Dark Winds Rising

by Mark Noce

  Before I can give voice to my thoughts, Una rushes in through the solar doorway. She quickly curtsies, placing herself between Olwen and me. I hold a sudsed palm to my forehead, replying with a bit more sass than I intend.

  “Una, not now, please.”

  “But my Queen, it’s your kinsman Ahern! He’s here. He has the plague.”

  The scrub brush in my hand tumbles to the floor.

  13

  He lies on a church pew, arms folded over his chest as though prepared for burial. His torso rises and falls almost imperceptibly. The castle chapel overflows with coughing soldiers, lying head to foot across the stone floors. I reach out to touch him, my hand stopping just above his eye patch.

  “Ahern.”

  His good eye flickers open. His neck and limbs do not budge, his gaze darting from side to side. He grimaces, as though he doubts he hears my voice. I kneel beside him, clasping his hand.

  “Brother, it’s me.”

  He shakes his head, his voice raspy as a toad’s.

  “Leave. You should not be here. It’s not safe.”

  His stare travels down to my swollen abdomen. He gasps, closing his eye. Now he knows. Ahern stifles the phlegm in his throat. I press my lips together, trying to keep my composure. I’ve not seen him this ill in all my life. His voice barely registers above a whisper.

  “The last time you were this far gone with child, I was in the dungeons at Aranrhod.”

  I force a smile, my eyes starting to water. What a witch I’ve been, sending Ahern on this errant because I feared claiming Dyfed’s throne might prove too tempting for him. Now he lies here dying, and all because of me.

  “I remember. Artagan imprisoned you for trying to betray me. What a silly oaf you were.”

  “I justly deserved far worse punishment. Perhaps God has seen fit to rectify my penance.”

  He brings a fist to his mouth, turning away as a violent coughing fit overtakes him. He withdraws his palm from mine. Even now he tries to protect me, not wanting to risk passing along the blight to myself or my unborn child.

  Part of me knows I should return to the tower. Every moment I remain in this chapel full of sick men, I risk contracting the same infection. But I’ve only one adult kinsman left in all Christendom. Few men or women have known me as long as my one-eyed brother. I have so little family left.

  His coughs gradually subside. Without glancing back at me, he remains on his side

  “Go. I will not be the cause of your death or your child’s.”

  I scoff at his indignance.

  “Och! Since when do queens take orders from their guardsmen? Besides, I came to Caerwent to find you.”

  “It is not safe. Plague. Saxons. You should never have come looking for me.”

  “The rest of Wales is not much safer. Picts. Treacherous King Iago. But where are the Saxons I heard had besieged this castle?”

  “They were here when I first arrived, but most keep to the woods now. For better cover.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “God knows. More than enough.”

  Coughing overcomes him again. I pat his back, but he waves me away. His ailment has certainly not diminished any of his stubbornness. Poor man. Sent on a mission to treat with King Griffith, then banished to Caerwent, only to catch the plague just as it overcomes the garrison.

  And what of all those Saxons lying in wait in the woods? I was certain this was nothing more than a raid by savages bent on pillage. Nothing more. King Griffith has always been an overly cautious general and prone to exaggerate. But now it seems that indeed a full invasion force has laid siege to Caerwent. And as such has dashed all my hopes of diverting any of Griffith’s army to aid us against the Picts in the Gwynedd. I hang my head, my limbs suddenly heavy.

  Una waits by the entrance to the church. She stands in the archway, surveying the rows of suffering soldiers with a long face. If not for her loyalty to me, she would probably have long abandoned my entourage and returned to her work as a nun. Praying to God and tending to needy souls, such as these. Thankfully, she chose to come to the church to say her midday prayers, else she would not have seen Ahern. Else I would not have even known he lay here suffering while I ensconced myself in a castle tower.

  A knot forms in my throat as I rest my head in my hands. The world slowly crumbles around me, and all I can do is watch it fall apart. I pound my fist into my open palm. There must be something I can do! Some way to see through this descending darkness. But my mind runs blank. I’ve no idea what to do or where to go from here.

  Ahern begins to snore. Whether he fakes it or not, I cannot tell, but I decide to leave him in peace. He needs his rest one way or the other.

  Una approaches, holding a calfskin-bound book in hand, open to a page about midway through.

  “My Queen, the clerics here received word from King Griffith of your interest in any writings pertaining to Queen Vivian of Dyfed.”

  “Aye, I asked the King as much.”

  “The vaults of books are few here nowadays, but the local parson found this one tome containing a short inscription regarding your mother’s early years. I have the passage here, if you wish to view it.”

  I nod and thank her, reaching out for the open book in her hands before she has even finished speaking. My eyes quickly traverse the page full of Latinate text. It takes me a moment to gain the thread of the story, many other facts and tales involved don’t seem to concern my mother at all. But then my eyes alight on a short passage listed within the larger history.

  For a time the Welsh in the lost Kingdom of Hen Ogledd fought both Saxons and Picts in the borderlands, and the Saxons and Picts fought one another as well. When the king there perished in battle and his Dyfed wife died soon after of a broken heart, their only heir and daughter, Queen Vivian, took the leadership of her people in this far northeastern realm.

  I pause a moment, taking in the full meaning inscribed on the tallowed page. My mother lost her parents when she was younger than I am now. Her father, a king of a lost eastern Welsh fiefdom, and her mother born in the western mountains of Dyfed who must have then once lived with her husband in the East. My grandparents. The short description doesn’t even list their names. A young woman in a failing kingdom surrounded by enemies, it appears that my mother had to lead her people during a tumultuous time against impossible odds. Why did I never hear of this before? Why did neither my father nor my long-lost mentor, Abbot Padraig, see fit to even so much as mention this to me? I read on, desperate for some explanation regarding what became of my mother after her parents died.

  A Pictish queen approached young Vivian and offered an alliance against the Saxons, else both their realms might be destroyed. Reluctantly, Queen Vivian agreed to this pact, even though she bore little love for the Picts. Their shared enemy amongst the Saxon hordes was greater. But on the day of battle, Queen Vivian led her meager forces and her entire remaining people away, abandoning her kingdom far to the east and forsaking the Picts to their fate against the encroaching Saxons. Queen Vivian led her people safely into the West, where they joined with King Vortigen’s realm in Dyfed—a place where her mother’s people once dwelt. After her marriage to King Vortigen, Queen Vivian never heard or saw more of the fate of the Picts from that day onward.

  I swallow hard, reading on but finding the story diverging upon disparate topics about harvests and realms in other ages. No more about my mother or her youth. I return to the previous page and reread the lines about Queen Vivian’s flight from the Old Borderlands once more.

  Could this be true? My mother led her people to safety, but at the cost of her Pictish allies? How little these few lines tell me about what my mother thought or how she felt at that tender age. A teenage girl thrust into a position of power, much as I once found myself. She saved her people by fleeing the Saxons altogether and marrying a Welsh king who lived behind the safety of the western mountains. My father, King Vortigen. But what became of the Picts near the Old Borderlands?
Surely nothing good if they stood little chance against the conquering Saxon armies. Little wonder Sab bears me ill will, if my own mother reneged on the Picts in order to save her own subjects.

  But people only ever spoke well of my mother. She was kind and gentle, a woman of a peaceful disposition. Was she truly capable of such a coldhearted decision, necessary though it may have been? And something more of this tale remains obscured by shadows. Sab’s loathing for me has a personal edge to it. Somehow she must be directly connected to this episode from my mother’s youth. But how? Sab herself would’ve been but a small girl at the time. Enlightening as these pages have been, there’s something crucial missing from it. Some piece of knowledge I’m not seeing.

  I return the book to Una. More unanswered questions spring to mind, but no solutions present themselves. Perhaps it’s mad of me to worry over such a trifle when surrounded by an army of plague-ridden soldiers.

  Una and I return to our tower. The Free Cantref archers nod to us, glancing nervously over their shoulders at the wheezing South Welshmen scattered across the courtyard. An invisible death pall hangs over all our thoughts.

  Upstairs, Olwen sulks in a corner, screwing her eyes up toward the rafters. I’m in no mood for her antics and walk past her, trying to ignore her. The children splash through thin puddles as Rowena mops up the last of the floorboards. Olwen aims her finger at me like the tip of a crossbow.

  “Keep us isolated? Quarantined, you said? You’ll infect us all, now that you’ve been visiting your sickly cycloptic brother!”

  I stare Olwen down, my eyes burning with green fury. For an instant, she returns my defiant stare, and I wonder if the two of us will come to blows. Alas, we both have the breeding of queens in us and know better. Still, I’d like to take a broomstick to her when she speaks so thoughtlessly. I came here to save my brother, and with God as my witness, somehow I shall.

  Olwen turns away and we retreat to our respective corners of the room with our sons in hand. I hum a soft lullaby to Gavin as he lays his head in my lap. Olwen plays knucklebones with Cadwallon in the corner, making him chuckle. Neither of us deigns speak to the other.

  Gavin’s breeches feel damp under my hand. I pull back his trousers to find that he has wet himself. I bite my lower lip, knowing full well that Gavin knows how to use the latrine by now. With pouty lips, he looks up into my face. My little boy is scared. Even though he may not fully understand, he knows we are hunted, that we are in peril. I press my lips to his brow. My sweet child, you should not have to deal with such difficulties so young. I fetch a fresh tunic and wrap him in my arms, gently rocking him against my chest.

  Just as Gavin starts to rest complacently in my lap, Rowena leaps to her feet. Her startled girls start to whimper anew, but their mother ignores them. Rowena stumbles to the tower windowsill, pointing at the green fields and woods beyond.

  “M’lady, look! The woods, they move!”

  I raise a skeptical eyebrow. How can woods move? My temples start to throb. I’ve already snapped once this morning, I don’t want to do it again. I try to ignore her, but Rowena grabs my wrist.

  “My Queen, see for yourself! The trees are moving.”

  With an exasperated sigh, I rise to my feet and saunter to the window ledge. At first the quiet fields and misty oak groves look like nothing out of the ordinary. Then my eyes widen.

  Scores of treetops within the forest canopy sway from side to side, as though advancing through a sea of branches. Bare wooden trunks filter through the wolds, making the skin of the canopy seem to ripple. The woods do indeed move.

  Una and Olwen join us at the window.

  “What in heaven’s name…?” Una’s voice trails off.

  A quavering ram’s horn sounds through the woodlots, drawing the attention of every guardsman posted along the castle walls. Griffith paces the battlements himself, his wide form visible across the keep. He draws his sword as a second quivering bugle call booms through the dells.

  My palms start to sweat. I recognize the sound, although I’ve not heard it in some time. That’s no hunting horn. It’s a Saxon battle trumpet.

  * * *

  Guards shuffle about the battlements, readying shields and spears as Griffith shouts orders to his men. Those still able to stand, that is. Even the sick men look up from their makeshift bedrolls, craning their ears toward the barbaric sounds emanating from the woods outside Caerwent.

  I descend the tower with my bow and quiver, dodging bustling solders who take up positions along the main defenses. Several of my green-clad archers accompany me. I order the rest to stand guard by the tower. I don’t want anybody to leave or enter the bedchamber where I keep the children. We’ve enough perils to deal with as it is.

  Griffith grimaces when he sees me approaching the eastern parapet.

  “This is no place for a lady, let alone a breeding woman.”

  “I’m neither a lady nor a woman. I’m a queen. I’ve never flinched from the Saxons before and I shan’t start now.”

  I plant my feet shoulder width apart, putting an arrow on my bowstring. I don’t draw the twine back, though. Else, Griffith might see how ungainly I appear when I try to move a drawstring around my belly. Perhaps I’m a touch farther along than I thought, maybe five moons heavy with child now. My body betrays me, feeling heavier and more sluggish each day. But I’ve not time for such concerns now with the Saxons outside our walls.

  Several more toots from the ram’s horn reverberate from the trees, the woods still shaking as though every other tree uprooted itself. Those “trees” moving about must be Saxons’ spears and pikes. But how many of them are out there? There must be at least a thousand of them for the woods to shake like that. My heart clenches like a balled fist. The Saxons will not spare a single soul within the walls of Caerwent if they take the castle by force.

  Griffith growls behind clenched teeth, shaking his head.

  “I don’t know who’s worse, you, my lady, or the Saxons. At least they aren’t ruled by their women’s whims as we are.”

  I ignore the tone in his voice, keeping my eyes to the woods.

  “How many men do you have fit for duty, my King?”

  “Not enough. The few hundred I brought with me, but the rest of the garrison has the blight.”

  “I wish those savages would stop tooting that tiresome horn of theirs.” I wince.

  “Strange that the Saxons don’t show themselves. Why all the bluster? Why don’t the cowards come out and fight?”

  I blink the sweat from my eyes. Griffith has a point. Why don’t the blackguards show themselves? Saxons rape and pillage, but subtlety has never been one of their attributes.

  My fingers tighten their grip on my birch-wood bow. I wish Artagan were here. Wild and crazy as he gets in battle, he always exudes calm and confidence before a fight. His cockiness infects those around him and makes waiting for the shock of battle a little more tolerable. Besides, he’s the best swordsmen born since the days of Arthur.

  Although months have passed, it seems only yesterday I lay in Artagan’s strong arms, snug and restful within our castle bedchamber at Aranrhod. Warm, in bed, our son resting safe and sound just down the hall. Where did all those tranquil days go? If only I had known how good my life truly was, how I should have cherished those moments of happiness like so many jewels embedded in my heart. Dear God, if you deliver me and my boy from this, I swear I shall never again venture more than a day’s ride from Aranrhod. Well, just so long as my kingdom doesn’t need me to do otherwise.

  The blaring ram’s horn suddenly stops, the shifting woods growing still and quiet. Like the hush before a storm breaks. Not a man inside the citadel speaks.

  A lone rider breaks from the woods. He rears his horse, waving a large battle ax overhead, his bushy blond beard flowing behind him. A Saxon if ever I saw one. I squint at the horseman as he gallops around the castle walls, shouting in his barbaric tongue.

  “What is that ruffian doing?”

  Someon
e shuffles up behind Griffith and me, his voice low and gruff.

  “It’s a Saxon message,” Ahern says. “He shouts it out every day, vowing death to every Welshman inside Caerwent who does not surrender.”

  Turning around, I see Ahern bracing himself against a pillar atop the parapet steps. I frown seeing him on his feet, his single eye bloodshot and his chest heaving from exerting himself on the stairs. I steady him with both arms.

  “You should be abed, brother.”

  Ahern waves me away, but I keep one arm beneath his elbow nonetheless. We probably look a comical pair, one with a missing eye and the other round as cauldron. Griffith presses his face close to Ahern’s.

  “You certain that’s what he’s saying? If he does it every day, what’s the point?”

  “I lost an eye to the Saxons, but I’ve fought them long enough to recognize a barbarian’s curse when I hear one,” Ahern replies. “As for why he does it … why do Saxons do any of the evil things they do?”

  The Saxon rider circles the castle, shaking his ax as he rages at the silent guards manning the battlements. He is brave, if somewhat stupid. Doubtless some local chieftain. A Saxon war-chief must look brave before his men in order to hold sway over them. His warriors probably look on from the woods now, sharpening their knives in the shadows. My eyebrows suddenly perk up.

  “Ahern, when did this Saxon rider start this ritual? The exact day.”

  My half brother scratches his scalp.

  “Not long after I arrived, the day some of the garrison first took down with the plague.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Of course, did I not just say as much?”

  I smile at my testy kinsman, his lack of sleep doing little to improve his temperament. I turn toward Griffith, directing his gaze toward the forest.

  “Odd, don’t you think so, King? The very day the plague strikes, the Saxons start their taunts.”