A Painted Winter Read online

  Brei swung his legs over the bed, but the floor swam before him and he threw up.

  The Eldar Druwydd jumped off the bed. “Leave us!”

  “No!” Brei coughed as he steadied himself on all fours on the stone floor. “Bring Anwen to me.”

  The Eldar Druwydd scowled. “This is not the time to be having a dalliance with a farm girl. We have work to do.”

  Brei lifted his head towards the entrance as Anwen hobbled into the room. Even without a fire, he could see blackish-blue bruises stamped onto her pale skin. Anwen glanced at the Eldar Druwydd and her bottom lip trembled.

  “We’ll have to resume this conversation later.” Brei coughed again as his eyes swelled with tears.

  “As you wish, Bridei, I will return in an hour,” the Eldar Druwydd said and brushed past Anwen into the stone stairwell.

  “Anwen,” Brei whispered and raised a shaking hand.

  She dropped to the floor and embraced him.

  “I thought they’d taken you. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” He stroked her auburn hair and pressed into her mud-encrusted tunic. Heat rose in his cheeks as his eyes travelled to her split and swollen lips. Her beige tunic was ripped, but she had tied it together at her shoulders. Yellowing bruises peeked out from beneath the rags. “What happened?” he said, his voice deeper and louder than he had intended.

  Tears began to fall from her blue eyes. “I’m so sorry, Brei.”

  “What did they do to you?”

  She shook her head and her small body shuddered in his grasp. “I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself, but I kept thinking of you.”

  Hot tears surged down his cheeks and soaked the bandage across his nose. “I will never let anything happen to you. Ever. I will not spend another minute without you being mine. You will never leave my side again.”

  “But your mother and father, what will they say?”

  Brei stared past her shoulder into the stone stairwell. “It doesn’t matter. They are dead.”

  Bristles scratched against Brei’s dagger as he shaved a week’s worth of brown growth from his jaw. Holding a polished bronze mirror with one hand, he scraped the blade downwards through the glistening soap of animal fat and herbs, taking pains to avoid the bandages that still covered his broken nose. Carved into the antler bone handle of the blade was a snake that slithered across an arrow bent in the shape of a “Z”. It was the symbol of the bloodline of Caledon. He tilted the mirror and glanced at the bluish bruises that ran like war paint across his collarbone and ribs. Inked into his chest was the warrior symbol of a crescent atop a bent arrow, and curling around his biceps was the Snake of Caledon. Over his wrists he pushed two massive bronze armbands up his arm, to sit snugly below the serpent.

  Footsteps shuffled outside his chamber and Brei’s eyes flicked in the mirror to Anwen, standing in the corridor behind him. He smiled at her reflection as he finished shaving. Servants had cleaned and dressed Anwen in an ankle-length blue tunic that belonged to Brei’s cousin Aífe. A band of crimson adorned the cuffs at her wrists and the hem. Around her small shoulders was a short red cape, fastened in the centre of her chest by a silver, U-shaped brooch with the Snake of Caledon curved across it. Anwen’s freckled face was framed by flowing, shoulder-length, russet hair.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, as Brei pulled a matching blue tunic over his head.

  Brei smiled and sheathed his iron sword into a leather scabbard belted around his waist. He squeezed Anwen’s hand and led her from his chamber and along the corridor to the stone stairwell. They descended the stairs in darkness until, at the bottom, the summer sun poured into the damp shadows. A woman waited for them outside the tower entrance.

  “Prince Bridei.” Serenn bowed her head. She was almost as ancient as the Eldar Druwydd, but unlike him, the physical manifestations of time were almost inscrutable. Her eyelids and eyebrows were blackened with charcoal and her hair stained midnight blue with woad. Half her hair was piled up on top of her head, pulled back from her face with pins made of bone. The other half hung over her shoulders, braided into multiple plaits, each secured with an amber bead. The fine lines of her heart-shaped face were the only betrayal of age beneath the otherwise smooth skin. She had once been a princess, the daughter of the long-dead King Cailtram. However, for most of Serenn’s life, she had lived with the Kings of Caledon, as a Bandruwydd, the female order of the Druwydds.

  “Is everything prepared?” Brei asked.

  “Yes. But there is one problem.” Her voice had a slight husky edge. “I have not had time to acquire rope threaded with gold for the ceremony.” She glanced at Anwen and tilted her head. “You are from the farmstead, my dear? Perhaps you will not mind that the rope is not gilded?”

  Anwen nodded, her cheeks reddening.

  “Any rope is fine,” Brei murmured.

  Serenn smiled as she extracted a length of intricately twisted black wool from a pocket in her black flowing tunic. “Shall we?”

  Brei squeezed Anwen’s delicate hand. “Are you ready?”

  Anwen winced as she smiled with swollen split lips.

  Encircling the tower were the roundhouses where nobles not of the Blood lived. Brei, Anwen, and Serenn walked between the round-houses and descended into the Sacred Forest. Broad, knobbed, green leaves of the ancient oaks and narrow, toothy, dark leaves of rowans spanned overhead. They passed the grey, fissured trunks of ash trees and the light brown, scaly trunks of gigantic yew, as a sweet breeze curled Anwen’s cape behind her. Underneath the tallest oak tree in the Sacred Forest, they stopped. Gnarled, moss-covered limbs twisted at odd angles like an arthritic hand, culminating in the hollowed-out base of the trunk that blinked under the dappled glow of its leaves.

  Serenn’s black-blue robes billowed behind her as she approached the Great Oak and stood amongst its knotted roots, which seemed to wrap around her in a contorted embrace. She studied Anwen’s face. “I can help with the bruises and I can give you potions for the pain inside. The memories will haunt you forever, but I can give you dreamless nights.”

  A summer warbler watched them from a shady bough, and he chirped sweetly as Serenn wrapped the woven rope around Brei and Anwen’s wrists.

  “Prince Bridei, do you promise to the Gods to protect and provide for Anwen and any children she births while you are bound?”

  “I promise.”

  “Before the Goddess Brig,” Serenn said, holding her hands over theirs, “before all the Gods, I bind you, Bridei, Prince of the Blood of Caledon and Vortriu, to Anwen. I bind you in protection and provision in this life and pray that you will find each other again in Tirscath.”

  Serenn left them in the forest, tied at the wrists, as the afternoon sun glistened through the leaves and mottled their faces in shadow.

  “There,” Brei said and smiled. “Now I will never leave you again.”

  Anwen’s cut lip trembled. “It wasn’t your fault, Brei.”

  “I should have run away with you a year ago when my mother said we could not be bound.”

  “No, Brei. You’re a Prince of the Blood of Caledon. You can’t turn your back on your responsibility to the people for me. It wouldn’t matter if I was a princess from Vortriu or Hibernia, no single person is worth more than an entire kingdom.”

  He held her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I wish I could kiss your mouth.”

  “If you are gentle.”

  Brei bent slightly. Anwen’s blue eyes shimmered as his lips pressed, gentle and hesitant against hers. “You taste like honey,” he murmured.

  “Serenn’s apprentice dressed the cuts with honey.”

  Brei licked his lips. I have to tell her. “The Eldar Druwydd has made a request of me.” He cleared his throat. “He, ah, he has asked me to make a claim, to be King of Caledon.”

  Tears swelled in her eyes.

  “I will not make a claim,” he whispered.

  She frowned. “Brei, this is your destiny.”

  He drew her into his arms and k
issed the top of her head. “If I become king, I must bind myself to Caledon, instead of you. I must devote every waking minute to rebuilding. I must go to war against the Romans, if necessary.” He gazed into her eyes. “I must abandon you again. And I will not do that. The crown is not my destiny. You are. Do you remember when we first met? When we were children?”

  “I was chasing a rabbit and got lost. I was so afraid, but you found me.”

  “What did I say to you?”

  “You held me while I cried. You said that I was yours. That you would always protect me.”

  A tear slipped from his eye. “I failed, but I will never fail again. You are my destiny, Anwen, I will not leave your side and one day, together, we’ll be more wrinkled than the Eldar Druwydd.”

  Tears escaped from her blackened eyes and she shuddered against him. His chest felt hollow, and he wondered if he really would give up his claim to the throne. It is my destiny. He swallowed. It was my destiny.

  Silver moonlight shone upon the wounded warriors gathered underneath the sprawling branches of the Great Oak to listen to the Eldar Druwydd. Bandages covered limbs, faces, and chests. Some men were injured to the point of requiring support from other warriors to stand. Robed in white, the Eldar Druwydd stood surrounded by eight of his Druwydds. Serenn and her apprentice, Eluned, wore black. Affixed to their heads were antlered deer skulls.

  Brei leant against a yew behind the crowd, with his young cousins Naoise and Dylan. The armbands around his biceps were cold in the evening breeze. In the branches above them, a long-eared owl hooted.

  Taran and Gartnait waited in the middle, facing the warriors. Gartnait was tall and slight, and drunkards in Elwyn’s tavern often chided his physique as being more suited to Druwyddry than leadership. His hair was light brown like Brei’s, but flecked with grey, and his gentle face more resembled his sister, Derelei, than his brother, the dead King Uradech. Gartnait twisted his head over his shoulder towards the Druwydds. The Eldar Druwydd nodded.

  Brei clasped his hands in front of his stomach. It had enraged the Eldar Druwydd to learn Brei was declining the invitation to make a claim for the throne. He had raised his voice and told Brei he was throwing his life away for a shit-covered peasant.

  Gartnait turned back to the warriors and cleared his throat. “I, ah, I don’t know what to say really.” He turned his palms upwards and smiled.

  “Allow me,” the Eldar Druwydd said. Moonlight glinted against the wide curve of his stag headdress as he strode forwards to address the warriors. “Gartnait is deeply mourning the loss of his brother, the great King Uradech, and of his sister, Princess Derelei. Whilst you may not know him as a warrior, Gartnait was the great king’s advisor, and he is the man to help Caledon rebuild. He is the man to increase trade, and he will ensure the harvests are brought in. He may not be the man to lead you to battle, but he will ensure your swords are sharp. Most importantly, he is a man. Not a boy. And he is the choice of the Druwydds. We ask that you support our choice.”

  The warriors murmured. Brei held his breath as his eyes lingered on the Eldar Druwydd’s wrinkled face and then flicked to Taran. His brother was watching him. Brei dropped his gaze to the forest floor, where a rock the size of his fist lay amongst twigs and dried leaves. He kicked it and watched it roll down the slope towards the city.

  “I also wish to make a claim,” Taran said, stepping forwards. He was already taller than Gartnait, but his chest was yet to fill out, and this was even more noticeable as he addressed them without his tunic. The same black ink that marked Brei as a warrior of Caledon also curved across Taran’s chest. From his belt hung a long iron sword encased in a leather scabbard.

  Taran’s gaze was furious as he stalked around the circle of men. “Gruffydd.” He nodded to their cousin once removed. “Owain.” He nodded to another warrior. “Cináed.” He paused and held his arms out wide. “Warriors of Caledon, I am young, but you know me. You have trained me. You have fought with me. You fought with my father and with my uncle, King Uradech. You know what to expect, and what you can expect is a warrior king! The Druwydds do not support me, but I don’t need their support.” Taran glanced at the Eldar Druwydd and clenched his fists. The massive armbands around his biceps seemed to swell as he flexed. “I have the support of the Gods! Taranis, Lord of Thunder, blessed my birth and gave me his name!”

  A crease formed between the Eldar Druwydd’s eyebrows, and he muttered to the other Druwydds and shook his head. The hint of a smirk played on Serenn’s lips.

  “Your support is all I need to lead you. I pledge my protection of Caledon, of you, of your mothers, sisters, and children, in return for your support of me. Caledon needs a king with stamina to rebuild. I promise I will never sleep, never rest, until I have restored Caercaled to its former glory, until I have revenge against the Romans for what they did to us. Follow me. Choose me, and there will be no looking back. Only forwards, to a new dawn for Caledon!”

  Taran scanned the crowd and his eyes found Brei’s. Brei held his gaze before dizziness enveloped him and he stared at the ground.

  “You only need to look at Bridei to know why Taran cannot be king,” the Eldar Druwydd said. “Look what Taran did to him.”

  Fabric rustled as the warriors shifted their injured bodies, and their eyes found Brei’s face. His heart hammered. He knew the men better than Taran, and he knew they would throw caution to the wind and follow Taran if he told them to. Taran protected you, surely you owe it to him. Sweat moistened his upper lip as he observed Gartnait. Does Gartnait even want this? Maybe he would be a good king. Brei chewed his tongue. I wish I had made a claim, what was I thinking? The Eldar Druwydd asked me, he believed in me. His pulse was manic. What should I say? He opened his mouth, but his throat was dry. Taran’s eyes shimmered in the moonlight, unblinking as he glowered at Brei and shook his head. A few men glared at Brei and wrinkled their noses, as though he were covered in an unpleasant odour.

  Naoise, who had only seen ten summers, kicked Brei in the shin. “Dog.”

  Brei frowned and gazed down at the boy’s scowling face beneath a mess of unruly black hair.

  “I will presume all you warriors will vote with the Druwydds in favour of Gartnait? So all those who vote for Taran speak out now,” the Eldar Druwydd said.

  “I do!” Naoise yelled, his voice squeaking.

  The Eldar Druwydd raised his eyebrows. “And do any men speak for Taran?”

  The silence that followed was thick, and Brei wished he could leave rather than see Taran’s face.

  “Then, I proclaim in the sight of Cernunnos and all the Gods, the new King of Caledon…”

  The Eldar Druwydd raised a plain silver circlet in the air and held it above Gartnait’s head. His hands seemed to shake as he began to lower the crown. A wave of nausea rose from Brei’s stomach. What have I done? Gartnait beamed as the crown touched his greying hair.

  “… King Gartnait!”

  Fuck.

  Three

  Winter, 366 C.E., Caledon

  Light. She squinted at the sky. White flickering arms of winter sun flexed and punctuated the silvery veil of mist. Her eyes closed, and her mind tumbled into unconsciousness. Dark. With both hands outstretched, she groped to either side. A familiar scent of crisp humidity and damp leaves permeated the air. A frozen, wet tickle landed on her cheek. And another. Snowflakes. Allowing the snow to settle on her, she listened for a moment to the desolate absence of noise and opened her eyes. Light.

  Skeletal branches of an ancient oak tree hung above, silhouetted by blinding white. A dull buzz in her ear grew into the gushing roar of a river.

  She turned her head and observed that she lay at the centre of an unfamiliar stone circle. Her body was naked but for a cloak of snow. She frowned and wondered at the length of her limbs. My new body is taller. The snow slipped away as she sat up and inspected her chest. Over her heart was a silvery, knotted scar. It looked as though it was long since healed, and she wondered how long she had dwelt in
Tirscath, the shadowland of the Ancient Gods.

  Mist and snow swirled beyond the grey shadows of the stones as she pulled her legs into her stomach and wrapped her arms around them. I can’t believe Mother went through with it. Throughout the long lives her mother had lived, and the many firstborn daughters she had raised, she had never had a daughter who had refused the Gift.

  A snowflake landed on her hand. She raised her eyes as others floated to the ground. If she stayed in the stone circle, it protected her. But if she moved, she would need clothes, shelter, and food. She dropped her head to her knees and scrunched up her eyes. If she remained, even if it were only when she dreamed, it would be as if the Roman soldiers had never chased her across the fields.

  The biting wind swirled around her with a melancholy whistle. It whisked the mist far above the standing stone circle to reveal a labyrinth of deciduous oaks interspersed with conifers that seemed to glow like onyx against the white. She scowled at the trees. Perhaps I will just sit here forever. In her mind, her mother’s voice returned, chiding her petulance. Strands of jet-black blew across her face, and she twisted her neck to survey her new hair.

  She was not afraid to be alone, to stay there for eternity. But I’m here for a reason. The wind gusted and dislodged snow from an oak branch. She watched it cascade, like a foamy waterfall, to the icy ground below.

  She sighed, scrambled to her feet, and trudged through the snow. Crossing the threshold of the standing stone circle, the frigid air stung as it glanced off her cheekbones and thrust into her eyes until they watered, forming frozen tears on the ends of her lashes. Her bare feet ached and burned as the snow squeaked beneath them.

  A cluster of conifers on the edge of the clearing held the snow at bay on their branches. She broke off the lower branches from one tree, to allow herself to sit against the trunk and shelter. From under nearby dry conifers, she collected kindling. Her hands stung as she dug through the snow and into the dirt to retrieve a piece of chert, which she struck with a rock to light a fire. When the kindling was hot enough to place twigs on, she sat against the trunk and edged her swollen feet towards the flames. The heat was excruciating, but she persisted, breathing in the rich scent of wood and pine needles that whirled in the smoke.