by Sarah Zettel
“Then that is the road we will take,” said Geraint grimly to the false oak tree.
“You are not sure.”
He shook his head. “I am not the leader my brother is, nor the planner Agravain is … it is my job to order the men, not to rally them. I ride beside them, and sometimes behind them. This has taught me some things.” He paused, considering his next words. “I know how men are when they have been pressed into battle. They may understand that the war is their king’s but they do not see it as theirs, for it’s not their borders or cattle that are threatened.”
Elen nodded. The greatest argument she had heard against Arthur was that he would demand men to fight in distant wars that had nothing to do with Pont Cymryd or her people.
“Such men generally fight well enough. They want to live after all, but there’s no …” he waved his empty hands. “There’s none of the heart in it, the bright bravery of men fighting for their homes and the lives of their families. I would rather face the legions of old Rome than a man fighting for his own wife and children.”
“So will these men fight,” said Elen but she watched him while he spoke and saw only doubt. “These husbands have their families in these walls.”
He nodded. “Yes, and they all fought well today, but they did not fight like men with everything to gain. Rather they were like men with nothing left to lose.”
She thought about this, trying to understand the difference. Calonnau was hungry. The bird’s need pushed at her mind making it hard to concentrate. “They have been under seige a long time.”
Geraint’s eyes narrowed, looking to a memory. “Today, I saw a man … he was an older man, not a raw boy. He had scars … Dai, I think he was called. I swear to you he all but ran onto a Grey Man’s sword.” Geraint was confused and angry as he spoke of it. “I have seen such things before. Men will sometimes seek death in battle when death is better than facing what lies behind them.”
“What does it mean?”
Geraint scrubbed the back of his neck, trying to rub out his impatience. “I don’t yet know, but I am uneasy with this war.”
“Do you fear the Great King?”
Geraint shook his head, contempt overtaking all other feeling in him. “He is a king without honor. His men, his people, whatever they may be, fought, and he stood behind all and watched. No king, not the lowest chief with four barbarians in his train would behave so. Now that we know where he goes to ground, we will take him easily, have he ever so many of his dead rising to fight for him.” He paused again, thoughts running ahead to the battle to come. “The terror of them … how great can it be? They are unnatural things, and would give a sane soul nightmares to see them rise up when a mortal man should lie still and wait for Judgement … but they can be made to flee before warriors who hold their ground and they do not become whole again when they are broken, at least, not at once … how was this not discovered before? After all these years, how are their weaknesses not known?
“I do not like this place,” he said abruptly before Elen could think of any useful answer. “I do not like this blanket of magic that smothers us. I do not like that there is so much that I cannot see.” His fist pounded angrily against his thigh. “Magic binds you to a wild beast. Magic freed us, magic brought us here, magic directs how we fight this fight. There is a serpent in the darkness, and I know it is there and I cannot see it!”
“We are neither one of us seeing clearly,” said Elen softly, and this also was true. Calonnau scolded and muttered, dancing on her perch, stretching out her neck. Elen stretched out a hand to stroke the bird, and only got her fingers snapped at.
“What is it?” asked Geraint, but Elen was not sure whether he was asking that of what she had said, or what so agitated Calonnau.
A mouse in the room, perhaps. She shook her head. Think. What are you trying to say? Geraint was waiting for her, waiting for her counsel or at least her tale. So she told him what had happened that day; how the Little King had stood beside her and helped her send out her will to shatter the arrows, and how she had used the last of the gifts her mother had bestowed to give him the name of the Great King.
“He … the name of his enemy gave him great power,” she said. Calonnau’s hunger burned. Something rustled. Calonnau wanted to be free, to strike. There was a mouse and she could not get the presence of it out of her mind. It took all the strength she had to remember what she had done. “He all but wept before I gave it … and it broke the barriar between them. Now we know Rhyddid’s weakness. Now we may defeat him, and free those imprisoned here for so long, but … what is not right?” There was a mouse. The mouse was not right. No. Stop. “It is as if we were in a guessing game and asking all the wrong questions.” She rubbed her forehead. “I am sorry, Geraint … I’m tired … it was hard what was done today.”
He gathered her to him, and they held each other for a time. She drew in his warmth. The beat of his heart made a deep, strong note beneath the high flutter that was her own locked within the restless Calonnau.
Endure, he told her silently. Endure. We will find a way.
Yes, she answered with all the strength she had left. Yes, we will.
Much later Gwiffert strolled about his fortress’s yard. The torches on the walls and beside the doorways were blazed brightly. Boys trotted between them, baskets of freshly pitched branches and tallow-dipped rushlights to replace those that had burnt out. The sound of the armorer’s hammers rang through the darkness. Men ran too and fro, readying what was needed for the battle to come. The air filled with the scent of the diverse fires. The smoke spiralled up toward the waning moon like an offering to the night’s gods. His men would be tired in the morning, but they would fight just the same.
Gwiffert sighed with satisfaction. It was almost done. Soon, the one family who had been able to defy him in his own lands would be gone. He had the name now. Geraint would lead the fight, and he would die, and Elen … What would Elen do? That was a question. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. It would be a shame to throw away such power, especially when Morgaine desired so keenly that he do so.
Gwiffert left his men to their work. They knew his eye was on them, whether he stood beside them or not. He passed through his doors and his great hall, into his painted corridors that led him to his private courtyard. There, beside the round pool, waited Llygoden, already in the shape of a man. It was not possible to wear disguises before Gwiffert in this place, which was one of the reasons he chose it for such meetings.
“So, Llygoden.” Gwiffert rested his spear on his shoulder. “What did our true lovers have to say tonight?”
The mouse-king spoke, repeating all he had overheard. Gwiffert smiled, and kept smiling, as a man who is pleased with his children. “Well. She is clever, that little girl, and her clever eyes do not like the glamour about her. I see I will have to give her something else to think on, and that soon.”
Llygoden drew his lips back, just a little, showing his white, sharp teeth. “You harbor a serpent in your hall, King Gwiffert. You should take care.”
“Ah!” Gwiffert raised one finger as a man might in counsel to emphasize his point. “But serpents may have their teeth drawn, is that no so, my mouse?”
“So they may,” said Llygoden slowly, looking him straight in the eye. “It should be done quickly before they become wise enough to grow afraid.”
Gwiffert suffered this insolence. “Go speak to your people, Llygoden. Bring them home and tell them to stand ready, I may soon have need of them.”
Llygoden knelt, bowing his head without the least sense of honor in the gesture. Then, he was mouse again, scampering away into the darkness.
Gwiffert clicked his tongue against his teeth. I think, Llygoden, I have allowed you too much freedom. I think you need some loss to make you properly humble. Well, it may be the little girl will solve that problem also before she dies. If not, Blodwen can easily make up for the lack.
Gwiffert rose, and walked down his corridors, readying the pat
h for Elen. She must not, after all, be made late for their tryst.
Ching-ching.
The beating of hammer against metal wormed into Elen’s mind, burrowing through the layers of sleep that sheltered her, making them soft and fragile until they came apart around her.
Ching-ching.
Her eyes fluttered open. She was alone in the dark. The air around her was stale and warm. She had woken so gently that Calonnau barely stirred on her perch.
Ching-ching.
It is the armorers. She told herself. He said they would work the night through. Geraint has gone to make sure of them. That is all.
But even as she thought this, she knew it was not true. This was a lighter sound, more delicate. A sound that should not have penetrated the stone walls.
Ching-ching.
She knew what it was. The smith was out there, with his ravaged face and his blind eyes. Elen huddled in on herself and tried to stop her ears. It did no good. The sound was as insistent, as compelling as a heartbeat when Calonnau was away from her. It filled her mind and echoed in her blood. It was meaningless, and yet full of meaning. It passed unheeding over her, and it called directly to her.
Let me be, let me be, she pleaded, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. It is too much. I do not want any more. I want to sleep. I want to be gone from here. Her cowardice shamed her, but she could not push it away.
Ching-ching.
“Elen.”
Elen pushed herself upright. She head it again, a man’s voice, too far away to be recognizeable, and yet what it said was clear. “Elen.”
Fear left her, replaced by urgency. She did not stop for questions. Elen threw back the bed covers. She wasted no time with the rushlight. She fed the brazier until its flames lept up, then wrapped her hand in the sleeve of her underdress and lifted the brass basin high to light her way. She left her door open wide behind her, so she would know it again when she came to it. Calonnau slept on behind her, distant in her dreaming. These noises were nothing to her.
Out in the hall, she hesitated. Was it the smith himself who called? Should she go toward that sound? What if it was Geraint? She did not see him anywhere. What if it was only nightmare?
Go back, go back, she tried to tell herself. But she was weary of mysteries and things around her half understood. Elen grit her teeth together and turned toward the left, and hurried on.
Her hand grew warm from holding the brazier, but the good cloth kept her skin from burning. The paintings flickered in its orange light, and again she was surrounded by monsters — the half-horse, the many-headed snake, the dragons. Again she had the sensation of moving downward, deeper under the earth although the floor was flat and level. The air grew heavier, colder. She smelled loam and mould, as if she were in an ancient forest. The hammer’s sound still led her onward, down further. The paintings around her became dim from grime and smoke. Where was the owner of the voice? Who called her from such distance? The paintings were harder to make out behind their curtain of age. All she could see clearly were the eyes — the white men’s eyes, the yellow beasts eyes, the red eyes of monsters. Here and there she saw a horn or a hand, but the further on she went, the more obscure all became.
Then she heard a new sound, like flowing water. She paused between one step and the next. Was it a river? Was she so deep down that she could hear the spring that mothered the well in the yard? No … no … it was not only water … it was weeping. Someone lost in this darkness was weeping.
Elen turned toward the sound, down a narrow corridor to her left. The walls were painted with scenes of priests at sacrifice, and the blood shimmered red in the brazier light. The weeping grew louder, as did the sound of the flowing water.
Ahead waited the open door. She had expected that. This place had its patterns. Elen pushed the door back and raising the brazier high.
It was a storeroom, filled with great ewers made of white clay, gaily painted with scenes of feasts and harvests. Every one of them gaped open. In their midst stood a woman with long brown hair hanging loose over her shoulders. Her dress too was loose, but not so loose that Elen could miss the fact that she was great with child.
The woman held a red clay jug in her hand. From it, she poured the white milk into an ewer that stood as high as her waist. Mice, small, quick and brown scurried without fear around her feet. One even clung to her skirt. She looked up at Elen, and her face was streaked with tears.
She poured the milk out in an endless stream, and the jug did not empty, but neither did the ewer seem to fill.
“It should have fed my child,” she said to Elen. “How will I feed my child?”
As if in answer to her distress, the mice swarmed around her. They crawled up her skirts and into her sleeves, over her shoulders and under her hair, dozens upon dozens of them, and every one had white hands.
Elen could not bear it. She backed away, to her shame, and she turned to escape the sight of the woman and the mice, and the wrongness of it all.
I should not have tried … Get away, get out. Find the courtyard. Yes. Find the courtyard. See the moon and stars. Feel the air. Yes.
Elen held tight to that thought as she hurried up the corridors. She did not dare run for fear of putting out the brazier. The idea of being trapped in these corridors with no light, knowing the painted eyes were all around her but not being able to see that they were only painted … no.
She passed doors on the left and right. Again she wondered what was in them. Did each room hold its own nightmare? Its own strange vision and prisoner?
How can this be? How can any of this be? This place was said to be a haven for those stolen away by their enemy. How can it hold such darkness?
But even as she thought this, the air around her lightened. The paintings became newer and more familiar. The walls seemed to widen, letting in more air, allowing her to breathe more easily. She could pause and take her bearings, and listen.
The smith’s hammering was gone. When had it left her? When she turned to follow the weeping? But the man’s voice had returned.
“Elen.”
She turned. Down the right-hand way, she saw the silver-banded door, and through it, she saw the garden. She went to it gratefully, stepping out into the open air like a child coming home. There, across the pond, stood King Gwiffert.
“Elen,” he said. His blue eyes glowed in the moonlight. “You heard me. I hoped you would.”
“Majesty …” She shook herself, trying to cast of the new nightmares she had seen. She set the brazier down on the cool grass beside the doorway. Its light was almost gone. In another few moments, there would be nothing left but the moon. “It was you who called?”
“Yes,” he nodded once. He rested his spear on his shoulder. “I was afraid when you took so long.” The words made him sound very young. His skin was white and smooth under the light of the moon that was just past full. He was a slight man, in truth. It was only his labors that made him otherwise.
“I was …” she wanted to tell him, and yet she did not. In another place, she would have wondered if he would believe her, but not here, and yet, she held her tongue. Why should he not know of the smith and the woman and that they drowned out his voice? Why?
She opened her mouth to speak, but she saw him watching her with such an air of weariness that these other thoughts fled her. “What is the matter?”
“It …” The king sighed, twisting the spear. He swung it down, and lay it in his arm. With this, he seemed to reach some decision. He walked forward until that he stood beside her. She felt his heart, and it beat quckly. He was afraid. “You know I have some gifts of sight? I told you this.”
“Yes.”
“You know also that such gifts are double-edged. They can show both more and less than what one asked to see.”
“Have you had a portent?” Pain stabbed sharp at the base of her throat. “Have you seen your death?” Is that what makes your hear beat so fast? She wanted to lean closer, to understand its rhythm better.
“I wish it was only that.” The king looked out at his garden for a time. The peaceful, green scents of the summer night were mixed with the distant smell of smoke from the busy forges. “It might be a relief after all this time, as long as I knew my enemy would die with me.” This cold hope Elen could well understand. “But no …” Gwiffert’s attention moved outward again, and she felt the weight of his gaze on her. “It was … it concerns you.”
“How?” Elen took a step back. What more could come down upon her?
“I thought long …” The king rested the butt of his spear on his boot’s toe and turned it in his hands. Even in the moonlight, she could see how the leather was scuffed and worn from the many times he had made gesture. “I do not wish to bring you yet more pain.” He looked up, his eyes bright, and he stretched out one long hand toward her. “But I could not see you so bound to your enemy.”
Elen felt the cold creeping over her, the cold that came with fear and confusion. Her blood settled more heavily in her, making mind and soul slow and chilled. “What is this?”
He let his hand drop to grip his spear again. “Geraint.”
It took Elen a long moment to undestand whose name he had spoken. When she finally did, she laughed, a harsh, sharp sound. “You say Geraint is my enemy?” She covered her mouth, and tried to compose herself. Relief made her weak and foolish. “Sir, you are wrong in this. You have misunderstood what you have seen.”
But the king remained absolutely sober. “Elen …” Gwiffert straightened his shoulders. He spoke slowly, dropping each word like a stone between them. “Geraint the son of Lot Luwddoc is kin to Morgan the Fae. His mother Morgause is Morgaine’s sister, her twin.”
Elen stared. Her eyes blinked quickly, as if trying to clear themselves of some mote or splinter. Geraint? Kin to Morgaine? No. It was not possible. It was not. Morgaine was the one who stood over her with the sword and tore her living heart from her. Morgaine was the one who raised up Urien when he should have lain dead on the stones. Geraint, Geraint had leant her arm, wit and blood when Elen was in thrall to her enemies. Geraint brought hope and help to her conquered people. Geraint had lain beside her at night and given her the safe haven of his arms.