by Sarah Zettel
All around the walls where Elen would have expected tapestries, or war trophies, were more of the paintings. These looked newer to her awe-struck eyes, more clean. They imitated the ribbon work she had grown up knowing, and the showed such symbols as were part of her daily speech. She saw the white mare there, here a white sow and a black boar, there men in bronze helmets and spears of familiar work, and there, a man beneath a black owl, its wings spread wide. Apple branches made a border for the space nearest the floor
Geraint touched her arm, and Elen realized she was gaping. She drew her eyes back down to the hall. At the far end waited a dais where a single, long table had been set. Only one person sat there — a lean man who held a spear in the crook of his right arm. This then was their host, the Little King. He stood as they entered, bowing deeply, and waving them forward.
As she walked beside Geraint, Elen took in more of this remarkable hall. The roof was sloped and peaked and buttressed with mighty beams that were black with age. The floor was made of many-colored tiles laid out to depict scenes of battle as well as great feasts and hunts and animals sporting in the forests.
King Gwiffert came around his table, but did not put down his spear. Geraint brought them to a halt before the dais and bowed as Elen curtseyed. Her first impression of Gwiffert was a sharp man — pointed chin, long, dextrous hands, lean but wiry limbs. His hair was bright gold and his blue eyes slanted above his sharp cheekbones. There was beauty in that face, but it was of a dangerous kind. It reminded her of something she could not quite remember. His skin was brown, but it was the rough brown that comes after fair skin has been long exposed to sun and harsh weather. His undertunic and close-fitting trousers were pure white. The over-tunic of rich, forest green was so long it brushed the tops of his sandaled feet. It had been embroidered on hem and cuff with the faces of the moon in white and silver threads. A golden torque in the semblance of a scythe-tusked boar encircled his throat.
“Be welcome, Sir Geraint. Be welcome Chwaer Elen.”
Elen straightened, surprised by this term of honor that had so recently belonged to her mother, and the evasive memory came to her. Beneath his golden hair and wide brow, Gwiffert had blue eyes like the rider in her dream of death.
“We owe you more than we can say, Majesty,” said Geraint smoothly. Elen’s own mouth was dry and her manners confused as she struggled to rise above her dream memories. It was good fortune that Geraint was used to such scenes from Arthur’s court, and could speak where she could not.
“I am only glad I could reach you in time. Please, sit with me.” King Gwiffert stepped back gesturing toward the table. “Food is being brought.”
Geraint led Elen to sit at the the king’s left hand. He took the place on the right. Elen tried to school her features into polite lines. She tried to concentrate on setting the annoyed and impatient Calonnau on the back of an unoccupied chair and tying her jesses down tightly. Whatever her dreams, she and Geraint were here now and they were dependent on this man’s good will.
“I am sorry I sent no woman to wait on you, Sister. Despite what you see,” King Gwiffert nodded toward the busy hall. “We are few in number here, and our women are even fewer.” He shook his head sadly.
“How did this come to be, Sir?” asked Geraint. “This seems a great hall.”
“Seems,” said the king bitterly. “And should be. Its master was a Roman and brought great builders from the ancient city of Athens, which mothered Daedalus the greatest of all artisans. He meant to make a great house like no other on the isle of the Britains. It was to stand on the river Severn, a symbol of his lordship over those he called barbarians.” He smiled. “But he fell in love with one who should have been his slave and made her his wife. She raised them up a son and she made sure he learned the best of both halves of his blood so that he might rule righteously over his lands.”
As the king spoke, Geraint’s careful eyes drank in the man in front if him in a way that might have been thought of as overmuch boldness, but the Little King did not seem to notice.
What does he see?
“Your father?” asked Geraint quietly.
Gwiffert turned his face away and gazed about the hall with its ribbonwork and bestiary so familiar, but their way of making so strange. “Such grand plans, but they were not to be,” he said softly.
“We are a long way from the Severn” said Elen. The spear in Gwiffert’s hand was carved with ancient runes she did not believe she could read, even if she were closer to them. What she could see was that the windings that held the head to the shaft were silver rather than copper or hide. The tip itself was some black stone that glittered where the firelight touched it.
No iron in its making, then, nor could there be for a thing so enchanted it could be cast out and return at once to its master’s hand. This, surely, was the spear they sought. The death of Urien was held in that long hand, and the prize of the fae.
If he saw how hungrily she eyed his weapon, he gave no sign. He only sighed. “Aye, we are a long way from the river, Sister, and have been these many years.”
Two old women and a trio of girls in plain linen brought the food then. All was simple, but filling — stewed mushrooms, apples, stout loaves of bread and slices of cold venison and pork in jellied gravies. There was beer and cider to drink from bronze cups. Elen ate, and tried not to think too much on Adev’s people. What had happened to them? Were the Grey Men gone? Was the wrath of their king averted? Elen fed Calonnau tidbits with the tip of her knife, enduring the hawk’s impatience. She wanted to fly. She wanted to be out of this stone cavern.
And so do I, but we have work here.
Once they had finished and praised all there was, Elen was able to ask the next question.
“Majesty, how is it your house came to be in so strange a place?”
King Gwiffert hung his head. When he looked up again, it was not at her or Geraint, but down the length of his hall toward the men and women who moved about within it.
If not true shame, a good semblance. The thought brought Elen up sharply. Why should it be false?
“It was war,” said King Gwiffert. It was a recitation he began, a story told so many times, the teller knew it by heart. “A man called Jago sought to become high king over all the land he called Gwynedd. But the men of Rhyd Sarn would acknowledge no overlord, and so the fight was joined. But his numbers were greater and his warriors more fierce. There were scoti with them even, brought down from the north and over from the west with promises of land and prizes.” A muscle twitched in Geraint’s cheek, but he remained silent.
“My father died, hurled from his horse into their mob. I was little more than a boy, and I knew not which way to turn. I did not want to die myself.”
I’m not going to let you die too! Elen dropped her gaze, reliving that last quarrel with Yestin. What the king told was her own story come again — the need to live in freedom, the blood lost for the sake of blood. Adev’s story was here in this great hall, and her own.
She bit her lip, and looked toward the painted walls, working to keep her face in a plain and polite expression. She felt Geraint’s questioning gaze on her, but she did not return his gaze.
The king made no pause for Elen’s distraction. Probably he was too lost in his own story. “Then, one night there came to the earthworks a single man. He rode in a marvellously painted chariot led by a team of white horses. He was no mortal man, but a giant. I had never seen one who stood so like a mountain.”
There was a white horse on the tapestry over his shoulder, a white mare galloping along the twisting road of ribbon. Elen frowned. There was something wrong, something the artisan had done that was out of tune with how it should have been, but she could not quite understand what it was.
“He called my name,” King Gwiffert was saying. His face was hard, his eyes were distant. Behind him, the white mare ran on the bright road. “He asked to enter. I let him into the hall, and he said to me that he could save us from Jago, me and al
l that were mine. He said if I swore loyalty to him, Jago would fall before the sun set the next day.”
To choose between one service and another, between Urien and Arthur for her, between Jago and a giant for Gwiffert. Was this the fate of all the people of the West Lands?
“I almost said yes. Perhaps it would have been better if I had. Perhaps then …” he stopped those words with a wave. “But I deliberated that whole night, and I said no. What good was one overlord or another? I still carried the spear of my fathers and all its power. I thought we could yet win through.”
The spear of my fathers? But the Lady and Lord had said that spear was theirs. Did the king lie now? Or was he claiming descent from Manawyddan?
Or was it just that the Lady and Lord neglected to say how that spear came to be in their hands? Such as they did not lie, no, but neither did they easily tell the whole truth.
“I refused him as courteously as I could, and he flew into a rage. He said he would have me for all my pride. I should have stopped him then, but I let him leave my hall. He returned to his chariot, and although the horses had not been harnessed between its shafts, still he rode that chariot seven times around our walls, swinging the great club he carried, calling out in a harsh tongue that no man knew.”
So it was with the story Arvel had told. Elen could not help but wonder what the extent of this land was, and if there was in it a place for Pont Cymryd. Would this giant have come to her if she had not run to the fae?
“I ran to the walls to see his working. I meant to cast down the spear, to stop him, but I was too late. Too late,” he repeated, anger filling voice and face. “As I watched, the world around us melted away like butter in the sun.”
Elen remembered the winding mists on the bridge. She remembered the fear and the sense of utter loss as the mortal world fell behind.
“Then, I and all those who were within the walls of my house … we were here, in these hills, in this country that has no name.”
“What then?” asked Geraint quietly. He leaned forward, hands on the table, all attentive to the Little King’s words.
Gwiffert shook his head. “Then, the giant came again. He shouted up at me that I was his now, and he would come for me when he was ready, and he rode away.”
You are his, but you do not know it.
“What then?” Geraint asked again.
The king laid a hand over his spear, as if he feared it might be wrenched from him. Perhaps he sees our need after all. “Since then, he has taken us by ones and twos. No matter how strong our earthworks, or how many armed men ride out with our people to find food or fuel, the Grey Men come. They take us in ones and twos, women, old men, children, they take. Fighting men, they kill or steal to swell their ranks, and I can do nothing, nothing at all.”
Geraint continued to watch the Little King closely. What he saw though, seemed to trouble him. His question showed Elen why. “Why does he not take this hall, he is so powerful?”
King Gwiffert’s smile was rueful. “I think he means to wait until I am alone. Then he will come at last for me.”
“You will wait for this?” Geraint was clearly surprised, and appalled.
“I have no choice. I cannot find him.” The king spoke now from wounded pride. The hand that gripped the spear had whitened around its knuckles. This is true, she thought to herself. This much is wholly true. But again she could not understand why part of her might think her host a liar. “We have searched the countryside as far as we dare, for his fortress.” He sighed, the hand relaxed, and the eyes cleared. Did Geraint see all this? Surely. “But there is nothing, save the other people he has claimed for his own,” Gwiffert struggled with some thought for a moment and went on. “Always the story is the same. There is war, and there is the promise of safety in return for loyalty. Whether it is accepted, or it is refused, all are brought here. Only the nature of the slavery is different.” Whatever the thoughts that crossed his mind behind those few words, they made his face go tight in the attempt to contain them.
“We heard much the same tale from Adev and his people.” Elen paused. “Has he a name, this giant?”
Gwiffert shook his head. “If he does, I have never heard it. I wish before all the gods I had. Had I his name, there are arts I could employ to find him.” Again came that rueful smile. “Any who speak of him call him the Great King, as I am become the Little King.”
The Great King. The one the Grey Men spoke of. You should fear the Great King. “You have no help?” asked Geraint.
A spasm that might have been pain, but might also have been laughter crossed King Gwiffert’s sharp face. “No true help. All those you see about me are here because the walls are strong, and I carry the one weapon that has held off the Grey Men and the Great King. I am told my name has reached the mortal world, but save for yourselves, none has come from there.” His eyes glinted, and Elen saw suspicion there. Was that new, a thought come to him on speaking these words, or had it been something he had been able to hide until now?
Geraint did not miss the sharpening of King Gwiffert’s demeanor. “You must wonder about us, Sir.”
“Yet you seem to speak freely,” put in Elen. Calonnau flapped her wings once beside her. “Sir,” she added.
This met with long silence. Between them, the bones and crumbs of their meal waited untouched. The women stood in their places, twisting their hands, waiting for something that had not yet come, for not one moving forward. “I had a dream,” said Gwiffert at last. “I had a dream of a hawk that accompanied a man on horseback. Where they rode, the world split open, and through the cracks, I saw the land of my fathers shining through. I resolved to ride out and look for this hawk and this man, and it was thus I found you so beset.”
A dream. Do your dreams also hold blood and terror? Mine do. Blood and blue eyes. “Can you tell us what the Grey Men are?”
Gwiffert’s face twisted into a mask of disgust. His hand curled more tightly around his spear. “Only in part. Some say they are the dead, but I don’t believe so, at least, not entirely. I think they are soldiers bound to their lord, and that while he lives, they must walk in this world and follow his will, whether their bodies truly live or not.”
The pain in Elen’s throat sharpened as he spoke, and her right hand twitched.
“If he could be found,” said Geraint. “What would you do?”
“Do?” Gwiffert’s gaze focused on Geraint again, and the anger in him rose. “What would any man do? I would fight with all I had. I only wait for my enemy because I have no choice.”
No choice but to wait. Elen remembered how she had waited at Morgaine’s word, without choice, without question, how she had waited again at Urien’s side, and in his arms, and how that curse waited on her even now. Now, when there must be more waiting yet, waiting until they could speak plain to Gwiffert, waiting until they could find a way back to their proper home. Waiting, always waiting … the anger of it filled her belly as surely as the good food did, and turned all to bile.
“Sister?” said Gwiffert. “What is it?”
Elen realized she had clenched her hand into a fist, knotting up a great bunch of the table cloth. She did not remember making the gesture and she stared at her cold hand as if it belonged to a stranger.
Geraint answered for her. “Our road here has been hard and strange beyond the telling. My lady is overwhelmed.”
“Of course,” said King Gwiffert at once. “I am discourteous to keep you here talking when you both must still be worn from your trials. You should take some rest.”
Although she had slept a full night, weariness still dragged heavily at Elen’s body and mind. The idea of sinking again onto that bed was as beguiling as the thought of a waiting lover.
Gwiffert got to his feet. Elen and Geraint also rose, and the Little King took Elen’s hand. “We will talk later, Sir Geraint, Sister,” he said seriously, looking deep into her eyes. “I confess it is my hope you will be able to aid us here.”
She wanted
to help him, and the strength of that desire stunned her. She wanted all he said to be true, and all she felt of lies and suspicion to be the dream. Why? she swallowed and her throat stung as she turned and fumbled with the knots on Calonnau’s leash. What is this man?
Gwiffert gestured over their heads and an ancient retainer came scurrying up to the foot of the dais and knelt there. “My man will take you and your lord to your chamber. I will find a woman who can wait on you, Lady Elen. If there is anything needed for your health or comfort, order it at once.”
Geraint bowed in thanks. “We had not thought to find so much welcome here, Majesty.”
“Well do I know it,” replied the Little King.
With that as their farewell, Elen and Geraint were taken from the great hall down to the room she had been given, to rest and to try to understand all that had passed.
Gwiffert watched the pair depart the hall, Elen clutching the hawk’s jesses and her man’s hand as for dear life. He smiled as they turned the corner and were gone to be kept safe and close within the heart of his home.
The slaves passed to and fro, intent on their own work, all of them having been well taught to take no notice of their master unless he had a use for them. Gwiffert sat, gesturing for one of the women to come fill his cup. It was done instantly. He sipped the small beer, watching his doorway, and considered what had passed at his table.
The woman was strong. He doubted that she herself knew how strong. Despite that, she was plain and open. She wanted her revenge, her home, her heart. All these were simple enough to bestow. She would be his without much struggle.