Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  She saw Marcia’s gaze waver—her look uncertain, then hardening once again.

  “You’d say that, of course.”

  Isolde looked at the girl, standing with her chin slightly lifted, her shoulders set. Far, far harder, she thought again, to convince a woman that one of her own sex could have the power to harm. But pity or no, she thought, I can’t have her stay the night.

  “Very well,” she said curtly. “Stay, if you wish.”

  She crossed to where the scrying bowl stood, knelt to light a candle by the embers of the fire, then set the candle in the center of the water.

  “Here—what are you doing?”

  There was uneasiness, now, in Marcia’s tone, but Isolde didn’t answer, nor did she turn from where she stood. Instead she bent down, eyes fixed on the candle that burned in the center of the bowl, the flame’s reflection dancing and flickering on the surface of the water. “I, mistress of Satan, summon my lord. Powers and demons and spirits of the air,” she whispered, “come to me now.”

  Behind her, she heard Marcia suck in a sharp breath. It was all she could do to keep from looking round, but she kept her eyes on the water, made her breathing slow, even, and deep. Slowly, she lifted the ewer of moon-blessed water to her lips, drew in a sip, then spat it deliberately on the floor.

  “I curse the Father,” she whispered. Then she sipped and spat again. “I curse the Son.” She spat a third time. “I curse the Holy Ghost.”

  She heard Marcia let out another frightened gasp, then heard the patter of hurried footsteps, and finally the door of her chambers opening and closing. Isolde shut her eyes briefly, then cupped her hands and blew out the candle, tipped the water from the bowl into the basin, and set the bowl back where it belonged. Instantly, Cabal, who had remained curled in his corner until now, came to snuffle at her skirts.

  Isolde laid a hand on his neck. A sin, probably, in the eyes of the Christ-God. And Goddess-blessed silly, she thought, as well. Myrddin would have bent double laughing at the performance she’d just given. The thought of Myrddin, though, brought back a cold press of grief—and guilt—that tightened her throat, and she rested her cheek against Cabal’s head.

  “My lady?”

  Isolde looked up to see Hedda in the doorway, her face as impassive as ever, though Isolde thought there was a faint note of anxiety in her tone. “What has happened? Marcia said—”

  “Marcia spoke true, Hedda. I have agreed to marry Marche. The services will be held tomorrow.”

  Hedda’s eyes widened, a flash of surprise in their pale depths. “You have agreed?”

  “It’s the only way. Sit down.” Isolde gestured toward a place beside her on the bed and drew a long, shuddering breath. “I’ll tell you all that’s happened tonight.”

  The worst was recounting Myrddin’s death. A vision of the old man’s still, gray face rose before her, and Isolde had to stop, struggling to remember the words he had spoken only the day before instead of his sightless, staring sea-blue eyes and blood-soaked beard.

  Remember that, Isa. That I have chosen this path. That you have laid nothing on me but what I choose to take up as mine.

  At last Isolde stopped, her hand still on Cabal’s neck. She was grateful for the big dog’s warmth and the bristle of fur beneath her fingers. The fire in the hearth was dying, the light just enough to gild Hedda’s fair hair and lashes and pale skin. Hedda had listened without speaking, and now she remained silent a long moment, perched on the edge of the bed, the broad, capable hands folded at the girdle of her undyed gown. Then, as before, she reached out and clasped her fingers briefly round Isolde’s.

  Isolde gave the Saxon girl’s hand a brief, answering clasp, then let Hedda withdraw from the touch. “Thank you, Hedda,” she said softly. Then: “I will need your help if I am to get free. I’ll need a serving woman’s gown and shoes. Can you get them for me—and have them here, ready, tomorrow night?”

  Hedda was silent a moment more, then nodded. “Yes, my lady. I bring them to you before morning.”

  “Thank you, Hedda,” Isolde said again. Then she stopped. Since she had parted with Marche in the council hall, she had been holding a cold, crawling sickness at bay, but now it swept over her, strong enough that she had to wait a moment before going on. At last she said, “There’s one thing more. Something I’ll need before tomorrow. A paste…made of mandrake and cedar oil.”

  Hedda had risen to stir the dying fire into life, but at Isolde’s words she froze, then turned, her movements for once quick, her voice sharp. “But that’s—”

  “I know.” Isolde shut her eyes a moment. “It will be in my stillroom, along with the other simples and herbs. I would get it myself, but that I doubt Marche will give me the chance to go to my workroom alone.”

  Slowly, Hedda nodded. Her expression was stolid as before, but there was something the girl’s look that made Isolde’s half-formed guess of the night before turn to certainty. Her eye’s went to Hedda’s stomach. Con’s? she thought. No, surely not. Not when there were so many others far prettier—and far more willing—than Hedda to be had.

  Hedda’s eyes were still on Isolde’s face, their pale gaze steady and for once bright and clear. “I understand, lady,” she said quietly. “I do as you ask.”

  WHEN HEDDA HAD GONE, ISOLDE SAT down on a stool by the fire, letting Cabal creep forward to rest his head across her knees. The bronze scrying bowl was still in its place by the hearth; mechanically, her eyes traced the swirling patterns in the bright metal sides—serpents of eternity, swallowing their tails. No use, though, to try once more to See in its depths. She might have heard Myrddin’s unspoken words as he died, but that had been Myrddin’s power, not her own. Even her witch’s curse for Marche had been only empty show.

  And I wonder, she thought, how I can hope to defeat Marche, when I cannot even bear my own past? When I can’t make myself remember, even if it might bring back the Sight?

  The storm that had threatened all day had broken at last, and Isolde sat listening to the pounding of rain against the walls outside, her fingers twined in Cabal’s fur.

  The stars will still shine tomorrow, whatever happens to me here.

  Still, her mind went back to a tale she remembered hearing long ago. The story of a queen, forced to wed the man who had conquered her husband’s army and taken his throne. She had married him, but offered him at the wedding ceremony a poisoned cup. And allayed all suspicion by drinking first, choosing death herself so that she might take her husband’s killer with her to the grave.

  Black rebellion broke over Isolde in a wave. And I haven’t even that choice left, she thought. She stopped, was still a moment, then abruptly rose, throwing off her shawl and reaching for the gown Hedda had brushed and folded away. I was wrong. There is yet something more to be done.

  “WAIT HERE FOR ME. I WON’T be long.”

  Erbin had insisted on accompanying her to the north tower, but at Isolde’s curt dismissal he hesitated. He was nervous of her, even yet; all the way from her rooms, he’d been careful not to meet her gaze and to stay at enough distance that not even a fold of her cloak brushed his arm. Now he swallowed once, then gave a short nod and took up a place beside the other guards.

  The man Nifaran was asleep—or seemed to be asleep—when Isolde entered the cell. His head was bowed, resting on his raised knees, his body still and his breathing even. As the door swung closed behind Isolde, though, his head came up with a jerk and he sprang to his feet, hands clenched, with pupils so dilated his eyes looked almost black. The movement was so sudden that Isolde drew in a sharp breath and took an involuntarily step backward, so that her shoulders rested against the wooden door, but Nifaran neither moved nor turned to look at where she stood.

  His eyes were fixed, his head thrown back, and he breathed as though he’d been running, his face and tunic wet with sweat. With sweat, and with blood as well. Isolde had brought only a candle with her this time, but its light was enough to see the stains—some dried to rusty
brown, others still wet and red—that patched the back and shoulders of his shirt. She thought, I should have known. I should have guessed that by winning burial for Cyn I’d also win another beating for this man. The guards sent to take Cyn’s body away would have been angry at the task they were forced to perform.

  She must have made some slight movement or sound, for Nifaran’s head turned, though his eyes looked at her as though she’d not been there, and his muscles remained rigid as stone. Then, slowly, his gaze cleared and he blinked, the blue eyes focusing on her face. He drew a shuddering breath, and some of the tension seemed to ebb out of his frame. He didn’t speak, either, but stood, his eyes still fixed on her face.

  At last Isolde said, with a gesture toward the flattened patch of straw where Cyn’s body had lain, “He’s had his soldier’s burial. You have my word.”

  Nifaran remained silent, his breathing gradually slowing, the pulse still pounding in his neck. But he acknowledged the words with a brief jerk of his head and dropped, moving stiffly, to the ground once more, his legs drawn up, his back held away from the wall behind.

  “Is that why you’ve come now? To tell me that?”

  He broke off with another of the dry, harsh coughs she’d heard before, and Isolde saw him flinch, then stiffen in resistance, as the movement jarred whatever other injuries he might have. She shook her head. “No.” She reached through the side-slit in her cloak for the narrow bronze knife she’d slipped into her medicine scrip back in her rooms. A flicker of surprise showed in Nifaran’s blue eyes as she drew the weapon out, but he didn’t move.

  Not taking her eyes from Nifaran’s, Isolde bent and laid the knife between them on the floor. “I’m leaving this here,” she said. “You understand?”

  For a long moment, Nifaran held her gaze. Then, at last: “Why?”

  “Why should I do this, you mean?” Isolde felt, suddenly, very tired, weary to the core of her bones. She straightened, steadying herself against the stone wall. “Because you won a way out of here for Cyn. And because I would not see anyone, Saxon or Briton, left without at least a choice to take the same way of getting free.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  ISOLDE KNELT BY THE WASHBASIN, retching. She was crying, too, but when she realized it she dug her nails fiercely into the palms of her hands and forced herself to stop. It was over.

  Over. Over. And at least I didn’t let him make me cry out.

  The tears hadn’t started until later, after Marche had at last gone.

  Her fingers found the woolen ball, smeared with the cedar-and-mandrake paste Hedda had brought her the night before, and she bit her lip to stifle a gasp at the pain inside her as she drew it out. The wool was wet and sticky. Her stomach twisted and she gagged again, dropped the ball as though it had burned her, and then plunged her hands again and again into the pottery jar of water. Over. Over.

  And she was safe. Marche hadn’t suspected, any more than Con had ever done. Still, though, her breath was quick and ragged, and she felt soiled, slimy all over, inside and out, where Marche’s body had touched her own, as though she could never be clean again.

  She caught her breath. I can’t, she thought furiously. I can’t let myself feel that.

  If she did, the pain that had begun to throb deep within her would rise up and swallow her whole and there would be nothing left of her but shame.

  Isolde shut her eyes a moment. And then she took up the water pitcher and began to wash, flinching in spite of herself when her fingers found the reddening bruises. There was blood, too. With shaking hands, she scrubbed until it was gone, then poured water over herself again. The fire had gone out, and she was soon shivering in the room’s chill night air, but the very cold seemed to help, a little, to take away the imprint of Marche’s body from her own.

  Slowly, painfully, Isolde rose to her feet and pulled on first the rough linen shift, then the gown of plain undyed wool that Hedda had brought with the paste. Isolde’s fingers were clumsy, fumbling at first with the ties, and when something hard butted against her side, she flinched and jerked round, her heart beating fast and hard. It was only Cabal, though, escaped somehow from wherever he’d been penned by Nest and the other women and come to slip, now, into her rooms.

  Isolde dropped again to her knees, and the big dog whined and licked her face, raising one paw to claw at her skirts. She drew a long, shivering breath, resting her cheek against the rough fur of his neck. Put it away, she thought. Away with everything else.

  She’d done it before. Slowly, deliberately, she took out each memory of the day, then locked it away behind a wall. Marcia, coming to her room that morning to see her dressed and robed. And Father Nenian coming, as well, his round eyes anxious, his baby-fine hair ruffled by the wind.

  “I know well that a woman left without a husband’s protection has small choice in whether she marries again,” he had said. “But I would not bless this marriage if you do not truly enter into this union of your own will.”

  Isolde had wondered, briefly, whether she dared confide in him. But that would only have put him in danger, as well. He could be of no possible aid.

  Like folding away a gown, Isolde set the memory of Father Nenian’s kind, worried face aside, then went on. On with all the rest of the day, drawing the memories out and then pushing them back, into a room at the back of her mind with a door she could close. The exchange of vows in the chapel, which echoed with the clash of arms and the beat of hooves from outside—the sounds of the men-at-arms making ready for war…The banquet in Tintagel’s great hall, brief and with only the bare minimum of food, so that the bustle of readying for attack might go on…Being undressed and put to bed by Nest and the others, just as she had been after being wedded to Con…

  Isolde’s hands started to shake, but she forced herself to go on. Lying under the canopy of the great, carved bed…hearing the chamber door open…Marche’s mouth, reeking of beer and the vomit of drunkenness, pressed against hers.

  Over, she thought, her cheek still resting against Cabal’s fur. Put it away.

  Finally, she rose unsteadily to her feet, found her traveling cloak where Hedda had hung it, and pulled it on over the gown. She had knelt to lace the rough leather shoes Hedda had given her with the gown when the door opened, and Hedda herself slipped in.

  Isolde’s throat still felt raw, her head stuffy with the aftermath of crying, but she rose and said, “Hedda—you ought not to be here. There could be trouble for you afterwards, if anyone saw you come. They’ll know you helped me get away.”

  Hedda’s eyes traveled slowly over Isolde, and Isolde knew the Saxon girl had taken in her swollen eyes, the reddening bruises on her wrists that the sleeves of the gown didn’t quite conceal. Hedda said nothing, though, only shook her head and then held out a parcel, wrapped in clean linen rags.

  “Food, lady. I brought for you. To take with you when you go.”

  The tears Isolde had fought threatened again, but she took the parcel and choked them furiously back.

  “Thank you, Hedda. That was good of you. Very good.”

  Instead of answering, Hedda shook her head once more, this time lifting one shoulder in a faint, dismissive shrug. She seemed to hesitate a moment, then asked, turning her gaze away, so that her face was slightly averted from Isolde’s, “Where…you go, lady?”

  One of the threads on the edge of the parcel had frayed, and Isolde smoothed it mechanically, twisting it between her fingers. She might have locked the day—and the night—away, but the ache inside her had settled into a kind of rhythm, a burning pulse of pain, and at the question she felt the room, the walls around her, her very self beginning to tilt and slide away.

  “The northern road,” she said at last. “It will be less heavily guarded than the way that runs along the coast. And Coel’s goldsmith will almost certainly have chosen that route to and from Castle Dore. It’s the faster—and drier—way at this time of year.” She stopped. “Such a man—traveling with the tools and goods of his tr
ade—will stand out among the rest of what travelers there are. I should be able to intercept him on the road.”

  Even to her own ears, though, the words sounded as impossible as the most fantastic of tales, and the thought even of leaving her own rooms was enough to make panic pull tight in her chest once again. With an effort, Isolde turned to her dressing table, where her jewelry lay: a necklace of coral beads, given her as a child, as well as other, heavier ornaments of silver and gold. And a glass-inlaid brooch. Con gave me that, she thought. When—

  She stopped herself and quickly gathered up the simplest pieces: a silver comb, a few bronze bracelets, a glass-inlaid ring. Anything more valuable would only attract attention if she tried to barter it for food or shelter. She knotted the items together in one of the veils that lay folded beside the jewels, then added the small purse of copper coins she kept to give the travelers who came to beg.

  “There’ll be other travelers, as well, after the battle at Dimilioc—refugees, like the ones who come here. I should be safe enough if I can join one of the bands already on the road.”

  Hedda didn’t answer at once. She was moving round the room, picking up scattered clothing, straightening cushions and rugs, but Isolde thought her movements were unnaturally abrupt, as though she were abstracted, or frightened. At last she straightened and said, in a low voice Isolde had never heard from her before, “May the gods guide your journey, my lady.”

  Isolde opened her mouth. But there was nothing she could offer the Saxon girl in return. An offer to take Hedda with her—to help her escape to whatever freedom she could find—would only risk the girl’s life, and likely to no good end. She would have to leave Hedda here, a slave, to bear an unknown man’s child into the same slavery.

  Isolde drew the hood of her cloak over her hair, dropped the bundle of jewelry into her scrip and fastened the scrip about the girdle of her gown, then took up the parcel of food once more. “Thank you, Hedda,” she said again. “My sister.”