Brandewyne, Rebecca (3 page)

"I
will prepare you a sleeping draught this evening, daughter, if you like,"
Igraine offered after a moment, casually.

Rhowenna
had inherited her mother's intelligence and insight, and she was not deceived
by the Queen's tone. It held a note she recognized as a harbinger of a private
conversation later. Her heart sank at the sound, for although she yearned to
unburden herself to her mother, the unknown consequences of that act
discouraged her. Still, she nodded.

"Aye,
perhaps 'twould help," she said.

And
perhaps that, too, was the truth, she thought as she dragged a low stool over
to the circle of women and, taking up her reel and spindle, began her own work
for the day. Being neither vain nor lazy, the Queen turned her hand as quickly
and easily to a bone needle as she did to a bone chessman; and through the
years, she had trained Rhowenna to do the same, instilling in her the belief
that idleness and ignorance led to no good, and teaching her not only the
knowledge required to manage a royal manor, but also the lore of the Picti and
of the Tribes, which had been handed down through the ages from female to
female. There was no task of either
chatelaine or serving woman that
Rhowenna could not perform. She should have thought of a sleeping potion
herself, she realized belatedly. The various properties of flowers and roots,
herbs and spices, how to make medicinal tinctures and decoctions, were as well
known to her as to her mother. Perhaps with a sleeping draught, the dream would
vanish. That, instead, it might well be enhanced by a potion was a thought
that, shivering a little, Rhowenna did not dwell on as her nimble fingers
twirled the reel and spindle, turning carded wool into a fine, even yarn she
would later weave upon her own small loom. If she dyed the fabric Tyrian
purple, it would make a handsome cloak for her father, she mused as she spun,
and perhaps she could speak to one of the metalworkers about fashioning a
brooch to pin the cloak, a gold circlet with a winged, serpentine dragon at its
heart. That would please her father, for the dragon was his emblem.

Focusing
on such matters as these, Rhowenna forced herself to occupy her mind as she
occupied her hands with her work. She would ponder her dream no more, she told
herself sternly, but put it from her head. If the priests spoke truly, the
vision was false and wicked, sent to her by the devil to tempt her to damnation
if he could. She would not
imperil her immortal soul. Even the old gods had
warned of the consequences upon those who would commune with demons.

Rhowenna
listened with only half an ear to the shallow chatter of the serving women as
they bickered about the simple, mundane matters that were their own lot and
that did not interest her. There was little to be gleaned from workers who grew
more quarrelsome during the long grey winter months, when there was little to
do except to sit beside the fire in the shadowy great hall and to sew, to spin,
or to weave. Sometimes Owain, the bard, entertained the women with his songs
and storytelling, but he was nowhere to be seen this day. Like as not, he had
joined the hunt, eager to escape from the dreary confines of the royal manor.
Rhowenna did not blame him. She, too, would have been glad to venture outside
for a while, despite the inclement weather. She felt torpid and thick-headed
from lack of sun and sleep. She wished she were a fat bear, who could just
hibernate all winter and have no worries beyond being safe and snug in some
cave, slumbering, dreamless, until spring instead of sitting and spinning and
fretting.

But
there was no surcease from any of this as the seemingly interminable day wore
on, the noon meal but a brief respite
for Rhowenna from the turning of her
reel and spindle. She returned dully to her work, feeling like Clotho, one of
the Greeks' three Fates, who had spun endlessly, drawing out and twisting the
fibers of men into the threads of life. Was there no more to be had from life
than this? she wondered. Was there no more in store for her? Then,
determinedly, she compelled herself once more to shake off her melancholy
thoughts. They were born of the winter months and being cooped up for so long
inside the royal manor, she reassured herself. She had grown as fractious as
the serving women, who had begun yet another spat among themselves.

"A
dull needle and ragged stitches do not a fine gown make, Cerys," dour,
shrewish Winifred chided. Always, her cold, censuring eyes watched the rest of
the women avidly, alert for the slightest mistake. With her sharp, spiteful
tongue, she made it her business to chastise them for any perceived fault or
mistake. "That seam will never hold— and you've sewn the sleeve in
crooked, besides, stupid wench!"

As
she gazed down at her botched handiwork, tears trembled on the lashes of silly
young Cerys, who was gentle and harmless and meant well but who, in truth,
could not be trusted with any save the simplest of tasks. She
was frequently
to blame for broken crockery in the kitchen and cross words in the great hall.

"I—
I do not know how I— how I came to do such a thing," Cerys whispered,
contrite and cringing in the face of Winifred's admonishment.

"Like
as not because your mind is on Rhodri— instead of your work!" dark, sly,
malicious Morgen gibed. She was fair-faced and ripe-bodied, the siren and
mischief-maker of the lot, as eager to tumble into a man's bed as she was to
shirk a hard task or to start trouble. She had had her eye on the warrior
Rhodri for some time and, resenting the fact that it was Cerys he preferred,
was quick to side with Winifred.

"Aye,
well, that is the way of it when a maid is in love," plump, jolly Jestina
observed affably, as though there were no argument brewing. With her capable,
willing hands and kind, generous heart, she was forever smoothing over the
upsets and the quarrels of the others. Taking the gown from Cerys, she began
patiently to undo the ragged stitches of the crooked sleeve. " 'Tis not so
bad, after all. A turn here and a tuck there, and 'twill soon be put aright.
Fetch a sharper needle from the sewing chest, child," she directed to
Cerys, "for Winifred spoke truly when she
said that your own needle is
dull. That is why you had to push it so hard through the fabric and so twisted
the sleeve."

"I
did that once— twisted my knee. 'Twas so painful, I remember.... You will need
to put a compress on it and to bind it well," frail old Gladys chimed in
querulously from where she half dozed by the fire, her embroidery sliding from
her lap. Deaf and senile and so invariably muddled, she was often inadvertently
humorous and so a favorite target of the housecarls' good-natured baiting and
jesting.

Glancing
up from her spinning as she joined in the laughter that greeted poor old
Gladys's contribution to the conversation, Rhowenna had banished from her mind
her fears of impending doom. In that instant of laughter, she thought only,
with pride, that her mother, the Queen, was like a swan amid ducks where she
sat among the circle of serving women. Lovely and serene, graceful of form and
movement, keen of mind and wit, Igraine alone took no part in the mirth at
Gladys's expense. Instead, her head was cocked a trifle, as though she were
lost in reverie or, more likely, listening for the sound of Pendragon's return.
But then Rhowenna saw her mother's face go suddenly still and heard, too, the
loud squawking and violent fluttering of panicked
hens in the bailey, the thudding
hooves of horses ridden hard and furious, the discordant jangle of bridles
yanked up short and spurs upon booted feet, and the urgent, frightened shouting
of men outside; and she knew then, even as her mother did, that something was
wrong, terribly wrong.

The
Queen rose abruptly, accidentally knocking over her chair, a clumsy action so
unlike her that Rhowenna felt a sudden fist of fear clutch her heart. Igraine's
face was now drained of color; one fragile hand trembled at her throat for an
instant before, recovering, she glided swiftly toward the doors of the great
hall, through which the housecarls were even then bursting in a biting gust of
rain and wind that brought with it a whorl of brittle leaves and old straw
blown up from the bailey, and that set the rushlights in the great hall wildly
aflicker.

For
a moment, as the massive oak portals swung inward, Rhowenna could see naught
but the men's faces, grim and angry and afraid beneath their helmets dripping
with rain, for the broad shoulders of those who came foremost blocked her view.
So at first, she felt only a deep sense of relief that the faces were familiar,
that the royal manor was not under attack by some enemy force. But then she saw
that between them, the warriors bore the
bloodstained body of her father, the
King, and she was struck dumb with anguish and disbelief.

Time
seemed to slow then, and Rhowenna viewed her surroundings through a shadowy
vignette, blurred at the edges, unreal. An afflicted cry rose to echo amid the
heavy timber rafters of the great hall. She was only dimly aware that the wail
came from her own throat as she, like the rest, pressed forward to reach the
King. Metal clanged against metal and upon stone as one of the housecarls swept
the cups of mead and wine from the long trestle table by the fire to clear a
place to lay Pendragon; and as the other men carefully maneuvered the King's
body onto the table, the dark, rich liquor from the scattered cups flowed and
puddled like blood upon the rushes that strewed the stone floor. The mead, made
from honey, would be sticky and difficult to clean up, Rhowenna thought
stupidly, then was stricken and ashamed that she should think of such when her
father lay so silent and unmoving upon the table.

"Is
he alive?" The Queen's voice was low and sharp with fear; for it seemed to
them all as she bent over Pendragon that he did not breathe and that the pallor
of death had already crept upon his flesh.

"Aye,
my lady," Pendragon's head
warrior, Brynmawr, replied soberly, "but badly
hurt, and I fear that the wound may prove mortal."

"Jestina,
fetch my medicine chest and clean linens for bandages! Winifred, set a pot of
water to boiling! Morgen, I will need mud and cobwebs to staunch the bleeding!
Cerys, send for the healer! Rhowenna, you will assist me! Brynmawr, your
knife!" Like stones cast rapidly from a sling, Igraine's orders flew as,
taking the speedily proffered blade, she began carefully to cut the King's
blood-stiffened leather garments from his body so that she might see what
damage had been done.

As
sharply as Brynmawr's dagger sliced through Pendragon's clothing, so her
mother's words pierced Rhowenna's shock. Gathering her wits, she moved to stand
at the Queen's side, her insides knotted with terror as she stared down at her
father's handsome, bearded visage, as ashen as though all his life's blood had
poured from it. There was a smear of mud upon his cheek and bits of twigs and
leaves in his dark beard. He had been struck down in the forest, then, and had
fallen to the earth, she surmised. The hounds of the hunting party must have
flushed a wild boar, she thought. Savage and dangerous, a wild boar could gore
a grown man to death, even a man so large and powerful as her father. One of
his housecarls had
died that way once, long ago, when she was just a child, she vaguely recalled.
But now as her mother probed the injury, Rhowenna spied the cruel iron barb and
the small, broken piece of wood embedded in her father's flesh, just above his
heart; and she knew then, horrified, that he had been brought low by an arrow.
A hunting accident? Or had someone attempted to murder the King?

"Brynmawr,
how did this happen?" Igraine asked, her voice harsh and throbbing with
emotion, her midnight-blue eyes dark and huge in her pale, fine-boned
countenance.

"An
ambush, my lady. We were set upon in the woods— by whom, I know not, except
that they were men of Walas and not the Saxon wolves from east of Offa's Dyke;
for they were wise in the ways of our hills and forests, my lady, and of our
style of fighting. Most like, they were warriors of Glamorgan or Gwent. If so,
my lady, it may be that they will believe the King dead and will lay siege upon
us!"

Rhowenna
shivered at Brynmawr's words, for until now, except for her dream, she had
never really thought of Usk as being vulnerable to assault, and certainly not
from other kingdoms of Walas. She had not suspected treachery from one of
Walas's own.

"Go,
then, and make the necessary
preparations to ward off such an attack," the
Queen ordered to Brynmawr, looking suddenly, Rhowenna thought, as though the
blood flowing from Pendragon's wound somehow sapped her own strength, as well.

Why,
she is no longer young,
Rhowenna recognized, startled,
and I never
realized it until today; and without Father, she is vulnerable, as I am....

What
might befall them if her father died? This time in which they lived was not
like the old days, when a queen could rule in her own right. If Pendragon were
to die, one of his kinsmen would claim the throne, and she and her mother might
have little say about what became of them. Worse, Usk might be conquered by
enemies and she and her mother taken prisoner, raped, or even killed. For the
first time in her life, Rhowenna longed to be a man, so she might wield a sword
and a shield to defend herself. Of its own volition, her hand dropped to the
small dinner dagger she carried in the mesh girdle around her waist. If the
worst should happen, she would not be seized without a struggle, she vowed
silently, fiercely. She would fight to the death if need be to protect herself
and her mother.