“N-n-n-no, please, my lord.” The monk was stuttering, shocked to find himself disobeyed. “I cannot allow it! My abbot will punish me—”
“Then don’t tell him.” Goronwy looked at Taliesin. “We should be about whatever business you have here.”
Ignoring the monk’s fluttering anxiety, Taliesin marched across the courtyard and straight up to the great double doors of the main church building. Matins, the midnight vigil, had come and gone, and there was nobody else around. Mabon, Goronwy, and Catrin followed, along with the monk, who was still protesting.
Taliesin stopped on the threshold and allowed the others to pass him. Rather than leave the peacemaking entirely to Goronwy, which might be amusing, he spread his arms wide and filled the doorway, preventing the monk from entering the church after them. “We have business that does not include you. Return to the gatehouse and forget that we were ever here.” It was the voice of Command, one Taliesin did not often use, and barely used in this case, putting only a little force into his words. He’d known in advance that the gatekeeper was suggestible. As he’d told the others, he’d been here before.
The monk’s eyes glazed for a heartbeat and then cleared. When they did, he was no longer looking at Taliesin. A scuff mark on the frame of the door had caught his eye, and he licked his finger and rubbed at it. Then he turned away, muttering about careless novices.
Goronwy stepped to Taliesin’s side and watched the monk walk back across the courtyard. “Do I want to know what you did to him?”
“I gave him a slight nudge in the direction he wanted to go. He didn’t want to wake the abbot and wanted this problem to simply go away—so I encouraged him to think that it had. He is much happier now.” Taliesin closed the door with a gentle thud.
If Taliesin had been alone, he might have opened and closed the door again, just to appreciate how well made it was and how easily the heavy door swung. Catrin gained her strength, as did most seeresses, from the living creatures that filled the earth. Taliesin, on the other hand, drew his power from the earth itself—from soil and stone. Many druids made a wood or forest their center of worship, but it was equally likely to find them in stone circles and caves. Or it had been until the Romans came and murdered every druid they could find.
Catrin shook her head. “And some men question why I have not found the Church to be a haven for me.”
“Taliesin took care of it.” Goronwy took her arm. “Come on.”
“Where are we going now?” Mabon headed down the nave.
“Taliesin?” Catrin glanced back.
“The crypt,” Taliesin said.
“This way.” Goronwy strode towards the altar, which lay in the exact center of the church, and then through the monks’ choir, where they sat during their services. The steps to the crypt lay at their feet.
Taliesin meant to follow them, but instead he found his feet frozen to the ground at the sight of so many shades inside the church. Most were floating near the walls, paying no attention to their surroundings, but four or five turned to look at Taliesin. One wore the uniform of a Roman legionnaire, his helmet tucked under his arm. Another was dressed in ragged robes, and Taliesin recognized him as a fellow druid, though not one he knew personally.
“Blessings, friends,” Taliesin said, though he didn’t say the words out loud. He didn’t need to.
The druid’s eyes were full of concern. “Have you drunk from the holy well?”
“I have,” Taliesin said.
The druid nodded. “Then you may enter. But beware. All is not as it seems.”
“If I know anything, I know that.”
The druid glided closer, his eyes focused intently on Taliesin. “You are not like the others.” He looked him up and down. “I am forbidden to say more. Know only that the one you fear is close, and he seeks you too.”
Taliesin assumed the shade meant Efnysien, but whether he was right didn’t seem like a question he could ask. “I seek nothing for myself.”
“So we understand. That is the only reason you have been permitted to continue.” The ghost faded backwards, towards the legionnaire, and his last words echoed in Taliesin’s ear. “You are a rare one, Taliesin, and more important than you know.”
Taliesin found himself shaking a little as he approached the stair. Mabon had picked up a candle from the monks’ altar and was waiting for Taliesin with it. Though Taliesin had been to the church before and for years had wanted to descend into the crypt, he’d never done so. Perhaps that was just as well, since from what the ghost had said, he might not have been given admittance.
The abbey had been built over the top of an ancient cave in which his people had worshipped before the Romans had come to their land. Inside Taliesin, a chorus rose up as the men who’d come before him worried about what damage the monks might have done to their sacred site. He told them to hush and that they would soon find out.
This adopting and coopting of ancient holy sites had been happening since the first priests came to Britain, as Christians attempted to convince the people that worshipping the Christ was only a step from worshipping the old gods. It meant that tunnels, whether built by the ancients, Romans, or early Christians, were found at virtually every church and fort throughout Britain. In many cases, the secrets that lay beneath had been forgotten or destroyed but, as at Dinas Bran, the core of what had once been a holy site to someone remained.
Taliesin resented the way this new religion appropriated the symbols of the old for its own purposes, but he told himself to be pleased too, for their actions meant the Christian monks hadn’t destroyed the cave, as they could have. It was to this cave, in fact, that Joseph of Arimathea had first brought the Cup of Christ for safekeeping, knowing that nobody would look for it among pagan artifacts. When he died, he’d been buried beneath the mountain upon which the castle of Dinas Bran rested—also above a sacred druidic site and entry point to the Otherworld—and the Cup with him.
Until Cade and Taliesin had permanently buried Joseph and his Cup inside the mountain, Taliesin hadn’t connected the Cup of Christ to the horn recorded in his own tradition as a great Treasure. But he was beginning to understand that the connection was not limited to the cup.
He wasn’t a Christian, but he’d learned their myths out of self-preservation. If the Cup of Christ was the same Horn of Immortality of druidic legend, then other artifacts could have a similar counterpart. For example, it might be that the Mantle was made from the cloth in which Christ’s body had been wrapped; the knife, which had also been found, was the weapon that had pierced Christ’s side as he hung on the cross at Calvary; even Dyrnwyn was the sword of fire held by the angel of heaven who guarded the entrance to the Garden of Eden. And so on.
Goronwy looked at Taliesin over the top of Catrin’s head. “It’s really dark down there.”
Taliesin studied the unlit steps. “I fear it too.”
When the others looked at him anxiously, Taliesin blinked, realizing that he’d spoken those last words out loud. As at Dinas Bran, Taliesin felt the dark force beneath his feet, thrumming to get out. “I fear that you may regret coming with me.”
Goronwy had one hand on the hilt of his sword and held Catrin’s hand in the other. “That may be, but we’re coming anyway.”
Taliesin put out a hand, blocking the descent of the others and said, “I will go first.”
With a blink of his eye, he lit the end of his staff again, and the little light illumined a few feet of space in front of him. He started down the steps, followed by Mabon, and then Goronwy and Catrin. The door into the crypt was easily pushed open, and a long tunnel stretched before them.
“Does it—does it have an ending?” Catrin said.
Taliesin didn’t bother answering, because she wouldn’t like his reply: It does, and it doesn’t.
Goronwy pulled his sword from its sheath. “I don’t like this at all.”
“You aren’t meant to,” Taliesin said.
Chapter Eight
Rhiann
Rhiann arrived in the courtyard, her recent conversation with Cade ringing in her ears.
“With all that has happened, I’m still riding to Caer Fawr with you tonight? Why?”
Cade had given her a quizzical look. “Don’t you want to? Are you tired of my company already?”
Rhiann made a face. “Don’t be silly. Of course I want to come with you. I’m just surprised that you think it’s a good idea. It would be much more likely for you to want to send me somewhere else where I’ll be safe.”
“I would be more of a fool than I actually am to think that any of us are safe anywhere else,” Cade said. “Even with the sidhe cutting themselves off from our world, we have plenty of mortal enemies—and who’s to say that Mabon is the only sidhe who walks among us?”
“Do you believe Mabon when he says he means us no ill?”
“I believe that—up to a point and only as far as it gives him rope to hang himself.”
Peada had already departed with his men, having eaten the evening meal in double time. Rhiann had climbed to the battlement to watch them pound down the road, ultimately turning northeast towards Chester, which was where he said he was going. Rhiann had never been to Chester. Before leaving Anglesey with Cade, she’d barely ever left Aberffraw, much less visited England. If she’d married Peada as her father had wanted, she might have ended up there anyway, even if she would have been a different person inside.
At Rhiann’s entrance, Angharad lifted her bag to show Rhiann that she’d brought it. “We’ve been settled for two months, but I’ve been ready for days to leave at a moment’s notice.” She lifted her chin to point to the crowded courtyard. It was the same organized chaos that always accompanied a departure from the castle. “Where are the others?”
“Goronwy and Catrin went off with Taliesin, and Hywel and Bedwyr are following Peada to Chester. If all goes well, they will ride afterwards to Caer Fawr. But Taliesin wanted us to leave, so we’ll head south tonight. The other lords will be gathering too.” Rhiann shivered slightly. “It feels all of a sudden as if we’ve sat on this mountaintop too long.”
Dafydd appeared in the doorway behind Rhiann. “It’s time.”
Angharad looked up at her husband. “How far is it to Chester?” She had never been to England either.
“Some twenty miles, a little more,” Dafydd said. “Hywel and Bedwyr will have no trouble.”
“We’ve ridden less far in more peril.” Rhiann shook her head. “Taliesin’s fears have spilled over to me. I can’t help feeling as if the danger we face is worse than anything we’ve seen so far.”
“Worse!” Angharad’s emerald eyes flashed. “I hope not. At least Penda is human.”
“Humans can be more inventive in their cruelty than the sidhe,” Rhiann pointed out.
Dafydd held out his hand to Angharad, and she took it. The pair had married within a few weeks of their victory at Caer Fawr. Some might have said they’d married in haste, but their friends agreed with them that life was too short to dawdle.
Cade was riding with nearly the full complement of men he kept at Dinas Bran. He’d sent home most of the men who’d fought at Caer Fawr, knowing they needed to see to the spring planting and newborn lambs, but he kept a contingent of forty knights with him at all times and would leave only ten to garrison Dinas Bran.
Rhiann walked up to her husband and put a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
Cade had been gazing pensively towards the keep. At her question, he blinked and looked down at her. “I’m trying to see the future.”
Despite the tension in the air, or maybe because of it, she laughed. “Taliesin couldn’t tell us exactly what is to come. Why do you think you should be able to?”
“It is a king’s duty to head off trouble before it starts.” He frowned. “I sent all of my seers off with Taliesin, and perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.”
Rhiann looked at him quizzically. “All your seers? You mean Catrin?”
“Goronwy is one too.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “I’m sorry I never told you, but he avoided speaking of it to anyone.”
Rhiann let out a breath of surprise. “I never even guessed.”
“I fear the trouble they might find on this path Taliesin has chosen.”
“The trouble started long before you were born. We may keep it at bay for a time, but we can only do the best we can with what we have been given.”
He smiled at her. “Accept what is before me and what I cannot change, is that it?” He gently boosted Rhiann onto her horse. She was still early enough into her pregnancy that it hardly showed, but they were both always conscious of the other heart beating inside her and their need to protect it.
“You said it, not me. I only meant that you didn’t create the problems before us. You inherited them.” Then Rhiann felt a gust of air on her cheek and turned into it. The weather rarely came from the north, especially at this time of year and at this hour of the night. Cade noted her concern and asked about it.
“I was just thinking that it’s an odd time for the wind to change direction.”
“Nothing about tonight feels as it should. Taliesin was right. We should get moving.” His hand on the hilt of his sword, as if the weapon would help against the storm that was coming, Cade ran to his own horse and mounted.
Dafydd was acting as Cade’s captain tonight, and all Cade’s men required was a jerk of Dafydd’s head to know that it was time to go. As they rode under the gatehouse, Cade tucked his horse in close to Rhiann’s, the pair of them third in the line of horses.
As they left the castle behind them, Rhiann gripped the reins tightly with both hands. “Something is wrong, Cade. Even I can feel it.” They were moving at a canter, which was a little fast for the terrain, but their speed brought them a third of the way down the mountain in a matter of a quarter-hour.
Cade reached out a hand and briefly squeezed her shoulder. “I know how you feel, but I don’t know what’s wrong—and believe me, I don’t like that I don’t know.”
Boom!
Every horse in the company staggered, and then the lead horse reared. The rider, Gruffydd, struggled for control even as he loosened his feet in the stirrups in preparation for jumping off. The horse didn’t give him the chance, however, and a heartbeat later, it took off down the road at a gallop.
It was only as her own horse bucked that Rhiann realized that the ground, as well as her horse, was shaking. Her elbow bumped into Cade’s as he leaned over to grasp her horse’s bridle. “Follow Gruffydd! Ride now!”
Dafydd, who’d been keeping to a position just in front of Cade, Angharad at his side, relayed the order. As one, the company charged after the spooked horse. It was actually easier to urge her horse into a gallop than it had been for Rhiann to try to control it. As it raced down the mountain, the horse spent as much time in the air as on the ground and, once in motion, Rhiann hardly noticed the shifting earth beneath its feet.
They kept going until they were almost to the village, at which point the road narrowed at the river crossing, and they were forced to slow. Normally Rhiann’s horse was as sedate as could be, but she continued to shake. The earth itself, however, had stopped. Cade ordered everyone to dismount on the near side of the bridge, and Rhiann and Angharad threw their arms around each other.
Angharad’s mane of red curls had come loose from its bindings and formed a halo around her head. “Is this Mabon’s doing?” She pressed down on her hair, trying to tame the loose strands.
Rhiann wanted to reassure her friend but couldn’t find the words. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does.”
But Angharad’s attention had been drawn to the top of the mountain. Rhiann turned to look with her to where the castle loomed above them.
Or used to.
The familiar battlements had vanished, to be replaced by a pall of smoke that was visible against the risen moon and stars. Cade reached for Rhiann’s hand, and as he held it, she realized that he
r skin was as cold as his. By then, everyone was looking up, and such was the discipline of Cade’s men that nobody panicked, though a few scattered curses rebounded among them.
“We could have been inside that,” Rhiann said, putting into words what many were thinking. She glanced at her husband. “Taliesin’s prescience saved us.”
“It was actually Catrin’s,” Cade said.
One of Cade’s men, Aron, an older fellow with a thick, mostly gray beard approached. “What about those who remained behind? We should return to help them.”
“I fear for them as much as you, Aron. But I can tell you right now that I cannot return to the mountain top. Can’t you see that I, at least, am not wanted?”
“Cade—” Rhiann started to protest, but he spoke over her.
“It has become clear to me, if it wasn’t already, that my task lies elsewhere. We will roust the village—those who aren’t already awake—and send to the top of the mountain all who are able to help.” He clapped a hand on Aron’s shoulder. “Choose ten of our men to assist you.”
Aron swallowed hard. “Yes, my lord. What about you? Will you still ride to Caer Fawr as you planned?”
“Caer Fawr holds no answers for me this night.” Cade swung around to look north. Then he lifted his chin so his voice would carry to all the men. “We ride to Chester.”
Dafydd’s brows drew together, but he didn’t argue. None of the men did, so it was left to Rhiann to ask what they were all thinking, though she spoke softly so only her husband could hear her. “Is that wise, Cade? We would be escaping one danger only to embroil ourselves in another.”
Cade put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Earlier I spoke of Chester as the lion’s den. Now I’m wondering if it wasn’t Peada who walked into it instead. Perhaps I should be thanking the Mercians instead of cursing them.”
The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7) Page 6