For Camelot's Honor (33 page)

So she stretched out her mind, and Calonnau fought, as Elen had known she would, but the hawk turned from her flight across the meadow. She climbed higher, and higher yet, the wind bearing up her light body and outstretched wings. Was it this that made Elen feel her own hollowness so strongly? How could the hawk be so light while it bore the burden of her heart? Perhaps her heart was gone now, dissolved into the bird's wildness.

A ripple of movement crossed Calonnau's vision to the east. She turned into the wind, flapping her wings for more height, catching the warm currents, flying through the cold stillness. The cold within Elen became edged with pain, as if ice cut against her breast as the hawk flew further, and further yet.

She neared that ripple of movement. It spread out into a moving blot on the sloping meadow green. She saw flashes of silver and bronze that became, men running, frantic, like rabbits after a missed strike, but these did not scatter, they clustered ever more tightly together. She swooped low, and her ears, which were not so keen as her eyes, caught the shouts of men's hoarse voices and the ring of metal on metal.

Geraint had gone in search of the enemy, he had found him.

She could make him out easily now mounted on Donatus, for all the horses and their riders around him made a sea of grey and silver. He had ridden into the thick of battle. His spear was gone and he had his sword out to swing down at the nearest enemy. The other man threw up his shield to meet the blow, but staggered underneath it, and Geraint raised his sword again.

Something flashed across the battle, too fast for even Calonnau to see, and a man just behind Geraint fell, his mouth wide open as he screamed. Elen saw the strange, straight branch that had flown to strike him down, and she screamed.

“What is it?” demanded a man's voice. Man. Gwiffert. The king stood beside her, but she could not see him. Flash! Again, the slender thread of swiftness cut across the battle, this one landing harmless and quivering in the dirt, trampled swiftly underfoot by the surging of men and horses, but the flash came again, and Geraint turned suddenly, or that one would have been in his arm. She saw where they came from now. Two carts had been turned over to make a wall, and behind them two men in the half-helms took aim with their bows. Each had full quivers. Each could be profligate with their shooting. Neither paused in their work, but each nocked fresh arrows into their strings and loosed them again, and again men screamed.

“What do you see?”

“The battle … they have archers … They have arrows!” The Grey Men held Geraint's people where they were, they only had to keep them from moving forward, only had to keep the archers safe so they could pick the attackers off. A flash of speed across the boil of brown and white and silver, and a horse went down this time. Another. Calonnau shrieked and wheeled. The ravens were coming to ride the winds with her, and she did not care to meet the huge, black birds. She flapped her wings hard, struggling to leave.

Elen fought to hold the hawk where she was, but this fight she lost as she saw the great beaks and the wings longer than her own. There were birds that could fight if they must, and had no love of her kind, and there were so many of them … Elen she let the hawk dive for cover in a copse of yew trees. The leaves screened the battle from her. The hawk did not care, but Elen's her hands curled into talons in her frustration.

“Listen, listen!” Gwiffert's voice was right in her ear. She felt his breath on her skin, but she could not see him. All her straining was to see Geraint through the leaves and branches that hid Calonnau. She wanted to take to the wing again with all her heart, but the bird clung stubbornly to the limb beneath her. “Listen, Elen! Would you turn the arrows?”

“Yes!” she shouted the word so loud and so hard, Calonnau cried out.

“Will it so! Call them from the sky! It is your power and your right!”

Elen stretched out her hands, hooked like claws. She saw the battle. She saw the blood running from the fallen men and beasts. She saw the flash of the arrows and she hated them. They should break, they should shatter. They should turn on their masters and bite their hands before they touched the one that was hers.

Even as she shaped the thoughts, she saw it come to pass. The arrows splintered in mid-air, the shards of them falling to earth as harmless as feathers in the wind. The enemy was stunned and in that precious instant, Geraint charged, barrelling Donatus through them to the makeshift wall and swinging his sword down hard. Geraint's men cheered and surged forward. Geraint turned Donatus in a tight circle, aiming for the men in half-helms, aiming for those who yet lived. He struck, and he struck again, and they fell, maimed from his blows.

But they rose. Broken and bleeding they rose from the ground and she saw why he used his sword and held no spear. The spear was no good. No pierced heart would stop them, sealed to their master as they were with the terrible knot that branded their brows. They could not die. They must rise and fight on with their life's blood pouring down.

But they could not fight with tattered bodies, with useless arms and lolling heads. Men who should have lain down to die, instead turned and ran. It was hideous. It was a nightmare beyond any she had yet seen. Those longer dead held as they could, but they too fell before sword and knife.

The attackers were calling her husband's name, “Geraint! Geraint! The Table Round!” His grin was fierce as he pressed forward with all his host behind him. Elen cried out for triumph, the sight of the blood and the wounds bringing to her all the warm, rich delight of hunting.

“They're running! He's broken them. They counted on the arrows …”

“Follow them, Elen! Follow them and see where they go!”

Strong in her ecstasy, Elen thrust Calonnau from her branch. The hawk screamed but could not resist, and she soared above the trees. Let the ravens take the dead. Here was living prey, here was warm blood, here was the hunt. Soar high, see clear, see where the rabbits run, know you are faster, you are fiercer, get ready, get ready, you will strike soon, soon …

“Speak, Elen! What do you see!”

“They run, they run …” She panted. She beat her wings. She was woman and she was hawk, and Geraint was alive and she had a hunt before her like no other and she was filled with the glory of it. “There's another in front of them …. He's in a chariot. He's huge … it's the Great King … it must be …”

“Yes.” The last sound hissed hot against her ear, Gwiffert was so close. She did not care. She was hungry. She wanted to swoop, to strike.

“What now? What now?”

Not yet, they are not ready for taking, not yet. Soon.
“He's turned, his man drives the horses …” Her hawk's eyes blurred strangely, and Calonnau hesitated, hovering on the air's warm currents. She hurt. There was pain in her breast, and it dulled her delight, her hunger. “I cannot see … it's too far …”

“You must see! You cannot lose him!”

No. Cannot. Geraint was below, his pace was slacking. His confusion she could see, but the giant, the great king …

Calonnau, Elen, Calonnau, cried out in confusion, and soared high, until all the land below was a quilt of brown and green, the red of soil, the liquid silver of rivers and the stillness of stone. And there was only Geraint's men, alone.

“No, he is gone. Vanished.” Elen sagged. The world was spinning. She hurt. How she could have lost what she hunted? She could not lose it. She must find it! “There is nothing.”

“Damn you!” shouted Gwiffert to the sky. “Damn you! Gods!” She was aware he shook his spear uselessly, even as she was aware that Calonnau circled and cried, and below, Geraint looked up to see the hawk. “Why do you hide his name from me! If I had his name I could break that wall! I could see for myself!”

Name, name, name. Elen weak and dizzy with her efforts, full with pain and hate and the wild frustration of prey denied, escaping out of reach.
His name, give me his name. Mother, give me his name!

And the voice answered, and it said
Rhyddid ap Carchar.
And it said,
three.

And it was gone, and Elen did not care. She had her prey. She would strike and she would know the warmth and the ferocious, filling wonder.

“Rhyddid,” she said. “He is Rhyddid ap Carchar.”

Gwiffert threw back his head and he howled, a high, triumphant sound more wolf than man.

“Rhyddid!” he cried to shake the heavens. “Rhyddid ap Carchar! Gwiffert pen Lleied calls you! You will reveal yourself to my eyes! Rhyddid, you have no more hiding place. I call you by your name Rhyddid ap Carchar, the Great King, and so you shall be known!” And he cast out his spear into the sky, high and straight, as if he meant to bring down the sun itself.

Elen saw the spear vanish into the grey sky, only to reappear in Gwiffert's hand.

Calonnau saw a hall, a long, low hall with a peaked roof appear on a hillside, and she saw the ditches and the earthworks rippling on its green slopes. She saw the low, crude stone wall that ringed it round.

Beside Elen, Gwiffert laughed, long and hard, full and open.

With the Little King's laughter filling her blood and bone, Elen crumpled to her knees.

Geraint returned as the sun was setting, marching into the great hall with his helmet under his arm and Gwiffert's two captains behind him. All the population of the hall stopped their tasks and their talk and stood to watch them pass by. Elen was able to leave the table where she sat with the Little King and walk down from the dais to greet him with gladness and relief. He was bruised on his arms, and had a long, shallow slice over his right brow that was cleanly scabbed, but was otherwise unmarked. He saw at once, of course, how she tottered as she took the three steps, and how drawn her face was. His eyes filled with questions, and she tried to reassure him with the strong press of her hands as he bent to give her the chaste and courtly kiss that was a seemly greeting for a knight to give his lady while a king looked on. Calonnau was perched beside Elen's chair. Elen could feel her heart beat once more, and it dimmed the beating of the others. She could reason again, and see with her own eyes, and she could hold herself more apart from the king.

“What news, Sir Geraint?” asked Gwiffert eagerly as Geraint released Elen to return to her place at the king's left hand.

Geraint, standing with martial straightness at the foot of the dais, described the battle — how they had come across the enemy suddenly in the field fresh with the spoils of some village or crofting. Geraint and his men charged in at once, but they were repulsed long enough for the archers to take their place. It was then Geraint thought they might have to retreat, for try as they might, they could not surround or circle their enemy to reach the archers that were picking them off so swiftly.

“I heard the hawk above us, and then the arrows began to break. I had made it clear my name and the Round Table were to be used as the battle cry. The Great King heard it. He knows who stands beside your majesty, and I believe it will plant the suspicion we need in him. Your men fought well and bravely, Majesty. They are to be much commended.”

“Be assured I know their worth well from today's work,” said the king warmly, looking to Rhys and Taggert who stayed diffidently behind Geraint. Like Geraint, they were dirty and tired and spattered in blood. Unlike him they stood, solid and silent as stumps, accepting the praise, but taking no joy in it.

If Gwiffert saw this, he did not care. He leaned forward, and said eagerly, “And did you see it, Sir Geraint? The hall of the Great King?”

“From a distance, I saw, Majesty. It is hard by the valley where we found the Grey Men. It is no great fortress such as this, but more the home of an outland chief.”

Gwiffert grinned as he nodded his agreement. He stroked the spear lovingly. “You were right in your counsel. It was the ability to remain unseen that was his defence. He has no other. We will be able to ride out as we are and take him without trouble.”

“So it would seem,” answered Geraint carefully. “We have not yet had the chance to make careful survey of his defences, nor do we know how many good fighters he has.”

King Gwiffert shrugged. “Does it matter? Your plan succeeded. He knows you are here and he knows himself exposed. He will move fast. We must be faster.” The Little King's eyes gleamed. “Even I know so much.”

Geraint made no answer to this. King Gwiffert beckoned him up to the dais and sat him at his right hand. The other two captains he dismissed, and they went to their places down the hall. They sat there at the prepared tables with friends and fellow, and accepted the food set before them. Their voices joined the murmuring river that filled the hall, but no voice raised in cheer, none gasped in delighted surprise at relation of deed.

What sort of king fails to give honor to his men?
Elen's gaze flickered about the painted hall, as she fed Calonnau from her knife. She saw the bright paintings, saw the white mare and the black owl and the red boar all captured in the knotted ribbons of saffron and sapphire. She saw the living people, well-dressed and well-fed, some serving, some sitting and eating. Victory and freedom were promised. Freedom from their long fear and confinement, and yet not one of these people cheered or raised a voice in song of praise.

Victory and freedom. Freedom.
The word repeated itself in her mind, and yet she could not follow it up with any thought. It soared away like Calonnau on the wind.

She became aware, all at once, that both Geraint and Gwiffert were watching her. They had been deep in talk, and she had not heard a word, being so far away in pursuit of her own elusive thoughts.

“I'm sorry, Sirs,” she said, quickly, reaching for her cup as if its touch would help attach her to the present and external. “I did not hear the question.”

“No matter.” Gwiffert waved his knife, dismissing her words. “A woman may be much distracted when her man goes to war. Perhaps you too fear what may come on the morrow?”

Elen looked to Geraint, bewildered. “We ride out again tomorrow,” said Geraint quietly. “I will ride beside his Majesty and we will together meet the Great King before he can make his preparations.”

“Tomorrow? Surely, it is too soon!” She needed time. Time to speak with Geraint, time to understand why her own thoughts scattered like mice. Wars took weeks to plan and to mount, even between small bands in the mountains.

“I do not think it is,” said Geraint softly. “His Majesty has the right of it. We do not know how swiftly he can call on his Grey Men, or in what numbers. We must not give him time to make himself stronger, or to work some new enchantment.”

“You are right to be surprised, Sister,” added Gwiffert, and the king was whistful as he gazed at his crowded hall. “As it is, such smiths and the armerors as I have will be working all night. In another place, there would be great loads of arms to ready, wagons to load with supplies, plans to lay, allies to call and court. Men would be called up from all corners of the land. But there is only us here. All the men we can call on are in this hall. All the arms we have are in the stores now.”

“Yes, of course.” Elen rubbed her brow. Geraint did not seem afraid at this prospect. Concerned, perhaps, with his careful mind running through calculations, implications and plans. Wishing for more time, even as she did but he was not afraid. Why should she be? She was not trained to the sword, but she need not be idle either. It was her work that turned the arrows from him today. She could do it again. The Great King would not last out the day against them. Then, the spear would be theirs and they would go home together and chase Urien from the West Lands. All was right. All was right. There was nothing wrong.

Her temples began to pound, adding a pain to the one in her throat. A stray draught brought the scent of cooked meat to her, and her belly heaved over suddenly. The smell was wrong, dead, rotted, too hot …

She felt herself begin to sway. Her head was too light and her body too heavy.

“Elen?” Geraint grasped her hand.

“I … I'm sorry, Sirs,” she whispered. She tried to stand, but only sat down again. “I must retire. Sir, King, can you …”

“Yes, yes. Let Sir Geraint aid you. I will lead you both.”

“Calonnau.” She stretched her hand out.

“I will bring her,” said the king. “Let Sir Geraint …”

“No!” The words burst out as a shriek from Elen. “Do not touch me!”

“Forgive me, Majesty,” said Geraint at once. “It is her illness that makes her speak so.” With expert fingers he undid the jesses and set Calonnau on Elen's bandaged wrist. With Geraint supporting her, his arm strong underneath her elbow, and the king following close, Elen staggered from the hall. She clutched the hawk, setting the bird screeching and battering her wings, but she did not let go. Nor did she look up. She had thought she had seen a knowing smile on the Little King's face, as he came behind them and she did not want to see it again.

Her knees shook so violently she could barely walk. The paintings on the walls were moved and pulsed with each wild beat of Calonnau's heart. The white mare galloped on the ribbon road, whickering urgently. The black owl dipped and wheeled. All the eyes, the living eyes and the painted eyes watched her go.

It seemed an age passed before she was in her little grove again and Geraint laid her down on the narrow bed. The king leaned over her anxiously, and the pain in her head redoubled.

“Have you a healer, Majesty?” asked Geraint as he secured Calonnau on her perch. “A physic of any kind?”

Gwiffert shook his head. “None but an old midwife. I have some skill myself. Perhaps …”

The thought of him laying a hand on her turned Elen's stomach again. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, Sir, just … let me stay here, let Geraint stay with me. I will be well.” But even as the words came out, she found she was panting for breath. “I will be well.” She insisted.

The king looked from Geraint to Elen and back again. “Very well,” he said stiffly. But he did go.

For a time, all Elen could do was lie on her side, panting. Geraint sat on the bed beside her. Behind him, the painted trees swayed before her eyes, tossed by a breeze she could not feel. She even heard a rustling, as if of leaves or small animals seeking their burrows. Calonnau lifted her head, turning this way and that, looking.

No. No. It is not true.
Elen closed her eyes.
I must think of what is true.

The wind was true. The heat and the hunt …

No.

“Geraint,” she whispered. “Talk to me. Tell me … tell me of the battle today.”

“Elen, you are ill. It is not …”

“Geraint.” She clutched his hand. “I need strong food for my mind. Please.”

So Geraint began to speak, slowly and softly. He did not speak of battle like a bard reciting an epic. He said nothing of glory, nor even of pride, although she was sure he felt that. From his words, she understood what it was to be in the thick of battle. She heard the clash of steel. She felt the heat and the confusion, and the struggle to keep wit, heart and soul all sound, while body only wanted to fight and flee if it could. She came to know what it was to wade through the small sea of men and beasts while all turned to mud and blood around you.

These things were grim and they were hard, but they were true, and they had nothing to do with the paintings around her, or the Little King. Gradually, they drew her out of herself, making it safe again to see and to turn her thoughts to other matters. The sickness in her ebbed and drained away, and she was able to sit up on her own, with only a mild thirst to remind her of what had happened.

“Thank you,” she said to Geraint.

“Elen …” he had spoken steadily before, but now he hesitated. “Is it possible you are with child?”

She laid her hand across her belly. “I fear not,” she said. “But even if … even if I could quicken after what I've become, it would be weeks before the sickness came over me.”

For one of the very few times since she had first seen him, Geraint seemed at a loss. “What then?”

“I don't know.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “I wish before all the gods I did.”

Geraint sat in silence for a long moment, studying her, searching for what? She did not know. “We must get you away from here,” he said at last.

It was true. She knew it was true. She wanted to flee from these walls, to fly over these mountains that stood like enemy guards and find the hills she knew. At the same time, it was impossible. “How? We cannot leave without the spear, even if we knew the road. The only way out is through the Great King.”

“Then that is the road we will take,” said Geraint grimly to the false oak tree.

“You are not sure.”

He shook his head. “I am not the leader my brother is, nor the planner Agravain is … it is my job to order the men, not to rally them. I ride beside them, and sometimes behind them. This has taught me some things.” He paused, considering his next words. “I know how men are when they have been pressed into battle. They may understand that the war is their king's but they do not see it as theirs, for it's not their borders or cattle that are threatened.”

Elen nodded. The greatest argument she had heard against Arthur was that he would demand men to fight in distant wars that had nothing to do with Pont Cymryd or her people.

“Such men generally fight well enough. They want to live after all, but there's no …” he waved his empty hands. “There's none of the heart in it, the bright bravery of men fighting for their homes and the lives of their families. I would rather face the legions of old Rome than a man fighting for his own wife and children.”

“So will these men fight,” said Elen but she watched him while he spoke and saw only doubt. “These husbands have their families in these walls.”

He nodded. “Yes, and they all fought well today, but they did not fight like men with everything to gain. Rather they were like men with nothing left to lose.”

She thought about this, trying to understand the difference. Calonnau was hungry. The bird's need pushed at her mind making it hard to concentrate. “They have been under seige a long time.”

Geraint's eyes narrowed, looking to a memory. “Today, I saw a man … he was an older man, not a raw boy. He had scars … Dai, I think he was called. I swear to you he all but ran onto a Grey Man's sword.” Geraint was confused and angry as he spoke of it. “I have seen such things before. Men will sometimes seek death in battle when death is better than facing what lies behind them.”

“What does it mean?”

Geraint scrubbed the back of his neck, trying to rub out his impatience. “I don't yet know, but I am uneasy with this war.”

“Do you fear the Great King?”

Geraint shook his head, contempt overtaking all other feeling in him. “He is a king without honor. His men, his people, whatever they may be, fought, and he stood behind all and watched. No king, not the lowest chief with four barbarians in his train would behave so. Now that we know where he goes to ground, we will take him easily, have he ever so many of his dead rising to fight for him.” He paused again, thoughts running ahead to the battle to come. “The terror of them … how great can it be? They are unnatural things, and would give a sane soul nightmares to see them rise up when a mortal man should lie still and wait for Judgement … but they can be made to flee before warriors who hold their ground and they do not become whole again when they are broken, at least, not at once … how was this not discovered before? After all these years, how are their weaknesses not known?