Destiny's Path (14 page)

Blodwedd gave a mysterious smile. “Ahhh, but what
is
the real name of the Warrior-Child?” she asked in a low, thoughtful voice. “
Now
she is Branwen ap Griffith—but it was not always so. Once she was Addiena the Beautiful, daughter of Seren. And before that she was Ganieda, forest girl and sister to Myrddin Wyllt. Celemon was her name in the long-ago—Celemon, daughter of Cai the Tall.” Blodwedd smiled again. “Many are the names of the Warrior-Child down the rolling years,” she said. “Many the names and many the lives. You are but a thread in the tapestry, Branwen ap Griffith, a single footprint upon the eternal road.” She laughed, low and soft, a sound that made Branwen shiver. “But I shall call you Branwen, if it eases your mind.”

B
RANWEN LAY CURLED
on her side, her head pillowed on her arm, her eyes half open as she gazed into the dancing flames.

Blodwedd's words had given her a lot to think about.
What did she mean, I am “but a thread in the tapestry”? And who were those other women she named?

An odd image came into her drowsy mind, as though formed in the flames. She saw herself standing on a hilltop under a bright sky, on the crest of a long white road. All along this road, women were walking. Women armed and armored. Women with faces strong and proud. A line of women stretching back along the road forever—a line of women stretching onward down the road forever. A thousand generations of warrior women.

The image faded, but it left Branwen with a feeling
of deep well-being—of
belonging
.

The fire cracked and fizzed. Beyond the flames she could see Rhodri, bare-chested, leaning against the cave wall. His face was peaceful in sleep, and one hand rested on the shoulder of the small figure that lay with her head in his lap, her limbs relaxed and her huge amber eyes closed for once.

So, Blodwedd had finally learned the art of sleeping like a human.
Good for her
.

True, Branwen was still haunted by the image of Blodwedd's impassive face as she held the sword over the neck of that baby. But inhuman and monstrous as the owl-girl could be, she had offered without hesitation to give her life in exchange for Branwen's safety when the wolves had surrounded them in the forest.

That was something to remember.

At last, Branwen's eyes closed, and her mind drifted off into velvet darkness.

 

Branwen dreamed that it was daytime—a bright morning. She stood at the cave mouth, gazing out over the forest. The breeze was fresh and cool, but there was an ominous feel in the air, as though the hills and the woods were holding their breath in anticipation of some horror.

She heard voices calling through the trees, urgent and excited.

One rang out above the others. “This way, masters! She goes this way! Follow closely—she may shift
her shape in order to evade us!”

Other voices called in response—male voices—breathing hard and speaking a language she did not know, a strange, silken language of words that seemed to flow together without pause or break.

Now she could see movement among the trees—dark, blundering shapes under the arching branches. The smell of fear wafted to her, knotting her stomach. Something dreadful was about to happen.

A woman burst from the forest, dressed in ragged and stained blue robes. Her face was livid with fear; her mouth opened and closed, gulping the air; and her eyes were wild and staring. There were cuts and bruises on her face, and her hands were bloody, with torn and dirty fingernails.

Branwen stared at the fleeing woman, her heart beating fast.

I know you! I saw you in the glade—speaking those beautiful words to the Shining Ones. You're the chanting woman—the druade from the ancient forest. But who is chasing you?

The woman scrambled desperately up the long slope. A spark of faint hope came into her eyes as she looked up toward the cave. At first, Branwen thought the hunted woman had seen her—but then she realized the woman was looking straight through her, staring into the mouth of the cave. Perhaps she hoped that the cave wound on deep into the hills—perhaps she hoped to escape her pursuers that way.

It was a forlorn hope. The cave was no more than a rounded hollow in the hill—once in, there was no other way out.

Don't come this way. It's a dead end. You'll be trapped
.

The woman ran on with renewed strength, passing Branwen as if she didn't see her and entering the darkness of the cave.

Perhaps they would not look there for her. Perhaps they would search elsewhere.

A man plunged out of the trees. He was dressed all in furs and untanned animal skins, and his hair was ragged and unkempt, but he had on his top lip the thick, drooping mustache worn by the men of Brython.

“I see her! She has gone into the cave! Now we have her!”

He came pounding up the slope.

No! She didn't come this way! Go back! Go back!

Five more men emerged from the trees.

Branwen could see that they were soldiers, although their clothes and weapons were unfamiliar to her.

They wore gray iron helmets with thick ridges and curved cheek-guards, and there were curved plates of iron over their shoulders and around their chests. Underneath the armor they wore short-sleeved tunics of a vivid red, and instead of trews or leggings they had short red kilts that left their legs bare, save for leather sandals with thongs tied to the
shin. Their shields were oblong, curved, and painted deep red with iron bosses stamped into them. Short, broad-bladed swords bounced at their hips, and each carried in his free hand a long wooden javelin with an iron point.

The skin-clad man paused, waving back to them and pointing toward the cave mouth. “Come, my masters—she is trapped now!”

He was speaking Branwen's own language—a man of Brython, guiding alien soldiers to the woman's hideaway.
Traitor!

They came plodding up the hill, breathing heavily, the sweat running down their faces. Olive-skinned faces, Branwen could see now—far swarthier than the hunted woman or the man in the animal skins.

One man pulled off his helmet and wiped his face—and Branwen saw that he was clean-shaven and had dark hair clipped short around his head. He spoke to the others in a voice of authority, handing his javelin to one of them and drawing his sword.

No! You cannot do this! What harm has she done to you?

The soldier pushed the skin-clad man aside, his face grim as he strode into the cave, his sword jutting forward.

No!

Branwen could not bear to look. She heard the woman pleading. The man spoke harshly. There was a scream, cut short.

Then silence.

The soldier came out of the cave, wiping his sword on a piece of blue cloth.

“That is the last of them, Principalis Optima Flavius,” said the skin-clad man. “All the old priesthood is dead now, my master—dead and gone forever.”

The soldier said something to his companions, then sheathed his sword and took back his javelin. He strode down the hill, and the other four men fell into line behind him.

The skin-clad man of Brython peered into the cave, a look of woeful regret disfiguring his face for a moment before he turned and trotted along in the soldiers' wake like an obedient dog.

“C
AW! CAW! CAW! Caw! Caw!”

Branwen awoke at the strident, insistent falcon cry. Daylight filled the cave, sparkling on the embedded minerals so that skeins of moving light wavered across floor walls and roof. Cool morning air flowed in. She had slept close to the fire and saw now that it was finally dead, the rowan branches transformed to a lacework of white ash on the blackened ground.

“Fain!” Branwen gasped, dream-drunk still and fighting to gather her wits. She sat up and saw Rhodri and Blodwedd lying together close to the cave wall—Blodwedd curled on her side with her arms across her chest and her knees drawn up, and Rhodri at her back, an arm thrown protectively across her.

“I'm glad he survived the storm unharmed,” came Rhodri's sleepy voice, “but I'd wish for a more
melodic introduction to the day!”

He lifted his head and gazed at Blodwedd, his face amazed—as if he had awoken from an outlandish dream to find it real. He withdrew his arm from her and pulled himself up against the cave wall, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes and yawning.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

The falcon was in the cave mouth, moving impatiently from foot to foot, ruffling his feathers and bobbing his head.

“The horses have returned,” said Blodwedd, her eyes opening sharp and bright as she switched from sleep to waking in an instant.

Puzzled but relieved, Branwen got to her feet and stepped out into the day. Fain rose into the air and circled high above the cave, calling loudly.

It was early, and the sun was low in a sky banded with innocent white clouds running before a strong west wind. Of the black storm clouds from the night there was no sign, although the ground was still wet underfoot and the rocks and the leaves shone jewel-bright.

The two horses were standing side by side, just under the trees, their heads down to tear at the grass. When they had made camp the previous night, Rhodri and Branwen had taken the saddles off, but now they were strapped onto the horses' backs once more. All the things that had been left in the clearing were slung over them—cloaks and clothing, Branwen's
chain mail and shield, even their bag of food.

“How could this be?” Branwen wondered aloud, walking quickly down the hill toward the animals.
Who brought them here? Who put their saddles on? Who gathered our things?
The horses lifted their heads as she approached. Branwen gasped and stopped.

An eerie green light flickered in their eyes.

As she moved closer, though, the light paled and went out, and the large eyes were brown once more. She stood between the horses, touching them, stroking their hides, as though to reassure herself that they were real.

“Did Fain bring them back?” called Rhodri as he came out of the cave, pulling on his jerkin.

“I don't think so,” Branwen called back. “Govannon, perhaps?”

“Govannon, indeed,” said Blodwedd, emerging behind Rhodri. “Fain warns that the soldiers have already broken camp,” said Blodwedd. “They are riding hard to the place of singing gulls. We must be swift if we are to keep track of them.”

“Then we will follow now,” Branwen said as she ran back up to the cave to retrieve her sword, knife, and leather belt.

“What of the things we left in the forest when the wolves attacked?” asked Rhodri as she moved past him. “Your shield and chain mail and our cloaks.”

“Look more carefully, Rhodri,” Branwen called back as she entered the cave. “Someone has already seen to that.”

He peered down at the horses. “Even our bag of food was remembered,” he said with wonder in his voice. “At least we shan't go hungry.”

“We'll eat in the saddle.” Branwen buckled the belt around her waist and slipped the sword and knife into place. She paused for a moment. The early light reached all the way to the back of the cave, splashing her shadow over the rocks and up the far wall.

She walked deeper into the cave and gazed down at the scattered bones, consumed by an aching sense of sorrow and loss.

Suddenly she was aware of Blodwedd at her side. “Did you dream her death, Branwen?” the owl-girl asked. “The chanting woman from the holy glade?”

Branwen's throat was thick. “Yes.”

“The cave remembers—old stones do not forget.” Blodwedd sighed. “Ah, but man is fickle and full of fear. It was ever so.”

“Does that excuse him for leading them to her?”

“No,” murmured Blodwedd. “And yes.”

Branwen turned her back on the pitiful sight and walked out into the daylight once more. She strode down the hill, staring up into the sky. “Fain! Fain! Guide us!” she called, and leaped into the saddle. A sudden urgency had filled her, a burning need to be on the move.

Fain glided down, flying so close that his wingtip almost brushed her shoulder. He gave a single commanding cry.

“Come on!” Branwen shouted as Rhodri and
Blodwedd came racing down the hill. Hardly waiting for them to mount, she urged her horse to follow the falcon. She had the feeling that before this day had run its course, they would be caught up in events both great and deadly.

 

“Gwylan Canu,” Branwen murmured, gazing down with narrowed eyes. “The place of singing gulls.”

It was a little after midday. Fain had led them through the long, warm morning, winging away under trees that dripped still from the previous night's storm. At times he would leave the troop as they traveled along the coast road, rising up and up till he was only a dot against the blue sky. Occasionally he had vanished altogether—but always he'd come back with news of the progress of the prince's horsemen.

Down through valleys he had guided them, where ferns curled like reaching fingers through a waxen ground-mist, where the trees were garlanded with spiders' webs. Upward they'd followed him then, to summits where the wind sang and played and flicked their hair into their eyes. Down again, through bleak ravines running with white water, and then back up around brown peaks that tore the clouds. Northward, always northward—until, rounding a blunt, fern-clad knob of rock, Branwen had heard for the first time through the trees the sound of surf breaking on rocks, and smelled the evocative tang of the sea.

They'd come to this high ledge where the pines stood like sentinels at the world's end, where the
ocean stretched out before them, a sheet of blue silk strewn with diamonds. At their horses' hooves, the land crumbled away in rugged, boulder-strewn precipices down to a rubbled shoreline of pocked and fissured rock, where the waves broke in plumes and flurries of white foam.

Now, standing proud and strong on a narrow outcrop of seaworn limestone was the citadel of Branwen's vision—the fortified village of Gwylan Canu. Its back was to the ocean, and its landward side was protected by a long, sloping rampart of drystone, pierced by a massive timber-framed stone gatehouse. Many houses and huts huddled beyond the wall, and on a high point near the sea Branwen saw the Great Hall of the House of Puw, its stone walls and thatched roof rising proud above the other dwellings.

As Branwen gazed down, the endless tide pounded in on the black rocks, sending up spouts of foam that gushed from sea-gnawed blowholes and cracks; it almost seemed that the entire shoreline was boiling like a cauldron in a firepit. To either side of the rocky headland, the land fell back to form deep, sandy bays. Some ways westward along the shore, sheltered from the full fury of the sea, a small knot of huts was gathered—a sparse fishing village with its boats drawn up onto the beach like black leaves. There was no sign of activity or movement in the village. It seemed deserted.

Beyond the fishing village, Branwen saw the pale tongue of the road from distant Doeth Palas, skirting
the cliffs, winding in and out to follow the contours of the land. She traced this road with her eyes, all the way to the gatehouse of Gwylan Canu.

Now Branwen turned her eyes eastward, where the road continued chasing away along the coastline. Somewhere out of sight in that direction, she knew the road branched and sent a tributary striking southward into the wild lands of Cyffin Tir, where it would lead a weary traveler at long last to Garth Milain.

Branwen felt an ache as she thought of her homeland—and of her dear, brave mother, bereft of son, husband, and daughter—at the farthermost end of that long pale road.

By all the saints, when will this be over? When will I be allowed to go home?

“That's strange.” Rhodri's voice brought her back to the present. “Why are they waiting outside the walls?”

To the west of the gatehouse and a little way from the sloping walls of the citadel, the rocks formed a flat plateau blanketed with scrub and wild grasses. It was here that the fifty horsemen of Doeth Palas had come to a halt at the roadside. The horses had been gathered together as though Captain Angor had ordered them to make camp.

“I do not know,” said Branwen, shading her eyes against the glare of the sunstruck sea. The men were marshaled in rows, but she could not make out enough details to understand what was going on.

“This is all wrong,” Rhodri said, his voice uneasy.
“It makes no sense. Why are the gates closed? And look—there are armed men on the gatehouse. Why would the gates be closed against Prince Llew's men?”

“Unless we have come too late and the Saxons have already taken the citadel,” said Branwen in alarm. “By Saint Cadog! I wish I could see more!”

In response to her words Fain took to the air, wheeling in long, graceful loops down toward the citadel.

“Move back under the trees, just in case they look this way,” Branwen said. She dismounted, and Rhodri and Blodwedd did the same, leading the horses a little farther into the woodlands.

Blodwedd stared back over her shoulder, her owl eyes wide and full of apprehension. Her expression was one that Branwen had never seen on a human—pure, primal unease.

“What is it?” Rhodri asked her.

“The sea…,” murmured the owl-girl, as if struggling to find the words. “It…puts a chill…in my heart!”

“Why is that?” Rhodri asked gently, his hand resting on her shoulder.

“My lord Govannon holds sway only over the land,” Blodwedd replied. “Beyond the shores of Brython, he can no longer protect me.”

“I'll protect you,” Rhodri said. “Trust in me.”

Branwen smiled to herself. The thought of gentle Rhodri protecting the wild owl-girl was as odd in its
way as learning that there was something in nature that made Blodwedd afraid.

Blodwedd turned to him. “I fear you cannot protect me, my friend,” she whispered.

Branwen left Rhodri and the uneasy owl-girl under the trees. She pushed forward again to cliff's edge, pressing herself against a tree, watching in growing apprehension as Fain zigzagged above the citadel.

What would he find? Echoes of her dreadful vision? Corpses and bloody Saxon banners?

It seemed an age till Fain came flying back up to them. She lifted an arm, and he came to her with wings curving and claws outstretched.

He landed gracefully on her wrist, and she carried him to the others. Folding his wings, he stared at Blodwedd and gave a succession of carping cries.

“What is he saying?” Branwen said anxiously, staring at the owl-girl. “Are we too late?”

“There are no Saxons in the citadel,” Blodwedd said. “But there is fear and dismay—women weep, and the menfolk are armed and grim.”

“Why do they not allow the prince's horsemen in?” asked Branwen.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

“Fain does not know,” said Blodwedd.

“Then we must go and learn for ourselves why Iwan's father slammed the gates on his own son,” said Branwen. She looked into the falcon's bright black
eye. “Stay with the horses, my friend,” she said. “You are a worthy guide and see much, but I don't want you to draw attention to us. Do you understand?”

At her words, Fain took wing, coming to land on the saddle of her horse.

“Blodwedd—I want you to stay here as well.”

The owl-girl looked levelly at her. “Twice now have I left your side and let you walk into peril,” she said. “It will not happen again…
Branwen
.”

Branwen held her eyes for a moment, then nodded.

“Don't bother asking me to stay behind either,” Rhodri said. He peered down the long slope scattered with boulders. “But it will be a perilous descent, I think.”

“Then we must take great care,” said Branwen.

 

Indeed, the way down was not easy, and it was all the more difficult because it was vital that they shield themselves from Captain Angor's men. They climbed down in an unspeaking single file, Branwen first, then Blodwedd, and Rhodri in the rear. They used every scrap of natural cover, crouching, often pausing, seeking a safe path, then moving forward again, sometimes on hands and knees. Branwen worked her way slowly and cautiously down the hillside, summoning all her powers of stealth and silence despite her eagerness to unravel the conundrum of the locked gates. On such a precarious hillside, one carelessly
placed foot could easily send stones bounding down the slope to alert the soldiers below.

But at last they made it unseen to a deep, narrow cleft that ran just above the landward side of the plateau where the soldiers were gathered. From here, they could hear the men's voices on the fresh salt breeze that blew in from the sea.

Cautiously, Branwen climbed the side of the cleft and lifted her head above the sharp rim of dark rock. Ensuring that her footing was secure, she edged up till she could see to where Angor's men were standing.

Branwen stared down in shock. Iwan was being held between two of the men, and ropes bound his arms at the elbow and wrist. His usually impassive face was pale and angry, and there was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, as if he had been struck.