Stronghold

CHAPTER FOUR

Almost two full days passed before Countess Madalyn reached the secret hafn, and by then she was a wreck.

Famished, frozen and faint with pain and weariness, she tottered down a path winding steeply between groves of silent alder. Below her, the hafn — or 'hollow' — was filled with mist. Its trees were twisted stanchions, the spaces between them strewn with rocks and stones. Footsore and filthy, still clad in her ragged, bloodstained garb, she stumbled forward until, at the north end of the hollow, she came to a sheer cliff face. It was hung with rank vegetation, but had split down the centre. At the base, the fissure had widened into a triangular cavity just large enough to accommodate the body of a small man.

The countess regarded it warily. Her eyes were sore with weeping. Unbound, her hair hung in a flame-red tangle, giving her an appearance of madness, but she wasn't so mad as to go blundering into a place like this without hesitation. After several agonised moments, she cursed her lack of options, dropped to her knees and crawled into the aperture. On the other side, a passage that was little more than a rabbit-hole led through the rock. It was a cleft rather than a bore; its sides ribbed and jagged, its narrow floor deep in razor-edged shingle. She scrabbled along regardless of scrapes to her hands and knees, unconcerned that her torn clothes snagged and tore again. At length the passage opened into a cavern filled with greenish light, the source of which she couldn't identify.

She descended a flight of crudely cut steps. The walls in here were inscribed with ancient carvings — spirals and labyrinths, the shapes of men and beasts cavorting together. Reaching level ground, the steps became a paved path weaving between steaming pools. Overhead, water dripped from the needle tips of innumerable stalactites. Ahead, three figures stood on a raised dais. Countess Madalyn walked with a straighter posture; she groomed her hair with grubby fingers — anything she could do to regain a semblance of dignity.

The figures wore hooded white robes, girded at the waist with belts of ivy. The central one held a knotted staff, yet he wasn't old. His face was broad, pale and clean-shaved apart from a black goat-beard, which fell from his chin to his belly. His eyes were onyx beads: unblinking, inscrutable.

"The Countess of Lyr honours us with her presence," he said, his deep tone echoing in the vaulted chamber.

For all her dirt and blood, Countess Madalyn stood proud before him. "I haven't walked half naked for ten miles just to be flattered, Gwyddon."

"Has your god finally abandoned you?" he asked.

"Nor did I come here to discuss religion."

"Then what? Politics?" Gwyddon gave a sickle-shaped smile. "At which you are clearly a novice to be so easily outmanoeuvred by a marcher baron, when the rest of the world knows the marcher barons are nothing but brute-butchers, the blunt edge of Edward's anger."

"Don't lecture me, druid!" Her voice was a strained croak. "I've been trying to broker a peace for our people while you and your pagan rats hide in holes in the ground!"

Gwyddon's smile faded. To either side of him, his fellow priests, older men with white beards and wizened faces, frowned at her blasphemy. There was a chorus of whispers, and the countess realised that others were close by — men and women, children too — all acolytes of the ancient religion, huddled in the shadows beyond the misty pools.

"Bring the countess some food," Gwyddon said loudly. "Bring her a cloak as well. And a chair."

"I want none of these things," she retorted.

"Nevertheless, you will have them. We may be pagans, but we are still respectful of rank."

Three figures scurried up, recognisable as slaves by their shaved heads and the brand marks on their brows — though whether male or female it was difficult to tell. One laid a cloak of ram's fleece over the countess's shoulders. The second produced a wooden chair, onto which she lowered herself painfully. The third brought a table, and placed on it a bowl of steaming rabbit broth and a flagon of mulled wine. Up until now the countess had ignored her gnawing hunger, but the mingled aromas of sweet carrots, boiled cabbage and succulent braised rabbit-flesh almost overpowered her. She struggled not to fall on it with gusto, though she didn't actually stop eating until she'd scraped the bowl clean, at which point she drained the flagon in a single draught. The wine was rich, spiced with orange and ginger. And it was hot — a heady warmth passed through her cold, battered body.

Gwyddon watched without comment.

"You've heard what happened?" she finally asked.

"Of course."

"Ill tidings travel quickly in Wales."

"In Wales is there any other kind of tiding?"

"What King Edward is doing makes no sense." She shook her head, as bewildered as she was still horror-stricken. "Does he expect to win people over when he appoints someone like Corotocus and gives him a free hand? How does he think he'll gain his subjects' love?"

"You are mistaken in thinking that he wants their love," Gwyddon said. "In these far reaches of Britain, he is content to have their fear."

"You don't seem disturbed by that."

"Why should I be? As you say, we are rats living in holes. And who drove us here? Not the English, not the Normans — the Welsh."

"Pah! In other countries you'd have been exterminated."

"We'd have been exterminated here had Christian monks had their way. Only the sympathies of certain noble families ensure our survival. Your family for instance, countess."

She stood up abruptly. "Don't mistake me for someone I'm not, Gwyddon. I don't sympathise with heathens."

"So why tolerate us in your domain?"

His voice was deep, melodious. He peered down at her, his eyes glinting. The emerald vapour writhed around his tall, enrobed form like a brood of ethereal vipers.

"I… I…" Countess Madalyn was briefly entranced by the vision. "I… don't believe in slaughter."

"You didn't believe in slaughter once," he corrected her. "Why else are you here now?"

"They've taken my daughter."

"I know."

The countess was even more bewildered. How could he know about that? How could he even know about Corotocus's deception? Word of the disaster would travel, but she had come straight here, walking stiff and lame like one dead, but tarrying neither to talk with folk nor to look back over her shoulder. She'd taken short routes through dark woods and hidden valleys that were known only to a chosen few. As her anger ebbed, the countess was increasingly aware of the mystery in this strange, subterranean realm. Its ceiling was speckled with a million tiny lights, like stars in a miniature cosmos. The images on the walls appeared to have moved or changed since she had first seen them. The air was heavy with intoxicating fragrance.

"M-my daughter is all that matters to me," she stammered. "I won't stand by and allow her to be abducted."

"And yet there's nothing you can do. Most of your own warriors went to serve Madog or Anwyl… and now lie slain."

"Can you help me?"

"Ahhh, so we get to the crux of it."

"Don't play games with me, Gwyddon! You know why I'm here."

"It will cost you."

"Cost me?"

"We have no country, Countess Madalyn. No sense of people. Your plight is unfortunate, but of no great concern to us. If your nation was driven en masse to the chopping block and beheaded one by one, my chief regret would be the waste of so much sacrificial blood."

"And how much will it cost me?" She appraised the gold moon-crescent pendant on his breast, the gem-encrusted rings on his fingers, the silver dragon-head pin clasping his robe. "I'd imagine the greater the supplicant, the higher the price?"

"How much do you offer, countess?"

"If you can guarantee the safe return of my daughter…" She faltered briefly, but steeled herself. "If you can guarantee the safe return of my daughter, and the destruction of Earl Corotocus… I will give you half my wealth, half my lands. And protection for you and your sect for as long as there's breath in my body."

He smiled thinly. "Not enough."

At first Countess Madalyn thought she'd misheard. Only in fables and folklore had such a reward been offered.

"Not nearly enough," he added.

"You ask me to beggar myself?"

"I ask nothing of the kind. You can keep your earthly goods, if they mean so much to you."

"In God's name, what do you want?"

He pursed his lips, which, now that she was close to him, looked redder than blood. "No more, countess, and no less than an equal share in the power your victory will bring."

"Power? I seek only the return of my daughter."

"And the destruction of an English marcher lord."

"I only ask that because I know I'll have no choice."

"Countess Madalyn, you will have no choice come what may. If Earl Corotocus dies they'll send someone else, and you'll need to destroy him as well. And the one after that. And the one after that."

"What are you asking… that I start a full-scale war?"

"How many more of your villages must they burn? How many people must they hang? Full-scale war is already upon you."

"The uprising has been crushed with horrendous loss of life. If I were to start another now, it would mean an apocalypse for Wales and its people."

"Your people need only a leader — a proper leader. Someone fearless and respected. You could fill that role, countess. Just as Boudicca did twelve centuries ago. The difference is that, unlike Boudicca, you will have me — and I will ensure that the apocalypse falls on England."

"How?" she asked.

"Allow me to show you."