The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) Read online

  ’Twas said he’d seduced and murdered his baron’s wife and thus had been exiled to the north with a price on his head, and was still sought by Welsh princes and mountain chieftains. Up until then, he’d lived as well as his lord, in great comfort behind castle walls, a stark contrast to the cave he was said to inhabit on the island of Anglesey, or the rough summer huts of willow and thatch kept for him in the mountains by the Quicken-tree.

  Four times each year Nemeton came to Carn Merioneth, welcomed by Rhiannon’s mother in her time and now by Rhiannon. One of those times was always Calan Gaef, cursed night of faith when Rhiannon had no faith left to sustain her.

  There had been feasting and dancing and music: harps, flutes, the bowed lyre crwth, and voices raised in songs sung in many parts. The bodhrans had been picked up one by one to start a new song, and slowly, the bodhran song had overcome all the others, until nothing but the sound of hands thrumming on skins remained.

  It was Rhiannon’s moment to drink the dragon wine, when the drums reached their crescendo and held, but she could not. The gold rim of the jewel-encrusted chalice was warm against her lips, the smell of the wine filled her nostrils and made her near swoon, but fear stayed her hand.

  She slanted her gaze to Nemeton, wondering what he thought of her delay, but she detected no impatience in the Druid. He was, seemingly, more inclined to see what was than to see what he could make of things.

  Had he really murdered the long-ago baron’s wife? Or, as was so wont to happen, had his physick merely gone awry? ’Twas said crocus seeds had killed the noble woman. A more deadly plant could hardly be found. Even with all her own skill, Rhiannon never dealt with crocus. Did it have a taste at a deadly dose? she wondered. Did it have a color? A scent?

  The wine eddied as her hand trembled, lapping at her lips, but still she did not drink. For each of the past five years, since her mother’s death, she had taken her share of the dragon wine and looked into the scrying pool to mark the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Never before had she doubted the safety of Nemeton’s potion. But never before had she been betrayed by one she loved as life itself.

  Her gaze fell upon her husband, Arawn.

  You have eyes as green as rowan leaves in high summer, she’d overheard Arawn tell Nemeton’s daughter in a voice made harsh by the passion of the kisses they had shared. When had it been? Just three days past?

  It seemed another lifetime. She closed her eyes against a wave of pain. Moriath was the grove priest’s daughter, an impious novice expelled from the abbey at Usk. Rhiannon had welcomed the girl, given her the charge of the children, who had grown too rambunctious for their old nurse to handle alone. She had seen no impiety in the maid, only a shade of feyness that she could well understand would arouse suspicion and misgivings in the Christian ladies of Usk. Did not Rhiannon’s own presence do the same when visiting clergy came to Merioneth? For though she was Christian, her Christianity was grounded more in the Celtic church than in the Catholic, and through her mother her religion reached back farther still, back to the heritage of a Magus Druid priestess from Anglesey.

  She looked again at the wine. Would Nemeton poison her so he could put his daughter in her place? The priest had drunk first, but ’twould be as nothing for him to perform a quick sleight of hand as he lowered the cup from his mouth. Rhuddlan had drunk, but ’twas said—and she believed—that there was naught on earth that could poison a Quicken-tree.

  Had Arawn thought of the dangers he might bring upon them with his dalliance, or had his thoughts not gone past his braies? ’Twasn’t like him, and yet the girl was uncommonly beautiful in her own strange way.

  Rhiannon lifted her gaze to the rest of the cave. There were others besides herself to consider this night. She could not delay forever. The far reaches of the great cavern were lost in darkness, beyond where the light from all the fires could reach, but Rhiannon knew the people were there, watching and waiting, and feeling the cold. The time had come.

  Her gaze settled on the pool. Curling tendrils of steam floated across the top of the bubbling water, a few ethereal strands escaping to reach upward past the darkness, to drift into every tunnel, nook, and cranny, and wind their way to freedom in the night sky, leaving behind their essence, which would sink down, and down, and down into the abyss, where earth, air, fire, and water became one. ’Twas from the abyss that she drew strength.

  She was Rhiannon, daughter of Teleri, daughter of Mair, back to the daughter of Heledd, and farther back to the first daughter of the Mother Goddess. She was Rhiannon, mother of Ceridwen, strong-willed child of her heart, the one who would follow to play the harp and call the dragons from the deep beyond in the years to come. She was Rhiannon, mother of Mychael, sweet, unforetold son.

  Her children were very dear, and thus her decision was made.

  With practiced grace, she tipped the cup—away from her lips, letting the arc continue until all the wine poured over the jewel-encrusted rim into the pool. She would not drink. She would not die for the gods this night, nor for an impious maid.

  Her eye caught that of Nemeton, but if he had noticed her sacrilege, he gave no sign. There was naught else to be done, other than to wait for the scrying pool to settle, cooled by the dragon wine into a smooth, reflective surface. Words would be spoken and sights sought, but none would be seen on this night of Galan Gaef, when her task was to open the doors between the worlds and look into the depths of time. A sigh passed her lips where the wine should have gone. What was done, was done. Whatever fate befell her for cheating the gods with the wine, ’twould not be worse than what she’d already endured.

  The drum sound softened, making way for the chant rising up from Nemeton. The priest’s voice was joined by others, lifting and falling in a hypnotic rhythm of sameness, lulling Rhiannon’s mind into a quiet place. She softened her gaze upon the pool and allowed her thoughts to wander freely over the subsiding ripples and remaining traces of steam. She expected nothing, looked for nothing, and so was surprised by the streak of ruddy light that raced across the water. Another came on the heels of the first, gray and green, bright and twisting like the flick of a fishtail. By the time she saw the third, a smile played about her mouth. The dragons were coming.

  Beautiful they were, the fleet rods of lights. She had not called them, yet the connection between her and the dragons was strong. Mayhaps they’d felt her need. As she watched, the colors came together, rolled over on one another, and broke apart into twice as many pieces. They moved so fast, darting here and there, joining again and breaking apart, doubling once more, over and over, until the whole pool glowed and pulsed with their movements.

  “No.” The one word was spoken into the silence as if it were death itself.

  She glanced up at the unexpected sound, her smile fading.

  Across from her, Nemeton breathed the word again, his countenance unutterably grim as he stared into the pool.

  Rhiannon jerked her gaze back to where steam was again rising off the water and caught a final glimpse of what he’d seen in the seconds he’d held her attention.

  The dragons themselves, coming in from the deep beyond, on a course that would take them to their nest.

  One was ruby-colored, Ddrei Goch, its huge, scaly body coiling in upon itself, awash in seawater; the other was pale green, Ddrei Glas, riding the sea foam. And ahead of them on the cliffs of Carn Merioneth, an allied war band of Welsh and English soldiers advanced upon the keep in the faint light of dawn, a war chant filling the air around them.

  She cried out, a cry to arms. People close to the pool reacted quickly, and none quicker than Arawn, whose shouted orders echoed off the cavern walls and sent men running for the passageways leading out of the caves.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Yer lost.”

  “Am not.”

  “Yes, you are, Ceri. Yer lost and me too.”

  Ceridwen shook her head in denial even as she squeezed her lips together to keep them from trembling. It was awful. They w
ere lost. Everything looked the same no matter which way she went. The stone walls were all dark and cold; every path was an endless tunnel into nothingness.

  She had made a horrible mistake wanting to come to the Canolbarth alone. There were no dragon bones, no faeries, and no treasure. There was nobody and nothing but dark and more dark, and clammy wetness, and smells she didn’t like.

  “I want Mama.” Mychael sniffled, and a hiccup followed.

  “Hush.” She wanted Mama too, probably more than he did. Why didn’t anyone come? They’d been gone for a very long time. Someone must be looking for them, and they were right there, standing in the middle of the tunnel in plain sight. The drums had stopped, the festival was over. Where was everybody?

  The bright torches they’d followed from the cave entrance had given way to small oil lamps. She didn’t know when the change had happened, or why, or where. She’d just looked up once and noticed there wasn’t as much light as there had been. When they’d tried to follow the lamps back, they’d ended up someplace different, someplace wetter and darker than the other tunnels.

  Where they were now, water ran down the walls in trickling streams to puddle on the floor. Her shoes were soaked, and she was freezing. Mychael shivered at her side, a sad sight in her wet and dirty cloak and ruined deer-hide boots.

  “I’m tired, Ceri, and hungry, and yer going to be in trouble when we get home. Do you have another honey-pie? Or some cheese?”

  She listened to him babble on with all his hundreds of complaints and threats. They were already in trouble, but she didn’t tell him. He was scared enough. So was she.

  “I’m thirsty, and if we’re not in bed when ’Riath comes to get us, we’ll be in trouble with her too.” Another hiccup punctuated his mournful tirade.

  Ceridwen sighed, her gaze searching the walls for what she didn’t know. Moriath could be a terrible scold, but she would rather be scolded to Ynys Enlli, a holy island of saints, and back again rather than spend another moment in the caves.

  “’Riath,” Mychael suddenly called out, and Ceridwen whirled on him, ready to tell him to hush again, only to find him running off into a tunnel.

  “Mychael!” A new wave of fear struck her as he rounded a curve and disappeared into the nothingness. “Mychael, you little bugger! Come back here!”

  She chased after him, legs pumping, skirts flying. Aye, and when she caught him, she was going to wallop him a good one. Little as he was, though, he was able to stay ahead of her, splashing through the puddles, always a few steps too far away for her to catch. She got a stitch in her side and swore. She hadn’t thought things could get any worse. Damn Mychael for proving her wrong.

  She yelled at him, and he kept yelling for Moriath.

  The sounds of their voices crossed over each other in the maze of passageways and ricocheted back, then were swallowed up whole by the sheer density of the rock surrounding them. Twice more she lost sight of him, and each time spurred her on to more speed.

  When next she saw him, she made one last effort, hiking up her skirts and running pell-mell. She reached out, and her fingers brushed against the cloak. She stretched them farther, grasping on to the cloth and fur before giving him a jerk.

  “Mychael,” she warned when he tried to squirm away, her voice no less angry for being breathless. Then he was down, and she was on top of him, making a pile of arms and legs. She would have punched him, if she’d had the strength. She did not.

  They lay, still and winded, getting soaked everywhere they touched the ground.

  “Ceri, look,” Mychael said before she could catch her breath enough to light into him. He was pointing at a place on the wall above one of the oil lamps. Marks were etched into the stone, showing white against the rock, and an arrow pointed into the heavier darkness of a rough shaft.

  Ceridwen recognized some of the white lines as letters, and she knew letters made words, but that was the extent of her knowledge. There were straight lines and curved lines, and lines that crossed each other. On either side of the letters were symbols she recognized from a ring her mother wore.

  Fighting the weight of her sodden skirts, she struggled to her feet and reached up to touch the marks. PRYF. ’Twas a small word. She traced over it with her fingertips, wondering what it meant, wondering if the arrow pointed the way out or deeper into the caverns.

  “Come on.” Mychael pushed her, coming to his feet beside her. “Let’s go. ’Riath is in there. I saw her, and she can take us home.”

  Ceridwen gave the shaft a wary look. ’Twas narrower than the others and not as smooth. It did not look like the way home.

  “I didn’t see her.”

  “I did. Come on.” He pulled this time, wrapping his fingers in her cloak.

  She balked, holding her ground. The smell was stronger than it had been before, emanating from the shaft, sweet, and earthy, and warm. Rich.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not going in there.”

  “Now who’s acting like a suckling babe?” Mychael asked, indignant.

  She would have defended herself from his accusation, given time, but time ran out. A draft of wind swirled up from the shaft with a keening sound, extinguishing the oil lamps one by one in quick succession, leaving them in total darkness.

  “Damn, damn, damn, damn.” Ceridwen swore for every lamp they lost, grabbing Mychael and backing into the wall. Her eyes searched in vain to see anything other than black emptiness. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  “Yer goin’ to be in trouble. Yer goin’ to be in trouble,” Mychael taunted between gasping cries of fear, trying to climb on top of her and hide inside her cloak at the same time.

  She pressed them closer to the wall, two small bodies huddled together as the warm breath of the earth poured over them. Then, as suddenly as the wind had come, it retreated, and the glowing light of a torch bounced and weaved an erratic path out of the darkness to her right. The sound of stumbling footsteps came with the light, and soon, hard breathing and crying.

  Agony was in the voice, despair in the great gulping sobs. It was a woman. The pitch was unmistakable.

  “’Riath,” Mychael whispered, and Ceridwen believed. No matter that he’d found her behind them rather than in front of them; he’d found her.

  That it truly was Moriath became apparent the closer she got. Her pretty reddish hair was fallen from its crown of braids and was all mussed. Tears streaked her face, and her bloodstained clothes were half torn from her body.

  When she looked up and saw them, she fell to her knees with a cry of shock, the torch rolling out of her hands. Mychael reached her first and threw himself into her arms, with Ceridwen less than a hairbreadth behind.

  The maid held them so tightly they could hardly breathe, dampening the last dry places on them with her tears. Ceridwen took what comfort could be eked out of such a pitiful, but nonetheless heartily welcomed rescue, before allowing her curiosity to get the better of her.

  “Did you fall?” she asked, reaching out to smooth Moriath’s braid where it fell over her bared shoulder. The maid was dirty and scratched something awful, and Ceridwen thought she must have fallen all the way from the top of the cave. She gave the loose braid another gentle pat. Poor Moriath.

  The maid didn’t answer at first, but wiped her eyes with her torn sleeve, which did no good a’tall, because her tears kept falling. When it was obvious no progress would be made on that front, she took up the torch and rose to her feet with unnatural awkwardness.

  “Come, children, hurry. We must be away.”

  “Away where, ’Riath?” Mychael asked, lifting his head from where he stood buried in her skirts, his arms wrapped around her legs.

  “To the mountains and when the snows come, we will go south. ’Twill be an adventure.”

  Something was wrong, Ceridwen thought. Moriath was not one to cling and cry. Nor was she one to fall down and get dirty and tear her clothes. Moriath always looked nice. Her eyes were the prettiest green. Ceridwen had never seen them all red an
d puffy before.

  “You like adventures, don’t you, Ceri?” the maid said, caressing her cheek with a trembling hand. A watery smile graced her mouth. “No doubt ’tis how you came to be in the caves. Your instincts are good, little one, even when they are misguided.”

  “My ‘stincts’?” Ceridwen repeated, confused. Nothing was making sense.

  Mychael laughed and pointed his finger at her. “No, silly Ceri. ’Riath said you stink.”

  “Did not.” She hit his hand away, then looked to Moriath for reassurance. The woman was not paying them any attention. She had the torch lifted high and was staring down into the winding shaft. She stood very still for a long time, as if unsure of what she should do next, until Ceridwen grew uneasy and Mychael pulled at her skirts.

  “Aye. We must go,” she said softly, then turned the torch on the white marks etched into the stone. She dragged the fire across the strange word, obscuring it with a layer of smoke and soot, making it indistinguishable from the rest of the wall.

  Ceridwen watched as the letters and symbols disappeared, turning from gray to black and melting back into the stone, and she wondered what Moriath was hiding, and from whom.

  ~ ~ ~

  From the shaft to fresh air and freedom was not overly far for one who knew the way through the maze of tunnels. Moriath had said no more in the caverns, only sometimes burst into a fit of sobbing and tears that she eventually controlled, until the next fit hit. Ceridwen thought the whole adventure one big, miserable disaster, and she didn’t understand why they couldn’t just go back to their bed, or at least the keep. She didn’t want to go to the mountains. She was tired and hungry, and she wanted to go home. She wanted her mother.

  A bramble thicket covered the cave entrance when they reached it, one more unpleasantness to add to her day. They fought their way through the thicket, getting pricked and stabbed, except for Mychael. He was safe in Moriath’s arms, his cheek resting on her shoulder, his soft snores making Ceridwen’s exhaustion nearly unbearable.