Raven's Heirs

by Lesley Arrowsmith

Re-union

  Two riders went forward to meet Ianto. Owain noticed that Rhianmelt had positioned herself towards the back of the war band, not beside him - she had pulled up the hood of her cloak, so it was harder to pick her out, but most of them were hooded against the rain now, on both sides. Owain shifted his shoulders under the sodden tunic. He was wet through to the skin, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  The leader of the grey-cloaked troop, a young man, halted his horse a spear's length from Ianto. A woman dressed all in black was beside him.

  "Is that the Lady?" Devorgilla asked.

  "Too young," Owain said. "She's got dark hair - grandmother's hair is white. Hush - I want to listen in."

  Ianto was protesting. "...none of your business what I do in my own estates."

  "And what were you doing here?" the young man asked pleasantly. "They're your people. Why haven't they let you in?"

  "I'm here to punish their lack of hospitality...."

  Owain gasped - for Ianto to accuse the Dun of a lack of hospitality...!

  "And I'm here to collect my son!" said the woman in black. "We know he's in there, brother, and the Harper with him. So tell me, what exactly were your plans for them?"

  Mother? Owain squinted through the rain, trying to see her more clearly. Is that really...?

  "There seem to have been misunderstandings all round," Ianto said, smoothly. "I merely wanted to ensure young Owain's safety...."

  "Shall we ask him?" Brecca interrupted. "Shall we ask the Harper? What will they say about you, Ianto? What will the head of that Dun say about you?"

  "As I said - there have been misunderstandings," Ianto said. He sounded angrier now. "You can't trust anything these Moorlanders tell you."

  "Is that so?" Brecca said. "I think I ought to judge that for myself, don't you? Or don't you trust my judgement either?"

  "Go on, then," Ianto backed his horse until he was no longer standing in Brecca's way. "Listen to their lies if you want to."

  "Lady Brecca's coming in," Owain said, as the Lady's banner was carried towards the gate. "And you ought to know that Ianto has been accusing you of lying, and the Dun of a lack of hospitality."

  Devorgilla clutched her spear so hard the knuckles went white. "Let him just come in here and say that!"

  But Ianto was leading his troop away, south over the hill.

  "Open the gates," Devorgilla shouted. "See - Lord Ianto is running! We're saved!"

  The riders from Ravenscar crowded into the courtyard, surrounded by Devorgilla's people. Owain slid down the bank on his backside to meet them. Devorgilla followed more slowly, on the arm of her nephew Caradog.

  As the Ravenscar guards dismounted around her, Brecca kept her seat and scanned the crowd. "Where's Lord Owain Brecca Morwenna?" she asked.

  And Owain, sitting at the bottom of the bank as he got ready to lever himself to his feet with his stick, realised that she had looked straight past him and hadn't recognised him.

  "And the Harper, Gwalchmai Morgan? Where's he?" the young man asked - and he and Brecca disappeared into the hall, surrounded by the crowd, before Owain could get close to them.

  Devorgilla grinned at him, showing all of the few teeth she had left. "Don't take it to heart," she said, patting his arm and abandoning Caradog to lean on Owain. "You hardly look like a Lord from a Great Family just now."

  Owain realised that she was right. His hair was filthy and hung in rats' tails round his shoulders, and he was still wearing the patched old tunic that Devorgilla had lent him. He looked even more scruffy than most of the peasants.

  As they crossed the hall, though, he wasn't sure who was giving more support to who - his stomach was knotting up in sudden panic, and Devorgilla didn't need help to walk across her own hall.

  Brecca and the young gold torced man were kneeling beside Gwalchmai, who was leaning up on one elbow. They all looked up as Devorgilla batted one of her relatives out of the way and stepped into the clear space between them with Owain.

  "I am Devorgilla Goch," she said, "and I welcome you to Dun Darren Isaf."

  The young man stood up and bowed slightly. "I am Aidan Howell Morwenna, and I accept your hospitality on behalf of my troop and my aunt, the Lady Brecca Morwenna. Madam headwoman - where is Lord Owain Brecca?"

  Gwalchmai was chuckling from his pallet on the floor. Owain didn't spare him a glance. he was looking at his mother, watching her face change from puzzlement to slow recognition....

  ...and then he was being crushed against her, and they were hugging, and she was saying "Goddess! What happened to you?" in his ear.

  And then Owain was on the floor beside Gwalchmai, and someone was fetching a blanket, and someone else was peeling his wet tunic off his back and over his head, while his mother knelt beside him with her arm around his shoulders. One of the women of the Ravenscar guards had laid aside her spear and was kneeling beside his knee, and then his filthy, ragged hose and braies were coming off as well, and he clutched at the blanket that was all he had left to cover himself - and yelped as the woman pressed on his scar. "How did this happen?" Brecca asked. "What did they do to you?"

  Owain gritted his teeth until the guardswoman stopped prodding him. "That's - two things," he began.

  "The lad saved my life," Gwalchmai interrupted him. "He crawled through an abandoned mine and walked for miles to bring me help."

  "But that's an old scar," the guardswoman said.

  "Please, mother! Not here. Not now. I'll tell you everything later," and to his surprise, Owain saw that his mother was crying. He shrugged one arm out of the blanket and embraced her, and she clung onto him - and everyone left them alone for a while.

  It didn't take long for Brecca to get herself under control. "I'm sorry - that was stupid of me. But it was such a shock - I didn't know what I was expecting, but...."

  "It's all right. Really, it's all right."

  "But, you've been injured - and your arm as well." She reached out to touch the scar where the dog had bitten him. "Owain, I swear to you - I will hunt down the ones who did this to you and I will tear their heads from their bodies with my bare hands...."

  "You don't have to do that. I'm home now, and it's all right."

  Brecca took a deep breath. "You're right. Later, for that. For now, I'm just happy that you're here, and safe." She hugged him again. "Now, shall we get someone to see to that knee?"

  He leaned against her, and squeezed her hand, while the guardswoman put some more of Devorgilla's salve on his knee and bound it up with linen rags, and she gave him something vile-tasting out of a little stoneware bottle that she swore would ease the pain. Someone found the Palatine tunic he had been wearing - it was grubby, but at least it was dry - and Crommen offered a pair of trousers that almost went round Owain twice, they were so wide. But they fitted easily over his bad leg, and at last he could lie down, clothed, and swaddled in blankets, and let the drug numb him so that all the noise and chaos around him could wash over him without him caring about it at all. And his mother sat beside him, and held his hand.

  After a while, Owain started to make sense of things again. he could smell mutton cooking - a feast for Devorgilla's people. His mother was still holding his hand, but now her attention was elsewhere. She was looking across him, at Gwalchmai.

  "How did he know? How did Ianto know that you were coming back with Owain? We were so careful to keep it a secret."

  "Ah." Gwalchmai looked away. "When did you last see Rhianmelt...?"

  "She's at Pengwern...."

  Gwalchmai shook his head. "She was here, today."

  "Rhianmelt? But - I've known her since we were both five years old!"

  "She met us at the quayside, straight off the boat from Moissac. I'm sorry."

  "I can't believe.... No - I can believ it. I knew she was friendly with Ianto, but it never occurred to me that she might.... I'll kill her. If I see her again, I will kill her. how could
she betray me so completely? And for Ianto! Of all people, for Ianto! I can't believe how poisonous my little brother has been!"

  "You still don't know the worst," Gwalchmai said quietly. "There's a body laid out in the little shed beside the shrine here. We found him when we were trapped in the mine. It's Peredur."

  "No. How?"

  "We spoke to his shade. Ianto trapped him there. He died of thirst."

  "Mother will have to do something now. Ianto can't be allowed to get away with this - and with his own people deserting him.... She has to act, now, for the honour of the family." Brecca slipped her hand gently out of Owain's grasp. "I need to talk to Aidan. We need to deal with this now."

  Owain couldn't summon up the concentration he needed to listen in to his mother and Aidan talking on the other side of the hall, through all the other conversations that were going on at the same time. He could barely summon the concentration he needed to sit up and eat a bowl of mutton stew when the time came. And he was only dimly aware of his mother lying down beside him when the time came for them to sleep.

  When he woke up again, she was gone from his sie, and sunlight was streaming through the open hall door. A few people were still folding blankets and rolling up pallets, but most seemed to be already up and about. Gwalchmai was lying with his head back, snoring lustily. Owain smiled, and thought about his mother, and smiled some more - and then thought of Ianto, and wondered where he might have ridden off to.

  Two men carried Gwalchmai out to the cart. Owain was just about to get up and follow when the two men came back and insisted on carrying him, too. They laid him beside Gwalchmai in a nest of blankets, under a canvas cover. Although it was a sunny morning, there were clouds threatening more rain later. Owain sat up as soon as the men had jumped down from the cart tail, and shuffled round so he could look out.

  Across the yard, a couple of skinny plough oxen were being harnessed to a second cart. Devorgilla was climbing into the driving seat of that one, swathed up in so many shawls that she could barely move. Tegau, her grand-daughter, climbed up with her and took the reins. The oxen looked disinclined to move, so two of the guardsmen stood by the heads of the oxen to lead them out. In the back of that cart, they had laid Peredur. Owain could smell the body right across the yard without needing to use his Talent. The sack of copper torcs, retrieved from the muddy ditch, was heaved into the back of the cart with the body. Around them, the Ravenscar guards were mounting up and getting ready to move out. One of them brought Gwalchmai's harp case across. The Harper winced slightly. He'd emptied out the wreck of his harp the night before, and now he stowed Peredur's torc and cloak pin in there, muffled in rags. "When Morwenna sees this - things are going to change over these moorlands."

  Caradog himself climbed into the driver's seat, swathed in an ancient leather cloak. He leaned back and lifted an edge of the canvas to look at his passengers, but he seemed suddenly too shy to speak to them.

  Owain saw Aidan talking to four of his troop - leaving them behind at the Dun. He nodded to himself quietly - they couldn't leave the Dun without protection, at least of witnesses, if Ianto decided to come back to take his revenge. Then Aidan mounted up, and gave the order to move out, and the column of cavalry began to pass through the open gates of the Dun. After some minor protest, the two ponies pulling the cart ambled out after them, their heads down, and Caradog set their faces to the south. Behind them, Tegau was driving the ox cart, and behind her came the tail end of the Ravenscar guards.

  The journey was hardest on Gwalchmai. The little stone bottle that had been offered to Owain the night before seemed to be empty now, and Devorgilla seemed to have no more pain killers worth speaking of amongst her medicines. The cart had no springs worth speaking of either. After a while, Gwalchmai didn't even try to make conversation - he was too busy gritting his teeth against the jolting of the cart.

  It took them most of the day to get there, but at least the rain stopped in mid afternoon. By that time, too, they were off the moors, and into Ravenscar lands. It was still open country, but there were more farms, and fields bounded by hawthorn hedges or drystone walls. They'd stopped, briefly, for a meal of bread and cheese and watered wine from the saddlebags of the Ravenscar troop - but the rest had made it even worse when they started off again. Gwalchmai had refused the food, drunk all the wine that was on offer, and now lay staring at the canvas roof of the cart with his teeth clenched. His face was waxy pale, and he was sweating, and shivering. Owain began to worry that Gwalchmai might not survive the journey and there was nothing he could do to make things any easier for him. So he stared out across the fields, trying to take his mind off his own pain by counting trees, or sheep, or - anything to distract him from the misery of the journey.

  He could smell the sea. If he craned his neck, he could even glimpse it occasionally, between folds in the hills. They had to be getting close now. There was even a rider, coming out to meet them - a girl on a pony, with her four plaits swept back over her shoulders.

  She disappeared from his view as she approached the head of the column, but he could hear her clearly even without his Talent. "Mama - did you get him? Where's Owain?"

  "Over there - Olwen, calm down -"

  "In the cart? What's he doing in there?"

  Owain looked up to see his little sister leaning down across her pony's neck to look inside the cart. One of her plaits was coming unravelled at the end - and she had freckles. He'd forgotten the freckles.

  "Where in the cart?" Olwen demanded, over her shoulder.

  "Hello, Little Flower," he said.

  "No-one calles me that any more," she said, looking at him properly for the first time. "Are you really Owain? Why are you in a cart? And Master Gwalchmai, too -" She stopped abruptly, looking harder. The old man hadn't even opened his eyes, and he moaned quietly as the cart rattled over a pothole. She looked more carefully at Owain, too, taking in the dirt, and the way he was sitting huddled in the blanket. "Owain - are you all right?"

  "We'll both be fine - when the cart stops jolting us about. Don't worry about us."

  "Olwen - stop bothering them." Brecca appeared, putting her hand on the reins of Olwen's pony. "Come here and I'll tell you all about it."

  "Thank Esus for that," Gwalchmai said, opening one eye to make sure she had gone. "Give that child the slightest encouragement and she'd be bouncing all over us."

  Relief made Owain grin at him. "I thought - well, I was worried about you."

  Gwalchmai grunted, gave a ghastly grin in return - and shivered again. "Never again," he muttered. "I'm retiring. Too old for this sort of thing."

  And then they were at the gates of Ravenscar, the ancient bank and ditch cutting across the headland - cliffs to the seaward side, and the tall grey stone tower near the edge. Seagulls and pigeons - and an occasional raven - flocked around the tower. A cluster of grey stone buildings, tall in their own right, but dwarfed by the tower, straggled across the headland, a maze of interlinking courtyards and open spaces between the walls. Caradog's cart was led off to the right, around the edge of the complex, with Brecca and Olwen riding ahead. Owain didn't see where they took Devorgilla and Tegau.

  They stopped beside a low building near the edge of the cliff top, a little way from the other buildings. Owain got the impression of a small formal garden, laid out with rose beds and benches, before he was whisked efficiently away into the infirmary. A young man in a long green robe seemed to be in charge. he was the only one there with a silver torc, anyway. Owain lay back and let it all happen to him - hot water appeared, in bowls, and soap, and his clothes were taken away, and when he was considered clean enough, he acquired a clean linen undershirt and was laid in one of the beds.

  To the side of him, much the same was happening to Gwalchmai.

  Only then, clean and warm and lying back on soft feather filled pillows, did the doctor start to peel off the linen bandages and examine Gwalchmai'
s ankle. When he'd finished with Gwalchmai (and the litany of swearing had faded away), he turned his attention to Owain. "This is a bit of a mess, isn't it?" he said cheerfully. "Still, you seem to have had the best treatment you could have, under the circumstances. The main thing," he added sternly, "is to lie there and not use that leg - at all - until the swelling has gone down. Then we'll see what else we can do for you."

  He half turned as the door opened behind him.

  "Well, Gwalchmai Morgan?" The speaker was a tiny old lady with her four plaits pinned up around her head like a coronet. She was wearing black, unadorned apart from the heavy gold torc around her neck. A raven hopped in beside her, and then spread its wings and flapped to the foot of Owain's bed. It turned its head on one side to regard him with one beady eye.

  "Madam." Gwalchmai waved one hand in the direction of Owain's bed. "As you see."

  "Grandmother?" Owain said. he wasn't sure he could trust himself to say anything more. This was it - the moment he'd been dreaming of when he sent off the pigeon with his plea for help.

  Morwenna cocked her head to look at him in much the same way as the raven did. Then she extended one claw-like hand for him to kiss. "Owain Brecca, welcome home."

  *****