Caradoc of the North Wind

chapter TWENTY-ONE




Iwan had been absolutely correct – the two horses had known where to take them. No sooner had they climbed into the saddles, than the beasts had turned and set off at a lively canter through the trees, down the long hillside and northward through the heather and spinneys and wild grasslands of eastern Powys. The speed of their travelling made conversation virtually impossible, and so Branwen had to wait a while longer for answers from her rescuer.

As dusk descended they were riding at a tireless trot through a long, narrow valley, and as the moon came up full in the starry sky, they found themselves under a high cliff of pale, bare rock. Without warning, the two horses stopped.

Branwen peered around. ‘And is this the place where we were to meet the others?’ she asked.

Iwan shook his head. ‘I don’t know where we are.’

‘Our steeds do, it seems,’ said Branwen. ‘What should we do, do you think? Dismount and make camp for the night?’

‘It’s a bleak place to seek for shelter,’ said Iwan.

‘All the same.’ Branwen was certain that they had been brought here for a reason. She swung down from the saddle; but as her feet hit the ground, she felt the world tremble under her.

With a deep creaking, growling groan, the face of the grey cliff yawned open in front of them like a sideways mouth. The horses stood calm and unperturbed, their heads down to tear at the long grass, seemingly indifferent to the uncanny gaping of the raw stone wall. Iwan jumped down to be at Branwen’s side, his eyes wide and thrilled.

The fissure in the cliff face became still and the ground was quiet again under Branwen’s feet. A broad, low-roofed cave was revealed, and in the middle of the even, earthen floor, under the sheltering arch of solid rock, a fire of hewn wood was burning brightly.

Branwen moved forward and rested her hands on the cold cliff face. ‘Thank you,’ she called. ‘Merion of the Stones – thank you!’

They unsaddled the horses, tethered them where there was good grass to eat, and carried the panniers inside.

They ate and drank, seated close to the jumping flames, and for the first time in an age of torment, Branwen felt genuine warmth and comfort seeping into her body so that her cheeks glowed and her fingers and toes tingled with new life.

‘Now will you tell me how you came to save me at the very last moment?’ Branwen asked Iwan, basking in the heat of the fire and watching his face through the licking flames.

‘It’s a long story, if you want to know it all,’ he replied.

‘I do. Leave nothing out.’

And so he told her the tale of how the king and Prince Llew and twenty-five warriors on horseback set off for their tryst with Ironfist, and how the Gwyn Braw stood on the walls of Pengwern, staring into the west, waiting for Branwen and Dera to return. And it was not only the two warrior girls who had vanished – Fain was gone, too. Rhodri guessed the faithful bird had departed with Branwen, but no one knew for certain.

Neither Fain nor the two maidens returned that day, but the king and the prince did, in the early evening, full of good news from the east. The talks had gone well and Ironfist had been bought off with vague promises and the offer of further negotiations, they were told. What the Gwyn Braw did not notice was the swathed and gagged figure who was bundled into the citadel and locked away in a chamber of the Hall of Araith. Thus they had no inkling then that Dera had been brought back as a captive.

Days passed and still Branwen and Dera did not return from the west. Rumours circulated that the two girls were dead, or that they had fled the king’s citadel in fear of Saxon attack. Others said they had indeed met with the Shining Ones and that the Old Gods had devoured them.

‘We did not believe this last tale,’ Iwan told her, grimacing at evil memories. ‘At least, the others did not. I was not so resolute at first, and the thought that I had lost you for ever seared me through and through …’ He paused. ‘It was Rhodri who convinced me to have faith. He never doubted the Shining Ones for a moment. He was certain that you and Dera would return, and the rest of us fed off his belief.’

Branwen smiled tenderly at him; dismayed to think that he had known such grief, but glad that Rhodri’s stout heart had brought them all through.

Then, Iwan told her how the passage of a whole moon went by with no word from Branwen or Dera. At the same time, scribes and wise men were sent to speak with Ironfist’s representatives in the east, while reinforcements began to arrive from Dyfed and Gwynedd and Gwent, swelling the numbers in Pengwern and preparing for war.

‘And then, when some were beginning to lose all hope, Blodwedd came back to us,’ Iwan carried on. ‘I don’t know how she got into the citadel – certainly not through the gates – but she woke us at dead of night as we slept in the long house.’ He stopped, snapping his head around to face the cave mouth. ‘Someone is out there!’ he hissed, standing up and drawing his sword.

A small figure stepped into the firelight. A slender shape with a tumble of tawny hair and with great, reflective golden eyes in her round face.

‘Well met,’ said Blodwedd. ‘I came first to be sure you were not enemies, although I guessed what I would find!’

Branwen leaped up, running headlong towards her friend. She grasped Blodwedd in her arms, clinging to her, burying her face in the long hair. Startled as she was by this display of human affection, the owl-girl smiled and patted Branwen’s shoulders. ‘Well met, I say again, Branwen of the Shining Ones,’ she said. ‘I bring good news from the west.’

‘I know it!’ cried Branwen, almost too choked with emotion to speak. And as though seeing Govannon’s messenger again after so long were not enough, Branwen saw the others of the Gwyn Braw step forward into the cave mouth. Dera and Banon and Aberfa gathered around her, laughing and weeping and throwing their arms about her. And Rhodri, too – his dear face wreathed in smiles as she turned to embrace him.

‘I would have come to your rescue,’ he told her, hugging her tight to him. ‘But there were only six stones – so one of us had to stay back. And you know these women!’

As if these blessings weren’t enough for Branwen, Fain came flying in under the roof, crying out again and again as he circled the joyous gathering.

‘But how did you find us?’ Iwan asked as they all gathered around the fire.

‘Fain came to me and told me that you were under the protection of the Shining Ones and that you had been brought to this place,’ Blodwedd told her.

‘The owls held back the Saxon horsemen long enough for us to get far away from them,’ said Aberfa. ‘And I’ll warrant they’ll not find us now.’

‘Let’s hope not,’ said Dera, looking at Branwen with a haunted light in her eyes. ‘I was such a fool, Branwen – to have led you into treachery.’

‘All’s done, Dera, my friend,’ said Branwen, reaching out to grasp her hand. ‘I do not hold you to blame for what happened to me. Others must bear that burden!’ She looked around at them. ‘But I would know how you came to me at that last moment in Chester.’ She turned to Blodwedd. ‘Iwan told me you returned to Pengwern at dead of night.’

‘Indeed I did,’ said the owl-girl. She reached out her long slender fingers to Branwen, the white nails curling. ‘See now, Branwen, what I saw. See how you are loved!’

As Blodwedd’s fingers touched her forehead, Branwen felt a sudden giddiness. The world spun in an arc of whirling red flame and she felt herself tumbling and tumbling.

It was an uncanny sensation, one that Blodwedd had forced upon Branwen once before. She felt as though she were no more than two watching eyes, bodiless, remote, floating on the air, as events unfolded before her.

She saw Blodwedd climbing into forested hills, deep in snow, and somehow she knew that the owl-girl had been wandering in the cold mountains for many a long and weary day. She saw Blodwedd standing upon a lonely crag, calling out in a loud, urgent voice.

She saw a creature making its way through the dark trees towards her. The shape warped and distorted as it moved, so that sometimes it looked to Branwen like a huge eagle drifting under the branches on wide, still wings, and sometimes like the tall, green-hued and antlered stag-man that she had seen once before. Govannon of the Wood.

‘Govannon! Govannon!’ cried Blodwedd. ‘Have you deserted the Emerald Flame? She is alone and afraid. Will you not come to her?’

A deep voice boomed in reply. ‘My part in her journey is done, Blodwedd of the Far-Seeing Eye. Others must aid her now.’

‘But this winter has no end, and one of her followers is dead at Caradoc’s hand,’ called Blodwedd. ‘Can you not make him withdraw his long white claws from the land? Can you not force him to lift his frozen breath from us?’

A second shape emerged from the trees, and Branwen saw Rhiannon, seated upon her white horse as it padded forward through the thick snow in a jingle of silvery bells. ‘We cannot tell the wind which way to blow,’ she said. ‘We are bound to the earth, child – we cannot bring this winter to a halt.’

‘Nor would we!’ croaked another voice, as dry and cracked as sun-parched rock. The stooped and gnarled figure of Merion of the Stones stepped forward with a rowan staff clutched in her knobbed hand. ‘He runs free and wild, does my beautiful brother, and answers to none of us.’

Blodwedd fell to her knees, bowing down low in the face of the three Old Gods of Brython. ‘May I take then no word of comfort back to the Warrior Child?’ she cried. ‘Is she alone and unloved?’

‘She is not,’ said Rhiannon, her eyes flashing. ‘We will speak with our airy brother, we will entreat him to show mercy. But the Bright Blade must know, we do not have the power over life and death – had this been warm and sun-bright summer, still would her companion have died. It was none of our doing – but it was nothing we could have prevented.’

‘And take these tokens,’ added Merion, reaching out a clawed fist to Blodwedd and dropping six white crystals into her hand. ‘You must return to the citadel of that petty king of men. You will find Dera ap Dagonet held captive in the Hall of Araith. Free her with stealth and then tell the followers of destiny’s sword these words.’ Her voice rumbled like distant thunder in the mountains. ‘The Warrior Child is held captive by treachery and malice. You must set her free. Fain will lead the way. Travel with speed or not at all, for if you come too late, she will be lost to you for all eternity.’ Merion smote her staff on the ground. ‘Tell them that!’

‘And if you come in time, and the Warrior Child is saved, say this also,’ added Rhiannon. ‘Tell her that we three are bound to the land, and that we cannot intervene again to alter the outcome of the great battle that is to come.’

‘Go, now!’ roared Govannon. ‘Run like the wind, Blodwedd of the Far-Seeing Eye – there is not a moment to lose!’

As Branwen watched, Blodwedd turned and scrambled off the rocky peak and wildly down through the trees. Now Branwen saw a small curved-winged shape come flying from the branches. Fain, cawing loudly as he followed after the racing owl-girl. And even as they plunged together down the mountain, so Rhiannon’s voice echoed after them.

‘Remember these words!’ she called. ‘We three are bound to the land and cannot be called upon to hold back the army that is coming! Tell her exactly these words, Messenger of Govannon – and hope that she understands!’

Branwen came to her senses with a gasp, startled by the faces that surrounded her and the fierce firelight that danced in her eyes.

‘Yes,’ she gulped. ‘Yes, I saw all.’ She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes and took in deep breaths to anchor herself back in the real world.

‘As soon as we heard what Blodwedd had to tell us, we crept by dark of night into the Hall of Araith and found Dera bound and gagged in a side-chamber,’ said Banon. ‘Setting her loose, we armed and saddled our horses to depart. The gate wardens tried to detain us, but we would have none of it.’

‘We had to break a few heads to get out of the citadel,’ added Aberfa. ‘But we cared not, for Dera had told us all that happened at Bwlch Crug-Glas, and we were filled with anger at the king’s treachery,’

‘Then we rode like the wind,’ said Rhodri, ‘while Fain guided us. And it did not take long for us to understand where he was taking us.’

‘We were upon the hill overlooking the city of Chester ere the sun rose the following morning,’ said Dera. ‘Only five could go into the Saxon den – a stone was needed for you, Branwen – so you could be taken from there unseen.’

‘And the rest you can guess or know already,’ finished Iwan. ‘Using the power of the crystals, we infiltrated the city.’ He grinned. ‘And using my uncanny marksmanship, I fired off two arrows to cut two of the ropes that held you, while Aberfa and Dera prevented the other horses from dismembering you.’

‘And I called upon the owls,’ said Blodwedd. ‘Many died, but they did not resent the sacrifice. They knew that they perished to keep the sinister shadow of Ragnar out of their forests.’

‘And here we are,’ said Rhodri. ‘We few, together again – against all hope!’ He glanced around at the gathered faces, then his eyes fixed on Branwen. ‘But where are we to go?’ he asked. ‘Not back to Pengwern, surely – for that would be nothing short of walking wide-eyed into a noose. But if not to the king, where does our destiny lead?’

‘We are seven against seven thousand,’ said Iwan. ‘We cannot fight alone. And we are surely in no doubt that we are alone – the words given to Blodwedd by the Shining Ones is proof enough of that.’

Branwen frowned, staring into the fire, hoping to find patterns or logic or hope in among the play of the flames. She saw none, but at the fire’s core she did think she discerned a heart of utter blackness.

‘What of Ragnar?’ she asked, remembering the great black bird. ‘What harm can he do us?’

‘We are in Brython,’ said Rhodri. ‘His powers are less fearsome in lands where the Shining Ones hold guardianship – but we should still beware him, whatever we may choose to do.’

Blodwedd closed her eyes, her face tight and pale, her hands trembling.

The flames licked and cracked, and for a moment Branwen imagined she saw a familiar sight in among the burning branches. A lone hill crowned with a palisade of timber. A solitary mound in a wide wilderness.

She lifted her head, and gazed around at her companions. ‘I know where we must go!’ she said. ‘Where dark treachery gathers, we must seek out the one place where love and honour still hold sway. We shall go to my mother – we shall go to Alis ap Owain and to the rebuilt citadel of Garth Milain!’