I pause, sniffing the air, my keen ears alert, listening, my bold eyes watchful. A movement against the sunlight horizon. A deer, fine-legged and with a gleaming coat. My fellow traveler. It regards me for a moment, and then raises its head, ears twitching. There is something. A sound. A woman crying. I move silently toward it, keeping cover in the tall grasses, taking care not to give myself away. I come upon a figure, bent away from me, kneeling on the ground at the edge of the lake. I cannot see the woman’s face, but she is weeping pitifully, and in front of her is a baby’s crib. It rocks on wooden rockers, but there is no sound or movement from within it, for it is empty. As I creep closer, wanting to see who it is who sobs so for what is not there, another sound stops me. A shuddering of the earth. A galloping. Many horses, and approaching at speed! The deer, too, has felt their thundering through the ground and turns, leaping, running fast away. Now the horses charge into view. Fifty? One hundred? Two hundred? Too many to count. I lay flat on the ground, still as a stone, forced to trust that the charging horses will not set their great iron-clad hooves upon me. The soldiers on their backs shout and roar and wield their heavy swords as they charge, and in front of them, a lone figure. A young man, alone, upon a red horse, its neck wet with sweat, its mouth foaming. The man wears no armor, carries no shield, nor any sword. He is defenseless. I fight for breath as I see it is Prince Brynach! The soldiers close upon him. The woman lifts her head. She sees, but she does not call out to him. She does nothing. Nothing. And the attackers race on, so that the prince must turn his horse into the water. Deeper and deeper into the lake he rides until the horse must swim, and then, when it can swim no more, it sinks beneath him. And he with it. So that the waters close over his head, and the lake swallows him up.

Chapter 8

8

TILDA