Wicked, and shrewd in his wickedness, I saw then what Meldron intended. My heart heaved within me like a captive beast hurling itself against its cage. I struggled to rise.
“Meldron!” I shouted. Fists struck me down and hard hands held me to the ground with my face a hair’s breadth from the noxious water.
The Great Hound meant to murder Llew hideously in view of all his people. He intended that we should see Llew screaming his last breaths as the lethal waters of the poisoned lake pared the skin from his bones. Meldron desired that we should see Llew die in writhing agony, broken and disfigured, his flesh a mass of bloody ulcers.
No doubt this was Siawn Hy’s wicked intent—we had been brought to the lake so that we might be tortured and murdered at Dinas Dwr in full sight of all. He wanted there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Llew was dead and Meldron was king.
“Great Hound!” I shouted. “I defy you! Take me first—kill me!”
Meldron turned his face toward me and laughed in reply, but made no answer.
I strove to regain my feet. I was cruelly kicked, and the hands that gripped me did not relent. I could but await the inevitable, powerless to prevent it.
Meldron worked the oars and the small boat moved slowly to a place well beyond the reach of anyone on shore, yet close enough for all to see and hear what was about to happen. There, with Llew huddled at his feet, he stood and raised his hands in the manner of a generous king bestowing a gift on his people.
The gesture sickened me, for in it I saw the image of his father, Meldryn Mawr, Prydain’s Most Noble. I was not the only one to find this mocking mimicry offensive. Bran cried out: “Meldron, I curse you! I, Bran Bresal, curse you to the seventh generation!”
Bran struggled forward to rail at Meldron and received a hail of vicious blows for his effort. The sight of Meldron’s scurrilous rabble striking that noble warrior filled me with outrage, and I shouted, too, and struggled to rise—until a foot on my neck pressed me to the ground.
The captive warriors cried out against this contemptible handling of their battle chief. They were likewise silenced in a most crude and shameful manner by the Wolf Pack. Meldron’s scum even dared attack Scatha, but their repugnant bluster was no match for her daunting dignity. Though they struck her, they could not make her cower before them. Her head remained erect, green eyes blazing with such ferocity that her attackers quickly ceased their assault, and Scatha remained aloof from further humiliation.
Cynan I could not see, nor the Raven Flight, so tight-pressed was the crowd of onlookers thronging every side. Still, I little doubted that they, liked the rest of us, would follow Llew in turn. I knew that they, like the multitude ranged along the lakeshore, must be watching the appalling event taking place before them.
Meldron, swelling with pride and glowing with self-celebration, stood in the boat with arms upraised. The golden rings on his fingers and arms glistened in the harsh sunlight.
“My people,” he called across the dead water. “This day you will witness a triumph. This day you will witness a king placing the whole of Albion under his protection! For even now my last enemy is conquered.”
His words were worms in a corpse’s mouth.
“You see!” the Great Hound cried. “You have seen how my enemies are destroyed! You have seen how I crush those who think to use treachery against me!”
Meldron seized Llew’s arms and hauled him to his feet. Llew was made to stand before him, head forced down in defeat.
“Now you will see how I deal with those who raise war against me!” Meldron shouted, so that all gathered around the lake—warriors and captives alike—could hear. “Now you will see how I claim the vengeance that is mine!”
Llew raised his head, squared his shoulders, and regarded Meldron with unflinching defiance.
Meldron, gripping Llew by the arms, turned him to face the crowd that looked on from the shore. Then, smiling evilly, the Great Hound placed his hands on Llew’s back and thrust hard. Llew, tightly bound, plunged headlong into the lake.
“No! No!” Cynan shouted. Straining forward, legs and shoulders thrusting, he had somehow gained the water’s edge. Now he cried his helpless defiance as his captors hauled him down. “Llew!”
The still air trembled with screams of horror and dismay—piercing sharp, keen as grief. And then the awful silence . . .
Llew sank instantly. There was no struggle, no thrashing, no tortured death screams such as we had seen and heard at the river. There was only a single splash of black water and then a dread silence as the lethal waters slowly rippled and grew calm once more.
Meldron gazed at the place where Llew fell. He appeared displeased with the suddenness and serenity of Llew’s death. He had hoped to produce a more thrilling spectacle and was disappointed. His lip curled and his countenance darkened with anger as he stared at the lifeless water.
He turned to the throng on the shore. I saw him point as he swung his arm to order Cynan’s execution.
But even as he turned, a glimmer from the surface of the poisoned lake caught his eye, arrested him. I saw it too: a faintly shimmering glint, a flash like that of a silver-sided fish darting in a stream. Something moved just below the surface of the tainted lake.
Meldron’s arm faltered; his eyes turned again to the place where Llew had disappeared. His expression wavered between frustration and expectation. Perhaps he would have his revenge sweetened by a death struggle after all?
I thought I saw the glint again, though it might have been the sunlight on a ripple. But Meldron stared. His arm faltered as he beheld a marvel.
Goewyn was first to see it from the shore. Her cry of astonishment sounded like a ringing harp note across the water. With my inward sight I beheld her—eyes wide in awe, features alight. I turned to look where her gaze rested, and saw a wonder:
A man’s hand rising from the water.
Others saw it too. They cried out with elation and relief. But their jubilation ceased at once. The shouts died in their throats as the onlookers saw that the hand was not flesh: it was cold, shining silver.
38
SILVER HAND
A hand of silver, lustrous white and gleaming, rose from the still, black water. Up from the dead lake it ascended, and I saw that the hand was attached to a naked arm.
“It is Gofannon!” shouted a man. “It is Llyr!” cried a woman clutching an infant. People gasped in astonishment as a head and shoulders emerged. But it was neither Gofannon nor Llyr; it was Llew’s head and shoulders rising from the lake.
His eyes were closed as he surfaced; I thought him dead. Then his eyes flew open: with a sudden inhalation of breath, he shook the putrid water from his face and began swimming.
The crowd recoiled. Their minds filled with the fresh memory of those who had perished in the poisoned river, they expected agony and death. But Llew lived!
Meldron was no less stricken than any other, but he quickly recovered. I heard the metal ring as he drew his sword and I saw the sunlight shiver on its naked blade.
He leapt on the prow of the boat, swinging the sword high. “Die!” he shrieked.
Down he struck. Down he slashed. Both hands on the hilt—his face twisted with hate and rage.
“Llew!” I cried.
Llew turned in the water. Whether warned by my cry, or by a warrior’s instinct, he swung to meet the sword stroke falling upon him and raised a hand to fend off Meldron’s murderous blow.
Fearfully swift the sword stroke fell. Llew’s silver hand flicked up to meet it.
“Look out!” Cynan bellowed from the strand.
That hand . . . that hand of metal grafted to a stump of flesh . . . Meldron struck. The silver hand caught the falling blade. The sound pealed like a hammer striking the anvil.
The killing blade shattered; glinting shards spun into the water. The blade broke, and Meldron’s arm with it.
The bone snapped with a loud crack, and Meldron looked in horror as his sword arm buckled and bent be
tween wrist and elbow. His anguished cry sounded sharp surprise in the air as the sword hilt fell from his grasp. But even as he clasped the fractured arm to him, he began to fall.
“Jump!” cried Siawn Hy.
A leap might have saved him, but it was already too late. The boat tipped and, unbalanced by the reckless sword stroke, Meldron pitched into the tainted water. His eyes bulged wide with terror and his mouth gaped in a desperate scream as he toppled from the boat.
He richly deserved his reward, but Meldron’s death throes brought no joy to anyone looking on. He flailed wildly as the black ooze sucked him under. As with so many of his hapless men before him, his skin puckered and cracked raw as welts and bloody ulcers formed where the poison touched him, scouring flesh from sinew, and sinew from bone.
He thrashed furiously and screamed in agony, clawing at his own flesh as if to tear it from him. A hideous howl burst from his throat. He writhed and twitched as if spears were piercing him, and his hair fell from his scalp in rotten clumps. Opening wide his mouth, he gasped for breath to utter a last tortured shriek. But the water, the vile corruption, had entered him and he choked on the scream. His head jerked obscenely as death seized and shook him.
Then Meldron slipped beneath the black water. A moment later his corpse bobbed to the surface, floating silent and still, dead eyes staring at an empty sky.
Llew turned toward the shore; he swam a short way, until his feet found a solid footing beneath him, and then stood. His clothes were gone, and the ropes that bound him with them—the mordant poison had stripped all from him—and now he stood immaculate and unblemished before us. His skin was flawless, clean and whole, his limbs straight and sound. He raised the silver hand and gazed at it in amazement. He stepped forward. Meldron’s warriors drew back from his advance. I felt the hands upon my back slacken and relinquish their hold. I scrambled to my feet and ran, stumbling, over the stony shingle. I called to Llew as I ran.
He was yet a small distance from the shore, dripping wet, and still somewhat bewildered by what had happened to him, when he halted. I reached the place opposite him on the strand and shouted again.
“Llew! Come out of the water,” I called. Cynan struggled to his feet, shaking his head, staring.
“He is alive!” Goewyn ran to where we stood. She had a knife in her hand and loosed the bindings at my wrists. “Why does he not come out?”
“I cannot say,” I answered, my eyes still on Llew, who stood straight and tall, his silver hand upraised.
Cynan thrust out his hands toward Goewyn. With short, sharp cuts she freed him. He spun toward the lake, took two short steps and shouted: “Look! The water!”
My inward sight shifted to where he pointed. I saw Llew standing as before; he had not moved. But flowing in undulating ripples around him, spreading outward in a swiftly widening ring, I saw clean water. Indeed, between the shore and Llew it was already clear, and the ring of pure water was expanding with astonishing speed.
The vile, black taint was receding, vanishing, dissolving as encircling bands of clear water swept outward from around Llew, whose presence seemed to flare like a sun blazing in a murky firmament, burning away the fog and cloud wrack, banishing the blight by the brilliance of its light.
“There is healing in the water,” Goewyn whispered, clasping her hands fervently beneath her chin. Tears shone in her eyes.
With her words still hanging in the air, I rushed forward to join Llew.
“Tegid!” Cynan shouted and lunged to prevent me. The lake water splashed over me. My head went under and I felt the burning sensation in my eyes. I came up gasping, dashing water with both hands. Bright light flashed through my fingers; I removed my hands and blinked my eyes.
Everything appeared just as I had seen it before, with my inward eye—but clearer, sharper, keener than before. Inner vision and outward sight had become one: I could see! Dazzling, sparkling, luminous in its clarity, light brilliant and glorious streamed into my eyes; I closed them and the light was gone. It was true; I was healed!
Cynan dashed into the lake after me. With a wild whoop, he splashed to where Llew stood and wrapped him in a fierce embrace. Goewyn hastened to join them. She kissed Llew happily and clasped him to her.
I rose and ran to Llew and put my hands on him. “You are alive!” I said, touching him. “Meldron is dead and you are alive.”
“It is over!” cried Cynan. “Meldron is dead!”
Goewyn kissed him, and Cynan as well. Llew returned their embraces, but as one dazed. He stretched forth his silver hand and held it before us. I took it in my hands. The metal was cold to the touch, polished like a mirror and gleaming bright. The fingers were curved slightly and the palm open in a gesture of offering or supplication.
The smooth silver surface was covered with spirals, whorls, and knotwork—fine lines incised in the metal surface. And upon the palm was the Môr Cylch, the Circle Dance, the maze of life. I blinked my eyes, still unsure of them, and touched a fingertip to the emblem, tracing the superbly wrought pattern of slender circling lines. The design was exquisitely etched and the lines inlaid with gold. It was a creation of craft and cunning, fabulous in conception, unrivaled in execution—the work of a lord among smiths.
Touching the inscribed maze, I remembered the words of a promise: I give you the virtue of your song.
And into my mind came the image of him who had spoken these words: Gofannon, lord of the grove, and Master of the Forge. I had given him a song, for which he had given me a gift in return, my inner sight. Llew had chopped wood for him, but had received no boon from the great lord that night. “I will give you the virtue of your song,” Gofannon had promised, and now he had fulfilled his promise to Llew. For the song I had sung that night was “Bladudd the Blemished Prince.” Oh! What a slow-witted lump I had been! Surely I had sung for the Sure Swift Hand himself.
“Hail, Silver Hand!” I said, touching the back of my hand to my forehead in salutation. “Your servant greets you!”
With a tremendous splash, the people of Dinas Dwr abandoned their fear and surged as one into the lake which was now absolutely pure and clean. They scooped the life-giving water into their hands and poured it down parched throats, drinking their fill. They laved the liquid over their sun-weary heads and were soothed; they washed themselves and were made clean again. Children splashed and frolicked like giddy lambs.
Compelled by thirst and overcome by the sight of so much fresh water, the foemen threw down their weapons and ran to join the glad celebration. Shield and war cap, sword and spear clattered to the stony shingle to be trodden in the rush to the water. The enemy warriors— those who were not warriors at all—could not abandon their weapons fast enough. Freed from Meldron’s brutal reign, they knelt in the water and wept with gratitude at their release.
All thought of retribution vanished at their wholehearted thanksgiving; they had been made to suffer the most wicked persecutions; how could we punish them more? They were never our enemies.
Meanwhile, the Ravens and Calbha’s war band had captured Meldron’s battle chiefs and the warriors of his Wolf Pack, and assembled them on the strand. Fifty warriors stood grimly awaiting judgment.
Bran raised his spear and called to us. “Llew! Tegid! We need you.”
Calbha and Bran stood together, and the warriors ranged behind them on the shingle held the Wolf Pack at spear point. We joined them in the strand and, at our approach, Bran and Calbha parted to reveal their prisoner: Siawn Hy. His head was down as if he were contemplating his rope-bound hands.
As we drew near, Siawn raised his head and glared at us from under a baleful brow. A dark bruise swelled on his right temple.
“Fools!” he hissed. “You think you have won this day. Nothing has changed. You have won nothing!”
“Silence!” Bran warned him. “You may not speak so to the king.”
“It is over, Simon,” said Llew.
At the mention of his former name, Siawn drew breath and spat in Llew??
?s face. Bran’s hand, quick as a snake, flicked out and struck Siawn on the mouth. Blood trickled from Siawn’s split lip. Bran appeared ready to strike again, but Llew prevented him with a shake of his head.
“It is over,” Llew said. “Meldron is dead.”
“Kill me too,” Siawn muttered sullenly. “I will never submit to you.”
“Where is Paladyr?” I asked, and received only a sneer of contempt by way of reply.
Calbha raised his sword and pointed at Siawn Hy, and then at the rest of the Wolf Pack. “What is to be done about these?” he asked, his tone cold and pitiless.
“Take them to the storehouses and make them secure,” Llew instructed. “We will deal with them later.” Alun Tringad and Garanaw took Siawn by the arms and led him away; the rest of the Wolf Pack followed under Calbha’s guard.
Drustwn and Niall waded out to where Meldron’s corpse floated. They raised the body from the water and rolled it into the boat like a sodden bag of grain. Then, towing the boat, they hauled the body away to be quickly buried and forgotten.
Scatha, watching all this, arms crossed over her breast, smiled icily. “I had hoped to see his head on my spear, but this will suffice.”
Llew nodded and started after the prisoners. He had not walked ten paces when Cynan snatched up a discarded sword, lofted it, and shouted, “Hail, Silver Hand! Hail!”
Bran leapt forward and retrieved a spear. “Hail, Silver Hand!” he cried, brandishing the spear. And suddenly the whole lake echoed with the sound, as the people of Dinas Dwr and Meldron’s former war host ceased their sporting in the water and turned as one to acclaim Llew as he passed. “Silver Hand!” they cheered. “Hail! Silver Hand!”
The cry soared up and up as if to shake the shining sky with their jubilant thunder. And Llew, walking along the shore, stopped, turned to the gathering host, and raised his silver hand high.
We could not celebrate our victory while our dead lay unburied. How could we rejoice with tears in our eyes? How could we feast while the corpses of our kinsmen became food for scavenging birds?