He put a fatherly hand on Ranulf's shoulder.
"Ranulf, Edward Longshanks is a king who would be Caesar. Once this war is won, he will march against the Scots. He intends to rule the whole island of Britain, from the toe of Cornwall to the Wood of Caledon, from Wight to Northumbria. But right now he is watching the Welsh March. This is a troublesome region for him. If we who are appointed to guard it can curb this menace once and for all, he will be more than grateful. There may be better rewards here than simple relief from the debts we owe." He moved away along the battlements, only to stop and glance back. "But Ranulf… I will not dangle this carrot indefinitely."
Suddenly there was steel in his voice.
"They tell me you and your father played no part at the River Ogryn." His expression hardened. His blue eyes became spear-points. "They say you spared lives in the villages we razed on the road here. Very gallant of you, Ranulf. But that may have been a mistake. As things are, I am your lord. I'd prefer to be your lord and your friend, but I can just as easily be your lord and your enemy. Listen very carefully… if I will not sacrifice my fortune and glory for these vermin that call themselves Welsh, I certainly won't sacrifice it for an upstart boy."
Ranulf said nothing.
"Do we understand each other, sirrah?"
"Yes."
"I didn't hear you."
"Yes, my lord."
Half an hour later, Ranulf locked Gwendolyn in the Keep. He found the largest, airiest room for her that he could, but it was still damp and filthy, filled with decayed straw and rat-droppings. He turned deaf ears to her tearful pleas. As he walked away along the cell passage, he refused to look back at her white hands clawing through the tiny hatch in the nail-studded door.
When he ascended to his post on the south-facing curtain-wall, his father was already there, sharing the warmth from a brazier with Gurt Louvain, a rugged looking northern knight draped in a green, weather-worn cloak. Two of the scarecrows had been flung to one side. They were hideous, soulless objects — sackcloth suits stuffed with rags and bound to stick frames. Their faces had been made up with streaks of what looked like dung or mucus. Weirdly — probably because the Breton troops had been bored — some of these faces were smiling exaggeratedly, almost dementedly — like caricatures from Greek or Roman drama. It gave them a sinister air, as if they knew something the English didn't and were delighted by it.
"How long must we rot in this hellhole?" Ranulf asked of no-one in particular.
Ulbert shrugged. "Until the king deems the rebellion quelled. And the longer that takes, the happier I'll be." He indicated the land beyond the river, its dense conifer wood receding into the blanket of mist. Nothing moved over there, neither man nor beast. "Look at that. Isn't that beautiful?"
"Beautiful? I see emptiness."
"Exactly." Ulbert shoved another log into the brazier. "No-one for us to kill, and more importantly, no-one to kill us."
"That's because there's no-one left."
"Don't fool yourself, Ranulf," Gurt Louvain said. He was a doughty man, but his bearded face was icy pale. Anguished by the slaughter they'd wreaked over the last few days, he'd developed a nervous twitch. He glanced at the silent trees beyond the river, and the shadows between them. "There's always someone left."
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.