King Arthur

M3 Gerraint: Tara to Avalon, part 1 of 4

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“My word.”  Peredur spoke first.  The elf maiden had fallen on top of him and appeared content to lay her head on his chest and smile.

“Up, girl,” Macreedy said.  “He may be injured.”

“I don’t think so,” Peredur said quickly.

“Everyone present?”  Arthur asked.

“All present, sir,” Bedivere said.  He already made the count.

“I say, though.  I never knew there was a hole in the old Tor.  What is this place we have gotten to?”  Mesalwig asked.  He seemed to have ruled Ireland out as impossible.

“Tara,” Trevor said, not doubting in the slightest as his eyes got big.

“Tara,” Uwaine said with plain certainty.

“Tara,” Gwynyvar said, a bit breathless.

“Dusty,” Gerraint said and wiped his fingers across one column.

“What say you, Macreedy?”  Gwillim asked, and then wished he hadn’t.  The glamour that made Macreedy appear as a man had gone.  His true elf nature showed fully evident, creepily evident as Trevor’s shriek indicated.  The same was true of the elf maidens.  Bedivere looked startled, even though he knew better.  Arthur and Gwynyvar already knew, and Lancelot surmised as much.  He had long since ceased to question such things.  Uwaine did not bat an eye, but Peredur asked sweetly if he could touch his lady’s ears.  She blushed as he did.  Gwillim looked at least momentarily terrified.

“Are we all being transfigured?”  Gwillim wondered and touched his person over and over.  “What bewitchery is this?”

Mesalwig surprised Gerraint by finally accepting things at face value.  “So, this is Tara,” he admitted at last, and he poked his finger at Gerraint.  “I always suspected there was something about you.  Meryddin suggested as much more than once.”

Before Gerraint could respond, there came a flash of blinding light, and fires burst up all around, though no one got burnt.  They heard the woman’s voice.

“Who dares desecrate the halls of Tara with mortal flesh?”  The goddess appeared, and in such glory even the great men of Christ felt the need to humble themselves on their knees.  Only Gwynyvar remained standing, though that may have been because she became petrified.  Gerraint stood, but he simply looked cross.

“Bridgid.”  Gerraint named the goddess.  “Come here.”  His voice sounded stern and clearly the goddess looked taken aback by this unprecedented response to her glorious presence.  “Come here.”  Gerraint spoke with some force.  The goddess hesitated, and then walked slowly in Gerraint’s direction, a most curious expression on her face.

“Why are you still here?”  Gerraint asked the question, and then he got more direct.  “You should have crossed over long ago with the others.  The time of Dissolution is passed.”

“What do you know of such things?”  Bridgid wondered.

“Rebellious child,” Gerraint said.  He saw her back arch.

“Who are you?  I am the goddess.  I decide what will be.  My will be done.”  Her ire was rising and the others, including the little spirits cowered.  But by then she got in Gerraint’s face, and he did not hesitate.  He slapped her hard enough to knock her to the ground, and the shock of her feeling his slap only got tempered by the sting in her cheek.

“Get thee to a nunnery, Ophelia,” Gerraint said, even as he went away and the Danna came to stand in his place.

“Mother?”  Bridgid looked up.  “Manannan said.  But I didn’t believe him.  Mother?”  Danna opened her arms and Bridgid rushed into them and immediately began to cry on Danna’s chest.  “I’ve been so alone, but for the Formor of few words and no grace.  Mother, help me.  I am tired.  I cannot keep the way any longer.  I want to go home.  Please.”  And Danna remembered how Bridgid had been left to guard the way to Avalon, and she understood in that moment what Gerraint had not understood.

“You failed, child,” Danna said and stroked Bridged’s hair gently from her eyes.  “But all is not lost.  I will close the way,” she said, firmly.  “And you must have a child.  Yes.  Kildare, I believe.  Then you will understand the value of a child in the hands of evil men”

“But…”

“Hush.  Then you can go home.  I promise, only make sure your child is a true child of the church.”

“Mother?”  It felt hard to say if Bridgid objected or became offended.

“I mean it.”  Danna shook her finger at the girl.  “You failed.  It is the only way.”

Bridgid lowered her eyes.  Her mouth did not have to say, “Yes mother.”  The sentiment was there.  Danna, meanwhile, had blunted the awesome nature of the goddess so the others were beginning to stir.

“You lived as the Danu.”  Gwynyvar gasped as she understood what had been hidden from her.

“The Don.”  Lancelot gave the continental name for the goddess.

“That explains a bit,” Arthur said, though he knew this already.

“Yes, well I was hoping I would not have to make my presence known,” Danna said.  “This is Gerraint’s life after all, and you must remember, he is as ordinary and mortal as any of you.”

“Not quite, I think,” Gwillim said.  He really had a hard time swallowing all that was happening.

“Oh, but mother.  Oh dear!”  Bridgid interrupted and then got quiet.  Danna became Gerraint once more and he leaned over and tenderly kissed Bridgid’s hot cheek, the one he had slapped in his unthinking anger.  It had been his fear for Enid and Guimier that ruled him for a moment, and Bridgid accepted that, even if she did not entirely understand it.  Bridgid’s mouth opened.  “But mother.”  She still called Gerraint by that name.  “I have done the most terrible thing.  I see that now.  I did not understand.  But that Abraxas asked so kindly.  I let the others through ahead of you.”  Bridgid braced herself, half expecting to be slapped again.

Gerraint merely stroked her cheek, gently.  “I know,” he said.  Danna had figured it out.  “Enid?”  It became a question.

“Oh, the Lady and child are fine.  Lovely.  I am so happy for you.”  Bridgid felt genuine about that.

“Go on.”  Gerraint said and let her go.  “Only raise your child in the Lord as well.  Then you will understand.  Then you can pass over.”

Bridgid had to swallow hard before she said, “I will.”  It was as near to a promise as one ever got from a god.

“Go on.  Rhiannon and Manannan will follow after,” Gerraint said.

“And Gwyn?”  Bridgid started to speak, but quickly bit her tongue.

Gerraint almost slapped his hand to his face.  Another one?

“Pleased to meet all of you,” Bridgid said quickly, though they had not been introduced.  She gave everyone her best smile and decided the better part for her was to back away.  She vanished, but that did not prevent Gerraint from shouting.

“Kildare!”  Perhaps she was still listening.

“I didn’t follow all of that.”  Bedivere admitted what most felt.

Gerraint sighed before he explained what he could.  “She was to guard the way to Avalon of the Apples to be sure it stayed closed to all but the gods,” he said.  “She failed at the end, when it mattered the most and let the others through ahead of us.”

“Kildare is penance.”  Arthur grasped at understanding.

Gerraint nodded.  “It is the only way.”

“But say.”  Gwillim had a question.  “Why have you been calling it Avalon of the Apples?”

“Because the real Avalon is an island apart.  This Avalon, the island of the apples is the island given to the children of Danna when the Celts first came up into the land.”  Gerraint said.  He began to walk down the long columned hall and the others followed.  The evidence that this place had been virtually abandoned for centuries was everywhere in the dark and dank hall.  “The Irish call the island Tir na-nOg.”

“The island of the living, the promises, the young, courage and honor; the land over the sea, the land over the water.  It has many names.”  Luckless spoke up.

“Hy Brassail,” Macreedy added.

“The treasures the men seek are called Celtic treasures, but in reality, they are not.  They are ever so much older than the Celts.  In fact, they were first put away when the Celts came up into the land.   The Gods also backed away from daily life among the people.  Some went underground, but some came to the island in the second heavens which had been given to them.  Avalon of the Apples.”

“I thought it was given to Manannan,” Trevor interrupted.

“Well, it is surrounded by the sea,” Gerraint responded, but he explained no further.  Then he shrugged.  “This was common in the last five hundred years or so before the time of dissolution.  Olympus was not seen much after Troy.  The Egyptians were not much in evidence after the collapse of the New kingdom.  The Middle East withdrew after Babylon fell to the Persians.”

“Dissolution?”  Gwillim was the one to ask.

“When the gods of old gave up their flesh and blood,” Gerraint said.  “The spirits remain active, but now they are deaf, dumb and blind, and work only as directed by the Spirit of the Most-High God.”

“The Lord has come.”  Once again, Arthur grasped at understanding.

“And so have we,” Gerraint said.

M3 Gerraint: Glastonbury Tor, part 3 of 3

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Macreedy led them along in a zigzag pattern, but always stayed within the bounds of the path.   They could see the lightning crashing across the sky and charging into the tree tops as if trying to get at them.  It became slow going for this short leg of the journey, but they could not go faster as the elements all seemed arrayed against them.  No one spoke, though they could hardly hear each other above the thunder.  Then again, by that point no one seemed in the mood to speak.

There were no mishaps.  After the mud, everyone felt perfectly willing to follow Macreedy’s path; but then just before the seventh and last turn, when the rain slackened to a drizzle, the bugs, dust and mud had become only nominally annoying, and the wind dropped to tolerable levels, Macreedy himself got surprised.

“You shall not pass.”

It looked like a man, armored, sword drawn; except that he stood a good seven feet tall and skinny as a pole.  He looked almost like bones to which a small bit of flesh barely clung.  Every man there got ready to draw sword against the enemy.  Gerraint had to yell fast.

“Hold to your charges!  Do not let go, no matter what!”

Everyone stopped.  They could hardly fight and still hold on to an elf maiden.  Macreedy, at the same time, kept Arthur’s sword arm pinned.

“Damn it, man,” Arthur swore, but Macreedy would not let go.

“What right have you to keep me from my home?”  Gerraint spoke boldly as he drew Wyrd, the sword of fate.

“Your home?”  The tall man laughed.  The swords rang once against each other and the men began to circle to gauge their opponent and look for a weak point to attack.  Clearly, both knew the craft, and well.

“Of course it is my home.  I took it.  I built it,” Gerraint said.  The swords rang again, and the circling continued. “I cleaned out the Formor vermin.”

The circling stopped.  The giant roared and advanced suddenly.  Gerraint got caught by surprise, but he was too much of a seasoned soldier to go down to a berserker.  Anger is generally not a good tactic.  Gerraint parried, side stepped and ran his sword along the man’s stomach and arm.  He did not make a deep wound, hardly life threatening, but it was first blood.

The giant stopped, hand on stomach.  It lifted its’ hand as if utterly surprised by the blood.  It looked at the drips with incomprehension in its eyes, and spoke at last.  “I’m bleeding,” the giant said.  “In twice times two thousand years I have never been bled.”  It spun to face Gerraint.  “Who are you?”

Gerraint now looked puzzled.  “Who are you?”

“I am Damien.  Last of the Formor.  But I’m bleeding.”  Damien could just not grasp the concept.

“But you should not be here,” Gerraint said, quickly.  “Why haven’t you passed over to the other side?  The time for dissolution is near five hundred years gone.  Why are you still here?”

Damien had to struggle a minute to answer.  “To protect the beauty of loveliness,” Damien said.

“What?”

“Who.”  Damien started coming to his senses.  “She who remains of Tara.”

“Rhiannon?”  Gerraint guessed, but the Formor shook his head.  “You mean there is another one?  God preserve me from all my disobedient children!”

“Your children?”  The Formor stared at him, and it was not a kindly look.  The stomach still dripped, but the arm already started crusting over.

“I am the Kairos,” Gerraint said, with a glimpse at his companions.  “That is all you need to know, but maybe you can figure out the rest for yourself.”

The Formor opened his mouth and shut it almost as quickly, finally lowered his eyes.  Gerraint wiped and sheathed his sword.  The Formor lunged, but found Gerraint’s long knife planted deep in the giant’s chest.

“She will not be far behind you,” Gerraint said, as the giant’s eyes rolled up and the Formor collapsed to the ground.  The flesh and blood and bone that had been, decayed rapidly and became dust to be carried off on the wind.  Gerraint retrieved his blade.

“Treachery of the highest order,” Macreedy said.

“Unknowing and innocent, perhaps,” Gerraint felt gracious.  “But now we must hurry.”

“Clearly,” Arthur agreed.  No one wanted to say outright that she who was left at Tara, whoever the beauty of loveliness was, might very well have helped the others find their way to Avalon.

They turned the seventh turn, and all went calm, but it became like the stillness before the tornado.  “Get down.” Several voices rang at once, but they were hardly heard above the din.  It sounded to Gerraint like the train had leapt from the tracks.

“Hold on!  Before and behind!”  People linked up like their own little train and inched forward.

“Damn, disobedient, teen-aged, doofuses, dipsticks.”  Gerraint moved forward with each word, dragged Macreedy along as Macreedy had hold of Gerraint’s ankle with his free hand.  His other hand was still clamped around Arthur’s arm while Arthur got preoccupied holding on to his boot where Mesalwig seemed to have a death grip.

“Dern, indifferent, indescribable, daughter!”

The wind began to whip Gwynyvar’s dress into her legs and cause sharp pain, and once it appeared to grab her and tried to lift her from the ground altogether.  Luckless and Lancelot both had to grab her to keep her grounded, and Lancelot’s elf maiden had to wrap her arms around Lancelot’s neck to ride on his back.

“There’s no place like home.  There’s no place like home,” Gerraint shouted.

“You’re weird,” Arthur shouted back.

“Thank you,” Gerraint said, and he almost lost his grip on the dirt.  “Stop it!”  He began to shout.  “Stop it!”  The force of the wind arrayed against them became unbearable.  He yelled a third time, “Stop it!”  And the wind stopped, suddenly and absolutely, and everyone fell forward into a hole and landed in the dirt with a thump.

************************

MONDAY

Everyone lands in Tara only to be confronted by the guardian goddess, and she is not happy with having intruders in her home.  Monday: Tara to Avalon.  Until then, Happy Reading.

*

M3 Gerraint: Glastonbury Tor, part 2 of 3

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“Mmm.”  Gerraint nodded before Luckless said too much about the Lady’s virtues to trigger a jealous spell in Lolly.  “We don’t know what we will find on the other side.  This whole thing smells of intrigue and powers at work.”

“Yes, I heard that Abraxas fellow has been poking around this area.”  Luckless pulled his beard.  “I hope we don’t have to tangle with him again.”

“I think Talesin may be tangled up here as well.”  Gerraint finally admitted what he felt way back in Arthur’s court when those ghostly hands carried the ghostly cauldron across the room.

“That breed child of the Danna-Fee has been no end of trouble.”  Luckless shook his head to give Gerraint all his sympathy.

“Yes, you would think after four thousand years he would grow out of that teenage rebellious stage,” Gerraint said.  “But the point is, I don’t know what we will find in Tara when we arrive, or on Avalon of the Apples if we must go there.  Your job is to stay with the Lady, no matter what, and be sure no harm comes to her.”

“Yes.”  Luckless thought about it.  “I see what you mean by hard duty.”

“You understand?”  Gerraint asked.

Luckless nodded and they were introduced and paired up, ready at last for the journey.

“Bear to the left,” Macreedy said at the stone of starting, and they began the seven-fold path to the top.

Gerraint had to concentrate a little to make the magic work.  It was magic given to him; not natural like for the others.  Then again, the others had to concentrate a little as well to bring their charges along with them.  The result was most of the conversation ran between the humans, and little else got said.

The morning began spring beautiful, but after the first turn, it felt like they walked into an oven.  Everyone began to sweat, except the elf maidens, and the people began to think that perhaps they should have packed less thoroughly.  They told a few jokes about what they did not need to bring, but no one complained, yet.

After the second turn, the wind picked up.  Not far along, the dust began to blow up in their faces.

“Can’t hardly see where we’re going,” Gwillim said.

“Yes, you would think after all the rain we had it would be too muddy to blow dust,” Mesalwig responded.

“I’ve a feeling things are just beginning,” Uwaine said, softly.

“Don’t look at me,” Bedivere said.  “I’m practicing keeping my mouth shut this time.”

“Ours is not to reason why,” Lancelot started again.

“Knock it off,” Gerraint interrupted.

“Ooo, the bugs!”  Gwynyvar objected for everyone.  As they made the third turn, the bugs came with the dust and heat.  They flew up in their faces, like the people were race cars and the bugs were trying to splatter against the windshields, though they had no windshields.

“What do you mean you have a recipe for spite bugs?”  Everyone heard Trevor’s objection, and it did sound rather awful.  Everyone tried to keep their mouths closed, and as far as possible, their eyes as well.  Some of the flies were rather large, and some were rather bloody when they splattered against the arms and legs.

“Now, it is a pleasant journey,” Peredur said, held tight to his elf maiden, and smiled as much as he could.  No one could tell if he was serious or not, so no one responded.

“I must say, this never happened when we were working on the fort,” Mesalwig added, but by then they reached the fourth turn.

They all heard a loud crack of thunder. No one saw the lightning, but at once the sky opened up in torrents of rain.  The sky had been virtually clear of clouds only moments earlier.  No one could see but a few feet ahead, and they had to shout to be heard above the crash of the water.

Macreedy tried to pick up the pace as much as possible, but they were slow going against the squall.

“At least it might lessen the damn heat,” Lancelot yelled.

“God willing.”  Gwillim puffed a little from the climb.

They began to feel the water at their feet.  It cascaded down the path, and the water started rising.  “It will only get worse if we don’t hurry,” Macreedy spoke at last.

It got ankle deep at the half-way point, and at their knees by the time they neared the turn.  No flash flood ever bore such strength as it seemed to want to push them from the path and keep them from completing the journey.

“Ah!”  Gwynyvar shrieked and would have been washed away if Luckless had not held tight to her hand.  Lancelot grabbed her other hand, and they pulled her ahead, and lifted her at the last and pushed through the water by sheer determination.  Neither the elf maidens nor Luckless let go that whole time.  They did not seem as effected by the flood as the others.  Then they rounded turn five, and the rain stopped as suddenly as it started.

“Beware the quick mud,” Macreedy warned.  “Once it grips you, it won’t let go as easily as quicksand.”

Everyone paused.  Without a word, they all felt it prudent to let Gerraint, Arthur and Macreedy pick out the safe way, and they followed in their steps.  Without the heat, the dust, the bugs and the rain, this leg did not seem so bad, provided they were careful.  The elf maidens guided their charges well, and only Trevor became temporarily stuck when his foot slipped on a wet rock and landed in the mud.

“Help.”  He yelled briefly before he thought to pull his foot from his boot.  They watched the boot get sucked under in only a few seconds and it made all sorts of disgusting gurgling sounds in the process.

They were nearing the top when they made turn six.  It looked from the turn like a pleasant walk.  They even found some trees at this level, and with the shade they felt that at last the heat might not be too oppressive; but then everything returned with a vengeance—the wind, the dust, the bugs and the rain, and this time the lightning came with it.

M3 Gerraint: Glastonbury Tor, part 1 of 3

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They did not leave as early in the morning as Gerraint would have liked.  Despite Rhiannon’s claim of protection, he started getting very worried.  All the same, they arrived at Glastonbury before nightfall, and Mesalwig made them a great feast.  No telling exactly what the old man thought of Arthur and his companions at that point, or how he might respond to the presence of Gwynyvar, whom he once held captive for nearly a year, but there was no doubt of his interest in adventuring on the quest, once the details had been explained to him.

“The old fort at the top has been torn down,” Mesalwig explained.  “I must tell you, after a series of terrible dreams I took great pains not to ruin the spirals.  Apparently, it worked the same for my father when he built the fort after the Romans left.  I had no idea the paths went anywhere, though.  But say, how can we climb a hill in the marshes and end up in Ireland?  It makes no sense to me.”

“Me, either,” Gwillim admitted.

“Ours is not to reason why.”  Lancelot started, having heard Gerraint use the expression often enough; but this time Gerraint interrupted him.

“It is part of the old ways itself,” he said.  “I am still reluctant to travel that way, but there appears to be no other choice.”

“But will they be there?”  Arthur generally questioned everything.  It was one of his talents, to help men find the way for themselves and take their own ownership of the results.

Gerraint nodded slowly.  “We should arrive just before or just after them if I calculated correctly.”

“After?”  Arthur wondered.

“The way to Avalon from Tara is hidden and difficult.  Even after should be sufficient to catch them.  I can’t imagine they can get the kind of help that would move them along quickly from Tara,” Gerraint said.

“That would be a betrayal of the first order,” Macreedy agreed.  He looked at Gerraint.  Both knew it was possible, but neither was willing to speculate further on the matter.

“So, will you be building a new fort at the top?”  Lancelot got curious and always thought in military terms.

Mesalwig shook his head.  “Not with the Saxons cowed.  All I see is peace.  Maybe I’ll give it to the church.”

“Not a bad choice,” Peredur said.

“What a waste,” Macreedy mumbled at about the same time.

Mesalwig looked at his ale and then smiled.  “As for me, I would like to know about these maids you have taken for you hand.”  He turned the conversation in Gwynyvar’s direction.

“Not mine,” Gwynyvar said, though the maids sat around her and to some extent behind her, depending on the Lady’s protection in this strange land.  “These are Macreedy’s daughters, if the report is true.”  She did not doubt Macreedy, exactly, but like Arthur, she knew enough to know the little ones sometimes played loose with relationships and were not inclined to complete truthfulness in any case.

“True enough,” Macreedy said and looked at Gerraint again.  He wrinkled his face where Mesalwig could not see, took a deep breath and another swig of Mesalwig’s home brew.  Gerraint caught the thought from Macreedy who wondered how humans could survive on such bile.  Macreedy imagined it was one reason why humans lived such a short lifetime.  In this case, though, the rest of the crew had an equally hard time swallowing the stuff, except for Peredur, who seemed to have had his taste buds blunted with age, and Gwillim, who seemed a man who could wring pleasure out of almost anything he could get past his lips.  Finally, Gerraint’s answer to the problem was a simple one.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to bed down,” he said.  “I would appreciate an early start in the morning.”  He started off, but Gwynyvar reached for his hand.

“I am sure they are all right,” she said.  “I am believing and praying with all of my heart.”

“Here, here.”  Several agreed.

Gerraint just smiled and went to bed.

After a nearly sleepless night, Gerraint woke everyone at dawn.  They made him wait for a good breakfast, and then wait again while they packed such supplies as they imagined they might need.  The elf maidens packed nothing, of course, and looked as fresh as the springtime they inhabited.  Macreedy waited patiently and only Gerraint understood how difficult that was for him.  Bedivere got impatient for the both of them.  Uwaine learned to be more sensible about such matters.

At last they traveled the short way to the hill.  The marshes seemed especially soggy from all of the spring rains and winter melt, but they walked a wood plank path that led to the base of the oval hill.

“The stone of starting is just a little way up,” Macreedy said.  He held Arthur’s arm.  Arthur joked that he wasn’t that old yet, but he understood.  Besides, it seemed Macreedy had things he wanted to discuss with the Christian Lord, and Arthur knew any conversation would be better than none on a long, dreary climb.

The six elf maidens had others by the hand.  They were Uwaine, Bedivere, Peredur, Gwillim, Mesalwig and Lancelot.  Gerraint looked around for his other escorts, but did not have to look hard.

“Well met,” Macreedy called out as they climbed.  His sharp elf eyes saw the hidden couple well in advance of the others.  Luckless and Lolly waited by the stone of starting.  Gerraint immediately took them aside.

“Lolly, I apologize, but you will have to escort Trevor.  He is a would-be sailor, but in truth he is a cook, and a rather good one as far as humans go.”

Lolly’s eyes brightened.  She wondered how this man knew her so well, Kairos though he might be.  “Maybe we could share some recipes along the way,” she thought out loud.

“I knew I could count on you,” Gerraint said, with a smile, and he turned to Luckless.

“True to your name, you will have the hard duty,” he said.

“Wouldn’t expect less.”  Luckless sighed.  “It is my lot in life, you know.”

“Yes, well, you will have to escort the Lady Gwynyvar,” Gerraint said.

“I am honored,” Luckless said, and he looked genuinely pleased, almost too pleased for Lolly.  “But I thought you said hard duty.”  He knew the Kairos well enough to squint and wait for the other shoe to drop.

M3 Gerraint: Kidnapped, part 3 of 3

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“Eh?”  Several people wondered what Gerraint had in mind.

“I say,” Gwillim spoke up.  “But I doubt the holy men, respected as they are, could write a safe passage for men across Ireland.  I mean, the Irish and British churches have not been on the best of terms since Arthur, er, we began courting Rome.”

“I meant the Tor,” Gerraint said.

“The mountain in the marshland?”  Trevor named the place, but it came out as a question, and Gerraint nodded.

“Might old Chief Mesalwig interfere?”  Lancelot asked.

“That’s right.”  Gwillim remembered.  “You have not exactly been on best of terms since the day he borrowed your Gwynyvar.”

“Impetuous, hot-headed youth,” Arthur responded.  “A simple misunderstanding at the time.”

Bedivere looked confused.  Uwaine explained.  “Every one of us was a hot-headed youth at one time or another.  Even Arthur, Gerraint and even Peredur, I assume.”  Bedivere looked like he hardly believed it.

Peredur nodded.  “Ambosius’ right arm against Vortigen and his Saxons.”  Peredur said and held up his right arm to bulge his muscle, but he had an old arm that looked rather frail.

“No, gentlemen,” Gerraint said.  “This is one journey I will have to take alone.”

“What?  No.”  The others objected.  Arthur was the only one to ask.

“Why?”

“And what is the point of the Tor, if the Glastonbury monks are not the answer?”  Gwillim wondered.

Gerraint paused, as he often did to think through his words before saying too much.  He finally shrugged.  He thought he might not survive this one; but he would rescue Enid, and Guimier would have a full life with at least her mother there to watch her grow.  He confessed to Arthur, first.  “Back in the day when you received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, the little ones were prepared to join us in the war against Claudus.  I would not let them.”

Arthur looked surprised, and rubbed his chin.  He about said they could have used the help, but held his tongue.

Gerraint waved his hands. “They ignored me and helped anyway.”

“I know the feeling,” Arthur said quietly.

Gerraint continued.  “There were some, though, who were determined.  As I slept, they endowed me with such powers as the little ones have.  I got pretty mad when I first found out.  They said they just wanted to do all they could, and I could not stay mad at them.  It was a lovely gift.  I have not depended on such, but I have found some things useful now and then.”

They all listened patiently.  Most nodded.  Some were more than curious.  Gerraint turned to Gwillim.  “The Labyrinth of the Tor,” Gerraint explained.  “It is a road, like all labyrinths.  It is a way the little ones can use to get from here to there in a hurry.  The one on the Tor links to the home of the old gods at Tara.  Unfortunately, I haven’t the strength to take you with me.”

“But the little people have great magic,” Trevor objected.  “Why should they need roads?”

“They aren’t particularly little people,” Lancelot said.  “Most are human enough in size.”

“Some are bigger,” Arthur got to thinking.  “Much bigger than you want.”

“But they are not gods or greater spirits, or even lesser spirits to journey by magic just anywhere,” Gerraint said.  “I call them little ones, not because of their size, but because they are the little spirits of the Earth.”

Trevor still did not understand, and Bedivere looked confused again as well.  Uwaine took up the explanation as Gerraint turned back to the window.

“They generally need some physical point, some focal point to make the magic work.  They need pixie dust, wands, potions and the like.  They need something tangible.”

“Like a road,” Gwillim said, putting the thoughts together.

“I don’t like you going it alone,” Arthur said.  “You may well need us.”

“I don’t like going alone, either,” Gerraint admitted.

“Nor do I.”  The men stood.  Gwynyvar was in the doorway and a man stood beside her.

“Macreedy!”  Gwillim shouted and stepped up to shake the man’s hand.  Trevor smiled.  Uwaine looked at Gerraint, but Gerraint also smiled.  The little ones could generally be counted on for uncanny timing.

“I heard of the trouble,” Macreedy said.  “I hastened on with the ladies to be of assistance.”

“Come in.  Come in.”  Gwillim insisted

Macreedy hesitated.  “I heard only Christians were welcome at the table of Arthur.”  He looked at Gerraint.  Arthur also looked up at Gerraint.

“I can see in your heart to whom you belong,” Gerraint said.  “I knew it when you forgave me concerning your sister.  You may come with Arthur’s permission.”

“Can you take us by the labyrinth of the Tor?”  Arthur asked.

“I, and my six maidens,” Macreedy answered.

“Come and sit,” Arthur said.  “We have much to plan.”

Meanwhile, Uwaine started counting.  There was himself, Bedivere, Arthur, Peredur, Gwillim and Trevor, which took care of the six maidens.  Macreedy could take Lancelot.  He felt astounded, but not surprised at the way things worked out, until Gwynyvar spoke up.

“I’m coming,” she said.  “Enid needs a woman.  And the baby!  I never imagined Pelenor for a cruel man.”  Gwynyvar sat, so the men sat with Lancelot and Gwynyvar only stole a glance.

“Not cruel.  Just an old fool,” Peredur said.

“Not a fool,” Uwaine repeated himself.

The others were still staring at Gwynyvar, none daring to argue with her, when Gwillim spoke up.  “But, say.  How will Macreedy and his daughters be able to help?”

“I’ll bet Mesalwig will want to go as well, once the adventure is known,” Lancelot spoke at last.

“Luckless and Lolly.”  Gerraint spoke as he finally sat.  It became a message in his mind to the two to prepare themselves for the journey and meet them in Glastonbury.  They had to see to their own little ones, but he got the distinct impression that they would be there.  It almost seemed like a return message.

With that, they planned and ate, told stories and just talked, but Gerraint got anxious to leave in the morning.

************************

MONDAY

The tale continues with a visit to Glastonbury Tor, and the road to Tara…Until then, Happy Reading

*

M3 Gerraint: Kidnapped, part 2 of 3

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A few days later, Uwaine found Gerraint on the southern wall, watching the snow flurries.  Winter’s last gasp blustered before the spring, the mud, and the rains came that would keep things muddy for a long time.

“I am sure she is thinking of you, too,” Uwaine said.

“Eh?”  Gerraint did not really listen.

“Enid,” Uwaine said.  “I am sure she is missing you, too.”

“Eh?  Yes, yes.”  Gerraint looked up.  “But I was thinking, Urien is going to try again, only I can’t imagine when or how.”

“Oh,” Uwaine said no more and raised his gloved hand to catch a flake or two.  He understood.  Gerraint did not want to have to kill the man.

“But now, the Lady of the Lake has closed down that path.  And Manannan has made his position clear, where else has he to go?”  Gerraint wondered out loud.

“He went to Iona,” Uwaine reminded him.

“No real help there,” Gerraint told him.  “The druids have the reputation, but Avalon and the treasures are just as cut off from them as they are from any mortal men.”

“Surry?”  Uwaine tried again.

Gerraint shook his head.  “He doesn’t have the key, and no little one will ever help him.”

Uwaine nodded.  “I understand, but you said there are other forces at work here, far more powerful and dangerous than your little ones.”

“Yes.”  Gerraint spoke softly.  “And that is what has me worried.”

After that, Gerraint began to push until they left that place and headed south.  With every mile, he pushed them harder.  They spent the night with any number of Lords and Chiefs in the North, the Midlands and Leogria, though they found neither sign nor word of Urien in his home.  Pelenor also appeared mysteriously absent from his home, and Gerraint’s worry began to turn serious.  He pushed everyone after that so they rode like they were trying to catch Kai’s courier.

They turned, neither South to Gwillim’s brother Thomas, nor West to Arthur and Caerleon.  Something seemed dreadfully wrong and Gerraint could feel it in his gut.  They were still three days out, in the Summer Country, when Bedivere found them.  The Lady Rhiannon came with him.

“They’ve taken Enid and Guimier!”  Bedivere shouted, though he was right with them.  “I failed you.”  He dropped to his knees and put his face in his hands.

The Lady put a gentle hand on his head.  “Courage,” she said.  “The story is not ended.”  She looked at Gerraint.  “I failed also,” she said.  “I placed my protection around them which was not my place to do.  The old man and his companion would never hurt them, but the Raven is no gentleman.”  She paused before she finished.  “Do not make me fail twice by telling you where they have gone.”

“Tara,” Gerraint said.  He did not guess.  The Lady said nothing, but looked to the ground and faded from sight until she was no longer there.

“Where did she go?”  Gwillim asked and looked around the trees.

“Tara?”  Uwaine asked.

“Ireland,” Gerraint said.  “The old, now deserted home of the Gods.”

“I would not give us a sneeze of a chance of crossing that island,” Trevor said.

“No, but Urien has likely worked things out with the druids.  They will probably have no trouble.”

“But, hey,” Gwillim objected.  “What can the druids do?  The Irish may be pirates and scoundrels, but at least they are Christian scoundrels since Patrick.”

“Not entirely,” Gerraint said.  “Like here, the old ways are just a scratch beneath the surface.”  And he remembered the book about how Celtic Christianity and the Irish in particular saved civilization, and he became more determined than ever to make sure the old ways did not reassert themselves.  “Damn Merlin,” he added, under his breath.

“How long?”  Uwaine asked.

“They’ve been gone a week,” Bedivere said.  “I would have been after them, with troops, but they took to the water and would have been too hard to track at sea.  I thought it best to wait for your return since word came that you had survived your trials in the North.”

“Good choice,” Gerraint said.  He paced, thinking hard.  He was with Trevor as far as it went.  He could not imagine crossing all of those miles to the heart of Ireland in one piece.

“Surry?”  Uwaine tried once again like he read Gerraint’s mind; but that door led through Avalon to the continent.  He needed to catch them at Tara before they crossed over, if possible, and as soon as possible.

“Where’s Arthur?” he asked.

“Cadbury,” Bedivere answered.

“Lady Gwynyvar’s penchant is to visit that fort in the spring.”  Gwillim said off-handedly.

Gerraint merely nodded and mounted.  The others followed as he set the course for Cadbury, and rode at a terrific pace.

“No.”  Arthur was not being negative.  But he was the Pendragon and they had to respect his decision in such matters.  Arthur could not imagine any way to Tara other than fighting their way in, and that would have required a full-scale invasion of Ireland.  “The Irish have been quelled and relatively quiet for many years now.  The chiefs on the Welsh coast have taken their places there to maintain the shaky peace.  I’ll not ask them to break their oaths now by invading the island, even if we had hope of victory, which is hardly guaranteed.”

Gerraint stood by the window.  Lancelot argued for the fight.  He threw his glove to the table, but he had finished arguing.

“I cannot believe my old friend has become such a doddering fool,” Peredur said for about the tenth time.

“No fool,” Uwaine interjected.  He understood the treasures were real and that there was real power in those artifacts, and now he felt he understood some of Gerraint’s fanaticism about making sure they stayed buried.  Even if he did not understand all of the ramifications Gerraint spoke about, he could see that no good would come from bringing such things back into the world of men.

“Glastonbury,” Gerraint said at last.

M3 Gerraint: Captives, part 3 of 3

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Greta looked up and saw a big man carrying his little six-year-old daughter to the roundhouse.  The daughter cried because of the pain.  Her lungs sounded full of fluid.  The man cried as well.  Aw, hell, Greta thought Gerraint’s words.

Greta found her way to the fish house well after dark.  The others were already snoring, having spent a hard afternoon felling and trimming trees and without any sleep at all the night before.  It was not hard to find Uwaine in the dark.  She recognized his breathing.  She curled up beside him, not touching, but close enough to touch, and shortly went to sleep.  She felt tired.

The next morning, she threw the boys out and took over the fish house for a work space.  They would have to sleep outdoors.  They said they did not mind sleeping around the fire, but she knew the days were closing in.  She satisfied herself by thinking that they would be so tired after a hard day, they would probably sleep anywhere, and she collected Lucan and went to work.

Three days later, she threw her hands up in frustration.  No one had died or even gotten worse in that time, but no one had gotten better, either.  There were two new cases, besides, and more houses to burn.  For her part, Greta had no incubator, her Petri dishes were wooden bowls, her microscope was a roman magnifying glass she had in her bag, and she could not produce anything approximating penicillin to save her life.

“Manannan!”  Greta ran to the shore and cried out.  “Manannan!”  The god did not answer.  She called again and again, and Lucan stood by, shocked at first, but patient thereafter.  Greta opened her mind and her ears before she shouted herself hoarse, and then she had a thought; or perhaps Manannan gave her the thought.

“Pincher!”  Greta called, not knowing if the dwarf might even be alive yet.  “And Pincher’s mother,” she added.  “Runabout!”  The name came to her.  They were hers, after all, and she could command their presence, though whether they could help or not felt uncertain.

A mother dwarf and her young son appeared, sure enough.  The dwarf shrieked.  Lucan screamed.  Son of the Cow dropped his sword and ran for his life.  The dwarf child, Pincher, looked at Greta and smiled.

“It’s all right.  Don’t be afraid,” Greta said hastily to whoever listened.  “I just need your help for a little bit.”

“What.  Me?”  Runabout asked

“Me?”  Pincher echoed.

“Yes, both,” Greta said, and she coaxed them toward the fish house figuring Lucan would recover soon enough.  Greta explained what she was trying to do.  “If I can distill it to liquid form where it can be taken internally, it should kill the invading bacteria and the people could be healed.”

“Yes, I see,” Runabout said.  “But what makes you think that I can do anything you can’t do?”  Greta frowned before she answered, and then she had to choose her words carefully.

“Because I have a feeling about young Pincher, that he may be a healer one day,” she said.

“Why?”  Runabout asked.  “We never get sick.”  She spoke of the little spirits of the world, the dwarfs, elves, light and dark, the fee, and generally the sprites of the four elements, and for the most part, what she said was true.

“But he is not entirely a spiritual creature, is he?”  Greta countered.  Runabout said nothing.  She looked around, embarrassed to speak the truth.  “He is half human, is he not?”  Greta pressed.

“He might be,” Runabout admitted sheepishly.  “But, how would you know that?”

“I also know what Runabout means,” Greta said.  “But that is not important right now.  Producing the right stuff to heal this pneumonia outbreak is.  People are suffering, terribly.”

“Well, I suppose it would not hurt to have a look.”  Runabout eyed Greta with great suspicion.

“Can we?”  Pincher asked with some enthusiasm, and Greta took the young one by the hand and dragged him inside.  Runabout became obliged to follow, and Lucan came in a short time later.

After three more days, they had a mixture which Greta thought might have a good effect.  One man died in the meanwhile, but word of the dwarf, and the assumption of magical help, stayed the anger of the Picts.  Then it would all be in the delivery, and Greta took the mixture to the little girl, personally.  After six days of waiting, the girl and a number of others were at death’s door.

It seemed touch and go at first, but not really more than a day or two before people began to breathe, literally.  Gerraint’s crew went happily to work after that, knowing they would live.  The Picts even began to smile now and then, and the women laughed a little.

Greta almost let Gerraint come home, but excused her staying on by saying she wanted to be sure there were no relapses.  No new cases had come forward once the houses were burned, however, so it was really to see the little girl back on her feet and watch the young Pincher at work.  He did, indeed, pinch his patients at times to get their attention.  Runabout stayed in the fish house, smelly as she said it was.  She claimed to be naturally shy in front of humans, as most little ones are, though Greta noticed she was not especially shy in front of Son of the Cow, once he got over his fright.

Pincher, on the other hand, became fascinated with this whole medical process.  He insisted on accompanying Greta and Lucan to the Roundhouse to administer the drug and watch its’ effect.  Fortunately, the people there saw him as a young boy, short, but not dwarfish in particular.  That grace, Greta allowed him, and in the years to come it would permit him to move freely between human and dwarfish worlds.

“But can’t I see the dwarf?”  Ellia, the little girl asked when she felt much better.  She had told Greta her real name and her father made no objection seeing as how Greta saved the girl’s life.

“But you do see him,” Greta said and set Pincher beside herself.

“Him?”  Ellia turned up her nose.  “He is just a grubby little boy.”

“Here.”  Greta took Ellia’s hand.  Suddenly, Ellia became able to see as if through Greta’s eyes and the little girl’s eyes got big as she took in Pincher’s dwarfish half.  “Now rest.”  Greta let go.  “Doctor Pincher and his mother need to go home now, and you need sleep.  Sleep is still the best medicine.”  She said that last to Lucan, but Lucan dutifully translated it anyway.

“What do you mean, go home?”  Lucan asked when she caught up.

“Do we have to?”  Pincher asked.

Greta merely nodded as they walked to the fish house.  Runabout sat there, waiting, and anxious for her own part.

“Something you should know first.”  Runabout spoke when they were ready.  She looked down as she added, “Son of the Cow told me all about it.”  Greta waited patiently until Runabout swallowed her embarrassment and got ready to go on.  “The chief, Moonshadow, is against making peace with the Scots.  He has been very strong about it and has won many chiefs to his way of thinking.  He says the Ulsterites, as he calls them, were not invited into the land, and yet they have spread like a plague until the whole of the lowlands are now in their hands.  He says if they make peace, more Scots will find a pretext to move north until there is no room left and the Picts will vanish altogether from the face of the earth.”

“This is true,” Lucan confirmed.  “Moonshadow is unbending on this.”

“Yes,” Runabout continued.  “But last spring the god of fire and water came here and spoke all kindly about peace and love between the two peoples.  When Moonshadow refused to listen, however, the god threatened.  He said Moonshadow called the Scots a plague, then so be it, and he vanished.”

“And the summer turned as dry and hot as fire,” Lucan picked up the story.  “And the fall has been as wet as the sea, and people began to get sick.  We feared.  We might have all died if you had not come along.”

“I do not like the idea of working against the god,” Runabout said frankly, and then she had a moment of complete honesty which was utterly uncharacteristic of her kind.  She almost came to tears as she spoke.  “I tried to ruin the cure, but my magic seems ineffective in this place.”

“Just a precaution,” Greta said, and she kissed Pincher on the forehead, squeezed Lucan’s hand and went home.  Gerraint returned, clothed in his armor, his weapons in their proper place at his back, and the cloak of Athena over all.  Lucan gasped.  She had forgotten.  “And now it is time for you to go home,” Gerraint said.

Runabout also gasped.  “No wonder,” she said.  She finally realized in whose presence she stood and tried to bow, but Gerraint spoke quickly.

“I will see you again, no doubt.”  He laid a hand on each head.  “Go home.”  And they did.

“Is it over?”  Lucan asked.  Her eyes were shut.  She had decided the magic would not be so shocking if she did not see it.  She shrieked all the same when she saw Gerraint face to face.  He seemed her age now, and surprisingly, she did not look as old as she did before.  He sighed and lead her back to the roundhouse, totally confusing poor Son of the Cow.

“Ellia,” he called the girl.

“How do you know my name?”  The girl asked.

“Oh, I know all about you,” he said.  “Even where you giggle.”  He tickled her a little and she responded.  The little girl paused, then, and looked deeply into Gerraint’s eyes.

“My lady.”  Ellia guessed at last.  “But where is she?”

“She has gone home, my dear, and so must I.”  He drew her smile to his heart.  “I have a little girl myself.  Her name is Guimier, and I miss her, terribly, and Enid, my love.”  Ellia suddenly bound up and threw her arms around Gerraint, much to Lucan’s surprise.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she said.  Indeed, she recognized him, and her lady in him.

“Use your life wisely,” he answered, and let her go.

Gerraint and Lucan went out to the woods where the chopping and shaping of the trees was in full swing.  He got a rousing welcome from his fellow travelers.

“Decided to pull your weight at last,” Urien said.

“She went home?” Uwaine asked.

“Where she should be, in her own time and place,” Gerraint answered.

Moonshadow and a number of Picts came running up then and they did not look too happy about the weapons at Gerraint’s back.  Gerraint merely shrugged and put out his hand.

“You’re welcome,” he said. Both Lucan and Dayclimber translated.

Moonshadow slowly put his hand out.  “Thank you,” he said, and they shook.  Then Gerraint removed his weapons and set them aside.  They had several houses yet to build.

************************

MONDAY

One potential disaster is averted, but that does not mean they are out of the woods yet.  It is still a long way to safe ground.  Next Monday, Gerraint and his company are Winter Bound.  Until then, Happy Reading.

*

M3 Gerraint: Captives, part 2 of 3

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Greta stepped into the dark and faced the overwhelming smell of mold, too much mold in the rotting wood.  She immediately heard the coughing and wheezing in the corner.  Dayclimber found a candle to light, and Greta found an old woman in bed who looked worn, but who otherwise showed no outward sign of disease.  There were no red splotches, no pox, and no breakouts of any kind apart from a wart on one knuckle.

“More light.”  Greta demanded.  Dayclimber lit two more candles and then Greta made him wait outside.  She helped the woman sit on the edge of the bed and helped her disrobe.  She checked the woman’s glands.  They were swollen, but not badly.  The woman had a fever, but low grade at the moment.  Greta helped the woman dress.  About the only certain thing was the woman’s wheezing and coughing which sounded deep in the old woman’s lungs and rattled in her breathing, even when the woman was at rest.  Probably pneumonia.  Greta brought Dayclimber back in.

“How long since this came upon her?” she asked, while she found some water and a not-too-dirty cup.

“A week.  Less.  Some have just started.  Some have died.”

“And when did the first one start?” she asked while she sprinkled a sleep mixture into the water.

“A month.  A bit more.  It started when the fall rains came and it has not gotten better, though it has not gotten worse.”

“And was it wet this summer?”  She asked as she gently helped the old woman drink the mixture.

“The contrary,” Dayclimber said.  “It is always wet here, at least for many years, but this summer was unusually hot and dry.  Then the fall rains came.”

“Let her rest,” Greta said, and she stepped outside to get out of the moldy smell.  Dayclimber came out after he extinguished the candles.

“Do you know what it is?” he asked.  “Can you do anything about it?”

“Not yet,” Greta answered, though she had some good ideas.  A half-dozen more huts needed to be visited.  The sick consisted of the very young and the elderly.  And in each hut, the mold was ripe.  She concluded pneumonia, brought on by constitutions weakened by all the mold and filth.  By the time they returned to the roundhouse, her men were gone and only the chief and a few other Pictish men were present.  Greta did not ask or let them ask anything.  She just started telling.

“Clear this building.  I want beds in here and all the sick brought together in this place.  Burn the houses where people have gotten sick.  You will have to build new houses, but use clean wood.  No mold or fungus allowed.  Their belongings and furniture can be saved as long as they are not rotting with mold.  Once you have them here, I will do what I can.”  Greta marched right past the men and toward the cooking fires out back.  It turned mid-morning, nearly noon by the time she finished her last examination, and she was hungry.

The women out back treated her like royalty.  Most would not even look up into her face.  Most also wanted to touch her thick, blond hair, however, and she let them.  Real blond hair was rare if not unknown among the Picts.  Greta noticed that there were one or two of the women who seemed a little less afraid of her.  This was good, because she would need some helpers.

“Dayclimber!”  Greta shouted even as the man came out the back of the roundhouse.

“They have discussed it,” he said.

“And?”  She asked impatiently.

“They will do as you ask,” he said.  “But your friends will be expected to help in the new building.”

“To be expected.”

“And they had better do their fair share,” he added.  He did not exactly threaten them, but near enough.  Greta nodded.

“Where are they?” she asked.  He took her to them.  They were in a fish house by the sea.  They were not exactly prisoners, but there were Picts outside, watching.  It took Greta about twenty minutes to explain her plan, what with all the interruptions.  Curiously, they did not ask who she was, where Gerraint went, or anything that she expected.  She looked at Uwaine.

“We talked,” he said, sheepishly.  Long ago he had been told to keep his mouth closed tight.  The lives of the Kairos were not meant to be public knowledge.  “I figured in this case, some explanation was in order.”

“Quite right,” she responded to him with a smile.  Her hand went to his arm and she leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek.  It felt like a perfectly natural response for her, even if Urien had to spoil it.

“If Gerraint ever kissed me like that, I would have to hurt him,” he said.

Greta lowered her eyes at the man.  “No fear of that ever happening,” she said.  Then she let go of Uwaine’s upper arm.  She felt self-conscious about still holding on to it.  “Got to go,” she announced.  “And you boys better get your axe hands ready.  As Arthur’s men, I expect you to do twice the work in half the time of these barbaric Picts.”  She really could not help sounding like Gerraint.  This was his life after all.

It did not take long for smoke to begin to rise into the night sky.  Greta gathered her women and set them to fetch clean water and clean cloths.  Some, she set to scrubbing the insides of the roundhouse.  Some did laundry and boiled the sheets.  She felt she could not say the word clean often enough.  She set some women to cooking broth and other high nutrient, easy to swallow and digest foods.  And the two helpers she had singled out earlier, she took with her, to teach.  They were going to be her nurses.

As the sick came in, she showed them how to wipe and cool them with the water and cloths, how to keep them warm and covered against the fever chills, how to take a pulse and judge a spiking fever, and sit them up and help them cough up whatever they needed without choking.  Greta knew the formula for a very good expectorant.  She only hoped that some of them did not start coughing up blood.

“Dayclimber!”  She called after a turn scrubbing and cleaning.

“He has gone to be with the men.”  One of the older women who cleaned the floor with a brush and hot water spoke in near perfect British.  “I can talk for you if you like.”

“I need to go hunting for medicines before nightfall,” Greta said.  “Please tell these women I will be back as soon as I find what I need.”

“Mughrib, that is, Heather Woman wants to know if you can describe what you need.”  Greta did, as well as she could.  Gerraint did not know some of the things and thus he did not have the British word to put on her tongue.  Then also, even with the proper British word, the woman did not know what it was to translate, so it still had to be described.  In the end, though, it turned out one or more of the women had what she was looking for, or they knew where she could find it.  This saved much time, and by the time Greta stepped outside, the woman who came with her to translate knew just where to go.

“Lucan.”  The woman said her name.  “It means “Southern Girl,” but my given name was Mesiwig, and yes, I grew up, sixteen years, not far from Hadrian’s Wall before I came to be taken captive.”

“Mughrib and Lucan.”  Greta said.

“Oh, please.  Not Mughrib.  I never should have used her real name.  Please, just Heather Woman.”  Lucan said.

“But why, if it is her name?”

“Because knowing a person’s name gives power over that person.  Spells, charms, curses can be brought against a person if you know their name.  Please.”

“All right.”  Greta would not argue.  “Heather Woman it is, but what is his name?”  She pointed behind them.  They were being followed by a young man with a large grin and a sword by his side, just in case.

“Son of the Cow,” Lucan said.  “I think he has been given to guard you.”

Greta laughed.  “He is so young.”

“Twenty, I think.” In turn, Greta guessed Lucan was around forty-five.  “About your age,” Lucan finished.

Greta laughed again.  “I know I look twenty-something, but believe me, I’m more like fifty-five or so, maybe sixty.  I’ve been through a regeneration process, not that you would know what that is.  And anyway, in another sense you might say I’m five thousand years old.”  Greta stopped and picked a few plants.  It started getting chilly.  She considered her Dacian outfit and decided a change was in order.  She adjusted her fairy clothing with a thought and a few small words to mirror the clothes Lucan wore, much like what all of the women wore.  Lucan quickly hid her eyes.  Son of the Cow’s jaw dropped.  Then Greta had another thought and she added a red cloak and hood as she was wont to wear in the winter back home.  It felt like the appropriate dress for the Woman of the Ways after all.

“It’s all right.”  Greta said, smiled at Lucan, and turned her eyes up to look on her.  “You see; it is still just me.”

“But such great magic,” Lucan said.  “I have never seen the like before.”

Greta’s smile faded as she decided to be honest.  “Actually, it is in the clothes themselves.  They are fairy made, plain and simple.  They will change their shape and even their color as you like, and they will always fit just right.  It is a marvelous gift, yes, but not magic in me.”

Lucan looked like she was not quite sure.

“All the same,” Greta went on to whisper.  “I would appreciate it if you kept this between us.  I feel a little healthy respect on the part of Son of the Cow would not be a bad thing.”  She pointed.  Lucan looked back and understood that well enough.

“Yes, I believe you may be right about that,” she said.

Once they had all that Greta needed, Greta faced the real dilemma.  Expectorant and pain killer might relieve a good deal of discomfort, but it would not cure anything.  For that she needed an antibiotic.  Greta knew she would live as a medical doctor at some point in the first half of the twentieth century.  She knew, because of that, she had some medical knowledge that no ordinary Dacian from the milieu of Marcus Aurelius would dream of having.  Unfortunately, though, she had no direct contact with that medical doctor at the moment, and no real knowledge other than scraps of information.  She had no way to access that life, though she would have preferred to trade places in time and let the good doctor decide the matter.

“Damn,” Greta said and put her hands to her head.

“Are you all right?”  Lucan was right with her.

“Yes, I just need a minute.”  Greta stepped away and thought.  Was it too risky to make an antibiotic more than thirteen hundred years before antibiotics were discovered?  Then again, this was not the first time this issue, or one just like it, came up.  Each time was unique and required independent judgment.

M3 Gerraint: Captives, part 1 of 3

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“Weapons.”  The man spoke in an imitation of upland British.  He kicked the dirt in front of him.  All complied and set their sheathed weapons on the dirt while two more blue painted men came from the brush to collect them.

“Maybe if there are only a few,” Urien said in his own halting Welsh.  He made an open suggestion which everyone caught, but there were more than a few, being fifteen of them.

“Walk.”  The chief gave the order, but the trip seemed less like walking and more like climbing over to the other side of the ridge.  An elderly man met them at the very edge of town. His British sounded much better than the chief of the hunting party and he slid right up to Gerraint with a few questions.

“Dayclimber.”  The man introduced himself as they walked to a central building.  “Where are you from?”

“Britain.”  “Britain.”  Gwillim and Trevor spoke as one.

“Urien of Leodegan,” Urien groused.

“South Wales.”  Uwaine spoke.

“Cornwall.”  Gerraint spoke last.

“King in Cornwall,” Uwaine explained for some reason.

“You are Arthur’s men?  Learned men?”  Dayclimber asked.

They nodded before they entered the roundhouse.  They expected to be set in a kind of preliminary trial with the Elders of the Picts standing around them to pass judgment.  What they found surprised them.  There were tables in the roundhouse set out with a rich variety of food.  There were women to serve, but little evidence of men apart from the hunters who brought them in, and Dayclimber.

Gerraint and his crew stood respectfully and tried to keep from drooling while the hunting chief had their weapons piled in a corner.  Then he and his hunters fell to the food and Dayclimber led the captives to a separate table.

“Sit.  Eat,” Dayclimber said.  They could not believe their ears, but even while Trevor suggested that their food might be poisoned, Urien and Gwillim started eating with the comment, “Who cares if it is.”

Dayclimber sat beside Gerraint.  “You are learned men?” he asked again.  “You have skills in healing?”  Gerraint looked up.  Ever quiet and observant Uwaine spoke up.

“There were maybe a dozen fresh graves near the place where we entered in.”

“Plague?”  Trevor was quick to ask, and his voice did not sound too steady in asking.

Dayclimber nodded.  “We have no way to combat it.  Our healer was one of the first to die and no other village will send help for fear of catching the disease.  You were spotted some ten days ago coming from the north.  It was decided if you came near to us, we would seek your help.”

Gerraint looked at his companions.

“What you call out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Uwaine said.

“Yes,” Gerraint confirmed.  “And I hate clichés.”

The chief spoke from the other table and asked how it was that they came to be in the land of the Picts.  Gerraint told the whole story, honestly, Dayclimber translating, and only left out his trading places through the time stream with Margueritte, and especially his brief time as the Danna.  The men quickly became engrossed in the tale, and the women stopped serving to listen as well.  Curiously, they had no trouble believing that Manannan had made them prisoners and seemed only surprised that Manannan had relented and set them free.

The chief of the Picts told them that they were aware of the madman in the wilderness.  “Now I understand,” the chief said.  “The spirit of the seal boy has taken the man’s mind, but it is madness for the boy neither to be able to return to the sea nor to live with his seal people.”

“You’ve said we are what we eat,” Uwaine whispered in Gerraint’s ear.  It was not funny.

“But you were not the one who convinced Manannan to let us go,” Trevor interjected in all innocence.  “That was the lady.”

Dayclimber translated for his fellows and then asked with eyebrows raised.

“Danna,” Gerraint said.  The Picts stood at the mention of her and there was mention of having seen her in the land some seventy-five years ago.

“But how is it that she would appear to the likes of you?  And intercede for you?” The Chief demanded an answer.

Gerraint did not feel shaken by their hovering over him.  He took a long moment of thought before he answered.  “When you see her, you will have to ask her,” he said at last. “I am a chieftain and a soldier.  Mine is not the mind to know the way of the gods.”  Curiously, that seemed to satisfy the Picts who resumed their seats, but slowly and with great questions still burning in the air.

Dayclimber spoke into the silence because there was another part of the story which did not satisfy him.  “And how is it this young seal girl was willing to speak to you, a warrior, when one of your kind just killed her brother, besides?”  The Picts, on hearing this question, looked up at Gerraint who sighed.  There was no avoiding it, in any case.  Besides, he had determined that the gods he had been were inaccessible at the moment, but Greta the Dacian Woman of the Ways and healer would be willing to look into this plague.  Someone had to do something, or their welcome would soon enough turn sour.

“Will the goddess come?”  Uwaine asked having read the resignation on Gerraint’s face.

“Not one of them,” Gerraint answered.  “But Greta may help, if you don’t mind.”  He knew Uwaine did not mind.  Uwaine was long in love with Greta.

“Dayclimber.”  Gerraint got the man ready to translate, and he told the rest of the story, about Margueritte and speaking as a young girl to a young girl.  The Picts said nothing at first.  Gerraint’s own crew stayed equally silent as Gerraint stood.  “And now, let the healer from the east and from long ago see if perhaps there is something that can be done for your people.”  He took Uwaine’s hand and one hand of Dayclimber’s in an age-old tradition.  “Do not let go, no matter what,” he said, and the dark haired, blue eyed, six foot tall Gerraint was not there anymore.  In his place stood a five foot, four-inch blonde with light brown eyes that sparkled with life.

Dayclimber shrieked and yanked back his hand.  Both Picts and Gerraint’s crew stood and stepped from the table with the shuffling and scraping of chairs and not a few gasps.  One Pictish woman screamed and dropped the clay pot she held.  It shattered on the ground and spilled milk everywhere.  Uwaine, alone, stayed unmoved.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” Uwaine said to her in Latin.

“But you have matured well,” she responded in the same tongue.

“That was you in Amorica,” he confirmed.

She nodded.  “Briefly.  But I suspect I may be here a while longer.”

“As always, I am your devoted servant,” Uwaine confessed, knowing better than to say more.  But she was a wise woman of the Dacians and Romans.  She could read his heart and mind no matter how deeply he tried to hide his feelings.  She saw his love and could not help the smile in return for the depths of her own feelings.  The lives of the Kairos could sometimes be very complicated.

“Hush, lest you make my husband jealous.”  She turned to Dayclimber as she let go of Uwaine’s hand and spoke in Gerraint’s British tongue.  “We have the sick to attend to,” she said.  “Tell your chief I will do what I can but I make no promises.”  Dayclimber said nothing until Greta stomped on his foot.  Then he blurted it out all at once.  The chief of the Picts slowly nodded.  He understood.  The gods never made promises.

As they walked, Greta checked her clothes.  The fairy clothes that had come to her had shaped themselves in the Dacian style of her home.  That only made her three hundred and fifty years out of date.  Still, she had sent her armor away with Gerraint.  She came as a healer, not a woman warrior of the Dacians.  Of course, her weapons also disappeared from the pile of weapons at the same time, but she supposed no one would really notice that except perhaps Uwaine.  In their stead, she called from her own island in the heavenly sea, her bag with everything she was used to carrying on just such errands of mercy.  With that on her arm like a woman’s purse, she was well supplied with the drugs, herbs and medicines she might need, that is, if this disease was anything familiar.

Dayclimber said nothing the whole way.  He kept staring back at her as she followed one step behind.  He nearly tripped several times before they reached the door of the first hut.  “Is your nose filled?” she asked him.  He did not understand, so she set her hand against his chin.  “Close your mouth,” she said.  He did as he opened the door.

M3 Gerraint: The Isle, part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Spooky, isn’t she,” the voice said.  Gerraint spun around and found Arawn.  The man looked haggard, like a man who had not eaten or slept in a week.

“Urien here?” he asked.  He guessed that something like a storm happened to them as well, and Urien might have been driven to these same rocks.  He guessed Manannan for sure.  The circumstantial evidence looked strong.

Arawn did not answer Gerraint’s question.  He would not take his eyes off the girl.  “She just sits and stares at the sea, like a ghost.  But she isn’t a ghost, is she?”  Arawn laughed in a way that sent shivers, like little needles through Gerraint’s mind.  “She had a brother once, she did.”  Arawn said and he backed toward the jetty, fretted his filthy hands as if trying to wipe something clean.

Gerraint looked again at the girl.  His immediate question concerning Urien was not answered, but he still needed information if he could get it.  He felt reluctant to ask Margueritte for help since she was so young herself, but Margueritte seemed more than willing and begged for the chance.  Gerraint reached out in time and they traded places, Margueritte appeared in her fairy clothes and added a shawl to it as help against the cold wind.

Margueritte looked back first, concerned about Arawn’s reaction, but the man had already gone, somewhere unreachable.  Without a word, she walked deliberately toward the other girl.  The girl stood and stared in Margueritte’s direction.  Seeing Margueritte, a young girl like herself, the green-haired, big eyed child no longer looked afraid.  When Margueritte got close enough, she stopped, still a good distance away, not wanting to press the point.  The girl’s   eyes were definitely too round and fully brown with hardly any white at all.  Her hair looked too thick, green and brown streaked, and she had little dots, like freckles, on her upper lip and cheeks where a cat might have had whiskers.

“Can you help?”  Margueritte asked at last in her best Welsh as Gerraint spoke it.  “I have no idea where I am.  The storm, you know.  I am lost.”

The girl looked up from staring at Margueritte’s shoes.  “Brother lost, too,” the girl said.  She lifted her chin to the sky and screamed, “Forever!”

Margueritte winced.  The girl began to bark like a seal pup, and a female seal transformed into a woman, dressed minimally in a dress that looked made out of seaweed.

“Forever,” the seal woman echoed.  “You are here forever.”  She stepped up beside her daughter, sniffed Margueritte’s fairy clothing with some appreciation for what she sensed.  “Lord keeps you.  Treasure for you is sea and stone.  No treasure, only here, forever.”  She took her daughter’s hand and turned toward the far rocks.  The other seals nearby also took that moment to transform into women and young boys and girls.  They climbed together over the rocks to get to the main herd without having to make the shark infested swim around the point.

Margueritte hesitated until the last of the pups disappeared over to the other side, then she ran to the rocks, but once she climbed up, all she could see was perhaps a mile of beach covered wall to wall with seals, big males, females, and young everywhere.  Those who had been temporarily women and children were indistinguishable from the rest.  Who knew?  Perhaps they were all seal people.

Margueritte went back to her own time and Gerraint returned in order to climb down from the slippery rocks.  His walk back to camp remained slow, despite his hunger.  “No treasure, only here forever,” he repeated.  Evidentially, Manannan drove them to wreck in this place and intended to keep them here, having judged them as would be thieves.

“Gerraint!”  “My Lord!”  The others called to him from the cooking fire.

“Trevor’s not a bad cook,” Uwaine said, in an unusual word of praise. That meant the fish was probably excellent, but Gerraint no longer felt hungry.

“The ship is in good shape,” Gwillim reported.  “At least the piece of it that is left.  There’s rope I left down by the cliffs, and some tools too heavy for even the waves to drag to sea, but that is about it.”

“There’s land in that direction.”  Uwaine pointed.

“I was thinking a raft,” Gwillim continued.

“Here.”  Trevor handed Gerraint half a fish with something on it that Gerraint did not recognize. Certainly, some sort of spice, he imagined.

“Manannan drove us here.”  Gerraint said in a flat voice that got their attention.  “The seals suggest he intends to keep us here forever, because we dared to try and steal the treasures of Britain.”

“The seals?”  Gwillim laughed.  He thought of it as a joke.  Trevor looked horrified, but Uwaine knew better on both counts.

“So how do we get off this rock?” he asked.

Gerraint sighed and tasted the fish.  It was very good and hardly tasted like fish.  Gwillim knew what he was doing setting Trevor to cook.  “The gods make the rules to try and test men’s souls, not to defeat men.  There is always a way left for men who are willing to try.  A little intelligence, some courage and determination are needed.  Good men get knocked down, but they get up again.  I vote for the raft.”

Uwaine merely nodded and went back to eating.  Gwillim let go of the thought of talking seals and appreciated the support for his idea.  Trevor went back to cooking, but his expression showed he had been at sea long enough to hear stories.

“How long do you figure the raft will take?” Uwaine asked at last.

“Well.”  Gwillim sat up.  “We’ll have to work fast and hope against another September storm.  It won’t do to have the ship break loose.  We should be able to break free enough lumber in a week or so, and then drag it across the island to assemble.  I would say two weeks, three tops.”

“So, by October, give or take,” Gerraint concluded.  “I would like to get home before the snows.  I suspect we are a long way north.”

“We would all like to beat the snow,” Gwillim said.

Uwaine and Gerraint jumped.  Gwillim and Trevor were just a little slower.  They heard rustling in the trees before Urien stepped out.

“Well, I’ll be,” Gwillim said.  “The Raven got grounded on these same cruddy rocks.”

“That smells very good,” Urien said.  “You gentlemen mind if I join you?”

“I don’t know.”  Gerraint eyed Urien closely.  “Are you as insane as your friend?”

“Oh, you’ve seen him.”  Urien stepped up for some of the fish without waiting for the formal invitation.  “Mad as an Irish hermit.”

“Arawn.”  Gerraint answered the questioning looks around him.

“What do you mean?”  Trevor asked.

“What happened?”  Gwillim wondered.

“A storm as like to yesterday’s storm as can be,” Urien answered while delighting in the fish.  “Arawn and I alone escaped with our lives by being foolishly washed overboard.  Or rather, Arawn got washed over and dragged me after him.  We came up on this place and fared well enough the first week.  We have a shelter of sorts across the island, facing what I believe is the mainland of Caledonia.  Arawn got tired of fish, though.  There are sharks out in the deep.  We could not exactly swim to the mainland, though it looks deceptively close.  While I studied the problem, he began to explore.  He thought where there were sharks, there had to be seals, and he was right.  Apparently, he clubbed a young pup and hid it from me, cooked it and ate it on the sly.  I found out when he woke me one morning.  He had already gone, you know, in the mind.  He babbled about eating a young boy.  He said the seals were haunting him.  They would not let him sleep.  They kept accusing him.  He ran off, screaming.  I have only seen him a couple of times since, and only from a distance.”  Urien finished his fish with the story, and everyone nodded except Gwillim.

“Don’t be daft yourself,” Gwillim said.  “Talking seals?  Accusing him?  What are they doing, pointing fingers at him?  They must be pointing flippers.”  He tried to make light of it all but stopped when he saw that the others took it dead serious.

“It is true, then,” Trevor said.  “There are people who live in the form of seals.  They say to see one in human form is an ill omen.  They say if by chance one should speak to you, you will lose your mind, altogether.”

“Old wives’ tales.”  Gerraint thought of Margueritte.  “Sailors imagine lots of things and stretch many stories when they are too long at sea.”

“This is true enough.”  Gwillim tried to get in with the tone, even if he still did not believe a word of the tale.

“Don’t worry Trevor.  I’ll protect you,” Gerraint said.

“Better protection than you know,” Uwaine spoke up.

Trevor smiled, grimly, but seemed willing to give it his best shot.

“But say,” Gwillim spoke up.  “We’ve got a part of our ship, grounded on the rocks, and rope and some tools.  What say you to a raft?”

“That would work.”  Urien did not hesitate to get excited by the idea.  “When do we start?”

“Now.”

“No.”  Gerraint stood.  “We have to get something straight first.”  He looked directly at Urien.  “You were after the Treasures of Britain, weren’t you?  You were hoping the old isle of Manannan would give you the key to finding Avalon.”

“Annwan?”  Urien said.  “Certainly.  We are after the Cauldron of inspiration, which is life.  We all saw it, didn’t we?”

“We all saw something,” Uwaine said softly.

“Yes, well, aboard your ship,” Gerraint continued.  “Who knew about your quest?”

“Just me and Arawn.”  Urien said in an offended voice.  “I paid the Captain for passage to the Isle of Man.  That’s all he needed to know.”

“And for us, it was myself, Uwaine and Gwillim,” Gerraint said.

“I told my mate,” Gwillim interrupted.  “He had to know something.  I did not imagine it was a secret, but he didn’t tell anyone, did you?”  Trevor shook his head.

“So everyone who knew is here, on the island, and we don’t know where the innocent might be,” Gerraint concluded.  The men all nodded.  “So you need to pledge that you will give up any quest for the treasures or no work we do will bear fruit.  Manannan will keep us here forever if we don’t.”

“But.”  Urien started to say something, but then thought better of it.

“It seems my own crew was not exactly pure in thought concerning the treasure.” Gerraint continued, and the three men bowed their heads.

“The tales say after the people came up into the land some of the gods went underground while some went to Avalon,” Trevor said.   “I would have liked to have seen it is all.”

“Well, I never thought it was likely to be found,” Gwillim admitted.  “But I did hear once that the very streets of Avalon are paved with golden cobblestones.”

“In my heart I knew better,” Uwaine said in his soft voice.  “I am ashamed.”

“Don’t be,” Gerraint assured him.  “If you did not think about it, you would not be human.  But let us pledge not to pursue the treasure anymore.”  The three did.  “Urien?”

“That is a hard thing you are asking,” he said.

“That, or you will have no part in our raft.”  Gerraint responded.

“Damn.”  Urien swore, but he pledged to give up his quest.  “But what about Arawn?”

“Yes,” Gerraint said.  “I think Trevor better stay armed while fishing and cooking, and we had better carry the lumber across the island in pairs, just to be safe.”

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MONDAY

Gerraint and his shipwrecked company try to get to the mainland, but it is a long way through hostile territory to get back to Cornwall.  Happy Reading

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