* * * * *
Alfrun awoke to the smell of frying.
She glanced out of the entrance to the bivouac, and saw Oswald and Bork crouched over a smouldering fire. The sky above was grey and lowering, and the oaks that swathed either flank of the deep, rounded dale dripped slowly and patiently, as they would for much of their lives. A grey mist obscured much of the valley.
Alfrun shivered, and felt deeply tempted to sink back into her blankets. But she resisted the urge, hurriedly slipped on her clothes, and went to join the two warriors.
As she picked her way down the slope of scree, they looked up, and greeted her. ‘Awake at last?’ Oswald said, flashing his charming grin.
‘The priest is still snoring,’ Alfrun replied. ‘And as for Edwin!’
Bork laughed deeply.
‘Nothing wakes Edwin unless he wants it that way,’ he rumbled. ‘I learnt to sleep lightly when I was a boy aboard my father’s longship.’
‘And I learnt the same when I fought the Welsh.’
Alfrun glanced nervously around. The mountains loomed through the low-lying cloud, towering above them like listening giants.
‘Don’t you think you should keep your mouth shut about that?’ she hissed. ‘Remember Pengwern!’
‘Oh, they were different Welshmen,’ Oswald replied heartily. ‘It was the men of Powys I fought, who rode under the standard of King Catull. Late last night we crossed the border into Gwynedd.’
‘And you haven’t fought their king?’ Alfrun asked archly.
‘No,’ Oswald replied, smiling again. He handed her a hunk of bread and some greasy bacon. ‘Breakfast?’
She smiled back queasily, and gulped it down. None of her companions were the world’s greatest cooks, but at least they didn’t expect her to do all the cooking. Hilda had, and Alfrun had almost poisoned her on many an occasion - sometimes inadvertently.
‘So who rules these mountains?’ she asked.
Oswald frowned. ‘I think that rather depends,’ he said. ‘Officially, two brothers, Cynan and Hywel. But recently, Caradawg, Lord of Rhôs, has taken advantage of the two brothers’ continual squabbling, and seized power. He has the Bishop of Bangor on his side, so he’s well established. But the two brothers have taken to the hills, and they are fighting a war of treachery and night attacks, against each other and against the usurper.’
Alfrun looked about, horror-struck. ‘You mean we’re in the middle of a war?’ she asked, remembering the summer of fire and bloodshed when she was a child, when the king invaded Wessex, pushing forward his boundaries. ‘Not only did we have to come to this soggy little country in the winter, we’re here in the middle of a war?’
Oswald smiled gently, and nodded. ‘But things have been quiet since the summer,’ he replied. ‘Or so I heard from that pedlar we met yesterday.’
‘Oh, good,’ Alfrun said.
‘Is the thane telling you scary stories, my dear?’
Edwin came clattering down the slope to join them, needlessly jolly, as was his wont first thing in the morning. Alfrun shot him a look.
‘We’re here in the middle of a war, you oaf,’ she said spiritedly.
Edwin grabbed her waist and hugged her to him, making her squeal. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you!’ he said gaily.
‘You?’ Alfrun said with scorn. ‘If I want protection, I’ll go to someone bigger.’ She gave Bork a glance, and he shuffled uncomfortably. She looked back to Edwin to tell him with her eyes that she hadn’t meant it. But to her chagrin, he hardly seemed to have noticed.
‘Alright, Oswald,’ he was saying. ‘How far is it to Snowdon?’
‘That rather depends on how long it takes us to find a road worth the name,’ Oswald replied. ‘I’ve never been this far into the mountains, but I received a thorough briefing during the war.’ He turned, and waved his hand vaguely north-westwards.
‘This valley leads to a long lake named Llyn Tegid,’ he told them. ‘Across the moors beyond that runs a road called Sarn Helen...’
‘A road?’ Alfrun asked. ‘I didn’t think they had them in Wales. We’ve seen nothing but forest paths and goat tracks since we crossed Offa’s Dyke. Why doesn’t anyone build any proper roads through the mountains?’
‘Because the land isn’t flat enough,’ Oswald replied simply. ‘But nearer the coast, you get wide valleys and flood plains, and there’s an old road that we can follow north, up into the real mountains.’
‘The real mountains?’ Alfrun repeated. ‘Aren’t these ones good enough for you?’ She indicated the surrounding peaks.
‘These are just the hills of Berwyn,’ Oswald replied. ‘They get bigger. Until we reach Snowdon itself, our destination.’
‘Eryri,’ said Cadwallader, from behind them.
They turned to see that the priest had silently joined them.
‘What was that?’ Oswald asked.
‘He said “Eryri”,’ Edwin said. ‘The Welsh name for Snowdon. One of them, anyway.’
They stared at the thief. He looked shamefaced.
‘How do you know that?’ Oswald asked, surprised.
‘They speak Welsh in my village,’ Edwin said. ‘But only behind closed doors. The Kings of Powys ruled our ancestors. We keep quiet about it.’
‘You look ashamed,’ said Cadwallader, frowning. ‘It is nothing to be embarrassed of. Far from it.’
‘It is when the English rule you,’ Edwin replied bitterly, and Alfrun felt a sudden shame of her own. The island had once been Welsh from sea to sea.
‘I think we’re straying from the point,’ Oswald said. ‘Get everything packed, when you’ve finished breakfast. We must be on our way.’
By mid afternoon, the valley was beginning to widen on either side. Their path took them through wide, pleasant river meadows. Avoiding the occasional farm on one side or other of the track, they rode through a quiet, almost pastoral land. Once they encountered a swineherd with his pigs, but he fled the mounted warriors, and disappeared into the trees. Bork suggested they should catch one of the pigs to supplement their provisions, but Oswald decided it was unnecessary, and might lead to repercussions. Edwin disagreed. They were still bickering when they rounded a corner, the Sun appeared from behind a cloud, and they saw the long expanse of Llyn Tegid stretched before them.
Reining their horses, they took in the vista, soft and gentle after the crags of Berwyn. But hovering above the apparent peace of the valley were signs of war.
‘Look!’ said Cadwallader, pointing towards the far end of the lake. A stronghold stood on an outcropping hill. A black pall of smoke billowed up from it into the sky.
‘It seems we’ve missed the battle,’ Oswald murmured.
Edwin indicated the pass to the south. As he did so, there was a flash of sun on armour.
‘There are warriors riding away down the valley,’ he said. The others strained their eyes until they saw them too; a long line of horsemen in armour, leading stumbling figures on foot.
Alfrun rode her horse closer to Edwin.
‘Where do we go to get to Snowdon?’ she asked.
Oswald nodded toward the hills directly across the lake.
‘We could cross the moors at the back of those hills,’ he said. ‘But I think we should ride down to that stronghold.’
Alfrun shook her head. Edwin turned to them.
‘Any reason for that, Oswald?’ he inquired. ‘It seems to me that it would be wiser to keep as far away from the war as we can. If they’re still fighting it out this late in the year, who knows what they’re capable of?’
‘Whoever held the stronghold must have been at odds with one or other of the kings who lay claim to this valley,’ Oswald said. ‘If we can find some way of getting one of the factions on our side, it might ease our passage through the hills.’
‘It might also drag us into their war!’ exclaimed Alfrun. ‘I think we should just go straight to Snowdon and get this over with.’
Oswald looked pensive. He turned to Bork a
nd Cadwallader.
‘What do you say?’ he asked.
‘I’ll go along with everyone else,’ Bork replied indifferently.
Cadwallader was more decisive.
‘If we are to reach Snowdon unharmed,’ he said, ‘and if what you tell me is true, then that is imperative, then we need friends in this hostile territory. I could mediate for you.’ He looked uncertain. ‘Though I still have my reservations about the whole affair, of course.’
During the journey through the mountains, they had explained their mission to the priest. He had been unwilling to accept that it was any more than a demonic delusion. He had heard tales of y pobl bach, of y goblynau and yr ellyllon, of course, but he found their tales difficult to credit. But what else could he do, now that his flock had turned on him, but ride with these mad Saxons, and go wherever their delusions took them?
‘Come on, then,’ Oswald said, and he led them at a canter down into the valley. Alfrun gave the hills across the lake a wistful glance. Then her neck hairs tingled. She looked around, puzzled. It was just as if someone was watching her. But she could see no one. Dismissing the feeling, she spurred her horse and rode after the others.
A quarter of an hour later, they reached the woods at the northern end of the lake. The stronghold had disappeared behind the trees, but it still poured smoke into the sky. A muddy track wound up the hillside and vanished into the woods.
‘Everything’s very quiet now,’ Oswald said thoughtfully.
As if that had been a signal, the undergrowth around them stirred, and thirty or forty armed warriors surrounded them.
Their leader, a tall man clad in rusty but well-made armour, stepped forward, shouting a challenge in his own tongue. Cadwallader replied angrily in the same language, and the man gave him a haughty glare, then looked the others up and down, and barked something else. Cadwallader gabbled something else, and Oswald thought he caught the words ‘sais’ and ‘y brenin Offa.’ The Welsh warrior gave them another appraising glance, then spoke in English.
‘The priest tells me you are Saxon,’ he said. ‘This is evident from your clothes. But he says nothing of what you do in my lands.’
‘Your lands?’ Oswald asked. ‘Am I to take it that you are lord of this valley?’
The man laughed bitterly.
‘Aye, you could put it that way,’ he replied. ‘I am Hywel, rightful king of Gwynedd.’ He smiled darkly. ‘You catch me at a low point in my fortunes; ousted from my throne by that black-hearted traitor the Lord of Rhôs, hounded almost to the borders of the kingdom, and now attacked in the middle of winter by the usurper’s forces...’ He paused. ‘But you did not answer my question. What are you doing in my realm?’
Oswald hesitated. ‘Perhaps we could discuss this in better surroundings?’ he suggested. The Welsh king started, then gave a nod.
‘I forget my manners,’ he said, ‘for which my nation is world-renowned. My men and I were hoping to ambush any more foes that might appear. But I will take you up to my fort, though precious little remains, since Caradawg’s men torched it.’
The warriors led Oswald and his companions up the winding path, and out onto the bare hillside where only heather and whimberry bushes thrived. Above them towered the smoking palisade of the fortress.
‘Once this stronghold was the property of Cai himself,’ said the king as he led them towards the battered gateway. He looked at Oswald challengingly. ‘Arthur’s right hand man,’ he added. ‘You have heard of King Arthur, Saxon?’
Oswald shrugged helplessly. Cadwallader came to his rescue.
‘The stories of Arthur are unpopular among the Saxons,’ he told Hywel. ‘But Oswald, you must have heard of the Battle of Mount Badon? When our people defeated your ancestors, and stemmed the Saxon tide until the coming of the Yellow Beast?’
Oswald nodded. He was familiar with the Battle of Badon, though the minstrels seldom dwelt upon that early defeat, back in the days when the English were still struggling to gain a foothold in the island. He looked uneasily at Hywel. Although the man was nothing compared with King Offa, and clearly owned little wealth, he was still a man to command respect.
‘That was long ago,’ he said, ‘and my own ancestors played little part. But I am related in blood to the line of King Penda, who fought alongside your own kings, against the Northumbrians, two hundred years ago.’
The king looked at Oswald again, clearly seeing him in a different light. By now, they had passed through the gate, and were standing among the smoking ruins of the hall and outbuildings. They tied up the horses, and Oswald and the king walked towards the centre of the fortress.
‘Then we are allies,’ he replied. ‘If our forefathers fought on the same side, then we have no quarrel, despite your king’s depredations.’
Oswald nodded. ‘My king - who had me declared outlaw unjustly - does not preserve the friendly policy my ancestors had towards the Welsh,’ he agreed. ‘I myself want nothing but peace between Welsh and English.’
‘And you would have it, had I more power,’ Hywel replied. ‘But that traitor, Caradawg Lord of Rhôs, has seized control of my kingdom. Who can tell what his policies will be?’
Oswald smiled grimly. ‘I believe I can,’ he replied. ‘I have reason to believe that he and King Offa’s own wife plot action against my homeland. And that is why I am here.’
‘You hope to find some way to stop them?’ asked Hywel. Then he shook his head. ‘The man’s own wife. That is hard, even for King Offa. And you want to stop this, even though he had you outlawed? Such loyalty!’
After a brief pause, Oswald said; ‘I was hoping you might help.’
His companions were near the gate. King Hywel’s men surrounded him and the king. The place was silent, except for the crack of cooling embers.
‘Help?’ asked Hywel. ‘Against Caradawg? I would be only too delighted.’ He shook his head. ‘But I see little I could do. Rather, I must say - guards! Seize them!’
Oswald looked around him in confusion, to find the warriors levelling their spears at him and his companions. He drew his sword, but Hywel dashed it from his hand.
He halted, finding three spears at his throat.
11 PEOPLE OF THE HILLS
‘I must apologise for my conduct,’ Hywel announced. ‘But I’m afraid you are my prisoners.’
Oswald sucked his knuckles.
‘You took me by surprise,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have been so lucky.’
‘We, too, were taken by surprise, this morning,’ replied Hywel. ‘When Caradawg rushed the stronghold, we were far from expecting him. An attack in winter? Unheard of, even from a traitor. So he defeated us easily, and forced us to swear fealty to him. As surety that I would obey his orders, he took away all our women and children.’
Oswald shook his head, bewildered.
‘But what has all this to do with us?’ he demanded.
‘Caradawg told us that he would return the hostages under one condition,’ Hywel replied. ‘He told us of you, and said that he would free our people on the condition that we take you prisoner and exchange you for them.’
Oswald’s mind raced, but he could see no way out of the predicament.
‘But couldn’t you attack Caradawg’s palace?’ he asked finally.
‘He told us that if we moved against him, he would kill all the prisoners,’ Hywel replied. ‘So you see our predicament. Nothing personal, of course, but I’m afraid we’re going to hand you over.’ He turned to the others. ‘Throw down your weapons,’ he called.
The warriors bound them tightly, and put them back on their horses. Then they mounted steeds of their own, and they rode off with Hywel and his hearth-companions in the vanguard, and a score of more warriors bringing up the rear.
Reaching the valley floor, they cantered down a poorly maintained track that followed the line of the river through thick beech and oak woods. After a few hours, they passed out of the woods into the river meadows at the centre of a wide valley. The ro
ad led past this, round a craggy hill, and up into another wooded valley.
As they rode up the overgrown road, which Cadwallader identified as Sarn Helen, the countryside grew steadily harsher and bleaker. Forest gave way to moorland, and rough mountains marched across either skyline, while up ahead rose a great cluster of cloud-topped peaks. This was Snowdon, and the hills that surrounded it.
They grew larger and larger as the riders galloped through rolling moors. Soon they were among the peaks, and still ascending. Bleak granite cliffs rose on both sides, above barren slopes of scree and rock-strewn fields of turf. Mist hung white and impenetrable above.
The road wound on into the mountains. They followed it in an eerie silence that swallowed even the clip-clop of hooves on the road surface.
Ravens circled above them, perhaps hoping that the riders were going to war. Gradually, the mountains closed in around them, and their path climbed steeply towards the head of the pass.
‘How much further do we have to go?’ Alfrun said, peering incessantly at the misty, savage peaks above them. Her words rang hollow in the empty, brooding silence.
‘I don’t know,’ Oswald replied quietly. He turned his gaze towards the head of the party, where Hywel and the vanguard rode grimly onwards.
‘Where are you taking us?’ he called, and his shout echoed back from the looming slate and granite walls. King Hywel looked back over his shoulder.
‘It isn’t far to Caradawg’s palace,’ he replied. ‘No more than twenty miles. Impatient, are we?’
Oswald hunched in his saddle, and made no reply. His mood began to mirror the mountains that surrounded them.
They rode across the snow-strewn pass, and down across the moors beyond, reaching wooded lowlands in no more than an hour. The road led onward through dark trees and reed-choked fields where rain seemed an ever present threat.
An ancient bridge spanned a gorge through which rushed a river in spate. Their path led across it. It was in much the same state of repair as the road, and Oswald watched nervously as the horses picked their way around a section where half the left side had crumbled away. As his own horse went round it, Oswald glimpsed the fast moving river far below, and the knife-sharp rocks that waited to cut apart anyone who fell. Giddy, he clung to his steed with his legs, and stared dead ahead, until they reached the trees on the far side.
No more than five miles on, the road wound down out of the hills and forests into a wide, flat river valley, flanked to the west by the grey, gloomy, mist hung mountains of Snowdon, but on the east by gentler hills that reminded Oswald of the Cotswolds.
The road led due north up the valley, overlooking the winding river, now a gentler and wider stream than the raging torrent they had crossed in the mountains. Away from the oppressive might of the hills, the warriors seemed to relax, and they began to talk and joke, and discuss the imminent return of their loved ones.
But Oswald and his companions had no such consolation.
It was not long before they were climbing again, riding up into the empty hills. The valley had been thickly inhabited by Welsh standards, and they had been able to stop and rest the horses. At one village, two guards had challenged Hywel until he overawed them with his rank. But just as Oswald’s heart was beginning to lighten, the road took a turn, and they found themselves back among the mist-hung, mountain-walled moorland.
Here and there, dotted on craggy outcrops, or on heather-clad skylines, they saw stone circles. The same feeling of impossible antiquity that Oswald remembered from Wessex ran icy fingers down his spine. Surreptitiously, he rode closer to Edwin.
‘Those stone circles,’ he said. ‘Don’t they remind you of Wessex?’
Edwin nodded grimly. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘The old people built them, I’m certain. Back in the old days, before even the Welsh lived here.’
‘Perhaps it’s a good sign,’ Oswald said quietly. Edwin looked at him.
‘You mean that we’ve reached our destination?’ he asked. ‘That under these hollow hills dwell the goblins - and the dragons?’ He smiled bleakly. ‘It’s a shame about the escort.’
Oswald nodded. They rode on, surrounded on all sides by their captors. So near, and yet so far, he thought. Somewhere beneath these mountains, Puck and the goblins were waiting - and Wayland’s sword must be with them! And elsewhere, curled in the slumber of aeons, was the Red Dragon.
But bound and guarded, they were powerless to fulfil their quest.
Night was falling as they came down off the high moors, and rode through another wooded valley, along the banks of a roaring river. Reaching the far side of the woods where the valley ended, they saw, glittering before them in the last rays of the sinking sun, a wide expanse of sea that stretched towards the darkening horizon. A few fields huddled between the woods and the strand, and among them rose the huts and halls of a settlement. King Hywel called a halt.
‘Before us is Abergarthcelyn,’ he announced. ‘Currently, the Lord of Rhôs - or King Caradawg, if you will - holds court here.’ He looked sombrely at his companions. ‘And it is here that he demands we exchange these prisoners for our children and womenfolk.’
Oswald shifted in his saddle, testing his bonds. They were firm, and it seemed there was no way to escape. So near, yet so far, he though again.
There was a sudden flash of movement from beside him. He turned to see Edwin leap down from his horse, his own bonds flapping loose. Like a speeding weasel, he shot through the surrounding horsemen and took off back up the path.
‘Stop him!’ Hywel roared.
Two warriors turned their steeds and galloped after the fleeing robber, who was now vanishing round the rocky corner.
‘Oh, Edwin...’ Alfrun murmured. She turned to Oswald, confusion in her eyes. He shook his head, shocked. He knew that Edwin was a man with fewer principles than he, but this was unlike him - to run and leave his friends in doubt of their lives. Oswald glanced at Bork, who was staring after the thief, his face troubled.
Hywel rode forward.
‘He won’t stay free for long,’ he promised grimly. ‘Your retainers are hardly loyal, are they?’
Oswald lowered his head, and said nothing. Beside him, Cadwallader said something in Welsh.
The two horsemen came riding back up the track. There was no sign of Edwin. Hywel spurred his horse towards them.
‘Where is he?’ he demanded. The two warriors looked uncomfortable.
‘He vanished into the undergrowth,’ one replied. ‘We couldn’t follow him in there.’
‘Couldn’t follow him?’ said Hywel quietly, calmly. Oswald knew him well enough to know that he was not a man to show emotion. ‘You useless incompetents. How will the Lord of Rhôs react to this, do you think? Well, we’ll have to make do with what we have, I suppose. He’ll be halfway up the mountainside by now.’
Oswald glanced up at the cliffs that rose from the thick forest. Had Edwin just run off and left them? He couldn’t believe it. They had been comrades! Again, he glanced at Bork, whose face was locked into stony immobility.
‘Ride!’ Hywel ordered.
They left the road, and splashed across the river at a shallow ford. The palisade loomed above them.
Two guards stood in the palace gateway.
‘Who goes there?’ asked one.
‘I am Hywel, once king of Gwynedd, now your lord’s vassal,’ said the king in a voice that mocked humility. ‘With me are my hearth companions, and four prisoners.’
The guard grinned. ‘Enter, and welcome,’ he said. ‘The king has been expecting you.’
They thundered through the gateway, and rode into the yard beyond, coming to a halt outside the main hall of the palace. One of the guards remained at the gate, while the other ran inside the hall.
A few seconds later, there was a clatter of arms and armour, a crash of booted feet, and a group of warriors marched out of the hall, flanking a tawny-haired man wearing a purple cloak.
Oswald stared at the sword that hung from the m
an’s belt. It was Wyrmbane. The man rested his hands on the pommel, caressing it possessively as he spoke.
‘So, you are here at last, Hywel,’ he sneered. ‘And with captives, I see.’
‘Yes, my lord king,’ Hywel replied submissively. ‘The prisoners you requested.’
‘Requested?’ said Caradawg lazily. ‘I don’t recall requesting anything. I don’t make requests. I demand. Give me the prisoners!’
‘We had a deal,’ said Hywel quietly, cutting through Caradawg’s bluster. ‘We had a deal, Lord of Rhôs.’
‘King of Gwynedd, if you don’t mind,’ snarled Caradawg. ‘You want your snivelling sluts and puling brats? Very well. Owein! Take two men and bring me our hostages.’
One of the warriors turned, and strode towards a nearby outhouse, followed by two more. They opened the doors, and entered, with their spears at the ready. A wave of chattering preceded the appearance of about a score of women, carrying babies and dragging children behind them. They blinked in the sunlight.
The three groups stood silently in the muddy yard. Hywel turned towards Oswald and his companions.
‘Get down,’ he ordered.
With difficulty, Oswald, Bork, Alfrun, and Cadwallader slid off their horses, and stood together before Hywel’s warband.
‘Here they are,’ said Hywel, eyeing Caradawg. ‘Now return my people.’ Caradawg was about to answer, when Cadwallader stumbled forward.
‘Don’t take me,’ he cried. ‘I have nothing to do with this! I don’t know what they’ve done, though I know Oswallt to be an enemy of Powys - and the others are Saxons too!’ Bork rumbled at this. ‘But I have no connection with them! I was forced to join them!’
One of Hywel’s men swung a spear-butt, and clubbed the priest to the ground.
‘Silence, traitor!’ Caradawg barked. ‘My associate wants everyone who travels with Oswallt. That includes you, to my mind. Now, Hywel. You will leave the prisoners in the yard, and retreat outside the gates. Then I will send your people out to you.’
‘Oh no,’ said Hywel quietly but emphatically. ‘Send my people to me, and I will go, leaving your prisoners.’
Oswald shook his head tiredly. The negotiators bickered on above them. What had happened, that they should be reduced to this; impotent pawns in a bargaining game played by petty Welsh princelings? Silently, he stared at Caradawg’s sword, and vainly strained against his bonds.
The two rivals decided that the prisoners would advance across the yard at the same time as Hywel’s folk, crossing over in the middle. Oswald and his companions stumbled forward, as the women and children ran to join their men.
Caradawg’s guards grabbed Oswald and the others, and dragged them before the king. He looked coldly in Hywel’s direction.
‘Now you have my leave to go,’ he commanded. ‘Depart from my stronghold immediately, or suffer the consequences.’
Hywel was helping a woman swing up behind him. He glanced in Caradawg’s direction, and sneered.
‘We have all we could wish for, my lord king. We go gladly.’
With that, he and his followers turned their steeds and rode slowly out of the yard, escorting the crowd of women and children.
Silence fell, as Caradawg stared down at Oswald and his companions. Abruptly, he snapped his fingers.
‘Bring them within,’ he ordered. ‘And someone tell the wizard.’
The wizard? Oswald wondered, as the guards dragged him into the muddy hall. He had heard stories about Welsh wizards and prophets while he was campaigning against Powys and Pengwern, but none of it had been very believable.
Caradawg strode over to his throne. A girl sat at its foot, and when Caradawg sat down, he slipped his feet between her thighs to warm them. Oswald noticed the bored expression on the girl’s face.
‘Well, here we are at last,’ said Caradawg, lounging back as his warriors took their places on either side of him. He patted the pommel of his sword. ‘I believe that this is what you were seeking. Yes?’
Oswald, startled at being directly addressed, surfaced from his gloomy thoughts.
‘Yes, lord king,’ he said, his voice rusty. ‘That was my goal.’
‘But you have been betrayed,’ the king said with relish. ‘Deceived, and taken prisoner by that treacherous rebel Hywel, denounced by your own companions...’
Oswald glanced at Cadwallader, who was still weak from the beating he had received. He gave Oswald a look that was partly shame, partly defiance, but kept silent.
‘You must be wondering what my connection is with all this,’ Caradawg added.
‘I was wondering,’ Oswald said, raising his voice, ‘what your men would think should they know that you consort with the demons of the earth!’
The king laughed. ‘You mean the little dark people?’ he asked. ‘We consort with them, though we hate them, because we know that we will benefit from it. But I am open about it. My men accept this.’
‘Just as they accept me.’
Everyone turned, as a short, squat figure entered the hall. It halted before the prisoners, and in the flickering torchlight, Oswald saw a sinister figure, a Lapp wizard dressed in furs and reindeer hides. A broad flat face held two eyes like embers. The wizard regarded them dispassionately.
‘You don’t know me,’ he said. ‘But the wife of the English king calls me Grimbert.’
Oswald’s eyes narrowed. ‘Queen Cynethryth?’ he whispered.
Grimbert laughed harshly.
‘You were expecting another behind all this?’ he sneered. ‘I have been watching you for a long time, through other people’s eyes. I had formed quite an impression of you. I did not realise that you were a fool.’
‘But your vain attempts to meddle in our plans are at an end,’ added Caradawg. ‘In two weeks’ time, we will summon the Red Dragon, and he will lead the armies that shall tear down your kingdom and drive your foul people into the sea where they belong. Like Arthur himself, I will crush you beneath my heel, and reign supreme over the island of Britain, as Merlin himself prophesised four hundred years ago!’
Oswald lowered his head.
Was this the future? he shouted in the silence of his own mind. Was this truly what would happen? He knew from what Lady Godda had said that Caradawg’s reign would be no more than the beginning. With the goblins, the dragon, and Queen Cynethryth to contend with, there would be nothing so simple as a Welsh conquest of the lowlands. He knew that Caradawg would not be emperor of Britain for long. Soon would come the knife in the back, the hemlock in the broth, the adder in the trackway.
And then pure evil would reign supreme over the land.
They were fettered again, and thrust into a dark, stinking hut near the hall. Oswald sat in the gloom, his head sunk upon his chest, his mind sunk in thoughts as black as the darkness around him. The clatter of the warriors died away, until silence descended, broken only by a distant lowing of cattle.
Cadwallader spoke.
‘I find I must... apologise for my conduct,’ he said slowly, carefully. ‘I did not think it in me to deny my companions thrice before cockcrow. But I was afraid...’ He fell silent.
Alfrun stirred. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘This is the end, it seems. Well, I don’t know what they intend to do with us, but we can do nothing.’
Bork shifted slightly.
‘Can’t you use your witchcraft?’ he rumbled. ‘You’ve freed us from fetters before...’
‘No,’ sighed Alfrun. ‘I would need time, preparation, rune-staves, beechwood, a bone-handled-dagger blessed under the full moon... I have nothing.’
‘So near yet so far,’ Oswald said. He glanced around at the gloomy shapes that surrounded him. ‘Two weeks to Yule. Wayland’s Sword is no more than a hundred yards away, and yet we might as well be in Jerusalem.’
‘At least...’ Bork began, his voice hoarse. He halted, and cleared his throat noisily. ‘At least Edwin’s free.’
‘You can forget him!’ Alfrun said venomously. ‘He upped
and left us as soon as he saw how things were going.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I thought... I thought he liked me... Us, I mean.’
‘When I met him,’ Oswald said slowly, ‘he was a convicted thief, notorious throughout the kingdom. I didn’t trust him then...’
‘You’d be a fool to trust him now,’ Alfrun added sharply. ‘And as for this priest...!’
‘I’ve already apologised,’ said Cadwallader coldly. He sighed. ‘It’s just that... I keep wishing I had never given sanctuary to luckless vagrants. Why did the Lord thrust you upon me? Temptation? What does he want of me?’
‘It sounds like your god has forsaken you,’ Bork said. ‘All the gods have abandoned us, and our luck has run off with them.’ He was despondent, something Oswald had never seen in the big man before. ‘And Edwin.’
‘And Edwin,’ Alfrun repeated.
Next morning, the door burst open, and two guards came in with the sunlight. Oswald was expecting to be dragged out and executed, but instead, the two guards gave them bowls of thin gruel. Though cold and tasteless, it was enough to fill their empty bellies. The guards refused to answer any of their questions, and they departed as soon as they had doled out the food.
The rest of the day was even less eventful. Nothing much happened during the next few days except a sudden fall of snow that had them huddling together for warmth. Otherwise, their days were spent in brooding silence. Outside, occasional shouts and marching feet told them that something was being prepared.
But, as Yule drew nearer, nothing else happened.
The Sword of Wayland Page 31