Wynnderlan
03.01.10 by Elisa Williams
Two hundred feet above the winter-cold sea that broke against the black cliffs of Dungard la Roch, I chanced upon holiness.
Clinging to the rock face like a stranded spider, hand and foot holds slick with frost and a biting wind in my face I babbled prayers and promises to every deity I could call to mind, begging my deliverance and failing that, Hadyn's eternal damnation. The madness that had prompted me to undertake such a climb had faded away, leaving me dizzy and weak, a good twelve yards short of the ledge and safety.
"Devil take you, Hadyn," I hissed through clenched teeth, feeling above my head for another handhold. Had I been able to make my way back down, I would have. But the stomach-churning drop below me stilled any thought of retreat over such hard-gained ground. And so up I must go.
 My left foot slipped and my stomach lurched. Taking my weight on my arms I felt carefully for the notch, only stepping into it when I was sure it was secure. Cheek pressed against wet stone, I waited for my hands to stop shaking and my heart to slow.
It had started out innocently enough.
Just at the moment of his demise in a game of chess, Hadyn had overturned the board, scattering pieces across the floor of our attic room, and said, "Have you heard the Barwn Pryddyn is back in town?"
I hadn't.
"He'll be home at Dungard la Roch for People's Fair." Hadyn raised one eyebrow, waiting for me to fill in the rest of what he implied. I ignored his prompting and waited for him to continue.
Hadyn leaned back, settling down for what I knew would be a lengthy telling.
"I had a dream last night where gram's face appeared in my porridge. She was muttering about the amber handled dueling swords that were stolen from grand'da by the border patrols. You know those men outside of Landercastle?"
I nodded, not much interested in a story I'd heard a dozen times before. Hadyn was one of the Crydudd, people descended from the barbarian kings that had ruled in centuries past, before the conquest of the western kingdoms; now, the last gypsy tribe to still rove the desolate roads and fields. Hadyn had spent his childhood roaming and thieving till his family had been caught up in the sweep to clean the highways of brigands. Jailed in the prisons that lay in the bowels of the cities, the wile of the gypsy still worked and before many months had passed Hadyn walked free again in the smoky sunlight of the city streets.
"Gram never let us rest one day without hearing about those swords. Said they were spelled with deep magic."
"I think that habit is an inherited one," I mocked.
"Though cursed is more likely," Hadyn mused. "You know it was just for those bloody swords we were all locked up?"
"I thought it was for killing that soldier."
Hadyn laughed, a high, youthful laugh. "They marked him off as a deserter. Ran off with a gypsy whore, was what they said. It was those swords they were after. Must have been worth a bundle for them to go to that much trouble. And Gram was crazy for days after they took everything and locked us up. Couldn't talk sense, but kept going on in that language she calls the true tongue. I was the only one who could understand anything she said and most of it was gibberish."
"Huh." I leaned back and closed my eyes, the weak winter sunlight through the dirty, waved window-glass laying bars of warmth over me.
"Names and places, and she kept saying the swords were the key."
"You wander greatly from the subject," I yawned.
Haydn shook his head. "After I got out, I forgot about her talk. Yesterday it all came back when I saw those swords. Barwn Pryddyn has them."
I sat up, interest awakened.
Hadyn grinned. "And tomorrow I will have them."
I laughed. Hadyn was a good thief as they came on the streets or in the coach yard but house breakers were in another class. We had robbed small shops or empty houses together but never a place like Dungard la Roch.
Hadyn leaned forward, his face serious. "But I'll need you in on it."
"I've not spent a day inside a cell since Solstice two years past and I'm eager to keep it that way."
Hadyn's grinned like a fox and that expression was all the encouragement I needed, more the fool I.
"Tell me the plan."
"Tomorrow is People's Fair and temporary servants will be in high demand. So I've decided to take up employment at Dungard la Roch during the festivities. I can get to the swords, but I can't take them out again, and that's where you will do your part."
"I don't know Dungard la Roch," I said.
Hadyn shrugged. "It's a straightforward enough job to satisfy even you. It just takes a little climbing."
The scar running over my left shoulder and down my arm was burning over bunched muscles, a reminder of a previous housebreak. My foot slipped as I lunged to catch a handhold that was some inches beyond my reach. I hissed in surprise as my fingers fell short and I felt gravity take hold. I clawed at the pocked stone, every nerve screaming. My body seemed to float away from the wall and all my training as a thief could not stop my scream of terror. I twisted in the buffeting wind, arms flailing and my foot caught something, jarring my bones with the impact and slamming my face into the cold, wet stone.
"Blessed love of Genevieve. Holy fire; saints and angels," I gasped incoherently, mist soaked hair streaming water down my face. "Never again," I swore. "Never again!" The wall was ice against my fiery skin and I shook like one taken with ague. Surely this was my long delayed punishment for a life of crime and here in the damned moment I swore repentance with a fervor to rival a monks prayers.
For some long moments I stayed there, frozen in place by more than the biting wind but the terror that fogged my mind and froze my limbs was challenged by discipline. Hadyn and I had worked out a schedule. My delay risked all. This was the dangerous part of the play, when Hadyn was waited at the exchange point with the swords. He could not leave till I had them in hand; every moment he stayed increased the chance of discovery. I reached and felt for a notch above my head. I now had to regain the ground lost in my short fall. My stomach lurched at the memory and I steeled myself for the climb.
The ledge took form in the grey light till it loomed above me. I hung there, waiting for my shaking to lessen and my breathing to slow. Just like hanging on the undercarriage of a coach, I told myself. Swing up into the compartment, through the window. My fingers and feet obeyed and I was crouching on the narrow stone ledge that ran down the length of a row of windows.
I'd silently cursed Hadyn into a thousand hells and my head was dizzy with fear by the time I arrived at the tenth window, following the curve of the wall to the left. The window was taller than me, barred with intricate metal workings. I listened for any noise, the sound of voices or the vibration of footsteps, that would tell me the rom was occupied by anyone but Hadyn. Reaching through the metal working I rapped sharply on the glass, once.
The window opened and Hadyn stood there looking years younger in an ill-fitting scarlet and gold servants uniform. His face was a mask of fury. Without a word he passed a long, linen-wrapped parcel through the metal grill.
The swords, wrapped separately and tied together with strips of the same cloth, were unexpectedly heavy. Crouching on the wet stone, I held them across my knees, the ends reaching out on either side. I envisioned the heavy weapons slung across my back as I descended the cliff below, their weight pulling me back, away from the rock face and down to black waves hundreds of feet below...
"Hadyn!" My voice was hoarse.
Hadyn turned back to the window, drilling me through with his gaze. I shook my head, unable to fight off the fear that drove me. "I'm not going down this way," I said, my voice steady though every nerve was screaming. "I can't. Trade me places."
Hadyn stalked to the window, looking prepared to throw me bodily off the ledge. But some sound heard by his ear alone caught him mid-stride. There was a moments tense silence. Hadyn's mouth turned down at the edges. "Damn you, Afon," he hissed.
The words burnt through my fear, a hot lash across my pride. I'd acquitted myself like an amateur, a sniveling child. I gritted my teeth, the swords heavy in my hands. Hadyn was already working to open the metal grill. The wind buffeted me as I crawled forward to the sill, handing in the swords before dropping the short distance to the floor inside the room.
Hadyn was already stripping off the servants uniform, his every movement expressing anger at my pathetic behavior. I knew this was a black mark to my name and profession, but fear burned out the shame as Hadyn thrust the bundled uniform into my hands. I struggled out of my damp clothing and Hadyn snatched them from my hand, pulling them on without hesitation. A sudden gust of wind blew the unlatched window against the wall, making me flinch with the noise. Hadyn grabbed the linen-wrapped swords from the rain-misted top of an ornately carved table set near the window. Without a backward glance he pulled himself up onto the sill and stepped out into the rain.
"Hadyn," I hissed. Half in, half out of the crumpled servants uniform, I took a few hampered steps toward the window. I needed to know the situation outside the room, where the guest were moving and if there were guards stationed. But Hadyn ducked his head and disappeared around the corner.
Rainwater puddled on the waxed hardwood floors. Above the noise of the wind and rain came the sounds of music and shouted revelry. I tugged on the red wool jacket with gold-painted buttons. It was a better fit on my shorter frame but the shoes chaffed and pinched in several places. I searched the gloomy dusk of the room interior. The roll of linen Hadyn had taken material from to wrap the swords was lying on the floor.
I closed the grill and latched the window, working as quickly as my cold-numbed fingers would allow. Rolling out the cloth I dried my dripping hair. Glass shattered in the hall. I dropped the linen on the floor to soak up the pooled water there and straightened the window drapes. Now with the sound of the storm blocked out, I could hear footsteps echoing up and down the hall. I bundled up the damp linen and shoved it under the divan.
In the dusky light of the room a heavy gilded mirror caught my reflection. Strands of black hair had come loose from their short braid and the red coat of the servants uniform was crumpled and showing darker patches of damp. I jerked it straight and smoothed my hair back. I looked like a two day drunk but there was little I could do about that but brass it out; getting caught where a servant had no reason to stray would be worse. Half concealed by a hand-painted screen was a heavy bolted door leading into a joining room, Hadyn's point of entrance. It would be closed fast again and I had no tools to reopen it; I would have to brave the hall.
Raucous female laugher echoed in from somewhere as I eased open the hall door. A circular railed balcony overlooked the ballroom below, a covered stair that began to my right emerging in the room's foyer below. On the vaulted ceiling directly overhanging the void was an immense crystal and gold-gilded chandelier illuminating the brilliant scene two stories below. On my left the hall ran straight, closed doors interposed with paintings and narrow, decorative tables.
Across the circular orifice looking down upon the dancers, two woman lolled drunkenly against the railing, their feathers and silk crumpled and askew. One of them caught sight of me and called out in a loud, wine-slurred voice, reaching out one hand. Whether it was a request for more drink or a sexual invitation I did not to care to find out but ignored her and turned down the hall.
Lamps hung in brackets mounted on the wall gave the hall a steady light. I extinguished one and further down, another burning my fingers on the hot glass chimney. There was a soft scratching at the base of one of the doors accompanied by a snuffling sound. I replaced the lamp chimney, nursing my burnt hand. The snuffling stopped for a moment and then the hound behind the door sneezed. I continued down the hall keeping my step firm and hoping my unfamiliar scent would not set off the dogs.
The hall ended. Two steps up on either side hallways lead right and left. The lingering smell of perfume hung in the air from a recent passing. A seconds hesitation and I took the left-hand passageway. Somewhere a door slammed. A shiver ran down my back, a jolt of awareness that sent my nerves
tingling. Without warning the door directly in front of my opened and into the hall stumbled a girl, skirts and white ruffled petticoats filling the narrow passageway.
She caught my jacket in one hand to steady herself. From the room behind her came the sounds of drunken laughter.
"Oh, lord," she gasp. For a moment I thought she was crying but a tightly held giggle escaped her and I saw she was doubled over with mirth. I stepped aside, intending to pass her but she straightened and put a hand on my arm. "Best someone stay here till I get back or she'll likely fall out the window or drown in the washstand." Without waiting for my consent she picked up her skirts and darted down the hall. I reached to shut the door but moving air in the hallway stopped me. This bedroom had a balcony.
I took a step to one side, allowing me to see into the room. The chamber was well-lit with lamp light. Lying on the bed, fully clothed in purple silk and grey plumes was a dark haired woman, eyes closed, breathing evenly as if asleep. An overturned traveling case spilled wigs and jeweled hair pieces across the polished wood floor. From habit I assessed their value even as I looked toward the open doors that lead onto the balcony, curtains drawn back to let in the chill night air - an attempt by the maid to revive her drunken mistress.
I glanced back to the bed. The woman still lay as if asleep, one hand moving slowly over the bed covering, tracing an incomprehensible pattern with one finger. I stepped to the open balcony doors, the chill night air washing over me, freezing my sweat-slick skin. The room was on the second story, overlooking the gardens. Below the shapes of wet shrubbery and beds of dead flowers and mulch were dark smears in the dusk. My sleeve brushed the curling iron railing, sending a shower of gathered droplets to the grass below. A shadow moved along the garden path and I stepped back from the balcony doorway. A man and dog walked through the garden. Not a dogboy taking his charge for some late-night exercise - the handler walked the dog on a loose leash, watching his animal as the dog paced along, head erect, ears and nose questing. They were searching the grounds.
"Hello." The word was delivered from behind my back in slurred female tones, a faint S sound trailing off the end. My heart thundered alive but I kept my back to her, calmly closing the balcony doors and adjusting the curtains before turning to face the woman who now half sat up on the bed.
Her hair had tumbled down to one side, her jeweled tiara hooked in her tresses and hanging askew. She squinted at me through alcohol blurred eyes. "Where's Nann?"
"She's gone to fetch hot water," I replied blithely. "I closed your balcony door, it is a chill and wet night."
She nodded carefully and slowly begin to work the tiara free from her hair. I make a half bow in her direction and started for the hall door.
"You don't have a earmark."
My steps did not slow till I reached the door, but her words brought the blood to my skin. Thrice the fool, I'd forgotten the earmark, the tiny blue symbol of tattooed on the earlobe of a servant who had passed the test and was considered safe. It also identified his status, bound or unbound, and if bound, his master's house. Hadyn had fabricated one for his part as a house servant. But even after undergoing the scrutiny before being hired, the extra help was only used to serve in the main dinning hall and not allowed to wander the house. Stupid, blind fear had made me act without thinking. I raised a hand to touch my left earlobe where the spiraling mark of an unbound servant should have been. My mind raced for a logical explanation but my usually quick tongue remained silent, my mind clouded.
I was saved by Nann who burst through the door, carrying a tray with a steaming kettle and cups, a kitchen boy with a bucket of firewood trailing behind. I slipped through the door closing it carefully behind me, cutting off Nann's soprano voice mid-sentence.
The hall felt suffocating and I calmed my rising panic. The click of a dogs nails on wood floors warned me before the approaching sound of voices in conversation. They had moved the search inside. I spun around, fleeing away from the voices.
To my right a short stair lead off the main passageway and I took it. A short hall with one window set high in the wall and three doors. A dead end. I stood, hearing my own breathing and the foots steps passing in the main hall below. I waited until the sound had faded from my hearing. And still I waited. I touched my unmarred left ear and cursed silently. The main hall was too dangerous now.
I studied the three doors as one would a primed trap. Time was very short. These doors would be the back way in and out of larger adjoining rooms. I made a hopeful guess as to which might lead me out and approached the one on the left.
I listened for any sound from within, tested for any current of air moving underneath. I tired the latch and it gave under my hand. The door opened silently, my face prepared to look both confused and servile if confronted by anyone within. The room was empty. A heavy desk sat in the center upon an extravagant red carpet and the walls held shelves of books and framed maps. There were other shelves where various pieces of weaponry were displayed, some of it for parade but other pieces the well-used and worn weapons of warriors. A dying fire glowed on the hearth. There was an air of recent neglect about the room. The only light afforded came from outside where the courtyard lamps were burning brightly. The room felt closed off and tucked away and yet it made me uneasy. I crossed to the window and looked out. There was no one in sight for it was a chill night and the festivities were still underway. I reached to raise the window. Behind me, the door I had entered by opened.
I turned and froze, silhouetted against the lit window. There was nowhere to go.
A man swore and there was the sound of several pairs of feet crossing the floor. Surprisingly, no hand was laid on me. I strained my eyes attempting to count the persons in the room but the best I could make out was two, one standing in front of the fireplace so that the glowing coals outlined his legs, clothed in festive dress.
"Misplace something?" This from the man in front of the fireplace.
I shook my head dumbly, already playing the part of a confused servant. There was a deliberate movement in the dark and I prepared myself for a physical confrontation. But the first man spoke again, a name, sharply. The attack did not come.
"Obviously he can only be one of a party of thieves, and since he is still here we can assume he was not intrusted with the catch." A grunt of assent.
"But why does a thief return to the room he has just robbed?" My blood froze and though I dared not look, I saw in my minds eye the display shelves. Had there not been one that exhibited only empty brackets to hang a pair of swords? My mind would not shake loose of the fog that smothered it and I stood like a deer in the huntsman's sights. How many rooms had Hadyn gone through to get to the library where I had met him?
"Tell me boy, where do you expect to sell such weapons?" The grandly-clad legs moved from the fireplace and a tall man stepped into the light of my window. I shrank back as if afraid, shifting my stance.
He leaned close and spoke softly, his scent washing over me. "If you had stolen anything else in this room, I would have taken a hand and let you go." My back was against the glass, I could feel the cold seeping through my clothes. "But now...now I will have my men strip the flesh from your bones while you hang from a meat hook. And I will not let you die till you have brought me back my Paralthandrell."
"Your what?" I gasp, still showing a fear that was becoming all too real. Paralthandrell... Elysian Bloodshed. Hadn't Hadyn's grandmother also had a name for the swords? The man - who I now saw was Barwn Pryddyn himself - caught my wrist in his hand, squeezing till I wanted to cry out with the pain. "Do you hear me? This is pleasure compared to what I will do to you..."
"It's Marad!" I shrieked, filling my voice with terror. "It's not me, I never dreamed of such a thing."
A sharp twist of my arm and black swam in the edges of my vision. This man was unaccountably strong. "Where is this Marad taking them."
"Cillberdd," I gasp. "There's a man there who wants them." Pryddyn caught my throat, drawing me forward to slam me back against the glass pane. I thought I felt something crack.
"His name. The man's name," the Barwn said, his voice still low and controlled in contrast to his deliberate violence.
"Lloyd is his family name. I don't know anything else, Marad is the one who-" The Barwn Pryddyn stopped me with a fist against my throat, pinning me to the window. I felt the glass give and heard the crackle of a damaged pane.
The Barwn spoke over his shoulder. "Waude road. Take the dogs."
I wiggled and felt the spider-webbed glass move outward. Barwn Pryddyn let go my throat and pulled me forward by his grip on my arm, dragging me towards the silent man-sized shadow. "Have Brenin take this-"
I lunged forward with the direction of the Barwn's pull on my arm, bringing my knee up hard into his groin. Pryddyn gave a strangled cry and doubled over. Grasping my own arm I jerked my wrist free of his still-restraining hand. The tall body of the Barwn's man loomed close and I dodged away.
Two running steps; fingers brushed my jacket and I launched myself through the spider-webbed window pane.
I landed hard on my side in a shower of glass. Arms over my head, I rolled away, the razor shards cutting into my skin. My hip and shoulder were numb. I unfolded, staggered upright and wiped blood from my forehead. The lanterns wavered in my vision and from somewhere came shouting. One ear was fast becoming plugged with blood. I wiped at it once more, felt it coming hot and slick and started off towards the dark gardens in an unsteady run.
The chill night air cleared my head even while it sapped the heat from my body. The clipped grass cushioned my footfalls and I ran like a ghost through the dead gardens, away from the lights and toward the cliffs.
There was a shrill whistle off to my left, somewhere in the dark rows of brittle shrubbery. A call to the dogs. I veered off to the right, stumbling through plots of soft, turned earth. A stitch started under my ribs. I heard a sound and turned. Through the murky light came the fast-moving shapes of dogs that have sighted their prey. There was no way I could outrun them. There was no way I could fight them off. I turned and ran.
I dodged and leapt obstacles that the dogs glided over. Their rhythmic panting was all the warning I had before something slammed into me and a weight clamped on my shoulder, dragging me to the ground. I fought to get to my feet but the second dog was on top of me. I wrapped my free arm around my throat, struggling under the animals weight. The dog fixed it's teeth into the arm protecting my throat, setting it's feet to wench and tear. I brought one leg up and kneed it in the ribs. The blow numbed my leg but did not loosen the hound's grip. The dog growled and set it's teeth deeper, whipping it's head side to side. I screamed, feeling the animals teeth between tendons and into the bone. I twisted, attempting to use my feet to batter the dog's head but the hound backed up, pulling me along. I lost my head. I screamed and thrashed as the dogs snarled and drug me across the dead grass, streaking it with blood and saliva.
Then someone was calling the dogs off; cursing the animals in a cheerful tone. Their breath hung in white plumes outlined by approaching lantern light. I lay on the ground, feeling my torn limbs twitching and hearing my breath bubble in and out of my blood-filled throat but unable to move, unable to think. Someone turned me over with a kick. Light shone in my face.
"Looks dead, he does."
"Breathing still." One of the dogs growled and my skin shriveled at the sound. Footsteps approached and the two voices fell silent. For a moment there was only the panting of the dogs and the faint sounds of festivities from the mansion.
"Get him up." This voice, like the two before it, was unfamiliar. The dogs growled again as hands hauled me upright, grabbing hold of my hair to lift my face to the light. Someone swore. "They got his throat." A flutter of panic blossomed in my belly. The light shone full in my face but I could not blink my eyes. My lungs filled and exhaled with watery breaths but of their own violation.
"... him left alive..." The voices faded in and out with the dimming and brightening light.
"....survive."
"...with him, Barwn Pryddyn?" Was the Barwn here?
"He's no use to me now. But I don't want him to somehow recover and become a nuisance. Make sure he's dead."
Hands took hold of my legs and torn arms. Unconsciousness fluttered close, light spiking my open eyes. Blood ran into my mouth and out my nose. The dogs growled, or perhaps I imagined it.
"Here is good." A hand's grip on my arm slipped and gripped tighter. My scream emerged as a gurgle.
"Lucky bastard. He goes nice and quick this way."
"Aye. A thief's luck," the other voice grunted.
"Mind the edge."
I swung. The air was frigid rushing through my wet clothes. Movement stopped. I floated. The smell of the sea. I was falling.
I tried to scream but couldn't draw breath into my leaden lungs. The sea cliffs rushed by, melding with the black void in my mind. Overhead, fireworks blossomed bright in the night sky, signaling the end of People's Fair.
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