Shadow of Stone (The Pendragon Chronicles) (9 page)

"What skills?"

"Arms, Father Illtud, arms. I know you were once a warrior too — would you care to join me?"

* * * *

There was something extremely liberating about donning breeches and taking up a sword again.

Even if it was wooden and she no longer knew how to use it.

She didn't need her power of knowing to see that Ricca was making every effort to be patient with her clumsy footwork and weak sword arm. She was much more out of shape than she'd imagined. Unfortunately, there was no magic for this, at least not that she knew.

Yseult wiped the sweat out of her eyes with her forearm and felt the tip of Ricca's wooden sword against her rib cage. She was dead — again.

"Enough," she called, burying the tip of her practice sword in the ground beside the herb garden and leaning her forearms on the hilt.

"You are making progress, Lady Yseult," Ricca said, putting up his own sword.

"Thank you."

She didn't believe it. They were just the polite words of a man-at-arms who owed her obedience. Perhaps she shouldn't even be trying to relearn old battle skills, as out-of-practice as she was. When was the last time she'd wielded a sword? It was after Drystan's death when she had gone with a party of Arthur's companions to Armorica to avenge him.

Straightening, she wiped the sweat off her brow with the arm of her tunic. She did not want to think about that, did not want to think of how the spirit of Drystan had visited her, had stayed with her until the duel with Marcus Cunomorus. She had fought with Drystan's skill — and his conscience. It was Bedwyr who had dealt the killing blow.

She shook her head, as if that could shake the unwanted memories away. It was no use dwelling on the past. It was over, along with the peace that had brought prosperity to Britain. Yseult would practice fighting techniques despite the aches in her shoulders and the backs of her thighs, would make the sword in her hand a natural thing again. Her son would not be the only one to defend their way of life.

A boy dashed through the gate. "Enemy soldiers approach!"

Yseult pulled up her practice weapon and hurried to the herb garden, Ricca beside her. With their bare hands, they each dug a hole in the dirt at the head of a row of herbs and planted their wooden swords in the ground. Then she wrapped her long braids in her shawl and pulled the edge up over her forehead. Kneeling next to the lemon balm, she began plucking sprigs.

Beneath the edge of her shawl, she could see a small band of northern warriors enter the churchyard gate. Illtud came out to greet them and ask their business. After what seemed like an eternity, they all went into the stone church.

She continued to harvest lemon balm and verbena until the northern warriors emerged from the church again and left. Then she rose, wiping her free hand off on her breeches. "How was your harvest, Ricca?"

Her man-at-arms glanced down at the random assortment of herbs he held in his fist. "I don't know, Lady."

Yseult chuckled.

Illtud came down the pathway, lips pursed and brows drawn together. "The northern invaders have 'requested' that I vacate my church," he said when he reached them. "They have brought their own priest and will not need my services."

Yseult sat back on her heels and looked up at him. "Do you think they suspect something?"

The priest shrugged. "I don't know, but it amounts to the same thing. You are not safe here."

"Then my men and I will have to leave. Perhaps we can meet up with Marrek on the road."

"But the Picts have posted guards on the roads to and from Dyn Tagell, and you are now more than an old woman with three sons," Illtud said, indicating the half-dozen men who had snuck into the grounds of the church and who wore the robes of Christian priests.

"What do you suggest we do?" Yseult asked.

"There is little we
can
do other than try to be prepared for every eventuality." Illtud yanked one of the practice swords out of the freshly turned earth, knocked the dirt off with a few sharp raps on the ground, and wiped the hilt off on his frock. With a surprisingly adept toss of the blade, he caught the hilt in his right hand and faced Yseult, sword in hand. "What say you, Yseult? After many years without practice, shall we measure our skills against each other?"

Yseult pulled the other wooden sword out of the ground and faced the priest, weapon in hand.

She inclined her head, smiling. "Done."

* * * *

Ahead of her, Yseult's hounds Bran and Ossar raced through a thick Erainn forest in pursuit of their prey. Tree branches slapped her face as she rode after her dogs, but the pain was nothing to the exhilaration of the chase, the feeling of freedom the hunt gave her.

A hand on her upper arm, shaking her. "Yseult!"

No, her hounds were closing in for the kill — not now!

The shaking grew stronger. "Yseult, wake up!"

The smell of loam and forest mist, the excited barking of her hounds, a perfect moment of chase and imminent death — who could touch her here?

No one. She had to wake up, return to the present.

Yseult pushed herself up on her elbows, blinking and shaking her head, trying to banish the dregs of her dream. Bran and Ossar were long dead, and she was not in Eriu, she was in Britain — the place she had lived for almost twenty years now, the place that had slowly become home, despite the fact that she had not come here of her own free will.

Illtud knelt next to her pallet in a corner of the church. The scraps of moonlight coming through the high windows were not enough for her to see his expression, but as consciousness returned she could feel his fear.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes with the tips of her fingers. "Illtud. What is it?"

"We just had a visitor, one who found it necessary to seek us out under cover of night," the Christian priest said. "It appears the Pictish invaders have received word of whom we are harboring and are intending to attack holy ground to take you, Lady."

Yseult chafed her arms, trying to wake up faster. "Then I must leave. I hope you will forgive me for putting your church in danger."

The warrior-turned-priest shook his head. "The danger came with the raiders themselves. It is a wonder we have been spared so long."

"The fear of holy places," Yseult murmured.

"Yes. But now we must flee, all of us."

Yseult thought quickly. "To reach the nearest woods, we would have to go past the town."

"We will have to risk it."

She stood. "Perhaps not. They will expect us to run away. But what if we were to move closer to the Rock?"

In the faint light, she thought she saw him smile. "The caves?"

"Precisely."

"But how do you propose we get down to the beach with the enemy in control of the land bridge to Dyn Tagell?"

Illtud had a point; the easiest path was from the Neck, not available to them now. There were other paths down the cliffs, but they were perilous enough in the daylight — what chance did they have negotiating them at night?

Sighing, she pushed the strands of hair that had escaped from her braid back from her forehead. "We will have to take one of the other paths."

"Wouldn't that be too dangerous?"

Yseult looked at the priest who had once given her the cuttings for her first herb garden here in Britain. "What would be more dangerous — attempting the cliffs or remaining where we are?"

Illtud's chuckle was a welcome sound in the dark, given the threat morning might bring. "By all means, let us attempt the cliffs."

* * * *

There was little moonlight, but perhaps that was for the best, in case a Pict watchman chanced to glance towards the open fields between the church and the cliffs. Here on this empty, windswept space, there was nothing for them to hide behind: no bush, no tree, no house. They wore their darkest clothes and crouched low to the ground as they scampered from the protective walls of the churchyard to the nearly hidden pathway down to the beach. Yseult did her best to cloak them all in an illusion of shifting shadow in starlight, but she didn't know how far her powers would reach for a jumble of three dozen refugees.

Even when they dropped down below the rim of the cliff's edge, they did not dare light a torch — it would be immediately visible from the promontory.

"There are a number of caves in the cove," Yseult whispered to Illtud. Drystan had hidden somewhere in these caves during his period of madness after his marriage to the Armorican princess — one of the many times in their relationship that they had done their best to make a future together impossible. She pushed the memory away, concentrating on what was necessary here, now. "There's a very large cave beneath Dyn Tagell that is only accessible at low tide. We would be safest there."

She felt him nod. "I have heard of it," he said. "But I have never had any need to hide in caves before."

"Lucky for you," she said, smiling.

For the dangerous descent, they tied lengths of rope around their waists, hoping that the group could save the individual if one of them slipped. Of course, it was always possible that one false step might rip all of them to their deaths on the rocks below. Yseult wished she had a power that would help in a situation like this. Instead, she would have to lead the way with little more than the senses given to any man or woman, while Ricca held up the rear, watching for pursuit and ensuring that no one on his end of the rope chain would plunge to a rocky, wet death.

The surf loud in her ears, Yseult stepped sideways along the path, her back flattened against the cliff. "Follow me, slowly and carefully," she called out, no longer worried about being to loud — she had to compete with the sound of the waves crashing just to be heard by the few dozen people behind her. "As I move forward, I will give a slight tug to my rope. Each of you are to do the same."

She felt their fear, but also their willingness and trust. She glanced down at the dark ocean churning beneath them and hoped she would be able to earn that trust this night.

Book II

Love Ignored

Chapter 6

"And who shall give thee any counsel that may avail, seeing that there is no force that may prevail whereby to come unto her in the Castle of Tintagel? For it is situate on the sea, and is on every side encompassed thereby, nor none other entrance is there save such as a narrow rock doth furnish, the which three armed knights could hold against thee, albeit thou wert standing there with the whole realm of Britain beside thee."

Geoffrey of Monmouth,
History of the Kings of Britain

Cador's feet were cold. His hands too. And he couldn't get comfortable on the thin bedroll, the only cushion between his back and the hard ground. It had been half a lifetime since he'd last ridden into battle and endured the discomfort of sleeping in a tent each night. At least as the ostensible leaders of this campaign, he and Gawain
had
a tent, while many of their men were wrapped in their cloaks near the embers of the fire.

They were camped outside Uxelis — only three hours hard ride to Dyn Tagell. What would they find? Was Yseult safe?

Given his worry over Yseult, Cador would have thought himself immune to physical discomfort, but there it was — his back ached, pushing the existential fear for her to the back of his mind. Ever since he had recognized Dyfyr as one of Yseult's men, Cador felt as if his mouth had turned to straw and his stomach to splinters of glass. Now the numbness in his fingers was more immediate than imaginary disaster. Nonetheless, he stared into the darkness of the tent he shared with Gawain and worried. About Yseult. About Kustennin. About the future. About Arthur. About Britain. About his life.

Saying goodbye to Cwylli had been painful and awkward; he would have avoided speaking with her at all, guilty coward that he was, but she had sought him out in her shy and tentative way. He hoped he had not been too harsh. Knowing how to treat a former "lover," however brief the interlude of sexual congress, lay totally outside his experience. And then there was her swelling belly. He trusted she was right that the babe she carried could not be his.

He turned on his side, hoping that his left hip could take the cold better than his back and he would finally be able to sleep. If only they could have anticipated the attack from Ystrad Clud, could have prevented the northern warriors from getting a foothold in the rich lands along the Sabrina Estuary in the first place. But no one had expected such a move — despite the fact that a generation before Picts had regularly raided the richer lands of southern Britain; despite the fact that famine was growing in the northern kingdoms with the bad harvests of the last years. Recent harsh winters and wet summers had affected the affluent south less than the north, where the growing season was shorter to start with.

"Cador, could you not find it in your heart to stop tossing and turning?" Gawain murmured beside him.

Despite his worries, Cador smiled into the darkness. "I was not tossing and turning."

"Good, then sighing. Heavily. Would you care to share a wineskin?"

Cador threw back the covers and sat up on his bedroll. "Excellent idea."