The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) (22 page)

The old woman used the staff with every step, her slight bulk rolling and hitching as she walked. Her clothing draped her body in hodgepodge layers of brown and muddy yellow homespun, looking more like grain sacks than a gown. The broad leather belt at her waist was hung clear ’round with various sized pouches made of skins, fur, and cloth worked with feathers. A flyaway mass of graying hair was coiled at the nape of her neck, most of it escaping from her coif. A dozen copper and silver bracelets jangled on her wrist.

She was much older than even her voice had allowed, with deep creases running from the sides of her nose to her mouth, and spidery lines fanning out from the outer corners of her eyes and down her cheeks.

But her eyes, ah, Lord, her eyes, Ceridwen thought, stepping back again. They were green like the Quicken-tree’s, yet full of mystery, and deeper and darker, so much darker, as if all of Rhuddlan’s people could have been born in their verdant depths and still left green behind.

“Or is it me who makes ye tremble?” the hag rasped, hobbling closer.

Partly, Ceridwen thought, but she would never admit it. She pushed back against Lavrans, expecting he would help in her retreat. He did not. He held her firm where they stood.

“Good mother,” he said, greeting the old woman. “We regret the lateness of our coming, but—”

“As well ye should,” the old woman interrupted, shaking her staff at him.

“But we’re pleased to be in your company now,” he continued, dry amusement in his voice. “Though I must say you’re looking rather ancient this e’en, aren’t you?”

“I thought it best,” was the hag’s curt reply. “’Tis not safe fer women in the deep woods at night, as the maid well knows.” She jabbed her staff toward Ceridwen, who flinched.

“If there is danger in Wroneu this night, we did not see it,” Lavrans said.

“
Auch
,” the old woman swore. “And to think me mistress worried ye had been set upon by sackpurses and robbers ta ha’ missed her supper, and that she would ha’ to send this good mother abroad ta bring ye safely back where ye should ha’ been in the first place.”

Throughout the admonishing speech she directed at Lavrans, the woman’s eyes did not leave Ceridwen, which added much to her discomfort as she tried to hold the hag’s gaze and watch the staff at the same time. The intensity of those old, searching eyes made the skin on the back of her neck tingle. Something in the steely green perusal was familiar, familiar and unsettling, for Ceridwen believed she had endured that gaze before, at a different time, in a different place, and mayhaps when she’d had something to hide; though such a strong and detailed feeling made no more sense than Madron sending the old woman out into the woods to find them.

“But now I see what kept ye from Madron’s table.” The servant reached out to touch one of Ceridwen’s tiny braids. “Quicken-tree cake is filling despite its taste, but mayhaps ye have room fer a posset while we wait fer the lady?”

“Aye, old mother,” Lavrans said, answering for both of them. He took Ceridwen’s hand and drew her deeper into the cottage.

She did not resist. The fire was warm, the cottage uncommonly comfortable—for the very same reasons that made it threatening—and posset a rare luxury. He led her to the chair closest to the stone hearth, one draped and softened with pelts of ermine. She balked ever so slightly, belatedly wondering if the king and his foresters knew of the shire reeve’s generosity.

“Ye should not ha’ let ‘em bind her hair,” the old woman said, limping back to the table. “’Twill do her no good to have Rhuddlan’s mark upon her, unless... unless...
Auch
.” She shook her head and dismissed the whole of it with a wave of her hand, sending the bracelets jangling.

“’Tis their way,” Lavrans said, taking the chair next to Ceridwen and dropping his saddlebag on the floor.

“Aye. They’d plait the trees, if I but let ‘em.”

“I think ‘tis pretty,” Ceridwen said, and the old woman slanted her a narrow look over her shoulder. For a servant of a supposed lady, she was remarkably unkempt, all ragged and loose, as if she would crumble into dust at the first good wind.

“So, the little one has a tongue?” she asked.

“Aye.” Lavrans laughed, and Ceridwen shot him an offended glance.

“And she likes Moira’s handiwork?”

“’Twas not Moira, but Llynya who braided my hair,” Ceridwen said, absurdly pleased to know at least one thing the hag did not.

A loud guffaw greeted her news, taking much of her satisfaction.

“Llynya? That wretched little sprite?” The old woman cackled. “Then Rhuddlan does not know your true worth. If he had, he would have dragged the white-haired ones out of their huts and made them work their fingers to the bone twisting and knotting your curls.”

“Rhuddlan said he found her lacking, though he did not say in what,” Lavrans confirmed, arranging himself with a knee over one chair arm and an elbow resting on the other, lounging with the air of one accustomed to both the company and the place. His ease helped assure Ceridwen of the safety of the cottage, though his words were yet another offense.

“Lacking?” The hag bridled, drawing herself up to a surprising height. “She is Ceridwen, a true-born daughter of Carn Merioneth. The only lack is in his wits.” She turned to the table and began pouring milk pottage out of a pitcher and into silver goblets, hunching back down and muttering all the while. “Lacking,
auch
, we’ll see who’s lacking soon enough.”

One by one, she took the goblets to the cauldron and dipped hot, sweet wine into each. The first she gave to Ceridwen, setting it on a small round table at the side of her chair.

“Here’s yer posset, dearie. Ye might let it cool a bit.”

As the old woman shuffled back and forth between the pitcher and the cauldron, Ceridwen sipped on her posset and examined the trinkets scattered across the table: two green-glass bottles, one stoppered and empty, the other half full; an iron saucer holding a pinch of salt; a family of little squirrels made of pewter. A scrap of tapestry woven in the same sinuous lines as the Quicken-tree rugs caught her eye, though it looked much older than the rugs. The color was dark and it was worn about the edges. Next to the tapestry was a candle burning bright in a brass holder marked with spiraling blue swirls. Beyond the candle, closer to Lavrans, was a plain pottery dish decorated with nothing more than zigzags, but in the dish were rocks, pretty, shiny rocks, and amongst the rocks was something she’d never dreamed of seeing.

“Elf shot,” she murmured, leaning closer and reaching for the stone arrowhead.

“Hmmm?” The hag gave Lavrans his drink and peered over to see what Ceridwen held in her hand. “Oh, that. Hmmm. Int’resting choice ye made, dear.”

“Is it really elf shot?”

“Oh, aye. Fashioned by the
tylwyth teg
and used in the Wars of Enchantment. Ye can ha’ it, if ye like.”

“What of your mistress? Is it not hers?” Ceridwen looked up, her hand closing around the precious piece of chipped stone even as she asked the question. Her mother had told her about elf shot, how the stone to make them was found only to the north of Carn Merioneth, mined by the
tylwyth teg
beneath the mountain dragon-back of Tryfan, and how the arrows would pierce only an untrue heart and nary leave a scratch on a true one.

“Ye can rest easy, little one,” the old woman said. “That bit is mine to give. Here. Ye can ha’ one o’ me bags to hold it in.” She untied a pouch from her belt and began emptying it onto the table. Two shillings and three pence shook out, clinking against the iron saucer. A fluttering of oriole feathers, soft and golden, followed the coins. The last item, she had to reach in after, her knobby fingers struggling to pull it through the leather opening. “
Auch
,” she swore, giving up with her fingers and turning the pouch upside down to give it a good shake. Nothing happened.

Ceridwen leaned closer, an offer of help on the tip of her tongue, when the first loop of gold chain slipped out. Others followed, delicate and finely wrought.

The old woman gave a grunt of satisfaction and looped the chain through her fingers. Slowly, she began to pull.

Dain sipped on his hot drink and watched the byplay. The chit was entranced already, and Madron had barely begun. Whatever was at the end of the chain was bound to be interesting. Madron never disappointed, nor did she usually wear her guise of the crone except when traveling farther than the boundaries of Wroneu Wood. She must know something about the forest this e’en that he did not. She had never searched him out before when he’d been late or gone missing—unless ’twas the maid she had prepared to search for and not him.

More likely than not, he thought with a twinge of unease at one more sign of Ceridwen’s importance to someone for reasons he did not know. He’d brought the red book with him. Mayhaps was time to show it to the witch.

He swung his leg off the arm of the chair and was about to reach down, when the pouch released its prize, and the sight stopped him halfway to his saddlebag. The piece was interesting, aright, too damned interesting in the hands of one such as Madron. He did not doubt the witch’s skills, be they begot by magic or tricks. He settled back into the chair to see what his friend would do with the thing.

“Is it a serpent stone?” the maid asked in a voice hushed by awe.

Her reaction was not unwarranted, for the crystal ball was cut into a thousand faces, each of them glinting in the firelight and casting a rainbow into the cottage. The orb twirled on its chain where the gold links hung from Madron’s fingers. The colored lights danced about the room, swirling around and around in a dazzling, dizzying display.

“Serpent stone?” Madron asked, an eyebrow raised in his direction.

He shrugged.

“Aye,” Ceri said, her gaze fixed on the glass rock. “Born of the froth of the frenzied serpents beneath Domhringr and hardened by their fiery breath.”

The quote was good and, he admitted, somewhat gratifying. He hadn’t realized she’d been listening so intently or that he’d made such a lasting impression.

“Ah, one of
those
serpent stones,” Madron said, redirecting her attention to the maid. “No, little one, ’tis not from the Doom Rings of Judgment. This is a dreamstone.”

Dain’s unease increased. He had not heard of dreamstones, but there were stones enough and names enough for a good trickster to make of them what he or she wanted, and Madron was a very good trickster. Ceridwen had been quick to fall to his Brochan charm, but that night she had been pushed beyond her physical and emotional limits, and had no doubt been ready to faint dead away before he’d opened his mouth. She was strong this night with the Quicken-tree touch upon her, and she had proven to be a woman of uncommon will. Still, he could not take the chance. He had promised her protection, and he would not fail, even if it meant protecting her from her own overactive imagination rather than any physical threat.

Thus, with a lift and reach of his arm and a most fluid twist of his wrist, he passed his hand over and beneath Madron’s, palming the crystal. It disappeared in a twinkling, and with it, all the rainbow lights dancing wildly around the cottage.

If Madron was surprised, she did not show it.

“Your instincts are good, if misplaced,” she said, gracefully lowering her arm, all trace of the crone gone from her movement and speech. “Edmee told me you were protective of the maid, and yet, dear Dain, in this instance, you are too late. Remember that the next time Ceridwen ab Arawn needs you.” The green eyes were leveled at him with the good humor of a victor and the warning of a friend.

He shot a glance at the maid and at first saw nothing amiss.

“Ceridwen?”

There was no answer, and as he watched, her lashes fluttered, then lowered over the pale ocean-blue of her eyes, and she fell into a deep sleep.

“A fair trick, indeed,” he said, careful to keep the anger he felt out of his voice. Anger had come to him all too easily this night, and had done him no good.

“’Tis called a Druid sleep. The knack has been in my family for generations beyond recall.”

“Nemeton,” he said, knowing well the family history. Madron had been the first to come to him, as the crone, when he’d won the prize from D’Arbois by opening Nemeton’s tower door. A great trick that had been, and the first time that he’d ever sincerely thanked Jalal for anything, including the saving of his life. He’d had so many reasons to hate his desert master, and not one to be grateful to him, until he’d been faced with the mechanical wonder that was the Druid Door. Not even Madron knew the secret of it, or if she did, she had not used it to secure the tower for herself.

“My father did not need a stone,” she said. “His voice alone was enough to lure people into sleep and dreams.”

“And what does Ceri dream?” he asked, feigning a calm he did not feel. Too much emotion was loose in the woods this night, that much was for damn sure, and he felt like a magnet for all of it. The maid was doing him no good. He would be better off rid of her, better off to take his marks and not look back when Caradoc came to fetch her.

“Ceri?” Madron repeated, giving him a heedful look. “Her brother called her such.”

“Mychael.”

“She told you?” Madron began unlacing her gown. There was nothing provocative about the action, and Dain did not react as if there was. He had seen the transformation before.

“As much as she knows,” he answered. “Mychael is a monk at Strata Florida and he has not written for some time. She has a book she keeps his letters in. A red book,” he added.

“Ah,” Madron said, sounding well pleased. The mud-colored rags dropped to a pile on the floor, revealing a fine, shimmering lavender gown stitched and gathered with silver thread. Matching kid boots showed beneath the hem, stitched with the same silver thread. The coif came off next, and with it the gray wig. Madron shook out her own auburn hair and ran her fingers along her scalp.

“I brought it for you to look at.” He reached for the saddlebag and pulled out the book. ’Twas the reason he’d come, to find whatever truth there was, as much for his own benefit as the maid’s.