Caitriona, part three

I woke with a burning pain in my throat and a searing side, head pounding. “Don’t try to sit up,” a firm voice told me.

I looked up at Maelwys, eyes narrowed. “You lied to me.” The words came raspy and strained. Maelwys shook his head, but I did not let him speak, though it was hard for me to be heard at all. “You pretended to befriend me so that you could lure me out into the woods and ambush me. You were right- I was a fool. I should have seen through your lies.”

Maelwys cut me off. “Cait! You do not understand. Let me explain. The warband who attacked us were my enemies; they and their leader, Anwyn, stayed here in Derwedd several years ago, asking for protection. He pretended to be an unfailing friend, my swordbrother. But as soon as he had gained some wealth and well- trained men, he left so he could plot a way to get my throne while acquiring more men. It would be like him to disguise his warband as Picts, and you were so dirty and war-painted I thought you were one of them. I thought you must be Anwyn but he was not there today.”

“It is true,” Alector affirmed. “I was here when Anwyn came, and I was here when he left. He is plotting against Derwedd- and Maelwys and I, because we know the truth about him.”

I shook my head mutely, unable to trust either of them fully. Especially Maelwys. Maelwys looked at the floor uncomfortably. “I am sorry I hurt you, Caitriona.”

I was unable to get out of bed, as much as I wanted to saddle a horse and leave. The rest of that day I lay in bed, thinking despondently over the past several months. There had been times when I had been happy- when I had trusted Maelwys. Then there were times when he broke that trust for no apparent reason- and I did not know what to think now. I hoped dearly that Alector would not lie to me. But what Maelwys had said: “You’re fool to think you can come here uninvited...” I had not been invited. I had been trussed and carried. But I was the rightful ruler of Caledon; how much more powerful would I be with both Derwedd and Yr Widdfa in my hand. The accusation fit us both.

I looked over at Alector once and noticed that he was praying. The sight pricked my conscience. “I am sorry, Lord,” I whispered. “I should not have ignored you.” But stubbornly, I did not feel like praying. I felt like being angry. And I would have to let that anger go if I came before God in clean conscience. It was another hour before I finally closed my eyes and let go. “Please, Lord, keep me safe. And teach Maelwys to be a godly man. If it is your will, I pray you would help me get Caledon back, and help us both be good rulers. Please be with me, and heal me, God.”

At dusk Maelwys entered with some food. He gave it to Alec, with a glance at me. “I thought you might be hungry.” Then he brushed past the curtain and left.

“He truly is sorry,” Alector said carefully. “Maelwys would die before he would let anyone harm you.”

“He has already saved my life.” I sighed. “There are so many things that make me wary of him. Why does he do that?”

“Like tying you up? Not telling you that he knew who you were or that he grew up near your caer? Telling Drew not to let you leave? The way he is silent and does things for no apparent reason? The way he does not mind that you do not know what to think of him?”

I nodded. Talking hurt too much to add to his list.

“You will have to find that out for yourself,” Alector told me. “He has good reason. You can trust him, perhaps more than anyone else.”

“But I do not.” I took the jar Maelwys had brought, poured some water, and split the loaf of bread. Drew came to sit next to me, hoping to catch my crumbs or be given a piece of meat. I let him finish mine and he lay down at the head of the bed, gnawing on the bone. A little while later Maelwys came back and Alector left.

“Drew likes you,” Maelwys observed with a small smile. “I think he would be broken hearted if you left.”

“I cannot go anywhere like this,” I answered shortly.

Maelwys shrugged. “Then he will not leave, either. Even if I did. He has a friend as long as you are here.”

“He is your dog.” I watched Drew, laying within arm’s reach. He looked up and licked my hand, and I smiled a little. “I am glad he is here, too.”

I fell asleep sometime after that, waking to find myself and Drew alone. The sunshine touched everything with gold, streaming through the window, and I heard several women walking by, talking and laughing. “I wish I were out there, Drew,” I whispered to my sleeping friend.

I told him that too many times to count that week and the next. Not until I could sit up with no difficulty was I even allowed to sew or weave a basket; for another week, I lay in bed making clothes for myself so Maelwys could keep his sister’s things.

Maewys himself came and sat nearby every day for hours. He would sit and talk to Alector at first, when it was apparent that I did not want to speak to him. Or he would play with Drew. He ate in the house, slept on the floor in the front room near the oxide curtain, sharpened and cleaned his weapons in the chair on the other side of the room's one window from the bed. With only him or Drew to talk to and nowhere to go, I eventually tired of the limited conversations I could have with Drew.

Therefore, the fourth day or so after the raid when I sat staring out the window, I sent up a swift and desperate prayer and said, "Maelwys."

His focus, which had been studiously on his etched silver sword, immediately became all mine. "Yes, Cait?"

"Why don't you explain what happened?"

Maelwys didn't try to disguise his surprise. "Are you still angry at me?"

"I cannot answer that until I know what happened. And it's not an emotional issue, Maelwys, it's a trust issue. How can I trust someone who may turn around and kill me any second?"

He ran his fingers through his hair- a habit I had come to recognize as a sign of insecurity or discomfort- and told me his side of the story. How Anwyn had come to Derwedd as a young boy, long before Maelwys and Alector had returned home for good, and had been jealous that a boy long absent could come home a young man and inherit everything Anwyn had come to love. He explained that Anwyn's love was really power, that what he loved he wanted to have for himself and his own gain and he saw opportunity slipping by him to the king's only son.

It was plain that Maelwys was jealous of Anwyn's boyhood in Derwedd, of the closeness he was able to cultivate with his rival's father. The hatred ran deep between the two and I little doubted that when next they met, only one would walk away unscathed.

"So you expected him to be present the other day."

"He was trained here," Maelwys replied, roughing his hair still further. "We do not teach warriors to send men to kill for them. We expect them to fight for themselves or not fight at all. I hoped he had more Derweddi steel in him, to do credit to my people's upbringing, but he is a coward by birth. Still, I assumed that since you by all appearences were the last blue-painted warrior alive, you must be he. It never entered my mind that you would have had to wrestle with a woad-covered warrior and become covered in the paint." His eyes shone silvery- green in the afternoon light filtered through our shared window. "Cait, I'm sorry."

I hung my head in shame and surrender. "I am sorry too. Please accept my apology with my forgiveness."

Later, after he had been out for a few hours with the warband, Maelwys returned with fresh bread, roasted venison, and several different kinds of fruit, along with a jar of ale. I smiled at the sight- I had been growing very hungry- and greeted Maelwys.

His face held little expression but his eyes glimmered with a blue twinkle.

"Why does my saying hello strike you as amusing?" I asked him.

"What makes you think it amuses me?" He wondered, his eyes definietly blue now.

"Well, your eyes are blue."

Maelwys sat down with a curious look now on his face. "And?"

I had to laugh. "Has nobody ever told you that your eyes give away your moods? They always turn blue when you're happy or amused. They are stormy when you're sad, and I know not to cross you when they're green."

"Really!" He grinned. "How am I ever to hide anything from you?"

"Unless you hide your eyes, it will not happen."

Trust, always an issue with Maelwys and I, seemed to be restored. Without the strain of unspoken words between us things rapidly improved and now we spent his free time- sometimes hours a day- talking, or sitting in now-comfortable silence. His presence was a comforting one to me since I could not stir from my bed, providing stability, interest and constance to my long and boring days. Even when I could sew, nothing diverted me for many hours except when it was broken up by conversations, or watching him mend weapons and tack, or listening to he and Alec talk.

Then one day Maelwys walked in smiling mysteriously. I looked behind him to Alector, who grinned. “Come, Cait,” Maelwys told me. “You’re well enough.”

“For what?” I asked, glancing between them. But Alec just smiled again. “You’ll see.” He lifted me gently from my place and carried me outside, his friend in front. Out along the edge of the practice field, in the sunshine, someone had set up a chair, covered with light blankets and furs. The chair itself sat on a blanket, with my sewing, a jar and mug, and a basket of food next to the chair. Alec set me gently in the chair and straightened, he and Maelwys grinning like self- conscious little boys.

“Thank you.” I looked up at them, eyes shining, and breathed in the smells of grass, of wood and plants and summer. “It is wonderful.”

“I am glad you like it,” Maelwys said. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes, very. Thank you, Alec. Thank you, Maelwys.”

“Will you be fine here while we practice? Today we do not ride out. Rowan and Llew have the circuit.”

“I will enjoy being out here with all of you. Do not worry about me.”

I had forgotten how much the warband practiced every day, and marveled that three weeks ago I had ridden and hunted with them. Today I could not even walk.

My mind wandered back in time, back to Ardnurchar and our warband. Llewis had been the leader, and the men followed his every word. I mourned again to think of my brave friends scattered and slain because of one man’s bloodlust. Men who swore to protect each other and our people with their blood had done so, and there was little left to show for it.

Maelwys noticed my sorrow later, when we sat eating our lunch. The warriors had gone off to the hall, and as I watched them go tears threatened to spill.

“What troubles you?”

“They remind me of my warband in Ardnurchar,” I said plaintively. “They were my friends, Lewis and his men. Good men. And they are gone, with nothing left to remember them by.”

“You remember them,” Maelwys reminded me, “as do all your people who are still alive.”

“I wish I could go back now. I want to help them. What must it be like at home right now? And what if they give me up for dead and I have no place there when I return?”

“You know you cannot go now,” Maelwys said. “What is it about waiting that troubles you so?”

“It is feeling like I am not doing enough.”

“Doing enough? Fine. I will teach you how to rule. No doubt you have learned formalities, regulations, everyday things. But have you been taught how to intimidate an enemy? Compel absolute obedience without anger or manipulation? How to train a warband? I can teach you that and much more. You are not leaving now, Cait. You cannot, and I would not let you if you could. I understand your restlessness-”

“You understand it?!” His words were like a spark igniting fury. “You understand it? Understand having your caer ravaged by one man’s pride and having to run for your life, waking up in a completely new country, learning that all your kin are dead save the brother you hardly knew, and being wounded and having to depend on a strange king’s generosity for survival, all the while knowing your people are without a ruler and without justice? Oh, yes, you understand, don’t you.”

“This is a foolhardy conversation. You are tired and upset.” Maelwys’s eyes flashed piercing emerald, his chin jutting out, his mouth a thin line. “I am sorry for the deaths of good men, and I am sorry you miss them. Let that be the end of it for now.”

If I could have stood and left then, I would have. Instead I looked away and tried not to be angry. It was difficult to make myself see from his perspective, or surrender to his judgment. But I was at Maelwys’s mercy and therefore I had best keep my mouth shut. But why couldn't he understand? Did he never think that perhaps I needed a shoulder to cry on as much as a voice of reason?

“I suppose you want to go back.”

I didn’t look at him. “Alec can take me when he returns from the hall.”

I could tell Maelwys had crossed his arms, a sure sign that he was out for what he wanted. “Alec is not coming back here until later. He and Declan are riding circuit this afternoon.”

Still, I refused. “Meurig would take me. Or Cormac or Rowan or Llewis. I am not friendless.”

“Well, you are very well going to be if you keep acting like this! None of the men are coming back to practice today! Meurig and Rowan are at the gate. Llewis and Cormac are hunting. I sent Alun, Forgall, Bran, and the others over to Caer Rheged yesterday and they do not return until tomorrow night. So will you stay here until tonight or let me carry you in?”

I did not answer. With an exasperated sigh, Maelwys stood, and picked me up, walking silently over to his house. I kept my mouth shut and ignored him.

“There, now. I am sorry you had to be carried by a knave,” Maelwys said sarcastically, “but here you are. Can I get you water? Ale? Beer? The torc off my
neck? Or will you survive?”

“I think I will live.” I sat down in a huff on the bed and picked up the mantle I was embroidering. Maelwys turned to walk away and I almost let him go, but my conscience pricked me and I caught his arm. “Maelwys.”

He turned gray-green eyes to me.

“Maelwys, I’m sorry. I spoke impetuously and rudely. Forgive me.”

“Ah, Cait...” Maelwys sat down with a sigh. “I was not considerate either. All you wanted was sympathy and I made you angry.”

I nodded. “Yes. But it was my fault I got angry. You were only trying to help, like a man.” I smiled slightly. “You couldn’t help it, could you.” In a moment of sudden dizziness I leaned on his shoulder, and I felt him stiffen, then relax. He wrapped an arm around me and didn’t move.

“I-I’m sorry, I felt faint,” I apologized, but without moving. “You were right, I couldn’t leave if I tried.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said softly, “you’re fine.”

I had no more dizzy spells again, but for the next week or two everything was cordial between us. I mended swiftly while Maelwys and the warband rode and hunted and treated me like their community sister. One would bring me dinner, another would tell me how the hunt went that day or who they met on the circuit. Three together might come and take me to the hall to hear Bedwyr sing, one to carry me and the others to boss him around on the way. Often, indeed, I stayed for hours in the hall and talked with Cernach, who proved to be as kind as my own father. The best surprise, however, was one afternoon when Maelwys and Alector came in together after their circuit ride, Alector sweaty and beaming and Maelwys listening amusedly to his chatter. I greeted them and gave them each a cup of ale. I had begun to enjoy presiding over my little room like a hosting queen. “You look tired.”

Maelwys nodded. “It is tiring work riding a horse who has never before been ridden, eh, Alec?”

Alec grinned. “Your black mare is a handful of good horse,” he told me.

“What- my mare? You rode her? Alec, I cannot thank you enough! I have wished I was able to work with her and you have taken time to train her for me.”

“Maelwys and I both,” he allowed. “It was his idea that I should ride her today. I wondered if you would mind but he said you would not.”

I glanced at Maelwys. “He is right, I am very grateful. How did she do?”

Alec was glad for the chance to detail his ride and sat down to tell all. “And the best part is,” he concluded, “she will be ready for you in time! Especially if I can ride her every day until-”

“Alector!” Maelwys protested, laughing, “you are not supposed to say anything about that. Go get some more ale or something.”

Alec ducked out, grinning, and Maelwys sat down with a merry shake of his head.

“I cannot trust him to keep quiet on anything.”

I raised an eyebrow. “He was saying?”

“Well... I had only just discussed it with my father and then Alector today, but I have noticed that you are getting well and will soon be able to ride again.”

“Really?” I could have hugged him. “Oh, to ride again! I have grown so sick of watching you ride off every morning.”

His eyes twinkled knowingly. “That is not all. I was going to tell you later but perhaps it will help you get well better. Once you are able to ride, I thought you, Alec and I could finally leave.”

“Leave? To go where?”

“You do want to go to Ardnurchar?”

I gasped. “You will take me?”

He nodded. “I would rather go with you than leave you to go by yourself.”

Maelwys was right. I worked hard to get fit to ride out, going every other day at first with the warband and then, when I was ready, every day. I rode Makari; Alec continued to ride my mare until she and I both were ready for me to ride her. The day I did, I fell in love with her.

“Alec, Maelwys, you are wonderful horse trainers. She is as well behaved as any seasoned horse.”

Alec had the grace to blush, while Maelwys was talking to Cormac and did not hear me. Alector shrugged and grinned. “She was not hard to teach.”

Finally it was the day we planned to leave. I had just finished packing up my saddlebags when Meurig came for me. “Cernach would like to speak to you,” he said, taking me to the hall.

“Revered King,” I began when Cernach had motioned me forward, “I am most grateful to you for permission to visit my country, and for all you have done for me up to this time.”

Cernach smiled. “Please, speak to me as a daughter to her father, Cait. You have become dear to me these past months.”

“As have you, King Cernach.” I sat down in my accustomed place next to his dais, facing the king. “I do not know what will happen after our journey but no matter how long I live in Derwedd, I will always be indebted to you. You can always depend on me for whatever you wish if ever I have anything to offer.”

Cernach laid a hand on my arm. “I hope you find your people safe and well, and come back with their favor.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you ready?” I hadn’t heard Maelwys come up behind us but now he embraced his father and took his leave of his warriors, as Alec was already doing. We left late in the morning on a journey which Maelwys guessed would take us six days one way.

I enjoyed riding with Maelwys and Alector. Alec coaxed a good-natured attitude from his best friend which I rarely saw- not that Maelwys was ever unkind to anyone, but he was a hard warrior and a serious thinker. Had he been born to a bard’s clan he would have excelled almost as much as he did as a war leader. And he could be moody, which I had grown increasingly accustomed to until I little heeded his brooding changeability. We three could have lived happily on the trail together as we wanted to.

As we drew closer to Ardnurchar and into familiar land, we all grew quiet. We were closer for a few days, indeed, to where Maelwys and Alec had grown up, than we were to my home. But on the last morning, we woke up only a half day’s ride from Ardnurchar. I had been out here often, with Conor and Ceri or occasionally with my father. We stopped to rest at noon- the day was hot, though it was nearing September- and left again three hours’ ride away. I was calm and nervous and once I said pleadingly to Alec, “Pray for me, Alec, I am so anxious!” He simply smiled and replied that he was.

We rode up the crest of a ridge and found ourselves overlooking the caer. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, and heard the sharp intake of Alec and Maelwys’s breath.

The caer was a black ruin. I had known in my mind that it had been burned, that nobody would be there and it would little resemble my former home, but the shock of seeing the reality was hard to take. I rode slowly down into the village, dismounting to lead my horse through to where my old home had stood.

“I lived here,” I said softly to my companions. “This was my house, here.”

“We will leave you for a while,” Alec said.

I shook my head. “No, please don’t. I need you with me.” I turned away. “I will find another place to set up camp.”

We walked to the other side of the caer, where someone had kept camp before us, though they had not been there recently. My hopes of finding even a few tenacious kinsmen lay scattered in the ashes of the long-gone fire.

Alec said, “I will go look around the caer, if it is all right with you both.”

I nodded. If he found something, good. If not, it would not be worse than it was now. He rode off alone and I shivered in the evening air.

“It was always cold about now,” I told Maelwys, “because of the trees and ridges.
We often lit our fires early.” I set up our picket line and tied our horses. “Go ahead, I do not mind if you use the wood. It is not doing anything useful now.”

Maelwys, at the sound of my voice, looked up from the ground. He had been sitting wrapped in his cloak against the cooling evening, and I knew he had been trying to put out of his mind the half-burned wood lying around.

“My thanks, Cait,” he said quietly as he began picking up serviceable kindling. Things between us of late had been strained once again, due mostly to a comment Declan had inadvertently made the other day. I had by now forgotten the words; it had been something which made me distrustful of Maelwys’s motives once more and rather than allow Maelwys himself to explain, I had in typical fashion flared up and refused to let him speak. I knew the truth now, and it was a petty offense if any, but we both had our pride and it was not easily put down. Too, there was the thought of my head on his shoulder, which had made him act strangely toward me whenever we were alone, though I could not see why. I had grown dizzy, he had supported me, nothing more in my eyes. Men.

Now I reached out and touched his arm. “Maelwys.”

He was startled and met my gaze with silver eyes. “Cait.”

“My - pride- this week- that is to say, I am sorry. One would think I would know better now than to mistrust you.”

Maelwys smiled, a little. “I have not given you much chance to sketch my character; and as you most likely know, it was not done unconsciously. I have been prideful toward you as well, and not only this week.” He solemnly held my gaze. “I am beginning to think it is not a bad thing to let you make out my character. It is something- something not every person gets to see.”

“We both have pride, and we neither of us are terribly swift to make friends. It is a good thing Alec is so amiable, or we would be lonely indeed. But,” I added, “perhaps not now.” I stood quietly for a minute thinking about that.

The fire brought me back to my senses- while we spoke, Maelwys had lit it- and the knowledge that the wreckage of my kinsman’s houses warmed me now was not easy to take. We sat by the fire, silent. Maelwys knew I needed time to mourn the loss of the caer and accept the devastation around me, and did not press me to talk any more.

Nothing broke the stillness for some time but the the crackling of the fire, until suddenly a horse and rider trotted up through the ruined gates.