An Excerpt from Chapter I of

(c) 2003 Emily C. A. Snyder, All Rights Reserved
Printed by Arx Publishers

“They are but rings like mail,” Findola protested, her dusky cheeks blushing red. “Like the protection the Princess patterns on all the cambric.”

The other girls – Magdwa, slender and still more child than lady; Gwendolyn, older than all and promised to proud Gwrhyr who had no sooner won his spurs at Easter than sued for Gwendolyn’s hand; and Elowen, laughing and always merry – bent their heads over their needlework, casting knowing glances at each other. The Princess, too, smiled and bent her head over her own handiwork, murmuring, “I do but stitch crosses, not rings, Findola.”

And, when her handmaids could not help but giggle as Findola, flustered, pricked herself on both sides of a stitch, ‘twas the Princess who quietly said, “I’m minded of when Gwrhyr first beheld a lass, and she, that very e’en, began to fill a chest with finest linen, broidered – or so methinks – with roses and with daffodils?”

Now it was Gwendolyn’s turn to colour, and turn the fold of the dainty handkerchief upon her lap away from the mirthful sight of the others.

"Very well,” Elowen cried, threading a knot. “But you, Princess, shall have no such chest if you insist on stitching crosses to these shirts!”

Niamh laughed merrily, for well she loved Elowen, who feared nothing. “How should I prepare for so strange a bridegroom? How shouldst thou instruct me, when thou hast a chest full of good men’s hearts – and they, none of thine?”

Elowen sighed at that, and leaned back into her chair. “I would gladly give them back, but that their owners all refuse them. Poor hearts! But what of your Highness? Does your heart still beat within your breast? Or is it tied to an eagle’s leg?”

“I hardly know,” Niamh replied, dropping her work into her lap, and glancing out the window, where the gardens gave way to the broad Gwyrglánn, along whose paths the Hermit must surely come.

And as she watched through her spangled veil, the eagle she had sent back only the day before, alighted just beside the Princess, stretching forth its leg as though bowing. Magdwa, ever timid, gasped and drew back, and even Elowen blenched for the suddenness of the arrival. But Niamh reached down and removed the letter from the eagle’s leg, and Findola searched in her shawl and found three biscuit crumbs and offered them to the eagle – for she was from Cadwyr and knew much of the wilds.

“What does it read?” Findola asked, stroking the proud bird’s head.

But no one said more – even Gwendolyn, whose lips were pressed close with silent disapproval at Findola’s whispered question. For the handmaids all wondered at the change that had overcome not only the Princess, but also the whole Court, thanks to the rumour of the Hermit. And some, like Gwendolyn, wondered at a man of such reputation, wooing through birds; while others, Magdwa first among them, thought it romantic, like a story of legend, like the wooing of Dusk – although far less disastrous. Still others, intimate of Niamh, gay Elowen among them, concerned themselves solely over the practical happiness of such an unlikely match. Only a few, such as Findola, took the Squire Ewan’s word for truth – but, then, only she broidered rings on his cuffs.

No answer did Niamh give, but to ask her handmaids to remove themselves for a space, and Findola to care for the eagle in the falconry, until such a time as she called for it. And when once her handmaidens had withdrawn, with many backward glances, the Princess opened the letter again, and threw back her veil with a great, shuddering sigh. For thus the letter ran:

“Madame,

“Little can letters suffice for discourse. Tonight, if it please you, send for the eagle, and through it I shall speak and listen. Should it please you not (and here the script faltered and trembled), then do but send the eagle to me, and I shall know I have been too forward.”

Niamh let out a sad laugh upon this second reading, and rested her warm cheek against the cool stone lattice. “Ah, Elowen! I fear I have indeed sent my heart by wing. And more, I dread, to me this eagle bears another, too large for my small breast.”

That evening, as the stars ignited, Findola brought the eagle, who hopped courtly onto a high-backed chair before the fire. Elowen accompanied the Cadwyr lass, and because Elowen was distant kin and the daughter of Donell, the Captain of the Guard, she pressed the Princess’ shoulder through the light cloth, braving the burn upon her fair skin. Then they withdrew.

Niamh remained where she stood, upon the white-furred rug, twisting a strand of flaxen hair within her dainty fingers. The eagle clacked its beak and shifted on the carvings of twining leaves and fruits. With the movement, Niamh remembered her station; she dropped her hands and drew herself erect, and crossed to stand before the fire, so that she seemed to glow herself. Her veil she let hang upon her arms. Lowly, she said, “Speak.”

But no change came over the eagle. Nor did any word it utter. Niamh clutched her veil in both her hands, fearing that perhaps she had spoken wrongly, or at the wrong time – a moment too soon or late – or that, perhaps, the Hermit had heard her, and disdained to answer, liking not her voice. Some whole minute crept on, with no sound save the crackling fire – ever dwindling, eating its own nourishment. The eagle blinked its massive eyes. The fire snapped. Below, the high clear voices of the pageboys hailing each other as they scurried to the kennels and the stables sounded, mixed with bursts of lovers’ laughter in the labyrinthine gardens of a far earlier age. But still the eagle did not speak.

“I have failed,” Niamh whispered into the chilly night. She smiled and pulled her veil about her like a shawl. “Poor bird,” said she, sitting on the rug before the hearth, with her knees drawn to her breast. “I have roused thee from thy well-deserved slumber for naught. I know not whether thy master shall thank me for my ill-treatment of his messenger – but I suppose,” with a sigh, “I shall never know. For surely he shall never come now, and all my father’s proud line – all first born of Siawn Shieldmaster, first set upon throne by my mother and her kin at wise Aldaihren’s sad bidding – all, all shall die in me.

“Look not so sternly at me, bird! I do not ask thee for thy pity – what canst thou care for the dealings of mortal men? Should we all perish, thou shouldst only prosper. Far-sighted thou art, and perhaps thou canst see already the day when we – and all our petty worries – shall pass on. But I have not thy sight, nor do I desire it. For man was not made to know all things, good and evil.

“Come,” said she, rising to take the bird upon her wrist. “I shall carry thee myself to thy rest, and trouble thee no longer.”

But the proud eagle refused to step onto her arm, and although Niamh wooed it with gentle words and crumbs, still it would not move. “Alas for thee, poor creature!” she cried, with a laugh. “Well then, perch, if thou wilt, where thou likest! In the morn, mayhap, thou mayest come to thy senses!”

Smiling and shaking her head in wonder, Niamh left the eagle and made for her bed – undressing herself unaided. She had but cast aside her veil, and removed slipper and stocking, when a voice called out, “Princess!”

Niamh started and looked about her for the source of the sound. But no man found she who might have spoken thus, and the eagle’s black back was turned towards her.

“Who speaks?” she asked into the darkness.

“One who has been too long silent,” came the reply.

Niamh let the folds of her velvet gown fall the little way to cover her toes. She felt, without seeing, that she knew to whom the voice belonged.

The eagle did not move, but she heard, “I am he.”

Niamh’s breath caught. She thought she might faint; she thought she might fly. But all she could think to say was: “Hast thou seen me?”

“I have, Lady,” came the reply. “Although I did not mean to look.”

“And thou hast taken no harm?”

“I have taken the gravest harm, Lady: a wound to the heart. But I am not like to flee or run mad, if that is thy fear.”

“It is my deepest fear and sorrow. It is that which I feared delayed this meeting.”

“And so it did. No – I pray, do not come closer!” when the Princess moved towards the eagle. “It is not meet that I should see thee before we are betrothed. It is, at present, unjust. For I may see thee, but I am veiled to thy sight.”

“Yet we may converse?”

“It is my fondest hope.”

“Then thou shalt not be twice disappointed. Here I am. What wouldst thou?”

A laugh, relieved and merry, resounded through the room. And had the Princess looked then into the eagle’s eyes, she might have seen a weary figure seat himself gratefully upon a stone, and cover his strange face with stranger shaking hands.

"Now the moment is upon me," he said, “I do not know what to say. ‘Struth, Madame, I did not think thou wouldst allow such a strange assignation.”

“I would not know if this were strange. No man has ever dared to tryst with me by day, much less by night.”

“Much less by eagle.”

“No,” with a laugh. “Well, good my brazen lord, may I know the name of he who is to wed me?”

The eagle shifted upon its perch, as though uneasy. At last, the warm voice said, “Wouldst thou had asked any other question, Lady, I should have readily answered. But thou wouldst know my true name, which few now remember. There is power in names, as well I know, and who knows what other ears may be listening?”

Feathers ruffled and beaked clacked, as the eagle shifted again. Niamh, still with veil about her shoulders, pursed her lips and thought that perhaps she had, indeed, asked too much. But she thought, How could I go to the arms of one whose very name is a mystery? And so she kept her peace, and let the Hermit wrestle with his own doubts.

Until, very softly, the Princess seemed to hear his voice again, whisper, “Gethin. Gethin.”

“Gethin,” she whispered in return. And perhaps she dreamed it, but the very air seemed to lighten with the sound. “And I,” said she, “am Niamh, simple Niamh, henceforth Niamh, Gethin’s love. But, since I have been so bold in my questioning thus far,” and truly, she felt it was quite a mad night, and something out of a tale, and that someone else spoke for her, someone who feared no one and nothing, “I shall ask another thing, and mayhap it will be answered me. You have said that the reports of you do not lie: but no one can tell me how you came to withdraw from the world of men?”

If the voice had been warm before, with trembling and hoping and longing all in one, it was only bitter now, as a lion when he snarls. “Let us speak plainly, Lady. Thou wouldst know what sins are upon me.”

“I did not say so.”

“Thou questionest to the quick.” And that was their first argument.

"Then I shall tell thee something of myself,” Niamh said, drawing herself erect and regal again. “What wouldst thou know? The same that I have asked of thee? I shall tell thee: it is nothing great. My beauty is not of my own doing. There are those who will say that one of my godparents, now Viviane, now Maelgwenn, gave me my face at my christening, but I know all the gifts I was given, and beauty cannot be counted among them.

"And now that long years have passed, and only few can bear me, I hear whispers – although my handmaids do all within their power to keep these rumours from me – that I am no beauty at all. That I am hidden within the palace with some deformity; that I am a monster, a basilisk, a dragon – terrible and lovely to look upon. I have even heard that there is a minstrel who has made so bold as to write a song about me, in which I am Cináedd of the fires, reborn to revenge her murder, luring men into her bed, thinking each her traitorous lover.

“Another may find heart within herself to laugh at these petty stings and arrows, but well I know my lineage, and we have each of us earned the crown, or lost it, within a breath of fate. Some nights I have wondered – before Ewan made bold to speak to my father – whether the songs and the whispers were not right. For I have not looked in a mirror for many years now – ever since the first man died for love of me – and all tell me that I am lovely, and who am I to know whether they flatter? Or if their eyes see me so because they love me, or are merely accustomed to me, or have forgotten my aspect hidden beneath my veil?

“It is all folly and vanity to linger longer on my face. Could I become plain, I should rejoice, and never fear again to smile lest I blind a poor retainer. But thou hast seen me, and may judge for thyself. And, truly, canst thou think that I, of all in the land, could judge thee?” She sighed, and sank upon the rug, laying her golden head upon the bear’s.

The world was very silent – even the most ardent lovers had left the gardens, and the stableboys had at last drifted into sleep. The uncertain flames cast a golden light over her ivory features, and the Hermit – daring to turn the eagle’s head and glance only briefly at his bride – felt all anger drain from him, and stronger, more certain love fill his breast. He desired to hunt down the root of the vile rumours and silence them. He longed to gather the Princess within his arms and protect her from the whispers of the world. He wished she would ask him some impossible task so that he might do it. He wished she desired his life; he would give it. He wished she would ask him again the most painful question; he would answer it until every truth lay strewn like rubies at her feet.

But she did not ask him again, and so he called her name, until she turned her lovely eyes upon the eagle. With a gasp, she saw that he regarded her, and made to draw the veil over her face, but he stayed her, saying, “No, do not fear. But if thou hast the courage, take the eagle upon thy arm – she shall not harm thee – and look within her eyes. Thou shalt see me, although darkly. It is but a little that my magics may do.”

“I have the courage,” said she, although she breathed very deeply. Rising, the Princess approached the chair, and put out her bare arm beside the eagle. Very carefully, it stepped upon her – and so large the eagle was, she did not need to raise her arm to look within its eyes – although she might have, for the eagle seemed to weigh no more than the least of its feathers. Very dimly, like things seen just before dawn, when sleep still covers the eyes, Niamh could see a cowled figure, sitting within the forest, upon a stone. The figure stood, and removed his cowl, and looked, so it seemed, directly at her. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or the result of deep magics, or of deeper mysteries, but although Niamh could discern the fabled lion’s head – grim and fierce – she saw more clearly another face within that one, of a young man, handsome – although not unnaturally so – likewise grim, but also wonderful.

Then Niamh smiled, fully and with her heart held in her eyes, and all about her glowed more brightly for it. And within the eagle’s eyes, she saw her betrothed press his claw and not-claw to his breast and bow, and through the eagle’s beak she heard him whisper, “And I am Gethin, Niamh’s love.”