High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) (9 page)

I opened my eyes. I was face to face with Eluned. Our legs were pulled apart, our ankles tied to a heavy log that lay between us. Our hands were also outstretched, attached to a piece of wood behind our backs that came up as he lifted us. A strip of cloth that looked as if it had come from one of our shifts was bound around her head and in her mouth. Mine must be the same. Tears were running down her cheeks as she turned her head from side to side, moaning.

When I looked down I could see that both our shifts had been roughly hacked off at mid-thigh. The material, torn into strips, he had used to bind our feet, our hands, and our mouths. Eluned’s shift was torn down the centre of her chest and where it lay open I could see a thin line of dried blood. I could not lower my head enough to see my own chest.

For several minutes he held us in this position, tightening his grip on our hair, occasionally pulling it. Finally, he began to loosen his grip. “Stay,” he said as he did so. When he released my hair I remained in the awkward and uncomfortable sitting position he had forced me into. When he let go of Eluned’s hair she fell backwards.

“I told you to stay,” he screamed as he grasped another shank of her hair and pulled her up again. The whole time, Eluned’s eyes remained closed. She did not open them once. After a while, he released her hair and, this time, she remained sitting.

Nefyn returned to the corner, lifted a chair and set it down between us. Stepping over our legs, he selected a thin, straight piece of wood from the pile, looked along its length before returning and sitting down. From his pocket he produced a small folding knife, with which he proceeded to sharpen one end of the stick. The shavings from this fell on my bare calves. When he was finished, the stick now had a very sharp end. He tested it on Eluned’s leg, just above her knee. She screamed. A spot of blood appeared.

“Good,” he said. “Now we may proceed.”

He looked at me for a few minutes then turned away to face Eluned. “That woman.” He pointed the stick at my face. “That woman you brought here. She thought she could talk to me. That I would have polite conversations with her. You should have told her that I do not talk with such as her.”

He prodded Eluned’s leg again. She moaned. A tear ran down her cheek.

“You should have told her. I am Nefyn, last of the Votadini. What is she? I do not even know her name. I think perhaps she has no name. You should have told her.”

Again he poked Eluned’s leg. A third drop of blood appeared.

“You are two women. I have not seen a woman in Uricon since when? Let me see. Ah yes. Since my mother left. With my father. To travel to Catraeth. To drink mead. Or so my father told her.”

Through the pain, throbbing in my head, forced as I was to listen to this, something stirred in my thoughts. He knew more about when his parents supposedly left than he should. They had left, so he told us, when he was ‘a babe in arms’. How could he know what his father had said to his mother?

“I cannot count the number of years since that time of sorrow. They have been spent in this dungeon while I waited for their return. For the return of the chieftain. Leader of the Votadini. The return of the Expected One. The hope of my people. And of yours, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair.”

He leaned forward and ran the point of the stick along the line of blood on her chest. Fresh blood appeared.

“The hope of your people, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair. The Expected One. He who would return us to our rightful place in this benighted land. Surely you must know the stories of your people? Even though you have been living with these short-lifes? Perhaps you have lived with them too long. Perhaps you have become like them. Ignorant of your past. Your people forgotten. Is that so?”

He prodded her thigh with his stick. She shook her head, slowly.

“Wait,” he said. “I will read you something else. Perhaps this will rouse your memory.” He went back to the table and picked up the book of poems. When he was seated again, he opened it and read.

“Here. ‘
and the hard grasp of the grave, until a hundred generations of people have passed.’
No, that is not it. Wait. Here. ‘
Bright were the halls, many the baths, High the gables, great the joyful noise, many the mead-hall full of pleasures. Until fate the mighty overturned it all.
’ Yes. And so it was. Do you not remember these things, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair? The halls of your fathers? No, perhaps you do not remember. Yes. ‘
Fate the mighty overturned it all’.”
He dropped the book.

“Did you think I would accept this other? This no more than a child? This girl who calls herself a woman? Did you think I could accept that this was the Expected One? You are truly mad, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair. Truly mad. Your fathers and their fathers must be weeping now. Not the tears of a woman who knows her fate.”

He ran the point of his stick down Eluned’s cheek, where a tear had run.

“No. Not those tears. They weep the tears of men who know that a woman is all that is left of their people. They and their fathers and their fathers before them until they are lost in the mists of time. Before Romans spoiled our land. With their brick houses and their stone pillars. All that rots around us here. Where are the Romans now? Gone into the earth. Wait. My poem has lines about this.”

He bent and picked up the book. He opened it again.

“Where? Here. No. Here. No, not that. Wait. I have it. ‘
Earth-grip holds the proud builders, departed, long lost’.
 
Yes. Long lost indeed.”

He threw the book into the fireplace where it lay smouldering on the still warm ashes.

“Perhaps the elders were wrong. Perhaps they told us false stories to keep us happy. To keep us amused. Perhaps there will be no Expected One. Certainly not this child-woman.”

Again he leaned forward, placed the end of the stick beneath the remnant of the skirt of Eluned’s shift and lifted it.

“There is one woman in this room. Is there not, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair. One fine woman. As yet untouched. Is that not so? You are untouched, are you not?”

Eluned opened her eyes for the first time and looked directly at him. It was a look of sheer hatred. She tried to shuffle back a little but the weight of the log between us made that impossible. I could see what she was trying to do, so, with as much force as I could muster, I pushed myself forward. It was enough. Eluned moved back. Her skirt fell away from Nefyn’s stick.

Nefyn laughed. “That’s the spirit. A woman who will produce many fine sons. Fathered by me. Together we will bring back the old peoples, yours and mine. Our sons will take back our land from the child-woman and her like. What say you, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair?”

He laughed again. He poked Eluned’s gagged mouth with his stick.

“I forget. You cannot speak. This is good preparation. When I have cut out your tongue that will be an end to your speaking. Our sons will learn of their fathers from me. I alone will teach them. I alone will forge them as steel to overcome the enemy. You, silent for ever, will tend to them until they are old enough to be rid of you. She also.” He whirled his stick in my direction, still without looking at me. “She also will be silent. Never more to speak to me or to my sons. She will make fires and cook so that my sons will become strong warriors. Before they are men she will be dead and we will be rid of her.”

He stood up, stepped between Eluned’s legs and took her face in his hand.

“I would not have chosen you, with your pale skin and yellow hair, had I a choice. But there is none. You will have to be sufficient. You have the hips and the paps to make a good mother. I have watched you since you came. That will have to be enough.”

He dropped his hand from her face and placed it inside the tear on her shift. She struggled. In vain. He laughed and stepped away.

“Now I go to find food. Wood for the fire.” He moved the chair back to the table and bent to enter the tunnel. Just before he put his head in, he turned back and said, “Tonight. Tonight we make our first son.”

As soon as he was gone, Eluned started to weep openly. Tears fell from her eyes, her shoulders, constricted as they were, shook, she sobbed, gagging on the cloth that bound her mouth. All I wanted to do was lie back down again. Holding this sitting position with my arms tied to a pole behind my back was excruciating. Yet I knew if I did lie down that would be the end. All that he threatened to do he would carry out when he returned. Cut out our tongues. Force himself on Eluned.

I tried to shout some encouragement to Eluned, grunting and groaning. It seemed pointless. But at last she did stop crying. She opened her eyes again and looked directly at me. It was a look of utter sadness and despair. I knew what she would be thinking. That she had failed. Failed me. Failed in her mission. How many times before had she said the same thing?

This time, there did not seem to be any way out. We had foolishly entrusted ourselves to this madman. I had even tried to befriend him. Had thought that he could actually become a friend. Yet again I had been wrong. So wrong. Rather than a friend he was a monster. A monster who could club two defenceless women into unconsciousness, drag them into this place and bind them together, half destroying our clothes in the process.

Had he done anything else to Eluned, to me, while we were unconscious? The mere thought was terrifying. Even if he had not, that was clearly his intention. With Eluned at least. I could not allow my imagination to travel to such a place. Frustrated and angry, filled with fear, I pulled with all my strength against the strips of cloth that bound my hands and ankles. As I thrashed myself against the bark of the log to which my ankles were tied I felt the knots begin to loosen. The rough surface tore at my skin until both my feet were covered in blood. Eluned kept shaking her head, urging me stop, or so I thought. Wanting to scream in pain, I kept up the struggle.

One binding eventually loosened. Enough for me to be able to drag my foot out of it. I flexed my leg in agony. It had been fixed in one position for so long that it was massively cramped. Yet with one foot free I could still do nothing more. Again I shook the other foot, tearing even more of the skin. Finally, mercifully, the cloth loosened and I dragged out my other foot. With great difficulty, I forced myself up onto my knees. What next?

I shuffled backwards and started to bang the pole to which my hands were tied against the wall. This was easier than trying to shake my hands free. Each time I hit the wall pain shot right through me. Every joint was stiff. I gave up counting the number of times I collapsed to the floor and had to force myself up again. But eventually it worked. The binding on my right wrist loosened and I was able to pull my hand free. Immediately, I swung my arm round and forced open the binding on my left hand. Finally I was able to undo the cloth gagging my mouth. My lungs sucked in a huge amount of air and my head began to spin.

Almost overcome, I remembered that Eluned was still bound up. With both hands free, it did not take me long to untie her bindings and soon I was removing her gag. As I did so she breathed in deeply and let out a huge scream. Regaining her breath, she began to sob again, screaming, “My lady! My lady!” It took me some time to calm her down. I pushed her over to one of the chairs, sat her down and started to massage her legs which had a blue tinge to them. Soon the colour returned, she stood up and made me sit. As she rubbed my legs I could feel the blood and warmth returning. My feet and ankles were still bleeding, one more profusely than the other, my head was still pounding, but all I felt was relief. We were free.

As she squatted at my feet, dabbing at them with a damp cloth she had retrieved from the latrine, she was constantly pulling down the edge of her skirts, which only reached to the top of her thighs in this position. When she looked up at me, having wiped much of the blood away, I said, “Did he … ?”

“No, my lady. The Lady is my protection.”

“Well, unless we find a way to get away from here, I don’t think she will be able to protect you much longer. Have you ever … ?”

“No, my lady. I have known no man. Nor do I wish to. Yet we cannot leave this place.”

“What are you talking about? We must leave. He will return before long. And he is much stronger than us. We have seen how ruthless he can be. We must get away.”

“We cannot leave. We await the return of Gwenllian. She will only come here.”

I now began to grow angry. Here was the woman I had just rescued from a terrible fate, or so it seemed to me, and yet she was already back to her stubborn self.

“You can wait. I’m going to leave.” I headed for the tunnel.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Leave now and everything ends. If Gwenllian does not find us here when she returns … It is over.”

“Over? What is over?”

“Everything. As I said. There will be no future. For you. For your people. For my people. No one. This is the last chance. The last chance to change what will happen.”

“What do you mean, ‘change what will happen’?”

“These are the end times, my lady. We may yet make them after our fashion. Without you, we cannot. The end times will destroy everything. If we do not change them.”

“And that is up to me? Is that what you are saying? Are you really trying to tell me that these ‘end times’, as you call them, can only be changed by me? Are you telling me that?”

“Yes, my lady. You are the Expected One. Without you there will only be destruction. Flood. Fire. Famine. War. Disease. All of these. Until all is lost.”

I sat down again. Curiously, with all that she had said whirling around my still throbbing head, I noticed that my skirts were well up my thighs. I pulled them down. It was futile.

“I need a new shift,” I said.

“Yes, my lady. And so do I.”

The next few hours passed remarkably quickly, given our situation. Eluned sorted through the pile of wood near the fire and selected two substantial pieces. She placed these just inside the entrance to the tunnel. Then she built up more wood in the fireplace and soon had a roaring fire going. She filled one of the terracotta bowls with water and the roots Nefyn had previously gathered. Soon it was bubbling away on the fire. She told me to sit beside the fire and watch the broth. She, meanwhile, took up a position kneeling on her haunches next to the tunnel, one of the thick logs in her hand.