by Sarah Zettel
Why did I not see before?
Because I was in his house, came the answer. Because it was his wish I should be blind. But he comes into my house now.
And what good does that do? Geraint rubbed his face. Weariness fogged his mind as effectively as any of the Little King’s glamours. Could he break his vow of honor and kill the man under the cover of battle? Even if he would do such a thing, could he?
It was the spear that was the danger, the spear that never missed its mark, that could kill even the deathless. It was the spear he must take from Gwiffert’s hand. But if he shattered it, they could not claim it to defeat Urien. He had to steal it whole, somehow, but if Gwiffert did not set it down in his own fortress, he would surely not do so on the field of battle.
Set it down. The thought touched him, a halfmemory, something seen but unheeded, like so much in this place. What could be seen, what could be kept hidden? It is not by accident you have your mother’s eyes, Merlin had said to him before he had set out on this madness.
What have my eyes seen?
Geraint looked across the busy yard. The king stood before the steps of his hall. He rested the butt of his spear against the toe of his boot, watching the work around him. It was a familiar pose. Geraint had seen it many times over the past days. Often the king had stood just so in the yard before him.
He will not set it down.
The king stood just so before him in the yard, but not in the hall. In the hall, he rested the spear against the flagstones or the mosaics.
Geraint searched his memory, his first and last weapon. His life had been saved for his studying of other men. Was it true? Did the king prevent this spear, this thing of enchantment, from touching the living earth?
It made sense after the ways of magic, which were not the ways of reason. All spells had a weakness. All weapons of enchantment had their flaw that could not be countered. All the epics and all the ballads told that this was the way. He had heard similar things from Merlin. Was this the spear’s weakness? Did the spear lose its virtues when it came in contact with the earth?
An idea came to Geraint then, fully formed and clear as sunrise. The risk was great, but if the other king, Rhyddid ap Carchar came to the battlefield, there was a way. Gwiffert believed he had blinded Geraint with his own pride. Let him believe that still, and Geraint might be set free to act.
The boards were laid in the great hall and food was served. The men ate well. Geraint and Gwiffert sat on the dais. Gwiffert was cheerful, free of that heaviness, real or feigned that had lingered at the edges of his manner since Geraint and Elen had first come to his house.
Elen did not come to the table. Geraint did not expect her, but he missed her. He wondered if sleep had found her in her grove of false trees. He wondered how she meant to achieve the quest she had set herself.
He wondered if he would ever see her again.
No toasts were drunk, save those Gwiffert and he drank to each other. Geraint strove to be cheerful, to be confident. Fortunately, the meal was brief and the Little King much distracted by the thought that his enemy was about to be destroyed.
When the last cup had been drained, Gwiffert led Geraint out into the yard where the horses waited, saddled and ready for their masters. In that yard, Geraint armed himself. He donned a fresh corslet, grieves and wrist guards that fit him, a banded helmet chased with images of hunting cats. He belted on sword and dagger, and he mounted Donatus. One of the waiting boys handed him up spear and a shield painted with the image of a hawk on the wing. Geraint found himself wondering if Gwiffert had chosen the device for him.
Men crowded the yard. More men waited outside beneath the shadows of the walls. They carried pikes and clubs, swords and daggers. They hoisted four-cornered shields of leather stretched over wood and painted with all manner of fanciful designs — dogs and wolves, trieskelions, leaping salmon, running mares and great green eyes. Over them all flew the banner of the Little King. It was a spear, of course, slanted across a white tower, as if to shield it from harm.
Or perhaps just to bar its door.
Beside him, King Gwiffert raised that spear in the air. One of the horsemen sounded a horn, then another. Gwiffert pointed the way forward with his spear, and Geraint touched up Donatus. Side-by-side they walked their horses through the gate to meet the dawning. Behind them, slowly, ponderously, the Little King’s army began to move.
Morning’s grey filtered through the slit of a window over Elen’s bed. Calonnau saw it to and creeled indignantly. She was hungry. She wanted to hunt. Her restlessness breathed life into Elen, stiff and cold from her waiting. She had not slept. She had worried the night away, alternating between lying awake on her narrow bed, and pacing the tiny room, her ears straining for the distant sound of the smith’s hammer.
But tonight it did not come. So be it. She twisted her hands together. What I must do, I must do.
What she wanted to do was go out into the yard and watch Geraint ride away. She wanted to gain what reassurance could be had from a glance, a swift touch. But she could not do that and maintain the appearance of the bride wounded to the soul by husband’s betrayal. She must stay here as if sunken in her grief and watch the sky slowly brightening outside her window.
Eventually, she heard a soft scratching at the door. Calonnau cried out sharply, as if in hope that here at last was someone who would take her outside. Elen herself made no answer. The door opened and Meg, the faded serving woman peered around it.
“Will you come break your fast, Lady?” she asked softly.
Elen rubbed her tired eyes. She was hungry and Calonnau was ravenous. “Are they gone, Meg?”
“Yes, Lady.” A look of pity came across the older woman’s face. “They are.”
What tales are told among the people here? wondered Elen tiredly. What do they find the courage to whisper to each other? Do you know what passed between Geraint and me, or do you just now see a fellow prisoner?
“Help me dress, Meg. I will go into the yard a little, then I will eat.”
Meg bobbed her curtsey and bustled about the tiny room, helping Elen into her brown dress with its oak leaf borders, brushing out her hair and replacing her jewels and rings.
Armed and amored, she though a little ridiculously. Let us hope it is enough.
She took Calonnau from her perch. Meg followed her as she walked out into the yard. The place was silent and empty after the busy labor of the night before. It looked grey under the morning’s heavy sky. Only the churned sea of mud and straw showed that the small army had passed this way.
The gates remained open with a quartet of old men as sentries. They did not challenge Elen as she walked between them to stand in the shadow of Gwiffert’s walls. She raised Calonnau up before her and looked long into the bird’s wild yellow eyes. Fly to Geraint, she said. Stay near him. Watch and keep safe.
The hawk was angry and confused. The hawk wanted only to fly and to hunt. Fly then. Fly to Geraint. Take him my heart and keep it close.
Elen loosened the jesses. The hawk did not stay, but beat her wings hard to gather the wind under them, to lift her up and soar away. Elen watched her go, and ached to fly with her.
No. I am beyond such wishing. I will leave no one bound to this king for my wishing.
She stripped off her gauntlet and turned away from the path of the hawk’s flight. If Meg had questions, she did not ask them. The Little King certainly discouraged such things.
Elen walked back to the great hall where the boards were laid. Only a few people still ate, women mostly with a few youths and children. Meg went before Elen to the table on the dais and served her bread and beer, boiled eggs and pork, and fresh bright cherries. Elen ate without looking up. She felt the paintings all around her, felt their eyes watching her in speculation and accusation. The White Mare was afraid and where was Elen to defend her? The red swine was running fast, coming up behind Elen because she moved too slow. The air around her fairly pulsed with the power of her enemy. She co
uld feel it thrumming through the floor and in the soles of her feet.
Stop, she told herself harshly. If you become so distracted so soon, what will you be when the work begins?
She forced herself to sit and eat and drink well. She needed strength and solidity for there was no telling how long she would be gone on her errand.
At last, she rose. She left the remains of her meal for the servants and without any word, she left the hall. Meg trailed along in silence, her hands neatly folded over her apron, waiting to be given an order.
Or carrying them out already. Elen stopped in front of her door. “I would be alone for a time, Meg.”
“Please, my lady.” Meg’s hands knotted into her apron. “His Majesty told me I was to stay with you while he was gone. He was most clear. You were not to be left alone. He will be angry …” she stopped.
Am I not supposed to know how much the king can see? Elen looked at Meg with sympathy and wondered how long the woman had served in this place.
“Where do you come from, Meg?” she asked.
The question startled the older woman. She bit her lip and twisted her hands in her apron. “From here, my lady. This is my home.” Despite this, all about her told Elen how much she longed to give some other answer.
“Is it?” Come, sister. I know your tongue as you know mine. You too played on the banks of the Usk as a child.
“Please, Lady.” There was a tremor in her voice. “This is my home.”
“I understand.” Forgive me for frightening you. “I ask you to understand. Your king has told me my husband is the kindred of my enemy. I am faint with the news and broken in soul and spirit. I need to be alone for a time.”
Her eyes flickered back and forth, making the kind of calculations the fearful make, but she clearly did not want to be with this lady who asked dangerous questions and might walk one into a trap of words for the king to find.
“I do understand,” Meg murmured to the floor, and she made her curtsey. “I will be in the great hall. I will go no further.” Was that to me or to him? Elen wondered.
“That will be good.” Elen nodded solemnly. She went into her room and she waited, listening, until she no longer heard the tread of Meg’s sandals on the stone.
Mother Don, she is your daughter too. Watch over her, she prayed. And if I fail, please, do not let it fall more heavily on her.
If I fail … The thought echoed in Elen’s mind. No. Move. Do not give yourself time to think that again.
Some servant had been in the room while she was gone. The bed was fresh made, the clothes tidied and the brazier lit to add its little bit of light and warmth to the sunlight that trickled through the high window. Elen fed the flames well, making the fire fat and bright. Then, as she had done the night before, she wrapped her hand in the cloth of her sleeve and lifted the brazier up.
She left the door open behind her. She cast back one regretful glance at the empty perch. She was already cold, and she felt the hollow within her as clearly as she felt the pain in her wrist and her throat. Then, she turned and faced the darkened corridor in front of her. All the torches and rushlights were at her back. No one brought light to this deeper way.
Come then, she thought grimly. All those who have been set to follow me. Let us see where we may go.
Elen plunged into the shadows and silently, they closed around her, swallowing all sign of the other, stronger lights she left behind. She did not dare move slowly. She did not want to give the half-formed fears inside her time to freeze into proper forms. She kept the brazier and her gaze ahead of her, only glancing at the paintings when she needed to be sure they followed the pattern she knew, the plentiful fields, the monsters, the phantoms hidden behind their shrouds of dirt and age.
And always the doors, the closed doors. What would the deepest parts of this place be without the king above them? What roamed free without his hand to keep all the doors closed? Elen wished she had not sent Calonnau away. She felt light headed. Her feet sounded loud against the stones, and she stumbled again and again against the edges that time had tipped up or crumbled away. The cloth of her dress itched at her and rested too heavily against skin. The shadows were thick enough to breathe out fear all around her, and yet the brazier’s light hurt her eyes. Her nose and mouth filled with the scents of earth, of mould and loam and less wholesome things. Stones pressed against her on either side and weighed down the world over her head.
It is only fear, she told herself. I have been through so much before. It is only fear.
Movement flickered in the corner of her eye. It is the light. But she could not stop her eye from glancing in its direction.
The painting moved.
Elen froze in an instant, her throat clamped tight around her breath. At her right hand, the wall was black with grime and spotted with mould. Beneath this curtain of filth, the blurs of color and strong black lines shifted and rippled as if they were alive. The leeched slowly through the grime, as if pressing through a forest’s shadows, and became clear.
They showed her a race of people in a hundred forms. They changed to birds and soared through the sky. They changed to fish to swim in the seas, even to the roses that climbed the walls or the stones atop the hills. They sported and rejoiced in their many shapes, and the sun shone down in blessing. In the middle of them stood a man and a woman. Both had bands of gold on their heads. They clasped their hands and raised them high. In her free hand, the woman held a great, curving ram’s horn and from the horn flowed a wealth of food, an ocean of milk and golden honey.
This painting was still and placid. The only sign that it had not always been was the shining newness of the colors.
Ahead, something else was moving, and something beyond that. More paintings, shifting and changing, becoming a tale for her witness. Shadows and the stones crowded close around her as she moved from one to the other.
She next saw Gwiffert. He was easy to know from the spear, the golden hair and the blue eyes. He stood before the man. He was young in this rendering, his face full of mischief. He pointed the spear at the sky. The man and the woman were grinning in return. A game, a bet was being proposed.
The images grew crowded. The man, the king of these wild, enchanted people, assumed many shapes; a stallion, an ox, a bear, a fish, a butterfly, a golden ram. For each shape, Gwiffert took a different one — a rider with a bridle where the king was a stallion, a raging bull where he was an ox, a bear where he was a fish, a hunter where he was a wolf. But it seemed Gwiffert began to tire and his forms grew smaller — a cow, a dog, a quail, and at last, a sprig of wheat, and so the other man became a mouse to snatch up the wheat.
And Gwiffert was Gwiffert again, and he stabbed the tip of the spear against the mouse’s neck, trapping him against the ground, and all the wild ones cringed back and shielded their faces from this horror. The queen of them all threw herself at Gwiffert’s feet, pleading for her husband’s life.
Now, where there had been the freedom and wonder of a thousand forms, there were only small brown mice with small white hands, and the Little King standing over them all. Their king knelt at Gwiffert’s feet beside his queen, his head bowed, his tears spilling out on the ground.
As she watched, the dirt crept over the bright colors, hiding them away, turning the mural again to glimpses of color overhung by shadows. Elen was breathing hard as if she had just run up a mountainside, but it was taking all her strength just to stand still.
Ahead, a door swung open. Elen made herself turn so that none who watched would see her paralysed by her fear. For she was watched. The door showed the cool room with its great ewers as she had seen it before, but this time no weeping greeted her. Instead, crouched between the white clay vessels were a host of people. Their hair was long and brown, and tousled as if from a harsh wind. Around their feet and between their fingers scampered the mice with their little white hands. Elen’s stomach roiled at the sight. Their eyes were round and black, and within them was all the wildness, all the
hunger, she had ever seen in the hawk’s eyes. She had thought herself ready, but she had not imagined all these black eyes watching her, nor for the mix of animal hunger and human hate that shone so brightly.
With them stood the woman, great with child, her red jug clutched against her side. Beside her, a tall, slender man leaned against the wall. He too was black-eyed and long-faced, making him appear kin to all the others crouching around him.
“So,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall. “Murderess. You are come to us at last.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I have done no murder.”
One corner of the man’s mouth turned up in a vicious smile. “But you have. Your hawk killed one of my people. His name was Gwrm. His widow mourns him even now. His children clamor for their revenge.”
Which are they? Elen’s gaze darted around all the crouching people. They looked so much alike in the half-light from her sputtering brazier. She could make out no difference in countenance between them. Even their dress — their long brown tunics belted with twisted grey ropes conspired to disguise male and female. “It was done in ignorance. Had I known who you were, I would never have permitted such a hunt.”
“Nonetheless, it was done,” said the king.
Remember who you are. Remember why you came. She should not have sent Calonnau away. She could not find root or center. She could barely hold her thoughts in order. “I owe you bloodprice for this.”
“You do,” agreed the mouse king, his eyes round narrowing. “What price will you pay?”
For a moment the fear rushed through Elen that she would be overheard. It is too late. You are already a traitor to the king here. Tell him. “The life of your enemy.”