Cry of Sorrow (40 page)

Then she slowly pulled the opal ring off her finger. She bowed her head and blindly held out the ring to Morcant. He snatched it from her and put it on his finger. Then he triumphantly tore the veil from her head and pulled her to him, crushing his mouth upon hers.

The crowd was frozen, plainly horrified. Out of the corner of his eye, Gwydion saw Trystan’s hands clench into fists. He almost remonstrated, when he realized his own hands were clenched, as well.

General Baldred stepped forward, grabbing one of Morcant’s arms, thus effectively ending the embrace. Baldred raised Morcant’s hand, the hand where the opal ring glittered, and called out, “This is your true King! Today has he received the ring from the hand of King Urien’s daughter. Today has he wed her, and let none now dispute—he is your King!”

A
LONG WITH THE
rest of the spectators, Gwen rose as the wedding party retraced their steps up the aisle. The sight of Enid’s face unnerved her. Enid was pale, and there were tears in her eyes. Her mouth was swollen and red from Morcant’s kiss. But the Princess held her head high, not looking directly at anyone. Yet Gwen knew Enid would recognize her when the moment came. They had gotten to know each other well when Enid and her brother had come to visit Ogaf Greu; the time when Gwen’s brother, Geriant, had looked on Enid and loved her and begged her to marry him. Gwen contrasted the dark, hideous Morcant with Geriant, who was so golden, so beautiful, so brave, and so kind. She thought that perhaps Enid was remembering that, too.

“Ready?” Gwen whispered to Arthur as Enid neared them.

“Of course,” Arthur replied. “Don’t be a fool.” Arthur craned his neck and looked down at his feet as though noticing something wrong with his boots. He tsked in exasperation and bent to pull them up tighter. His elbow jabbed her sharply in the ribs, and she yelped, jumping away from him and, somehow, falling to her knees in the center aisle—directly in front of Princess Enid herself. Gwen clutched at the Princess’s red gown to steady herself and looked up into Enid’s eyes.

“You there, what are you doing?” Morcant demanded.

“She fell,” Enid replied, holding out her hand to help Gwen to her feet.

As Gwen rose, her palm brushed against Enid’s. And the note smoothly passed from one girl to the other.

Arthur yanked Gwen back to her place, and the wedding party continued up the aisle.

“Did she get it?” Arthur whispered.

Gwen nodded, too overcome by the glimpse of torment she had seen in Enid’s eyes to speak.

R
HIANNON WAITED WITH
the others in the bathhouse at Caer Erias, listening for the sound of Enid’s arrival. Getting into the fortress had been easy, for the doors were opened in expectation of the guests for the wedding feast.

Rhiannon reached out and laid a gentle hand on Gwen’s hair, searching for some way to comfort her daughter. For Gwen had been pale and had not spoken a word since the wedding. Rhiannon expected Gwen to jerk her head away, but the girl did not. Instead, Gwen turned to her, her blue eyes filled with tears. Blindly Gwen reached out and Rhiannon was there, pulling her daughter into her arms, softly stroking her hair and whispering words of comfort. After a moment Gwen stiffened and drew away, shifting to the far side of the bench on which they sat.

Rhiannon said nothing, for she had long since recognized that the hatred her daughter felt was fair. She had done the same to her father years ago. Myrrdin had tried to tell her, to warn her that the Wheel turned around.

Rhiannon settled back onto the bench and waited. She looked up and Arthur caught her eyes as he stood near the doorway with Trystan, Dudod, and Gwydion. He left them and came over to her, settling himself on the bench between Rhiannon and Gwen. He ignored Gwen’s taut back and turned to Rhiannon.

“She will not be much longer, we think. It should not be too difficult for her to excuse herself from the feast. She need only say that she wishes to bathe in order to be presentable to the King tonight.”

Rhiannon smiled. Arthur was not saying anything she didn’t already know, but he was trying to help. She glanced over at the men in the doorway and Gwydion returned her gaze, then quickly looked away.

“My uncle is a fool,” Arthur said quietly.

“So he is,” she replied. “And I have learned to let fools be fools and not to be bothered with them.”

“No, you haven’t.”

Before she could reply, they heard the sounds of movement outside the bathhouse. Gwydion, Trystan, and Dudod moved away from the inner door, motioning for the others to hide themselves.

The outer door opened and shut, and they heard footsteps nearing the chamber. The second door opened, and Enid stood framed alone in the doorway. She quickly shut the door behind her and flew into Trystan’s arms.

“Trystan, oh, Trystan,” she cried, weeping in the shelter of his arms. “My brother has sent you to save me after all! Oh, how I have begged the gods for this!”

Trystan closed his eyes in agony and bowed his head over hers. For a moment the only sound was of Enid weeping. Then she raised her head. “Let’s be gone from here,” she said eagerly. “How do we go?”

“We don’t,” Gwydion said coldly, moving to stand next to Trystan. Dudod and Arthur took their places on either side of Gwydion while Rhiannon and Gwen went to stand in front of the door.

“What do you mean, we don’t?” Enid cried, not looking at Gwydion, but rather at Trystan.

“I—I’m sorry, Enid. We can’t,” Trystan said, his voice breaking.

“Can’t?” Enid stepped away, searching their faces wildly. She spun for the door, but Rhiannon and Gwen were in her way. “What are you doing here if not to come for me? Why won’t you help me? Why?”

“We did not come here for you because there is nothing we can do for you,” Gwydion said. Only the tautness of his shoulders betrayed how hard those cold words were for him to say. “We have come for the ring.”

“The ring?”

“The ring you stole from your brother, its rightful owner.”

“I didn’t steal it!” Enid flared. “I—I borrowed it.”

“Then the time has come for you to return it. For we have need of it. The land wakes to fight for freedom. The Protectors are come back to us. The Treasures must be found. Even now we have one in our possession. And the Treasures will be used to make a High King, one who will drive the enemy from this land. And to find the next Treasure, we need the ring.”

“You can’t have it!” Enid cried. “Not without taking me with you. That is my price!”

“Your price?” Gwydion hissed, stepping closer to her. Enid looked around, but the rest of them only stared at her, appalled at what she was saying.

“Your price?” Gwydion asked again, his voice cold and deadly. “How dare you talk to us of price. For all of us have paid—and will continue to pay—in heart’s blood for what has been done, for what will be done. We have lost those we have loved. We have lost our country, our freedom, our way of life. And you—you who placed yourself in your own prison—demand help. You who have caused suffering to your brothers, to Sabrina and Trystan because they could not save you, to Prince Geriant who loved you, to the Cerddorian who had to flee for their lives from Coed Addien when you betrayed their hiding place—you set a price. You sicken me. We stand at the brink of destruction, and all you can think of is to be rescued from what you have done to yourself.”

“Get me out of here!” Enid screamed. “Get me away from Morcant. Away from Bledri and the things that they do to me! Get me out and you will have your ring!”

“Enid ur Urien var Ellirri, I know you have listened to your brother speak of your father’s last message to him. And so I say this to you now, in the words foretold by Bran the Dreamer, the words passed down from ruler to ruler, ‘The High King commands you to surrender Bran’s gift.’ Know that I am the Dreamer who was born to give you this command. Know that to ignore this command is to betray Kymru herself.”

The chamber was silent as Enid and Gwydion faced each other. The color drained from Enid’s face at Gwydion’s words. At last her eyes filled with tears, and she dropped her head. “Forgive me,” she whispered. “Please forgive me.”

Trystan stepped forward and again took Enid in his arms. She clung to him and her tears fell, but she was silent. At last she raised her head and turned to face Gwydion. “I do not have the ring. I gave it to Morcant in the ceremony today. But I can get it for you. When he takes me tonight, he will be thinking of nothing but my humiliation and of inflicting pain. I can get it for you then, for he wears it on his finger.”

Gwen choked back a sob at Enid’s words. Enid turned to Gwen. “Give your brother a message from me. Please.”

Gwen nodded but could not speak.

“Tell Geriant that I wish with all my heart that I had known what I had in him. Tell him that I wish he were the man I married today. I would have spent the rest of my life with him and been content. But that will never be now.”

“Enid,” Gwen wept. “If we win Kymru back, Geriant can be yours. He will never suffer Morcant to live.”

“No,” Enid said quietly. “It is too late for that. The woman he would find then would be very different from the girl he loved. They do things to me here that change me. Tell him I am sorry. Tell him that, in the end, I paid for my foolishness, paid full price, as the Dreamer would say.”

Enid turned away from Gwen and went to stand before Gwydion. Rhiannon was not surprised to see the torment in Gwydion’s eyes as the girl looked up at him, her face set. “Dreamer, I will do as you ask. Stand beneath the window of the bedchamber in the Queen’s ystafell in an hour’s time. Then will I give back what I have stolen.

“Trystan,” she went on, turning to her brother’s Captain, “there is only one more thing you can do, if you will. I ask you to do all you can to release a captive from Caer Erias.”

“Enid, I can’t—”

“No, not me,” Enid smiled faintly. “I know that. But there is someone else here who has suffered longer than I have. March Y Meirchion, my father’s huntsman, Esyllt’s husband, is here.

Trystan paled and swallowed hard. “You ask this of me? To rescue the man whose wife I have loved for so many years?”

“He does not deserve to be imprisoned here. No matter what you feel for his wife.”

“A great gift you give me, Enid,” Trystan said, his face working. “A great gift. The chance to save him and return him to his wife, the chance to make up to him, in some small measure, for the pain I have caused him.”

“The pain Esyllt has caused him, too. For would she not be happy to have him back again?” Enid grinned wickedly.

“What a lovely gift for Esyllt,” Dudod grinned back. “Come, Trystan,” he said, slapping his friend on the back, “let us take this man back to his loving wife.”

“How did you know, Enid, that I would give my soul to do this?” Trystan asked.

“The look in your eyes. You are changed. March is held in the cellars beneath the kitchen. It will not be easy.”

“Don’t be foolish, girl,” Dudod said smoothly. “There is no kitchen in the world that doesn’t have a wine barrel I can’t take with me.”

“I
STILL SAY
it’s foolish,” Gwydion whispered to Rhiannon for what seemed like the hundredth time as they waited, crouched down next to the walls of the ystafell hidden from casual sight by the barrels stacked there.

Rhiannon sighed. “Yes, I know you do. You have said so, over and over. But this is something Trystan must do. And what better man to help him than Dudod?”

“Once we get back to Menestyr’s stall and join Gwen and Arthur there, we will not wait one minute past midnight for them,” Gwydion threatened. “They are on their own.”

“There is no need to wait for them at all, Gwydion,” Rhiannon said serenely. “They won’t be coming with us on our journey. They will be returning to Coed Coch.”

Gwydion muttered something under his breath.

“What did you say?” she asked sweetly, turning to him.

He did not reply, but searched her face for a moment. “Rhiannon,” he began. “About that day by the lake. I’m sorry. I—”

“Best not to talk about it, Dreamer. Let’s just say you were overcome at the joy of seeing the Stone. After all, think of the years you dreamed of it. You would, of course, be momentarily grateful to anyone who had retrieved it for you. I understand.”

And she did. She knew Gwydion ap Awst through and through. He cared nothing for her, and never had. It had been the Stone, the fact that she had done his bidding like the puppet she was, that had almost made him kiss her in gratitude.

“You don’t understand,” Gwydion whispered harshly. “You—”

“Hush,” she breathed, putting her hand on his arm to silence him, nodding to the upper window. Gwydion’s eyes followed her gaze. The curtains that hung over the window rustled slightly. A thin, white hand pushed the window open. For a moment they saw her. Her hair was disheveled. Her robe, open at the neck, revealed red welts on her chest. Her eyes were swollen from weeping, and her mouth was torn and bleeding.

But she smiled as she tossed the ring down to them as it turned end over end, the opals flashing fire under the pale light of the stars.

Meriwdydd, Tywyllu Wythnos—early afternoon

S
outh,” Gwydion had said when he put on the opal ring. “South.” So they had gone south, traveling Sarn Halen, the great north/south road that bisected Rheged.

Rhiannon remembered, from the time she had worn the pearl ring of Nantsovelta, the pull she had felt, the relentless pull toward the place where the Treasure was hidden, the pull that never lessened until the Treasure had been found. So she was not surprised that Gwydion did not sleep well during the ten days of their journey. And not surprised when he was restless and uncommunicative. It had been the same for her.

And there was another similarity—the fear. She had been afraid of what she had known was coming as they neared the Stone. And she knew Gwydion’s fear.

It was something she had never taunted him with. She could—and did—taunt him with the things that everyone already knew about him. That he was cold, that he cared nothing for others, that he used people. But she had never shown that she knew his secret fear. She had never said to anyone that the great Dreamer, that cold, impervious man, feared Mabon’s Fire.