I remembered what he had said about Siawn Hy poisoning our world—or at least corrupting the weak Prince Meldron. “Corruption is always a potent enemy,” I observed.
“It is more than that, Tegid,” he replied quickly, shifting in the darkness to lean toward me. “Much more than that. There is a balance, you see—a harmony between this world and the other. Simon has upset the balance; his ideas, his schemes—just his presence here has changed things.”
“And changes in this world provoke changes in the other world,” I offered. “I understand.”
“Believe me, if there is going to be anything left worth saving—of either world—Simon must be stopped.”
“I do believe you, brother,” I replied. “But before we can save the world, we must first save ourselves.”
“We have to get out of here. We have to get free!” He rose—as he had risen countless times before, to push against the timber planks over our heads. But it was useless, and he soon collapsed again.
“Will he kill us, do you think?” he asked after a time. “Now that he is king—”
“Meldron is not the king. You are the king.”
“Pardon me,” he scoffed bitterly, “I keep forgetting.”
“I have given the kingship to you,” I told him. How many times had I told him already? “You are the king. And I do not know what Meldron will do,” I replied. “If I knew, we would not be here like this now.”
“Do not tell me that you are sorry, Tegid. I will not hear it yet again.”
After seizing us during the kingmaking ceremony, Meldron had dragged us up to the ruined caer and imprisoned us in the refuse pit behind the hall. He had covered the pit with charred timbers and sealed them with a mound of rubble and filth from the burned-out stronghold. There he left us under guard. What he intended doing with us, I could not guess. And it occurred to me that Meldron did not know either.
He feared killing us outright, I surmised, or we would be dead already. He had stretched the support of the people to the breaking-point; any further trouble and he would lose what little favor he now enjoyed. Neither could he let us go free to incite rebellion against him. So, until he could think of a better way to deal with us, we would remain his prisoners.
The pit was watched day and night to prevent anyone from helping us to escape. There were at least two guards at all times, and often more. We could sometimes hear them talking as they came and went, changing watch duties. We knew when they changed because the new guards brought us water and a little food, which they lowered to us through a small chink in one of the planks.
So the days passed. Llew and I remained in our stinking, filth-smothered prison, locked away from the light, and any who might help us. And with each passing day, Meldron despised us the more— yet he could not rule unopposed while Llew and I remained alive. This thought alone cheered me. For, in this small way at least, we were preventing him from beginning his wrongful reign.
One night, I awakened to a small scraping sound. I disregarded it at first, thinking it nothing more than the gnawing of the rats which had taken over the caer. But I gradually perceived that the slow scrape-scrape-scrape had a definite rhythm.
Someone was digging.
I waited, listening in the darkness. The sound grew louder, and I ventured speaking to the digger. “Who is it?” I asked, hardly daring to raise my voice about a whisper.
Llew was asleep. But he stirred when I spoke. “Tegid? What is it?” he said, rolling onto his knees.
“Shh! Listen!
“Be quiet down there . . . you will wake the warriors . . .” The voice was that of a child.
“Who are you?” I persisted.
“It is Ffand,” came the reply. “Now be quiet.”
“Who is Ffand?” Llew wondered.
“Who is with you, Ffand?” I asked, pressing my face against the roof timbers of our crude prison.
“No one is with me,” she answered, and the scraping noise began again. It continued for some time, and then it stopped.
“What are you doing, Ffand?”
“Shh!” The whisper was sharp, insistent. Silence followed. And then: “It was one of the warriors. He woke up, but he is asleep again. I have to leave now.”
“Wait—”
“It will be morning soon.”
“Ffand! Wait, I—”
“I will come back again when it is night.”
“Please—”
But she was already gone. I slumped back to the floor.
“Who is Ffand?” asked Llew again.
“She is the girl who keeps your dog,” I explained.
“My dog?” he wondered aloud, and I could tell he had forgotten all about Twrch. “Oh, yes . . . my dog.”
“You gave Twrch to a little girl. On the way to Findargad—”
“Before the battle of Dun na Porth,” he said. “I remember. I never learned her name.”
All that long, long day we waited. Night could not arrive soon enough. The darkness of our prison deepened, and we held our breath, listening for the slight scraping sound to come again. When it did not come, we brooded over what could have happened to her: maybe she could not get away tonight; maybe the guard would not go to sleep tonight . . . Or worse: maybe she had been discovered and caught . . . What would they do to her if they caught her?
We had given up hope when the slow scrape-scrape-scrape began again. “She has returned!” I whispered. “Ffand!” And I tapped lightly on the beam above my head. “Ffand!”
A moment later her voice answered, “Shhh! Be quiet! They will hear you!”
I made to speak again, but Llew cautioned me. “Let be, Tegid. Let her work.”
I settled back, and we listened to the rhythmic scraping sound above us. But it had no sooner begun than it stopped. And it did not begin again that night. We listened long, but the sound did not come again.
We waited through the next day, anxious and uneasy, hoping she had not been discovered. Wondering why she had stopped . . .
Ffand did not come the next night, and we feared the worst.
So dejected were we that we did not expect her again. So, when the scraping sound began again on the following night, we were startled by its suddenness, and realized we had been waiting—waiting for it and willing it to begin again.
She worked all through the night, stopping only twice: once to rest—she said her hands were tired—and once when one of the guards woke to relieve himself.
She did not return for the next two nights. But we knew now not to be concerned. Little Ffand was obviously canny and capable. She would choose her times well and would not risk discovery needlessly. In any event, we had no other course but to await her pleasure.
Ffand returned on the following night to tell us that King Meldron had announced he would be holding court in the morning, “He has said we must all get ready to leave this place. He says we are moving to Caer Modornn.”
“When?”
“Very soon,” came the reply. “At dawn the day after the court.”
Llew laid a hand on my arm. “Ask her how long it will take to free us? Can she do it tonight?”
“Ffand,” I said, my cheek hard against the plank above, “can you finish tonight? Can you free us tonight?”
There came a little silence. And then, “I do not think so.”
“Listen, Ffand, it must be tonight. They will surely come for us tomorrow. We must be free tonight.”
“I will try.”
“Maybe we can help,” said Llew. “Ffand, tell us what to do.”
The scraping sound began again—more quickly this time, and louder as the girl began working harder and faster to free us. She did not stop or slacken her pace but worked through the night. Scrape-scrape-scrape . . . scrape-scrape . . . scrape-scrape-scrape . . . all through the night.
And then . . . there came a dull thud, as if something heavy had fallen away.
“There!” Ffand’s voice came down to us. “It is done.”
&nb
sp; “Good. Tell us what to do, Ffand,” I said.
“The timber is loose now,” came the reply. “But it is too heavy for me to move—you have to do it.”
“Which timber, Ffand? Knock on the one we are to move.”
A sturdy thump sounded on a timber at one corner of the pit. “Good. Now, listen very carefully, Ffand. We will do the rest. But you must leave us now. I want you well away from here.”
There came no answer.
“Ffand?”
“I do not want to go.”
“You must. I do not want you to get hurt if anything goes wrong. Go now.”
Llew spoke to the timber. “Ffand—” he said, earnestly, “listen to me.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you, Ffand. You have saved our lives. But you must get far away from here if all your hard work is not to be wasted. Understand? Besides, think of Twrch—what will happen to him without you? I want you to look after him a little longer. Will you do that for me, Ffand?”
“Oh, very well,” she sighed.
“One more thing,” I said quickly. “How many guards are there?”
“Only two tonight, and they are sound sleepers.” She paused, putting her face close to the timber. “Farewell.”
“Ffand?”
No answer.
“She has gone,” I surmised. “Ready?”
Llew knelt beside me at the far end of the pit. Together we gripped the timber, working our fingers into the cracks between the beams on either side. At last I understood what Ffand had done: using the heap of rubble to shield her from the guards, she had scraped through the debris and soil at the end of the pit and freed one beam. It still bore its weight of rubble, but by shifting the heavy timber back and forth a little at a time, we began to loosen and, at last, to withdraw it. Debris and filth rained down on us, falling through the crack we made. But we worked at the plank, sliding it back and forth until there was a gap large enough for a man to squeeze his shoulders through.
Then we squatted on our heels, staring up at the hole we had made and listening. When none of the guards stirred, I said, “I will go first.”
I poked my head cautiously through the gap. As Ffand had said, there were two warriors on guard, and both were asleep. I forced myself up into the hole, wriggling and kicking my way until I was able to pull myself through.
I knelt, tense and sweating, behind the heap of debris that covered the pit. The guards slept some distance away—as far from the stench of the place as possible, I suppose. That is why they had not heard Ffand or us.
“Come,” I whispered to Llew.
A few moments later, he crouched beside me. Quickly, quietly, moving with exaggerated care through the tumbled wreckage of Meldryn Mawr’s once-great stronghold, we hastened, watchful for other guards. But we met no one else, nor did I wonder. The caer was a charnel mound, stinking and desolate. The warriors, whose lot it was to become guards, could not have been chosen for a more detestable task.
I marveled at little Ffand’s courage. The child had dared what bold men shirked.
We hurried to the place where the gates had stood and there paused to overlook the plain. I could see the campfires arrayed below and, toward the curve of Muir Glain, the horse pickets. By skirting the camp to the east, we could reach the nearer horses without being seen.
But we would have to make haste—already the sky was lightening in the east. It would be dawn soon and people would begin stirring. We wanted to be well away before anyone knew we had escaped.
Without a word, we started down the track from the caer. Staying clear of the nearer tents, our hearts racing wildly, we traced the perimeter of the camp, reaching the nearest stake line just as the first rays of the sun broke above the horizon.
There were sentries on watch: two of the Wolf Pack—careless and indifferent, it is true, but present nonetheless. So we paused to decide how best to take the horses without alerting the watchers. Presently, one of them rose from their campfire and walked off along the line of horses. The remaining sentry stayed slumped at the fire, apparently asleep.
“It is now or never,” said Llew, and he made ready to dart in among the horses. But he had not stirred a step when we saw two horses back away from the picket and begin walking toward us. We watched mystified, until they turned and we saw a slender, frail-looking girl— Ffand, it was—between the animals, holding tight to their halters and leading them to meet us.
She came to where we waited at the far end of the picket. She was younger than I remembered, thin, her face smudged with dirt, her smile gap-toothed, her hair bedraggled, her clothes filthy from her digging.
“Beautiful girl!” exclaimed Llew softly.
“May the Gifting God bless her richly,” I murmured, scanning the pickets for any sign of the sentry’s return. I saw no one, and a few moments later Ffand stood before us, offering us the reins.
“I did not know which ones belonged to you, so I chose the best,” she said happily. “Did I do right?”
“You have done wonderfully!” I told her.
“I love you, Ffand.” Llew placed a big kiss on her round check. A sudden flush of delight lit her face.
We gathered the reins and swung into our mounts’ bare backs. “What about Twrch?” Ffand asked.
“Can I trust you to keep him a little longer, Ffand?” Llew asked. She nodded solemnly. “Good, I will come for him one day.”
“Farewell, Ffand,” I told her. “We will not forget how you have helped us.”
“Farewell!” the young girl replied. “I will keep Twrch safe.”
We turned our mounts to the north and rode for the river. Across the marshes lay the wooded hills and, beyond, the wide Vale of Modornn. We would cross the Modornn River and strike east into Llogres, for there was no longer any help to be had in Prydain. A ride of two days would bring us to Blár Cadlys, the principal stronghold of the Cruin king.
We reached the edge of the marsh, and Llew called out. “Wait! Listen!” I halted.
In the distance I heard the sharp blat of the horn sounding the alarm. Our escape had been discovered.
5
HUNTED
Mist hung thick and dense over the marshlands. We drove straight toward the heart of the fen where the fog haze was heaviest. If we could avoid the hunters there, we would have a chance of escape.
But before this small hope could take root, I heard the hounds: the sharp, savage, heart-sinking howl of a hunting hound in pursuit. There were three of the king’s pack left, and Meldron had not hesitated a moment in sending them after us.
Llew gained the edge of the fen just ahead of me and disappeared into the mist. I followed, nearly colliding with him at the water marge.
“Which way?” he asked.
“Dismount! Send the horses on!”
“We can lose the hounds in the fog.”
“They would track us by the sound,” I told him. “Send the horses on, and we may yet elude them.”
He slid from the horse’s back and slapped it on the rump. “Hie!” The horse bolted riderless into the fen. I slid into knee-deep water, and sent my mount on with a slap and a cry—then followed Llew’s quickly vanishing form.
I was sorry to lose the horses so soon, but this way offered our only chance of escape. Dogs can run a horse to exhaustion, and with their keen noses there would be no eluding them. In the marsh, however, the dogs would have to rely on their ears; they would pursue the horses, and the rider would follow the dogs.
The water was cold, the sun dim and distant. We proceeded to a nearby stand of rushes. “Go in there,” I directed. The leaves were dry—new growth had not yet come—and the dead stalks rattled as we entered. After a dozen steps, I halted. “We wait here,” I explained. “As soon as the riders pass, we will run to the river.”
“If they do not ride over us first,” Llew pointed out.
“Listen!”
I heard the splatter of a horse’s hooves and the snarl of a dog. Clenching our teeth, we h
unkered down and pulled rushes around us.
A little distance away, we heard another horse strike the water marge and splash into the fen. But a heartbeat later, another rider followed . . . and then two more.
Once in the marsh, the mist diffused the sound of the riders, so that they seemed to come at us from every direction. It was impossible to tell where they were, or how near. Llew and I squatted in the water, shivering, listening to the sound of the hunters all around. We heard them directing one another, heard them calling to the dogs, heard the dogs baying and yelping.
The sound steadily diminished as the hunters moved farther away. We waited, shivering, in the water. The fog swirled in the air, and I could see blue sky above us as the rising sun burned through the marsh haze. “We should move,” Llew whispered. “The fog is clearing. They will see us.”
He rose and started forward.
“Wait,” I whispered, grasping his wrist and pulling him back down beside me.
The plunge of hooves striking the water was the only warning we had. A horse careened into the rushes. The rider, sword in hand, slashed as he came.
Llew hurled himself to one side, and I dived to the other.
The startled horse reared. The rider struck again with his sword missing Llew by mere inches.
Thrashing, Llew staggered to his feet and ducked beneath the horse’s belly as the rider struck again. He grabbed the warrior’s sword arm and pulled him from his mount. I swung out at the horse, swatting it on the flat of the neck. The frightened beast bolted into the fen beyond.
The rider shouted. Llew struck him in the face with his fist—once, and again. His struggling ceased.
We froze, listening.
There came no answering cry, no shout of discovery.
“Help me get him up,” Llew said. We heaved the unconscious rider onto our shoulders and dragged him back across the fen to the water marge, where we left him.
“The river is that way,” I said, looking east. “With speed we might reach it before they circle back this way.”
“To the river, then,” Llew replied.
We floundered across the wetlands, skirting the edge of the marsh, scrambling now over soggy hillocks, and now through water to our thighs. Our lungs burned, our hearts raced, our muscles ached, but we struggled on toward the looming wood which marked the near bank of the Modornn River.