The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) (46 page)

Dain had heard stories of the pit at Balor. ’Twas said to bring Caradoc more gold than his land or his stock. Two bears and a boar were the favored match, a pairing guaranteed to draw even rich English lords from across Offa’s Dyke.

“We’d have all been better off just to have left her at Usk,” Owain opined aloud. “A nunnery is the only place for Ceridwen ab Arawn. What with her father dead and her brother more devoted to redeemin’ his soul than redeemin’ his land, there’s no one to stand for her.”

“I stand for her,” Dain said, his voice grim.

Owain looked over at him, his glance sliding briefly to Scyld sheathed at Dain’s side. “Aye, and it’s going to be a bloody day at Balor then.”

“Aye,” Dain said.

~ ~ ~

Ceridwen looked up through the pouring rain at Balor Keep—her new prison, her last prison. Her hands were bound to her palfrey’s saddle. Her ankles were bound one to the other by a braided strip of leather running beneath the horse’s girth. Caradoc was taking no chance on escape.

The curtain wall of Balor reached across the horizon, surrounding the spit of land once known as Carn Merioneth. Clouds of mist from the Irish Sea rolled up over the cliff edge, stretching into thin wisps that hung about the battlements and clung to the cold, gray stone.

Shudders born half in fear, half from the near-frozen state of her body, wracked her. She would die in that place, and she knew by whose hand. The leech had not taken his eyes from her since he’d loomed over Caradoc’s shoulder in the lower chamber of the Hart. Helebore was his name, and he watched her no less intently than a cat eyeing a crippled mouse.

As for her betrothed, he looked at her not. He spoke not a word, and she was sure he would as soon kill her as do either. She was not virgin. He and the leech had read the truth in her face somehow, and the betrayal had made her of no personal worth to him. Her body, though, her blood, was still of prime importance, and he’d given the keeping of both over to Helebore. For the four days of their journey, the leech had hovered over her and about her—without ever touching her—bringing her choice morsels of food and extra cloaks to hold off the rain.

“Lady.” The man holding the reins of her palfrey smiled toothlessly and directed her attention to the gatehouse. Gruffudd was his name. “They’re raisin’ the portcullis.”

Ceridwen looked in the direction he pointed, wondering if he did not know what awaited her inside the walls, or if he was as twisted as his master to think the news would cheer her. Indeed, they were raising the portcullis, and a more chilling sight she’d never seen. ’Twas a gaping maw of iron stakes dripping with rainwater, stained with rust.

She had to get her pack back. Her only hope lay within the rough magic she’d learned in the Hart. Dain would come, she knew he would, but there was no one else, and if they were to have a chance, she must be ready to save herself.

Helebore had given the keeping of her pack to Gruffudd, or rather the destruction of it. If ’twas possible, the pale
medicus
had grown even paler upon first sighting her small roll of baggage while they were still in the Hart. As with all things of her, he had not touched it, but ordered Gruffudd to throw it on the smoldering coals in the hearth. Gruffudd had not, but stolen it instead. She’d seen him tuck it under his hauberk in the confusion of their leaving. He had since moved it beneath his gambeson, allowing her only a rare peak of trailing riband. She had run her mind in circles trying to think of a way to get it back. Her one advantage was that she herself had been given over to Gruffudd’s keeping in deference to Helebore’s aversion to any physical contact. The leech gave the orders, and big, thieving Gruffudd carried them out.

They entered Balor much as she would have expected, under the pall of a leaden sky. ’Twas not yet night, and a rider had been sent ahead to roust the kitchen into a meal for the returning lord. As they passed under the portcullis, she looked up at the roof of the gatehouse. Murder holes had been cut into the oak.

The keep sat at the upper end of the bailey. A timber scaffold with stairs led to a heavy oak door, and it was at the scaffolding that they stopped. Upon orders, the mesnie dispersed, the men going off in different directions, leaving her unguarded, except for Gruffudd. Ceridwen curled her fists around handfuls of the palfrey’s mane and waited with eyes downcast for any chance that might come along. Should Gruffudd drop the reins for an instant, she would try for the gate.

Gruffudd did not relinquish the reins, and every instant that he held them, listening to Caradoc give orders to the garrison commander, pushed her closer to an edge she dared not fall off. She had learned from her dealings with Ragnor that it was better to wait than to waste her strength when there was no chance, but the waiting was hard when the chance was so slim.

Caradoc finished with his commander and turned to Helebore. “Call me when she is ready for your blade.” He gave her a brief glance. “I want to watch.”

Sweet Christ
, she thought, the blood draining from her face. ’Twas all true, the very worst of it. She made to bolt, but Gruffudd reached for her then, just as a stable boy released her ankles, and instead of bolting, she swooned in a dead faint, nearly knocking Gruffudd over. Two men jumped forward to keep them from toppling, and in the melee, she snatched her pack roll from beneath Gruffudd’s gambeson and hid it within her cloaks. If he felt the quick slide of cloth down his side, he said naught, being too busy regaining control of the situation and her.

“I got ’er. I got ’er,” he said, scowling and shoving the other men-at-arms away.

Ceridwen heard Caradoc swear a vile oath. “I knew she could not withstand the north. I know naught what you can do with such weak blood, leech.”

She lay limp in Gruffudd’s arms, praying for a miracle.

“Take her above stairs,” Caradoc ordered. “We’ll revive her before we begin.”

Gruffudd grunted his assent and carried her off, his lumbering gait nearly making her ill. She heard a door being opened and fluttered her lashes, hoping to get her bearings. There was not much to see. The hall was dark and cold and unwelcoming.

More stairs followed, a shorter flight, then another door. Gruffudd laid her down on a bed of uncommon softness and comfort, but he did not let her go. Rather he leaned in close, and she felt an ominous change in his breathing. What followed was even more ominous: a low, sibilant hiss sounding from somewhere in the chamber. Her instincts told her it was Helebore, and more than she feared Gruffudd, she feared the
medicus
, even rape being preferable to evisceration.

Gruffudd started and moved away.

“Leave her, you whoreson,” the leech said, “and send me a guard who knows better than to risk his life for his master’s betrothed.”

Gruffudd retreated farther, but not without grumbling. “It’s not to wife or to bed he’s takin’ her, but to hell.”

“As is his right. Leave us.”

She heard the guardsman retreat and fought to control her panic. A soft swishing warned her of Helebore’s advance.

“Hmmm,” he murmured as his peculiar stench assaulted her nostrils. “Hmmm.”

She could hear him circling the bed, drawing closer. Beneath her fingers she felt the hard, ovoid shape of Brochan’s Great Charm, and she wondered if she dared to use it on him.

With this stone, I impose... whether you take it or nay... nay, I impose upon thee a wandering, to a land and fro... through...
She went over the spell in her mind, forgetting half of it in her fear, trying to remember Dain’s exact inflection.
A land of faerie dreams, that small dwarf...

Helebore came closer, and the spell fled from her mind. Her hand tightened around the charm in a fierce grip, and she realized she was far more likely to throw it at him than enchant him with it.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said for God knew what reason, then with a swish and a soft tread, he left. She heard him lock the door behind him.

Relief flooded through her, making her weak, and suddenly she was fighting back tears.

“Dain.” His name was naught but an anguished groan from her lips. She missed him with an ache she could scarce bear. She had fallen in love and given herself to a man, and both love and the man had been lost to her. She closed her eyes against her tears and brought her hand to her face, imagining she could still smell that warm fragrance they had made, the scent that had bound them, and through it find some strength, some courage to keep her from the madness surrounding her. She had touched him everywhere, gliding her fingers across his skin, smoothing her palm up the broad length of his back and over his shoulders. She had tangled her hands in his hair, held him close and felt safe and truly whole.

She was so very weary. The march had been relentless, with the rain pounding away at them, day after day. Her nights had been fraught with wide-eyed fear, lest someone should come for her. Any sleep she’d gotten had been on the back of the palfrey.

“Dain,” she whispered again, and her tears began anew, running down her cheeks. She was tired, so tired, and cold, and alone. She closed her eyes, meaning nothing more than to rest for a moment. One moment was all she asked.

~ ~ ~

She’s here. She’s here. She’s here, here, here!
Snit could hardly contain his excitement. The lady had come to live in Balor and make it a home, a very fine place indeed, indeed.
She’s here, here, here!

He rummaged through his cupboard, through this drawer and that, searching for the fairest treasures of all his great store. Dust and lint flew up behind him as he tossed things every which way. One fine ball caught his attention while in the air, and he quickly turned to capture it in his hand before it could hit the floor.

“Ah, yes,” he crooned. It was a prize. Mostly gray, as lint was apt to be, but this particular little bundle had a red thread running through it, twisting and curving. Just the thing for a lady.

He set it in a box he’d marked with a “C” for Ceridwen, next to a smooth piece of driftwood. Actually, he’d made the box for Caradoc the Ingrate, who had proven too true to his name to deserve the gift. So now it was for the lady, and the ingrate could do without.

He checked a few more nooks and crannies, coming up with the rare, wee beasty he’d found in March. Women liked soft things, so he put it in the box. Lastly, he chose the star rock, the one with shards of the celestial heavens embedded in its hard gray core. Not only would he welcome her with gifts, he’d make her rich in the bargain. ’Twas important for a person to have a little wealth of his own, and he knew she came a pauper from the convent, a sweet bride from God’s hands to theirs. He, Snit, could always get by, and any wealth he gave her, he could easily replace from down in the caves. Dark, wondrous places they were. Not for the faint of heart, especially in the deeper reaches, especially of late.

There was an intruder in the caves.

Snit froze in place and slanted his eyes first to the right, then to the left. A sneaky, elusive intruder well versed in the arts of concealment. Snit had not seen him, but he’d seen sign of him—a thread of white wool, a footprint, and a bit of lost hair, one strand a long silvery gold and the other strands of the deepest, reddest copper. ’Twas a devil-angel for certain.

Devil-angel
... The words seem to come out of the air, mocking him, or daring him. Snit whirled and pressed his back up against the cupboard.

There was nothing and no one.

He carefully gathered his prizes, watching the room for signs of danger. Sly, sneaky stuff was danger, slipping and sliding out of the dark when one was least suspecting. Danger could crush a person, if he wasn’t quick. Snit had learned that in the deep caves.

Gifts safely in hand, he clambered up on top of the cupboard and made a leap for the rafters. Once there, he ran the length of a beam and disappeared into a cubbyhole hollowed out of the rock and earth.

~ ~ ~

Ceridwen knew not what awakened her, other than mayhaps the slow rise of hairs on the nape of her neck. She had just realized she’d fallen asleep in the same instant she’d realized she was being watched.

She held her breath, listening, but heard no sound other than the rain and the wind beating against the keep. The storm had grown worse. Hearing nothing inside the chamber, she slowly opened her eyes and got such a fright, she sucked the breath she’d held clean down into her toes and nearly choked.

Eye to eye she was with a tiny three-winged bat, a dead bat hardly as big as her thumb, a desiccated abomination of nature. Next to it was a ball of lint and whatnot the size of a quince, and next to that a small piece of driftwood and a box, the four items laid out as neatly as beads on a string, not two handspans from her face.

She inched herself backward on the bed, not knowing what evil Helebore was conjuring with the odd array. When she reached a bearable distance, she lifted her head and turned her gaze to the rest of the chamber. At first, she saw no one. A low bench sat by the hearth, a pair of chairs with footstools off to one side. A large chest ran the width of the bed at its foot.

Rushes redolent with the scent of hyssop had been spread on the floor, making the room seem better taken care of than the rest of the keep. Her gaze went back to the bench by the hearth, and ’twas then that she saw him, a changeling, hiding between the wood box and the mantel wall. She gasped, and so did he, both of them backing away, her on the bed, and him deeper into the shadows of his narrow hiding place.

His hair was dark and scraggly, reaching to his shoulders, one of which was higher than the other. His eyes shone out at her, two bright spots in an ash-smudged face with a fine small nose and pointed chin. Sackcloth covered him from neck to knee, and naught but rags cross-gartered his thin legs. For shoes, she saw none, only bare, dirty toes peeking out of the rushes.

She had never seen a changeling, but she’d heard about them, wild, cantankerous children. The faeries would come and steal a woman’s fair newborn babe and leave one of their own in its place. So said the ladies at Usk. For all of Rhiannon’s talk of faeries, she had never told of any who stole children. Quite the contrary. According to Rhiannon, there was no need as faerie children were as lovely as any other.