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Cold My Heart
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BY THE AUTUMN OF 537 AD, all who are loyal to King Arthur have retreated to a small parcel of land in north Wales. They are surrounded on all sides, heavily outnumbered, and facing near certain defeat.
But Myrddin and Nell, two of the king’s companions, have a secret that neither has ever been able to face: each has seen that on a cold and snowy day in December, Saxon soldiers sent by Modred will ambush and kill King Arthur.
And together, they must decide what they are willing to do, and to sacrifice, to avert that fate.
Cold My Heart is the first book in The Lion of Wales series.
Chapter One
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TO ARCHBISHOP DAFYDD:
We must speak of the evils wrought upon us by my nephew Modred and his Saxon allies, how the peace formerly made has been violated in all the clauses of the treaty, how churches have been fired and devastated, and ecclesiastical persons, priests, monks and nuns slaughtered, women slain with children at their breast, hospitals and other houses of religion burned, the Welsh murdered in their homes, in churches, yes at the very altar, with other sacrilegious offences horrible to hear...
We fight because we are forced to fight and are left without any remedy ... I do not ask for your blessing in these last endeavors, only your understanding.
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Arthur ap Uther,
King of Wales and Lord of Eryri
November, 537 A.D.
11 December 537 AD
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“GET OVER HERE, MYRDDIN!”
I urged my horse across the clearing, through the ankle-deep snow and towards Gawain, the captain of my lord’s guard. He resembled a greyhound, whip-thin but muscled, his grey-streaked hair held away from his face by a leather tie at the nape of his neck.
“Sir,” I said.
Gawain pointed to a stand of pine trees some hundred yards away on the other side of the Cam River. “What do you see?”
At thirty-six, after a lifetime of soldiering, my eyes weren’t what they used to be. I stared anyway, trying to glimpse what Gawain had noticed. Christ! It can’t be! Cold settled into my belly. “The branches are moving.” I glanced at Gawain. “Didn’t our scouts check those trees?”
“Yes.” The word hissed through Gawain’s teeth. “They did. I saw to it myself.”
“The company must move now. It isn’t safe here.” I forced myself to remain calm instead of shouting the words at Gawain as I wanted to.
“No, it isn’t,” Gawain said. “I said as much to the king before we began this journey.”
“Maybe he’ll listen now.”
“I’ll speak to him. For your part, take four men—Ifan, Dai, two others. Clear out those trees. I don’t care how you do it.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, punctuating the command.
“Yes, sir.”
I directed my horse towards the north, riding past the church, St. Cannen’s, that squatted in the middle of the clearing. An up-and-coming half-Saxon lord, Edgar, son of King Arthur’s youngest sister, had sent a letter asking to discuss the transfer of his allegiance from Modred to Arthur. That his overture was genuine had always seemed unlikely, yet Modred’s war had gone on so long that Arthur felt he had to grab any chance that came his way, on the hope that he could shift the balance of power in his favor. Recent victories had given us real hope that we might prevail, but if those trees held Saxon soldiers, then the king was going to die, along with all of his men. Including me. He’d walked into a trap from which none of us would escape.
“Ifan!” I waved my friend closer.
He spurred his horse to intersect mine. “What is it?”
“Mercians,” I said. “Possibly.”
Ifan, as pale as I was dark such that a man could mistake him for a Saxon, had campaigned beside King Arthur even longer than I. He didn’t ask for details. Once I’d collected several more men, we circled behind the church, heading for the ford of the River Cam on the northwestern edge of the church property. The trees along the river shielded us from the field beyond. Once across the Cam, however, we left their cover.
“Shields up,” I said—and just in time. An arrow slammed into Ifan’s shield and then, a moment later, into mine.
“Back, back!” Ifan wheeled his horse to retreat down the riverbank. “We’ll have to go around!”
But before we’d ridden halfway across the river, a company of Saxon cavalry burst from the woods to the west of the church. A quick glance revealed their considerable numbers—more than the eighteen men the king had brought to the rendezvous. Along with a few of our compatriots, who reacted at the same instant, we raced to intercept them, splashing through the water and back into the clearing. Our numbers wouldn’t be enough to turn them aside, but as I met the first Saxon sword with my own, I put our chances from my mind.
I slashed my sword—once, twice, three times—before my horse stumbled, a tendon severed by a man on the ground. I pulled my feet from the stirrups, leaping free in time to meet the advancing sword of yet another Saxon. He glared through his visored helmet, a thick, red beard the only part of his face I could see.
“Retreat!”
The call came from behind me. I almost laughed. Retreat where? The church had little advantage in defense over the clearing. Admittedly, I’d last seen Arthur standing alongside the priest in the nave near the altar. In the back of my mind, I’d held onto the hope that if he made his last stand inside, even a heathen Saxon would be loath to kill my king before the cross.
I ducked under the Saxon’s guard and then burst upwards, one hand on the hilt of my sword and my gauntleted left hand on the blade. I thrust my weapon at his mid-section, forcing it through his mail armor. I pulled the sword from his body, and he fell. Then I turned and ran full out for the front of the church, hurtling past the small knots of men battling between me and the front door.
But the king had already left the safety of the nave. A pace from the church steps, Arthur faced two men at the same time. The king had twenty years on me yet fought like a much younger man. He slashed his sword at one Saxon soldier and then snapped an elbow into the face of the other. Blood cascaded from the man’s nose.
I launched myself at the second Saxon soldier, driving my shoulder into his ribs and sending both of us sprawling. Hardly pausing for breath, I pushed up on one knee and shoved the tip of my sword beneath his chin. Helmet askew and blood coating my surcoat, I stood, spinning on one heel, determined to defend my king to my last breath.
Except King Arthur had already fallen, overcome by a third knight coming late to the fight.
Aghast, I drove my sword into the man’s back just as he raised his arms for a final strike at the king. As the Saxon died, I knocked him aside and turned to stand astride the body of my lord. Even if it meant my death, I would gainsay anyone who dared come against me. But as my sword met that of the next Saxon warrior, the back of my head exploded in sudden pain from a blow I hadn’t seen coming. Barely conscious, I fell across the failing body of King Arthur.
Chapter Two
2 November 537 AD
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NELL SURGED UPWARDS from her pallet, disturbed far more by the shouts echoing through the stone corridors of the convent than by the abrupt ending to the dream. It felt real every time she dreamt it, but once awake, she acknowledged it for what it was: a dream, a seeing, if such a thing were possible, and a weight around her neck since she was a girl. Arthur ap Uther was going to die a little more than a month from now at the hands of the Saxons. A man she knew only as Myrddin—a man she’d lived for more nights than she could count—would die with him. And Nell had no way to stop it.
The shouts came clearer now. Thrusting her heavy braid over her shoulder, Nell pulled on her habit to cover her night shift, adjusted the thick wool around her waist more comfortably, and slipped into her boots. She slid through the cloth doorway that separated her room from the hall. As the infirmarer and a senior member of the convent, she had her own cell, separate from the dormitory where the novices and younger nuns slept.
“What is it?” Nell reached out a hand to stop Bronwen, a blond-haired, blue-eyed initiate who was far too beautiful to have chosen this life at such a young age.
Unfortunately for her, she was heiress to extensive estates, and her uncle had seen to her speedy incarceration in the convent after her father died. The old abbess wouldn’t have allowed it, but all discipline had broken down since the Saxon invasion of Anglesey, which had followed hard on the heels of the abbess’ death.
“Soldiers!” Bronwen said. “They came to the door, and the watchman let them in. The Saxons are coming!”
Dear God. They’d been foolish to think their lone convent could escape the Mercian barbarism that had become so common in recent months. Lord Modred’s soldiers had pushed King Arthur’s forces out of every haven but his last stronghold in Eryri, or Snowdonia as the Saxons called it. They would overrun all Wales if Arthur died as her dream promised. Once upon a time, that moment had resided in the impossibly distant future. Not anymore.
Bronwen made to run, but Nell still held her arm. “Not that way. Did you see Sister Mari?”
“Yes. In the dormitory.”
Nell nodded. “Good. Tell her I said to gather as many of the girls as she can. If we can get to the chapel, we can bar the doors from the inside. Bring them quick as you can. Remember—the chapel, not the church. From the shouts outside, the Saxon soldiers are already there.”
“Yes, sister,” the girl said, Nell’s evident calm easing her fears.
Nell released her, and Bronwen ran back the way she’d come. The Saxons hadn’t penetrated the convent this far as yet. Sister Mari was not only a good friend, but she was reliable. She would come. Meanwhile, Nell needed to discover what had happened to the abbess, who had left her room. Nell hiked up her skirts and trotted down the stairs towards the common areas of the convent. As Nell arrived in the dining hall from a back entrance, having already searched the warming room and the scriptorium, two sisters spoke to one another, alone and in quiet voices, near the main door a dozen yards away. Her abbess’ posture was as if nothing untoward was happening in the courtyard beyond.
“What are you doing here?” Nell ran up to them, heedless of decorum or her dignity. “We must flee!”
“Lord Wulfere told me to wait here for him, and he would explain everything.” Abbess Annis’ eyes were wide and guileless.
“And you believed him?”
“Of course,” she said. “He told me that his soldiers merely needed to commission a quantity of our foodstuffs.”
“Commissio—” Nell broke off the word as a man flung open the door to the dining hall. Tall and dark, with a bushy black beard that obscured his face, Wulfere, the commander of the Saxon forces on Anglesey, strode towards them. He towered over Nell, who was slightly less than middle height for a woman. His heavy boots left a muddy track across the floor, evidence of the unrelenting rain that had fallen over the island during the last week.
Wulfere had set up his camp to the southwest of the convent, in preparation for the moment Modred allowed him to cross the Menai Strait and attack King Arthur’s seat at Garth Celyn. The Traeth Lafan, the Lavan Sands, had served as a crossing point of the Menai Strait for millennia, but the waters in the Strait were unpredictable and treacherous, even to those long accustomed to their moods. To counter that unpredictability, the Saxons had built a bridge of boats, a hundred of them lashed together and anchored at both ends. Wulfere was waiting for Modred’s signal to cross.
Meanwhile, he amused himself the best he could. Apparently, now, with us.
“Madame Abbess.” Wulfere spoke in butchered Welsh and Saxon and gave Annis a slight tip of his head. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
Annis simpered back, the loose flesh around her mouth giving way to a vacant smile. “It is our honor to serve Lord Modred, our rightful king, in whatever way we can.”
Nell bit her lip. King Arthur had no heir, and whispers had begun already that when Arthur died, stability under Modred and his Saxon allies was preferable to the chaos that would inevitably ensue as Welsh stakeholders fought among themselves for Arthur’s crown.
“Are you mad?” Nell kept her voice low and even, so Wulfere wouldn’t react to the tone, if not the words themselves.
“It isn’t just foodstuffs they want!” Sister Ilar chimed in, for once supporting Nell’s position. “They’ve turned Queen Gwenhwyfar’s coffin into a horse trough!”
“It is our duty to bring peace to Anglesey,” Annis said.
“Do you object, sister, to assisting those in need?” Wulfere asked Nell. “Are not my soldiers as much God’s children as any other men?” He gazed at the three women, amusement in his face, and although Nell wanted to stare him down, she didn’t dare defy him. Annis might be blind to what was happening in her convent, but Nell was not. It was time to leave. Annis wouldn’t act, so it was up to Nell to stand in her stead.
“Excuse me.” Nell curtseyed to both Wulfere and Annis and backed away. Just as she turned towards the side door that led to the cloisters, a number of Saxon soldiers came through the door behind Wulfere. Nell didn’t wait to see what they wanted.
I can’t believe she just opened the convent to them! How could she betray us so? But Nell knew how it was possible. In an effort to quell what the Church viewed as a convent of too-independent women, Archbishop Dafydd had appointed an un-ambitious innocent to lead them. For all that Annis was approaching her fiftieth year, she knew nothing of men, the world, or anything in it. Nell was not so naïve.
She closed the door to the dining hall. It had no lock, but since the cloister could be accessed by four other entrances, it would have been futile to try to stop the men from reaching it. They hadn’t found it yet, but perhaps that was because the church and food stores were keeping them occupied. They would ransack them and then turn their attention to the women. The Welsh were hardly more than animals to the Saxons, and they treated them as such.
Nell was relieved to see Bronwen and Mari, a cluster of sisters in their wake, hustling towards the chapel from the dormitory entrance. Nell intercepted them at the chapel door. “Thank the Lord you’ve come!” She grasped Mari’s hand and squeezed it, trying to convey her relief and reassurance.
Mari leaned forward and spoke low, so as not to alarm the other women. “What’s happening, Nell?”
Nell let the rest of her sisters file inside the chapel before replying. “The worst. I must see to those in the infirmary. Some might be well enough to travel with us. Perhaps I can hide the rest.”
“I’ll come with you,” Mari said.
Nell shook her head. Mari’s eyes were too wide, and her hair had come loose around her shoulders, a match in color to Nell’s, although Mari’s red-tinged strands were shot with grey. “No. Stay inside the chapel. Without you, the younger sisters will fall to pieces. Bar the door until I get back. If I don’t return within a count of one hundred, you must go with our sisters into the tunnel beneath the crypt.”
“I can’t leave you!”
“You can and you will.” Nell’s heart pounded in her ears but she fought the rushing sound and the panic, determined to hide her feelings so as not to upset Mari further. Mari was soft-hearted, which is why she mothered the younger novices, but not one to take charge. There was no one else to lead if Nell didn’t. “But I hope you won’t need to.”
Without waiting to see if Mari obeyed her, Nell dashed towards the entrance to the infirmary, situated at the very rear of the complex and isolated from the rest of the living quarters by a narrow passage, in case a quarantine was ever necessary. The sisters could access the room from the herb garden beyond, and Nell had a secondary thought that her sisters could flee that way, if the tunnel proved impassable.
Nell pushed at the thick oak door to the infirmary and froze on the threshold. Hell on earth stared her in the face. Blood ran from the beds to the floor, soaking the undyed wool blankets a deep red. The half dozen sisters who’d lain under her care, along with the elderly sister who watched over them at night, had been murdered as they slept. The far door that led to the outside world bumped against the inner wall, moving in the gusting wind. Beyond, darkness showed. She couldn’t risk escaping with her sisters that way, not with the men who’d done this so close. Nell stared at the carnage, then spun on her heel and fled back to the chapel.
Mari had disobeyed, hovering in the doorway to wait for Nell’s return. “What is it?” Mari asked when Nell reached her.
“They’re dead.” Nell pushed Mari into the chapel, even as she looked over her shoulder at the first Saxon soldiers spilling into the cloister, torches blazing in their hands.
“You there!” A soldier said, in Saxon.
“Hurry!” Mari’s voice went high.
Nell slammed the door shut and dropped the bar across it. As more shouts filled the cloister, she faced the other women. Mari stood three paces away, taking in huge gulps of air, her hand to her heart. Nell’s lungs refused to properly fill with air either.
A young voice piped up from the rear of the group. “What about the rest of our sisters?”
Someone thudded a fist on the door. “Open up!”
Nell set her jaw and grabbed a candle from a shrine to St. Tomos before pushing through the small group of women and girls. “We can’t help them.” She led the way down the steps into the crypt, trotting past the ancient tombs, the voices of the soldiers fading behind them the deeper they went.
King Arthur had commissioned Llanfaes Abbey upon the death of his beloved wife, Gwenhwyfar. Her grave lay in the church, which the Saxons were sacking even now. The chapel was older, far smaller, and had served the people of Anglesey since Christianity came to the island, back when the Romans ruled it. Rather than pull the chapel down, King Arthur had constructed his abbey around it—and refurbished the Roman tunnel that ran beneath it, and which matched the one underneath Garth Celyn.
Some might have said that the king was overly cautious to have expended so much effort on the chance that a hidden escape route might one day be needed. As far as Nell knew, none ever had, either here or at Garth Celyn—at least, not until today. Given the actions of the Saxons over the last month, King Arthur was proving not only cautious, but prescient.
Maybe he saw too.
The convent itself sat a hundred yards from the edge of the Menai Strait, so that King Arthur could look across the water to the spot where he’d buried his wife. A current of air bringing the smell of damp and mold wafted over Nell as she approached the entrance to the tunnel. The near constant autumn rain on Anglesey, coupled with having built so close to the sea, meant they couldn’t stop the water from seeping between the stones.
“Here it is.” Nell came to a halt in front of a blank wall.
“Here what is?” Mari peered over Nell’s shoulder at the unadorned stones.
“The entrance,” Nell said. “I need more light.”
Someone raised a torch so it shone at the wall. Nell handed her candle to Mari and then pressed both hands on a rounded stone at waist height. With a scraping sound, the door swung open on its central pin, revealing darkness beyond. The tunnel that led from the crypt stretched north, under the protective wall of the convent and beyond.
“We have to go inside?” Bronwen said. “What if there’s no way out! We’ll die in there!”
“The dark can’t hurt you,” Nell said. “Saxon soldiers most definitely can.”
“But how do we know—”
Nell grabbed Bronwen’s arm. She’d never thought of Bronwen as one of the more outspoken novices, but that was proving the case tonight. “Because all the sisters in the infirmary are dead, slaughtered as they slept. I don’t want that to happen to you!”
“But Lord Modred wouldn’t—”
Nell cut her off again. “It’s time to grow up, Bronwen. All of you.” Nell gazed at the face of each girl in turn. “It doesn’t matter if you support Lord Modred’s claim to the throne, or King Arthur’s resistance. Both sides have committed atrocities in this war. Do you want me to list all the religious houses the men out there—and others like them—have sacked? The villages they’ve destroyed? The women they’ve raped?”
Bronwen shook her head uncertainly.
“If you don’t want to be one of them,” Mari broke in, “I suggest you do as Sister Nell asks.”
“Yes, sister.” Bronwen kept her eyes downcast.
Nell turned away; she didn’t think it was her imagination that her sisters gave her more space now than before. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t know what went on beyond the walls. Many of them had lived at the convent their whole lives. At fifteen and newly married, she’d been as ignorant and innocent as Bronwen. But Nell had come to Llanfaes as an adult, ten years ago at the death of her husband and her two little boys, four year old Llelo and infant Ieuan.
She’d seen—and she’d seen—what men could do.
Once inside the narrow passage, Nell let the others file past her, Mari in the lead still carrying the candle. Nell then pulled at the door and allowed it to close with a gentle click. Her shoulders sagged in relief that they were safe, at least for now. At worst, she was wrong about Wulfere’s men, and Annis could administer to Nell whatever penance she chose for leading her sisters astray and into the wild in the middle of the night. As unpleasant as that might be, Nell wished for it.
But she wasn’t wrong. The scent of smoke, from a source not as far off as she might like, drifted from the chapel through a crack underneath the door, pulled into the tunnel by the open air at the far end. Without further hesitation, Nell hefted her skirts and trotted after Mari.
“Are we almost there?” Mari asked when Nell reached the front of the line of women.
“It isn’t much farther,” Nell said. “Before her death, Abbess Alis entrusted me with the secret of the tunnel. As soon as the Saxons landed on Anglesey, I came here to make sure the tunnel hadn’t collapsed. That was some months ago, of course.”
Mari nodded, and then said, her voice so low Nell could barely make out the words, “Do I smell smoke?”
“I fear they are firing the chapel,” Nell said.
“Why would they do that?” Mari said, and then answered her own question before Nell could, her voice flat and accepting. “Because they couldn’t open the door. They think we’re still inside.”
Nell canted her head, agreeing, though not wanting to give more emphasis to Mari’s guess than that.
But Mari wasn’t finished. “Without this tunnel, our choice would have been to die, or to surrender to the soldiers.”
“Llanfaes is an abbey patronized by King Arthur,” Nell said. “Wulfere sees nothing wrong with leaving no one alive to remember it.”
A hundred steps later, they turned a corner, and the tunnel began to slope upwards. Mari’s torch reflected off the wooden beams that supported the roof and then finally shone on the trap door that led to one of the Abbey’s outlying barns.
“This is it?” Mari said.
“Yes.” The height of the tunnel had shrunk to just above Nell’s head. With the flat of her hand, she pushed up on the square of wood, three feet on a side, which loosened and then popped free with a snap.
Nell froze, but after a count of ten, she couldn’t see or hear anything amiss. She shoved the cover to one side and grasped the edges of the opening. With a boost from Mari and another sister, she pulled herself out of the tunnel and into a sitting position on the floor of the barn.
Hay lay scattered about in the stall in which she found herself. While the hay loft above her head was full, the horse stalls were empty. They used this barn only at harvest time and when the overflow from the Abbey’s visitors was such that there was no more room for equine guests in the Abbey’s stables. Nell got to her feet and walked to the far wall. Hidden in plain sight among the tools and farming implements was a short ladder. She removed it and brought it back to the hole.
“I hope we’ll be safe here for the rest of the night.” Nell looked down on Mari’s upturned face. “Let’s get them into the loft.”
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IT WASN’T QUITE LIGHT when Nell slipped through the barn door. It creaked, and the wind banged it back against the jam, stilling Nell at the noise. Then she reminded herself that the entire barn was a half century old and patched here and there with scraps of wood or wattle and daub, when using wood seemed a waste of resources. A little creaking and banging was a given.
She’d left Mari in charge of their sleeping sisters, every one exhausted from the events of the night. As the sky lightened, Nell had noted smoke rising from the convent a half-mile away and had felt obliged to discover what had passed there in their absence: to see if the soldiers had left, and if any of her sisters had survived.
Mari had begged her to stay, fearing for her life if she went out, but Nell thought that daylight might bring some measure of security—that the soldiers wouldn’t risk attacking a woman on the open road. To be safer, she’d removed her habit and traded it for a patched-together dress and cloak from one of the younger nuns-to-be who hadn’t yet committed to her vocation.
Nell hadn’t wanted to sleep anyway, although she hadn’t told Mari why. She was afraid that the dream of King Arthur’s death would come again, and she couldn’t cope with seeing it—not with what had happened to her sisters—not with the power of the Saxons so evident. Admittedly, it took far less strength to overpower a convent than to kill a king, but to live through one horror only to dream another immediately after was more than Nell could bear just now. At least with her sisters, she’d taken action. That she could find a way to help King Arthur seemed as out of reach now as it ever had.
A bird chirped to Nell’s left, a cheery counterpoint to the staccato of her heart. She gazed across the brown fields, harvested this autumn to the advantage of the Saxons instead of the Welsh, since the soldiers had captured the island in early September, intending to deprive the mainland of food. The convent continued to smoke, wisps spiraling skyward in the murky dawn. Nell braced herself for the effort—more emotional than physical—and set out towards what had been her home.
A short time later, she circled around to the east of the convent and crouched in the grass, screened from the entrance by a fence and blackberry bramble. The front gate of the convent sat wide open, revealing churned earth and grey stone beyond. From the looks, the Saxons hadn’t fired the church itself, just the inner chapel which Nell couldn’t see from her present position.
What she could see were several bodies sprawled in the dirt, two inside the gatehouse and a third ten paces from Nell’s hiding place. That body lay face down in the mud. Nell assumed this sister was dead along with the others until the woman moved a hand. Nell sprang to her feet, sprinted the distance between them, and fell to her knees beside the woman. She turned her over to reveal Ilar’s battered face.
Ilar opened her eyes. “Nell.” She raised her hand to touch Nell’s chin and then dropped it.
“What—?” Nell stopped. It was pointless to ask what had happened. Any fool could see it.
“Annis is dead. All the others,” Ilar said. “I thought you died in the chapel.”
“We used the tunnel. Mari and some of the novices are safe in the barn this side of Coed Mawr.”
“Coed Mawr?” Ilar lifted her head as if she wanted to stand and come with Nell; as if she hadn’t bled out through the long gash along her right side. “No—” She fell back and moaned, rocking her head from side to side.
“What’s wrong? ‘No’—what?” Nell grabbed Ilar’s shoulders, wanting to shake her, but her hands came away bloody. She stared at her fingers, and then at Ilar’s face. Ilar had closed her eyes again.
“They know of it.” Ilar just managed to get out the words. “Annis told Wulfere about the tunnel—” Her head sagged to one side, spent.
Nell put a hand to Ilar’s neck. Her pulse faltered and then stopped. Nell sat back on her heels, straightened Ilar’s dress, and wiped her hands on the damp cloth of the skirt. Her stomach rebelled to know that even though no trace of blood remained, she could still feel it on her fingers.
Swallowing hard, she pushed the thought away. She had no time for a more proper remembrance and rose to her feet, searching the landscape for any sign of Wulfere’s solders. Why did I leave the barn? They’ll have no chance without me!
No movement caught her eye, either at the convent or in the distance, but then—There! Along the road! A company of Wulfere’s men rode northeast, away from their camp and towards the spot where Nell had hidden her companions.
“No!”
Nell screamed the word. Knowing it was useless, that she’d never reach the barn in time, but unable to stop the cry or her tears from tumbling down her cheeks, Nell ran back the way she’d come. She stumbled and sobbed through the muddy fields and stands of trees, only staying on her feet over the rough terrain because she couldn’t bear not to—until reason reasserted itself.
She pulled up, having run two-thirds of the distance back to the barn. Breathing hard, as much from horror as from the exertion, she rested her cheek against the smooth bark of a willow tree, cool against her flushed face. She tightened her arms around the slender trunk, holding on for dear life, and gazed across the last two hundred yards to the entrance to the barn.
She had led her sisters to safety, only to abandon them to their fate. The completeness of her failure overwhelmed her as Wulfere’s soldiers hauled the helpless girls and women out of the barn, arms wrenched behind their backs. When Wulfere’s men had pillaged and burned the convent the night before, the majority of the women they’d encountered had been older or weakened like those in the infirmary. These were more to their liking.
Her sisters’ screams echoed across the fields and into her ears; Nell sank to her knees in the long grass, her arms around her waist and her head bowed. She couldn’t help them nor watch any longer. She leaned forward and sobbed.
Chapter Three
4 November 537 AD
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“GET OVER HERE, MYRDDIN!”
I urged my horse across the clearing, through the ankle-deep snow and towards Gawain, the captain of my lord’s guard. He resembled a greyhound, whip-thin but muscled ...
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“I FEAR THE WEATHER will turn worse this evening.” Lord Aelric tucked his fine, grey cloak closer around himself. “You’ll have a cold ride home.”
Myrddin blinked at the man, his breath choking him, trying to recover from the sudden shift in perspective. He gritted his teeth, stunned by the dramatic transition from dream state to consciousness. The vision of his defeat at the church had come so clearly to him, passing in front of his eyes with such intensity that he’d forgotten where he was. That had never happened to him before.
“Rain in the lowlands; snow in the hills,” Myrddin said, in Saxon, thankful that Aelric hadn’t noticed his inattention.
The battle had occurred only in his mind—in a flash of understanding—and hardly ten heartbeats had passed in the real world in the time it took for him to fight and die inside his head. Myrddin took in a deep breath to ease his pounding heart. The vision had been clearer and more real than any he’d experienced before. Myrddin knew, even if he was loath to admit it, that his dreams pressed on him more every day. They were getting worse—not to mention more demanding in their urgency that he do something. Yet as little more than a journeyman knight in the king’s company, he didn’t know what that something might be.
He maintained his seat on his horse, Cadfarch, and rode between the two grey standing stones that marked the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen. This was the highest point on the road that led from Garth Celyn, King Arthur’s seat on the northern coast of Eryri, east to Caerhun and then across the Conwy River into the part of Gwynedd controlled by Modred. They’d reached the high moor, long since denuded of trees, but the windswept countryside provided a magnificent contrast to the mountains behind them and the sea in the distance. Rain was normal for Wales this time of year, and every time of year for that matter, but it had abated today.
Myrddin’s answer satisfied Lord Aelric, who continued to saunter down the road with Myrddin, their horses at a steady walk. Three other knights followed. Myrddin hadn’t spoken to them since he’d led them out of Garth Celyn, and they’d been content for him to entertain their master.
“I’ve never liked passing among the pagan stones,” Lord Aelric said, once the stones lay behind them and the company had headed down the hill towards the Conwy River valley, still green in places despite the imminent winter weather. “I’ll suggest that Lord Modred pull them down in due course, once your king has bowed to the inevitable.”
He shot a glance at Myrddin, a sneer on his lips. Lord Aelric was baiting Myrddin and waited to see if Myrddin would respond to his arrogance. Aelric had no qualms about speaking his mind and keeping any Welshman in his place, one far below his. Myrddin kept his face expressionless.
As he’d just reminded himself, Lord Aelric was counselor to Modred, and Myrddin was a middle-aged warrior, worn around the edges from a lifetime of warfare and rough living. From an impoverished, if noble, beginning, he’d risen among the ranks of Arthur’s company. Thanks to his reckless courage as a young man, King Arthur had knighted him after a battle in his twenty-fourth year. At the time, it had served to increase Myrddin’s devotion to him. Since then, that devotion had been tempered by a certain, frank realism. Twenty years of war—and dreams of death—did that to a man.
“The populace will object, my lord,” Myrddin said, his voice mild.
Aelric sniffed, indicating what he thought of the populace. Myrddin smoothed the mustache that grew along each cheek, less flamboyantly than many a Welshman’s but still of considerable size. Then it struck him that in his dream, he no longer wore it. Had that always been the case? Myrddin had dreamt the fight so many times he’d memorized it. Or thought he had.
Twenty miles later and after hours of stilted conversation—such that Myrddin feared he’d bitten right through his tongue in his attempts to contain what was in his mind—the road connected to another one running north/south, which would take Aelric the remaining miles to Denbigh. By the time they reached the crossroads, the sun had nearly set. Although Aelric urged Myrddin to continue on to Denbigh Castle, he declined. His king had given him his orders and they didn’t include dinner in Modred’s hall—in a castle that a few weeks ago had belonged to Arthur’s brother, Cai. That Cai had been more treasonous than not over the years was beside the point, since he again fought at King Arthur’s side. Myrddin didn’t think he could have stomached any more of Aelric’s company anyway.
The troop of men flowed around Myrddin without a second look. As they disappeared around a bend, he gazed after them, unseeing. The first time he’d had the dream of the king’s death—and his own—he’d been no more than twelve. At the time, he’d come awake shocked and alert, with his heart racing, although part of him had thrilled at the vision of the future, of battle, and that he’d fought for Arthur.
He’d had the dream perhaps a dozen times between twelve and twenty. Fifteen years ago, however, the dreams had begun to change, becoming darker in intent, richer in color, and yet more stark, the white snow standing out against the blackness of the forest. They’d also grown more detailed, more urgent and, unfortunately, more common.
Lost in thought, Myrddin drifted to the edge of the road and into the trees that lined it. Cadfarch willingly cropped the grass that crept between the stones, unconcerned when Myrddin dismounted to leave the reins trailing. The war horses in Wales were bred smaller and more versatile than their Saxon counterparts so as to more easily navigate the rocky and uneven ground on which the Welsh lived and fought. Many a night Cadfarch had slept outside rather than in a stable.
At first, Myrddin sat on the edge the road, his knees drawn up. Then, as darkness descended, nearly complete since clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon, he lay on his back and stared upwards into the nothingness.
Over the years, Myrddin had learned to push the dream away, denying it, even as it dogged his steps. Yet, because it had come so much more frequently in the past year, every week certainly, sometimes every day, he could no longer ignore it or take it as casually as he wished. Just two days ago, Myrddin had downed enough wine and mead to blind a giant in hopes of heading off the vision, only to awaken halfway through the night in a cold sweat.
Even as he pushed the events of December 11th aside, going about his business as if that day wasn’t fast approaching—as if the dream was just a dream—he’d finally begun to admit the truth.
It wasn’t just a dream.
Myrddin focused on the leaves above his head. Who was he to see like this? He was a nobody. His mother, the orphaned daughter of a landless knight, had lived as a lady-in-waiting in the household of a minor Welsh lordling. She’d birthed him out of wedlock. The Welsh ignored illegitimacy provided a father acknowledged his offspring, but Myrddin’s mother had died at his birth before she revealed his father’s identity. Consequently, he grew up an orphan in the lord’s house, living off the scraps of the high table and grateful to have received even that.
At the same time, Myrddin was Welsh. It was in his blood to see. Didn’t the priests speak often of the native saints, whose visions had led them on despite the death and despair that surrounded them? Myrddin snorted under his breath at that thought. He might be many things, but a saint wasn’t one of them.
Myrddin could have lain beside the road the whole night, his limbs growing stiff from the cold ground despite the warmth of his wool cloak, if a woman’s scream hadn’t split the air and forced him back to life. The depth of fear in her cry carried her panic through the trees to where he lay. Myrddin was on his feet in an instant. He threw himself onto Cadfarch’s back, turned him in the direction from which the sound had come, and urged him forward.
Myrddin couldn’t see a damned thing in the dark, but Cadfarch’s eyes were more capable than his at night. The horse raced unerringly along the road at a gallop, his head pushed forward and his tail streaming behind him, while Myrddin pressed his cheek against the horse’s neck.
Ahead, off the road in a cleared, grassy patch, a torch flickered, revealing the shapes of three people hovering over a fourth. The woman hadn’t screamed again, but she writhed on the ground before them and even managed to lash out with her foot at one of the men, who cursed aloud. “St. Dewy’s arse! I’ll teach y—”
But the man didn’t finish his sentence. As Cadfarch’s hooves pounded on the stones of the road, the three men rose to their feet and turned to look at Myrddin. One reached for his sword, but the other two men were unarmed, having strapped their weapons to their saddlebags in preparation for molesting the woman.
Myrddin raised his sword and swung it at the armed man, who stupidly chose to stand his ground and catch Myrddin’s sword against his. The force of Myrddin’s blow threw him backwards and, before he could recover, Myrddin flung himself off Cadfarch to land hard in the grass.
Without pausing for breath, Myrddin slipped his sword under the knight’s ribs. The blade slid in easily since, while the man may have worn a sword, indicating his high status, he’d neglected his armor this evening. Perhaps, like his companions, he thought he’d have little need of it, and it would only hinder him in his carousing.
Myrddin pulled the sword from the man’s midsection and looked around for more men to fight, but the other two were already away. Well-horsed, and in train with a third horse, now masterless, they raced north along the road to Rhuddlan, preferring an ignominious departure to facing down an armed and angry knight.
The woman crouched in a ditch where she’d come to rest, her hands in front of her mouth and her eyes wide and staring. The dress she wore might once have been fine but the men had ripped the fabric from neck to waist, revealing her shift. At least no blood marred the front. Her eyes were shadowed but Myrddin didn’t know if the cause of that was the torchlight or men’s fists.
“It’s all right.” He spoke in Welsh, guessing at her nationality. “You’re safe.”
“I never thought—” she began in the same language, and then stopped, swallowing hard. “I didn’t think anyone would come.”
“I heard you scream.” Myrddin took a step nearer and though the woman shrank from him, she didn’t run away.
Moving slowly, as if she were a wild animal rather than human, Myrddin put a hand under her elbow and urged her to stand. Once upright, the top of her head didn’t even reach his chin. Then he stepped back, thinking to keep his distance so as not to frighten her.
“Let me take you home.” Myrddin checked the road. No sign remained of the men who’d run but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by, waiting for a second chance. It made sense to hurry.
The woman didn’t respond, so he grasped her left arm and urged her towards Cadfarch. Her feet, thankfully still shod in well worn-boots, stuck to the earth at first, but he got her moving and was glad that she wasn’t in such shock that she ran away screaming. Myrddin had lived a long and varied life, but even for him that would have been a first.
Myrddin bent to wipe the blade of his sword on the tail of the dead man’s cloak and then sheathed the weapon. The torch the men had carried sputtered in the grass beside the man’s body, so Myrddin picked it up in order to hold it close enough to illumine both the woman’s face and his. The light had almost burned out, but he still needed it. He wanted her to see that he wouldn’t hurt her, and he needed her to talk.
“Tell me your name.” He lifted the torch high. “And where you’re from.”
The woman pulled the ends of her torn dress together and then crossed her arms across her chest, shivering in the night air. Myrddin loosened the ties that held his cloak closed at the neck, removed it, and swung it around her shoulders so that the fabric enveloped her. She clutched at it while Myrddin lifted the hood to hide her hair which had come loose from the chignon at the back of her head. He didn’t bother trying to find her linen coif.
Myrddin gazed at her and then swept his eyes up and down to take in her appearance from head to foot. It was only then that the woman finally raised her eyes from the ground. They were a deep green that complemented her hair, and Myrddin acknowledged that he was correct in his initial assessment: she was beautiful.
He guessed that she was close in age to him, although she could have been younger. The events of the night had hollowed her cheeks and eyes but time and warmth could reveal her youth. Her diction, given the few words she’d spoken, was that of an educated woman.
“My name is Nell ferch Morgan. And I have no home.”
“But you must have once,” he said. “Did the Saxons turn you out of it?”
That, of all things he could have asked, garnered a real response. To Myrddin’s relief, it wasn’t tears she expressed, but anger.
“I come from the convent at Llanfaes, on the Island of Anglesey. The Saxons burned the Abbey to the ground and defiled the grave of Queen Gwenhwyfar.” Nell spit out the words, her biting tone compressing all her hatred of the Saxons into one sentence.
“You’ve come far.” Myrddin didn’t even blink at the Saxon sacrilege. Their barbarity was well-practiced and well known among his people. “Where is your father? Your family?”
“Dead,” she said.
“And the rest of your sisters?”
“I don’t even want to say.” Nell looked away from Myrddin now, her sadness conquering her anger. “They’re dead too. I knew of what the Saxons were capable, but we were too vulnerable—too unprepared for when they came. I managed to hide a few of my sisters at first, but—”
“But what?”
Nell gazed down at her shoes again, and a tear dropped onto the rough, brown leather covering her left foot. “I left them. I thought they would be safe in a nearby barn, so I went to see what had become of the convent after we escaped. To find other survivors. In my absence, the Saxons found them. And—and—” Nell stuttered, swallowed hard, and finished, even if Myrddin already knew what she was going say, “—took them.”
Myrddin studied Nell’s down-turned head, going over her tale in his mind. The garrison at Garth Celyn had smelled smoke blowing across the Strait, but the fog and rain had been so unrelenting, they’d not known what was happening. Perhaps, in Myrddin’s absence, the king had received word of this atrocity today. “You must come to Garth Celyn.”
Although she’d expressed no fear of him up until now, Nell paled. She shook her head and took a step back. “I don’t think so.”
“I saved you,” Myrddin said, nonplussed at this sudden reversal. “I won’t harm you.”
Finding Nell here might be fate—might be one more nail in his coffin—but as the wind whipped the dead leaves from the trees, bringing the strong scent of the sea and the smell of winter, Myrddin felt a change in the air. By lying on the road for longer than he should have, he’d been given the chance to save one life out of all those that might be lost between now and December 11th. Whether by her choice or his, Nell was riding home with him, even if he had to tie her up and throw her across Cadfarch’s withers.
Nell must have heard his thoughts. Without warning, she turned on her heel, dropping his cloak in order to hike her skirts above her knees. She headed for the trees that lined the road, running flat out along a trail that only she could see.
“Stop!” Goddamn it! Cursing, Myrddin started after her. Where she thought she was going to go in the middle of the night, in Saxon territory, with a torn dress, was beyond him.
In the end, it was an unseen root that undid her. She tripped and fell forward onto her hands. When it happened, Myrddin was only a few paces behind, unhindered by skirts and with longer legs. He came down on her back, pressed her to the earth, and grasped each of her wrists in order to hold her arms out to either side and contain her struggles.
“Get. Off. Me!” Nell rocked her hips back and forth.
As Myrddin was half again as large as she and had twenty years of fighting under his belt, Nell hadn’t a chance. “I won’t hurt you.” Myrddin repeated the words again and again until her movements calmed and she breathed heavily into the musty leaves. “My name is Myrddin. I serve Arthur ap Uther.”
Silence. Nell put her forehead into the dirt, arching her neck as she did so.
Myrddin could practically hear her thinking, although he couldn’t discern her thoughts. “If you were at Llanfaes Abbey, the king must hear of its burning. He would have my head for setting you loose east of the Conwy River.”
“Then don’t tell him.”
Now it was Myrddin who had no answer. Finally, he said, “That I cannot do.”
Nell mumbled something into the muddy leaves, something Myrddin didn’t catch, other than the word ‘men’, which she spat into the earth. He eased off of her and then stood, taking a step away from her to leave her free. She twisted onto her back and gazed up at him for a long count of ten.
He held out his hand. After another pause, she grasped his fingers, and he pulled her upright. Then he released her hand before she threw it from her.
“Will you come with me, or do I have to tie you up?”
It was dark under the trees so Myrddin couldn’t read her expression, but the words came grudgingly, subdued at last—at least on the surface. “I’ll come.”
They walked back to Cadfarch, who was waiting where Myrddin had left him. Myrddin swathed Nell in his cloak once again, swung into the saddle, and pulled her up after him. Nell had to rest on the saddlebags. It wasn’t the most comfortable seat but would provide her a better cushion than the horn at the front of the saddle.
Her hem rode up her legs, revealing the undyed leggings she wore underneath her dress. She tugged the skirt down before spreading his cloak wide for modesty. Myrddin waited for her to wrap her arms around his waist, which she eventually did, resting her small hands on his belt.
Cadfarch, of course, had no dreams of the future, good or ill, or any thought but when he might rest or next find his feed bag full. Uncomplaining, he pointed his nose west, in the direction of home.
Chapter Four
5 November 537 AD
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PAST MIDNIGHT—IN NOVEMBER—IN the rain—was not the best time for riding, even on a road as well made as the one that ran from St. Asaph to Garth Celyn. Nell was grateful for Myrddin’s cloak, which protected her from the deluge that fell from the sky. The cloak she’d borrowed from that poor almost-nun had become trampled in the mud and muck beside the road, so Myrddin had left it where it lay. In his generosity, however, Myrddin had left himself open to the elements.
Although Nell wasn’t happy to be heading back towards Eryri, she was content for the moment to ride behind Myrddin. He’d driven her attackers away and knew enough not to touch her unless he had to. It was she who was touching him, her arms cinched around his waist, keeping both of them warm and her fears at bay. How can this be anything other than my fate? Perhaps God isn’t done with me yet.
She’d run from Myrddin before she knew who he was. Because of the dark and that enormous mustache masking his face, it wasn’t until she lay under him in the dirt and he’d said his name that she’d recognized him. Once she knew him, the dream of King Arthur’s death had come into vivid relief. It felt for a moment as if going with Myrddin would tie her to a future she didn’t want to be true. But the truth remained inescapable. He was here, and real, and had saved her. It occurred to her that few girls ever got to meet the man of their dreams.
Myrddin had decided that they shouldn’t seek shelter before they reached the garrison at Caerhun, an old Roman fort that King Arthur had resurrected to watch the Conwy River. Even then, Nell wasn’t sure how she felt about sleeping in a fort among a dozen unfamiliar soldiers. Fear—of men, of the future—had hounded her all the way from Anglesey to St. Asaph. If anything, mile after mile her terror had grown as she replayed in her head the events at the convent—as if she were living them and dreaming them both at the same time.
But despite what she knew of men, she’d been unprepared for the attack on the road. Without Myrddin, those Saxons would have taken her and killed her. Nell knew it, and her heart caught in her throat every time she allowed her mind to focus on it.
“Tell me again who you are,” she said, after they’d ridden five miles, retracing both her steps and his. It had taken her that many miles to steady herself and to be able to speak without a hitch in her voice.
“My name is Myrddin. I serve King Arthur. I escorted the Lord Aelric to St. Asaph and was preparing to return when I came upon you.”
That sounded reasonable to Nell. Despite her fears about this journey and the notion of having anything to do with any man, she gave in to relief. At last, some of the horror of the attack drained away, and she rested her forehead between Myrddin’s shoulder blades. “Thank you. I haven’t thanked you yet.”
“Are you much hurt?”
“I was terrified of the men, panicked beyond all measure, but they didn’t rape me if that’s what you’re asking.”
The word rape twisted on her lips, and she shuddered into Myrddin’s back, but she was glad she’d said it. They didn’t need to dance around the question now.
“Praise God,” Myrddin said. “Why were you traveling that road? Alone?”
“I had a family, once, and sons, although they’re all dead now. I’ve not spent my life behind stone walls. I have no one who depends on me, no husband, and no desire ever to have one again. With nothing to tie me to Anglesey, I saw no reason why I shouldn’t travel where I wished to go.”
“In the middle of a war,” Myrddin said.
Nell’s hackles rose at the distrust in his voice. “What do you mean?”
“What could have possessed you to come so far on your own, unless it was for some nefarious purpose? I saved you from genuine peril, but even spies can find themselves in over their heads when they meet men more devious than they.”
“What? You can’t mean that.” Nell found laughter mingling with a mixture of incredulity and hysteria. Then again, she too could imagine a scenario in which a woman such as she imparted information about King Arthur’s movements to the men who attacked her, only to have them decide she’d outlived her usefulness.
“Convince me otherwise,” Myrddin said.
Nell thought for a moment, sure she couldn’t tell him the whole truth—not about the dreams or that she knew him from them—but she could tell him something. “Our abbess died during the summer, just before the Saxons came. The new one the Archbishop appointed was—” she paused, searching for a word that would convey the truth but wasn’t as stark as ‘an idiot’, “—ineffective.”
“What was your role?” Myrddin said. “Were you the prioress?”
“I was the infirmarer.”
“So you left. All by yourself.”
“I did,” she said. “And nearly paid for my stupidity with my life.”
“But why were you at St. Asaph after dark?”
“That close to so many fortified towns, I thought I’d be safe.”
“You were safe—from masterless men—but not from Modred’s men.”
“I intended to seek shelter at the convent at Rhuddlan,” Nell said. “I had another hour to walk, no more.”
“An hour that proved your undoing,” Myrddin said. “You should have sheltered instead at the convent at Conwy, south of Caerhun.”
“I couldn’t—” Nell paused, trying to explain what she’d come to understand, though she’d never articulated it to herself. “You misunderstand. I wasn’t going to stay at the convent at Rhuddlan. I can’t go back to that life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I took vows, I know, but I chose the convent when I was so angry at God I couldn’t bear to live with myself anywhere else.”
Myrddin barked a laugh. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It did to me; it does to me.” She paused again. “It wasn’t God who burned Llanfaes and killed my sisters.”
“Some would say God allowed it to happ—”
Nell cut him off. “Don’t be a child. With Llanfaes burned, my sisters dead or worse, not just the Abbey, but my life lies in ashes around my feet. I’ve come to realize that I will not rebuild it again as a nun.”
“The entire world has turned upside down these last months.” Myrddin nodded. “A clear path is hard for anyone to see.”
Nell could only agree with that. She lowered her voice, less because she was afraid it would carry than because of the force of the emotion behind it. “I hate the Saxons, so much that I fear I’ll be consumed by it. Yet I’m afraid of them also, and of the future they represent.”
Myrddin’s hand found hers at his waist, and he squeezed. “It burns through me too.”
The pair rode through the night, the downpour turning into a gentle rain in the early hours of the morning. Still, the rain had soaked them through, and Nell was glad when, in the murky light that preceded sunrise, Myrddin turned into the entrance of the fort.
She checked the sky, thinking that if they left Caerhun shortly after noon, they could travel the ten miles to Garth Celyn before darkness fell. Desperation rose within her at the thought of journeying all the way back to a point just shy of the one from which she’d started. And yet, it allowed her a moment of stark clarity: she would never leave Gwynedd now. She would have to ride this war out in Eryri, in the very castle from which King Arthur governed.
Myrddin brought Cadfarch to a halt. “There’ll be provisions and dry cloaks to borrow here.”
Nell accepted Myrddin’s help dismounting. Once on the ground, however, she hesitated as she looked toward the central hall, some thirty paces away, and then back at Myrddin.
“You can wait for me inside.” Myrddin started to lead Cadfarch away.
“No. No, I can’t.” She strode past him, heading towards the stables.
“Nell—”
She ignored him.
Once inside, Myrddin, still shaking his head at her, unbuckled the saddle bags and lifted Cadfarch’s saddle from the horse’s back. Nell picked up a brush and began to work at the mane. The motion felt good after the long ride, since her muscles were stiffened and sore.
As she worked, she sensed Myrddin watching her out of the corner of his eye. She could tell he wasn’t sure what to say to her, or if he should say anything at all. Nell decided that since she already knew everything a woman needed to know about what kind of man he was—even without the clarity of her dreams—he knew nothing of her, and she would save him from his perplexity.
“My mother died at my birth.” She moved the brush to Cadfarch’s legs. The horse whickered, absorbing the treatment Nell was giving him. “My father didn’t marry again nor have other children.” She glanced up at Myrddin, a half-smile on her lips. “He saw no reason why I shouldn’t become familiar with horses.”
“Where was this?” Myrddin rested his forearm along Cadfarch’s back and leaned on it, watching her face.
“In Powys,” she said. “My father had a small holding along the Irfon River. We were never wealthy, but lived well for all that.”
“And your husband? You said you had one.”
“I married at fifteen. My two sons were born and died before I was twenty. Then my husband was killed in a minor skirmish ten years ago.”
“So you went into a convent,” Myrddin said.
“I did.”
“A common enough decision,” Myrddin said, “but why so far from Powys?”
“My father had died, and the Saxons had confiscated his lands. I’d lived among them for most of my life, but my father supported King Arthur and had taught me to support him too.”
Myrddin tipped his head, acknowledging her admission of allegiance even if he didn’t necessarily believe it, especially since she’d now confessed that she’d grown up among the Saxons. They finished grooming Cadfarch, still not in accord, and crossed the courtyard to enter the main building through a side door. It led to a hall, forty feet on a side, with long tables for dining or congregating. The smell of cooking wafted through a far doorway, indicating an adjacent cookhouse.
“Myrddin! You look well!” A stocky man dressed in mail armor much like Myrddin’s appeared and strolled towards them. Also like Myrddin, his broad shoulders told her he’d worn that armor for his entire adult life.
“I disbelieve you, Rhodri, since I haven’t slept in far too long,” Myrddin replied, by way of a greeting.
Rhodri laughed.
Myrddin placed a hand at the small of Nell’s back, pushing her forward with him as he walked towards Rhodri. “We need food and rest and a place to dry our cloaks, if we may. We must return to Garth Celyn before the sun sets.”
“Done.” Rhodri grinned. “As long as you tell me one piece of news.”
“That I can do,” Myrddin said.
Rhodri seated himself at the end of one of the long tables. Nell pushed back the hood of Myrddin’s cloak and went to stand by the fire, her back to the heat. She met Myrddin’s eyes across the distance that separated them and realized he’d been observing her, his lips pursed.
“And we need dry clothes,” Myrddin said.
“We’ll start there.” Rhodri looked Myrddin up and down. Myrddin’s surcoat was damp, and the water glistened on the links of the mail he wore beneath it. Rhodri jerked his head in the direction of a side doorway. “Help yourself.”
Myrddin tipped his head to Nell, and she followed him to a supply room, reached by a narrow hallway. Once inside, she stopped, uncertain, but Myrddin had everything in hand.
“I’ve been here before.” He lifted up the lid of a trunk, which held a variety of garments. “And been in need before.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing that story some day,” Nell said.
Myrddin shot her a grin and then turned back to the trunk. “This will have to do.” He tossed her an ugly, grey dress.
Nell caught it, gazing first at it and then at him. He turned to face away from her to give her a measure of privacy, and tears pricked at her eyes at his understanding. Hastily, she wiped them away before stripping off his cloak and the torn dress she’d worn continually since she’d borrowed it from the young novice whose fate Nell couldn’t bear to think on.
When she’d finished, Myrddin swung around to look at her. He grunted. “I don’t like it. The color doesn’t suit you, and it’s too big. We’ll find you better at Garth Celyn.”
Nell had regained control over herself by then, and she tipped her head in what she hoped was calm acceptance. “At least it’s in one piece.”
Then, not entirely sure of herself, Nell moved forward to help him remove his armor. Myrddin accepted her touch with equanimity, even as he studied her with his calm, hazel eyes that revealed nothing of the thoughts behind them. When Nell traced with one finger the long scar that ran the length of his lower left rib, Myrddin shrugged. “An errant knife. A small matter, considering what it could have been.”
Up close and without his armor, Myrddin proved to be less squat and taller than her first impression, with long rangy limbs, albeit thick shoulders and neck from years of swordplay. For lack of a satchel, Nell wrapped Myrddin’s armor in his wet surcoat. A squire at Garth Celyn would polish the links so they wouldn’t rust. Then, while Myrddin dressed, Nell busied herself in returning the contents of the chest that Myrddin had upended to their place so that she needn’t look at him.
“Ready?” Myrddin adjusted his sword at his waist.
Nell looked up and nodded. Myrddin took his armor from her, tucked it under one arm, and led the way back to the dining hall.
In their absence, the daughter of the garrison captain, a girl just entering womanhood, had put together a meal. Once they were seated, she laid a trencher in front of Nell and Myrddin and set a cup beside it. She assumed they’d share, which was not out of the ordinary, but the action revealed to Nell that both the girl and Rhodri believed that Nell belonged to Myrddin.
Nell gave Myrddin a quick glance, wondering if he knew it too. He was focused on Rhodri, so he didn’t see her look, and then Nell decided that an explanation to the contrary was not in order. They could think what they liked. She could stand to ride pillion a while longer.
“I brought Lord Aelric as far as St. Asaph last night,” Myrddin said, oblivious to Nell and her concerns. “The discussions between Modred and King Arthur continue.”
“So we have a few days’ breathing space.” Rhodri nodded. To Nell, he added, “Modred, when he attacks Eryri, will come through here.”
Nell had known that. Modred’s intent was to open two fronts in Eryri, splitting King Arthur’s forces and attention. Wulfere would attack from Anglesey, and Modred himself from the east, along the very road on which Nell and Myrddin had traveled. But while the army on Anglesey had been in position for months, Modred had faced resistance all along the border between Mercia and Gwynedd, which had delayed the combined assault.
And then, at the very moment Modred had been ready to advance across the Conwy River, Archbishop Dafydd had intervened. Loath to have uncle and nephew fighting each other and despoiling Wales between them, he suggested the possibility of a peace settlement. King Arthur and Modred had agreed to try, and they’d been working on it since the middle of October. Lord Aelric had merely delivered the latest missive.
“Indeed,” Myrddin said. “Archbishop Dafydd has not given up, but I have no news beyond that. We met no Saxons on the road, once we headed west from St. Asaph.”
“I’ll tell the captain.” Rhodri stood and departed, leaving Nell and Myrddin alone with their simple meal of bread, cheese, boiled onions, and sweet mead. Myrddin ate the fresh food with gusto. Nell, in contrast, picked at hers.
“Are you all right?” Myrddin asked between mouthfuls.
Nell pushed the trencher more towards him, having eaten only three or four bites. Over the last two days, it seemed the nervous pit in her stomach had become permanent. It wasn’t going to go away just because she was behind stone walls and ostensibly safe. “I’m more tired than hungry.”
Myrddin nodded and hurried through the rest of the meal. Rhodri hadn’t returned by the time he finished so, once again, Nell followed Myrddin out of the hall. This time, he led her up a staircase to the sleeping rooms set aside for guests. On the floor of one room lay six pallets, each with a folded blanket on its end.
“You may sleep here,” Myrddin said.
Nell took a few hesitant steps into the room and then looked to where Myrddin lounged in the doorway, one shoulder braced against the frame. “What about you?”
“I’ll bunk in the barracks across the courtyard.” He tipped his head to indicate their general direction.
“No!” The word burst from Nell, and once said, she didn’t want to take it back.
Myrddin dropped his hands to his sides and straightened. “What?”
“I can’t stay here without you. Please don’t leave me alone.”
Myrddin gaped at her. “You ask the impossible, Nell. I can’t sleep in the same room as you!”
“Please, Myrddin. I can’t—” Nell choked on the words. Once again, the terrors of the last three days which she’d been holding at bay threatened to overwhelm her, and she buried her face in her hands.
“All right; all right.” Myrddin held one hand out to her. “I don’t mind. I can sleep anywhere, but you must be certain. Last week you were a nun, and today—” He stopped.
Nell let the silence stretch between them while she took several deep breaths to calm herself. “Today I’m not.” She walked to one of the pallets which was set against a far wall and sat down on it, before pointing to a second pallet near where Myrddin stood. “Could you shut the door and move the pallet to block it? If you sleep across it ...?” Her voice trailed off.
After a final, long look, Myrddin nodded. “I can sleep here,” he said, although his expression told her otherwise. It was as if he was concerned, curious, and amused all at the same time.
Comforted that he would stay, regardless of what he really thought, Nell lay down, turned her back on Myrddin, and pulled the blanket to her chin.
* * * * *
MYRDDIN BREATHED IN the high moorland air, pungent with the smell of dried grass, juniper, and agrimony, patches of which grew all along the road. They’d reached a point where they were well above the farmlands of the Aber river valley and could see all the way to the Irish Sea. The water showed grey-blue and reflected the clouds that had begun to blow in from the west.
“It’s so peaceful up here. Not like down below.” Nell removed a hand from Myrddin’s waist and gestured towards the island of Anglesey, which squatted in the distance. “The Saxons plan to conquer Eryri next, and we can’t let them. They will move soon.”
Myrddin squinted, but to him the island wasn’t anything more than a grey smudge on the horizon. “Do you know that for a fact?”
“The ferryman at Bangor took me across the Menai Strait on the evening of November 2nd, not long after Wulfere’s men—” Nell swallowed and then continued as if the words weren’t poisoning her heart, “—found my sisters. But he only helped me because he was ferrying himself across. He felt an ill wind blowing and didn’t want to be caught in the middle of it. He didn’t intend to return to the island until it was over.”
“You speak of Wulfere. Does he still head the Saxon forces?” Myrddin said.
“Yes,” Nell said. “The people of Anglesey call him ‘the pig’.”
As before when Nell had spoken of the atrocities at the convent, Myrddin sensed that if she were less well-bred, she would have spat on the ground rather than speak Wulfere’s name.
“If anyone deserves it, Wulfere does,” Myrddin said. “He once chopped off a man’s hand for failing to give him his carafe of wine as quickly as he liked.”
“May he burn in hell for what he did to my sisters,” Nell said.
“I will see to it if I can,” Myrddin said. “Before I left yesterday morning, King Arthur’s scouts were reporting unusual activity on and near the bridge of boats. When they come, we’ll be ready.”
In fact, one of Arthur’s many spies had told him that Wulfere, frustrated by the delay, had openly commented that Modred lacked sufficient courage to fight King Arthur when it came to it and sought a way to force Modred’s hand. Arthur believed that soon Wulfere would order his men across the Strait, hoping for a surprise attack and a swift victory. Instead, he would find himself facing an army of Welshmen.
Myrddin could already hear the screams of dying men, blood coating them and him, taste salt and sand on his lips as the wind spit surf into his face, and feel again the slick thrust of his sword through an enemy’s flesh.
Nell and Myrddin made their way out of the mountains and into the forests and fields that surrounded Garth Celyn, following the Roman road. An hour later, they approached the gates to the castle. Arthur’s banner—the red dragon of Wales on a white background—flew from the flagpole. A shiver went through Myrddin at the knowledge that if he couldn’t stop Arthur from going to the church by the Cam River, that flag might never fly in Wales again. While Myrddin never had any intention of allowing that to happen, it was dawning on him only now—so late he was embarrassed to admit it—that it was he who would have to see to it.
The certainty of Myrddin’s new knowledge grew in him—along with his fear. All his life, he’d lived as other men had directed and been content with that. His lord pointed, and he went. How was he going to change course so late in life? How was he to face the oncoming storm when he couldn’t tell anyone his thoughts, his fears, his dreams? How was he to stand his ground against this fate?
A head popped over the battlements. It was Ifan, Myrddin’s old compatriot. Myrddin waved a hand.
“You’ve returned.” Ifan rested his forearms on the wooden rail at the top of the wall so he could see Myrddin better. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of Nell but didn’t comment, for which Myrddin was grateful. Through the arrow slits, the shadows of other men paced along the wall-walk.
“You expected something different?” Myrddin said.
Ifan laughed. “When one rides among the Saxons, one can never be too sure of one’s safety.” He lifted his chin. “The garrison at Caerhun is secure?”
“It is,” Myrddin said, “and the mead excellent.”
Ifan snorted laughter and waved them in as the guards below pushed open the gate.
Two torches in sconces lit the front of the gatehouse. Garth Celyn was much more a fort or manor house than a castle, for all that a high palisade surrounded it. It perched on a slight hill overlooking the farmland and sea to the north and had a line of sight in all directions so the defenders could see the Saxons coming before they reached the castle—in order to give them time to flee.
Which they would need to do since Garth Celyn wasn’t defensible. It lacked both the height of most of King Arthur’s bastions and the elaborate ditch and rampart construction that were mandatory for flatland castles. It did contain many buildings, including a great hall and kitchen, behind which sat a two story house with many rooms for guests. A barracks lay near the gatehouse, along with the armory, chapel, and craft halls.
At Nell’s convent, the tunnel which King Arthur had repaired had been intended as an escape route for early Christians who’d worshipped under an edict of death when the Romans ruled Wales. Garth Celyn, in turn, had two tunnels. One headed north, leading to the sea, and the other emptied into a meadow near Aber Falls. A grown man could walk easily along the underground passages.
Myrddin’s stomach clenched at the thought of Nell navigating the tunnel underneath Llanfaes Abbey, leading her sisters to what she hoped was safety, only to find that her Abbess had compromised her safe haven. Such courage was rare, even in a soldier. He would not have expected to find it in a nun. Or rather, former nun. That she’d asked to share a room with him at Caerhun still stunned him. They’d slept apart, but nobody else knew that. He still couldn’t believe she’d wanted it.
Nell’s arms clenched Myrddin’s waist.
“What is it?” He hoped his thoughts hadn’t influenced hers. When she didn’t answer, he added, “There’s nothing to fear.”
“I—” Nell stopped. “I am not at home here.”
“You worry needlessly,” he said. “The king will not hold the news of the Saxon depredations against you.”
Once inside the walls, Myrddin dismounted onto packed earth, dryer than at Caerhun thanks to today’s limited sunshine. Looking around, Myrddin was pleased to be a part of the bustle and activity of the castle. Nell caught him smiling.
“I see soldiers.” She pulled her cloak close around her and put up the hood. “I see war. Death. You must see something different.”
Myrddin surveyed the courtyard. Three men-at-arms slouched near the smithy, waiting for their horses to be reshod. A handful of men watched two others wrestle by the stables, and a host of peasants—servants in the kitchen and the hall—moved in and out of the huts that sat hard against the palisade. A boy holding a stick urged a pig towards its stall while another ran towards Myrddin and reached for Cadfarch’s reins.
“My lord!” he said. “All is well?”
“It is, Adda.” Myrddin tousled his hair. “I’ll be in to see Cadfarch later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nell watched the exchange through narrowed eyes. “You are a knight,” she said, as if there had been some doubt on that score.
“I am.” Myrddin turned to look at her, surprised she hadn’t known it.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I should have guessed it since you were charged with the welfare of Lord Aelric. But you traveled alone ...” Her words tapered off.
“And my cloth is poor, for all that I wear mail armor. I know. I have the look of a man-at-arms but, in truth—” he spread his arms wide like a bard preparing to sing a paean to Arthur, “—I’m an impoverished knight.” Myrddin laughed and tossed a small coin to Adda. “We do what we can with what we are given.”
Nell didn’t respond, still embarrassed perhaps, so Myrddin grasped her elbow and steered her towards the great hall. Despite her fears, she would have to speak to the king about the events at Llanfaes and the desecration of his wife’s grave, as well as confirm that the populace on Anglesey believed the Saxons would move across the Strait soon in hopes of striking here, at Garth Celyn.
The guards who watched the entrance to the great hall pulled open the eight-foot doors at the top of the steps to allow Myrddin and Nell to enter. A wave of warmth enveloped them, along with that familiar musky smell of damp wool, herbs, and humanity. Nell relaxed beside him. Often in winter, it was cold enough to see one’s breath in the hall, but darkness had fallen and it was dinner time, so men—eating, drinking, and talking—filled the room. The fire in the hearth blazed.
King Arthur sat at the high table at the far end of the hall, as was his custom, and it was so warm next to the fire that he’d shed his cloak. Two senior advisors flanked him: Geraint, one of his foremost commanders, and Bedwyr, his seneschal. Bedwyr was a grizzled, thick-set man of Arthur’s generation who had supported Arthur since the early days of his reign. It was Bedwyr who kept order in Eryri when Arthur was away. More often than not, the two of them could communicate without speaking.
Myrddin stared at the king, feeling the familiar punch to the gut that seeing him alive after having dreamed of his death always gave him. Myrddin was sick of the dreams, terrified of the waking vision he’d had the day before, but there was no denying that King Arthur had acted as the beacon of Myrddin’s existence in a world gone mad for his entire adult life. Myrddin may have long denied the future that stared him in the face; he might not know what it was going to take to change that future; he didn’t know how he was going to become other than he was. But he knew, somehow, that he had to find a way. By God, there has to be an answer here.
As Myrddin urged Nell forward, pushing through her hesitation, Arthur noted their appearance and beckoned them to him.
“You’ll do fine,” Myrddin said. “Come.”
And then before his eyes, Nell transformed herself from an insecure girl to the confident nun who’d taken charge of her sisters when nobody else would. She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin, as aware as Myrddin that if everyone in the room hadn’t noticed them at first, they watched them now. They threaded their way between the closer tables, many of which had been added because of the increased number of men in the garrison, and then walked up the aisle to King Arthur’s seat. They stopped before him. Myrddin bowed while Nell curtseyed.
“Myrddin,” Arthur said, with that particular, dry tone he often used when addressing him.
“My lord.”
“Lord Aelric reached home safely?” King Arthur’s eyes tracked from Myrddin to Nell.
“He did,” Myrddin said. “Neither he nor Lord Modred can have any cause for complaint.”
“And yet, you come back in one piece.” A smile twitched at the corner of King Arthur’s mouth.
“As you say, my lord,” Myrddin said. “For all Modred’s perfidy, the Archbishop would countenance nothing less.”
“Good.” The king turned to Nell. “Welcome to Garth Celyn, madam. I remember your attention to the details of my wife’s funeral.” Somehow it didn’t surprise Myrddin that Arthur recognized her. She was certainly memorable, and he was the King of Wales. It was his job to remember faces. “I confess I’m concerned to see you here, however, dressed as you are.”
“The convent is dissolved, my lord,” Nell said.
At Nell’s words, the air in the room turned icy cold as Arthur’s face darkened. When the king became angry, he rarely shouted or overtly lost his temper. Instead, he grew still, and his voice became lower and deceptively gentler.
“Tell me,” he said.
Nell enumerated the Saxon crimes while King Arthur sat, still and silent, his jaw clenched and bulging. Once she finished, Myrddin took the liberty of stepping into the conversation before King Arthur’s heart gave out.
“My lord,” Myrddin said. “Nell has heard that the Saxons intend to cross the Strait soon.”
“So my scouts at Penryhn tell me,” Arthur said. “Modred attacks me despite the peace.”
“Or rather, Wulfere does.” Myrddin swallowed hard at his impertinence in correcting his king. Still, he didn’t take it back. The man he needed to be wasn’t going to come without taking risks.
“Certainly.” Arthur looked amused rather than angry at Myrddin’s interjection. “But we aren’t supposed to know that, are we?”
“Modred isn’t interested in peace, regardless of what Archbishop Dafydd hopes,” Geraint added, from Arthur’s left.
Nell shifted from one foot to another beside Myrddin, and he glanced at her. Her clear skin had gone paler than its usual white. Concerned, he slipped an arm around her waist to support her.
Also noting her distress, Arthur waved a hand to one of the ladies of the court who came forward. He looked into Nell’s eyes. “You have a home here as long as you want it. If there is anything you need, ask Myrddin, here, or Bedwyr.”
“Yes, my lord,” Nell said. “Thank you.”
To the lady, the king said, “See to our guest’s comfort.”
Meanwhile, Myrddin murmured under his breath to Nell, “Will you be all right?”
“I’m fine.” Nell looked up at him, placed a hand on his chest, and patted once. Myrddin released her, and Nell followed the girl without wavering on her feet. When she reached the door to the stairs, she looked back at Myrddin, her face expressionless. Myrddin liked that even less than her show of weakness. He nodded his encouragement, and she disappeared.
Myrddin focused again on King Arthur.
“I hope you weren’t planning to sleep tonight,” the king said.
“No, sire. I slept at Caerhun.”
All the way down the road from the standing stones, Myrddin had been thinking of the battle that was to come. He’d drawn his sword yesterday in defense of Nell, his muscles moving in their remembered patterns, but it wasn’t the same as a real battle. Myrddin hadn’t fought in formation since the brutal defeats of the previous year after which King Arthur was forced to surrender far too much to Modred and confine himself to his lands in Eryri. Myrddin wasn’t glad to have killed a man yesterday, but it gave him confidence that he still knew how to fight, even at thirty-six. He needed to get his head in the right place if he was going to be the knight upon whom his companions depended. Myrddin touched his sword at his waist, reassured at its comforting weight.
The king had turned to speak to Bedwyr. Because King Arthur had not yet dismissed him, Myrddin remained standing on the opposite side of the table from the king’s seat, trying not to shift from one foot to another in awkwardness and impatience. Geraint, who’d remained on Arthur’s left throughout the conversation, winked at Myrddin in a rare moment of camaraderie, his eyes alight with amusement. Myrddin bowed gravely back.
Arthur spoke another few words, so low Myrddin didn’t catch them due to the hubbub in the room, and then turned to face front again. He sat, slouched a bit in his chair, an elbow on the armrest and a finger to his lips, and studied Myrddin. “There is something different about you today.”
Myrddin straightened his shoulders. “Is there?”
“How many years have you served me?”
“Since I became a man.” In Wales, legally, that was at the age of fourteen, although Myrddin was sixteen when he’d come to Garth Celyn and marked his transition from boy to man by that event.
“Perhaps it’s time you found yourself a wife,” he said. “Or I did.”
Myrddin blinked. Nothing could have been further from his mind than that. Wives brought complications that were of no interest to him, both because of the commitment involved and the logistics.
“A wife, my lord?” Myrddin said. “I have no means to support a wife.”
“You should,” Arthur said. “In the new year, I will see to it that you are rewarded for your long service.”
Myrddin’s mouth fell open, just managing not to choke on his astonishment. “Thank you my lord.”
Arthur smiled and waved his hand, dismissing him.
Myrddin bowed, still stuttering his thanks, but King Arthur’s attention was again directed elsewhere.
Geraint grinned at Myrddin and raised his cup in a salute. Myrddin shook his head, simultaneously bemused and appalled. Ever since the dreams had started to come more often, he’d felt himself haunted. He’d kept himself aloof and behind walls no woman could penetrate. He’d long since tallied the cost of letting anyone get inside them and found it too high.
But now here he stood, among friends he would trust with his life, in the hall of a king for whom he’d willingly die—and had died in his dreams more times than he could count—surrounded by people he knew so well he could recite their conversations for them. Whether he liked it or not, the walls were down. He was going to save them all or die in the attempt.
With nothing left to say, Myrddin turned away, heading towards a vacant spot at one of the long tables next to where Ifan sat. Ifan moved over to give Myrddin room and handed him a trencher for his food.
“What was that about?” Ifan said.
Myrddin poured a cup of wine, studied it, and slaked his thirst, while reminding himself not to drink too much. He wasn’t interested in drinking himself into a stupor. Perhaps if he paid closer attention to his dreams, and dreamed more often, he could identify the necessary details that might give him an edge in saving Arthur. “The king plans to find me a wife. Or, rather, he told me that he would choose one for me if I don’t do the deed myself.”
Ifan had been taking a drink as Myrddin spoke, and now he choked and laughed at the same time, spraying wine across the table. Coughing, he used the tail of his cloak to dab at his mustache. “A wife?”
“That’s what he said.”
Shaking his head, Ifan set to his food once more, laughing between bites. “Myrddin with a wife.”
Myrddin shook his head too and laughed into his cup. Unless he could find a way for Arthur to live into the new year, the entire discussion was moot. It was comical to even think about.
A wife. Instead, how about a life that lasts beyond the next thirty-six days?
Chapter Five
6 November 537 AD
––––––––
NELL STOOD ON THE RAMPART above the gatehouse to watch Myrddin, Lord Geraint, and all but a handful of the men-at-arms from the garrison ride away from Garth Celyn in the pre-dawn hush. Myrddin rode among the leaders, just to the left of Gareth, younger brother to Gawain and a commander in his own right. It was a promotion of a sort, apparently, which hadn’t gone unremarked among those left behind.
Anything that distinguished one man from another—any time a man found favor in the sight of King Arthur—invited comment. The soldiers rode without torches, relying on the moon, which at present was playing hide and seek with the clouds, to guide them.
Damn all men for their love of battle! Even as Nell thought the words, she knew they weren’t fair. This war had been forced on King Arthur by his brother, Cai, who’d attacked one of Modred’s strongholds without consulting Arthur. Modred had used the ill-advised assault as an excuse to restart the war. The son of one of Arthur’s many sisters, Modred had set his sights on Wales from the moment he realized that he was the eldest nephew and that Arthur wouldn’t produce a son of his own.
Modred’s Mercian allies, on the other hand, had never forgiven Arthur for defeating them at Mt. Badon on his way to controlling all but the most southern regions of Wales. For thirty-seven years, they’d carried that grudge. By now, even the most die-hard apologists didn’t doubt that Arthur’s choices were few: to fight, to die, or to give up his patrimony entirely.
Nell braved the wind until the hoof beats faded, and in the end was the last silent watcher left on the battlement. The men had long since disappeared into the mist when she turned away. It was strange to be so alone, with no responsibilities, no young novice to reassure or put to work depending on the hour, no religious office to keep. Even odder was the preponderance of men around her. Few women with whom she might associate lived in the castle—and should she even try, with hardly more than a month to live?
At the entrance to the hall, King Arthur himself greeted her and gestured that she should sit with him while he ate his meal. He’d watched his men ride away and, contrary to her expectations, didn’t retire to his office rather than allow his people the opportunity to observe how he handled the next few painful hours as they waited to hear the results of the battle.
Arthur took a sip from his goblet and put it down. “Anxious?” he said, once she’d seated herself on his left.
“Yes,” she said, opting for the truth. She felt confident that Myrddin himself, if he was to fight for the king in a month’s time, would live through this battle. The king had few enough men, however, that the loss of even one was a tragedy.
“Myrddin is one of my best men,” Arthur said. “There is less need to worry for him than for most. He was a stripling when he came to me and I took him on despite the reservations of some of my counselors. I have not regretted it.”
“He isn’t as young as he once was,” Nell said.
“Nor are any of us.” King Arthur laughed. “But there will be little enough fighting today, by my reckoning.”
“How’s that, my lord?” Nell said.
“The Saxons don’t know the Strait like we do,” Arthur said. “We take its temperamental nature for granted, but Wulfere has been here only a few months. He’s arrogant. His bridge won’t hold.”
“I admit it’s an odd construction,” Nell said. The Saxons had hammered boards over the top of their bridge of boats to make a makeshift road from Anglesey to the Eryri shore. Even at low tide, the bridge wouldn’t provide an easy crossing.
“It isn’t so much the bridge as the tides,” King Arthur said. “Slack water occurs four times a day: an hour before high or low tide. Geraint has a boy severing the ropes and pins that hold the bridge together. Either the Saxons will discover the damage, it will delay them past the optimum time to cross, and they’ll have to wait six hours for the next slack water—or they won’t, and the bridge will break and dump them into the Strait.”
“And you think that Wulfere plans to cross this morning?”
“Yes. That’s what the girl said.”
Nell had been shredding the remains of a biscuit that a servant had set in front of her, but now she glanced at the king. “Girl?”
The king gazed at her over his goblet and then set it down. “Wulfere’s new doxy wasted no time in finding a way to reach one of my men. The Saxon camp is full of followers and hangers on. I have at least a half-dozen men and boys among them who confirm her information.”
Nell’s heart was in her throat, and she could barely speak around the lump. “Do you know her name?”
King Arthur’s forehead wrinkled in thought, and then he turned in his seat. Bedwyr was just entering the hall from the corridor beyond, and Arthur called to him. “Do you know the name of the new girl in Wulfere’s bed?”
Nell clamped her teeth together, trying to keep them from chattering at the casual way he asked the question. The girl meant nothing to him other than a source of information.
“Bronwen, I think.” Bedwyr didn’t even break stride as he headed towards the front of the hall.
“That’s it.” Arthur snapped his fingers. “Bronwen.”
Nell placed her palms together and her fingers to her lips, but instead of prayer, she was trying to force back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. All she could think of was the sweet-faced, sharp-tongued girl Bronwen had been in the convent. Now she was Wulfere’s whore, but she had enough courage behind that pretty face, despite everything she’d endured, to defy him and spy for Arthur. “That poor child.”
“Bronwen is a common enough name,” Arthur said. “You don’t know that she was one of your sisters.”
“Perhaps,” Nell said, pretending for Arthur that she wasn’t certain, although inside she was certain that she knew the truth.
“And what about you?” Arthur said. “You’re welcome to stay at Garth Celyn as long as you choose. Your knowledge of herbs and healing is a most welcome addition to the castle, but surely you would prefer a different haven? Perhaps the convent in Gwytherin?”
“No, my lord,” Nell said. “Thank you, but I can’t go back to that life.”
“Can’t,” Arthur said. “Or won’t?”
Nell tipped her head in acknowledgement of the king’s distinction. “Won’t.”
“As you wish.” Arthur kept his voice level, but she could tell he was curious as to her reasons. Fortunately, he was too polite to ask.
Just then, Bedwyr reentered the hall, leaving the front door wide. The sun had risen, and the grey dawn filtered through the scattered clouds, revealing an unusually clear day that would give the watchers a fine view of the Menai Strait and Anglesey beyond.
“My king!” Bedwyr strode towards Arthur. “The Saxons are delayed, but there is no doubt they intend to come today!”
Arthur’s eyes lit, and he stood. Nell stood with him.
“Excellent,” King Arthur said.
“Will you go to see it, my lord?” she said.
“No,” Arthur said. “I will not undermine the authority of Geraint and Gareth. My faith in my men is not misplaced.”
That showed remarkable patience. Nell, for her part, couldn’t keep still. Instead of trying to tame her emotions, she curtseyed to Arthur and left the hall for the battlements. Nell told herself she was going outside again so she could see what had become of Llanfaes. It wasn’t necessarily that she was going to spend the day watching for Myrddin.
The sun shone and the wind was calmer than in the pre-dawn hours, so it was warmer than before. Nell paced along the wall-walk, stopping every few feet to look over the rail at the sea sparkling in the sunshine less than a half-mile away. Penrhyn Castle, Gareth’s hereditary estate, lay between Garth Celyn and the bridge of boats, but she could see it in her mind’s eye.
Sweet Mary, mother of God, keep him safe! She sent another prayer to Saint Jude, patron saint of fools and desperate causes. And then she laughed because she didn’t know if she was praying for Myrddin, or for herself.
* * * * *
WULFERE’S MEN DID DISCOVER the break in the ropes that bound the bridge together. Repairing it delayed them past their intended, early starting time, so it was exactly noon when Wulfere ordered his men to march. It was the perfect opportunity. The Strait was as calm as it ever got.
“Here they come.” Ifan broke the expectant silence that had seeped among the men during the long hours of waiting.
“Nervous, are you?” Myrddin said to his friend as they watched the horsed Saxon knights navigate their engineering marvel.
“They’d better make it quick, is all I can say,” Ifan said. “I’m tired of sitting doing nothing.”
“And your back aches,” Myrddin said.
“Worse this week than ever,” Ifan said. “Must be this rotten weather.”
Although from Myrddin’s perspective, the weather wasn’t that bad for November. It was just that Ifan was nearing forty and so many years of fighting had given him aches and pains no remedy could ease. Myrddin counted himself lucky that, while his eyes were failing him, his body so far hadn’t.
As Myrddin watched, the lead riders cleared the mainland end of the bridge and rode across the sand. Wulfere, one of the foremost knights, was recognizable by his black beard and the matching black plume on his helmet. Nell had shuddered at the mention of his name. Given his composure and presence, Myrddin couldn’t blame her.
Myrddin’s fellow knights and men-at-arms stayed in the trees on the edge of the beach, waiting for the fifty archers on the hill above them to loose their arrows. Geraint held their fire until the cavalry were almost to the woods and the entire company of Saxon foot soldiers marched on the bridge. Then he gave the signal.
“Fire at the horses!” Geraint’s voice carried all the way down to Myrddin’s position.
Arrows flew from bows in a hail of metal and wood, turning the beach into chaos in a matter of a few heartbeats. Six of the Saxon horses went down in the first volley. Saxon knights knew about archers, having encountered them in battle with the Welsh many a time (to their loss), even if they hadn’t employed any of their own in this venture.
Therefore, instead of retreating, they did the smart thing, which was to charge. Holding their shields high to protect their chests, they urged their horses to close the distance to the woods. Perhaps they thought they’d find safety there. If nothing else, their action ensured that the tops of the trees restricted the archers’ angle of fire.
Gareth commanded the cavalry in this battle and took Geraint’s words as a signal to move. “Charge!”
The Welsh cavalry came out of the woods in a phalanx, fifty feet wide, Myrddin among them. His heart pounded in his ears, drowning all sound but the relentless beat and making him oblivious to anything but the Saxon soldiers in front of him. Christ, I’d forgotten! Directing Cadfarch with his knees because he needed his left arm to hold his shield while his right hand held his sword, Myrddin plowed through the front rank of the opposing force.
His momentum carried him past a knight sporting an ostentatious, red feather on his helmet. When the man swung around to face Myrddin, his horse’s hooves sank into the soft sand and threw him off balance. Myrddin slid the tip of his sword along the man’s blade and, with a flick of his wrist, disarmed him. Myrddin then shifted the other way. Using his left arm, he hit the Saxon soldier full in the face with the flat surface of his shield.
The man fell, no longer a threat, and the noise of battle broke over Myrddin like an unexpected wave, assaulting his senses. He froze for a moment, adjusting to the cacophony. Above him, Geraint’s archers rained their arrows down on the Saxon soldiers on the bridge.
To the east, the Welsh foot soldiers, who’d come out of the trees at the same time as the cavalry, roared, starting their run towards the Saxon lines. Their axes and pikes were raised high and their mouths were open in the universal cry that gives men courage in the face of death. Fewer than half the Saxon foot soldiers had reached the beach. Thus, the Welshmen outnumbered the initial Saxon ranks, and the invaders went down under the onslaught.
Myrddin turned his attention back to the Saxon cavalry and found himself face to face with Wulfere himself. Myrddin clenched his teeth and almost bit off the end of his tongue. This was the one man he’d most wanted to meet—and the one of whom he was also the most afraid.
Wulfere’s black beard covered his face from chin to eyes and was split by an unholy sneer. Blood coated Wulfere’s sword, and he met Myrddin’s blade with enormous force—enough to make Myrddin fear he’d lose his grip on the hilt. They struggled together, neither finding the upper hand but hacking away at each other, all elegance or restraint lost in the desperation of battle.
“Back! Back! Back!” The words came in both Saxon and Welsh as one of Wulfere’s captains tried to reach everyone who fought with him. Wulfere might have been doing well, but that wasn’t true of many of his companions.
“No!” Wulfere’s refusal carried across the whole of the battlefield.
Myrddin took that instant of distraction to launch himself at the Saxon lord and wrestle Wulfere from his horse. Their brief sword play had shown Myrddin what he’d feared—that he would have trouble defeating this man in a straight fight. At one time in his life, he’d relished the fear and power of exchanging blows, but he was no longer interested in trying. Thirty-six wasn’t twenty-four.
The two men fell to the ground, Wulfere beneath Myrddin. While the force of the fall had knocked the breath from Myrddin’s lungs, the jolt had dazed Wulfere even more, and his confusion allowed Myrddin to rise and straddle him. He stared into Wulfere’s eyes. They were fogged and unfocused. The big Saxon moaned, undone by the fall and suddenly human. Myrddin swallowed hard—and with a mighty thrust, forced his sword through Wulfere’s armor and into his heart. Wulfere would never rise again.
Myrddin rose unsteadily to his feet. The killing left an acid taste in Myrddin’s mouth, but he swallowed it down too. Of all the men who’d died by his hand, this was one he wouldn’t regret.
Overall, the battle had been short and brutal. By the time Myrddin looked up, a dozen dead Saxons lay on the sand. The rest had begun the retreat. The Saxon foot soldiers had the numbers to push back at the Welshmen but, at the sight of their horsed superiors passing behind them to the bridge, they turned as one and ran back the way they’d come.
It seemed the entire Saxon army had taken to its heels and was fighting each other to be the first to reach Anglesey. They appeared oblivious to the fact that the Welsh were less dangerous to them now than the water. Following Geraint’s orders, the Welsh let them go. They didn’t want to get stuck on the Saxon bridge, and they didn’t have the manpower to fight them on Anglesey, or King Arthur would have tried it already.
Unfortunately for Wulfere’s men, it was by now almost one in the afternoon—high tide—and the most dangerous time to cross the Strait. The bridge of boats bucked and bent from the strain of so many men and horses.
Then, with only an ominous creak as warning, the bridge snapped. The two ends of the break swung apart, moving away from each other at a speed of two and a half knots. The separation occurred so suddenly, few men were able to stay upright. Within a count of five, the Saxon army had fallen into the treacherous waters of the Strait, with just a few men hanging onto the wooden planks, face down and gripping the wood as if their lives depended on it. Which they did.
“By all that is holy, I’ve never seen the like.” Geraint came to stand beside Myrddin, his sword pointed down and blood dripping off it into the sand.
“We could retake Anglesey.” Gareth halted on Myrddin’s other side. Blood stained his sword too, and he’d lost his helmet at some point in the battle, but he appeared otherwise undamaged. He was a twenty-five-year-old, bachelor knight and a child of a long and powerful lineage. It wouldn’t have done for him to die just yet.
“We don’t need the lands they hold until the spring planting.” Geraint looked past Myrddin to Gareth, his gaze piercing. “And I say that, even with the knowledge that your lands languish in the hands of your cousin.”
“He’s down.” Gareth’s voice carried no emotion. One glance showed an iron set to his jaw. It occurred to Myrddin that Gareth might have taken on his traitorous cousin himself. Both men were grandsons of a great warlord who’d been steward to Arthur’s uncle, Ambrosius. That family had been torn in pieces by this war, half fighting for Modred and half for Arthur. And this cousin had come down on Modred’s side. To his loss.
Geraint nodded. “I will give the order to kill any Saxons who wash ashore.” He slapped his hand on Myrddin’s shoulder. “You are the king’s favorite messenger. Ride to him and tell him of the victory.”
“Today is your reward for all those times you’ve brought bad news.” A smile hovered around Gareth’s lips despite the grimness of the carnage before them.
Geraint shot Myrddin a grin. “And once again, you’ve shown yourself in possession of the Devil’s own luck. I saw you vanquish Wulfere. It was well done.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Myrddin said.
His legs moving stiffly in the aftermath of the fight, Myrddin returned to Cadfarch. When he’d leapt from the horse’s back to bring down Wulfere, Cadfarch had stayed close by in case Myrddin needed him, unafraid of the smell of blood or the clash of weapons.
Myrddin was glad to see Ifan on his feet not far away, his head resting against his horse’s neck.
Ifan waved a hand half-heartedly in Myrddin’s direction. “You’re off to see the king, then?”
“As I am bid,” Myrddin said.
“Better you than me, friend,” Ifan said. “I’ve a mind to lay down right here in the sand.”
“You do that,” Myrddin said, more glad than he could say that Ifan still lived.
Myrddin mounted Cadfarch and directed him towards the road from Bangor to Garth Celyn, skirting the manor house at Penrhyn to which they’d bring the wounded. They’d lost no more than two or three men-at-arms and a dozen foot soldiers, but many more had surface wounds that could suppurate if they weren’t treated. Over the years, more out of chance than design, the doctoring of the company’s wounds had fallen to Myrddin, who’d found himself more adept at it than he might have expected. Gareth and Geraint would need every healer of whatever skill today. Myrddin intended to aid the men as soon as Arthur gave him leave to return.
The north coast of Wales was endlessly green, even in the middle of winter. The beauty of it drew Myrddin forward, easing the tension of the battle and draining away the adrenaline that had allowed him to fight it. By Myrddin’s calculation, at least a dozen Saxon knights and an equal number of squires had died, in addition to the hundreds of Saxon foot soldiers. It wasn’t a staggering total, but would be devastating to Modred, if only because of the knights he’d lost. Many were of his own household, his and Arthur’s close kin.
From some distance away, Myrddin spied the towers of Garth Celyn and noted the great number of people atop the battlements. They were watching for him. He raised a hand, knowing they would understand what it meant. If they’d lost, he would have been moving faster—if he’d been able to come at all. As it was, the gates opened while Myrddin was still fifty yards away. He rode inside and was instantly besieged by questions. Myrddin glanced up from his inquisitors to see King Arthur standing on the top step to the hall, Nell beside him.
Myrddin dismounted, trotted to where King Arthur stood, and didn’t make him wait for the news. “It is a great victory, my lord. The bridge is broken.”
“What are our casualties?” Arthur said.
“Slight,” Myrddin said. “Geraint has their names. I do know there were few, mostly among those who were unhorsed or came to the battle on foot.”
“Well done,” King Arthur said. “That is good news indeed.”
Arthur gestured for Myrddin to enter the hall, but Myrddin hesitated to obey. “I must return to Penrhyn, my lord.” Myrddin bowed to indicate his continued respect. “Nell and I can help with the wounded.”
The king studied Myrddin, eyebrows raised. In the silence that followed, Myrddin realized his error. The man he’d been before St. Asaph would have forsaken the hall for the wounded only when he’d had no choice. He certainly would have taken a drink or two as his reward for surviving another battle, and thought that the following morning was soon enough to take up his duties once more.
“Of course,” the king said.
Nell broke in. “I looking through your infirmary earlier, my lord, and made a satchel of herbs and linens in preparation for tending those wounded in the fighting.”
“Very well,” Arthur said, his puzzlement turning to amusement that Myrddin and Nell had taken matters into their own hands. “You have leave to go. However, I will come as well.”
While they waited for the king, Myrddin pulled Nell behind him on Cadfarch again. She didn’t resist, and even seemed to take for granted what she’d resisted only yesterday.
“Are you well?” Without apology, Nell had already inspected Myrddin’s armor, surcoat, and head for damage, and now she patted down his arms and sides, checking for wounds.
“I took a hard fall with Wulfere beneath me. Otherwise, I am uninjured,” Myrddin said. “Although, I find that I am too old for this.”
For the first time since they’d met, she gave him a genuine laugh. Myrddin was glad. She’d had little reason for amusement these last two days and there wasn’t going to be much smiling in the coming hours. Regardless of the victory, they had injured men, and dead ones, and loved ones to inform of the loss.
Arriving at Penrhyn, Arthur strode up the steps to the hall while his company—with the exception of Nell and Myrddin—stayed with their horses. Gareth met him at the entryway. Wounded men lay spread across the floor of the hall in the same chaos that followed every battle. Myrddin swallowed hard at the sight of so much blood. He never got used to it, and it was probably better that he didn’t.
“I have something to show you,” Gareth said to the king, minus his customary formal greeting.
Arthur didn’t blink at the impertinence but gestured as if to say lead on! Gareth turned on his heel and led the way to the back of the hall and then through a doorway on the right. Nell stayed behind, but Myrddin followed, unsure if he should come too but as he wasn’t stopped, came anyway.
They entered a corridor that had several small rooms leading off of it. Gareth turned into the first doorway on the left, striding straight through it, but Arthur came to an abrupt halt on the threshold. Myrddin, for his part, just managed to stop before he ran into the king’s back. After a few moments of contemplation, King Arthur continued forward, leaving Myrddin hovering in the doorway.
Gareth’s cousin, Hywel, lay on a pallet on the floor. He wasn’t dead, but didn’t appear to have long to live.
King Arthur directed his attention at the wounded man who stared up at him. “I loved your father and grandfather.”
“Sir.” Hywel’s voice was stronger than it should have been given the enormous hole in his midsection. Even if the king gave them the opportunity, neither Myrddin nor Nell would be able to do anything for him.
“I couldn’t leave him on the beach.”
Myrddin sensed defensiveness in Gareth rather than anger or sadness in his clipped words, but King Arthur didn’t remark on the reasons Gareth had brought his cousin to Penrhyn, despite the order to leave no survivors. Given the difficulties among the members of Arthur’s own family over the years, he undoubtedly understood them.
“Why?” Arthur aimed his patrician nose at the man on the floor.
Hywel, along with his two brothers, Rhys and Llywelyn, both churchmen, had swung over to Modred’s side five years before when Modred had consolidated his alliance with the Mercians and begun pressing his claim to the Welsh throne even though Arthur still lived. That war had ended badly for King Arthur, but not so much that he’d lost his lands entirely. He’d been forced to agree to a treaty with Modred, and subsequently, the brothers had returned to Eryri as if they’d never betrayed Wales. Since then, as one could imagine, their interactions with the king had been stilted, taking place in formal situations where they all avoided speaking to each other.
Hywel attempted a shrug. “My father was the youngest son. Our inheritance wasn’t enough for the three of us to share. My brothers and I agreed that if one of us joined Modred, we all would.” That didn’t explain everything, of course, as Gareth had many brothers too, and he still stood with Arthur.
“How noble of you.” Gareth looked down his nose at Hywel, in imitation of the king.
“I can’t say it was my first choice,” Hywel said, “but Rhys and Llywelyn insisted on it.”
“Rhys is a supercilious, avaricious snake and a disgrace to the Church and the cloth he wears,” Gareth said, “and Llywelyn is no better. Were they also at Llanfaes?”
“Yes,” Hywel said, selling out his brothers without compunction.
King Arthur’s face grew even more rigid. Gareth pursed his lips. Gareth’s family had entangled themselves into a mare’s nest of shifting allegiances, but it looked as if at least one of them was about to be released from his burden.
“Modred bought you with the promise of land?” King Arthur said. “That was enough to sell out your country? To take up arms against your companions and loved ones? Against me?”
“I have a family,” Hywel said. “I have to think of them. It is a choice any man would make.”
Arthur snorted his disbelief. “Inform me when he’s dead.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room before anyone else could speak.
Myrddin had ducked through the doorway and into the room before the king reached him, and now he stayed leaning against the wall in case Gareth had need of him. Myrddin shared the king’s loathing for Gareth’s cousin. But he’d been a soldier long enough to turn physician, and it was the latter role that prevented him from leaving the room.
Hywel tipped up his chin to look at the exposed rafters that formed the frame of the ceiling. “I don’t need your forgiveness,” he told Gareth.
“Good, because you don’t have it.” Gareth had been gazing out the window into the courtyard of his manor, and now glanced over at Myrddin. “You can go.”
Myrddin had noted Hywel’s glazed eyes, so didn’t yet obey Gareth, taking a step towards the wounded man. “I can fetch some wine. He doesn’t have to suffer this much.”
Gareth swung around to face Myrddin full on. In contrast to the anger in his voice, his eyes showed tears he’d so far refused to shed. “Doesn’t he?”
It was strange to see Gareth in this light. He rarely revealed anything of himself. He’d brushed off the betrayal of his cousins like a man would flick a crumb from his shirt. Gareth appeared different to Myrddin today, more emotional and passionately Welsh. Perhaps I’m not the only one among the king’s men who’s had an epiphany in the last few days.
Myrddin countered Gareth’s obstinate glare with a calm face and nodded his acceptance of his wishes. “As you say, my lord.” Myrddin left the room, although once he passed through the doorway and was out of sight, he froze in mid-stride at a sudden sound emitting from the open door behind him. Myrddin made to return, and then thought better of it. It wasn’t Hywel in his death throes that he’d heard, but Gareth, choking back a sob.
“Hold my hand.” Gareth’s boots scraped on the wooden floor as he crouched beside his cousin.
Myrddin turned away. He could do nothing for either of them.
Chapter Six
7 November 537 AD
––––––––
“DON’T TURN AROUND, but we are no longer alone,” Myrddin said.
He and Nell had worked through day and night but, despite her exhaustion, Nell still had enough wit to glance up from the man she was tending with a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. “You mean we were alone before? There’s two dozen wounded men in front of you.”
“Lord Cai is here.”
“And you don’t like him,” she said.
“I grew up under the roof of one of his men, a man named Madoc. My foster brother, Deiniol, still serves Cai,” Myrddin said.
“And from the venom in your voice, those are days you’d prefer to forget,” Nell said.
Myrddin didn’t answer, instead blanking his expression as Cai came to a halt at the feet of the man they were tending. Cai held his helmet under one arm and appeared to have traveled through the night in order to reach Penrhyn at this early hour. Myrddin stood, more comfortable in this lord’s presence on his feet, and moved to a spot that half-blocked Nell from Cai’s view. He couldn’t help it; he wanted to protect her, even if reason told him that for all Cai’s perfidy—he’d once conspired to murder Arthur after all—the notion that he presented any kind of threat today was more than ridiculous.
“Will he die?” Cai said.
They all looked down at the man. Myrddin hadn’t recognized the soldier as a member of Arthur’s company. Cai’s presence revealed that he might be part of his household, much as Myrddin’s foster father had been and Deiniol still was. “I cannot say as yet, my lord.” The title stuck in Myrddin’s throat. “It’s likely.”
The door to the hall swung open, and King Arthur strode across the floor towards his brother. As he approached the group, he gestured to the soldier on the floor. “Your man fought well, I understand.”
“So Gareth said.” Cai didn’t clasp his brother’s forearm as would have been customary, and their eyes met for less than a heartbeat before they flicked away. Disconcertingly, Myrddin found Arthur observing him. He hastily half-turned, so as to impose less on the brothers’ conversation.
“Why are you here, Cai?” Arthur’s voice remained mild, but the question was abrupt.
“I understand that Modred sits at Denbigh,” Cai said.
“That is true,” Arthur said.
“Those are my lands,” Cai said. “My castle.”
“I’ve said that we will get it back,” Arthur said. “Our recent victory puts Modred in a difficult position, unable to force either the Strait or the Conwy River. When we are ready, we will push him and his Saxon allies out of Gwynedd.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“You promised me this weeks ago.”
“It was you who lost control of those lands,” Arthur said. “From my castle at Dolwyddelan, you have the power to prevent Modred from advancing on us through the mountains. Our southern allies will see that the winds blow our way, and together we will force Modred out of Wales, once and for all.”
“You know the solution to our problems.” Cai pushed closer to King Arthur, who stood his ground.
“We’ve discussed this before. Now is not the time.”
“Modred must die.”
Arthur made an impatient movement with his hand, which Cai ignored, pressing on undeterred. He put his face into Arthur’s, so close their noses were a hand span apart. As Arthur was four inches taller, it had the effect of forcing Cai to look upwards, like a boy facing down a man. Myrddin couldn’t help listening, although Nell had the modesty to look away so neither man would see her staring. Again, Arthur caught Myrddin’s eye for a heartbeat and then answered his brother.
“He is our nephew, Cai. I will countenance no further discussion of the matter.”
“Then perhaps you don’t have the balls to be the King of Wales,” Cai said. “But then we knew that already, didn’t we?”
Cai shot these last words at King Arthur in a loud hiss that had the unfortunate effect of carrying throughout the hall. His words sucked all the air from the room. Cai didn’t appear to care—and remarkably, was still breathing himself since Arthur had the restraint to keep his sword sheathed and his brother in one piece. Cai shoved past Arthur, knocking into his shoulder as he strode towards the door of the hall.
The offensive—and unfair—comment referred to the fact that, in his long life, Arthur had fathered one child, a daughter, and no sons. As a result, it was either Cai or Modred who remained Arthur’s heir, both with two legitimate sons to follow them. Myrddin could understand Arthur’s pain. Myrddin himself had bedded many women, but never fathered a child either—or at least none whose mother had named him. In Wales, a bastard was accounted as legitimate if his father acknowledged him. Therefore, nothing could be gained from hiding his identity. No mother would choose it.
Well, except mine.
Arthur didn’t turn to watch his brother go, standing as Cai had left him, hands clasped behind his back, legs spread, and staring at the far wall of the hall. An enormous boar’s head hung above the fireplace; rumor had it that Gareth and his brother Gawain together had brought it down. Myrddin didn’t doubt it.
“You two,” Arthur pointed at Nell and Myrddin with his chin, “will return to Garth Celyn.” Myrddin turned towards him, surprised, and King Arthur moved closer. “Have either of you slept?”
Myrddin glanced at Nell before shaking his head. That King Arthur could brush off his brother’s insults in favor of concern for his own people was one of the reasons he was a great king. It was also one of the many contradictions about him. Depending on whom one talked to, Arthur was worth dying for because of who he was and the position he held, or he was an arrogant son-of-a bitch whose regard for his own power was paramount.
He wore his status and dignity with kingly bearing, while at the same time was obnoxiously protective of them. He carried a vision of a united Wales, but had fought and schemed for nearly forty years to hold onto what was his. And yet, despite his faults, there was nobody more suited to ruling Wales than he—and his people knew it. Myrddin knew it.
“You’re no use to me exhausted. I want your full report this time, Myrddin.” Arthur turned away and began walking towards the front doors. “I understand you were the one who brought down Wulfere.”
“Yes, my lord,” Myrddin said.
Arthur waved a hand, gesturing to Gareth who’d just come into the hall from the rooms beyond it. “Myrddin is with me.”
Gareth nodded.
Arthur marched toward the entry doors, expecting Nell and Myrddin to follow. Myrddin took a long step after him before he noticed that Nell hadn’t moved.
Myrddin looked back at her. “He meant you as well.”
His comment shook Nell out of her reverie, and she hurried to walk beside him. “I know. But why?”
“I don’t even know why he wants me to come,” Myrddin said.
“You are a most trusted companion.” Nell stated this as a truth.
“Three days ago, I wouldn’t have said that was the case.”
And that, when he examined the facts, was his own fault. He’d lived no differently from every other man in his position: he fought battles and drank himself to sleep afterwards; he caroused with the other warriors and made love to any woman who’d consent to share his bed. He’d been an oft-chosen messenger for the king, and perhaps Arthur’s sudden confidence in him was a natural outgrowth of Myrddin’s ability to perform his duties as he asked. Still, Myrddin found it odd that just at the point he was ready to step forward, to take on more of a leadership role than he ever had before, and had practically forced himself upon his betters, Arthur had decided to accept him.
It had been dark in the hall, the few windows letting in glimmers of light. He and Nell had doctored the men by torchlight, so it wasn’t until they exited the hall for the courtyard of the manor house that Myrddin realized that the sun had risen and moved well up in the sky. Nell bent her head to inspect her blood-spattered skirt and made an unhappy face. Arthur had already mounted his horse and was surrounded by his escorts. Perhaps he’d been astride when Cai had arrived and taken the opportunity to speak to him while he’d had the chance.
“There will be clothes for you at Garth Celyn,” Myrddin said to Nell, mounting when the boy brought Cadfarch to him and hauling her up behind. It was a short ride to the castle from Penrhyn, and as before, they would take the road along the coast, riding down from the heights into the valley and then back up again to the hill on which Garth Celyn perched.
Nell wrapped her arms around Myrddin’s waist and pressed her face into the back of his cloak. “So much death. How do you live with it?”
“Do I?” Myrddin said. “Is it any wonder that most men drink themselves into a stupor every night, rather than see the faces of the men who’ve fallen by their hands, or the faces of their friends who died instead of them?”
“You killed Wulfere,” she said.
“I did.”
Nell sat silent for a heartbeat. “And that man at St. Asaph too. In defense of me.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve killed more men then I can count and will kill many more.”
“How do you live with it?”
“My thinking has changed over the years, Nell. That first man—him I killed with an arrow. We were screened from the Saxons by trees, trying to pick them off one-by-one. It was dangerous work because with an ambush, there is always the fear that the enemy will charge into the wood to find you. Late in the day, I hit a man right through the neck, and he toppled off his horse. I was not alone in that. We killed a dozen more before we retreated.”
“And what did you feel?”
“Nothing,” Myrddin said, “at least not at first, not for hours. It came as a shock to me that killing could be the easiest thing in the world to do. One moment the man was alive, laughing among his fellows, and then he was on the ground, felled by my arrow. At the time, when it first happened, I was so surprised all I could think was, I did it! That wasn’t so hard! It was the difference between taking a breath and letting it out.”
Nell’s arms were around his waist, holding on. “And then?” It warmed him that she knew him well enough already to know there had to be an ‘and then’.
“And then I woke in the night and couldn’t get the man out of my head: watching the arrow hit, watching him fall. One of the men allowed me to sob in his arms. It was only then I realized they all knew, even as they congratulated me, that this was coming.”
“How old were you?”
Myrddin’s chest rose and fell as he breathed in more of the cold air. “I’d just turned seventeen.”
Nell made a sympathetic noise, which Myrddin brushed off.
“And after that?” she said.
“I have killed so many times, Nell, with bow and with sword. At first, even in the midst of battle, I wouldn’t expect to actually kill anyone. After that—” Myrddin paused. “After that, I learned to expect it, to admit my regrets, and to understand that I would owe penance for every soul I took. It remains a dreadful necessity.”
“That’s how you come to terms with the killing?” Nell said. “By telling yourself it’s necessary?”
“Yes,” Myrddin said.
“You can ask for absolution ...” Her voice trailed off, perhaps because she realized how ridiculous that sounded.
“Absolution is for those who regret their offense and swear they will refrain from committing it in the future. Much of the time, neither is possible for me.”
“That’s partly why I can’t be a nun,” Nell said. “I no longer have either the certainty or the grace.”
Myrddin pondered that, unspeaking, for another half-mile, at which point, he could no longer tolerate his own uncertainty. If he’d brought a snake into Garth Celyn, he needed to know. “What were you really doing at St. Asaph?” He kept his voice low and deceptively gentle.
“I-I told you,” Nell said.
“You told me you traveled on your own, but to what end? What haven did you ultimately hope to reach?”
“I—” She stopped. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Scotland,” Nell said. “I fear King Arthur is going to lose this war, and I will not watch it happen. I will not live in a Gwynedd ruled by Modred.”
Those were strong words, forcefully spoken. He’d never heard anyone give voice to his own fears as clearly as this. “And if I were to accuse you again of spying for the man himself?”
Nell took in a sharp breath. And then, unaccountably, she began to laugh. “You really believe that? You still doubt me enough to ask such a question?”
Myrddin didn’t reply, and she laughed all the harder, burying her face in Myrddin’s back and clutching at his cloak with both fists to keep her seat on the saddle bags.
They’d garnered some curious glances as their conversation had progressed, but with Nell’s laughter, the looks turned to open smirks. Myrddin slowed Cadfarch and smiled back at his friends, covering for Nell. In truth, they were both well beyond their prime. Whatever was going on between them—whatever it was—had little import, other than the oddity of Myrddin’s interest in any woman beyond a single night. Myrddin’s companions turned away, all except Ifan who gave him a knowing smirk before straightening in his seat. Myrddin made a mental note to cuff him upside the head later.
“It isn’t funny,” Myrddin said.
Nell sobered enough to speak. “Yes, it is.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
Nell swallowed hard, the laughter gone. “I’m not a spy, Myrddin. Whatever else I may have been or might become, never think that.”
Myrddin nodded, somewhat mollified and yet more curious than ever.
When they reached Garth Celyn, men and horses filled the bailey, and they jostled against one another as Myrddin dismounted from Cadfarch. Just as his feet hit the ground, Ifan bumped into his back, unbalancing both Nell and him such that he clutched her to his chest.
“Whoops.” Ifan shot Myrddin a wicked grin. “Looks like you don’t need the king’s help finding yourself a wife after all.”
Myrddin froze, even as Nell stiffened too. Myrddin had his arm around her waist to hold her upright, and she turned in the circle of it and poked him in the chest. Her laughter had turned into a more manageable anger. “Wife? What’s he talking about?”
Her eyes snapped in her upturned face. Myrddin hastened to appease her. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“Then tell me what it has to do with,” she said. “You’re avoiding the question.”
“When we arrived at Garth Celyn—could that only be two nights ago?—King Arthur told me that I appeared different to him. He has begun to trust me more since the war was renewed, and I’ve earned some honor in his eyes. I’m penniless, as I told you, and he said that he will give me land to support a wife in the new year.”
“Myrddin!” Nell’s anger melted. “That’s quite an offer, especially when he’s besieged on every side.” Together they observed Arthur’s retreating back as he entered the castle’s great hall.
“But perhaps a hollow one, too,” Myrddin said. “Many battles stand between this moment and that promise. As you yourself said, there is reason to fear for his life and for the future of Wales.”
Nell’s eyes narrowed, surveying the bailey and the activity around them. “I’ve lived shut away from the world too long. I should have realized after Caerhun that I couldn’t ride or dine or spend any time in your company—any man’s company—without causing talk.”
Given the trauma of the last few days, as well as her wish (that she’d expressed) and Myrddin’s (that he hadn’t) never to marry, Myrddin took her comment as his signal to apologize. “I’m sorry, Nell—”
She cut him off. “Leave it. It isn’t your fault. Besides, if everyone thinks I belong to you, so much the better. It will give me the freedom to come and go as I please, unremarked. I would prefer to avoid attention from any other man.”
“Are you sure—?”
She cut him off again. “I’m long past having any interest in sitting in the solar amongst the other women, Myrddin.” Then she looked up into his face. “You helped me before. You protected me before. Will you help me again?”
Oh, yes, I think so. Myrddin nodded.
“Good. I’ll find us a place to sleep.” She set off for the great hall. Myrddin, leaving Cadfarch once again in Adda’s care, followed in her wake, more bemused than surprised. Nell might not be a spy, but she was something, knew something, that was out of the ordinary.
Myrddin had a mind to find out what that was.
