The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) (18 page)

“She takes to waiting like an unmilked cow,” Dain said dryly.

“Aye,” the Quicken-tree leader agreed, “but we travel north before dawn, and I would talk with you.”

“North?” Dain repeated, not bothering to hide his surprise. “You could have hardly more than arrived, and are weeks early, at that.” The people of Quicken-tree did not often come to Wroneu Wood before Beltaine. “What awaits you so urgently in the north?”

“Trouble at the least,” Rhuddlan said, his expression growing somber. “Mayhaps more.”

~ ~ ~

The Quicken-tree camp was set deep in the heart of the woods, approachable only by a trail that wound a narrow path behind the cascade of a thundering waterfall. Ice crystals glazed the water-worn track, glinting in the torchlight and adding treachery to each step. Dain led the way, the river sheeting in a liquid arc over his head.

He had not been to the secluded grove of oak and rowan since the Yule, when the river had been frozen and the trees had been deep in snow. He’d spent the night alone, nursing a strange melancholy and tending a fire in the remains of one of the previous summer’s willow shelters. ’Twas the first time he’d been in the grove alone; Rhuddlan and his people had long since left. They were always gone before the first snow and never returned until after the last one. Summer folk they were, with the freshness of spring always about them, new and green like tender young shoots. Except for the bowmen. “Liosalfar” they were called, and they had the demeanor of an elite guard.

Madron knew them well, though she’d said little beyond the advice she’d given him when he’d first come to Wydehaw, that any service he could provide the Quicken-tree would be repaid tenfold.

Dain smiled. Madron was a witch. He had no doubt that she had known exactly what service Rhuddlan and his people would need of him and exactly how much it would cost him to provide it. They wanted nothing less than on one night a year, May Eve, that he who believed in nothing should believe enough for all of them. Beltaine, they called the night in an older tongue, and Galan Mai in an even more ancient language, but by any name the night was filled with the heavy magic of a fecund, blossoming earth.

His smile faded as he pulled his cloak tighter around himself. It had been a lot to ask of a cynic, yet time and again he returned to the Quicken-tree. Their demands were not so great that he could not comply, and they paid him well enough: this year in cinnabar, the year before in gold. Their first gift had been the Cypriot, freshly foaled from Rhuddlan’s mare.

The Quicken-tree leader was generous with his knowledge of the planets and the stars too, and was especially learned when it came to the elements of the earth. He had also known Nemeton, builder of the Hart Tower.

In truth, Dain had come to look forward to his time with the strange, landless folk who wandered at will bound up in a religion that no longer existed except in their own hearts. Wales was full of pauper princes, men with a noble lineage and little else, men like Morgan. Rhuddlan and his band fared better than most, carrying with them no more than the poorest desert tribes did, but never going hungry, and never reduced to wearing rags to keep out the cold.

The midway point of the water track was marked by a rock jutting out of the overhanging ceiling. The massive stone sliced an opening in the falls, leaving a space for the river fog to gather into a misty, earthbound cloud. Farther back, a cave entrance loomed darkly, sucking little wisps of vapor toward its mouth. Dain looked over his shoulder to check Ceridwen’s location before stepping into the mists.

Rhuddlan brought up the rear of the small band, his gaze straying often to Rhiannon’s daughter, searching in vain for signs of the mother. For all the fairness of Ceridwen’s face, a softness was missing, a softness of spirit that had enabled Rhiannon to stand in the gateway of time and see the present clearly. He had been in the caves the last time she had done so, the night men had brought war to Carn Merioneth, the night she had died.

He would have saved her life if he could have, but all the fighters of the Quicken-tree and Carn Merioneth together hadn’t been able to hold the keep against Gwrnach and his war band. All of the Quicken-tree had been unable to save Nemeton. There had been only one victory for Rhuddlan that night. Deep in the caves, much deeper than the place where Moriath had used fire to protect the ancient ones, he and another had drawn the ether up from the earth and the tides and had sealed the doorway to the
pryf’s
dark maze; and by so doing, had sealed their own fate.

They had not had a choice, not with Rhiannon dead and Nemeton dying and all of Carn Merioneth in flames and overrun by men. The union of the two, forged in the crucible of the dragon wine, was of the Sun and the Moon, was the weir of balance, and it had been torn asunder. The sanctity of Carn Merioneth had been breached. With chaos ruling above and all of the Quicken-tree on the run, the gateway could not be left open and vulnerable.

For fifteen years they had been exiled from the land beyond the labyrinth, unable by themselves to break the seal. Nemeton, their Beirdd Braint, a privileged bard, had been lost to them, but Rhuddlan knew another always came.
In time, in time
.

And so, in time, another had come. Dain Lavrans, a mage who, Rhuddlan knew, didn’t fully understand his own adeptness and skills. There were subtle levels of power within himself that Lavrans had yet to discover, and others he had yet to control. The paths to such discovery and control were wound throughout the Hart Tower, hidden within the structure and yet blatantly exhibited for those who could see. Certainly Lavrans had found enough of interest to keep him in residence.

The Dane had been the one to open the Druid Door, closed tight and unbreachable for all the years since Nemeton’s banishment. The feat had been beyond the skills of the hundreds who had tried, hoping to gain Baron D’Arbois’s favor and his prize of gold. Lavran’s success where so many others had failed had brought him the double-edged blessings of Rhuddlan’s patronage and Madron’s scrutiny. So far, the sorcerer had survived both.

Now the north was again in turmoil, and they had need not only of Lavrans, but of another like Rhiannon. Rhuddlan doubted if the woman riding the Cypriot would suffice. There was strength in her, to be sure—he felt it even from a distance—but no softness. She would break before she would bend, doing none of them any good.

The mists ahead of him swirled with a gust of warm air, earthy and rich, startling the woman. He followed her wary gaze to the mouth of the cave, and a surge of excitement laced with unease pulsed into his veins.

Someone was trying to break the seal, someone with an unsure touch. He’d sensed the stirrings of Ddrei Goch and Ddrei Glas in the deep beyond, and he’d felt the crude power of the one calling them ripple through the earth and rouse the
pryf
. ’Twould be good to go home again, but not at the cost of having strangers invade the dragon nest.

L
anterns were tied to tree branches throughout the grove, glowing like low-hung stars and warming a night wind filled with the scent of budding flowers and the soft nickering of horses. People were here and there amongst the rowans. Ceridwen had glimpsed Edmee in one of the groups, seeming quite at home. The maid had lifted a hand in greeting and smiled before going about her business. A few people were making camp under the huge, graying oak that rose up at the base of a densely wooded limestone cliff, the western defense of the hidden place the Quicken-tree called “Deri.” To the east and north of the grove the trees and thickets gradually grew into an impassable tangle of vegetation called The Bramble. The river guarded the south.

Ceridwen learned all this during the meal, surrounded as she was by women pleased to talk about their home. There were apple trees in the wood, they told her, and hazelnuts grew close by, along with dewberries and mulberries. Grain they harvested from the wild grass.

’Twasn’t wheat, Ceridwen thought, taking another bite of the small cakes they’d served. Nor barley, oats, or rye. The cakes weren’t spiced, yet were nonetheless flavorful. The flavor of what, she couldn’t guess.

“You’ve been hurt,” a woman named Moira said, her fingers stroking the scar along Ceridwen’s temple. Moira had a cherub’s face composed of soft curves, rose-blushed cheeks, and grass-green eyes. Her hair was a honey brown and plaited into a crown around her head. Like all the others, her tunic was made from a cloth with patchwork shades of gray and green, though in better light Ceridwen noticed the gray shimmered more like silver and the green shifted hues with every movement of the cloth, not that there was much cloth to move. The women’s tunics were far shorter than anything Ceridwen had ever seen, falling to just past their knees. Startling enough, but nothing like the shock she’d felt when an inadvertent glance had shown them to be wearing braies with their hose
en coulisse
.

Convents were not courts of fashion, yet Ceridwen couldn’t fathom that women’s clothing could have changed so drastically in fourteen years. The dresses she’d seen at Wydehaw had seemed normal enough.

“Is this Dain’s healing work?” Moira asked, her fingers again stroking down the side of Ceridwen’s face.

“Aye,” she said, and wondered at the lightness of the woman’s touch. ’Twas as if the tips of Moira’s fingers were warmed by an inner fire.

“’Tis good work,” Llynya said, her hands busy as she combed and plaited Ceridwen’s hair into the little braids she’d promised to make. A thousand at least, she’d sworn, mayhaps more. The sprite had claimed Ceridwen for her own, staying close to her where they all sat on thick rugs in a lean-to of woven willow wands. The rugs were of exceptional quality, uncommonly soft and heavy and woven in the most intricate sinuous patterns. Ceridwen could scarce keep her hands from rubbing along them.

“Aye,” another young woman said, “but he should have brought her to us.” She clicked her tongue and reached out to touch the scar. Her fingers, too, felt warm and soothing.

“We weren’t here yet, Elen,” Llynya said, her voice like birdsong in Ceridwen’s ear.

“Then Madron should have sent for me, at least,” Moira said. “Elen, bring me the
rasca
salve.”

The younger woman excused herself and went to do as she was bid.

“Madron could not have known,” Ceridwen said. “My own traveling companions didn’t know what had happened to me until well after Lavrans had locked me in his tower.”

Moira dismissed the explanation with a wave of her hand. “Madron knows everything.”

“Locked?” Llynya asked, her confusion showing in the tilt of her head. The tumbled mess of her coal-black braids and twigs shifted with the gesture. For all the care and attention she was lavishing upon Ceridwen’s unruly curls, she’d given no notice to her own. “The Druid Door has not been locked for years.”

“I’ve brought Aedyth’s salve,” Elen said, returning from the neighboring lean-to. “’Tis her newest batch.”

“This will set you right.” Moira smoothed a dab of the stuff onto Ceridwen’s skin, but the patient’s interest was focused on Llynya, who obviously knew something about the damn door.

“It won’t open,” Ceridwen said. “I’ve tried. The latch lifts, but the door won’t open.”

“Did you speak the magic words?” Llynya asked, her nimble fingers making quick work of one plait after another, each bound with the tiniest strip of silver-gray cloth.

“I know no magic words.”

“Ah, there’s your problem.” The girl laughed and leaned forward, placing a kiss upon Ceridwen’s cheek. “You must get Dain to teach you the magic words.”

Ceridwen lifted her hand to where the kiss warmed her skin. Sweet green-eyed child. There was much she wanted to learn from Dain Lavrans, especially in magic words, though she had yet to approach him on the subject. She looked around the grove, searching until she found him near the oak.

He and Rhuddlan sat on the leaf-covered ground, apart from the others making camp in the maze of the giant tree’s roots. The gnarled curves swept as high as a man’s waist close to the trunk, providing shelter and privacy. The boy Shay was acting as their cupbearer, taking the two men murrey, small cakes, and flagons of warm honeymead dipped out of a cauldron set amidst a circle of banked coals in the middle of the grove. Dain and Rhuddlan appeared deep in conversation over the small fire burning in the brazier set between them.

“He has one very special word he uses,” Llynya said, her voice growing thoughtful. “’Tis a strange one, it is, ‘sezhamey.’ ’Twas what he said the first time he opened the door and won the tower and the gold.”

He had not mentioned gold to Ceridwen, nor anything of winning his richly appointed tower. Would that she could have such luck and be left alone the way he was, with rooms to spare and no overlord. The night wind came up, lifting a portion of his hair and carrying it like a veil across his face. He smoothed the loose strands back and brought the whole length of his hair over one shoulder, securing it with a smoothly twisted knot.

Her gaze danced over him, following the lines of his cloak from where it broke at his shoulder and draped his torso before pooling on the ground. One of his legs was bent to support his elbow in a casual pose. Tawny leather boots, cross gartered with more of the same, reached to his knees. His tunic was black, his chausses forest-green like his gambeson, and his every move was fluid, full of the sorcerer’s grace.

Llynya liked him well enough, calling him O Great One. For herself, Ceridwen didn’t need to like him. Neither did she have to stare at him every waking moment he was in her presence, surreptitiously watching him from beneath her lashes, always on guard to shift her gaze should he glance her way—but she did.

“Sezz-hamm-ey.” She tried the word out on her tongue. She would use it the next time she faced the door alone.

“Oh, aye, that’s good. He’s a great magician, he is,” the sprite continued. “Why, I’ve seen him bring up roiling clouds of smoke from the bare ground. He can turn fire into rainbow colors and make the stars fall from the sky.” She bound the loose ends of another tiny braid and parted off another section of hair. “I saw him dance with lightning once. ’Twas amazing.”