by Signe Pike
Three warriors waited beyond the door to follow me down the corridor. After so many days of isolation, the activity of the high king’s hall assailed me—the heavy thud of goods being unloaded from a cart outside, the harsh rush of voices, the servants and their scurrying glances. I took a deep breath to steady myself as I descended the narrow stair of Tutgual’s hall, concealing my disdain out of habit.
How many years had I loathed Rhydderch’s father? How many winters had I prayed for his end? I’d become accustomed to swallowing my anger and consuming my pain. Soon the men would return and I would dine upon it again.
Elufed was not in the great room. I found her in the chamber left for our weaving instead, seated at her loom. As I entered, she fixed her wintry gaze over my shoulder to address her husband’s men. “Gavin. What brings you? Are you so keen to try your hand at a woman’s art?”
“We only do what we must,” the warrior said. “Lady Languoreth must be kept under watch.”
“Well. It seems to me you have become little more than a shadow, and you are far too handsome for that. Lady Languoreth is quite secure, I assure you. Wait just there if you must, but let us work our looms in peace. We find it ever so soothing.” She turned to me expectantly.
“Indeed,” I said. “I’ve been kept so long from my weaving. If I might only pick up my pattern once more, I might soon forget my unpleasant confinement.”
I took my seat at the loom beside her and lifted my fingers to the threads.
“What is it, then?” Elufed asked.
“I’ve left my work unfinished. Such ill luck with our men still from home.”
“Ill luck, indeed!” she said. “Carry on, then. We’ll soon set it right.” She called out to a serving girl, “Bring wine and food from the kitchens. That lovely cheese I like.”
Tutgual’s men drew back watchfully, and as the servant went to fetch our sustenance, she closed the door behind her, leaving us at last in solitude.
“Fools.” Elufed’s eyes bored through the wood to where Tutgual’s men yet stood. “They take their best to war, and to guard us, they leave only the donkeys. I’ve two bards about to begin making music in the great room. They’ll wander off soon enough.”
I dropped my hands from the loom, unable to bear a moment more delay. “Please,” I said. “I must know.”
Elufed leaned close, speaking in a rush. “It was a terrible battle. Caer Gwenddolau has been set aflame, the villages round it ransacked and burned. Rhydderch and the lords of Ebrauc won the day. But your brother, Lailoken, was not found among the dead. Neither was Pendragon, though I hear he was badly wounded. Rhydderch is now tasked with hunting down any who fled. Those they slaughtered were buried in the orchard beyond the fort. At least, in this, they have afforded them some honor.”
I closed my hand upon the little green ring in my pocket. Elufed did not know of Maelgwn. She could not. But even as her words sank me, I pleaded for more, for that which was most important. “And my children? Tell me of my children.”
“They have not yet found Angharad.”
The stabbing in my chest nearly doubled me. “And Rhys? What of Rhys?”
Elufed’s face fell. For a moment she said nothing. I shook my head to prevent what I knew she would say, denying the words even as she spoke them.
“Rhys fell in battle. Languoreth… he is dead.”
Rhys, my firstborn child. Dead. I closed my eyes.
“I am sorry,” Elufed said.
The moment before the war horn blasted its summoning through Partick, my son and I had stood together in my chamber, our foreheads pressed close. I had felt his tears slip between my fingers as I pressed my palms to his cheeks, felt the hitch of his breath as he sobbed in silence, trying to be a man. Trying to be a warrior. Rhys had known what this battle would demand: that he face his uncles and fight. I had made him swear he would do what he must to survive. My son. Such a skilled young warrior, yet too full-hearted. He had not been able to stir the rage needed to kill the family he yet loved.
And Angharad. Shivering and alone. Crying out for me. She was but a child! I thought of the wolves in the Caledonian Wood, the vast forest that lay just beyond Gwenddolau’s kingdom, and lurched forward, certain I was going to be sick.
Dead, dead. My babies were dead.
I opened my mouth, but there was no air, no air, and I gasped, openmouthed like a fish, sinking to the floor in search of an anchor. From somewhere distant, I felt Elufed kneeling beside me and I clutched at her, I pushed her away, I wanted her away, to unsay the words, even as the walls beyond me ceased to exist. How had Rhys been slain? One thousand death blows assailed in an instant, each one more horrific than the last, beating at me in a madness. I saw my son slashed open and bleeding, in agony. I saw his skull split wide. Limbs hacked and hemorrhaging. Arrows, spears, axes. A sob rose, hoarse as a donkey’s bray, and I doubled over, my forehead pressed against the planking, heaving as if I could retch it from me, this intolerable pain, this violent ripping of my entrails.
“Hush, hush,” Elufed’s voice came. “I know what you suffer.”
I gathered my dress in folds and buried it against my face to muffle the sound of my weeping.
I sobbed until there was no water left within me, until I was a husk lying upon the floor. Elufed was beside me, holding me too close. My eyes were swollen. “I cannot breathe,” I said. She smoothed the hair plastered to my cheek with persistent hands. Then I whispered, “I want to die.”
At this, she gripped my face, forcing me to meet her eyes. “Languoreth, you cannot die. Think of Gladys and Cyan. And what of Angharad? Rhys may be gone, but Angharad may yet live. She will be terrified, in hiding. But she is such a clever girl. She will know what to do. We will send men for her. Men of our own.”
“You mean to say you have not sent them already?” I looked at her, bewildered.
“Grief has stolen your reason. Do you imagine I have not wanted to? Just because I am not imprisoned in a chamber does not mean that I am free. I cannot send scouts without the sanction of the king. Besides, my most trusted man rides with Tutgual and has not yet returned. It is possible he is dead.”
“Surely we need no permission to go in search of my child! She is Rhydderch’s own daughter! Even now she could be starving or perishing in the cold. Surely the king would—”
“You are not yourself.” Elufed pinned me with her gaze. “You are the daughter of a king. You know the king’s law during battle as well as I. We can do nothing until Tutgual returns. Your friend Cathan foretold this, did he not? And I, too, dreamt it, years ago. Rhys was not yours to keep. In your heart, you have always known it was so.”
I stared at my hands. I could not imagine how to go on. “Why was he given to me only to be taken away?”
“This only the Gods can know.”
“If only Rhys had been more like his father,” I said bitterly. “To sup with kin on one occasion and slit their throats on the next.”
Elufed stiffened. “You test our friendship when you speak so of my son.”
I blinked at her, uncaring, for only I knew the truth. Rhys was not Rhydderch’s son. And this was the trouble of it. Rhys was too much like the noble warrior who had fathered him. Rhys—like his father, Maelgwn—possessed a heart.
I watched as Elufed stood, smoothing her skirts as she did when she wished to gather herself.
“You have only just learned your firstborn son is no longer,” she said. “But you cannot allow grief to be your master. It will be your undoing. Noblewomen are given many luxuries, but grief is not one.”
I sat mute. My father had said as much when my mother died. I’d seen how he suffered. Yet still, he had answered Tutgual’s summons. Always we were doing Tutgual’s bidding.
“You must continue,” Elufed said. “That your husband has routed the enemy will be some advantage. But all will be watching you; the enemy were your people. And because I am often in your company, they also watch me. Do you understand?”
Her words cut even
as I saw their necessity. “I understand. Of course. I am not the child I once was.”
“You say as much. Yet you are still not the master of your emotions.”
I looked up, keeping my voice low. “My son has been killed. My daughter is dead or in unimaginable danger. Do not speak to me of mastering my emotions!”
“Good. Yes,” Elufed encouraged. “Grief is expected. But even now I can see your fury etched into the lines of your face. No one must see you in this state.”
I bit back the poison simmering in my throat. I wanted to spit this venom, to make her suffer as I did. Elufed did not realize what mastery I truly had.
“Leave me, please” was all I said.
Elufed paused a moment, then bowed her head, slipping quietly out the door.
Time passed. No one disturbed me. And then a knock sounded, startling me as I rushed back to myself.
“Mother?”
It was Gladys and Cyan.
“Come,” I called. I scrambled to my feet, smoothing my dress out of habit. They stopped when they saw me—eyes swollen, shoulders hunched.
“It is supper now, Mother. Will you not eat?” Gladys asked.
“No,” I said gently. “I’m afraid I cannot eat. I must speak with you. With the both of you. Come.” They moved closer on heavy feet, and I took their hands.
“You have word from the battle?” Gladys asked. Cyan’s eyes were cast down, but Gladys’s met mine with hesitance. I could feel her teetering within, as if she stood upon the edge of a cliff. She, too, had been waiting.
“Yes.”
I pressed their fingers in mine, and we stepped from the precipice together.
I bathed that evening for the sake of my children, sitting numbly in the wooden basin as Aela lifted the heft of my hair from my neck. Tipping my head back, I closed my eyes while she poured warm water over my scalp.
Submerged in water, I could feel each part of my body. The thick muscle of my heart hemorrhaging, fury boiling in the vat of my stomach. My ears still echoed with the sobs of my children as I told them of their brother’s death. That we did not know the whereabouts of their sister.
Aela dunked a linen and rubbed it with soap. “Perhaps it’ll be as the queen said,” she said, beginning to clean me. “Soon you shall feel more yourself.”
The visions playing behind my eyes were only of murder. But in the wake of my grieving, my mind had gone clear. “No, Aela. I do not believe I shall ever be who I once was.”
Her hands stopped their work. “Pray be careful, m’lady. Everyone will be watching.” She leaned over to look at me, biting her lip. “My mother once said, ‘Deadly are the seeds sown from anger.’ ”
“If your mother once said that, then she was wise.”
It was true. No good ever came from impetuous acts of vengeance or spite. Wise women were patient.
I took the soapy linen from Aela and moved it beneath my arms where the scent was musky. No matter how much I might trust Aela, I could not say more.
When I was a little girl, Brant and Brodyn had taught me how to wield a knife. The blade had been a gift from my father, and I’d wanted nothing more than to be a warrior like Boudicca, the queen of old who’d commanded an army of Britons, uniting tribes that had been warring for generations to answer the tyrannous might of Rome.
I was taught to wield a knife even as I was told that women were no longer warriors.
Now I had survived nearly twenty winters at Tutgual’s court, and I’d learned that women and warriors were more alike than one might suspect. I’d watched women eat their pain, watched them sicken and suffer from it until their skin went dull and they wasted away from the inside out. Even Rhydderch, who swore that he loved me, meted out such suppers time and time again.
When my family had feuded with the bishop Mungo, Rhydderch had done nothing. Mungo’s battle against my family had ended with an attack upon my father’s granaries and a scar upon my brother’s face.
Since then, my husband was often absent, treating with the many petty kings and chieftains across Strathclyde who paid tribute to his father, the high king. But even upon his return, I still felt unseen. Then I discovered Rhydderch had known of Sweetmeadow. What Gwrgi had done. He had known, yet told me nothing.
Now he hunted my twin brother even as our son lay lifeless upon the ground. Even as our daughter of eight winters—
I shut my eyes.
“What is that, my lady? Are you all right?” Aela’s voice was full of worry.
“I’m all right, Aela. I’m thinking, that’s all.” I would not cave to it. Could not. I sat back instead, pulling my knees to my chest in the water.
Yes, women and warriors were more alike than one might expect. After all, the entirety of a woman’s life was made of blood. Our wombs seized and shed each month. Our babies were born of such agony and gore men could not comprehend.
Both women and warriors were students of pain.
On the day my cousins had taught me the way of a knife, they’d said to my brother, It seems you are not the only one gifted with the warrior’s way. My brother’s words returned to me now: I would be proud to have my sister battle at my side. I think someday she shall.
Now my battle had come.
I stood as Aela dried my body, wrapped a covering around me. Gathering it to ward off the chill, I stepped from the basin. “You needn’t worry, Aela,” I assured her.
For I was a warrior now. I had learned such lessons of pain. And in the days to come, I would begin to build an army of my own design. One only a woman could muster.
Tutgual had brought his war. Now I—in time—would bring mine.
Yes. Wise women were patient.
And I had become far more dangerous than any could know.
CHAPTER 7
Angharad
Caer Gwenddolau
Kingdom of the Pendragons
14th of October, AD 573
There were blackberries in her fist. Plump little jewels, blacker than whelks. Then the blast of the horn came and Angharad startled, berries scattering across the table. Two more blasts and her uncle was on his feet, yanking his padded leather vest over his tunic and taking up his weapons. “Go. We must go!”
Three blasts of the horn meant danger. Grave danger. Something was coming—something terrible. Eira stood, glancing round the room. “What should we gather?”
“Leave it all; it does not matter. Quickly, now. We must get inside the gates.” There was a sluicing as her uncle yanked his sword from its baldric and threw open the door. Eyes trained on the forest, Lailoken hurried them toward the safety of the fortress gates.
They had been laughing, the three of them.
Today had not been a day for lessons; it was the last day for eating blackberries. Light was streaming through the unfettered window of the hut the three of them shared in the forest. Angharad thought it was wonderful living beneath the fortress with Eira and her uncle.
The two of them had been handfasted at Midsummer. But Angharad had known they were in love because when the two of them stood in the same room, the air around them grew bright. She liked very much to be around them when the two of them were together like that, Eira making bread and Lailoken watching her, his eyes lit with warmth and something else Angharad could not quite understand. The way Lailoken looked at Eira seemed to make her nearly glow.
That morning they’d gathered clippings of blackberry bramble, ivy, and rowan for Samhain wreaths with berry-stained fingers.
“My mother and I made wreaths with Gladys each year,” Angharad said, watching Eira as she began to intertwine the greens strewn about the table.
“I fashioned these with my mother as well,” Eira said, but did not smile at the memory. Angharad picked at a rowan sprig, peering at Eira from beneath her lashes. “Your mother… but she was not truly your mother. Only more of a mother than the first had been.”
Eira paused in her work.
“Eira has asked you not to pry,” her uncle said.
/> Shame heated Angharad’s cheeks. “I didn’t seek it. It isn’t my fault if it came to me.”
“Of course it isn’t your fault,” Eira said gently. “But, Angharad, you must understand, there are reasons I’ve asked that you not rummage through my past.”
“If you told me your reasons, I would not feel so inclined to rummage,” Angharad answered.
“I’ve promised you, when you are older. And I shall keep to my word. Now, never mind it. I’m not angry, and I don’t wish you to feel shamed or sad.” She looked up with a reassuring smile. “I am ready for the ivy. Pass it here.”
Angharad had done as she’d asked, contenting herself with her fistful of berries. Best to gorge upon them now, for it was ill luck to harvest them after the frost. She’d reached for a second handful when the clatter of hooves sounded on the forest path and her uncle looked up.
“Rhiwallon and the scouts,” Eira had said.
“Too soon,” he’d answered.
A moment passed. All was quiet. Angharad had a strange feeling. Then the horn had blasted from the guard tower. And everything had changed.
Women and children streamed through the forest toward the safety of the fort as Angharad caught the hand of Dreon’s daughter.
“Angharad, what do you see?” she whispered as they hurried along together.
“All will be well,” Angharad lied, for everything was red. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was blood.
They rushed into the great room, where Diarmid and the Dragon Warriors had gathered, their faces grim.
“What’s happened?” her uncle demanded.
Angharad went to her cousin Brant, and he tucked her beneath his arm.
“A messenger has come from Partick,” Maelgwn said. “Languoreth’s groom. Gwrgi and Peredur march this way at the head of a great army.”
Beside them, Eira went rigid.
“And there is something else.” Maelgwn’s green eyes shifted to Angharad.
“Say it. Speak it all. She, too, must know what comes,” her uncle said.
“The army is led by Rhydderch,” Maelgwn said. “Strathclyde has come against us, too.”