I took my hand from hers. ‘What friend would put a curse on Ceinwyn?’
She took my hand back. ‘Come, Lord, not far now,’ she said, and she tugged me down the slope, trying to make me run, but I would not. I went slowly, remembering what Taliesin had told me in the magical mist he had drawn across Caer Cadarn; that Merlin had ordered him to save me, but that I might not thank him for it, and as I walked ever nearer that hollow of fire I feared I would discover Merlin’s meaning. Olwen chivvied me, she laughed at my fears and her eyes sparkled with the reflection of the fire’s glow, but I climbed towards the livid skyline with a heavy heart.
Spearmen guarded the edge of the valley. They were savage-looking men swathed in furs and carrying rough-shafted spears with crudely fashioned blades. They said nothing as we passed, though Olwen greeted them cheerfully, then she led me down a path into the valley’s smoky heart. There was a long slender lake in the valley’s bed, and all around the black lake’s shores were fires, and by the fires were small huts among groves of stunted trees. An army of people was camped there, for there were two hundred fires or more.
‘Come, Lord,’ Olwen said and drew me on down the slope. ‘This is the past,’ she told me, ‘and this is the future. This is where the hoop of time meets.’
This is a valley, I told myself, in upland Powys. A hidden place where a desperate man might find shelter. The hoop of time did nothing here, I assured myself, yet even so I felt a shiver of apprehension as Olwen took me down to the huts beside the lake where the army camped. I had thought the folk here must be sleeping, for we were deep into the night, but as we walked between the lake and the huts a crowd of men and women swarmed from the huts to watch us pass. They were strange things, those people. Some laughed for no reason, some gibbered meaninglessly, some twitched. I saw goitred faces, blind eyes, hare lips, tangled masses of hair, and twisted limbs. ‘Who are they?’ I asked Olwen.
‘The army of the mad, Lord,’ she said.
I spat towards the lake to avert evil. They were not all mad or crippled, those poor folk, for some were spearmen, and a few, I noticed, had shields covered with human skin and blackened with human blood; the shields of Diwrnach’s defeated Blood-shields. Others had Powys’s eagle on their shields, and one man even boasted the fox of Siluria, a badge that had not been carried into battle since Gundleus’s time. These men, just like Mordred’s army, were the scourings of Britain: defeated men, landless men, men with nothing to lose and everything to win. The valley reeked of human waste. It reminded me of the Isle of the Dead, that place where Dumnonia sent its terrible mad, and the place where I had once gone to rescue Nimue. These folk had the same wild look and gave the same unsettling impression that at any moment they might leap and claw for no apparent reason.
‘How do you feed them?’ I asked.
‘The soldiers fetch food,’ Olwen said, ‘the proper soldiers. We eat a lot of mutton. I like mutton. Here we are, Lord. Journey’s end!’ And with those happy words she took her hand away from mine and skipped ahead of me. We had reached the end of the lake and in front of me now was a grove of great trees that grew in the shelter of a high rocky cliff.
A dozen fires burned under the trees and I saw that the trunks of the trees formed two lines, giving the grove the appearance of a vast hall, and at the hall’s far end were two rearing grey stones like the high boulders that the old people erected, though whether these were ancient stones, or newly raised, I could not tell.
Between the stones, enthroned on a massive wooden chair, and holding Merlin’s black staff in one hand, was Nimue. Olwen ran to her and threw herself down at Nimue’s feet and put her arms about Nimue’s legs and laid her head on Nimue’s knees. ‘I brought him, Lady!’ she said.
‘Did he lie with you?’ Nimue asked, talking to Olwen but staring fixedly at me. Two skulls surmounted the standing stones, each thickly covered in melted wax.
‘No, Lady,’ Olwen said.
‘Did you invite him?’ Still Nimue’s one eye gazed at me.
‘Yes, Lady.’
‘Did you show yourself to him?’
‘All day I showed myself to him, Lady.’
‘Good girl,’ Nimue said, and patted Olwen’s hair and I could almost imagine the girl purring as she lay so contentedly at Nimue’s feet. Nimue still stared at me, and I, as I paced between those tall fire-lit tree trunks, stared back at her.
Nimue looked as she had looked when I had fetched her from the Isle of the Dead. She looked as though she had not washed, or combed her hair, or taken any care of herself in years. Her empty eye socket had no patch, or any false eye, but was a shrunken, shrivelled scar in her haggard face. Her skin was deeply ingrained with dirt, her hair was a greasy, matted tangle that fell to her waist. Her hair had once been black, but now it was bone white, all but for one black streak. Her white robe was filthy, but over it she wore a misshapen sleeved coat, much too big for her, which I suddenly realized must be the Coat of Padarn, one of the Treasures of Britain, while on a finger of her left hand was the plain iron Ring of Eluned. Her nails were long and her few teeth black. She looked much older, or perhaps that was just the dirt accentuating the grim lines of her face. She had never been what the world would call beautiful, but her face had been quickened by intelligence and that had made her attractive, but now she looked repulsive and her once lively face was bitter, though she did offer me a shadow of a smile as she held up her left hand. She was showing me the scar, the same scar that I bore on my left hand, and in answer I held up my own palm and she nodded in satisfaction. ‘You came, Derfel.’
‘Did I have any choice?’ I asked bitterly, then pointed to the scar on my hand. ‘Doesn’t this pledge me to you? Why attack Ceinwyn to bring me to you, when you already had this?’ I tapped the scar again.
‘Because you wouldn’t have come,’ Nimue said. Her mad creatures flocked about her throne like courtiers, others fed the fires and one sniffed at my ankles like a dog. ‘You have never believed,’ Nimue accused me. ‘You pray to the Gods, but you don’t believe in them. No one believes properly now, except us.’ She waved her purloined staff at the halt, the half-blind, the maimed and the mad, who stared at her in adoration. ‘We believe, Derfel,’ she said.
‘I too believe,’ I replied.
‘No!’ Nimue screamed the word, making some of the creatures under the trees call out in terror. She pointed the staff at me. ‘You were there when Arthur took Gwydre from the fires.’
‘You could not expect Arthur to see his son killed,’ I said.
‘What I expected, fool, was to see Bel come from the sky with the air scorched and crackling behind him and the stars tossed like leaves in a tempest! That’s what I expected! That’s what I deserved!’ She put her head back and shrieked at the clouds, and all the crippled mad howled with her. Only Olwen the Silver was silent. She gazed at me with a half-smile, as though to suggest that she and I alone were sane in this refuge of the mad. ‘That’s what I wanted!’ Nimue shouted at me over the cacophony of wailing and yelping. ‘And that is what I shall have,’ she added, and with those words she stood, shook Olwen’s embrace free and beckoned me with her staff. ‘Come.’
I followed her past the standing stones to a cave in the cliff. It was not a deep cave, just large enough to hold a man lying on his back, and at first I thought I did see a naked man lying in the cave’s shadows. Olwen had come to my side and was trying to take my hand, but I pushed her away as, all around me, the mad pressed close to see what lay on the cave’s stone floor.
A small fire smouldered in the cave, and in its dim light I saw that it was not a man lying on the rock, but the clay figure of a woman. It was a life-size figure with crude breasts, spread legs and a rudimentary face. Nimue ducked into the cave to crouch beside the clay figure’s head. ‘Behold, Derfel Cadarn,’ she said, ‘your woman.’
Olwen laughed and smiled up at me. ‘Your woman, Lord!’ Olwen said, in case I did not understand.
I stared at the grotesque clay figure
, then at Nimue. ‘My woman?’
‘That is Ceinwyn’s Otherbody, you fool!’ Nimue said, ‘and I am Ceinwyn’s bane.’ There was a frayed basket at the back of the cave, the Basket of Garanhir, another Treasure of Britain, and Nimue took from it a bunch of dried berries. She stooped and pressed one into the unfired clay of the woman’s body. ‘A new boil, Derfel!’ she said, and I saw that the clay’s surface was pitted with other berries. ‘And another, and another!’ She laughed, pressing the dry berries into the red clay. ‘Shall we give her pain, Derfel? Shall we make her scream?’ And with those words she drew a crude knife from her belt, the Knife of Laufrodedd, and she stabbed its chipped blade into the clay woman’s head. ‘Oh, she is screaming now!’ Nimue told me. ‘They are trying to hold her down, but the pain is so bad, so bad!’ And with that she wriggled the blade about and suddenly I was enraged and stooped into the cave’s mouth and Nimue immediately let go of the knife and poised two fingers over the clay eyes. ‘Shall I blind her, Derfel?’ she hissed at me. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked her.
She took the Knife of Laufrodedd from the tortured clay skull. ‘Let her sleep,’ she crooned, ‘or maybe not?’ And with that she gave a mad laugh and snatched an iron ladle from the Basket of Garanhir, scooped some burning embers from the smoky fire and scattered the burning scraps over the body and I imagined Ceinwyn shuddering and screaming, her back arching with the sudden pain, and Nimue laughed to see my impotent rage. ‘Why am I doing it?’ she asked. ‘Because you stopped me from killing Gwydre. And because you can bring the Gods to earth. That is why.’
I stared at her. ‘You’re mad too,’ I said softly.
‘What do you know of madness?’ Nimue spat at me. ‘You and your little mind, your pathetic little mind. You can judge me? Oh, pain!’ And she stabbed the knife into the clay breasts. ‘Pain! Pain!’ The mad things behind me joined in her cry. ‘Pain! Pain!’ they exulted, some clapping their hands and others laughing with delight.
‘Stop!’ I shouted.
Nimue crouched over the tortured figure, her knife poised. ‘Do you want her back, Derfel?’
‘Yes,’ I was close to tears.
‘She is most precious to you?’
‘You know she is.’
‘You would rather lie with that,’ Nimue gestured at the grotesque clay figure, ‘than with Olwen?’
‘I lie with no woman but Ceinwyn,’ I said.
‘Then I will give her back to you,’ Nimue said, and she tenderly stroked the clay figure’s forehead. ‘I will restore your Ceinwyn to you,’ Nimue promised, ‘but first you must give me what is most precious to me. That is my price.’
‘And what is most precious to you?’ I asked, knowing the answer before she gave it to me.
‘You must bring me Excalibur, Derfel,’ Nimue said, ‘and you must bring me Gwydre.’
‘Why Gwydre?’ I demanded. ‘He’s not a ruler’s son.’
‘Because he was promised to the Gods, and the Gods demand what was promised to them. You must bring him to me before the next moon is full. You will take Gwydre and the sword to where the waters meet beneath Nant Dduu. You know the place?’
‘I know it,’ I said grimly.
‘And if you do not bring them, Derfel, then I swear to you that Ceinwyn’s sufferings will increase. I shall plant worms in her belly, I shall turn her eyes to liquid, I shall make her skin peel and her flesh rot on her crumbling bones, and though she will beg for death I will not send it, but only give her pain instead. Nothing but pain.’ I wanted to step forward and kill Nimue there and then. She had been a friend and even, once, a lover, but now she had gone so far from me into a world where the spirits were real and the real were playthings. ‘Bring me Gwydre and bring me Excalibur,’ Nimue went on, her one eye glittering in the cave’s gloom, ‘and I shall free Ceinwyn of her Otherbody and you of your oath to me, and I shall give you two things.’ She reached behind her and pulled out a cloth. She shook it open and I saw it was the old cloak that had been stolen from me in Isca. She fumbled in the cloak, found something, and held it up between a finger and thumb and I saw she was holding the little missing agate from Ceinwyn’s ring. ‘A sword and a sacrifice,’ she said, ‘for a cloak and a stone. Will you do that, Derfel?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, and not meaning it, but not knowing what else I could say. ‘Will you leave me with her now?’ I demanded.
‘No,’ Nimue said, smiling. ‘But you want her to rest tonight? Then this one night, Derfel, I shall give her respite.’ She blew the ashes off the clay, picked out the berries and plucked the charms that had been pinned to the body. ‘In the morning,’ Nimue said, ‘I shall replace them.’
‘No!’
‘Not all of them,’ she said, ‘but more each day until I hear you are come to where the waters meet at Nant Dduu.’ She pulled a burnt scrap of bone from the clay belly. ‘And when I have the sword,’ she went on, ‘my army of the mad will make such fires that the night of Samain Eve will turn to day. And Gwydre will come back to you, Derfel. He will rest in the Cauldron and the Gods will kiss him to life and Olwen will lie with him and he will ride in glory with Excalibur in his hand.’ She took a pitcher of water and spilt a little onto the figure’s brow, then smoothed it gently into the glistening clay. ‘Go now,’ she said, ‘your Ceinwyn will sleep and Olwen has another thing to show you. At dawn you will leave.’
I stumbled after Olwen, pushing through the grinning crowd of horrid things that pressed about the cave and following the dancing girl along the cliff face to another cave. Inside I saw a second clay figure, this one a man, and Olwen gestured to it, then giggled. ‘Is it me?’ I asked, for I saw the clay was smooth and unmarked, but then, peering closer into the darkness, I saw the clay man’s eyes had been gouged out.
‘No, Lord,’ Olwen said, ‘it is not you.’ She stooped beside the figure and picked up a long bone needle that had been lying beside its legs. ‘Look,’ she said, and she slid the needle into the clay foot. From somewhere behind us a man wailed in pain. Olwen giggled. ‘Again,’ she said, and slid the bone into the other foot and once again the voice cried in pain. Olwen laughed, then reached for my hand. ‘Come,’ she said, and led me into a deep cleft that opened in the cliff. The cleft narrowed, then seemed to end abruptly ahead of us, for I could see only the dim sheen of reflected firelight on high rock, but then I saw a kind of cage had been made at the gorge’s end. Two hawthorns grew there, and rough baulks of timber had been nailed across their trunks to make crude prison bars. Olwen let go of my hand and pushed me forward. ‘I shall come for you in the morning, Lord. There’s food waiting there.’ She smiled, turned and ran away.
At first I thought the crude cage was some kind of shelter, and that when I got close I would find an entrance between the bars, but there was no door. The cage barred the last few yards of the gorge, and the promised food was waiting under one of the hawthorns. I found stale bread, dried mutton and a jar of water. I sat, broke the loaf, and suddenly something moved inside the cage and I twitched with alarm as a thing scrabbled towards me.
At first I thought the thing was a beast, then I saw it was a man, and then I saw that it was Merlin.
‘I shall be good,’ Merlin said to me, ‘I shall be good.’ I understood the second clay figure then, for Merlin was blind. No eyes at all. Just horror. ‘Thorns in my feet,’ he said, ‘in my feet,’ then he collapsed beside the bars and whimpered. ‘I shall be good, I promise!’
I crouched. ‘Merlin?’ I said.
He shuddered. ‘I will be good!’ he said in desperation, and when I put a hand through his bars to stroke his tangled filthy hair, he jerked back and shivered.
‘Merlin?’ I said again.
‘Blood in the clay,’ he said, ‘you must put blood in the clay. Mix it well. A child’s blood works best, or so I’m told. I never did it, my dear. Tanaburs did, I know, and I talked to him once about it. He was a fool, of course, but he knew some few tawdry things. Th
e blood of a red-haired child, he told me, and preferably a crippled child, a red-haired cripple. Any child will do at a pinch, of course, but the red-haired cripple is best.’
‘Merlin,’ I said, ‘it’s Derfel.’
He babbled on, giving instructions on how best to make the clay figure so that evil could be sent from afar. He spoke of blood and dew and the need to mould the clay during the sound of thunder. He would not listen to me, and when I stood and tried to prise the bars away from the trees, two spearmen came grinning from the cleft’s shadows behind me. They were Bloodshields, and their spears told me to stop my efforts to free the old man. I crouched again. ‘Merlin!’ I said.
He crept nearer, sniffing. ‘Derfel?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Lord.’
He groped for me, and I gave him my hand and he clutched it hard. Then, still holding my hand, he sank onto the ground. ‘I’m mad, you know?’ he said in a reasonable voice.
‘No, Lord,’ I said.
*I have been punished.’
‘For nothing, Lord.’
‘Derfel? Is it really you?’
‘It is me, Lord. Do you want food?’
‘I have much to tell you, Derfel.’
‘I hope so, Lord,’ I said, but he seemed incapable of ordering his wits, and for the next few moments he talked of the clay again, then of other charms, and he again forgot who I was for he called me Arthur, and then he was silent for a long while. ‘Derfel?’ he finally asked again.
‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Nothing must be written, do you understand?’
‘You’ve told me so many times, Lord.’
‘All our lore must be remembered. Caleddin had it all written down, and that’s when the Gods began to retreat. But it is in my head. It was. And she took it. All of it. Or almost all.’ He whispered the last three words.
‘Nimue?’ I asked, and he gripped my hand so terribly hard at the mention of her name and again he fell silent.