A Novel

by Signe Pike

  I came down too hard on wobbly legs and stood helpless as he whipped the shaft of his spear against Fallah’s flank.

  “Get on!” he shouted. Fallah had never been struck. The blow sent her careening into the undergrowth. I wrapped my arms around myself as I watched her gallop away.

  Brodyn, Brodyn, Brodyn, I chanted, as if he could hear me. But what good was Brodyn against nine armed men?

  The captain strode toward Cathan once more, testing the weight of his staff in his hands. “This is a fine staff,” he said, leaning in close, his face within inches of my beloved tutor, my dearest friend. Cathan’s head lolled at an unnatural angle. His snowy hair had come loose from its braid and was streaked with blood.

  “Yes, I like this staff. I think I’ll keep it.” The captain straightened, looking at the men. “String him up,” he commanded.

  “No,” I shouted. “No!” I watched in horror as one of the men took a heavy coil of rope from behind the towering old oak we stood beneath and I realized what they meant to do.

  My hand flew to my knife. Drawing it from its sheath, I slashed out with a cry and felt the satisfying yield of skin as the pockmarked man cursed, dropping his spear.

  “Cunt!”

  The spear tumbled to the forest floor and I snatched it up, moving with an agility that belied my condition. The yellow-haired captain looked up in surprise as I held the tip of the spear against his throat.

  “Step away,” I demanded, my eyes darting wildly around the circle of men, my knuckles white on the shaft of the spear. “Step away or I’ll kill him.”

  The captain looked at me, but his face was impassive. “Grab her,” he said.

  They came at me in a collision of bone against flesh, knocking the breath from my lungs as I landed in the mud. My stomach spasmed in pain and I gasped, openmouthed like a fish, clutching my belly.

  Hands yanked me up by my hair, pulling me to my knees.

  “That’ll show you, making me bleed,” the pockmarked one spat at me, twisting my arms behind my back. I cried out as the captain surveyed the forest, his hard eyes impatient.

  “Hurry up,” he ordered. “Do it now! You,” he commanded the ruddy-haired man. “Hold her down.”

  “Don’t touch him! Don’t you touch him!” I screamed, bucking against my captor. He wrenched my arms back, impossibly tighter.

  “Oh, we plan to handle him; that we do. And you’ll watch it all,” he hissed in my ear. “You will watch your friend swing like a cow.”

  With a great heave, one of the men tossed the noose over the sturdiest branch of the oak, slackening the rope until it dangled within reach. Two men with eager grins hiked Cathan up by his elbows, knotting his hands with a length of cord behind his back.

  “No, no, no . . .” I could not stop saying it, my mouth open, tears and saliva dripping down my face.

  “Shut her up,” the captain yelled. “I said hold her down!”

  Brodyn must be coming. Someone must hear me. I opened my mouth and let out a scream as two more men came forward and grasped the dangling end of the rope. They meant to haul him from his feet in a slow and agonizing tug-of-war rather than grant the Wisdom Keeper a swiftly broken neck.

  “My family will find you, I swear!” I shouted. “I will watch as they kill you!”

  “Languoreth!” Cathan’s voice stilled me.

  I looked up and our eyes met. His beard was rusty with blood but his face was pleading. He shook his head.

  He did not want me to fight for him.

  My chest collapsed and I went limp, silent tears coursing down my cheeks as they forced the noose over his head.

  But the men were growing nervous now. The crows were cawing in the trees overhead. I had forgotten their presence in the chaos, but they were cocking their heads at Mungo’s men, watching with beady eyes, their cries nearly drowning out the human voices below.

  Cathan lifted his blue eyes to the treetops. His swollen face stretched into a smile of delight. “You see that, fools? My gods are watching . . .”

  “Stop his mouth! He would curse us!” a man shouted. Cathan’s smile faded, his eyes finding mine.

  “Look away, Languoreth,” he commanded. “I would not have you remember this.”

  I shook my head, my tears a burning river. I could not look away. I would not leave him.

  A curse rang out from one of Mungo’s men who stood beside the Keeper.

  “It’s the blasted birds!” the man shouted. Splatters of bird droppings were raining down, caking their eyes with white and streaking their hair and faces as they retched, clutching the rope at the base of the tree.

  Now there was panic in the captain’s voice. Fear.

  “Do it now!” he shouted.

  Cathan’s stormy eyes widened in surprise as he was pulled from his feet, gagging as his own body weight tightened the rope around his throat.

  I closed my eyes against the horrible sight of his agony, but I could not drown out the sounds: the gurgling that went on and on as they held him suspended from our sacred tree like butchered meat, the heaving of my breath as I bent to retch into the forest muck.

  I could not drown out the sounds, so instead I let them fill me, and they filled me with such torrents of hate that I began to think my body could not possibly bear it. I did not open my eyes because I did not need to. The faces of these men were etched in my brain.

  And I swore that if they did not kill me, they would regret the day they let me live.

  CHAPTER 39

  * * *

  When it was over, I found myself staring at the captain’s battered leather boots planted in the mud before me.

  “Leave her,” he said. “She won’t get far.”

  My captor let go of my arms and I collapsed onto the ground, my body gone slack. My skin felt waxy from shock and my throat was still bleeding. The crows had scattered in a great torrent of feathered wind. I fixed my eyes on the forest floor, still splattered white with bird excrement, until the hurried footsteps of our attackers faded into the wood.

  There would be no White Isle. Cathan was twisting in the breeze overhead. I pushed myself up onto one elbow and forced myself to look, sobbing again at the sight of him. The slack end of the rope had been knotted round a neighboring tree so that the Wisdom Keeper would dangle in perpetuity.

  No. I would not have it.

  They had taken my knife, and the loss of it meant I had no means to sever the rope.

  I lifted up my skirts and ripped a strip of cloth from my ivory shift beneath to bind the graze on my neck. The ground beneath me pitched as I stood, and I leaned with my hand against the tree to stop the forest from spinning so I could focus on the task at hand. It was a shipping rope, coarse and thick, so the knot was large, but the strain of Cathan’s body had drawn it impossibly tight. Gritting my teeth, I wrapped my hands round the taut line of rope and pulled with all my might. Nothing. Roaring in frustration, I searched the forest floor, at last unearthing a sharp-edged rock. Splintery fibers of rope embedded themselves in my palms as I gripped the rope in one hand and sawed furiously with the other. I worked through a blur of tears for an eternity, his body jerking on the other end of the rope. At last the rope severed, the momentum sending me crashing back as Cathan’s body collapsed on the forest floor in an unnatural heap.

  “Cathan.” I dropped to my knees beside him, buried my face in his robes. The smoky smell of incense still clung to them, but it mingled now with the soiled rust of blood. Our gods had abandoned us.

  Cathan the Wisdom Keeper was dead.

  I opened my mouth to cry out for help, but just then a sharp pain in my womb caused me to double over.

  “No, no, not here,” I cried.

  It was too soon, too soon. A sudden wetness trickled between my thighs. The babe.

  My labor had begun.

  • • •

  When at last the sound of trooping hooves came, it had grown cold, so cold. My body shuddered. The wringing of my womb had been coming for hours in t
he twilight forest. I came to myself to find my face burning hot but my body shaking in chills. Somewhere in the thicket I heard the rustle of an animal. Then one of Rhydderch’s men called out and I rolled onto my side with a groan.

  A voice sounded from the wood. “I’ve found her! I see her!”

  Arms came underneath me. I struggled to discern their shapes until they fell into familiar forms: Rhydderch wrapping a cloak around me as he lifted me up, cradling me like a child. My father’s shadow etched like a giant against the failing light, the feel of his weathered fingers on my face. Behind me, I knew white robes glowed eerily in the dim.

  Father’s eyes widened in bewilderment, and another wave of labor gripped me.

  “Cathan,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to master the pain.

  “Already your father sees to him,” Rhydderch said. “You’ve lain too long exposed to the elements; you’re burning up. We must get you back, my love. We’ve brought a cart. Lord Cathan will not be far behind.”

  Arms came beneath me once more, cradling my shoulders as they eased me onto a pallet in the bed of the cart. Brodyn climbed in beside me, his long dark hair tangled and loose from its leather binding.

  “I failed you, cousin. I failed you.” His face was split, battered, his eyes nearly swollen shut. He swallowed with some effort, his voice low with strain. “There were men in the forest,” he said, “waiting beyond the tree line. They knew I was coming. I fought them, but I could not get to you. I’m sorry, cousin. I couldn’t get to you . . .” His face contorted and I reached to touch his hair as he laid his head on my chest like a bewildered young child. It was a strangled sound, his weeping. Never before had I heard Brodyn cry.

  It was easy, then, for my body to split open. I reached out blindly for something to grasp as my world became a blur of agony, sound, and motion. The seeming endless journey over tree roots and rutted road, the heavy wooden clamor of gates, the sudden blare of torchlight, and the rush of Crowan’s voice as I was carried into a chamber and lowered onto a bed. My chamber. My bed.

  Eyes squeezed shut, I burrowed deeper as the torrents of pain came to claim me, crying into the depths as they rose in swift waves to swallow me. I cried out until my throat was raw.

  From the bottom of the blackness I called out for Ariane.

  And suddenly she was there, hovering over me like a white gull in the darkness, a wet cloth in her hands as she cooled the fever overtaking me, her pale skin beaded with sweat in the lamplight. She had come. She was with me. I had not been forsaken.

  • • •

  Many hours passed before the relief came. At last my body collapsed at the sound of a cry. I lay on the sweat-drenched pallet, lids heavy and eyes wrung dry, as a hot little weight was placed on my chest. I could feel the delicate breath of the babe on my neck. Its newborn skin was like petals and smelled of pine needles and rosemary soap. A tear slipped between my lashes as I clutched the tiny body to me. A cool hand pressed against my cheek and I struggled to focus my vision.

  “Ariane?” I blinked, her name a rasp from my throat.

  “No.” The voice was firm. “It is Elufed.”

  Confused, I squinted at the form seated beside me. Slats of light came through the wooden shutters. It was daylight. Elufed reached for a damp cloth and pressed it to my forehead.

  “You are delirious with fever. But you’ve given birth to a boy.”

  “A boy,” I mumbled, even as I sank away from her, back into the murkiness, my body wrung out. In my dreamless sleep I heard the sharp caw of the crows and the feathered flapping of their wings. I woke to find Brodyn standing guard beside my door. He nodded with a sad smile at the bundle in my arms. I was still clutching my babe; he breathed softly in sleep on my breast. My fingers went instinctively to tuck the blanket beneath his chin, observing him clearly for the first time. His head was covered in thick dark hair, his skin soft and smooth as fruit. His lashless eyes were folded tight, swollen from his journey. His tiny chest rose and fell in his dreaming.

  A rush of feeling washed over me such as I’d never known before. I had thought I’d felt love, but looking at my son I realized with wonder that I had never known the true meaning of it until this very moment. Hesitatingly, with awe, I brought my lips down to rest on his downy head. My nostrils flared, catching his scent, imprinting it, and I drew him closer, protecting him within the circle of my arms. This babe was made of me, of me and of Maelgwn, and yet he was more, so much more than I could comprehend. Tears filled my eyes, this time not of sorrow or rage. In this sacred moment of bonding, I shed the tears of a mother’s devotion, of a new purpose in life, of a love that could not falter.

  I drew him even closer, longing for my own mother.

  But when the door to my chamber opened, it was Elufed who stood before me. Strands of her flaxen hair had slipped loose from her plait, and though she wore a clean frock, I could smell the soft musk of her sweat. It was she who’d sent the priest away, I remembered now.

  “Woman’s work,” she’d said, and in aiding my labor she’d been nothing like I’d known of her. Solemn and quick, she’d tended me with patience and skill that startled me.

  Now she came to stand beside the bed and placed a cool hand on my forehead.

  “Your fever has abated. Good. I shan’t stay long. Rhydderch is waiting.”

  She gazed at the child in my arms. “I have borne three children, and each time I see an infant I am reminded anew what tiny little seedlings they are,” she said. “A whole life exists already complete within them: their fates have already been written. They grow and stretch until they have burst open their pods. And each time we must let them walk the paths set before them.”

  I held my babe to me as if I could tuck him back into my body for safekeeping. “Not always,” I said. “Perhaps not all fates are decided.”

  “Yes. All,” she insisted. But as she stared at my baby her face softened.

  “We found your boatman, Languoreth. He was quite willing to speak plainly when he heard of his master’s death. I know what it was you intended to do.”

  My heart skittered through the lingering fog of labor and exhaustion, but I met her eyes. “Christian or no, would you stand before me and tell me you would not have done the same, if you thought it might spare the life of your child?”

  Elufed studied me. I thought for a moment I saw a shimmering wetness fill her eyes that nearly resembled tears.

  “I learnt long ago there is little sense in twisting the hand of fate,” she said. “But it is not for me to pass judgment on what a mother feels she must do. I have not told my husband. But you must tell Rhydderch. My son deserves to know the reason you would endanger the life of his child.”

  “I will tell him,” I allowed. “I know I must.”

  “Good.” Elufed’s smile was perfunctory. “Then we must only discuss the issue of Desdemona.”

  “Desdemona?”

  Elufed’s cool gray eyes observed me with the patience of a tutor as I came to realize the truth.

  Sweet Gods. Brodyn and Desdemona were the only living souls who’d known of our meeting place. I swallowed the sudden urge to be sick, and Elufed smiled without humor.

  “Ah, now you’ve come to it.”

  “Oh, no. No . . .” The events began to shift and come together in my mind, and I shook my head. “But . . . why? How could she do such a thing?”

  “You can never trust a servant,” Elufed said. “Not truly. Especially not one raised up beside you as a child. She must scrub pots and serve wine whilst you eat and drink and wear fine things. How can she not envy the life that you have? Now, Crowan, she’s another matter. You could have sent her. But she wouldn’t have let you go, of course. And you’re too soft to disobey her. Better she not know, you thought. Well”—her fingers fluttered dismissively—“I suppose you did not know Desdemona was a Christian?”

  “A Christian?” I echoed dumbly, even as my chest began to seethe with rage. No, she’d gotten it wrong. It was I who�
�d sent Desdemona to hear Mungo speak, but she hadn’t lingered . . .

  “Yes.” Elufed narrowed her eyes. “Why, I believe she was baptized last summer. My man spotted her. I always send a man to watch the baptisms. Isn’t it odd that Languoreth’s maid should want to be Christian? I thought. A servant from your family. Your own chamber girl. And now your friend Cathan lies dead.”

  She spoke as if I were a child late to bed and I needed no reminder of what I had lost. Blood pulsed hot against the bandage bound at my neck.

  “Do not speak of him. You know nothing of what Cathan meant to me. You cannot know—” I bit down on my lip to silence my cry. I would not weep with my babe in my arms. Already he had known too much horror, far too much grief.

  Elufed folded her hands. “I am sorry to see you suffer,” she said.

  “You’re sorry to see me suffer?” The idea was so preposterous that I nearly laughed. “Do not play with me, Elufed. You knew all of this, and yet you set us up to march like game pieces! You could have spared his life! I and your grandchild, we could have been slain.” I leveled my eyes on hers, my face burning hot with fury. “Let us speak plainly and agree that you are sorry for nothing.”

  Elufed raised her brows, incensed. “Do not put Lord Cathan’s blood on me. I may have spies, but I am no god. I could not know those men intended to assassinate your Keeper. All I have done has been necessary,” she said tightly. “You know nothing of being wife to a high king. You will never learn to rule if you are coddled, warned of treachery at every turn.”

  “You speak of lessons?” My ears pounded so furiously, I could scarcely hear. “A great man is dead. They lofted him from our own sacred tree, where he swung, kicking, and I watched his face go purple as he choked—”

  “I tell you again I did not know,” Elufed hissed. “Nay, not me. Languoreth, it was you who did this. And all because you would battle the fates. A mother loves her child and she believes this is beyond any power. This is not so. This babe is my child, too! Do you think such visions bring me pleasure?”

  “Visions?” I sank back against the pillows. “What visions? Speak plainly, Elufed, for I have nothing left. I cannot play your games any longer.”