Night Bird's Reign (44 page)

Cai, remembering speaking these words to his wife, Nest, on their wedding day, swallowed hard, his heart full. For, never had he loved a woman as he loved his wife, never had he even thought to be so happy, even after over ten years of marriage. He was a lucky man and he knew it.

He glanced around at the others. Trystan’s green eyes were dark with longing as he looked at the couple, no doubt thinking of Esyllt, who was married to another. Trystan would not, Cai thought, understand for some time why Esyllt refused to divorce her husband. Poor boyo, perhaps he would never understand and remain in thrall for the rest of his life. Cai hoped not, for he liked Trystan very much.

Achren looked up at the couple with an indulgent smile that seemed to say marriage was all very well and good for those with nothing better to do.

Angharad and Amatheon eyed each other through the ceremony, though only when the other wasn’t looking and Cai bet himself that it would not be much longer before those two were sharing a bed.

Gwydion, on the other hand, seemed to be ignorant of that. He had no idea that his brother’s interest was in Angharad, making the mistake of thinking that Amatheon was really interested in Rhiannon. Gwydion had clearly mistaken the tone of the teasing relationship Amatheon and Rhiannon had formed and was just as clearly jealous.

The Druid took the ivy vine and the alder branch from the couple and gently laid them on the stones at his feet. He then stretched out his hands over the heads of Jonas and Canna. “Blessed be to Cerridwen and Cerrunnos, the Protectors of Kymru, whose steadfast love and partnership protect us, their children. So too may you protect and cherish each other and your children.”

Diadwa stepped forward and gave each of them a gold ring. The couple placed the rings on each other’s fingers then spoke together. “I wed you now, with this symbol of the Great Wheel, of death into rebirth, of endings into beginnings. I pledge to keep faith with you now and in the lives to come.”

Glwys raised his hands and turned the couple around to face the crowd. “I declare that these two are now husband and wife.”

The crowd cheered, calling out congratulations, swiftly moving on to raucous comments that led Jonas to blush and Canna to giggle as each remark became more outrageous than the last.

Although he did not know why, Cai felt a momentary shiver as the bride and groom clasped hands and descended the stairs. It had something to do with how Jonas looked at Canna with his heart in his pale, green eyes, something to do with a weakness of character that Cai briefly sensed. For he perceived that Jonas was a man that would clearly put his bride before all else. He hoped that there would never come a time when Jonas would have to choose between Canna and his duty to Kymru. For in such a contest, Kymru would surely lose.

Suldydd, Disglair Wythnos—afternoon

T
HE NEXT DAY
they arrived at Naid Ronwen on the shores of the River Mawddoch. The river, wide and deep sparkled beneath the afternoon sun and shimmered like a silvery, curved blade as it wound its way through the gentle hills.

They dismounted and made their way to the bank of the swiftly rushing river. Willows bent their spreading branches of bright yellow leaves over the water. Shrubs of moneywort sporting bright yellow cup-like flowers grew tenaciously on the banks. Wall germander with soft pink flowers sprawled on the shore. White mayweed still flowered in tufts here and there and bright yellow tansy grew in clusters. Thrushes sang in the willow trees, their liquid notes soaring into the crisp, cool air.

“It seems so peaceful here,” Amatheon said softly, effortlessly responding to the magnificence of the golden afternoon. “Hard to believe what happened here.”

“So long ago,” Rhiannon agreed. “Yet still, one might think that the battle had left some mark. If not on the land than at least on the walls of time itself.”

“We must hope that it did,” Gwydion said, looking around him. “For if it did not than I do not know what we could possibly discover here.”

“Tell us, then, Gwydion, exactly what happened,” Trystan said, his green eyes keen as he surveyed the scene.

“Yes, we want to hear all about the Battle of Naid Ronwen,” Achren agreed as she dismounted.

“Perhaps then we will know what to look for,” Angharad said, her bright red hair glowing as she absently loosened it from its braid.

Amatheon stared mutely at her molten hair as she shook it out. As he did, Achren’s generous mouth quirked in amusement, but she held her silence.

Angharad caught Amatheon’s gaze on her and smiled slowly. Amatheon’s blue eyes darkened and a flush came to his cheek, but he did not look away. He smiled back and would, perhaps, have spoken, if Gwydion, not noticing his brother’s distraction, had not chosen that moment to speak.

“It is called Naid Ronwen, Ronwen’s Leap, because it was here that Ronwen, the mistress of the King of Gwynedd, chose to take her life and the life of their daughter well over three hundred years ago. It was right at this spot, so legend says,” Gwydion went on, gesturing to a rock that protruded from the bank and into the rushing water, “that she leapt.

“This is the story. Gwynledyr, daughter of High King Idris, was Queen of Gwynedd. And she chose Eadwulf, Prince of Corania, as her husband, to help seal the recent peace we had made with that land. In Eadwulf’s retinue was a woman named Ronwen, the wife of one of his retainers. But she was also Eadwulf’s mistress whom he had refused to give up on his marriage. After a time Queen Gwynledyr suspected her husband was being unfaithful to her. She insisted that Ronwen be dismissed, so Eadwulf pretended to send Ronwen back to Corania; but instead, he had her installed in a tiny house deep in the forest of Coed Dulas. There, Ronwen gave birth to a daughter, Sabra.

“By now the King and Queen had three children. One day Gwynledyr took her children with her to visit her father and mother in Gwytheryn. While she was gone, Eadwulf took it into his head that his chance had come to have both his mistress and the rule of Gwynedd. His head turned by his own courtiers, who do things very differently in Corania, he declared that a woman was unfit to rule. He had himself proclaimed King and chose Ronwen as his Queen, imprisoning Gwynledyr’s chief officials.

“But Gwynledyr swiftly learned of her husband’s perfidy through the Bardic network. Enraged, she returned to Gwynedd and raised a sizeable army. She came to Coed Dulas and had the love nest of Ronwen and Eadwulf put to the torch. She then marched on Tegeingl only to discover that her people had already ousted Eadwulf the day before. Eadwulf, Ronwen, Sabra, and their retainers had fled, but Gwynledyr, using her Dewin, readily located them heading east.

“She and her
teulu
pursued Eadwulf’s men and brought them to bay here on the shores of River Mawddoch. Seeing them crest the hill, Eadwulf turned and ran, leaving Ronwen, Sabra, and his men behind. But Gwynledyr pursued him and drew her bow. The arrow flew across the hills to bury itself in Eadwulf’s traitorous back.

“Gwynledyr’s
teulu
descended on Eadwulf’s band and killed them all to a man. But they spared Ronwen and Sabra, bringing them instead before Gwynledyr, who was waiting for them here on the banks. Gwynledyr had it in her mind to spare these two, thinking to send them back to Corania. But Ronwen unwisely taunted Gwynledyr, thinking, perhaps, that her life was already forfeit. She mocked the Queen, saying that Eadwulf was disgusted with Gwynledyr, always longing to be free of her and her embraces. In a rage, Gwynledyr ordered that Ronwen be killed, but said that Sabra would be spared.

“But Ronwen, mad with grief and fear grabbed seven year-old Sabra in her arms and leapt into the river. Gwynledyr’s men leapt after her but it was too late, for they had both long since drowned.”

“And what,” Achren asked, “did the Coranians do at the death of Eadwulf?”

Gwydion smiled. “At the news of his brother’s death the King of Corania sent Queen Gwynledyr a present of six cups of silver and sapphire.”

“Of course,” Achren said gravely. “Brotherly love.”

“Speaking of brotherly love,” Amatheon began to Gwydion.

But Gwydion cut him off. “We will try it without you, first, as I said before.”

Amatheon opened his mouth to protest but stopped at the look on Gwydion’s face.

“Well?” Rhiannon asked, her arms folded. “Just how do we do this?”

“We follow the instructions from your poem,” Gwydion said coolly. “To refresh your memory, it said:

Y Dawnus, joined together.

Guarded by alder and aspen,

By hawthorn and hazel,

Shall walk the corridors of time”

“W
HICH MEANS?”
R
HIANNON
pressed.

“Which means that you and I are to join hands and kneel,” Gwydion answered, as he took her hands in his. Since Cai was watching very closely, he saw that a faint flush came to Rhiannon’s cheeks, ebbing away swiftly. Even more interesting, a reddish cast also came to Gwydion’s face, but it, too, quickly faded. Cai smiled to himself.

“Now,” Gwydion went on, his voice steady, “the captains will please circle us.”

Achren, Angharad, Trystan and Cai huddled around the two Y Dawnus, forming an outer circle, placing their hands on Rhiannon and Gwydion’s shoulders. Rhiannon and Gwydion bowed their heads and waited.

The afternoon grew hushed—the birds stopped singing and even the sound of rushing water was muted. But beyond that, nothing happened. They stood there a while longer, concentrating as hard as they knew how. But still nothing.

“Gwydion,” Amatheon said gently from outside the circle. “Brother.”

Gwydion’s head came up and his hands tightened on Rhiannon’s. He stared at Amatheon with fear in his silvery eyes. But it was obvious that Gwydion would do what he knew must be done.

At last, he did. He nodded, letting go of one of Rhiannon’s hands, gesturing for Amatheon to kneel on the bank beside them. Amatheon knelt and joined hands with them. Then the three of them again bowed their heads as Cai and the others placed their hands on them.

And then Cai stiffened as a force bore down on him, expelling all the air from his lungs and bringing a curtain of darkness over his eyes.

A
T FIRST EVERYTHING
was dark. Then a shining light spiraled through the darkness, illuminating what were clearly the banks of the River Mawddoch. But this time his companions were gone. There was no sound to any of the images he saw as they silently spun before him.

He saw a small party of men gathered around a woman and a little girl. The woman’s mouth opened in a silent scream and she clutched the arm of a golden-haired man as she pointed to a band of horsemen clothed in blue and brown that were descending the clover-studded hills to the west.

But the golden-haired man shook himself loose from the woman’s crazed hold, throwing her roughly to the ground, breaking from the knot of men, and running to the north as swiftly as he could. His blond hair streamed out behind him, his powerful legs pumping, his shoulders straining against his rich tunic of sapphire blue. Around his neck an ornate torque of sapphires glittered.

One person from the band of descending horsemen pealed off from the rest, going in pursuit of the running man. The pursuer was a woman, and her rich, auburn hair streamed out behind her as she grasped a bow and knocked an arrow to the string. With a fierce cry she let the arrow loose, and it flew across the plain to bury itself in the back of the running man.

He fell to the ground and lay there, moaning. The woman drew her horse up beside him and looked down, her face impassive, as the man struggled to rise. But he could not, for he was wounded too deeply. At last he raised himself to his knees and looked up at the woman. For a moment they stared at each other. There were tears on the man’s handsome face but none on the woman’s. The man nodded his head as though something had been proven beyond a doubt then fell forward, dead.

The woman dismounted and reached out to the dead man’s neck, snapping off the massive torque of silver and sapphire and placing it around her own neck.

The woman remounted, turned her horse and sped to the knot of fighting men without a backward glance at the dead man on the plain. The fight on the shores was brief and fierce, and when the band of horsemen in blue and brown were done, there were none left standing of the group on the banks save the screaming woman and the little girl.

The woman on horseback dismounted and came to stand before the other woman and the little girl. The little girl was a beautiful child with hair of gold and tear-filled eyes of sky blue. The little girl’s mother was also beautiful and she, too, was golden-haired. But her eyes were a hard, emerald green and her mouth was set in a sneer, as she looked at the auburn-haired woman with the sapphire torque.

The golden-haired woman’s face was contorted as she called what were clearly deadly insults at the auburn-haired woman. The men that surrounded them both put their hands to their weapons but at a gesture from the auburn-haired woman they subsided.

The auburn-haired woman gestured at the little girl, offering something. But the golden-haired woman, a smile of triumph on her beautiful, mad face snatched up the child. She backed away from the men, her child in her arms, her back to the river. Step by step she retreated to the rock that overhung the water. The auburn-haired woman cautiously advanced, her hand outstretched, speaking what were perhaps soothing words.

But the golden-haired woman, with a triumphant look on her face, whirled away and leapt over the water, her screaming child in her arms. The two hit the water with a mighty splash. The auburn-haired woman gestured and a number of her warriors leapt into the water, clearly bent on saving the two. But the golden-haired women’s head was swiftly drawn under the water. The men dove again and again, searching for the two, but came up empty-handed.

Then the scene changed. He could tell by the lengthening shadows that some hours had passed. But the auburn-haired woman still stood on the banks, looking into the water. On the plain behind her a bonfire burned, consuming the bodies of the men who had died that day. A smaller fire burned next to the larger one but the auburn-haired woman did not even turn around as the body of the golden-haired man was thrown into the roaring flames.