by Signe Pike
“Thank you.” I bowed my head. His stool was close enough to mine that our knees rested against one another. It was dizzying, his nearness. It had always been so. But perhaps that was due to the fact that it had always been forbidden.
“Rhydderch has asked Lailoken to be his counsel,” I said.
“And Lailoken has yet to make up his mind,” my brother spoke up from his chair.
“If he would agree,” I went on, “would you indeed be able to spare him?”
It was a ridiculous question. It was Lailoken’s choice to make, and queens did not ask. But I could not find my way to the root of it. Not yet.
Maelgwn crossed his arms over his broad chest. “It is most considerate of you to ask, my queen. But you know you needn’t.”
“I always knew that, should anything happen to Gwenddolau, you would become Pendragon. Now you have, and Lailoken is your counsel.”
“Come, Languoreth. Both you and I know I rule over nothing. Not any longer.”
“You rule the hearts of these men. That much is evident. And what of the hundreds of people who have flocked here to live with you in the wood?”
“Fair,” he acknowledged. “That is an honor, for they are remarkable people, and my men are remarkable men.” He cleared his throat. “Our scouts bring word that the Angles are massing in Bernicia.”
“Ours hear the same.”
“ ‘Ours.’ ” He nodded. When our eyes met, I saw sadness in their depths. “I knew this would come. I think I have always known. Have I lost you, then?”
I had not expected him to ask so forthrightly. I had not thought to feel as I did. We looked at each other, Maelgwn searching me. Me, searching myself. I could not do it any longer, undergo this guilt and this torture. There had been too much suffering. There had been too many things I had lost.
Maelgwn’s hands rested upon his lap. I reached carefully to cover them in mine, and his eyes closed at my touch.
I made myself say the words.
“I will always love you,” I said. “But I cannot bear the weight of that loving any longer. There is too much at stake. This must be done.”
He opened his eyes, and I saw his hurt. “There were so many days I imagined you here before me,” he said. “I imagined it a thousand different times, this first touch after so long. After surviving all we have done. Never did I imagine that you would say this.”
I pressed his hands, fighting to keep my voice steady. “I have lost my daughter. My son. I have lost you, over and over again. I cannot do it any longer, Maelgwn. It breaks me.”
He was quiet a long moment. Then he straightened, easing his fingers from mine. “I understand,” he said.
“I am not certain you do,” I said, begging him to see. “For so many years, you have held half my heart. Battle is coming, unlike any we have seen. I am needed by my husband and my people. I must mend my spirit and hold it intact if indeed this war is to be won.”
“No, Languoreth.” He stood. He was not angry, but his olive skin looked pale in the hearth light. “I do understand. All this time, I had given you the whole of my heart. And you suffered in torture, giving only one half.”
My conversation with Maelgwn left me nauseated and reeling.
I woke the next morning feeling desolate. I’d worn myself thin arguing with Lailoken over Mungo until the wee hours. I was slated to stay, as the journey had been tiring, but I could see how my presence pained Maelgwn. I could feel how it yet ripped at me. I would leave today and stay somewhere along the road.
Eira found me as I was leaving the hut.
“Sister, I am going to stay,” she said. “Lailoken and I, we have been too long apart… I must have more time. There is so much we have not yet discussed.”
“No, no, you needn’t explain.” I took her hands. “Please know that I am so truly happy for you. It is only that I am so very preoccupied with my own worries. Stay. I had imagined as much. With any hope, I will see you quite soon.”
“Yes, I hope it is so.” She nodded to Lailoken, who was striding toward the hut. “For I, too, have spoken with your brother. Will you tell her, then?” she asked him.
“Aye.” He came to stand before me. His humor was gone, and in its place the solemn resolve I had prayed to see. “Tell Rhydderch I will meet him,” he said. “But it cannot be here. I will not risk any lives.”
“I think that is wise. Let us meet at the fort of Dùn Meldred in two weeks’ time. It is more than a day’s travel north by foot. You could have come from anywhere.”
“Meldred is a Christian.”
“Yes, and I’ve considered it. There cannot be a more advantageous point to meet. Meldred will feel the import in holding such a gathering on his own land. He may be a Christian, but he is young, and you should impress upon him your influence. Mungo will insist on being there, I have no doubt. But I will travel with my own retinue. I will wait for you there.”
“Well enough. A fortnight.”
“Keep safe, brother.”
“And you, sister.”
As Torin and I followed one of Archer’s men back into the forest, I turned one last time, looking up into the cleft of the valley.
Maelgwn was nowhere to be seen.
I straightened my shoulders and fixed my eyes on the road ahead, leaving the settlement of the Dragons behind.
CHAPTER 40
Angharad
Woodwick Bay
Orcades
Kingdom of the Picts
22nd of June, AD 580
Angharad dreamed that night of a man in a cloak made of feathers.
He stood atop a towering waterfall. There were mountains all round, and she could feel the lochs and streamlets nestled in their depths. The feathers of his cloak—jackdaw, raven, owl, hawk—rustled in breaths of wind and mist that kicked up off the water.
“What place is this?” Angharad asked.
But the man did not answer. She looked to where his eyes were set. In the distance, a great forest stretched, covering the earth like a rich emerald cloth.
He lifted his arm to point, but Angharad saw nothing—only leagues upon leagues of river, trees, and sky. She tried harder. She reached out with her unseen fingers, the ones that helped her to sense all of the things that lay beneath.
The forest was breathing.
Beneath the oaks, wolves trotted over leaf litter. Wild boar dug their spear-pointed feet into the earth, churning it up. Yet all was not well. There was something in the distance, something stirring that caused the wolf and the boar to lift their heads as if trying to catch a scent on the wind. And then Angharad heard it coming, like hoofbeats, ominous as the pounding of a death drum.
She did not see the beast, but she could feel it; she sensed it in the way of the wolf and the pig, in the rank breath that puffed from its nostrils, the insatiable hunger that twisted its face.
The beast was the size of fleets.
The size of legions.
Its influence crossed oceans and far-flung lands of forest or ice or grass, ancient and vast. She saw in flashes the horrors it had wrought, spanning the length of mankind’s memory.
It fed its young off the hearts of wicked men.
There are yet forces upon this earth more powerful than you, Angharad told it. You are not older than the weather. You are younger still than mountains. You do not command all.
She realized too late that she should not have spoken. For the beast heard her and lifted its great head.
“I cannot stay here,” she said to the man beside her, with a dawning sense of dread.
But the man was no longer there. He was plummeting down the gash in the hillside, arms outstretched, as if he thought he might fly. Blood bloomed in the water below, where the shattered body of the man in the feathered cloak now lay, dreaming with the dead.
Angharad woke, her skin clammy in the dark.
She remembered the cool touch of her mother’s hand upon her forehead when she was a child and woke from night terrors. ’Twas only
a dream… Close your eyes and practice your numbers, she would say.
Only a dream. There had been many a time in Fortingall when she had wished it were so. She had peered into the cracks of so many women and men.
Angharad went to the hearth, squatting to touch a reed to the embers to light her nearby taper. But even as the wick caught, casting a small but reassuring beacon, she felt ill at ease. Guarding the light with a cupped palm, she stepped from the hut she shared with Catrin and counted the paces she walked in the dark.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
The taper lit Ariane’s pale skin as Angharad stirred her gently from sleep. She sat up suddenly, alert as any watchman. “What is it?” the priestess asked.
“War is coming,” Angharad said.
“Tell me.”
“I dreamed of a beast with no body. It scours, ever hungry. It came before Arderydd. Now it comes yet again.”
“You speak as if this beast had retreated only now to return,” Ariane said, wrapping her blanket round her as she swung her feet over the edge of her bed. “War is ever lurking. It is we who let it in.” She looked up. “Who has let it in?”
Angharad closed her eyes. “I cannot say. It came in a dream. But I could not see the threat itself. What use is a warning without understanding?”
“Dreams are visions, and those who send them do not delight in speaking our tongue. You were raised in a world of dreaming, Angharad. You must trust you will find the answers you seek. Tell me of this dream.”
Ariane listened as Angharad told her of the man in the cloak. Of the wolf and the boar.
“There was a time not so long ago when Wisdom Keepers wore such cloaks,” Ariane said.
“Keepers, you say?” Angharad asked.
“Yes. There was a Song Keeper who wore such a cloak to enable him to wing to the world of Annwn and so bring back his tales. Diviners used them for their ends. Men and women adept in their dreaming. It enabled them to fly.”
Angharad saw blood blooming in water. “I do not think it was so.”
“Very well.” Ariane tilted her head. “If that is what you believe.”
“The man leapt from the falls to his death.”
“And what did he do before he leapt?” Ariane asked.
Angharad searched her memory. “He only pointed to the forest.”
“No, no. That is not what I mean.” She looked at Angharad as if considering something. “If you should dream of him again, perhaps you will see.”
Angharad’s head ached. “Why must spirits always communicate in riddles? At least elements speak plain.”
“You know the meaning,” Ariane insisted. “Tell me the simplest thing. What did you feel?”
“Fear,” Angharad said. “I felt terribly afraid.”
“Why?”
“Because the Angles are coming for those I yet love. They will come through a great forest, attacking the Britons. First the Gododdin, then Strathclyde.” Angharad spoke as if trying out the words. She looked at Ariane. “The great forest I saw… it must be the Caledonian Wood. Artùr said that my uncle was there.”
“Angharad, I think it is time you returned to your mother,” Ariane said.
“Yes,” Angharad agreed, searching the glowing heat. The flame flickered. Then she knew.
“Yes. It is time,” she said. “I want to return. But I do not think we are meant to travel alone.”
Dùn Déagh was just as Angharad remembered it.
As they followed the narrow path up from the quay, entering into the shelter of the forest, where sturdy stone huts were nestled and children trailed behind them, eyes wide as eggs. She had come here first as a child herself. Lost and alone, save the company of Brother Thomas, whom she had never again seen and would never forget. Now she returned, nearly a priestess, accompanied by Ariane and their small retinue of men.
“What is it?” Angharad asked Ariane. “You’re thinking of something.”
“It is only that I wonder why a Pictish chieftain would ride out in aid of the Britons.”
“She is not only a chieftain,” Angharad said. “She was an initiate of Eachna’s once.”
Ariane raised a brow.
“It shouldn’t be far now,” Angharad said as they mounted a steep hill.
The hall was more an imposing hut than a wooden feast hall like that of the Britons. Windowless and built of drystone, it had a turf roof and a sturdy wooden door.
Four warriors stood waiting with spears in hand, wearing summer cloaks. As they caught sight of the priestesses, they bowed their heads, and a stocky warrior with a twisting serpent tattooed upon his neck opened the door to admit them. “We received your message. Our lady is expecting you.”
The hut was spacious, the rectangular hearth pit enclosed by the same artfully stacked drystone. Herbs hung from the thick beams of the roof. Two enormous wooden chairs sat side by side at the far end of the hut, where Muirenn and Talorcan sat robed in their finery, regarding her.
“Greetings, Princess.” Muirenn smiled. “Though I can see you are a princess no more. You are a priestess now, or nearly so? And a woman fully grown. Tell me, then. Did you find your way home?”
“Lady Muirenn,” Angharad said, tapping the place above her heart. “And Talorcan, my lord. Thank you for welcoming us.”
Talorcan’s eyes smiled at the sight of Angharad, even if he might not allow his mouth.
“You do not travel with Eachna,” Muirenn observed. “Who is this in your company?”
“I completed my training in the Orcades. This is my teacher, Ariane, head priestess at Woodwick Bay.”
“Welcome,” Muirenn acknowledged her. “Come, sit. You have come in much haste. Tell me why you’ve returned. What would you ask of me?”
Angharad took a breath. “The Angles are bringing war to the Britons. And if we do not help them, all of us will die.”
Muirenn and Talorcan exchanged a look.
“Explain,” Muirenn said.
“You once told me the legend of the silver torques of the Cruithni,” Angharad began. “The Romans desired a kingdom with no bounds, and the Cruithni had become their slaves. Then, one night, a priestess had a dream. If the people did not unite to fight, the Romans would swallow them whole. The Cruithni united and rose up, vanquishing Rome.”
“Yes,” Muirenn said, waiting.
“The priestess went back to her village so she might train more priestesses. So that if a time came once more, when they were needed, they would be ready. Can’t you see, Muirenn? Eachna of Fortingall is my hennain. I have trained at Fortingall. I share the blood of that first priestess. Now it is I who have slept and dreamed. The Angles of Bernicia are coming. I cannot yet say when, but I know we must travel to the Caledonian Wood. That is where the battle will begin.”
“Angharad, I have seen evidence of your gift. And I cannot deny how fate led you to Fortingall. Nor can I deny your bloodline. But this is not my battle. Why should I risk lives to aid Britons? Besides, there are many lands that lie between Dùn Déagh and Bernicia. Unless they should come by sea, they would have to conquer many Britons before they were any threat to me.”
“And I tell you if you aid the Britons now, you will help save not only yourselves but all the people who dwell in the north. The chain you wear round your neck is forged from Roman silver, to forever be a reminder of what it cost to be free. This is what it costs to be free.”
Muirenn looked at Angharad a long time. “And say I lend my retinue. What do you propose?”
“I would propose we leave on the morrow. Even then I worry we may be too late.”
“What if I am wrong?”
Angharad spoke softly to Ariane as they sat with their cups later beside Muirenn’s fire. But Angharad had no stomach for food or drink. She set her cup down so she might work on her cloak. The rhythmic piercing and bonding of needle and horsehair through the delicate hollow shaft of the feather, wrapping, securing each gift just so, soothed her ragged nerves.
“What if you are wrong?” Ariane echoed. “Muirenn will be angry. She has summoned her teulu. Tomorrow we will travel south with her men. To reach the Caledonian Wood in the south, we must pass through the lands of the Gododdin. They are no friends of the Picts. Now Muirenn must ask permission to march through their kingdom, to join the Britons in a battle that does not yet exist.”
“It feels impossible. We do not even know what the Bernicians may be planning.” Angharad rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. She had not slept before their journey by boat, and now her eyes felt gritty, as if full of sand.
Ariane reached somewhat awkwardly to cover Angharad’s hand with her own. “You have set the cart rolling, Angharad. It rattles fast now, down a steep hill. It will only pick up speed before this is all through. So enough of this foolishness. Finish your cloak and be done with it. Acknowledge your power. For too long you have mistrusted it. For too long you have given it away. Now you must claim it.”
“What if I am not ready?”
Ariane looked across the hut at Muirenn. “And do you believe Muirenn was ready when that heavy torque was fixed upon her neck? Or your mother, for that matter? Yes, Angharad. The yoke of destiny is heavy—but it does not ask more than we are able to give. Follow it or shrink from it. The choice is yours. But if you refuse it out of fear, you will never become the woman you are truly meant to be.”
“I am asking them to leave their land, to risk their lives,” Angharad said.
“Yes. That is what you ask. And they have made their choice.” Ariane’s voice was steady. “I have seen it come to pass a thousand times, and always it comes to this. Each one of us must choose what we believe. Do you believe you have a gift, or will you toss it away?”
Angharad secured a new feather shaft to her cloak. “You bring to mind something my mother would often say: We do not always have the choice we would like, but we always have a choice.”
Ariane smiled.
“Why do you smile so?”
“It is only that your mother is very wise. I shall be glad to see her again.”