The Last Pendragon Saga:
The Last Pendragon
The Pendragon’s Quest
____________________
Book One in The Last Pendragon Saga
The Last Pendragon
A Story of Dark Age Wales
by
Sarah Woodbury
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright © 2011 by Sarah Woodbury
Cover Image by N. C. Wyeth, 1922
Sarah Woodbury weaves a tale of Myth and Magic in The Last Pendragon ... I could not put this book down --Darkiss Reads (darkissreads.com)
He is a king, a warrior, the last hope of his people--and the chosen one of the sidhe . . .
Set in 7th century Wales, the Last Pendragon is the story of Arthur's heir, Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon (Cade), and his love, Rhiann, the daughter of the man who killed Cade's father and usurped his throne.
Born to rule, yet without a kingdom, Cade must grasp the reins of his own destiny to become both Christian king and pagan hero. And Rhiann must decide how much she is willing to risk to follow her heart.
The Last Pendragon is a 98,000 word (430 page) historical fantasy set in Dark Age Wales.
The Last Pendragon Saga:
The Last Pendragon
The Pendragon’s Quest
The Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mysteries:
The Good Knight
The Uninvited Guest
The After Cilmeri Series:
Daughter of Time (prequel)
Footsteps in Time (Book One)
Winds of Time
Prince of Time (Book Two)
Crossroads in Time (Book Three)
Other books by Sarah Woodbury:
Cold My Heart: A Novel of King Arthur
A Brief Guide to Welsh Pronunciation
c a hard ‘c’ sound (Cadfael)
ch a non-English sound as in Scottish "ch" in "loch” (Fychan)
dd a buzzy ‘th’ sound, as in “there” (Ddu; Gwynedd)
f as in “of” (Cadfael)
ff as in “off” (Gruffydd)
g a hard ‘g’ sound, as in “gas” (Goronwy)
l as in "lamp" (Llywelyn)
ll a breathy “th” sound that does not occur in English (Llywelyn)
rh a breathy mix between ‘r’ and ‘rh’ that does not occur in English (Rhys)
th a softer sound than for ‘dd,’ as in "thick” (Arthur)
u a short ‘ih’ sound (Gruffydd), or a long ‘ee’ sound (Cymru—pronounced “kumree”)
w as a consonant, it’s an English ‘w’ (Llywelyn); as a vowel, an ‘oo’ sound (Bwlch)
y the only letter in which Welsh is not phonetic. It can be an ‘ih’ sound, as in “Gwyn,” is often an “uh” sound (Cymru), and at the end of the word is an “ee” sound (thus, both Cymru—the modern word for Wales—and Cymry—the word for Wales in the Dark Ages—are pronounced “kumree”)
He who searches for enlightenment,
Shall find confusion.
He who seeks to slay another,
Shall slay himself.
He who travels to the deepest reaches of the Underworld,
Shall find heaven.
He who has lost his soul and cannot save himself,
Shall save us all.
…Taliesin, The Black Book of Gwynedd
Prologue
Dinas Bran, North Wales, Kingdom of Gwynedd
634 AD
Taliesin
Water streamed in rivulets down the stone walls as I stood at the kitchen door of the castle, seeking shelter from the weather. I pushed the door open further, the rain dripping from my hood, and confronted the weeping woman.
“Give the boy to me.”
With tears pouring down her face, a match to the drops of rain on mine, Alcfrith, sister to the great King Penda of Mercia and wife of Cadwallon, the King of Gwynedd, handed me the sleeping child.
I took him and studied the face of his mother. She’d lost her husband and the boy his father in battle ten days before, killed far from home in Saxon lands. Although the woman did not yet know, Cadwallon had been struck down by the very man who now sought to marry her. That man would be known forever as Cadfael the Usurper. I didn’t tell her the future I saw or that she would live to regret her choices. As of this moment, the boy, this child of an ancient and powerful lineage, was an orphan and my responsibility.
“Don’t tell me where you’re taking him,” Alcfrith said. “I cannot bear to know.”
“Safer that you don’t,” I said.
And that was that. I turned away from the woman; didn’t even bother to nod at the guard who thought to block my way, just brushed past him. As old as I was, having sought a prophecy my whole life, I no longer could afford to think about anything but the one thing that mattered: is this boy the one?
My brotherhood had searched for him for centuries, but with each child we found, each great man we shaped, we found ourselves disappointed. Human greed, lust, an insatiable quest for power either in them or in those who pledged to serve them had always brought them to their knees. For hundreds of years, through the coming of the Romans who destroyed our sacred sites, and then the Saxons, whose gods were strange and barbaric, we’d charted the stars, fought the demons we could, and watched the signs, each time hoping and praying that this boy would be the one.
Would Cadwaladr? His father had ruled with a strong arm, but I’d known at Cadwallon’s birth that despite a vision of great victories that would be his, he too would falter, dying too young to keep either the Saxon menace or the gods at bay. This usurper Cadfael—I found myself snorting under my breath at the thought of his rule. Gwynedd would suffer under that one, although the Council would not see it until it was far too late—and longer still until such a time as the boy in my arms could claim his birthright.
The stars had aligned for this child, more than for any other, even the great Arthur who’d protected his people for a generation. The Dragon stood menacingly in the night sky, one claw outstretched, shining down upon the Cymry—the free people of Wales. The end of one dragon’s life was the beginning of another’s. Would he come to land? Would he inhabit the soul of this boy and lead us to victory as we all hoped he would? In truth, even the gods didn’t know for sure and the little they told me was not enough.
Alcfrith stood in the doorway of the castle, watching me cross to the postern gate, the light spilling past her into the muddy courtyard. As I reached the gate, rain fell on the boy's head and he stirred. I was tempted to look back. Instead, I adjusted the boy on my shoulder. The light behind me would illumine his face and give his mother one last look at what she was losing.
I am not without pity.
Chapter One
Aberffraw, North Wales, Kingdom of Gwynedd
655 AD
Rhiann
The smell of smoke and sweat filled the hall, mingling with the overlay of roast pig and boiled vegetables. More soldiers than usual sat at the long tables, here to celebrate their victory. The mood was subdued, however, not the wild jubilation that sometimes accompanied triumph and caused Rhiann’s father to lock her in her room in case he couldn’t control the men.
Today, the drinking had begun in earnest the moment the men had returned from the fight and settled into a steady rhythm Rhiann had never quite seen before. Here and there, a hand clenched a cross hung around the neck or an amulet against the powers of darkness, that should her father see, might mean death for that soldier. For a man to ask the gods for protection instead of the Christ meant he was less afraid of the King of Gwynedd than someone, or perhaps something, else. Rhiann had been afraid of her father her whole life and couldn’t imagine fearing another more, not even the demons that were said to walk the night, hungering for men’s souls.
Perspiration trickled down the back of Rhiann’s dress, made of the finest blue wool that her father had gotten in trade from merchants on the continent. The country folk jested that sheep outnumbered men in their lands. Like the shepherds who traveled through the mountains with them, they were also tougher here than those in warmer, dryer climates and their wool not as soft. The Saxon threat was enough to keep the Cymry within their own borders, but the sailors still took to the western seas, bringing in trade goods of wine, finely wrought cloth, metalwork, and pottery.
For once, Rhiann’s father, King Cadfael of Gwynedd, had eaten little and drunk less. For her own preservation, Rhiann had always been sensitive to his moods and noted the exact instant his disposition changed. He shifted in his seat and rolled his shoulders, like a man preparing for a battle instead of the next course of his meal. A moment later, the big, double doors to the hall creaked open, pushed inward by two of the men who always guarded them. The rain puddled in the courtyard behind them and Rhiann wished she were out in it instead of here; anywhere but here.
She kept her place, standing behind and to the left of her father’s chair. It was her duty to tend to his needs at dinner as punishment for her refusal to marry the man he’d chosen for her. Rhiann hadn’t turned the man down because he didn’t love her, or she him; she knew better than to wish for that. It was a hope for mutual respect for which she was holding out. But even this seemed too much to ask for an unloved, bastard daughter. Consequently, Rhiann spent her days as a maidservant, albeit one who worked above stairs. She didn’t regret her station. As the months had passed, she’d come to prefer it to sharing space at the table with her father and his increasingly belligerent allies.
Silence descended on the hall as two of King Cadfael’s men-at-arms entered, dragging between them a young man whose head fell so far forward that no one could see his face. He was visibly collapsed, with his arms dangling over the guard’s shoulders and his feet trailing behind him. As the trio progressed along the aisle between the tables toward the King’s seat, the youth seemed to recover somewhat, getting his feet under him and managing to keep up with their strides. As he came more to himself, he straightened further.
By the time he reached the dais on which Rhiann’s father sat, he was using the men-at-arms as crutches on either side of him. Because he was significantly taller than they, it was even as if he was hammering them into the ground with his weight. His footsteps rang out more firmly with every stride, echoing from floor to ceiling, matching the drumming of Rhiann’s heart. The closer he got to her father, the harder it became to swallow her tears. By the souls of all the Saints, Cadwaladr, why did you come?
Rhiann had been her father’s prisoner her whole life, unable to escape his iron hand. The high, wooden palisade that circled Aberffraw had always signified prison walls to her, rather than a means to protect her from the darkness beyond. This young man had grown up on the other side of that wall. He’d not had to enter here. He’d had a choice, but had recklessly thrown that choice away and was now captive, just as she was. She felt herself dying a little inside with every step he took as he approached Cadfael.
The young man, Cadwaladr, the last of the Pendragons, fixed his eyes on those of the woman sitting beside the King. She was Alcfrith, Cadfael’s wife, taken as bride after the death of Cadwaladr’s father. Rhiann couldn’t see her face, but from the back, the tension was a rod up her spine and her shoulders were frozen as if in ice.
“Hello, Mother.” Cadwaladr’s lips were cracked and bleeding, puffy from the beating that had bruised the whole length of him. Rhiann had heard they’d as close to killed him as it didn’t matter, but from the look of him now, the men-at-arms to whom she’d spoken had exaggerated.
“Son.” Alcfrith’s voice as stiff as her body.
Rhiann’s father ranged back in his chair, legs crossed at the ankles to project his calm and deny the importance of the moment. “Foolish whelp. I’d thought you’d put up more of a fight, not that I regret the ease of your defeat. This will allow me to reinforce my eastern border more quickly than I’d thought. Penda will be pleased.”
“You and I both know why my company was not prepared for battle today,” Cadwaladr said.
Cadfael shrugged. “Your men are dead and you a shell of a man. What did you think? That the people would welcome you? That I would let you take my lands?”
“My lands,” Cadwaladr said.
Rhiann’s father sneered his contempt. He reached out an arm to Alcfrith and massaged the back of her neck. She didn’t bend to him. If anything, the tension in her increased. “You meet your death tomorrow, as proof of your ignobility.”
Cadfael waved his hand to Rhiann, signaling her to refill his cup of wine and that the interview was over. She obeyed, of course, stepping forward with her carafe. The guards tugged on Cadwaladr, but as he moved, Rhiann glanced up and met his eyes. It was only for a heartbeat, but in that space it seemed to Rhiann that they were the only ones in the room. She expected to see desperation and fear in him, or at the very least, pain. Instead, she saw understanding. She could hardly credit it. When had she ever known that?
“You’re wrong, Father,” Rhiann said, as the guards hauled Cadwaladr away. “Cadwaladr comes to us as a defeated prisoner, and yet, he has more honor, more nobility, than any other man in this room.”
“He is the Pendragon,” Alcfrith said, with more starch in her voice than Rhiann had heard in many years. “Cadfael can’t change that, even by killing him.”
Rhiann’s father snorted a laugh into his cup before draining it. He didn’t even slap the women down, so sure was he of his own omnipotence. “You may keep your dreams.” He pushed himself to his feet and turned to leave. “The dragon is chained; the prophecy dead.”
Rhiann had heard about Cadwaladr her whole life. As a child, men in Cadfael’s court had spoken of him as if he were a demon from the Underworld, or worse, a Saxon, coming to steal their home like a thief in the night. Later on, as she began to piece the story together, she realized that he was only a little older than she was, twenty-two now to her twenty, and their words said more about their own fears than Cadwaladr’s power.
Rhiann’s father had married Cadwaladr’s mother after Cadwallon’s death in battle, many miles from Aberffraw. The High Council of Wales had wanted peace in Gwynedd, in order to focus the concerted attention of all the native British rulers on the threat of the encroaching Saxons. Throughout Rhiann’s life, the Saxon kingdoms had been growing in number and power. Two centuries before, the British kings had invited them in, but once here, could no longer control them. The Saxons had overrun nearly all of what had been British lands only a few generations before.
By now, everyone knew that the Saxons wouldn’t be returning to their ancestral lands across the water any time soon. Her father, Cadfael, and Cadwallon before him, had allied with Penda of Mercia, but it had left a sour taste in the collective mouth of their people. All the Cymry knew that it was only a matter of time before the Saxons turned their gaze covetously on Wales.
The Council had settled upon Cadfael as the man to impose peace amid the chaos of constant war, provided Alcfrith agreed to the marriage. Rhiann suspected that ‘agreed’ was too positive a word, and like most noble women, Alcfrith had had little choice in the matter. While the High Kingship had never materialized, and he didn’t even rule all Gwynedd like Cadwallon had, Cadfael did control a significant piece of it: Cadwaladr’s birthright, as he’d said.
What Alcfrith had not done upon her marriage was give up her son, instead sending him away to be raised by another. Rhiann’s father had raged at Alcfrith time and again, demanding to know to whom she’d given him. Alcfrith had refused to say, and perhaps that was the bargain she’d made—safety for her son, in exchange for her allegiance.
And now Cadwaladr was here, walking into the lion’s den, although not quite of his own accord. Cadfael had spies everywhere and had known of his coming. The story he’d put out was that Cadwaladr’s small band had forded the Menai Straits and met Cadfael’s army just shy of Bryn Celliddu. Cadfael hadn’t even bothered to meet the force himself, instead delegating the task to lesser men.
But Rhiann wasn’t so sure, especially now that she’d heard Cadwaladr’s exchange with her father. Before the feast, she’d questioned some of the older men in the garrison, particularly those who’d held allegiance to Cadwaladr’s father once upon a time. A few of them had muttered among themselves about the evil Cadfael’s acts would bring to Gwynedd. One even mentioned that he’d seen demons in the woods surrounding Aberffraw. The others had dismissed that as fantasy, and then together they’d rebuffed Rhiann’s questions, as they had every right to do. Yet each, individually, had given her a look—like he wanted to speak—but thought better of it. Why had Cadwaladr come, only to be defeated so easily? Why had he sacrificed his men for such a fleeting chance?
And sacrifice them he had. Cadwaladr was the only survivor.
* * * * *
Rhiann pushed open the door to the room. Cadfael was keeping Cadwaladr in a third floor chamber, stripped of every piece of furniture. Cadwaladr huddled in a corner by the dark fireplace, the bread beside him uneaten. The window above his head had been left open—whether by him or her father Rhiann didn’t know—but Cadwaladr hadn’t tried to escape that way. Given that the drop to the ground was considerable, Rhiann wondered if her father hadn’t left the window open to tempt Cadwaladr to leap from it, as a way out of the death that faced him tomorrow.
Cadwaladr looked up as Rhiann entered and straightened his back against the wall. His gaze was steady. As before in the great hall, it was difficult to look away from him. Rhiann shut the door on the guard who’d followed a few paces behind her.
“Knock when you’re done with him.” He coughed and dropped the bar on the heavy oak door.
Rhiann imagined him smirking behind the door but didn’t care. Her position in the household was so low that to fall a little farther could hardly matter. She turned to the young man on the floor. “Lord Cadwaladr.”
“Call me Cade. I’ve not earned my title.” He paused. “Yet.” He moistened his lips. Scabs had formed on them from the beating he’d received.
“Don’t.” Rhiann hastened forward with her cloth and washing bowl. “You’ll start them bleeding again.”
Cade licked his lower lip again anyway, prompting Rhiann to make an irritated face at him, annoyed that he was yet another male who routinely ignored whatever she said in order to do the exact opposite.
“Who are you?” Cade said.
“Rhiannon. Though everyone calls me Rhiann. I’m here to see to your wounds.”
“Why?”
“You are Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon,” Rhiann said. “Your very name testifies to the truth of your claim to be the last Pendragon.”
“Cadwaladr.” He laughed under his breath and shook his head. “’Battle-leader’ my father may have christened me, but today the name bore false witness.”
“I don’t know about that.” Rhiann crouched in front of Cade and put her cloth to a jagged cut on his forehead. It was a task she’d done for innumerable others: men such as he who’d been wounded in battle, or in a fight, or in any of a hundred other mistakes that left men battered and bloody. She was pleased to see that Cade’s wounds were already healing well. Cade flinched when she touched him, however, and made to push her hand away.
“There’s no need,” he said.
“My father sent me to you. He has sought your death all my life. The better you look, the more glory your end confers on him.”
Cade had been watching her face as she ministered to him and now leaned forward to grab the fist that held the cloth and stop her movements. “You’re my sister?”
They wasted three heartbeats in a silent tug-of-war with the bloody cloth, but Rhiann persisted and Cade finally gave up, releasing her.
Rhiann shook her head, dabbing at his forehead again. “No. My mother is not yours. She was my father’s mistress and died at my birth, not long after he married your mother. You are two years older than I am.”
Cade sat back. At his apparent acceptance, Rhiann took a moment to study him as he was studying her. She knew what he saw: black eyes and black hair, pale skin and straight teeth. She looked nothing like her father or her dead mother, her nurse had told her. As a child, she’d hoped that she was a changeling and dreamed of the day her true family would come to take her away.
Rhiann also looked nothing like any of the daughters Cade’s mother had produced with Cadfael. They were blond like she was, harking back to the northern blood of her ancestors. Yet Cade little resembled Alcfrith either and Rhiann wondered at his long dead father. Was he as tall? Were his shoulders as broad and his hair as dark as Cade’s? Did he draw the attention of everyone in a room to him as Cade did? It was only his eyes he must have gotten from his mother, although hers were a pale blue, like a washed out winter sky, and his were brighter and more piercing.
“I noticed you standing behind your father’s chair.” Cade released Rhiann from the spell that meeting his eyes had put her under. She moved back, setting down the bowl to rinse the cloth in the warm water. “If not for the fine cloth of your dress, I’d have thought you one of his slaves.”
“I’m hardly more than that, in truth,” Rhiann said. “My father demands that I serve him.”
“And you do not wish to?” Cade said.
“He murders you tomorrow, Cade,” she said, by way of explanation. “And you are hardly the first.”
“So you’re a prisoner of a kind as well.” Cade reached out as if to touch the back of Rhiann’s hand with his finger. He held his hand above hers, touching but not touching, and then withdrew. “How am I to die?”
“Hanging,” Rhiann said. “They’re building the gallows now. Are you much wounded elsewhere?”
Cade shrugged and rested the back of his head against the wall. “Only a few bruises. And my pride.”
Able suddenly to give voice to her anger, Rhiann threw down her cloth. “Why? Why did you come here?”
Cade canted his head to one side to look at her. “Why do you care?”
Rhiann gazed at him, exasperated. “Because we’ve been waiting! The people of Gwynedd have been waiting for twenty years for you to come, and we would have gladly waited for many more until you were ready, rather than have you die tomorrow by my father’s will.”
Cade shook his head. “You don’t know, do you?” His voice was barely above a whisper and Rhiann leaned in closer to hear him better.
“Know what?” she said.
Cade shook his head again. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does matter,” Rhiann said, feeling fierce. “What does the bard sing of Arthur? ‘Fear and dread followed him, even to his death?’ That describes my father just as well. You shouldn’t be dying here for nothing.”
“‘Fear and dread followed him, even to his death, before we covered him with earth. Yet death do I prefer to cowardice. For this bitter death, I lament,’” Cade quoted. “I know that Arthur cast a shadow far longer than mine ever could, but I would be such a one as fought at his side.”
“Arthur is dead, Cade,” Rhiann said. “And you’ll die tomorrow. There’s not much there for the bards to sing of.”
Cade gave her a blank stare, which she met, and then looked away. “I’m sorry,” Rhiann said.
Cade sat silent, and then he sighed hard, forcing the air out of his chest. “I am less of a man for telling you, but my heart tells me that I must speak to someone, even if she is only a girl-who-is-not-my-sister.”
He studied Rhiann again and she waited, feeling like she was finally going to be told the truth, and perhaps it was only a stranger such as he who could do it. “Rhiannon,” he said, surprising her by using her formal name, “your father invited me here.”
Rhiann’s hand jerked and she nearly spilled the bowl of water. “He what?”
Cade gave her a rueful look. “We were to meet at the ford of the Cefni River, here on Anglesey. We’ve been negotiating our meeting for weeks.”
“I’m sure nobody but my father and a few advisors knew that,” Rhiann said. “There’s been no talk; no gossip.”
Cade shrugged. “I was clearly a fool to believe him, and even more of one to come here; but it was not without cause. After I took from him one of his forts on the mainland of Gwynedd, he sent an emissary to me. He said that he didn’t have an heir and would bestow the honor upon me, given that my mother is his wife. But he felt he needed to meet me first. You must admit, this overture was not without precedent and after my initial skepticism, I believed him.”
“He . . .” Rhiann swallowed hard through the thickening in her throat. She could barely get the words out. “Nobody who knows my father would ever have believed him. He hates you with such passion I’ve thought at times his heart would give out when he speaks of you.”
“I didn’t have the benefit of your experience,” Cade said, “nor the advice of counselors who would know better. Even my foster father agreed that I should make the attempt. Unfortunately, he, along with the other counselors I did have, paid for their ignorance and my naïveté with their lives.”
Rhiann bowed her head, not wanting to think about their wasteful deaths, soaking and squeezing the cloth over and over again. Finally, Cade reached out a hand and gently took it from her. This time, she let him.
“I’m sorry,” Rhiann said again.
“And my mother?” Cade said. “How goes it with her?”
Now it was Rhiann’s turn to shake her head. “You’ve not seen her? Not since you were an infant?”
“No,” he said. “Not until today.”
Rhiann didn’t know what to say; how to begin or not begin. “I don’t know. She has never . . .” She paused and tried again. “I have lived with her my whole life and she showed more emotion in seeing you than I have ever seen from her. For the first time it occurs to me that she didn’t give you away, she gave herself. She sent you away and kept herself from you so that you might live.”
Cade stared past Rhiann at the fireless hearth and she followed his gaze. It was the beginning of February, but even so, not too chilly in the room, despite the recent rains. Rhiann supposed the guards would not have lit the fire anyway for fear of finding the fort burning down around them in the night. Then Cade flexed his large hands and Rhiann imagined him grasping a sword and wielding it. Even the heavier Saxon ones would give him little difficulty.
“Go now, and do not watch tomorrow. I would not have you see me . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I’d prefer you didn’t see what happens to me tomorrow.”
Rhiann had been kneeling on the floor but now got to her feet, leaving the bowl and cloth in case he wanted them. “Shall I send for your mother?”
Cade didn’t answer. Rhiann let the silence lengthen and then turned to the door because it didn’t seem like he was going to respond. She knocked so the guard would let her out.
“No,” he said, finally. He remained sprawled in his original position on the floor.
Rhiann nodded. The guard opened the door to allow her to leave and then barred it behind her. The guard had once been one of Cadwallon’s men, long since retired from the field and now reduced to guarding his former lord’s son. He refused to meet her eyes, but spoke anyway.
“It’s best this way, miss,” he said.
“No, it isn’t.” The fierceness of before rose inside her again. “This is wrong. I can’t believe I’m the only one who sees it!”
The man shrunk under Rhiann’s attack, but before he could say anything more, Rhiann felt a step on the floorboards behind her. She turned to see Alcfrith watching them from the other end of the hall. Their eyes met and Alcfrith tipped her head towards the entrance to her room before entering it. She left the door ajar.
Hesitantly, Rhiann followed her into the room and shut the door.
“You’ve seen him?” Alcfrith said.
“Yes,” Rhiann said.
“Is he badly hurt?”
“He’s not much injured. Far less than I’d feared. He will certainly live long enough for Father to murder him.”
“As he murdered Cadwaladr’s father,” Alcfrith said.
“What? What did you say?” Rhiann said. “My father killed Cadwallon?”
Alcfrith turned to Rhiann with a blank stare, one that told Rhiann she was already so far gone in grief she didn’t see her—and perhaps her words had not been meant for Rhiann, but for the woman Alcfrith had been.
“You must save Cadwaladr,” she said, “and leave Aberffraw with him.”
“Me?” Rhiann said. “I’ve been struggling with how it might be possible since they brought him in, but I’m afraid it isn’t.”
“You have no future here,” Alcfrith said, ignoring Rhiann’s protest. “You’ve turned down all the men your father has brought for you to marry.”
“I couldn’t marry any of them,” Rhiann said. “They were all his allies. Every last one was old and evil. Did you see the teeth on Meurig of Rhiannt?”
Alcfrith shook her head. “Marriage could have been a way out of here for you. As it is, it’s too late. If you stay here, your father will force you to marry Peada, my brother’s son. He’s not a bad man, but no Christian.”
“I’ve already told father I won’t marry Peada,” Rhiann said. “The priest won’t let Father force me into it.”
“Peada is the ruler of Middle Anglia and King Penda’s son. When Peada comes for you, you will have no choice,” Alcfrith said. “He does not listen to priests.”
Rhiann’s stomach sank into her boots. All along she’d feared exactly that, even if she’d not admitted it to herself and had managed to defy her father up until now. Cadfael had known it too, undoubtedly. He’d taken the opportunity to punish Rhiann with public disgrace for her disobedience, but Rhiann had felt throughout it all that he’d been laughing at her, sure in his power over her future.
Every man he’d brought to Aberffraw to seek Rhiann’s hand had been Welsh, and thus subject to the restrictions of the Church. The Saxons, on the other hand, were pagans, bowing only to their gods and with no respect for the gods of others. They’d sacked churches and killed monks countless times. Of course, Cadfael’s men would have done the same to them, if they’d had churches.
The Welsh gods, the sidhe, were entirely different from the Saxon gods, with familiar names that didn’t grate on one’s ears: Arianrhod and Gwydion, children of Dôn; Llyr, god of the sea; Arawn, Lord of Annwn, the Underworld. Rhiann suspected that many of her father’s men, under their Christian guise, still believed in the old gods, keeping them close but hidden like a comfortable and faded shirt worn beneath a new and glossy coat of mail. Since the coming of the Christ, the sidhe had hidden themselves, no longer walking freely among their people. With each passing year, they retreated further into the mists and shadows of the high valleys and mountains.
“I hadn’t realized that my time was so short,” Rhiann said. “Father hasn’t said anything to me about it.” Her father claimed to be a Christian, but an alliance with a Saxon king was worth more to him than his religion. Or her.
“Why would he?” Alcfrith said. “You are a woman and your value is found in what he can sell you for, even at twenty and long past the point at which you should have married. You are his to do with as he pleases.” She turned her back on Rhiann, her head bowed. “Just as I am.”
Uncertain, Rhiann reached out a tentative hand and rested it on Alcfrith’s shoulder. Alcfrith took Rhiann’s hand in hers, turned back, and managed a half of a smile.
“I may not be able to save myself,” she said, “but I will not stand by to see either Cadwaladr or you lose your life, or your soul, at Cadfael’s hands.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Rhiann was stunned at Alcfrith’s frankness. “You’ve spoken more to me in these few moments than in my entire life.”
“I have clothes for you.” Alcfrith turned abruptly from Rhiann. She walked to a chest in the corner of the chamber and opened it. Inside were male garments—breeches, jersey and cloak—which Alcfrith brought out one by one and piled into Rhiann’s arms.
“Why are you doing this?” Rhiann said.
“I’ve never been a mother to you.” Alcfrith closed the lid to the chest and faced Rhiann again. “Neither to you nor to my son.”
“I never expected—”
“Well you should have!” Alcfrith said.
Startled, Rhiann took a step back.
“All your life until now you’ve held yourself cheaply, expecting nothing and receiving nothing,” Alcfrith said. “I treated you no different than your father did. I just couldn’t bear . . .” She paused.
“Bear what?”
Alcfrith took a deep breath and let it out. “You reminded me so much of Cadwaladr, even as an infant: so stubborn, so fiery, and yet so soft and warm in my arms. I couldn’t bear to hold you. As you grew—as you crawled and walked and talked—all I could see in you was my lost son.”
“You can see him now,” Rhiann said. “He’s right next door.”
“No.” Alcfrith shook her head. “I have no claim on him. He owes me nothing and I will not ask anything from him because he’d give it.”
Alcfrith was right. Rhiann had only spoken with Cade for the first time that evening and yet she already knew him well enough to know that what Alcfrith said was true. “Father’s not going to kill Cadwaladr,” Rhiann said, suddenly sure.
Alcfrith nodded. “I have a plan. God willing, you will take him out of here and never see me again. If Cadfael catches you, I will not be able to save either one of you.”
“I understand,” Rhiann said.
“You don’t have much time, cariad.”
Rhiann stared at her. Loved one, Alcfrith had called her, for the first time in her life. Alcfrith put a hand on each of Rhiann’s shoulders, pulled her into her arms for a brief hug, and then stepped back in order to look deep into Rhiann’s eyes.
“There is much you need to do,” Alcfrith said.
Sweet Mary, Mother of Christ. Do I dare?
Yet Rhiann did exactly as Alcfrith asked.
Chapter Two
Cade
Rhiann’s footsteps faded down the passage. Cade remained where she’d left him, staring up at the rafters above his head. He wondered if his father had ever contemplated the same wooden beams, although Cadwallon had made the fortress at Dinas Bran his primary seat when he was High King, not Aberffraw, here on the Isle of Anglesey. If his father had been here, Cade couldn’t sense it. Pain, loneliness, and despair were all he felt from the walls. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to think they were merely reflecting his own feelings back at him.
Rhiannon. Cade had told her that he’d noticed her behind her father’s chair, but ‘notice’ wasn’t quite the word he should have used. He’d sensed her gaze on him before he reached the dais. He had remained aware of her, there on the periphery of his vision, impossible to dismiss or ignore, throughout his subsequent conversation with Cadfael. She might not realize it, but everyone else in the room knew that the idea of her as a serving wench was laughable. Cadfael, the fool, had no notion of what he had on his hands. Or perhaps he did and sought to quell her—or even break her—if he could. Cade shook his head at the thought. Perhaps the odds were long, but he was betting on Rhiann.
He raised his hands above his head to study them. The bruising was all but gone and he had a flash of unaccustomed gratitude—in contrast to his usual loathing—towards the power that curled within him, tamed now, but still sending out tendrils of energy that Cade fought constantly to contain. Cade touched a hand to his lip. He’d enjoyed Rhiann’s ministrations, but in truth, he was healing just fine without her. If he were here at dawn, which he had no intention of being, Cadfael would be pleased.
Cade had already quartered the room before Rhiann arrived and come up with exactly one avenue of escape: the window. Now, he got to his feet to check it again. Looking down, he acknowledged that he could jump the distance, but to what end? The activity continued in the courtyard on the other side of the building. If he did reach the ground, the men-at-arms who watched the gate would be after him before he’d run ten paces. He might be able to fight them off, kill them all as he could have killed the two guards in Cadfael’s hall, but if the gate was closed, he would be no closer to freedom than he was now. Even he couldn’t batter through solid wood.
Cade leaned far out the window, still unable to see anything from this vantage point—not even the gallows of which Rhiann had spoken—other than the high wooden fence that faced him. He eyed the distance to the fence. Jumping the thirty feet separating him from the balustrade might not be beyond his abilities, but the impact when he hit it might send him right through the wooden planks.
I’ll bide my time until midnight has passed. The guards will be tired and everyone else in bed. Resolved to wait, Cade returned to the floor and closed his eyes, letting his thoughts drift into the darker corners and reaches of his mind.
* * * * *
“Tap ... tap ... tap ...”
Cade opened his eyes to the burned-out fire and darkened room. He pushed to his feet, straightening his spine which was stiff from holding the same position for so long. As before, a faint light came from beneath the door.
“Tap ... tap ... tap ...”
Crouching, Cade peered through a crack between two slats in the wood. “Who’s there?”
“Madoc.”
Cade thought back through his acquaintances for someone named Madoc who could be alive and here and came up blank.
“I was one of your father’s men-at-arms.”
“Will you unlatch the door?” Cade said, getting to the only point that was of any interest to him.
“That’s not the plan,” Madoc said. “The other guard has gone to relieve himself so we haven’t much time.”
“Time for what?” Cade said.
“Your mother asks you to look out your window.”
My mother? My window?
Cade strode from the door to the window. He’d closed but not latched the wooden shutters earlier, and now pulled them open, revealing a clear night and a full moon. He’d been lost in his thoughts far longer than he’d intended and perhaps only three hours remained before dawn.
He looked down. Aberffraw stood on a high mound, surrounded by a wooden palisade and deep trench. To the northeast flowed a river Cade couldn’t see from his window. Beyond that lay a forest, and to the west and south, the sea. Between the house and the fence Cade could make out nothing but shadows in the dark. Then one of the shapes moved and coalesced into a human form.
“Cade!”
“Rhiann!”
She pushed back the hood of her cloak so he could see her better. She wore men’s clothes: boots, breeches, and shirt. At the sight of her, hope rose in Cade, but he instantly suppressed it.
“Catch!” Rhiann’s arm swung like a pendulum and Cade leaned out the window to grab the rope she threw to him.
Trying to hurry while at the same time keeping quiet, he turned to look over the room. It contained no furniture to which he might tie the rope, but the supporting beams of the building were stronger than furniture would have been anyway. One of the rafters that supported the roof stretched from above the door in the opposite wall to a point just above the window. Cade reached up to it and hung on it, testing its ability to hold his weight. It held him easily, without shifting or sagging, so he looped the rope over it and tied it tight.
Cade glanced once at Rhiann who stood with her white face upturned. Committed now to the endeavor, he lifted one leg over the rim of the window, tugged once on the rope to test its strength and that of his knot, and then began to climb down. Rhiann had thoughtfully knotted the rope every two feet, sparing his hands a burn. Cade walked his feet down the wall, moving hand under hand, and then dropped the last six feet. He landed hard, glad his captors hadn’t taken his boots when they’d confiscated his weapons.
“I hope that didn’t wake the household,” Cade said in a hoarse whisper.
“We want them awake,” Rhiann said.
“We do?” Cade opened his mouth to ask for an explanation, but Rhiann shushed him with a hand on his arm and a finger to his lips, touching him again like no one had touched him in years. For good reason.
“Not now. You’ll see.” Rhiann handed Cade a cloak, which he threw over his shoulders, and then surprised him with a belt and sword.
“What’s this?” Cade strapped it on.
“You’ll need that sword wherever you’re going,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find the one that my father took from you, but this one was in the armory in a chest, unused. As freeing you will surely anger my father, the donation of a sword seemed a small matter.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Rhiann shook her head, choosing not to answer. Instead, she grabbed Cade’s hand—oblivious to the threat to her or the cost to him—and led him along the side of the building, coming to a halt at the corner of the keep. Cade peered over her shoulder and found the reason for the inattention of the guards, Rhiann’s unconcern about the noise they had made, and her notion that he would more easily escape with everyone in the fort awake.
The stables were on fire.
“It was your mother’s idea,” Rhiann said, almost apologetically. “It was all we could think of to draw attention away from your escape.”
“By all that is holy, you are reckless,” Cade said.
They stood in the shadows, waiting for more men to fill the courtyard and provide them with cover and confusion. It didn’t take long. Within a count of fifty, the space between them and the stables was a seething mass of men and horses. As the whinnying horses were freed from the stables one by one, Cade recognized his own horse, Cadfan, racing past.
He stepped out of the shadows and Rhiann released his hand.
“Go!” she said.
Cade didn’t need any further urging. He ran forward to intercept Cadfan. The horse had no bridle, so Cade grabbed his mane and threw himself onto his back. Head low, sprawled across the stallion’s neck, Cade held on as Cadfan galloped toward the gate, which had been opened to allow a chain of people with water buckets to snake out of the fort and down the pathway to a stream. Cade followed them, staying low on the horse and as far out of the torchlight as he could.
As soon as he passed through the gate, Cade turned Cadfan away from the workers, following the palisade to the east. Cadfan had calmed by the time the darkness enveloped them fully and Cade headed him for the stream. As they splashed through the water and crossed to the other side, Cade sat up to look back. A glow from the burning stables lit the sky, but from where he sat, it appeared the fire had not spread.
Without a doubt, Rhiann’s father would curse the expense of rebuilding the stables. What he would do when he discovered the loss of his prisoner, Cade didn’t know, but he could guess. Cadfael would never be able to say, however, that he hadn’t invited Cade in.
Cade felt a moment’s pang for Rhiann’s safety. It was a welcome change from fearing for his own. Now that he had escaped, the exhilaration was ebbing, leaving him with the sick, shocked feelings he’d had before: at Cadfael’s betrayal; at the death of his friends and companions; at his imprisonment. The actions of Rhiann and his mother simply added to his bewilderment.
Cade looked for Rhiann among the human chain that carried water to the fire, not wanting to disappear without thanking her, but knowing that she wouldn’t want her night’s work wasted and him caught. Even as he hesitated, she ran down the path towards him, leading another horse and carrying an extra bridle for Cadfan in her hand.
“What are you doing?” Cade took the reins she offered and hastily looped them over Cadfan’s head.
“Coming with you,” she said.
“Rhiannon,” Cade said, his voice low and urgent. “You can’t possibly.”
“I have to,” she said. “Your mother insisted on it. There’s no future for me at Aberffraw.”
“It’s your home.”
“It has never been a home for me, only a prison.” Rhiann mounted her horse and turned his head away from the fort. “Besides, you don’t know this country. If I let you go alone, you’ll stumble about in the dark until you’re captured again and all this work will be for nothing.”
Cade’s night vision was exceptional, but she couldn’t know that and he found it hard to argue with her; worse, he found that he didn’t want to argue with her. “We must cross the Straits and reach the mainland. Those lands I know and from there I can lead us to safety.”
“Where is safety from the King of Gwynedd?” she said.
“Dinas Emrys,” he said.
“That’s my father’s fort,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“Not anymore,” Cade said.
Realizing they were running out of time and that he didn’t have the words to force her back to Aberffraw, Cade spurred Cadfan forward into the trees that formed a dark barrier on the other side of the stream. Rhiann followed and pointed them along a path that wound through the trees.
“This leads to Gwalchmai, a small settlement some five miles inland from Aberffraw,” she said. “We should probably find a different road before that, as I don’t know how quickly my father will send riders to pursue us.”
“We might have a little time before they discover my absence,” Cade said. “No doubt they will organize a search, for you as well as for me.”
They rode far more slowly than Cade would have liked, but it was dark under the trees. It took some effort to focus on the lane ahead and avoid any obstacles in their path. After two miles, the pair turned off the first road onto a smaller one that would bring them to the Menai Straits. Soon, they would reach the point where Rhiann’s father had ambushed Cade and his men. Cade glanced at Rhiann, but she was concentrating hard and he left her to her thoughts, focusing instead on dark memories of his own.
We cross the Straits at low tide, ferried in boats rented for that purpose. The oarsmen refuse to look at me but my thoughts are elsewhere and I choose not to read more into their actions than I think they warrant. A mistake.
Once on the Anglesey side of the Straits, we ride along the road to Aberffraw in good formation. The clouds above our heads are thick with rain, although the deluge has stopped for now. I am wary, but in good spirits.
Cadfael’s priest is among us, surety for the pact Cadfael swears he’ll make with me. The priest has made himself useful throughout our journey, blessing our departure, blessing the waters as we crossed them, and swearing on the piece of the True Cross I wear around my neck that he will ensure my well-being until we reach Cadfael. His sycophantic nature rubs me the wrong way, but I ignore it, believing him sincere.
Perhaps he was.
The February sun comes out from behind a cloud and is unaccountably bright. It flashes down on the priest, who is bowing and smiling at me for perhaps the one-hundredth time, before disappearing again. Although my hood shades my eyes, I wince at the momentary brightness. Distracted by the priest, my foster-father, Cynyr, leans forward to speak.
And with that, the forest erupts around us.
The first arrows pierce our ranks. Cadfan screams and rears. I instantly lose track of both the priest and Cynyr.
“Retreat!” I shout, realizing too late that we have walked into a trap and are vastly outnumbered. I turn Cadfan’s head in order to flee back the way we have come, but even as I urge Cadfan forward, Cadfael’s men block the road behind us. They don’t even bother to hide their colors, mocking me with his flag, which he openly displays, wanting me to understand who comes against me.
Deion, one of my captains, takes his place beside me. He has cut through four of our attackers. The bloodlust of battle has blinded me to everything but the sword in my hand and the men who have died upon it, but I come to myself at his approach, aware of my downed men and that we are losing. Then, a fresh company of Cadfael’s men surges from the woods to surround us.
“Halt!” Cadfael’s captain shouts.
I had raised my sword, ready to continue the fight, but arrest the motion. Both of my last two men are on the ground now, a sword to their throats. I lower my sword in the faint hope that I can save them by my surrender.
The captain saunters toward me, arrogance in every line of his body. “Do you admit defeat?” he asks, gesturing to my companions. “I will spare them if you submit.”
I nod. Within moments, I am on the ground myself. A soldier ties my hands behind my back and bloodies my face with an errant boot. As even the great Arthur himself once found, strength can be defeated by treachery. The captain smiles as he hauls me to my feet and pulls me towards a wagon that will carry me to Aberffraw.
He glances over his shoulder. “Kill the others,” he says.
Only death, whether his or mine, will spare Cadfael my revenge.
Cade glanced at Rhiann. The woods were thicker along the smaller road but they had moved more quickly than his best hopes, once he accepted that he had Rhiann with him. “You’ve done well. This ride has not been easy.”
“We still have a long way to go,” she said. “Don’t congratulate me just yet.”
They reached the water’s edge as dawn broke, not that it was much of a dawn. In the hours since Cade had stood in the window at Aberffraw, the clouds had come in to obscure the moon and now hung low to the ground. Soon it would begin to drizzle. Cade stared across the Straits, peering through the gray mist to the mainland of Gwynedd and feeling unrelieved tension in the pit of his stomach.
Cade studied the water. It flowed southeast, indicating that the tide was going out. The best time to cross the Straits was when the water was at its calmest, approximately one hour before high or low tide. That ideal time would be soon. Grown men and ships had foundered in the unexpectedly strong currents, even when the water was less than ten feet deep and only two hundred yards across at its narrowest point. Here, it was much deeper and wider. Cade eyed the distance, calculating the effort it would take to cross it.
“You mean to swim it here?” Rhiann said.
“There is nothing for it. We’ve no choice but to keep going.” Cade looked her up and down. “We’ll need to dismount and remove our clothing. It will only drag us down and ensure we die from exposure before noon.”
Rhiann nodded.
Wordlessly, Cade stripped to his loincloth and she to hardly more—just braies, although she’d bound her breasts with a long strip of linen wrapped around her chest and tied in a knot at her breastbone. Cade stuffed the clothes into the saddlebags on Rhiann’s horse and strapped his sword to the outside, next to a bow and quiver Rhiann had brought. There, it wouldn’t hinder the horse and would leave their hands free for swimming.
“You’re trusting me too much for a man you’ve only just met, Rhiann.” Cade deliberately didn’t look at her as he cinched the strap around the bags more tightly.
“Are you a danger to me?”
Cade finally managed to look at her. Her eyes were watchful. The true answer was ‘yes’, but not for the reasons she thought. “No. I would protect you with my life.”
“Then I am right to trust you, aren’t I?” she said.
Cade just shook his head, finding her logic impeccable but her closeness nearly unbearable. I could pull her to me, but then where would that leave us? “Follow me. Can you swim?”
“Of course,” she said, starch in her voice.
“I was just asking,” Cade said. “Most women don’t know how, you know.”
“I’m not most women,” she said.
Cade choked on a laugh, unable to disagree, and then grasped Cadfan’s mane. He pulled the horse down the muddy bank and urged him into the water, making sure Cadfan stayed to his right so the horse wouldn’t knock him over in the current. Rhiann entered the water a few paces behind him.
The horses didn’t like it, but they didn’t balk. Talking softly, Cade and Rhiann walked them forward. After a dozen yards, the water was up to Cade’s thighs and the current began to tug him into Cadfan. He stayed upright, with his left hand out for balance and his right caught in Cadfan’s mane. It had been a long time since he’d been in water quite as cold as this.
Soon, the current lifted Cade’s feet as the water rose to his chin and he was forced to swim. Another few yards and Cadfan too was swimming. He outpaced Cade and rather than hinder him, Cade let go of his mane in order to concentrate on his own survival.
They were not quite half-way across when Rhiann gasped: “Cade!”
He looked behind them. Four men on horses rode forward and back on the Anglesey bank. Cade faced the mainland again. “Keep going. We mustn’t stop.”
One of the men called to Rhiann, his voice echoing above the rushing water: “My lady! Your father asks that you return to Aberffraw!”
Cade glanced at Rhiann but she ignored the men, focusing instead on keeping her head above water. Another shout came from the bank and Cade chanced a look back. The men had entered the water. More desperate now, he and Rhiann pushed harder, taking long strokes. Rhiann was trying to keep up and Cade slowed slightly, urging her to stay strong. They were nearly three-quarters of the way across by now and Cade thought they should have been able to stand, but as he could not get his footing, Rhiann certainly couldn’t either.
They swam another twenty yards, with Rhiann’s breathing became more labored with every stroke. Finally, Cadfan was able to run through the water and Cade put his feet down again. He touched the sand and stood, finding the water was down to his hips. Rhiann gasped for breath beside him, coughing and numb from the cold. She staggered to her knees in the shallow water. With the water only to his hocks, Cadfan stopped and looked back at Cade. He almost seemed amused and it was as if he was asking, why exactly did we do this?
Cade wrapped his arms around Rhiann’s waist and pulled her to her feet, both of them so numb from the cold water that he almost couldn’t feel her skin. Almost. Together they plunged forward, out of the water. Cade released Rhiann as they reached her horse and then ran to Cadfan. He grasped the reins and threw himself onto his back. Seated, he swung around to look at the men behind them. Their pursuers were in the middle of the Straits, with one of them obviously laboring badly.
“The one who can’t swim is Eben, one of my father’s knights.” Rhiann, too, had mounted and turned back to the water. “I recognized him when he was on the far bank.”