by Sarah Zettel
Oh, husband. “And what of Geraint? How do you fight it?”
“By silence,” he said.
The stars were coming out overhead. Elen watched them for a long moment. She saw the familiar patterns, and took heart. They could not be too far gone from the world if the stars above held their familiar courses.
“I hope you will not ask me to fight such a battle with such a weapon,” she said lightly, hoping to turn his thoughts. We have heaviness enough between us. “I’d lose in an instant.”
Geraint chuckled. “You are a woman. You have your own weapons.”
“Tch,” she clicked her tongue. “You’ll call me shrew next.”
Now there was mischief in his eyes for all his voice was solemn. “Of all the names I’d call you, that is not one.”
Elen cocked her head, one hand on her hip in an imitation of impatience. “What are these names then?”
But Geraint fell silent, with only the smallest of smiles playing around his mouth, and Elen found she could laugh at that and be glad for a precious moment.
For awhile they sat with arms around each other, watching the stars and breathing in peace. When time came for sleep, Geraint took first watch. They slept in shifts that night. It was cold and dark but the moon was nearly full. Owls hooted in the forest and wolves gave tongue to their fellows, but nothing untoward came about and the stars wheeled overhead in good order.
Elen found breathing easier. Above her she saw the mother’s white face, not yet turned away. We are not alone, she told herself. Not even here.
In that thought Elen found strength enough to watch the night and wait for the morning.
When the morning came, they fished again to break their fast, then rode together down the rolling slopes toward the valley Calonnau had seen. Had it not been for their means of arrival, Elen would not have known it from any other part of the west lands. The tall mountains brooded blue and purple behind them, and if the land before them was rough, it was green. Thick dim forest of oak and alder alternated with meadows bright with summer flowers. The air was full of the scents of flowers, herbs and grass. The birds sang and called and warned. A fox yipped. In the distance, a stag crashed through the underbrush, startled and launched on some adventure of its own. Calonnau, her hunger sated by the fish, followed them, flying from tree to tree, circling occasionally overhead, untroubled by this new place. She saw prey for coming meals. She saw a fox that had blue eyes, and a quail that had golden feathers in its crest. That these things looked strange troubled her no more than the mice with their delicate hands did. They were food and the hunting of them was as it should be.
The day wore on, and they passed through meadow and wood, up gentle stony hills and down them again. The bread and beer were gone. They passed from noon into the afternoon without anything but water and tiny wild apples and a few currents the birds had missed.
They came to a strip of thick wood and had to dismount again and pick their way through the gloom and rattling bracken. The light slanted sharply through the trees. Evening was coming fast. They needed to find shelter or make camp soon.
She had just opened her mouth to say so, but Geraint held up his hand, stopping her. She listened, and she heard it, the thick, heavy sound of hoes striking earth. A faint shout rose over them, and another answered it.
Together, they waded into the underbrush, moving toward the welcome human sounds as quickly as the horses could be coaxed between the trees.
They emerged from the forest and found themselves in fields bright green with grain that rose as high as the horse’s bellies. People, sun-browned and sturdy in loose, rough clothes, worked here and there among the wheat, chopping weeds with wooden hoes, or carrying out buckets of water to the workers. An old man herded geese into the rows to eat the insects and weeds. The scene was as familiar to Elen as her name and her throat ached to see such a homely place.
For all the fields appeared prosperous and long-established, the settlement beyond had a rough and wild look. Elen could not see one proper cottage, let alone a hall or great house. There was at least one long, windowless building with proper walls washed well in lime, but Elen could not imagine such a strange place as the high house.
A rutted lane ran from the woods to the village and they set themselves and their horses on it. Elen held Calonnau close, swallowing the hawk’s anger. The bird’s hunger was growing again. She’d find it a meal soon. Calonnau was not going to hunt in these fields.
A man straightened his back from his labor. He saw them coming and stopped to stare. Geraint raised his spear in salute. The man shouted something to his fellows. All halted their busy labors then, and all gaped as if stunned. Elen fought the urge to shrink near Geraint in the face of all these strangers watching her. It reminded her too much of the time at Urien’s side with the hungry-eyed men measuring her for her worth.
While she pushed this thought aside, the fields burst into commotion. A gaggle of children broke from the field, racing to the village, calling out in shrill voices. Their elders all hurried to line the road.
“What do we do?” she asked, discomfited.
“We greet our hosts,” replied Geraint.
They rode at a gentle pace through the fields. As Geraint and Elen passed, every one of the serfs knelt and bowed their heads. Those who wore hoods or headcloths doffed them at once.
What is this? Elen wondered. Outwardly, Geraint seemed to take it in his stride, bowing his head this way and that whenever someone risked a glance upward. It was only the small furrowing of his brow that told Elen he too was surprised.
When they reached the village, they found it was indeed a poor and dishevelled place. Hovels of mud and bark hunched beside an open walled pavilion of thatch and poles with the bark still on. Some dwellings were no more than tents of hide on frames of willow wands. The only buildings that looked dry and sound were the four long, windowless houses with their bright, white walls.
There were many pens full of fat animals — sheep and goats, a fine herd of shaggy cows, pigs, with even a white piglet wallowing among the others in the mud with their fat sow watching beneveloently. But while kettles hung on chains over open fires, and a few clay ovens smoked, Elen smelled only boiling pottage and vegetables. No scent of meat leavened these other fragrances.
A small cadre of old men waited nervously for them in the shade of the enormous chestnut tree that grew beside the broad well. Like the workers in the field, they knelt as Geraint and Elen approached, their hoods in their hands. Those hands were black with ancient dirt. Their tunics were rough and undyed. They were shod in bark-soled sandals. Their beards were untrimmed and uncombed. Elen stared from the fat, well-tended animals to their lean and filthy keepers and had to work to keep her jaw from falling open.
A boy wearing nothing but a loose and much-mended tunic ran forward to hold Geraint’s horse while he dismounted. Elen watched Geraint’s eyes and knew he saw all she did, but he held his face absolutely calm. He walked up to the man who seemed the oldest among those who kelt in their ragged line. His bald pate was bronzed, mottled and shining from all its time in the sun. His ragged-nailed hands shook as Geraint approached.
Geraint said something in a tongue Elen recognised as Latin, though she understood none of what he said. The head man just shook and made no reply. Geraint tried again, this time in a gutteral and less measured tongue. Still the man said nothing.
Geraint tried a third time, speaking in the tongue of the west lands that Elen knew.
“I thank you for this good welcome,” said Geraint gently. “My wife and I are in need of food and shelter for the night.”
“Wife?” exclaimed the man, his head jerking up. He stared for a breath at Elen sitting on her grey horse and wearing her grey cloak, and he dropped his gaze instantly. “I’m sorry, my lord. Of course, my lord,” he stammered. “It is no more than our duty.”
Elen frowned. Who were these who went poor in the midst of plenty? The accent was familiar to her. His to
ngue had learned to speak not far from Pont Cymryd. She thought of the man who had worn Geraint’s armor. Was it that one they feared so much? Or were there others?
And why so surprised that such a one should have a wife?
But Geraint was holding his peace, and so Elen decided to hold hers. They were now the center of a flurry of activity. More boys came for the horses. Elen let Geraint help her dismount. The children led the animals to a trough where a stooped and wiry man stood ready to see to their care. A few old women scuttled into houses coming back with chairs that were set in the shade. Another man hobbled back toward the fields, hollering for all to come in and see to the comfort of my lord and my lady.
All their faces were stark white. All of them trembled whenever they glanced in Elen’s direction. The wrongness of it all left a sour taste in Elen’s mouth.
The old men all got to their feet. Bowing deeply, the bald one they had singled out, gestured to the chairs. “If you and your … lady would care to take your ease my lord. You will see how well we have tended the king’s plenty. All is yours.”
“May I know how we may call our host?” Geraint asked.
That startled the man as badly as naming Elen his wife. “A … Adev, my lord.”
“Adev. Thank you.” Geraint inclined his head once. He took Elen’s hand with so stately a courtesy it would have been flattering, had they not been surrounded by people wide-eyed with fear. He led her to one of the chairs, seeing that she was seated before he was. She took a minute to lash Calonnau’s jesses to the chair’s slats since she had no other perch for her. She was not letting the hawk away from her now. She needed the steadiness of her heart beside her, even with the hawk’s anger pressing hard against it.
Women brought pitchers of small beer and wooden noggins, which they filled, and then they backed away, hastily bowing, trying to get out of sight as quickly as possible.
“What has been done to these people?” murmured Elen to Geraint. “We do not dare ask.”
Geraint shook his head. “We watch.”
So, watch they did as the folk came flooding in from the field. No person stopped to salute, much less speak to them. Mothers and granddames pulled their children into the rude houses. Men brought out trestles and boards for a table which they set in front of Geraint and Elen. Only Adev stayed at their side, and he kept his eyes fixed rigidly ahead. His brow was bright with sweat and his eye bright with fear.
People went into the long white houses and emerged with all manner of foodstuffs. These were clearly the stores, but Elen had never seen such a thing. Stores were for grains and preserving, not for bread, or cheese, or the fresh fruits.
Snatches of furtive conversation reached her.
“… the whole thing, here …” A father said to a child as that child brought out a round, ripe cheese.
“… bring the best …” called one woman to another as she hurried forward with an armload of cloths to spread on the table.
“… That’s all …” said a man’s quavering voice behind them.
“No matter, bring it,” answered another, deeper voice.
“But …”
“Hush! Would you tempt the wrath? They’ll know if anything’s held back!”
She wished for a way to reassure them, a way to understand what plagued this place where they were so clearly afraid for their lives. They were heaping the table in front of them with food — breads and cheeses and steaming bowls of stew, fresh fruits, and last year’s apples. Her stomach churned with its hunger, but all the same she could not believe her eyes. Whole barrels of beer were being rolled out of the strange, white storehouses, and sacks of nuts were stacked beside them. Two people could not possibly eat so much, yet no chair was set at the board for any other to join them, let alone any long bench. What were they doing? Paying tribute or toll? Some hard tax?
She thought of the old pair by whom they had been distracted on their road. This was what that illusion had been taken from. This was the truth of that shadow play of fear. She thought of the man whose armor they had stolen, and of the twisted brand on his brow.
“Geraint,” she whispered. “Take off your helm.”
He understood at once. “It is a risk.”
It was, but it was a way to show who they were to those who would believe no less a sign. “It is better we should be open about who we are than that we should try to hide and fail.”
Rather than waste words of agreement, Geraint simply undid the strap under his chin and removed the banded helmet, running his hand through his black hair as he did.
Each and every one of the villagers froze in their tracks, and they stared at Geraint’s open and unmarred face.
“He’s not …” began a tangle-headed child. A woman grabbed her from behind and clapped a hard hand over her mouth.
Adev was also staring, his jaw slack, his brown eyes wide. “But … you carry the spear …” he stammered. He took one step backward. “She wears the grey … how is this …”
“I won this armor from one I defeated in battle,” said Geraint evenly. “So too the cloak and spear.”
“Defeated?” The word chocked Adev, and he could say nothing else for a long moment. He swayed on his feet, torn by his different fears. Geraint waited, his patience seemed infinite. All around them the people murmured, their fear taking on a new, sharper pitch. Whatever danger they expected, this was not it. Was this worse? They were wondering. What did it mean?
“Who are you?” whispered Adev.
No names, Elen mouthed to Geraint. There was too much magic in the ground of this place. They must hold off giving their names as long as possible.
Geraint saw her warning and answered Adev. “We are strangers to these lands.”
For a moment, Elen thought Adev was going to faint. A woman gasped. Had this not been so horrible, it would have been comic.
“A stranger, bearing the grey …” Adev wagged his beard back and forth. “No. No.” He gripped his head in both hands, shaking it hard, as if trying to dislodge some unbearable thought. Behind them, someone had begun to weep, the choking hiccoughs sounding unbearably lonely in the still air.
When Adev could look up again he croaked, “My lord, I beg you, leave this place. Leave us in peace. Please. He must not know you have been here.”
Geraint remained seated. “He? Who?”
“My lord, please!” Adev fell to his knees. “Leave us! Leave now! We have done nothing to you. Please! He must not know!”
Around them, others were looking to the fields and the track. There was no movement that way but the waving of the green wheat. Some husbands were shooing wives into the houses, but mostly young and old huddled closer together. They were afraid for their lives, afraid and helpless.
Unable to sit still any longer, Elen rose and walked forward. “It is your king you fear, Adev?” she asked, as mildly as she could.
Adev bowed his head, biting his lip. Elen thought of Urien, and how he sent fire and slaughter down on Pont Cymryd, all because his will was denied.
She knelt so she could take the man’s hands, cursing the coldness in her own. She would share human warmth, that most clear and basic communication with this man who was almost mad with his terror. “What will he do when he finds we have been here?”
“He … he …” Adev licked his lips. “All is his. That we offered what is his to strangers …”
What overlord grudges his people hospitality?
Elen nodded, although she understood nothing of this place. She stood, raising the old man to his feet. “Then you must not give us what is his. Take away what you have brought. Instead, we will host you.”
Geraint was watching her, wondering what she was doing. The truth was, she was wondering the same. At home, she would not have even contemplated what she was about to do. It was a thing out of legend. But here, in this place, legend surrounded them and such power as should have belonged only to the gods simmered in the air of the fair summer evening. The prophecy her moth
er’s ghost had laid upon her was everywhere written, and it came to Elen that to refuse to do this thing might be more dire than to attempt it.
Slowly, haltingly, Adev managed to look up. Weak hope sparked in his eyes. He looked to the crowd, the husbands and wives in their homespun tunics and dresses, dyed weak brown and uneven blue when they were dyed at all. They all had a worn and hollow-eyed look that made them appear so alike as to be of a single family. Not one was fat. Not even the babe bundled at his mother’s hip. Not even Adev the headman. All were too thin.
“Take this away,” she said again, gesturing to the food on and around the cloth-covered table. “We would not bring trouble on you.”
They did not need more urging. As swift as the food had been laid out, it was now snatched away, hurried into the stores and some little into houses, to be hidden perhaps, perhaps to be eaten so it could not be taken away again. This was madness. This was a nightmare worse than any vision Elen had ever seen. What had done this? These were people of the soil. They should have been as tough as tree roots, and as hard to pull from their place. There was much an overlord could do to such people, and much they could not. The right of blood flowed both ways, and a chief who was too hard … there were torches in the night and a high house burned as well as any other. Elen had heard stories at the summer fair in Abergavenny of such revolts. Those who labored for their lords would stand only so much. Even if revolt did not happen, it was not unknown for entire villages to simply … disappear. Whole families, or indeed whole clans might take to the hills looking for a new life, and a new chieftain. Strong backs and skilled hands could find homes more often than not.
What then had driven these people mad with fear, but not driven them to rebellion?
When the board was empty, Elen said, “I saw a white piglet in the pen. Bring it to me. I swear it will not be harmed nor taken from you.”