The Emerald Flame Page 15

  Branwen felt her cheeks burning. “I have no idea what you mean,” she said. “And if we’re speaking of ardent gazes, Rhodri—what of the mooncalf eyes you make at Blodwedd!”

  A look of pain crossed his face. “She is an owl, Branwen,” he said. “She can never love me.”

  Branwen winced to have hurt him. “I’m sorry; that was unkind,” she said gently. “And I hope she will prove you wrong. But you are mistaken about my feelings for Iwan, and his for me. He is conceited and artful and annoying! He could never love another as deeply as he loves himself! I would need to be a great fool indeed to harbor affection for one such as he.”

  Rhodri looked thoughtfully at her, leaving a silence, it seemed, into which she might pour more words. But she had nothing more to say.

  “Your fellows await you,” Rhodri said at last, and Branwen had the disturbing feeling that he had seen through the shield of her thoughts and had looked into the hidden rooms of her heart.

  She turned, glad to bring the conversation to an end.

  On the edge of the forest, five people stood waiting. And as she walked toward them, she saw Blodwedd hold up her crystal to the rising crescent moon, and she saw the rainbow heart of the stone blaze out through the owl-girl’s fingers in shafts of ever-changing many-colored light.

  Branwen took from her pouch the two crystals she had still to distribute, along with two slender lengths of linen.

  It had been Rhodri’s idea to enfold the stones in linen strips and to tie them around the wrists. That way the stones would be in constant contact with skin, but the hands would be free.

  Already, Branwen, Dera, and Iwan had on their linen wristbands—and Blodwedd had removed her stone from hers only for a few moments to watch it shine in the moonlight.

  “They must be constantly against your flesh,”

  she warned Gavan and Bryn. “Their power will fail if they are not. And remember—they do not make us invisible…. They merely give us the ability to go unnoticed so long as we do not draw attention to ourselves.”

  She put the first crystal into the linen strip and made to tie it to Bryn’s wrist. But at the last moment he drew away, his face tight with unease.

  Gavan offered his arm. “Here, tie mine first,” he said.

  Branwen looped the cloth around the warrior’s wrist, the crystal snug in its folds. She wound it twice and tied it tight.

  “See, boy?” Gavan said gruffly. “I’m not burned nor struck down by dark sorcery. Now—wear a stone or I’ll pick another and leave you to tend the horses!”

  With great reluctance Bryn allowed the final stone to be secured against his wrist, but Branwen could see how it disturbed him to have the thing touching his flesh.

  “Are you content?” she asked him.

  “It is cold,” he mumbled, tugging fretfully at her knots.

  “It is,” she agreed. “The stones are always cold. But likely enough you’ll have other things to occupy your thoughts before long.”

  Soon enough, they would have plenty of other concerns.

  This time they were planning to enter a Saxon stronghold armed and ready to fight if they must. All six bore shields and weapons, as well as armor of leather and chain mail.

  Branwen turned to those they would be leaving behind, drawing her sword and lifting it in a final salute. Fain was perched upon Rhodri’s shoulder, the bird’s black eyes reflecting the crescent moon. Rhodri’s hand rose in response to Branwen’s gesture, his skin white in the moonlight.

  And so, silent as a night breeze, the six companions stepped off the hilltop and began the long walk to General Ironfist’s encampment.

  20

  AS THEY APPROACHED the bridge over the river, Branwen saw that the gates of Chester were shut fast for the night. Torches burned brightly on the walls, the light reflecting ruby off the helmets and spear tips of the guards who patrolled the town’s outer defenses.

  Moving in complete silence, they filed across the bridge, keeping to such shadow as there was. Branwen went first, warily watching the guards high above her, praying that no head would turn toward them in sudden interest.

  There was a clatter at her back, and she froze, turning, her face grim.

  Bryn had dropped his spear.

  “Do not move!” Branwen whispered.

  They all became as still as roosting shadows.

  Gavan’s voice was a soft growl. “Fool of a boy!”

  Branwen turned her head and peered up at the wall. One guard was leaning over the timber palisade, staring down at the bridge.

  She heard a voice.

  “Sighard? What is it?”

  “I thought I heard a noise—but I see nothing.”

  “Likely it’s one of the thain’s drunken louts falling into the river! There’s a great feast in the hall tonight, curse our luck.”

  “Aye, I know; and I’d rather be quaffing ale than wearing away my feet up here on the watch! What enemy would dare assail us here, Eanfrid, with Ironfist’s entire army clamped to our side? It would be sheer madness, and even the mountain rats of the west are not such fools. Why, they would need to come here in their thousands to even …” But then the guard moved away from the edge of the wall, and Branwen could no longer hear what passed between him and the other.

  A great feast? Interesting. In honor of the return of General Ironfist, no doubt—although Saxons needed little excuse for debauched carousals. But it might work in their favor—it was during one such revelry that Branwen had previously caught Ironfist unawares. Maybe she could work the trick a second time?

  She gestured for the others to move again. Even in the darkness she could see the deep flush on Bryn’s face. Good! Maybe it will teach him to be less clumsy in the future!

  They slid across the bridge and then came down off the road and followed the outer line of the walls alongside the soft bank of the river. It was slow work to find firm ground in all the reeds and bog, but Branwen brought them to the southwestern corner of Chester’s walls without anything worse than muddy boots.

  Now they could see the army camp, and hear the shouting and laughter of the wakeful men. Torches and bonfires blazed among the canvas tents and huts. It seemed that the entire army was celebrating the homecoming of their great general.

  “But Ironfist lost the battle,” puzzled Dera. “Many ships foundered—and hundreds of warriors were slain. Why do they rejoice?”

  “This is not an expression of gladness,” growled Gavan. “This is the frenzy of a joyless debauch. Ironfist whips them into a fever for the battles that are to come. Yet it is in our favor. Drunk by night, the majority of Ironfist’s army will be lying like pigs in the mire ere sunup. But they will have guards walking the perimeters—and those guards will be sober. We’d best lie low and judge the number of watchful sentries before we seek to enter.”

  Branwen glared at him. She had been about to give the same order, but he had not allowed her the time.

  He returned her look with eyes as cold and unreadable as gray pebbles.

  “Would you have us act differently?” he asked. “No.”

  She crouched in the reeds, watching the great camp. Gavan had been right of course—there were armed sentries at several points within sight; but none were patrolling, and Branwen saw that not a few of them were leaning on their spears and talking at ease with others, and some were even swigging from ale horns.

  It seemed that the guards here were of the same opinion as those Branwen had heard on the walls of Chester. Why miss out on the revels? The waelisc barbarians would need to be absolute fools to attack!

  Good. All to the good.

  She turned to the others huddled together in a low dip at her back.

  “The sentinels are inattentive,” she said. “We should have no trouble passing them. But we must not speak once we are in the camp.” She glowered at Bryn. “And we must move in absolute silence. Remember, the power in the stones cannot hide us from a man once we have drawn his attention. We shall move in single fi
le, keeping always to the line I take. When we come to the Great Hall, Iwan, Bryn, and Dera will wait outside—you three will be backup if things go badly—either to enter the hall to help us if we are seen or to help cut a way out of the camp if that becomes necessary.” She looked at Gavan. “Your desire is to find and rescue your daughter, and as far as possible we will aid you and Bryn in that. But our task is to find the prison in which Caradoc is confined and to bring it away with us.” She glanced from Iwan to Dera to Blodwedd. “No one life is more important than our mission. If I fall or am trapped or caught or hurt, do not linger to help me. And the same goes for each of us. Those still standing must escape with Caradoc at all costs.” She stared into Blodwedd’s eyes, knowing how the owl-girl must hate such an order. “Promise me you will do this.”

  “I promise to do all that I can to ensure that Caradoc is brought safe from Saxon hands,” Blodwedd said. “But if you are captured or wounded, Branwen, and unable to escape, I will leave Caradoc of the North Wind in the keeping of others, and I will return here, though ten thousand bar my way; and I will not leave again without you.”

  “It won’t come to that,” said Iwan. “No one is going to be left behind; I’ll see to that. Let’s get on with it, by your leave, barbarian princess, while the night is still young.” He moved out of the hollow and came up close to Branwen. “I’ll not be outdone in courage by a plucked bird,” she heard him mutter under his breath.

  She could almost have smiled!

  Branwen stood on the outskirts of the camp, taking a moment to try and calm her nerves.

  Merion will protect me. I know this. She stared into the massed throng of carousing men. I need have no fear. And yet … and yet, it feels as though I am about to walk into a furnace.

  She was trembling. She tried to suppress it, desperate for the others not to notice how she hesitated. She stood absolutely motionless until the shaking in her legs subsided. Her muscles knotted and cramped. She must move on!

  She offered a last prayer, her fingers running over the lump in her wristband—the small hidden stone that was all that stood between her and certain death.

  Do not desert me!

  She took a final breath, bracing herself for the plunge. She didn’t look back at her companions—they must not see the fear in her face or they would not follow.

  And so, with her stomach like a ball of lead in her belly, she took the first step and came in among the tents, her mystical white shield held up against her chest, her right hand gripping her sword hilt.

  She walked slowly, watchfully, trying to keep clear of the revelers, always on the lookout for a suddenly turning head or a pair of seeing eyes, expecting to be discovered at every moment.

  The place was fomenting with activity and noise. Bonfires crackled and roared into the night, sending red sparks spinning upward, bathing the long canvas tents of the soldiers as red as blood. In open paddocks, mounted men raced their horses to and fro, beating at one another with sticks and howling with laughter if one went tumbling from the saddle.

  Others gathered five or more deep around barrels of ale, filling their drinking horns and cups and wooden mugs again and again, their mustaches dripping foam, their beards streaming with the thick brown liquid.

  They sang, their voices like the bellowing of animals: songs of death and destruction and of cold iron and hot blood. Songs of warfare and slaughter. Songs to chill the soul.

  Wild is the blood, high the heart

  Glad the eye to see our enemies slain

  Like a field of corn laid low by the scythe

  Their heads roll, their eyes stare up, ripe

  berries for the crow

  And our kinsfolk sleep among them

  Blessed in noble death.

  Come, do you hear the walkyrie song?

  They ride from Walhal

  From the empty wine cup and the gnawed

  bone

  They ride by threes, the warrior women

  Urth, Verthandi, and Skuld

  Maiden, mother, and crone, drawing down the moon of war. The boar paws the ground, snorting, tusks sheathed in blood

  The raven’s wings darken the sky

  The hammer and the sun wheel, the symbel and the husel

  Symbel for valor, husel for strength

  They ride, they ride, Mogthrasir’s children

  Singing as they split the storm asunder

  Come to bear us to the wide tables and the flowing mead

  The honeyed cups of Walhal

  We dead on the battlefield

  We blessed ones who died in war

  Come, death, let us die in battle

  Death, we welcome you

  Walkyrie on the wind, carry us home

  Carry your heroes home!

  And as they sang their songs of death, they stamped and danced and beat hide drums till Branwen’s head was raging with the dreadful clamor of it and her blood ran cold in her veins.

  They love death. Their fondest wish is to die in battle. How do we fight such people? How do we stand firm against such reckless madness?

  On into the great camp Branwen walked, her anxiety growing rather than diminishing as she threaded her way toward the group of thatched buildings with the Great Hall in its midst. Every step was like a step into greater danger. Like walking alive into the black bowels of Annwn.

  Men pranced around bonfires, urging daredevils on to hurl themselves across the flames, their cloaks snapping as they hung for a moment in the air wreathed in sparks. Iron rang from mock sword fights. Two wrestling men came tumbling across Branwen’s path, almost tripping her as they swore and fought and tore at each other’s clothes.

  The heady smell of roasting meat hung in the air. Men gnawed at gobbets of red meat skewered on their seaxes, the juices clotting in their beards, the fat glistening on their lips and cheeks.

  Some few lay snoring or belching on the ground, the ale draining from overturned mugs, their eyes glazed with drunkenness.

  Now Branwen was moving among the buildings. The Great Hall loomed up, its doors wide-open, lights blazing within, voices shouting and roaring. Men squatted and stood outside the doors, eating and drinking, their faces bloated, their eyes swimming.

  By the saints! Do we even need Merion’s stones among such excess? I swear, not one of these drunken swine would know friend from foe at this time!

  The thought comforted her a little, but she knew the worst ordeal still lay ahead. Herewulf Ironfist was within these walls—and would even Merion’s enchantments keep her hidden from his one good eye? She half feared that his hatred for her would give him the power to cut through all falsehood, to pierce the veil of the stones and to leave her standing helpless and all too visible in front of him.

  “It is the waelisc shaman girl! Kill her. Kill her!”

  No! No! It does no good to think such things.

  Clear the mind of fear. Focus on the task at hand.

  She stepped over the legs of a man sprawled in the doorway and stared at last into Ironfist’s Great Hall. The reek of roasting meat and spilled ale struck her, mingled with the smell of burning fat and cooked herbs. And with it came the roar of the feasting Saxon warriors, General Ironfist’s chosen few, selected to join him at the festive board.

  Like and unlike the halls of her own people it was. Similar in that a fire blazed in a hearth of stone in the middle of the long main chamber, but strange because the feasters sat on benches at trestle tables rather than on the rush-strewn floor. Similar in that the timbered roof soared up high above, strange in that there was a raised gallery at the far end of the chamber, reached by a wide ladder, where wicker partitions formed private rooms. Similar in that the firelight was augmented by wall-mounted torches and thick tallow candles, different in that the stooping servants who moved among the drinkers were men and women of the Four Kingdoms—Branwen’s own folk, captive from childhood like Rhodri or abducted from their homes as Dillon had been. Similar in that the lord of the hall sat upon a throne at on
e end under awnings of draped battle flags. Different in that the design on the flags was the white dragon of the Saxons and that the man who sat enthroned was a deadly enemy.

  The last time Branwen had seen Ironfist like this was when he had been sprawling on the seat of the lord of Gwylan Canu, deep in drink and slow of mind. But he did not look like that now; he was sitting hunched forward, one hand gripping the arm of the chair so that the fingers were white. The other clutched a wine horn, but it hung at an angle and seemed empty.

  Malevolent and sinister he looked now, like some monster of legend, brooding among his minions, his one blue eye horribly alert as it darted to and fro over the carousing warriors of his court. His mouth was set in a grim line, his brows furrowed. The raw wound burned red in the firelight, and the lost eye was a pool of crimson.

  Another man sat on a low stool at his feet wrapped in a scarlet cloak, staring silently at a slender form who moved among the drinkers balancing a large ewer on her hip and pouring out ale to all who needed more refreshment.

  It was Alwyn—Branwen recognized her at once. She stood out from the other servants with their drab, shabby clothes and their matted hair. Alwyn was wearing a gown of bright yellow, clasped at the shoulders by jeweled brooches and girdled with a sash of blue silk.

  Silk? What’s this now? Do the Saxons dress their servants in silk? I’ve never heard it so. She must be a favorite to be adorned so—and look at her hair!

  Her brown hair was plaited and drawn back from her face, held in place with sparkling pins and netted with bright strings of jasper and malachite. Very beautiful she looked, gliding among the drunken throng; but Branwen noticed that none abused her or snatched at her or even made eyes at her. Strange! Drunken men of all races had sport with pretty servant girls at the feast. And yet she may as well have been a haggard crone for all the notice Ironfist’s warriors took of her. It was as if they dared not. As if …