Frost Against the Hilt (The Lion of Wales Book 5) Page 7

  Chapter Nine

  15 December 537 AD

  Myrddin

  Myrddin raged around his cell, from the bars that made up one wall to the window and back again. The whole point of journeying with Nell was so they could work together. Back at Caer Caradoc, he hadn’t questioned the idea of her riding to Chester. While on the surface it might seem ridiculous for just the two of them to go, he’d taken her with him to ensure that she didn’t wander off on her own as was her wont. But now, he was stuck in a cell with no way out and no ability to keep an eye on her.

  Myrddin kicked at the bucket in the corner. He hadn’t used it yet, but the very fact that he had a bucket to use made him even angrier. She could be getting into all kinds of trouble. Worse, in here, he couldn’t protect her. He had thought that Owain might ensure her safety in a town full of fighting men, but given Urien’s disregard for Myrddin himself, he had no hope of it.

  Never mind that Nell had managed to take care of herself without him for the first thirty years of her life; she hadn’t been able to save herself on the road to Denbigh. He just prayed that she had taken refuge in the hall or, better yet, the chapel, which was a place, as a former nun, she would willingly seek out.

  The sounds of Chester came through his window. Myrddin had never been in a settlement this large: the city was significantly grander and more populated than Wroxeter. In the journey to his prison, they had crossed four streets and passed a dozen large buildings. He hadn’t been blindfolded, fortunately, so he’d been able to chart his passage and knew that he was on the eastern side of the city, near the east gate and adjacent to the barracks—a massive building at least two hundred feet long.

  The noise from outside his cell grew louder, and he went to the window to look out. While Urien’s hall had been built on risers, under which warm air flowed to heat the room (Myrddin knew this having seen the inner workings of Wroxeter), his cell had no such luxury. It was made of rough square blocks on three sides and on the floor, fitted securely to each other, and there had been no step up when he’d been hauled in here. The window in the eastern wall was at head height and only a foot square. It faced an alley which afforded little view of what was happening outside, but if he stood on tiptoe he could see men marching down the main street to the south.

  From the number gathered, it looked to him as if Urien’s army would march soon. Since it was getting close to noon, likely they would march day and night with short rests in order to reach Caer Caradoc in two days’ time. The snow would delay them, especially as most of the soldiers wouldn’t be on horseback, but Myrddin could see now that Urien had been ready to leave before he and Nell had arrived. All Urien had been waiting for was news that he was needed—by Modred, not Arthur—news which Myrddin had so kindly brought him.

  Myrddin inspected the construction of the bars in the window, wondering how long it might take him to dig them out of the stone in which they’d been fitted. Cold air blew on him, and he put his hands to his lips to warm them. At least he still had his thick cloak, and while his captors had taken his sword and knives, they hadn’t stripped him. He wouldn’t freeze to death, but the brazier in the guard room on the other side of the door was too far away to feel, so he was mighty cold already.

  Giving up on the window, Myrddin turned his attention to the iron bars that took up the whole of the western wall of his cell. His was one of three cells which the room enclosed. On the far side of the room, a narrow door led to the guard room and the exit. Sadly, the iron bars were also well mortared and the door was kept in place by strong hinges and a lock. With the key far away in the guardroom, Urien knew the cell was impenetrable, and thus he had left only one man to watch Myrddin. The guard was tipped back in his chair with his feet up on the table, which Myrddin could see a sliver of through the open doorway.

  Then the exit door, which aligned exactly with the door between the guardroom and the cells, opened, and Owain entered. “Give us a moment.” He flicked a hand to the guard, who swung his feet off the table.

  The guard probably bowed, though Myrddin couldn’t see it from the angle he’d been afforded, and then the man left through the door Owain had just come through. Owain sauntered towards Myrddin’s cell. Myrddin hadn’t been entirely sure that the other cells were unoccupied, but from Owain’s attitude, it was clear that Myrddin was now alone with the prince.

  “You should sleep, while you can,” Owain said.

  “Should I?” Myrddin clenched his hands around the bars that separated him from Owain, wishing they were really around Owain’s neck.

  “Care to tell me what I could have done to prevent this, Myrddin?” Owain said. “You would have had me defy my father openly in the hall in front of a hundred of his men?”

  As Owain’s words sank in, Myrddin found his anger fading, to be replaced by calculation. He gave Owain a sharp nod. “You could do nothing, as I could have done nothing if you’d appeared in Arthur’s hall and been tossed in a cell on Arthur’s orders.”

  Owain scoffed. “You think you understand, but you don’t. Urien is my father. Arthur is your liege lord. It makes a difference to know that I could defy him and be forgiven. I have chosen not to.”

  Myrddin decided that now was not the time to tell Owain that, in point of fact, their situations were exactly the same. “Where is Nell? What have you done with her?”

  “I have done nothing with her. She is not a prisoner.”

  “Then why am I in here?”

  “Why would my father lock up a woman when imprisoning you is surely sufficient?” But then Owain frowned. “Though—I looked for her in the hall a moment ago and did not see her. Perhaps she has abandoned you and departed to warn Arthur of my father’s plans.” He shrugged. “It is no matter.”

  “If it is no matter, why keep me here?”

  “A precaution, to allow my father to act unimpeded. Whether or not your woman reaches Caer Caradoc in time to tell Arthur that my father sides with Modred won’t change the outcome of the battle. It will merely let Arthur know sooner rather than later that his defeat is inevitable. That is, if she can make it all that way on her own.”

  “Then let me go too.” Myrddin shook the bars, but they didn’t budge. It would take more than the strength of ten men to bend them.

  “I was thinking about it.” Owain jerked his head to indicate the room behind him. “The key to your cell is hanging from a hook on the wall. You can wait until we return victorious, or—” he shot Myrddin a mischievous grin, “—you can figure out a way to get it. In the meantime, I’ll make sure you’re fed and watered.”

  And with that, he saluted Modred, turned on his heel, and departed.

  Myrddin was torn between shouting something profane after him and the dawning realization that there was more here than first met the eye. While Owain was no longer the boy who’d gambled with his father’s men five years ago, by leaving Myrddin unguarded and the key within hailing distance, even if currently out of reach, he proved that he hadn’t quite left the boy behind. Still, Myrddin couldn’t reach the key yet, and maybe that was a message for him too.

  With a groan of aching muscles and exhaustion long deferred, he stretched out on his back near the wall. The blanket beneath him hardly protected him from the cold of the stones, but at least the cell had been swept clean recently, and it didn’t stink.

  He closed his eyes. A good soldier slept when he could. Of all the things Myrddin had ever resolved to be, it was a good soldier.

  Hack! Slash! Thrust!

  The fight had gone on for far too long already, especially since Arthur was putting his entire strength into his blows, all of which Modred had absorbed with hardly a scratch. Modred had stung the king several times, however, and the wounds in king’s arm and belly were bleeding freely. If the flow of blood in Arthur’s side wasn’t staunched, he would soon become too weak to stand.

  Modred was quicker than Arthur and younger, and it had become clear to Myrddin by now that Modred’s strategy all along had
been a battle of attrition: to allow Arthur to expend his energy in fruitless assault while Modred merely parried and evaded. Even Arthur’s blows that landed did no damage. Myrddin longed to wipe that perpetual smirk off Modred’s face, but instead it deepened. “You cannot defeat me, uncle! I am the rightful king of Wales!”

  This was truly the end of all—

  Myrddin sat up with a start, cursing that despite what they’d tried so far, the outcome of the battle remained the same.

  He didn’t know what had woken him at first, so he listened hard and then listened again. There was nothing to hear but the drip, drip, drip of water somewhere above him. Unlike when he’d had the dream in the barn, which had passed in a few heartbeats, this time he’d slept for many hours. While his heart was heavier than when he’d gone to sleep, he had to admit that his eyes were not as tired.

  He cupped a hand around his mouth and called into the oppressive silence, “Hello!”

  A little light came through the window in his cell, but it was torchlight, not daylight. A single lantern on the wall in the guardroom lit the area beyond his cell, but he saw no sign of the man who earlier had been guarding him. The prison was deserted but for him, and from the lack of sounds outside, the entirety of the town that the walls enclosed might be empty too. Urien had committed everyone he had to this endeavor. Arthur and Myrddin weren’t the only ones who were gambling everything on one last throw of the dice.

  Cursing his complete isolation, Myrddin went to the door and studied the lock. It was as solid as ever, and he had no piece of metal with which to pick it. Owain was good as his word, in that someone had left a flask of water and a loaf of bread within arm’s reach of the bars, but nobody was coming to free him. He tried not to think about where Nell was and how she might fare making her way south alone. She was going to Modred’s tent. He knew it, and it was a stabbing pain in his heart that she had chosen not only to sacrifice herself, but to leave him. She didn’t trust him enough to understand that they would find another way, just like they had every time before.

  Then the door to the outside opened, and Nell entered. “I really doubt that shaking the bars is going to loosen them. Urien strikes me as a most thorough captor.”

  Myrddin clenched the bars tighter, drinking in the sight of her. “Owain told me you’d gone!”

  Shaking her head at him, and with casual grace, she reached up for the key on the guardroom wall and came forward to unlock the door to his cell. He pushed it open and grabbed her up in a hug.

  “You thought I’d gone to Modred.” Nell’s voice came out muffled by Myrddin’s cloak.

  He loosened his grip slightly so she could breathe. “I confess I did.” He hung his head.

  “I hid myself in the chapel. Urien is a traitor, but he would never send someone to harm me there. And honestly, harming me was the last thing on anyone’s mind today.” She released him and stepped back, frowning. “You actually believed Owain? How could you have so little faith in me? In us?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You know what it’s like when you’re alone in the dark. You fear the worst. You imagine scenarios involving people you love doing things that make you angry, and become angry at them even though they haven’t done them.”

  Still shaking her head, Nell walked a little bit away, towards the guardroom door, paused, and then strode back to him. Taking the edges of his cloak in her fists, she tugged at him so he had to bend closer, his forehead to hers. “I forgive you this once.”

  A huge relief. “Did you dream again just now?”

  She nodded. This time when she released him and paced away towards the door, it wasn’t in anger. When she reached the outside door, she looked out, made sure nobody was close by enough to listen, and then shut the door again. It banged a little harder than it needed to. Her movements revealed frustration—this time not directed at Myrddin but at all they didn’t know. “What is the dream telling us? What am I not seeing?”

  Myrddin rested his hands on the top of his head and bent back his neck to look up at the ceiling. “Right now it’s telling us that Arthur is going to die.”

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What’s the point of that? We dreamed for years about Arthur’s death, but we changed it. The outcome wasn’t what we feared because we acted. At Wroxeter we both dreamed of the future, and those dreams guided our actions and allowed us to free the king. What are we not culling from these dreams that will allow us to change the future?”

  “Else why dream, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Exactly. Before we found each other and realized that we had a chance to change what we could see, we despaired. Now we know that what we see is one possible future that can be changed, and yet—” She raised her hands and dropped them.

  “All we can do is try, Nell.” Myrddin followed her into the guardroom and found his sword stashed in a trunk in the corner, but his armor and knives were gone. The soldiers must have known that even Urien wouldn’t countenance the theft of a sword. He slammed down the lid of the trunk in frustration and turned to Nell. “My armor isn’t the only thing that’s missing.”

  But Nell stood with her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and staring at him. “That’s it, Myrddin! Your armor! Or rather, Modred’s.”

  Myrddin’s mind was still on the injustice of losing his possessions. “What are you talking about?”

  Nell put out a hand to him. “Modred’s armor. Do you remember in the dreams of his fight with Arthur how Modred’s armor seemed impervious to Arthur’s blade?”

  “Yes. I dreamed of it again right before you came.”

  “So did I. How is it that Arthur’s blows were so easily turned aside?”

  Myrddin tsked through his teeth. “It isn’t because Modred is anointed by God, I can tell you that.”

  “Think back to the dream where I enter Modred’s tent on the night before the battle. Can you see the whole of the interior? Can you describe to me where his bed and table are?”

  Myrddin’s brow furrowed as he thought. “I’m afraid all I see is you. All I feel is fear for you.”

  “As I do for you, but in that dream, even as my conscious self is screaming at you not to enter his tent, you do anyway. Once inside, your eyes are on Modred’s back as he faces the table, but to the left is an armor stand. Think. Can you see it too?”

  Myrddin closed his eyes and cast his mind back to the dream where Nell had died by Modred’s hand. It was true that his entire being had vibrated with fear for her, but as she looked at Modred’s back, he caught a glimpse of what she was talking about. Off to one side stood an armor tree, holding a breastplate, shoulder guards, and solid metal thigh and shin guards. His first thought was that he’d never seen such solid armor in his life—except, now that he thought about it, on carvings and the remains of frescos found in Roman ruins. The house in which Arthur, Nell, and Huw had been kept at Wroxeter had been adorned with tilework showing warriors wearing very similar gear.

  “We should go,” Nell said.

  “Go where?”

  “To Modred’s camp.”

  “A moment ago you were angry with me when I thought you’d gone there. How can you suggest that we go there together now?”

  “I was angry because you thought I’d gone without you,” Nell said. “There’s the difference. What we do, whatever it is, we do together.”

  “To what end?” Myrddin said. “Any one of Arthur’s men could scout the camp more easily than we can. We should ride to Caer Caradoc to tell Arthur that Urien marches to Modred.”

  “No. This battle begins and ends with our dream and what we see in that tent. Modred defeats Arthur because of his armor. We need to take it from him! If we allow the battle to go forward as we have dreamed, we know the outcome. Coming here appears to have only made the situation worse by sending Urien in on Modred’s side. We have to think beyond the usual.” She touched his arm. “On the battlefield, King Arthur was stronger and more skilled than Modred. We saw it. He should have won, b
ut Modred’s armor allowed him to outlast Arthur. Being older and wounded, Arthur tired more quickly.”

  “I agree that Modred’s armor protected his body, and taking it from him could give Arthur back the advantage, but I don’t think that will be enough to make the difference in this fight. We have to do more.”

  “It will do more. The loss of his armor will sow doubt in Modred’s mind.” She looked pleadingly at Myrddin. “I know it sounds mad.”

  Myrddin hesitated. He remained skeptical, but Nell’s surety and enthusiasm, if not contagious, was something he wanted to support. Besides, motion was always better than no motion. “No. The more I think about it, the better this idea seems. Honestly, I think it’s time for a little madness.” He picked her up and swung her around, laughing. Then he sobered and set her back down. “If we do this right, Modred won’t know who took it or where it has gone. He will be angry, and he will be uncertain.”

  “I like the idea of Modred uncertain,” Nell said.

  “I do too.” Just making the decision increased Myrddin’s confidence. “In fact, it could be that making him feel that way is essential to victory. Come on.” He took her hand in his and headed towards the door. “The time has come to hurry.”

  Chapter Ten

  16 December 537

  Huw

  “Modred’s banners, my lord.” Cador halted beside Huw, who was standing with Anwen on the wall-walk, looking through a gap in the palisade wall towards the field below the fort. Another day had passed in preparation for battle, and with evening coming on, it seemed that dawn would bring war, whether or not they were ready for it.

  “I recognize them,” Huw said. “This is really going to happen, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Cador said. “At dawn tomorrow, King Arthur and Modred will meet briefly, they will talk, but there can be no peace because Modred will accept nothing less than our complete surrender.”