Cry of Sorrow (46 page)

“I assure you,” the Smith growled, “there is nothing wrong with that shoe. I put it on just two days ago. It is your imagination.”

“My imagination? Perhaps you forget who I am. I will have you dancing in the air with a sword at your throat before you can even blink.”

That was true, Aidan thought. Druids were Shape-Movers, and such a thing was very well within her power. The Smith had better not be foolish. But if he were, Aidan and Cadell would have to help him.

“Very well,” the Smith said, still surly. “I will look at it. But you are not going to be able to go anywhere.”

“Nonsense. I wish to ride out to the vineyards today.”

“The gates are closed. They won’t let you through.”

“I know the gates are closed. And they will let me through. I see no reason why I should be inconvenienced because these soldiers are so incompetent that they couldn’t find water in the middle of the sea.”

“Well, if they do let you through, you shouldn’t go alone.”

“I won’t be alone. I will take two guards with me. Does that satisfy you?”

The Smith’s reply was too low to hear. Aidan strained to make out the words, but he could not. But he did make out Ellywen’s equally low-voiced reply. “Where?”

Aidan heard the clink of metal, then Ellywen’s footsteps coming to the back of the smithy. They had been betrayed! He had no weapons, so he flexed his hands, ready to break Ellywen’s neck. Might as well take this opportunity to rid the world of one more Druid before he died.

The curtain that separated the back from the front of the smithy was suddenly drawn. A little light spilled in, illuminating Ellywen’s pale face, her braided brown hair, and her cold, gray eyes. She held a sack in her hand. Tossing it to the floor, she said sharply, “Put those on.”

For a moment Aidan and Cadell could only stare at her. “Hurry up,” she hissed. “We haven’t much time.”

“What’s in the sack?” Cadell asked in astonishment.

“Coranian chain mail, helmets, and some weapons. Didn’t you hear me? I said I would take two guards.”

Still they did not move. How could they possibly trust her? On the other hand, Aidan thought, their choices were a bit limited at the moment. And she had not raised the alarm. Why would she trick them out of hiding when she could just call the soldiers right now and it would be all over?

“Why?” Aidan asked as he reached for the sack, not really expecting an answer.

“Because of Anieron,” she said, surprising him. “I felt him die three days ago. When he sang the song.”

Aidan raised his brows. “Since when do you care what the enemy does to the Kymri?”

“And because I helped capture Cian, and sent him to prison,” Ellywen went on, as though Aidan had not spoken. “And Achren would not kill me, even though I begged her to. And so I must live, for now. And do what I can to undo what I have done, until death takes me, as it ought.”

“Cian was your friend,” Cadell said quietly. “You and I and Cian served Rhoram for years together. How could you do what you did?”

“I am a Druid,” Ellywen said. “And I learned to do what I was told, as I was taught. But that is finished. Hurry up. Do you think we have all day to talk about this?”

Aidan and Cadell put on the Coranian byrnies; shirts made of interwoven metal that reached to just above their knees. They picked up their shields, and donned the helmets with the figure of a boar carved at the top. Each held a short spear.

“You’ll do,” Ellywen said shortly. “But not by much. For Modron’s sake, keep your heads down.”

Cadell laughed sharply. “For Modron’s sake? What right do you have to call on the Great Mother? You are a Druid, and have turned from her to the Coranian god.”

“Mock me, then,” Ellywen said between gritted teeth. “It is just what I would expect of a Dewin.”

“Cadell,” Aidan said quietly, “enough. Ellywen, if you get us through, you had best come with us. They will find you out.”

Ellywen shook her head. “No. I can’t. I must stay here. My duty now is to pass on any information I can to the network. Tell me whom to speak to.”

“So that’s it,” Cadell said flatly. “This is how you think to trick us into revealing them. It won’t work, Ellywen. You might as well kill us now.”

Ellywen’s gray eyes flashed, then subsided. “You are right to be suspicious. Very well, then, have your people contact me when they think things over. And let’s leave it at that. Now, hurry. We have spent too much time here as it is. Follow me.”

Ellywen turned and led the way to the front of the smithy. The Smith held her stirrup as she mounted her horse. For a moment Aidan hesitated. But they had no choice except to trust her. If she betrayed them, they might be able to die quickly, now that they were armed. He nodded at Cadell to follow, then marched to Ellywen’s side. Cadell took a place on the other side of her horse.

“How did you know about us?” Aidan asked.

“She saw you in the city and recognized you a few days ago,” the Smith replied, before Ellywen could answer. “She came to me and we thought of this, just in case.”

“Thank you,” Aidan said gratefully, though he knew better than to shake the Smith’s hand now that others could see them.

“I am glad to serve King Rhoram,” the Smith said quietly. “And I dream of the day when I can do so in the open again.”

“That day will come, my friend,” Aidan said. “It will come.”

“Shall this not be the fair day of freedom?” the Smith replied, a light in his eyes.

“As the song said,” Aidan agreed. “So it shall be.”

Ellywen clucked to her horse, and they moved off toward the east gate. They skirted the marketplace that was still in disarray. They saw squads of soldiers still searching the stalls, but they casually walked on by.

As they neared the east gate, Aidan saw that it was, indeed, closed, and guarded by thirty men at least. The Coranians were taking no chances. Ellywen rode up to the gate as though the men were not there. Finally, just as she was only a few feet away from the closed doors, she halted her horse. She sat there, looking down her nose at the Coranian Captain who had come up to them.

“May I help you, Druid Ellywen?”

“Open the gate.”

“I am sorry, my Lady. That is not possible.”

“Surely it is not impossible. I have seen your men do it hundreds of times,” Ellywen said with cool disdain.

The Captain flushed but held his ground. “We have orders to keep the gates closed until the men we are searching for are found.”

“But, Captain, your men are so inept that by the time they have found them, this day will be long over. And I am not going to wait until tomorrow.”

“I have my orders,” the Captain said shortly.

Ellywen leaned down in the saddle until she was just inches away from the Captain’s face. The hood of her brown Druid’s robe fell back. “Captain, do you know—really know—what Druids can do?”

The Captain paled and swallowed hard. “I—”

“No, don’t talk. Save your voice for screaming. Men do scream so when they are on fire.”

“But don’t worry. I don’t take offense. I know you are just doing your job. So I will make it easy for you. I am going to open that gate. And you are going to stand there and let me go through. Then no one has to die today. Understood?”

The Captain nodded.

“Good.” Ellywen gestured with her hand to the gate. The bar shot up into the air, then floated down gently to rest against the wall. The gates slowly swung open.

“That is called Shape-Moving,” Ellywen said to the Captain. “It is another one of the things we can do. Don’t forget that, will you?”

The Captain nodded, but did not speak. Smiling pleasantly, Ellywen rode forward out of the gate, with Aidan and Cadell following.

Ellywen rode on for nearly a league before she halted her horse.

“Ellywen,” Aidan said earnestly, “if you talk to the guards like that all the time, I am surprised they have not yet taken matters into their own hands and burned you for a witch.”

“They fear their leaders more than me,” Ellywen said. “And General Penda would not let them harm me.”

“For now,” Aidan warned.

“Do you think I don’t know that? I don’t think Penda lets me live because he likes me. He lets me live because the Archdruid wills it so.”

“And Cathbad’s wishes will cease to matter to the enemy very soon.”

“Another thing you think I do not know.” She nodded toward the people who were laboring in the vineyards to the north. “I will return to the city when they do, and by the north gate. In the crowd it will not be so obvious that I return alone. Now go.”

“Ellywen,” Aidan said as he grasped the horse’s bridle. “Come with us.”

“I have told you, I can’t. It will take me many years to even begin to undo what I have done. I must start here.”

“You must go—”

“I must stay. The better to view Rhoram’s eventual triumphant return to his city. If I am lucky, he will kill me.” She gave a tiny smile, one of the few Aidan had ever seen on her face, and he had known her for years. “Tell him that, incredible as it sounds, I miss him.”

“He won’t believe it,” Cadell warned.

“Oh, I think he will,” Aidan said. “He always did know us better than we knew ourselves.”

“Would that I had understood myself better before,” Ellywen said bitterly. “Then maybe Anieron would not have died.”

“But his death was triumphant, Ellywen,” Cadell pointed out. “Before he died, Taran of the Winds gave him a great boon. And he gave us a great song.”

“Yes,” Ellywen said quietly. “Shall this not be the fair day of freedom?’ Is there anyone in Kymru who could hear his song and believe that freedom is not far behind?”

“Yes,” Aidan said. “Freedom is at hand.”

“Not for me, Aidan ap Camber. Not for me.”

   
Suldydd, Tywyllu Wythnos—midmorning

K
ING
R
HORAM EXITED
his tent, sitting down on a rock to wait for his guests. As he sat, he absently twisted the emerald ring on his finger. If he were right, the ring would leave his hand today.

Tonight, he and his people who were hidden here in the valley of Haford Bryn would celebrate Calan Olau, one of the eight yearly festivals of the Kymri. He remembered years past when this festival of the harvest had been celebrated. In those years there had been a harvest to celebrate. These days he and his people lived off the enemy caravans they had been able to capture, off the game and edible plants they could forage, off the dreams of a future when the land would be theirs again.

At Calan Olau they celebrated the tale of Mabon of the Sun, when the god returned from Gwlad Yr Haf, the Land of Summer, with the harvest in his hands. On this night the moon would not be seen in the sky, for his wife, Nantsovelta, Lady of the Waters, had come to earth to greet him. In the past there would have been a great fair and horse races by the dozen. In those days he had always entered the races, and had always won. He smiled wryly to himself—perhaps he was getting old, reliving glorious moments of his past. He remembered how he always chose a woman to help him celebrate, even after he had married Efa. By then he had truly understood whom he had married, but it had been too late to undo what he had done. The only years he had not chosen a woman were the few years he was with Rhiannon. Then he had not wanted anyone else but her.

His son, Geriant, and his daughter, Sanon, joined him, sitting on either side of him on the large rock.

“How much longer, Da?” Sanon asked quietly.

Sanon always spoke quietly, when she spoke at all, and that was rarely. Ever since the death of Prince Elphin of Rheged, she had been that way. Sometimes, when Rhoram remembered the bright, openhearted, merry girl his daughter had been, he would feel a need to kill every Coranian he could get his hands on.

“Not much longer, daughter,” Rhoram replied, when he realized he had been silent too long. “Achren has gone to lead them in.”

“I do so want to see Rhiannon and Gwen again,” Sanon said. “I really do.”

For the first time in years, Sanon’s voice held a hint of anticipation. It was a small step, Rhoram knew, but it was a step nonetheless.

Geriant rose from the rock, looking toward the rim of the valley, shading his eyes with his hand. “They are here.”

Rhoram and Sanon rose, and the three of them made their way through the other Cerddorian who had stopped their work to greet the guests.

Rhoram watched as Achren led the party down the rocky path to the floor of the hidden valley. Rhiannon wore a leather tunic and trousers dyed forest green, and her hair was braided and wound around her head. She carried a pack on her back. Gwen was next, and she, too, wore a leather tunic and trousers, but hers were dyed a soft brown. Her golden hair spilled down her back, glistening in the sun. Next came a young man Rhoram did not know. He was tall and thin and his shoulder-length brown hair was secured at his neck with a strip of leather. He had a bow slung across his shoulder and a quiver over the other. Gwydion was behind him. He wore leather gloves on his hands and carried a rolled-up blanket across his shoulder.

When the party reached the valley floor, like a bird, Gwen shot away from them and into Rhoram’s waiting arms. “Da! Da, I’m home!” she cried.

He held her, stroking her hair. He closed his eyes briefly in gratitude that his youngest daughter was indeed home—for a time. “Yes, you are home. Welcome. Oh, welcome, my Gwen,” he whispered.

Then he held her at arm’s length to look at her. “My, you have grown,” he went on with a wink. “I had best interview the young man you are with and let him know the consequences should he play fast and loose with you.”

“Oh,” Gwen shrugged, “that’s just Arthur. And we don’t like each other at all.”

Rhoram grinned. “It often starts that way.”

“Da,” Gwen admonished, “don’t be ridiculous.” She hugged Geriant, then Sanon, with tears of joy streaming down her fresh face. Her brother and sister could not seem to let her go, and they, too, were weeping.

Rhoram looked away to find Rhiannon. She was coming toward him, slinging the pack off her back and laying it gently down. She grinned at him, her green eyes shining like emeralds. He held out his arms, and she came to him with no hesitation, no confusion, and no fears, for their past had been set to rest between them some time ago. He held her for a moment, raising his eyes over her shoulder to glance at Gwydion.