The Dreamstone

The pages loosed the belt and loosed the laces, pulled the iron weight off him while he knelt, racked with pain. They brought him wine and tended him among the wounded which began to be brought in from the walls. “See to them,” Ciaran cried, clamping his teeth against the poisoned anguish in his belly. Tears of shame stung his eyes, that they delayed with him, while others died. He gained his feet and held to the stones of the wall, sweating and trembling. He made his way out into the open air to use a bow, that much at least. But when a boy gave him a case of arrows, the iron sickness came on him again: the case spilled from his hand and the arrows scattered on the walk. “He ca

He went, steadied by a page on the stairs, staggering because of the pain in his bones. The boy and the maids together laid him down by the fire, and pillowed his head.

“He is hurt,” came Branwyn’s voice, all anguish for him, and gentle hands touched him. A halo of bright hair rimmed the face which bent above him, against the fire. Tears blurred his eyes, pain and shame commingled.

“No hurt touched him,” said a boy. “I think, lady, he must be ill.”

They brought him wine and herbs, covered him and kept him warm, while he hovered half-sensible. Outside he heard the clash of iron, heard battle shouts and heard the reports of boys and maids as they would scurry out and back again, how the battle leaned, this way and that. For a time the tower echoed to a crashing against the gates, and there was a dread splintering which brought him off his pallet and to his feet. The words were in his mouth to beg a weapon of them, but the pain in his bones urged otherwise. He hung there against the wardroom door and listened to reports more and more dire shouted up the stairs, for one of the great hinges of the gate had given way beneath the ram, and they braced it as they could, with timbers, and hailed arrows from the wall.

There were ebbs in the battle. Ciaran sat by the fire and pressed his hand against the stone which lay unseen against his breast, but it was silent, giving back only pain. She is wounded too, he thought, with only slight remorse. He was alone in the hall but for Branwyn and the Lady Meredydd, who stared at him with bewildered eyes when they did not go down to tend men more bloodily wounded.

All that day the battle raged about the gate. Men died. At times Ciaran rose and walked down as far as the edge of the wall, but men-at-arms urged him to go back again to safety, and the sight he saw gave him no comfort. The battered gate still held, though tilted on its hinges. Arrows sleeted both up and down the wall, and there was desperate talk of a sortie, to get the enemy from before the gate before it should fall entire.

“Do not,” he wished Scaga in his mind, but he could not pass that arrow storm to reach the place where Scaga stood above the gate. Scaga was wise and ordered defense and not attack; oil rained down and discouraged those below, but then the enemy set fires before the gate and the oil made them burn the more fiercely. Another hinge had yielded by afternoon, and more and more the enemy came. Wounded men, exhausted men, passed Ciaran empty-handed in his vantage place, some looking on him with bruised and accusing eyes. Women came up the scaffolding to carry arrows, stayed to tend wounds, to take bows, some of them, behind wickerwork defense, and sent shafts winging into the thick press of attackers. Ciaran came out at last, took a bow from a wounded archer, tried yet again; one and a second shaft he launched . . . but the sickness came on him, and his third went far amiss, fell without force, while the bow dropped from his hand across the crenel. A boy took up the bow, while Ciaran rested there overcome by shame, until he found the strength to carry himself back to shelter.

They brought the boy back later, dead, for a shaft had struck him in the throat, and another, younger boy had taken his post. Ciaran wept, seeing it, and stood in the corner in the shadow, wishing to be seen by no one.

He heard at twilight the battle din diminished; and at long last it faded entirely. He went back to the hall, to stand near the warmth of the fire and hear the servants talk. The women came, weary and shadow-eyed, and there was talk of a cold supper from which no one had heart. Men were down in the courtyard trying to brace up the gate, and the sound of hammers resounded through the hall.

Scaga came up, pale and sick from an arrow which had pierced his arm and drawn a great deal of blood. From him Ciaran turned his face, and stared into the embers as he leaned against the stones of the fireplace. The ladies sat; servants brought bread and wine and cold meat.

Ciaran came to table and sat down, staring at what was before him and not at the women, nor at the harper, who had fought that day; nor at Scaga, at him least of all. The servants served them, but no one touched the food.

“It is his wound,” Branwyn said suddenly, out of the silence. “He is ill.”

“He claims to have run through enemies and scaled our wall,” Scaga said. “He gives us fair advice. But who is he, truly? How far did he run? And what ma

Ciaran looked up and met Scaga’s eyes. “I am of Caer Do

Scaga stared at him, and no one moved.

“It is his wound,” Branwyn said again. He was grateful for it.

“We have seen no wound,” said Scaga.

“Would you?” Ciaran asked, for he had no lack of scars. He put on a face of anger, but it was shame that gnawed at him. “We can go into the guardroom, if you like. We can speak of it there, if you like.”

“Scaga,” Branwyn reproved the old warrior, but Lady Meredydd put a hand upon her daughter’s, silencing her. And Scaga put himself on his feet. Ciaran stood, prepared to go down with him, but Scaga beckoned a page.

“Sword,” Scaga said. The boy brought it from the doorway. Ciaran stood still, not to be made a coward in their eyes. Branwyn had risen to her feet, and Lady Meredydd and the others, one after the other.

“I would see you hold a sword,” Scaga said. “Mine will do. ’Tis good true iron.”

Ciaran said nothing. His heart shrank within him and the stone already pained him. He looked into the old warrior’s eyes, knowing the man had seen more than the others had. Scaga unsheathed the sword and offered it toward his hands; he reached for it, took the naked blade in his palms, and tried to keep the anguish from his face. He could not. He offered it back, not to dishonor the blade by flinging it, and Scaga took it gravely. There was a profound silence in the room.

“We are deceived,” Scaga said, his deep voice slow and sad. “You brought us fair words. But gifts of your sort do not come without cost.”

There was weeping. He saw the source of it, which was Branwyn, who suddenly tore herself from her mother’s arms and rushed from the hall. That wounded as much as the iron.

“I told you truth,” Ciaran said.

There was silence.

“The King,” Ciaran said, “will come here. I am not your enemy.”

“We have lived too long next the old forest,” said the Lady Meredydd. “I charge you tell me truth. Is my lord still alive?”

“I swear to you, lady, I had his ring from his own hand, and he was alive and well.”

“By what do the fair folk swear?”

He had no answer.

“What shall we do with him?” Scaga asked. “Lady? Iron would hold him. But it would be cruel.”

Meredydd shook her head. “Perhaps he has told the truth. It is all the hope we have, it it not? And we need no more enemies than we have. Let him do as he wills, but guard him.”

Ciaran bowed his head, grateful at least for this. He did not look at Scaga, nor at the others, only at the lady Meredydd. Since she had nothing more to say to him, he walked quietly from the hall and upstairs, to imprison himself in the room they had given him, where he was spared the accusation of their eyes.