The Emerald Flame Page 6

  “A good point well made,” said Iwan. He gave a casual shrug. “But I need no convincing. I’ll follow the barbarian princess all the way to the court of the Saxon king Oswald if she desires it of me.” He cocked an eye at Rhodri. “What’s your word on the matter, Master Runaway?”

  “Where the stinging nettle grows, the dock leaf is also found,” said Rhodri. “The one to inflict pain, the other to offer relief. While you ride with her, I’ll certainly not part from Branwen’s side. Nor shall I leave her when you become bored and wander off in search of new diversions.”

  Branwen frowned. Nettles and dock leaves. Yes, there was something in that, although the effect that Iwan had on her went much deeper than the smarting of irritant needles in her skin.

  “New diversions, is it?” Iwan laughed, staring pointedly at Blodwedd. “Well, a fine animal can be diversion enough, I’ve found; and my gallant Gwennol Dhu soothes my heart when human companionship palls.” His eyebrow raised in a taunting challenge. “But I’d not bed down in the stable with her, no matter how her eyes glowed.”

  Rhodri’s hands balled into fists. “What do you mean by that?” he said with suppressed anger. “Speak plainly, Iwan ap Madoc.”

  Iwan gave Rhodri a nonchalant look. “The runaway’s so angry, he’s spitting feathers!” He laughed. “How has it come about that his mouth is full of feathers, I wonder?”

  Rhodri got to his feet. Iwan’s hand snaked to his sword hilt. The tension was like a fire in the air.

  With a single bound, Blodwedd was off the rock and standing between the two young men, her eyes burning into Iwan’s face, her teeth bared. The other girls watched anxiously from the sidelines.

  Branwen was among them in a moment, catching hold of Blodwedd’s arm to prevent her from throwing herself at Iwan.

  “Stop this!” Branwen shouted. “Rhodri—do you know no better than to rise to Iwan’s bait? And Iwan—keep your taunts to yourself. Do we not have enemies enough that you must amuse yourself by such antics?”

  “'Twas but a merry quip to lighten the mood,” Iwan said, spreading his hands.

  “Then it should have been funny,” said Dera, her face stern. “And yet it was not! You always had a sharp tongue, Iwan. Sheath it now!”

  Iwan bowed to her. “At your request, my lady,” he said, unperturbed. He looked at Rhodri. “Forgive me if I angered you,” he said. “As the scorpion said to the frog: it is in my nature.”

  “Then beware your nature,” said Blodwedd, “lest it lead you to an untimely end.”

  “Enough of this,” said Branwen. “We have no time for such foolishness!” She looked into the sky, still bright but showing the signs of the oncoming evening. “If you are all resolved to go with me, then let’s ride down into the forest and find some shelter and a spring of water. It’s a long time since we slept. We will camp in the forest tonight and ride eastward at dawn.”

  It was a little before sunrise when Branwen awoke, sweating and shivering and brimming with bad dreams. A bird sang a dancing tune in the distance, full of hope and joy. Voices were whispering in the aromatic darkness under the oak trees. Branwen leaned up on one elbow. Two slender figures were creeping away from the encampment and were quickly lost among the trees. She sat up, pulling sleep-tangled hair off her face. Rhodri was close by, also sitting up, watching the darkness into which the two shapes had vanished.

  Seeing her eyes on him he smiled. She noticed that Blodwedd was not at his side, although she had been there when they had gone to sleep, curled up like a cat with his arm slung across her shoulders.

  The humped shapes of the others were scattered in the small clearing. In the quiet, Branwen could hear slow, heavy breathing. Aberfa was snoring. The unsaddled horses stood together, their reins looped around branches to stop them from straying. There was no sign of Fain, but Branwen assumed he had found himself a perch somewhere close by.

  Rhodri came crawling over to Branwen and sat huddled at her side.

  “Blodwedd and Banon have gone hunting for some breakfast,” he whispered to her. “Blodwedd said she could smell woodcocks. We should feast well before we depart—if you think we have the time to build a fire and roast a few small birds.”

  Branwen frowned. “Blodwedd doesn’t mind killing birds to eat?” she asked.

  “She’s not squeamish where food is concerned,” said Rhodri.

  Branwen looked away, biting down on the thoughts that filled her mind.

  I do not understand your feelings for her, Rhodri; but if the owl-girl gives you joy, then so be it. Who am I to judge the right and the wrong of it?

  “What is it?” he asked softly. “What’s on your mind?”

  She turned and looked into his eyes. “Things were simpler when it was just the two of us,” she whispered. “The more people … the more chance there is of conflict, it seems to me.”

  “That’s always true,” said Rhodri. “And also the more hope of fellowship and amity, not to mention the strength that we gain from our companions. And where we’re going, we’ll need their fighting strength, Branwen.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I have the gift of healing, and I’m strong enough if you want a tree felled or a field plowed; but we’re heading into unfriendly territory, and swords will be needed unless the luck of the pooka travels with us.”

  She looked sideways at him. “You wouldn’t wish for maybe one less sword, though?”

  “Iwan is a loudmouth and a mischief maker,” Rhodri said without rancor, understanding immediately whom Branwen meant. “But I’ve suffered worse abuse than any he can throw at me, and he has fighting skills that we cannot afford to lose.”

  “I don’t know why he needs to challenge people the way he does,” Branwen murmured. “He has no need to be so quarrelsome and arrogant.”

  “You heard what he said yesterday; it is his nature to behave like that.”

  “No, I don’t think it is,” Branwen said under her breath. “I think in his heart he is quite different. He angers me so much at times. And yet … every now and then …” She paused, suddenly aware that she was about to speak aloud things that she had not even voiced clearly in her own mind.

  “Every now and then …?” Rhodri prompted.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “I don’t know what I was going to say.” She stretched and yawned. “It’s almost dawn,” she said briskly. “Let’s make up a fire to welcome back our two hunters. We do all deserve a good meal before we ride headlong into a forest of Saxon swords.”

  She stood up and glanced around at the sleepers under their cloaks.

  One face was turned toward her. One pair of eyes was open.

  Iwan was watching her; and for a fleeting moment in the darkness she saw on his face an expression that both thrilled and alarmed her with its raw intensity.

  But then his shoulder hunched, and he tucked his head down into his cloak again.

  8

  “BRANWEN, I FEEL a great sadness in you. Does the burden of leadership weigh heavy?”

  Blodwedd’s voice brought Branwen up out of a deep reverie. They were riding together on Stalwyn in order to give Rhodri’s horse some respite from carrying two riders. Iwan was now doubling with Linette for the same reason, while the rest of them paused and changed every now and then to relieve the other horses.

  They had left the mountains and the forests behind, and they were now passing through the rough and tumble of Cyffin Tir—the cantref of Branwen’s dead father and widowed mother, the land of her home.

  The sun was high in a sky marbled with white cloud. A warm breeze ruffled the heather and set the grasses hissing. All about them were raw, bony hills and steep-sided valleys sparkling with swift white streams. Birds sliced the sky like arrowheads. Insects darted and droned.

  All so familiar to Branwen. And yet …

  “I was thinking of my mother,” Branwen replied, her voice soft and melancholy. She looked into the south. Somewhere, hidden in the folds of the untamable landscape, lay the sol
itary hill of Garth Milain, with the burned shards of the citadel of Lord Griffith and Lady Alis upon its crown.

  Gazing into the distance, Branwen almost believed she could smell the acrid smoke drifting in the air, although she knew it must be only in her imagination. The charred timbers were long cold now; and under her warrior-mother’s formidable will, it was even possible that reconstruction had already begun.

  “And thinking of your mother makes you sad?” asked Blodwedd.

  Branwen paused, not sure how to answer this. “Thinking of her gives me strength,” she said at last. “Not knowing when I shall see her again makes me very sad.”

  “You would be with her if you could?” asked Blodwedd.

  “Of course I would. I think of her and of my poor dead father and of my brother, Geraint, all the time.” A catch came into her throat as images of her shattered family swam into her mind. She lowered her voice so that it was no more than a whisper. “I will tell you this, Blodwedd, for your ears alone. If not for the fact that I am given no time to dwell on what I have lost—no time to grieve for my slain father and brother, no time to mourn my stolen life—I believe I would have lost my wits by now; truly I do.”

  Branwen found herself wondering why she had confided such a private thing to the owl-girl—a thing she would have hesitated to say aloud even to trustworthy Rhodri. It surprised her how much their relationship had changed. Perhaps it was because Blodwedd was part of the destiny that was driving her ever onward. Perhaps because Blodwedd would not judge her in human terms. Or perhaps because Blodwedd had also been torn from her former life by forces beyond her control. And in the owl-girl’s case, that was a severance that would never be healed. In order to bring the aid of Govannon of the wood to Branwen in the battle of Gwylan Canu, Blodwedd had sacrificed her true shape and given up forever the twilight world she had always known.

  “Do not tell Rhodri of these things,” Branwen murmured. “I know he has seen me weak and indecisive, but he now needs me to be strong and resolute—as do all of the people who follow me. What faith would they have in our cause if I hesitate and falter?”

  “I need it also.” Blodwedd sighed. “For if you fall, what purpose do I have in this twilight life?”

  “I won’t fall!” This was spoken for reassurance, not out of conceit.

  The approaching clop of hooves and jangle of harnesses made Branwen turn her head. Iwan was closing in on her, Linette’s slender, pale arms twined around his waist, her light brown hair shining in the sun, and her eyes bright. The thought flickered across Branwen’s mind that she did not need to cling quite so tightly to him, nor take such pleasure in the intimacy of riding tandem with him. But then he was the heir to Gwylan Canu—quite a catch for any maiden.

  “Are we close to the border now, Branwen?” Iwan asked.

  “Hmmm?” Distracted for a moment: Linette was slender and pretty—what young man would not wish to have her arms wrapped around him?

  “Have we reached Mercia yet?” Iwan said. “You know these lands better than any of us. Do we need to be stealthier now?”

  “We are close,” said Branwen, dragging her thoughts back to the moment. She pointed ahead. “See that ridge of high land? That is where Cyffin Tir ends and the great plain of Saxon Mercia begins. But we should be safe from prying eyes for a while—and Fain is on the wing. He will spy out danger before it comes upon us.”

  “But Mercia is a vast land, from what I have heard,” said Linette. “Did Merion give you no token to help you in your search?”

  “None save that Caradoc is captive of a one-eyed man, and that his prison will be marked by a lynx,” said Branwen.

  The others had caught up with them by now: Dera and Rhodri riding solo, Aberfa and Banon mounted together close behind.

  “Did you not tell us that Caradoc’s jailer was a one-eyed warrior?” Dera asked. “A man that you would know on sight?”

  “So Merion told me,” said Branwen. “But I don’t see how that can be.”

  “Could he be someone you met in battle?” asked Banon.

  “I’ve encountered many Saxons at sword point,” said Branwen. “But none that I’d remember. They all look alike to me: savage, pale-eyed brutes with bristling beards and foul breath.”

  “And yet Merion said he was a warrior,” said Rhodri. “And when they are not on the march, the Saxon army is encamped outside the town of Chester. Might he be there?”

  “How would I know that?” Branwen retorted, frustrated for a moment that she was unable to answer these questions.

  “The Saxons are probably in some disarray,” added Iwan. “The defeat at Gwylan Canu and the death of General Ironfist would be known to them by now. This could be the perfect opportunity to use those white crystals of yours, Branwen, and to slip in among them and learn all that we can of their intentions. That way we would be doing Merion’s bidding, and thwarting King Oswald’s plans of conquest at the same time.”

  “And Chester is a great meeting of the ways, Branwen,” Dera added. “Even if your one-eyed warrior is not there, in the streets of that old town we may learn news enough to send us on the right track.”

  “And we may meet up again with Gavan and his merry troop,” said Iwan. “Were they not heading for the army camp outside Chester?”

  “They were,” said Branwen. “But we should avoid contact with them if they are there. Gavan would have no sympathy for our cause, and I’d not have our mission put into jeopardy by the likes of Bryn and his blundering friends!”

  “The camp is huge,” said Rhodri. “Far larger even than Doeth Palas. Many thousands of warriors are mustered there. We should have no trouble avoiding Gavan ap Huw.”

  “Chester, then?” Branwen said thoughtfully. “Yes, why not? The town lies little more than half a day’s ride from the borders of Cyffin Tir, across a wasteland of forest and marsh.” She looked up at the sun. “We could be there before nightfall, if all goes well.” She straightened her back. “To Chester, then,” she said. “Into the very mouth of the wolf!”

  In truth, Branwen knew little of the lands into which they were encroaching—and all that she did know had been picked up from listening to old men and warriors swapping tales around the fire in the Great Hall of Garth Milain.

  In her mind, Mercia was a land under perpetual nightfall—a land swarming with evil, a land of cold iron and fierce, savage people who looked upon Brython with hate-filled, envious eyes.

  As a child, she had once joined in a rat hunt in the storage barns. The men had hunted the vermin by torchlight in deep evening. How old had she been? Five, six maybe—in among the legs of the tall men of Garth Milain, clutching a stick to beat at the filthy creatures. She had gone with the men into the back of a barn. A wooden winnowing pallet had been thrown aside—and a writhing and squirming nest of rats had been revealed! Branwen had never forgotten the disgusting, revolting sight; and that memory of the squealing and moiling rats had become over the years linked to all she had heard about the Saxons.

  Rats and Saxons—they were one and the same.

  Branwen remembered how she had screamed and beaten at the rats with her stick, frightened and enraged and sickened by them, lashing out wildly as the vile creatures had scattered in all directions—flooding through the legs of the hunters, tumbling and slithering, screaming as their backs were broken and their skulls were pulped. She remembered how the maimed and the injured rats had jerked in their death throes, all bloody and twisted and burst open on the ground.

  A small fragment of the loathing and anger that she had felt came back to Branwen as she led her small band of followers beyond the lands she knew and into enemy territory.

  Rats and Saxons.

  Saxons and rats.

  One and the same.

  Deserving only of servitude or death.

  And so, with Branwen’s mind filled with such unpleasant images, they passed out of Powys and rode with heightened vigilance into the land of Mercia.

  “Is that Fain?” Ba
non’s long arm shot out, her finger pointing to a dot that wheeled just above the eastern horizon.

  “I hope so,” said Branwen, peering into the watery blue sky. “It’s time he returned.”

  The falcon had been gone for a long while now, and Branwen was becoming worried that some Saxon bowman had shot him out of the sky. It had not been so long ago that she had thought him dead, and some of that anxiety remained.

  The black shape floated above a forest of dark, glossy-leafed alders that spread itself out across a wide, shallow valley. Branwen’s band had come to the eastern edge of a final hill, and in front of them the land dropped gently down to a seemingly endless plain.

  From here Branwen could see far out to a blue haze where land and sky met. It was a strangely smooth land; it had no real headlands or ridges—no bones showing through its green and lush flesh—just a gently undulating ocean of moors and forest and peaceful, untilled lowlands empty of human life.

  Odd. She had expected something different. A pall of darkness over the land? A countryside where rats might swarm in their thousands? Something less … benign?

  “That’s no falcon,” said Blodwedd, her hands on Branwen’s shoulders as she leaned forward to watch the solitary bird. Her fingers tightened, her nails digging in. “It’s a raven,” she said, her voice suddenly harsh. “And very large for its kind.”

  “A bird of ill omen,” muttered Aberfa.

  “Hush now,” said Banon, seated in front of her. “It’s but a bird.”

  “You do not understand,” said Aberfa. “A wise woman spoke over my cradle when I was newborn. She told my mother that she should beware ravens if she wished to keep me from harm.”

  “Your mother is the greatest teller of tall tales in all of Gwylan Canu, and you know it!” Banon said. “Like as not she made up the whole thing to prevent you from straying.”