Excerpt from Call of the Raven

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Degannwy Castle, Wales, May 1201

 

 

It was the darkest hour of the night when Tangwystl awoke once more from the dream. Slowly she sat up. Then pulling the robe from the clothes pole next to her, she wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, before padding across to the adjoining room where her children slept. Without making a sound, she crossed the rush strewn floor to the bed where she stood gazing down at her son, Gruffydd, whose sleeping form lay spread-eagled on the counterpane with his sister, Gwenllian, curled up beside him. Behind a curtain on the other side of the room their nurse snored. She heard the creak of her cot as she shifted her ample bulk on the straw mattress before lapsing back into her rhythmic labouring once again.

               Tangwystl stood for a long time taking in, perhaps for the last time, the shock of red brown hair and the smatter of freckles that peppered Gruffydd's nose, and the smooth curve of her daughter’s face, before a cloud moved across the moon obliterating its light through the square mullioned window. She felt no sorrow for herself but she pitied the children, for she knew she would not live beyond the next few weeks. She could feel her life ebbing away, even as she stood with the coldness of the floor tiles seeping through the rushes and her hands clutching the roundness where the baby in her belly had not moved for days. The mid-wife had told her she was being fanciful, but Tangwystl knew these things. Just as her mother had known things before her. It was either a gift or a curse. And for Tangwystl it was a curse. She had no regrets, for she had loved Llywelyn, with all her heart. But it was not to be. Fate had determined that she would die young. And when she was gone her children would be taken to live with him at Aber Garth Celyn, his principle court. That would be her last request of the man she loved, that he take care of their children.

               Tangwystl’s eyes lingered on Gruffydd’s small form for a moment. He had a great future ahead of him, the gods had decreed it ... or had they? a small voice asked. She shivered, remembering the dream again. It had come more and more often of late as her time drew closer, and she wondered if it were just the morbid fancy of a dying woman, or were the gods trying to warn her of something? Outside, beyond the castle walls, the distant rumble of thunder echoed across the valleys. The air was heavy and cloying in the chamber. Ominous. Behind her, a sudden gust of wind caught the window shutter and it crashed back against the wall making her jump, and thinking it might wake the children she held her breath. But neither stirred.

               Going to the window, she caught the shutter before it could bang again, just as another rumble of thunder rolled over the valley. For a moment, she stood, mesmerised by the rhythmic patter of rain on the cobbles below. Welcoming the cool air. Then suddenly a great bolt of lightning lit the sky outside, flooding the courtyard, and briefly she saw it again. Instead of the buildings that crowded the sprawling inner ward, the imposing white tower from her dream reached towards the dark sky above, lit for a fraction of a second by the lightning. There were no stars visible above the tower, and she sensed that it was in a city that existed beneath a sky constantly hidden by a veil of smoke. A city far away from the hills and valleys of Wales.

               A cold, heartless city ...

               There was another flash of lightning and Tangwystl gripped the window sill, suddenly breathless with fear. People were running. Running fast to the foot of the tower, smoking torches streaming as they went. They were crowding around somebody lying there, but she couldn’t see who it was, though now she could see the knotted sheets dangling from a window high above. With her heart pounding in her breast, Tangwystl leaned further out over the embrasure, desperate to get even a glimpse of what was causing the commotion. She heard a woman cry out piteously before a man pulled her away from the others and held her keening loudly in his arms.

               Then the vision began to fade, and Tangwystl could feel the hot tears coursing down her face, mingling with the rain.

               `Wait!’ she called. ‘Oh, please wait … I must know ... who are you trying to warn me about? Is it my son? Please, I must know!’

               But already the vision was indistinct. The veil between the two worlds was being drawn once again, and she could not reach past it to gain the knowledge she sought ...

 

‘Mistress! Oh, Mistress! Wake up! I thought you were going to fall!'

               Tangwystl blinked and rubbed her eyes, trying to remember where she was. One of the maids was frantically pulling her away from the window. The rain was sheeting into the room soaking them both. Beyond the window embrasure the tower had gone and the courtyard had re-ordered itself into the usual tangle of dark buildings. With a shudder she turned to the children, now wide awake and huddled together on the bed.  And she remembered the last thing that she had seen before the vision had faded. It was a flock of black ravens, swooping down in the grey misty dawn to settle on the tower’s battlements.

               Ravens, she knew, heralded death ...