Rhiannon (9 page)

Maddy turned them a sharp left when they reached the gated wall of the manor courtyard, and then they were running along a line of handsome yew trees, grown by the manor's foresters for the fine arrows their branches made. Then next they were splashing right through the nether ford of the River Woether without so much as stopping to raise their skirts!

“Maddy, what's got into you to lead us in such a chase?” Rhia yelled, truly peeved by then. “I'm soaked, and I've rocks in my shoes!”

“Would you complain about witnessing a wonder the likes of which the Roman Pope hisself would pay gold to see?” Maddy yelled back, neither stopping nor slowing.

They ran up the rise beyond the ford and then passed close by the small hillock called Gallux Hump, this from the fact that criminals were hanged from a wide black oak that grew there. Should a vile murderer be discovered today, soon enough he or she would struggle and kick their last whilst adangle from that very same old bent tree.

Rhiannon shivered at the thought, but she might better have focused her shivers on the equally dread sight that loomed in the distance straight ahead of them. For in fact they were barreling toward a perfect circle of tall and ancient trees that was ringed clear about by a high and crumbly stone wall. Indeed, 'twas Wythicopse Ring itself!

Rhia'd never in her life come near this close to that eery circle of tree and stone, but like everyone in the manor, she'd
heard
of Wythicopse Ring all her life. Oh yes,
all
knew of it and steered clear of it. When the rest of the forest out here in the marshy land had been assarted, cleared to make the sheep more grazing, this stand of trees and its brambly wall had been left alone. These poplars were the finest in miles and would have built a church or else a stable worthy of the lord's own horses.

Yet none dared touch the trees of Wythicopse with an ax.

Most thought of it as a site of ritual from the olden days, mayhaps marking a place where the land of the dead reached up to meet the sunny world of the living. For sure, it was best left untouched in its broody mystery. A faery site it most likely was, but not like the enchanted places in Clodaghcombe Forest that Rhia knew well. Nay, this place seemed wrapped in a damp gloom that even the brightest sun could not dispel.

Pride stopped Rhia from admitting her fear and digging in her heels to slow them down, but she felt blessed relief when, still some little distance from the walled grove, Maddy all of a sudden flopped down to the grass and let go Rhia's hand so that Rhia could flop to the blessed grass as well. They both lay on their backs there, gasping for air as their ears rang and the blue sky spun round and round above.

“I've lost . . . my left . . . shoe,” Rhia panted, when she could.

“We'll find it,” Maddy said with her usual simple confidence, plucking up a stem of daisy to chew.

Rhiannon would have enjoyed having Maddy's sort of breezy confidence herself, but you had it or you hadn't, and there were always too many questions in Rhia's mind for her to ever have it. Such as, what were they
doing
in such a fraught place?

Still, she raised up on an elbow, feigning nonchalance. In fact, she plucked her own daisy stem, gave it a chew, then asked, “Well, Maddy, what's this wonder of yours?”

Maddy sat up and smiled mysteriously. “It lies just over the brambly stone wall, within the circle of poplars. Don't fret, Rhia, we'll go there in a moment.”

So Maddy
did
plan on breaching the forbidden walls of Wythicopse Ring! Rhiannon near choked on the daisy stem she sucked. To climb over the walls of Wythicopse was
not
to be done lightly, and all that Maddy ever did
was
done lightly.

“But Rhia,” Maddy continued, breathlessly. “Right now I must tell you something before I burst! Something I've told neither Nedra nor Ginny!”

At that, Rhia eagerly sat up knee-to-knee with Maddy. She oft felt the outsider of the four, and to hear she was picked first to hear a secret was welcome. “Tell! Tell!” she urged, as the wind began drying their skirts and lifting their hair.

“Oh, Rhiannon, saints bless me!” Maddy whispered, throwing her apron over her face, then peeking from its edge, all flustered. “I'm fearfully in love! Oh, Rhia!”

Rhiannon's hands flew to her face. “Is it Willard who helps the smith?”

Maddy, giggling, shook her head.

“All right then, Oswald the carpenter's boy? Or Rufus who lives in the mill house with his grandsire?”

Maddy leaned forward and took Rhiannon's hands. “Oh, Rhia, those are merely
town
boys! Good friend, I'm in love with Frederique, a squire visiting at the manor house!”

Rhiannon gasped. The sun had gone under a cloud, and a chill wind suddenly blew up from the marsh. An ill wind, if ever Rhia had felt one.

“Oh, Maddy, the earl's own son? You
can't
love the earl's son, Maddy!”

“Not the earl's son, Rhia. That would be Roderick. Frederique is one of Roderick's bosom friends, come last winter to squire with him! Roderick is paunchy and dull, with limp hair and a pout. But my Fred is so handsome and gallant, I melt upon merely
thinking
of him!”

To tell it plain, Rhiannon felt sick at the thought of Maddy fallen for an aristocrat. Had she forgot that she was only a peasant girl, exalted to do work in the manor house by her strong good looks and neat habits? This was entirely unnatural, and layered with danger upon danger.

Rhiannon swallowed and licked her lips. “Does Frederique . . . does he
know
of the love you hold for him?”

Maddy squeezed her friend's fingers, demanding an oath. “Swear to tell no one what I'm telling you, Rhiannon! Swear it as a vassal swears fealty to his lord.”

Rhia squeezed Maddy's fingers back. “I so swear.”

“All right,” Maddy whispered, shivering with happiness. “He
does
know, Rhia, and he swears he loves me just as well! He
does
!”

Rhia gave Maddy a smile, though a cautious one.

Maddy nodded toward Wythicopse Ring. “We meet right there, inside the stone-clad circle of sacred poplars, where we won't be seen. Frederique says none will
dare
venture into the dragon's chamber! It's spooky—you've
got
to see it, Rhia! Come on!”

Maddy jumped to her feet, hoisted her skirts, then ran straight to the brambly wall and began to scale its stony side. Rhia watched her openmouthed—the
dragon's
chamber?

“Will you come, or will you gape like a fish all day?” Maddy called over her shoulder.

A friend is a friend when all's said and done, especially when a secret's been told that binds you oathlike to the other. Rhia took a breath, then jumped to her own feet, then ran to the copse and climbed the stone wall, trying not to think, nor to imagine. She followed Maddy right to the top, then slid down the mossy stone of the other side and landed upon her knees within that eery, enchanted place.

“What did I tell you?” Maddy asked in a whisper, which seemed the manner of speech called for inside this walled circle of swirling shadow and mist. She turned in slow circles with her arms outspread. “Have you ever
felt
such a place in your entire life, Rhiannon?”

“I've . . . not,” Rhia whispered.

No leaf rustled within this glade, and no bird sang. It was a frozen place, thick with twisty vines that felt grabbish as fingers clutching at your ankles.

“Maddy, I feel we're being watched,” she whispered.

“I know,” Maddy whispered back. “I always have that feeling here, though Frederique says that's nonsense. And isn't this place
romantic
, Rhia?”

Rhiannon pondered that as Maddy skipped off a little ways, then settled on her knees before a broad mound of violets. “Here, Rhia, hurry!” she called.

When Rhia'd knelt beside her, Maddy slipped her fingers far as they'd go into the soil and easily lifted that mossy violet mound right off the earth it grew from! She placed it like a huge pudding onto the nearby grass, then knelt to brush away dirt from deep in the soily pit where the violet had been.

“Frederique placed that violet clump atop what I'm about to show you, to conceal it and mark it,” she whispered. “He and his mates found what's beneath here when they were riding one day. Their horses scuffed up the ground and exposed a bit of her brow, then they dug out more of her with their swords.”

“Her?” Rhia looked into the small pit and saw a face staring right back at her! She cleared more dirt to find a woman made all of tiny colored stones, a picture lady with a leafy crown upon her head and a swallow bird upon her shoulder. And there was a red, red rose grown up along her white sleeve, it being made of those same little stones.

“What magic is this?” Rhiannon breathed.

“You've seen nothing yet.” Maddy jumped to her feet and ran along, then knelt and pulled a deep cap of mud and vines from another small section of the ground.

When Rhiannon hastened to look into that second hole, she was peering at a picture of a hare made of those same tiny stones, no single colored stone so large as a silver penny, all put side by side in shades of brown with some pink along the ears and tail and upon the nose, just as a hare would have in life!

“Everywhere we dig within this circle, the ground beneath is covered over with such pictures,” Maddy whispered. “Frederique thinks they lie in one great wall beneath the earth within this copse, and Leonard says they're made to form a seal above a great chamber dug to hold the Dragon of Cymrhough. Or perhaps the Dragon of Brynourth. Leonard says the chamber surely holds one or t'other of those two ancient dragons, and that the beast is sleeping under strong command from some great wizard of Arthur's time, mayhaps the great Merlin himself! Leo says he longs for a chance to slay it, but not as it sleeps. He would wait until it awakes so he might have the sport of the chase!”

Rhiannon sat back on her heels, speechless.

“Leonard is as handsome as my Fred, or nearly, and the best at swordplay of the squires. He fears nothing, I tell you, and he has curls to his shoulders, near as light as your own are dark, and a dimple in his left cheek. Roderick the Paunchy Whiner, Frederique the Handsome, and Leonard the Rough and Tumble. I made that up, but it fits them well indeed. The other four squires are younger and of no account, and they ride a bit behind. I tell you, Rhia, that was I not so fearfully in love with Fred, I would most certainly love Leo, as he's strong and fearless as his namesake beast, and he—”

Rhia, still stunned by her surroundings, finally interrupted. “What's over there?” She pointed over Maddy's right shoulder.

Maddy frowned and rolled her eyes. “Have you not been listening about Leo, Rhia?” She sighed and looked over her shoulder. “Well, beneath that hump of moss is a man in a white robe riding a donkey. And beneath that spot where the wild onion sprouts is a man hunting with two dogs, all sinfully naked but for a shawl around his neck.”

Maddy giggled, but Rhia was far too dazed to join her in it.

“Now, watch,” Maddy instructed. “You can hear the great dragon's breathing!”

She held back her hair with one hand and knelt far forward, putting her whole head and shoulders right into the hole! Rhia watched helplessly as Maddy then pressed her ear right upon the colored stones at the bottom that formed the pink-eared hare.

Maddy presently jerked up straight, her face flushed with excitement. “Yes, yes! I heard it plain! Now
you,
Rhiannon!”

She gave Rhia a little push from the shoulders so Rhia's
own
head now ducked near the gaping hole. Rhiannon snatched her dark hair back and dared to bend forward until her own ear rested on the cold stone of the hare's brown eye.

And sure enough, she heard a great and fearful sighing coming from below! The deep, strong whirl of sound beneath that dome of tiny rocks could only be the breath of a fiery dragon! No doubt they
were
tempting the devil here, she and reckless Maddy.

Rhiannon's heart thudded and she pulled up from the hole, trembling all over.

Maddy clapped her hands, eyes wide with excitement. “Want to go again, this time over in the violet hole where the rose-bedecked lady lies?”

Rhiannon nodded. “I do!” she admitted, shocked by her own reckless decision.

 
Maddy and Rhia sat astride the brambly stone wall a little time later as two knights will sit atop a shared mount. Rhiannon wanted with all her heart to finish the climb over and run back to town. Also with all her heart, she longed to sit forever with one leg inside magical Wythicopse Ring and one leg out in the bright, common world.

What power there was in mysteries! How sharp and alive they made you feel.

“They say the age of the faeries has passed,” Rhia whispered. “And yet there really may be . . .
things
still afoot in our modern world that remain beyond any earthly understanding. Mayhaps even enchantments. Who's to say?”

“Who is?” carefree Maddy agreed, laughing into the bright spring wind.

They were running back to town side-by-side, galloping like colts with their skirts blown above their white knees, when Maddy began to spring her trap, or so Rhiannon later thought of it. Much as a forester will drape a concealed net for the taking of a hapless fox, Maddy had certainly
trapped
her into a plan that could only end in no good!

They were just past Gallux Hump when Maddy turned to her, calling, “You're the only one I've shown who didn't flee the dragon's chamber, Rhia! I knew you wouldn't, and I knew as well you'd be a true friend and meet Frederique's mate Leonard there on Beltane Eve! We'll party gloomy winter away together the evening before May Day brings in the spring—me and Frederique, you and Leo!”