The Shining City (40 page)

“I told ye! He attacked me, out o‟ the darkness. Bronwen and I were together . . .” Donncan sat up and twisted to face his parents. His eyes were red-rimmed.

“Doing what?‟

“Talking.” His voice was sullen.

“Just talking?‟

Donncan did not answer.

“We need to ken what happened, Donn. The whole court will be afire with speculation. We must nip it in the bud, and soon.”

“We were just talking,” Donncan said.

“What was there in that to cause Mathias to attack ye?”

“We might have kissed a bit too.”

“Might have? Did ye or didna ye?”

“We did,” Donncan answered. “A bit.”

“Well, that must‟ve been oil on the flames,” Lachlan said. “If this soldier thought he had some claim on Bronwen‟s affections.”

Donncan did not answer. He rested his head in his hand, and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Donn needs to get to bed,” Iseult said. “It has been an ordeal, this whole evening.”

Lachlan frowned. “I‟m no‟ finished yet. I must get to the bottom o‟ this sorry affair. We canna leave it to the morning.”

Donncan made a sharp movement. “I‟ve told ye what happened. Canna I just go, please?”

“Nay, ye may no‟. We must make sure none suspect ye o‟ murder. We‟ll need to find witnesses, to prove what ye say is true. People who saw ye leave with Bronwen. People who can attest to Mathias Bright-Eyed‟s state o‟ mind. And I must say, we must also do what we can to scotch rumors o‟ any affair between Bronwen and this gallant o‟ hers. From now until the wedding, Bronwen‟s behavior must be impeccable.”

Donncan gave a bitter snort. “Good luck,” he answered.

There was a short silence. “Are ye saying ye believe there was some relationship between them?” Iseult demanded. “I had no‟ thought so. I watched them together and thought Bronwen cared no more for him than for any other o‟ her admirers. Are ye saying there was more? Was he her lover?”

“I dinna ken,” Donncan said in utter misery.

“We canna risk a barley-child,” Lachlan said. “Any child o‟ this marriage must be legitimate, else we‟ll have endless trouble and intrigue. I have worked too hard to bring peace to this land to see it thrown away by a lamb-brained lassie. We must make sure there is no doubt o‟ Bronwen‟s faithfulness, else there is no point to the wedding at all.”

Donncan felt unutterably weary. “No point at all,” he echoed.

“It is no small thing, to kill a man,” Iseult said after a moment. “And there is no denying that Bronwen brought this tragedy upon us with her coquettishness. If she had no‟ encouraged that soldier, he would never have dared raise a hand against ye. But what‟s done is done. We must salvage what we can from this calamity. Breaking your engagement now would be very foolish.”

Donncan thrust out his jaw. “Do I have any say in the matter? What o‟ my wishes, my needs?”

“Ye are the Crown Prionnsa!” Lachlan shouted, slamming his fist down on the table. “Do ye wish to bring down war upon our heads? Ye have a duty and a responsibility to your people and to your crown!”

Donncan stood up. “Aye, o‟ course, Your Majesty,” he said coldly and bowed.

Olwynne stirred in her sleep, and Lewen stretched his arm across her back to soothe her.

Suddenly she sat up, jerking him into full wakefulness.

“My blades must have blood,” she said. Her voice was very deep and strange.

“What?”

“My blades must have blood.”

“Go back to sleep,
leannan
,” Lewen soothed her. “All will be well. Go back to sleep.”

But even as Olwynne muttered in response and lay back down to fall immediately asleep again, Lewen knew that he lied. All was not well.

F
or the first week after Lewen carved the bird for her, Rhiannon was happy. She did as the Keybearer had suggested and threw herself into her studies, puzzling over the books and scrolls she had been brought until the marks on the paper began to make sense, becoming words, and then sentences, and then stories.

She forced herself to eat the food they brought her, sharing her bread and fruit with the bluebird and teaching it to take tidbits from between her lips. She tried to remember the ahdayeh she had been taught on her travels with the witches, stretching and strengthening her body, and finding peace in the rhythmic, repetitive movements. She slept dreamlessly, the rowan charm held between her hands.

She had no visitors. As the days passed, each exactly the same as the day before, her happiness began to seep away and in its place rose a bitter acidic anxiety. Rhiannon tried to press it down, concentrating on the routine she had built herself, but it ate away at her composure with slow corrosive inexorable-ness.

She knew there was to be a May Day feast at the palace that Lewen was expected to attend. She knew her other friends would also be celebrating the coming of summer and that they might not find time to come to see her for a few days. They had all explained and apologized to her in advance, and she had tried not to feel lonely and neglected. Yet as the day of the feast passed, Rhiannon‟s anxiety grew so sharp she found she could not calm herself. In her hands she jerked and twisted her linen handkerchief until it tore, and she flung it down in disgust, but then she had nothing to keep her hands busy but themselves, and soon her nails and cuticles were torn and bleeding. She tried to sit but rocked back and forth, back and forth on her chair until she forced herself to stop, then found her foot beating a rapid tattoo on the floor.

So May Day passed. Even the little bluebird fled the cell, soaring out through the bars and away, so that Rhiannon was in despair, thinking it would never return. When it did at last, in the dim twilight of that endless day, it carried a little spray of lily of the valley for her. Rhiannon was comforted and put the flowers in the cup by her bed so she could smell them in the dark, and pretend she was lying in the meadows and not in a hard prison bed.

Even with Lewen‟s rowan charm clutched between her hands, Rhiannon slept badly that night.

She dreamed of a great wheel spinning before her eyes, light and dark flashing past her as the spokes whirled around. She dreamed she heard bells ringing out, filling her ears with doom, and saw she stood on a scaffold, the black-hooded hangman drawing a sack down over her head.

Rhiannon looked out wildly into the crowd, screaming Lewen‟s name with all her strength, but he was not there and then all her senses were muffled and she knew it was too late, this was the end. She woke up screaming and opened her eyes into the darkness, whispering, “Lewen, Lewen, where are ye?” Then her eyes closed again and she fell back into sleep.

She saw Lewen. He was asleep. He lay sprawled on his back, his dark curls tousled, a sheet drawn up to his hips. He shifted in his sleep, turning on his side and curling around close to the white naked body of another woman. Rhiannon saw the mass of curls flaming down the

woman‟s bare back and breast and knew it was her enemy, the redheaded Banprionnsa. She cried out in agony. Olwynne opened her eyes and looked at her but did not see her. “My blades must have blood,” she said in a voice as deep and ringing as a bell. “My blades must have blood.”

Rhiannon watched Lewen soothe her back to sleep and felt tears spring to her eyes. “No, no,” she sobbed. She turned and fled, as far and fast as she could. The darkness streamed past her, and then she felt the cold wind turn sharp in her hand and realized she was astride Blackthorn once more, the mare‟s mane cutting her palm. She cried aloud in relief and joy, and the mare whinnied in response. Rhiannon looked back, and saw a delicate silver string winding away behind her.

The farther she flew, the tauter the string grew till it was tuned as tightly as any harp string, dragging at her heart until she thought it must snap or pluck her very heart out of her body.

Rhiannon leaned into the wind, urging the mare to go faster, wanting to escape or die in the attempt.

“My blades must have blood,” she remembered, and saw, or imagined, a scythe slicing down through her heartstring, severing it. Rhiannon saw, with great clarity, that she would indeed die then, or be lost. She pulled back on Blackthorn‟s mane, leaning back all her weight, and the winged mare slowed her headlong flight and hovered there in the starless abyss. “I want to live,”

Rhiannon said aloud. “Dark walkers spare me, I want to live.”

With a great twang, the silver thread snapped her back into her bed. Rhiannon cried out at the shock of it. “Blackthorn!” she called. “Blackthorn!”

But all was quiet.

Rhiannon‟s hands smarted. She opened and shut them, the cuts on her palm throbbing. When she pressed her hands over her eyes to blot away her tears, the salt water seeped into the cuts, stinging them.

The next morning, she could not eat the cold porridge the guards brought her. All the nervous energy that had driven her to pace her cell was gone. She could barely find the strength to move from her bed to the chair or to turn the pages of the bestiary she had come to love so much. The bluebird perched on the edge of the bowl and pecked at the oatmeal, then flew about singing.

Rhiannon watched it but did not smile.

The morning plodded on. At noon, the door grated open. Rhiannon turned her eyes that way.

Lewen stood in the doorway. Olwynne stood close behind him, dressed like a banprionnsa in shimmering yellow silk and gold embroidered brocade. Rhiannon saw that she had dressed to look her best. Her skin glowed, and her hair was like rippling lava. Rhiannon was all too aware of her own dull hair and skin, her shadowed eyes and stinking prison garb.

“Rhiannon . . .” Lewen faltered over her name.

“Go on,” she said.

“I am sorry. I find I am mistaken . . . in my feelings for ye. I should never . . . It was wrong o‟ me

. . .” He could not go on. He cast one beseeching glance at her, then turned his eyes away.

Olwynne stepped forward. A wave of perfume washed over Rhiannon, making her feel suddenly dizzy. She clutched at an iron bedpost to steady herself.

“I ken ye and Lewen are lovers, and that ye consider yourself . . . affianced in some way. I‟m sorry to have to say that Lewen finds himself mistaken in his feelings for ye. He hopes ye will understand that his feelings have changed, and that there are no hard feelings.”

Rhiannon looked past her to Lewen. He would not meet her eyes. She said his name. He glanced at her but only for a second, shaking his head and backing away.

“I‟m sorry,” Olwynne said again, her voice shaking. “We must go. It‟ll only make it worse if we stay.”

Rhiannon did not know if Olwynne spoke to her or to Lewen, but she straightened her back and stared Olwynne in the eye. “He is mine,” she warned. “Do no‟ think ye can have him.”

Her defiance strengthened the Banprionnsa.

“But I can,” she said and stepped backwards, not taking her eyes off Rhiannon.

Even so, she was unprepared for the speed of Rhiannon‟s attack. With one leap Rhiannon crashed them both to the floor. Sitting astride the Banprionnsa, she seized two handfuls of the red curls and slammed Olwynne‟s head hard into the floor, lifted and slammed again. Olwynne screamed. Rhiannon would have slammed her head down again, but Lewen and the two guards were on her, dragging her away. One guard cuffed her hard across the ear, but she ignored the blow, leaping for Olwynne again, raking her nails down one cheek. Only with great difficulty did they restrain her, for she kicked and squirmed and fought against their hold.

Olwynne‟s dress was crushed and torn, her face was scored red, and her careful coiffure was in wild disarray. When she gingerly felt the back of her skull, her fingers came back blotched with blood. Lewen looked dazed with shock, while both the guards were grim faced and abjectly apologetic.

“Get every single one o‟ my hairs out o‟ her hands,” Olwynne said icily. “I do no‟ want her using them for her sorcery.”

Rhiannon‟s fingers were forced open, and the great tufts of Olwynne‟s hair prised free. Rhiannon was pleased when she saw how much she had torn out of the Banprionnsa‟s head, though she did not understand what Olwynne meant with her comment about sorcery. She stared at Olwynne with burning hatred as the Banprionnsa straightened her dress and hair, Lewen supporting her with one arm about her waist. When he looked at Rhiannon, it was with horror and disgust.

Olwynne was able to say, “See, she is quite wild! I told ye how it would be.”

Rhiannon struggled once more to be free, her eyes burning with tears she refused to shed. The guards held her still, and Lewen led Olwynne out the door and away. Rhiannon was flung back on the bed, then the door was slammed shut and locked and bolted. She turned over, bringing her knees to her chest, trying hard to breathe, waves of pain beating through her.

That night, when the surly bad-tempered guards brought Rhiannon her supper, she could not eat a bite. The bluebird pecked at the bread, then flew to her shoulder with a questioning chirrup.

She lifted it off and put it on the chair back, already deeply scored from its sharp claws and beak, and went and lay down on her bed. The candle flame devoured the time rings scored upon the wax until at last the flame flickered out and she was left alone in the darkness again. She rolled over to press her hot, wet face into her pillow, and her fingers found the rowan charm under the pillow. Rhiannon hurled it away from her.