by Troy A Hill
“I will,” Seren said. Her eyes stayed low.
“The tasks I place before you may be great,” the goddess said. “But know that one burden will lift before you need the strength for another.”
Seren was quiet, but raised her head and nodded once. I saw a spark in her eyes. I could see the influence of her mother, of Lady Penllyn come through. She didn’t seem as timid as she had up till now.
“My daughters.” The thoughts of our goddess came into our minds. “I am proud of you. Both of you have cared for the land and her people well.” She looked towards Seren. “Your time is almost here, dear one. Study and learn. You have my best teachers with you. Follow them and prepare yourself. The road before them is perilous. Your aid will come when they least expect it and most need it.”
“Can you tell us what we are to face?” Gwen asked aloud.
“Always one with the questions for the future,” The Lady said. “I can see only paths, not events. This game they force us to play is dangerous. All of Britannia is at stake.”
The goddess released Seren’s hand. She reached out to smooth my hair and tucked it behind my ear.
“I sense a great sacrifice ahead. Destruction…” She said with a glance from me to Gwen, “…and death.”
“Who? When?” Gwen asked.
“This game has rules, and I cannot break them,” the goddess said and shifted her eyes back to me. “You are the most daring of my daughters,. Prepare yourself and be ready. That is all I can say.”
I thought back to my dream, the one with the Gwyddbwyll board after Onion Breath had killed me, and Gwen nursed me back to undead life. Two players moved us as pieces in their game. The goddess was one of those players. The other, I saw, but did not recognise.
“Who must we fight?” I asked. I blinked as I realised the goddess was fading from sight.
“There are rules, daughter,” she said and disappeared from view. Her final words caressed our minds.
“Go with my love.”
14
None of That
After The Lady had left us, Gwen, Seren, and I sat by the spring. Seren’s eyes widened as Gwen revealed her past, her husband’s name—Arthur—and how the goddess had found her and taught her magic. When those questions were satisfied, Seren turned her curious mind to me.
“You said you wear your centuries well…” she asked. “If Gwen is a century old… how old are you?”
“I was born right before Augustus donned the purple,” I replied. I
“Augustus…?”
“Emperor of Rome. Six hundred years ago, give or take a few decades.” I replied. “I died a few years before he did.”
“Died?” She paled. Then shook her head. “That’s why you had to check my glyph at the catacombs…”
I nodded and shared my story. If she was part of the Lady’s triumvirate, one of my sisters in service to the goddess, she needed to know about me.
Seren put her hands to her head. “If I learn anything more tonight, anything else to turn the world upside down, I may sit here and stare at the creek until I grow moss in my hair.”
Gwen laughed and leaned in to hug her.
“The Lady chooses those of strong character and will to aid her,” she said. “You would not have been graced with a visit from The Lady herself if you were not ready to be trained for the tasks ahead.”
“Oh, dear,” Seren said. “What will we tell mother?”
“Everything,” I said and laughed. “The Lady Penllyn will quickly discern that we keep secrets.”
“You are correct, Mair,” Seren replied. “Mother is very intuitive. Still, I suspect that much of what happened tonight, if not all of it, should be our little secret. We’ll tell only those who have a strong reason to know.”
We returned through the mists to the grove at Caer Penllyn. As we descended the hill toward the keep, we noted a man peering into the slit in the rock where Seren and Gwen had set the glyph against the undead. That was an hour before? Or longer? I wasn’t sure if time behaved the same in the Otherworld.
It was Pedr, Lord Mechain’s first sword. He gave a start as we came up behind him.
“Lady Seren,” he said in surprise. He collected himself and bowed to all of us. “Lord Dewi hoped you were finished here and could return to the keep.”
“Thank you, Pedr” Seren said. “We are just on our way back down.”
I noticed she spoke with more authority than before, and approved of the change.
The guardsman followed behind us. Once the path widened, Seren fell in next to him.
“I would thank you for your aid two days ago,” she said as we walked.
“I did little, milady,” he said. “Lady Mair was through the door faster than I could think. I was still outside when she disarmed the last of the Guilders.”
“But you alerted me to Seren’s cries,” I said. “We might not have known of her predicament without your ears.”
Pedr bowed. “I am grateful to have been of use, however slight.” He motioned towards the keep. “They await you inside. I have an appointment with the rest of one of Lord Penllyn’s jugs of mead.”
Inside, we found Rhian and Bleddyn in their usual chairs by the circular hearth in the middle of the great hall. Emlyn and Dewi were the only two still with them. We must have been gone longer than I had imagined. Dewi noticed Seren’s hand, free of its wrappings. His eyes were wide as he held her formerly injured hand up and examined it.
“What? How did you…?” Dewi asked.
I exchanged nervous glances with Gwen and Seren as we realized it would be harder than we thought to keep Dewi in the dark entirely.
“Perhaps upstairs?” Gwen suggested. Rhian’s eyes lit up. Bleddyn set his piece of wood and his knife back into the basket by his chair. Emlyn was puzzled but calm. I could see the calculations form behind his eyes.
In Lord Penllyn’s rooms, we unfolded the tale of our meeting with The Lady, with much kissing of crosses for Dewi’s sake, and knowing glances towards Bleddyn, Rhian, and Emlyn.
“‘The blessings of the holy lady?’” Dewi asked. “‘Miracles?’ You mean magic! I’ll have none of that in my presence, no matter which saint you claim to have met.”
“Husband,” Seren said, her eyes on her hands, “I will respect your wishes, but I have a holy command to attend to.”
“You’re not a nun,” Dewi said and stood. He was getting red. “I’ll not have these dabblings of magic in Mechain, nor in our brin.”
“That is your prerogative,” Bleddyn said as he made little scrapes with his knife around the chicken or whatever he was carving. “But I’d caution against making definitive pronouncements where divine favour is the reward. The alternative can be divine punishment.”
Dewi stared at Lord Penllyn. I had stopped breathing. After an eternal moment, Dewi spun towards the door.
“Very well then. Let her learn these miracles, or whatever you call them. She must spend her time doing something, since she lacks the ability to fulfil her most important duty.”
Seren kept her head high, but her chin quivered.
“I will ride back to Nant Bywyd with Pedr tomorrow,” Dewi said. He pointed at Seren. “You may remain here two weeks. Then return for your duties at Nant Bywyd. After that you’ll be back to overseeing the kitchens, housekeeping, and, if you can do your duty, baby-making.”
Gwen’s jaw firmed, and her lips tightened. “Two weeks? To master these arts…”
But Seren’s voice, calm and low, interrupted. “As my husband wishes,” she said, her teeth clenched. She stayed seated, and her hands were death-grip tight on the arms of her chair, her eyes hot. It was a death stare befitting her mother. It was the first I’d seen such a look on Lady Seren.
Dewi’s hands flexed and curled into a fist. Emlyn raised a hand to his mouth and coughed. Dewi’s eyes flicked towards him. Emlyn smiled — an expression so foreign to his face, the effect was terrifying. Dewi spun and left the room.
The tension in
the air left with Seren’s husband. Rhian hugged her daughter.
“I had hoped he had more of his father’s personality,” Rhian said. “You will need to be patient and strong to deal with him.”
“His brother will marry in a year or two,” Seren said. “When he does, we’ll foster his first son and gain an heir. But Dewi wants so much to have a son of his own…”
“What of this game the Holy Lady spoke of?” Emlyn interrupted. “The rules even she must follow?”
With everything else on our plate, I was glad to move on from Seren’s troubling marriage.
“Our little cantref appears to be the centre of the turmoil yet to come,” Bleddyn said.
“The Lady has always given her blessings to the leaders of Britannia who protect her people and her lands,” Gwen said. “Arthur was foremost of those. She rewarded him with his sword, many fine advisors…”
“And the best wife,” Rhian said. I thought I saw a hint of smile dart across her face.
“I don’t want to be another Arthur,” Bleddyn said firmly yet quietly. “This cantref and her people are all I can manage. I have no desire for more.”
“That is why The Lady has blessed you and drawn the best people to your side,” Gwen said. She toyed with a fold in the fabric of her dress. “Arthur’s flaw was that his desire to protect became ambition to control. And that is why he lost The Lady’s blessing.”
Lady Penllyn paid close attention to Gwen’s words. “You…” Rhian said, but looked at Gwen with narrowed eyes. “Arthur’s queen must have been a lady of stout character, who loved the land as much as he.”
“Perhaps… in the beginning,” Gwen said. “Everyone can be distracted, or get caught in courtly politics and forget their primary task of caring for the people.”
“That is why I wish for no more that what we have,” Bleddyn said. “I fear for Cadoc, heir to two cantrefi now. But I know of no other man I’d trust with such a task than my son. I’ve done my best to teach him to respect the land and take on only what he can bear to manage.”
“The church tells us the Holy Lady is…” Rhian said. I could tell she grappled with some new ideas. “But she is really a Goddess?”
“Modron, The Lady, was here long before the Romans brought their church to our lands,” Gwen explained. “She’s as old as… she is the land itself. The goddess has many siblings. Each land is its own power. But when the Roman church came to our shores, the gods they couldn’t dismiss from the hearts of the Cymry they adopted as servants of their own deity.”
“I don’t believe I should tell my brother,” Rhian said. Bleddyn chuckled.
“Your brother, the abbot, probably understands more than you realise,” Gwen said with a mischievous smile. “But best to speak of Her as the holy mother. We avoid unwanted discussions that way.”
Bleddyn looked past Gwen as he stroked his moustache. “The Holy Lady said we face a time of turmoil?”
Gwen nodded.
“We know there’s someone,” Bleddyn continued his thought, “who makes the dead walk again and bear arms.”
“A wizard,” I added.
“Don’t tell Dewi,” Emlyn said. “I believe he’s had enough shocks for one night.” Even though his face was its normal unemotional self, I grinned. Emlyn had a sense of humour hiding behind his calloused exterior.
“And a shape-shifting beast that roams the borderlands,” Bleddyn said. His hand touched his wounded side. “I would like to know who is behind this all…”
“Fadog?” Emlyn volunteered. “Our fond old friends to the north still carry a grudge over their lost lands in the borders, where our herds now graze.”
“Ah, Little Ffransis, Lord Fadog,” Bleddyn said, shaking his head and peeling a large curl off his slab of wood. “He has the ambition to find one of the old mages to raise an army of the dead, but I doubt he has the wealth in his cantref to afford much of a wizard, let alone one who can make the dead walk.”
“What if someone is backing him?” Emlyn said. “Someone with a far deeper purse?”
Bleddyn frowned. “Who?”
“Oswiu.”
I glanced between my brothers. “Oswiu?”
“Forgive us, Mair,” said Bleddyn. “He’s a king north of the Humber River, technically two kingdoms, but the other king is his puppet. They’re effectively one kingdom, Northumbria. Oswiu butts heads often with Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, a close neighbour of ours.” He motioned over his shoulder with his carving knife. “Just on the Saxon side of the borderlands.”
Emlyn leaned closer, the firelight illuminating his face with an orange glow. “Oswiu, too, is hungry. He hasn’t forgotten that Penda killed his brother. And he knows he has a friend in Fadog. Perhaps Fadog has promised that northern king a route to Mercia through the back door—through Penllyn.”
Bleddyn leaned on his knee and stroked his moustache. “Fadog would reap the spoils of war here.”
“And come one step closer to his ultimate goal: the kingship of all Powys.”
“Osbert was from Northumbria,” Rhian pointed out.
“Another ‘O,’” I quipped. “Osbert the deceased.”
“He had been in Bernicia under Oswiu, hadn’t he?” Bleddyn said. “Perhaps the king of Bernicia let Osbert come this way was to test us, test Emlyn. We’d heard that Fadog had tried to hire Osbert away from Oswiu.”
“But this is all conjecture,” Rhian said, her voice quiet. “We have nothing we can prove against Oswiu or Fadog. We’re as confused as we were this morning—more so, now that the Holy Lady has called a new disciple.” She looked at her daughter and smiled. But there was tension behind her eyes.
“What talents does Seren have?” Emlyn asked. “Because of her connection to the goddess?”
“Her glyphs are quite effective,” Gwen pointed out, tapping her chin. “But if I read The Lady right, there may be more.” She shifted her gaze to Seren. “We will begin your training in the morning. The Holy Lady says we will have need of you.”
15
Training
The next morning the tendrils of fog dissipated while I drilled Enid and Sawyl on the practice field. It was satisfying to return to the dance of the swords, the meditations, the clack of wooden weapons. Towards the end of the lesson, I noticed Dewi and Pedr and a detachment of Penllyn guards preparing to leave.
As they tied their packs to their horses, Emlyn walked down from the keep and pulled Dewi aside. He whispered in the young lord’s ear. When Emlyn turned away, Dewi looked shaken. Even from here, I could see the colour drain from his face.What had Emlyn said to him?
Once sword practice had ended, I headed to the keep where breakfast was being served to all the mortals. Curiosity got the better of me, so I sought Emlyn out.
“Did you have a nice chat with Dewi today?”
“Amicable,” he said between bites. “I’m tired of him taking his aggressions out on my niece.”
“What, Lord Emlyn threatening the heir to another cantref?” I grinned and narrowed my eyes. “That’s a good way to start a war. Did you tell him you’d cut his balls off if he left a bruise on Seren?”
Emlyn paused, with his mug half-way to his face. A grin slowly spread. “No, I told him you would.”
“What!”
Emlyn shrugged innocently. “You’re right. I could start a war if I made the threat.” His grin faded and the serious Penteulu demeanour returned. “But he witnessed you slicing the throat of a man who harmed Seren. One of the best swordsmen from north of the Humber river. And you, a woman, not only took him down, you did it without taking a scratch.”
"Why does it matter I'm a woman?"
"To most of Penllyn, it doesn't," he said. "But to Lord Dewi,” he pronounced the name to make it sound powerful, ominous, “it matters a great deal. No woman is that capable in his eyes. And you did what he never would have had the courage to do, Face Osbert."
“Well…” I shrugged. I decided not to mention that Dewi and I had tangled once before.
Dewi didn't look too happy when I slammed him into a shed wall and raised him off his feet.
Emlyn took another bit of bread before he continued. “I asked him only what he thought you would do if Seren were harmed, or you noticed an extra bruise on her. I even reminded him that women tend to bathe together.” Emlyn’s grin started to tug at his mouth again. “He went pale when I mentioned you were muttering about slicing trousers after he banned Seren from practicing magic in Mechain.”
“I did no such thing!”
“But he doesn’t know that,” Emlyn added. “And if that threat keeps his hands off my niece, I’ll use it.”
“And what if I refuse to follow through on all these threats you put into my mouth? I asked. “Serve you right for using my name that way.”
He took a sip, but didn’t lower the mug. He just stared at me over the lip for a few seconds.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “You’re right. His balls would be the least of his worries if I see a mark on Seren.”
Emlyn grinned again, then drained his mug.
After breakfast, Gwen lead Seren and me towards the grove. We passed by the cleft in the rock that led to the catacombs. Seren’s glyph was wet with morning fog and stood out a dark grey in the lightness of the slick stone. We went deep into trees, away from any eyes that might look our way.
“Let’s begin,” Gwen said. “Open yourself to The Lady’s energy.” She touched Seren’s shoulder.
“Find your link and activate it,” Gwen sent. Seren closed her eyes. I sensed the power awaken within her magical cord to the Otherworld. “We’ll start with simple magic.” Gwen showed her how to call the ball of light, as she had when Ruadh and I fought the lycanthrope.
Seren grasped the concept right away and made her own orb appear and disappear. Gwen taught her how to hang it in the air.