by Anna Elliott
Another cold ripple slid through Isolde as the memory of a fire-lit war tent filled her mind’s eye. Huel, she thought, who will rule Rhegged after his father is gone. And who was among those camped on the battlefield three nights ago with Con.
“Of course.” In a moment, Owain had turned to face Isolde. “Forgive me, Lady Isolde.”
Isolde let him take her hand and make a low bow over it. His skin felt dry to the touch, smooth and a little cool. Like the scales of a snake.
Owain of Powys raised his head. “You may trust me—and all of us assembled here—to serve you as we did your husband, Lady Isolde.”
The chill was deepening, spreading to grip her bones and choke her throat. Slowly, Isolde nodded, telling herself it would be fatal danger to betray fear. “Yes, Lord Owain.” Her voice sounded hard and flat in her own ears. “I know that I may trust you that much.”
She watched Owain return to his place, then looked again over the assembled men, feeling a sudden bleak certainty that there was no use in her speaking out. That in the eyes of all those here anything she said was already damned.
Still, she rose, pitching her voice to address the room at large. “My lords. I would speak to you on behalf of my husband, King Constantine, whom so many of you have honored tonight.”
Isolde felt a stir of uneasiness run round the room, but she continued.
“Three times in the last two hundred years, Britain has faced peril. First when the legions marched back to Rome and left Britain to the mercy of raiding Saxons and Irish tribes. King Vortigern was betrayed by his Saxon allies, and it was only because Ambrosius Aurelianus rode with his armies out of the Welsh hills that we were not broken and overwhelmed.”
Isolde paused, then went on. “But Ambrosius died without an heir. And the Pendragon had to battle for the throne. The very fortress of Tintagel here he won when he met and slew Duke Gorlois, who had rebelled against his claim. And then again, when Uther died, there was no apparent heir to take the throne. And even when Arthur was named High King, many refused to follow a child gotten outside of wedlock, son of the Pendragon though he might be. And then…then Arthur fell at the battle of Camlann, and for the third time there was no king to take his place on the throne.”
She paused again. “Three times Britain’s High King has fallen without an heir to carry on the war against the Saxons and the defense of the land. Three times, the kingdom has been torn by Briton fighting Briton. And each time, we have lost ground to the Saxons. Now we hold only these lands of Cornwall, the western Welsh lands, and in the north the Orkneys and Strathclyde.”
Isolde drew breath, letting her gaze travel the length of the room.
“And now we face again a king dead without an heir, and a fresh threat from the Saxon hordes. Can any of you doubt what the end will be if what few kingdoms remain in British hands are splintered by yet another struggle for power among their kings?”
For a long moment after Isolde had resumed her seat, there was silence in the timbered hall. In the flickering torchlight, the men’s faces were grave, but none spoke. And none rose. Then Madoc of Gwynedd’s voice rang out again.
“Pretty words—from the great traitor’s bastard.”
Chapter Six
BEFORE TURNING TO FACE THE room, Madoc sent Isolde a look as black and hostile as he had that long-ago day in the stable yard. Then went on, speaking with an effort to control his temper, though his voice turned rasping and tight.
“My lords, she speaks of times when lands have been lost to the Saxons because Briton has fought Briton and not the common foe. She, whose father Modred made alliance with the Saxons against Arthur the King. Modred, whose treason cost us all the lands east of the Severn and south of Ambrosius’s wall. Have you all gone mad, to listen to her? Let her bespell you with that honey-sweet witch’s voice of hers?”
Madoc’s voice rose, his face darkening as he went on. “The granddaughter of Morgan, who caught Arthur by the balls and bewitched him into getting her bastard son. Whose arts set that bastard son on the throne—so that she could snatch the power she’d stolen from Arthur when she bespelled him and his cock. How do we know the queen here is not another such? She’s reigned at Constantine’s side for seven years—had him bewitched to jump and crawl at a flick of her hand. And now she’d set another man up in our king’s place before he’s cold in his grave. And as like as not in her bed, as—”
“My Lord, you forget yourself!”
Coel had risen as well, his carved face set with anger, his back erect, his golden hawk’s eyes blazing beneath the heavy brows. He was nearing the end of his strength, though. His face had a waxen pallor, and Isolde saw the hand that grasped his son’s shoulder tremble.
Isolde let out her breath. There was a strange kind of relief—a satisfaction, almost—in the confrontation, in feeling the suppressed tensions and hostilities of the council hall come to a head and spill into the open like poison from a festering wound. She found it far easier to keep hold of her temper than when she’d watched Hedda manhandled by the other petty king. Though that, she thought, might only be because she’d heard Madoc’s words—or variations on them—so many times before.
“My lord Coel,” she said, “I thank you for your defense.” The eyes of every man in the hall were upon her, and she looked slowly up and down the benches, meeting the gaze of each one. Then she fixed her eyes on Madoc and said, her voice even and very quiet, “My lord Madoc forgets himself indeed.”
She heard several breaths sharply indrawn, and saw a hint of fear come to light in Madoc of Gwynedd’s dark eyes. The same fear she’d seen in Hunno and Erbin. Before she could speak again, though, another voice, loud and harsh, rang out across the hall.
“My lord Madoc, be seated.” Marche had risen from his place opposite her own, and now strode forward to confront the other man. “Our king lies dead. To snap and snarl among ourselves now—like the very savages we fight—dishonors his memory. And I will not even speak aloud my opinion of offering insult to his queen.”
He paused, making a brief bow to Isolde. Isolde, sitting rigid in her place, felt the warming anger fade and a tendril of fear uncurl deep inside. Marche’s face was grave, his expression showing nothing but cold, stern disapproval of Madoc’s words. But there was something—something in his eyes—that made her wonder whether she’d not played directly into his hands in speaking out as she had.
Isolde’s head had begun to pound with the heat and the noise, and she felt all at once as small and as powerless as though she stood alone under a leaden sky and tried to hold off one of the summer storms that sent the soil of the headlands plummeting into the sea. Sightless, unable to see clearly whom among the council she might trust, had she any chance of holding off Britain’s ruin?
Have I even, she thought, the right to try?
Marche held her gaze a moment, then turned to face Madoc.
Marche had taken another step toward the younger man, and now went on, weary dark eyes intent on Madoc’s. “And so I say again, Madoc of Gwynedd, take your seat once more—or leave the hall. The choice is yours.”
Isolde saw Madoc’s jaw harden, and a vein in the base of his neck begin to throb. His hand went, as though reflexively, to the knife he wore at his belt, and Isolde saw the knuckles whitening as he gripped the hilt. She saw, too, his dark gaze move to the pair of Marche’s men-at-arms who had risen and moved to take their place at their lord’s back, their hands, likewise, on the hilts of their swords.
From along the benches on either side came the clink and rustle of cloth as other men shifted and poised themselves to reach for daggers or swords. Isolde’s every muscle tightened, waiting for the first blow to be struck and the violence that had rippled beneath the surface of every word spoken that night to erupt. She felt the same tense expectation from the rest of the crowd. But something else, as well.
Hunger, she thought. For a fight—for blood. She wondered bleakly whether warfare always changed men this way—made them lust afte
r a fight, no matter who with, even after the battle with the enemy was done. A shiver twisted through her. Maybe Con, too, would have ended up this way if he’d stayed on the throne many years more.
Marche went on, lowering his voice and dropping one hand on the other man’s shoulder.
“Madoc of Gwynedd, you say you loved the young king well, and I know you fought bravely at his side these many years since he took the throne. I know you, too, to be a man of honor. I cannot believe you will let the evening end with a spilling of blood in King Constantine’s very hall.”
It was, Isolde thought, masterfully done, and she felt the chill of fear curl and settle in the pit of her stomach. Easy to see why Marche had won a following for himself among those assembled here.
She saw the anger on Madoc’s face quiver and then break, and then tension ebb away out of his frame. The hand on his knife hilt relaxed, moving instead to meet Marche’s with a firm clasp.
“My lord Marche, son of Meirchion, I yield you the floor.” Madoc bowed, then turned to Isolde and said stiffly, “My lady, forgive me.” Then, before she could respond, he turned aside.
Marche waited a beat, drawing once more the eyes of all in the room. Then: “My lords. Our king will be buried tomorrow, but tonight—and for the last night since he fell—he will lie in the chapel here. I would ask you, all of you, to keep a vigil with me there. A vigil of fasting and prayer.”
A low murmur ran round the room at that, but Marche spoke over it, spreading out one hand and gesturing toward Isolde.
“My lady Isolde spoke tonight of the Pendragon, and of King Arthur the Great. And you have all heard of the scarlet dragon that appeared in the sky as sign that Uther was to be king. Of how, as a boy of but fourteen, Arthur drew the sword of kingship from solid stone—another sign from God, proof that Arthur was the one chosen to take the throne when his father fell.”
Marche paused, letting his gaze again play over the room, then went on lowering his voice once more. “My friends, I ask that you keep vigil over the body of King Constantine tonight and pray for another such sign. For another sign from God, showing His will as to who will rule now that our king is gone.”
THE MOON WAS HIDDEN BY THICK cloud as Isolde crossed toward the queen’s chambers, the great courtyard dark and still, lit only by the occasional flare of a burning torch. Her eyes still stung with the smoke of the council hall’s fire, and her headache had grown worse, so that when a man’s shadowed form stepped out of the stairwell that led to her rooms, she drew up sharply, biting back an exclamation of surprise.
“Lord Marche. I had thought you would be keeping your chapel vigil with the rest.”
The flare of the torch that burned beside the door patched his face with shadow, picked out the gilding on the hem and collar of his tunic, and making the jeweled eyes of the boar on his shoulder brooch glow red.
“I came, Lady Isolde, to ask whether you have given thought to what your own position is now.”
Isolde stepped through the doorway into the passage, and Marche followed, hitching the injured left leg a little awkwardly over the stone step.
“The hour is late, my lord. And I would ask that you speak plainly. What is it you mean?”
“I mean that you are without father—and now without a husband as well.” Marche paused, then went on, without looking at her. “There is word going around the council that Owain of Powys intends to offer for your hand.”
Isolde pushed back the hood of her cloak, remembering Owain’s refined, handsome face, his smiling hazel eyes. History repeats itself, she thought, time and again. Ygraine, wife of Gorlois. And Gwynefar, my own mother. Even pretended witchcraft won’t win power enough to escape the fate of a woman left alone.
“Then,” she said evenly, “I would make to him the same reply I would make to any other man. My lord husband and king has been dead but three days. To think of taking another in his place would be dishonor to his memory.”
Marche lifted a hand and let it fall. “Perhaps, Lady Isolde. But all the same, you will have need of a man’s name—for your own protection, and for the sake of the lands you yourself hold.” He stopped. “And as you are on Cornish lands, I feel it my duty to offer you mine.”
Isolde found she wasn’t even surprised. “So, for duty’s sake, you will offer to marry me yourself? Is that the same duty that called you from my father’s side at Camlann?”
Marche’s eyes narrowed. “I have accounted for that before the king’s council. I was imprisoned by your father. Forced into lending him aid. Drugged and ensorcelled by Morgan the witch. Then at Camlann I was at last able to break free and join Arthur, my rightful lord. I have nothing more to say.”
And if, Isolde thought, the king’s council doubted Marche’s tale, they would—will still—have found it convenient to hold their tongues and believe. Those left to piece together a kingdom from the wreckage of Arthur and Modred’s battles had had need of every man. And Marche commanded too rich a territory, too great a force of fighting men to be rejected. Especially when his swing of allegiance had been the final blow that had lost Modred the war.
Marche lowered his voice and added, “And I would be careful, Lady Isolde. In your current place, an enemy is a thing you can ill afford to make. Do you understand?”
Isolde put one hand on the stair’s guardrail, then turned to face Marche again.
“What I understand, Lord Marche—and understand well—is that you would stand a far better chance of being named High King if you could claim sovereignty over Camelerd in addition to Cornwall. But I will make no man ruler over my own lands unless I believe he will both govern and defend the country well. And you, who betrayed my father, schemed and clawed for your own power all the time you ruled for Constantine, are the last man in Britain I would choose.”
Marche was not a man who easily lost control. Now, though, in a flash, his hand shot out, dragging her toward him, so that Isolde saw just how tightly stretched he was, the ragged nerves pulsing beneath the veneer of civil calm.
“So you say, my lady.” They were only a handsbreadth apart, and Isolde caught the reek of sour wine on his breath, felt the heavy rise and fall of his chest against hers. She flinched.
Marche smiled, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “I could force you, you know. Marriage by rape is still valid in the eyes of the law.”
In the silence of the stone-built passage, the sound of Isolde’s own breath, the beating of her heart in her ears, was very loud. Marche’s grip hardened, his fingers tightening on her throat. I could scream, she thought. But who would come? One of Marche’s men? One of the men who took the death-oath to guard Con?
She fought down a leeching wave of panic and lifted her head to meet Marche’s gaze.
“Try it,” she said, between her teeth. “I swear on my husband’s soul I’ll put a knife through my heart before I wed you or any other man.”
THE FLIGHT OF STEPS SEEMED TO stretch on and on. Isolde forced herself to climb slowly, to keep her head utterly straight and her eyes on the gray stone wall ahead, though she could feel Marche’s furious gaze still on her from where she’d left him at the foot of the stairs. But when she opened the door to her rooms and saw the woman who sat on the carved wooden settle beside the fire, she froze.
Nest.
Her control was beginning to feel as brittle as hot glass, but Isolde responded to the other woman’s curtsy with a brief nod, then crossed to the tapestried chair that stood to one side of the hearth and gestured for Nest to be seated, as well. The room was the one used by her ladies and serving women for weaving and spinning, though the looms were now covered, the spindles and balls of wool piled in baskets on the floor.
“I must apologize,” Isolde said. “If I had known I would be receiving visitors tonight, I would have had refreshment on hand.”
A spark of irritation at the implied rebuke flared in Nest’s eyes, but she shook her head. She was a big woman, a year or two past thirty, with a flat, almost masculine
face crowned by straight, thick hair the color of coal, and a frame rawboned and heavy beneath an expensive saffron-dyed gown that was embroidered with gold and silver thread at the hem and sleeves.
“I want nothing.” Her deep-toned voice, too, was almost masculine and her eyes were small and dark. She was a kinswoman of Marche’s, a cousin on his mother’s side, and had served as chatelaine of his castle since her husband had died.
Chatelaine and more besides, so rumor would have it. Certainly, Isolde thought, she sees to the speedy dismissal or sale of whatever serving woman or slave Marche takes to his bed. Before the woman could bear him a child that might challenge her own claims.
And these last three years, since the war had been concentrated in the south, she had served at Tintagel as mistress of Isolde’s ladies. Marche had offered, and Con had not, in courtesy, been able to refuse, as the battles were being waged over much of Marche’s land.
Now Nest was silent a moment. Then, abruptly, she said, “I hear, Majesty, that you have dismissed your serving women.”
“For a few days only,” Isolde said. She used the same formula she had used with Hunno and Erbin in the chapel, though this time as she spoke the words she felt a twist of the panic she’d felt with Marche in the stairwell below. “I would be alone with my grief for the present time.”
Nest bowed her head. “I understand, my lady. But it is hardly fitting that the dowager queen should be served by a single slave. My Lord Marche quite agrees with me, as do the members of the council.”
She paused, her eyes locking on Isolde’s. “I have selected a girl whom I deem worthy of the honor of serving you. She will begin tomorrow.”
So, Isolde thought. The rest of the men on the king’s council trust me as little as I trust Marche—or Nest. I wonder whether Marche had even to work to persuade the councilmen that the Witch Queen must have a spy to keep watch on her at all times.