by Sarah Zettel
It wound around him tighter than any iron chain, but Brude Cal did not feel that. Against iron he would have struggled. Surrounded and soothed, filled with the certainty she poured into him, he never felt the shackles close.
Satisfied, Morgaine took his rough, fire-warmed hand in hers. “Do not desert me, Brude Cal,” she whispered. “I need you.”
She kissed him then, softly, chastely, the kiss of peace and friendship.
When she drew back, Brude Cal bowed his head. “I will not fail you, Sleepless One.” He smiled at her. With that smile he acknowledged the depth of her dependence on him, but told her this knowledge would go unspoken, for the sake of her dignity and for the sake of the promise he believed she had given.
“Thank you.” Morgaine let Brude Cal’s hand go, and watched, as it strayed first to his cheek, then to the hammer at his belt, then to the blue ribbons on his arm. Perhaps he sensed vaguely that their charm had unravelled, but that thought did not take hold. He turned, dazed, but not hesitating. He had been dismissed, and he would go now. Back to his people, where he would speak in awe of the Sleepless One.
Morgaine smiled at his back. “Now you truly understand, Brude Cal.”
Around them, the noises of the camp revived themselves. Fires sprang up, lifting their smoke and light to the lowering clouds. Voices also lifted up too, a noise as easy and reassuring as the rustle of leaves and the creak of branches in the woods. Morgaine sighed, suddenly tired. She turned her gaze towards the clouds and found herself wistfully wishing for a sight of the crescent moon they obscured.
“Well done, Mother.”
Mordred. Morgaine sighed again. There was one other thing to be done tonight. “Thank you, my son.” She faced him. He was smiling, the confidence she so loved to see filled him. “They are yours now. I trust you to make good use of them.”
That smile broadened as he savoured the possibilities, and betrayed his eagerness for the beginning of the open battle. “Oh, I will, you may be sure.” He gave her a sweeping, showy bow that at another time would have brought her own smile out.
Not tonight. “Mordred?”
“Yes?” He looked up without straightening. It was a vaguely ludicrous position, and she found it easy to frown.
“I know what occurred in Londinium,” she murmured. “Your plan failed. Sifred, who might have otherwise become an ally, is dead in the mud.” Slowly Mordred straightened. The golden firelight did nothing to restore colour to his white cheeks.
“Do not question me again, Mordred. We stand on a knife’s edge. If we stray in either direction we can still fall. Do you understand me?”
Mordred swallowed hard, the disguise of manhood cracking open to show the boy who still waited beneath. To his credit, he did not try to argue or make any excuse, he just bowed low to her, a spare and serious obeisance devoid of all his previous foolishness.
Morgaine touched her son’s brow in blessing and forgiveness. “It is a hard thing, Mordred, to know when to lead and when to follow. But you will learn.”
He straightened again, and she smiled up into his eyes.
“Now, you have your chance to solidify your command. I trust you will use it well.”
“And you?”
Her smile sharpened. “Agravain has most helpfully separated himself from his best source of support. Now it is time that I do the same to Laurel Carnbrea.”
Mordred nodded, and left her there, walking into the dusk to take the opportunity she had given him. She watched his straight back and confident gait for a moment with sober pride. Then, she turned to face the east, the direction of Din Eityn, and the direction her raven had flown.
“Find her for me. Let us take the measure of the new Lady of Din Eityn.”
• • •
Laurel’s first impression of Gododdin was of a grey place. The rich green of the grasses and trees seemed to have a darker tone than she was used to, as if the Creator mixed some heavy silver into his paints before he applied his brushes here. In the misty distance she could see the great fortress atop its wedge of black rock. A hooded crow called once, welcoming her, warning her.
They arrived as the long, slow summer twilight began to stretch its shadows towards the stony shore. The ship’s masters shouted and cursed and strained their eyes, but there was no way between the rocks. So, their heavily laden fleet was forced to anchor a good dozen yards out.
Now, those men who could do the work formed long lines in the foaming surf, passing chests, bundles, barrels and jars from hand to hand to stack on the shore out of reach of the waves. The men-at-arms worked to lead the skittish horses through the waves up to dry ground.
Laurel stood on the sloping shore, wringing the water from her trailing sleeves. Agravain had insisted on carrying her, an exercise Laurel found faintly ludicrous, but she did not argue because of place and rank. Beside her, Agravain, oblivious of his soaking boots and trousers, looked inland, scanning their jagged, grey-green surroundings. The ground folded deeply in on itself to make a channels for the great river that fed the firth. Smaller wrinkles cradled the numerous streams that fed the river. Cliffs thrust suddenly out of the smoky emerald ground, tearing it as roughly as a knife thrust through green fabric.
Even in these first moments, Laurel could see how this land had formed Agravain. It was stark, stern and strong, with nothing to offer the careless but its harshest edge.
As they had approached this harbour, Agravain had grown steadily more silent, steeling himself. When he spoke at all, it was one or two words. He had warned her of this.
“I do not know what waits for me when I go home,” he said. “I do not know what I must become to face either my father or my enemy. It will take much from me, and it may be there is little left for you.”
He whispered this to her as they lay in the bed loaned to them by their hosts the second night after their flight from Londinium. As the honoured guests of the well-settled clan, their bed had been by the fire, and most of the rest of the folk snored and shuffled around them. He had done no more than hold her close in that overcrowded darkness, and whisper that warning. In return, she had answered, “Do not fear for me, my lord. You must do what is necessary.”
The truth be told, she was grateful for a little distance, a little time. They were all on edge, constantly watching for pursuit from Londinium. Pursuit never came, but that did not lessen their troubles. By now, they had discovered Sifred had spoken the truth.
When they landed at Gariannum, Lord Isean had greeted Agravain with a heartiness that was coloured by fear. Ros was waiting there, his wrinkled, leathery face long healed from his altercation at Camelot. Laurel now knew he had been sent ahead, to do more than get away from the hostile attentions of the men of Camelot and alert Squire Devi to his lord’s imminent arrival. His main task was to remind the lords of the coasts of promises made years before. Promises that they would supply Agravain with men and arms to shore up his fallen throne whenever he should come and ask.
But one look at Ros’s crestfallen countenance, and Laurel knew the news was not good.
Lord Isean and his fellows, whose halls dominated the coastline on the route north, had made their promises with the implicit understanding that Arthur too would send a levy of men, and, more importantly, of knights from the Round Table cadre to lead them. When it became clear no aid was coming from Camelot, it was only the threat of war sweeping down on their borders, or in from their coasts, that kept the chiefs from finding a way to refuse absolutely.
For the first time, Laurel saw Agravain as a leader of men. He shouldered the blame for the loss of Arthur’s support without flinching, but sternly reminded the nervous chieftains that it changed nothing. The Picts and the Dal Riata were still in alliance with the men of the west. The southern wall with its neglected and dilapidated forts, half of which were now the halls of cattle thieves, would stop no one. If Arthur had to ride up to meet the enemy next summer, their lands would become the battlefield.
It was a speech he
was forced to repeat time and again as they made their halting way up the coast.
In the end, his efforts raised one hundred men. This small company, along with Agravain’s collection of ancients, scholars and misfits, arrayed itself on Gododdin’s ragged shore in the deepening twilight, waiting for their orders.
“We are too late to make the climb,” muttered Agravain, jolting Laurel out of her thoughts. He glared at the deepening blue of the sky, as if angry at the sun for daring to sink at its normal pace. It was plain he itched with impatience. He did not want to be separated from his home a moment longer, but his responsibility was to make sure that all with him arrived in health and strength. Every hand would be needed for what was to come.
Agravain turned, reluctantly and faced Devi and Ros, who were now constantly at his side. “We must camp here tonight.”
The two men made their bows and began shouting their orders to the men. At once, the shore was full of noise and motion. Men called out to each other as they shouldered their burdens and began trudging up to the most even ground.
Agravain turned to watch the progress, and as he did seemed to see her for the first time since their landing. The shadow of a frown crossed his face.
Wondering what to do with me.
“By your leave, my lord. I’ll go see to the women.”
He bowed briefly to her, with the punctilious formality that had become an odd, subtle jest between them. “And I thank you, my lady.”
It was not only men who came from the holdings and little kingdoms where they landed, but wives and mothers, sisters and aunts. They came to ‘do’ for their men, to get away from others they left behind, or out of simple, stubborn family loyalty that dictated no one should be sent away alone.
This was far from the first campaign for most of them. As seasoned as their soldiers, they set about the business of building fires, unpacking and examing gear to see what was dry, what was wet, what remained whole and what needed mending. They fetched their buckets and began trudging upstream to find the place where the broad river’s water turned sweet.
From this flock of hard-scratch hens, Laurel had picked out two girls for her own. There was little Jen with her sparrow-brown hair and small hands, and tall Cait, who looked as though given time she might grow up into a second Meg; lean, leathery and sharp both in her bones and in her wit. Laurel chose them not because they were experienced in this life, but rather the reverse. Both came with distant relatives. Jen followed a cousin and Cait a man she called ‘uncle’, though it was doubtful the connection was that close. Laurel had yet to learn why either of them came, but it was plain from watching them that these rough circumstances, and these men, would soon run roughshod over them. There was little enough that Laurel had been able to do on this voyage since the disaster of Londinium. She could at least keep these two whole.
“Well, my women,” Laurel said as she stumped towards them. The little sparrow, Jen, particularly relished that designation. “Let us see what we can bring out of this chaos.”
Even though there was much to be done, there was, it transpired, little for her to do. A patch of ground had been set aside for her, to be improved by the addition of a pavilion (a concession to her delicate status as noble lady), a fire, and the small mountain of her dowry chests. But Cait, Jen and two old but hale sailors handled most of the physical labour, leaving Laurel to stand and give what little advice they needed.
She should be grateful, she told herself. She was tired. The voyage had not been hard, but the anxiety was wearing. Rest had been hard to find, despite the wind and the water surrounding her. She could not lose the sense that she was followed, and closely watched. But whether she feared pursuit from Londinium, or by the morverch, she could not tell.
Laurel rubbed her arms, casting about for something to occupy her mind. But despite the activity surrounding her, she could not settle on anything. She tried to tell herself she was simply infected by Agravain’s impatience. But that was not true. It was her own thoughts that would not let her rest. She turned her gaze up the broad valley, looking towards the looming fortress where it stood stark against the darkening sky. What was happening there tonight? Where was the king and where were his men? More importantly, where were their enemies, and the one enemy most particularly?
Does Morgaine walk in spirit tonight? What will she do when she sees us here?
Laurel heard a throaty croak behind her. Up the slope a rock thrust out of the thin soil, like a finger pointing the way to Din Eityn. On its tip perched a glossy, black bird. For a moment, Laurel took it to be a crow out scouting for its flockmates.
Then she saw by its size and its straight, heavy beak, it was a raven.
Warning sounded low in the back of Laurel’s mind. Her first thought was to frighten the ill-omened creature away. But days of ill-defined fear set her anger smouldering at the sight of Morgaine’s sigil made flesh. Probably it was only a bird. Probably it was only seeing if there was some dainty to be found among this gathering of busy men. More likely than not, her own need to be useful spurred her to a conclusion that was not warranted.
But perhaps not. The Sleepless One had many spies, in many shapes. It might be she wanted to look on her enemy’s arrival, perhaps the better to take them unawares.
“Cait,” Laurel called softly, keeping her gaze on the raven.
The tall girl came running at once. “Yes, my lady?”
“Have they brought the chest with the lock and hinges worked like oak leaves yet?”
Cait cast a glance backwards over the neat pile of dowry chests, which she had become almost as familiar with as Laurel. “Yes, my lady.”
“Good. Here is the key.” Laurel unhooked the bronze key from the ring at her girdle and pressed it into her maid’s palm. “I wish to be alone for a few moments. If … if you should see me stagger or fall, or if anyone should call my name and I do not answer, you are to open that chest and take out the bundle of white silk. Do not unwrap it, but press it into my hands. Do you understand?”
“No, my lady,” Cait confessed, with a frown. “But I will do as you say.”
“Thank you, Cait.” A second Meg indeed. “I will rely on you.”
Cait made a brief curtsey, and went back to her work setting their few sticks of furniture in place, and handing Jen the bucket so she could join the parade of women heading upstream for fresh water.
Laurel looked about for Agravain. He was down by the waterline, in conference with Devi and a man who might have been one of the smiths. If he were going to come and find her, it would not be for awhile yet.
In all this while, the raven had not moved. Laurel’s suspicions settled in more strongly.
A low, round stone hunched nearby. Laurel sat slowly down on it. She breathed deeply of the fresh wind, so heavy with the sea’s salt scent. The wind tugged at her hood and hems, as restless as she. She considered the bird carefully, reaching out to the wind. She pictured the raven in her mind, forming the thought of it lighting down near her. This idea she gave to the restless wind, and the wind in turn bore it aloft to the raven, ruffling its feathers, calming its fear, carrying the simple notion of flight and destination to merge with its own thoughts.
The bird croaked once, and rattled its wings. With a hop, it took wing, gliding down to perch on one of the smaller stones near where Laurel sat. It cocked its glossy head towards her, and Laurel met the wild gaze of a single, round, red-rimmed eye. Looking deeply into it, she found there the blur of flight, delight in the company of bird and wolf, and the simple hunger that seeks endlessly to be filled.
But there was something more as well, something distant and strange.
She has touched you. What does she know of us, little friend? What has she sent you to look for?
Laurel reached out towards the bird, her will carried forth by the wind blowing through her white hair and the bird’s black feathers. She felt a questing curiosity about the men below far beyond the instincts of hunger and hunting natural for s
uch a creature. How many were there? What was their appearance? Was there one among them who was tall and lean with hair as black as the bird’s own body?
Laurel felt her jaw tighten. Get you gone, get you gone, she ordered the spy, her silent command heavy with blossoming anger. There is nothing here for you. Nothing at all.
The bird croaked again, cocking its head this way and that. It was hungry. It was hunting. It wondered about her too with its unnatural curiosity. The wind blew hard, and Laurel thought she felt a warning in the gust.
But before she could move, she felt another touch, as delicate as a petal, falling over her thoughts.
Greetings to you, Laurel, wife of Agravain.
Fear flooded hard behind the first shock. Laurel suppressed it, drawing outrage up to shield her.
I did not expect courtesy of you, Morgaine.
As clear as day, a picture formed in her mind of the sorceress, standing beside a bonfire.
Morgaine smiled up at the twilight sky. What need is there for enmity between us? There should be friendship between like and like.
Laurel closed her eyes to hold onto the picture, cutting off her own sight so that Morgaine could not use it against her. Only when their ends agree.
And why should our ends not agree? You wish your lord to have his due. I wish the same for my son. There is no reason why both our wishes may not come true.
No reason, save that you wish my lord’s destruction. In her own secret mind, Laurel strained her will. Look about, look about. She reached for the wind, sending the wish on. Find me some landmark, some sign to show where she is.
I wish Agravain’s destruction? False surprise filled Morgaine’s reply. Never. We are blood kin, he and I.
Anger bit at the edges of Laurel’s concentration, almost opening her eyes. Do you believe I came here ignorant, Morgaine?
Ignorant, no. Only naive.