by Alex Myers
‘Oh!’ Roswyn straightened, gazing down at Cador. ‘How terrible and how wonderful!’ She placed her hand on the knight’s forehead, brushing back his hair (though this was not, strictly speaking, medically necessary). How handsome he is, though his vigour is drained, she thought, but said aloud only, ‘He is cool and pallid. Build up the fire. We must draw the heat from his body. More wood.’ The steward leapt at her command. Then Roswyn turned to the king and gave a quick curtsy. ‘I beg your pardon; I’ll hear the tale eagerly another time. For now, I must attend to his ailments. This is most dire.’ And with that she began to rattle the vials and pots the steward had carried, reaching now and then into her bag to extract a wizened root or handful of desiccated leaves. The king, though worried for Cador, was all too happy to remove himself from the chamber, which was growing stuffy from the fire’s heat. Roswyn was pretty, to be sure. She had a fine nose and lips in a perfect Cupid’s bow, but she was much too commanding for a woman. She might be a fine physician, but such an occupation was most unbecoming for a lady.
Within the chamber, Roswyn mixed a poultice of mustard and goose fat and nettle. She had the steward remove Cador’s jerkin and shirt and settle the poultice against his chest (the steward furrowed his nose in disgust, but did as she told him). She sat as far from the blazing heat of the fire as she could, crushing mint and pulverizing the bones of a crow to mix into a potion, pausing only to wipe the sweat from her patient’s brow, to lift his wrist and feel for the thin beat of his heart, to reassure herself that he yet lived.
Three days, Cador lay in this state. Three days, Roswyn sat by his side. Three days, she poured elixirs of her own devising down his throat, rubbed ointments into his temples. Three days that he was sunk in a sleep beyond sleep and she sat sleepless beside him.
Even in his illness, he was so fair and handsome and Roswyn would often lean over him, smooth his blond hair back from his brow, or wipe his lips with a perfumed kerchief. Whenever she sent the steward out to fetch more wood or more supplies, she would take up Cador’s hand, and hold it in both of her own, her skin as pale as milk, her fingers thin and dainty; both her hands were barely the size of one of his. And, holding his hand, she would sing to him. Simple songs. Something to lift the spirits.
It was during one of these moments, when she was singing ‘The Song of the Rose’, that Cador opened his eyes. First the left, then the right. How beautiful they were, a tawny brown-gold. Roswyn stopped singing. He blinked. Opened his mouth and spoke with a rusty voice. ‘Are you an angel?’
‘My lord!’ Roswyn said, dropping his hand and standing up (for she had been sitting right beside him on the bed). ‘How do you feel?’
He paused to consider this question. ‘Quite terrible,’ he decided. ‘And I’m very hungry. Where am I?’
Roswyn dashed to the chamber door, her cheeks flushed and not just from the heat of the fire. ‘Sir Cador has awoken!’ she shouted down the hall.
The king came running and so did the Duke of Greenwold and even Lord Fendale climbed all those stairs to the chamber, panting, and they crowded into Cador’s room and cheered the knight’s return to health.
‘We shall make a proper feast for you tonight!’ King Evan roared. ‘And you can tell the whole hall about the dragon.’
‘I do still think it was a wyvern …’ the Duke of Greenwold began.
‘My lords,’ Roswyn said (she stood pressed against the wall furthest from the bed). ‘The good knight Cador shouldn’t dine on such heavy food, being so recently unwell. Though his fever is diminished, he should have naught but broth for a day or two. I’ll go and order some from the kitchens.’ And with that, she fled the room.
‘Never mind the wench,’ Lord Fendale said, watching her run away, her skirts streaming behind her. ‘We will bring you a haunch of venison. Nothing like it to cure your ills.’
Cador tried to lift himself to bid Roswyn farewell, to thank her … but she was already gone and so he lay back in his bed. ‘I should rather be fed broth by her than ever eat meat again,’ he said.
‘Surely you do not mean that!’ Lord Fendale protested. He turned to the king. ‘Are you certain he is cured?’
‘I truly do feel much better,’ Cador said.
‘Your cheeks are still flushed,’ the king said.
‘And your eyes are awfully bright,’ added the Duke of Greenwold.
‘If you are not sick,’ said Lord Fendale, ‘then you must be in love. I see this often enough with my silly daughters.’
At this, Cador blushed an even deeper red. ‘What is her name?’
The men roared with laughter. ‘In love! And he doesn’t know her name!’
King Evan had some mercy on the young knight. ‘She is Roswyn, the only daughter of Earl Renald of Cornwall.’
‘She’s beautiful.’
None disputed this, though the king coughed a bit and said, ‘It would be good for you to be acquainted of her a little more.’ A knock on the door made them all turn. Lord Fendale opened it and Roswyn entered. She held a ewer of watered wine and behind her the steward carried a tray with a steaming bowl of broth. ‘Ah,’ said the king. ‘Here she is. Steward, set that down and let the physician attend to her patient in peace.’ And all the men withdrew from the chamber, leaving the two new lovers alone.
‘They were married within the month,’ Isolde said, leaning back and sucking at her teeth. ‘And here’s where King Evan made a generous move, but still kept his own interests at heart. You have heard, even though you are from nowhere, that Evan had forbidden women from inheriting.’
‘Of course. Everyone knows that.’
‘Well. As Earl Renald’s only child, Roswyn would have inherited Cornwall, had King Evan’s law not been in force. But as it was, she stood to inherit nothing – that is part of why she trained in physick. But when Cador asked to marry her, King Evan took pity.’ She stood and stretched her arms, then scratched beneath her night cap.
‘Yes?’ I prompted. ‘What was his notion?’
‘He promised Cador and Roswyn that if they had a son, he would give the son all of Cornwall, and that, when Earl Renald died – though he hoped that would be on a day far distant – Cador would become Earl of Cornwall, holding everything in fief until his son could inherit.’
‘Most generous,’ I said.
‘King Evan is known to be generous,’ Isolde agreed. ‘But you see the weakness, do you not? If Roswyn and Cador did not have a son … if they only had daughters …’
‘Ah,’ I said.
‘Ah, indeed. Cador would have nothing. King Evan therefore seems generous yet stands a fair chance of gaining Cornwall all for himself. Most clever. That’s our king. Minstrel, you’ve half-turned me into a bard, making me tell you stories! It is almost midnight … there’s bread to be readied for morning and you had best be getting yourself some rest.’ She relit her taper from the fire and retreated to the kitchen. A moment later, the inn’s door opened, and my stranger returned.
‘How fares your horse?’
‘Well,’ they reply. ‘There is no better companion than a horse.’
I might have disputed this, but instead I merely raised an eyebrow: I had greater concerns. ‘Will you tell me of your birth?’
They tilted their head and looked at me as a bird might, with one bright eye. ‘Have you the whole night?’
‘I have nothing in the world but this night.’
Within a year of their wedding, Earl Renald died, and all of Cornwall mourned his passing. They say that even the piskies sent a bouquet of daisies to be laid on his casket (and mind you, he died in midwinter). Cador was installed as Earl of Cornwall, Roswyn beside him, in a sombre ceremony overseen by King Evan. The king offered words of comfort to Roswyn at the loss of her father, bemoaned how his own court would be losing a fine physician, praised Cador for his choice of a wife both wise and fair, and sent them on their way with wishes that she might bear many healthy children.
This last landed heavily on Cador’s ears,
for he knew he held the earlship in fief only. It would not be his – would not belong to his line – unless he had a son. For a knight who had grown up with only a meagre holding, to be offered something as vast as Cornwall … well, he could not let this slip through his fingers.
He led his bride back to where she had grown up, the beautiful castle of Tintagel. Cador had never seen such a place. He marvelled at how it perched at the edge of a cliff, at the sheer drop of its walls straight to the ocean below. He delighted at how the wind rippled and shrieked around the walls, stinging the skin with its saltiness. It felt wild, it felt alive.
But to Roswyn, it was home. Here had been her childhood, falling asleep and waking to the crash of waves against rock. Here had been her young maidenhood, full of dreams and stories, hopes that a knight would carry her away, hopes that one of her mother’s babes would live beyond infancy to give her a brother or sister to care for. As they approached, and Tintagel’s square towers appeared, then its grey walls, Roswyn nudged her palfrey closer to Cador’s gelding and pointed to the base of the cliff. ‘See that dark spot, my lord?’
Cador craned his neck, using the gesture as an excuse to lean closer to Roswyn and take in her scent: lilies and a spicy root (likely she had been working with herbs). ‘I do, indeed.’
‘That is Merlin’s cave, they say, where the wizard once lived, and where he will return again when he is released from his curse. They say it is where he awaited the arrival of the baby Arthur, who came in on the waves of the sea, and where he will wait again for Arthur’s return. Or perhaps it isn’t Arthur who will return … the story isn’t clear. It says, the one true knight. That could be you, my love.’ And she smiled up at him.
By now Cador’s tale of the dragon and the wizard in the forest of Gwenelleth had spread quite well around the hall of Winchester, and he thought his wife might be teasing him a bit. He hoped so. He had no desire to live near the sorcerer. ‘Truly?’
‘Truly.’ She reached over and put her hand on Cador’s. ‘When I was a little girl, I would beg for my father to take me down there, when the tide ran low, and I could venture inside, if I dared. I dreamed that Merlin would come back and instead of being dark and rank, the walls would sparkle and gleam.’
‘I see.’ He patted her hand. Based on what he had seen of Merlin, the man might prefer to live in a dank hole. ‘He seems quite cursed.’ He nudged his horse along.
Roswyn looked over her shoulder at the cave mouth as they continued along the road towards the castle. ‘Too bad. Once there was magic all over this land … it’s seldom felt today.’
And Cador gave a little shiver, as if someone had let a drop of water trickle down his spine.
The lords and knights of Cornwall had gathered to welcome their new earl, and Cador answered their welcome as a good earl ought: with a sumptuous feast, a festival for all the crofters and fisherfolk about.
Renald’s coat of arms was a field of azure with a line of gold, bend sinister. Just a single slash of yellow running across the blue. ‘You should add your own device,’ his lady wife told him, one evening as they shared a mug of wine by the fire, with her curled in his lap.
‘And what ought I to add? A dragon?’
‘Heavens,’ said Roswyn. ‘The beast that nearly killed you?’
‘Nay. The beast that brought us together.’ And he bent his head down and kissed her rosy lips.
Rosywn thought a moment. ‘Add a crow,’ she said. ‘They are the cleverest bird there is. And did you not say that Merlin sounded like a crow and then appeared in the form of one?’
‘He did,’ said Cador, though the memory of the wizard’s voice made his flesh crawl. Even now, he could hear that laugh – Haw! – echoing in his skull. ‘Quite like a crow. I think I’d prefer something else … a fish?’
Roswyn took his chin in her hand and stared into his golden-brown eyes. ‘My lord. A fish will not do. Put on a crow, perching o’er the top of the field of azure, as if he is looking at the sea and the line of gold is a ripe sheaf he wishes to peck at.’
Cador shook his head. In truth, since the ordeal in Gwenelleth, he rather hated crows. But he could not deny his beautiful wife and said, ‘Of course, my sweeting. Whatever you wish, I shall give you.’ And he kissed her again.
‘I wish, more than anything, to bear you a dozen sons.’
‘One will do,’ Cador insisted. ‘One healthy son is all we need.’
Within a year, Roswyn was heavy with child. And though overjoyed at conceiving, the matter of inheritance preoccupied her, as it does so many who own property. Indeed, even a simple innkeeper might accurately claim that it is their inn that owns them, rather than the other way around. ‘What if I bear a girl, and I die giving birth?’ his wife would worry, and Cador would take her into his arms. He, Cador, killer of dragons, would murmur sweet reassurances into her hair, kiss her lily-white forehead, and tell her it would all be fine, and, when on his own, tremble with worry that it might happen as she feared.
But Roswyn would not be put off with such platitudes. ‘If it’s a girl and an only child,’ his wife would admonish him, ‘remember King Evan’s law. You’ll be the end of this line, all the lands and wealth lost that my ancestors have held for so many years. Our name and heritage erased!’
Cador sat with Roswyn for many an hour in one of Tintagel’s high chambers, overlooking the sea. With her in his arms, they’d watch the gulls wheeling over the rocky cliffs, watch the swells batter themselves against the shore. And when his wife slept, Cador would busy himself with the matters of the keep. And such matters they were. A quarrel among the grooms. A flock of sheep with the mange. And messengers coming from all manner of relations he never knew he had, but who suddenly recalled their bloodlines now that he was Earl of Cornwall. When these were attended to, he would walk the battlements of Tintagel, letting the wind from the ocean whip his blond hair around his face – the salt and sun had bleached it lighter, so now it looked less like ripe wheat and more like dry grass. Often, he’d lean against one of the stones, damp and streaked with the marks of time, and press his hands to the rock. This was his. This stone. These battlements. This castle. All the land, as far as he could gaze. Only the sea was not his, though his fishermen plied the water. It was magnificent. It was his. He must hold on to it.
On one morning in late autumn, Cador received an especially bedraggled messenger from a distant relative, Griselle. Unlike many of the other cousins who’d lately turned up, Cador did recall Griselle – she had once visited Winchester, when Cador was a newly orphaned page. A squire had mentioned in passing that Griselle’s eyes bulged out like a fish’s, not knowing she was Cador’s cousin, and Cador had challenged him to a duel and won, beating the older boy until he was bloody. Griselle had chastised him for such savagery, but also called him her champion. Cador was flattered but did have to admit her eyes did bulge rather a lot and the whole thing confused him completely.
He was recalling all this as the messenger unfolded a most sorry tale: how his cousin Griselle was the youngest of a long line of children, and her father had no dowry for her, so had sent her to a convent, but the convent had burned to the ground, and now the old maid had nowhere to go and was lodging with a distant relative, sleeping on the hearth for there was not even a pallet to spare for her. Could Cador find her some situation, anything, there at Tintagel?
Such a tale of woe! Cador waved the messenger to cease his story. ‘I cannot bear any more. Hurry back and fetch her before any more misery befalls her.’
The messenger bowed low before departing and, after a tedious report on harvest taxes from his steward, Cador climbed the steps to the battlements, where he strolled about, his thoughts turning as they were ever wont to do, to his wife. To the future.
He wheeled about, putting the ocean to his back, and walked across the stones towards the wall that overlooked Tintagel’s yard and the forests beyond, the green tops of trees swaying in the breeze, here and there a grey line of smoke rising from some cr
oft. The ocean roared in his ears, the breeze rasped salt against his cheeks. ‘If she bears a daughter … what could be done? What if this is our only child?’
Just as this question left his lips, a massive crow plumped down on the wall in front of him, making Cador shriek with surprise. The crow snapped its beak. ‘Shoo, you bugger!’ Cador said, flapping his hands. ‘Hateful bird!’
‘Haw! Haw!’ The crow hopped to the side, easily evading the knight. ‘Haw!’
Cador unsheathed his belt knife and took a wild slash at the bird, which spread its wings and took flight, circling once, releasing its bowels with a splash (which Cador barely dodged) and then flying out over the forest. ‘Haw! Haw!’ rang in Cador’s ears, a sound that always and forever would bring him back to the forest of Gwenelleth. And for the first time since then, he wished Merlin were by his side. Merlin could turn a king into a stag; Merlin had worked magic within these very walls, putting a glamour on Uther so that he appeared to be Gorlois. Surely Merlin could change a girl into a boy, or at least make it seem …
He dashed down the stairs, paused only to swap his salty, damp jerkin for a fresh jacket (emerald green, embroidered with jet-black crows) and hurried to Roswyn’s chamber. Pregnancy had brought a healthy blush to Roswyn’s face, and he kissed each cheek before embracing her: how warm she was after the sea-driven wind of the battlements. ‘My love … what if we disguised the child – if it is a girl – as a boy? What if we raised it as a boy … no one would know!’
Roswyn considered this, leaning against the velvet of his jacket, but, like many of her husband’s thoughts, it was not hard to pick a hole in. ‘The midwives would know, and it is impossible to keep such a group silent for long. Secrets only mean juicier gossip. The rumour would spread within days.’
‘True,’ Cador had to consent. He puzzled on this a moment, before saying, ‘Just this morning, I heard a petition from my cousin Griselle, a lovely woman who finds herself in dire conditions and wants a position here at Tintagel. She shall be your only attendant.’