The Matter of Manred Continues...
I would not sell myself so cheap as to be nothing more than a pawn in such a fickle game. If peace and goodwill are to come of our marriage, then peace and goodwill must go into it first. And so I tell you true, a...
Eowain floated. Bobbed. As if he were on the river beneath his tower in the sunshine. He felt free of all care, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. Water, cool and fresh, washed over him. Hands moved across his body. His armor was gone.
Where has my armor gone?
He rose and fell with the rhythm of the water's current beneath him.
A voice drew him back.
Your son will a son of Droma be...
He rolled in coolness, water in his nose, like on many a high-spring morning in the waters of the Gasirad. Eowain had so enjoyed swimming.
How had he come to that place of light and cold?
He'd fallen to a knee after putting his father's spear through his traitor cousin's heart.
Lorcán had found him then. His brother had taken a gash in his fall, a bleeding wound that ran from his scalp into his eyes. "Eowain! Brother!" Lorcán lifted him up in a crushing embrace. Then there were other men. Men of his Company's Horse. "To the king! Defend the king!"
Was it a dream? It seemed much like a dream. Surely, that place of blood and mud, surely that was the dream, and this, floating in the coolness of the Gasirad on a sunny day, surely, that was real and not the days and nights under Annwn's own thunderclouds.
Lorcán and a bare squad of men laid him on his shield with the spear of his father clutched to his chest. "You're going to be alright, little brother."
There was shouting, and the strumming sound of plucked harp strings. One side of his shield tilted, and Eowain's stomach lurched in his chest. "Rally now, lads!" Lorcán's voice was strident and firm. He took Eowain's hand in his three-fingered grasp. "We'll get you there, don't you worry. We'll get you to the shrine on time."
On time? On time for what?
"Eithne's waiting for you, lad." Lorcán gave him a grim smile.
Eowain didn't believe a word of it, and clenched his brother's crippled hand. Lorcán nodded to him. "Alright, lash him to the horses! Drag him out of here! Heave-ho, let's have it, boys!"
"Look out!"
Lorcán let him go then. Where had Lorcán gone?
He remembered the day on the river, when the current got hold of Lorcán and dragged him toward the dangerous white-water channel. Eowain had lost sight of him for a moment, only a moment. Then he was alone in the Gasirad, a lad of four and his brother gone and the water up over Eowain's head.
Eowain felt as if he'd been submerged in the coolness and the light. His nostrils rebelled for air. Am I really on the Gasirad? Am I really just a boy again?
The pressure on his nostrils broke, light and cold lifted from his moustaches with a snorting spew.
"Quickly. Wrap him in the burial linens. You, girl, fetch the balsam and the yew, chop them. Soak them to a boil in the Cauldron of Tegwedd."
—33—
Look for the next installment in this Continuing Tale of The Matter of Manred: The Romance of Eowain.
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