The Tower and the Emerald

CHAPTER 1-3

The spell was cast. With their last act of knowledge the priests pulled down the Stones upon themselves and closed the circle forever. She could hear the sound of their falling now, the roar, the rushing wind, the thud that struck her heart into darkness.

And then... the long silence.

Now, standing in another life, in another body, Viviane — who had been Fiann — remembered the look in Idoc’s eyes when he realized that she had betrayed him.

She began to shake. ‘O God,’ she sobbed. ‘O God... O God...’ Should she call on the Christ? On the Holy Spirit? Or on the ancient gods of her people?

Stumbling, she fled... fell and rose and ran... and fell again... Where should she go? Where was there to hide? She could not believe that she had been foolish enough to fall victim to his cunning and his charm once again.

Viviane crouched by the stream in the valley, weeping, fingering her knife... wondering if she should kill herself... but she knew that the death of the body would be no escape...

And then she heard a sound, faint at first, but steadily increasing. Puzzled, she held her breath and listened. She was so distraught with fear that at first she did not recognize it. It was the distant sound of a hunting horn, the calling note of a party searching in the forest.

She leapt up, frantic with fear that they might pass her by, and began to run towards the forest, calling their names.

‘Caradawc!’ she screamed as she ran. ‘Caradawc!’

The dark shadow had lifted from the land, the forest was in leaf again, the grass springy beneath her feet. Over-head a lark sang in the clear air. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her breath coming short with the effort of running. Surely she had imagined the whole thing?

The horn blew loud and clear, and when its notes died away she could hear voices shouting her name amid the thunder of hooves.

Suddenly the party broke out of the cover of the forest. Caradawc waved and galloped ahead to meet her, full tilt down the slope of the hill. How beautiful he looked! How she loved him! She could see the relief on his face, the white flash of his smile... Then suddenly his horse lost its footing on the uneven ground and Caradawc was sent flying over his head. The others laughed. The young prince’s horsemanship was unquestioned, and spirits were high now that they had found her.

But then a strange thing happened. Caradawc’s chestnut reared up on its hind legs, whinnying with fear, and then galloped off towards the west. Caradawc himself lay still, his body buckled awkwardly in the grass. Viviane reached his side at the same moment as his great friend, Gerin. Together they turned him over and straightened him out.

‘He must have hit his head on that stone,’ Gerin said, allowing her to cradle her lover in her arms. Caradawc was very pale and still, and there was a thin trickle of blood from beside his temple.

Viviane looked anxiously into Gerin’s eyes.

‘He’ll be all right,’ he said soothingly. ‘He’s taken worse falls than this in battle.’

The others were now dismounting and crowding round them, but Cuall, Caradawc’s dog, howled disconsolately and backed away from his master as though he did not recognize him.

Gerin arranged for Caradawc to be lifted up on to his steed in front of him, while his friend Rheged galloped off to bring back the prince’s horse. Cai, another close friend, rode on ahead to warn Goreu of his son’s accident.

Gerin had said that Caradawc would be all right, but would he? He looked so pale... so dead. Seeing him slumped against Gerin, his legs flopping against the flanks of the horse, Viviane found it difficult to imagine him conscious again. She shuddered. Could Caradawc’s fall have anything to do with what had occurred in the ancient circle? Impatiently she dismissed the idea. ‘That way madness lies,’ she thought, and she stroked her mare’s silky mane as she rode, taking comfort from the animal’s companionship.

* * * *

Goreu’s dogs came streaming through the gates and over the fields to meet them, barking with excitement. The sun had set while they were still in the forest, and the long twilight had almost faded. Some of Goreu’s people with torches were standing anxiously in the quarter-light, peering at the party of dark shapes picking its way carefully down the last hill slope. The hunting dogs joined in the din, excited as they were to smell home at last, and the horn blower, carried away by the occasion, blew continually on his horn. Every man, woman and child who lived around Castle Goreu — serving its master, sheltering under his protection — was out, milling about them, asking what had happened. The cries of alarm when Caradawc was lowered down gently in the arms of his friends brought the huge bulk of Goreu himself into the courtyard, growling like a bear. But when he saw the young prince he was shocked into silence, and as the flickering torch flames lit up his face, Viviane saw no trace of the contempt he usually showed towards his son.

They carried Caradawc to his room and laid him on his bed, Goreu calling for Kicva, the healing woman, part Druid trained, whom he trusted more than the Christian priest with his cedar box of herbs and ointments.

Viviane washed the prince herself, stripping off his dusty clothes one by one.

Goreu strode about the room, glowering and grumbling, more irritated now than worried, complaining that they had returned without meat from a forest teeming with deer and boar, sneering at his son for not being able to stay on his horse...

Kicva came at last and pushed Viviane aside with her bony hands.

‘My lord,’ the young woman turned, outraged, to Goreu. ‘Surely the priest has been called? You are not trusting your eldest son to this... this...’

Words failed her as she stared at the evil-smelling crone. The great age of the Druids was long past... the Romans had seen to that... but still the Celtic people clung to threads of the old knowledge, ragged as they were, often meaningless and dangerous for being misunderstood. Viviane, whose own father still held to the old religion, knew something of the Druid faith, and looked on Kicva as a sorry representative of the ancient line of bard-masters and shaman-priests that lay behind her.

At Viviane’s words Kicva turned on her a look of such malevolence that the young woman shrank away from her — but then, remembering Caradawc’s plight, she stood her ground, meeting the woman’s eyes stare for stare.

‘The Christian will be called,’ Goreu said. ‘There will be time enough for his mumblings. But first Kicva will tend him, for she nursed me as a child and saw my father through all his battle wounds. Stand back, girl! Give her room,’ he commanded.

Viviane moved out of the woman’s way but still kept close to Caradawc, taking his limp hand in hers.

‘I can’t work with all these people here,’ the old hag snarled, looking at Goreu. ‘Send them away.’

‘You heard her,’ he snapped. ‘Everyone leave the room!’

‘I will not!’ Viviane said defiantly, as the others moved to leave. Gerin paused at the door, anxiously meeting her eyes, asking her silently if she wanted him to stay. She shook her head and he reluctantly left. She settled down upon the edge of Caradawc’s bed, clutching his hand as though she believed no force on earth could prise her fingers from his.

Goreu took her roughly by the arm and jerked her away. If she had not let go her lover’s hand, he would have been hauled off the bed with her.

‘Go to your room, girl,’ he snapped. ‘I am in no mood for this!’ And he pushed her angrily towards the door. She looked back, her arm bruised from his rough handling... Already the old woman was stooping over the young prince, Goreu standing beside him, holding up the lamp. It was as though she were already forgotten: a stranger who had briefly intruded and then passed on. There was something disturbing in the scene: something sinister in the flickering light that held the three figures together against the surrounding darkness.

But she was too tired to worry about it. She found that she could barely drag herself to her own chamber. She hardly felt the servant undress her and bathe her face. Dimly she knew that she pushed her hands away when she started the combing... and then she sank into the merciful oblivion of a dreamless sleep...

* * * *

Caradawc remained unconscious for three days. The life of the castle was subdued as its young prince, heir to his father’s kingdom, lay silent, locked in a shell of darkness that no one could penetrate.

For some reason Goreu and Kicva would not allow the Christian priest near Caradawc. Viviane brought him to the door several times, but Kicva had locked herself in with her charge and would let no one enter. In vain Viviane alternately pleaded with Goreu and railed against him, furious that she also was barred from the chamber. But Goreu was morose and sulky and unmoved by anything she could say. He had put his faith in Kicva and was determined to follow her instructions minutely.

‘The Christian can pray in his chapel,’ he said gruffly. ‘Kicva knows what she is doing.’

‘What does she say? How does she explain it?’ Viviane begged to know.

‘His soul is on a journey. It will return,’ Goreu said briefly.

‘If it is his soul that is affected, surely the Christian...’

‘The Christian knows nothing about the soul,’ he growled.

Viviane bit her lip. There were many things she would have liked to say to him — but how could she speak to such a stubborn old man, holding like a dog to an old bone?

She turned away and sought the comfort of Hunydd in the stables. ‘If only I’d listened to you,’ she sighed, stroking the soft muzzle, ‘none of this would have happened.’ But she knew that we can never unravel Time and what has been, is, and always will be.

* * * *

During that night, the third of Caradawc’s ‘journey’, Goreu came to her chamber.

She did not at first know that he was there. Deep in sleep she began to dream that Caradawc’s fingers were exploring her body. She stirred and groaned with the pleasure of it... and then a sound woke her and she found it was not the prince but his gross father who floundered in her bed, heaving himself upon her, his hand where she had dreamed her lover’s was. She pulled away in horror, crying out and beating her fists on his grey head. He clasped her tightly and forced his face into her breasts. What had seemed so delicate and beautiful a moment before was now an outrage.

‘Viviane, girl...’ the old man ground out in a hoarse whisper as he wrestled with her. ‘Don’t fight me. I’ll show you what a real man feels like... not a boy. My son is no use to you. He’ll never wake up. You need me just as I need you!’

‘I’ll never need you!’ she screamed, fighting like a wildcat for her freedom, spitting and biting and tearing with her nails. ‘Get out of here!’

As she frantically turned her face to escape his kiss she saw a figure at the door.

‘Help me!’ she screamed. But the figure did not move.

Then Goreu lunged his bearded face at hers again. She bit his nose and as he screamed and momentarily withdrew she saw the figure again.

It was Caradawc. He was standing quite still watching them, a small terracotta Roman lamp held high in his hand, its flame lighting the whole shameful scene with extraordinary brilliance while their monstrous shadows played across the wall.

She called his name, and Goreu loosened his grip and looked round, shocked.

She wrenched herself away from the man and he fell off the bed, landing heavily on the flagstones, swearing and muttering. She staggered upright, naked before the prince, scratched and bleeding, her long red-gold hair floating around her like fire in the lamplight.

Suddenly he moved, and it seemed to her the scene remained totally static except for that movement. Afterwards she could not remember if it all happened between one breath and the next, or whether it took longer. At any rate she watched as though in a dream as he crossed the room, picked up the dagger from her little wooden table, and plunged it between the shoulders of his crouching father. She had never seen him move more decisively. Goreu had been partly right when he had accused his son of being ‘a boy’ — but he had changed. It was no boy who strode across the room.

She heard the gasp of her own breath, part horrified, part exultant. Her hate for the old man was so bitter at this moment that she felt no pity as he slumped and lolled, blood spurting from the wound.

‘Caradawc,’ she whispered and reached out her arms to him, thinking that he would need comfort when he realized what he had just done. When he would begin to feel remorse.

But he ignored her and stood looking down on his handiwork for what seemed a long time. Her arms dropped to her sides. He did not need her.

Then, without looking at her, he strode towards the door. When he reached it he turned. The lamp, which he had put down when he seized the dagger, shone on his face. For the first time he looked into her eyes. For the first time she saw clearly into his. They were not the eyes of Caradawc — but of Idoc.

Horrified, she stood and stared at the open doorway, even when he was no longer there. And then sheer, mindless terror took her over.

She rushed to the door and shut it with trembling hands, leaning heavily against it, her heart pounding. She saw the body of Goreu... she saw the eyes of Idoc... All she could think about was getting away, as far away as possible. Darting across the room, she seized her long blue cloak and flung it over herself. She seized the little oil lamp and dashed it at the furs on her bed...

She climbed out of the window... She rushed to the stables...

* * * *

Now, looking back, she saw the blaze of flames leaping from her bedchamber and hoped that all would think that she had perished there.

Moonlight and shadow wove a cocoon around her, soon distancing her from Castle Goreu. But where could she go to be safe from Idoc? Where hide? She thought of her distant home, her father’s castle with the green ocean rolling at its foot, but between her and it lay many leagues of dangerous travel. Besides, would not the man she dreaded also look for her there?

‘Christ of All the Worlds! Angels of Light!’

The prayer in her heart was wordless, but the cry for help was unmistakable.

In all the Realms of Being beyond our own the impact of her cry was felt. Angels, Spirits of Light, who had never known the weight of a physical body, nor the limitations of Time and Space, chose to take on form to give her aid, while those human souls who were already on their way to the higher Realms chose to stay behind to help her in her time of trial. Cave spirits and mountain spirits... nereids of the sea and river nymphs... tree elementals and the keepers of Springs... all saw her riding on her white mare, her long hair streaming out behind her like flame, her body naked beneath the long blue cloak.

But the beings of Light were not the only ones who saw her. Idoc had now left Caradawc and — a dark presence in a dark tower — stood brooding before his tall obsidian scrying mirror, seeing all that he chose to see, whether it be past, present or future; whether it be one league distant or a thousand.