The Last Pendragon (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 1) Read online

  The Last Pendragon

  Pronouncing Welsh Names and Places

  Map of Wales

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Book One in The Last Pendragon Saga

  The Last Pendragon

  A Story of Dark Age Wales

  by

  Sarah Woodbury

  Copyright © 2011 by Sarah Woodbury

  Cover image by Christine DeMaio-Rice at Flip City Books

  The Last Pendragon

  Rhiann knows that demons walk the night. She has been taught to fear them. But from the moment Cade is dragged before her father’s throne, beaten and having lost all of his men to her father’s treachery, he stirs something inside her that she has never felt before. When Cade is revealed to be not only Arthur’s heir but touched by the sidhe, Rhiann must choose between the life she left behind and the one before her—and how much she is willing to risk to follow her heart.

  The Last Pendragon is the first novella in The Last Pendragon Saga.

  The Last Pendragon Saga:

  The Last Pendragon

  The Pendragon’s Blade

  Song of the Pendragon

  The Pendragon’s Quest

  The Pendragon’s Champions

  Rise of the Pendragon

  The Lion of Wales series:

  Cold My Heart

  The Oaken Door

  Of Men and Dragons

  A Long Cloud

  Frost Against the Hilt

  The Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mysteries:

  The Bard’s Daughter

  The Good Knight

  The Uninvited Guest

  The Fourth Horseman

  The Fallen Princess

  The Unlikely Spy

  The Lost Brother

  The Renegade Merchant

  The After Cilmeri Series:

  Daughter of Time (prequel)

  Footsteps in Time (Book One)

  Winds of Time

  Prince of Time (Book Two)

  Crossroads in Time (Book Three)

  Children of Time (Book Four)

  Exiles in Time

  Castaways in Time

  Ashes of Time

  Warden of Time

  Guardians of Time

  Masters of Time

  www.sarahwoodbury.com

  To Brynne, for the inspiration to write at all,

  To Carew, for his invaluable help with plot and form,

  To Gareth, for his undivided attention,

  To Taran, for time,

  To my parents, for history,

  And to Dan, for everything else.

  Pronouncing Welsh Names and Places

  Aberystwyth –Ah-bare-IHST-with (the ‘th’ is soft as in ‘forth’)

  Bwlch y Ddeufaen – Boolch ah THEY-vine (the ‘th’ is hard as in ‘they’; the ‘ch’ as in in the Scottish ‘loch’)

  Cadfael – CAD-vile

  Cadwallon – Cad-WA/SH/-on

  Caernarfon – (‘ae’ makes a long i sound like in ‘kite’) Kire-NAR-von

  Dafydd – DAH-vith (the ‘th’ is hard as in ‘they’)

  Dolgellau – Doll-GE/SH/-eye

  Deheubarth – deh-HAY-barth

  Dolwyddelan – dole-with-EH-lan (the ‘th’ is hard as in ‘they’)

  Gruffydd – GRIFF-ith (the ‘th’ is hard as in ‘they’)

  Gwalchmai – GWALCH-my (‘ai’ makes a long i sound like in ‘kite; the ‘ch’ like in the Scottish ‘loch’)

  Gwenllian – Gwen-/SH/-an

  Gwladys – Goo-LAD-iss

  Gwynedd – GWIN-eth (the ‘th’ is hard as in ‘the’)

  Hywel – H’wel

  Ieuan – ieu sounds like the cheer, ‘yay’ so, YAY-an

  Llanbadarn Fawr – /sh/an-BAH-darn vowr

  Llywelyn – /sh/ew-ELL-in

  Maentwrog – Mighn-TOO-rog

  Meilyr – MY-lir

  Owain – OH-wine

  Rhuddlan – RITH-lan (the ‘th’ is hard as in ‘the’)

  Rhun – Rin

  Rhys – Reese

  Sion – Shawn (Sean)

  Tudur – TIH-deer

  Usk – Isk

  Map of Wales

  Prologue

  He who searches for enlightenment,

  Shall find confusion.

  He who seeks to slay another,

  Shall slay himself.

  He who travels to the deepest reaches of the Underworld,

  Shall find heaven.

  He who has lost his soul and cannot save himself,

  Shall save us all.

  —Taliesin, The Black Book of Gwynedd

  Dinas Bran, North Wales, Kingdom of Gwynedd

  634 AD

  Taliesin

  Water streamed in rivulets down the stone walls as I stood at the kitchen door of the castle, seeking shelter from the weather. I pushed the door open farther, the rain dripping from my hood, and confronted the weeping woman.

  “Give the boy to me.”

  With tears pouring down her face, a match to the drops of rain on mine, Alcfrith, sister to the great King Penda of Mercia and wife of Cadwallon, the King of Gwynedd, handed me the sleeping child.

  I took him and studied the face of his mother. She’d lost her husband and the boy, his father, in battle ten days before, killed far from home in Saxon lands. Although the woman did not yet know, Cadwallon had been struck down by the very man who now sought to marry her. That man would be known forever as Cadfael the Usurper. I didn’t tell her the future I saw or that she would live to regret her choices. As of this moment, the boy, this child of an ancient and powerful lineage, was an orphan and my responsibility.

  “Don’t tell me where you’re taking him,” Alcfrith said. “I cannot bear to know.”

  “Safer that you don’t,” I said.

  And that was that. I turned away from the woman; didn’t even bother to nod at the guard who thought to block my way, just brushed past him. As old as I was, having sought a prophecy my whole life, I could no longer afford to think about anything but the one thing that mattered: is this boy the one?

  My brotherhood had searched for him for centuries, but with each child we found, each great man we shaped, we found ourselves disappointed. Human greed, lust, an insatiable quest for power, either in them or in those who pledged to serve them, had always brought them to their knees. For hundreds of years, through the coming of the Romans who destroyed our sacred sites, and then the Saxons, whose gods were strange and barbaric, we’d charted the stars, fought the demons we could, and watched the signs, each time hoping and praying that this boy would be the one.

  Would Cadwaladr? His father had ruled with a strong arm, but I’d known at Cadwallon’s birth that despite a vision of great victories that would be his, he too would falter, dying too young to keep either the Saxon menace or the gods at bay. This usurper Cadfael—I found myself snorting under my breath at the thought of his rule. Gwynedd would suffer under that one, although the Council would not see it until it was far too late—and longer still until such a time as the boy in my arms could claim his birthright.

  The stars had aligned for this child, more than for any other, even the great Arthur who’d protected his people for a generation. The Dragon stood menacingly in the night sky, one claw outstretched, shining down upon the Cymry—the free people of Wales. The end of one dragon’s life was the beginning of another’s. Would he come to land? Would he inhabit the soul of this boy a
nd lead us to victory as we all hoped he would? In truth, even the gods didn’t know for sure, and the little they told me was not enough.

  Alcfrith stood in the doorway of the castle, watching me cross to the postern gate, the light spilling past her into the muddy courtyard. As I reached the gate, rain fell on the boy's head, and he stirred. I was tempted to look back. Instead, I adjusted the boy on my shoulder. The light behind me would illumine his face and give his mother one last look at what she was losing.

  I am not without pity.

  Chapter One

  Aberffraw, North Wales,

  Kingdom of Gwynedd

  655 AD

  Rhiann

  The smell of smoke and sweat filled the hall, mingling with the overlay of roast pig and boiled vegetables. More soldiers than usual sat at the long tables, here to celebrate their victory. The mood was subdued, however, not the wild jubilation that sometimes accompanied triumph and caused Rhiann’s father to lock her in her room in case he couldn’t control the men.

  Today, the drinking had begun in earnest the moment the men had returned from the fight and settled into a steady rhythm Rhiann had never quite seen before. Here and there, a hand clenched a cross hung around the neck or an amulet against the powers of darkness, that should her father see, might mean death for that soldier. For a man to ask the gods for protection instead of the Christ meant he was less afraid of the King of Gwynedd than someone, or perhaps something, else. Rhiann had been afraid of her father her whole life and couldn’t imagine fearing another more, not even the demons that were said to walk the night, hungering for men’s souls.

  Perspiration trickled down the back of Rhiann’s dress, made of the finest blue wool that her father had gotten in trade from merchants on the continent. Welsh wool, while plentiful, was courser than that of sheep raised in warmer climates. The Saxon threat was enough to keep the Cymry within their own borders, but the sailors still took to the western seas, bringing in trade goods of wine, finely wrought cloth, metalwork, and pottery.

  For once, Rhiann’s father, King Cadfael of Gwynedd, had eaten little and drunk less. For her own preservation, Rhiann had always been sensitive to his moods and noted the exact instant his disposition changed. He shifted in his seat and rolled his shoulders, like a man preparing for a battle instead of the next course of his meal. A moment later, the big, double doors to the hall creaked open, pushed inward by two of the men who always guarded them. The rain puddled in the courtyard behind them, and Rhiann wished she were out in it instead of here—anywhere but here.

  She kept her place, standing behind and to the left of her father’s chair. It was her duty to tend to his needs at dinner as punishment for her refusal to marry the man he’d chosen for her. Rhiann hadn’t turned the man down because he didn’t love her, or she him; she knew better than to wish for that. It was a hope for mutual respect for which she was holding out. But even this seemed too much to ask for an unloved, bastard daughter. Consequently, Rhiann spent her days as a maidservant, albeit one who worked above stairs. She didn’t regret her station. As the months passed, she’d come to prefer it to sharing space at the table with her father and his increasingly belligerent allies.

  Silence descended on the hall as two of King Cadfael’s men-at-arms entered, dragging between them a young man whose head fell so far forward that no one could see his face. He was visibly collapsed, with his arms dangling over the guards’ shoulders and his feet trailing behind him. As the trio progressed along the aisle between the tables toward the king’s seat, the youth seemed to recover somewhat, getting his feet under him and managing to keep up with their strides. As he came more to himself, he straightened further.

  By the time he reached the dais on which Rhiann’s father sat, he was using the men-at-arms as crutches on either side of him. Because he was significantly taller than they, it was even as if he was hammering them into the ground with his weight. His footsteps rang out more firmly with every stride, echoing from floor to ceiling, matching the drumming of Rhiann’s heart. The closer he got to her father, the harder it became to swallow her tears. By the souls of all the Saints, Cadwaladr, why did you come?

  Rhiann had been her father’s prisoner her whole life, unable to escape his iron hand. The high, wooden palisade that circled Aberffraw had always signified prison walls to her, rather than a means to protect her from the darkness beyond. This young man had grown up on the other side of that wall. He’d not had to enter here. He’d had a choice, but had recklessly thrown that choice away and was now captive, just as she was. She felt herself dying a little inside with every step he took as he approached Cadfael.

  The young man, Cadwaladr, the last of the Pendragons, fixed his eyes on those of the woman sitting beside the King. She was Alcfrith, Cadfael’s wife, taken as bride after the death of Cadwaladr’s father. Rhiann couldn’t see her face, but from the back, the tension was a rod up her spine, and her shoulders were frozen as if in ice.

  “Hello, Mother.” Cadwaladr’s lips were cracked and bleeding, puffy from the beating that had bruised the whole length of him. Rhiann had heard they’d close to killed him, but from the look of him now, he wasn’t yet at death’s door.

  “Son.” Alcfrith’s voice was as stiff as her body.

  Rhiann’s father ranged back in his chair, legs crossed at the ankles to project his calm and deny the importance of the moment. “Foolish whelp. I’d thought you’d put up more of a fight, not that I regret the ease of your defeat. This will allow me to reinforce my eastern border more quickly than I’d thought. Penda will be pleased.”

  “You and I both know why my company was not prepared for battle today,” Cadwaladr said.

  Cadfael shrugged. “Your men are dead and you a shell of a man. What did you think? That the people would welcome you? That I would let you take my lands?”

  “My lands,” Cadwaladr said.

  Rhiann’s father sneered his contempt. He reached out an arm to Alcfrith and massaged the back of her neck. She didn’t bend to him. If anything, the tension in her increased. “You meet your death tomorrow, as proof of your ignobility.”

  Cadfael waved his hand to Rhiann, signaling her to refill his cup of wine and that the interview was over. She obeyed, of course, stepping forward with her carafe. The guards tugged on Cadwaladr, but as he moved, Rhiann glanced up and met his eyes. It was only for a heartbeat, but in that space it seemed to Rhiann that they were the only ones in the room. She expected to see desperation and fear in him, or at the very least, pain. Instead, she saw understanding. She could hardly credit it. When had she ever known that?

  “You’re wrong, Father,” Rhiann said, as the guards hauled Cadwaladr away. “Cadwaladr comes to us as a defeated prisoner, and yet, he has more honor, more nobility, than any other man in this room.”

  “He is the Pendragon,” Alcfrith said, with more starch in her voice than Rhiann had heard in many years. “Cadfael can’t change that, even by killing him.”

  Rhiann’s father snorted a laugh into his cup before draining it. He didn’t even slap the women down, so sure was he of his own omnipotence. “You may keep your dreams.” He pushed himself to his feet and turned to leave. “The dragon is chained; the prophecy dead.”

  Rhiann had heard about Cadwaladr her whole life. As a child, men in Cadfael’s court had spoken of him as if he were a demon from the Underworld, or worse, a Saxon, coming to steal their home like a thief in the night. Later on, as she began to piece the story together, she realized that he was only a little older than she was, twenty-two now to her twenty, and their words said more about their own fears than Cadwaladr’s power.

  Rhiann’s father had married Cadwaladr’s mother after Cadwallon’s death in battle, many miles from Aberffraw. The High Council of Wales had wanted peace in Gwynedd, in order to focus the concerted attention of all the native British rulers on the threat of the encroaching Saxons. Throughout Rhiann’s life, the Saxon kingdoms had been growing in number and power. Two centuries before, the B
ritish kings had invited them in, but once here, could not control them. The Saxons had overrun nearly all of what had been British lands only a few generations before.

  By now, everyone knew that the Saxons wouldn’t ever return to their ancestral lands across the water. Her father, Cadfael, and Cadwallon before him, had allied with Penda of Mercia, but it had left a sour taste in the collective mouth of their people. All the Cymry knew that it was only a matter of time before the Saxons turned their gaze covetously on Wales.

  The Council had settled upon Cadfael as the man to impose peace amid the chaos of constant war, provided Alcfrith agreed to the marriage. Rhiann suspected that agreed was too generous a word, and like most noble women, Alcfrith had had little choice in the matter. While the High Kingship had never materialized, and he didn’t even rule all Gwynedd like Cadwallon before him, Cadfael did control a significant piece of it: Cadwaladr’s birthright, as he’d said.

  What Alcfrith had not done upon her marriage was give up her son, instead sending him away to be raised by another. Rhiann’s father had raged at Alcfrith time and again, demanding to know to whom she’d given him. Alcfrith had refused to say, and perhaps that was the bargain she’d made—safety for her son, in exchange for her allegiance.

  And now Cadwaladr was here, walking into the lion’s den, although not quite of his own accord. Cadfael had spies everywhere and had known of his coming. The story he’d put out was that Cadwaladr’s small band had forded the Menai Strait and met Cadfael’s army just shy of Bryn Celliddu. Cadfael hadn’t even bothered to meet the force himself, instead delegating the task to lesser men.

  But Rhiann wasn’t so sure, especially now that she’d heard Cadwaladr’s exchange with her father. Before the feast, she’d questioned some of the older men in the garrison, particularly those who’d held allegiance to Cadwaladr’s father once upon a time. A few of them had muttered among themselves about the evil Cadfael’s acts would bring to Gwynedd. One even mentioned that he’d seen demons in the woods surrounding Aberffraw. The others had dismissed that as fantasy, and then together they’d rebuffed Rhiann’s questions, as they had every right to do. Yet each, individually, had given her a look—like he wanted to speak—but thought better of it. Why had Cadwaladr come, only to be defeated so easily? Why had he sacrificed his men for such a fleeting chance?