Clash of Kings (6 page)

Under a late afternoon sky of particular brilliance, she ran blindly for the sea as if her tormentor were in hot pursuit. Careless of broken ground that snatched at her feet and caused her to fall, and oblivious of the acquisition of many new scrapes and bruises, she plunged into the waves and immersed her whole body in the salty water. She sat in the wavelets as tears streamed down her face to join the brine that beaded on her pale skin.

For a long time, Branwyn sat, rocked and cleansed herself in the sea that washed the scent, the blood and the sweat of him from her body. Only the screaming of the gulls repeated the keening that echoed through the vaults of her skull.

In truth, Branwyn thought of nothing: not of the rape, not of the stranger, nor even of her family. In some secret, atavistic part of her consciousness, she knew her doom had come upon her and the sun would never shine on her again.

CHAPTER III

A TRICK OF FATE

Such is the protection they [the Celts] find for their
country
(It [the invited Saxon horde] was in fact its
destruction)
That those wild Saxons, of accursed name,
Hated by God and men, should be admitted
into the island like wolves into folds,
In order to repel northern nations.

Gildas

Week had followed dreary week, although the summer sun shone brightly. The sea glittered and frolicked in the blue day and the gulls were comical counterpoints, always squabbling like argumentative children over live shells, dead fish and the occasional scavenged scraps from the villa’s kitchen. The trees in the orchard ripened with fruit, the menservants were kept busy smoking fish and tending the vegetable patch and the world of Segontium was fair, sweet-smelling and peaceful.

Yet Olwyn fretted, night and morning, for Branwyn no longer roamed far and wide during the day and expressed no interest in the seashore or long rambles through the wonders of the foreshore. The child’s dark eyes were turned inwards and her voice had been silenced. Olwyn longed for the wilful, disobedient girl who had been so filled with raw enthusiasm for life. The changeling who now imprisoned herself in her small plastered room rarely smiled, never laughed and spent hours on her bed or staring out towards the isle of Mona.

Olwyn flinched at the thought of that blessed isle. She had lived for years in its shadow and so much blood stained it that perhaps the gods had been angered by Branwyn’s joy of life, and were punishing the child for her hubris. Perhaps Olwyn had not been dedicated enough in her prayers to Ceridwen, and now the Old Ones sought to take her only child to sharpen her devotion. Olwyn prayed long into the night, begged the Mother for mercy until her knees were raw and her hands were bloody from striking the tiles in her piety, but Branwyn remained as emotionless as a small effigy in petrified wood.

Would Olwyn have continued to watch her cuckoo child without daring to shatter the illusion of calm and peace that Branwyn’s silence evoked? Perhaps. Or was she sufficiently frightened of the child’s new timidity to have ultimately chosen storms and tempers above this eerie obedience?

As it happened, Olwyn’s maidservant brought word of Branwyn’s illness.

‘She can hold nothing down in her stomach during the mornings, my lady. Nothing! And she can scarcely move from her bed for weariness. I know it’s impossible, but Mistress Branwyn acts like my daughter when she’s breeding. She almost dies of the sickness for the first four months and then, when the babe begins to show, she becomes well again. But Mistress Branwyn is scarcely twelve years old, and she’s never lain with a man.’

The maidservant made the ancient sign against the chaos demons and Olwyn felt her cheeks leach of colour. Could Branwyn be pregnant? Such a condition would certainly explain her change of mood. But how could it have happened? With some trepidation, Olwyn decided to ask her outright, regardless of what bad news she might discover.

When she entered her daughter’s room, Branwyn was still abed with the covers pulled up to her chin and an old, cracked bowl close to hand in case of nausea. Olwyn was sure she had never seen a more woebegone face as the one that thrust itself deeper into the sheets as if to avoid her mother’s sharp gaze.

‘I’m not well,’ Branwyn moaned, her words muffled by the enfolding cloth.

‘I know, daughter,’ Olwyn replied softly. ‘Gerda told me as much. She thinks you quicken with child.’

Two spots of bright red colour emphasised the pallor of her daughter’s face.

‘No! I can’t be with child!’ Branwyn surged upright in response to her mother’s bluntness. ‘I
won’t
be with child! I’d rather cut my wrists and
die
!’

Olwyn reached out one hand, a gesture that her daughter ignored.

‘Have you lain with a man, Branwyn? Don’t fear to tell me, for no blame will attach to you. You’re only a child.’

‘No! No! No!’ Branwyn’s expression was both mutinous and revolted. The child was talking herself into a state of hysteria, and when she began to retch weakly into the bowl Olwyn held her hand solicitously and wiped the flushed little brow. ‘You must believe me! How could I have lain with a man when only Grandfather and our house servants are here? They are all old and ugly.’

It can’t be true. Branwyn must be sickening for something, Olwyn told herself, although her sleep was disturbed by terrible nightmares and the goddess seemed to turn her face away from Olwyn’s prayers.

As the slow months followed, Branwyn’s health slowly began to improve. But Olwyn couldn’t blind herself to the swelling in her daughter’s belly. Rightly or wrongly, Branwyn had lied, and now she was surely with child, one that swelled so grotesquely on her slight frame that it seemed that the unborn infant was an incubus sucking out her daughter’s life. Branwyn wouldn’t tolerate questions, wilfully choosing to deny the evidence of her eyes in favour of some fanciful imaginings. At her wit’s end, Olwyn was forced to consider her own inaction.

Autumn had fled, and winter had come to the northern coast of Gwynedd. Sea and sky were grey, while sleety rain fell daily and blanketed Olwyn’s mood with gloom. She leaned on the door frame and watched the northern road, clutching a heavy woollen shawl tightly around her shoulders. Soon, Melvig ap Melwy would ride down that path, flanked by his warriors in breastplates of oxhide and bronze, and Branwyn would be forced to reveal her sin. Granddaughter and unborn child could die if Melvig so desired, for the old king wouldn’t suffer Branwyn’s silences and denials. As the
pater familias
, he had the right to order Branwyn’s death.

A chill wind stirred the last dead leaves that were banked against the wall of the villa, disintegrating in the rain to brown and sanguine skeletons. Olwyn shivered as the breeze snatched at her plaited hair, loosening a few long tendrils with its cold fingers. Her father would not feel a moment’s compunction, nor listen to Olwyn’s pleading. He would follow his own road, as he always did, even if he later regretted the rashness of his decisions. The babe would be left in the open to die when it was born and Branwyn would be cast off for ever.

Whom could Olwyn turn to? Her brother, Melvyn, was a grown man with a son older than Branwyn. He would never choose death in the old ways for his niece and an infant, for Melvyn was softer than his father although he was the Deceangli heir. But to reach Melvyn, Olwyn must travel to Canovium, and once she was in her father’s city Melvig would soon learn the details of his granddaughter’s sin.

No, her brother could not help her, even if he dared to defy his father.

The leaf mould twisted in a sudden, vicious gust of cold air, as the last traces of summer were swept away from the villa walls and dispersed in the orchards beyond the house. Olwyn began to shiver in earnest. Her daughter was far from perfect, but she was all that Olwyn still possessed of Godric, whom she had loved so passionately that the Old Ones had been angered by her ardour. Yes, Branwyn must be saved, even if the babe was doomed.

Olwyn looked around the warm, comfortable house that had once resonated with Godric’s laughter and Branwyn’s childish enthusiasms and tantrums. Mother and daughter must leave quickly, before Melvig decided to make another sudden visit, but the reason for their departure must be plausible or her father would assume some kind of plot was afoot.

How? What could she do?

Then, as if the Mother relented and showed her the way, Olwyn remembered her sister Fillagh, a wilful girl who had married a very unsuitable man from Caer Fyrddin far to the south. Olwyn had been separated from her sister for thirteen years, but blood called to blood, and Fillagh would welcome her if she went to visit. More important, Fillagh would give sanctuary to Branwyn.

Melvig would not be happy, but he wouldn’t choose to pursue her, having sworn never again to gaze upon the face of his wayward daughter Fillagh. For a time, Olwyn and Branwyn would be safe.

But a southward journey was fraught with danger. The murderous Vortigern reigned in the south and styled himself the High King of the Britons. Even Melvig considered an alliance with Vortigern was the only means to protect his kingdom, for the High King had slain his lord to gain the throne. A regicide would be untroubled by the murder of women who unwisely crossed his path.

Rumours had trickled northwards of Vortigern’s Saxons who had been invited into the south to act as the High King’s bodyguard. Olwyn had listened to a conversation between Melvig and a guest only a year earlier, as they cursed the regicide for his treason towards his own people, a charge that Olwyn only imperfectly understood.

Travelling south had its dangers, but Olwyn had little choice. Fillagh and her Roman husband offered a chance of life for Branwyn, provided that Olwyn had the courage, the wit and the strength to deceive her father, something as foreign to Olwyn’s nature as the quick anger that fuelled Melvig and his difficult granddaughter.

Energised by a solution of sorts, Olwyn instructed her steward to find a reliable manservant to head south on a suitable horse. He would also be required to journey north to her father’s home once he had returned from Caer Fyrddin. Several hours were devoted to teaching the man the full text of a message to her sister, and another to her father, for the servant couldn’t read. Then, with the dice irrevocably cast and the travelling wagons packed, Olwyn informed Branwyn that they were embarking on a journey to Caer Fyrddin.

The wintry sky and the slow, melancholy rain were as nothing to the reaction of her daughter, who flatly refused to budge.

‘Then you will surely die, as will your child,’ Olwyn told her baldly.

‘I’m not pregnant!’ Branwyn shouted.

‘You are! The child moves within you as any fool can see, and Melvig ap Melwy is no foolish young man to be flummoxed by your lies. He has nine living children and countless grandchildren. He will recognise your condition at a glance.’

Some spark of the old, reckless Branwyn stirred in the child’s dark eyes. Her mouth set in a thin white line that made her appear far older than her twelve years.

‘I had no lover, I swear. A creature came from the sea – a demon or a selkie, I know not which – and sought out my bedchamber. He marked me as his own and took me in my sleep. I dreamed that he would kill me if I resisted him.’

Olwyn sighed gustily with exasperation. ‘Who do you suppose will believe such a farradiddle of lies? Melvig is well aware how babies are quickened, and demons lack the flesh to plant the seed. Don’t be foolish, daughter!’

‘Then who, Mother? What strangers have come to this lonely place at the time when I conceived? Do you suspect old Plautenes? Do you suspect Melvig himself? I tell you, a vile creature of the darkness, disguised as a beautiful man, defiled me as I slept. Doubt me if you must, but let me sleep.’

Stretched to breaking point by anxiety, Olwyn was weary of pandering to her daughter’s sulks and caprices. In an indulgent mother of many years, such a sudden lack of empathy was, perhaps, explicable only because Olwyn was terrified of her father’s ire. Rudely and forcefully, she dragged the covers away from Branwyn’s curled body and threw a fresh tunic at the girl’s gaping, startled face.

‘Get up and assist your maid to pack! We’re travelling south to my sister, so don’t think to sulk or to argue. If you won’t rise of your own accord, I’ll order the servants to carry you to the carriage in your disarray. Shout, cry and pout all you want, but this time you will obey me.’

‘You don’t believe me!’ Branwyn’s lower lip quivered as she swung her thin legs over the side of the bed. For the first time, Olwyn recognised the calculation that waited below the sheen of tears in Branwyn’s eyes. Even now, pregnant and threatened, Branwyn was attempting to manipulate her mother’s love. Once again, Olwyn’s palm itched to slap her daughter’s face.

‘What does my opinion matter? Melvig won’t care what I think, and he won’t tolerate a pregnant granddaughter who is unwed. The only way to avoid disaster is to leave our home.’

Reluctantly, Branwyn obeyed this new, more obdurate mother who examined her with eyes that were hard and unresponsive. For the first time, she began to understand the peril that threatened.

Much chastened, and silent with apprehension, Branwyn joined her mother in the travelling carriage, a vehicle that was only a little more graceful than the heavy cart used to transport grain and firewood to and from the villa. Another wagon carried the supplies that Olwyn considered vital for a protracted visit away from the north. The huge wooden wheels, each with a band of iron on the rim to give it strength, seemed to find every rut on the old Roman track that headed towards Pennal, but at least a leather cover kept out the worst of the weather. With every jolt, Branwyn felt more nauseous and she longed to complain at the hardness of the plank seat and the dust that seemed to envelop them with every stride of the horses. But one glance at Olwyn’s face was sufficient to shrivel the words on the girl’s tongue.