The Legend of Lady Ilena (2 page)

Others also offered help, a bit of meat from the hunt, some greens from the streamside, perhaps a fish. But through the long nights it was just the three of us, as it had been all my life. When Grenna’s death came, Moren and I prepared her for her last trip, and we walked together beside her body as our friends carried her up the hill.

It seems fitting that I be alone with my father now. I pray that Aten’s medicine will break the congestion in his chest. But if the dream foretells the truth and he is dying, I will be the one who sits beside him until the end. I swallow hard against the fear and push the future out of my mind.

Cryner is pressed against the bed with his long nose resting on the bedskins. He turns sad eyes to me and whines.

“Yes, boy. I know. He is ill.” I pat the old dog’s head and take my seat on the stool beside him.

A breeze carries the chill of coming winter through the partially open shutters. It stirs the bundles of herbs I’ve hung to dry from the roof poles, and the scents of thyme, peppermint, and borage mingle with the smell from Aten’s medicine. I build up the fire to keep the kettle simmering. Flames dance and cast light around the room.

Cryner gives a long dog sigh and moves to his bed in the corner.

Moren stirs. His hand moves about the side of the bed as if searching, and I reach out to hold it.

“I’m here, Moren. I’ll stay beside you through the night.”

As I speak, he turns his head toward me and opens his eyes. I don’t know if he can see me in the flickering light.

“I’ve waited too long.” His voice is slurred from Aten’s potion, but I can hear the words clearly enough. “I should have spoken.”

“It is all right,” I say. “It can wait until you’re well.”

“No.” He seems to become stronger. His eyes open wider, and for a moment I’m sure that he does see me. “It is time. You must go. Grenna wanted so much to return. …” His voice trails off.

“Where?” I ask. “Where must I go?”

“East. To Dun Alyn.” He draws a deep breath that rattles in his chest. He coughs then lies still, breathing heavily, for a time.

I wait, holding his hand.

When he opens his eyes again, he speaks in such a low voice that I have to move my ear close. “Go to Dun Alyn. Find Ryamen; she’s expecting the two of us before the snows come.”

He sighs and coughs but does not speak again. Soon he sleeps. I stay at his bedside throughout the night, getting up now and then to stir the fire and stretch my tired muscles.

Once I hear animals outside our wicker paddock fence. Wolves, perhaps, come down from the hills in search of chickens or lambs left unprotected. When one of them claws at the paddock gate, I move to the door, ready to take up spear and torch. The scratching stops, and I hear a quiet rustle as the pack continues down into the village.

When I cannot stay awake any longer, I rest my head on my arms and close my eyes. I listen to Moren’s ragged breathing for a few moments before I fall asleep.

Near dawn a rooster rouses me. As the crowing fades, there is a deep silence that frightens me. I strain to hear any sound; perhaps the congestion is gone and he is breathing so easily I can’t hear him. I wait, holding my breath, willing some small noise to come from the bedplace beside me. The quiet is broken only when another rooster in the village echoes the one that woke me.

At last a cold, dark knowledge forces itself into my mind. I raise my head and look at my father. The gray
predawn light shows his eyes closed as if in sleep, his hands resting at his sides. His chest does not move.

I reach out to take his hand. The skin is cool; his fingers do not bend around mine. I pull the bedskins down and lay my head on his chest. As a child I loved to sit on his lap with my ear pressed against his tunic, listening to the strong, rhythmic beat of his heart. Now, though I press first one ear, then the other against his body, I can hear no sound.

“Moren!” The cry bursts from me, and Cryner whimpers in his sleep.

I sit clutching his stiffening hand and sobbing for a long time. At last I choke back the tears and speak the prayers that commend my father’s spirit to Our Lord. As dawn sends a ray of sunlight through the crack between the shutters, I remove the pile of skins behind his head and lay his body down flat on the bedplace. I place his hands together on his chest and go out to begin the morning chores.

When Aten and Fiona arrive soon after sunup, I am tending the outside fire. They know from my face, even before I speak, that Moren is dead. Fiona hurries back to the village with the news while Aten and I prepare his body for burial.

I arrange the chain with his enameled pendant around his neck and slide his gold armbands on for the last time. The talisman of goshawk feathers, worn always on his left arm, has loosened, and I fumble with knots and thongs until it is securely retied. Then we
wrap him in his best cloak and fasten it with his silver brooch.

When the villagers arrive in the afternoon to carry him up the hill, I take his sword with me. When the grave is dug and his body lowered into it, I place the elegant blade on his chest so that the gold hilt makes a cross above his heart.

Since there are no other Christians in the Vale of Enfert, I alone say the prayers of our faith. When I finish, the rest chant burial runes of the old religion. The ancient words wish him a safe journey to the Sidth, final dwelling place of the dead.

When everyone else goes down the hill, I remain for a time, trying to make sense of my loss. As dusk settles over the mountains around the vale, I say a last prayer for my father and return to the home that now is mine alone.

T
HE FUNERAL GATHERING LASTS INTO THE NIGHT
. M
OREN
would be pleased with it. There is food enough; Jon and a friend came this morning to slaughter two of our pigs and set the roasting spit above the fire. Aten and other women of the village brought bread. The apples are ripe, and the beehives yielded a full bowl of honey. Our store of ale serves everyone several times over.

At a funeral there is always feasting and drinking to show that life goes on, and there is always the story to honor the one who has died. Our village storyteller is a woman a few years older than
I
; her mother and her grandfather were each village teller in their time.

When all have eaten and drunk their fill, it is time for the story. Most people settle around the fire on logs or flat rocks; a few spread skins on the ground.

The teller takes her place on a log seat where everyone can see her. She swallows a big draught of ale before she begins.

“They came at the end of the long winter.”

These have been the first words of our story for as long as I can remember.

She waits for quiet and continues. “Snow had set in hard before Samhain that year and continued long past the usual time of thaws. Near Beltaine it was, and there were still patches of snow around the mud and barnyard muck.

“I saw them first.” She stops for another swallow of ale and sets her bowl on the ground. “A lass I was then, out digging roots for the stew pot. The stream was running free. I was hearing the sound of it and dreaming of summer to come. Something, I still can’t remember what, made me look up to the head of the valley.

“There they were, two of them, riding tall horses and leading a pack pony. I couldn’t see the babe at first.” She smiles at me and reaches over to pat my shoulder.

She tells how the villagers, alerted, snatched spears and staves and hurried up the path to meet the newcomers. When the signs of peace were exchanged and weapons clattered to the ground, there was plenty of interest in the strangers.

“And the babe’s cry! She was near starved and so weak she could hardly wail.” The teller shakes her head at the memory.

She speaks of the council that met to consider the plight of the little family. Strangers had never asked to settle in the valley before, and there was much discussion
before they decided to let us live here close to the village, yet a little apart. I listen carefully while she names those who argued for and against taking in outsiders. The faces I see around the fire are all friendly enough now. No one seems to regret letting us stay.

She pauses while her ale bowl is refilled. Refreshed, she begins my favorite part of the tale. “Each year the dark-bearded ones from Eriu across the western sea had come into the vale to plunder and to carry off our young people for slaves in their cursed land. They came that year not long after Moren and Grenna had raised the buildings on this farm.

“When our lookout called the warning, we rushed up the track to meet the invaders. Moren and Grenna were busy smoothing daub onto this very house. We saw Moren drop his tools and run for the paddock. Grenna snatched Ilena up and ran into the house. We thought at first that they were escaping from the fight to come.

“But in a few moments Moren rode out from behind his barn and slowed at the door to take sword and shield from Grenna. No one here had ever heard the likes of the cry he gave then. Over and over it swelled, striking terror in the hearts of all who heard it.

“The raiders froze in their tracks partway down the slope, and we paused to watch Moren. He rode onto the path, his horse rearing and plunging as if it couldn’t wait to lay tooth and hoof on the intruders. And the call! Such a swelling of the old words, and a
wonder one man’s voice could carry so.” She stops and settles back to catch her breath and lift her ale bowl.

I can hear murmured comments from those who remember the day themselves. Moren’s battle cry was a shock to the people of Enfert because they have no special calls, no warriors, and no war bands. They have always defended themselves as best they could against raiders and owe no allegiance to any chief.

I worked hard to learn that battle cry myself because Moren told me it was the call of our people. He spoke of battles turned around because the yells roused the war band to new efforts and frightened the enemy at the same time. The words, in an ancient language, are a call for victory at any cost.

The teller continues, “Moren left two of the raiders alive to carry back word that this valley was no longer safe for them. None of our young people have been carried off since.”

The teller’s voice is slow and solemn as she approaches the end of her story. “And so the one who came to us from the East, from somewhere he never named, made another visit to that unknown place. When he returned, he was weak and feverish.

“Ilena and Aten cared for him, but the fever burned and his breathing thickened. Before sunup this morning his spirit traveled to that other world that lies so close beside our own.”

I try not to cry, but I cannot stop myself, and others
cry with me. Somehow the sharp ache inside dulls with the tears that fall. Aten holds me close.

There is rustling and standing and the noise of families gathering their things and calling to children. All say a word or two of consolation to me before they leave. Soon the path down into the village holds a line of bobbing torches, and only Aten and her family remain. She gives me a last, firm hug and joins her husband, who is helping Jon harness their horse to the cart.

Fiona appears at my side from the shadows beyond the fire. “Shall I stay with you tonight, then?”

It is tempting, but I shake my head. “I must get used to being alone, Fiona.”

“If you are sure?” She waits for me to reconsider, then embraces me and hurries after her parents.

I regret refusing her offer as soon as I have the outside fire banked and the door shut behind me. I look for Cryner in his bed in the corner. He is not there. I haven’t seen him all evening and supposed him to be inside, away from the commotion of the funeral gathering.

I pull the door open and call for him. “Cryner! Cryner! Come, boy. They’re all gone now. Come in.”

The only response is a deepening silence as night creatures grow quiet at my voice. Clouds cover the moon, and the cold wind smells of rain.

Moren brought Cryner from the East when I was a
toddler. One of my earliest memories is rolling on the ground with the pup while Moren and Grenna stood arm in arm watching us. The old dog will not survive a night out in the cold. He wheezes already and moves stiffly with joint disease.

I take a torch and thrust it into coals in the outside fire. When it blazes, I move around the yard, calling for the hound. As I enter the barn, the horses stir in their stalls. I stop to stroke Rol. Although my big sorrel stallion is a trained fighting horse, he is gentle with me and likes to nuzzle my hand, looking for apple or carrot pieces.

“I’m sorry, Rol,” I tell him. “There’s nothing for you tonight. Tomorrow, I promise.”

There is still no sign of Cryner, and I have only one more place to look. I lift the torch high to light the path and trudge up the slope to the two graves on top of the hill. Cryner’s eyes catch the torchlight before I can see the rest of him. He whimpers and thumps his tail on the soft earth as I approach. The cairn we built for Moren covers one end of his grave. The dog is sprawled across the other end with his head on his paws.