by Mary Lide
“Even as he ran to his own horse, yelling for his men to throw up their shield wall, the arrows hissed among them, scattering them. Two died upon the spot; a second flight caused a horse to squeal and kick the others loose; a third took the captain in the arm. He clutched the shaft, trying to break it off, still shouting orders, mostly ignored as his men struggled to get away.
“From the floor I watched all this, unable to move, my head aspin. I saw the Celts swarm down from the headland, seeming almost double their number, so fast and furious they came; I saw Urien, with Hue close behind, make their way along the beach. Then Taliesin was in the hut, crashing through the door, sword swinging dangerously, eyes lit with battle rage. He scooped me up, bore me outside; the last of Henry’s men speared through, only the captain left upright, cornered, his teeth bared like a wolf’s. I clutched at Taliesin’s arm. I could feel the sheen of sweat, like satin on the skin, and the muscles taut with strain. ‘I am not harmed,' I told him, still spitting blood. ‘No more killing; let that man go.’
“Taliesin snapped his fingers for a cloak and wrapped it round. He must already have seen the purple bruises, the cuts, the weals. He put me aside; his hand tightened for its final thrust. I clung to him so he could not move.
‘No more,’ I cried, my voice surprisingly firm although in my body I trembled like a leaf. ‘Have done. Let us away as soon as we can.’ When he still hesitated, I whispered in his ear, ‘As betrothal gift, a life. His. I beg. I owe him it.’
“Well, Taliesin, too, was a fair man. He did not question or refuse, simply nodded. As swiftly as the attack began it ended, nothing but dead men left, the villagers cowering at their doors in fright.
“The Celts began to carry things down to the boat; saddles, bridles, packs of food, the reverse of their departure at Cambray. I counted them. But four men left, this the reason the guard had not cried alarm, and I crossed myself to pray for yet another dead soul. Urien and Hue had begun to climb on board, Hue still laboriously, yet I had heard him shout, one shout only, but in his old voice. The tide was running fast, the little cove almost awash; the boats were bobbing on their mooring lines, and the waves beginning to pound into surf. The fishermen, those who had betrayed our whereabouts and who had promised to sail the ship for us, reluctantly came forward, driven like sheep, protesting, arguing in true Celtic style, their women screaming outrage. They had not thought of Henry the King when they took our gold; they had not been frightened of retaliations then. I gathered up my cloak, and with escort, went back into the hut to claim my clothes; sadly burned and scorched they were, when they had fallen into the fire. Beyond them gleamed the armlets, where they had been kicked. I gathered them up, slipping them above my elbows on either arm. Outside, the dead had been dragged apart; the captain, leaning on the wall, blood dripping down his arm, watched in silence, sword still in his hand. He turned his head when I went by, watching me now with his hard eyes. He said suddenly, cried out, almost puzzled, almost beseechingly, ‘Why so? What, lady, did you want from me?’
“We looked at each other, nothing to say. He was a professional I tell you, he knew what should, what could, what must, be done. In silence, then, I passed, but I tore off a length of ragged hem from my skirt and tossed it to him.
He caught it to knot around his wound. Well, I thought, he said he would not forget, and he never will, a man bested by a girl who has turned her first day’s loving into its parody. But when I had gone most of the way down to the cove, he shouted at me. ‘I liked you better as strumpet,’ he cried, ‘than lady, with your head in air. But you gave me life. I give you yours.’ As we all looked at him, ‘You did not expect me to ride alone, not with only six men.’ And he cocked his head toward the eastern cliff, not the one Taliesin had come from, but on the other side. It was bare, nothing to see, only a sparkle where the sun’s rays caught some bright thing. Some bright thing, a shield rim perhaps, a helmet crest . . .
“We dropped our bundles then, and ran, no time to wait for reluctant fishermen; we struggled into the sea, knee-deep, trying to push the boat out through the surf. It answered sluggishly, the tide not yet turned, veering broadside to the waves, shipping water so that slowly it began to fill. Those on board fought to break out the sail, tried to keep us on even keel, tried to bail the water with helmets or even their bare hands. Along the cliff edge, to the east, there was a shout, the sound of hooves; mounted men began to appear, pointing, spurring furiously toward the village, Henry’s men, the captain’s rear guard. Taliesin had thrown his mail coat off; it dropped into the sea like stone. Waist-deep, shoulder-deep, he and two companions were swimming us out, while two others, standing firm on shore, beat back the fishermen. For they, recognizing our predicament and assured of help, miserable knaves, had come rushing forward to hinder us. Half over the gunwales I wrestled with the ropes that held the sail, trying to bite them through with my teeth when nails broke; we still drifted helplessly within spear range. Then Hue, without speech, calm, picked up a knife, cradling it between his crooked fingers, and sliced through the knots; with a rattle the sail, a small, square sail, unfurled. It was small, but it was enough. A gust of wind off the headland caught it full, and we began to move. I pulled myself on board; Taliesin and his companions did likewise, dragged through the water, breathless, waterlogged. Not so fortunate were the other men. Helpless to turn back, too far for us to tender aid, we saw one of them go under, overwhelmed by the fishermen; the other, trying to shuck off his harness and swim at the same time, threw up his arms, sank beneath the waves, and disappeared. The wind filled the sail and bore us away.
“We were afloat, out of reach, all of us wet and gasping like netted fish. I give you life. That was all we had; three men with only their unsheathed swords, a wounded man, a page, and a naked girl, little food, less water, no place to sail to even if we could. Yet Taliesin threw back his head, when he had breath, his brown throat gleaming in the way it has, and cried, ‘So, gods, I defy you, wind and waves.’ He began to laugh, choked, water streaming from his hair, plastered to his skull, running from his eyes and mouth, ‘Sweet Jesu,’ he cried, ‘back to Cambray, then, as we left.’ But beneath the laughter for a moment was defiance, desperation perhaps, perhaps even fear. We were afloat, and little else.
“Soldiers are not sailors, that’s a truth, and the ship was a sorry hunk of wood, worm-riddled, small, splitting at the seams. But we made it sail. Or rather Hue made it so. He could not work the ropes nor man the oars, but he could advise us which to use and when. Hue knew how to swim; he had been well trained in seacraft at Cambray; even better than Taliesin he understood boats. Gingerly, headland by headland we edged along until, more confident, we left the shelter of the frowning cliffs that rose up steeply north of Carnac and began in earnest to strike out to sea. This stretch of water is the roughest in the world, the western sea, shunned and feared by experienced mariners. Ignorance made us brave. I cannot say either that this was the best time I have known; we lived off fish when we caught them, Urien and I being good at that. When we could, we hugged the coast; a deserted stretch of land, it seemed, with little to recommend to anyone. Once we had to go on shore to fill our water casks. I told you that Celts can steal anything, but there was little there to steal, some half-ripe apples and a goat. The goat was tough, but we ate it down to its hooves, its toughness spread over several days, and we stilled the pangs of hunger with green fruit. But we never spoke of that day at Carnac or our losses there; it seemed drowned, too, sunk from sight. And yet for all our grief, for all our loss, I cannot say it was the worst of times. We had each other, Taliesin and I. And when the long twilight came and we drifted with the currents north, we would come together in the rear of the ship. The sea was calm, praise God for that, the nights and days continuing fair, and our wake was like a ripple cut across a millpond, such as small water insects make, scrabbling with their legs. There was a place under the stern where fishermen coil their nets, and there we made a sort of bed, spread with cloaks. I spent mu
ch of the daylight hours there with a fishing line; it was of a size for Urien and me, but Taliesin had difficulty fitting in his long legs. He looked thin, as did we all; the wind and sun had burned his skin to a golden brown, and his blue eyes by contrast were almost black. The nicks and ridges of old scars showed purple, and I longed to cover them. Urien used to sit against the sail, for the first time in weeks, it seemed, he had begun to sing, and one of the Welsh soldiers had brought out his stringed harp; that, too, I had not heard in months. I said suddenly to Taliesin one night when we sat there, looking at the stars, the half-moon rising clear (hard to believe that the moon had grown so fast since the night of darkness when we had left the forest of Falaise), ‘When we come to Cambray, what will you do? Will you stay there with me?’
‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘If Dylan will let me in. Will he give me and my men horses to ride, armor, weapons, so that we do not have to come begging at your gates? Will he render me my own horse back?’
‘Your horse!’ I mocked him. It is but part yours, horse thief. ’
“He pulled my hair. ‘Take care,’ he said. ‘Your tongue grows sharp. I told you what I do to sharp-tongued wenches when I am crossed. Let me show you since you forget.’ Afterward he said, ‘You smell like clover and honey; you remind me of a clover field’ (a lover’s exaggeration, I think; I smelled more like seaweed and stale fish, my skirts in shreds). And so I told him, but he closed my mouth. ‘No need of clothes,’ he told me with a grin. ‘But there is a field of wild clover I will show you, close by a stream. The banks are shady, where kingfishers breed, and trout for the catching in the shadows under the stones. Shall we ride there together one day?’
“ ‘And would your father accept me,’ I asked, ‘of Norman kin? Perhaps you had better face him first!’ But he did not hear me, far away among his northern hills. ‘Not hills,’ he corrected, ‘mountains, capped with snow, where eagles and hawks abound, the best hunting lands on this earth.’
“He stretched and sighed. ‘I have been gone too long,’ he admitted, ‘I should bide at home. My father is old; he needs a son. He needs a son who takes a wife. And that also I mean to tell him.’ I let him speak, happy in his happiness. ‘Then I shall bring you to those fields of clover, where the bees hum all day long,’ he said, a boy who suddenly thinks of home. ‘Olwen of the White Flowers, no fairer maid in all of Afron.’
‘So you have said to many maids, I have no doubt,’ I told him tartly, to hide my pleasure in his compliments, and smiled to myself as he argued me down; well, princes, even in the northern mountains, are men, with all of their princedom to choose maids from. It was not disagreeable to be proved wrong. And you see that not everything was misery as we rocked steadily toward Cambray. And one day I dared to tell him what also was in my heart. ‘I cannot forget Gervaise of Walran,’ I blurted out, ‘although I did not want to be his wife. Long are the prayers I make for him. But, my lord,’ for I spoke seriously, ‘if, in my turn this past week, for honor, love, what you will, I could have sold myself, so perhaps did he.’
‘He is dead, Olwen,’ he said soberly. ‘God rest his soul; I meant him no ill. Nor do I think he meant wrong to you. But if he had lived, then would I be dead.’ He suddenly took my palms and pressed them together as once he had done before. ‘And if you had not deceived that man,’ he told me softly, ‘then we should all be back in Henry’s power. I can only thank God that he did you no harm. No harm, that is,’ and he began to smile, ‘as now I mean to do to you.’
“Fickle are the Celtic gods, inscrutable, smiling fair, bringing grief, death, and joy like clouds that shift, like mists that gather and dissolve upon a summer’s day. They gave us a following wind, calm seas; they brought us back to Cambray. A second time we tasted hope; a second time they snatched it from our lips. Listen now, my part is almost done. Easily we crossed open sea; we rounded the Cornish peninsula where the rocks that form its western tip are spear points, stabbing through to air. Up the northern shore we beat, sailing in the shadows so that even from a cliff we could not be seen, hidden during the day by the heat haze. Relying on Hue and Urien, who claimed they best knew the coasts about Cambray, we put into shore, our voyage done.
“The evenings were still long, the nights short; it was semidark when we came to that headland where Urien and I had brought the fishing fleet. We shipped the oars, for we had thought it better not to use a sail, and ran the boat right up onto the beach, expert now in handling it, knowing all its weaknesses and quirks. The tide and current brought us as easily as a piece of driftwood; we did not even have to wet our feet when we stepped out. Anticipation had made us look our best. At least I felt clean, saltwater clean, although my gown was so sun-faded where it was not torn, I think even a serf at Cambray would have turned her nose up. The men had washed, no way to shave, no martial gear, only their swords, kept rust-free somehow.
“It was strange to stand again at Cambray and look up at the cliffs; high they reared above our heads, green and dark against the night sky. I swear I could smell the heather on the moors and hear the dry rustle of the wind through the grass. The Celts made great show of stretching their arms and flexing them, rowing not being much to their taste, and they stamped their feet back into their boots to show their pleasure in dry land. One, for a jest, even offered to race his fellow up the cliff and back, a test of endurance such as Celts love, although I think he made the wager more to show exuberance, a thing to marvel at; I had never heard them jest before. We watched them almost indulgently, older men turning themselves to youths at the thought of that border a few miles away. They bounded from tussock to tussock to show their skill, leaping, where Urien and I had crawled, and soon were gone from sight. Urien himself was in brave mood, too. He stamped and stretched with the others, swore like a man, braced his shoulders against our slaps of brotherhood; well, he deserved to crow a little, come back triumphant to his own yard. Only Hue, poor Hue, who daily had improved so he knew where we were and who he was and what had happened to us, only Hue hid his feelings, a fugitive returned after setting off with such high hopes. But once he was safe within Cambray’s walls, then Henry could whistle in the wind himself. In high spirits we unloaded the ship, not much left to unload, the bilge water for the last time unbailed. The thought of hot food and wine, of fires and friends and taletelling to pass the hours suddenly seemed real, and their reality a fitting end to so many hardships. I remember thinking this must be a dream and thrusting my arms in up to the gold armlets to test the cold of the sea, whether I dreamed or not; I remember wondering, God forgive such foolishness, if I had grown and if the castlefolk would notice how I had changed. They say lovemaking turns a woman sleek, soft as a cat; had I been a cat, I might have purred. I remember, too, watching the way the little waves eddied up and down, sinking into the sand in a swirl of foam; cool and sweet that water was, the air crystal clear, the scent of it like the touch of silk . . . Down the cliff the Celts came at a run, in a slide of stones, reaching the shore together in a single leap, landing on their heels. Our hand claps, our bravos, died away as we saw them, white-faced, panting, breathing in ragged gasps. It was not the climb that had winded them. ‘My lord.’ They spoke in unison, for once not mincing words. ‘My lord, turn back. The way is barred, the castle under siege from Henry’s troops. The cliff paths watched. Odo of Walran waits there for us.’
“They thrust us under the shelter of the beetling rocks, making us hug the side of the cliff. Face pressed to the wet stones, my heart pounding with shock, I waited for a shout of alarm to come. But minutes passed, our breathing eased; for the moment, then, we had not been seen. But what next? Gently had the Gods brought us home; now they let their furies loose.
“We were all huddled against the side of the cliff, the men’s swords already out, their backs braced to take the shock of attack. The little boat lay innocently on the sand, but soon, when the tide was in, there would be no beach left. And even if we were to push off, where should we go? At sea, unprovisioned, how much longer
could we trust to luck? Taliesin summed up our position clearly enough. ‘Not worth a tinker’s cuss, that boat,’ he said. ‘A good fortune not to have staved its keel open; a sudden squall, a rainstorm, we’ll split in two or flood. As soon go to sea in a sieve.’ And he beat his bare hand on the rock as I had seen him do once before. But he was still able to think, and his ability to improvise now stood us in good stead. First he listened to what his men had seen, certainly not good news. Soldiers, a score or more, Walran men, along the cliffs, stationed at intervals as Robert had placed his men. Odo of Walran had not forgotten his threats. And now he had a dead son of his own to avenge. Closer to the castle was a ring of campfires, revealing the presence of troops about the walls, not clear from here how many but a large force, King Henry’s answer to our defiance. No way into Cambray, then, no way out for the Cambray men, and the road west blocked. And even if it were open, all about us only open moors, where a man can be seen for miles. Yet in this cove nothing had changed; the little beach in shadow, the waves idling in, the boat drawn up to reveal our whereabouts. Of all the plights we had been in, this was the worst; to feel safe, to feel home, and to have that hope dashed to bits. Like waifs we crouched against the cliff face, happiness turned to gall. Fickle are those Celtic gods, like their fickle land, their fickle weather, their fickle folk, smiling fair, bringing woe, harbingers of storm when they seem most calm.
“But Taliesin would not let us be found like sitting hares. Action he could arrange, could handle, not hopelessness. We dared not sail, then we must go by land; we could not walk, then horses must be found; if the open moors would reveal us, then we must find a place to make a stand and arm ourselves to fight. The darkness would hold for another hour or so; we must act soon.
“Celts can steal a horse from under a man and leave him sitting in midair. Now Taliesin and his companions proved how easily it can be done, practice having made them craftsmen, showing, if nothing else, why Normans fear the Celts more than any other foe, able to strike and disappear without anyone seeing them. The three Welshmen swarmed up that cliff as if on ropes, taking advantage of every cover, every bush and rock, sliding through the bracken with a ripple such as the wind makes. We came after them, climbing slowly, having to help Hue at every step. ‘Useless, useless,’ I heard him groan as he forced his fingers into handholds. I wanted to comfort him, but what comfort was there? We were all useless; we three ‘prisoners,’ another time a burden to our rescuers to imprison them. Without us, perhaps, they would have had a chance to escape; with us, there was no chance at all.