[The Lion of Wales 01.0] Cold My Heart

by Sarah Woodbury

  He maintained his seat on his horse, Cadfarch, and rode between the two grey standing stones that marked the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen. This was the highest point on the road that led from Garth Celyn, King Arthur’s seat on the northern coast of Eryri, east to Caerhun and then across the Conwy River into the part of Gwynedd controlled by Modred. They’d reached the high moor, long since denuded of trees, but the windswept countryside provided a magnificent contrast to the mountains behind them and the sea in the distance. Rain was normal for Wales this time of year, and every time of year for that matter, but it had abated today.

  Myrddin’s answer satisfied Lord Aelric, who continued to saunter down the road with Myrddin, their horses at a steady walk. Three other knights followed. Myrddin hadn’t spoken to them since he’d led them out of Garth Celyn, and they’d been content for him to entertain their master.

  “I’ve never liked passing among the pagan stones,” Lord Aelric said, once the stones lay behind them and the company had headed down the hill towards the Conwy River valley, still green in places despite the imminent winter weather. “I’ll suggest that Lord Modred pull them down in due course, once your king has bowed to the inevitable.”

  He shot a glance at Myrddin, a sneer on his lips. Lord Aelric was baiting Myrddin and waited to see if Myrddin would respond to his arrogance. Aelric had no qualms about speaking his mind and keeping any Welshman in his place, one far below his. Myrddin kept his face expressionless.

  As he’d just reminded himself, Lord Aelric was counselor to Modred, and Myrddin was a middle-aged warrior, worn around the edges from a lifetime of warfare and rough living. From an impoverished, if noble, beginning, he’d risen among the ranks of Arthur’s company. Thanks to his reckless courage as a young man, King Arthur had knighted him after a battle in his twenty-fourth year. At the time, it had served to increase Myrddin’s devotion to him. Since then, that devotion had been tempered by a certain, frank realism. Twenty years of war—and dreams of death—did that to a man.

  “The populace will object, my lord,” Myrddin said, his voice mild.

  Aelric sniffed, indicating what he thought of the populace. Myrddin smoothed the mustache that grew along each cheek, less flamboyantly than many a Welshman’s but still of considerable size. Then it struck him that in his dream, he no longer wore it. Had that always been the case? Myrddin had dreamt the fight so many times he’d memorized it. Or thought he had.

  Twenty miles later and after hours of stilted conversation—such that Myrddin feared he’d bitten right through his tongue in his attempts to contain what was in his mind—the road connected to another one running north/south, which would take Aelric the remaining miles to Denbigh. By the time they reached the crossroads, the sun had nearly set. Although Aelric urged Myrddin to continue on to Denbigh Castle, he declined. His king had given him his orders and they didn’t include dinner in Modred’s hall—in a castle that a few weeks ago had belonged to Arthur’s brother, Cai. That Cai had been more treasonous than not over the years was beside the point, since he again fought at King Arthur’s side. Myrddin didn’t think he could have stomached any more of Aelric’s company anyway.

  The troop of men flowed around Myrddin without a second look. As they disappeared around a bend, he gazed after them, unseeing. The first time he’d had the dream of the king’s death—and his own—he’d been no more than twelve. At the time, he’d come awake shocked and alert, with his heart racing, although part of him had thrilled at the vision of the future, of battle, and that he’d fought for Arthur.

  He’d had the dream perhaps a dozen times between twelve and twenty. Fifteen years ago, however, the dreams had begun to change, becoming darker in intent, richer in color, and yet more stark, the white snow standing out against the blackness of the forest. They’d also grown more detailed, more urgent and, unfortunately, more common.

  Lost in thought, Myrddin drifted to the edge of the road and into the trees that lined it. Cadfarch willingly cropped the grass that crept between the stones, unconcerned when Myrddin dismounted to leave the reins trailing. The war horses in Wales were bred smaller and more versatile than their Saxon counterparts so as to more easily navigate the rocky and uneven ground on which the Welsh lived and fought. Many a night Cadfarch had slept outside rather than in a stable.

  At first, Myrddin sat on the edge the road, his knees drawn up. Then, as darkness descended, nearly complete since clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon, he lay on his back and stared upwards into the nothingness.

  Over the years, Myrddin had learned to push the dream away, denying it, even as it dogged his steps. Yet, because it had come so much more frequently in the past year, every week certainly, sometimes every day, he could no longer ignore it or take it as casually as he wished. Just two days ago, Myrddin had downed enough wine and mead to blind a giant in hopes of heading off the vision, only to awaken halfway through the night in a cold sweat.

  Even as he pushed the events of December 11th aside, going about his business as if that day wasn’t fast approaching—as if the dream was just a dream—he’d finally begun to admit the truth.

  It wasn’t just a dream.

  Myrddin focused on the leaves above his head. Who was he to see like this? He was a nobody. His mother, the orphaned daughter of a landless knight, had lived as a lady-in-waiting in the household of a minor Welsh lordling. She’d birthed him out of wedlock. The Welsh ignored illegitimacy provided a father acknowledged his offspring, but Myrddin’s mother had died at his birth before she revealed his father’s identity. Consequently, he grew up an orphan in the lord’s house, living off the scraps of the high table and grateful to have received even that.

  At the same time, Myrddin was Welsh. It was in his blood to see. Didn’t the priests speak often of the native saints, whose visions had led them on despite the death and despair that surrounded them? Myrddin snorted under his breath at that thought. He might be many things, but a saint wasn’t one of them.

  Myrddin could have lain beside the road the whole night, his limbs growing stiff from the cold ground despite the warmth of his wool cloak, if a woman’s scream hadn’t split the air and forced him back to life. The depth of fear in her cry carried her panic through the trees to where he lay. Myrddin was on his feet in an instant. He threw himself onto Cadfarch’s back, turned him in the direction from which the sound had come, and urged him forward.

  Myrddin couldn’t see a damned thing in the dark, but Cadfarch’s eyes were more capable than his at night. The horse raced unerringly along the road at a gallop, his head pushed forward and his tail streaming behind him, while Myrddin pressed his cheek against the horse’s neck.

  Ahead, off the road in a cleared, grassy patch, a torch flickered, revealing the shapes of three people hovering over a fourth. The woman hadn’t screamed again, but she writhed on the ground before them and even managed to lash out with her foot at one of the men, who cursed aloud. “St. Dewy’s arse! I’ll teach y—”

  But the man didn’t finish his sentence. As Cadfarch’s hooves pounded on the stones of the road, the three men rose to their feet and turned to look at Myrddin. One reached for his sword, but the other two men were unarmed, having strapped their weapons to their saddlebags in preparation for molesting the woman.

  Myrddin raised his sword and swung it at the armed man, who stupidly chose to stand his ground and catch Myrddin’s sword against his. The force of Myrddin’s blow threw him backwards and, before he could recover, Myrddin flung himself off Cadfarch to land hard in the grass.

  Without pausing for breath, Myrddin slipped his sword under the knight’s ribs. The blade slid in easily since, while the man may have worn a sword, indicating his high status, he’d neglected his armor this evening. Perhaps, like his companions, he thought he’d have little need of it, and it would only hinder him in his carousing.

  Myrddin pulled the sword from the man’s midsection and looked around for more men to fight, but the other two were already away. Well-hors
ed, and in train with a third horse, now masterless, they raced north along the road to Rhuddlan, preferring an ignominious departure to facing down an armed and angry knight.

  The woman crouched in a ditch where she’d come to rest, her hands in front of her mouth and her eyes wide and staring. The dress she wore might once have been fine but the men had ripped the fabric from neck to waist, revealing her shift. At least no blood marred the front. Her eyes were shadowed but Myrddin didn’t know if the cause of that was the torchlight or men’s fists.

  “It’s all right.” He spoke in Welsh, guessing at her nationality. “You’re safe.”

  “I never thought—” she began in the same language, and then stopped, swallowing hard. “I didn’t think anyone would come.”

  “I heard you scream.” Myrddin took a step nearer and though the woman shrank from him, she didn’t run away.

  Moving slowly, as if she were a wild animal rather than human, Myrddin put a hand under her elbow and urged her to stand. Once upright, the top of her head didn’t even reach his chin. Then he stepped back, thinking to keep his distance so as not to frighten her.

  “Let me take you home.” Myrddin checked the road. No sign remained of the men who’d run but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by, waiting for a second chance. It made sense to hurry.

  The woman didn’t respond, so he grasped her left arm and urged her towards Cadfarch. Her feet, thankfully still shod in well worn-boots, stuck to the earth at first, but he got her moving and was glad that she wasn’t in such shock that she ran away screaming. Myrddin had lived a long and varied life, but even for him that would have been a first.

  Myrddin bent to wipe the blade of his sword on the tail of the dead man’s cloak and then sheathed the weapon. The torch the men had carried sputtered in the grass beside the man’s body, so Myrddin picked it up in order to hold it close enough to illumine both the woman’s face and his. The light had almost burned out, but he still needed it. He wanted her to see that he wouldn’t hurt her, and he needed her to talk.

  “Tell me your name.” He lifted the torch high. “And where you’re from.”

  The woman pulled the ends of her torn dress together and then crossed her arms across her chest, shivering in the night air. Myrddin loosened the ties that held his cloak closed at the neck, removed it, and swung it around her shoulders so that the fabric enveloped her. She clutched at it while Myrddin lifted the hood to hide her hair which had come loose from the chignon at the back of her head. He didn’t bother trying to find her linen coif.

  Myrddin gazed at her and then swept his eyes up and down to take in her appearance from head to foot. It was only then that the woman finally raised her eyes from the ground. They were a deep green that complemented her hair, and Myrddin acknowledged that he was correct in his initial assessment: she was beautiful.

  He guessed that she was close in age to him, although she could have been younger. The events of the night had hollowed her cheeks and eyes but time and warmth could reveal her youth. Her diction, given the few words she’d spoken, was that of an educated woman.

  “My name is Nell ferch Morgan. And I have no home.”

  “But you must have once,” he said. “Did the Saxons turn you out of it?”

  That, of all things he could have asked, garnered a real response. To Myrddin’s relief, it wasn’t tears she expressed, but anger.

  “I come from the convent at Llanfaes, on the Island of Anglesey. The Saxons burned the Abbey to the ground and defiled the grave of Queen Gwenhwyfar.” Nell spit out the words, her biting tone compressing all her hatred of the Saxons into one sentence.

  “You’ve come far.” Myrddin didn’t even blink at the Saxon sacrilege. Their barbarity was well-practiced and well known among his people. “Where is your father? Your family?”

  “Dead,” she said.

  “And the rest of your sisters?”

  “I don’t even want to say.” Nell looked away from Myrddin now, her sadness conquering her anger. “They’re dead too. I knew of what the Saxons were capable, but we were too vulnerable—too unprepared for when they came. I managed to hide a few of my sisters at first, but—”

  “But what?”

  Nell gazed down at her shoes again, and a tear dropped onto the rough, brown leather covering her left foot. “I left them. I thought they would be safe in a nearby barn, so I went to see what had become of the convent after we escaped. To find other survivors. In my absence, the Saxons found them. And—and—” Nell stuttered, swallowed hard, and finished, even if Myrddin already knew what she was going say, “—took them.”

  Myrddin studied Nell’s down-turned head, going over her tale in his mind. The garrison at Garth Celyn had smelled smoke blowing across the Strait, but the fog and rain had been so unrelenting, they’d not known what was happening. Perhaps, in Myrddin’s absence, the king had received word of this atrocity today. “You must come to Garth Celyn.”

  Although she’d expressed no fear of him up until now, Nell paled. She shook her head and took a step back. “I don’t think so.”

  “I saved you,” Myrddin said, nonplussed at this sudden reversal. “I won’t harm you.”

  Finding Nell here might be fate—might be one more nail in his coffin—but as the wind whipped the dead leaves from the trees, bringing the strong scent of the sea and the smell of winter, Myrddin felt a change in the air. By lying on the road for longer than he should have, he’d been given the chance to save one life out of all those that might be lost between now and December 11th. Whether by her choice or his, Nell was riding home with him, even if he had to tie her up and throw her across Cadfarch’s withers.

  Nell must have heard his thoughts. Without warning, she turned on her heel, dropping his cloak in order to hike her skirts above her knees. She headed for the trees that lined the road, running flat out along a trail that only she could see.

  “Stop!” Goddamn it! Cursing, Myrddin started after her. Where she thought she was going to go in the middle of the night, in Saxon territory, with a torn dress, was beyond him.

  In the end, it was an unseen root that undid her. She tripped and fell forward onto her hands. When it happened, Myrddin was only a few paces behind, unhindered by skirts and with longer legs. He came down on her back, pressed her to the earth, and grasped each of her wrists in order to hold her arms out to either side and contain her struggles.

  “Get. Off. Me!” Nell rocked her hips back and forth.

  As Myrddin was half again as large as she and had twenty years of fighting under his belt, Nell hadn’t a chance. “I won’t hurt you.” Myrddin repeated the words again and again until her movements calmed and she breathed heavily into the musty leaves. “My name is Myrddin. I serve Arthur ap Uther.”

  Silence. Nell put her forehead into the dirt, arching her neck as she did so.

  Myrddin could practically hear her thinking, although he couldn’t discern her thoughts. “If you were at Llanfaes Abbey, the king must hear of its burning. He would have my head for setting you loose east of the Conwy River.”

  “Then don’t tell him.”

  Now it was Myrddin who had no answer. Finally, he said, “That I cannot do.”

  Nell mumbled something into the muddy leaves, something Myrddin didn’t catch, other than the word ‘men’, which she spat into the earth. He eased off of her and then stood, taking a step away from her to leave her free. She twisted onto her back and gazed up at him for a long count of ten.

  He held out his hand. After another pause, she grasped his fingers, and he pulled her upright. Then he released her hand before she threw it from her.

  “Will you come with me, or do I have to tie you up?”

  It was dark under the trees so Myrddin couldn’t read her expression, but the words came grudgingly, subdued at last—at least on the surface. “I’ll come.”

  They walked back to Cadfarch, who was waiting where Myrddin had left him. Myrddin swathed Nell in his cloak once again, swung into the saddle, an
d pulled her up after him. Nell had to rest on the saddlebags. It wasn’t the most comfortable seat but would provide her a better cushion than the horn at the front of the saddle.

  Her hem rode up her legs, revealing the undyed leggings she wore underneath her dress. She tugged the skirt down before spreading his cloak wide for modesty. Myrddin waited for her to wrap her arms around his waist, which she eventually did, resting her small hands on his belt.

  Cadfarch, of course, had no dreams of the future, good or ill, or any thought but when he might rest or next find his feed bag full. Uncomplaining, he pointed his nose west, in the direction of home.

  Chapter Four

  5 November 537 AD

  Past midnight—in November—in the rain—was not the best time for riding, even on a road as well made as the one that ran from St. Asaph to Garth Celyn. Nell was grateful for Myrddin’s cloak, which protected her from the deluge that fell from the sky. The cloak she’d borrowed from that poor almost-nun had become trampled in the mud and muck beside the road, so Myrddin had left it where it lay. In his generosity, however, Myrddin had left himself open to the elements.

  Although Nell wasn’t happy to be heading back towards Eryri, she was content for the moment to ride behind Myrddin. He’d driven her attackers away and knew enough not to touch her unless he had to. It was she who was touching him, her arms cinched around his waist, keeping both of them warm and her fears at bay. How can this be anything other than my fate? Perhaps God isn’t done with me yet.

  She’d run from Myrddin before she knew who he was. Because of the dark and that enormous mustache masking his face, it wasn’t until she lay under him in the dirt and he’d said his name that she’d recognized him. Once she knew him, the dream of King Arthur’s death had come into vivid relief. It felt for a moment as if going with Myrddin would tie her to a future she didn’t want to be true. But the truth remained inescapable. He was here, and real, and had saved her. It occurred to her that few girls ever got to meet the man of their dreams.