The Legend of Lady Ilena

by Patricia Malone

“What a tyrant you are, Spusscio,” Doldalf says. “It had better be fixed in another day. I ride back home, bleeding or not.”

  Spusscio shakes his head. “Thank your gods you’re as tough as an ox, old man. It’ll probably be all right. There’s enough spiderwebs bound on it and a good egg white besides.”

  “It’s the waste of the ale cleaning it that I mind.” Doldalf manages a laugh.

  “I’ll bring you ale to drink,” Belert says, “and supper if you’re ready for it.”

  “Aye,” Doldalf says. “I can eat, I’m sure.”

  I put my hand on his good arm. “I thank you for riding with me. I’ll look in tomorrow to see how the shoulder is.”

  Two of Lenora’s people are in the surgery. A woman lies with a poultice bandaged over a swelling on her cheek.

  “A slingstone?” I ask.

  “Yes, lady. Thank the gods it glanced off. I’ll stay down tonight to let it heal.”

  The other, a young man near my age, is sleeping. His leg is bandaged and splinted. Ropes are fixed to keep it in one place.

  “The potions haven’t worn off yet,” Spusscio says. “The surgeon had to work to get that leg set, and we dosed him pretty heavily.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Lenora told us his horse went down. It rolled over on him and snapped the leg.” Spusscio checks one of the ropes and eyes a bloodstain on the bandage. “I hope it’s stopped bleeding. He’ll stay here with us for a while, I reckon.”

  “Will you be coming to the Great Hall soon for some supper?” Belert asks.

  “Aye,” Spusscio says. “As soon as I’m sure everything here is in place.”

  “We’ll go on, then,” Belert says. He heads for the door.

  I hurry to catch up. “I’ll stop by the stables first. I want to find out what happened to Rol.”

  He says, “You must be exhausted by now. Don’t wait too long to get food and some sleep.”

  I assure him that I plan to do both soon and head for the barns.

  I find Rol in the stable unharnessed and rubbed down. The stablemaster is working on Resad’s big black three stalls away.

  “Where did you find them?” I ask.

  “They’d worn themselves out fighting,” he says. “This one has a nasty bite. Yours looks all right.”

  I talk to Rol to calm him. I can’t see any injuries, and the stablemaster has done a fine job of drying him off and giving him a little water. I say, “Thank you for taking care of him.”

  The man nods. Then he asks, “What about Resad?”

  “He’ll not need his horse again.”

  The man looks at me for a moment, but says only, “Your pack is there beside the stall door, lady.”

  People are coming and going at the Great Hall. Several of our troops sit at a table near the hearth, with Perr, Hoel, and Durant together at one end. Lenora is filling an ale flagon at a cauldron near the hearth. Gola sees me before I can pick her out of the group.

  “Ilena!” She hurries to my side. “Are you well? We lost sight of you when the fighting started. Where did you go?”

  “I came inside to be sure Belert was guarded,” I say. As we walk by the fire, she grabs my arm and turns me toward the blaze.

  “What happened to your neck?” She lifts my chin and studies the wound left by Ogern’s dirk.

  “What is it?” Durant asks. He has left the table and joins Gola in peering at my throat.

  “A scratch.”

  “A dirk cut, it looks like,” Durant says. “When did he do that?”

  I decide not to tell him that it was when I heard his voice. “I tried to call for help,” I say.

  He traces the wound with a gentle finger. I brace myself against my feelings, but it is no use. I feel the soft ache inside and turn away quickly. He drops his hand and goes back to the table.

  “It’s shallow,” Gola says. “Who did it?”

  I answer her questions while I slice a trencher and pile meat on it. Gola fills a flagon with ale for me. We join the others. Their talk is of the return trip.

  Cochan says, “We’ll stay, certainly, for the feast tomorrow.”

  “Aye,” Perr says, “but no longer. The snow cannot hold off forever.”

  Durant says, “We want to see Ilena safely established as chief of Dun Alyn.”

  “There should be no problem with that,” Hoel says. “Ogern and Resad were the obstacles. I haven’t found anyone in the fortress who opposes her now.”

  “With Belert in charge again, that’s no surprise,” Lenora says. “Most will forget they were ready to turn against him.”

  “It is hard for folk,” Perr says. “Their family’s lives and their own depend on keeping favor with the strongest contender in a dispute like this.”

  “But some stay loyal.” I think of Cormec and Spusscio.

  “Yes, thank the gods,” Lenora says.

  As we talk, men and women from Dun Alyn come and go in the hall. Many sit down to eat and drink. Some carry food and ale out with them. All gaze at me curiously from time to time, but I see little sign of the fear that my presence brought at first. Belert’s news about me must have spread.

  I cannot keep from yawning. My body hurts all over. I stand to go but remember my new role. “Are you all in quarters?”

  “Aye,” Gola says. “Spusscio saw to it.” She stands and reaches for my hand. “A good sleep, now.”

  “And a good rest for you.” I nod to include all at the table.

  I find Miquain’s room open and a night fire at the hearth. A young woman I’ve not seen before is pulling back bedskins.

  “My lady.” She seems shy but not especially fearful. “Spusscio sent me to serve you. I was the lady Miquain’s maidservant.” There are tears in her eyes when she speaks of Miquain, and she turns to hide them.

  “Thank you,” I say. I lay my pack on the table and sit on the bench to pull off my boots. She hurries to help me.

  The bed is as comfortable as I remember, and I barely mumble my goodnight as she leaves. My last thoughts are of Belert’s face when Ogern pushed me to the side of the rampart.

  I AWAKEN EARLY FROM A DREAM OF RYAMEN. SHE CALLED to me, but I could not find her. There was something important about it, but I can’t remember what it was. I dress and go out onto the grounds.

  The tall gates are open, and a hunting party moves through them with a pack of hounds milling around the horses’ legs. One dog, speckled and frisky, reminds me of Cryner when he was young. He used to prance around our horses like that when we went out to hunt.

  I walk to the entrance and look across the meadow where the track winds out of the woods. There is no sign of anyone camped there. The war band must have moved on at the first hint of daylight.

  Cooking smells waft across the compound from the kitchen area. A whole beef is turning above a bed of glowing coals, and nearby a kitchen boy kneels to fan a blaze inside a rock-filled firepit. Perhaps the hunt this morning is for the boar that will roast there the rest of the day.

  I watch the boy as he kneels and reaches down. There is something familiar about the scene. I was kneeling so in my dream. Ryamen was down in a hole or well of some sort. Then I remember Ogern’s words “… the back exit… in the pit with the other one.” I see Spusscio leaving the stables and run toward him.

  “Spusscio! Spusscio! Ryamen—I remember!”

  We meet in the center of the compound.

  I gasp in my haste to explain. “Ogern. Last night. He told Resad to put me in the pit with the other one. He must have meant Ryamen.”

  Spusscio turns back to the stables, and I follow him.

  “Cormec!” his voice echoes through the first barn. “Cormec, where are you?”

  “Here, Spusscio.” Cormec appears from a stall near the far end. “What now? You have too much energy for such an early hour.”

  “The old pits,” Spusscio says. “You remember them?”

  “Of course,” Cormec answers. “I don’t want to know what the old o
nes used them for. Some grisly bones down in those things.”

  “Ogern planned to put Ilena in a pit with the ‘other one.’”

  Cormec thinks for a minute. “Ryamen! Why didn’t we think of looking there?”

  “Get horses. And rope.” Spusscio turns to me. “Bring food and water. I’ll fetch a chariot.”

  When I return from the kitchen with a loaf of bread and a waterskin, Spusscio is placing a coil of rope on the saddle pommel of a brown mare. A gray mare is saddled for me, and Cormec is fastening the last straps on a pair of blacks harnessed to a wicker chariot.

  We leave by the front gates and circle around the fortress to head north. Spusscio and I are soon far ahead of Cormec. He is slowed by the task of maneuvering the chariot through the defensive rings and over uneven ground.

  The pits lie north of Dun Alyn, along the cliffs above the sea. The first two we examine are empty except for bones and evidence in one of a long-ago fire. They are deeper than the ones I’ve seen for storing grain. A man standing on another’s shoulders could not reach the top of one of these.

  I cannot see any other pits around us. “Are there more?” I ask.

  “Aye,” Spusscio says. “One more.”

  We ride on to a desolate space beside a cave entrance. We tie the horses, and Spusscio, the coil of rope on his shoulder, leads the way through a rim of boulders into a small hollow. There amid scrubby bushes and coarse grass is another pit. It is as deep as the others, but it is not empty.

  What looks at first like a pile of cloth is crumpled against one side of the circular clay floor in a pool of morning sunlight.

  “Ryamen,” Spusscio calls. “Can you hear me?”

  There is no response. She lies motionless. I cannot tell if she is breathing. In the distance I can hear chariot wheels grating against the rocky trail.

  “Will you bring the water, lady? I hope we’ll have use for it.” As he talks, he wraps the rope around a large boulder and ties it securely.

  When I return with the waterskin and bread, he is out of sight, and the rope is taut with his weight. I watch anxiously as he drops onto the pit bottom and hurries to Ryamen. Her body is limp when he lifts her head, but I can see her eyelids flutter and her lips move. I drop the container carefully, and he moistens her lips with water. She moves her head slightly, and Spusscio tips the waterskin again. I can see her throat move as she swallows.

  “Is she alive?” Cormec comes up behind me.

  “Yes, but not fully conscious,” I answer. “How can we get her out?”

  “These weren’t made to get anyone out of,” he says. “But I brought a hide and another rope. We’ll manage.”

  I would like to go down to see how Ryamen is for myself, but I settle for watching Spusscio work. Cormec drops a bundle that proves to be a large, tanned ox hide. He follows it with another coil of rope. Spusscio spreads the skin out and lifts Ryamen into the center. He wraps her in the hide and loops rope several times around the unwieldy bundle. He ties off the rope and knots the end of line that dangles down from the top through the loops around the hide.

  When Spusscio is finished, Cormec begins to pull on the line. Ryamen, in her ox-hide case, rises slowly upward. Spusscio steadies her away from the sides of the pit for as long as he can reach her. I drop flat on my belly and stretch to reach first the rope and then the bundle itself to keep it from banging against the wall. When she reaches the top, I grasp the hide and pull her onto level ground.

  I fold the skin back and brush dirt from her face. She is still, and her eyes are closed, but I can see the gentle movement as she breathes.

  Cormec unties the rope and drops the end down to Spusscio. With a few tugs and a scrambling noise, he is beside us. He takes the waterskin off his shoulder and hands it to me. I pour a little water onto a piece of soft bread from the inside of the loaf. When I hold it against Ryamen’s mouth, she turns her head slightly to refuse it.

  “Let’s get her to the chariot,” Spusscio says. “She needs broth and a warm bed.”

  We place her, still wrapped in the ox hide, on the floor of the chariot. I brace myself across the open back and hold her head in my lap. Cormec ties my horse’s rein to the chariot rim and steps over me to get in the driver’s position.

  Spusscio rides ahead. Cormec holds the horses to a slow walk until we reach a smooth surface, then speeds them toward the entrance to the fortress.

  At Ryamen’s house Spusscio has a fire blazing and the bedplace ready. The woman working with mortar and pestle at the table is stooped with age. She turns her head to one side and squints up at us as we enter. When she focuses on Cormec with the bundle, she hurries to help us. We lay Ryamen on the bedplace and untie the ox hide.

  “I called for Kigva,” Spusscio says. “If anyone can save Ryamen, she can.” Kigva lays her head on Ryamen’s chest and listens, then peers intently into her eyes. She shakes her head and glares at us. “Poor thing. Is this Ogern’s doing?”

  I nod. “Yes. He must have taken her there seven days ago.”

  Spusscio says, “He would have kept her alive to try to learn what she knows about Lady Ilena.”

  “Hmpf! Barely alive, I’d say.” She turns back to her patient and strokes her forehead. Her voice is tender as she continues, this time to Ryamen. “I’ll try, old friend. We’ve had many bedside vigils together. This one I’ll stand alone.”

  I blink back tears. There is no doubt Ryamen is in good hands.

  Cormec speaks from the doorway. “Is there anything else, Spusscio?” He turns to me. “Lady?”

  I shake my head.

  Spusscio leaves the fire and joins Cormec. “Come with me to Belert, if you will. We must tell him we’ve found Ryamen.”

  I watch for a time as Kigva tends Ryamen. She gives her a warm herb potion and watches carefully after each spoonful to be sure that Ryamen swallows it.

  “Can I help?” I ask.

  Kigva says, “No, lady. There is little to do but watch. I’ll not leave her.”

  Ryamen’s small house feels comfortable and safe. I am reluctant to leave, but I fear I am in the way here. “I’ll look back in, then, from time to time,” I say.

  Kigva nods. “I’m sure Spusscio will also. I’ll see that you’re called if she awakens.”

  I look for a quiet place where I can be alone. The ladder to the ramparts is nearby, and I think of yesterday’s struggle as I climb. Ogern’s dirk against my neck and his strong arm binding my arms to my body are memories that won’t fade for a long time.

  The sky is cloudy, and there is a sharp wind off the sea. Last night Lenora spoke of snow, and those who rode with me from Dun Dreug prepare to leave at first light tomorrow. I try to keep walking past the place where Ogern fell, but something forces me to stop and look down to the rocks.

  I glance quickly and look back at the sea. I realize that I didn’t see a dark form below. I look again, this time carefully. The tide has risen during the night and washed the body away. It is a relief to know it is gone, but the picture of Ogern sprawled motionless on the rocks will haunt me forever.

  I stroll along the walltop and let the sea wind carry my thoughts away.

  Durant’s voice startles me. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  I turn to face him. The pain still stabs when I look into his eyes. Soon he will leave to join his family, and I can try to forget him.

  He seems uncertain of what he will say. He starts, “You have found what you sought.”

  “Perhaps,” I say. “But I still don’t know who my mother is, or why I was sent away.”

  “As chief of Dun Alyn, you have a place. And you will have suitors. Your choice, I suppose, of any man in Britain.”

  I don’t want any man in Britain. I want only one. The sea wind buffets us, the surf roars below, and the bustle of the fortress seems far away. The idea that I could be a chief fades like a dream at daylight. The only realities here are the man beside me and the feelings I have for him.

  He goes on. “I hoped
, when you were without lineage or position, that you would come to care for me. I thought to ask you to journey to the South to meet my family.”

  I study his face. There is no pretense there. I wait for him to go on.

  “But now I understand,” he says, “that things have changed. You must think of Dun Alyn. And you will need to arrange a proper marriage. I have no large holdings, no great wealth. Hadel is a small fortress with barely fifty warriors at my call.”

  “Your family,” I say. “What would they think of me?”

  He smiles. “My mother would welcome you. And my son would love you.”

  I wait, but he says no more. At last I ask the question I have agonized over for days. “And your wife?”

  He looks puzzled. “My wife is dead. She died five years ago when the child was born. Why did you think I had a wife?”

  “I—” I stop. My face begins to burn from more than the wind. “I overheard Hoel mention your son, and I assumed …” I look down. He can have little doubt about my feelings now.

  His voice is soft. I have to strain to hear it above the wind. “Is that why you changed? You avoided talking with me and hurried on when I tried to walk beside you.”

  I nod.

  “I thought it was because you had found your true place. Because you knew it would be important to find a proper husband.”

  I shake my head, still without speaking. I don’t trust my voice right now.

  He reaches out and lifts my chin so my eyes meet his. He speaks slowly, with deep feeling. “When my wife died, I thought that I would never care for another woman. That kind of loss is too cruel. When I met you, I began to think of marriage again.”

  I still dare not speak, but my eyes must tell him how I feel.

  He continues, “I do not want a pledge from you now. You need time to learn what it means to rule Dun Alyn. Talk with Belert about the kind of marriage a chief should make.”

  “I will not make a marriage I do not want,” I say.

  He smiles. “Do not be hasty. There are many men in Britain. You may well meet one who drives me from your mind.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Still, I want you to be sure. This is a difficult time for you. I will return when the snows melt from the passes. We will talk then. If you do not wish to marry me, I will always be your brother as I pledged.”