by Signe Pike
His fingers brushed the feather as my dress fell from my shoulders.
“My love,” he whispered against my mouth, pulling my hips possessively into his as he covered my body with the solid weight of his.
“Yes” was all I could murmur, his lips hungry against my mouth, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat.
I had known from the beginning it would come to this. That he would be mine. And I would be his.
CHAPTER 31
* * *
Far beyond the crowds, Maelgwn and I lazed beneath our canopy of trees, our fingers mapping the curves of each other’s bodies. The final celebration would last long through the evening. We drifted between waking and sleep, knit together, sometimes dozing and then exploring again, until afternoon drew away and the evening air made us shiver.
“You’re chilled,” he said, gathering me closer to his chest. I pressed my cheek to it, listening to the muted thudding of his heart.
“I do not want our time to end,” I whispered.
“Nor do I.” He laced his fingers in mine. I closed my eyes against any thought of the world beyond the wood, nuzzling closer, breathing the scent of him more deeply, as if I could fix it forever in my memory. Maelgwn sensed the shift and reached to stroke my hair.
“Come away with me,” he said.
I opened my eyes, my breath catching in my throat. “You know I cannot. And even if I could, where would we go?”
“We would ride south, into the lands of Rheged; King Urien is a friend. He would surely grant us shelter there until we could secure passage to Gaul. We’d set sail before your father or Tutgual’s men could even reach us. You’re a fast rider, aren’t you, my love? And I could protect you. I could earn us a living there, hire out my sword.”
I lifted my head to look into his eyes. They were shadowed with dreaming, as green as a winter sea. I slipped into Maelgwn’s dreams like a seal, imagined waking with him on early winter mornings, warm beneath thick stacks of blankets as the wind tossed drifts of snow against our shutters. I saw us walking the shady paths of a forest in the sleepy days of summer and finding a cool patch of river where we could plunge to its pebbled bottom and rise like waterbirds, skin glistening, born anew.
I had only just felt the heat of his fingers on the small of my back, had only just tasted his kiss. I had only just discovered how perfectly our bodies molded together, as if we’d been fashioned, each for the other.
But it was only a dream. This we both understood. Maelgwn took a breath and let it out slowly.
“I am not the only one with obligations I cannot hide from,” I said.
“No. I have pledged my sword, and it is an oath I cannot break. To abandon my brothers and our cause in such an hour of need . . . there is too much at stake.”
Maelgwn wrapped his arms more tightly around me. Kissed the tender place behind my ear. “It seems I shall have to work to become even stronger, for now I have a reason to bring myself safely back home.”
I went still in his arms. “I cannot be yours again. I will be . . .” I could not bring Rhydderch’s name between us. “. . . a wife.”
“Shhhh.” Maelgwn’s breath was warm against my neck. “Let us not speak now of such things, love. There will be time enough in days to come.”
But there was not time enough. In a fortnight’s time I would be bound to another man. And Maelgwn would be riding east, back to the Borderlands and a hard life on the Wall, where sword and spear were the only true kings and every man must bow before them.
A lump rose in my throat. “I would pray to the Gods every morning and night if I thought it could keep you safe,” I said.
Maelgwn tilted a finger beneath my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I have won your heart,” he said. “No spear can pierce me now.”
After a while, Maelgwn rose and bent at the edge of the stream. I watched as he cupped water in his hands and splashed his face. The muscles of his back rippled as he ran his wet hands through his hair, shaking off the water like a hound. I wrapped my arms about my knees, a smile playing at my lips.
He helped me stand on shaky legs to join him at the stream, and behind the cover of a rock I washed myself. As I did so, a thin rivulet of blood flowed down my legs. It struck me then, with a rush as cold as the water, what we had done. My stomach dropped, queasy. The dream was over. A soft flapping of wings startled me and I glanced up in time to see a crow take flight from the lofty branches of a pine.
Soon it would be night. I had been absent far too long. My father would be murderous. Worried sick. He would have sent men to find me. We should have been discovered.
And yet we were not found.
As if reading my thoughts, Maelgwn called to me. I slid back into my gown and went to him, folding myself into his arms again and breathing in the freshness of the stream. It mingled with the clean scent of leather I remembered from that day in the stables. He traced his thumb over my bottom lip and bent to kiss me again. When we pulled back, his rough fingers went delicately to the feather twisted about my neck.
“This is a curious talisman,” he said. “Wherever did you get it?”
“It was a gift from Ariane.” I met his eyes.
Surprise mingled with understanding. Maelgwn withdrew his fingers as if out of respect. “Then we are safe indeed,” he said. “But we should return. Who knows how long this sweet enchantment was fashioned to last.”
We walked hurriedly but with heavy steps, the leaves overhead rustling like papered silver. The sound of the stream faded and soon the tops of the tents came into view, their banners lit by torchlight and flapping in the coming dark. The scent of charred wood drifted from burning pyres. It had been a long day of celebration, and those who had taken full advantage would be resting. We moved in a nearly suffocating stillness as we drew closer to camp. But Maelgwn was right. Even the warriors we passed—those tasked with keeping watch—seemed to be slumped in upon themselves, their chests moving softly as if they were sleeping.
We reached my tent and Maelgwn bent his face to mine, the stubble on his jaw rough against my skin as he kissed me one last time. He leaned his forehead against my own.
“I will see you again,” he said. “Until then I will be thinking of you. Always.”
I leaned into him. “I will see you again,” I echoed. “And you must know that nothing in my heart will change.”
A tear slipped from the corner of my eye. Maelgwn wiped it with his thumb.
“Do not cry, Lady Languoreth. It will be my undoing.”
I took a shaky breath. “I must go.”
He nodded slowly. The tips of our fingers were the last parts of our bodies to touch as we pulled apart from each other, raw and wounded, empty and full. Maelgwn turned, and I watched as he moved through camp to the field where Emrys and the Brothers Pendragon were waiting, his shirt glowing like a spirit in the dark, until I could see him no more.
• • •
Crowan snored as I pushed through the thick flap of the tent and moved to my bed. Only Ariane was wakeful. She stretched her slender arms overhead on her cot and turned.
“Ah. There you are.” Her teeth flashed white in the semidarkness. “Are you happy, then?”
“I am . . .” I looked at her. “Perhaps there are no words. Did no one miss me at the celebration?”
“Miss you?” she asked. “Whatever do you mean? Everyone remarked on what a fine dancer you were. And so full of wit. You shone as bright as a bird this Lughnasa. Certainly you made your father proud.”
And yet I had been missing for several hours—a lifetime. I had not been there. I reached in the dark and took her hand.
“Ariane, I cannot quite figure how you worked this strange magic, but I thank you. I thank you from the depth of my heart.”
Ariane pressed my fingers in return and was silent a moment. Then she cleared her throat, withdrew her hand.
“Languoreth. You know that I must leave you. I cannot journey with you to Clyde Rock.”
Her words fell like boulders in the quiet of the tent. Crushing.
“Leave me? Of course you won’t leave me. You may not be permitted in Tutgual’s court, but that doesn’t mean—”
“I do not leave because of Tutgual,” she said. “I leave because of myself. Five winters I have been at your side. You promised me once the freedom to come and go without question. Now I must go. I have been away from my home long enough.”
I shook my head in the darkness, panic rising. “But you can’t go. Ariane, I need you. Now more than ever. Please. Please don’t leave me.” My voice broke even as I begged, tears rising into my throat. I had just said good-bye to Maelgwn and now Ariane would leave me, too? I could not bear it.
“Hush, now, hush,” Ariane soothed, but the soft sound of her voice and the anticipation of its absence only made it worse. My breath came ragged as I tried to stifle the sound of my weeping.
“Please stay?” I asked, and I heard my own voice, as frightened as a little girl’s.
Ariane shifted in the dark and rose from her cot. I nearly startled up to sitting, thinking she meant to leave that very moment, but her hand on my shoulder settled me back into my bed, nudging me over. “Make room,” she said.
And Ariane lay down alongside me then, her slim body mirroring my own as she draped her arm over me, nestling her head to share my pillow.
In five winters I could have marked the number of times Ariane had embraced me; like a barn cat, she preferred to keep her own space. Now as she lay so close, it should have felt foreign, and yet I felt a deep calm settle over me.
What a thing it would be to sleep.
But so much had happened. Even as I lay there, I spun with it all.
“Hush, now,” Ariane said. “You are so tired. You must go to sleep.”
Ariane was right, I realized. I did feel tired, bone achingly so. I let my breathing slow, my eyelids drifting down.
“I will stay with you until the wedding,” she was saying, her voice by my ear. “And then I must go.” I wanted to argue, but my mouth was too heavy. And the coming night was so deep and soft, so inviting.
“You need me no longer, Languoreth. You are strong. Stronger than you know.”
III.
There shall be a black darkness,
There shall be a shaking of the mountain . . .
—“Cad Goddeu” (“The Battle of the Trees”), translated by Robert Graves, The White Goddess
CHAPTER 32
* * *
Clyde Rock, the Rock of the Britons
Late Winter, AD 556
I rose slowly, inch by inch, in the dark, not wanting to stir Rhydderch from whatever dream may have found him. My body was not my own. I could feel the child moving again—a boy, Lailoken had wagered when he had visited too many moons ago.
I glanced at my husband as I wrapped myself in a fleece and settled into a chair beside the crackling heat of the fire. I’d woken to the soft unlatching of the door as a servant slipped in to feed the hearth and sleep had not yet found me again.
Across the room the bedding glowed like sifted pearl in the moonlight. The cleft that furrowed my husband’s brow during the day was smooth in sleep, making him appear younger and unguarded—an illusion. Rhydderch was tender, but here on Clyde Rock they traded in many kinds of cruelty, and Lord Rhydderch’s was distance. He had bedded me on our wedding night, as was his duty. He was gentle, polite. Perfunctory. Rhydderch had been pleased, in his own measured way, that his young wife so soon had been taken with child. But my new husband was absent for lengths at a time. When he returned, he sat beside me but did not touch me, spoke to me kindly but revealed nothing. He was a man of secrets who did not see me. I needed no talisman here to achieve invisibility.
Why have you chosen me? I wanted to scream. I was a stranger in this fortress, kept at arm’s length even by my own husband. My ivory comb sat on the dressing table and my gowns inhabited wardrobes and trunks, but the three-room hut I spent my days in felt as lifeless as a tomb.
When Elufed’s shrewd eyes caught sight of my thickening belly, I was no longer permitted to travel to Partick.
“You are a princess of Strathclyde now,” Elufed had said. “The creature in your womb is our own family treasure.”
But while she might forbid me from traveling to visit Lailoken and my father, she could not keep me indoors. I spent long hours wrapped in furs, standing upon the mount of Clyde Rock, overlooking the white-capped water of the rivers Clyde and Leven as they boiled out to sea. Ships came and went with the tide, and in moments I lived a waking dream about a fast horse and a ship to Gaul—a life I could have led. I would smooth my hands over the rounding of my belly and remind myself that I, too, had a secret. And it was my secret that sustained me.
I’d watched through the snowy months as my stomach swelled to accommodate the little form growing inside, until I felt the baby quicken, and it was in that moment I understood the gift I’d been given.
The child that stirred belonged to Maelgwn.
I knew this with a certainty that dwelled beyond reason—that I carried a piece of him with me now, a piece that would be mine to keep for always. My precious babe.
When news of my condition reached the world beyond Clyde Rock, I received a small package delivered by Brodyn, who agreed to travel with me as my newly appointed chief of guard. As my fingers unfolded the parchment, a heavy gold ring fell into the folds of my palm.
Embedded in its center was a simple but entrancing stone: round and deep forest green. An emerald meant to recall a day spent beneath a thick canopy of trees, beneath the shadow of a mountain.
The parchment was blank. Maelgwn would not risk my place here by putting anything to paper. But I kept the parchment because his fingers had creased it. The ring itself was an object of considerable worth and exceeding beauty, but I could not wear it. The craftsman Tutgual kept at Clyde Rock was one of the finest in the land, and my new husband had a keen eye for jewelry.
Since our wedding day I had been presented with jeweled cloak clasps and gold bracelets, bronze mirrors and glistening pearls claimed from mussels that dwelled in our cold northern waters. I wore them dutifully, and my husband knew the origin of each piece in my wooden jewelry chest. No stone of such beauty could go without notice. So I fastened the ring to a slender chain and kept it pinned inside my dress pocket, where I could slip my finger through it in secret, in times when I needed Maelgwn’s comfort the most.
Now the late winter festival of Imbolc had come and gone, and still the heavy gray skies of winter were unrelenting. Icy winds whistled through invisible gaps in the thick timber palisades of Clyde Rock, breezing through the rooms of the hut to leave behind a hovering chill no number of hearths could abate. Gray in the sky and gray on the sea.
I ran my hands along the tight curve of my belly, pushing away a worry that had plagued me these past several months. You have cursed this babe with your heartbreak. A shadow will follow him all of his days.
I closed my eyes, hummed something soft and low to keep the shadows at bay. Beyond the halls of lords, there was talk that grain stores were running empty.
I rose from the chair by the fire and moved quietly across the planking to the carved wooden table that kept Rhydderch’s correspondence. He’d left a missive unfurled upon the table after he’d read it. It was unlike him. Curious. As if he’d wanted me to pry. And so I took the parchment up now, studying it in the hearth light. The penmanship was beautiful, regal, and I recognized it instantly as Cathan’s hand. A missive from my father.
Rhydderch Hael,
I have taken an audience at the behest of Mungo, and thought to advise you of my answer, for the bishop said he did come at the request of Strathclyde. The bishop came seeking grain. If it is grain Mungo seeks, he is advised to cast his burden upon the Lord. For does he not claim, in such bold tones as now echo throughout our once peaceful kingdom, that his Lord sustains him?
Has this bishop not chastised others, admonishing them to liv
e in devotion to his God with the oath that all will be provided for?
Let his Lord, then, provide.
For I, as a king, provide for those good people who are within my chiefdom, of which Mungo is not a citizen . . .
It went on. It sickened me to imagine Mungo standing in the great room at Buckthorn. Had he sat in my vacant chair by the fire? Run his bony fingers over the spines of our books? I knew the rains had destroyed many harvests. And yet Mungo had not come to Tutgual, nor to any other lord of Strathclyde. He sought to take grain from my family’s stores. This was a test of his power.
Rhydderch had left the letter in full view for a reason. Was it to detect whether I would spy upon his correspondence? A herring on a line, strung out to trap a stray cat? Perhaps he sought to discover whether I would interfere in affairs he deemed private, eschewing my role of dutiful wife when it came to matters of family.
I heard Rhydderch stir and moved silently to stand by the window. I could feel him narrowing his eyes, seeking out my form in the dark.
“Come to bed, wife, before you catch cold.” His voice was tender and heavy with sleep.
“In a moment,” I said. Beyond the small window the moon was nearly full. It shimmered in the high, rippling water of a high tide. Fat clouds raced over its face and westward toward the ocean, smothering the stars whose names I had learned as a child. I wanted to chant them so I would not forget.
I stood there until I began to shiver. The small bones of my feet cracked softly as I crossed the room to stand at the edge of the bed. Rhydderch’s arm was raised overhead, his face so peaceful in sleep. I closed my eyes and reminded myself of my duty.
I did not look back at the silver promise of the moon. I did not allow my gaze to linger on the boats moored at the mouth of the river as I climbed gently back underneath the coverlet.