“No, no.” Madoc waved off the idea. “I trust only you to see this through.”
Aslak nodded but was reluctant still. “I have given Emrys command of the Cad Nawdd in my absence. He is capable, and trustworthy. You can rely on him.”
“No captain should ever be forced to leave behind his regiment, and his master.” Madoc offered Aslak his hand. “It is an unbearable sacrifice, but a necessary one.”
Aslak’s grasp on Madoc’s arm was warm and unyielding. It pained Madoc to see the conflict in his friend’s eyes, but it was time to set him on his way, and quickly. “Now hurry, man. ’Tis the only tribute I ask.”
At last, his friend released the handclasp and turned away. Madoc waited, watching until Aslak was swallowed by the shadows and the echo of his footfalls had faded. The passage would take him to where his men waited deep in the heart of Coedwig Gwyn. From there they would make their way unhindered, for now.
Thankfully, Aslak never looked back, and Madoc had no need to hide his watery eyes. He made the difficult and solitary journey back through the maze, his footsteps echoing in the empty corridor.
As he climbed the cursed stairs to his rooms, one aching step at a time, Madoc chuckled a bit to himself. Dreary and dismal though his prospects might be, it wasn’t all done. Not just yet. His dreams would bring him news of Aslak’s travels, and the gods would keep the wolves at bay a while longer. He was ready. When the end came, Madoc would face his fate from his chair, arse firmly planted in its well-worn seat.
Two
Autumn in Norvik, 905 AD
The shrill peal of the herring gull echoed over the pounding waves and then faded on the winds. Alwen’s gaze followed its tail feathers eastward, toward the edge of the earth, and found the day near to dawning. She had spent most of the night on the cold Northland beach, waiting.
In answer to her silent beckon, the gull banked right and returned, traveling parallel to the coastline. Alwen launched her thoughts and released her soul to the bird, joining her mind with the gull’s in such a way that the two beings coexisted within the one. She would have called it sharing or borrowing, as Alwen only chose the creatures, animal or human, who accepted her freely. She preferred the birds. No creatures were freer than the winged ones.
The herring gull hungered, insisting they glide low over the shoals in search of fish. Together they traveled south from where she stood, to a small, shallow inlet on the channel side of the tiny Frisian isle. Not the quay on the northeastern tip, where the village fishing boats were moored. A landing there would have been noticed.
Alwen nudged her host slightly inland, expecting to come upon the ferry still moored and strangers camped on the bank. She had discovered them making the channel crossing during her spirit-faring the previous morn. Instead, through the gull’s eyes, she spied the riders already on the road. They must have risen before dawn. The messenger would reach the village before long.
She released the bird and returned her consciousness to her own being, grounding herself once again in rock and sand. Even before she had seen the travelers approaching, Alwen had felt the call: an echo of distant, ancient voices pulling her toward a life she had left long ago. Remembrances she had held in sacred keeping for more than twenty years had begun to surface.
But it was not the memories which made her anxious. The summoning was at hand.
In deep, even respiration, Alwen drew in the dawn and slowly exhaled the residue of unrest. Thick, damp mist salted her lips and sated her lungs, though even the sea’s soothing vapors could not bring the calm. Destiny hung on the horizon, looming ever larger like the rising sun. Her days on this tiny isle were nearly done.
“Where did the wings take you this time?” Rhys hauled himself up to balance on a surf-and-sand-scrubbed boulder and grinned down at her from his perch.
“Hither and yon.” She offered a halfhearted nod to her son, not quite ready to be interrupted. Rhys liked to come upon her earlier than expected, always hoping to find her entranced, with her psyche soaring along with some unsuspecting carrier on what he imagined to be a grand adventure. And it was. The spirit-sending was the magical art that Alwen most treasured, and the one her son most envied. She regretted that she had no way to share it with him.
“I see.” Rhys eyed her suspiciously as he held out his hand and waited for her to take half the pebbles he held in his palm.
Alwen couldn’t help a smile as she accepted the stones. As a small boy, Rhys had called them wishing rocks. Even now he sought her out nearly every morning to help him cast his secret desires into the water, as far out to sea as either of them could throw.
“Nothing unusual, then?” Rhys began to throw the stones into the waves.
Alwen noted the familiar lure in his tone but did not respond. Instead, she attempted to distract him. Focusing intently on the next stone as Rhys released it, Alwen caused it to hang in mid-flight.
“Remember the dancing stones?” With just the slight bobbing of her chin, Alwen directed the rock in wanton hops and skips, as if it were waltzing on the water.
Rhys groaned aloud with the agony only a grown man can experience at the hands of his mother. “I remember.”
She laughed, releasing the stone so that it plopped into the surf and sank. “Well, you used to find it amusing.”
She regarded her son with deep affection, watching the stretch of his arm and the proud jut to his jaw. Though his build was lean and lithe like hers, Rhys had inherited neither her fair hair and light eyes nor her sorcery. Rather, the son was so much like the father there were times it nearly took her breath away. At nineteen, Rhys was the very semblance of his sire in much younger days. He had the same thick, dark hair that shaded intelligent green eyes and the same engaging grin.
For several long minutes they traded tosses in silence, until Rhys could no longer contain his curiosity. “You’re keeping something from me, or me from it,” he prodded, gaze trained on the horizon in an unsuccessful attempt to feign casual interest.
A sudden gust sent a shiver through her bones, and Alwen shrank deeper into the folds of her cape. Wild, snow-white locks escaped her cowl at the insistent tugging of the brisk North Sea breeze, whipping wet and cold against her cheeks. She chucked the last of her stones in one pitch and tucked her hair back inside the hood.
“We have visitors.”
“Visitors?” Rhys teetered on his heels as he turned to look. “Where?”
“You should be able to see them by now.” Alwen turned to point out three horsemen making their way north through the flats on the one narrow byway that transected the island. From their vantage point on the jetty at the northern tip of the island, they could see the entire length of the coastal road. “Change marches toward us.”
“Is that a flag?” His gaze followed hers, traveling the waterline beyond the outermost edge of the village. Rhys nodded slightly as the herald’s colors drew nearer. “A messenger.”
“Yes,” she said. “They came ashore last night, just before sunset.”
“Last night?” Rhys sounded shocked, even insulted. He dropped the last of the pebbles and brushed the sand from his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There are some things I keep to myself, Rhys.” She sounded more abrupt than she had intended. In truth, she was reluctant to admit that she had wanted to be alone with the news, at least for a little while. Her children knew little of her past, except that she owed a duty she would one day be called to serve.
“Well, naturally, there would be.” Rhys adjusted his tone to reflect proper deference for his mother, but his deeply furrowed brow revealed a bit of resentment. “Do you know the colors?”
Alwen nodded absently, not acknowledging his words so much as dismissing him. She was distracted by the deep indigo standard of the Stewards Guild. The sight of it evoked an old but familiar heart song. “I know them well.”
“You are nervous,” Rhys observed. “You’re fisting your hands so hard I’d guess the nails are digging
into your palms.”
“So I am.” She relaxed the absent minded clench and clasped her hands together beneath the cuffs of her cloak. Rhys was observant and knew her better than most, but Alwen had been trained to quash telling signs. Obviously, she would need to redouble her discipline. “I suppose I find this all a bit unnerving.”
“Unnerving?” Rhys laughed full out. “That is an outrageous understatement, even for you.”
“If you say so.” Alwen couldn’t help but smile. He was right, after all, and not about to let her get away with pretense. Candor was a trait she particularly favored, especially in Rhys.
“Very mysterious.” Rhys rebalanced himself on the boulder and turned to face the open ocean. “This is what you have waited for, is it not?”
“We will know soon enough.”
“The realm of possibility is endless.” Rhys smiled to himself as he stared into the water’s infinite depths. “I can think of no greater adventure than the unknown.”
“Nor greater peril,” she warned. “The realm of loss is also endless.”
“Hah,” he scoffed. “The greater the peril, the more prized the purse. Half the fun is in the risk, and in the end, it’s all just a matter of what you’re willing to wager.”
Rhys fell suddenly silent, as if sobered by the deeper meaning in his own words. Nothing stirred but the surf. Alwen watched as he gradually surrendered to the sea, lulled by the languid suck and rush of the water washing over the scaur and the distant, haunting caw of the herring gulls.
It wouldn’t take a spirit-faring to know what he was feeling. Alwen could sense the yearning that afflicted her son. His instincts stirred to the call of the sea, as did all of the island people. But that was understandable. She had come to feel rooted here as well.
Norvik was a tranquil, unassuming place. A Varangian name for a Frisian settlement, but that was fitting. This was the birthplace of the great Norse warrior, Aslak, legendary captain of the castle guard at Fane Gramarye. Aslak’s family lands were as close as Alwen could ever have come to finding content on any foreign soil. Rhys, however, was completely at peace on these shores.
“You are happy here,” she said.
He snuffled his sleeve as he swiped the brine and wind-blown curls from his brow, as if to savor the scent of the sea on his shirt linen. “I suppose I am. It’s a quiet life, maybe too quiet, and I don’t like the cold. Especially now, with winter edging in on the wind.”
“Speaking of understatement,” she taunted. “It will be hard for you to leave.”
Rhys shrugged. “Norvik has been home to me all of my life. And Eirlys, too.”
Home, he said, as if the land and the village were all that he worried to leave. Alwen understood the word for what he really meant, even if Rhys had not yet fully realized it. For Rhys and his sister, home was also family, and family included Bledig.
“Your father will find us on the road.”
“No sign of him?” Rhys could not keep the disappointment from his voice.
“With the dead season looming, the birds prefer to keep close to shore. I can only go where they care to take me,” she said. “Bledig and his men are yet beyond my sight.”
Rhys nodded, resigned to truths yet unspoken. “We’ll be leaving without him, then.”
“Yes.” It saddened her to say it, but Alwen was relieved that Rhys had drawn the conclusion on his own. If only Eirlys would be as accepting. “Worse yet, I fear I must foul your sister’s wedding plans.”
Rhys turned his head to grin at her. “Change marches toward us, isn’t that what you said?”
“So I did. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the two of you should suffer for it.”
“Doesn’t it?” He was only half teasing.
Alwen understood his frustration. Rhys had spent time enough in his father’s charge, in travel and training, and in the earning of his manhood. Bledig was the clan leader of one of the nomadic tribes of the Obotrites, renowned for their tracking skills and ruthless, cunning tactics in trading. It was assumed that Rhys would one day take his place at his father’s side, as second man to the chieftain. It was an honor he respected, but Rhys longed to find his own adventures. On that account, he had her compassion in greater measure than he would ever know.
“Rhys,” she said gently, “you are your own man. You are entitled to choose the path you want.”
“What I want,” he said, sighing, “is to know what I want.”
Alwen laughed softly. “You have no idea how lucky you are to be plagued by such a delicious dilemma. For you, everything is an adventure into the unknown.”
Rhys shook his head at her. “You have the oddest sense of humor.”
“Your future is not yet fixed. Until you set your own course you stand at the center of an enormous turnstile. No matter which way you turn, no matter which direction you look, there is yet another path to take. As you say, the possibilities are endless.”
“Well, I guess those endless possibilities of mine will have to wait a bit longer.” Rhys slid off the rocks as if to ground himself. “We must first greet your destiny.”
Three
By the time Alwen and Rhys reached the village commons, the three riders had already gathered in there. The newcomers were men of military bearing, still astride and fixed in formal posture, seemingly unaware of the growing throng surrounding them. She scanned them for familiar faces, settling her gaze on the burly warrior at the head of the line. The leader pushed his horse through the crowd and dismounted before her.
“Alwen of Pwll.” He smiled.
She searched this stranger’s face for something she could recognize. He was even taller than she’d thought, towering a full head and shoulders above her. Though his features were camouflaged by beard grizzle and road dust, his voice was familiar. As were his thoughtful gray eyes. She knew him, somehow.
“I doubt you’ll find the man you remember in this old face.” He smiled wide. “The years have been far kinder to you, Alwen.”
“Aslak,” she whispered. It came to her suddenly, his name, skipping over her thoughts and straight to her lips.
“To be sure,” he said. “You may believe your heart, if not your eyes. It’s been a long, long time.”
Alwen shook her head in disbelief. “But I do know you.”
Aslak leaned toward her to whisper. “If there is a more private place to talk, there is other business.”
“Of course,” she said, immediately regretting her offer. The only privacy that she could claim was her living quarters, which were not entirely appropriate and probably not at all private by this hour. Those of the townsfolk not already gaping agog around her would likely be waiting to purchase the healing tonics and other remedies she sold at her door.
“The beach,” Rhys suggested.
“Yes,” she readily agreed, grateful for his intervention, especially considering she had forgotten him altogether. “Allow me to present my son.” She turned to acknowledge him. “Rhys, son of Bledig Rhi.”
Rhys offered his hand to Aslak. “I would like to say I’ve heard only the best of you, but I’ve heard next to nothing at all. You’re the stuff of legend around here, to be sure, but my mother rarely speaks of her past.”
“Frankly, I’m relieved.” Aslak laughed and returned the handclasp. “If that’s the case, I’ve only the tall tales to live up to.”
“Shall we, then?” Alwen was anxious to hear what news Aslak had brought her. She beckoned toward the beach and then paused, interrupted again by afterthought. “Forgive me, Aslak. This is your home, after all. Surely you would rather first greet your kin.”
“You are kind to offer, but Fane Gramarye is my home. It’s been nearly a lifetime since I last visited these parts, and even longer since I last lived here. Whatever kin I’ve got left won’t miss me any the more for waiting another hour or two. And my men could use a spell at ease.” Aslak gestured to the riders, still astride and fully alert. “We’ve come a fair distance in short orde
r.”
He frowned as he peered at the faces around her. “What’s become of Fergus MacDonagh? Surely he should be here.”
“For pity’s sake,” Alwen exclaimed. “I must beg your forgiveness again, Aslak, and your patience. Poor Fergus is yet unaware of your arrival.”
Aslak’s left eyebrow cocked, as if with disapproval, though he nodded. “I see.”
“I saw your boats come ashore yesterday and elected to keep the knowledge to myself. And since his cottage sits some ways outside the village proper, he can’t possibly know you’ve come.”
Alwen felt frustration welling. Fergus was responsible for her safety, charged with her care by Aslak himself. His attendance would naturally be expected in his commander’s presence, no matter how many years he’d been on his own. There was no avoiding the appearance that Fergus was derelict in his duty, when truly the indiscretion was hers.
She looked askance at Rhys. “Find Fergus and send him along. Be quick.”
“I’d rather you sent him to the alehouse instead.” Aslak’s smile was warm. “He can keep these rogues of mine in line. I’m sure it’s the first place they’ll go once they’ve stabled their horses. Fresh meat and ale, and the company of these town folk, will be welcome after so many days on the road. I’ll go and find him there once I’ve spoken with you.”
“Very well, then,” she agreed, and gestured toward the trailhead.
Rhys sped off to fetch Fergus, and Alwen led Aslak back across the commons and down the path to the water’s edge. It was a short walk back to the beach, but long enough for her anticipation to grow. With every step she took her heartbeat quickened, stroke after stroke, pace after pace, until Alwen thought her chest would burst.
“It is pleasant along the shore,” she confided. “I find it a soothing place.”
Aslak’s expression softened, as if in remembrance. “So it is.”
“Shall we stroll, or shall we sit?” Alwen waved her hand at a pair of flat-topped boulders tucked in the curve of an embankment, just far enough from the water’s edge to afford them some buffer from the wind. “Perhaps these stones will do.”
The Well of Tears Page 2