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

if the babe was doomed.
    Olwyn looked around the warm, comfortable house that had once resonated with Godric’s laughter and Branwyn’s childish enthusiasms and tantrums. Mother and daughter must leave quickly, before Melvig decided to make another sudden visit, but the reason for their departure must be plausible or her father would assume some kind of plot was afoot.
    How? What could she do?
    Then, as if the Mother relented and showed her the way, Olwyn remembered her sister Fillagh, a wilful girl who had married a very unsuitable man from Caer Fyrddin far to the south. Olwyn had been separated from her sister for thirteen years, but blood called to blood, and Fillagh would welcome her if she went to visit. More important, Fillagh would give sanctuary to Branwyn.
    Melvig would not be happy, but he wouldn’t choose to pursue her, having sworn never again to gaze upon the face of his wayward daughter Fillagh. For a time, Olwyn and Branwyn would be safe.
    But a southward journey was fraught with danger. The murderous Vortigern reigned in the south and styled himself the High King of the Britons. Even Melvig considered an alliance with Vortigern was the only means to protect his kingdom, for the High King had slain his lord to gain the throne. A regicide would be untroubled by the murder of women who unwisely crossed his path.
    Rumours had trickled northwards of Vortigern’s Saxons who had been invited into the south to act as the High King’s bodyguard. Olwyn had listened to a conversation between Melvig and a guest only a year earlier, as they cursed the regicide for his treason towards his own people, a charge that Olwyn only imperfectly understood.
    Travelling south had its dangers, but Olwyn had little choice. Fillagh and her Roman husband offered a chance of life for Branwyn, provided that Olwyn had the courage, the wit and the strength to deceive her father, something as foreign to Olwyn’s nature as the quick anger that fuelled Melvig and his difficult granddaughter.
    Energised by a solution of sorts, Olwyn instructed her steward to find a reliable manservant to head south on a suitable horse. He would also be required to journey north to her father’s home once he had returned from Caer Fyrddin. Several hours were devoted to teaching the man the full text of a message to her sister, and another to her father, for the servant couldn’t read. Then, with the dice irrevocably cast and the travelling wagons packed, Olwyn informed Branwyn that they were embarking on a journey to Caer Fyrddin.
    The wintry sky and the slow, melancholy rain were as nothing to the reaction of her daughter, who flatly refused to budge.
    ‘Then you will surely die, as will your child,’ Olwyn told her baldly.
    ‘I’m not pregnant!’ Branwyn shouted.
    ‘You are! The child moves within you as any fool can see, and Melvig ap Melwy is no foolish young man to be flummoxed by your lies. He has nine living children and countless grandchildren. He will recognise your condition at a glance.’
    Some spark of the old, reckless Branwyn stirred in the child’s dark eyes. Her mouth set in a thin white line that made her appear far older than her twelve years.
    ‘I had no lover, I swear. A creature came from the sea – a demon or a selkie, I know not which – and sought out my bedchamber. He marked me as his own and took me in my sleep. I dreamed that he would kill me if I resisted him.’
    Olwyn sighed gustily with exasperation. ‘Who do you suppose will believe such a farradiddle of lies? Melvig is well aware how babies are quickened, and demons lack the flesh to plant the seed. Don’t be foolish, daughter!’
    ‘Then who, Mother? What strangers have come to this lonely place at the time when I conceived? Do you suspect old Plautenes? Do you suspect Melvig himself? I tell you, a vile creature of the darkness, disguised as a beautiful man, defiled me as I slept. Doubt me if you must, but let me sleep.’
    Stretched to breaking point by