Jenny Dolfen

Rhyddion - Prologue

Added 2018-10-17 06:57:43 +0000 UTC

A few of you asked for a writing snippet, mostly, the prologue to the story (which I really, really like, so I'm glad to give it)! I'm still unsure if I want the prologue to spoil the overall outcome in this way, but there are two good reasons to - one, there's a sadness connected to Wales that I wanted to set up from the get-go; two, I read historical novels too, though I know how they end, so that can't be that much of a put-off!

Enjoy! =D

Aaaaand before you go ahead, please welcome two new people who have joined us recently! Hi there, Charlotte and Brian! (And no worries, art to come!)

On that note - would anyone be interested in a "studio tour"? (I'm putting that in inverted commas because my study is not a studio, and still cramped, but I spent all day yesterday de-trashing it, and it's now presentable for the first time in this decade, ha!)

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Prologue

Northern Tangnafedd

December, 1318

The mewling of two dozen gulls accompanied the small fishing boat making its way towards the shore, icy spray foaming up at its prow. Gravel crunched as it rolled up on the shore. The fisherman jumped into the water, and dragged the boat all the way onto the sand. Shivering with cold in his clammy homespun, he looked back at the cloaked and hooded figure sitting on the bench. His passenger didn’t move, and with the light of the dying sun directly behind him, it was hard to make out his face. He was turned in the direction of the beach on front of them, towards the narrow, flat stretch of sand overlooked by rugged cliffs. Half a mile up the coastline, the gleaming walls of the castle were to be seen.

“Well, there you go, sir.”

The passenger still made no move, and for a moment, the fisherman wondered whether he’d fallen asleep. Or died. He was an old man after all, and that kind shouldn’t be crossing the Strait on a December evening such as this.

Finally, the man rose heavily from his seat. He declined the fisherman’s assistance as he shouldered two large bundles. One was a much-mended leather satchel, the other, a rather large and heavy-looking object wrapped in so many layers of tattered cloth and worn leather that it was impossible to guess what it was.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. His voice, the fisherman noted again, belied his age; it still held power, and there was something else – a musical lilt that identified the passenger as one born east of the Strait, in Rhyddion. “This is for your trouble.” From a pouch on his belt, the old man took two silver pennies and pressed them into the fisherman’s hand.

“Thank you kindly, good sir!” the fisherman man said, and hurried to add, “If you need help – you know, finding someplace to sleep – there’s an inn I know of, and there’s the abbey, o’ course. Sir.”

The old man slowly clambered over the ship’s port side, shouldering his bundles. His left leg was stiff and didn’t bend, but this time, too, he ignored the fisherman’s proffered hand.

“Who lives there now?” he asked, looking up at the castle, as if he hadn’t even heard the fisherman’s offer.

The fisherman scratched his head as he followed his glance. “This new Earl of Tangnafedd. Some Saexon lord. Cousin of Edward’s, I think. Rebuilt the whole thing.”

“Is it still called Caer Aderyn?”

“Caer Aderyn? No… it’s Maerni Lasiapel.”

“Marigny-la-Chapelle,” the old man murmured to himself, as if savouring an unpleasant taste.

He stood motionless, stooping under the weight of his packs as the surf splashed gently against his worn boots. Even so, he towered over the fisherman by half a head. Finally, he tore his gaze from the castle.

“And you said there’s an inn there?”

“Yes, ’bout half an hour’s walk if you follow that path northward. Maybe more,” the fisherman amended with a glance at the old man’s stiff leg.

The man nodded, and started to limp up the beach towards a narrow footpath that led up the cliff.

“The abbey’s nearer,” the fisherman shouted after him, in a final attempt at courtesy, or maybe in a final attempt to earn himself another silver penny.

The old man turned. Under his hood, the sun now illuminated at least part of his face; a narrow, lined face with a white beard still peppered with some black. He smiled, but there was a hint of bitterness in his dark brown eyes.

“My thanks,” he said. “But abbeys and I have never got along well.”

***

Most of the gulls had stayed with the fishing boat in hopes of morsels; a few still circled above the traveller now as he slowly made his way along the road, their cries the only familiar thing in this strange place that had once been home. The sun was low in the West, a blood-red shimmer above the water. It was getting hard to see the road.

The castle still gleamed oddly, its new and even walls catching some stray remnants of daylight while everything around it descended into blackness. A beacon of unfamiliarity. The traveller could not help but wonder what had happened to the old castle that had stood in its place. Had they torn down Caer Aderyn, erased its very existence from the memory of the land? Or had they incorporated it into the new, a wild, Rhyddian thing caged in Saexon walls?

He walked towards lights of a town springing up – more houses, some of them with two storeys, workers’ huts, a wharf, several fishing boats, a marketplace. Building that castle must have meant a lot of work, and a lot of hungry mouths. Now that it was built, and the hungry mouths had stayed, the town meant taxes.

A clatter of hooves and clanging of armour made him look back. Behind him, a small group of soldiers was approaching, all in gleaming mail and wide-brimmed iron hats, with spears and bright surcoats bearing a black chevron on a yellow field, the coat of arms of the new Earl of Tangnafedd. Their leader was on horseback, and the rest were marching briskly. The sight conjured a memory, a lifetime removed but etched clearly into his mind, of different soldiers and a different commander under the same banner, of a bridge at dusk and broken pottery in the swirling water.

For a fleeting moment, the old man contemplated not making way, felt a rush of excitement at the absurd idea, like a little boy playing at war with grown men.

Then he reminded himself that he had seen more war than the young lads in their bright mail, and needed no more of it.

He stepped off the road to let the soldiers pass. None of them spared him a second glance.

The traveller looked after them for a long while as they marched towards the castle, reluctant to share the road with the soldiers. When they were nothing more than a small, glinting noise far away, he slowly set himself into motion again and limped on.

He would not stay long. This castle, this town – it all meant nothing to him. There were other places that beckoned, places that called out to an old man who had spent a lifetime far from home.

Saint Elen’s Cross.

If he could muster the courage, Rhydowen. A harsh, bleak field on a harsh, bleak December night.

There was nothing else left for him to do.

The inn was small, and looked as any wooden longhouse in Tangnafedd. There was no inn sign, indicating that everyone likely to stop here knew the place, or knew someone else who did.

A wave of warmth welcomed him as he entered, together with the combined smells of food, wood smoke on old beams, and men after a long working day. Three tables were occupied by fishermen and other workers, talking. One man was telling a tale.

“The queen then wept for seven weeks, but finally, she became pregnant a third time. Again, just before she would give birth, she had troubling dreams; in them, she saw a large crow fly into her chamber and kill the babe with its beak…”

The stranger smiled to himself.

Heads turned in his direction, but quickly returned to their respective conversations when it became apparent that there was nothing very remarkable about him. A not-quite young, not-quite pretty woman serving ale sized him up, and disregarded him just as quickly. The innkeeper did not; he came bustling towards him.

“G’devening,” he said. “Staying the night?”

The old man nodded, shaking off his damp hood to reveal a shock of white hair.

“You travelling alone?” the innkeeper asked. “Any animals to look to? Horse? Mule?”

“No,” the traveller replied. “Just me.”

The storyteller’s voice carried over to them, and the old man turned to listen. “And behold, at midnight there was a flapping of wings, and a large crow came into the chamber and landed on the bed in which the baby was sleeping. But the king cast a sling over the bird and drew it tight about its head, and held up the crow by the neck.

“ ‘King,’ said the crow, ‘I have done thee no evil; let me go.’

“ ‘Thou wouldst have slain my newly-born son, and for this crime, thou shalt die.’

“ ‘A crime that has not been done need not be avenged,’ said the crow. ‘Let me be free, and name thy son after me. And he shall be blessed with all the gifts I have to give…’ ”

“…strength of spirit, foresight, and power over life and death,” the old man murmured under his breath, just as the storyteller said the words.

The innkeeper shouted for a boy to take the old man’s baggage, but when the boy was about to hoist up the strangely shaped bundle, the traveller shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll keep this with me.”

The boy clumsily handed back the bundle, slipped, and the stranger caught it by a fistful of cloth, hastening to grip the instrument that had slid out of its covers.

“Careful!” he snapped, taking care to wrap it again.

“A harp?” the innkeeper exclaimed, delighted, suddenly with a far more cordial expression towards the stranger. The men at the tables turned around as well, now giving the man much more favourable looks.

“A song!” the storyteller exclaimed. “Sing us something, harper!” His shout was taken up by the others, who looked at him with great anticipation.

The stranger knitted his brows, unhappy with the direction things were taking. “My apologies,” he said. “I’m not in the mood for a song.”

“Maybe later?” the innkeeper hurried to say.

The old man looked at the hope in their faces, and didn’t have the heart to give them an outright no. He had the sudden impression that hope was thin on the ground around here. He sat heavily on a stool in the corner of the room, with a mumble that might have passed for a maybe.

When the innkeeper set a mug of ale and a bowl of oats and fish on his table, the other men were returning to their conversations, and while the traveller ate and drank, he listened. Most of it was their daily work, the autumn storms, fishing trips, but they all returned again and again to taxes.

“They’s worse’n scavengers,” a heavy-set man said, spitting into the floor rushes. “Leave us less’n a plague of locusts, building their castles everywhere.”

“They took half o’ my son-in-law’s sheep this summer. Said they hadn’t paid their taxes in a sixmonth and they were lucky to be left half of ’em. All because them Saexon lords likes their mutton.”

“Locusts, I say they are, them Saexons. Like a plague from Scripture.” The others mumbled their agreement.

A bald man nodded vigorously. “We never paid this many taxes even during Llywelyn’s war. Bless him,” he added, slightly raising his voice as if daring anyone to defy him, but all of them dipped their heads in shared respect.

“I fought with Llywelyn at Caerllew,” said the heavy-set man who had spoken earlier, raising his mug. “Course, I was only a strip of a lad then. But I’ll never forget that day. Stiflin’ hot it was. An’ he rode past on that white destrier he used to ride, telling us to kick the Saexons’ arses straight to hell. Six’n a half feet tall, he was, the golden Lion of Tangnafedd.”

“To the Lion of Tangnafedd!” the bald man said in a challenging tone. The other men raised their mugs, also at the other tables in the room – all except the stranger, who sat staring into his bowl of oats.

“What about you, old man?” the heavyset man called over. “Won’t you drink to our Llywelyn?” His tone was belligerent.

The old man made no move.

“What are you?” the bald man snarled. “A Saexon in disguise? Yet you talk like a man of Rhyddion. What’s wrong with you? First you won’ sing for us, and now you won’ share a toast with us?”

The men’s grumbling stopped as the old man slowly turned and spoke. He didn’t even raise his voice, but quiet as it was, it filled the entire room.

“You want a song? A song of glory, of splendid heroes, of great triumph? A song to warm a bleak December night? That’s not what I can sing you. It’s something my harp can no longer play. All it plays sounds hollow. In its song, the glory has died, the heroes rot in a field, the triumph lies in ruins, ruins swarming with locusts.”

The entire room had fallen silent, every eye watching him.

“What I am? I am both a bard and a bastard. In my veins flows the blood of princes and that of crows. I am one who fought at Caerllew. I also fought at Llanarth, and what feels like a hundred other places. Yes, it was stifling hot. There was the stink of three thousand men, nearly half of them shitting out their bowels. Llywelyn’s horse was bay. He was nowhere near six and a half feet tall. And he never said anything about kicking Saexon arses anywhere. That was not my brother’s style.”

The stranger slowly bent to unwrap his harp. The wood was richly carved but badly chipped in places, with a deep crack down the soundboard, a prized possession that he could never have parted with even though he hadn’t found anyone skilled enough to repair it, and never would have replaced by a new one.

Nobody spoke as the old man slowly propped his good leg up against the stool and set the harp upon it, deliberately, almost reverently.

“You want a song?” he repeated quietly. “Perhaps that is why I’m here this night. Listen, then. Listen to the song of Llywelyn the Last. Listen to what is left of glory, and heroes, and triumph in Rhyddion. And commit it to memory. So that, perhaps, all of this – glory, heroes, triumph, even Llywelyn – may live on in songs, though nights be bleak and harps be hollow.”

The men listened, silent, as the music of the old harp and the old man’s voice filled the room, taking them back to a time of sixty years ago, long enough for most of them to remember nothing of. It was a time when no towns sprawled on the countryside, when castles were few and crumbling, and when the Saexon tongue had been all but unheard this far in the West.