The Pendragon’s Champions

THE FICKLE GOD MABON, loose again in the human world, searches for the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. With each one he collects, his power grows. Knowing that time grows short, Cade sends out his champions to draw lords from throughout the land together for a final stand against Mabon—before it is too late.

––––––––

THE PENDRAGON’S CHAMPIONS is the fifth book in The Last Pendragon Saga.

Chapter One

Cade

––––––––

HOW MANY TIMES HAD he left his bed when everyone else was asleep? He’d long since lost count of the nights he’d walked; of the men he’d killed. He liked to think he never killed anyone he didn’t have to, but the words with which Arawn had mocked him still rang in his ears: You think yourself so noble, Cadwaladr son of Cadwallon, even as you lie to yourself. You’re still trying to fill your father’s shoes, aren’t you? And failing, I might add.

Cade honestly didn’t know if his father had been a particularly wise man or simply a battle leader, born in the right place at the right time to make a difference. Cade had always thought that his father had been what his people needed: a good king, uniting his people and ruling over them with a strong hand. But recently, he’d begun to doubt that this was true. He’d heard stories, things that people said in passing when they didn’t know he could overhear, about his father’s temper, or his ruthlessness, or his neglect of his country while he was away, fighting for Penda. Cade had always thought his father had been fighting with Penda, who after all was his wife’s brother, but given the demands of kingship, Cade had a new perspective on why his people might not think that was the case.

It seemed to Cade that if he couldn’t unite the warring lords of Wales, he would be remembered as little more than a battle leader himself. Perhaps that was enough. Perhaps that was what his people needed most, but he was too close to his own life to tell. Cade wished that he could have known his father and have had his guidance. He wanted, somehow, to be more than he was—more than just a battle leader—and to find the words to bring all the Welsh to his side.

Cade was grateful that Taliesin had come to him. Without his advice, Cade might have made more mistakes than he had and fallen into another trap such as the one that took the lives of Cynyr and his men. Still, a father’s hand—a father’s presence—was invaluable. He and Rhun had needed Cynyr and regretted his loss every day of their lives.

Tonight, it was Taliesin who needed him. The darkness that had attacked them on the road could upend all Cade’s plans if they didn’t deal with it. Taliesin refused to explain or to name the force, other than to say that Mabon’s power was fleeting in comparison. Regardless, it was keeping Taliesin from contact with his patron, Gwydion. And without his help, Taliesin would never see again.

Once outside his chamber, Cade headed down the hall to what passed for a receiving room at Dinas Bran. Taliesin was there already, just shrugging into his worn cloak. Cade smiled at the ancient garment. Taliesin didn’t have to wear it. He had the new one—the one that was a deep green color and brought out the green in his tawny eyes—that he’d worn to his and Rhiann’s wedding.

But Cade wasn’t surprised this particular evening to see the faded, black cloth Taliesin had always worn wrapped around his shoulders. It may have been the same cloak worn by the man he’d been when he’d taken the infant Cade from his mother. There was comfort in the long legacy of mysticism from which Taliesin arose and which the cloak represented. They might need that comfort before the night was over.

“Are you ready?” Taliesin said.

“If you are.”

“Given the menace that surrounds this fort,” Taliesin said, “I have thought better of your assistance.”

“You’ve been seeking this on your own for far too long,” Cade said. “You have even gone to Anglesey, where the old groves used to grow before the Romans cut them down. Your visions have not returned to you, and with the trouble on the road last night, we can no longer delay.”

“There are places I haven’t been,” Taliesin said. “Questions I haven’t asked.”

“We have both avoided this day ever since you came to me,” Cade said. “I can help you. Let me help you. Let me do for you what only I can.”

Taliesin studied his friend and then nodded. Together the two men walked quietly down the stairs to the great hall and then took the second stairway into the kitchen. A pigeon hooted in its cage, ready for tomorrow’s meal. Cade moved his hand to touch it as he passed and then drew it back. For whatever reason, whether Arianrhod’s gifts or some new strength of his own, he no longer needed it.

Taliesin was already through the pantry door, and as Cade trotted down the cellar steps after him, Taliesin lifted his staff so the light he’d conjured at the end of it could fill the room, illuminating the stones on the floor.

“Do you know under which stone lies the passage we seek?” Taliesin said.

“I checked for it earlier.” Cade crouched, slipped a knife from the sheath at his waist, and slotted it between two stones. One of the stones slid out easily, and Cade set it aside. “I can slide it back into place once we’re through. It will be easy enough for me to find it again from the other side.”

“My apologies, Cade, for what may come next.”

Cade looked up at the bard, who was observing him gravely. Taliesin had used Cade’s nickname—something Cade never remembered him doing before. “You and I both know there is need. And, in truth, we’ve been in far worse places.”

“That we have, my friend,” Taliesin said.

“And I, in turn, might ask why you continually seek such places out?”

Cade laughed at Geraint’s dry tone, and turned to see him descending the stairs, his sword in his hand. Cade smiled apologetically and got to his feet.

“When the King of Gwynedd sneaks about in his own castle,” Geraint said. “What can I do but follow and try to dissuade him from embarking on whatever potentially disastrous adventure he’s contemplating? You know this isn’t a good idea if you opted not to tell me of it in advance.”

Cade laughed again. “I thought, when I first learned of my inheritance and that one day I should be High King of Wales, that when I ordered a man to jump, like as not he’d say, Yes, my lord, how high?”

“And now,” Geraint said, “you wonder why those around you are far more likely to tell you that whatever you intend is the god-damned-stupidest plan they’ve ever heard.”

“That does seem to be the case, more often than not,” Cade admitted.

Geraint met Cade’s eyes, held them for a moment, and then smiled himself. “But then, as you well know, we still jump.”

Cade relaxed and held out his hand in greeting. “Thank you for coming, although, as you say, I did not ask for it.”

Geraint reached for him, and they grasped forearms. “I heard you pass in the hall and was worried about more intruders.” He gestured with his head towards the hole in the floor. “Am I allowed to ask what you’re doing?”

Taliesin stared down into the gap. It was impossible to see anything beyond the rim of the hole.

“Could be we don’t really know,” Cade said.

“Nice,” Geraint said.

Cade sat on the edge of the opening and dropped to the rough stones that formed the floor of the cave below. He reached for Taliesin’s staff and then caught the bard himself as he released his handhold to drop into Cade’s arms.

Taliesin was sweating slightly. Cade checked his expression and realized that the sweat wasn’t from exertion but from fear of heights.

“That wasn’t as bad as last time,” Cade said, remembering the fifteen-foot drop Taliesin had needed to navigate in Arawn’s cavern under Caer Dathyl.

“It’s always bad,” Taliesin said. “But seeing as how we’re here now, we might as well keep going.”

Cade glanced up to Geraint, who leaned into the opening Taliesin had just vacated.

“I could come with you,” Geraint said.

“I would feel better knowing you were guarding the fort and our backs,” Cade said.

Geraint nodded, mollified, and removed his head from the hole. Taliesin had already turned away. The light at the end of Taliesin’s staff lit the small space, about fifteen feet on a side. It bore little resemblance to the caves under Caer Dathyl with their high ceilings and arched corridors. Compared to those, this was less than an anteroom. Cade pulled Caledfwlch from its sheath. The familiar colors that bounced and shimmered off the crystals in the stone walls comforted him.

Taliesin led Cade a few paces to a tunnel that led north from the fort and down at a sharp angle. The walls glistened with moisture, and Cade was aware of the tons of rock that pressed down on them from above. After forty-seven steps, Cade counting them out in his head in case things went horribly wrong and he had to come back in the dark, the path forked and Taliesin took the right-hand choice. Unspeaking, they descended further into the mountain. If they hadn’t brought light with them, they would have been surrounded by a suffocating blackness. Cade gripped the hilt of Caledfwlch more tightly.

After another twenty yards of careful navigation on the rough stone pathway, Taliesin halted. “So it is here.”

Cade peered over Taliesin’s shoulder and contemplated what had brought Taliesin up short. Stairs, surely ancient beyond reckoning, had been cut into the path just in front of them. Instinctively, Cade moved in front of Taliesin, who gave way. Even more carefully now, feeling with his feet for any obstacles that might hinder them, Cade walked down the steps. He gained confidence as the treads held and the edges didn’t crumble away to spill him onto his backside, or forward onto his outstretched hands.

“How much farther, do you think?” Cade said.

He didn’t need to look behind him to register Taliesin’s smirk. “You’re asking me? The seer who no longer sees? I imagine we will reach the place when we get there.”

“You will see again.” Cade put all the assurance in his heart into the words.

“That is my hope. I would give up almost anything, excepting my life itself, to have that gift returned.”

“And that is why we have come.”

A hundred of Taliesin’s heartbeats later, the pair came to a halt, their path barred by a wooden door.

“How old do you think this place is?” Cade said.

“Ancient,” Taliesin said, “but I’m not sure that we’re quite there yet. I would not have expected to find a door where we are going.”

“And yet, here one is.” The door had once been connected to the frame by leather ties, but they’d disintegrated, leaving only holes where the hinges had been.

“Can you move the door?” Taliesin asked.

There was room enough for only one of them in the narrow space, so Cade handed Caledfwlch to Taliesin, who stepped back to give Cade room. With a grunt, for the door was solidly made, Cade lifted it from its rest and turned it against the rock that made up the side wall of the tunnel. Blackness, even deeper than in the staircase they’d just come down, gaped at them.

Cade was still adjusting the door to ensure that he’d properly braced it on the uneven stones when Taliesin passed through the doorway. But then he stopped short, releasing a sigh of surprise, and Cade looked past him into the room. The two men stood on the threshold of a room lined from floor to ceiling with shelves. Instead of books or implements, however, as Cade might have expected—were he to expect to find anything down here—the spaces were filled with bones. Hundreds of them.

There were so many that Cade supposed they were looking upon a resting place for many generations of Britons. What’s more, the bones were organized by type: long bones on this shelf, skulls in that corner, hands on a shelf above feet. At some point after death, once the flesh had dried from the bones, someone had sorted and separated them and brought them to this spot.

A creeping sensation raised the hair on the back of Cade’s neck at the notion that a man might inter a body only to dig it up again once the flesh was gone.

“Have no fear. These are dry bones, nothing more.” Absently, Taliesin handed Cade back his sword and raised his staff high. Then he crossed the floor towards a table in the center of the room.

A man’s body lay on it, the skeleton complete, unlike the rest of the dead in the room. His desiccated remains were still fully clothed, though his skin was dried and yellowed, and he had scraps of hair clinging to his scalp and face. His folded hands rested on his chest.

“He must have been a great man,” Cade said.

“With loyal followers whose loyalty continued after death,” Taliesin said. “Why else would they have gone to such effort?”

At the same time, the dead man had no weapons or armor, as any lord or battle leader would have wanted at his burial. His only possession appeared to be a plain wooden box, perhaps a foot long and half that wide, which rested at his feet on the end of the table.

Cade took a step closer. “Who buries their dead this way?”

“Early Christians,” Taliesin said.

“Why do you say that?” Cade said. “We came looking for a pagan site. Perhaps we’ve found it.”

“No. As was the lot of my spiritual ancestors, the Roman legions hounded the Christians all across their territories before becoming Christian themselves. The early believers were forced underground in order to preserve their dead without interference and to save their bones from desecration.” Taliesin glanced at Cade. “If you recall your history, the Romans cremated their dead.”

“I do remember, and I have heard of tombs like this, but I thought them limited to the place of Jesus’s birth.”

“The early Christians appear to have brought the tradition to Britain, along with their religion,” Taliesin said.

Cade detected a bitter tone in Taliesin’s voice. They rarely discussed their respective faiths, and Cade had taken to ignoring their differences because they meant so little to him. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

“Come,” Taliesin said. “The place I want is older and farther on.”

Cade moved to follow Taliesin out of the room. He stopped, however, at the foot of the table on which the man lay. The wooden box was closed, and something Cade couldn’t express in words drew him to it. He propped Caledfwlch against the table beside the man’s feet and, with gentle hands, lifted the lid of the box. Lying nestled within a nearly disintegrated piece of deep blue cloth was a clay cup, crafted no differently from any of the cups from which mead had been drunk that evening at Dinas Bran. Looking closely, however, Cade saw that someone had taken care to etch the image of a fish into the side of the cup’s bowl. Any colors that had been fired into the clay, however, had long since faded, along with the sheen of firing.

Noting Cade’s attention, Taliesin returned to his side and looked over Cade’s shoulder. “It’s just a cup.”

Cade allowed himself a small smile. “Yes. You’re right. It’s just a cup.”

He closed the lid and recaptured his sword. With Taliesin in the lead again, they continued their journey, exiting the room through a rear doorway and then following a path which descended deeper into the mountain.

Eighty paces on, with the tunnel curving in on itself so it seemed to take them directly below the Christian cavern, they found what Taliesin sought. Many tons of rock pressed down on them, and Cade’s thoughts shied away from the immensity of what lay above them. He focused instead on this new cave they’d found. Much grander than the room above, the ceiling stretched twenty feet above their heads. A wall on the other side of the room was so far away, Cade could just make it out in the dim light. Arawn could have found a home here.

“I thought the druids worshipped in the forests.” Cade’s voice boomed around the room, bouncing off the walls. He bit his lip, wishing he’d modulated his tone.

“They did,” Taliesin said. “But they also found caves to their liking. Our power comes from the earth, and the deeper within it we go, the greater the power we can wield.”

Taliesin had once explained to Cade how he drew his strength from the natural world. The magic flowed like a waterfall through him, though rising upward, not down. Much of Taliesin’s youth had been spent learning to control it, rather than let random acts of magic burst from his fingertips, or even from the top of his head. Cade thought about that for a moment, wondering if it gave him some insight into what had happened in Arawn’s cavern, or about the source of the shadow’s power. Then he dismissed his musings as something he wasn’t ever going to understand.

Taliesin continued speaking. “As with your Christians after them, the druids found themselves forced underground at times when the Romans got too close.” He shot Cade a look, then, and it was one of resentment, before his face cleared and the gentle expression he usually wore reappeared. “But unlike your Christians, my kind has all but disappeared.”

“I can see why if the only place you can worship is this difficult to find,” Cade said, trying to lighten the mood.

Taliesin obliged with a smile, but it didn’t rise to his eyes, and Cade resolved to keep to the business at hand.

Faded paintings adorned the walls, depicting scenes with trees and men—perhaps the sacred groves on Anglesey which the Romans had destroyed. Water gurgled from a spring in the distance, close to the far wall. The last druids to come here had set five sconces in the walls, with torches already prepared to light the room, and had etched a star with five points in the smooth stone of the floor. An altar sat in the precise center of the star. And in its center, in the place of honor, rested a nearly flat wooden bowl.

“What do you need from me?” Cade said.

“If you would light the torches first and then fill this with water from the spring, I will prepare myself.” Taliesin pulled a small wooden bowl from his satchel and handed it to Cade.

With a last glance at Taliesin, Cade set to work. He had the torches flaming with a few strikes of flint and was able to slide Caledfwlch into its sheath as he no longer needed its light. Taliesin had already leaned his own staff against the wall beside the doorway through which they’d entered the cavern. In the farthest reaches of the cave, the spring welled up into a hole in the rocky floor. It bubbled merrily, a counterpoint to the intense and ominous atmosphere bearing down on Cade. Despite his growing concerns about this entire endeavor, Cade brought the full bowl back to Taliesin and set it carefully on the table in front of him.

Taliesin waved Cade away and focused on the bowl. “You are here to rescue me if I can’t save myself. If all goes well, a way to defeat what we face will appear to me from within the sacred vessel and renew my sight at the same time. This might take some time, or if the gods have forgiven me, my vision might return to me in a powerful rush. Regardless, do not let me touch the water.”

“All right,” Cade said, not understanding, but deciding he didn’t need to in this instance—and perhaps didn’t want to. He moved to lean against the wall next to Taliesin’s staff.

Taliesin poured the water from the small bowl into the larger one before stowing the smaller one again in his pack. Then he pulled his belt knife from his sheath, held up both hands as if in prayer, and with the knife sliced through the fat portion of his left hand below his thumb. He began to speak out loud, but in words Cade didn’t understand. The drops of blood dripped one, two, three, four, five into the water in front of him. After stuffing a cloth into his fist to stop the flow, Taliesin leaned forward to stare over the bowl, still chanting in that unknown tongue.

Cade watched him for a while, but then he began to fidget. He loosened his shoulders. He crossed and re-crossed his ankles. It had never occurred to him that this would take so long or that Taliesin’s magic could be so boring. Still, Taliesin continued to chant. Then Cade realized that Taliesin’s voice was growing louder, echoing with a growing cacophony off the walls. The volume increased moment by moment until Cade wanted to clap his hands over his ears to shut out the sound.

The fire in the torches dimmed, flared, and then dimmed again. A wind began to blow, circling around Taliesin, who only leaned ever more forward over the bowl. Cade was trying to pay attention to everything at once: the wind, the torches, the horrible, overwhelming sound, and then a growing darkness that seemed to rise out of the stones at their feet like a fog rolling onto the beach from the sea or over a mountain meadow. It welled up so quickly, Cade feared it would obscure Taliesin from his sight, and he took a step forward, afraid for his friend.

Taliesin had closed his eyes, and his pointy nose was within a hair’s-breadth of the water. Cade took another step towards him, watching him intently. He was holding still, however, and Cade was loath to disrupt him before he’d finished his work. Cade stood, feet spread and braced against the screaming wind, while Taliesin’s chanting continued to fill the room. Cade could barely stay on his feet.

“Boom!” The torches exploded in their sconces, throwing flames in all directions, and the walls themselves caught fire, for all that they were made of stone. Cade knew it wasn’t possible, but he’d seen the impossible before and had been forced to accept it. He could accept this—and ignore it—because it was a small matter compared to saving Taliesin. Cade leapt toward the center of the room, grasped Taliesin around the waist, and pulled him away from the bowl.

Cade feared Taliesin might fight him, but instead he collapsed the instant his connection to the bowl was broken. The bard was so tall, Cade nearly overbalanced at the sudden shift in weight. As Cade straightened, adjusting Taliesin in his arms, a dark shape, thicker than the fog on the floor, rose from the water in the bowl. It had no more form than a cloud or a trail of smoke, but as Cade watched, transfixed, it took the form of a man, hooded and cloaked.

The being grew larger, rising to the ceiling of the room, and then the wind of before began whirling around the creature instead of Taliesin, accompanied by a rumbling and shaking that cascaded a pile of stones at the far end of the room to the floor. The water from the little brook shot upwards in a geyser, soaking the stone around the hole.

If he’d had breath, it would have been coming fast and hard. As it was, Cade staggered backwards with his burden, and then because he feared he wouldn’t be able to flee the shadow in time, bent and threw Taliesin over his left shoulder. The bard hung boneless. The shaking continued, along with the wind which had become a piercing shriek. Cade grabbed Taliesin’s staff and held it out, as if that might help ward off the evil force. Then, as the shadow loomed larger above him, he fled.

As soon as he crossed the threshold into the tunnel, the fire behind him went out, as if extinguished in one mighty breath. But who—or what—had done the breathing, Cade didn’t know and didn’t want to know. He ran up the passageway. Trying not to stumble in the total darkness, Cade mumbled the words to conjure the light at the end of Taliesin’s staff, words that he’d heard Taliesin say so many times: caith solas ar. Cade didn’t expect it to work, but despite his lack of faith, the staff lit.

The shadow dogged his heels. Only the little light on the end of Taliesin’s staff kept Cade from being consumed by it. The journey upwards seemed to take four times longer than the one down to the cavern, but just when Cade thought he must have turned the wrong way in that initial darkness, he reached the chamber that held the Christian bones. Once he entered that room, the mountain began to shake even harder.

Cade’s legs trembled with every step, not because he was afraid (though he was), but because the stones were giving way beneath his feet. The earth’s motion catapulted the bones out of their resting places one by one. A skull hit Cade in the head and he raised the arm that held Taliesin’s staff, prepared to defend himself and Taliesin against all the forces that might come against them, even the bones. Meanwhile, the man who lay on the table in the center of the room remained as he had been, undisturbed. But as Cade passed the table at a wobbling run, a tremor shook the wooden box, and it fell to the floor.

Terrified that its contents had broken, Cade swung around in time to see the precious cup roll out of its protective cloth and right itself in the center of the room. The shaking grew stronger still, and the cup rocked on its base, but it didn’t tip. Even though Cade didn’t want to leave the room and its unattended cup, he retreated, backing through the far doorway into the passage beyond, which would take them back up to Dinas Bran.

The instant his left foot sought for purchase on the uneven stones in the entryway, the black shadow arrived in the far doorway opposite him and surged forward. Cade opened his mouth in a silent scream, knowing that he needed to turn and run but unable to move. But when the shadow reached the spot where the cup rested, it drew up short. The shrieking wind grew louder and the blackness loomed from floor to ceiling in the back half of the room, yet it was as if an invisible wall prevented it from continuing.

The being fell backwards, like a wave crashing against a cliff wall and then retreating, and disappeared from the room. Thinking the threat had ended, Cade took a step towards the cup on the floor. He wanted to return it to its box. Before he could take another step, however, the blackness filled the doorway again and thrust towards him. Fear shaped in darkness and threat filled his ears in a wild shriek, but another appeal pushed it away.

Run!

Cade ran, Taliesin bobbing on his back like a sack of turnips, and he took the stairs three at a time. When he was a step from the top, a great crashing of rock sounded behind him, and he allowed himself one glance back. A mountain of stone that even he might have trouble penetrating blocked the doorway to the tomb.

The farther he ran from the hidden chambers, the quieter the rumblings, until he reached the last cave, below the castle’s cellar. Cade entered the chamber warily but was met with silence.

“Geraint!” Cade tilted his head towards the opening in the cellar floor.

A heartbeat later, the familiar face appeared above him, reminding Cade of why he trusted Geraint with his life. Geraint didn’t ask questions, just reached through the hole for Taliesin, then his staff, and finally Cade, who boosted himself onto his stomach in the opening, and rolled onto his back on the cool stones of the cellar floor.

Geraint crouched over Taliesin, his ear to his chest. “He lives.”

“I’d hoped as much.” Cade didn’t move. It wasn’t so much that he was tired, but that he was mentally spent.

“He does live.” Taliesin’s voice cracked over the words.

Cade sat up and crawled the few feet that separated him from Taliesin, whose eyes revealed an inwardness that marked him as someone who’d lived through what no man should ever have had to see. “Can you tell us what you saw in the water?”

––––––––

“What supports the world that it lies not in waste around us?

And if the world should fail, on what would it fall?

Who will uphold it when it descends into decay?

Again the circle closes.”

––––––––

THE WORDS MEANT NOTHING to Cade, and Taliesin didn’t explain them. Instead, he answered Cade’s question. “I saw the long cloud of war. It’s a black shadow that will cover the land from mountain to sea.”

“I saw a shadow too.” Cade studied Taliesin’s face. “The shadow, I think. It rose up from the water and followed us as I fled with you.”

Taliesin’s jaw clenched. “What happened to it?”

“It never left the room with the Christian bones,” Cade said, not ready to speak of all that he’d seen. Not just yet.

Taliesin closed his eyes and his muscles relaxed, the lines on his face smoothing to that of a youth. “I remember nothing of what happened, other than my visions. I suppose it isn’t too much of a stretch to think that you saved my life?”

“You told me not to let you touch the water,” Cade said. “So I didn’t.”

“I do remember wind and fire,” Taliesin said.

“The mountain shook around me, much as it did when Rhun and I searched for traces of those demons at Deganwy,” Cade said. “Rocks fell behind me as I ran. They collapsed in front of the ossuary door. They didn’t stop until I reached the fort and found it calm.”

“I felt no rumbling,” Geraint said. “All was quiet here.”

Taliesin pushed up onto one elbow. “Then perhaps we still have time. Whether the gods have blessed me with the renewed gift of foresight, or it is only a temporary thing, I feel the weight of my gift pressing on me, like a great ache behind my eyes.” He took Cade’s shoulder in one hand and shook him slightly, so urgent was his warning. “The gods themselves have taken sides in the coming battle.”

“Mabon,” Geraint said. “And Camulos.”

“And Arianrhod, and Arawn, and Llyr, and Gofannon, and even my own patron, Gwydion,” Taliesin said. “All are arrayed in the unseen world, with their ancient grudges and shifting allegiances. We face the Saxons, yes, but I fear more than they, we fight our own selves and contest the essence of what it means to be Welsh.”

Cade scrubbed his face with his hands. “Let’s get you up. We can continue this discussion after you’ve rested.”

“I will never rest again,” Taliesin said, “though I close my eyes in sleep.”

“I will speak with the lords of Powys, Ceredigion and Gwent,” Cade said. “I will force them to listen.”

“And meanwhile, we’ll find out what the Saxons are up to,” Geraint said, doing a good imitation of Bedwyr’s growl. “We will find them, and meet them, and let that be an end to it.”

Chapter Two

Dafydd

––––––––

EVERY FORT DAFYDD HAD ever encountered invariably claimed the highest ground of the region in which it sat, even if the only elevation available was a knee-high hill. The seat of King Clydog of Ceredigion, however, crouched in the bend of a meandering river. It was in the middle—as far as Dafydd could tell—of nowhere. The king did seem to have made an effort to protect his fort with a system of surrounding ditches and palisades. Still, an enemy could approach from every side, even the river, which was hardly more than a creek where Dafydd’s horse, Llelo, splashed through it.

As ruler of Ceredigion for the last twenty-five years, Clydog would have known Cade’s father. Dafydd hoped that meant he’d give Dafydd himself a positive reception. Rhiann’s father, Cadfael, had been a usurper, which no king with sons could countenance. Perhaps it was that sentiment, expressed by men such as Clydog, that had prevented Cadfael from achieving the much coveted station of High King.

Thwt! An arrow appeared in the ground at Dafydd’s feet, and he reined in. For all that Dafydd didn’t think much of Clydog’s fortifications, his men were certainly on alert.

“Who goes there?”

Dafydd gazed up at the man-at-arms, a bit stunned since one man, even a knight such as he, could hardly be a threat to the castle. “I am Dafydd ap Cynin, from Ynys Manaw—the Isle of Man—and Gwynedd.”

“Whom do you serve?”

The man who glared down at him couldn’t have been any older than Dafydd himself, but was affecting a glare that would have done credit to a man thirty years older. Dafydd saw too that the man-at-arms sported a sparse beard that hardly deserved the name. Dafydd’s own growth flourished, and he smoothed it along his chin with one hand. “My lord is Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon, the King of Gwynedd.”

The man canted his head in acknowledgement of the legitimacy of that allegiance. Or at least that was what Dafydd hoped.

“You may enter,” the guard said.

A moment later, the great double doors to the fort opened outward, and Dafydd urged his horse between them. He entered into a courtyard that was as unusual as the fort itself. For starters, a fountain bubbled in the center of it, splashing water into a large basin. It was the fort’s water supply, evidenced by the serving wench who filled a bucket from it.

Rather than packed earth, stone had been laid in pathways leading from the gatehouse to the fountain, circling it, and then to the great hall. Dafydd dismounted, wondering at the beauty of it. While a stable boy ran to take Llelo and lead him away, Dafydd followed the stones to the front door. The hall itself was built of local stone on cobble foundations though the upper story was timber-framed and plastered.

“Welcome,” King Clydog said after his guards had done a quick count and inspection of Dafydd’s weapons. They didn’t take them from him, but they’d catalogued his bow, arrows, sword, and three knives: one at his belt, another in his boot, and a third one, much smaller, tucked into his left bracer.

Dafydd bowed. “I come to you from King Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon of Gwynedd. He is seeking your council and support.”

“And the use of my men, no doubt.” Clydog lifted his chin. “King, eh? What happened to Cadfael. Did Cadwaladr skewer the old bastard?”

“Uh ... no, my lord.” Dafydd found himself stammering under Clydog’s gaze. He also had an accent that Dafydd hadn’t heard before, and Dafydd was having trouble piecing together the man’s sentences. “Gwynedd has experienced some...uh...treachery and upheaval of late.”

“So how’d the old bastard die?”

“Teregad of Caer Dathyl killed Cadfael. King Cadwaladr heard it from the man’s own lips. Teregad has since been deposed, and his younger brother Siawn rules in Arfon.”

“Old Iaen finally stepped aside, eh?” Clydog said.

Again Dafydd blinked. “I apologize, my lord, but again that isn’t correct. I’m sorry to inform you that before Teregad killed Cadfael he murdered his father.”

“Never say it!” Clydog surged to his feet. “Iaen was my friend!”

Dafydd bowed, sorry to have been the one to tell him.

Clydog subsided, a finger to his chin, studying Dafydd. Dafydd kept his head slightly bent to the floor, though he still managed to peer at Clydog.

“You do bring momentous news,” Clydog said. “We must have a long talk. But not at this moment. You’ve had a long journey and I’ve been remiss in my hospitality.” He snapped his fingers. “Angharad!”

A girl—or woman, rather—of Dafydd’s own age approached from behind Clydog’s chair. She kept her eyes on the floor, not looking at Dafydd as she spoke, so it was hard to get a sense of her beyond the red curly hair that formed a halo around her head and cascaded down her back, hardly contained by her attempt to tame it with cloth band.

“Allow Angharad to assist you,” Clydog said. “You may wash the dust from your feet and then join me in the hall for dinner.”

“Thank you.” Dafydd followed the girl from the hall and down a corridor to a room lined in stone.

Sunk into the floor was a square hole, four feet on a side, which was also lined with stone. The girl gestured towards the hole with one hand. Dafydd stared in astonishment as two servants poured bucket after bucket of hot water into it to make him a bath. He’d never seen a room like this before. But it seemed the girl thought nothing of it. Of course, for her it would be normal.

“Let me assist you with your armor,” Angharad said.

“Again, thank you,” Dafydd said. “I’ve been sleeping rough this last week for most of my journey from Deganwy.”

Off came the mail, sword, and shirt. Bare-chested, Dafydd sat on a stool near one corner of the bath while the girl worked at his boots. When they came off, he leaned back against the wall and sighed in relief to be able to wiggle his toes freely. There was a time when his mother had refused to let him have a pair of boots at all because she said his feet were growing too fast. By the time the cobbler finished one pair, Dafydd needed a bigger size. Thankfully, those days appeared to be past him.

“The passes were blocked with snow all winter.” Angharad dropped his second boot to the floor. “You are most welcome here. My father hasn’t been able to get much in the way of news out of the east.”

Dafydd stared at her. “Your—your—” He stopped and tried again. “King Clydog is your father?”

Angharad forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “Of course.”

Dafydd swallowed hard. Now that he looked at the girl more closely, he should have known that she was no serving wench or slave. The cloth in her dress was woven close and dyed a deep green that set off her red hair. From the start, it was the hair that had distracted him, and it showed her to have ancestry from Ireland. Here on the west coast of Wales, relations between the two lands were close. He’d assumed that she was a slave for that reason.

Angharad reached for the ties that held his breeches up at his waist, and Dafydd found his face coloring. He grasped her hands before she could untie them. “No, no. Please. I appreciate your efforts, but I can take care of the rest myself.”

Angharad smiled in what Dafydd interpreted to be an amused and superior way, and nodded. “As you wish.” With a slight curtsey, she turned on a heel and left the room.

Only after Dafydd was sure that she was truly gone did he remove the rest of his clothes and slide into the warm water. Closing his eyes, he acknowledged that it was probably a good thing that he would be here for only a few days. King Clydog might be amenable to Cade’s overtures. But his daughter, with that overstated hair and knowing look, could be more than he could handle.

The hall had filled with Clydog’s people by the time Dafydd returned to it.

“What did you think of your bath?” Clydog said.

“I have never seen anything like it,” Dafydd said. “It must have been complicated to build. That and the fountain.”

“It was the Romans, you know,” Clydog said. “Amazing engineers, even if they proved unworthy of our lands.”

“Most of our people are reluctant to occupy their ruins,” Dafydd said.

Clydog waved a hand dismissively. “Superstitious nonsense. There’s nothing here but stone and dirt. Besides, our people won in the end, didn’t they? Butchered the owners most like. I’ve noticed faded splotches on some of the walls that look to me like blood once dyed the stones red. I’m not afraid of a few Roman ghosts.”

Dafydd supposed he wasn’t either, not after spending the last month in the service of Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon. He didn’t mention that to Clydog, however. Not yet.

Clydog had other guests, and his table was full. Dafydd sat three down from the center of the table and was content with that, even if—as a king’s son and a knight—he might outrank every man here but Clydog himself and his son.

“I’ve been thinking about you.” Angharad’s voice came low in his ear.

Dafydd turned to look into her bright green eyes that flashed at him from underneath pale lashes. Did he see anger there? Why? “Excuse me? What did you say?”

“Ever since I saw you walk into this hall, you’ve seemed familiar,” Angharad said. “I just remembered why. Last summer, I saw you chopping wood behind the stables at Caer Dathyl. You’ve deceived my father. You’re not a knight. You’re a kitchen boy.”

Dafydd groaned inwardly. He didn’t regret his sojourn in the kitchens of Caer Dathyl, but he hardly would have thought that it would come back to haunt him here. Still, he didn’t look away. “I was a kitchen boy for a time. But it was only ever meant to be temporary. I haven’t deceived your father. I do serve King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd, and I am a king’s son.”

“Of Ynys Manaw? That’s hardly much of a kingdom, is it?”

“Don’t tell my father that.” Dafydd was stunned at her rudeness but tried to maintain a façade of politeness.

“I suppose you have brothers?” Angharad said. “Surely it isn’t you who will inherit?”

Dafydd gritted his teeth. “I tell you again. I am the son of a king and was knighted in the presence of King Cadwaladr himself.”

Angharad pursed her lips. “You don’t look like a knight. You look like a big oaf.”

Dafydd’s jaw dropped. And then he coughed a laugh. “As I mistook you for a slave when we first met, I suppose that’s only fair.”

Although her own words had been cruel, Dafydd was appalled to see tears glistening in Angharad’s eyes at his insult. She opened her mouth to speak, then firmed her jaw. Wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand, she stomped her foot. “I can’t do it. I can’t!” Without explaining, she turned and ran from the room.

“Some knight.” Dafydd cursed his foolishness as he took a long drink from the cup that Angharad hadn’t had time to refill. “The first girl you come across in a week, and before you know it, she leaves the room in tears ...”

The man next to him leaned in closer. “All women talk like that. My sister used to be an exception, but recently she’s changed.”

“Angharad is your sister?”

The man hadn’t spoken to Dafydd earlier when Dafydd had sat down. He’d been too busy conferring with men on his other side, but now he held out his hand. “Seisyll, son of Clydog.”

Dafydd shook his hand and looked closely at him. Seisyll wore his red hair close-cropped and had a small scar along his left jaw-line. The worn sheen to his scabbard and the broadened shoulders of a fighting man indicated he might be well-worthy of his station as Clydog’s heir.

“Seisyll!”

A woman bore down on them. By any standard, she was beautiful, with thick, honey-colored hair, an elfin face, and a perfect figure. Seisyll leaned back in his chair as she approached, affecting an unconcerned air. “My wife, Lilwen.” He waved his hand carelessly.

Dafydd had the instant impression it was a less than happy marriage.

“Yes, my dear,” Seisyll said.

“Where is Angharad?”

“I don’t know. She was here a moment ago.”

“That girl.” Lilwen’s hands were on her hips. Then she noticed Dafydd. “Are you that knight who arrived this afternoon that I told Angharad to wait on?”

“Uh—” Rudeness seemed to be the order of the day among the women of Clydog’s household. “I am Dafydd ap Cynin. My father is the King of the Isle of Man. I serve in King Cadwaladr’s teulu.”

Lilwen nodded as if that was no more than she expected. She gazed around the room, her hands still on her hips. “That girl. Never where she’s supposed to be when she’s supposed to be there. I told her—”

“Lilwen.” Seisyll’s voice sounded a warning tone.

Lilwen pinched her lips and didn’t turn to her husband, but she didn’t say anything more either. Dafydd thought it likely Seisyll would hear about this later. He might exert control in public, but Dafydd guessed that their conversations in private might be another matter.

“I will see to Angharad,” Lilwen said.

Lilwen stalked through the same door through which Angharad had disappeared.

Seisyll leaned in. “I apologize for the behavior of my wife and sister. There was a time when we had peace, but not recently.” What he didn’t say was not since I married Lilwen.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Dafydd said.

And then Seisyll’s attention was caught by the man to his right again, and Dafydd decided it wouldn’t make things worse to exercise his curiosity before anyone else insulted him. He wasn’t used to having such an unfortunate effect on women. Normally, girls liked him. Certainly Rhiann liked him, even if she loved Cade more.

He eased to his feet. When nobody, not even Seisyll, appeared to notice, he stepped down from the dais, walked to the door, and poked his head into the hallway. With a last glance towards the high table to see if anyone was watching him (nobody was), Dafydd trotted up the stairs to an upper floor. He didn’t try to disguise his movements but allowed his feet to tread normally. When doing something mildly surreptitious, it was always better to pretend one knew what one was doing.

There was no one to stop him, however, and it wasn’t difficult to find where Angharad and Lilwen had gone. All he had to do was follow the sobs.

“Angharad! Shut. Up.” Lilwen’s dulcet tones echoed in the hallway. Dafydd checked behind him a last time. Fortunately, nobody else was in evidence and the noise from the hall below was great enough to drown out the smack that followed.

“Ouch!” Angharad said. “That hurt.”

“I’ll smack you on more than your bottom if you don’t stop that weeping! You have a husband to catch!”

“I can’t do it your way, Lilwen,” Angharad said. “Please don’t make me!”

“You don’t have a choice. Your way of finding a husband was not to attract one at all,” Lilwen said. “What did you look like when we spied Sir Dafydd in the distance? Clothes in rags; hair a raging mess. It’s no surprise your father didn’t try to sell you sooner. He mistook you for a boy of twelve!”

“I won’t do it! You can’t make me.”

“I can, and you will. The time has come for you to find a home of your own and get out from under my feet. This will never be my house as long as you are in it.”

“You took the keys to the cellars.” Now Angharad’s voice had a little more strength to it. “You already got what you wanted.”

“What I want is you married or in a convent by midsummer, or I will tell your father that you dallied with one of his men-at-arms, and then he won’t have a choice but to send you away. He’ll banish you to some place where you won’t shame him anymore.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me,” Lilwen said. “Now, go chat up that knight from Gwynedd again.”

With that, Dafydd started backing away from the door, worried Lilwen would catch him eavesdropping. He’d grown up with only brothers and had never heard a conversation quite like this before. He didn’t know what to make of it. Marriage to anyone, much less Angharad, was the last thing that interested him right now.

But then Angharad spoke again, and he held back. “I can’t.” She moaned as she said the words. “He seemed nice at first, but now it’s all ruined. You’ve ruined it. He thinks I’m a cow.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Lilwen said. “You need to try again. Men like it when girls say mean things to them. It makes you more interesting.”

Dafydd almost snorted but caught himself in time. Lilwen couldn’t have been more wrong. Although, if this was the technique she’d used to ensnare Seisyll, perhaps it worked on some men.

“But—“

“No buts! By the breath of Saint Mary, wipe your eyes and get downstairs again!”

Angharad had been reduced to sniffles. The conflict appeared to be winding down. Dafydd slipped into a room with a half-open door just in time for Lilwen to stalk out of Angharad’s room and back down the stairs without seeing him. A moment later, Angharad followed. After she’d gone, Dafydd leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was never going to understand women.

Chapter Three

Dafydd

––––––––

THE NEXT TWO DAYS BROUGHT success, at least in terms of Dafydd’s mission, as Clydog felt himself up to the task of supporting Cade. On the personal front, however, things went from bad to worse.

At first, Seisyll tried to help Dafydd out. He leaned across the table at Dafydd’s first breakfast, his voice low. “My wife is sometimes hard to—” But before he could say more, Lilwen dragged Angharad to the table to sit with them and forced her to make small talk.

With every meal that followed, Lilwen appeared more and more triumphant, and the only consolation to Dafydd was that Angharad seemed as miserable as he. At least Angharad had stopped insulting him, and he knew that even the ones she’d thrown at him earlier had been for show.

“Sir Dafydd, tell me of the kitchens at Caer Dathyl.” Lilwen’s tone had a sickening sweetness to it, and she wore her usual sneer fixed firmly in place, belying her façade of amenability.

“I—I—” Dafydd didn’t know what to say, so he studied Lilwen’s profile instead. When she asked the question, she’d made sure he met her eyes, but he’d felt Seisyll kick her under the table. Now, she kept her head bent over her plate and didn’t look at him. That was probably wise as her husband, who sat across the table from her, was glaring at her with daggered eyes.

Beyond Lilwen, Angharad’s chin had come up and she gazed at the opposite wall as if she couldn’t quite believe she what she was witnessing. “No, my lord, don’t say another word to her. Lilwen doesn’t really want to know about your time in the kitchens. She wants to put you at a disadvantage by reminding everyone of a period in your life you’d perhaps rather forget.”

“Angharad—” Seisyll put out a hand, either to stop her from saying more or out of sympathy.

Now that Angharad had snapped, Dafydd didn’t care what he told them. He’d lain awake last night, worrying that his first mission for Cade had already become a disaster because he didn’t know how to handle a woman’s tongue. And now ... amusement bubbled up within him that all his worrying was for nothing. Angharad was defending him and finally speaking up for herself. It was a huge relief to have an authentic word come out of Angharad’s mouth. Neither the venom, nor the tears, had seemed normal for her.

Dafydd threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t mind at all. Your sister-in-law hasn’t offended me.” He put the back of his hand to his mouth, trying to contain the laughter that wouldn’t be contained. While Seisyll stared at him, Dafydd got himself under control. “I served in the kitchens and lived among the common people as one of them in order to learn about myself as a man.”

Lilwen’s head came up at that. “Really, I don’t think—”

“No, you don’t think, do you, Lilwen!” Angharad said.

Lilwen’s hand flew back, and she smacked Angharad across the cheek. She was bringing her arm up for another blow when Seisyll caught it. “Don’t.”

Dafydd rose to his feet to place himself between Lilwen’s chair and Angharad’s. Angharad had a handkerchief to her face, but she looked up at him as he loomed over her.

He held out his arm. “Take a turn around the courtyard with me?”

Angharad brought down her hand and wadded the cloth in her fist. The red marks left by Lilwen’s fingers were clear on her face, but she had her chin up and looked straight at him. “Of course, my lord. It would be my pleasure.”

“I like you more and more, Angharad.”

Angharad’s eyes widened, but she took his arm, and the two of them strolled behind the other diners on the dais. He looked over the top of Angharad’s head towards the front doors of the hall. Carved and painted with outlandish, possibly Roman, designs, he wished they were closer so they wouldn’t have to navigate the distance under everyone’s gaze.

But as it turned out, they could have been invisible for all that anyone cared about what they were doing. It was Seisyll and Lilwen who’d caught everyone’s attention. They’d risen to their feet opposite each other at the high table and were glaring at each other. Everyone else in the hall gazed towards them with rapt expressions, ranging from astonishment to outright pleasure. An open fight between Clydog’s heir and his wife—one that had been a long time coming—was worth staying around for.

But not to Dafydd. Angharad’s hand felt comfortable on his arm, and her stride matched his. She was taller than most women—easily taller than Rhiann—with the top of her head at his shoulder.

“Why are you being nice to me?” Angharad said.

“Everyone at that table was a heartbeat away from saying something they’ve long felt but might later regret.” Dafydd and Angharad had reached the side doorway that led upstairs, and he paused to look down into her upturned face. “Seisyll has the conversation in hand—at last, it appears—and I wanted to meet the real Angharad.”

“The real—”

The front doors to hall flew open, cutting off Angharad in mid-sentence. In walked—

“Christ save us!” Dafydd didn’t wait to confirm his first impression. He wrapped his arm around Angharad’s waist, hauled her through the doorway into the side passage, and pressed her to the wall on the other side of the opening.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Ssshh,” he said. “Wait.”

Dafydd peeked around the doorframe. Mabon ap Arawn, dressed in unrelieved black, strode towards the king’s dais. Clydog had noticed him—who wouldn’t have?—but so far all he’d done was glance at him, allowing his retainers to move in to surround Mabon and prevent him from accosting the king. Dafydd guessed none of the people in the hall but he knew the identity of this visitor.

Mabon halted, his chin up, and his eyes blazing. He glared at each of the guards in turn, and they fell back under the force of his gaze. “Where is it, Clydog!”

Clydog lifted his head and leaned back in his chair, his elbow resting on the arm and a finger to his lips. His posture was relaxed, but the tension in the room—already high due to the fight between Lilwen and Seisyll—ratcheted up another three notches. Clydog’s guards moved to ready stances. Dafydd could have told them that they shouldn’t have let Mabon in the fort in the first place.

“Who are you to violate the sanctity of my hall by storming in here uninvited?” Clydog said.

Mabon pulled himself up to his full height, which was close to Dafydd’s own. Mabon was also what Cade had called unreasonably beautiful. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lilwen stared at him, enraptured.

Unlike Mabon, however, the dozen men who’d entered the hall with him didn’t try to hide behind their looks and they began circling around the edges of the hall, eyes scanning hands and faces, their own hands on the hilts of their swords. It would take just one word from Mabon and his men could massacre Clydog’s people. Cade had wondered if Mabon worked only through the actions of humans, and if he himself had little power in the human world other than to obscure the truth and create glamour. But with two dozen human men-at-arms at his command, it didn’t really matter what power belonged to him and what he borrowed.

“Who is it?” Angharad poked at Dafydd to get his attention. When he didn’t answer right away, she burrowed under his arm so she could see into the hall.

Dafydd still held her around the waist and now leaned down to whisper into her ear. “He is Mabon, son of Arawn. He is the sidhe who caused King Cadwaladr’s troubles earlier this winter.”

“A sidhe—”

“Don’t look at him. Don’t think of him. He deceives you with a beautiful face, with the same glamour all the gods use when they walk among humans. He is not as he seems at first. He’s not even real.”

“I don’t think he’s more handsome than you are.” Angharad said this as if this wasn’t the most obvious of untruths. “What might he want with us?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be anything good.”

“I am Mabon!” As Mabon spoke, his aura seemed to expand outward from his body in a ring of light. “You must give me what I want!”

Clydog had risen to his feet, and he now backed away from the table, giving way before Mabon’s intensity. “I don’t—I don’t—I don’t have it. I don’t have anything you’d want.”

Mabon stepped onto the dais and placed his hands flat on the surface of the high table. He leaned on them and gazed directly into Clydog’s eyes. “I know it is here. Give it to me.”

Clydog shook his head, but his denial wasn’t as forceful as it had been earlier and sweat poured from his temples. Overall, his posture was uncertain. It made Dafydd think that Clydog might truly have this thing that Mabon wanted, unlike Cade, who hadn’t. And if Dafydd realized it, Mabon might too. Still, Clydog appeared determined to deny Mabon if he could.

Mabon straightened, pulled a sword from the sheath at his waist, and pointed it straight up in the air. It lit with a white fire from hilt to tip.

Dafydd reacted without thinking. He pulled Angharad toward the stairway. He didn’t want even the slightest chance of being overheard. “Do you know what he’s talking about? Do you know what Mabon wants?”

Angharad’s eyes were too wide, and she stared past Dafydd without seeing him. “Did I really see his sword flame? What’s he going to do?” Her voice went high. She was panicking.

“Forget the sword.” Dafydd caught Angharad’s chin and forced her to look at him. “Do you know what Mabon wants?”

Angharad swallowed hard, and her eyes focused on Dafydd’s face. “Yes.” She nodded her head rapidly. “My father gave it to me to protect.”

“To you?” Dafydd’s voice was hard and urgent. “Knowing that Mabon might want it—”

“It isn’t like that,” Angharad said.

“What is it like?” Dafydd said. “Is it a sword? A weapon of some kind?”

“It’s a pillow.”

“A what?”

When Angharad simply nodded vigorously again, Dafydd barked a laugh and then shook his head. “I almost don’t want to know.” He turned to look through the open doorway to Clydog and Mabon, still in confrontation. Dafydd returned his attention to Angharad. “Get it and meet me at the postern gate. We can’t let Mabon’s men find it when they search the castle.”

“It won’t come to that, surely,” Angharad said.

Dafydd put a finger to her lips and continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “If I don’t come in time, if I don’t find you, hide it in the woods and then hide yourself.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I might be the only one here who has seen Mabon before—knows him from an earlier confrontation—and knows what he’s like. I will distract him and his men to give you time to get away.”

“What? No!” Angharad said. “He might kill you!”

Dafydd had her by the shoulders. “He won’t.”

“You don’t know tha—”

“Go!” Dafydd pushed Angharad towards the stairs. To his relief, she didn’t question his decision again. After one last glance back, she went.

Dafydd watched her disappear and then turned back to the hall. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Then throwing back his shoulders in a show of confidence, even if that was the last thing he was feeling right now, he strode into the room and pulled his sword from his sheath as he did so.

“Don’t listen to him, Clydog,” Dafydd said. “He is all glamour and no power.”

Instantly, Dafydd had Mabon’s full attention. Mabon seemed to puff up even more, his light and beauty filling the room. “Who are you?” And then Mabon’s eyes narrowed. “You are not sidhe.”

Dafydd managed not to hesitate in his walk and show his surprise. He’d expected Mabon to remember him and tried not to be offended that he hadn’t. But then Dafydd recalled the scene in Arawn’s cavern: Mabon had snuck away at the beginning of Cade’s battle with Arawn. He really didn’t know that Dafydd had grasped the hilt of Dyrnwyn and drawn it from Cade’s body.

“No, I am not,” Dafydd said.

“And yet you dare challenge me?”

“You are not welcome here, no matter what it is you want or which sword you carry.”

In response to Dafydd’s challenge, Mabon pointed his sword at Dafydd. It still sparked, but less than before. Dafydd came closer, his sword relaxed in his grip. Mabon stepped away from the table, and before Dafydd had any more time to think about the intelligence of this course, they were circling each other in a cleared space fifteen feet on a side.

“My son,” Clydog said. “You don’t have to do this”

“I do, in fact,” Dafydd said.

“He is a god!” That came from Lilwen, whose eyes were bright. She had a fixed smile on her face and seemed completely bewitched.

Mabon laughed. “You have the right of it, miss. Fight me, boy, and you throw away your life.”

“I don’t think so,” Dafydd said.

“You are that confident?” Again, Mabon swelled with light and power, though Dafydd still felt that it was a show and not real power like Cade carried within him. Dafydd had seen both now and knew the difference, or hoped he did.

“What kind of god are you to terrorize your people?” Dafydd said.

“I rule over whomever I choose, and all men must obey my commands.”

Dafydd considered that, and then a thought struck him. “Does your mother know where you are?”

Mabon’s face twisted, and the glamour wavered. Dafydd didn’t know that he could describe what was revealed at Mabon’s core, except its darkness. Then Mabon’s shape steadied and Dyrnwyn flared anew.

Dafydd’s right hand still burned from the memory of holding the magic sword back at the caverns at Caer Dathyl. To see it again in Mabon’s hand disgusted him. He had to almost physically push away the feeling. Cade had told Dafydd that he was worthy of the sword, and that the sword had agreed, but Dafydd himself still couldn’t quite believe it. A month on, Dafydd was still a long way from forgetting what had happened there.

Lilwen rose to her feet and now the light in her face was beatific. “My lord! You bear Dyrnwyn.”

“I do.” Mabon gave her a wide smile. “You are a most perceptive woman. Believe me when I say that only one of worth and valor can wield it.”

“I would not have thought those characteristics described you,” Dafydd said.

“You doubt my ability to hold it?” Mabon was incredulous.

“There are few men who can.” Clydog’s voice had gained strength in the time Dafydd and Mabon had been sizing each other up. The shock of Mabon’s appearance was wearing off. “This lad is one of them.”

Mabon sneered. “You jest! Did you not learn in my father’s cavern that unlike King Cadwaladr, a mortal man such as you cannot harm a god?”

Dafydd was mighty sick of seeing that expression on Mabon’s face. “I can try.”

Mabon’s face remained full of amusement. “So now you challenge me to single combat? Do you dare?”

Dafydd’s eyes went reflexively to Dyrnwyn, sparking as it had once done in Arawn’s hand. And Cade’s.

Mabon noted the attention. “Fear it, child.”

“I dare to challenge you,” Dafydd said.

Mabon struck. With a grin plastered on his face and showing his teeth, he flew at Dafydd, moving so fast Dafydd barely had time to bring his own sword to bear. He wasn’t in time to deflect Mabon’s blow, and Dyrnwyn slashed at Dafydd’s upper arm, right through the leather coat.

Dafydd spun away, seeing stars, the pain in his arm unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He expected to see blood pouring from the wound—it felt as if Mabon had poured boiling oil on it—but there was only a gash in his tissue. Dyrnwyn had cauterized the wound as it had sliced him.

Mabon leaped towards Dafydd again, but this time Dafydd managed to parry the blow. His wrist was tight with the effort. His left arm hung useless, so he wielded his sword with just his right hand.

Dafydd spun away and put one of the benches between him and Mabon to give himself time to recover. He worked to control his breathing, and the blackness that had risen before his eyes dissipated, now that he knew he wasn’t going to bleed out.

Mabon attacked again, leaping onto the bench and pressing Dafydd back. Dafydd fought him off. And then again, Mabon catapulted towards him. By Mabon’s fifth attempt to dominate him, Dafydd realized that he was holding his own, and Mabon’s first blow had been a lucky one.

He’d caught Dafydd off-guard that time, but Mabon wasn’t an experienced fighter. He was quick, but as the fight progressed, Dafydd was able to absorb what Mabon had to give him. Dafydd should have known: Mabon was a bully, used to frightening his opponents rather than defeating them in close combat. And that caused a new internal debate inside Dafydd. He wasn’t a sidhe. He didn’t have the blessing of Arianrhod. Would the gods punish him if he really did defeat Mabon?

Dafydd continued to parry Mabon’s blows, praying Mabon’s attention would stray. Mabon, unfortunately, didn’t oblige. His strength wasn’t waning as quickly as Dafydd’s either. Of course, he was a god. And not injured. One couldn’t expect it. Marshalling his failing strength, Dafydd began to press Mabon back. They circled each other, Dafydd countering every move Mabon made. More time passed. If he didn’t finish this quickly, he wouldn’t be able to lift his sword. The pain in Dafydd’s arm was blinding him and he could only see Mabon through a sheen of sweat and tears.

Dafydd and Mabon exchanged one, two, three, four more blows before Dafydd finally managed to catch the guard that protected Dyrnwyn’s hilt with the tip of his own sword. With a twist of his wrist, he flicked the sword from Mabon’s hand. It flew across the room and landed with a clatter on the floor against the wall by the door through which Dafydd had pulled Angharad. None of the men standing nearby moved to pick it up. Mabon himself froze and then held out both hands, as if he was going to throw bolts of lightning at Dafydd, as his father had done at Cade.

But he didn’t.

Mabon grimaced—and Dafydd discerned a touch of uncertainty, even fear in his eyes. In two strides, Dafydd crossed the distance that separated them. He switched his sword to his left hand, forcing his lifeless fingers around the hilt and then drove his fisted and gauntleted right hand into Mabon’s face.

Mabon staggered back, his hands to his nose. He tripped on the heel of his boot, stumbled, and fell ignominiously on his rear. As in the case of Dafydd’s wound, no blood poured out, but he spat at Dafydd, who loomed over him.

“I will see you suffer for this day.” Mabon’s eyes went to Dyrnwyn, which lay thirty feet away.

Dafydd blocked the way to it. He met Mabon’s gaze and allowed Mabon to see the challenge in them. He wasn’t going to let Mabon have it again without more of a fight. Mabon pointed to his captain with a black-gloved hand. “I want that sword. Leave without it, and you die.”

And then he vanished.

Chapter Four

Dafydd

––––––––

EVERY PERSON IN THE hall gasped and stared at the place Mabon had been. Dafydd stepped back involuntarily and then glanced towards Mabon’s captain, a thickset man, older than Goronwy, with the demeanor of a fighting man. Dafydd didn’t relish taking him on. As it was, he was weaving on his feet and struggling to gain control. But Dafydd was going to let the captain remove Dyrnwyn from Castell Clydog only over Dafydd’s dead body.

Mabon’s captain stared at Dafydd through three heartbeats, his eyes hard, and then he fisted a hand high in the air. It was the signal Mabon’s soldiers had been waiting for. They sprang upon Clydog’s men—whose feet were frozen to the floor just long enough for them to lose any advantage they might have had by their greater numbers. Many barely had time to clear their swords from their sheaths before they were beset.

Mabon’s captain and Dafydd moved at the same instant, though not to fight each other, but towards Dyrnwyn. The captain was blocked by the press of men between him and the sword, however, so Dafydd reached it first. Dyrnwyn had skittered closer to the dais—someone must have kicked it—and had come to rest under a chair. The sword lay quiet, its light extinguished. A quick check showed him that Mabon’s captain still twenty paces away, set upon by two of Clydog’s men and no immediate threat.

Dafydd still didn’t understand why Mabon had just left rather than fight for what he wanted. Grimacing in advance of the pain he feared to feel, Dafydd stooped to pick up the sword.

Nothing happened.

The hilt felt cool to the touch. Dafydd couldn’t explain it, but didn’t have time to think on it further. Instead, he turned towards King Clydog, looking to protect him, but he was safe for the moment, backed into a corner of the room by Seisyll whose sword was out. None of Mabon’s men had yet approached him. Lilwen cowered under the table where Seisyll had shoved her during Dafydd’s fight with Mabon.

One of Mabon’s men approached Dafydd, who flicked the tip of the sacred sword back and forth. Strangely, the pain in his arm and the tension caused laughter to bubble in his throat. “You’re jesting, right?”

Fortunately, two of Clydog’s men-at-arms appeared in front of him to relieve him of having to fight again. Head down, Dafydd braced his right hip against the high table. The pain was such that he could barely walk. He focused on breathing in a steady pattern so he wouldn’t pass out.

“Where’s Angharad?” Clydog said.

“Safe—for now.” Dafydd gritted his teeth, stepped closer to Clydog, and lowered his voice, his words only for the king. “I told her to get it and get out—that I would meet her at the postern gate if I could.”

“Sweet Mary! Then what are you doing here? Go!” Clydog said. “I need you with her more than I need you with me. I don’t want to see you again until you can tell me that it is safe in the hands of King Cadwaladr.”

“You want me to bring it to King Cad—”

“I should never have kept it here this long. From what you’ve told me of your lord, it is better for him to have it, and use it. He is the rightful High King and will know what to do with it.” Clydog paused. “Or Taliesin will.”

“My lord—” Dafydd tried again.

“You heard him,” Seisyll said. “We can handle this. Protect Angharad. She’s the best of us.”

“I’ll keep her safe.” Marshalling the strength he had left, Dafydd ran for the doorway, still holding a sword in each hand. He raced along a narrow passage to the kitchen. A dozen workers clustered around the doorway and gave way as Dafydd charged into their midst.

“Save yourselves.” He plunged past them, through the kitchen, to the far door that led to the rear of the fort and the postern gate. Although Clydog claimed his fort was sturdy and defensible, it was in reality no more than a manor house with a palisade surrounding it and just as vulnerable as Dafydd had thought it when he first spied it from the far side of the river.

Bright sunlight hit Dafydd’s face as he burst from the kitchen doorway into the garden. A low wall protected the garden from invading stock, and he leapt it to enter the courtyard proper. The stables had been fitted awkwardly between the buttery and the barracks, skewed at a strange angle so people could reach the hidden gate behind it.

Angharad had been watching for him and at his approach stepped out from the stable door. Her eyes took him in from head to toe and settled on his left arm. “Are you all right?”

“No, but your family is for now.” He glanced back towards the kitchen door. Mabon’s captain wasn’t coming through it, but that wasn’t to say he wouldn’t in another moment. Every fiber in Dafydd’s being told him to hurry, but he forced himself to slow down. Angharad depended on him and him alone now. He needed her cooperation and it would be counterproductive to scare her.

Angharad peered at the gash in his upper arm. “Did Mabon do that to you? Why isn’t it bleeding?”

Dafydd held out Dyrnwyn. He didn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Is that—?” Angharad said.

“Dyrnwyn. Or at least I thought so, but now I’m not so sure. Its fire has gone out.” He focused on her face. “Your father told me to get you away from here, along with ... whatever it is you’ve got. Where is it?”

“In the bags, along with the bandages. I need to wrap your arm.”

“We have no time,” Dafydd said.

“You can’t ride with a hole in your arm.”

Angharad pulled a length of clean linen from a pouch on the back of the lively grey she’d led from the stables and, without a by-your-leave, wrapped it tightly around his arm. He gazed down at her, silent with gritted teeth, while she tied the ends. The wound still burned him, but she’d pressed the insides of the gash together and lessened the pain enough that Dafydd could unclench his left hand from the hilt of his sword and sheath it.

“I’ve saddled your horse too.” She clicked her tongue. His horse, Llelo, whickered softly from the darkness of the stable.

One-handed, Dafydd pulled a blanket from his bags, wrapped Dyrnwyn in it, and tucked it under his saddle bags, with an assist from Angharad when he couldn’t lift the bag and slide the sword under it at the same time. Then he pulled open the postern gate. “What happened to the guard?”

“I sent him to help my father in the hall,” Angharad said.

Dafydd smiled inwardly. “I like you much better this way.” He led Llelo through the gate, and Angharad pushed it closed behind her.

“What do you mean—you like me better this way?”

Dafydd glanced at her, not sure if he should explain, but then he decided that if he didn’t tell her the truth, his dissembling would act as a barrier between them. “I overheard your argument with Lilwen, the first day I was at Castle Clydog.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t entirely by accident, but you had been so unkind ...” His voice trailed off as he realized she was glaring at him again.

“I can’t decide whether to be angry, hurt, or embarrassed.”

“How about none of those? How about we start now as we mean to go on—as friends.”

Angharad looked away, worrying at her lip with her teeth, but then she nodded. “I would like that. Where are we going?”

“Dinas Bran.”

Angharad took the news with no more than a hard swallow, the same acceptance she’d showed with everything Dafydd had asked from her so far this morning. They mounted their horses and turned them towards the Roman road that ran northeast from Clydog’s fort. Their horse’s hooves thudded on the ancient cobbles, which the years had filled in with moss and dirt.

“Where does this road lead?” Dafydd said.

“Caersws,” Angharad said, and then she shrugged, “Eventually.”

Dafydd glanced at her. “It goes all that way? You’re not serious?”

“Yes, of course,” Angharad said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I should have known that to reach Dinas Bran we’d have to go through Caersws on the way north, but I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

Angharad picked up on the hesitation in his voice. “What happened at Caersws?”

“Not so much there, but at Llanllugan, a few miles north of the crossroads,” Dafydd said. “We fought a great battle. I’d just as soon not revisit it.”

“Is it the place you fought the demons, before King Cadwaladr went to Caer Dathyl?”

“So you were listening when I talked to your father.”

“Of course.”

Dafydd checked behind them for the twentieth time. He was beginning to think that they might have gotten away without detection, but he almost didn’t dare admit it to himself. Still, when facing Mabon, it was hard to say if it was possible to outrun him. He glanced at the sky.

“What are you looking for?” Angharad said. “You keep looking at the road behind us and then at the sun.”

“It’s going down,” Dafydd said.

“Why does that matter?”

“You haven’t traveled far in your life, have you?”

Angharad looked affronted. Dafydd grimaced inwardly. He’d been sparring with Angharad for three days and had forgotten that they’d declared a truce.

“We went all the way to Caer Dathyl last summer, as I told you. I am not a child.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Dafydd said. “It’s just that it stays light so late in the summer that you would never have worried about the dark. Believe me, today, we need to worry.”

“Because of Mabon?”

“Him and other things I’m not going to tell you about just yet. Not until I have to.”

“I hate it when men are cryptic, as if I couldn’t understand the truth. As if I have no knowledge of the way the world works.” She looked away from him, and Dafydd hoped they weren’t going to revert back to the Lilwen version of Angharad instead of the genuine one.

Dafydd studied her downturned head. “I would prefer it if you never need to understand. However, I will tell you when you need to know. Either that, or I will tell you when we have reached safety and it no longer matters. I promise.”

Angharad nodded her head, though she still didn’t look at him.

“All you need to do is look at that.” Dafydd gestured towards the mountains looming ahead of them. The road bent and weaved around them, hardly the straight path for which the Romans usually strove. “If we’re going to get through those, it isn’t going to be tonight, as much as I’d like to continue in the dark.”

“We’re going to have to sleep outside?” Angharad clutched the reins more tightly. As for Dafydd, he knew well that tendril of fear curling inside at the thought of sleeping outside, unprotected by a company of soldiers.

Dafydd wanted to reassure her. “We have blankets and food. I’ll build a fire and keep watch. It didn’t even rain today, so the ground won’t be wet.”

“Why don’t we just go back?” Angharad said. “You said yourself that Mabon disappeared from the hall and didn’t return. I want to know what’s happened to my family.”

“Your father told me to get you to safety—to get both you and this thing you carry that Mabon wants. I think your father knows that it is no longer safe at Castell Clydog.” Dafydd paused. “I have never heard that a pillow could be so dangerous.”

“It isn’t really a pillow,” Angharad said. “It’s just wrapped up inside one.”

“So what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Dafydd opened his mouth to speak—perhaps even to mock her—and then thought better of it. They were dancing around each other right now, trying to figure out how to talk to each other after their rocky start. He didn’t want to raise her hackles if he didn’t have to.

An hour later and a good fifteen miles from Castell Clydog, they sat together on a log, deep in the woods to the east of the road. Angharad had checked Dafydd’s arm again. It oozed lymph now, which meant it was healing, but it burned like hot fat sprayed from a pan, and his left arm and hand remained nearly useless. With some effort, Dafydd had managed to light a smokeless fire.

“All right. Let’s see what your father has risked so much to keep safe. I don’t want to travel any farther without knowing what he’s given you. If we can shed any light at all on why Mabon might want it and how it might serve him, I think that could only be a good thing.”

Angharad opened her satchel and pulled out the pillow. “My father gave this to me three years ago. Even then he’d wrapped it in soft sacking, so I couldn’t see what it was. He never told me, and I didn’t ask. He told me to hide it in plain sight.”

“So you covered it in the richest fabric you could find.” Dafydd rubbed a finger along the fine needlework. She’d embroidered the deep blue fabric with her family’s crest.

Angharad set it in her lap and with her belt knife carefully removed the stitching along one side of the pillow. Then she handed the open pillow to Dafydd. “I’d prefer that you do it. Just pull it out.”

With a wary look at her, he took the pillow, reached inside, and tugged the sacking into the open. Unfolding the top, he looked inside, looked at her, and then reached in. Out came a six-foot length of black cloth. It cascaded through Dafydd’s hands. They both stared at it, and then Dafydd stood up and shook it out.

“It’s a cloak.” He held it higher. It was designed for a man of his stature and looked much like the cloaks the demons at the wedding had worn, with enveloping expanses of fabric and deep hoods.

“Put it on, my lord.”

Shrugging his acceptance, even if the comparison to the demons’ cloaks gave him a moment’s pause, Dafydd swung the fabric over his shoulders. He held out his arms and spun on one heel full circle until he faced Angharad again. “It’s just a cloak. Why would Mabon want this one? He’s got dozens probably.”

Angharad sat with her hand to her mouth.

“What is it? I haven’t grown horns have I?”

“Take it off!” The words came out strangled, as if Angharad’s throat had closed over them. “Right now! Give it to me!”

Puzzled, Dafydd did as she asked. “What’s wrong?” And then when Angharad began stuffing the cloak back into the sacking with frantic movements, “What are you afraid of?”

Angharad stopped. Visibly trying to gain control, she tipped her head back to look up at the leaves above her head and took a deep breath. “This isn’t an ordinary cloak, Dafydd.” She eased the cloth back out of the sacking, stood, and held it high so that it wouldn’t drag on the ground. “When you put it on, you disappeared.”

Dafydd stared at her. “Surely not.”

“Watch.” Angharad swung the cloak around herself as Dafydd had earlier.

As soon as the fabric settled on her shoulders, she vanished. Dafydd’s heart sank to see it. Or rather, not see it. Somehow, he wasn’t even surprised. He studied the space where he’d last seen her and rubbed his jaw line with his good hand. “I hate magic. It up ends too much of what I think I know.”

“But it isn’t all bad.” Angharad reappeared, three feet away from where she’d been when she’d put the cloak on. It lay limp in her hand, looking like nothing more than a fine garment that any lord would be proud to wear. “Perhaps we need the use of it in order to face Mabon. We can hardly be expected to counter him if he has all the advantages and we have nothing to hand ourselves.”

“Maybe you have something there,” Dafydd said. “Certainly, we couldn’t have defeated Arawn without King Cadwaladr. He is sidhe and carries a magic sword.”

“There you go.” Angharad allowed the cloak to settle onto her lap in folds. “Magic has its uses.”

“I never said it didn’t, but just think what could happen if this cloak fell into the wrong hands.”

“Mabon’s hands.”

“Those hands wouldn’t have to be Mabon’s to do great damage.”

“It would be of benefit to a thief at the very least,” Angharad said.

“To anyone who planned mischief,” Dafydd said.

Angharad carefully encased the cloak in its pillow once again. When she finished, she clutched it to her chest and just stared at Dafydd. He didn’t know her well enough to read her eyes as yet, but surely there was uncertainty there, as well as calculation.

“You were right,” Dafydd said. “This is a more dangerous and precious thing than I could have imagined. More so even than a sword. No wonder your father refused to give it to Mabon.”

“But he wants to leave it in King Cadwaladr’s keeping.” Angharad looked down at the pillow. “Why?”

“Because even if your father didn’t use it himself, he doesn’t want Mabon to have it.”

“And why didn’t my father use it for himself?” Angharad grabbed Dafydd’s pack without asking his permission and stuffed the pillow into it. Before he could protest, she answered her own question. “Maybe it was too tempting. Like misers who count their gold but never spend it. Their possessions haunt them, even as they can’t enjoy them.”

“I suspect your father didn’t feel he could use it, or else he wouldn’t have given it to you to keep.”

“Perhaps,” Angharad said.

Dafydd settled himself back onto the log, the strap to his pack in his hand. He didn’t know what to do with it. He daren’t let it out of his sight and would probably have to actually use it as a pillow from now on, just to keep it safe. “I’m wondering why Mabon wanted it. He disappeared during the fight in the hall all on his own. He doesn’t need a magic cloak to become invisible.”

“And although he had a magic sword, it didn’t do him any good either,” Angharad said.

“What do you mean?”

Angharad gestured to Dafydd. “You defeated him.”

“That’s because his sword wasn’t magic—or at least not the way Dyrnwyn should be or King Cadwaladr’s Caledfwlch is.” Dafydd went to his horse and pulled out the sword. He looked down at it, tracing the writing etched into the blade with his eyes. The swirls were impossible for him to decipher, and he dismissed them as meaningless, just like the sword. He held it out to Angharad, but she put up her hands and backed away.

“No, not for me.”

“It’s all right,” he said, still urging it on her. “It won’t hurt you. It feels lifeless when I hold it.”

“Then you hold it. Besides, why would it respond to you? You’re not a god like Mabon.”

Dafydd swallowed hard, finding that her criticism hurt. He’d hoped they were beyond that. Then he met her eyes and realized that she wasn’t disparaging him. She honestly didn’t know the mythology of the sword. “Only a noble man can wield Dyrnwyn. Those who fall short will find that the hilt burns their hand, and they can’t hold it.”

“And because it doesn’t burn yours, you think it isn’t the true sword? Maybe you are worthy of it.”

Dafydd was suddenly feeling much better. He decided that telling her the truth about his experience with Dyrnwyn wasn’t boasting, but instead was necessary so she could understand what they faced. “I held Dyrnwyn in Arawn’s cavern. I pulled it from King Cadwaladr’s belly after Arawn thrust it through him. At the time, it allowed me to hold it, that’s true, but it certainly didn’t feel this comfortable in my hand. This can’t be the same sword. This one is a fake.”

“Why would Mabon bring a false Dyrnwyn to Castell Clydog?” Angharad said.

“I don’t know. To frighten us? Mabon sent two demons to Deganwy Castle to get Dyrnwyn, since he believed King Cadwaladr had it. When this sword lit in your father’s hall, it didn’t make me happy, but I merely assumed that he’d found it after all.”

“Yet he didn’t.”

“So has he given up the search? He came to Castell Clydog seeking this cloak,” Dafydd said.

“And almost found it.”

“But again, didn’t.”

Angharad tugged on a stray red curl as she thought. “He seems to be looking for magic items, my lord, ones that might be useful to us if we found them first or kept them from him.”

“What else might he be seeking—and why?”

Chapter Five

Goronwy

––––––––

CAERLEON IN GWENT, a fort the Romans called Isca, was as far away from the Isle of Man where Goronwy had grown up as he’d ever been. At thirty, with over ten years of fighting on the mainland under his belt, it had been a long time since he’d thought of Man as home. Leaving the island had been the right decision, for him and for Dafydd. The island was too small for so many brothers to share, and it was their eldest brother, Merfyn, who would succeed to the throne upon the death of their father, Cynin.

It was fortunate that Merfyn, Goronwy, and Dafydd, each born to a different mother and many years apart, felt no animosity towards one another. Goronwy had understood since he was a small child that the kingdom would never be his, and he would have to make his way in the world on his own merits, with no land to claim and no inheritance, other than the sword he carried and the training to use it.

Still, memories of his childhood came increasingly back to him the older he grew and the longer he stayed away. If he survived the coming confrontation with the Saxons, he’d make a trip home to see his family one more time before his father died.

Goronwy passed a marking stone and traced the writing on it with his eyes. Few knights knew how to read these days. It seemed that knowledge had left Britain with the Romans, except for a few bastions of learning. Like all royal sons on the Isle of Man, however, Goronwy had learned Latin, for no other reason than because his father believed that a man wasn’t educated unless he knew Latin and by God his sons were going to be educated!

Goronwy was Christian enough to find the language—and the religion that came with it—useful, whatever Taliesin thought. He appreciated the way the language gave shape to his thoughts that his Welsh couldn’t properly express. But the Romans were gone now, and all that remained of them were their roads and ruined forts. The Welsh still used the roads, though only a few lords and kings were brave enough to rehabilitate their forts. Clydog, the man to whom Dafydd had been sent was one. King Arthur of Gwent, a man Cade called his uncle, but who was actually a slightly more complicated older relation, was another.

The fort of Caerleon was a huge and sprawling complex of buildings, and Goronwy couldn’t see how Arthur could possibly defend it. It lay in a bend of the River Usk, less than five miles as the crow flies from the sea, though longer by boat along the winding river. Goronwy passed through the open gate into a bustling courtyard that was more small city than fort.

“Welcome, my friend!” King Arthur’s great voice boomed from the entrance to one of the main buildings. “Pardon the crush, but it’s market day.”

“I’m glad to see things are going well for you.” Goronwy dismounted and allowed Arthur to hammer him on the back. The man was fifty if he was a day, but he was still as broad and strong as the bear for whom he was named.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Arthur clasped Goronwy’s forearm while one of the stable boys led his grey stallion away.

“I’m here on behalf of King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd,” Goronwy said.

Arthur’s eyes lit. “Ho! King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd, is it? Doesn’t that sound fine?”

Goronwy laughed. “That’s the way the dice have fallen.”

“That boy has rolled a deuce more times than I can count,” Arthur said. “Come inside and tell me more.”

Goronwy followed King Arthur into the great hall. On every side, tapestries adorned the walls, and fresh rush mats covered the floor. They sat at a small table to the rear of the hall, lit by a bank of windows, the shutters open to let in the spring air. And then Arthur confessed the truth.

“The market is doing well, but it’s like spitting into the wind to hold it. I hope it will last, but I fear we are nearing the end. We soon will be dust like those who left the Roman marker stones you passed on your way in.”

“I assume you are referring to the threat of the encroaching Saxons?” Goronwy said.

“I have lost nearly all of my eastern lands, and it isn’t just me. The Saxons cross the Wye River as if it were a creek. Every lord between here and Brecon is at risk.”

“That’s why I have come,” Goronwy said. “The Saxons under Cerdic of Wessex and Penda of Mercia mass troops at Shrewsbury. I know that’s far to the north of here, but if we lose in the north, all of Wales could fall to them.”

“And Cadwaladr wants the High Kingship,” Arthur said.

Goronwy shrugged noncommittally. “He wants Wales united. He doesn’t much care under whom.”

“He’s not his father’s son, then,” Arthur said. “No man lusted after power more than Cadwallon.”

Goronwy pursed his lips and didn’t answer immediately. This wasn’t the version of events he’d heard, but he’d been only a young boy when Cadwallon had died. Cadfael had wanted the High Kingship, thinking it his right as King of Gwynedd, and all talk had been of him more than of the man he usurped. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I would,” Arthur said. “Cadwallon was an arrogant bastard with a pole stuck so far up his arse it kept his chin raised and his nose pointed at the sky. His transparent allusions to his Saxon allies and what they would do to us if we didn’t declare him High King were all that kept him on the throne. No one should have been surprised—least of all Cadwallon—when he died so far away from home, leading good Welshmen against Saxons in Saxon lands. About which we cared nothing.”

“He felt that they were our birthright. The Saxons took those eastern lands from Vortigern—”

Arthur guffawed his disagreement. “Vortigern let them in, and when they turned on him, paid for his stupidity with his life. Don’t talk to me about what the Welsh used to have. That was two hundred years ago. The world is a different place now. I just want to keep what I have. Cadwallon was a fool.”

Goronwy studied Arthur. “Don’t tell Cade that. He worships him—or at least the memory of him.”

“How could he not? The man is dead. Besides, I’ll grant that he knew how to fight. But he was a fool to trail all over Britain fighting Saxons for Penda who was a Saxon himself. Cadwallon gained nothing for Wales but his own glory. The man was a prick, as I said. He and I would be the same age, if he’d lived.”

“You could have been High King,” Goronwy said.

“Ach,” Arthur said. “I would have had to talk to all those other idiots. Better to hold my own lands and let my nephew worry about unity.”

“But now ...” Goronwy allowed his voice to trail off, his sentence unfinished.

“Yes, you have the right of it.” Arthur scoffed at his predicament. “Now I can’t even do that because we don’t have a High King, and none of those other pretenders to the throne care about anyone but themselves. You’re telling me this Cadwaladr is different?”

“Yes,” Goronwy said.

Arthur gazed at Goronwy, rubbing his chin with one hand. “Just like that? No equivocation? Just ‘yes’?”

Goronwy nodded.

“Things have been quiet for the last month,” Arthur said. “It might be worth coming with you to see what a real High King looks like.”

“We need your men too.”

“Ah. Now we come to the reason for your visit. My teulu will put their swords where I tell them. I can leave these lands in the hands of my son until we return.”

“I can’t promise that you will return,” Goronwy said.

Arthur’s eyes brightened at that. “One can always hope.”

* * * * *

IN ARTHUR, THESE WORDS weren’t mere bravado. That evening, he stood in front of his men and passed his crown to his son, Caradoc. “To you, I entrust the well-being of my people and these lands.”

“Thank you, Father,” Caradoc said.

Goronwy detected a hint of relief and ambition in Caradoc’s eyes—and Goronwy couldn’t blame Caradoc for feeling either. What son didn’t want to test himself in his father’s shoes before he was too old to wear them? Caradoc was a few years older than Goronwy himself. It was hard when fathers lived too long, and perhaps that was what was giving Arthur the impetus to come with Goronwy now.

They left the next morning, a host of men jostling along the road. Arthur’s men had fought more battles than they liked of late, and some of them hadn’t been happy to ride north with Arthur.

Arthur, however, was in high spirits. “We’ll have to take the western roads to Caersws, rather than those to the east. They’d be faster, seeing how the lands are flat.”

“But full of Saxons,” Goronwy said.

Though Goronwy had been deadly serious, Arthur laughed. “You’ve the right of it.” His good mood was contagious, and some of his men laughed with him. Goronwy had ridden in a company such as this more times than he could count, and still he was glad to feel the camaraderie and participate in their jests.

Boom!

A concussion split the air, and Goronwy’s horse reared. Men shouted and spun their horses, looking for the threat. Goronwy’s horse danced full circle. When he got him under control and came back around, the real danger became clear.

“Well, well, isn’t this pleasant.”

“Mabon!” Goronwy reined in, a black pit forming in his stomach. This was the last thing he wanted or needed. But, in truth, hadn’t he expected it? Mabon’s men had gone away from Deganwy unsatisfied. His companions were fools if any one of them—Cade included—had thought they could evade him forever.

“This is the famous Mabon?” King Arthur said. “He doesn’t look like much.”

This was patently untrue but Goronwy admired Arthur’s brave stance.

“What do you want?” Goronwy said.

“Such disrespect.” Mabon’s tone was casual and amused, but his eyes glinted and narrowed. “I simply want to speak with King Arthur.”

“So speak,” Goronwy said.

“Look what surrounds you.” Mabon gestured to the dozens of men who hemmed Arthur’s company in. Somehow—out of nowhere—Mabon had conjured a company of men, who were dressed in black as he was. “I would rethink your tone if I were you.”

Goronwy glanced right and left, calculating what it would take to free himself and Arthur.

Arthur put a hand on Goronwy’s arm to stay him. “What can we do for you, my lord?”

Mabon puffed out his chest. “Give it to me.”

“Daughter of Christ,” Goronwy said, though this time under his breath so Mabon couldn’t hear. “Not it again.” And then out loud, he said: “We don’t have Dyrnwyn, Mabon.”

Mabon sniffed. “That’s not at issue.” He pointed his chin at Arthur. “He knows what I want.”

Arthur’s jaw clenched. “No.”

Mabon laughed. “I will take it over the dead bodies of your men.”

Arthur pulled his sword from his sheath and held it above his head. “I dare you to try!”

Both sides took that as the signal Arthur intended: to fight. The men behind Goronwy roared, and he barely had time to register that they’d gone from peace to war in half a heartbeat. He cleared his sword from his sheath in time to meet an oncoming warrior in black. The man wasn’t demon, however, and died just as all men did when a sword sliced through him. Spurring his horse forward, Goronwy launched himself towards Mabon, who hadn’t moved, perhaps not expecting one of Arthur’s men to challenge him directly.

Mabon flailed at Goronwy with his sword, but held his ground, and they hacked at each other several more times before three men charged through the ranks, heading for Arthur, who already was fighting two men at once. Goronwy disengaged from Mabon and spun, urging his horse after them. He managed to unseat one and then threw himself from the saddle into the torso of a second, who had an open path towards Arthur’s exposed neck.

They went down together, landing with a terrific crunch. Although Goronwy was on top of his opponent and wore his helmet, his head connected with a rock on the edge of the road, and everything went black.

Chapter Six

Goronwy

––––––––

GORONWY DIDN’T KNOW how long he’d been out—whether a few heartbeats only or hours—but the silence around him when he awoke didn’t bode well for Arthur and his men. Groaning at the effort, Goronwy pushed onto his knees, his head hanging. Everything ached—muscle, bone and sinew—but his head hurt the worst. He pulled off his helmet and dropped it. It landed with a clunk and rolled away, into the ditch that lined the road.

“Goronwy—”

Goronwy peered in the direction from which Arthur’s voice had come. It wasn’t evening yet, but a fog had rolled in. At least it wasn’t raining. A figure crouched over another in the center of the road. At first Goronwy was afraid it was Mabon, sending Arthur to his death, but then his vision cleared, and he realized it was a young woman of perhaps five and twenty in hood and cloak.

“Hurry,” she said. “He wants you. He hasn’t much time.”

Goronwy crawled the fifteen feet that separated them. When he reached Arthur, Goronwy grasped his hand. The woman had opened Arthur’s coat, revealing a gaping wound in his right abdomen. Goronwy glanced at her, and she shook her head. He nodded back, understanding that Arthur had gotten his wish and would not return to Caerleon.

Arthur had his own concerns and didn’t notice their muted looks. “Take it.”

“What—what do you want me to take?” Goronwy said.

“The stone,” Arthur said.

Goronwy didn’t mean to be dim, but he didn’t understand. He would have asked again, but Arthur moaned and turned his head. His sword and shield lay on the ground beside him, the shield split just under the leather-wrapped haft. Arthur flopped out an arm towards them. Goronwy thought he wanted him to bring his sword to him, but when he reached for it, Arthur shook his head.

“Not the sword, the shield.”

Goronwy picked it up and brought it to Arthur. “It should go to your son.”

“No. Take it to Cadwaladr.”

“To Cadwal—”

Again the moan and the shake of the head.

Goronwy tried again. “I’m not deliberately trying to misunderstand, Arthur. You’re telling me to take this to Cadwaladr? Is it this shield that Mabon wanted?”

“Not the shield, the handle.”

Goronwy turned the ruined shield in his hands. He couldn’t see what Arthur meant, but the woman reached for it.

“Here. Let me.” She picked at the end of the leather wrap that bound the handle and unwound it, revealing a black, rectangular stone that couldn’t have been comfortable to hold, even within its leather casing.

“It’s a whetstone.” Goronwy glanced from the stone to Arthur. “Why do you have it as the handle to your shield?”

“To keep it safe.” Arthur closed his eyes. “I’ve used it twice, both in times of great need.”

The woman gazed at Arthur, awe in her face. “It’s the Stone of Tewdrig. I can’t believ—”

“It has been my family’s honor to keep it for many years. But that time is over.” Arthur turned his head to the side.

“Arthur!” Goronwy slipped his arm under Arthur’s shoulders and lifted him, but the great king had passed away. Goronwy closed Arthur’s eyes and then turned to the woman. “What is the Stone of Tewdrig?”

“The most treasured artifact in Gwent,” she said. “Our mothers tell stories to us of it from the cradle, but I thought it was legend only. Everyone did.”

“Many legends have arisen to walk the earth of late,” Goronwy said. “What’s special about this one?”

“The story goes that if a worthy man sharpens his blade on this stone, it will kill his opponents with one slice, but if he is an unworthy man—”

“—it fails utterly.” Goronwy finished the sentence for her. “Typical.”

“Obviously King Arthur believes it to be true.”

Which made Goronwy finally focus on her instead of the circumstances in which he found himself. “Who are you?”

“I was out gathering herbs when I came upon the wreckage.” She gestured around at the dead men and horses. “I am Catrin. My hut is a few yards distant. The magic drew me.” She said this matter-of-factly.

Goronwy narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you telling me you’re a witch?” He touched her sleeve. “Is this a glamour you project?” She wasn’t beautiful necessarily, but rather striking with her soot-black hair, lithe body, and gray eyes that seemed to penetrate his thoughts with a single glance. She made him more than a little uncomfortable.

Catrin canted her head. “I don’t do magic, only feel it. That was enough to make men wary of me. Although people come to me for healing, they don’t want me in their village.” She paused and studied Goronwy. “But I see that you are not afraid of me. Why?”

“My lord is sidhe. I have seen things in the time I have served him that are too strange to speak of, even to a witch,” Goronwy said. “I have few fears left, at least not for myself.”

“Who did this, then?” Catrin said. “Surely he is one to fear. The aura of magic remains, though it was stronger when I first arrived and was more than that which comes from the Stone.”

“Mabon, son of Arawn and Arianrhod, was here. He wanted Arthur to give him the Stone.”

Catrin took in a sharp breath. “It is a wonder you survived!”

“Mabon is a coward and a bully,” Goronwy said. “Unfortunately, he is also a god with a long reach. I wonder where he found his men and where he’s got to now?”

“That I don’t know, but you need food and rest if we are to travel north to find King Cadwaladr.”

Goronwy blinked at her as he processed all that she’d said. “Did you really say if we are to travel north?”

“Of course,” Catrin said.

Goronwy laughed. “There’s no of course about it. You don’t know me. I don’t know you, and I’m not sure I want to. Why would I let you accompany me?”

“Even I, in my isolation, have heard of the great Goronwy ap Cynin. And besides, you need my help.”

“I don’t—”

“If Mabon searched Arthur and his men—including you—for this stone, he didn’t find it. He might accost you again if he realizes you have it. It wouldn’t be safe for you alone. At the very least, how would you sleep with nobody to keep watch?” Her gaze was steady as she looked into Goronwy’s eyes.

“It occurs to me that you could be working for Mabon.” Goronwy kept his eyes on her face. She didn’t drop his gaze. “It seems that other men and even gods do his bidding now.”

“That’s Mabon’s style, is it?” she said. “To ask a woman for help?”

“Not in the least, but nobody said he couldn’t learn.”

“He hasn’t once in all the years of his existence,” Catrin said.

Goronwy’s skin turned cold. Catrin seemed so sure. The more he looked at her, the less likely he thought she was evil. At the same time, the less sure he became of what or who she really was.

Then a new thought struck him. Could this be Arianrhod? He’d touched her, and she’d felt real to him, not the ethereal goddess that Rhun had described. But she could have become the creature who came to Cade in that cave in the guise of a beautiful woman. Catrin wasn’t beautiful like that, but still ... could he refuse a goddess? Cade didn’t think it wise.

Goronwy bowed his head. “I must give way.” His head ached. The task Cade had set him had suddenly grown far more difficult and serious. He was going to have to trust Catrin. For now.

* * * * *

“IF YOU REALLY INTEND to come all the way to Caer Fawr with me, I have a friend you should meet when we get there.” Goronwy lay reclined on a pallet near the fire, sipping a cup of soup Catrin had made. He’d watched her carefully from the first, trying to discern any waver in the humanness she projected. If she really was Arianrhod, she was doing a good job at pretending not to be. She even spilled some soup on her hand and sucked at the burn. He couldn’t imagine a goddess being clumsy.

“Really?” Catrin said. “And who might that be?”

“Taliesin,” Goronwy said.

Catrin looked up. “The bard? He’s still alive?”

Goronwy laughed. “Last time I looked. You’ll like him. He talks only in riddles and obscure references to past events you’ve never heard of or future ones you probably don’t want to know about.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Is that what you think?”

Catrin sat back on her heels. “You don’t like me, do you?”

“As I said before, I don’t know you. In this world, I trust few people and none on first acquaintance.”

“Except for your lord,” she said. “Except for King Cadwaladr.”

Goronwy thought about that. “I trusted him to do what he thought was right from the first. His good intentions were transparent. Whether or not he was a good leader, however—whether or not he could lead men in battle—that I didn’t trust until later.”

“And you tell me he is a sidhe. And that we have demons as well as Mabon to worry about as we travel.”

“And maybe other gods too,” Goronwy said. “I haven’t yet told you about our encounter with the boar at Caer Dathyl, who Taliesin thought was Camulos in animal form.”

“Camulos is never far from his cousin Barinthus.”

“And both are associated with Mabon.” Goronwy caught Catrin’s eyes. “Do you know how to fight?”

“I have a knife.” She studied Goronwy in return and he let her. “Perhaps we ought to use the whetstone.”

Which told Goronwy all he needed to know about her own opinion of herself. Maybe she really is Arianrhod.

Chapter Seven

Hywel

––––––––

“ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE ready for this?” Bedwyr said.

“No,” Hywel said, finally giving him honesty instead of the false face he’d been employing since they left Deganwy.

“So what exactly did your father say when you last saw him?” Bedwyr said.

“Not to come back until I’d learned better manners.”

“When was this?”

Hywel couldn’t help smiling. He’d been such a child when he’d stormed out of his father’s house. “Two days before we fought the demons at Llanllugan.”

Bedwyr stared at him, and Hywel shrugged. “Didn’t you notice that I was a bit green?”

“You’re telling me that you fell in with King Cadwaladr by chance? That—what?—you were riding north through the countryside and happened upon Geraint and his men an hour before Cade showed up to fight the demons?”

“It was more like a quarter of an hour, actually,” Hywel said.

Bedwyr barked a laugh. “That was a trial by fire, wasn’t it?”

Hywel couldn’t help but laugh with him. “It was. When I found myself beside King Cadwaladr, it was the culmination of an impossible dream. I thought I knew what battle was. I thought I knew who I was. But then, fighting back to back with him, my entire life came down to my sword and his—it was all or nothing.”

“All, I’d say,” Bedwyr said. “Will your father be pleased that King Cadwaladr has taken you into his teulu? Surely he will see the honor in that?”

Hywel shot him a sour look. “He has never approved of anything I have ever done. As I told King Cadwaladr before he sent us on this journey, it may be that my father doesn’t support him out of sheer perversity, in that it would imply approval of my ventures.”

“Families are complicated,” Bedwyr said.

“You have the right of it.”

Bedwyr had kept Hywel entertained all the way from Deganwy with stories of his home on Anglesey. He had fourteen brothers and sisters and, from the sounds of it, Bedwyr had been lucky to have them. Hywel wished he’d had siblings to take some of the pressure off of him. As it was, he’d grown up in a far quieter household, with only him and his older sister. His father’s hopes and demands had fallen entirely on Hywel as the only son and heir.

Hywel’s home lay in a bend of the Wye River, not far from the Roman road. He and Bedwyr followed a track wide enough for two carts to pass. Trees overhung the road and Hywel felt his breath easing out and his shoulders relaxing for the first time in four days. He was coming home, and his heart knew it, even if his stomach roiled at the thought of confronting his father again. Maybe it would go well. Hywel squashed the thought the moment it entered his mind. Better to have no expectations at all.

“Legend has it that Vortigern himself retreated to my family’s castle after failing to contain the Saxons and ultimately died here,” Hywel said.

“Is that good or bad?” Bedwyr said. “I mean—is it something of which your father is proud or something I should refrain from mentioning?”

“Vortigern didn’t do the Welsh any favors by inviting the Saxons in, but he was a great ruler, and my mother is numbered one of his descendants.”

“Ah,” Bedwyr said. “Then perhaps your father thinks himself in line for the throne of the High King? He might not be well disposed to seeing Cade in his place.”

Hywel should have known better than to think he could hide something like that from Bedwyr. “Not him, but for all his despair of me, my father thinks the High Kingship should come to me, through my mother.”

Bedwyr shot Hywel an amused look. “I suppose you told this to Cade before we left.”

“Of course,” Hywel said.

“And what did the King say? My guess, it pleased him in a perverse way.”

Hywel couldn’t deny it. “He laughed and clapped me on the back. He said that of the two of us, he’d be just as happy for me to become High King as him, as long as someone he trusted held the post. He doesn’t want the headache inherent in the job.”

“Much easier to be a knight in the High King’s guard.”

“That is no jest,” Hywel said. “Despite my father’s aspirations, he has no idea what he’s asking of me. He sees only the power, and not the price to attain it or keep it.”

A mile later, the two companions approached the fort. It exploited a strong natural crag overlooking the Wye to the west and south and was defended on the north and east by rock-cut ditches, with a causeway on the north-east leading to the main gate. A strong wall followed the edge of the bluff on the river side, making it impossible for an army to ascend from the river, not to mention a straight drop down for anyone choosing to depart the castle that way.

Bedwyr pulled up twenty yards from the causeway. “Impressive. Your father is rebuilding in stone.”

“The exterior walls, anyway.” Hywel raised a hand to a soldier whom he didn’t know on the battlements. He wondered how much had changed in the weeks since he’d left. The man returned the greeting with a measured stiffness that didn’t bode well for the rest of the visit. Then the double gate opened. Hywel glanced at Bedwyr. “No time like the present.”

By the time Hywel and Bedwyr reached the great hall, Hywel was so stiff and uncomfortable—with his back teeth clenched so hard—he had to force himself to relax lest he pass out. That wouldn’t do at all at his first entry into his father’s presence as a knight. His father, Deiniol, sat in his carved wooden chair at the head of the hall by the fire. A dozen tables were scattered around the room. The servants would put them together for formal dinners but, more often than not, meals were served more haphazardly than that, according to need.

As it was, they were alone except for Deiniol and Hywel’s mother, Nest, who sat beside her husband, worrying at her skirt with two fingers. It made Hywel think his father had sent all his men away so there’d be no witnesses to Hywel’s dressing down. It was kind of him, if that was indeed the case. Then again, perhaps he was afraid Hywel had something to show for his absence, and he didn’t want anyone to witness his own capitulation.

Deiniol sat unmoving, one hand to his chin while his eyes followed their progress towards him. He didn’t rise—and he didn’t greet his son.

“It seems I’m not yet forgiven,” Hywel said under his breath, as he and Bedwyr came to a halt ten paces from Deiniol’s chair.

“My lord.” Hywel sketched a bow. Bedwyr did the same.

Deiniol gestured towards the tunics they wore, both showing Cade’s red dragon crest. “You’ve come from Gwynedd, have you? Lord Morgan has informed me of recent events, including the death of King Cadfael.”

“Then he would have also told you how King Cadwaladr and his men, your son included, saved this region of Powys from Saxon and demon marauders,” Bedwyr said.

Deiniol’s face was a frozen mask. Beside him, Nest looked close to tears. She hadn’t looked at Hywel either, which was even more disconcerting. His father had always been a hard man—and even harder on Hywel than on his own men on whom he was hard enough—but if Hywel had an ally in his own house, it had always been his mother. Occasionally—very occasionally—she’d been able to temper his father’s harsh decrees. It wasn’t any wonder that Hywel’s sister had left home with the first man who offered for her, thinking anything was better than another day under Deiniol’s thumb.

It wasn’t any wonder that Hywel had left when he did.

“Are you well, Mother?” Hywel took a step towards her, but as his movement, she jerked her hand, pushing him away. Hywel stepped back.

Deiniol cleared his throat. “You are not welcome here. Neither you nor an entreaty from your king.”

“You support the Saxons, then.” Bedwyr’s jaw bulged, his anger barely contained. “I’ll be sure to let them know that they have your permission to pillage your lands at any time.”

While Hywel appreciated Bedwyr’s support, he regretted that his friend had spoken. Deiniol gritted his teeth, but otherwise didn’t respond to the taunt, other than to meet Hywel’s eyes for the first time. Deiniol withdrew his attention so quickly, however, that Hywel wasn’t sure he’d even seen it.

Hywel was about to turn away, so disheartened that he felt his insides had melted, when he realized what he’d missed: one of his father’s arms hung loose beside his chair, his fingers almost to the floor. All the while they’d been talking—or not talking—he’d been speaking to Hywel in their family’s coded battle language.

Enemy near, his father’s hand said. Danger.

“Forgive me, my lord.” Hywel put his feet together and bowed stiffly. “I hadn’t realized I wasn’t welcome in my own home. Now that I understand we are not wanted, we will not impose on you any longer.” He turned away.

“Hywel—” Bedwyr said.

“I’d hoped you would have matured in the time you’ve been gone,” Deiniol said to Hywel’s back. “Your mother had prepared your old room for you, but it seems no one will sleep there tonight after all. Your sister will be sorry she missed you.”

Hywel froze in mid-stride, his hand on Bedwyr’s coat to pull his friend with him. He processed his father’s words, and then he continued down the gap between the tables towards the doors to the hall. Thankfully, Bedwyr didn’t ask questions, having caught the strange undercurrent between Hywel and his father.

Without speaking, Hywel and Bedwyr mounted their horses and passed under the gatehouse, taking the eastern road from the castle. It wasn’t until they were a half-mile away that Bedwyr pulled up. “What was that about?”

“Keep going a little longer,” Hywel said. “We need to circle back among the trees.”

“Your father’s fingers moved in code,” Bedwyr said. “I didn’t notice until the very end. He was trying to cover his signals with his cloak and was so successful that I almost missed it.”

“I almost did too. Did you also note that my father wasn’t wearing his sword?”

“I didn’t,” Bedwyr said, “or if I did, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. What did he say to you?”

“That we are in danger and an enemy is near.”

“An enemy?” Bedwyr said. “What kind of enemy? No Saxons were in the castle or we would have seen signs.”

“The threat comes from within the fort. Only my parents sat in the hall. Where are our men? What has happened to the garrison? To the servants? At first I thought he’d sent them away so he could meet with me in private.”

“But he hadn’t.”

“No,” Hywel said. “Whoever has cowed my father wanted him to get rid of us quickly. My father took advantage of our estrangement to make his animosity look more real than it really is.”

“It looked real to me. Fathers and sons ...” Bedwyr’s voice trailed off.

Hywel shot him a dry look. “I’m sure after you and I deal with whomever has frightened him so badly that he no longer controls his own house, we’ll be back to our old ways. But for now—”

“—for now he needs you and trusts you enough to believe that you will do what needs doing,” Bedwyr said. “So what’s the rest of the code? The bit about your room and your sister?”

“The only way into the fort other than through the front door is from the river. Once, on a dare, I scaled the rocks and then the wall around the fort to reach my sister’s room, which is built directly into the curtain wall.”

“And where is she?”

“She married Rhys ap Morgan, whom you’ve met, although she’s well into her second pregnancy and could not come to the wedding at Deganwy.”

Bedwyr wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“I know,” Hywel said. “Rhys wasn’t my first choice either. I said as much to my father at the time.”

Bedwyr barked a laugh. “I’m sure he appreciated the advice.”

Hywel laughed too, genuinely, and then sobered. “If someone is watching, from either inside or outside the castle, they’ll think us no threat. Meanwhile, we need some equipment, and I know where to get it.”

A few yards farther east, Hywel led Bedwyr off the main road to a track heading north that looped back towards the Wye River. It came out on a stretch of water above the castle and some three hundred yards to the north.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Bedwyr said, as they came to a halt on the bank.

“Not if you’re opposed to getting wet. The fort is built on a particularly difficult stretch of the river. As it’s almost April, the water is running high.” Hywel checked the sky, eyeing the clouds above their heads. It rained almost every day here in the spring. Those clouds would release their rain just as soon as the sun set.

“That’s exactly what I didn’t want to hear.” Bedwyr dismounted on the bank. “What are you looking for?”

“A friend of mine,” Hywel said. “He’s fished in this river every day of his life, regardless of whether or not he catches anything.”

“Or if his lord might object?” Bedwyr said.

“That too.”

Then Hywel saw him. Goch stood in the river above a short waterfall, barefoot, shirtless, his breaches above his knees. He held his hands below the level of the water, and Hywel waited for him to move before he disturbed the silence. In a moment he’d know whether or not his old friend had caught or lost the fish.

“Damn,” Goch said.

Hywel smiled and moved towards him.

Goch glanced up. “Oh aye. You’ve come home.”

“Not for long. Just to sort out some trouble.”

“Oh, aye,” Goch said again. “You’ll be wanting to get inside the back way.”

“How’d you know?” Bedwyr’s tone was full of suspicion.

Goch nodded at Hywel. “Goch knows his boy. Men in black have been in and out o’ the fort the last few days. I didn’t like the look of them, so I stayed away.”

“Men in black?” Bedwyr said. “Hooded and cloaked?”

“No. Regular soldiers from the look, with helmets and swords. Not your father’s men, my lord,” Goch said.

“Have they hurt anyone in the village?” Hywel said.

“Not so much hurt, my lord, but they ransacked every home.”

Hywel frowned. Whenever Goch began my lording him, that meant he was upset. Often it was the only way to tell. The old man waded out of the water, still fishless, and Hywel handed him his shirt.

Goch brushed a hand through his nearly white hair, with only a few strands that had once been red remaining. “Looking for something, they were.”

“Something they obviously haven’t found, or they wouldn’t still be here,” Bedwyr said.

Hywel squared his shoulders. “Right. Goch—we need rope and a hook to help us up the wall, if you have them, and then I need you to let my parents know we’re coming.”

“You two against a dozen?” Goch said.

“We don’t have time to find more help, even if any help were available,” Hywel said.

“Besides he’s a knight now.” Bedwyr grinned. “No telling how many men that’s worth.”

Goch barked a laugh. “This way, my lords. We’ve much to do before it starts to rain.”

Chapter Eight

Hywel

––––––––

“IT MAY BE,” HYWEL SAID, “that King Cadwaladr didn’t send me alone like he did Goronwy and Dafydd because he didn’t know if I was up to the task, but I thank you for sticking by me anyway.”

“Ah, boy,” Bedwyr said. “I don’t think that’s it at all.”

“Then what?”

“The others weren’t straying so near Saxon lands is all,” Bedwyr said. “Less need to set a watch. Cade said as much to me when he sent us out.”

Hywel studied his friend. Bedwyr seemed sincere, but he’d had long practice in telling untruths to any number of lords before he’d fallen in with Cade. “All right. Either way, I’m glad you’re here now because it evens the odds a bit.”

“Two against a dozen sounds even to you, does it?” Bedwyr said.

“Better than one against a dozen. With my father, we’ll have three, and more if we free my father’s men from wherever these men in black have hidden them.”

“We’ve got some killing to do,” Bedwyr said. “These aren’t demons, you know. You might have been in battle, but not against humans, not recently anyway. Are you sure you’re up for it?”

Hywel took a deep breath and let it out, not taking offense at Bedwyr’s question or begrudging his right to ask it. “I am. We’ll do what needs doing.” He glanced at Bedwyr. “But no more or less, if you understand my meaning.”

“Same as King Cadwaladr, I kill only when I have to,” Bedwyr said.

Hywel looked up at the darkened fort, a black bulk above them against the deep gray of the sky. They’d come down the river, in the river, which meant treading through two small waterfalls on the way. Even that hadn’t been easy, and Hywel was reminded that when he’d done this as a youth, it had been summer, daylight, and not raining. It had been a lark that time, not in deadly earnest.

Good as his word, Goch had driven a wagon into the fort and made contact with Hywel’s parents. Soldiers had stabbed their swords into the hay piled into the back of the cart before admitting him to the castle, which made Hywel glad he hadn’t chosen that route as means to get back inside. What the soldiers had missed was the coiled length of rope and hook that now hung from the upper window in the fort. Hywel tugged on it and then glanced at Bedwyr.

Both of them were soaked through, having left their cloaks with the horses in Goch’s hut. They’d dressed in black, which was Bedwyr’s normal gear, but Hywel had to borrow from him, and his shirt was larger than he liked, though as the rain had plastered it to his body, the size was no longer so noticeable. Hywel hoped their black clothing would give them a moment of grace before the enemy guards recognized them. In that space of time, as short as it might be, he and Bedwyr would disarm, disable, or kill them. In preparation for the task of climbing, which they had to manage first, Hywel wore gloves, had slung his sword over his back by the leather belt, and left off his armor.

“Time to go,” Bedwyr said.

Hywel grasped the rope and began to climb up the sheer cliff face, hand over hand, his feet searching for purchase in the crevices in the rock. He reached the point where the curtain wall joined the bedrock and rested on the six-inch-wide landing afforded by the top of the cliff face. In Vortigern’s time it might have been wider, but whatever grass and dirt had once embedded itself there had eroded away.

Hywel tugged again on the hook.

“Steady,” Bedwyr said, the sound coming out a harsh whisper.

“I’m good.” Hywel back tipped his head to see up the wall. His sister’s window showed twenty feet above him. Rain blew in his face, forcing him to close his eyes against it. The weather had turned out to be a blessing: its patter on the stones was so loud, coupled with the rushing river, that it disguised the sound of their movements. It also discouraged the enemy from putting much effort into scouting the exterior of the castle.

Goch had knotted the rope every foot to help with the climb, and now Hywel abandoned the quest for crevices and merely climbed straight up the rope with the strength of his arms. At last, he flung one arm over the window sill, rested a moment just hanging on, and pulled himself inside the room. As Hywel’s father had promised, no one slept in the bed. A single candle stood on a table by the door, flickering in the breeze that came through the open window.

The instant Hywel’s weight left from the rope, Bedwyr began climbing. Hywel leaned out the window, watching for his dark head to reach the level of the sill. It felt far longer than it had taken Hywel, but Bedwyr was a much larger man and hadn’t ever climbed this way before. And it was probably just Hywel’s imagination anyway.

At last, Bedwyr flung a boot over the window frame, swung the rest of his body up and into the room, and collapsed on the floor with a muffled thud. Hywel was already at the door, but Bedwyr held out a hand to stay him.

“Give me a moment.” His breath came hard and he bent over, gripping his knees. “I don’t know that I could hold a sword just now.”

Hywel channeled his impatience by closing his eyes and breathing deeply and evenly, talking himself through what they might face on the other side of the door. Then Bedwyr straightened, and Hywel opened his eyes.

“Once I open this door, there’s no going back,” Hywel said.

“I know,” Bedwyr said.

“Are we searching the fort separately or together?” Hywel said.

“Separately,” Bedwyr said. “Point me in the proper direction and I’ll do what needs doing—just as I know you will.”

“I find it likely that whoever has taken the fort will have placed men along the wall walk. To reach it, once you’re through this door, turn to the left. The corridor leads to a door at the end of the hall which opens onto the battlements. I will go to the right—to my father’s room.”

Bedwyr held his knife, rather than his sword, which he’d buckled again at his waist in preparation for a fight. Hywel did the same, tightening the leather and loosening the sword in its sheath. They shared a glance, Bedwyr nodded, and Hywel carefully opened the bedroom door. He muffled the sound of the latch with one hand as he’d learned to do as a boy when he wanted to leave his room without waking his nanny or his father.

The door opened inward. Hywel eased past it and poked his head into the hallway. Quickly he pulled back. A man stood guard outside his parents’ room. The man had his shoulder braced against the wall but was looking towards the stairs, not down the hall in Hywel’s direction. The guard had the expectant set to his shoulders of a man waiting for his relief.

Hywel held up one finger to Bedwyr before stepping around the doorframe on tiptoe. The guard in front of him still hadn’t moved—perhaps too focused on the stairs—which was his bad luck. In two strides, Hywel reached him. Before the guard had a chance to turn or shout an alarm, Hywel wrapped his arm around his head, stuffed the curve of his bracer between the man’s teeth, and twisted. The man’s neck cracked.

Hywel grasped the body under the shoulders, and Bedwyr came around to lift the feet. Rather than drag him, which would have made noise, they carried him into the bedroom they’d just vacated. They laid him on the floor, mindful of Nest’s unstated preference for not spoiling the bed.

“Quickly now,” Bedwyr said.

Through the doorway again, they moved in opposite directions. Hywel glanced back once to see Bedwyr open the door to the battlements and disappear through it. Hywel pulled the latch to his parents’ bedchamber, praying that his father expected him, and nudged the door open. His father stood in the center of the room, fully clothed, watching for him. He grimaced as Hywel entered but, for once, it wasn’t in disappointment with Hywel.

“We’re dealing with madmen. I have never felt so helpless in my life.” It was the most honest statement Hywel had ever heard from him.

“Whose men are they?” Hywel said.

“I don’t know. All they do is keep asking where is it? and nothing else. As if I would ever tell them.”

In friendlier times and because Hywel was his father’s only son, Deiniol had confided in him, so now Hywel nodded his understanding. “They want the knife.”

“It appears so,” Deiniol said. “But I still don’t know who wants it.”

“Perhaps I do.” Hywel glanced around the room. “Where’s mother?”

“Seeing to a woman in the village. Births continue, whether the men in black want them to or not.”

“And you made sure they asked for her, even if the woman only thought the baby might come tonight.”

His father tipped his head in acknowledgement of this deception.

“We’ve three of us now.” Hywel pulled his sword from its sheath and handed it, hilt out, to his father. “Use this.”

Deiniol gazed at the sword, at his son, and then reached for the weapon. “I knew you’d come.”

Hywel gaze held a wary cast. “I would hope so.”

“We’ve exchanged harsh words in the past, and will again,” Deiniol said. “Nothing’s changed.”

“I’ve changed.” Hywel turned from his father and strode to the door, looked out, and waved a hand for his father to come beside him. “I killed one. Bedwyr is attending to the guards on the battlements. Goch said a dozen men had overtaken the castle. Is that accurate?”

“There are ten of them,” Deiniol said. “I may never allow a stranger in the door again.”

“How did they overpower the garrison?”

“They didn’t. They asked for hospitality, and I admitted them, not knowing why I shouldn’t. It wasn’t that we weren’t prepared, but ...” He paused and pursed his lips.

Hywel studied his father’s downturned head, waiting.

Deiniol nodded. “No, you are right, though I thank you for not saying it. We were unprepared. They were Welsh, and no Welsh lord has challenged me in many years. They murdered half the garrison in their sleep and poisoned the rest.”

“I don’t judge you, Father,” Hywel said. “Anyone could have made the same mistake.”

“Including King Cadwaladr?”

Hywel gave him a grudging laugh. “Perhaps not him. But betrayal is a recent memory for him. His father was murdered by one of his own lords who then usurped the throne and married his mother. It isn’t easy for him to trust.”

“And yet he allowed Cadfael to ambush him and kill all of his men, including his foster-father, Cynyr of Bryn y Castell.”

“As I said, yours was a mistake anyone could have made.” He led the way out of the bedroom and down the stairs, keeping to the wall, his knife extended. Below him in the hall, men snored in a cacophony of sound.

“Five watch, five sleep,” Deiniol said. “It’s been this way for three days.”

“All ten die,” Hywel said.

He and his father stepped into the hall. Hywel pointed to two men opposite each other, asleep with their heads on the table, their glasses of mead empty.

Those are yours, Hywel’s hand said. He took the three at a near table. Two slept as the others, while the last sprawled on his back on a bench.

His father nodded and moved toward the sleeping men. When they reached the tables, father and son gazed at each other for half a heartbeat. Then, Hywel put the knife between his teeth and held up his hand to count with his fingers: one, two three. He killed the first sleeping man as he had the guard in the hall: with a hard twist that snapped his neck.

Then, recapturing the knife, Hywel leapt on the table and kicked at the head of the second sleeping man with such force that it threw him backwards off his bench. The third man died with his throat slit. That one wasn’t a clean death, however. When blood spattered all over Hywel’s clothing, he had to swallow the bile that threatened to unman him, and he finished the job with an awkward slash that nearly severed the man’s neck from his body.

His father, meanwhile, had dispatched his first opponent, but was having trouble with the second, who’d woken in time to pull his belt knife from its sheath and fend off Deiniol’s attack with it. The man grabbed a spindle chair that had been set against the wall behind him to keep Deiniol at bay.

Hywel strode towards the soldier. “Surrender and you’ll live.”

Deiniol glanced at him, a flash of skepticism in his eyes, but Hywel ignored it. He believed King Cadwaladr would have given the man a chance.

The man didn’t take it. “Never!”

Before the soldier could do something they all might regret, the front door flew open, and Bedwyr strode in. Blood, distinguishable from the black of his water-logged shirt only in that it glistened in the torchlight, covered his front.

“Are you all right?” Hywel said.

“A minor head wound.” Bedwyr brandished his sword, also coated in blood. He took in the scene with a glance, then walked toward this last enemy soldier. “You have a death wish, eh?”

The man refused to cower, but he was trying to look out of the corners of both eyes at the same time, to keep Deiniol, Bedwyr, and Hywel in view. He was outnumbered, however, and his three opponents were in accord. Deiniol grabbed the leg of the chair the man held while Bedwyr prodded him in the back with the tip of his sword. “Put up the knife.”

The man raised his hands in surrender, and Hywel stepped forward to grasp his arm at the wrist. The knife clattered to the floor. “Who is your master? You should at least be able to tell us that.”

“I serve Barinthus, the mighty.”

“Who?” Hywel said. The word came out instinctively, and he cursed himself for showing ignorance. It was a mistake to show any weakness, and he’d been holding himself together hard for the last hour, even if throughout the entire adventure he’d worried that a puff of wind would pull him apart at the seams.

Deiniol leaned in, his voice low. “He is a charioteer to the Underworld.”

That explained a lot.

“And whom does he serve?” Hywel said.

“Mabon, lord of the worlds.” The man was a font of information.

Bedwyr smirked. “That’s what he’s calling himself these days?” He shook his head. “Such cheek.”

“And what is Mabon up to now?” Hywel said.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “He told us to ask for it and when Lord Deiniol gave it to us, to bring it to him.”

“Where?” Hywel said.

“A Saxon place. Near Shrewsbury.”

Hywel and Bedwyr exchanged a look and Hywel said, for his father’s benefit, “It is near Shrewsbury that the Saxons gather, and at Caer Fawr where we are to meet King Cadwaladr.”

“I wonder what Taliesin would have to say about this?” Bedwyr said.

“I don’t like this meddling from the world of the sidhe,” Deiniol said. “I have heard many rumors these last weeks, with King Cadwaladr at the center of them.”

“Some might even be true,” Bedwyr said.

Deiniol flushed red, and he put his face right into the captive’s. “You’re telling me that this Mabon is responsible for the death of my men and the terrorizing of my people?”

The man swallowed and then gave Deiniol a slight nod. Deiniol glared at him for another count of ten and then stepped back, his color subsiding. He glanced at Hywel. “If even a fraction of what I’ve heard is true, King Cadwaladr might be one of the few men who can stop Mabon.”

“I believe he can,” Hywel said. “I ask your leave to go to him.”

Deiniol had been studying the captive again and now faced his son fully. “You do not need my leave.”

“But I would like it.”

“Then you have it,” Deiniol said.

Just like that. As if the two of them hadn’t spent the last fifteen years fighting about what Hywel could and could not do.

Deiniol gestured to Barinthus’s man. “What do I do with him?”

Hywel shrugged. “Let him go. He has failed in his mission. Either Barinthus or Mabon will find him. We all might prefer it if he wasn’t here when that happens.”

“No! No!” The man fell to his knees at Hywel’s feet. “You can’t send me out there alone!”

“What you planned for my family was far worse,” Hywel said.

The man’s face took on an even more desperate look. And then before Hywel realized what he was doing, he grasped Hywel’s hand with both of his and thrust himself upon the knife that Hywel still held. Hywel staggered to one knee under the man’s weight while blood from the wound poured over their hands. Deiniol grasped the man’s shoulders to try to pull him away, but by the time he managed it and laid him on the floor, death had taken him.

“I don’t understand what this gains the poor bastard,” Bedwyr said. “He’s dead. Now he goes to Arawn, Mabon’s father, in the Underworld.”

Hywel chewed on his lip as he looked down at the body. “I think he has unknowingly given us a gift.”

Bedwyr glanced at his friend. “What do you mean?”

“Mabon has been with Arianrhod since she took him out of Arawn’s cavern at Caer Dathyl. Thus, we can’t assume that Arawn knows what Mabon has been doing since then.”

“But now he does,” Deiniol said, understanding in his face. “This man will tell him.”

“You do realize that Arawn could approve of his son’s activities,” Bedwyr said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure that he will,” Hywel said. “Arawn has spoiled Mabon, but meddling in the human world as Mabon has—in pursuit of his own power, possibly at their expense—is not something any of the sidhe take lightly. Taliesin told me that the truce between the children of Don and the children of Llyr is predicated upon none of them using the human world as a tool or a shield. If nothing else, Beli, King of the Otherworld, will not approve.”

Bedwyr toed the body. “Would someone mind telling me why Barinthus sent men here? What is it, this time?”

Chapter Nine

Dafydd

––––––––

THEY’D TRAVELED THROUGH two nights and two days, hardly stopping for rest, but now they had to. Dafydd’s wound ached more with every hour that passed. He had been trying to keep his pain a secret from Angharad, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t succeeded, and even more, wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on pretending he was fine.

Fear. He’d known it before, of course. The bitterness of it caught in the back of his throat. He’d been afraid for himself and Rhiann at the battle by Llanllugan. He only peripherally had had the consciousness at the time to be afraid for all the people behind him, though those thoughts had preoccupied Rhiann’s mind. Fear had nearly overwhelmed him again in Arawn’s cavern and, that time it had been for his friends, more than himself, and specifically for Cade. Blood had pooled in Cade’s mouth, but Dafydd had tasted it in his.

Now, it was not for himself that he was afraid, but for Angharad, who was nearly as innocent has he’d been when he’d left Orkney over a year ago. There had been times, as they passed through the mountains that formed a barrier across Wales, when he’d thought about using the cloak—for protection, for relief from the fear of prying eyes—but something had always stayed his hand. He was afraid that its use wouldn’t be without consequences. At the back of his mind, he even wondered if wearing the cloak wouldn’t make him more visible to Mabon, that in joining the unseen world of the sidhe, the sidhe could see him more clearly.

He wished the cloak was at least warm. He could have risked swinging it over both of them if it could have provided them with something to keep the cold at bay. He’d slept outside plenty in his life. Why he was so cold tonight he didn’t know, even with the blankets they shared. But now his arm ached so much that it threatened to drive everything else from his mind. Angharad had checked his wound again, and there was no pus within it, but his arm felt wrong. Over the last two days, he’d been able to use it less, not more, as it supposedly healed.

They lay side by side. Dafydd hadn’t offered to bring her into the circle of his good arm, though he’d thought about it. So they lay back to back instead, each gazing into the darkness beyond their immediate circle of trees.

“I’m glad I came with you, my lord,” Angharad said.

Dafydd had hoped she was asleep. He scootched a little and rolled onto his back. “I can’t imagine why. This has to be the worst two days of your life.”

“I’ve never done anything important before.” And then she paused. “No one has ever needed me to.”

Dafydd thought about that for a moment. “Before I left the Isle of Man, that was true for me as well. I think feeling that way is part of growing up.”

Another pause and then Angharad felt for Dafydd’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m glad it’s you I’m with.”

A stick snapped in the forest, which saved Dafydd from having to answer.

“What was that?” Angharad’s voice came out a whisper. “Could some of Mabon’s men have tracked us all this way?”

“Stay down.” Dafydd put his hand to Angharad’s shoulder, listening hard, and then pushed to his feet.

Angharad didn’t obey. Instead, she rose with him and slipped her hand into his useless one. “I don’t want to get separated.”

He didn’t want that either. An enemy could draw him away from her into the woods and then attack the camp. They’d left their supplies on the horses for just that eventuality. Dafydd’s fingers lay lifeless in Angharad’s and he wished he could tighten his grip.

He scanned the trees, grateful he hadn’t dared to light a fire. Then he swung his pack over his shoulder and unsheathed his sword.

“Are we in danger?” Angharad said.

“I don’t know yet.” He glanced down at her, although all of her he could really make out was a darker shape among the trees. “Take out your knife.”

She obeyed and, leaving the horses, they crept from tree to tree, circling in ever deeper spirals away from the campsite.

A whisper came to him. It was more sense than sound, and he froze. Angharad instantly stilled beside him. After listening for a dozen heartbeats, Dafydd risked taking a step. Unfortunately, it was directly into the tip of a sword. It poked him in the breastbone, and it was like his heart fell through his chest into his boots. That, and he felt like puking, but then, he’d felt like that ever since Mabon had sliced his arm.

“Do not move.”

“Jesus, Goronwy!” The exclamation burst from Dafydd the instant he recognized his brother’s voice.

Goronwy stepped back, and both men sheathed their swords.

“I had no idea that you might have followed the same path we did,” Dafydd said.

“I might say the same for you. Not that I’m not pleased to see you, of course.” Goronwy squinted into the murk in Angharad’s direction. “And your friend.”

Dafydd pulled Angharad forward. Without thinking about it, his arm slipped around her waist. “Goronwy, this is Angharad ferch Clydog of Ceredigion. Angharad, this is Goronwy.”

“What of the men you were supposed to find for King Cadwaladr?” Goronwy said.

Dafydd shook his head, reluctant to put into words his failure in that regard.

Angharad stepped in front of Dafydd. “Circumstances have changed, Lord Goronwy. Sir Dafydd is bringing King Cadwaladr something far more valuable.”

Dafydd almost laughed, her tone was so fierce. “It’s all right, Angharad. Goronwy is my elder brother, and he also serves King Cadwaladr.” He grinned. “And I see that he doesn’t have any men with him either, despite a similar mission to mine. What of the armies of King Arthur?” Dafydd lifted his chin and looked past Goronwy. A woman stood in a small clearing thirty paces behind him. A ray of moonlight pierced the cloud cover overhead and shone directly down on her. She held a knife in her hand.

“King Arthur is dead,” Goronwy said. “Along with the men he hoped to bring north to fight with us.”

Dafydd stared at Goronwy. “What? All of them? What happened?”

“Mabon paid us a visit on the road,” Goronwy said.

Angharad spun around to gaze up Dafydd, one hand on his chest and pressing hard. He looked into her eyes, which gleamed up at him, and then back at his brother over her head. “Mabon came to Ceredigion. When you saw him, did he ask you for something—it again like at Deganwy? Something that King Arthur possessed?”

“How did you know?”

“Because he asked the same of Angharad’s father,” Dafydd said.

Goronwy gazed into the distance for a long moment. “This just gets worse and worse. Bring your things to our fire. We need to talk.”

Angharad led the way back through the woods to their campsite, and Dafydd followed. Her shoulders were back and her chin up. He read anger and determination in that stance. When they reached the place they’d been sleeping—or not sleeping—she picked up her pack, swung it over her shoulder, and then snapped. “What does Mabon think he’s doing? He’s mucking about with everybody’s lives as if he has a right to them.”

Dafydd found himself relaxing in the face of her anger, partly because it wasn’t directed at him, and partly because he liked her so much more this way: defending him and talking to him as if he were a friend, rather than a potential suitor she treated badly at Lilwen’s urging. “Mabon is a god, the son of Arawn and Arianrhod. He does what he likes.”

“And destroys everything in his path in the process?” Angharad said. “It was one thing to come into my father’s house. My father had men prepared to withstand him. But King Arthur was an old man.”

“It is as you said. Mabon does what he likes. Two months ago, he had King Cadfael, Queen Rhiannon’s father, killed,” Dafydd said. “He sees nothing in taking a human life.”

“Well I, for one, hope that King Cadwaladr can do something about it.” Angharad grabbed her horse’s reins and began leading him towards Goronwy’s campsite. Still bemused, Dafydd followed with his own horse. They’d just reached Goronwy’s camp when Angharad stopped and looked back at him. “Wait a moment, my lord. You’ve held Dyrnwyn. You fought with King Cadwaladr. What happened the first time he faced Mabon? Why didn’t the king deal with him then?”

Dafydd snorted a laugh. “One sidhe at a time, Angharad. The King banished Arawn to the Underworld. Cade’s foster brother, Rhun, skewered Mabon with a knife through his throat, but—”

“But it didn’t kill him,” Goronwy said, from his seat on a log near the small fire, smokeless as Dafydd’s had been when he’d dared light one. Dafydd was glad to see that Goronwy’s skills hadn’t deserted him, even if he rarely had to use them anymore. It had been Goronwy who’d taken Dafydd on his first adventure into the wild, the week before Goronwy had left the Isle of Man for Gwynedd. Dafydd had been six, Goronwy eighteen, both of them trying so hard to be older than they were.

Goronwy gestured to the woman. “This is Catrin, a healer, who saved my life in the south.”

Dafydd stepped forward, his right hand out. “Thank you for that.”

She took his hand and canted her head. “My pleasure, for all that your brother resented needing it.”

Dafydd laughed. Goronwy and Catrin were getting along about as well as he and Angharad had at first. Probably something to do with traveling with a woman with ideas of her own she didn’t mind sharing. But Goronwy surprised him.

“I did thank you,” he said, looking at Catrin.

Catrin canted her head, giving nothing away, though she answered politely enough. “You did. And agreed to allow me to accompany you to Caer Fawr. King Cadwaladr might have need of both of us.”

Goronwy turned to Dafydd. “Catrin is more than just a healer. She can sense the use of magic. If Mabon is near, we’ll know it.”

“That’s a relief,” Angharad said, obviously still feeling a bit tart since the comment came out sarcastic rather than genuine.

Catrin shot Angharad a look of amusement and patted the space on the log next to her. Dafydd took the reins Angharad held and led both horses to where Goronwy had picketed his and Catrin’s. He didn’t recognize either beast.

“I lost Cadfarch in the battle against Mabon’s men,” Goronwy said, coming to stand with him. He stroked the nose of the new addition. “We found these two in the woods. I think this one is King Arthur’s own.”

Dafydd rubbed his horse’s nose with his knuckle, then glanced at his brother. “Did Mabon himself fight?”

“He left it mostly to his men,” Goronwy said.

“Ah, yes, how noble of him,” Dafydd said.

Goronwy spoke in an undertone. “Did you fight him?”

“Yes,” Dafydd said.

“And won?”

Dafydd shrugged. “Yes.” He rested his head against the horse’s and closed his eyes.

Goronwy placed a hand on Dafydd’s shoulder. “This wasn’t the walk in the woods we’d hoped it might be, was it?”

Dafydd turned to his brother. “When Rhiann and I shot the demons at Llanllugan, lives other than our own hung in the balance. I knew it, of course. But this was different.”

“Because you, alone, had to make the decisions,” Goronwy said. “Angharad’s life depended on your choices, not another’s.”

Dafydd nodded. “What is most strange to me is why Mabon insists on interfering in our world. As Taliesin once said, he is like a child, clumsily knocking over blocks to get to what he wants.”

“He lacks understanding of his own actions,” Goronwy said. “And that makes him dangerous.”

“Can’t we—” Dafydd paused. “No, that’s stupid.”

“What?”

“Can’t we talk to someone? One of the sidhe, I mean. What about Arianrhod?”

“She can’t control Mabon,” Goronwy said. “At least that’s how it appears to Cade. Besides, how would that work? I have never encountered one of the sidhe in my life before Caer Dathyl, and now they’re everywhere.”

“Something must have happened,” Dafydd said. “In the Otherworld, I mean. Something has changed that has pushed Mabon upon us. Or made him think that he wants to live among us.”

“I couldn’t say.” Goronwy was looking at him curiously, and Dafydd ran a hand across his brow, not sure what his brother was seeing. “Come. I have an it to show you.”

Dafydd managed to nod, though as they’d been speaking, Goronwy’s shape had wavered in front of his eyes. He blinked his weakness back. “And I to you, if Angharad will let me.”

Goronwy looked into Dafydd’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Dafydd drew his right hand down his left arm. “I don’t feel well. Mabon’s sword cut me—”

Goronwy grasped Dafydd around the torso as he staggered. “Catrin!”

An instant later, Catrin was on Dafydd’s other side. “I thought something was wrong the moment I laid eyes on him. His aura wasn’t right.”

Between the two of them, they managed to get Dafydd to the fire and lay him down on a blanket near it. Dafydd wanted to tell them that the wound was healing, but they talked over the top of him.

“You mean you sensed magic?” Goronwy said.

Catrin shook her head. “It wasn’t that clear. I thought it was coming from the stone, since I’ve felt it nudging at the back of my mind all day.” She turned to Angharad. “Where is he hurt?”

“His upper arm,” Angharad said. “I’ve checked it every day. It doesn’t fester.”

“How did he get it?” Goronwy said.

“From Mabon’s sword.” Angharad had fallen to her knees, a step beyond Catrin and Goronwy. She waved a hand in the direction of Dafydd’s horse. “Mabon dropped it when Dafydd defeated him, and we brought it with us.”

Catrin unwound the bandage and gazed at the wound. Dafydd watched her through half-closed lids and a haze of fever. She met his eyes and then looked up into Goronwy’s. “I—I’ve never seen anything like this before. There are some things I can try...”

“There’s only one thing I can think of that can counter a magic sword,” Goronwy said, “and that is another one. We must get him to King Cadwaladr.”

Chapter Ten

Rhiann

––––––––

RHIANN HAD TRIED TO convince Cade that he couldn’t possibly travel to Caer Fawr without her. It was, in effect, their first fight, and Rhiann had lost it.

“I can’t tell you that this is the right course, Rhiann,” he’d said. “But it feels right.”

“You sound like Taliesin!” Rhiann had said.

Taliesin himself stepped forward at that, putting in his nose where Rhiann didn’t want it. “But this time, Taliesin agrees.”

Rhiann had stared at him, aghast. “Why?”

Irritatingly, Taliesin had refused to answer.

But his words had clinched it for Cade. “Right. You’re staying where it’s safe.” What had started out as a hopeful proposal on his part had turned into an opportunity to exert his husbandly authority over her.

“It isn’t safe anywhere, Cade,” Rhiann said. “And if I’m not safe with you, how can I ever be with you?”

“The Saxons are gathering at Shrewsbury today,” Cade said. “We have a week at most, Taliesin thinks, before they drive west across the Severn River.”

Rhiann had glanced at the bard to see how he was taking this. He’d given her a mild look that told her nothing. She’d liked him better when he couldn’t see.

They’d left her. Even Geraint had gone, riding north and west to gather more support for Cade. Out of desperation, she’d turned her attention to making Dinas Bran habitable, even if she was grinding her teeth all the while. On her own, she’d hired a few local women from the village of Llangollen as servants, along with an army of workmen who swarmed all over the fort. In the three days since Cade and Taliesin had departed with the bulk of their men, they’d made substantial progress. Enough so, that Rhiann was beginning to think it could be a kind of home again.

“I see things are going well here.” Madog, a villager in his middle forties, pushed open the door to the hall.

The hall was the only part of the complex that had sustained minimal damage from lack of attention in the years since Cade’s father had fallen. Rhiann was using it as a work space until a more private space could be refurbished for her.

“They are,” Rhiann said from a table near the fireplace. At Madog’s approach, she stood. She didn’t like this self-appointed counselor to kings as he called himself, for all that he was the leader of the village elders. He claimed to have been away when they’d first arrived, but had appeared almost immediately after Cade had left. Rhiann suspected that Madog had correctly perceived that Cade wouldn’t have tolerated him.

She, however, didn’t feel that she had the authority to go against the wishes of the villagers, if indeed they’d appointed him their leader as he’d said. Certainly, none of the women questioned his assertion, even if they did scurry out of his way. If it hadn’t been her duty to speak to him, she would have scurried too.

His first smarmy visit had set Rhiann’s teeth on edge, and she’d had the same reaction each day thereafter. He claimed to be checking on the progress of the work. The garrison captain, a man named Alun who was one of the five soldiers Cade had left to mind the fort, leaned in to speak into Rhiann’s ear. “Shall I get rid of him for you, madam?”

“Yes.” The word hissed through Rhiann’s teeth.

While Alun strode to intercept Madog and usher him back out the door, Rhiann turned away. “I hate that man! I hate being here alone! I can’t believe Taliesin backed Cade up!” Rhiann gathered the leftover cups from an earlier meal onto a tray so she could return them to the kitchen. It wasn’t necessary. She had servants for that, but she’d been a servant once and still remembered how it was done.

Then she heard a step behind her. She stopped, the tray in both hands, and turned. Madog, apparently having evaded Alun’s arresting arm, halted five paces from her. She couldn’t ignore him.

He bowed. “My lady.”

“What is it?” Rhiann peered around him looking for someone—anyone—to aid her, but Alun had disappeared. She was on her own.

“I informed your captain of a small matter with one of the workmen. He is seeing to it,” Madog said.

Rhiann narrowed her eyes at the man. That didn’t sound right. “What do you want?” She was done with being polite, even if it got her off on the wrong foot with the villagers. “It’s time you went back to wherever you came from.”

Madog blinked, and then his face contorted. “How is it that you see through me when your husband isn’t even here?” And then between one heartbeat and the next, Madog transformed into the more familiar form of Mabon.

Rhiann took a step back, trying not to let Mabon see the panic rising to her throat. He had confused her bravado for certainty. She swallowed hard and then threw off her fear. Dafydd had shared with her his theory that, for all his pride and grandeur, Mabon didn’t have any power in the human world but what humans—or his father—gave him. If there was any time to put that to the test, it was now.

“I ask again, what do you want?” she said. “Why are you here?”

Mabon sniffed. “I admit I was disappointed to find your husband already gone when I arrived. I’d hoped that we’d have a chance for another chat. Where is he, by the way?”

Mabon’s question appeared casual, but it raised Rhiann’s hackles even more. Why wouldn’t he know, and how should she answer? “South. Fighting the Saxons as you should well know.”

“Ah, the Saxons. They are always so malleable.”

This time, instead of stepping back, Rhiann took a step forward, her blood running cold. “Are you working with the Saxons? What have you done?”

Mabon’s face took on a look that Rhiann could only describe as gleeful. “I suppose your husband will find out soon enough, won’t he?” Mabon turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen, leaving Rhiann aghast and speechless. Before he left the room for the stairs, however, he reached out a hand and set a carved image of a king, one finger in length, on the edge of a table the servants used as a sideboard during meals. “Give your husband this, if you will—with my regards.” Mabon shot Rhiann one more grin and disappeared down the stairs.

Rhiann ran after him, afraid of what havoc he might wreak in her kitchen. She rushed through the doorway, but skidded to a halt at the three pairs of eyes that looked up at her from the chopping board and cooking pots. “Did a man in black come through here just now? Madog was his name, from the village.”

“No, my lady,” Gwen, the head cook, said. “Not that I’ve seen.”

Rhiann looked back up the stairs to the hall. Mabon, as usual, had disappeared at his whim.

“I grew up in Llangollen and I don’t know of any man named Madog,” Gwen said.

“I thought as much.” Rhiann gave her a tight smile and nodded her head. “Thank you.”

Back in the hall, Rhiann crouched so she was eye level with the little king, which appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary carving. Hesitantly, she touched it with one finger. Nothing happened. She straightened and picked it up. The carving lay quiet in her hand, so finely crafted she could make out each spire in the king’s crown. She stared down at it, wishing that Cade had left her even one of her friends to talk to. Why hadn’t he?

The answer came to her instantly. Because he trusted her. And now she was going to betray that trust and ride to Caer Fawr. Hopefully, her husband would understand.