“I doubt you’ve ever been here in the depth of night,” Kieran replied wisely.
“Nay, not I, but my cousin, Helen, has often done so when she has visited at Glain Tarran. She’s never seen faeries, either.”
Kieran stood and gave a shake of his head. “The more I hear of your cousin Helen, the odder I think her.” He tilted Glenys’s chin up with a fingertip, bent to kiss her mouth, then straightened and said, “Shall I leave you for a few moments now?”
“Aye,” she said, nodding. “Ten minutes will suffice.”
“Five,” he told her. “I’ll leave you for no longer than that, and will be close enough that I can hear your cry, should you need me.”
He strode away, leaving Glenys alone. She watched him go until she could see him no more, her heart filled with the love she bore him and no small measure of admiration for the fine, tall figure he made as he walked. With a sigh, she pulled her cloak more closely about her and moved to stand directly in front of the burial chamber. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the sky and listened.
She had no idea how much time passed before she heard Kieran’s furious shout. The next moment he came running into sight, yelling, “Stop him! Catch him!”
Glenys looked all about, but saw nothing.
“Grab him! Quick!” Kieran pointed toward Glenys’s skirts. “He’s right there…accursed knave!”
Glenys turned about wildly, but could see nothing and no one. “What is it?” she cried. “I don’t see anything!”
“He’s run off again!” Kieran shouted as he raced past her and into a small copse of trees. “He’s taken the queen!”
He disappeared from sight once more, and Glenys stood in utter confusion, wondering if she should wait or follow. She could hear Kieran’s voice, sounding as if he were struggling with someone else, and wondered if he’d suddenly gone mad.
“You little wretch! I’ll knock your head off for that! Arghh!”
“Kieran!” Glenys began to move forward, but hadn’t reached the copse before Jean-Marc and Dina, riding Strumpet and leading Nimrod, arrived.
Jean-Marc tossed his leg over Strumpet’s head and slid to the ground, unsheathing his dagger and asking, “What’s amiss? Where’s Kieran?”
“Here.” Kieran came striding out of the copse, his face angry and flushed, holding one of his fingers tightly in his hand. “The damned thing bit me,” he said furiously. “Look, it’s bleeding.”
“God’s mercy.” Glenys pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and hurried forward. “Let me bind it.” She took his hand and gazed with astonishment at the small, sharply dealt wound. It almost looked as if he’d been bitten by a small animal. “How did this happen?”
“That little man did it,” Kieran said, grunting as she wrapped the cloth tightly about the wound.
“Is he yet to be found?” Jean-Marc demanded, clearly ready to go in search of his master’s assailant. “What did he look like?”
“An elf, he was, with a red cap,” Kieran said, adding, “Nay, he’s gone now. There’s no use looking for him.”
“An elf,” Jean-Marc repeated, staring at him.
“Aye,” Kieran said, ignoring Jean-Marc’s look of disbelief, “but he gave me back the queen piece, at least. She told him to, else I think the little brute would’ve disappeared and taken her with him. Ouch!”
“I’m sorry,” Glenys said with sympathy as she tied the cloth tight, then lifted it up and kissed the offended finger. “There. ’Twill stop bleeding in a few moments. I’m sorry he bit you. Did you say aught to make him angered?”
“Do you believe me?” Kieran asked. “He was an elf. Or one of those faeries.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she told him, “though I’d not speak aloud of such things to any sane person, were I you. But as none of us seems to be sane, tell us what happened.”
“I scarce know myself,” he admitted, looking at each of them in turn. “I was leaning against a tree, gazing at the queen piece and keeping count of the time, when a little man wearing a bright red cap appeared as if from the air. I knew at once that he was some sort of elf or faerie.”
“Oh, come,” Jean-Marc muttered with a shake of his head. “That’s foolishness. He was a small man, mayhap, but a huntsman or herder only.”
“Nay, he was not,” Kieran insisted. “He bowed and addressed me as ‘my lord,’ in such a manner that I thought him to be making jest of me. I told him that I was not a lord, but he bowed once more and called me ‘my lord Eneinoig.”’
“What?” Glenys murmured with astonishment. “Lord Eneinoig? But that is impossible!”
“I told him the same,” Kieran said, “but he merely smiled and snatched the queen piece from my hand and ran away. I gave chase—as you saw, Glenys—but when I reached him he refused to give her back to me, and when I strove to force him, he bit me! I was sorely tempted to wring his neck, but then the queen spoke and I was too astonished to do anything save stare.”
Glenys looked at him closely. “She spoke? My uncle has ever said that she speaks to him, but I have never heard her do so.”
Kieran paced away from her, running his unbound hand through his hair in exasperation.
“I do not truly know if ’twas her, for the wooden piece moved not at all. But ’twas a woman’s voice I heard, and the elf—or whatever he was—looked at the queen piece that he held as if it came from her. She told him to do as I bade him and to beg my pardon, and at once he handed me the piece, bowed in the manner he had done before and made apology…and then he disappeared. I mean what I say!” he insisted when Jean-Marc snorted. “He moved not at all from his place, but was gone nonetheless. And there was more,” Kieran added, turning to look at Glenys. “She—the voice—told me something else, if your voices have not already done so.”
“What?”
“That Caswallan is at Frenni Fawr, not far from Cardigan, and Sir Anton is with him. They’ve joined forces, Glenys. If we mean to regain the Greth Stone, we must take it from both of them.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jean-Marc preferred blunt force. Kieran advised stealth. Dina didn’t want to have anything to do with the matter at all, though she bravely said she’d do as her mistress asked. Glenys refused to be swayed. She had to face Caswallan alone and use the queen piece to strike a bargain for the Greth Stone.
Kieran was equally firm in his determination that she should do no such thing, but Glenys, as he was discovering, could be remarkably stubborn.
“For I must speak to him alone, don’t you see?” she said as they ate their evening meal back at Berte’s brothel that night. “How can I make a bargain at all if any of you or Sir Anton is present? No. I will speak with Caswallan alone, and you will find the way to stop Sir Anton or anyone else from disturbing us.”
“But I have vowed not to let Caswallan have Boadicea,” Kieran told her. “Your uncle must have her back.”
“That is a fully different matter,” she said, “and one I shall leave to you, for surely you and Jean-Marc, with your many skills, can contrive to get it back. Sir Anton’s presence worries me more. I can scarce believe that he persuaded Caswallan to join with him in making use of the Greth Stone, but if ’tis what was told to you, then it must be so.”
“Your voices told you naught?” Kieran asked, refilling Glenys’s goblet with Berte’s best wine.
“Nay,” she replied stonily, looking at him with a frown. “’Tis not the first time that they have abandoned me, but ’tis surely the first and only time they’ve done so in favor of someone who is not even of my family. I find that most odd,” she said, observing him more closely. “Are there not any in your family, Kieran, who claim to be magic, or at least to have knowledge of it?”
He shook his head. “None. They are all as practical and sensible as you are, sweet. My people are conquerors of the earth—not friends of it.”
Glenys seemed unsatisfied with this, and sat back with a sigh. “Yet they spoke to you and not to m
e. There must be a reason for it.”
“Surely you’re not jealous, my love,” Kieran said lightly, striving to make certain that it was not so. He would not grieve her for any reason, could he avoid it. “’Twas a mistake, most like, or merely because I held the queen and the red-capped fellow wanted her. I’faith, there could be no other reason.”
Glenys fingered the rim of her goblet, gazing at Kieran thoughtfully.
“There could be one reason—but I will not speak of it now. Let us make our plans, instead, for the morrow, when we will face our foes and regain what rightfully belongs to my family.”
“There may be many of Caswallan’s followers with him,” Kieran warned. “And they may defend their master with their lives.”
“I have no fear of that,” Glenys told him. “My uncle Aonghus’s name is not unknown among those who embrace the old ways, and my family is even more greatly known. I do not think they would cause us harm for the sake of Caswallan, despite what he has accomplished with the ring—though I doubt he has done aught at all. There is more of mystery than magic to the piece. Its only power is that many believe it to have power, and such belief holds great sway over those who bear it.”
“Caswallan is not a famed sorcerer?”
She made a scoffing sound. “He is a sorcerer, if a man can be named such, but no man can make a mere ring perform tricks if it hasn’t the inclination to do so. Any magic that has come of the Greth Stone of late has come because Caswallan has conjured some illusion, not because the ring itself has done aught.”
“Is he a simple magician, then?” asked Jean-Marc, setting his own wine goblet aside. “If so, we truly have naught to fear. You deal with Sir Anton,” he said, nodding at Kieran, “and Mistress Glenys will take care of Caswallan. Dina and I,” he added, reaching out to take her hand, “will manage the rest.”
Caswallan’s encampment gave Kieran serious misgivings about his promise to let Glenys find the man and speak to him alone. ’Twas not that there were so many followers, but that the few there were seemed so strange. They dressed mainly in white and said very little, but when Kieran and Glenys rode together toward their small collection of huts and tents, they at once began to gather around her.
The moment Glenys’s feet touched the ground, she turned to the gathered and said, with urgency in her tone, “Where is he?”
Neither young nor old spoke aloud, but turned and pointed to the largest building among the group, which looked to Kieran like some kind of wooden chapel that had either fallen into disuse or been abandoned. Whoever had built it would have done better to fashion the building out of rock. Frenni Fawr was windy and cold, and the nearby villages small. Only the hardiest souls could make a life in these hills.
“And Sir Anton?” she asked next.
The hands swung in a different direction, toward where a large, very fine pavilion had been raised and now stood with its silken sides fluttering in the wind. Yes, Kieran thought, that was the sort of grand dwelling Sir Anton would choose, despite its great impracticality.
“I’m going now to speak to Caswallan,” Glenys told the onlookers, speaking slowly and in English for Kieran’s benefit. “Alone. I am Glenys Seymour, and my uncle is Aonghus Seymour. The Greth Stone belongs to my family, and though it has been in Caswallan’s care for these many months, I have been sent to return the ring to its rightful place.”
Kieran noted that Glenys said nothing of Caswallan’s stealing the ring—a wise decision, considering that these people thought so well of the man.
“This man is Kieran FitzAllen,” she said. “He is a great warrior who has been recognized by those who dwell at Pentre Ifan.” At this, a low murmuring began among those surrounding them. Glenys raised her voice to be heard. “He was sent by them to guard me in my quest and lend me his aid. However, he has a grievance against Sir Anton Lagasse—a just grievance, which he will lay before him now. Do not try to stop him or me, lest you anger those who have sent us both, and we will give word that no harm will come to any of you. Is it agreed?”
More murmuring followed this, along with both agreement and dissension. Kieran understood how difficult it was for those who’d devoted themselves to Caswallan to so readily give him up—and even more so the Greth Stone—especially at the word of a mere woman.
Glenys clearly understood the difficulty, as well, for she raised her voice even more loudly and said, “Do you require a sign?”
“Aye,” came the reply from several voices. “A sign!”
“Very well,” Glenys said calmly. She turned and began to walk toward one of the many small fires that had been set about the camp, sheltered by rocks that had been piled to keep the wind from blowing the flames out.
Kieran followed, with the small crowd at his heels, and whispered in her ear, “What are you going to do?”
She cast a grin at him. “Perform magic,” she replied.
One of her hands had already disappeared beneath her cape, and Kieran at once divined her purpose.
“Won’t they realize ’tis merely a powder?” he asked.
“They’ll see what they wish to see. If it goes wrong, then we must think of another plan. But if this isn’t very like what Caswallan has been giving them in the way of showing his powers, I’m much mistaken about the man.”
She came to a stop before the first fire, then raised her fists high in the air, lifted her face to the sky and said in commanding tones, “Spirits of the earth, give truth to all that I have said before these, your servants. Give us a sign that you have sent us to retrieve the Greth Stone and bring it to its rightful home.”
With that, she brought her hands down quickly, opening her fists and releasing the powder. It was well done, Kieran thought, watching carefully. If he’d not known that the powder existed, he’d not have realized that she’d thrown it into the fire.
As it had done before, the powder immediately quenched the flames and smoke, sending sparkling lights glittering in the air until they, too, faded, leaving naught at all.
But then, just as those behind her had gasped and Glenys was turning to face them with a satisfied smile, something else happened that had nothing to do with the powder.
Where the now cold embers lay, a new sparkling had begun, very different from that which the powder made. It was brilliantly white, like a thousand tiny stars, but as round and cold as a Gypsy’s crystal ball. It rose from the ashes, so achingly bright that all who watched had to either turn aside or shade their eyes.
The crowd stepped back, Kieran put his arm about Glenys and pulled her away, and they all stood there and stared with gaping astonishment.
The ball rose higher, like a blazing moon, and then higher still, right up into the sky. Slowly, over their heads, it began to spin, and they all stood with their eyes lifted upward, watching. Faster and faster the bright ball spun, burning so brilliantly that it appeared to be made of white fire. Of a sudden, it burst into thousands of tiny shards, falling like miniature stars to earth. The people surrounding them shouted and began to run away, fearing that the sparkling pieces would be hot, but Kieran and Glenys stood where they were, showered by the glittering sparks. They were cool to the touch, ticklish and tingling where they landed on the skin, and they brought with them a sweet perfume. Kieran held out a hand to try to capture some, but they disappeared as soon as they landed, like glittering snowflakes. He’d never experienced anything like it.
“What’s happened?” he asked Glenys as the others slowly began to rejoin them, reaching out their own hands to touch the tiny stars. “What is this?”
“Our sign,” she murmured with wonder. “But we must not linger over it long, for Caswallan and Sir Anton will hear of it almost at once. Come.” She took Kieran’s arm and tugged him away from the crowd. “They’ll not stop us now. Look at them.”
Kieran looked. Caswallan’s followers were still staring up at the sky, amazement on their faces.
“Let us hurry,” Glenys said, pulling him along. “You to Sir Anton a
nd I to Caswallan. If Jean-Marc and Dina play their parts, we’ll be safely back at Berte’s before dark has fallen.”
The decrepit chapel was dark as Glenys stepped inside. She blinked away the brightness of the day and strove to focus on what lay within the small building. Several candles, their flames fluttering as the wind whipped through the open door, made it somewhat easier.
Caswallan was indeed there, dressed in flowing white robes, and sitting upon a ridiculous chair that was clearly meant as some kind of throne. He was a tall, thin man, of an age with her uncle Aonghus, with a tufted white beard that failed to cover his entire chin, leaving bald spots here and there.
He rose when Glenys entered the chapel, a long wooden rod clutched in one hand. She could see the Greth Stone glinting on one of his fingers, reflected by the candlelight. His other hand was shaking slightly, and as she moved closer, step by measured step, to face him, she could also see that his eyes were filled with fear.
“I knew you would come,” he told her, his voice quavering. “One of you, though I prayed it would not be Aonghus.”
“He did not know where to find you,” she replied, speaking in Welsh. “I did.”
“You’ve come to take the ring, but you cannot have it. Nor can you take it from me by force, for it cannot be removed from the hand of he who wears it, save by the wearer himself.”
Glenys stopped directly in front of the elderly man, holding his gaze. “You should never have stolen it, Caswallan. ’Twas not only wrong, but you know as well as I what the legend of the Greth Stone says. Only the legitimate heir can claim its power.”
“You mistake the matter, girl,” he said. “The ring bears no power of its own, but I need none, for I am as skilled a conjurer as your own uncle. But I must have the ring to gather my people about me. Without it, they will leave this place.”
Glenys frowned. “Why should you wish to keep them here? This is no powerful army you’ve brought, but simple people who cling to the old ways. You’ve naught here save that which strokes your own pride, foolish as that is. ’Tis all but laughable.”
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