Caradoc of the North Wind (17 page)

‘And what of the Shining Ones?’ asked Banon.

‘Did they promise that no harm would ever come to you and yours?’ Blodwedd asked Branwen. ‘Did they ever say to you “follow our lead, and all will be well”?’ She frowned. ‘You do not know of the mercy and love that the Shining Ones bestow on this world!’

‘ “Mercy and love”?’ said Iwan grimly. ‘I see precious little of that coming out of the west. If you have such faith in the benevolence of the Old Gods, go and find them, Blodwedd – ask them to bring the torment of this winter to an end, ask them to breathe life back into Linette’s body. Ask them to show us the true meaning of devotion.’ His voice trembled with anger. ‘Ask them what measure of blood spilled will be sufficient to please them. Ask them how much blood it will take to set Branwen free!’ He drew his knife and held it to his upturned wrist. “I’ll give freely enough, if one body will suffice.’

‘Stop it, Iwan!’ Branwen said, pulling the knife away from his wrist. ‘They need no blood sacrifices.’ She forced down her grief and looked keenly at Blodwedd. ‘I do not know what to do,’ she said. ‘When Linette was well enough to travel, I had intended to take you all out of Pengwern and to go back to the mountains to seek a new path. But what purpose would that serve, if the Shining Ones deny me? What end would we come to but an ignoble one in the deep snows, our bones gnawed by the wild wolves, our souls mourned by none?’

‘I’ll not travel west to do service to the Old Gods,’ growled Aberfa. ‘I’d rather ride full-tilt into the east and die in battle with the Saxons.’

‘That would be a futile gesture,’ said Rhodri, sitting red-eyed among the scattered remnants of his ineffective herbs and potions.

‘Indeed, it would,’ said Blodwedd, rising to her feet and staring fiercely at Branwen. ‘I will do as Iwan suggests,’ she said defiantly. ‘I will go alone into the western forests. I will seek my lord Govannon. I will hear his words and I will return. Do not throw your life away in the east, Branwen. Not till you have heard what word I bring from the Shining Ones.’

Branwen looked at her, too tired to argue. She nodded wearily.

‘Dawn is come,’ said Banon. ‘We should give thought to the departed.’

Most eyes turned to Branwen, but she looked away, losing herself for a moment in the glow of the fire-pit.

‘We shall pass through the gates when morning has come,’ said Aberfa. ‘We shall bury our dear friend in some fitting place where she can see the mountains of her home.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Iwan. ‘We’ll find some sheltered spot upon the ridge to lay her to rest. And then Blodwedd shall travel westwards and we shall return here to be the king’s eyes and ears for a while longer.’ He frowned. ‘Dera has been gone a long time. Need we go and find her?’

Dera had not returned to the hut following Branwen’s manic incursion into the king’s Great Hall. She had stayed behind to try and pacify the ants’-nest that Branwen had stirred up, to explain her leader’s wild behaviour and to seek forgiveness and compassion for them in their grief and loss.

But that had been the whole night ago. And yet there was still no sign of the daughter of Dagonet ap Wadu. She had not sat vigil over their lost comrade with the others of the Gwyn Braw. She had not been there to share their grief.

Branwen wondered again whether Dera’s loyalties had been stretched to the breaking point. Was she still one of them – or had her father’s love sent her down a different course?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
he sky was cloudless, a bright, burning sapphire blue and so huge that Branwen felt herself to be little more than an insect crawling on the rind of the world as she and the Gwyn Braw rode out towards the long hill that lay to the west of the king’s citadel.

As the sun had risen that morning, so the snow clouds had slipped away, sliding slowly into the north on a curiously balmy southern wind. Everyone in Pengwern felt the change in the weather. People emerged with puzzled, delighted eyes to see such a sky and to feel such a wind on their faces. The geese cackled and the goats bleated and the few remaining cattle lowed and snorted in their pens.

It was almost as though spring had come all in a single morning.

Branwen was riding on Terrwyn at the head of her solemn, melancholy band. A stretcher was tied to Aberfa’s horse. Linette lay upon it under a white shroud. None but the Gwyn Braw had passed through the high gates of Pengwern. No one else cared that Linette ap Cledwyn was dead. A few soldiers watched them without interest from the walls. The gates had been drawn closed at their backs.

But not all of the Gwyn Braw were in the mournful cavalcade. Dera had not retuned to be with them, and no one had gone to seek her out. She knew what must happen that day – let her come and find them if she was still one of them. If not – then so be it.

The snow was crisp and fragile under their horses’ hooves, crackling and crumbling, the thin crust hollowed out by the warmth of the sun. They wound slowly up the hillside towards the leaning huddles of bare trees.

Snow fell from the branches as they passed. The tree bark glistened wetly.

Branwen found an open place between two clumps of trees. She halted, her eyes narrowed against the sunlit white snow, her head throbbing from all the raw light that poured into her skull.

They all dismounted. They had brought tools with them. Picks and spades to hack at the iron-hard earth. They also carried stones in leather bags – as many as each horse could carry. Stones enough to cover Linette’s grave and hold her in the earth.

They took it in turns to dig – all except Aberfa, who wielded an iron pick and who would not pause or rest. Gradually, the hard ground relented and a mound of dark soil grew in the snow as the grave deepened.

The sun climbed to the crest of the sky as they worked, and they sweated under their winter cloaks until they had to shed them for relief.

It was a little past noon when the steady thud and thunk of pick and spade was broken into by the sound of hooves on the hillside.

Dera rode up silently to the graveside. She dismounted, her face closed and grief-stricken. Without speaking, she held out her hand for Banon’s pick. Without speaking, Banon gave it to her. Still without speaking, Dera jumped down into the grave and began to dig as though her life depended on it.

At last the awful work was done. Aberfa and Dera were hauled up out of the pit, their reddened faces running with sweat. Iwan and Rhodri lowered Linette into her grave and all stood around the dark slot, hands clasped, heads bowed, tears running.

The long, mournful silence was broken by a soft chant, as Rhodri began to speak a song Branwen had never heard before.

She rides now as the sun sets upon her

Taken from us, glad and true and full of hope

Far, far into the deeps, on the winding path to Annwn

She rides to the court of Arawn, the great huntsman

Branwen lifted her eyes and gazed into the west.

The snow was a formless dazzle under the flood of sunlight. But was there something out there between the long hill and the mountains? A shape? Man-like, yet not quite a man. She screwed her eyes against the glare. Did she see antlers rising from a high forehead? Did she see from afar a faint glint of green, like emerald eyes shedding emerald tears?

Did she?

Gatherer of souls, eternal chieftain

She will feast now with the departed,

Feasting and fighting and rejoicing for all time

In the great halls of the merry unliving

And was there a gentle, shimmering movement out in the fathomless snow? A lady in white riding upon a white horse? And did the horse turn away and did the lady beckon?

Branwen felt that her heart was stilled in her chest. A small figure followed the lady in white as she rode away through the snow. A slender shape, walking lightly on lithe legs. And the head turned, and the hair was a tumble of curls the colour of new-ripened corn, and the eyes shone and the lips smiled.

She rides now as the great doors close behind her

We shall see her nevermore

Glad and true and full of hope

Taken from us, we who loved her so deeply

steeped in the pain that she has left behind

We who mourn.

As the song ended, so Branwen felt a profound silence come down over the world. The air was still. The sun halted in the sky. Not a twig stirred. Not a breath was taken.

The sound of a horse approaching from behind broke the spell and the pulse of the world seemed to miss a beat and when Branwen looked again to the place where she thought she had seen Linette and Rhiannon, there was nothing but smooth, endless snow.

‘Are we come too late?’ asked a familiar voice. Branwen turned from the grave. Drustan had brought his horse to a halt on the hilltop, a few paces away from them. Seated before him in the saddle was Romney, swathed to the nose in a thick winter cloak. Behind him, also swaddled deep against the cold, sat Meredith.

‘Too late for what, my lord?’ asked Dera.

‘To show respect,’ replied Prince Drustan. ‘Will one of you help Princess Romney down? She is not used to riding and she is afraid that she will fall.’

For a moment no one moved, as though none felt inclined towards helping the child whose actions had caused Linette’s death. But then Branwen looked into the small, round, petulant face and saw under the selfishness and the pride, a genuine spark of sorrow. She came up to the horse and lifted her arms. Romney reached down and with Drustan’s help, the little girl was set safe on the ground.

The prince and Meredith also dismounted, and Branwen noticed how they held hands as they moved to the graveside.

So, a love-match after all. How fate can smile when it chooses to
.

The others parted to allow them to come to the brink of the dark hole. Romney followed, pressing herself in between them, taking a grip on Meredith’s hand, staring down at Linette’s body under its white shroud.

‘How did you get leave to come here?’ Dera murmured.

‘I am the king’s son,’ Drustan replied. ‘I need no permission.’

‘Does their father know of it?’ asked Iwan.

Drustan lifted his head and looked into Iwan’s face. ‘I did not think to ask,’ he said. ‘Meredith and Romney sent word that they wished to speak with me. I came to them and they told me that they wanted to pay their respects at the graveside of your fallen comrade. And so we are come.’

‘I hope we do not intrude on your grief,’ said Meredith. ‘The wish to do this came from Romney.’

Branwen looked at the little girl in surprise. She had assumed Romney had been forced to come against her will.

‘I wanted to give her something,’ Romney piped, her voice thin and strained. ‘She was nice to me and I was not nice to her and I’m sorry she’s dead and I wish she was still alive.’ And so saying, she took something from within the folds of her cloak and dropped it down into the grave. It shone on the white cloth. A golden brooch. ‘There,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I want to go back now.’

‘Well, there was a marvel of sorts, to be sure,’ breathed Iwan as they watched Drustan and the two princesses riding back to Pengwern. ‘I would not have thought the little brat had such a heart in her. Do you think she did it of her own will, or was there coercion?’

‘I think it was as Drustan said,’ replied Branwen. ‘I think she was genuinely saddened by Linette’s death.’

Aberfa picked up a spade and thrust it into the mound of fresh earth. She took the heaped spade to the graveside. ‘Farewell, sweet sister,’ she said. ‘We’ll meet again, anon.’

‘But not too quickly, I hope,’ murmured Iwan, taking another spade and joining Aberfa in heaving earth into the grave.

The white shroud gradually vanished under the brown earth. For a while, they heaped the earth over Linette, working in diligent silence while the day wore on. At last, they beat down the filled grave with the flat of the spades and then fetched the grey stones. Branwen watched, standing slightly apart from the others, while Banon and Rhodri and Blodwedd ferried the stones from the saddlebags and Iwan and Aberfa positioned them over the grave.

Dera came and stood silent at her side.

‘You were gone a long time,’ Branwen said. ‘I thought perhaps you had made a final choice.’

‘I made that choice last summer,’ said Dera. ‘I have not changed my mind since then. I am yours, Branwen, for all that is worth.’ A miserable edge came into her voice. ‘But it is hard beyond endurance to feel the displeasure of my father.’

‘And so you are torn,’ said Branwen. ‘I understand.’

Dera looked sideways at her. ‘There is more to it than that,’ she said. ‘My father’s blessing would mean a great deal to me, it’s true, and I linger at his side to show him that I remain his loving daughter.’ She frowned. ‘But there is something else. He is uneasy … he will tell me nothing in plain words – but I believe that this truce between the king and Prince Llew worries him.’

Dera now had Branwen’s full attention. ‘He fears treachery?’