“He thought he might become king?”
“Yes, but Gwydyr and I were the youngest. The throne was not likely to be ours while the other five remained alive.”
“Yet you, Madoc, the seventh son, were the favored of the people.”
“Had I let them proclaim me king, there would have been no way to avoid bloodshed. I left Gwynedd to prevent the horror of brother against brother.”
“Have you”—the old man regarded Madoc keenly—“in fact left it?”
“I have left it. Gwynedd in Cymru is behind me. It will be ruled by whomever the gods choose. I do not wish to know. For now I am Madoc, son-to-be of Reschal, soon to be husband of Zyll of the People of the Wind.”
“And Gwydyr? Have you let him go?”
Madoc gazed across the lake. “In many ways it seemed that I was older than he, though there were seven years between us. When we came to the tribe on the Far Side of the Lake he was afraid of their dark skins and hair and their strange singing that was full of hoots and howls, and he ran from them. They kept me as guest, yet I was a prisoner, for they would not let me go into the forest to look for my brother. They sent a party of warriors to search for him, and when they returned they carried only the belt with the jeweled buckle which marked him as the son of a king. They told me he had been killed by a snake; Gwydyr did not know what a snake is, for we have none in Gwynedd. They told me that he had called my name before he died, and that he had left me the Song of the King’s Sons. And they buried him out in the forest. Without me, they buried my brother, and I do not even know the place where he is laid.”
“That is the way of the People on the Far Side of the Lake,” the old man said. “They fear the dead and try to escape the ancient terror.”
“The ancient terror?”
Reschal looked at the tender sky of early morning. “That which went wrong. Once there were no evil spirits to blight the crops, to bring drought or flood. Once there was nothing to fear, not even death.”
“And what happened to bring fear?”
“Who knows? It was so long ago. But is it not in Gwynedd, too?”
“It is in Gwynedd,” Madoc replied soberly, “or brother would not have turned against brother. Yes, we too know what you call the ancient terror. Death, it is thought, or at least the fear of death, came with it. Reschal, I would that I knew where those across the lake had laid my brother, that I may say the prayers that will free his soul.”
“It is their way to put the dead far from them and then to lose the place. They hide the dead, even from themselves, that their spirits may not come to the lake and keep the fish away.”
“And your people?”
The old man pulled himself up proudly. “We do not fear the spirits of our dead. When there has been love during life, why should that change after death? When one of us departs we have a feast of honor, and then we send the spirit to its journey among the stars. On clear nights we feel the singing of their love. Did you not feel it last night?”
“I watched the stars—and I felt that they accepted me.”
“And your brother? Did you feel his light?”
Madoc shook his head. “Perhaps if I could have found the place where they buried him …”
“You must let him go. For the sake of Zyll you must let him go.”
“When will come the Old Man’s daughter?” Madoc asked. “I felt the People on the Far Side of the Lake to try to find my brother’s grave, and in the forest I was quickly lost. For days I wandered, trying to make my way back, straying farther and farther from them. I was nearly dead when Zyll came hunting the healing herbs which are found only in the deepest part of the forest. When will come the Old Man’s daughter? Where is found the heart’s desire? Here, Reschal.”
“You will let Gwydyr go to his place among the stars?”
“Does it call for tears or mirth? Shall we sing for death or birth?” Madoc sang softly. “I have shed my tears for the past. Today is for mirth. Why have you dragged me through tears again?”
“So that you may leave them behind you,” Reschal said, and raised his withered arms to the sun. The lake, the shore, the rock, the forest behind, were bathed in golden light, and as though in response to Reschal’s gesture there came a sound of singing, a strange wild song of spring and flowers and sunlight and growing grass and the beating of the heart of all of those young and in love. And Madoc’s tears were dried, and thoughts of his lost companions and brother receded as the singing filled him with expectancy and joy.
The children of the tribe came first, wearing chains of flowers which flapped against their brown bellies as they danced along. Madoc, shining with delight, turned from the children to the Old One. But Reschal’s eyes were focused on the unseen distance across the lake and he was listening, not to the children, but to that sound for which he had been straining before. And now Madoc thought that he, too, heard a throbbing like a distant heartbeat. “Old One, I hear it now. What is it?”
Reschal gazed across the water. “It is the People Across the Lake. It is their drums.”
Madoc listened. “We have heard their drums before, when the wind blows from the south. But today the wind blows from the north.”
The old man’s voice was troubled. “We have always lived in peace, the People of the Wind and those Across the Lake.”
“Perhaps,” Madoc suggested, “they come to my wedding celebration?”
“Perhaps.”
The children had gathered around the rock and were looking expectantly at Madoc and Reschal. The Old One raised his arm again, and singing drowned out the steady beating of the drums, and the men and women of the tribe, ranging from coltish girls and boys to men and women with white hair and wrinkled skin, came dancing toward the great rock. In their midst, circled by a group of young women, was Zyll. She wore a crown on her head to match Madoc’s, and a short skirt made entirely of spring flowers. Her copper skin glowed as though lit by the sun from within, and her eyes met Madoc’s with a sparkle of love.
Nowhere, Madoc thought, could wedding garments be more beautiful, no matter how much gold was woven into the cloth, nor with how many jewels the velvets and satins were decorated.
The flower-bedecked crowd parted to let Zyll come to the rock. Madoc stooped for her upraised hands, and gently lifted her so that she stood between him and Reschal. She bowed to her father, and then began to move in the ritual wedding dance. Madoc, during the year he had spent with the Wind People, had seen Zyll dance many times before: at the birth of each moon; at the feast of the newborn sun in winter; at the spring and autumn equinox, dance for the Lords of the lake, the sky, the rain and rainbow, the snow and the wind.
But for the Wind Dancers, as well as for all the other Wind People with their various gifts, there was only one Wedding Dance.
Madoc stood transfixed with joy as Zyll’s body moved with the effortless lightness of the spring breeze. Her body leapt upward and it seemed that gravity had no power to pull her down to earth. She drifted gently from sky to rock as the petals fall from flowering trees.
Then she held out her hands to Madoc, and he joined in the dance, marveling as he felt some of Zyll’s effortlessness of movement enter his own limbs.
At first, when Zyll had found Madoc half dead in the forest, and had brought him to the Wind People, they had been afraid of him. His blue eyes, his pale skin, reddened by exposure, his tawny hair, were unlike anything they had ever seen. They approached him shyly, as though he were a strange beast who might turn on them. As they became accustomed to his presence, some of the Wind People proclaimed him a god. But then his anger flashed like lightning, and though there were some who said that his very fieriness announced him the Lord of the storm, he would have none of their attempts to set him apart.
“Stay with your own wind gods,” he commanded. “You have served them well, and you live in the light of their favor. I, too, will serve the Lords of this place, for it is their pleasure that I am still alive.”
Gradual
ly the Wind People began to accept him as one of themselves, to forget his outer differences. The Old One said, “It is not an easy thing to refuse to be worshipped.”
“When people are worshipped, then there is anger and jealousy in the wake. I will not be worshipped, nor will I be a king. People are meant to worship the gods, not themselves.”
“You are wise beyond your years, my son,” Reschal said.
“My father did not want to be worshipped. But some of his sons did. That is why I am here.”
Across the lake the drums were silent.
The Old One watched Madoc and Zyll as their bodies slowly ceased the motions of the dance. Then he lifted Madoc’s hand and placed it over Zyll’s, and then put a hand on each of their heads. And as he did so, the sound of drums came again. Loud and close. Threatening.
A ripple went through the Wind People as they saw three dugout canoes approaching swiftly, each paddled by many men. Standing in the bow of the middle and largest dugout was a tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed man.
With a glad shout Madoc leapt from the rock and ran to the water’s edge. “Gwydyr!”
FIVE
The fire with all the strength it hath
In the attic Meg lay quietly in bed, her eyes closed. Her hand continued to rub rhythmically against Ananda, receiving the tingling warmth. Behind her lids her eyes moved as though she were dreaming. The kitten stood up, stretched its small back into a high arch, yawned, and curled up at her feet, purring.
Charles Wallace-within-Madoc felt the young man’s surge of joy at seeing his brother alive, the brother he had thought dead and buried in a forgotten part of the forest.
The man in the dugout jumped overboard and ran splashing to shore.
“Gwydyr! You are alive!” Madoc held out his arms to his brother.
Gwydyr did not move into the embrace. His blue eyes were cold, and set close together. It was then that Madoc noticed the circlet around his brother’s head, not of flowers, but of gold.
“Gwydyr, my elder brother.” The joy slowly faded from the sunny blue of Madoc’s eyes. “I thought you dead.”
Gwydyr’s voice was as cold as his eyes. “It was my wish that you should think so.”
“But why should you wish such a thing!”
At the pain in Madoc’s voice, Zyll dropped lightly from the rock and came to stand close by him.
“Did you not learn in Gwynedd that there is room for one king only?”
Madoc’s eyes kept returning to Gwydyr’s golden crown. “We left Gwynedd for that reason, to find a place of peace.”
Gwydyr gestured behind him, and the drummers began to beat slowly on the taut skins. The paddles were rested and the men splashed into the shallow water, and pulled the dugouts onto the shore.
Gwydyr raised the corners of his lips into what was more a grimace than a smile. “I have come to claim the Old Man’s daughter.”
The sound of the drums was an aching pain in Madoc’s ears. “My brother, I wept for your death. I thought to rejoice to see you alive.”
Gwydyr spoke with grim patience as though to a dimwitted child. “There is room for no more than one king in this place, little brother, and I, who am the elder, am that king. In Gwynedd I had no hope against six brothers. But here I am king and god and I have come to let the Wind People know that I reign over the lake and all the lands around. The Old Man’s daughter is mine.”
Zyll pressed against Madoc, her fingers tight on his arm.
Reschal spoke in his cracked voice. “The People of the Wind are people of peace. Always we have lived in amity with those Across the Lake.”
Again Gwydyr’s lips distorted into a smile. “Peace will continue as long as you give us half of your fish and half of all you hunt and if I take with me across the water the princess who stands beside my brother.”
Zyll did not move from Madoc’s side. “You come too late, Elder Brother. Madoc of Reschal and I have been made One.”
“Madoc of Reschal. Ha! My laws are stronger than your laws.” Gwydyr gestured imperiously. The men with the paddles pulled the blades off the shafts, and stood holding dangerously pointed spears.
A united cry of disbelief, then anger, came from the Wind People.
“No!” Madoc cried, outrage giving his voice such volume that it drowned out the beating of the drums, the shouting of the warriors with the spears, the anger of the Wind People. “There will be no bloodshed here because of the sons of Owain.” He stepped away from Zyll and Reschal and confronted Gwydyr. “Brother, this is between you and me.” And now he smiled. “Unless, of course, you are afraid of Madoc and need your savages with spears to protect you.”
Gwydyr made an enraged gesture. “And what of your peaceable Wind People?”
Then Madoc saw that the festive garlands were gone from the young men, flung in a heap in front of the great rock. Instead of flowers they carried spears, bows and arrows.
Reschal looked at him gravely. “I have been hearing the war drums since last sundown. I thought it better to be prepared.”
Madoc flung his arms wide. There was grim command in his voice. “Put down your arms, my brothers. I came to you in peace. I will not be the cause of war.”
The young men looked first at Madoc, then at the People Across the Lake, their spears threatening.
“Brother,” Madoc said to Gwydyr, “have your men put down their spears. Or do you fear to fight me in fair combat?”
Gwydyr snarled an order, and the men on the shore behind him placed their spears carefully on the sand in easy reach.
Then the Old One nodded at the young men, and they, too, put down their weapons.
Gwydyr shouted, “If we are to fight for the Old Man’s daughter, little brother, I choose the weapon.”
“That is fair,” Madoc replied.
Zyll made a soft moan of anxiety and placed her hand on his arm.
“I choose fire,” Gwydyr announced.
Madoc sang:
“Lords of water, earth, and fire,
Where is found the heart’s desire?”
“Fire it shall be, then. But in what form?”
“You must make fire, little brother,” Gwydyr said. “If your fire cannot overcome mine, then I will be king of the Wind People as well as those Across the Lake, and I will claim the Old Man’s daughter for my own.” His close-set eyes flickered greedily.
Reschal walked slowly toward him. “Gwydyr, sixth son of Owain, pride has turned the light behind your eyes to ice, so that you can no longer see clearly. You will never take my daughter.”
Gwydyr gave the old man a mighty shove, so that he fell sprawling on the beach, face down. Zyll screamed, and her scream was arrested in midair, to hang there.
Madoc sprang to help the old man, and bent down on one knee to raise Reschal from the sand. But his eyes followed the Old One’s to a small pool of water in a declivity in the sand, and his movements, like Zyll’s scream, were suspended. Only the reflection in the small pool of water moved. Gwydyr’s face was quivering in the wind-stirred puddle, his face so like and so unlike Madoc’s. The eyes were the same blue, but there was no gold behind them, and they turned slightly in to a nose pinched with cruelty and lust. This was not, Madoc thought, the brother who had come with him to the New World. Or was it? and he had never truly seen his brother before, only Gwydyr as he hoped him to be.
Ripples moved over the shallow oval and the reflection shimmered like the reflections in the soothsayers’ scrying glass in Gwynedd.
Madoc had always feared the scrying glass; so he feared the small oval of water which reflected Gwydyr’s face, growing larger and larger, and darker and darker, quivering until it was no longer the face of a man but of a screaming baby. The face receded until Madoc saw a black-haired woman holding and rocking the baby. “You shall be great, little Madog,” she said, “and call the world your own, to keep or destroy as you will. It is an evil world, little Madog.” The baby looked at her, and his eyes were set close together, like Gwydyr’s, an
d turned inward, just so, and his mouth pouted with discontent. Again the face grew larger and larger in the dark oval and was no longer the face of a baby, but a man with an arrogant and angry mien. “We will destroy, then, Mother,” the man said, and the face rippled until it was a small, slightly pear-shaped sphere, and on the sphere were blotches of green and brown for land, and blue and grey for seas, and a soft darkness for clouds, and from the clouds came strange dark objects which fell upon the land and fell upon the sea, and where they fell, great clouds arose, umbrellaing over the earth and the sea; and beneath the bulbous clouds was fire, raging redly and driven wild by wind.
Gwydyr’s voice rippled across the scrying oval of water. “I choose fire, little brother. Where is your fire?”
The flames vanished and the oval was only a shallow pool reflecting nothing more than the cloud that moved across the sun.
Time resumed, and Zyll’s scream continued as though it had never been broken. Madoc raised Reschal from the beach, stepping into the oval as he did so, splashing the shallow water onto the sand. “Stand back, Old One,” he said. “I will break the scry.” And he stamped once more on the water left in the puddle, until there was not enough to hold the least reflection.
From the central dugout came one of the warriors, carrying a smoking brazier. Gwydyr took one of the spears and held the sharp end over the coals. “You must make your own fire, Madoc!” He laughed derisively.
Madoc turned to the rock where the young men had laid their chains of flowers. He gathered the flowers in his arms and placed them in a heap over the oval where the water had been. Then he took the crown of flowers from his head and added it to the garlands. As though responding to a signal, Zyll cast hers on the fragrant pile. One by one all the men, women, children of the Wind People threw their headpieces onto the heap of flowers, Reschal last of all.
The Wrinkle in Time Quintet Page 39