The Green Lady and the King of Shadows

by Moyra Caldecott

  No one said anything. Nothing appeared to be happening. There was an atmosphere of beautiful, restful peace. Brother Collen himself had subtly changed. Lukas would have found it difficult to describe it to someone who had not witnessed it. Collen seemed to be listening to someone that the rest of them could not see or hear.

  At last he stood up and Matthew opened his eyes and looked up at him. There was even colour in his cheeks at last and he was smiling.

  Collen stood up slowly, looking down on the young boy with infinite tenderness, and then he made the sign of the cross over him. The monk standing beside them said something to Brother Collen, he replied and then turned to go.

  Together Lukas and Collen walked away, neither speaking . . .

  10

  Gwynn ap Nudd, Lord of Annwn, stood upon the summit of the Tor and gazed hawk-eyed upon the lovely scene of forest, water and reeds that lay below him in every direction. Water birds were winging home.

  The sky above him was darkening into night but he did not see it wheel and turn as Lukas had, nor feel the earth moving in harmony with it.

  Gwynn’s expression was grim.

  The ancient days were almost gone. He, one of the mighty Lords of the Underworld, leader of the Wild Hunt, most feared Gatherer of Souls, had been pushed aside by the new religion as though he were some sort of outgrown toy. He would show those monks with their perpetual choir! Their prayers robbed him of his glory, stole his subjects, confined his restless heart.

  It had begun with Arthur, god-King of the ancient days. Gwynn had chosen to ride with Arthur as Prince and subject, though as son of Nudd the Silver Hand he himself was rightfully an equal. The early days had been magnificent. No moon had run its cycle without a challenge and an adventure that would have filled a poet’s heart with joy. Great deeds were done as frequently as man drew breath. How he had enjoyed the fellowship, the battles, the chase, the quest! Arthur himself had ridden with Gwynn’s hounds across the sky and thought nothing of hunting a soul or two in those days. When Arthur was in need he had asked Gwynn for help. He had given his assistance without hesitation when the Giant Ysbadden had demanded that Arthur’s young cousin, Culhwch, perform impossible feats to win his daughter Olwen. And then when Gwynn had wanted a woman of his own and had taken one, holding her by fair conquest, Arthur had turned against him.

  Gwythyr! That was the name he sought. His rival. Gwynn’s face twisted. He had thought he had out-witted him, yet here he was in the deceptive form of a young monk pretending not to know who he was.

  Gwynn had first seen the woman Creiddylad serving the wine to her father’s guests in the great hall of her father’s house. She had passed from guest to guest with the grace of summer breeze through corn. He had watched her bend and turn, swinging the heavy jar with ease, not spilling a drop, her golden hair loosely flowing from a fillet of gold around her brow, her cheeks flushed with good health, her lips smiling, honouring each guest with name and compliment as she filled each silver chalice. He remembered it had seemed an age before she reached him, and when she did he took hold of her left arm as she poured with her right, gazing into her eyes, his own dark with unmistakable desire. The ready smile she had been so free to give before faded, and a shadow passed over her sunny face as cloud over flowering field.

  ‘Sir?’ she asked quietly, looking down at her arm where his hard hand was clasped so tight and painfully.

  He said her name softly, almost under his breath, but didn’t release her arm.

  ‘Sir!’ she said again, this time with an edge of annoyance in her voice.

  Slowly he loosened his grip, and she slipped away from him. But his eyes never let her go and time and again he called for his goblet to be refilled. Each time she came to him reluctantly but bound by the rules of hospitality not to refuse him. Each time her eyes were lowered and no matter how hard he tried to make her raise them, she would not. He didn’t touch her again physically, but each time she stood before him she felt his touch upon her.

  After that night he didn’t ride away as he had intended but lingered at her father’s court, boasting with the rest of the young warriors about their battle deeds, listening to bardic tales, feasting and drinking. Creiddylad tried to avoid him, but could not. She was always polite, but never warm.

  He noticed that although she hurried from him, she lingered always with another young man, Gwythyr, son of Greidyawl. He noticed too that she did not avoid his eyes as she had done his own. He noticed that even when they were on opposite sides of the room, their eyes made contact.

  The time of the Spring Festival approached. The warriors prepared to leave the smokey hall. With the heroic sagas still ringing in their ears they were impatient to set off on adventures of their own. But first there was to be the ceremony to ensure the burgeoning of the earth. Creiddylad was chosen to represent the Virgin Earth, and Gwythyr to provide the quickening seed of the Sun.

  Smouldering with resentment, Gwynn watched the preparations. He had lived as ordinary man long enough. He was tired of the game. He would use his ancient powers to take the woman he desired. He made sure Gwythyr received false messages and left the place of preparation, and then he took on the form of Gwythyr himself, so skilfully that no one noticed the difference. No one but Creiddylad.

  As he took his place in the procession, she turned to look at him. Their eyes met, and she knew at once that it was he.

  She cried out and refused to go ahead with the ceremony. No matter how her father scolded and cajoled she would not take a step towards the sacred hill while he was present. So perfect was his disguise the others thought she had gone mad and tried to force her to accept him -but her bitterness against him was so intense he soon became angry and, in his anger, lost control of the spell that held him in the form of Gwythyr.

  Astonished, his companions saw his face distort with rage in a way they had never seen Gwythyr’s — his eyes darkened, his nose lengthened, his very height changed. At last revealed — a fierce and violent man, thwarted and frustrated.

  The last he saw of Creiddylad that day was as she was being ushered off weeping by her women friends, while he, mighty lord, was driven from the community like some common criminal.

  So they held their pretty ceremony without him and he could do nothing but grind his teeth in anger as he thought of Gwythyr entering that perfect body.

  For some time he sulked, confining himself to his own realms — restless, bitter, frustrated. He was no longer content to be who he was. He was no longer satisfied with the bodiless spirit-world. He yearned for the touch of flesh, the excitement and rough pleasures of the human world.

  On the night before the wedding of Creiddylad and Gwythyr, a herd boy attending the birth of a calf looked up in alarm as a dark wind sprang from nowhere and rushed howling through the forest, snapping great branches as though they were twigs, ripping up trees that had held firmly to the earth for centuries. Shutters were fastened hastily in the great house of Creiddylad’s father, but the gate had been left open for the arrival of guests and through it rode Gwynn ap Nudd on his black charger, his hounds yelping and yapping around him, his warriors beside him.

  Creiddylad was seized and abducted.

  Gwynn could still hear the curses of her father ringing in his ears and Gwythyr’s name shouted as messengers rode off to fetch him to her rescue.

  He could have taken her straight back to his own realm there and then, and there they would never have found her, had he not wanted to make love to her as man to woman.

  He rode until he deemed he was out of reach and then made camp. Dishevelled and angry, Creiddylad was released from his iron grasp and tumbled on the ground. She was up at once, spitting defiance. She tried to run, but there was nowhere to go in the depth of the night, and too many men to bring her back. She straightened her clothes and drew as near to the fire as she could. When she was offered food and drink she flung it away. When he reached for her she went limp and he could have no pleasure of her.

  At
dawn his watchers brought him news that Gwythyr and his men were riding through the gorge. He bound her to a tree and thundered off with his men. Then followed the battle in the narrow valley and Gwythyr’s men were cut to pieces. Those that were not killed were taken prisoner. Only Gwythyr himself survived; broken, defeated, helpless, limping back to Creiddylad’s father — shamed. Gwynn had deliberately avoided killing him, wanting him to live and suffer for his men.

  Among the prisoners Gwynn took was Kyledyr, Gwythyr’s greatest friend, and Nwython, Kyledyr’s father.

  Gwynn did not tell Creiddylad that Gwythyr had survived; she assumed him dead. When Gwynn came to her again the hate in her eyes burned so strong even he felt disinclined to touch her.

  ‘In time,’ he thought, ‘in time . . .’

  And he turned his attention to punishing his hated rival who still held the love of the woman he desired.

  He took Nwython, Kyledyr’s father, and cut out his heart. He then tricked Kyledyr into eating it. When the young man learned what he had done, and Gwynn did not waste much time in telling him, he went mad with horror and guilt. Gwynn then sent him back to Gwythyr a gibbering idiot, his hair matted, his eyes wild, his mouth dribbling blood as he constantly bit his own tongue. A spy took the story straight to Arthur and suddenly for the second time, he, a Lord of Annwn, was reviled and disgraced. Arthur rode in with a vast company of men, slew Gwynn’s followers and released the prisoners. He decreed that because Gwynn had won the girl in battle she could not be given back to the loser. Yet neither could Gwynn, the victor, be allowed to keep her. The doom Arthur pronounced was that she might belong to neither.

  Creiddylad was escorted back to her father’s house, and there she was to remain.

  Gwythyr had ridden away, honouring the judgement, and soon such noble deeds were reported of him that Gwynn feared Arthur might change his mind and give Creiddylad to him after all. It was said that one day, riding in the mountains, Gwythyr had come upon a brush fire and would have ridden on had he not heard crying and sobbing coming from a mound of earth. He realized that a million ants were trapped and being roasted in the fire. He dismounted at once and moved among the flames regardless of his own danger, slicing at the anthill with his sword and lifting it free of the fire.

  Gwynn, on the other hand, would not accept the judgement, and each year as the sap began to flow again in the trees of the forest he rode in through the great gate of her father’s house and demanded that she come away with him.

  Each year at the same time, remembering the brief flowering of their love, Gwythyr returned to the hill that overlooked her father’s house and gazed with longing from afar at the windows of her chamber.

  Each year Gwynn assailed her, and each year Gwythyr defended her. Tears fell from Creiddylad’s eyes as frequently as the Spring rains that brought the earth into bloom.

  One day Gwynn rode in on the winter storms and seized Creiddylad before the alarm could be sounded. He left the human world and returned with her to his own realm.

  But still she defied him: a prisoner, not a consort; always an enemy, never a wife.

  As the centuries went by and he stood upon the Tor looking out upon the world, he seethed with dissatisfaction. The boats that had ferried souls to him were now empty more often than not. The Christians with their god were drawing the human race from him and taking them to a kingdom of their own. He brooded on the power he had lost and on the power he longed to have. The world of men had changed over the centuries. Well, he had changed too! He had not been idle while the monks had been singing their songs. He had been planning to take the world from them and now he was almost ready to do so. Their god said that with faith one could move mountains. He believed that he could alter the course of the universe.

  He thought of the grey figure in the cavern, old beyond belief, weary of life, but living it still because he had willed that she should. His victory would be nothing if she did not witness it.

  But one more thing he needed, and then he would be capable of destroying the old order and creating his own without himself being destroyed.

  Gwynn’s eyes were harsh and brooding as he stared over the dark landscape. The sun had been setting when he first reached the summit. The last faint light over the western horizon now faded, and he was a dark man standing in darkness.

  He looked at the stars malevolently. He was sure the key he needed lay there in those vast stellar patterns.

  On earth he could change any structure at will. He could make clouds. He could lash the earth with storm and hail. But the key that made the whole function as a Whole always eluded him. He could change one thing but, in doing so, he disturbed something else, which then reacted in such a way as to make his first achievement at best null and void, at worst dangerous and destructive. The secret that kept everything in balance and harmony was still a mystery. He knew that if he made his final challenge, his supreme effort to change the universe so that all would be subject to him, without achieving this balance, he would destroy it, not change it.

  He came to believe that the stars held the key to the mystery.

  The ancients had studied the stars and had seen that they affected all that happened upon the earth.

  If he, Gwynn, could bend the motion of the stars to his own will, change the ancient configurations of the Zodiac and take the threads of its influence into his own hands, he could pull the universe to follow him and leave the invisible god, the disembodied god, the so-called source of love and harmony, helpless and defeated.

  He drew himself up to his full height ready for the night’s work. But he found he could not concentrate. The return of Gwythyr at this precise time could not have been an accident. He had hidden Creiddylad well and her lover had not been able to find her before. Now, at this moment when he was ready at last to make his final bid for ultimate power and he could not afford distractions, Gwythyr, in the body of Lukas, had tracked him down. Why?

  With Gwythyr’s presence on the Tor and the encouragement it would give that meddling monk Collen and Creiddylad herself, he could not afford to wait longer. Tonight must be the night.

  He raised his arms above his head, reaching into the darkness.

  ‘Stars!’ he cried, in a voice like a great wind. ‘Obey me! I Gwynn-ap-Nudd, Lord of Annwn, Holder of Power, demand it!’

  Above him the stars seemed to flare like fire that had been given more fuel. Brilliant and violent, they seemed to grow and throb.

  He could feel the strain of his own power and he shook like the earth in the throes of an earthquake. His will was breaking . . . his mighty scheme coming to nothing. Sweat poured from him.

  Caught in the blaze of unnatural heat, his heart sobbed for relief while his mind still demanded his steadfastness. He must hold!

  He must hold! Any weakness now and he would be consumed!

  ‘I know all I need to know,’ he screamed. ‘I will change you from the first to the last, and your influence on man will be my influence!’

  His voice was like the hurricane and from the heart of fire he challenged fire. The white flame of ambition consumed him from within. The white flame of the star’s heat consumed him from without.

  He could not hold. Pain was in every part of him. There was no hiding place left where it could not reach.

  His will had reached to the stars and he had called them to him, but, too weak to take their power upon himself, his lips had burned and blistered, his throat had closed with agony.

  He fell in a heap of hurting flesh and dusky cloak upon the ground.

  Above him the great figures of the Zodiac rode silently, each in the place it had always been . . .

  11

  ‘Will you tell me his name now?’ Lukas asked Collen.

  Although he remembered most of the incident with the sword and had told his friend all he knew, the name he had shouted as he drew his weapon eluded him. Memories of dreams and of incidents in his past life as Gwythyr floated together freely in his mind, almost indistinguisha
ble. It seemed sometimes as though the air were full of drifting seeds and bubbles, and he, a blind man, in reaching up to catch the seeds, caught only the bubbles.

  Collen looked troubled and thoughtful.

  ‘Some call him Lucifer, once a great and mighty archangel of Light — now a dark and bitter shade. In his ambition he challenged the mysterious source of all Being — the unimaginable and unnameable. He over-reached himself. He fell. He lost all that was his. He seeks now only to destroy what he can no longer have.’

  ‘Is there no way for him to regain the Light and be what he once was?’

  ‘The way is always open. But he must choose to take it,’ Collen replied soberly.

  Lukas was silent.

  ‘Some call him the King of Shadows, Gwynn ap Nudd, Lord of Annwn,’ Collen continued musingly after a while, ‘and fear him as god or demon left over from pagan times. Some say that he is no more than an ordinary man, deep into the study of the black arts.’

  ‘Whom do you say he is?’

  ‘He himself claims to be a hermit, like myself,’ said Collen, still not answering directly. ‘When I was Abbot . . .’

  ‘You were the Abbot?’ Lukas cried out.

  Collen laughed at the expression on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry! We can’t all be what is expected of us. I had not the patience for it and that is an end of it.’

  ‘But, the Lord must have called you to the office. Surely . . .’

  ‘I couldn’t hear His voice amongst all those people,’ Collen said impatiently, and then, more thoughtfully. ‘It is only when I’m alone that I can sometimes feel His presence. You think I am doing nothing of the Lord’s work in this place and should have stayed an Abbot? I tell you a scarecrow appears to be doing nothing in a field, but without it the seed is eaten by the birds and the field is left bare and lifeless. A child playing with cakes of mud at his mother’s knee appears to be doing nothing, but without learning the nature of the material world he cannot build a house against the rain. A man sitting on a mountain or in a desert seems to be doing nothing, but his spirit may be communing with angels and there may come a time when he will deliver the message they have given him to save the world.’ It seemed almost as though the hermit had forgotten Lukas and was talking to himself.