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Cade
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THE RAIN FELL STEADILY, soaking Cade from head to foot. It was hardly unexpected, since it rained nearly every day in Wales in March. If Cade had been human, he would have been cold, but as it was, it merely made the bow slide in his hand and his fingers stiff. He’d pulled the hood up to shield his eyes from the drops, but had thrown the bulk of the cloak off his arms to leave them free to shoot. It didn’t seem to be doing him any good, however. For a man who prided himself on accuracy, Cade was remarkably inept today. But then, he had Rhiann beside him.
She was back in her breeches and they were shooting at the targets on the far side of the archery range. Rhiann thought it a good test of her skill to practice under these conditions, as they were not dissimilar to the circumstances under which she had fought at Llanllugan. It had been night then, and very dark, which would have been better for Cade. As it was, the rain was the only reason he was able to be with her now. For that opportunity, he was willing to put up with unpleasant weather.
“Where’s Dafydd?” Cade said. “Didn’t he want to shoot with you?” He glanced at her, gauging her level of concentration, and wondered if the topic would rattle her.
Rhiann sighted down an arrow and released it. It hit the target dead center. “He said that he’d be along later.”
“Dafydd’s a fine knight,” Cade said, hating every moment of this discussion and cursing that he’d even brought Dafydd up.
Rhiann shot another arrow and it hit the target, her sixth perfect shot. “He’s very sweet.” She lowered her bow and turned to look at Cade. “He’s scared, though, Cade. All the men are, even if they won’t admit it.”
Cade was anything but sweet and he knew it. He pressed another arrow into his bow and loosed it, finding Rhiann’s beauty and frankness unbearable, now that the truth had come out. “They have every right to be scared. I’m scared, but I have no choice but to fight.”
“You perceive that you have no choice. Because of who you are, you would not feel yourself a man if you didn’t counter Arawn.”
Cade gave up shooting as another of his arrows flew three feet above the target he was aiming at and thunked into a tree behind it. He turned to Rhiann. He’d not called her cariad again and had endeavored never to be alone with her, now that she spent so much time with Dafydd. It was she who’d asked if he would shoot with her today.
He had called her friend, however, and for the first time since she’d seen him kill that first Saxon archer, he truly felt easy in her presence. Cade had accepted that he loved her but couldn’t have her. Perhaps she’d asked him to shoot with her as a way of letting him know that her revulsion at what he was had lessened; that she could still be his friend, even if he wasn’t human.
“Allegiance means that you will put your sword where your lord tells you,” Cade said.
“Then you shouldn’t have told the other lords that they didn’t have to come,” Rhiann said, very reasonably.
Except that it wasn’t reasonable. “Rhun agrees that it won’t be possible to take Caer Dathyl with only fifty men. Not even with 150 soldiers could we besiege the fort. We need more men.”
“Is its position really so difficult? Aberffraw is not so impenetrable, nor Bryn y Castell,” Rhiann said.
“It is,” Cade said.
“I would say so as well.”
Rhiann and Cade turned in unison at Dafydd’s voice. He and Hywel strode down the trail from Aberffraw, with Taliesin not far behind. At the sight of them, Rhiann smiled. She turned to Cade, apologetically. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Cade watched her leave, noting that she and Dafydd touched hands as she passed him. Friends. We’re friends. That’s all.
Dafydd took up the position where Rhiann had stood and shot an arrow, hitting the target dead center. Cade studied it without seeing it, trying not to hate Dafydd and instead think of Caer Dathyl and all that he knew of it.
“If we can’t take it by force,” Hywel said, “we’ll have to find another way.”
“I’ve always liked deception,” Taliesin said. “It suits my sense of adventure.”
Cade turned to Taliesin as he took the last few paces towards him, his cloak dragging in the mud as he navigated a puddle. “Perhaps to the point of knocking on the front door.”
Cade choked on laughter at that. The idea was outrageous. He could just see it—the ten companions strolling up to the gatehouse and asking for admission. Then again ... perhaps there was an answer there.
Cade allowed Hywel to take his place at the archery range and moved beside Taliesin, out of earshot of the two young men. Taliesin put a hand on Cade’s arm and Cade leaned closer to hear him better.
“There is only one way to stop Arawn, you know,” Taliesin said.
“Kill him?” Cade said.
Taliesin smiled a sad sort of smile. “One can’t kill a god. For all that you have the power of the sidhe, they are not as you are.”
Cade didn’t reply. Instead, he studied the bow in his hand and rubbed the carvings along the wood with one finger. Taliesin, meanwhile, maintained his smile while watching the water drip from the leaves above him into a puddle in the middle of the trail.
“I was afraid of that,” Cade said, eventually.
“Even worse,” Taliesin said, “it is beyond any man’s ability to harm a god. No man can even lay a hand on Arawn without dying himself.”
Cade looked up. “Or woman?”
“Of course, ‘woman,’” Taliesin said. “Did you think to ask Rhiann to try?”
“No, no.” Cade shook his head. “I was just making sure. So what can we do to stop him?”
“Banish him to the Underworld through the cauldron itself.”
“Though we can’t kill him or touch him, and have no sure way to get him in there unless he climbs in himself,” Cade said. “We could always set Dafydd on him to talk him to death.”
“You are flippant,” Taliesin said.
“You tell me that no man can harm Arawn,” Cade said, “and for some reason that amuses me. As we know, I am not a man, but even with that knowledge, we are still guessing.”
“I am confident we will come up with something,” Taliesin said. “This journey with you has been long and strange, and not without its surprises. I suspect the gods have more in store for us than we can guess.”
“If you can’t discover a way,” Cade said, “I don’t fear death. It has already come and gone for me, and every day I walk the earth is something of a gift.”
“And what about Rhiann?” Taliesin said. “I know you have feelings for her.”
That stopped Cade. “That’s not fair. You know I cannot act on them, and you know I must try to stop Arawn. I have no choice.”
“I know it,” Taliesin said.
* * * * *
CADE WALKED INTO THE great hall, shedding water along with his cloak as he went and made his way to where his mother sat breakfasting. She made to rise as Cade came closer, but he urged her to sit.
“I didn’t think I’d find you here,” Cade said. “I expected you to take your morning meal in your solar.”
“I have taken it there for nearly twenty years,” she said. “I’m tired of that room.”
Cade pulled out the chair next to her and sat in it. He couldn’t help but feel uncertain about her, but knew she was telling him something, perhaps the same thing of which Rhiann had spoken when she asked him not to return her to Aberffraw or leave her at Bryn y Castell. To both of them, the forts had become prisons. His mother, like Rhiann, only wanted a chance to walk in the light.
“Anything you need, Mother,” Cade said. “Tell me and I will grant it.”
“But that’s the problem,” Alcfrith said. “I don’t want you to grant me anything.” She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap, and picked at a loose thread in her dress. “When have I ever done something for myself? I went from my father’s house to Cadwallon’s, and then to Cadfael’s.”
“That is the usual way, Mother,” Cade said.
She looked into Cade’s face. “Not for you. Why, then, for me?”
“You were born a princess,” Cade said.
“And as a woman, I was a commodity to be bartered away for the right price. My father gave me to Cadwallon before I’d even met him, and then the Council sold me to Cadfael in exchange for peace. The only say I had in the matter was whether or not I’d keep you with me.”
“I know why you sent me away,” Cade said. “It was the right thing to do.”
“Or would the right thing have been to refuse them?” she said. “I could have taken you away, perhaps to Cornwall or Brittany and raised you myself.”
“But then I would not have been of the Cymry,” Cade said.
“And that is why I didn’t,” Alcfrith said. “And that makes me sound far more noble than I was, because what really happened was that I was twenty years old, alone, and scared.”
“Rhiann is twenty,” Cade said. “I can see you in her.”
“Except Rhiann took the reins of destiny in her hands and held on as tightly as she could,” Alcfrith said. “She fought for what she needed, where I lay down in the path and let others tread on me.”
“You are too hard on yourself,” Cade said.
“I’ve not been hard enough,” Alcfrith said.
“It must have been very lonely,” Cade said, trying to find something to say that would ease her suffering and self-recrimination.
“It was,” she said, “and much of that is my fault, not Cadfael’s. I could have cared for Rhiann, but I hid myself away in my misery, and never learned to take what chance at life I could. She is full of life, our Rhiann. It’s a miracle she’s as whole as she is. When do you plan to marry her?”
Cade gaped at Alcfrith. “I ... I can’t marry her, Mother.”
“Of course you can.”
“She wouldn’t have me anyway.”
“Why on earth not?” she said.
“Rhiann made it clear just now where her heart lies,” Cade said. “She’s in love with Dafydd.”
Alcfrith’s eyes narrowed. “The boy? I find that difficult to believe. You must have misunderstood, or perhaps Rhiann feels herself unworthy of you. I have never seen a girl as much in love with anyone as Rhiann is with you.”
Cade felt his head spinning and if he’d had a breath it would have caught in his throat. Could it be true?
Alcfrith patted Cade’s hand. “It will work itself out.” She studied her own hands and then looked up at him. “What are your plans for Wales?”
Cade smiled, a little rueful. “I’ve given this more thought than perhaps I ought to have, but the legacy of the Pendragons is not one that I can forego. I don’t know if the kings of Wales will accept me, but I will not just be the King of Gwynedd. I am the rightful High King, and I intend to rule as one, from the seat of my father, and of the ancient kings at Dinas Bran.”
“The lords here accepted you,” she said. “They swore their allegiance and bowed before you. The other kings of Wales will follow suit.”
“I don’t know that, Mother,” Cade said. “Even the lords of Gwynedd don’t truly trust me, not yet.”
“You truly are Arthur returned to us,” Alcfrith said. “They will follow you.”
Cade shook his head, not necessarily disagreeing, but not able to agree. “They give me their allegiance because I carry Caledfwlch. They accept my claim to the throne of Gwynedd because of my father, and because I took Dinas Emrys from Cadfael. Since Cadwallon died, however, we have all lived without a High King. The other kings will wonder why they need one now.”
“To hold the Saxons at bay,” Alcfrith said. “To fight against the creatures of the Underworld who ally themselves with our enemies.”
“Yes,” Cade said. “But it’s not only the other kings who do not know if I am worthy. I have to ask that of myself as well. Especially—” Cade stopped, realizing he couldn’t tell her how Arianrhod had changed him. Not now; maybe not ever.
“Especially, what?” she said.
“Especially because of who my father was,” Cade said. “It’s not enough to be Cadwallon’s son or Cynyr’s son. I have to be Cadwaladr. I have to rule as King in my own right.”
And maybe then, I’ll know if what my mother says is true. Maybe then I’ll have the courage to tell Rhiann that she has my heart.
