Legend of the Lakes

by Clara O'Connor

  “What do you mean?”

  Bronwyn bit her lip.

  “Please, Bronwyn, I… I’ve messed everything up so badly. I want to fix it. Tell me,” I begged.

  She sighed.

  “You know his mother left him when he was only a child. To go off and train as a druid,” she explained.

  Talk about lightning striking twice. I had done to Féile precisely what had been done to him. I had deserted my child in favour of magic, of power. He must despise me.

  “Oh.” What could I say? I had no excuse; I had made my own bed. I felt incredibly alone. He had tried, when Féile was a baby; he had begged me to be a better mother to her, to spend time with her. More memories surfaced: he had tried to be kind, understanding of my grief, but I had been so focused on the ley lines. He had stopped coming by with Féile, had left rooms I entered. Avoided me when I showed time after time that I had no interest in the little girl I knew he adored. What few moments of guilt I had in those initial days had been soothed in the knowledge that Gideon cared for her. Once he loved, he loved deeply; if Bronwyn thought that he was utterly loyal to Rion, then there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Féile. He would give up the afterlife if it kept her safe. No wonder he wanted me to stay away from her; I was the biggest threat in her life. There had to be some way to fix it. I would do whatever it took.

  “She was all I had ever dreamed of. Devyn would be so proud of her, and so disappointed in me. How did this happen?” I had to convince Gideon to give me a second chance. We’d go back at first light.

  After a few moments, when no more questions were forthcoming, Bronwyn got out of her cot and came over and pulled me into a hug, wiping the tears that slipped down my face.

  I barely slept, so when dawn crept over the horizon I joined the druids tending the line that morning, I had missed the winter solstice, and felt I should stay and compensate for my absence. I could sense the off notes before I had gone too far down, how quickly the corruption had come this time.

  The harmonies washed through me as I worked with the line, calming my worries and soothing the pain and tumbled emotions of the last few days. The frets and worries smoothed out as I tended the line. The cadence eased my troubles, the tones and rhythms in need of my care. I should have been here for the solstice. The discordant pollution was a steady undercurrent that felt distorted, murky. I stayed longer than a dawn service would ordinarily need. Bronwyn looked at me strangely when I informed her that we needed another day, which turned into two. But the line was much recovered when we returned to Carlisle.

  Chapter Eight

  On returning to Carlisle, I went upstairs to change while Bronwyn convinced Rion and Gideon to talk with me.

  I met them in Rion’s study, a surprisingly cheery room I hadn’t been in before.

  “Catriona.” Rion smiled warmly as I entered, beckoning me to sit and join them by the fire, which was more than pleasant after a couple of days out on the Lakelands.

  Gideon sat in the leather armchair a little back from the fire, the flames and shadows flickering across his impassive face.

  “We understand you want to spend time with Féile,” Rion began.

  “I have some conditions,” Gideon cut across him.

  “Gideon.”

  “No, it’s all right,” I said calmly. “I understand.”

  Gideon leaned forward, his dark hair falling across his broad shoulder. He really was a very handsome man.

  “You need to give her a little time, she’s afraid of—”

  I lifted my hand to quiet him.

  Gideon exhaled. “I’m not saying you can’t see her. I just need you to—”

  “It’s fine,” I said across his explanation.

  His brows drew together, and he looked at Bronwyn, then Rion, his lips thin as he sat back in his seat.

  “What’s fine?” Bronwyn asked.

  “Everything can return to normal, so I’m not sure why you’ve called me here.”

  Rion looked stumped, as if he didn’t know where to begin. How unusual for my composed king.

  Bronwyn stood, agitated, then sat again.

  “Cass, we love you,” she began. I smiled at Gideon’s snort, highlighting that not everyone shared the sentiment, but it was nice of her.

  “Bronwyn, I’m not sure where this is going, but I’m fine,” I felt some kind of intervention was coming, but I was tired. It was evening, and I would much rather be sleeping than listening to whatever this was.

  “You’re not fine.” Bronwyn looked upset.

  I stood.

  “Sit down.” My brother said in his best commanding voice.

  “I’m going to bed. I am perfectly fine,” I said, my voice colder and more cutting than I intended.

  “Catriona, you got off your deathbed last week and bounced around like a giddy schoolgirl,” Rion observed, “then nearly brought the castle down about our ears because you were upset, and now you’re back to acting like we don’t exist. This isn’t right.”

  “It’s fine. Take as much time as you need,” I said to Gideon.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “What?” Bronwyn sounded confused. I had been beating myself up over my failure as a mother two nights ago, but Gideon was a good father. Féile had everything she needed. “Don’t you want to see her?”

  “Not if it’s a bother,” I said mildly.

  Gideon stood and glared down at me, his expression murderous. I raised an eyebrow. Wasn’t this what he wanted?

  He was out of the room in a few strides, and if we weren’t in a castle the entire building would have been shaking from the slam he gave to the door.

  I arranged a slight smile on my face as I entered the study at their request only a week later.

  What now? Bronwyn still hadn’t left. Didn’t she have a whole kingdom to learn to look after? Gideon sat in the same chair as he had the week before. His glowering had resumed.

  I took the seat I had sat in last time, turning to my brother in mild enquiry.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “No, Catriona, no problem. We just wanted to talk to you,” Rion said pleasantly.

  I sighed. “I’m fine.”

  “They’re right,” came a voice from behind me. “You’re not fine.”

  Callum entered the room, taking the seat that Bronwyn had recently vacated in favour of standing behind Gideon, her hand on his shoulder.

  “You’re sick.”

  “You may not have heard the news since your return, but I am fully recovered.”

  Callum tilted his head.

  “So I see. What cured you?”

  I shrugged. What did it matter? I was well now.

  “Do any of you know what cured her?” He looked around the room, his gaze stopping at Gideon, who stared back narrow-eyed.

  “We don’t know,” Rion said. “She went downhill pretty fast after you left. We thought… that is, we didn’t think she had much time left.”

  Running out of time – a euphemism for almost dead. Why was that? As if we had an allotted amount of time given to us at birth and someone was keeping track on a stopwatch. Not that they had stopwatches here in the Wilds.

  “Gideon?” Callum’s bearded face was unwavering from its direction of interest. “Anything different about that last night?”

  “I was there,” he admitted in a growl. “I brought Féile in to say goodbye. Rion and Bronwyn needed to rest, so I sat with her.”

  “You sat with her all night?” Callum asked. How did he know that? Although sitting wasn’t all he had done.

  Gideon frowned. “What of it?”

  “And she just woke up?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Cass, how did you feel when you woke up?”

  I shrugged. “I felt good.”

  “If your emotions were colours, what were they like?

  “Vivid, bright.”

  “And what are they like now.”

  “Shades of grey,” I realised, examining
my view on the world around me. “Washed out. Pale.”

  Callum sat back in his chair. “Aye, that’ll be it then. Seems like there might be a symbiotic relationship between the Griffin and the Lady of the Lake,” Callum explained. “He be her tether to this world. Cass, the energy of the ley line that goes through your body is elemental, raw – it washes out your emotion. With the way the line is these days, it’s devastating on your emotional health. The more you treat it, the less you care about anything and anyone. You all but lost the will to breathe.”

  “You found record of this in Oxford?” Rion asked.

  “No, it’s just a theory.” Callum stroked his great beard. “There is little enough in the libraries on the Lady of the Lake. Some pieces on her ability with the ley line, the impact she’s had on battles against the Romans – not much though. Next to nothing on the Griffin. The best I could do was trace the bloodline – where the Lady of the Lake gift went in each generation. Even tracing the gift is a challenge from the twelfth century when the Lady of the Lake came to King Belanore. We know little enough about the Lady Evaine other than that she began the matriarchal line from which Cass is descended. Evaine’s daughter married lower-born nobility and little record is kept of the lesser houses.”

  “But the early lady had no Griffin until after the sacrifice of Llewelyn the Great,” Rion interjected.

  “You do remember some of your learning then,” Callum approved, in the same tone he used when he was proud of something I had recalled. Apparently even after twenty years since Rion was his student his pride hadn’t dimmed. “We know something of Gruffyth ap Llewelyn, the first Griffin, because his father, Llewelyn ap Iorweth, had a great many songs and tales told of him after he died saving the then Lady of the Lake on a battlefield. But again, other than in the oral traditions of Cymru, little is recorded of the lady at that time.”

  Callum leaned forward, invested in the tale of his research. “That is until the Lake bloodline is reintroduced into the Royal House of Mercia when Queen Blanche dies and her husband John marries the Lady Katherine. The Griffin at that time was a Glyndŵr. There is also a good deal on Owain Tewdwr, who was Griffin to the Lady Vivian Beaufort, because he married Catherine, the Queen Dowager. Their son Edmund married Vivian’s daughter, Lady Margaret Beaufort, which pulled together the threads of the House of Lancaster and the Lady of the Lake to secure the throne. As there was such political turmoil, we know a good deal about her Griffin, Jasper. As the Union of the Roses swept south, pushing the Romans all the way back to the walls of Londinium, there are reports that Margaret would grow cold, uncaring of the outcome of the war at times, which I traced to periods where they were separated. Jasper was killed in one of the last great battles, and Lady Margaret died shortly after.”

  Bronwyn’s lips pursed at this. I lost interest in the tangle of lineage and ran my eyes along the shelves of books behind Rion’s desk. Perhaps I could take one or two with me when we were done here.

  “The next generation is also well documented as the House Tewdwr saw the close entwining of the core branch of the Griffin and the Lady of the Lake.” Callum ran a hand through his beard, pausing to take a sip of his drink. “Margaret’s daughter married a noble in Anglia, a displaced family from the Shadowlands. Their second daughter, Anne, inherited the Lakeline; she married the High King’s brother. There is some mention that she and her Griffin were not close, but there isn’t a great deal more as they were all killed in the sacking of Richmond.”

  I tuned back in at the mention of Richmond, I had stood in its ruins, seen through a whisper in time the sight of King Arthur’s niece escaping the Imperial attack.

  “The lady married the… but they were cousins, no?” Was I following this correctly?

  “Such things happened and I suppose they wanted to keep the power close. Also, I believe Lady Anne was an ambitious woman,” Callum clarified briefly. “When King Arthur’s castle burned, the young Lady of the Lake, Elizabeth, fled north, and her marriage to Robert of Dudley ended House Tewdwr… and their son, Deverell, began a new house. His sister had the gift but married a commoner she met in the wars. The records can’t help but chronicle the ruling families but tend not to hold too much of the lady herself beyond the basic facts, a precaution should Oxford ever be taken. Two centuries of war followed where again little is recorded of the relationship between the ladies and their Griffins. “

  “There is no other record of the lady being ill like this before? Your theory is based solely on Lady Margaret?” Rion asked.

  “It was the only thing that struck me in the records that might explain it. The lady has always tended the line that runs through Keswick and Penrith,” Callum answered. “She may have on occasion gone south to the borders to bolster the fighting there, but her primary duty is always the lines. So Cass’s illness couldn’t just be the effect of working on the lines. There was something about Lady Margaret and Jasper. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Tracking through the basic details of the Lake bloodline there was something else… Some ladies lived long lives, despite the early death of their Griffin, but there is something that makes me feel it is connected. And I worry that the reason Cass went so far may be because she is without the Griffin. But then that doesn’t explain how she recovered.”

  Rion flicked a glance at Bronwyn, giving permission to reveal what we had hidden from everyone since Devyn’s death. Rhodri knew but it appeared our other secrets from that morning had remained closely guarded, even from Callum.

  “The Griffin lives,” Bronwyn said. “After Devyn was killed, we saw no reason to reveal this, but the essence of the Griffin was transferred. To Gideon. Cass has not had to live without the Griffin that was created to serve her.”

  “It’s true?”

  Gideon lifted a shoulder. “We believe so.”

  Callum leaned forward, rubbing the back of his head, his brow furrowed in thought.

  “Cass and Gideon are not as close as she was with Devyn. Most Griffins live in their lady’s shadow.” He seemed to remember that I was in the room and turned to me. “Mayhap that separation, combined with the woeful state of the line, is what nearly killed you.”

  “It’s possible,” I mused. Thinking back, I compared my recent experience with how I had felt when Devyn had been alive. “When I first started to show my abilities I was not well. I thought it was the episodes of magic use that were draining me. I was out in Richmond that summer but when Devyn was near, I didn’t suffer from the same levels of exhaustion. Then when I drew power on the road to Cymru, after we left him, I was drained again.”

  Callum nodded. “There’s no denying that there is a pattern. Was it enough for him to be close? Was there anything in particular he did that made you feel better, stronger?”

  “Er… no. I don’t think so,” I said.

  Bronwyn guffawed, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “Didn’t you say that your connection with him appeared after you two…” She stopped, before adding delicately, “Did the deed?”

  All eyes swung back in my direction in time to take in the damning blush glowing from my cheeks.

  “You need me to replace him in her bed, is that what you’re suggesting?” Gideon exploded, the veins in his neck popping out. Way to tell the room he most definitely had not been just sitting beside my deathbed.

  “No, no, it is unheard of,” Calum interjected quickly. “That is, there is no record of the lady and the Griffin ever having that sort of relationship before Cassandra and…”

  “Devyn,” Gideon finished for him.

  “There might be no records, but it has happened,” Bronwyn corrected. “Within my mother’s house, it is believed that Lady Margaret Beaufort had an affair with her husband’s brother, Jasper Tewdwr, who was her Griffin.”

  Callum gasped. “She died within months of him.”

  Bronwyn nodded. “According to my mother it is the curse is from the time before the Griffin line, a legacy of the betrayal of Guinevere Pendragon. It’s
triggered if the lady and her protector are more than… if they’re together then their lives are bound.”

  “Yes, well,” Callum cleared his throat, “I’m not saying that they…”

  There was silence as Callum petered out.

  “What are you suggesting then?” Gideon prompted tautly.

  “What I was thinking is that it is more usual for the lady to be in the company of the Griffin more often. I think his presence is enough to restore her emotional balance, to keep her grounded.” Callum turned to me. “Cass, you told me once that you felt a tether that prevented you from losing yourself in the ley. Might the Griffin be that tether?”

  I shrugged. Saw again that golden line that had unspooled across the dancefloor when Gideon held his hand out to me at the Midwinter ball.

  “You want me to give up my life to follow her around?” Gideon questioned, his brow raised. “No.”

  “Gideon—” Rion started.

  “No, I’m not doing it,” he returned. “I’ve given up enough. She’s given up enough.”

  “Féile?” Rion asked, clarifying the ‘she’ that he was concerned about.

  “You’re going to take me away from her as well? I’m what she has, what she knows.”

  A spike of jealousy bounced through me. Of him? Of her? It was the first emotion of any kind I had experienced in days, I observed absently. A result of having been in the same room as the Griffin for more than a minute? Maybe, but did I want to go back to the chaos of last week? The highs and lows had been overwhelming. I didn’t need a distraction like that in my life. I needed to focus.

  “I don’t need him,” I said, having heard Callum out. “Nor do I have time for this.”

  “There has to be another way.” Bronwyn tried to find an agreeable solution, giving Gideon’s shoulder a squeeze. It was distracting. Why was she touching him? She had told me that Gideon didn’t suffer from a lack of female attention – had that been some kind of tacit confession?

  “If he won’t give up his day, and she can’t give up hers… then what about the nights?” Rion suggested.