Camelot’s Shadow

‘I will send for you if I have need.’ Jocosa’s voice was tired.

‘As you wish, my lady.’ Rhian thought Una sounded a little hurt. It was a day for bruised feelings.

Rhian did not directly hear Una’s departure. She inferred it from the sound of her mother’s sigh, from the brush of cloth as she crossed the chamber, the gentle scrape of her fingers against the uncompleted tapestry, the soft pop of a needle through cloth and the drag of thread behind it as she completed a single stitch. Rhian wondered if she should reveal herself, but decided against it. There was no telling when father would walk in, and should the unthinkable happen and the scene turn truly ugly, she wanted to be able to say mother had no idea she had concealed herself in the room. That much, at least, would be true.

Boots slapped against stone. Hinges creaked. Rhian held her breath.

‘You sent for me, Jocosa?’ Father’s voice was heavy with more than just an overindulgence of ale.

‘I did, my husband.’ Mother’s voice was crisp, efficient, as when she was giving orders to the servants. ‘I am told that young Vernus was sent away with his hat in his hands.’

Wood creaked sharply as father dropped himself into a chair. ‘It is not time for our Rhian to marry.’

‘Tell me, pray, when will it be time?’ Each of mother’s words took on a sharp edge. ‘She is fully nineteen and a grown woman. She is ready to be mistress of her own house and mother of her own children.’

‘Vernus is not for her.’ His reply was dull. Rhian wondered if he even looked at mother.

‘Why not?’ Rhian imagined mother throwing up her hands in wonderment. ‘His rank and heritage are good, his father’s standing with the High King…’

‘I say Vernus is not for her! Be content!’ roared father, his fist thumping hard against the chair’s arm.

‘How am I to be content?’ demanded mother. ‘When I watch my daughter sink into melancholy and my husband sink into a pitcher of ale?’ Cloth rustled and Rhian knew mother strode across the room. ‘What has happened to you, Rygehil? Where is the man I loved more than life itself?’

Silence stretched out, long and heavy before her father spoke again in his thick voice. ‘I did not think it would be thus. I thought there would be other children.’

‘God has left us Rhian,’ said mother, puzzled.

‘No.’ To her shock, Rhian heard tears in her father’s voice. ‘He has not left her to us.’

Again, a rustle of cloth. Did her mother kneel? Retreat? Rhian longed to see, but forced herself to hold still.

‘I do not understand,’ said mother.

‘I…she…oh, Jocosa…’ emotion made father’s voice tremble. ‘I made a promise, Jocosa. I did it for you, I swear, I thought there would be other children. I did not know. I would undo it if I could, I swear. I have tried…’

‘Husband.’ Mother spoke the word firmly, but Rhian heard the fear in her voice. It echoed the fear causing Rhian’s breath to flutter in her throat. ‘Contain yourself.’

Father, what have you done?

Neither drink nor grief permitted father to gain coherence. ‘We were returning from Arthur’s coronation. I didn’t know you were with child or I never would have taken you on the road. You were sick to death, Jocosa. I was so afraid I would lose you. You were everything to me. I was weak, and afraid. I…’

‘Rygehil, what are you saying?’ Rhian thought mother must have shaken him then. ‘I cannot understand you.’

Rhian listened, her heart growing cold and tight with fear, as her father told of taking shelter in the old Roman garrison, of finding the sorcerer there, and of making his bargain. Rhian’s life in exchange for Jocosa’s.

‘No,’ whispered mother, her voice trembling as badly as Rhian’s hands at these impossible, terrible words. ‘Say this is not true. Say it is the drink, some madness. Anything but that you sold our daughter away to a black sorcerer.’

‘I did it for you, Jocosa. You were going to die!’

‘Better I had died!’ shouted mother in return. ‘Better Rhian had never been born than you should do so impious a deed!’

‘You will not so speak to me!’ bellowed father. ‘Ungrateful woman!’

‘No!’ screamed Rhian, unable to contain herself a moment longer. She shoved the tapestry aside to see what she had suddenly feared; father towering over mother, his strong hand raised to strike her pale face.

‘Rhian,’ he breathed. He truly was very drunk, the effects of the ale causing his emotions to ebb and flow without warning. In a heartbeat, he had gone from rage to guilty pleading. ‘Daughter, you should not be here. This is not for your ears.’

‘Then for whose is it?’ Rhian was too afraid, too infuriated to be placated. She interposed herself between her parents and squarely faced her father, turning her face up so he could strike it if he so chose. ‘Can you at least tell me what I have done that I should be sold off in this manner? Have I ever been unfilial or impious? What crime could I have possibly committed that you would thus condemn me out of hand?’

‘This is no fault of yours, Rhian.’ His breath smelled of the excess of ale he had drunk but he was struggling to rise above it. It was a terrible sight, as if she were watching him drown. ‘I acted as I thought best. Look at your mother. It was her life I sought to save.’

Rhian did look at her mother, the gaunt, lined woman who had spent years trying to understand why her husband held himself at such a distance from her. Now she had her answer, and her gentle brown eyes were full of the horror of it.

‘We must seek this man out,’ said mother, twisting her hands together as if attempting to rip a solution out of thin air. ‘We must offer him some other bargain. Any other…’

Father shook his head. ‘I cannot find him. I have searched the countryside for him, thinking to trade my life to break the bargain.’

‘Then go to the High King,’ urged Rhian. ‘Tell him what has happened. Surely, he will not hold you to so evil a contract.’

But father just turned away. ‘This is not a matter for the laws of men, not even for kings. The sorceries here are too deep for that.’

Rhian thought of her vision in the forest and shuddered.

‘Return to your room, daughter,’ said father without looking at her. ‘The bargain is made and may not be undone. Ask no more after marriage and commend yourself to God. Only He can help you now.’

Stunned and sickened to her core, Rhian found words died in her throat. She looked helplessly to her mother.

‘We cannot leave it at this,’ mother said.

‘We will, because we must.’ With those words father departed from the room, the tread of his boots echoing off the stone walls.

‘No!’ cried mother. ‘No, husband…’ Gathering her skirts, Jocosa ran from the room, following her husband, to cry, plead or threaten.

For a long moment, Rhian found herself unable to move, and when she did, it was as if her body had undertaken the decision of its own accord. She walked down the cold, stone hall, past the stairs and into her own chamber. There, Aeldra stood among so many familiar things; her spindles and threads, her sewing and embroidery, her paints, the small inlaid table that held her jewellery box, the carved bed she had slept in since she was a child. It all seemed hollow, drained of substance, as her life had suddenly become.

‘Mistress?’ said Aeldra, tentatively. ‘Are you well? Shall I fetch you wine? Or a cloth for your head?’

‘No,’ Rhian managed to say. ‘I want nothing.’

‘At least sit then.’ She felt Aeldra tugging at her arm and permitted herself to be guided to a chair and made to sit.

Her mind was too full to perform these simple actions without assistance. The same thoughts rang over and over, like church bells on the Sabbath. She was promised, to a sorcerer, who had asked for her before she had even been born, and her father, her father whom she had loved and trusted all her life, even when she did not understand him, had given her over, and had done it for love.

She tried to understand a love that would make such a bargain, that would demand so much. It was passion such as the bards sang of. It knew no limits. It would sacrifice all for the beloved.

And in the ballads, it sounded very fine and noble, but what of the one who must be the sacrifice? What of the child she had been and the maiden she was now? Was it her duty to go meekly with this stranger who had demanded so evil a price from a desperate man and a dying woman?

That thought broke the paralysis that held her.