Recuperation
Gwalchmai threw his stylus down. It bounced off the bed and rolled across the floor, amost to the feet of Brian, the servant who had just come in carrying a mop and bucket. "How can I write my satire if I'm always being interrupted?" Gwalchmai demanded, furiously.
Brian waved the mop handle weakly. "Sorry, sir, but I have to clean the floor...."
Gwalchmai snorted. "First it's breakfast - I have no argument with that! Then there's a whole procession of functionaries measuring young Owain for tunics and boots, and Goddess knows what other items for his wardrobe. I don't begrudge you that, lad, or your sister and mother coming to visit you - it's what we were working for, after all. But I can't work here!" He shoved the wax tablets across the bed covers impatiently. Even from the other bed, Owain could see there were more crossings out than anything else. "And now you've come to mop the floor!" he continued, full of exasperation. "Will it never end? Well, you can put that bucket down - yes, down, there - and go and get my servant Kai Vaughan. Tell him to get a stretcher, or a litter, or something, over here so I can get back to my own rooms - and make sure to tell him to have a jug of mead waiting when I get there!"
Brian bowed his way backwards to the door, and fled.
Gwalchmai smiled sheepishly. "Not his fault, poor man. Not your fault, either - but I must get that poem written while it's fresh in my mind. It's what Ianto deserves."
Owain smiled back, cautiously. He thought he could have suggested that he should be the one to leave the doctor's house. After all, his knee was only a little stiff now. He knew he was capable of walking on it.
But until the tailor came back, in another couple of days, he didn't even have any clothes to call his own, and he couldn't wander round Ravenscar in his undershirt, not with so many strangers arriving. He could hear the bustle outside, even though the doctor's house was in a quiet corner of the Llys. People were arriving hourly; pavilions were being erected on open ground, and wagons of provisions were creaking round to the kitchens to feed the army of newcomers.
It made Owain even less anxious to leave the doctor's house, because all those people had come to see him. Morwenna had called a Family conference, and she was holding a great feast, to publicly acknowledge him. For a young man who had spent the last three years trying to be invisible, it was a daunting prospect. he didn't want to leave the house until he was forced to.
Morwenna had told him what she intended to do personally. She had already sent the invitations out, before Owain had even arrived. She had smiled maliciously as she told him her plans for Ianto. "He's here, of course," she said. "Installed himself in the best rooms in the guest house as soon as he arrived, and he's still bleating on about 'misunderstandings' to anyone who'll listen. We'll see what 'misunderstandings' there are when he has to face the headwoman of that little Dun in front of the Family - he doesn't know she's here yet, and we're making sure we keep it that way. He doesn't know that anyone knows about Peredur yet, either. It will be amusing to see him try to talk his way out of that in front of Generys!"
Owain had shuddered. he didn't think it would be 'amusing' for Aunt Generys to learn how, exactly, her son had died.
Shortly afterwards, Kai Vaughan arrived with two strong working men carrying a litter, and Gwalchmai departed for his own quarters to work in peace. As soon as he'd gone, Brian started swabbing the flagstone floor with the mop. he wasn't doing much more than moving dirt around, though, as the water had to be almost cold by now. Owain thought of mentioning it, but the servant's presence wasn't bothering him and, if anything, Brian looked glad of something to do out of theway of the crowds, too.
There had been so many visitors. He hadn't talked so much for months - and there was still a visitor to come that would be the hardest of all to talk to. He had spoken to his mother when she came, and she had sent for Ferdia's father.
He wasn't looking forward to that at all.
Nidan, the new servant that Brecca had sent to Owain, had set up a fidchell board at the side of the bed, and Owain was trying to remember the rules of the game. Nidan was old enough to have grizzled patches in his brown hair, and he looked as if nothing could surprise him. He was also, Owain was discovering, endlessly patient. "That's a chess move, sir," he said, for at least the tenth time that morning. "A fidchell piece can't move like that."
"But I could go there? Like that?" Owain asked.
There was the faintest flicker of a smile under Nidan's bushy moustache. "You could, sir, but then I'd just do that...." He demonstrated taking five of Owain's pieces in one go. "Are you really sure you want to do that?"
With his head down over the board, and aware only that Nidan was going to thrash him at fidchell for the third time that morning, Owain hardly noticed the outer door open. When he did look up, his mother was standing by the bed - and with her was Rhys Gronw, Ferdia's father.
He had changed. He looked thinner in the face than Owain remembered, and his hair was greyer. He was completely unsmiling, but not grim - more nervous. Owain took some comfort from that. If both of them were going to find the conversation difficult, somehow that made it easier for him.
Brecca said: "I brought Lord Rhys here as soon as he arrived. It has been hard for him, and all his family, not knowing what happened to his son - as it was hard for me - but Lord Rhys will not see his son return again, will he?"
Brecca knew that Ferdia was dead. Owain had told her that first day, just the bare bones of the story, at the same time as he'd told her as much as he could of what happened on the beach, to his father, and to Casmael the charioteer - and all the other difficult things that he wished hadn't happened. But it seemed Lord Rhys didn't know yet, and she had left it for Owain to break it to him.
"You'd better sit down," Owain said, and waited while Rhys Gronw pulled a stool over from the doctor's table by the window. Nidan quietly excused himself and slipped outside. Brecca sat on the corner of the table, far enough away to give a semblance of privacy to Rhys Gronw, but near enough to hear everything for herself. Owain sighed unhappily. He wasn't sure where was the best place to start.
"It was all my fault," he said. Better to admit that now and get it over with, he thought. "Ferdia - well, Ferdia always wanted to go where I went. That's why he was down on the beach with us when the corsairs came. We all thought it was a merchant ship - until it was too late. They caught us both - I was hurt and he wouldn't leave me. They got Casmael the charioteer as well, and Arianrhod.... When we got to the island, they were waiting for a ship to arrive. Then the others would be taken to be sold as slaves. The corsairs wanted me to work for them, raising the wind. Ferdia didn't want to wait. We didn't know where we were, but we knew the corsairs didn't ever cross the causeway to the mainland, so we thought we'd be safe if we got that far. he could have gone alone - it would have been easy for him to go alone, but he wouldn't leave me, and I couldn't move very fast. So it was my fault. They set the dogs on us, and Ferdia wouldn't leave me, and one of the corsairs had a spear.... I'm sorry. He could have got away. I'm really, really sorry."
Rhys Gronw said slowly: "Then he died saving the life of his patron's son. It was his fate and his destiny, and an honourable death. He is buried there on the island, then?"
"Not - exactly." Owain couldn't face him. He looked down at the blanket, focusing on the strands of wool that made up the thin red stripe on the dark brown background. "They have a wizard there, Kofi. He's got protection spells all round the island, to keep the corsairs' base a secret. They buried Ferdia's body in a scrape of sand in the dunes at the end of the island - but Kofi bound his spirit to give more power to the protection spells. He can't get to the Summerlands."
Rhys Gronw turned to Brecca. "All the resources at my command are at your disposal," he said. "The honour of my family demands this."
Owain flinched, but Rhys Gronw was not talking to him now. He had thought he would feel better when he had told the story, but
he felt worse. He didn't think to wonder what Rhys Gronw had meant.
He had to face the doctor, next. Duncan Mark had come back to check up on his patient, and Owain lay still and unresponsive as the doctor poked and prodded at his knee.
"Nothing much I can do for this, now, except to recommend that you don't over-exert yourself," Duncan said. "What butcher treated it in the first place, anyway? I'm assuming that there's no doctor on that island you were stuck on."
"They have a very good doctor," Owain said. "They didn't want me to run away." It had been such an obvious thing to him, for so long, that he was surprised at how angry Duncan Mark looked.
"Barbarians," he muttered. "It'll never be right, and I'm afraid you'll always need a crutch, or at least a stick. It's been too long since the original injury for me to do anything more for you. Some people recommend swimming as an exercise, especially in salt water. Your mother's main Dun is by the sea, isn't it?"
Owain thought of the blood on the pebbles at Pensarn Beach, the bodies of all the people he knew, and his father. He thought of slaughtered horses. he could not imagine ever going down there to swim again.
It the doctor had noticed Owain's silence, or the way he suddenly tensed up, he ignored it. "I'd say you still need rest, though, so the best thing for you to do for the next couple of days is to stay here in bed. It's chaos out there. There hasn't been such a gathering at Ravenscar for years - well before my time here."
And they'd all come to see him, Owain thought apprehensively. How could he face them all? How could he face his mother again, now she'd heard the full story of Ferdia's death? He hadn't thought of that when he first saw her, but now - she must be ashamed of him. She had left without saying a word.
What he really wanted was to stay there in bed until they had all gone home.
He still felt wretched the next morning. After breakfast, he stationed Nidan outside, to fend off any more visitors. Nidan had grumbled a bit, wrapped himself in his cloak, and gone to sit on the bench outside the door.
The door swung open only a few minutes later. Owain turned to see his sister ducking under Nidan's outstretched arm, grinning.
"Sorry, sir," Nidan said.
Olwen, now safely inside, grabbed a stool and perched on it next to the bed. "He said I couldn't come in," she said cheerfully, "but I was sure you couldn't mean me, Owain."
"You don't really want to talk to me," he said.
"Yes, I do. Or I could read to you, if you don't want to talk." She slipped one hand into her pouch and brought out a small leather bound book. "I brought The Silver Branch."
She opened the book at a ribbon bookmark and looked up at Owain expectantly. "I'm up to the part where the ship's ready to sail for the Empire, and the hero's got to decide whether he wants to go or not," she said, "but I could read another bit if you wanted?"
He sighed. "Actually, I don't remember The Silver Branch, so you'd have to start at the beginning for it to make any sense to me. You're right - we should talk instead."
She put the book to one side and laced her fingers around one upraised knee. "Isn't it all exciting?" she asked. "Aren't you looking forward to the feast?"
"Truly?" He managed half a smile. "I'm terrified. Everyone will be looking at me, and I won't know what to say."
"But it's all family," she pointed out. "It's not as if they're going to eat you or anything."
"We don't have that many relatives!" Owain said. "I can hear them setting up camp all over the Llys."
"Oh, of course there are lots of servants, and retainers and so on," she said dismissively. "You needn't worry about them. There are going to be jugglers, too, you know, and acrobats."
And Rhys Gronw, he thought. How would he be able to look Rhys Gronw in the face now that he knew the worst.
"Olwen...."
"Yes?" she drawled, drawing the word out over the strained silence.
"I had to tell Rhys Gronw some bad things."
"Oh, I know that!" she said. "He spent ages talking to mother after they left you."
Somehow, this did not reassure Owain.
"What did - do you know what mother said to him?" he asked.
"They kept the door closed on me," Olwen said, "and Lliros - that's my tutor - had the cheek to say it's rude to listen at keyholes!" Then Olwen grinned. "Of course, I didn't need to listen at the keyhole to hear what they were saying - which is why mother swore me to secrecy as soon as she came out!"
"Olwen! Come on, don't be unfair - tell me something!"
To his surprise, Olwen suddenly became very serious. "They don't blame you," she said. "All that you told mother, about your friend Ferdia - she doesn't blame you. That's really why I came this morning. I thought you ought to know that."
"Then why can't she say that?" Owain asked bitterly.
"Because she's busy," Olwen said patiently. "And so is Lord Rhys. There's a lot to organise, you know."
Some time later, the door opened again.
"I'm sorry, sir." Nidan appeared in the doorway, looking apologetic in the extreme. "But I can't refuse the Lord Aidan, sir."
Owain had been lying on his back with his hands behind his head, thinking about what his little sister had told him. What he really wanted was to have a proper talk with his mother - but he couldn't refuse the Lord Aidan, either. He sat up in bed as his cousin sat down on the stool at the doctor's table, and Owain saw that he had wax tablets and a stylus with him, and that he intended to take notes with his own hand. What he wanted to discuss had to be highly secret, if he didn't want a secretary to overhear anything.
"Your mother didn't want me to come this morning," Aidan began. "She thought you might still be distressed by something that happened yesterday - she didn't say what. However, time is short, and there is a lot of organising to do, so I hope you will forgive me if I press you for information. There is need."
Owain nodded cautiously. His throat was doing its usual trick of closing up just when he needed to speak.
"Firstly, then," Aidan said, "I want all the names you can remember from your time with the corsairs - men, ships, places they talked about, anything at all. We want to know who we're dealing with."
Now he made himself think about it, the island seemed strangely distant, his memories of his life there already beginning to blur slightly. "There are three ships," he began, "Raha, al-Khadar and Sohar. The leader of the corsairs is called the Bey - I don't know if that's a real title, or one he's just taken as a pirate chief. His full name is Jumail Marhouri Jameel al-Saad, and when he goes out, he captains the Sohar. Captain of the Raha is Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He's some sort of cousin to the Bey, and the other captain is Sayyid Faisal al-Saad."
"Another cousin?" Aidan asked.
"I suppose so. There's another ship, for cargo, called the Utamaduni, but that one doesn't stay on the island - it's too deep bellied for them to pull up onto the beach."
Aidan made him say the names slowly, three times over, before he was satisfied with the spelling.
"There's something about that name - al-Saad," Aidan said. "Uncle Liam will know. Where do they come from, do you know?"
"Kharazan," Owain said. "They were always talking about what they'd do when they got back there - sometimes it was how many wives they'd have and how rich they'd be, and sometimes it was all about taking revenge in some blood feud. I'm sorry, I didn't take much notice - I didn't know anyone who was involved, so it really didn't mean a lot to me. I was just trying to keep my head down and not be noticed - and sometimes they would notice me and change the subject, as if I wasn't supposed to know any of it."
"But you're sure the name is Kharazan?" Aidan asked sharply. "That's not in the Caliphate."
Owain shrugged. "That's what they said. And there's a city - Bandar Abbas. They never took me that far south, so I don't know where it is exactly."
Aidan wrote it down, thoughtfully. "We know they have a powerful wizard on the
island," he said next. "What can you tell me about him?"
"Kofi," Owain said, almost whispering as if the wizard would hear it. "I don'tknow if he has any other names, and he comes from even further south than the corsairs - his skin is darker. They were always very respectful when they talked about him, made the sign to avert the evil eye, stuff like that. I think even the Bey is a little scared of him. Gwalchmai can tell you about the protection spells - and the blood magic." He shuddered slightly. Even saying that much about Kofi seemed to make the room a little darker and colder.
"Hm," Aidan said thoughtfully. "Let's turn to something more straightforward - how about a list of the crews of each ship, as far as you can remember them?"
It was a long list, and Owain couldn't imagine why Aidan needed to know the names of every crewman - but by the time he'd finished, he no longer felt as if Kofi was watching them.
Aidan wrote it all down. "This helps a great deal," he said, beginning to pick up his writing materials. "I thank you for it. Now, have you got everything you need? Anything you'd like sent over while you're here?"
Owain thought for a moment. "Have you got a spare copy of The Silver Branch?" he asked at last.
It came sooner than he was ready for it. Wearing a borrowed pair of slippers, shrouded in one of Duncan Mark's long cloaks, and walking with the aid of a new crutch that had been made specially for him, he left the doctor's house for the first time since he had arrived, to go to the bathhouse.
He was clean, of course - Duncan Mark's assistants had made sure of that, but now he was going to have a proper bath for the first time since the corsairs took him away.
The place was crowded. As soon as he got through the door, Owain could hear voices raised in conversation over the sound of splashing water. Someone was singing, loudly and untunefully, from one of the cubicles, and servants were passing back and forth along the corridor with clothes, and towels, and buckets of steaming water.
Nidan led Owain to the cubicle reserved for him, and took the cloak. The tub was steaming and a variety of soaps, and combs and shaving kit, were laid out to one side.
"I'll be back shortly with towels and things, sir," Nidan said, and left him. Owain kicked off his braies, lowered himself into the hot water, right up to the neck, and smiled blissfully.
He soaped himself all over, and washed his hair. Nidan returned all too soon, but only to shave him, and then left again. Owain was far from ready to leave the tub. He lay back, with his head propped on the rim, eyes half-closed in the steamy atmosphere; he couldn't have moved if he tried.
Nidan returned carrying warm towels, and a pile of clothes that he put down on a shelf to one side. He wrapped the towel round Owain, who reluctantly hauled himself out of the tub. Owain shivered slightly as his bare feet touched the tiled floor. He couldn't put off thinking about it any longer - there would be no more hiding away in the doctor's house; the feast was almost ready to start.
He towelled himself dry with great concentration before he turned to his new clothes - and then he stopped. On top of the pile was a gold torc with raven head finials.
He put it on first, still naked. It meant that Olwen had been right - his mother didn't blame him. She had heard everything he had said to Rhys Gronw, and she still accepted him. He hadn't been entirely sure until that moment. Every time he thought about the people arriving, and the conference, and the feast, there had always been that little niggling doubt, that this was nothing to do with him. It was all to deal with Ianto, and he would be quietly forgotten about - and it hadn't helped that he hadn't seen his mother since that painful conversation with Lord Rhys.
He pulled the thick, cream silk undertunic over his head. The new braies were linen, and so were the green trousers. The green silk tunic was fairly plain - there hadn't been time for extensive embroidery. It fitted perfectly. They had even managed to find him a green belt, with a bronze knife in a scabbard decorated with a raven's head, and a pouch with interlaced decoration also with ravens' heads.
"There wasn't time to finish the boots," Nidan said, apologetically, producing a pair of simple turnshoes. But the turnshoes fitted him without needing extra socks for padding.
Nidan took the comb to Owain's damp hair then. He hummed quietly to himself as he made the traditional four plaits.
Finally, there was a cloak, of russet wool lined with fox fur, and secured on his right shoulder by a great gold penannular brooch.
There was a mirror in the cubicle. Owain looked into it, through the fog caused by the steam, and didn't recognise himself.
Nidan led him out to the entrance hall, where Brecca and Olwen were waiting for them.
"You look more as you ought to look," Brecca said, approvingly. She and Olwen were also wearing green and cream, with russet overmantles. There could be no doubt in anyone's mind that they were all of one family. Brecca kissed him lightly on one cheek, and took him outside.
*****