Crown in Candlelight (15 page)

He half-listened, preoccupied with plans.

‘After supper, make your excuses. Watch Megan, she has prying eyes. Rhys keeps the gate—we shall have no trouble there. We are brothers in ambition. Ah,
cariad
! my true, good girl!’

His words and touch were like the
bragod
mead, honey-sweet with a biting core. She felt weary. The two men she loved were instruments of her will. One would be deceived, and to the other she would hand the keys of exile. But not of death! Had she not seen the safety in his future, she would not now be here, acquiescent to his eager strategies.

‘Sleep well.’ His arms held her once more, she felt the surges of his excited mind. As she climbed soberly upstairs, the torque weighed on her throat, the little pulse beneath it making it shake as if with life.

Half a mile away in the valley, Madog ran. Prison had wasted his fitness; his tongue lolled and his sides heaved as he chased the thread of scent, token of home and kindred. The white night picked out his badger-blaze. Lying still in her bed, Hywelis was with him. Her mind twisted and turned with him in his desperate erratic search, over pebbles and peat, pursuing that ribbon of vague scent, finding the empty earth, the family gone. Hearing, in the deepest chambers of her mind, his wild lament.

Rhys, swarthy and squat with two missing front teeth, let them out through the gate. The immense white moon was high. Rhys was wistful.

‘Would that I were coming. All’s quiet,
Diolch i Dduw!
The harper was by, singing me a new song, but he’s gone to bed. The Lord will have my bowels for this.’

‘You know nothing about it,’ said Owen. ‘We flew over the wall.’

‘Get you gone,’ said ‘Rhys, and pushed them through the wicket. They stepped out on to the moorland path, moist from the nearness of the Dee and its offspring streams. The road ran downwards and disappeared in the valley. Hywelis raised her head and sniffed like a questing animal. Rain edged the calm night, rain not for tomorrow but the day after. She felt it in the ends of her hair, her fingertips. She set out down the path, striding, anxious to gain the valley and be lost. Owen followed, his eyes fixed on her narrow shape wrapped in a green wool cloak, his steps less sure than hers. Almost at once he found one foot sucked down; the cold of ice-ages seeped into his shoe, and he called softly: ‘Hywelis, wait!’ She stopped, turning. The moonlight shone on the fine bones of her face. She smiled at him, a look of love and confidence but one which the moon translated into something fateful and weird. He put out his hand for hers. Her touch was warm.

‘You must follow me closely,’ she said. ‘See—here’s the thorn tree, where I freed a rabbit once, and it thanked me in its own tongue. We must skirt the tree …’ She led him over the friable ground, a nest of warrens, intricate, unseen.

‘Now.’ She halted again. ‘You must tell me where you are to meet the English.’

‘That’s easy, half a mile west of the place of the eagle.’

He matched her steady gait, clasping the fingers of a moon-kissed witch, feeling with his free hand the baselard tucked into his belt, the sharp blade ready to bite into whatever enemy he would eventually be put to face. The fighting lust was his; it would have sent him to battle under any colours—even under the French themselves. He had no quarrel with any, but the years of old war-talk, coupled with indolence, fermented in his heart.

He was wearing a soft velvet cap which was suddenly terrifyingly torn from his head as a lemon shadow drifted across the moon and dropped with an eldritch yell. A demon with claws, a form from a holy tapestry come alive. He clapped his hand to his head, staggered and almost fell. He heard Hywelis laugh, saw her lithe shape darting, her feet almost weightless on the crust of the westerly bog: She called to the soaring pale shadow in some inhuman tongue and the cap dropped at her feet. She ran back just as lightly, brushing at the muddied velvet.

‘
Duw
!’ he whispered. ‘What was it?’

‘Only old Drwyndwn, the Flatnose,’ she said, still laughing. ‘The hunting owl. He has a nest in the cliff. Here.’ She handed him the cap. ‘Your gear’s not edible, Owen.’

‘Drwyndwn,’ he said, annoyed to find his heart still pounding heavily. ‘Do you call all your creatures by the names of kings?’

‘What else are they?’ She held out her hand again.

He went with her, still angry and ashamed of his fear. He had never been in the valley by night and resented her immunity. The moon sailed its painted course, a knowing white eye. A thousand dark sounds assaulted him, as if this fight were the one in which all loving and fighting and preying must be accomplished. Foxes warbled, gibbered and roared. A dreadful scream rose ululating in almost human syllables and died with a terrible hiss. He crossed himself.

‘Badger,’ said Hywelis. ‘They call like that only once a year.’

Owen thought: when I reach the English camp I shall be an old whitehead, useless for service. Thank God for this woman.

‘Careful,’ she told him. ‘Here we must jump the stream.’

He had not even seen it, but now she showed him its dark diamonds and he heard it fluting over rocks, between willow and alder trees, as he stepped to the brink. Hywelis leaped, landing upon a broad stone midstream. She poised there for a moment, then cleared the remaining strip of water and turned on the far bank. He heard her encouraging voice.

‘Jump, my Owen!’

He launched forward and, as if cued to the moment, all hell gave tongue from the grove of trees. A gobbling roar, tormented shrieks and rasping yells mingled with the beat of wings. It was only a flock of young heron going to bed, but shocked, Owen wavered and plunged into the heart of the stream. Luminous eddies curled about him; his hose, new for the expedition, were soaked to the top of his thighs. His oaths, some of them extraordinarily inventive, curdled the air, while he waited in rage and shame for Hywelis’s laughter and clammy creatures circled his drowned legs warily. Then she came, far from laughter but distressed, girding up her skirts about her waist, wading to him through the water. He clutched at her hands. The moon-bright eddies danced on her pale thighs. She hauled him out until they both stood on the rock. There, making little concerned noises, she tried to dry his hose with her bunched-up gown, and he himself began suddenly, riotously, to laugh.

‘A baptism,’ he spluttered. ‘Pray God it’s not an omen that our ship will founder
en route
to France.’

‘No, no!’ She patted and rubbed at his clothes. ‘It’s my fault, we should have brought lanterns.’

‘And have the Lord see our departure from the window?’ He caught hold of her suddenly and her hands grew still. ‘You’ve done your best. Leave it now.’

‘I have always been your nurse.’ Her face was against his shoulder, and he had the odd sensation that when she looked at him again she would be an old woman. So he raised her chin and kissed her, lifted her in his arms, and saying that he was wet already, waded with her through the stream.

After they had been walking for about another half-hour, he found he had caught her instinct and was skirting the hazards before they loomed. He walked a little ahead while the hot white moon judged him, swimming on a toss of cloud the colour of a pigeon’s wing. They went lightly along the ridge of ground between the peat-hags, and began to ascend the hill that would eventually become the mountain broken by the pass into England. His spirits lifted; his hose were drying on his legs, and his feet grew warm. Even the sudden hoarse Fr-aa-nk! of a heron disturbed on the nest made him smile instead of shudder. Hawthorn grew at the hill-foot, and its scent blew in the mountain wind. Long-eared owls barked and quacked like dogs on the wing; a flock of curlews, flying upstream, emitted their ghostly whistle. Owen stopped on firm moss and pointed against the moon.

‘See! Their lights!’

In the lee of the hill a glow showed, dulled by the canvas of two large tents. Silhouetted figures could be seen and another brighter light swarmed to and fro as a guard with a lantern patrolled the perimeter.

‘My prayers are answered.’ He squeezed Hywelis’s hand so tightly that she winced. ‘I feared they might already have left.’ He started to run forward up the hill, past a dark oakgrove. She hurried after him, catching up her gown.

‘Are they expecting you? Wait … they will be armed. Owen …’

Another lantern up ahead had joined the first. Voices floated down the hill.

‘They’ve seen us,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s be careful. I’ve no wish to stop an arrow.’

‘We’ll show ourselves, by my faith,’ he said. ‘Hail, Sir Sentry! Hail, Englishmen! Look, Hywelis, it’s Glewlwyd Mighty-Grasp himself! Hail, Glewlwyd, I’ve come to fight for you!’

A big man, sword in hand, raised his light at the boast. As they approached the tents, the flare picked out Owen’s bright flushed face. The sentry turned to his companion.

‘Another raving-mad Welshman!’ Peering closer: ‘Do they bring their own camp-followers these days?’

‘Maybe it’s his wife, come to coddle him,’ sneered the other. ‘Our discipline may be too stark for these mountain trolls.’

‘Have sense,’ the big man told him. ‘They’re demons in fight. My brother was at Grosmont. He still wakes up screaming o’nights. Savages. Come forward!’ And Owen strode up so that he was within the unsteady circle of light and could hear the buzz of talk from within the tents.

‘Your name?’ said the sentry in painful Welsh.

‘Owen ap Meredyth ap Tydier.’

‘You’re a volunteer?’

‘Yes. From Glyndyfrdwy.’

The sentry said to his fellow: ‘I thought Glyn Dwr had spat upon the treaty.’ He leaned to study Owen. ‘Now again, your business! The truth this time.’

Owen said coldly in perfect English: ‘I have come to see Davydd Gam and the English envoy.’

‘Sent by the old wizard, were you?’

‘That,’ said Owen, ‘is an honourable title in my country. However, the Lord knows nothing of my coming here tonight.’

‘You’ve mastered our tongue,’ said the second sentry.

‘I speak French even better,’ said Owen. ‘One day 1 shall be like Gwrhyr the Translator. I am from the household of a prince and here to offer arms in the service of another, lesser one.’

The guard roared with laughter. The big man said: ‘Christ’s Wounds! You won’t last long in the army, lad, with talk like that! Yet—’ he mocked Owen with a flourishing bow, so that the light in his hand tilted a crazy arc about them all—‘conceit such as this has all our battles won already. Go in, my lord, if our pavilions aren’t too rude for you. There are other whelps in there, not quite so hot-tongued as yourself.’ Owen stepped forward with Hywelis gliding behind him. The sentries barred her way.

‘No women!’ Owen turned, saying, ‘Wait for me,’ and went into the tent. Hywelis retreated a few paces and sat down in the heather. She fixed her eyes upon the tent-flap; a light-chink came through it and the hum of voices was more distinct. After a few more witticisms about Owen, the big man wandered over to her, his lantern glaring in her calm pale face.

‘Quite a beauty!’ he observed.

‘Are you his woman?’ The other man jerked his head towards the tent.

‘His soul and his guide,’ she answered in Welsh so soft and quick that neither man comprehended. Suddenly the big man crouched. He put out his hand and fumbled her breasts. ‘Yes, a beauty,’ he said again, breathing heavily. Hywelis sat on motionless in the heather. Only her eyes stirred; they wandered from the pavilion and fixed upon the sentry’s face. There were drops of sweat on it, and his tongue flicked over his lips. And suddenly, frighteningly, she saw his temporal image changed. He was in a different place, a different time, chalk-white, sweating not with lust but from unspeakable torment. Though he still crouched over her, she saw him lying while a priest bent near, she heard his groans; smelled a vile stench. In an eyeblink the pageant of his doom was played out before her. She put out trembling fingers and touched his cheek. The vision faded. He smiled with pleasure and his hand dropped between her thighs.

‘I’ll have her over in the grove. Keep watch,’ he said to the other man.

‘What’s your name?’ said Hywelis, stone-still.

‘Why, John Fletcher, my pretty. Come …’ He was undoing the points of his hose with his free hand.

‘John Fletcher, look at me,’ said Hywelis in her halting English. ‘Do not set foot in France. Your death is there.’ The hand grew still. Her eyes swallowed him. He tried to speak but his tongue became like sand.

‘You will die.’ She spoke sadly and very clearly so that he should understand. Had she had any doubts before, the proof was coming, the last, ineluctable sign. All about Fletcher’s shoulders and close-cropped head, little flames played, danced their pale pavane and melted away.

‘Death, in France. In one year and a little more. You will lie in French soil with many others.’

Intrigued, the other man came closer. ‘What’s to do, Jack? Won’t she have you?’

Fletcher got up and backed away from Hywelis, yet her eyes still held him. He said hoarsely: ‘You lie.’

She shook her head.

‘You’re guessing!’ said Fletcher wildly. ‘I’m a fair fighter and I keep my arms in good order, the French are cowards and Harry will lead us to victory …’ Blustering: ‘Women! if we listened to them we’d all run home. Anyway, I’d be proud to take a French blade in me for Harry, but I shan’t, do you hear?’

‘No’, She rose fluidly from the ground. ‘You will see no fighting. It will be a … a belly-rot, great pain, over many days.’ She covered her eyes with her cupped hands. ‘I’m sorry, Master Fletcher, but it is so.’

They stared at her. John Fletcher’s fingers sketched a small cross.

‘Your kind have been burned before now,’ he said unsteadily.

Hywelis slowly bared her eyes. Both men backed even further away.

‘I want to go into the tent,’ she said softly.

‘You can’t.’ Fletcher’s voice still shook. ‘Sir Gilbert Talbot, the King’s deputy, will be hearing the oath.’

The men stood close together, staring at her.

‘Then let me look through the flap.’ Hywelis walked forward and the guard fell back. She rested her face against the cool hidecloth. The tent was lamplit and a trestle-table had been set up. There were parchment rolls and tapers and the smell of new-sealed wax. Standards, furled and tasselled with gold, stood leaning in a corner. Behind the table sat the King’s deputy, clean-shaven and with close-cropped hair. One of two men who stood at his elbow addressed him as Sir Gilbert; it was the courier who had been hounded from Glyn Dwr’s manor. The other was Davy Gam. He had removed the black patch from his eye and the barren socket stared warningly out at the dozen or so youths who knelt before Talbot.