Shadow of the King (18 page)

words. His father was ageing, though he was barely forty and two years. Grey

was flecking his hair, his skin was drawn, tense. He looked ill. Sympathy

lurched into the son. He made to step forward, to offer his hand to his father.

The crutch tapped on the stone floor, and the man, Ambrosius, involuntarily

recoiled. The brief moment of reconciliation was lost, tossed away.

Some half-heard rumour that would hurt his father turned from thought to

words and Cadwy snarled, “I would almost think this was a planned scheme of

Lady Winifred’s, were I only to see her purpose.” His father’s face had drained

paler, he plunged on, determined to ram the knife deeper. “She needs to be rid

of her brother Vitolinus, needs also to ensure Arthur never returns, the both to

make way for her son. And she has always used you for her purpose. Is that how

it is this time also, father? Save she would not want me back with you, would

want to continue the further soiling of Lady Gwenhwyfar’s name.”

Cadwy froze when his father said, with a tone of ice hatred, “On the

contrary. The Lady Winifred wants you as far as possible from the queen’s bed.

In her own, in fact. I am considering agreeing to her suggestion of alliance. Of

marriage with you.”

1 0 4 H e l e n H o l l i c k

Stunned, speechless. Cadwy stared at his father; then the anger came, the

outrage. “I’ll not be ordered into such a marriage. You shame me, Sir, shame

me!” The path was narrow, on a steep incline and wet from the rain. Cadwy

could not, leaning on his crutch so, walk fast away, but he made an effort at it.

“It would be a way of showing you were with me, boy, not the Pendragon,”

Ambrosius called.

Cadwy stabbed his free hand into the air, an obscene gesture.

“You will obey me, boy!”

Cadwy halted, spun around, his crutch skidding, flying out. “I am no boy. I

am a man grown and I choose my own life. My own wife.”

Ambrosius strode up to him, pushed past, sneered into his face, “You prove

you can be a man, then happen I will treat you as one.” He stalked away, angry

that he had lost his temper, angry that he had mentioned this idiocy about

Winifred. Damn the woman, this was her doing, putting the fool idea into his

head. Never would he want her as a daughter-by-law. Yet, yet, it would mark

Cadwy in his place to enforce such a thing. He marched on, his body screaming

from the pains shooting up and down his legs and spine. Marched on, angry.

Try as he might, he could not find love for his son.

Twenty-Nine

Unfortunate that it need be this night that the Lady Branwen,

haughty abbess of the Glass Isle, discovered to where Ragnall so

often disappeared.

Chance brought events colliding together on a course set for harsh words.

Lady Branwen arose from her bed shortly before dawn with a headache

thumping as if all the horses of hell were pounding across her forehead. These

past days had been full of distress for her—the Isle in turmoil with the influx

of so many come for this Council; and in consequence a few too many of her

women turning attention to the lure of the outside world rather than God’s

pure Word. And her own memories, long forgotten, had re-surged, unbidden,

unwelcome. Heavy with lack of sleep, she splashed cold water on her face,

dressed, elected to walk a while. The freshness of a new day might chase the

weariness from her. She would welcome time, alone, to think.

Without making disturbance, she let herself out of her private chamber,

slipped past the little building that housed the sleeping nuns. Her boots scuffed

the dew-wet grass, leaving silvered tracks. To her left, among the thicket of ash

and alder, a few birds were tuning their morning song. Ahead, the Tor rose

devil-black against the paling grey of early dawn. You could never escape the

presence of the Tor, for it glowered there, a constant reminder of the Heathen,

God’s cursed. Trying to ignore it, to pretend it was not there, she walked up

the rain-muddied lane, setting a good pace despite the soft footing.

It was Gwenhwyfar who had aroused these memories, she who had brought

these troubles flooding back into mind. Always, in the past, it had been

Gwenhwyfar who vexed Branwen so. She breathed deep as she walked, filling

her lungs with the crisp air. She had known Gwenhwyfar from childhood, for

she, Branwen, had been wife to one of her brothers, the second eldest-born

of Cunedda’s large brood. Ah, so many of them dead now. Cunedda himself,

her husband, Osmail; their second-born son. Why had Gwenhwyfar come

1 0 6 H e l e n H o l l i c k

here to haunt her with the past? Stirring those things that ought to have been

buried deep.

Branwen halted, tossed her face up to the swift-lightening sky. Eyes closed,

head back, arms spread wide, she pleaded in her mind for God to give her

comfort, to ease the ache in her heart. It had been His will her man had been

taken, that she should remain here, in this mist-bound place. His decree she

ought raise His word above the old beliefs that so obstinately would not die.

But why, why did these wretched memories have to return?

She opened her tired eyes, looked up, straight at the ancient miz-maze

path that descended from the Tor and her head cleared, her brows furrowed,

lips thinned. Hussy! Heathen-spawned whore! An anger more bitter than

any poisoned berry poured through Branwen, a choking, all-grasping, all-

consuming rage.

Ragnall, making her way carefully down the dew-wet steepness of the slope,

saw the abbess standing in the mud-rutted lane. She stopped, fear gripping her.

Here, on the slope of the Tor, there was nowhere to hide, to run. She searched

frantically back up the path behind her, up to the summit where the Stone was

showing clearer, blacker, against the sky. Had Gwenhwyfar gone, descended

on the other side? Alone, she had to face the wrath of Lady Branwen.

The girl had known that one day she would be discovered, knew the conse-

quences. Until this morning, she had taken such great care never to be seen,

never to walk on these slopes unless the safety of darkness cloaked her, for the

Tor was forbidden to the Holy Sisters. It was a place of evil, and it had many

times been made clear that harsh punishment would be meted to any who

flaunted a preference for the darkness of the devil. Only one, to Ragnall’s

knowledge, had broken that rule. A girl, much of her own age, three years

past…Ragnall shuddered, tried hard to blot out the fearful memory of what

had happened to that girl.

The abbess hurried up to her, her face contorted with the indignation of one

defied and disobeyed, her breath hot, eyes wide, blazing disgust and anger. Her

fingers clamped around Ragnall’s wrist, dragged her without pity or care away

from the place of the Goddess.

The girl wanted to scream, wanted to plead for forgiveness, to defend herself,

but no words would come as she slithered and fell, dragged behind the enraged

woman. A scream, so terrified, so engulfing, was lodged in her throat. If she

opened her mouth it would be let out, never to stop, for too clearly, far too

clearly, could she see that other girl’s death.

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 1 0 7

As a child, Ragnall had fallen into the flames of the hearth-fire of her father’s

Hall. The terrible scars on her body were nothing to those that remained in her

mind, nothing to the screams that still choked her in the dark hours of night

when her hand and face and body throbbed from the remembered pain of that

terrible day. Ragnall knew the pain of fire and could see before her eyes, as

the Abbess Branwen took her back to the holy place of the Mother Mary, that

other girl’s tortured death by burning.

Thirty

Gwenhwyfar elected to stay a while longer, savouring the unique,

comforting solitude the Tor offered. She was in no hurry to make her

way back down to the Christian settlement—was in no hurry to be further

humiliated and angered by the arrogance and ambition of men who were plot-

ting to destroy her husband.

Although many came to the Glass Isle for the benefit of their soul, earthly

curiosity still sat with a greater need on their shoulders. This calling of Council

had attracted an unusual amount of visitors to the holy place, some of whom,

it had to be admitted, were more interested in the ramifications of politics

than the peace and blessings of the Christian God. The settlement was a small,

clustered town of taverns, dwellings, and trading stalls, set cheek by jowl

against the timber-built abbey with its attendant chapels and buildings. They

slept where they could find space, crowding the taverns or guest places within

the monastery; word had spread that this Council met with an intention to

overthrow the Pendragon. They gathered with a morbid interest in the verbal

murder of their king.

Gwenhwyfar sat looking eastward, her back comfortable against the granite

of the Stone, watching as the sky paled, the light spreading like an army on the

march across the Summer Land. Darker clouds were gathering in the distance.

It would rain again soon. Once she thought she heard a girl’s scream, but the

wind was powerful up here; it could as easily have been some small animal

taken by an owl. She felt weary, with no energy or spirit. Was it her recent

illness that caused such languor? Or an inner failing? Arthur was losing his

kingdom and there was nothing—nothing—she could do to stop it save wait

and watch. And hope he would come home again, soon.

The sun was rising, a red-golden, warming orb. A rain-laden mist rose,

coming from nowhere, covering the sunken lands that nestled lower than the

high-tide level away over at the coast. It was a mist that swelled with the onrush

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 1 0 9

of day, breathing over the willow and alder-pocked grassland that even in the

hottest days of summer held soggy, bog-bound areas of waterlogged marsh.

The birds were busy at this first coming of the day: the cries of the lapwing,

the piping of plovers mixing with the harsh calls of rooks and the shrill chat-

tering of starlings. Gwenhwyfar closed her eyes, rested her head on the Stone.

She was so tired, so bone-weary, heartachingly tired.

The mist had gone when she next looked; she must have slept. Day had

begun in earnest and she was of a sudden hungry. Raking a hand through

her tousled hair, she came to her feet, took one last, long gaze around the

panorama of land that belonged to her husband. This was Arthur’s own held

dominion, these marshes of the Severn Rivers. And over there, where the hills

were smudged against the skyline, lay Dumnonia, also his, and beyond that,

Comovii—and the Land’s End, a few, wave-tossed islands…and the sea. The

sea over which he had gone. Gwenhwyfar fancied she could hear it, hear the

swoosh and rush of waves darting on a shingle shore, smell its salt tang. Maybe

it was only the sound of the gulls that brought the fancy, those birds that, even

in these finer days, preferred to ramble for food among the dykes and marshes.

Slowly, she picked her way down from the Tor, ambled along the lane,

idling here and there to admire a plant, watch a bird. This day would need be

faced, and the next. And the next. It was how she was surviving this vast, empty

loneliness, staggering from one day through to the next.

“My Lady! Lady Gwenhwyfar!”

She stopped, startled, as she lifted the latch that would open the door into the

tavern where she lodged. Turned her head at the urgent calling of her name, saw

Cadwy running, as best he might, up the narrow street that sneaked between

the outer wall and this row of higgle-piggle traders’ shops and dwellings.

She stood, waiting for him, took his arm to steady him as he came up to

her, panting, red-faced, distressed: He gasped a few incoherent words, none,

save the name of the girl Ragnall, making sense. Firm, a little irritable, she

commanded him to regain breath, start where things made sense.

He shook his head, waved his hand, urgent. There was no time! No time!

“Ragnall,” he gasped again. “Caught coming from Tor.” He had his hand

on his chest, trying to ease the pounding of his heart and the burning of his

lungs. “You were up there. You told me you were going there. Did you meet

her? Ragnall? You must do something!” His frantic eyes sought Gwenhwyfar’s,

willing her to understand the urgency, the importance. He swallowed, tried

again. “I have been looking for you. You must stop this!”

1 1 0 H e l e n H o l l i c k

Something was terribly wrong with the girl Ragnall, that much she realised.

“Stop what?” she asked, calmly.

“They intend to burn her. They accuse her of being a devil child!”

Irritation flashed into Gwenhwyfar’s mind and expression. She was tired,