Gwenhwyfar

by Mercedes Lackey

  One of them cast a sidelong glance at Gwen, who felt warmed and chilled at the same time. Then she returned her gaze to Cataruna. Cataruna, who shared Eleri’s blood. Blood that, Gwen was now sure, was shared also with these ladies of the Fae. It was to this blood, it must be, that she, her mother, and Little Gwen, owed their curiously youthful looks . . .

  And it was Cataruna’s blood they had answered to, not whatever she and Ifan had chanted.

  Equally lovely were the Swan Maids and Men, who flocked close beside them. Again, there were a half dozen of the Maids and only two of the Men; among the Folk of Annwn, there were often such disproportionate numbers. They were silent and stayed farther back in the mist, their golden eyes glittering and betraying their difference from humanity.

  But near to Gwen were a pair of the Ceffyl Dwr, the Water Horses, who were more mischievous than nasty. Initially appearing as a pair of tangle-maned black stallions, they caught her looking at them, and in a blink she found herself staring at youths who initially seemed very handsome and who both winked at her as if they knew her. Looking closer at them, she noted their water-weed-entangled hair and hooves instead of feet.

  They grinned at her, and one of them made slight, but suggestive movements with his hips. She flushed a little, and looked away, and heard them laugh.

  Deeper in the mist, she also got glimpses of what might have been Nykers, although it was hard to tell. There was something out there, dark and ugly and hunched over, with a hunger about it and a malevolence. It might have been Nykers or it might have been Groac’h, the females of the same sort: ugly, evil creatures who made a habit of snatching folks and drowning them. Some said they were the spirits of the drowned themselves, others that they were the dark cousins of the Gwragedd Annwn.

  Even the Gwragedd Annwn, for all their beauty, were known for being chancy to bargain with. But they would at least stop to bargain with you; the others would pull you under before you even knew they were there.

  And so they came, flocking thicker and thicker about, as Ifan and Cataruna chanted, only staring, never answering, until at last one of the Lake Ladies did step forward and reply in the same tongue, in a voice like a nightingale.

  Ifan and Cataruna stopped chanting, listened, and then Cataruna replied.

  The Lady spread her arms wide and sang again. Ifan looked startled. Cataruna, speculative.

  The Lady repeated herself. Gwen concentrated as hard as she could, trying to pull sense from the words. When the Lady was done, she stared across the circle at Cataruna. “She wants to make a marsh of this place permanently?” Gwen spoke in hushed tones, as the cold mist collected around them, chilling her.

  Cataruna nodded, but it was Ifan who replied. “She says that we mortals have pressed the water peoples hard. She wants a grant of this land and the right for the water folk to do as they will here for as long as Eleri’s blood flows in our people.” Cataruna took a deep breath. “I told her that I have not the right to make such a bargain, for I am not a war chief, only the Lady of our land. But I told her that you can.”

  Gwen considered that, as all of them, mortal and fae, watched her expectantly. “I’m not likely to give land away, for all that Father’s given me the right to. I’ll be having a bargain of this.” Inside, she shook at her own temerity, daring to bargain with the Other Folk. But they didn’t respect anyone who didn’t bargain, at least, not in the tales. Cataruna repeated her words in the language of Annwn. The Lady nodded, as if she had expected this.

  Gwen considered every possible way in which she could phrase her bargain. The good part was that this area hadn’t been claimed for farming, and any herders who were using it could come to King Lleudd for other grazing lands. But the point was, if she closed this—treaty, she supposed it must be—she’d be opening this place to who knew what sorts of dangerous creatures. And even if, as some claimed, the beings of Annwn were not fae at all, but just mortals with a great deal of the Gift and the Power and some ugly odd shapes . . . well, that made them all the more dangerous.

  “Tell the Lady . . .” She faced the speaker squarely and looked into her cold eyes, the color of lake water before a storm, and she did not, not for a single moment, doubt that the Folk of Annwn were not of the world she knew. “Lady, this is the bargain I will be having. By the right my father, King Lleudd, gave to me as a war chief and able to make grant of land, I give you and yours this valley, to be covered with water and made your own. In return I will be having this: No creature that lives here is ever to take a child, a youngling, a maiden, or a woman. No creature that lives here is ever to take a man that comes in peace, with no ill will toward my people or those of Annwn, nor those that pledge to the High King.”

  There was muttering behind her, discontent from those dark shapes that would not let themselves be seen. Anger, even, of a sort that put the hair up on the back of her neck. Nevertheless, she continued. “But for those that would trouble my people, and those that will not pledge to the High King, or those that are oathbreakers of that pledge, whether they are an army bringing upon them war and sorrow or merely thieves and rogues who would bring them loss and grief, should they put so much as one toe in your waters, they are yours. Take them, drown them in deep waters, harry them across the marsh, drive them mad with fear and despair. That is my bargain. Take it, or not.”

  Cataruna repeated all she had said, but the Lady had already nodded as if she understood it all, and turned back to the others.

  Gwen waited patiently, feeling colder by the moment, as the otherworldly creatures conferred. The mist roiled darkly around all of them now, and the sounds of their voices rose and fell. Both Cataruna and Ifan looked a little bewildered, as if they had not truly expected this to happen.

  Well, and I cannot blame them. Who would? She had never seen these beings even once in her life before—though both of them surely would have, the Ladies, at least. But the others? Who did she know had ever confessed to seeing a Swan Maid or a Water Horse? And to see so many of them . . .

  And then to have the temerity to bargain with them?

  She reminded herself of who she was doing this for. And why.

  Finally, the muttering stopped. The Lady turned back to them and sang. Gwen did not need Cataruna’s translation. It was a bargain.

  She stooped, seized a handful of the soil at her feet, and took a little knife from a sheath in her boot—not iron or steel, which was anathema to these folk, but a flint knife she used for skinning game, for it was easier to keep at a razor edge. She cut her thumb across and bled onto the handful of dirt, squeezing it tight. “My blood upon it,” she said, binding the bargain.

  The Lady stepped to the edge of the circle, cut her own thumb with a knife very like Gwen’s, and added her blood to the handful of soil. Gwen noted absently that her blood was as red as any mortal’s, and not blue, or green, or starshine.

  Gwen stooped down again and patted the handful of soil into place, opening the circle. The Lady clapped her hands, the mist swirled around them so thickly that for a moment Gwen could not see anything at all—

  And then they were gone.

  And her boots were beginning to get very damp. She looked down, and saw that water was rising around them.

  Fast.

  “Back to camp!” Ifan said, as the mist thinned, but only in the direction of their campsite. Gwen had no wish to argue with him, for the water was already at her instep and rapidly rising to her ankle. All four of them ran up the way that had opened in the mist and did not stop until they were well out of it.

  Only then did they pause and look back down at the valley.

  For as far as the eye could see, it was covered in that thick mist, which the setting sun was now turning to gold. There were things moving in it. She shivered. She pitied March’s men if they did try to cross here.

  Cataruna and Ifan looked at each other, numbly. Bronwyn shook her head. “There’s more moving here than we reckoned on,” the old woman said.

  That night, th
e storm Ifan and Cataruna had called broke, and Gwen had cause to regret that she had not put some form of provision against that in her bargain.

  Not that there was any way of knowing whether a bargain with water spirits would have any effect on a storm.

  They had done their best to prepare the camp for the onslaught, but there was only so much shelter that branches and stacked bracken could give against the sort of storm that eventually arrived. This was not a country for caves, and they had been traveling too light even for a bit of canvas.

  When the storm hit, it did so as a full tempest. Torrential rain, lightning, thunder, wind . . . it would have been impressive within the walls of Castell y Cnwclas. It was a nightmare out in the open.

  They had gotten the four horses into the little clearing, and because Cataruna had a foreboding, they had tied and hobbled them so that they could scarcely move, then made crude blinders and tied them over the horses’ heads. It was a good thing they had done so, or they would have been kicked to bits, trampled, and, had they survived that, found themselves without mounts the next day. As it was, the poor beasts whimpered and moaned and fought the hobbles until they were exhausted. Based on Cataruna’s foreboding, Gwen had opted for “sturdy” over “space” when it came to the shelter. It was a lean-to made of branches and many layers of bracken, and the four of them could barely squeeze into it.

  They had been sitting around their fire, gnawing the last of the meat off the bones of the rabbits Gwen had shot, when they heard the storm coming. As it approached from the southwest, the steady growling of thunder was like a great beast in the distance. The closer it came, the more the horizon lit up with so many lightning strikes it looked as if it were crawling on dozens of legs toward them.

  Down in the valley, the mist still had not lifted, and there were strange, dim lights moving in it. Those lights actually brightened in response to the coming storm. And strangest of all, as a wind sprang up, strengthening until their cloaks were blowing straight away from their bodies, the mist remained, unchanged, and unmoving.

  At that point, with the branches of the trees tossing wildly, the horses fighting their bonds, the fire actually blew out. That was when they all scrambled into the tiny shelter and wrapped their cloaks tightly around themselves. Gwen and Ifan put themselves on the outside corners and grabbed the branches, determined to hold onto the thing no matter what.

  Then the storm hit.

  Rain pounded down onto them quite as if someone had emptied a river on their heads. The wind was terrible, and it was a good thing that Ifan and Gwen were holding to the shelter, or it would have blown away. There was so much thunder, and the wind was roaring so, it would not have been possible to hear a shout in your ear. All Gwen could do was duck her head, keep a good grip on the pitiful lean-to, and hope they would not all be struck by lightning.

  The gods themselves must have concocted such a storm. Surely she heard the Wild Hunt out there, the hooves of their monster steeds pounding anything that got in the way as flat as cloth. They were all soaked within moments even with the shelter. All it accomplished was to keep the worst of the rain and wind off.

  Before long, the pounding and howling and cold numbed her into a state of unthinking endurance. She couldn’t manage to put a single coherent thought together, and all that mattered was the slightly warmer place where all their bodies met. How long that went on, she could not have even guessed.

  Then, at some point, the storm passed. The wind dropped. And although they could not have managed to separate their tangled limbs to attempt a fire, the warmth of their combined bodies finally dried out their cloaks enough that they began to doze.

  Gwen woke with the birdsong of false dawn. Trying not to wake the others, she got herself loose to check on the horses. She was too tired to really think clearly, but she would not have been in the least surprised to have found them dead.

  The poor things were in a sad state, but they were not dead. The crude head coverings had been blown away, and they had all fought their bonds so hard that they were now in a state of head-hanging exhaustion. She released some of their hobbles, gave them each a couple of handfuls of grain from the saddlebags, which they lipped up dispiritedly, and felt their legs to see if they had damaged themselves.

  She could feel that the muscles had been strained, enough that it would be a good idea to give them a couple days of rest, but there were no sprains. With a sigh of disbelief at their luck, she crawled out of the open center of the brush-tangled copse to see what the rest of the world looked like.

  And gaped at what she found.

  Where there had been a flat valley, there was now a marsh. Not just water; she had expected water. No, this was a marsh, one that looked as if it had been there for generations.

  Huge reed beds separated by stretches of open water spread out before her, out to the horizon. Here and there a was a hummock where a few trees and bushes hung on; the reeds and marsh plants in most places were as high or higher than a man’s head. Mist threaded its way along the water, hung in banks in other places. Ten feet in, and you would be lost and disoriented. If fog closed in so you couldn’t see the stars or the sun, you would never even know what direction you were going. It was a place that warned you, just by the look of it, that it would be full of sucking mires and unexpected sinkholes. You’d never find a secure, dry place for more than a couple of men to sleep. You’d never find the wood to make fires, or a place to make them. And that was all aside from the supernatural dangers hiding in those mists. It would be insane to take an army across that.

  Of course, King March was insane, and he might try.

  He wouldn’t get far, though. The border here was safe from him.

  Gwen set about finding deadfall for a fire, then when she had piled up enough at the entrance to their little copse that the others could remake the camp while she was gone, she went hunting for some breakfast.

  There was a great advantage to suddenly being on the edge of a marsh. There were fish in it, and they all seemed hungry. She fashioned a fish spear from an arrow, scattered some crumbs over the surface, and set to work. By the time the sun was a thumb’s breadth above the horizon, she had enough to satisfy the most ravenous of appetites. And she had the shrewd idea that she had been “helped” in this, for she thought she had caught a glimpse of amused eyes among the reeds.

  She wasn’t going to argue about it. Given the size of this marsh, the water spirits were going to have plenty of room for some time to come. It was a good thing that Ifan was a bard, though. He would know to be careful of coming down here, even avoid it altogether. The Lake Ladies were a mixed sort, and there were those who would not hesitate to steal a bard from his lawful wife and take him down to their dwelling beneath the waters.

  She brought the fish back up to a camp of people already packing to leave, though a fire had been started and twigs prepared to spit whatever she brought. She raised an eyebrow.

  “I had thought to stay and rest the horses,” she offered.

  Ifan took the fish from her, and he and Bronwyn began cleaning and gutting them, as Cataruna shook her head. “We can walk them if we need to, and make our way slowly back home, but I think we should put some distance between us and—that,” she said, thoughtfully. “Yes, they are feeling well-inclined towards us now, but—”

  “Besides, we have raised a great deal more power than either of us expected to,” added Ifan, with a frown, as he set a fish to cook over the fire. “One could liken it to setting down a chest of gold and silver and spilling it open in the village square. Some will come to admire, but word will spread.”

  She blinked. She had not considered that. “And what comes to look will not be bound by the bargain I made with the water spirits,” she said, slowly. “Which could be equally bad for March and for us.” She straightened her back. “On the whole . . . I think a slow walk back for a day or two would be of great benefit to all of us.”

  “Healthier than remaining here,” said Bronwyn. />
  Chapter Sixteen

  Lleudd’s war chiefs and captains sat around his hearth fire in varying states of relaxation. Gwen had already recounted what she had done to Peder and her father privately and had gotten praise for her quick thinking. Now she had been asked to tell the tale at the hearth for the rest, who were all relaxing because there was no longer an immediate threat from March. Relaxing because of what she had done.

  Supper was over, the mead was being poured out by the young squires, and Gwen had to hide a smile when she realized from the taste that Eleri’s special recipe had survived intact. The fire smoked just enough to drive the insects away and imparted just enough warmth to be comfortable. This was an occasion for a more . . . bardic retelling.

  So she obliged, as best she could. At the end, King Lleudd roared with laughter. “Well, my war chief daughter, I hope that you are content with your lands being the ones under water!”

  That elicited laughter from the rest. “Will you be farming eels and frogs?” one of the others asked, straight faced. “I hear the Romans thought frogs right tasty, and I am partial to an eel pie.”

  “When you plant eels, do you plant ’em head first or tail first?” asked another.

  Gwen smiled ruefully. War chiefs were expected to offer gifts, of course. And up until now she had mostly given things like ornaments, horses, or weapons. But land was always an option, and as Lleudd’s daughter, she was entitled to a certain amount to hold for herself or give as rewards as long as it had not been granted to another.

  “I am content with awarding the new guardians of that border with the land they are guarding, my lord King,” she replied dryly. “If they prefer it being under water, well so do I.”

  The king laughed again, as did the rest of his chiefs. “Well said. And, yes, I approve, most heartily, of your decision.” He looked around the fire at the men on his benches. They were all nodding too, even if one or two of them were doing so reluctantly.