Madonna By Bruce McAllister




Y Brenin
By C Allegra Hawksmoor
 
 

An eagle turned in a low gyre over the battlefield. The red and cloying
earth churned with rain and blood, turning everything to ochre in the light
of a late summer. The sound of a hundred tiny battles between life and death
caught in the arms of the valley.The knight pressed through the crush of
the fighting and the fallen. He fought as sunset swept unminded towards
evening. Until the air itself seemed to thicken every sound and movement.
And still the Red King did not yield.
Some long-forgotten blow had sheared the dulled gold armour of the Red
Kingłs cuisse, black blood boiling through torn metal embossed with golden
flowers. He stumbled in the red mud like a dying calf. And still he did not
yield.
The knight bulled forwards with his shield, stubbornness and momentum
overawing the Red Kingłs footing and throwing him over the body of a dying
horse. The knight drew his sword back to make the killing blow. It took him
some time to realise that his arm would not obey. He stood still as a golem
shaped from blood-red clay. Only moving to draw deep gulps of air into his
lungs.
The Red Kingłs sword fell from his hand, and he fumbled with shaking
fingers at the catches of his helm. His hair and beard were the colour of
polished mahogany, but his eyes were pupiless, bottomless black.
“What are your orders?" he said. “What does my brother say is to be done
with me, Ser...."
“Mercher."
The knight removed his own helm. His thoughts ached for the dirty scrap
of paper secured behind his breastplate. He knew its words by heart, but the
touch of the paper against his skin gave him comfort.
“The Edling of the North would have me kill you," the knight said.
And take everything from the towns, his lordłs message ordered.
Empty their stores. The North must eat.
The eithin aur on the Red Kingłs armour caught the last of the dayłs
light, gold petals of hammered metal glinting. The knightłs hand reached
involuntarily for its mirror-image, shaped into his own breastplate. The
eagle felt its way through the blue emptiness above them, with a mind as
clear as polished glass held up before the sun.
The knight was a creature forged of the same base elements: his flesh and
his bones, the blade in his hand, all birthed out of the belly of the same
earth. The same clarity of purpose hammered clean through him.
He seized the Red Kingłs shoulder and wrenched him to his feet.
“Begin walking," he said, turning towards the ancient forest that rolled
over the foothills, beyond the slow quiet seeping out into the battlefield.

 
They stopped quite close to morning, beside an ancient trackway that had
led them to a clearing by the river. The path curved over a huge slab of
grey stone that spanned the water, pitted and worn with a thousand years of
feet and wheels and weather beneath the moss and lichen. On the other side,
the track cut up over the bank and disappeared back into the woods.
The knight knelt beside the stream and washed the sweat and dirt out of
his hair while his courser drank deeply beside him. He spread his hands and
submerged them in the river until bloody trails of red earth streamed from
the knuckles of his gauntlets. The sky glanced blue through sunburned
leaves, and early light caught on the metal in the water.
“It is a dangerous thing for a knight to defy his lord," the Red King
said from the shadow of a great old elm. He worked an arrowhead from his
armour and lashed it onto a straight arm of fallen wood. “ArenÅ‚t you afraid
of what my brother will do when he finds out that I am still alive?"
Red water dripped from the knightłs hands and dissolved into the current.
“And why should I be afraid of Edling Gwyn when I have the Red King at my
back?"
“The Red King? It has been a long time since any northerner has called me
that, boy. Who are your family?"
“I wouldnÅ‚t know," the knight said. “I never had any."
The Red King took a limping step towards him, blood oozing from the torn
metal on his thigh. When he came out from under the elm, he flinched and
raised a hand to the sky. Tears spilled over his lashes and quickened down
his cheeks.
He cannot stand the light, the knight thought. Something is
wrong with his eyes. His lips parted to form a question, but the
question never came.
The Red King cursed the sun and turned away, snatching up the
arrow-headed spear and sliding down the bank into the shallows under the
shadow of the tree.
The knight set his gauntlets down. “Are you going to try to kill me with
that, Goch?"
“I was going to try and eat." The Red King tugged at the knots holding
the arrowhead in place. “Unless you would rather that I starve. Where are
you taking me? Do you even know?"
The knight unfastened the catches of his breastplate and laid his armour
in the sun. Beneath it, his arming jacket was sweat-yellow and blood-black.
“To Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth."
“Through the mountains?" The Red King drove the point of his spear into
the water. “Taking North Road with the rest of your army would be safer."
“The rest of my army want you dead." The knight took his courserÅ‚s bridle
and untied the barding from around her neck. “And every town and village we
passed through would rather free you. That does not sound as though it fits
my definition of ęsaferł."
The Red King crouched down in the water and clamped the thrashing salmon
between his hands as it died on the point of his spear. He pulled it free
and threw it up onto the bank. Far enough out of the water to suffocate.
“And what will you do with me when we reach the city, Ser Mercher?"
“I will bring you to the Edling of the North."
The salmon spasmed once and gaped for air. The Red King pulled himself up
onto the bank and shelled its eyes into his mouth with his thumb. He pressed
them between his teeth until they burst and nodded to the curl of parchment
stowed in the hollow curve of the knightÅ‚s breastplate. “It seems to me as
though my brother would much rather you killed me," he said. “And pillaged
my towns to feed his army."
“You should not have read it," the knight snapped, tugging too sharply at
his courserłs girth. The horse stamped and flashed the whites of her eyes.
“And when would I have done that? I didnÅ‚t have to read it. I know my
brother, Ser Mercher. Better than you do."
“You donÅ‚t know anything," the knight growled, hauling the saddle off.
“I know that he would very much like to murder me and leave the south to
ruin. I know that he expected you to break open our grain stores and find
them overflowing with all the crops and livestock that wełve taken, and that
when he finds that they are bare, his cities will starve for the sake of his
army just the same as mine."
“What else could he do?" the knight demanded. “Your people have been
attacking our villages for months now. Why havenłt you sent word of the
blight to Dinas Pair?"
The Red King laughed and laid his hand upon the eithin aur forged into
his armour. “You think that when my brother hears about the blight, heÅ‚ll
open his granaries and forget about this precious war of his? No, he will
notice that we are weak. If he is smart, he will seize his chance to
strike."
“Gwyn doesnÅ‚t understand," the knight said. “YouÅ‚ve given him no choice.
When I bring him to you, you will tell him. Then he can decide what
he wants to do with you."
He frowned and stared into the current. Then he can decide what he
wants to do with both of us.
The Red King cut the salmon with the point of his makeshift spear and
emptied out its innards. “Gwyn, is it now?" he said. “Tell me, Ser Mercher,
just how familiar are you with my brother?"
“You should still your tongue," the knight spat, his aching shoulders
bowstring-tight. “You may need it when we reach the capital, but you do not
need your fingers."
The Red King sat back against the elm and linked his hands behind his
head. Metal intertwined with flesh.
“If you are so certain that all of this is a terrible misunderstanding,"
the Red King said at last, “then why have you brought me all the way out
here without so much as sending him word?"
The knight glanced up at the tessellated sky, clear blue behind the
shifting leaves, and did not answer.

 
Through much of the next two days the Red King sat astride the knightłs
warhorse, raising his hand to block the sky from his black eyes while the
knight walked along beside him. The wound on his leg stopped bleeding when
they made camp, but overnight the flesh around it turned an ugly red.
On the second afternoon, it rained, starting in a few large drops that
resounded on the knightłs armour and pinged off into the grass and soon
pouring straight down in the windless air.
They pressed on for almost an hour before the knight relented, pulling up
beside a ring of stones perched over the old trackwaynarrow shards of
mountain slate projecting outwards like a crown of purple thorns. The knight
tethered his horse to a twisted hawthorn that looked as though it had stood
there for a thousand years. The only part of it left alive was a corona of
dark green leaves clinging to its branches. The courser twisted her head to
tug at them, rainwater plastering her mane against her neck.
The knight pulled the Red King from the saddle and set about removing the
marełs caparisona stained length of white cloth emblazoned with a thousand
golden flowers. “WeÅ‚ll use the stone circle for cover."
“That isnÅ‚t a circle." The Red King retrieved the body of the young hare
they had snared the night before from behind the saddle. “ItÅ‚s a cairn. A
group of farmers from Dirneb dug it up when I was a boy. It was full of ash
and bones. Human and animal, all mixed in together."
The knight shivered and stared into the centre of the circle: a round and
gaping mouth ringed with broken teeth and half-smothered by low cloud. “Help
me with this."
The Red King took the edge of the caparison, and between them they
dragged it to the cairn and struggled to spread the cloth over two of the
leaning spears of stone as the rain drummed down a steady cold. The knight
drove his sword into the ground to make a third hitch for the canopy and
crawled beneath.
The Red King stooped out of the rain to sit beside him. “Do you even know
where we are?"
The knight tried to make out the shapes of the dark mountains drifting in
and out of the cloud beyond the edge of the caparison. “Heading north."
“You realise that most of the Drysau are between us and Dinas Pair," the
Red King said calmly. “Do you know these mountains well, Ser Mercher?
Because Gwyn and I grew up in them. And, if he were here now...." He turned
the limp, furry body of the hare over in his hands. “He would be telling you
the same as me."
The knight looked at him sidelong. “And what is that?"
“That if you keep following this track...." The Red King sawed the hare
open on the edge of the impaled sword. “Then you shall have to go over the
shoulder of Y Brenin before you reach Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth. He would tell
you that between us and that mountain, there is a valley at the foot of Caer
Pwyll filled with nothing but reeds and marsh that is difficult to cross
even on a fine day. For a horse, and two men in armour...."
The Red King held his hand out into the rain pouring off of the caparison
and rolled his shoulders in a shrug. The knight wrapped his arms around
himself, but wet metal-against-metal brought him little comfort.
“And what would you suggest?"
“Take the east fork in the road, half a day from here."
“Through Bannik and Gerwester?"
The Red King nodded.
“Through two villages sympathetic to you, and a stoneÅ‚s throw away from
the North Road?" the knight asked stonily. He shook his head. “We go north."
The Red King sighed and spread his hands in frustration. He studied them
for a few moments, smeared with blood and rain, then began to strip the fur
away from the dead hare in his lap. “You know," he said, peeling the muscle
away from the bone and biting into the slick red meat. “IÅ‚m certain that I
recognise you."
The knight watched the Red King suck down raw flesh and fought against a
knot of nausea. The Red King chewed methodically, staring out into the rain.
This close, the knight could see that his strange black eyes werenłt
pupiless at all, but rather that the pupils were so swollen that the brown
of his irises was almost swallowed up...
“Is there something that you want to ask, Ser Mercher?" the Red King
said.
The knight hugged himself little tighter and looked away. “Caer Isel," he
said under his breath. “You wanted to know where youÅ‚ve seen me before? You
appointed me, and five other guardsmen, to keep watch over Edling Gwyn when
you consigned him to live and die in that tower."
“YouÅ‚re the traitor." The hard bark of a laugh lodged somewhere in the
Red Kingłs throat. He swallowed another sliver of raw meat and shook his
head. “The one who helped my brother to escape and take the north from me.
And Gwyn knighted you for your trouble, did he? Well then, I suppose that it
turned out well enough for you."
Well enough? the knight thought. It has ended in nothing but
war and blight and famine. It has broken this land more deeply than you ever
managed to alone.
“So, tell me." The Red King wiped some of the bloodied fur off of his
hands. “IÅ‚ve heard that you sleep beside Gwyn. On the floor, like a trained
dog. And that the two of you have spent the last two summers bathing in the
Ysprid together like a pair of newly-weds. So, IÅ‚m intrigued. Does my
brother fuck you well enough to compensate you for all the trouble you have
put yourself through for his sake?"
The knight clamped down on the plume of rage and embarrassment and
watched the rivulets of rain catching on blade of his sword. “You donÅ‚t know
a damned thing about me!"
Something quirked at the corner of the Red KingÅ‚s mouth. “I see. He
hasnłt had you yet, then. Do you think thatłs because hełs ignorant of your
feelings, or because he simply doesnłt care?"
The knight swept to his feet, tearing the caparison aside and drawing his
sword out of the earth. The Red King watched him calmly and did not move to
stand. His lips and chin were smeared with harełs blood and water.
A gust of wind surged up the side of the mountain and whistled between
the leaning stones, turning the low cloud into unformed shapes that hurried
through the cairn. The knight shivered and sheathed his sword at his side.
“Mount up, Goch," he said. “If you freeze to death, IÅ‚ll leave you for
the crows."

 
“This is madness!" the Red King shouted from the saddle as they crested
the wide green saddle of Caer Pwyll and descended down into the marsh,
raising his hand to block out the light. “We must turn back."
They had abandoned most of their armour not long after the cairn, but the
sky was still grey and thunderous, and the knightłs feet sank up to the
ankle as the track became a stretch of churned-up mud then petered out
entirely.
The Red King dug his feet into the stirrups. “Mercher!"
The knight ignored him, leading the courser by the bridle towards the
mountain in the east: a low black tangle of granite looming in grey sky.
If I can reach that mountain, he thought. Then perhaps the way will
be a little easier over its feet.
After an hour, the knightłs legs burned. His courserłs feet dragged in
the stagnant water. And they had come less than half a mile.
The knight stopped to swipe the sweat off of his brow, and his courserłs
feet bubbled down into the fluid earth.
“YouÅ‚ll have to dismount," the knight said, trying not to draw too hard
for breath.
The Red King eased his injured leg over the marełs back and lowered
himself out of the saddle. Moss and marsh gave way like flesh under his
feet.
“Lovely," he said. “You know that youÅ‚ll kill us both before we reach the
city, donłt you?" The Red King checked the empty waterskin on his belt,
knelt, and drank from the grey mire with cupped hands.
The knight grabbed the back of the Red Kingłs shirt and hauled him to his
feet. “You certainly will be if you insist on eating every raw dead thing
and drinking from every stagnant pool between here and Dinas Pair," he said.
“WhatÅ‚s wrong with you? Keep walking."
The knight took another step towards the mountain, but his courser was
sunk almost up to her hindquarters. She whickered with panic when she
realised that she couldnłt move, and the knight took her bridle in both
hands to calm her. As soon as she stopped fighting him, they pulled.
Straining against the air together, the mare occasionally freeing a foreleg
only to slap it back down into the swamp. Then the strength was out of her
and she just stood there, panting hard.
“Gather as many of these reeds as you can," the Red King said. “Give her
something to stand on."
The knight muttered a few half-believed words of reassurance to her and
did as he was bade. Hełd only walked a few heavy, aching steps when he came
upon the bodies.
They were three, he thought. Two adults, and a child.
But it was difficult to tell. The marsh had turned them grey. Their faces
were bloated and fly-blown. Flesh wrinkled like the skin of an elbow, and
open eyes turned to the milk-white of cut quartz. By his reckoning, they had
been dead about a week.
The knight tried to remember how to breathe. “We are not the first ones
to try this way," he said.
The Red King waded through needles of marsh grass to his side.
“Southerners," he said. “Farmers, most likely. The blight has driven most of
them out of their homes. Since your great and noble master has been turning
back any refugees on the North Road, most of them try the old paths through
the hills in the hope of better fortune."
“Do you expect to make me pity these people?" the knight demanded. “To
turn my back on Gwyn?"
“No." The Red King stood. “I donÅ‚t."
They worked in silence after that, laying out whatever they could find
around the courser. Somewhere far away a peal of thunder trembled in the
mountains. When they had done all that they could, the Red King put his
palms to the marełs hindquarters and the knight took up her bridle. She was
tired now, and without her help they were soon sweating and breathless.
“You never answered my question." The Red King stood back and rubbed his
watering eyes.
The knight gave one last pull, raised both hands in defeat, and sank down
to his haunches. “What do you want now, Goch?"
“Where are you from?" the Red King asked. “Who were you, before you
became a bloody bane in my side and set my brother back upon the north?"
“I was no one," the knight said. “Just another unwanted bastard weaned in
an orphanage in the wildwood. A farmer paid them for me when I was ten." The
courser slumped down defeated, stretching her neck out until her nostrils
were barely above the water.
“Old enough to work," the Red King said.
The knight made a soft sound of agreement. He put his hand under the
courserÅ‚s jaw, lifting her head enough to breathe. “He wasnÅ‚t a cruel man,"
he said. “But he wanted his moneyÅ‚s worth from me. Worked me like a draught
horse for six years before I managed to slip away and enlist with your
guard. Six summers of the sun on my back and the breath of the wind in me.
Six winters digging in those blasted, frozen fields."
“Do you miss it?"
The knight looked towards the southern horizon. “Sometimes."
“LetÅ‚s try again. Come here, maybe you can push better than I can. Use
those shoulders of yours, plough boy."
The knight put the flats of his hands to her hindquarters and pushed
until his muscles shook. The courser shrieked and thrashed at the pulled
grass until she finally found footing. Then she heaved forwards, screaming
and kicking out with her powerful back legs. As she came free, one of her
shod hooves slammed into the knightłs chest like cannonshot.
Concussion rang in his ears, and the marsh reached out to catch him as he
fell. He found that he was looking down on his own bodyhis chest imploded,
ribs dashed into the hollow space of his lungs, and the whole marsh shifting
and surging underneath him like a wave.
An explosion of coughing pain brought him back into himself. He strained
for a breath that wouldnłt come, but the front of his shirt was drenched
with marshwater instead of blood, and when he put his hand to the ache in
his chest his ribs did not feel broken. The Red King offered down his hand,
and the knight took it, pulling himself back up.
He followed the grim look on the Red Kingłs face to where his courser
stood, three-footed. One of her hind legs was snapped at an impossible angle
below the knee, bone puncturing bay fur and blood dripping from her hoof.
A deep calm drove down into the knightłs fingertips, and he forced his
voice to soften as he took her head up in both his hands. He let the
steadiness of his body pass into hers and bowed his head until it touched
her muzzle.
“Gwyn gave her to me," he said softly, his voice twisted out of shape. “I
had her from a yearling."
“Mercher...."
“Be quiet."
The knight drew his sword slowly so as not to startle her. A murmur of
metal against leather, a few more gentle words, and one sharp, deep thrust
that drove the blade up to the hilt in her chest. Her howl filled up the
whole valley as she wrenched away, overbalanced, and fell hard onto her
side. A huge flower of dark blood blossomed out into the grey water. The
knight knelt and put his hand on her neck. Her eyes rolled white. She sucked
down a lungful of mashwater, spasmed, and fell still.
“IÅ‚m sorry," he said, catching his tongue between his teeth. “IÅ‚m so
sorry."
He grasped the bloody hilt of his sword and worked the blade out of her
body.
“Come here," he told the Red King. “IÅ‚ll need your help to butcher her."

 
Y Brenin rose out of the valley like the arched back of a fish: a high
ridge of bare jagged granite sculpted by time and weather into a host of
peaks, buttresses, and gulleys. More a wall than a mountain, dividing the
southern high places from rich northern lowlands with a serrated ridge of
bare granite. They approached it swathed in the fog of a grey morning,
rounding a scree slope that sank down into a high valley filled with a
crooked finger of black lake. A heron raised its head on the far shore,
poised between the worlds of fog and water, looking more a spirit than any
living thing.
The knight raised his eyes, tracing line from the quiet of the water to
the mountain looming in the cloud. His breath tangled in his throat and a
shiver of recognition cut through him as an indistinct figure all but
crawled over the ridge behind him. Until he saw the colour of the hair and
the blackness of the eyes, the knight was certain that it was not the Red
King that walked towards him out of the mist but his lord.
“He looks fierce from down here, doesnÅ‚t he?" the Red King said, the fog
smothering the sound of his voice. “From the north, Y BreninÅ‚s as smooth as
glazed ceramic and blue-grey as a thundercloud. But the sun never touches
the south face, and so itłs gouged by ice and wind and water. Nothing more
than an accident of circumstance, when you think on it."
“You talk too much, Goch," the knight said, his voice harsh with
dehydration and his tongue so swollen that he could barely speak.
He shrugged the Red Kingłs hand away and glissaded through the scree to
the waterside, boots sliding in great strides through loose sharp stones.
The water was smooth as jet, and when his fingers broke the surface it
was cold enough to hurt. He knelt and drank his fill, until his stomach and
his throat burned with cold and his hands were white-numb.
The Red King slid down behind him, favouring his good leg. “We shall have
to go over the eastern slope," he said. “ThereÅ‚s a shepherdÅ‚s track that
cuts down into the valley on the other side. Itłs steep, yes, but passable."
The knight splashed the dark water into his face and stood. “Do you not
understand what it means to be a manłs prisoner, Goch?"
“Someone may have tried to explain it to me once," the Red King said.
“But IÅ‚m not sure I listened. I tend to forget these things rather quickly
when my captor seems determined to lead us both into a certain, painful
death. Or would you rather ignore me and die the same way as your horse?"
The knight turned around too quickly and grabbed the Red Kingłs shoulder.
“IÅ‚ve had my fill of you," he growled, clenching his jaw to stop his teeth
from shivering.
“Why?" the Red King asked. “Because I am right and you cannot bear to
admit it? Or because I sound too much like my brother, and you are afraid
that you might fall pathetically in love with me?"
The knightłs grip tightened until his arm shook.
“Tell me," the Red King said. “When all of this is over and I am returned
to my throne, do you think that Gwyn will give up his lands and his riches
to live out his days with some ignorant little plough boy? Until he is old
and bitter and you must nurse him to his death? Or do you think that he will
continue ordering you around like a kicked dog? Sending you off into every
pointless battle that he wages against me in the hopes that one day you just
donłt come back?"
“You think that I care?" the knight spat. “So long as I get to stand at
his side on the morning that they hang you?"
The Red King shrugged. “If you wanted me dead, then you should have
killed me on the battlefield and had your fill of it. My brother might even
have been grateful enough to let you up into his lap for the night." He
frowned for a moment and made a small, amused sound. “Only you donÅ‚t really
care if I hang, do you, Mercher? It isnłt me that you are in a rage with,
itłs yourself. My brother might forgive you if you beg and grovel at his
feet for long enough, but it will all taste like ashes in your mouth. You
know that youłve failed him by refusing to carry out his order on that
battlefield, and you shall always know it. It will haunt you in the dark
quiet of the night between now and the day that you die."
The knight seized the Red Kingłs shirt and found his lord looking back at
him accusingly.
His curled fist slammed into the Red Kingłs jaw. It would have thrown the
Red King from his feet if the knight hadnłt gripped him by the hair and
kissed him hard and full on the mouth.
The Red King tensed in response. His body curling like a windless flag,
and his fingers running over the clinging thinness of the knightłs shirt to
the hilt of the knightłs sword. Metal rasped on leather, and he broke away
to draw the blade into his hand. His laughter sang off of the south face of
Y Brenin.
A surge of humiliation snarled through the knight, bleeding into the love
and hate, loyalty, and the fury at his own stupidity.
Then the edge of his own sword was coming for him.
Instinct pulled his body out of the way of the blow. His feet touched the
lake, and a deep quiet smoothed all his thoughts down into nothing. He
reached for the shield slung across his back and trusted his feet to keep
him out of the way for long enough to fasten the enarmes.
When another strike came, the knight was prepared. He brought his shield
out to block, and the sound of metal-against-metal burst in his ears. The
next swing was swift and terrible, and the knight had no choice but to turn
away to catch it. He twisted fully, kicking up stones and water and drove
the point of his shield hard into the Red Kingłs belly.
The Red King laughed and heaved for breath, wiping the blood from his
mouth with the back of his hand and leaving a long black streak up the
length of his arm. “Do you expect to beat me?" he said, stepping out and
forcing the water to the knightłs back.
“YouÅ‚re half-crippled with that wound, half-crazed with the infection,
and IÅ‚ve already beaten you once," the knight retorted, crouching down to
scoop up a handful of small wet stones. “So yes, I rather rate my chances."
The Red King feinted left then swung around hard right. The knight
brought his shield out to cover his flank, too late. He barely noticed the
notched sword tear through his hip but felt the sudden weakness in his leg.
Quick blood ran down his body into the water, and the Red King touched
the black wound on his own thigh. “Evened things out a little, wouldnÅ‚t you
say?"
The knight gritted his teeth and rolled his shoulders into a shrug. “Only
seemed fair, the way youÅ‚re flailing that sword around," he said. “It was
either let you land a blow, or give up my shield and see if you could fare
any better against an unarmed man."
The Red King laughed, and when the knight thrust forwards he stepped
carelessly aside. “You have a quick tongue on you, boy," he said.
“And you have the eyes of a cave-dwelling rat. Shall we see how well a
rat fights blind?"
The knight moved to make another blow, but when the Red King brought up
his sword, he threw the handful of scree and dirt into his face, then struck
him with the shieldłs edge. The Red King crumpled down into the lake. His
red hair drifted into black water, and when he made to regain his feet the
knight straddled him and pressed the top edge of his shield against the Red
Kingłs throat. In response, the tip of the sword pressed into the soft flesh
under the knightłs jaw.
In the sudden quiet, their breath echoed off Y Brenin and came back to
them out of the fog.
“I could lay your throat open," the Red King said, spitting water. “Leave
you here to bleed to death."
“The edge on that is as blunt as a tourney sword," the knight said
calmly. “Do you think that I would die before I broke your neck?"
“You need me," the Red King insisted. “YouÅ‚ve nearly killed us both out
here. Youłll die from exposure, like those poor bastards in the marsh."
“And you will be dead from infection long before you manage to drag
yourself back into the south."
“I thought you meant to bring me before my brother alive."
“Maybe," the knight said. “Perhaps it would be easier to carry out my
lordłs will, rather than allow the disloyalty to... what was it? ęHaunt me
in the dark quiet of the night between now and the day that I dieł?"
The Red King made a short, sharp sound that started as a laugh but which
quickly descended into coughs. “What are your terms?"
The knight relaxed the pressure on the Red Kingłs throat, although he
noticed that point of the sword stayed firmly where it was. “Show me the
path around Y Brenin," he said. “IÅ‚ll bring you before Edling Gwyn and vouch
for you. Ask him to spare your life so that this war can end. For all
of us."
“You had better hope that Gwyn has allies to the north with deep grain
stores and deeper pockets, little knight," the Red King said. “Nothing short
of the goddess herself will save this land from ruin now."
The knight stared down over the silver flex of his shield and pressed a
little harder.
“What faith can I place in the word of a plough boy?" the Red King
complained. “Tell me, is my brother in the habit of giving you everything
you want, Ser Mercher?"
“I do not often ask," the knight said quietly. “But he hasnÅ‚t yet refused
me."
He drew back and offered down his hand. When the Red King let go of the
sword, the knight pulled him to his feet. They stood together, shivering and
bleeding, waiting for the other to move.
Finally, the knight knelt for his swordresting on the black bottom of
the lake, looking as though suspended in the dark.
“Start walking," the Red King said, turning towards the mountain. “The
path is treacherous by day, but deadly on a moonless night. We need to be on
the valley floor before the sun sets. With us both limping like old men, it
shall not be an easy climb."

 
Across the lowland vale spread out beyond the foothills, the city of
Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth boiled with smoke and flame. Voices rose from its
cauldron and radiated into the morning fog, while behind its curtain wall a
dozen thatched roofs oozed ugly smoke. Others were reduced to bones of
blackened timber.
The knight and the Red King stood on a hillside swathed in the yellow
flowers of the eithin aur which rolled out into deep folds of low pasture
and bleating sheep. At their backs, Y Brenin pierced the blue morning like
smoked glass.
“You are at war, Ser Mercher," the Red King said.
“Do you have a second army that youÅ‚ve sent north to lay siege?" the
knight said, trying to stop some unnamed thread from tightening in his
chest. “No. There is no war. The city has fallen in upon itself. There is
nothing to eat, and the guards cannot keep order. The situation was bad when
we marched south. Now the vassal lords have returned with nothing to show
for all their battles. No relief, no salvation. Just the coming winter, and
the famine."
The Red King tried vainly to keep the rising sun out of his face, his
black eyes watering painfully. “You canÅ‚t take me down there," he said.
“That city is at war with itself. If you were to bring the Red King into the
middle it, you and he would both be dead before we reach the keep."
The knightłs shirt clung to him, mottled with sweat and dirt, marshwater,
and blood. A low ache radiated out from his hip, and his left leg trembled
when he tried to put his weight on it. But now they were out of the
mountains, the ground was more solid under his feet than it had been since
he stayed his blow on the battlefield. A shadow passed over their headswas
that an eagle, gliding north towards the city?
The knight watched it go, and realised what he had to do.
“You must leave," he said, very quietly.
The Red King frowned but did not turn his head. “Why now? Why listen to
me now, when you have spent the last week ignoring every word IÅ‚ve said?"
“Give me your parole," the knight said. “Return to this place a year and
a day from now to parley. Offer your word, Goch, then follow the North Road
until you find a village, and take a cart back down into the south where you
belong."
The Red King rubbed his watering eyes. “And why would I keep my word?" he
asked. “HasnÅ‚t Gwyn told you I donÅ‚t have a shred of honour? WhatÅ‚s to stop
me mustering whatever people I have left and marching back along this road
to give my brother what he deserves?"
The knight studied the Red King. For the first time, he saw the whole of
him: the set of the Red Kingłs jaw that was so much like his lordłs, and the
same curl to his hair, but the narrowness of his black and watering eyes and
the thinness of his mouth that set him apart as something other.
The knight smiled. “What happened to your eyes?" he asked.
The same smile twisted the corner of the Red Kingłs mouth. He nodded and
placed a hand on the knightłs shoulder.
“You arenÅ‚t as stupid as you look. For a plough boy." The Red King turned
away. “A year and a day, then. For what itÅ‚s worth, you have my word."

 
The knightłs hands were sweating, and he could barely hear the screaming
of the crowd or the crack of burning houses over the roaring in his ears as
he climbed the stairs of the keep.
Three years ago, he had freed his lord from a tower much like this one,
one cold clear night at the very cusp of winter. The guardsmen had feasted
on soulcakes spiced with cinnamon and made as offerings to the dead, while
the crows croaked to one another and the knight ascended the stairs of Caer
Isel with a key clutched in his gauntlet.
Now the crows had come to Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth as the city collapsed
into a heap of smoking timbers. This time the knight did not hold the key in
his hand but felt it in his chest as he climbed. His fingers clenched and
crept to the hilt of his sword. All of it evaporated the moment that he
opened the door to see his lord standing before the window.
The white light streamed in through thick glass, catching in the silver
strands of his lordłs dark hair and on the golden flower of the eithin aur
embroidered onto his surcoat. Unnoticed, the door craned slowly shut, and
the whole room seemed to fill with an impenetrable silence.
The knight closed the space between them to kneel, although his left knee
buckled more than it folded.
“This is not the first time you have come when all my heart has gone to
ruin," his lord said. “To deliver me from following it."
The knight drew his sword with clumsy hands and laid it on the
flagstones. “And I will always come, my Lord."
His lord stared out into white light and warped glass. “Where is my
brother?"
Breath knotted in the knightłs throat. He forced it to come slow and
even. “I let him go."
The crack of his lordłs palm against the stone sill was like the sound of
breaking bone. “Then you have cursed us all. I trusted you. With my most
important duty. And you have betrayed me."
“This city was cursed the moment that we sued for war, when we should
have been petitioning our allies for aid," the knight said. “I have done
everything youłve asked... But that... I couldnłt do that, Gwyn. And I could
not bring him here. It would have undone everything.
“The south is blighted. Even if I had killed your brother, taken his
lands, done everything youłd asked of me, all you would have to show for it
would be more dead bodies when the snows come. There has to be a better way,
Gwyn. A better way than more suffering and death."
“And who are you to decide whatÅ‚s best for this land?"
The knight clenched his jaw. “You are alive now because of me. Because of
the night I freed you. But all that helping you to escape has brought this
kingdom is more pain. You are a better man than that, Gwyn. If I didnłt
believe it, I would have left us both to rot up in that tower."
“You have disobeyed my orders, and disappeared into the mountains while
my whole kingdom falls apart. I have not known this last week whether you
even lived."
“I...." The knight ran his tongue over his lips and looked back down at
the floor. “I did not know the matter was of any importance to you, my
Lord."
“You take my bastard brother captive and drag him off into the hills,
then set him free, and you donłt think that matter is of importance to me?"
“Of course," the knight corrected quickly. “I should have sent word. IÅ‚m
sorry. That is...."
“Enough." His lordÅ‚s expression creased with pain. On the other side of
the glass, a raven with gloss-black feathers perched on the ledge and looked
down into the burning city dispassionately. His lord watched the raven
watching the kingdom burn and pushed his hand through his hair. “What shall
I do, love?"
“We have to leave this city," the knight said.
His lord nodded slowly and drew a breath. “We can go north," he said.
“Lady Freuddwyd has long been our ally. She will give us sanctuary."
Pain roared in the knightłs hip as he pushed himself to his feet, but he
gritted his teeth against it. “Her lands are three weeksÅ‚ hard ride from
here, Gwyn. We cannot go so far, not while people are starving. Not while
our homeland is on fire."
“You would have me stay in my lands and die here?"
“I would have us stay and live, Gwyn."
“You think I havenÅ‚t tried to seek aid?" his lord snapped. “Every eagle
that comes back from our so-called allies bears nothing but excuses and
apologies. Lord Michael is too sick to care, and Cardington too greedy...."
“Then we can go south. Beyond Y Brenin," the knight said. “Into your
brotherłs own lands.
“You know more about the things that grow in this country than anyone
IÅ‚ve ever met, Gwyn. We can stay on the road, move from village to village
and teach the people which things they can take from the land to feed their
families. Which ones they can use for medicine. You and I can help this
kingdom and its people to recover, from what you and your brother have done
to it. You have a knack for healing, Gwyn. IÅ‚ve seen you do it. I... I know
you."
“ItÅ‚s suicide," his lord whispered. “You want us to go into his lands
alone? My brother will throw everything he has after us. IÅ‚ll not go back
into that tower, Mercher. I canłt."
The knight felt the weight of the memory more than he saw it. A high
place shaped from grey stone and hard wind. The crows upon the battlements.
The warmth of the key in his hand.
“Edling Goch has given his sworn word to meet us a year and a day from
today," the knight said. “To parley."
“Parley?" His lordÅ‚s voice curled with anger. “Have you lost your senses?
You think that I will beg for scraps from the table of the man who poisoned
this land in the first place?"
“You shall have to, Gwyn," the knight said, pushing the window open. “Or
all you shall get is more of this."
The old-bonfire smell came first, then the sounds of raised voices,
breaking glass, and screams.
Guilt and pain tore through his lordłs face, and he turned aside too late
to hide it. The knight reached out for his hand. Fine bone china against
hard skin, dried blood, and calluses.
“I will protect you, Gwyn," the knight swore. “I freed you from Caer Isel
and I shall free you from this. But you must trust me. If I am right, this
land will eat again. Its people will recover. They will thrive. Even
flourish."
His lord pressed his tongue against his teeth. “And if you are wrong?"
“Then they shall have to sever every fighting part of me before they harm
you."
His lord tried to smile. “It is a long road south. And if the southern
lands are blighted, then those furthest from here will need our help the
most," he said, the white silence pierced by the mounting certainty in his
voice. “YouÅ‚ll need your wound tended. Fresh armour. A whetstone for your
blade. If we can last until a year from now, surely we will have earned this
land some peace. Although.... Although I shall have to re-learn how."
“In all the years I have known you, I have never once seen you fail at
something, once you have set your mind to it," the knight said, saluting
with a closed fist to his heart. “It will be done. By your will, my Lord."
“We shall have to pray that we will be alive to see it. The North Road is
not safe for two men travelling alone. Let alone for you and I." His lord
watched the raven rise through the smoke towards the dim disk of the sun,
lips pressed together into a bloodless line. “If something happened...
before I could do anything to fix this...."
“The North Road is not the only way into the south," the knight said,
tightening his grip on his lordÅ‚s hand. “There is a path beyond Y Brenin,
through the marshes and the mountains.
“I know where it lies, Gwyn. I will show you its way."

 
© Copyright 2015 C. Allegra Hawksmoor