He looked again and it was gone. But now he was alert. Standing there, staring into the darkness, he made out dark shapes moving in the main pen. He felt a tingle in his flesh and without thinking threw off the calfskin and raced back through the caer to his father’s house. He dashed inside and shouted, “Gwyddno! Get up! Our cattle are being stolen!”
Snatching a burning brand from the firepit, he ran back outside to the gate, lifted the crosspiece from its pegs, and threw the massive gate open. Then he flew down the track to the cattle pens with the firebrand in his hand. Behind him came the alarm sounded on Gwyddno’s hunting horn, and then the clanging of the iron bar hanging from the oak.
Elphin reached the pen and was met by the swords of four raiders. A blood-freezing shriek tore from his throat and he threw himself at the raiders, swinging his firebrand in a flaming arc around him. The thieves fell back in confusion and he saw the fear on their faces in the wild light of the torch, so pressed was his attack, shoving the burning branch at them time and time again.
Other raiders sped to the fray. He swung to meet them, raising his voice in a fierce battle scream, flailing with the firebrand. He struck one man who went down with a grunt, and the others scattered. Elphin chased them, shrieking and swinging and lunging. The flaming brand ripped and flared in the night, making him seem like an incendiary being.
His clansmen from the caer reached the pen and saw a strange sight: Elphin, unarmed except for his firebrand, chasing ten raiders armed with swords and spears, fleeing before him as if before a battlelord in a hurtling chariot.
They ran to his aid, hot battle cries piercing the cool night air. One of the raiders slipped behind Elphin and aimed his spear. “Look out!” cried Gwyddno.
Elphin heard the shout and spun as the spear sliced the air beside him. He put out a hand and his fist closed on the clumsily-thrown shaft, plucking it out of the air. He whipped around to face the raiders who, backed against the low stone wall, had turned to attack him once more. They yelled and ran forward, bunched together in a mass. Elphin hefted the spear and with a mighty heave let it fly.
The spear flew true, passing through the foremost raider’s flimsy leather shield and his body and into the one pressing close behind him as well. The two, pinioned by the same spear, fell as one.
Seeing this remarkable feat, the remaining thieves halted, turned and fled, scrambling over the walls and disappearing into the night. The caer dwellers gave chase but did not catch them, and soon returned to the scene of the fight.
There they found Elphin, naked and shaking, standing over the bodies of the men he had slain, the smoldering firebrand still in his hand. Gwyddno approached him and said, “Never have I seen a man behave in battle the way you did.”
“Who were they?” asked Elphin.
Cuall, one of the first to reach the fight, stooped over the dead men and pushed a torch into their faces. He straightened and said, “I have never seen such men. Their dress is as strange as their faces.”
“Irish?” asked Gwyddno.
Cuall shook his head. “I do not think so.”
“Who they are does not matter,” said one of the men. “Our cattle are safe.”
“There should have been an alarm,” offered Gwyddno. “Where are our herdsmen?”
“Dead.” They all turned to the speaker, who gestured to a far wall. “If not for Elphin, we would never have discovered the theft until morning and then the thieves would have been away clean.”
The men looked at Elphin wonderingly. “How did you leam of the raid?” asked his father.
“I do not know,” he answered, shaking his head as if were as great a mystery to himself as to the others. “I could not sleep and came outside. I heard something and saw the glimmer of a sword in the cattle pen. When I looked there were men here. I ran to the lord’s house, wakened him, and took a firebrand from his hearth. I came down here…”
Cuall retrieved one of the raider’s weapons. “These swords are blackened with pitch and mud-as are the faces of the wretches before us,” he said, turning the blade over for all to see. “How could you see it shine?”
Elphin only shook his head. “That I cannot say. I only know I saw it and came running.”
“But why did you not wait for us, son?” asked Gwyddno. “It was foolhardy to go against them alone.”
“Foolhardy perhaps,” replied one of the men, “but I saw Elphin’s face in the firelight. Why, it burned as bright as the torch in his hand!”
“Brighter,” said another. “He had the battle frenzy on him and the warrior’s glow-as the heroes of old.”
“Did you see?” said a third. “He snatched the spear out of the air and threw it back!”
“Two with one throw!” shouted another.
The men began shouting victory cries, and Cuall leapt upon the dead raiders with a sword and hewed the heads from their shoulders. He handed the dripping trophies to Elphin, saying, “With nothing but a torch you routed the enemy. Hail Elphin, son of Gwyddno Garanhir, champion of the fight!”
“Hail Elphin!” the others cried. And Elphin was borne back to the caer on the shoulders of men who chanted victory songs in his honor for hours into the night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Have you ever seen anything so…” Charis searched for just the right word, “… so magnificent?”
Guistan peered at her and sniffed, “Of course, the High King lives well. Why not? It is his right.” The boy tossed another grape into his mouth. “He is a god, after all.”
“Not a real god.”
“He is too,” insisted Guistan. He put a grape under his thumb and squashed it. “Ask Annubi. When a king becomes High King, he also becomes a god. Would you have a god live in a pigsty?”
“I said the palace is magnificent,” she insisted. “I think the High King is magnificent, too; I do not care whether he is a god or not.”
“Huh!” snorted Guistan, getting to his feet. He squashed another grape and then picked up the pulpy mass and threw it at Charis.
She ducked and grabbed an orange from the fruitbowl and threw it at his quickly-retreating back. “I hate you!” she yelled after him. The orange splattered on the marble floor and rolled, spilling juice as it went. Charis turned away in disgust.
“Was this welcome meant for me?”
Charis spun back to see a dark-haired woman in a flowing tunic and mantle standing in the doorway, the ruined orange at her feet. “Aunt Elaine!” she cried, and flew across the room to hug her aunt.
“Here,” said Elaine taking Charis’ hand, “put your hand just there.” She held the girl’s hand flat against the side of her protruding stomach. “Do you feel anything?”
“Mmm, no,” replied Charis. Elaine moved her hand to a different place and almost at once Charis felt a quiver and then a bump beneath her hand. She pulled her hand away at once.
“Was that the baby?”
Her aunt nodded. “That was a foot or an elbow. He squirms around an awful lot these days, poor thing. He is cramped in there and wants to be free.”
“Have you seen the garden?” asked Charis suddenly, taking Elaine’s hand and leading her to the balcony.
“Only from my window.”
“I have explored almost the whole garden; let me show you.”
“Very well, but first let us find your mother. I have not yet greeted her.”
“She will come with us and you can talk while I show you the garden. “Charis dashed to the doorway. “I will bring her.”
Charis found her mother in conversation with Ilean as the maidservant arranged the queen’s hair. ‘ ‘Mother, Aunt Elaine is here-we are going for a walk and she wants you to come too.”
“Thank you, Ilean.” Briseis dismissed the servant and followed her daughter into the next room where they found Elaine where Charis had left her, standing in the sunlight on the balcony. Elaine turned and held out her arms. “Briseis!”