Clash of Kings by M. K. Hume Read Free Book Online

fall, and oblivious of the acquisition of many new scrapes and bruises, she plunged into the waves and immersed her whole body in the salty water. She sat in the wavelets as tears streamed down her face to join the brine that beaded on her pale skin.
    For a long time, Branwyn sat, rocked and cleansed herself in the sea that washed the scent, the blood and the sweat of him from her body. Only the screaming of the gulls repeated the keening that echoed through the vaults of her skull.
    In truth, Branwyn thought of nothing: not of the rape, not of the stranger, nor even of her family. In some secret, atavistic part of her consciousness, she knew her doom had come upon her and the sun would never shine on her again.

CHAPTER III
    A TRICK OF FATE
Such is the protection they [the Celts] find for their
country
(It [the invited Saxon horde] was in fact its
destruction)
That those wild Saxons, of accursed name,
Hated by God and men, should be admitted
into the island like wolves into folds,
In order to repel northern nations.
    Gildas
     
    Week had followed dreary week, although the summer sun shone brightly. The sea glittered and frolicked in the blue day and the gulls were comical counterpoints, always squabbling like argumentative children over live shells, dead fish and the occasional scavenged scraps from the villa’s kitchen. The trees in the orchard ripened with fruit, the menservants were kept busy smoking fish and tending the vegetable patch and the world of Segontium was fair, sweet-smelling and peaceful.
    Yet Olwyn fretted, night and morning, for Branwyn no longer roamed far and wide during the day and expressed no interest in the seashore or long rambles through the wonders of the foreshore. The child’s dark eyes were turned inwards and her voice had been silenced. Olwyn longed for the wilful, disobedient girl who had been so filled with raw enthusiasm for life. The changeling who now imprisoned herself in her small plastered room rarely smiled, never laughed and spent hours on her bed or staring out towards the isle of Mona.
    Olwyn flinched at the thought of that blessed isle. She had lived for years in its shadow and so much blood stained it that perhaps the gods had been angered by Branwyn’s joy of life, and were punishing the child for her hubris. Perhaps Olwyn had not been dedicated enough in her prayers to Ceridwen, and now the Old Ones sought to take her only child to sharpen her devotion. Olwyn prayed long into the night, begged the Mother for mercy until her knees were raw and her hands were bloody from striking the tiles in her piety, but Branwyn remained as emotionless as a small effigy in petrified wood.
    Would Olwyn have continued to watch her cuckoo child without daring to shatter the illusion of calm and peace that Branwyn’s silence evoked? Perhaps. Or was she sufficiently frightened of the child’s new timidity to have ultimately chosen storms and tempers above this eerie obedience?
    As it happened, Olwyn’s maidservant brought word of Branwyn’s illness.
    ‘She can hold nothing down in her stomach during the mornings, my lady. Nothing! And she can scarcely move from her bed for weariness. I know it’s impossible, but Mistress Branwyn acts like my daughter when she’s breeding. She almost dies of the sickness for the first four months and then, when the babe begins to show, she becomes well again. But Mistress Branwyn is scarcely twelve years old, and she’s never lain with a man.’
    The maidservant made the ancient sign against the chaos demons and Olwyn felt her cheeks leach of colour. Could Branwyn be pregnant? Such a condition would certainly explain her change of mood. But how could it have happened? With some trepidation, Olwyn decided to ask her outright, regardless of what bad news she might discover.
    When she entered her daughter’s room, Branwyn was still abed with the covers pulled up to her chin and an old, cracked bowl close to hand in case of nausea. Olwyn was sure she had never