The Beast of Caer Baddan (50 page)

Owain was shocked. His mind did not have time to contemplate this, however, as the startled shriek of the village children forced him to return to his present situation.

He looked over to see children staring at him, their eyes wide with horror, and their little mouths dropped open.

“Mam, look!” one cried.
“A monster!”

“Hush!” his mother said in rebuke. “He has a nasty scar. Leave the poor man alone.”

“He looks like an Ankou!”

“Hush!”

Owain could not respond or even understand this. These children were horrified of him, thought he was an Ankou, an agent of the god of death. The idea was too ridiculous, and yet here were the children screaming at him and hiding behind some crates, as if they feared he would strike them dead with a glance.

“Is he going to eat us?” one asked the other.

The mother, who was bent over her laundry, rebuked them, and glanced up at Owain with a pitying eye. No admiration, or awe, or delight, as Owain was accustomed to seeing in the eyes of women. Nothing could he detect but simple pity.

Owain was too uneasy to stay in one place. He strode down the main street with quick steps, until he found the village smith pounding away at some new-forming tools.

“God keep you,” Owain said to him. “Can you direct me to Caer Baddan?”

“Belanus and Darama, Man!” the smith cried, looking up at Owain. “You look like you walked out of Hades! What happened to you?”

“I...I...” but Owain was too surprised and confused to answer. “I was in a war...”

“A wonder you are not dead, looking like that! The spirits of the ancestors protect you!”

Owain was too flabbergasted to feel insulted. He had never before been treated like this.

People liked him, had always liked him,
had always liked to look at him. He had won the hearts of every common person on the island. Even his enemies, the Pictii, the Eire, the Angle, and the Dumnonni all agreed that he was a fine looking man. Owain Prince of Glouia was renowned both for his victories and his handsome face.

In an instant, he felt that his whole sense of self died within him.

“What am I then, if not Owain of Baddan?” he muttered to himself.

“You take that path to the highway,” the man said, answering Owain’s original question. “The highway you take-”

“West,” Owain said, too impatient to be gone to allow that man to finish speaking. “I thank you, good man.”

He turned immediately and followed the dirt road north, leaving the peering eyes of the village people behind him.

His steps grew heavy in his feet and his heart sank to the pit of his stomach. It was as if something precious and vital had died within him. Although he walked and breathed, he was only half of himself, a vague shadow of what he was supposed to be. He knew not what had happened, but something had occurred and changed everything about him.

Chapter Forty: Solstice Feast

Leola looked on the people one at a time, but each face gave her an added fear. The great hall was filled with the brightly dressed rulers of the land, all people whom she needed to please, that she knew she must make love her. It was just as Queen Madge had said, she was sure. If she
was  patient, humble, and kind, they would accept her.

But what about those who, like Queen Severa, hated her for her low birth?
Would not speaking in broken Latin only show them that she was uneducated, backwards, and stupid?

“My daughter,” King Irael said as if he knew the words that were forming in her mind, “let your thoughts be positive. Once this is finished, you won’t have to do it again until June.”

“I can’t do it now,” she replied, her fear revealed in her trembling voice.

“You must let them greet you."

“Why?” Leola whispered. “I do not belong here.”

“But you must,” he said. “When I am dead, these people shall make Euginius king in my place. The more they respect you now, the easier it shall be for him then.”

Leola did not like him speaking of his death, but did not argue.

He led her down the steps into the crowd, but the rulers of Glouia made way for them as they went.

“Lord Meirchion,” he said, introducing the first ruler they came too. “My daughter-in-law, Princess Leola.”

The lord bowed, and Leola tried to do the same, but King Irael held her upper arm in such a way as to prevent any movement.

Leola greeted him in a clear but quiet tone, and he responded in a pleased voice.

I can do this. If King Emrys was a commoner and people elected him to rule over them, then surely I can greet people only twice a year.

King Irael led her on to the next couple.

“Lord Eisu and Queen
Deire,” he said, introducing them. “My daughter-in-law, Princess Leola.”

Leola swallowed hard as she thought on that horrible conversation the lord had with his brother many weeks before. She could still hear their hushed voices plotting the king's death.

“God keep you, Lord Eisu, Queen Deire,” Leola said, forcing the words from her mouth.

Lord Eisu stared at her with wide, horrified eyes and could not find his tongue.

You now know that it was I who had found you out!

Leola prayed that no further retaliation would then be bestowed on her.

“Princess Leola,” Queen Deire said, hurried as if to try to cover up her husband's ill manners. “I was glad to hear that the babies are well and that you are quite recovered.”

“Thank you,” Leola replied with a sunny smile.

In spite of the queen's kind words, Leola still did not feel comfortable with her command of Latin to speak to these strangers beyond the simple phrases she had rehearsed. Where her anger at Prince Britu and her comfort with Queen Madge had both loosened her tongue, her self-consciousness here in the busy feasting hall made any true conversation impossible.

If only I had been born to Britisc princes instead of Gewissae farmers, then I'm sure Queen Deire and I would be great friends.

But the thought of her loving parents brought their deaths fresh to her mind.

What selfish person wishes for other parents when their own were so good? Many people in Gewisland would have thanked the gods a thousand times over if they could have had a temperate father and a patient mother such as mine had been.

“You are doing quite well,” King Irael said, and his voice startled her back to the present affair.

I must focus on this, for he is correct. I do not know when he might leave this life, and if these people should hate me, it shall not be well for my sons.

King Irael directed her on to other lords and their queens, and princes and their princesses. Leola smiled at them and greeted them in the clearest Latin she could muster, until they had reached their seats at the head table. King Irael gave a speech praising the lords, their people, and their ancestors, and ordered the boar brought in.

Leola was relieved at
this, for she felt as long as the guests were eating they were not looking at the head table, staring at her.

When the hour was late and the rulers of Glouia had returned to their own homes, Leola ventured a word.

“What was the feast for, Father?” she asked.

The king laughed. “What are all feasts for? To waste valuables on people you must please but do actually not like, in order to reassert yourself as more powerful than them.”

Leola had to laugh with him.

“Or perhaps you wish to encourage them to be better warriors before a battle,” she said, thinking on the Gewissae feast where she had served the warriors over eight months before.

“No, no battle, I beg you,” and the king shook his head. “I shall tell you. It used to be a religious day in pagan times, worship to Taranis the god of the sun, among other things, and also to new life. The fires were put out signifying death. Then the chieftain would light his fire on the highest hill, and the heads of the families around would then light a torch from that fire and return to their own homes and use that torch to relight all of the fires in the houses. Then everything would be bright and new. New light. New life. The old god dies with the extinguished fires, and the new god rises forth with the new kindled flames. But that was in the old days.”

Leola thought about the Feast of Yeole which she was sure must be going on in Gewisland. She remembered how they would slaughter the goats and offer thanksgiving to the ancient god, Thunaer. Then they sang songs in praise of his victories over mythological giants, his mighty war hammer that only he could lift, and his bright red hair.

These two peoples, the Gewissae and the Britannae, seemed so different. Their customs, clothing, food, and beliefs appeared to be nothing alike, and she marveled at it.

“And now?”
Leola asked. “Now that you are Christian, what is the feast for?”

“It is just a tradition, a day of commemoration,” the king said.
“Perhaps renewing our ties with each other. But no deity is restored to life this night.”

“My King!
My King!” one of the gate guards cried, as he burst the front doors wide open.

“What is it?” King Irael asked.

“It is he! It is the prince!”

“Prince Britu, my nephew?”

“No! The dominae! Prince Owain! Your son! He has returned!”

King Irael stood there as if turned to stone.

“Owain,” he whispered. “Can it be true?”

His hands trembled, searching for the table at his side to lean his heavy body on. Leola took his hand and placed it firmly on the table for him, but he did not seem to notice this gesture.

“My son is dead,” he muttered. “This is some dream.”

Leola’s eyes found the door that the gate guard held open and gazed on the stranger who stepped into the hall.

He wore a linen tunic and leggings with his colorful wool brat wrapped around him like a mantle. His armor was gone. The rings on his massive fingers were even dirtier than his hands, and the gold chain around his neck was tucked under his large mantle, hidden from view.

He looked nothing like the warrior who had dressed so meticulously for battle, like the prince who had commanded her to follow him, or like the lover who had gently kissed her collarbone and whispered “Beauty” in her hair.

But as Leola caught his steady emerald gaze, she knew him to be that man.

“Owain!”
King Irael's voice was faint, as if scarcely breathing to utter a sound. “You have returned to me!”