by Sarah Zettel
The man with her … he carried a secret in him, down under the depths of his long silences, and this was something Gwiffert had not expected. It could be nothing. It could be everything. It was most certainly more than Morgaine had told him, and that alone made it worthy of discovery.
Gwiffert left his hall. He walked his corridors, turning left, then right, then right again until he came to a broad, dim stairway winding up into one of the three squat towers that decorated his home. At the top waited a single door of ashwood banded with bronze. Gwiffert drew a ring holding two keys out from under his shirt, one was silver, the other was gold. Gwiffert took the golden key and unlocked the door.
On the other side waited a single, round room filled with the scents of straw, old droppings and dust. Sunlight streamed in from three arched windows, each so large two men could have stood abreast on their stone sills. It was a mews. There were perches and nesting boxes enough for a dozen birds here. Jesses, hoods, lures, and all the tools of the falconer’s trade lay untouched on a table that had been made to fit against the curving wall. Only one bird was kept here now, and it opened its round, yellow eyes at once as he entered. It was a great owl, black as night. Its hooked beak was as sharp and wicked as the talons that clung to its perch. It gazed at him imploringly and hooted with its urgency.
“Hello, Blodwen.” Gwiffert drew on a pair of gauntlets, and with a deft motion lifted the bird from its perch, settling it onto his wrist. He ruffled its feathers and it shifted testily for a moment, but then calmed as he carried it to the window. “I have a task for you, my lady.” Daylight blazed outside, but that made no difference to this bird. “You must hunt me out the truth of Geraint the son of Lot Luwddoc.”
He loosed the jesses and held the bird up to one of the windows. She hooted twice more and spread her great, black wings. She plunged from the window ledge until the wind caught her and bore her up on its back.
Resting the spear in the crook of his arm, Gwiffert sat on the windowsill, as any man might who wished to rest for a time, enjoying the view of his country and the warmth of the sun on his skin. A moment’s pause in all his busy doing, a moment’s contentment with all that had been done. His house was secure and all he owned was sound. Before him lay that which was new and waiting to be discovered and put in its proper place. What better cause for contentment was there than this?
After awhile a shadow emerged from the top of the distant forest and became Blodwen. As she soared near, he saw her talons extended, the long jesses trailing behind them.
So you have brought me more than a dream this time.
He stood back from the window and Blodwen swept through, dropping her prey with a small thump onto the rushes at his feet as she swooped down to her perch. First, Gwiffert made sure her jesses were secured, that he had praised and fed her from the bucket of scraps that he himself renewed daily. Only then did he turn to what the black owl had brought him.
It was a mouse, a small brown field mouse, its fur and whiskers sleek from its foraging in the fields. It lay on the floor, stunned by the flight, the fall, and by finding itself still alive when it could have expected nothing but death. It was only by looking closely that one could discern that its tiny white forepaws were not the claws of a mouse, but the hands of a human made in perfect miniature.
So. Gwiffert pulled up a stool and sat, planting his spear on the floor. “Rouse yourself, Llygoden. You gain nothing by testing my patience.”
As he spoke, the mouse changed. It shifted and it stretched. Fur became skin and the hands became those of a man, their backs sprinkled with fine brown hairs to match those on his head and chin.
The man lifted his head. His bones were small and his features delicate. Had it not been for the beard on his chin, one might have taken him for a woman and the long, belted tunic of rich brown wool he wore for a dress.
The man spoke no word, his jaw set tight in anger, but he did pull his knees underneath him and climb slowly to his feet, leaning heavily on the low windowsill.
Geraint nodded his approval and folded his hands over his spear. “Llygoden, you saw much of the world before you came to my service …”
“Slavery,” said the shape-shifter.
Gwiffert allowed this rebellion, for there were no other witnesses. “As you will. What can you tell me of the son of Lot Luwddoc?”
Llygoden spread his hands, a smile of grim merriment on his face. “Whatever you will, my king. I am entirely yours.”
“Ever the trickster, you.” Gwiffert made sure his disapproval was plain in his voice. “So much the mouse even in the form of a man. Speak clearly, I have other business and will not waste my time here.”
But the smile did not fade. “I could sit here for days and auger on many matters of that family. Ask a better question, my king.” Llygoden bowed his head down in mockery.
Which was too much. Even Blodwen did not get so long a lead from him. “Be wary of your tongue, Llygoden.” He planted the spear. Take a look at your doom, mouse. You can bring it down whenever you choose. “Do not think because I permit you to keep your little games with shapes and jars that are forever full of their milk and their whiskey, that I cannot take what remains of your art as easily as stretching out my hand. And do not think I will spare that wife of yours no matter how great with child she has grown.” He grinned. “Would you like her to be mouse forever, that pretty pot-keeper wife of yours? Would you like my Blodwen to know her name?”
That made the mouse-man go pale with rage and, more importantly, with fear. Gwiffert nodded. “Yes, Llygoden. Remember yourself. Now. A better question. Fair enough.” He considered. “What is the secret that Geraint son of Lot Luwddoc carries in his blood?”
Llygoden frowned, his eyes narrowing as they looked into the distance, seeing back through the long years, back before he had made a gamble that now displeased him so.
“Two girls,” he said in a soft voice. His gaze did not move. Augery, then, or just the long sight of one who might see what all his own people saw. “They run on a hillside, holding hands and laughing. They are alike in face and form, so that no man could tell them apart, save that one has blue eyes and one black. The blue-eyed sister will have four sons blessed in birth by a man who will love her, and then hate her. The black-eyed sister will have one son whose father will not know him until it is too late.”
Black-eyed, a single son … Is that Morgaine herself? Morgaine has a sister? A twin?
He thought. Lot’s queen had been … Morgause, he remembered now. Morgause, the daughter of Uther and Igraine, the half-sister of … and Gwiffert laughed out loud.
Morgause was half-sister to High King Arthur. Arthur had married her to Lot Luwddoc to bring about an alliance with Goddodin against the picts as well as the Saxons. She had mothered his heir, Gawain, and Gawain’s three brothers; Agravain, Gareth, and Geraint.
Gwiffert shook his head, his jaw loose with the force of his wonder. Morgaine, Morgan the Fae was sister to Arthur the High King? And Geraint, this man she had coaxed him into agreeing to destroy was her blood kin, her sister’s own son. No wonder he looked at the world so closely. He carried the blood of the Sleepless One and all its power in him.
Small wonder she wanted him dead.
Oh, little Elen, do you know what you have fastened onto? He smiled. I think not. You would not ally so readily with the kin of your enemy.
Gwiffert laughed again.
“I trust, my king, I have served you well?” said Llygoden, all sincere solicitation.
“Better than you may know, my mouse.” Gwiffert stood, holding the spear easily in his hand. “As was ever your way. You may go now, but be ready. I will be sending you someone soon. I expect you to serve her even better than you once served Rhiannon.”
Llygoden’s jaw worked itself back and forth, but he bowed his head, because he had no choice.
“Be of good cheer,” said Gwiffert consolingly. “This is no friend I send you. She permitted her hawk to hunt among your people.
You may take her life as your due.”
Llygoden lifted his head, and there was a gleam in his dark eye. “Then at least we may strike at one enemy.”
Gwiffert shifted his grip on the spear, slightly, but deliberately, making sure Llygoden saw. “Go, little slave.”
In return, Llygoden smiled, and his white teeth were very sharp. “Slavery within slavery, worlds within worlds. Beware Gwiffert, lest you find yourself locked in here with the rest of us.”
Gwiffert let it go. Words from a mouse were nothing to him. Llygoden shrank and plumped, brown wool and brown hair becoming fur and whiskers again. Blodwen watched, hooting in her annoyance as the tiny creature scampered along the floor and disappeared into a tiny chink in the wall.
Smiling Gwiffert left the mews, closing and locking the door behind him. Smiling he walked down the stairs. Let Llygoden rail. He had what he needed. The way was now clear. He would have Elen, and he would have Geraint, and in time, they would ensure that he had Morgaine herself.
Chapter Sixteen
Once Elen sank into sleep on the narrow bed she had been given, Geraint found himself pacing the tiny room. Calonnau watched him suspiciously from her perch. He thought of what Elen had said before about the hawk having only anger and corporeal need in her. He thought he understood that now. His vaunted patience failed him in this place, and for all he was concerned for Elen’s health and healing, all he wanted to do was get out of it. He needed to be doing, not wondering, not fearing.
A tentative knock sounded on the door. Geraint stilled himself before his tongue could form a sharp rebuke. The door opened, and rather than the old man, a woman, well into her middle years, wearing in a plain grey dress stepped in. She dropped a nervous curtsey to him.
“His majesty would walk with you,” she whispered as if afraid of being overheard. “I’m to sit with the lady to attend her when she wakes.”
Elen lay still, curled in on herself as she did when she slept beside him. Calonnau preened on the perch. He did not like the idea of leaving Elen alone, but he had no good excuse to offer should he refuse this request from his host. The woman clutched her skirt in both hands, worrying the cloth with her gnarled fingers. She was afraid, but she met his eyes nonetheless. So, not afraid of him.
“Where shall I attend his Majesty?” he asked.
“At the walls by the main gates.” She curtsied, her relief obvious in the stillness of her hands as well as her voice.
Praying this was not the wrong choice, Geraint took up his cloak and strode out to meet once more with the king of this strange hall. After a few false starts in the labyrinthine corridors, he found his way to the yard. The day had grown as close and grey. The wind tugged impatiently at the edges of his cloak. The yard had been covered in straw, an attempt to hold back the mud the rain must bring. The smells of the place were all as familiar to Geraint as his own name — horses, hearth smoke, the acrid stink of a tannery and the metallic tang of a forge. Men, women and children hurried about their tasks. They seemed content enough, but underneath their everyday appearance he thought he saw something furtive, an unspoken fear that was to be known in how the women hunched their shoulders, and how the men scolded the children ferociously and clouted them hard for doing nothing more than play a little too long. No, all was not right in this oh-so-homelike yard.
Gwiffert pen Lleied did wait by the gate. The gate a massive affair built of timbers that were as broad as a man’s two hands. Not even Camelot had such a portal. The walls that held the gate were stout stone with stairs leading up to the ledge where the sentries might survey the land all around.
This place has been built to do much more than hold in secrets.
“Ah, Sir Geraint, thank you.” King Gwiffert stopped Geraint with a gesture before he could kneel. He still held Manawyddan’s spear, cradling it in the crook of his arm. “How does your lady?”
“She sleeps, Sir,” Geraint replied. The king carried his spear comfortably, almost tenderly, as if it were no more than a treasured ornament. As one became used to its presence, one might almost forget it was a weapon of war.
Geraint found himself wondering if that were not part of the reason Gwiffert did not put it down.
“Sleep is the best thing for her now,” said Gwiffert. It was a polite murmur, nothing more. The way he watched his tightly closed gate and the men standing sentry above it said he had other matters on his mind. “Forgive me for taking you from her, Sir Geraint, but I am in need of your help in more ways than one.” His eyes shifted sideways, as if this were an admission that cost him pride to make, and well it might be.
Geraint bowed in his best courtly manner. “You request honor me.”
The king nodded absently. His attention was still all on his walls, as if he could see through them to the country beyond. “As I told you, I was … brought here while a young man. My schooling in the arts of war was never completed, but even I had heard of the prowess of the Table Round.” He rested the butt of the spear on the toe of his boot. He twisted the weapon in both hands for a moment. “I would ask you to view our defences with me, tell me where we may strengthen what we have, and what new thing we might do. Every detail helps us. The Great King will attack again before winter.” Whatever Gwiffert had been when he came to this place, he was not young now. There was no grey in his golden hair yet, but his hands were hardened and browned from the work of war, and the veins stood out on their backs. His face was seamed with fine lines that would only deepen with time, especially around his eyes.
Geraint bowed again. “I will be glad to render what help I can.”
Together, they climbed the stairs to the walkway that circled the walls. The sentries with their spears in their hands and their horns at their sides knelt for their king and then went rigidly about their watch, without any of the gossip and joking Geraint would have expected. He and the king followed the narrow way with careful steps, for it was a long fall to the yard below. Beyond the hall, they overlooked the rugged country of steep vallies and dark, crabbed mountains. They pausing often to contemplate the earthworks, discussing the use of ditches and terracing and the other points of readying a hall for seige. The king spoke of the attacks he had so far endured with great feeling and Geraint watched him closely as he spoke. He talked of the loss of this man and that, of women carried off as they foraged for herbs and other foods in the woods, of villages frightened into helping the Great King in his betrayals, of the constant threats and fear that his dwindling folk must live under.
He spoke with feeling. He spoke with the detail of a man who had seen the tale he told. He talked angrily of his attempts to find the other king, and his repeated failures. It was as he spoke of these things that his hand tightened on the shaft of his spear, the knuckles turning white with the strength of his grip.
They stood at the northwest corner of the walls. The wind whipped around their ears, bringing the smell of more rain. Below, the country where it sank into a crooked valley, only to rise again into stony peaks covered in red earth and dark trees. It was very different from the green and gentle country Geraint was used to, or even the hard and rocky hills around his childhood home at Din Eityn. It was as if the land itself spoke of the blood and secrets spilled there and crowded close to keep both for itself.
Geraint shook off that thought, and searched for a way to compose the questions stirring inside him. “I confess I am surprised that you have not been able to do more against your enemy, Sir. With the weapon you carry …”
At the mention of it, the king curled his arm more tightly around the spear, drawing it close. Geraint was not even certain King Gwiffert was aware he did so. “It is all that has kept us thus far safe. I am still but one man against his hundreds. My enemy can fetch more to replace what he loses. I have the ones around me, and that is all.”
To be without allies, to be a ruler and yet a stranger in this land of blood and magic. There was reason enough for his fear, and his anger. “None other will rise up with you?”
King Gwiffert shook his head. “I have no claim of fealty here. Even if I did, they are afraid, and rightly so. They have seen the Grey Men too.” Slowly he turned his gaze from the lands beyond, as if he feared to turn his back on them. He took a deep breath, planting his spear against the ledge. “Sir Geraint, if this war were yours, what would you do?”
Geraint considered, staring off across the cramped and crooked countryside. There was so little open ground, so many steep hills. “If I had but a few men, I would not hurl them at a fortress. I would seek to draw out the enemy and spring what trap I could on him.”
The Little King’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. That would be the way. But what trap? And how to bring him out? It is in this that I have failed for so long. He comes and goes as he will, for none of my urging or insult.”
There was a way. Geraint saw it as clearly as a candle flame in a darkened room. “What if he believed you would soon have help?”
King Gwiffert started. “What help?”
“Arthur, and the Round Table.”
Gwiffert stared at him for a long moment. “Tell me.”
It was a shaky thought, and Geraint knew it, and yet it warmed him. It could be made to work. It would play on the one thing this Great King must count on, that Gwiffert had no ally. “If the Great King could be made to believe that the Arthur had found the way to breach the borders of this land, that he was coming with all his might at your urging, that my lady and I were only the first … would he not attack before they could come here, while you still seem weak?”
The king licked his lips. Geraint watched the hand that held the spear. His fingers drummed restlessly, uncertainly against the shaft. “It would be a terrible chance to take. If he came with all his power … it could drown us.”
“I wonder, Sir.”
The fingers stilled. The runes were shallower beneath them, worn away by his grip. How many years had it been since he had set the spear down? “How is that?”