by Anna Elliott
What do you think? she asked the memory of her grandmother’s old but still lovely face in her mind. Did I actually help Piye, or only trick him and the others into believing I had?
She could imagine the shadow Morgan’s wry smile. Child, if you haven’t learned yet that trickery is as real a part of healing as stitching wounds, I taught you nothing at all. However much we think we know of the herb craft and the healer’s arts, we’re still like those in the old tales—who climb what they believe a mountain only to find it the back of a sleeping dragon.
Isolde let out her breath. I know—but I still hate it.
The imagined Morgan smiled again. I know. You always did.
Isolde thought of the ruined villa she and Hereric had left behind, with its cracked columns and beautiful tiled floor—and of Morgan spitting whenever she spoke of Rome—and of the abandoned glades and sacred pools on Ynys Mon. So was there ever a time, before the Romans came and broke the power of Britain’s gods—and the darkness started to sweep over the land—when healers did know how to cure ills like Piye’s? When a healer might have done more for him than give him a cheaply made iron ring?
Ah, well. As to that, only those old gods can say.
A sharp piece of straw was still poking through the pallet, pricking her neck, and Isolde shifted position again. She kept seeing Trystan picking Garwen’s ring up off the floor of her workroom the night he’d first come to Dinas Emrys. And then herself, standing still and watching him walk away from the ruined villa days ago, his dark traveling cloak and gold-brown hair being swallowed by the spring-green trees.
And what about this journey? she asked her grandmother’s conjured shade. Is it completely futile to hope I’ll succeed in persuading King Cerdic to ally with Britain against Octa and Marche?
Expect defeat, and you have none to thank but yourself when that’s what you earn. She could imagine Morgan’s clear-sighted dark gaze, as unflinchingly direct as it had been in life, keen enough to see into every corner of her mind. Britain needs you. So expect to succeed and then try.
Isolde’s mouth twisted a little in a humorless smile. That’s easy for you to say. If not for you, I might not be here at all. If you’d forgiven Arthur, and Camlann had never been fought.
Just for a moment, the shadow Morgan was so vividly clear in her mind’s eye that Isolde could almost believe her real. Could almost see the hurt in Morgan’s dark eyes, hear the unaccustomed pain in her voice. Is that really what you believe?
Even in imagination, Isolde couldn’t truly be angry with the fiercely tender old woman who she’d always known had loved her as much as any mother ever could. No. I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault. But I wish you hadn’t had to die. I wish you hadn’t had to leave me, all those years ago.
The shadow Morgan bent towards her, and Isolde almost—almost—could believe she actually felt a brush of soft fingers, featherlight, across her cheek. So do I, child. So do I.
ISOLDE SLEPT—SHE WAS TOO EXHAUSTED not to. But she woke with a gasp sometime in the darkest watches of the night, her heart racing, with a dream that she held a severed boar’s head in her lap still vivid in her mind. She sat up, pushed the damp hair back from her brow, and tried to steady her breathing. But she couldn’t entirely drive away the clinging horror of this dream, any more than she could readily escape the one of Marche when it came.
Instead, she found herself staring up at the patch of starry sky visible through the smoke hole in the reed-thatched roof and imagining the sea of black, sucking mud spreading all around this place. We’d look after you, you know, Eurig had said. If anything—well, if anything happened to Trystan. He made us swear it, before he left.
She’d been almost relieved in a way when Trystan had gone. Relieved, at least, that she’d not have to face seeing him day in and day out for a time. But she hadn’t told him about the bounty Marche had offered for his capture. Simply because she’d been too much a coward to bring herself to mention Marche’s name.
And now, with her hands still feeling the warm stickiness of the bloodied boar’s head in her dream, she couldn’t shake the certainty that Trystan was in danger. Tonight—this moment, now. The feeling pressed like a stone weight over her heart, making it an effort to draw breath.
And there was absolutely nothing she could do for him. No way of going back and giving him warning of the danger he might face. Still, Isolde found herself closing her eyes and whispering into the surrounding night, almost as she had to the memory of Morgan she’d conjured from the dark, “For once, be careful—please. Please keep yourself safe and come back.”
TRYSTAN CAUGHT HIMSELF JUST BEFORE HE stepped into the sucking pool of mud, swore, and added drowning in a quagmire to the list of idiot ways he could die tonight. He’d left the forest behind, climbed the rocky slope up to the flat table of the moor, and now was crossing through one of the patches of bog that littered the place. And he had to be getting close, at any rate. The stench of burning metal from the smelting fires was starting to catch in the back of his throat.
He focused on one of the distant granite tors, jutting up from the ground and silvered in the moonlight. He tried thinking of Isolde—and Hereric—and getting this bloody job over and done so that he could get back to them. But that led him straight back to where he didn’t want to go.
Trystan flexed the scarred fingers of his right hand. Listening to Hereric scream while they took off his arm. Breathing in that burning metal smell day and night. Breaking his back from sun up to sun down with crushing the rocks that carried the tin ore. Staying alive, trying to get through one breath, one bloody heartbeat at a time. And at the same time wondering whether hell—or wherever else he might end up if he was dead—wouldn’t be preferable to life.
There was another idiot way he could die. Having one of the guard patrols catch him heaving his guts up in a ditch.
At least he’d been able to sleep without drinking himself into a stupor last night. Though the memory of nightmare was still quivering along every nerve, setting his teeth on edge.
Trystan shook his head to clear it, then froze, swearing under his breath. King Arthur’s hairy left—
As though the thought of guard patrols had conjured him out of the air, he saw a man ahead, maybe three spear casts away, leather helmet, bossed shield, and short sword plain in the moonlight. Yes, right. It would be almost the full of the moon.
Trystan held absolutely still. Then he allowed himself another muttered oath. The other man’s head had turned, and by the sudden tensing of the guardsman’s shoulders, he knew he’d been seen.
Chapter Twelve
ISOLDE WOKE TO THE SOUND of a beating drum and for a moment couldn’t remember where she was. Dawn was breaking, and she lay blinking at the dimly lighted walls of the hut around her before memory came flooding back. Fidach and his men …the journey through the marshes …the crannog …her visit to Piye and Daka’s hut the night before.
She could hear nothing from Hereric’s hut, so she rose, washed her face and hands with the last of the water from the waterskin, then combed and braided her hair. The water was beginning to smell of the goat hide it had been carried in for so long, but it helped to clear away the lingering dullness left by her night’s broken sleep.
The drum was still beating, a slow, steady pulse that seemed to be building in both speed and sound and mingling with the sound of men’s voices, laughter, and shouts. Isolde was about to venture outside when a hesitant tap came at the hut’s door, and opening it she found Eurig standing outside. His round, jowly face was stubbled by a day’s growth of wiry dark beard, and his eyelids looked faintly reddened, so that she wondered whether he’d slept at all after seeing her safely back from Piye and Daka’s hut.
He carried a bundle that he held out to Isolde, raising his voice a little to be heard above the drums. “Here, this is for you. I’d thought to just leave it outside if you weren’t awake yet, but seeing as how you are, well—”
Isolde took the bundle and f
ound that he’d brought her a blanket, slightly musty smelling and lined with what looked like a wolf’s pelt, and a battered tin washtub of incredible age, the metal beginning to corrode around the rim.
“It’s so you can have a bit of a wash, like, if you want to,” Eurig said. “And the blanket’s for the bed, o’ course. I thought …well, living here not being quite what you’re used to—”
He trailed off. Isolde could have said that she scarcely remembered what it was like to bathe in anything but an icy stream or sleep in a real bed. But she was touched by Eurig’s gesture and the thoughtfulness that had prompted it.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “You’re very kind.”
Eurig’s ears reddened in embarrassment and he waved the thanks away, his gaze dropping to his own feet and his voice sinking to a barely audible mutter. “It’s nothing—no trouble.”
He was, Isolde thought, truly kind. And neither slow-witted or simple—only painfully shy, with her, at least. It made her wonder how he’d come to be here, a member of this band of broken men.
Before she could ask, Eurig cleared his throat, though, and said, “Fidach’s asking to see you. That’s the other reason I came.”
Isolde thought that given orders was more likely than asking, but she only nodded. “Thank you,” she said again. “I’ll go as soon as I make sure Hereric’s all right this morning.”
Something of what she felt must have been visible on her face, though, for Eurig said after a moment’s hesitation. “Do you want—would you like me to come with you? Fidach said as how you were to come alone, but—”
Remembering the look in Fidach’s eyes the night before, Isolde wished for a moment that she could ask Eurig to come along. She knew she couldn’t risk Eurig’s incurring his chief’s wrath for her sake, though. And even apart from that, something in her sensed that it would be a mistake for her to let Fidach know she’d been afraid to come alone.
So she shook her head. “No. But thank you, though. Just tell me where to go, and I’ll see him on my own.”
Eurig nodded. “Aye, well. Probably best, at that.” He paused, eyeing her uncertainly, rubbing the bridge of his nose with the back of his thumb. “And you needn’t worry that …well, that—” A dull red crept into Eurig’s face, and he seemed to grope for words. “You needn’t be worried that Fidach will …er …that he’ll be too much taken with you or try anything on. He’s not …well. …” Again Eurig seemed to search for the right words. Finally, he seemed to give up, for he let out his breath and said, bluntly, “He’s not one of them that favors women. Not anywhere—but especially not in bed.”
THE MORNING MIST WAS GONE, AND a watery sun was shining over the bog when Isolde came out of Hereric’s hut. She had checked to be sure the fever hadn’t returned and that his bandages were still clean and dry. She had eaten, too, of some of the bread and hard, dry cheese that Eurig had brought for them to share. And while they ate, she had hesitated, then asked Hereric again for anything he could tell her of Fidach and his men.
She’d not been able to make much of his answer, though—there were too many of his finger signs she didn’t know and too many more that he could no longer form. And she’d not wanted to take a chance on upsetting Hereric by letting him see her frustration at just how little she could understand, and so she’d only nodded and tried to smile. The most complete string of signs she’d been able to put together had been: Isolde …Hereric …stay here. Trystan …come.
Now Isolde turned towards the building Eurig had pointed out to her: another round, reed-thatched hut, but larger than the rest and positioned at the center of the network of bridges and dwellings, this one built on an island of dry ground instead of a wooden platform. The pulse of drumbeats had stopped some time while she had been with Hereric, and now, as she made her way along the swaying causeway that led to Fidach’s hut, the rest of the crannog seemed deserted, lifeless, and eerily quiet amidst the black slippery ooze of the bog.
The door to Fidach’s hut was ajar, and as soon as Isolde approached the threshold a curt voice she recognized as Fidach’s bade her to enter. She ducked through the low doorway, then stood just inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. The air inside felt close and hot and smelled of wood smoke, as though a fire burning all night had only recently been put out.
Pale yellowing shapes stood out against the shadowed darkness of the curved walls, and after a moment Isolde realized that the room was hung with row upon row of grinning skulls. Not all of them human—she saw several wolves’ skulls and at least one of a bear—but the effect might still have raised a shiver along Isolde’s spine if she’d not been so certain that that was the intent. Or if the man who sat in the center of the room hadn’t been watching her so closely, waiting for her to react.
As it was, she held herself very still, concentrating on slowing the rapid beating of her heart, on allowing nothing of fear or uncertainty to show on her face. Fidach occupied a place beside what Isolde now saw was a central hearth, the ashes of the recent fire still sending up tiny wisps of smoke. His chair was of some carved dark wood, crowned with the rack of a stag’s horns, and he sat quite still, his tattooed face indistinct and pale in the gloom, like yet one more age-yellowed skull.
Then: “Be seated. Please.”
Isolde took the place he indicated, a wooden stool beside his own, drawing the skirts of her gown tightly about her to keep them from dragging in the ash. She wished for a moment that she’d not thought it best to leave Cabal with Hereric—but she’d been all but sure that bringing the big dog with her would be as much a mistake as allowing Eurig to play escort would have been. So instead, she folded her hands together in her lap and studied the man before her.
Fidach had left off the great fur robe today. Isolde’s vision had by now adjusted to the dim light, and she saw with a moment’s shock what the fantastic cloak concealed: Fidach’s body was gaunt to the point of emaciated, his arms and legs thin as dry tree branches, the bones of his shoulders jutting sharply through the dark woolen tunic he wore.
He was watching her as well, the pale, oddly bright brown eyes flicking rapidly over her from head to foot. Then, with a faint, rasping cough, Fidach cleared his throat. “So. Have you been hearing about how I bed with goats and young boys?”
The sharpness of Fidach’s voice, the look in his eyes was a test of a kind. Isolde shook her head. “No. But if it’s true, I suppose I’m lucky that I’m neither a boy or a goat.”
A thin smile tightened the edges of Fidach’s mouth, and he was silent a long moment. Then abruptly he leaned forward and asked, in a louder, harsher tone, “And have you promised Piye you’ll not betray his malady to me?”
Even knowing the words were meant to catch her off guard, Isolde couldn’t quite stop herself from starting with shock. When she had her breath back, she asked, “Why should you think that?”
She thought something stirred in the depths of Fidach’s leaf-brown gaze—something that might have been amusement, or it might have been anger. “I know everything that goes on in this camp. And you would be well advised to remember it. Nothing is secret from me here.”
Isolde remembered the terror in Piye’s eyes the night before, the strain on his brother’s face, and she had to work to keep from showing the wave of mingled anger and revulsion that swept over her. She wanted more than anything to be out of this dark, smoke-scented hut, away from the rows of skulls that grinned from the shadows like hungry ghosts. Away from this man with his painted cheeks and light, maliciously amused eyes.
Fidach, though—whether he liked beasts or young boys or neither or both—was master of this place. As much a king here as Madoc was at Dinas Emrys. And whatever Isolde thought of Fidach himself, her life—and Hereric’s—lay at the moment in his hands. So she drew in her breath and ordered herself to keep silent, waiting for Fidach to go on.
He watched her a moment, and then his thin lips parted in a smile, revealing a row of broken gray teeth. “Knowledge is
power. And I like power.” The smile broadened. “I like it a great deal. Only through power can men taste the wine of the gods.” Then, when Isolde still made no reply, he said, a flicker of irritation crossing his sharp-featured face, “Well? Have you nothing to say?”
Isolde didn’t answer at once. For seven long years, she had survived by pretended witchcraft. By now she could read faces—and voices—well enough to make a guess at the kind of man Fidach was. A tyrant, she thought. One who despised those who feared and cowed before him. Most tyrants did.
“I would say,” Isolde answered, “that one has only to look at the men who are granted earthly power to know what the gods think of the gift.”
For a long moment, Fidach’s eyes met hers, his gaze expressionless as stone. Then, abruptly, he threw back his head and laughed, the harsh sound echoing in the confining stillness of the hut. “You—”
The laughter had changed to coughing, though, and he had to stop, his emaciated shoulders shaking as he pressed a hand against his mouth and fought to control the fit. Finally, the tearing coughs subsided, and Fidach sank back in his chair. When he took his hand away from his mouth, though, Isolde saw there was a crimson smear of blood on his palm—and the sharp look he shot at her from under his brows told her that he knew she had seen.
“Well?” he said, after a moment. “You’re a healer, so Trystan said. Have you a healer’s medicine for me? A promise of a cure?”