The Beast of Caer Baddan (37 page)

Leola walked on for what she knew to be half a day but felt like an eternity. Her feet stung with every step, a piercing pain shot up and down her lower back, and the pounding in her head grew so loud that she winced from the noise.

She came to a sloping rowan tree, lowered herself down before it and leaned her head back on its trunk.

At least I can rest now, and don't have to listen to that horrible woman
.

As the sun lowered in the sky, the air grew cool and pleasant. All of the leaves were changing colors and many flew off and floated to the ground.

Leola closed her eyes and listened to the gentle whistling of the wind.

I could just sit here forever
.

The steady beating of hooves roused Leola from her pleasant nap. She looked up at the road to see a caravan of riders and carriages approach.

That is King Irael, come to yell at me for running away!

The caravan stopped, and Leola watched as the king climbed out of one of the carriages and walked towards her. Gytha came running up behind him.

“Pleasant day, is it not?” he said in Brythnic, and Gytha quickly translated it.

Leola let out a tearful laugh. “You shall have them arrest me?” she asked.

“No, no,” he replied. “Unless you wish it.”

She laughed again, more gaiety seeping into her voice.

Perhaps he is not so cruel as his sister
.

King Irael lowered himself to the grass by her side.

“Ugh. I'm far too old for this,” he said to himself.

She thought his Latin words were funny.

“You are not very old, King,” she replied in Saxon.

When he heard Gytha's translation, he raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“You know Latin?” he asked, speaking once more in that language.

Leola hesitated, not knowing what she should say.

“I understand some of it, but I cannot speak it,” she said in Saxon.

“That is an excellent start,” he replied. “For many people can say this or that sentence, but do not understand when someone else speaks even simple things.”

Leola nodded.

“Owain was a great master of languages,” the king continued, looking her face over as if to be sure she understood. “He learned Latin and Brythonic first. I hired a Gewissae scribe to teach him Saxon, and then a Scotti Eire poet to teach him the Eire accent.”

That explains his impeccable speech!

Leola was now positive that Owain had known exactly what he was saying when he called her “Beauty.”

He planned to marry me when he took me to the stream to wash! Maybe even before that! Perhaps he had come to the mead hall, looking for a wife! And picked me!

Her head spun.

“When he was eleven, I tried to teach him Greek, for I had studied that language as a boy,” the king continued, “but he protested. 'Da' he said, ‘no one speaks Greek!' I relented and sent him to Lerion to learn Pictii from a Noevantae Pictii who lived there. I told him he could not race chariots until he had conquered that language. He was fluent in nine months.” King Irael shook his head as if utterly amazed at his son. “There was nothing he could not do when he set his mind to it.”

Leola knew the validity of these words, for Owain had convinced her to marry him, her enemy, with neither threat nor demand.

For a moment, they just sat against the tree trunk and breathed in the fresh clean air. King Irael did not seem to mind making the guards and servants wait, and Leola did not care.

“I remember the first time Owain ran away,” the king said. “He must have been four years old. He went about this far, but the servants looking for him did not see him and passed on by, because he had climbed up one of these trees. His mother was horrified and thought he had been kidnapped.”

He laughed, but Leola noticed the sadness and loss in his green eyes.

“That one, I think,” and the king pointed to a distant rowan tree.

“He liked trees,” Leola replied, not sure what to say to a man who had lost his child.

King Irael looked both surprised and impressed at her words.

“He did,” he replied. “He loved trees. My grandfather gave him a blessing on his deathbed, that six trees should protect him.”

Leola thought on this for a moment.

“The rowan, the oak, the alder, the hazel, the willow, the ash,” she said.

“You are correct,” the king said, even more amazed.

“Why did he run off?” Leola asked, for she had become far too curious too hold her tongue.

“He wished to see the North Country,” the king replied, with great amusement, “and was too young to understand that the North Country was very far to the north."

“Did he ever get there, to the North Country?” she asked. She too did not know how far north it was.

“He did for war, many years later.”

War.

The word resonated in her sensitive ears.

“My father was in Gaul for war,” King Irael continued. “My brother Victor and I were over there as well, at different places. He was my mother's favorite, and a stunning warrior.”

Why are you telling me this?

“I was one and twenty, newly married, and in command of more soldiers than I knew what to do with. At first, everything went well.
Victories, plenty of food and supplies. Then some of my soldiers contracted an infectious fever. Soon everyone was ill, myself with them. My father and brother were conquering the Roman Empire, and I was lying flat on my back with a burning forehead!”

He laughed then and shook his head, as if he still did not believe that it happened, and Leola had to laugh with him.

“But then the real disaster came.” he said. “My father was dead, died in battle, then my brother was also killed. I was helpless.”

She felt at once that they were very much alike. They had both been through so much sadness and yet did not pass around meaningless blame.

“But you survived,” she said, wanting him to spoil what she assumed was the end of the story.

“Oh, true,” the king said. “I survived, but I could not help those at home fast enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“On hearing of my father's and Victor's deaths, my mother, fell to pieces. She never recovered from it.”

His eye swelled up with tears that threatened to spill out and run down his weathered face.

“My wife,” he said clearing his throat, “Elen, was with child, with Owain, and could do nothing to help her. My grandfather was already quite old by that time. All of the concerns of the house, and the farms, the city, and kingdom, they fell to my sister Severa. Our other siblings were too young to be of any real assistance, and so, Severa did everything. She ordered the steward, saw to the mayor, the captain of the guard, and took care of my wife, our mother, our grandfather, and our younger brother and sisters. She had a hard life. She was forced to grow up too fast. She had to care for everyone else, to protect everyone else. Do not judge her too harshly.”

At first Leola could not reply, but looking on his concerned expression, she knew that he wished for an honest answer, even if it should not be said to a great cyning.

“King-”

But he seemed to guess Leola's words before Gytha translated them.

“Call me ‘father,’ Leola,” he said, interrupting her speech.

Leola looked away, not knowing how to respond.

Deep in her heart she wanted to be his daughter, wanted him to be her father. She had not had a father or a mother since small pox had spread through her village claiming their precious lives. From that day on, she had not belonged anywhere or with anyone. And here now, sitting beside her in the cool grass, was a Britisc cyning, a ruler of her peoples' hated enemy, telling her that she was welcome, wanted, and loved.

Leola felt the tears forming in her own little eyes.

“I could be more tolerant,” she said at last, “if I did not feel constantly attacked.”

The king gave a long nod.

“I have spoken to my sister,” he said. “She has agreed to return home tomorrow morning. Will you come back with me?”

Leola stared at him in shock.

This powerful cyning of the Britisc was asking if she would stay. Not telling, not ordering, not having his guards and servants grab her and force her into the carriage, but gently, humbly asking. 

“Whatever you want to do, we shall do,” he said. “Whatever you wish to eat, we shall eat. Only please, come back with me.”

His tender words stole the breath from her throat, as she realized that she did not want to be anywhere but in Baddan with him, her father.

“Very well,” Leola said, almost in awe.

King Irael helped her up to her feet, and they walked back to the road where the carriages were waiting.

Owain tried to roll over but found he could not feel anything but tortuous pain burning over his entire body.

“You are not dead, I think,” said a voice he did not know.

“Da,” Owain moaned.

“Owain! Get out of there!”

Owain's quick ears caught the commanding voice of his father, but the knights were already on him. He knew that he could not dodge all of their strikes.

Owain seized one knight in his tracks and pushed him onto another, knocking them both over. He beat back the other two with quick swings of his weapon and strikes with his shield. His blade found one knight’s shoulder, and another’s face. They fell over in the grass, screaming in pain.

The two knights, he had knocked over on the first assault, regained their footing and attacked.
They chased him around the field trying to corner him between them, but he was undaunted even from walking backwards in circles, and would not be surrounded. The moment one knight left his body open, Owain struck him hard with the blunt of his sword. The other knight tried to hook Owain’s weapon with the guard of his own sword, but Owain twisted it away and kicked the man over. Owain’s clear sweeps sliced through the knight’s head.

The knight Owain had struck down with his weapon’s blunt side, kicked Owain’s legs from under him. Owain came down on top of the wounded knight and cut though his neck, taking his head off.

His head stung and his ears rang with the fierce sound of beating iron. He felt the heat of the summer sun on his back and the sharp light bouncing off the metal stung his eyes. His hands and throat felt raw, and his arm seemed weak and useless under the weight of his sword. He shook his head as if that motion might clear his muddled thoughts.

Owain heard the sound of hooves, yet could not figure out where the noise was coming from.

“Owain!” came his father’s voice. “Lord Wynn is on you!”

Owain sprang to his feet to see the traitor himself driving his chariot straight at him.

“Come then!” Owain cried.

He crouched down and waited.

When the chariot came close, Owain took two quick steps before jumping high into the air, over the charging war pony. His hard leather boot came down on his enemy, before the lord could raise a defensive shield. Lord Wynn went flying backwards off of the chariot and rolled in the grass.

Owain went rolling in the caked dirt, only stopping his motion with a firm planted palm on the ground. He then looked on the lord where he lay, but when the man did not rise or move, Owain counted it as a victory.