Isle of Glass (3 page)

When he was well secured, a stranger entered, a man in mail.
He was not a tall man, but thickset, with the dark weathered features of a
hillman, and eyes so pale they seemed to have no color at all. When he pushed
back his mail-coif, his hair was as black as the bristle of his brows and shot
with grey.

He stood in front of the prisoner, hands on hips. “So,” he
said. “The rabbit came to the trap.”

The other kept his head up, his voice quiet. “Lord
Rhydderch, I presume? Alun of Caer Gwent, at your service.”

“Pretty speech, in faith, and a fine mincing way he has
about it.” Rhydderch prodded him as if he had been a bullock at market. “And a
long stretch of limb to add to it. Your King must be fond of outsize beauties.”

“The King of Rhiyana,” Alun said carefully, "has sent
me as his personal envoy. Any harm done to me is as harm to the royal person.
Will you not let me go?”

Rhydderch laughed, a harsh bark with no mirth in it. “The
Dotard of Caer Gwent? What can he do if I mess up his fancy boy a little?”

“I bear the royal favor. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“Your King’s no king of mine, boy.”

“I came in good faith, seeking peace between Gwynedd and
Anglia. Would you threaten that peace?”

“My King,” said Rhydderch, “will pay well for word of
Rhiyana’s plotting with Gwynedd. And Anglia between, in the pincers.”

“That has never been our intent.”

Rhydderch looked him over slowly. “What will your old pander
pay to have you back?”

“Peace,” replied Alun, “and forgiveness of this insult.”

Rhydderch sneered. “Richard pays in gold. How much will
Gwydion give for his minion? Or maybe Kilhwch would be more forthcoming.
Gwynedd is a little kingdom and Kilhwch is a little king, a morsel for our
Lion’s dinner.”

“Let me go, and I will ask.”

“Oh, no,” said Rhydderch. “I’m not a fool. I’ll set a price,
and I’ll demand it. And amuse myself with you while I wait for it.”

There was no dealing with that mind. It was like a wild
boar’s, black, feral, and entirely intent upon its own course.

Alun pitched his voice low, level, and very, very calm.
“Rhydderch. I know what you plan. You will break me beyond all mending and cast
me at my King’s feet, a gauntlet for your war. And while you challenge Rhiyana,
you prick Gwynedd to fury with your incessant driving of the hill-folk to raid
beyond the border. Soon Anglia’s great Lion must come, lured into the war you
have made; you will set the kings upon one another and let them destroy
themselves, while you take the spoils.”

While he spoke, he watched the man’s face. First Rhydderch
reddened, then he paled, and his eyes went deadly cold. Alun smiled. “So you
plan, Rhydderch. You think, with your men-at-arms and your hill-folk and all
your secret allies, that you are strong enough to take a throne and wise enough
to keep it. Have you failed to consider the forces with which you play? Kilhwch
is young, granted, and more than a bit of a hellion, but he is the son of Bran
Dhu, and blood kin to Gwydion of Rhiyana. He may prove a stronger man than you
reckon on. And Gwydion will support him.”

“Gwydion!” Rhydderch spat. “The coward king, the royal fool.
He wobbles on his throne, powdered and painted like an old whore, and brags of
his miraculous youth. His so-called knights win their spurs on the dancing
floor and their titles in bed. And not with women, either.”

Alun’s smile did not waver. “If that is so, then why do you
waste time in provoking him to war?”

A vein was pulsing in Rhydderch’s temple, but he grinned
ferally. “Why not? It’s the safest of all my bets.”

“Is it? Then Richard must be the most perilous of all, for
he is a lion in battle—quite unlike my poor Gwydion. How will he look on this
plot of yours, Rhydderch? Rebellion in the north and a brother who would poison
him at a word and the dregs of his Crusade, all these he has to face. And now
you bring him this folly.”

“Richard can never resist a good fight. He won’t touch me.
More likely he’ll reward me.”

“Ah. A child, a warmonger, and a dotard. Three witless
kings, and three kingdoms ripe for the plucking by a man with strength and
skill.” Alun shook his head. “Rhydderch, has it ever occurred to you that you
are a fool?"

A mailed fist lashed out. Alun’s head rocked with the force
of the blow. “You vain young cockerel,” Rhydderch snarled. “Strung up in my own
castle, and you crow like a dunghill king. I’ll teach you to sing a new song.”

The fist struck again in the same place. Alun choked back a
cry. Rhydderch laughed and held out his hand. One of his men placed a dark
shape in it.

In spite of himself, Alun shrank. Rhydderch shook out a whip
of thongs knotted with pellets of lead. Alun made one last, desperate effort to
penetrate that opaque mind.

No use. It was mad. The worst kind of madness, which passes
for sanity, because it knows itself and glories in its own twisted power.
Alun’s gentle strength was futile against it.

He felt as if he were tangled in the coils of a snake, its
venom coursing through his veins, waking the passion which was as deep as his
serenity. As many-headed pain lashed his body, his wrath stirred and kindled.
He forgot even torment in his desperate struggle for control. He forgot the
world itself. All his consciousness focused upon the single battle, the great
tide of his calmness against the fire of rage.

The world within became the world without. All his body was
a fiery agony, and his mind was a flame. Rhydderch stood before him, face
glistening with sweat, whip slack in his hand. He sneered at his prisoner.
“Beautiful as a girl, and weak as one besides. You’re Rhiyanan to the core.”

Alun drew a deep shuddering breath. The rage stood at bay,
but it touched his face, his eyes. “If you release me now, I shall forgive this
infamy, although I shall never forget it.”

“Let you go?” Rhydderch laughed. “I’ve hardly begun.”

“Do you count it honorable to flog a man in chains, captured
by treachery?”

“A man, no. You, I hardly count as a villein’s brat; and
you’ll be less when I’m done with you.”

“Whatever you do to me, I remain a Knight of the Crown of
Rhiyana. Gwydion is far from the weakling you deem him; and he shall not forget
what you have done to him.”

“From fainting lass to royal lord in two breaths. You awe
me.” Rhydderch tossed the whip aside. “Some of my lads here like to play a little
before they get down to business. Maybe I should let them, while you’re still
able to enjoy it.”

The rage lunged for the opening. Alun’s eyes blazed green;
he bared his teeth. But his voice was velvet-soft. “Let them try, Rhydderch.
Let them boast of it afterward. They will need the consolation, for they shall
never touch another: man, woman, or boy.” His eyes flashed round the
half-circle of men. “Who ventures it? You, Huw? Owein? Dafydd, great bull and
vaunter?”

Each one started at his name and crossed himself.

Rhydderch glared under his black brows. “You there, get him
down and hold him. He can’t do a thing to you.”

“Can I not?” asked Alun. “Have you not heard of what befalls
mortals who make shift to force elf-blood?”

The baron snarled. “Get him down, I say! He’s trying to
scare us off"

One man made bold to speak. “But—but—my lord, his eyes!”

“A trick of the light. Get him down!”

Alun lowered his arms. “No need. See. I am down.”

Eyes rolled; voices muttered.

“Damn you sons of curs! You forgot to fasten the chain!”
Rhydderch snatched at it. Alun dropped to his knees.

He was still feral-eyed. A blow, aimed at his head, missed.
He tossed back his hair and said, “Nay, I was firm-bound. Think you that the
Elvenking would risk a mortal on such a venture as this?”

“You’re no less mortal than I am.” Rhydderch hurled Alun
full-length upon the floor. Swift as a striking snake, his boot came down.

Someone screamed.

Pain had roused wrath; pain slew it. In red-rimmed clarity,
Alun saw all his pride and folly. He had come to lull Rhydderch into making
peace, and fallen instead into his enemy’s own madness. And now he paid.

That clarity was his undoing; for he did not move then to
stop what he had begun. Even as he paused, they were upon him, fear turned to
bitter scorn.

After an eternity came blessed nothingness.

o0o

He woke in the midst of a choking stench. Oddly, he found
that harder to bear than the agony of his body. Pain had some pretense to
nobility, even such pain as this, but that monumental stink was beyond all
endurance.

Gasping, gagging, he lifted his head. He had lain face down
in it. Walls of stone hemmed him in—a midden with but one barred exit. The iron
bars were forged in the shape of a cross. Rhydderch was taking no chances.

A convulsion seized him, bringing new agony: the spasming of
an empty stomach, the knife-sharp pain of cracked ribs. For a long while he had
to lie as he was. Then, with infinite caution, he drew one knee under him.

The right leg would not bear his weight; he swayed, threw
out a hand, cried out in agony as the outraged flesh struck the wall. His
other, the right hand, caught wildly at stone and held. Through a scarlet haze
he saw what first he had extended. It no longer looked even remotely like a
hand.

His sword hand.

He closed his eyes and sought inward for strength. It came
slowly, driving back the pain until he could almost bear it. But the cost to
his broken body was high. Swiftly, while he could still see, he swept his eyes
about.

One corner was almost clean. Inch by inch, hating the sounds
of pain his movements wrenched from him, he made his way to it. Two steps
upright, the rest crawling on his face.

Gradually his senses cleared. He hurt—oh, he hurt. And one
pain, less than the rest, made him burn with shame. After all his threats—and
empty, they had not been—still—still—

He found that he was weeping: he who had not wept even as a
child. Helpless, child’s tears, born of pain and shame and disgust at his own
massive folly. All this horror was no one’s fault but his own.

Even Kilhwch had warned him. Wild young Kilhwch, with his
father’s face but his mother’s grey eyes, and a little of the family wisdom.
“The border lords on both sides make a fine nest of adders, but Rhydderch is
the worst of them. He’d flay his own mother if it would buy him an extra acre.
Work your magic with the others as much as you like; I could use a little quiet
there. But stay away from Rhydderch.”

Kilhwch had not known of the baron’s invitation to a parley.
If he had, he would have flown into one of his rages. Yet that would not have
stopped Alun.

His shield was failing. One last effort; then he could rest.
He arranged his body as best he might, broken as it was, and extended his mind.

The normal rhythm of a border castle flowed through him,
overlaid with the blackness that was Rhydderch and with a tension born of men
gathering for war. Rhydderch himself was gone; a steward’s mind murmured of a
rendezvous with a hill-chieftain.

Alun could do nothing until dark, and it was barely past
noon. Thirst burned him; hunger was a dull ache. Yet nowhere in that heap of
offal could he find food or drink.

He would not weaken again into tears. His mind withdrew
fully into itself, a deep trance yet with a hint of awareness that marked the
passing of time.

o0o

Darkness roused him, and brought with it full awareness of
agony. For a long blood-red while he could not move at all.

By degrees he dragged himself up. As he had reached the
corner, so he reached the gate. It opened before him.

How he came to the stable, unseen and unnoticed, he never
knew. There was mist the color of torment, and grinding pain, and the tension
of power stretched to the fullest; and at last, warm sweet breath upon his
cheek and sleek horseflesh under his hand.

With all the strength that remained to him, he saddled and
bridled his mare, wrapping himself in the cloak which had covered her. She
knelt for him; he half-climbed, half-fell into the saddle. She paced forward.

The courtyard was dark in starlight. The gate yawned open;
the sentry stood like a shape of stone.

Fara froze. He stirred on her back. He could not speak
through swollen lips, but his words rang in his mind:
Now, while I can hold
the man and the pain—run, my beauty. Run!

She sprang into a gallop, wind-smooth, wind-swift. Her rider
clung to her, not caring where she went. She turned her head to the south and
lengthened her stride.

o0o

Only when the castle was long gone, hidden in a fold of the
hills, did she slow to a running walk. She kept that pace hour after hour,
until Alun was like to fall from her back. At last she found a stream and
knelt, so that he had but little distance to fall; he drank in long desperate
gulps, dragged himself a foot or two from the water, and let darkness roll over
him.

Voices sounded, low and lilting, speaking a tongue as old as
those dark hills. While they spoke he understood, but when they were done, he
could not remember what they had said.

Hands touched him, waking pain. Through it he saw a black
boar, ravening. He cried out against it.

The hands started away and returned. There were tightnesses:
bandages, roughly bound; visions of the herb-healer, who must see this tortured
creature; Rhuawn’s tunic to cover his nakedness. And again the black boar
looming huge, every bristle distinct, an ember-light in its eyes and the
scarlet of blood on its tusks. He called the lightnings down upon it.

The voices cried out. One word held in his memory:
Dewin
,
that was wizard. And then all the voices were gone. Only Fara remained, and the
pain, and what healing and clothing the hill-folk had given.