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11 November 537 AD
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NELL PERCHED ON HER stool, leaning over the narrow wooden table in front of her. Dried plants hung from the ceiling while herbs and spices crowded the shelves. In short order, she’d made the gardener’s shed that lay across the herb garden from the kitchen a haven, installing a warming brazier and cushioned stool, taking Myrddin’s advice and making the idea her own. The only light, other than from the brazier, shone from a pewter candelabra in front of her which held three glowing candles.
A hole in the roof let out the smoke, but other than that, the room allowed no exterior light. Admittedly, a window would have done her little good, as it was late afternoon and already dark.
“How are you?”
Nell looked up as Myrddin entered the hut. She’d been writing on a scrap of vellum, detailing the dream she’d had the previous night. If she closed her eyes, she could see it running in an endless loop behind her eyelids. It came so often now, night after night, that she sometimes felt she was more awake when she was dreaming than the other way around.
“Fine.” She straightened, hoping she hadn’t given anything away. She wasn’t fine, of course. It was hard to see how she was ever going to be fine again.
Myrddin, for his part, watched her warily, as if he knew she was lying to him. She hated feeling so vulnerable. She missed those high convent walls, keeping out the world.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to watch you fill the page. I heard a few phrases that could have been curses, too.” Myrddin smiled. “You haven’t been spending time among the garrison in my absence, have you? At least Deiniol isn’t here to bother you.”
She found that she couldn’t smile back. It was no laughing matter that Deiniol had ridden with Myrddin and Ifan only as far as the pagan stones before taking a track south into the mountains. They’d let him go alone into the wilderness, rather than lose the Saxon messengers they’d been sent to follow.
Myrddin walked to her and peered over her shoulder, resting one hand on the table beside the inkpot. Nell hunched her shoulders and covered the page with one hand so he couldn’t read her words. It was just like him to be able to read too: he pretended to be a bachelor, journeyman knight, but every now and then he would evidence some new, unexpected skill that belied his claim. He couldn’t fool her anymore.
He stood at her shoulder, refusing to take the hint. After another count of ten, he sighed and eased away from her. But he didn’t leave her alone as she wanted—or part of her wanted, and the rest didn’t.
“What is it, Nell? Tell me what’s bothering you. You can trust me.”
She glanced up at him. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you.”
“Isn’t it?” he said. “I would like to think that you’re telling me the truth this time, but it’s hard to tell. I share a room with you, and meals, but you never talk of anything more momentous than the weather. The world is falling in around us. We’re in the middle of a war. Why won’t you speak of it?”
Nell bowed her head.
Endlessly patient as always, Myrddin leaned against the counter on which she prepared her herbs and ointments.
Finally, she pushed away the paper and turned in her seat to face him. “I’m tired, Myrddin. I’m thirty years old, and I feel a hundred.”
“You don’t look it.” He tried to coax a smile. This time, she obliged, although it quickly faded.
“Why did you come to find me, Myrddin?”
“We have news from Powys,” Myrddin said. “Lord Edgar has sent word that he might be persuaded to change sides, given the proper incentives.”
Nell stared at him, her stomach sinking into her boots while a vision of the church by the Cam River rose unbidden before her eyes. “That couldn’t possibly be true. His family has ever been faithful to the kings of Mercia—and now Modred. Does King Arthur believe it?”
“King Arthur has said nothing to me, but just this morning he sent a captain south to prepare to open a second front against the Saxons—on our terms this time, not Modred’s. Geraint told me that given this new approach from Edgar, the king will want to lead his men himself.”
Nell shook her head, an iciness taking over her limbs. Ten heartbeats ago she was alone with her dreams and her fears, and now the dream was a reality. “I don’t think this is a good idea. Surely the king must see that?”
“The king needs to change the balance of power, and perhaps making Edgar an ally is the way to do it.”
“What about—” Nell thought desperately for anything—any idea—that could divert this folly. Twenty years of dreaming, and she’d never been this close to the king—or to complete failure. “You have the king’s confidence. What if you suggested to the king that he look to someone else to turn aside from Modred. Someone like Lord Cedric of Brecon. He hates Modred.”
In 521, Cedric’s father had fought against Modred and Icel, the King of Mercia at that time, in a war over the border territory between Mercia and Wessex. Cedric’s family had allied with Arthur, who had some stake in the outcome, though not a large one. But Cedric’s father had died of the wounds he received at Shrewsbury, and Cedric himself, only sixteen at the time, had witnessed his father’s wounding and subsequent death while in Modred’s custody.
Myrddin laughed. “He’s none too fond of Arthur either. And he’s as mercenary as Cai.”
“True,” she said. “But he’s more open about it. You never have to wonder at his motives. You just need to make sure your goals align with his. And from what I know of the man, he’s always been up-front with his allegiances. If he walked away from an alliance with Modred, he’d probably tell him about it in advance, rather than stab him in the back.”
“Yes,” Myrddin agreed. “But it isn’t he who has sent a message to King Arthur.”
“But— “ Nell stopped. A curious look had passed across Myrddin’s face. Could I have said something right? “It was his family who sided with King Arthur sixteen years ago. They might do it again.”
“Modred forgave Cedric’s family their treason.” Myrddin nodded as he thought it through. “But the death of a father due to the mercilessness of one’s lord is not something any man can easily forget, or forgive, especially one arising from as ancient a lineage as Cedric’s.”
“Arthur wants to unite Wales as its king,” Nell said. “Cedric wants his bit of land secure and to stop having to fight either Arthur or his own supposed allies for the right to it. He wants more land too, but it’s unlikely that Modred is going to award him any more—not any time soon.”
“The land would be at the expense of Agravaine, Aelric, or Edgar,” Myrddin said, “staunch allies of Modred.”
“Well, except possibly for Edgar,” Nell said, “which is, of course, why King Arthur can believe he might change sides.”
“And you say that, why?”
“Because Edgar is—” Nell paused and pursed her lips, uncertain as to whether or not she should say more.
“Edgar is what?”
“Edgar does not prefer women,” Nell said, as delicately as she could. “To my mind, this is why Modred has withheld Edgar’s inheritance since his father died. None of the Mercian barons think Edgar is a fit heir, but it is his right.”
“And how do you know all this?”
Nell stared at the floor, biting her bottom lip. She had so many things to tell him, so many things he might not forgive or understand.
Myrddin waited through the silence.
Finally, Nell waved a hand, apologetically, unable to avoid revealing to him this bit of the truth. “My husband served as a man-at-arms at Wigmore Castle.”
Myrddin gaped at her. “He was part of the garrison? For Edgar’s family?”
Nell couldn’t mistake the anger and distrust that rose in his face—the same distrust he’d felt that first night on the road from St. Asaph. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because you’re a staunch supporter of Arthur!” Nell’s voice went high and tears pricked at her eyes in her anxiety. “You thought I was a spy! How could I tell you my husband served a Saxon lord?” A lone tear fell across her cheek, and she angrily brushed it away with the back of her hand.
“I already suspected the worst,” Myrddin said. “It would have confirmed my suspicions.”
Her heart sank. “And you still have them now.”
“No man can ever truly know what is in another’s soul.” Myrddin was unrelenting. “Was your husband Saxon?”
“No.” Nell crossed her arms and stared at the floor. “Many of the men-at-arms who serve the Saxons are Welsh.”
“So who was he?”
Nell closed her eyes. “His name was Rhys. He was ten years older than I, the younger son of a landowner who held lands to the south of my father’s.” She’d been such a child when she married him. Not so much foolish, but innocent, in love with the handsome soldier she barely knew, even if she’d known him from infancy, but sure of her future with him. “Fifteen years ago there was peace between Wales and Mercia and my father didn’t object to the marriage.”
“But you didn’t want to stay?” Myrddin said. “Once your husband and children died?”
“No,” Nell said. “I didn’t. I told you that before, and it was nothing but the truth. It was Edgar, in fact, who helped me return to Wales.”
“And you haven’t been back since?” Myrddin said.
“No.”
“And Edgar?” Myrddin said. “Have you a further thought, then, about his message to King Arthur?”
“I don’t know about that,” Nell said. “It’s Agravaine who has the real power. Modred put him in charge of all his forces, including Edgar’s, for a reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if the letter to the king was Agravaine’s idea, and Edgar was only going along with the deception because he wanted to prove to Modred his loyalty—to force him to acknowledge that he is his father’s rightful heir.”
“That is my thought too,” Myrddin said. “If Arthur goes to meet Edgar, I fear he goes to his death.”
Nell had been studying her toes, not looking at Myrddin as he interrogated her. Now she glanced up, surprised that he would say such a thing so openly and surely. “I feel that too. Can you think of a way to stop him? I will help you if I can!”
Myrddin kept his gaze on her face, and she didn’t look away. His lips twisted. “We’ll see.” With a last nod, he spun on one heel and left the hut.
Nell stared after him. When his footsteps had faded, she leaned her head back against wall and closed her eyes. In twenty years of dreaming, nothing she’d tried had turned out right. This was obviously not working either. Perhaps she shouldn’t have allowed Myrddin to bring her to Garth Celyn after all.
