Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  All the same, when the wolf’s cry echoed across the moor again, he edged closer to Isolde, hunching his thin shoulders.

  Bran’s thin, cunning face and small frame could hardly have been more unlike the tall, sturdy boy Con had been. And yet a brief vision of Con rose before Isolde’s eyes. Con, twelve years old and half sick with fear—though trying desperately to hide it—as he stood in her chambers and let her stitch up the cut on his brow.

  “Do you know any stories, Bran?” Isolde asked.

  “Stories?” Bran’s eyes were still on the shadowed, rolling landscape of the moor beyond the circle of the fire, and he spoke as though he’d only half heard. Then he turned and nodded, suddenly interested. “Kian tells them at night sometimes, after the songs. There’s one he told about a place not far from here. A pool, on the moor. And they say—” Bran frowned in an effort of remembrance. “They say that after the great battle—after Camlann—Arthur lay dying of a mortal sword wound.”

  The boy’s voice, rough and uncultured as it was, had unconsciously slipped into the rhythm of a harper’s song. He went on, “And he gave his great sword to his truest friend, Bedwyr, and begged him to throw it into the pool. And three times Bedwyr told the king that he had thrown the sword away as he asked. And three times he lied. But the forth time he did fling the sword away, to the center of the pool. And a white arm came up, up out of the waters and caught the sword. And drew it down beneath the surface of the pool. And—”

  Bran broke off abruptly, looking up at Isolde, and said, his voice resuming its ordinary tone, “You ever hear that one?

  Isolde stared out into the darkness at the shadowed shape of a boulder on the crest of a nearby swell of ground. Almost, she thought, it had the shape of a crouching hound.

  “No,” she said at last. “No, I hadn’t heard that one.” The fire blurred before her eyes, and she looked down at the boy. “I can tell you another, though. Do you know the story of the sea-maiden Morveren?”

  Bran shook his head.

  “Well, then.” Isolde drew her cloak more tightly around her, and began. “This happened long, long ago, in a place not far from here—a place called Zennor, where the sea is both the beginning and the end for the folk who live there, where days are marked by the ebb and flow of the tide and the months and years by the herring runs.”

  She paused. Bran tossed the twig he’d been holding onto the fire, then yawned and edged slightly closer. “Kian’s a rare good storyteller,” he said. “But you’ve a nice voice for it, too. For a girl, I mean.” He glanced up at her, then away, and added, with elaborate unconcern, “Pretty, sort of.”

  It was an oddly touching speech, and Isolde said, gravely, “Thank you.” She took out the last of the honey cakes from her bag, breaking it in two and handing half to Bran. She took a bite of her own half of the cake, then went on with the tale of Morveren the sea-maiden, daughter of Llyr, the king who ruled the land beneath the sea. Of how Morveren had fallen in love with the voice of a mortal man as he sang about his work and had broken the laws of her people, covering her tail with a dress crusted with pearls and sea jade and coral and other ocean jewels to venture on land.

  Isolde paused. Bran was yawning again and rubbing his eyes, but he looked up as soon as Isolde stopped. “And what happened?”

  “For nearly a year, Morveren would venture up onto the land to hear the mortal man—Talan was his name—sing as he sat by the fire in his mother’s house, tying fishing lines and mending his nets. But one night, Talan’s singing was so lovely that Morveren could not keep back a sigh.

  “It was just a little sigh, softer than the whisper of a wave. But it was enough for Talan to hear, and he looked out the door from where he sat by the hearth and saw the sea-maiden. And he was struck silent by the look of her—and by his love for her. For these things will happen.”

  The story went on, of how Talan had vowed to go with Morveren to the land beneath the sea. Of how his kin had run in pursuit, trying to hold him back. And of how Morveren had thrown the ocean jewels from her dress so that the pursuers stopped to scrabble in the sand for them, allowing the sea-maiden and the fisher-lad to go free.

  “And Talan and Morveren were never seen again. They had gone to live in the land of Llyr, in golden sandcastles built beneath the waves. But the people of Zennor heard Talan. For he sang to Morveren day and night, love songs and lullabies for the children she bore. And songs of the sea, soft and high if the day was to be fair, deep and low if Llyr would make the waters boil.”

  Isolde stopped and, glancing down, saw that Bran had fallen asleep. He lay curled on his side, one hand clenched tight beneath his cheek, the other flung out on the ground, his mouth open and relaxed, his breath coming in little snorting grunts. She watched him a moment, a memory rising in her of a face she hardly ever let herself see in her mind’s eye, though neither could she lock it entirely away. A tiny face that had looked both like her and like Con, with a soft fuzz of gold-brown hair and lashes lying like fans against wax-pale cheeks.

  She remembered, too, waking in the darkest watches of the night with a stray pain—the kind that came on without warning in the last weeks and meant the birth was drawing near. She’d thought of the births she’d attended—the women screaming and writhing as though their bodies were being torn in two. The weakest giving up and dying with the child yet unborn.

  The child inside her had stirred at that, and she’d rested her hand on the place near her ribs where a tiny foot kicked with surprising strength, the small toes miraculously discernible beneath her own skin. Even toward the end, she’d not been able to tell whether the babe would be boy or girl, though she’d spoken to it often, simply as hers. Her own. And been almost frightened because already she loved the child so much it stole her breath. Soon you’ll be able to kick out in the open, under the sky. We’ll go together up to the headland and listen to the wind and the sea. I won’t give up before you can see the sky for yourself, I promise you.

  And then she’d turned over—awkwardly, because of her body’s swelling bulk—and started whispering the opening words to one of the old fire-tales, the kind she was telling Bran now.

  Isolde looked away, up into the darkened sky, then turned back to Bran’s sleeping form. She’d already cried all the tears she could cry for the baby girl who’d stopped kicking the night before the first labor pang came, and who’d never drawn breath on being born. But all the same it was useless—dangerous, even—to let herself remember her now.

  “And so,” she finished softly, “from Talan’s songs, the fishermen of Zennor knew when it was safe to put to sea, and when it was wise to anchor snug at home.”

  As she spoke the final words, a step behind her made her turn to find that Hereric had returned. The big man came forward to settle himself cross-legged within the circle of firelight, smiling at Isolde. He gave her a series of signs—slower than before—and nodded his head, as though in reassurance.

  Without Bran to translate, Isolde couldn’t be sure what he meant, but she thought he was telling her that they were safe—that he’d seen no one abroad. Hereric rummaged in a traveling pack on the ground and brought out a pair of dirty sheepskins, handing one to Isolde.

  He had turned away, spreading his own sheepskin beside the dying remains of the fire, when the wolf’s cry echoed again across the moor. Instantly, Hereric started, his hand moving as though unconsciously to the tooth strung about his neck. Isolde saw the big, dirt-streaked fingers move over the yellowed surface quickly, nervously, as he turned to look out across the moor. Whatever he saw seemed to reassure him, for he relaxed and settled himself on the makeshift bed. He seemed to fall asleep at once, rolling himself up in the skin and letting his head tip back, his hands folded protectively over the amulet on his chest and his legs stretched out flat across the ground.

  Isolde spread her own sheepskin and lay down, too, pillowing her head on her arm. She could, she thought, escape now, if she chose. With both man and boy asleep and her hands a
nd feet unbound, she could slip away easily and be gone before it was light enough for them to search.

  The ground beneath her was hard, littered with twigs and small stones, and Isolde shifted position, watching the fire’s glowing embers burn out. She’d given her word, though, that she’d not run away. And besides…

  Besides, she thought, they have need of a healer. And it was a comfort, in a way, to have one of the splintered fragments of herself that she could hold on to for a time.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ISOLDE PUT A HAND OUT to steady herself as she picked her way carefully down the rocky slope toward the sea. She’d slept, at last, but had woken at dawn’s first light, chilled and sore, every muscle stiff from the night on the cold ground, despite the sheepskin. She had, too, a fierce, throbbing headache behind her eyes. Bran and Hereric had been already awake, and they’d set out almost at once, after a breakfast of smoked fish and cheese and more of the thin, sour wine, keeping to the rough moorland country and avoiding the main roads.

  They had met a few travelers—a boy herding goats, a tinsmith pushing his wares in a wooden cart—and passed a few settlements along the way where curls of smoke rose from the roofs and cows lowed contentedly in the fields. The countryside was still ravaged, though, from the recent fighting, and most of the farms they passed were either deserted or burned, pillaged and sacked by the Saxons as they’d made their final advance. Someday, maybe, Isolde thought, the families who’d fled would return to till the fields and dig up the valuables they’d buried beneath earthen floors. But not yet.

  Now it was nearly evening, the sun sinking in the west in a blaze of fiery red, the shadows of dusk gathering as they descended toward what Isolde could see was a small cove on the shoreline below. One of the countless inlets that marked Cornwall’s coast, this one too small or too shallow or too far from settlement for fisher-folk to use.

  Bran had run on ahead, slithering and sliding down the rough, uneven slope, and Hereric turned to her and made a sign. Nearly there, Isolde guessed he meant. She followed Hereric to the bottom of the cliff path and saw that they stood on the pebble-strewn beach of a small bay, where a narrow stream ran steeply down another channel of rocky slope to meet the sea. A narrow jetty of stones jutted out from the shallows and served as a landing pier for a small painted fishing vessel. Its sails were furled, its bow bobbing gently in the steadily lapping waves.

  Close by, Bran emerged from behind a goatskin curtain hung over a stretch of the cliff face, covering what appeared to be the mouth of a cave.

  “Come on.” He beckoned to them. “I’ve told them you’re here.”

  The mouth of the cave was low enough that Hereric had to duck his head as he slipped inside, and as Isolde followed she found that they stood in a long, narrow chamber carved out of the surrounding rock, the walls tapering to a ceiling only a little higher than a man’s head. A burning rush stuck in tallow cast a dim, flickering light, and the air was chill, damp and smoky and smelling of the sea.

  Before her were two men, one half-lying toward the back of the cave on what looked like a rough pile of skins, his form in shadow, so that Isolde saw only his outline as he straightened, starting at their entrance. The second man had been sitting on a rough wooden camp stool at his companion’s side, but as Isolde and Hereric stepped through into the cave, he, too, started, then rose.

  “Kian, this is the healer-girl,” Bran began.

  The man laid a hand briefly on the boy’s shoulder in acknowledgment, but stopped him before he could go on. An older man, Isolde saw. Past fifty, at least, barrel-chested, with squat, bandy legs and a thick shock of roughly cut grizzled hair. His face was harshly boned and square, with a thin, uncompromising slash of a mouth and black eyes set deep under heavy brows, the right eye dragged slightly askew and down by an ugly, puckered scar that ran from temple to jaw. His gaze, now, was angry, his brows drawn together in a frown, and he gave Isolde only the briefest glance before turning to Hereric.

  “Have you gone out of your mind, bringing a woman here?” Kian said. “Healer or no, she—”

  And then he stopped abruptly, turning to look at Isolde again. She saw shock—then recognition—dawn in the deep-set dark eyes, and knew that he, too, knew her now. His face darkened, and before she could react, before she even had time to see what he intended, he had seized her by the arm and dragged her forward, into the circle cast by the rushlight’s flame.

  “You!” His voice was a furious hiss. “Isn’t it enough for you to trap the king with your dirty sorcerous ways without your going after a poor sodding fool like Hereric here?”

  Isolde thought for a moment he would strike her, but before he could raise his hand, Hereric gave a high, wild cry, half human, half almost animal, and put a hand on Kian’s arm.

  Kian shook him off with barely a glance. “Don’t try to stop me. She’s bewitched you, you poor fool. Like her grandmother before her when she caught Arthur in her snares.” His jaw hardened, and he said, eyes dark with fury on Isolde’s, “It’s women like you who bring evil to the world. Ygraine—Gwynefar—Morgan. Women like you who are at the bottom of all treason and misery and war. And now you come here—”

  Isolde clenched her hands. It was a relief, in a way, to feel simple anger flooding her veins, after so many hours of feeling nothing but shame and exhaustion and fear.

  “That’s a lie.”

  Kian’s grip on her arm tightened. “What did you say?”

  “I said that’s a lie.” If she let herself stop to think, Isolde knew, she would be afraid. Afraid of the place and the band of strangers, and the man whose black-rimmed nails were now biting painfully into her arm. But for now, she was still too angry.

  “Men may fight for their own gain—or revenge—or for their own stupid notions of honor and pride,” she went on. “But no war in history has ever been fought for a woman’s love. Anyone who blames Camlann on a woman—Ygraine or Gwynefar or Morgan or the Goddess herself—is as great a coward as the ones who first made up the tales.”

  A look of utter fury convulsed Kian’s face, and then his eyes narrowed. He jerked her toward him again, his free hand moving to the hilt of the knife he wore at his belt. When he spoke again, his voice had gone very soft.

  “She-devil. I’ll cut your throat for that.”

  His scarred face was set. And his eyes—

  Isolde felt a chill crawl down her spine. She had seen the eyes of a wounded wild boar, once, when she’d ridden out on a hunt with Con. The animal had taken a spear thrust to the shoulder, and was bloodied but not mortally harmed, and, churning the ground with its hooves, it had charged, small eyes glittering with a kind of mad, white-hot rage.

  Kian’s eyes, now, looked the same.

  But before Kian could raise the knife, the second man, the man who lay in shadow at the back of the cave, spoke.

  “Enough!”

  Over Kian’s shoulder, she saw him drag himself to his feet, as though the effort of moving cost him most of his strength. Trystan, he must be, then. The man in need of a healer’s skill.

  “Don’t be a fool, Kian,” he said.

  Kian didn’t move, though, didn’t so much as respond to the other man’s words any more than he’d reacted to Hereric’s protesting cry. His eyes, hollowed by the flickering rushlight, remained fixed on Isolde, and his lips drew back, showing a row of broken teeth and bare, swollen gums.

  “I’ll cut your filthy witch’s throat.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sweet sake!” With a painful, limping gait, dragging his left foot slightly behind, the man Trystan came forward, moving quickly despite the obvious effort it cost him, and jerked Kian away from Isolde. “Let her go—let go, I say. Now, look.”

  He reached out and, before Isolde could react, he had seized her left hand and pushed the sleeve of her gown back, revealing the heart-shaped birthmark on her inner wrist.

  “If she’s a witch, and this a true devil’s brand, it won’t bleed.” In one swift motion he pulled hi
s own knife from its scabbard and drew it across the patch of rose-colored skin. In the smoky light of the tallow flame, a thin, beaded line of red sprang up in the blade’s wake.

  “There—you see? Blood.” He shook his head and added disgustedly, “Jesus, Kian.”

  Isolde stood frozen, stunned not by fear, nor even by pain, for the cut had been scarcely more than a scratch. She was staring at the man Trystan’s hands. Strong, well-formed hands, with the muscled wrists of a swordsman. But on the left hand, two of the fingers were twisted, as though the bones had been crushed and never properly set, and the first joints on the middle and index fingers were gone.

  Slowly, she raised her eyes to his face. He’d shaved his beard since she’d seen him last in Tintagel’s prison cell. But it was unmistakably him—the man she’d known as Nifaran.

  If he’d felt anything of the same shock at first seeing her, he’d had time to recover before he came forward, and now, as the blue eyes met hers, Isolde could read in them no trace of whatever he must think at finding her here.

  Kian shifted uncomfortably. Then, slowly, “All right,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe. But witch or no, she can’t stay here. Listen, the word on the road yesterday was that Marche’s men were hunting her all about these parts. And offering a hefty payment to any that could bring them to her or tell them where she was. How—?” He broke off as Hereric gave another of those strange, half-animal cries, and rounded on the big Saxon. “Well, man? What is it this time?”

  Hereric flinched back at the other man’s tone, then started to make a few fumbling signs, but before he could go on, Isolde swallowed hard and found her voice once more. “He’s trying,” she said, “to tell you that he gave me his word I’d not be harmed if I came with him here. His oath that he’d see me safe from Marche’s guard.”