl leaped into the race.

  “Malgwyn!” Bedevere yelled. “Where are you going?”

  “To Trevelgue! Arthur is about to sanction the execution of the wrong man!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Though I heard the pounding of hoofbeats behind me, I did not look back; I could not look back. Once again, I had put the evidence together falsely. How could I have forgotten the guard telling me of a second brooch? It had been but a brief comment, yet on such things battles are lost. No one else had to condemn me. I was even then damning myself to an eternity in the Hell of Arthur’s God. And even that seemed insufficient punishment for my deeds. For the wrongly accused’s was not the only blood on my hands. My pride, my self-satisfaction, had already caused too many deaths in this affair.

  Suddenly I understood why a hermetic life might be a good choice for me. I did not deserve to live among people.

  And the pace of the horse’s hooves matched the beating of my heart.

  The fatigue of battle had vanished. I could not, would not, rest until I had cleaned up the mess I had made.

  If I could.

  I willed my horse to grow wings and fly us there.

  * * *

  Ysbadden Penkawr seemed twice as large sitting astride his horse as he did on the ground. I had heard it said that his sword was specially made to match his size. I did not doubt it. It seemed even larger held in his hand and pointed at me as he barred my approach to the causeway.

  I slowed my horse, wrapped the leather reins around my half arm, and unsheathed my sword.

  “You will not pass,” he roared. “When her bastard child is born, I will become its guardian.”