The Swan Kingdom (15 page)

“No, no. Let me fetch you a drink, Lady. Your voice sounds that sore.” She disappeared into the other room and came back with another cup of the honey and milk drink. It was cool this time, probably from the pantry.

I accepted it gratefully, relishing the coolness it brought to my throat and then my stomach as it slid down. “Thank you,” I said as I finished it. I stared at the thin sheen left in the bottom of the cup, and wondered how much precious milk the small family would have left after my guzzling. “You’ve been so good, Olwyn. I don’t know how I can repay your kindness.”

She looked at me gravely. “It’s not kindness, Lady. It’s my duty to care for you, as anyone would agree.”

I sighed. “Perhaps it’s time for you to answer my question, Olwyn, about what has happened while I have been away.”

“Mayhap it is,” she said resignedly, settling herself into the chair nearest the table and folding up her work neatly on her lap.

“Well.” Her deft fingers picked up the needle again as she began her story. “I only knows how to begin at the beginning, so please abide with me, Lady. I suppose it all begins with the land. It’s not many a country is as lucky as we’ve always been here. There’s none that don’t know the reason why, Lady. Even them like me that never saw the queen – we knew it was her as brought us the blessing of the Ancestors. We knew it was her as kept the Old Ways alive, and we gave thanks for it every day. I told my little ones about her when they were in their cradles. I sung them the songs about how she was the wisest woman in the land and the most beautiful. ‘Hair like molten copper and eyes the colour of new leaves, as slender and graceful as a willow branch.’

“And of course we knew about her three fine sons: the oldest to be the king, the next a great commander, and the youngest a famous scholar. And her little daughter, as took after the lady in all things and would follow after her in the Old Ways.

“So, when the queen died … oh, that was a black day for the Kingdom. And not a sennight had passed before the tales were flying everywhere about
how
she’d died. About this fearsome creature – nobody knew what – that’d savaged her and about how the king was half mad with grief and went out hunting the thing day after day, and came back each night empty-handed. And then one day he comes back, not empty-handed, but with this lovely young lass he’s found in the woods. In the woods like a wild creature, and the stories saying that she was so fair that looking upon her made a man go wrong in the head, and that the young lords were up in arms. And
then
they’re gone, banished it’s said, by the king himself. And before we can begin to think about that, we hear that the little lady is gone too; spirited away the day before this new girl marries our king and no one knows where or how. Sent away to some far-off place, where she won’t be in the way.

“It would make a fine tale for minstrels to sing, Lady. But in real life? What could we think? That our ruler’s gone mad? That some fearsome enchantress had cast a spell to kill the queen and take her place? If all this was true, what could common folk do about it? Nothing; that was what my man – my Emrys – said. We must wait for this storm to pass us by, for the young lords to come back, for the king to find his senses.

“Then strange things started happening. Snow falling in the height of summer, falling from a cloudless sky. Weeks of rain, non-stop, in the dry season. Seeds not sprouting; thorn bushes coming up where a farmer had planted nothing but good corn – and overnight too! The birds stopped singing. The green things started to turn grey. The rivers grew muddy and still. Well … and then the final blow. The king was taking the household away from the Hall. Too old-fashioned, too small. Not grand enough. They were to build a new palace of marble and gold, a place fit for the court – fit for his new wife’s beauty. And all able-bodied men were to go at once to help in the building. With the crops failing in the fields and children starving, he’s taking away our husbands and sons! He sent purses of gold and told us to buy food from the Midland merchants. And when the men didn’t go, he sent soldiers, bought ones, to round them up. My Emrys and my two older boys went five months ago, and I’ve not heard a single word from them since.” She stabbed her needle viciously into the cloth.

“So, us women, we started to think. My daughter and her ma-in-law, and her sisters and their daughters … we gathered together and we talked. At first we said how, one day, the heir must come back. He and his brothers can’t stay banished for ever – not when their people are in need. But how will they know to come back? Why leave at all, if they intended to return? Perhaps they don’t. Ah, but what about the lost lady? She was like her mother – taught in the Old Ways. This enchantress couldn’t hurt
her
with magic. So even if the heir and the young lords are gone and the king’s lost his mind – the lost lady will find her way home, won’t she? She’ll wait and watch, and one day she’ll come back.”

Olwyn stopped to study her sewing, and then set it aside to look at me. “Oh, you’re not how I expected. You’re battered and begrimed and so weary the firelight shines through you – but you’ve got the wisdom. I can feel it from across the room.” She lifted her head, and the flickering light of the taper seemed to fill her eyes with fire. “It’s in the blood. You’re her daughter. You came back just like we said you would. And now you can save us.”

I sat rigid in the chair, numb as I struggled with the implications of Olwyn’s story. Father, it seemed, was now completely Zella’s creature, sacrificing the good of his people for her whims. My brothers were gone from the Kingdom. And the land … this sad, tired land was the result. Hundreds of years of the Ancestors’ wisdom and my mother’s golden reign ruined in just one year by a foolish old man. And his ineffectual daughter, I reflected bitterly. Don’t forget that.

Perhaps the strange phenomena Olwyn had described were the land’s way of fighting against Zella’s invading evil. Or perhaps they were only a side effect. Whichever, it was clear that she was sucking the life from the Kingdom. Most disturbing of all were the women of the Kingdom, those misguided, dutiful creatures waiting faithfully for their lost lady to return and save them. They believed in this mythical lady. She would free their menfolk and their king from danger and return the land to prosperity single-handed. The weight of their expectation made me want to shrivel into smoke and drift away into the night. Olwyn wanted me to rescue everyone – me, who couldn’t even save herself.

I remembered wryly my childhood dreams, and how I had comforted myself when my brothers’ brilliance and my father’s indifference had made me feel small.
I would only be Alexandra, and I would be free.
I felt smaller than ever now. Time to face the truth. Zella had thought so little of any danger I might pose that she hadn’t even bothered to kill me; instead she had sent me away like a naughty child. I wondered why she had bothered to call me back. Perhaps to play with, for her own amusement. Who could fathom such a mind as hers?

In any kind of combat with Zella I did not stand a chance. She was cunning and ruthless, a shape-shifter and an enchantress. She had bested my mother, and Branwen had been a wise woman rejoicing in the full bloom of power. I could never defeat Zella alone. Neither could I admit defeat without trying. I sighed deeply as I made the admission to myself. Not while my home and my people needed me so desperately. Not while my brothers wandered in exile somewhere. Not while Zella walked freely in the world enjoying the warmth of the sun and the sweetness of the air, and my mother’s ashes shifted restlessly on the wind. It wasn’t too late. The people still remembered the Old Ways. There was still life in the land. It could recover. The people could recover. But before there was any chance of that, Zella had to be defeated.

The first step I must take was to seek out the Circle of Ancestors. Even if my dream was not true, the Circle was a refuge for followers of the Old Ways. I could wake the stones again to speak to the wise women – to Angharad. It would not be easy because I wouldn’t be able to navigate the currents of enaid to find it, and I had no idea where its true location was. Perhaps…

“Olwyn. I do not know if I can do what you want,” I said quietly, meeting her eyes. “But if I am to try, then I need your help.”

“I’ll help however I can,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Then think on this. I need to find a sacred place: we call it the Circle of Ancestors. I do not know where it may lie – I have never travelled to it on foot – but it is a hill, shaped like an upturned bowl with a smooth top and crowned by a circle of tall stones. Do you know of any such place?”

Olwyn tilted her head, thinking. “I have heard of a place like that, though it might not be the one you describe. It is a strange-looking hill, flat on top, where no one ever dares go, though I couldn’t say why. They call it Olday Hill. But I never heard tell of any stones on the top. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there, of course.”

I bit my lip. Surely the stones would be remarkable enough to be talked about, if Olday Hill was the Circle. The name, though, seemed to suggest it had something to do with the Old Ways. “Can you tell me any more about it?”

“Not much, Lady. I’ve never been there myself, you see. There’s a story that a dragon sleeps coiled around the base of the hill, – and he’ll wake if the Kingdom’s ever in peril.” Her lips quirked. “If that’s so, he’s a heavy sleeper.”

I blinked. “A dragon?” My mind worked quickly. The massive ripples in the land that the Ancestors had built with their earthworks: people who knew no better might easily make up a tale to explain them. What more natural than that the story should call the dragon a guardian – for that, in fact, had been the purpose of the building of the Circle. It
had
to be the place.

“Is it far from here?” I asked.

“Less than half a day’s ride, Lady. Will could lead you there if you wanted; he went that way with his father last year.” She smiled a little sadly, I thought, at the mention of her absent husband. Would Will ever see his father again? He would if I had anything to do with it.

I nodded decisively. “Then we will go tomorrow, if you can spare him.” I looked at her expectant face and tried a smile. “I’ll do my best, Olwyn. That I
can
promise.”

Whether it would be enough was another matter.

She sighed and closed her eyes, whether in relief or disappointment I couldn’t tell. Then she picked up her sewing again, and settled back.

“You’ll need a good night’s rest then, Lady. You go back to sleep; I’ll watch over you.”

I didn’t bother to argue that I needed no one to watch over me. She would just tell me it was her duty – and besides, it was comforting to have her there. No one had watched over my sleep for a very long time.

For Olwyn’s sake I rested my head against the back of the chair and turned my face away so that she wouldn’t see the telltale gleam of the light in my sleepless eyes.

Mists curled up damply from the fields as Will led me to Olday Hill on Mare’s back. The sun had been muffled in cloud from the moment it lifted, and the chill was deep. I huddled deeper into my heavy cloak and looked down at Will’s damp hair. He was well wrapped too, but I worried that the long walk might tell on him. I’d offered several times to dismount and let him ride Mare for a while, but he’d refused with every appearance of repugnance, marching happily on. In truth, even after walking half the morning he seemed haler than I did sitting on the horse. A night’s rest in a warm house and good food had done much to strengthen my body, but the dreary greyness of the day and the fearful anticipation of what might come contrived to sap the energy from me. The Kingdom shouldn’t be like this. I could feel the tiredness of the land in every waft of fog, like the sweet, weary breath of a dying man.

Gradually the lay of the fields under Mare’s hooves changed; we were walking through a series of slowly rising inclines and shallow dips, each one growing more pronounced. The rise and fall of the land was too regular to be natural. These must be the earthworks I had seen from the Circle; we
were
in the right place.

After a few minutes more I began to feel, on the edge of my perception, a gentle hum, like the sound of bees on a lazy summer afternoon. Inexplicably, my mood began to lift and my breath quickened in my throat. The weak eddies of enaid in the wind and soil that had so depressed me were gaining strength. Soon they had grown into the plentiful rush that I had been used to in the Kingdom. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed the warm buffeting sensation on my skin. I had not felt it since I left my aunt’s house, which seemed like aeons ago. A week? Only a little longer than that. I was a creature of the enaid, and without it I diminished quickly.

I basked in the increasing power. In its rush along the channels of earth, it swirled and broke around me and my body sucked in the warmth and energy. A fizz of excitement began in the pit of my stomach; a low, happy laugh escaped my lips. I was home – really home! The strength of the tides was now enough to intoxicate me. We must be very close.

Will had looked up at my laughter. In my sudden elation it took me a minute to realize that, rather than sharing my pleasure, he looked white and frightened. In the same instant, Mare stopped walking and would not budge, no matter how much I urged her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, addressing both beast and boy.

Rushing and pushing … hurts … too loud …
were the sensations Mare conveyed to me. Will was even less communicative. He merely grunted and shook his head as if he was in pain.

“Will, what is it?” I demanded, alarmed.

“Don’t know. Something … my ears. Like water. It wants to push me away.” He lifted his hands as if to cover his ears, then dropped them again.

I was sharply reminded of my brothers’ reactions when Zella had first come to the Hall. All the flow of enaid wanted was to be on its way, and if the path of least resistance was through the fibres and bones of your body, then so be it. Perhaps it could be overwhelming to an untrained person when it was this strong – there had to be a reason why ordinary people never came close enough to see the stones on the hill.