‘There’ll be time enough for vengeance,’ he said darkly. ‘Now it’s important that we take my sister safely home.’
He set her on the saddle before him, and she curled up against his shoulder like a child.
* * * *
As Caradawc rode thoughts were flashing and tumbling in confusion in his mind. He was tormented by the strangeness of Viviane’s behaviour, half believing Kicva’s accusations, yet with something in him refusing to accept the superficial appearance of what had happened. That the black knight had so dramatically appeared to rescue her was the most puzzling thing of all. It seemed to confirm everything that Kicva had been saying . . . and yet Viviane had not gone willingly, but had screamed and kicked and tried to resist him. He himself had seen the fear and dread in her face.
Caradawc and Gerin rode so fast they were soon far ahead of Rheged and Cai, and thus it was they who spotted the black knight first, thundering across the open hillside. Birds that had been peacefully feeding on the tall grasses now rose in clouds, screeching and twittering with alarm.
‘Take the left,’ Caradawc shouted to Gerin, ‘and we’ll cut him off the other side of the hill.’ The two men separated and rode different ways around the base of the hill, but still they would have missed the knight had he chosen to give them the slip.
Gerin reached him first and shouted a challenge for him to stand and fight. The knight reined in at once, and sat, visor down, as though contemplating with amusement this mayfly that dared to bother him. Viviane took advantage of the moment to try to struggle free, but it was as though his arm was made of iron, and she was pinned close against him with no hope of release.
‘Gerin,’ she called out. ‘You can never win. Flee while you can.’
Then Caradawc came galloping full tilt around the hill from the opposite direction, and reined up beside Gerin.
‘Caradawc, go! Go, both of you! You don’t understand – you cannot win!’
The two young men were out of breath and panting, and she could sense they were also afraid; but they did not move.
‘Release her!’ Caradawc ordered boldly, lifting his chin and trying to meet the other’s stare.
‘Release her?’ the knight mocked. ‘To you?’
Gerin rode angrily forward, but with one blow was knocked off his horse. Crushed against the black armour, Viviane cried out with the pain. Caradawc attacked with more forethought, and managed to land a blow against his opponent’s shoulder, the armour ringing like a bell.
‘Ha!’ the black knight said. ‘So you are serious?’
Suddenly he flung Viviane from him, and she fell almost on top of Gerin. ‘Let’s see what you can do, boy,’ he taunted Caradawc and the two locked earnestly in combat.
Gerin picked himself up and then helped Viviane to her feet. Dazed, they stood, clinging together, watching as Caradawc took and gave blow on blow.
Suddenly the black knight, in danger of being unseated, pointed at Gerin and Viviane.
‘See how your friend holds your woman,’ he cried out loudly. ‘Are you sure you’re fighting for what is really yours?’
In the instant that Caradawc turned to look at Gerin and Viviane, the black knight could have killed him, but he hesitated as if wanting to savour Caradawc’s jealousy. In that instant Viviane flung herself from Gerin’s arms, thinking only of Caradawc’s life. She picked up a sharp stone and flung it with all her might at the flank of the knight’s charger. The huge creature snorted and reared up – and, before its rider could regain control, bolted with him.
Viviane stood astonished: as it had left her hand, the stone had hummed and spun, whistled and sung a high and faery tune, an eerie light streaming behind it like the tail of a comet. As she paused to think she realized that the black knight’s steed was no ordinary horse, so no ordinary stone could possibly have pierced its side. She ran forward to look where the missile had fallen, and found there a pure double-ended quartz crystal, the colour of water and clear ice.
Wonderingly she picked it up and held the two points between her thumb and index finger. She could feel the power of it surging through her hand and almost dropped it. But the beauty of it held her riveted. Light reflected off all the crystal planes, and yet it was as clear as air. Through it she could see the trees . . . the slope of the hill . . . the clouds . . . images of the natural world reflected back and forth within the crystal, from plane to plane. She turned the crystal around and around, watching the light change . . . the reflections running into each other, becoming blurred and indistinct until, emerging from them, she saw new images . . . figures and forms of light . . . silver beings as insubstantial as gossamer yet having the strength to move mountains and fell giants . . . A thousand angels on a needle point – each one capable of overthrowing an emperor or of making a peasant into a king.
She had lost her rose-crystal sphere which had helped her to escape from the ferryman. Now she had been given a second crystal of power, a sign that she had not been deserted. Something tugged at her memory – something from the ancient days. To her people of those long-gone days pure quartz crystal was sacred and they believed it had the property of dispelling, even destroying, evil forces. She herself had helped to place protective quartz crystals on the burial mounds and places of initiation . . .
But she was not Fiann now. She was Viviane – a woman falsely accused of many crimes. She turned back to the two men – they had not moved. Silently they were searching each other’s eyes. Viviane looked from one to the other sadly. How could she win back the trust of Caradawc? She knew that she had his love, for he had risked everything to fight for her. But love without trust could not last long.
* * * *
‘Ai . . . Aiii . . .’ howled Idoc as he rode the hills . . . iron hooves on rock . . . iron heart weighing down a human soul . . . ‘I touched her . . . I held her . . . but I could not feel her . . . I could not feel her!’
It seemed to him that the beauty of the earth mocked him. He was no longer part of it . . . yet he could not and would not leave it.
Chapter 7
The pursuit
As soon as Rheged saw Viviane he called out, anxious to know what had happened with the black knight, but before she could answer, Cai slumped forward in a dead faint, falling off his horse. Caradawc and Gerin rushed forward to attend to him and amidst the confusion Viviane slipped away. She wanted more than anything to stay with Caradawc, to be taken ‘home’, to live as his queen and wife, to sing and play the lute and weave fine thread. And most of all, she wanted to be taken into Caradawc’s arms and to tell him all that had happened, but to do that she would have to tell him that he had killed his own father – and that he was a puppet manipulated by a dark spirit from her past. She would have to tell him many things that she did not want to tell him – many things she herself did not understand.
No, it would be best for Caradawc if she left him now. She had brought him nothing but trouble.
Though she had no horse, she was determined to reach the sanctuary of the Community of the Fish. There she would ask to be allowed to complete the novitiate she had started as a girl, and then somehow take control of her emotions and her life.
Viviane knew from the position of the sun that all their journeying had been northwards, so Father Brendan’s community could not be far away. Holding her new crystal tightly in her right hand, she set off resolutely. The landscape was rugged and it would not be difficult to hide in it for safety, if necessary.
* * * *
Cai was now delirious.
‘We must get him back home,’ Rheged whispered. ‘He is badly hurt.’
Cai tossed his feverish head, haunted by Elined’s false accusation.
‘I must find Elined,’ he muttered. ‘I must explain.’
His three companions pushed him back firmly on the bed of bracken they had made for him.
‘He’s crazy,’ Rheged muttered. ‘That bitch would have him castrated as soon as look at him!’
Cai fought to get up again and
they fought to keep him down.
Viviane was well clear before they noticed that she was gone.
* * * *
When Viviane found she could go no further she came to rest in a grove of young silver birch trees. She sank on to the thick green grass and leant back against a slender white trunk, turning her cheek to it with a sigh. The forest seemed so feminine, so ethereal in comparison to some others she had experienced recently; the very air seemed to shimmer with pearl-light between the thin stems. She could not imagine darkness touching this place. At night surely it was always full moon or starlight here . . . never darkness.
She caressed the grass beside her. If she could only afford to stop running, this is where she would like to stay.
Small strips of white bark were peeling off the tree. She pulled one off to wrap her crystal. How silky it looked, though it did not feel so. Perhaps, if she could not find the community, she would come back here and build herself a little white wood cabin with a turf roof, and live a hermit’s life . . . Brendan, she was told, had lived as a hermit most of his life on a bare rock in the Irish Sea. He had spoken with angels and learnt there everything he knew. Would she have the courage to live alone? Could one live alone? Even this rustling forest of silver and pale silky green was inhabited. She could see no one, but she could feel shy presences around her.
‘Could I live here?’ she whispered. ‘Would you have me?’
She listened with her heart and with her heart she heard the joyful answer.
Yes. She would be welcome – but . . .
There was always a but, she thought, suddenly sad . . . But she could not remain with Caradawc . . . But she could not stay in this lovely glade. She hated and feared Idoc – but there would be no peace for her until she had finished what she had started that day in the circle of fallen stones . . . long before that . . . in that other time.
She felt desperately tired. Perhaps after sleep things would not seem so difficult. Surely there would be no harm in sleeping here in this peaceful place? She curled up in the long soft grass, her head pillowed on her arm . . . the sun warm on her shoulder . . .
* * * *
It had been decided that Rheged and Gerin would carry Cai back to Castle Goreu, there to nurse him to health and to prepare defences in case Neol decided to seek the vengeance he seemed to think was his due. They promised that they would not let Cai out of their sight, and would dissuade him from the dangerous notion of going after Elined.
Caradawc set off in search of Viviane – alone.
* * * *
Whether she dozed off she was not sure, but suddenly, hearing sounds, she was fully awake. Were they footsteps? Surely neither animal nor human would shake the earth in that way. She peered anxiously in the direction from which the sounds were coming. The slender trees appeared to be trembling, their silver leaves shimmering and fluttering in the moonlight, though there was no breeze.
She stood up and faced the sounds. Some instinct insisted that she should not flee though her mouth was dry with fear.
A gigantic figure emerged at last, striding slowly and inexorably towards her. She held her position, though her heart was pounding.
It came to a halt, a shadow length away, and she saw the gleam of bronze from the huge limbs and the head that carried two faces . . .
It was the being she had seen on the ferry.
He was holding her green girdle out to her as though he intended she should take it, his eyes gazing deeply and searchingly into hers.
This time she sensed no malevolence.
At last he opened both his mouths, and it was as though two people were speaking together and yet at slightly different speeds. One voice reminded her of a bronze gong that continued to reverberate long after it was struck; the other of distant thunder in mountains. Words rolled over her like water over pebbles on a beach. She heard them with her whole body rather than just with her ears. And she understood them with her heart rather than with her mind . . .
‘This is a gift from the Green Lady,’ the mighty being said. ‘You should not part with it. It is to remind you that the strength of the green and growing earth flows through your veins. You are both of the earth and of the spirit. Keep balance between these two and you will have the courage to withstand all that befalls you.’
She stepped forward and trustingly took the green silk cord from his enormous hands. She bowed to the ground, her forehead touching the tall grass. When she stood upright again she quickly fastened the girdle around her waist. It was so light she could hardly believe it was really there.
Then she and the strange being spoke together, she asking questions fearlessly, and he answering in his deep reverberating voice.
She had been partly responsible, he said, that Idoc’s progression as a soul had been halted. It was for this reason she was now caught up in these events and would not be free of him until she had undone the harm that she had done.
‘But he was evil – we couldn’t let him roam free!’ she cried.
‘Even I, who freely roam through many realms, cannot say what should or should not be in realms beyond my understanding. And yet you presumed to put a seal upon the door of Time and deny a living soul his right to change.’
She bent her head in shame, and there was a long silence between them.
Eventually she asked him about his appearance on the ferryboat.
‘The ferryman’s greed and your fear created an atmosphere – a dark whirlpool – in which you were nearly destroyed. I was sent to remind you of certain deep matters that you had forgotten, but, because you were so afraid, you misunderstood and saw me only as a malevolent figure.’
‘Why do you have two faces?’
‘Two eyes see three dimensions. Three eyes see four. Four eyes . . .’
He could see that she was beginning to understand. ‘And two mouths speak two words simultaneously, because no one word can ever be accurate enough. Meaning springs from the strike of the one against the other – like a spark springs out as flint strikes iron.’
‘You gaze on where you have been – and to where you are going.’
‘I am aware of past and future.’
‘Will you tell me what waits for me in my future?’
The being looked at her silently for a moment and then raised his great bronze hand, pointing over her shoulder. She spun round to see what was behind her. She could see nothing but the silver grove in the moonlight. She turned back with another question on her lips.
He was no longer there.
She was alone.
* * * *
In the morning the floor of the grove was covered with white wood anemones – flowering so profusely it looked as though snow had fallen. Their tiny, delicate star-faces gave her new courage for the day.
* * * *
Meanwhile, Caradawc had spent the night in a cave which must once have been inhabited by a Christian hermit, for a crude crucifix was carved on the wall and a sacred yew tree grew in front of the entrance.
He slept dreamlessly, protected by spirit forces he scarcely knew existed, and in the morning he woke refreshed, thinking again of Viviane. He was no longer confused in his emotions. He loved her, and whatever she had done would be explained when he found her once more. But where had she spent the night? He feared for her, alone in the darkness. There were many travellers’ tales he had heard, of dangers natural and supernatural, that made him anxious . . . shadows that became detached from their sources and prowled about . . . trees that uprooted themselves . . . and the lord of the Celtic Otherworld who went out hunting for souls with his pack of spectre-white hounds . . .
He picked some wood anemones from a ledge that was near the cave and placed them at the foot of the crucifix.
‘Protect her,’ he whispered, ‘and let me find her.’
Touching the red bark of the yew tree, he murmured another prayer, this time to the spirit of the tree itself – and to the soul of the hermit who had planted it. The tree was old: its wisdom
well seasoned.
He felt suddenly confident that today would be the day that would change his life: the day when something that had been hidden would be brought out into the open; the day when something started a long time before would reach a turning point and proceed towards transformation and resolution.
* * * *
Idoc had spent that same night preparing his dark spells.
He drew the third pentacle of Saturn on lead to invoke the spirits he needed, carefully weaving protection around himself with the fifth pentacle – for these were powerful beings and did not take easily to being any man’s slaves. Then, on lead again, he worked the fourth pentacle of Saturn – and the sixth. Dread designs both. Jupiter and Mars were also invoked. Slowly, meticulously, on iron and on tin and on lead . . . the night smouldering away as the forces of these mighty planets gathered in the dark tower to await the command of Idoc.
At dawn he was ready and he set off, a shadowless shadow drifting over the lovely countryside amid his menacing horde of silent and invisible familiars.
‘Ah, Caradawc,’ he thought, ‘this day will be the day you give back what you owe me. This day will be the day you give me life! Your blood will be my blood, your breath my breath.’
* * * *
Riding into the mouth of a long valley Caradawc felt a sudden chill and looked up with surprise. There was no cloud over the sun, no breeze had sprung up, and yet the temperature had definitely dropped.
He reined in Osla, wondering if he should turn back. Some places were best avoided. Maybe there had been a particularly dreadful battle fought here at one time, and the ghost-memory of it still clung to the place. He could feel the hair on his neck rising, and Osla was trampling nervously, only restrained from galloping away by the firmness of his master’s hand on the bridle.
He would turn.
He turned.
Everywhere he looked was an army of dread beings . . . dark forms that stretched and changed with every current of air, forming new shapes every moment, like black smoke billowing from a mass funeral pyre after battle . . .
He turned back again – thinking to escape into the valley – but before him one solitary figure stood across his path. One being – yet of such commanding presence that Caradawc knew he would be more fearful to oppose than all the hordes behind him.
The Tower and the Emerald Page 9