The Barrow

by Mark Smylie

  Her expression grew dark, and she looked away from Stjepan again. “Until one day the High King was afield with part of his Court on a country ride. My father and my brothers were with him, and they came upon the tent and recognized the markings and thought it placed there just for them. We were so enraptured of each other, so lost in bliss, that we never even heard them until they were walking into the tent.”

  She grew quiet, and said nothing for a time.

  “If it were possible to die of shame alone, my life would have ended in that moment,” she said. “I could see the disappointment in the High King’s face. And as always his desire, unabated even as he saw me in the arms of a man that I loved. And of the look on my father’s face I will say nothing, except to say that the hate born for me that day has never left him.”

  She looked at him, and a strange light seemed to come into her eyes.

  “I have never told anyone else, but the worst of my ordeal that day was not the moment of our discovery,” she said, leaning forward into him and whispering huskily. “For after the High King and my father had left without a word, the Crown Prince had stayed behind. He is a cruel man, Prince Edrick. He made Galrode and I finish what we had started while he and his sycophants watched and gave instruction.”

  There was wetness on his fingers as she said that, and Stjepan frowned.

  He withdrew his hand from her skin and body and pulled back to sit up.

  “A great wrong was done to you then, my Lady,” he said. “And not just by the Crown Prince. For if I knew Harvald as well as I think I did, I do not believe the High King stumbled across your tent by accident.”

  She looked away from him, studying the design in the carpet. “I have often thought the same thing, for after that day I saw a cruel side to him emerge that I had never seen before,” she said quietly. “I thought at first that he was disappointed in me, like all the others, and was merely expressing himself in anger. But over time I realized I was seeing for the first time some part of his true nature. He often dropped hints that he had betrayed me, but never said it outright. He was one for secrets, was our Harvald, always keeping some core of himself hidden away beneath mask after mask.”

  She looked up and fixed him with clear blue eyes. “And you are the same, Stjepan Black-Heart,” she said. “Never letting anyone in past the hard, grim surface.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Stjepan ventured with a small smile, and Annwyn laughed at that. She rolled herself back onto her elbows, and brought one knee up to her chest.

  “Ah, but you really do keep yourself at arm’s length, Stjepan,” Annwyn said, her face a cryptic, smiling mask. “You come to me, I bare myself before you, you use my body for your purposes, but what of me? What of what I want?”

  He looked at her intently. “What do you want?” he asked.

  She leaned toward him.

  “Stjepan,” she said softly. “Take me into the barrow.”

  Stjepan pushed her away and stood.

  “What?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “If I told you it was pulling on me, that I feel it in my blood, that it wanted me to enter, would you believe me?” she said.

  “You will not enter the barrow,” he said firmly.

  “Not even if it is the only way to see the whole of the map?” she asked.

  Stjepan met her gaze for a moment, then turned and walked out.

  Stjepan was walking up a leaf-strewn forest path, broad high trees of birch and purple-leaf oak, maple and elm, cherry and white ash, cedar and pine stretching out for leagues in all directions. The sky was dusky, a blend of blues and purples as the sun set and the stars appeared. The blue tone of the sky had settled over everything, slowly bleaching out the colors of the day, taking what should have been the russet browns and burnt oranges and deep yellows and ancient greens in the trunks of the trees and the debris of the forest floor, the old layers of lichens and moss, and turning them blue and gray and black. The leaves of the trees looked pale and white, as though they were made of spun silk and snow, and so he began to suspect it was a dream. He turned and looked to his right through a break in the trees, and caught a glimpse of a far sloping range of dark forested hills, backdropped by a horizon of desolate high mountains. Down to the east a great stone castle sat on a rise over a small riverside city, and he knew that across that river would be the Plain of Stones. Ah. Indeed. This dream, of An-Athair, and my mother, and night and death. A dream, then, and one that would soon fill him with pain, but still it was pleasant for the moment, and so he kept walking the ancient forest path in the dusk, drinking in its beauty.

  A great stag appeared from beneath the trees to pace beside him on the road, its majestic antlers marking its age and power. You are too late, too late, the stag said to him.

  “Too late for what, great lord?” he asked.

  You’ll see, you’ll see, the stag called, and then it leapt over a fallen tree and sprang away into the underbrush.

  He followed the path and the woods fell silent except for the sound of a woman singing somewhere in the distance. If the stag was still nearby he could neither see nor hear it; no bird sang in the branches above. But the woman’s voice seemed familiar, and grew clearer as he walked. He could smell wet earth and leaf and needle, moss and stone, and from nearby the smell of something burning.

  He approached a dark, high clearing in the woods. Massive, ancient trees surrounded the clearing, their lower branches filled with dangling amulets and chimes, small sculptures and offerings placed around their trunks. A pyre had been built in the center of the clearing, and a single post erected within it. A woman was tied to the post, her long silk dress slightly torn and soiled with dirt. She was beautiful, wild, her long wavy black hair framing a face of wisdom and power. His mother, Argante. A crowd of their neighbors watched with fear and excitement behind several circles of men dressed in black robes and brown hoods as some of those men stepped forward and lowered torches. The pyre began to catch. The singing was coming from somewhere in the crowd; he could see a woman with golden blonde hair moving behind the watching ranks of his neighbors, but then he lost sight of her.

  His young brother, Justin, stood stock still to the side, watching with wide eyes, and Stjepan’s heart broke. Two hooded men, with deer antlers attached to their masks, held his sister on her knees, forcing her to watch as the flames of the pyre grew stronger and higher. He couldn’t see her face but her long curly hair was unmistakable, a deep, dark brown that was almost black, the color of burnt earth. Artesia.

  He walked slowly toward the pyre, coming to stand behind his sister and the men restraining her. He could hear his sister whispering to herself: “That won’t be me. That won’t be me. That won’t be me.” His mother looked down at him, and smiled, as she always did in his dreams. Smoke and flames were rising up around her. Her skin was blackening from the heat, but she seemed serene.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. It was Annwyn, peering at him from under a hooded cloak with a secret smile. She took him by the hand and started to pull him away from the pyre. He looked back over his shoulder at his mother and sister, and then allowed himself to be pulled away.

  He and Annwyn started to run through the woods of An-Athair. The forest grew darker and more dangerous, and then it was as though they were running through a mist. The underbrush became grass and weeds, and he could see the twisted shapes of dead, petrified trees silhouetted in the mist. And he knew they were no longer in An-Athair, but were instead in the Bale Mole.

  They ran up a hill, and he could see and feel steps under his feet. Up ahead loomed the entrance to the barrow, a dark maw in the hillside. He started to slow, but Annwyn pulled him toward it. She was smiling at him as they plunged into darkness.

  Stjepan could feel the passageway tight around him, see a pale blue light glowing ahead of him as he stepped over Annwyn’s discarded cloak into a long chamber of rough-hewn stone walls and a low, corbel-arched ceiling. Deep arched crevices were set
in the sides of the chamber, and both the crevices and the perimeter of the packed earth floor of the chamber were lined with urns and chests filled with coins, artifacts, and small statues and figurines, all glistening in the lamplight with gold and silver and copper and sparkling gems. In the center of the long chamber was a waist-high bier of rock and stone, but in his dream there was no body upon the bier, no false sword cursed and tempting.

  Instead, Annwyn was there awaiting him, leaning against the now empty bier, casually wrapped in the golden finery of a noblewoman, her shoulders and legs tantalizingly bare. He approached her and they embraced passionately, and his lips found hers. As they kissed he thought he could hear a familiar voice chanting, calling out as if from far away: Nathrak arass tedema urus! Nathrak arass urus!

  As they embraced, the symbols on her body were moving, and suddenly Stjepan flinched in pain as the symbols began to move onto and into his flesh wherever their bodies were touching. He could feel a pressure growing behind his ears. As he tried to pull away from her, she was holding him tight, refusing to let go. The map symbols were all over him now. His skin erupted in a maelstrom of signs and movement.

  He pushed her away. But it was too late.

  Annwyn’s skin had turned bluish-white and was blackening rapidly. Stjepan’s face blanched with horror and fear.

  The surface of Annwyn’s body suddenly erupted with maggots.

  And then Stjepan heard a shout.

  The shouting continued: “Alarm! Alarm! Murder! Murder!”

  Stjepan opened his eyes, sitting upright quickly. Groggily he grabbed up his weapons and moved toward the tent flap as the shouts continued.

  Stjepan hurtled out of his tent, falchion drawn, and stumbled a bit in the dark, for some reason all the campfires were out, but Caider Ross appeared with a lantern. They looked at each other and then moved together toward the cries of alarm coming from near Annwyn’s tent. The lantern’s light revealed Erim and Wilhem Price shouting desperately over the body of Sir Colin Urwed. His throat had been cut, his eyes staring blankly up at the night sky.

  The tent flap opened, and out stepped an ashen-faced Arduin. “She’s not here! There’s no sign of my sister, or of her handmaiden . . .” he said, despair and anger contorting his features. “Is anyone else missing?”

  Godewyn and Too Tall, still partially dressed, finally arrived with their own lantern. Godewyn gave everyone a skeptical look as Stjepan knelt by Sir Colin, examining the cut along his neck.

  “Gilgwyr’s handiwork again?” asked Erim.

  Stjepan looked up, surveying the group. “Where’s Leigh?” he asked.

  Suddenly Wilhem Price pointed. “Look there!”

  They all looked up the hill to where the squire was pointing, but they could see nothing except darkness beyond their lamplights.

  “What?” hissed Caider.

  “I . . . I could have sworn . . .” said Wilhem, frowning.

  “Douse the lights!” said Stjepan, and in a moment they were plunged into darkness.

  They stood there, breathing heavily in the dark, waiting for their eyes to adjust. Dark clouds loomed on the horizons of the night, but the moon shown down from the east a day closer to being full, only a few more days now, and the night stars were out in force and the Serpent looked down upon them.

  “See, there!” cried Wilhem Price, pointing once again. And there were two cloaked shapes, faintly visible by the light of the moon and stars, moving up to the entrance to the barrow and about to enter it.

  “Everyone, to arms! Now!” barked Stjepan.

  And the camp burst into activity as Sir Colin Urwed’s eyes stared blankly at the night sky.

  Arduin, Stjepan, Erim, Godewyn, Caider Ross, Too Tall, and Wilhem Price sprinted up the hill, all partially armed and armored as best they could in a few short minutes, and with lanterns and torches raised to light their way.

  They barely paused before they plunged into the entrance shaft, passing quickly down the decorated stone entrance shaft and reaching the main doorway into the inner barrow; the large, flat oval iron plate inlaid with leering faces in copper and bronze was laid flat on the ground, as if pushed over from the inside.

  Arduin reached the archway first and skidded to a halt by its side. He pressed up against one lip of the arch and shouted through the doorway. “Annwyn? Annwyn?!”

  “Was that fucking Leigh we saw?” hissed Godewyn, eyeing the iron plate face down on the stone mosaics of the entrance shaft. “Or Gilgwyr, come out of this hole?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough, I fear,” replied Stjepan. “This barrow has secrets still. Everyone stay together!”

  He plunged past Arduin into the doorway, falchion bared and a torch leading the way in his outstretched left hand.

  They emerged into the first great inner chamber. Godewyn stopped to hang a lantern from a spike they’d set in the wall earlier. Several of them surged forward, the light from their lanterns and torches dancing chaotically on the walls, as if they were going to head to the shrine of Ishraha and then on to the burial chamber where they’d found the first body and the gleaming, enchanted sword, but Stjepan stopped short at the right-side doorway, the first one they’d taken during their initial entry. He scanned the ground quickly.

  “No! Not that way! This way!” he cried, and then he plunged into the doorway, followed by the others.

  They emerged into the pillared antechamber, slowing as they did. The archway to the empty high-domed chamber loomed darkly on their left. The light of their lamps and torches illuminated some of the scattered bundles and bags of tools they’d left behind. They were quiet, nervous, as they approached the open archway.

  Slowly the light illuminated the round and empty high-domed chamber beyond. Stjepan and Arduin were first to enter, followed slowly by the others. A figure stood stock still in the center of the room, wearing a hooded, heavy damask cloak embroidered in gold thread; the figure appeared to be a woman, and she stood with her back to the entrance. Leigh stood a few paces in front of her, facing her, staring under her hood intently.

  Stjepan put his sword arm up, and everyone halted in a cluster in the entrance, waiting behind him and Arduin and peering at the woman with Leigh.

  “My Lady? Are you all right?” asked Stjepan, raising his torch to better light the figures before them.

  “Step away from my sister, warlock. I owe you a death already,” growled Arduin.

  Leigh sighed. “I did not harm your knight. I came upon his body as I sought the Lady,” he said patiently.

  Annwyn’s voice came from beneath the hood very faintly, as though from far away. “There was a visitor to our tent,” she murmured. “A dark shape, foul and masked. It took Malia.”

  “You shouldn’t be here, my Lady. It’s not safe here,” Stjepan said, taking a step forward.

  “And where have I ever been safe?” Annwyn asked.

  “She needs to be here,” said Leigh. “I brought her here because she needs to be here. She needs to be here. So she can show you this.” Leigh crossed the short steps to Annwyn, turned her roughly to face the entrance, and ripped down her cloak to let it pool around her legs.

  She was naked beneath the cloak, but for pieces of elaborately wrought gold jewelry around wrists and ankles and the map’s images and words, some parts still, others in motion. Her dead, blue eyes slowly looked up at Stjepan as his gaze fell on a single new word moving across the front of her torso.

  “Do you know what this means?” she asked him.

  No one said anything for a few moments. Everyone in the entrance to the chamber was frozen in shock, staring open-mouthed at the vision before them.

  “Islik’s balls,” Godewyn managed to finally get out, and Arduin suddenly came to as if out of a terrible dream and he realized what they were all staring at.

  “Out! Out! Get out!” Arduin cried, and he turned and stretched out his arms as if partly to block their view and partly to corral them all and begin moving them bodily back into the pill
ared antechamber, but Godewyn pushed back with his great strength and moved into the room, followed by Caider and Too Tall.

  “I don’t think so, my Lord,” Godewyn said, almost giddily. Godewyn started to walk a broad circle around Annwyn and Leigh, followed by the two remaining members of his crew. He spoke toward Stjepan next, but his eyes never left the pale, ivory beauty that stood in the center of the chamber. “You been holding out on us, Stjepan Black-Heart. And you told me there was no pleasure to be found on this trip. All those nights alone in her tent . . . looking at this . . . map. What was it he was doing in there with your sister, my Lord? ‘E was in there a lot, was our Black-Heart.”

  Too Tall grinned and tapped Godewyn on the shoulder as they circled, and indicated Arduin with a leer and a wave. “‘E was in there a lot, too, chief,” he said.

  “Shut your mouth, street scum!” snarled Arduin.

  The vehemence in his tone caught Godewyn’s attention, and he tore his eyes away from Annwyn’s naked form to look at her brother. He could see the emotions running across Arduin’s face: anger, shame. Godewyn laughed as a particularly nasty thought occurred to him. “Oh, oh, oh, my Lord! Maybe more than lookin’, eh?” he said with a laugh. This is going to get good, he thought.

  Arduin began to stalk Godewyn and Caider and Too Tall around the room as Stjepan stepped closer to Annwyn, his head tilted and torch raised high, trying to decipher the new word. Leigh watched his former pupil placidly, but through narrowed eyes, while Annwyn looked upon him with great anticipation.

  “A jousting accident, wasn’t it, my Lord, when you killed her lover?” said Godewyn as they backed away in a circle from the approaching armored knight. “But everyone says you and your brothers drew lots to see who would do the deed, after their affair was discovered! Everyone thinks you didn’t think him grand enough for her . . . but something more maybe? Wanted to take his place, did we? They say rank has its privileges but I do not think the Temple-Priests would approve!”