known of his father’s suffering before? Dear God, help me destroy them!
He set the second fetter on the anvil. After locating the hammer, he hit each piece with four merciless blows. The gems shattered, and the bracelets bent nearly flat.
Owain cried out, “No, no!” Lunging forward, he tried to snatch them, but Merlin pushed his father’s hands back. The wind outside whistled, and evil voices floated on the air as Merlin felt along the table for one of the chisels. Grasping the largest, he placed it over the flattened armbands, and lifting high the hammer, he let forth blow after blow until the armbands spewed forth sparks of light and finally split.
Merlin heard a hissing and frying, and harsh smoke made him back away. The wind ceased, and the bedeviled voices faded.
His father whispered, “Jesu holds me up.”
Working his way around the forge, Merlin knelt and planted his hand underneath his father’s damp and chilled neck. He laid his ear against Owain’s tunic and heard the steady rhythm of his father’s heart.
“Tas, I’m here.”
His father shook and said loudly, “I choose the Christ!”
Time passed while they held each other in a tight embrace, each warming and drawing strength from the other.
“Put some coals on the forge,” his father finally said. “We need to finish the new sword.”
“You have the strength?”
Owain tried to stand but fell back shakily. “It doesn’t matter. I need to give it to the High King.”
“But what of the man who asked for it?”
“He wagered away his money. I want to give it to Uther.”
Merlin stood. “We only have until tomorrow.”
“We. I like that word. Help me stand, son.”
Never in her life had Natalenya seen men act so crudely in her family’s hall. If her father stooped to host any of the locals, they dined in fear of his short temper.
But these brutes! As the High King’s men, they thought themselves due every privilege, yet they declined every grace. And why did her father insist on serving a meal of this size in the Roman style? To make her, Dyslan, and the hired help dish it up was preposterous. Pile high the meats in the center, she thought, and eat like proper Britons!
She wanted to get away, walk out under the bright stars, sing her songs, and most importantly, pray. How could her father ignore the tragedy happening to the village and make her wait on tables? But no, the men’s fat-smeared pewter trenchers emptied faster than she could load them, and the bones piled so high in the culina that their hounds could chew for a year and a day and not finish them off.
And she could barely stand to think about the drinking bowls.
Vortigern would burp louder than her disgusting brothers combined and bang his bowl on the table until she refilled it. And then he would sit there with such a saintly smile, she hardly noticed her father’s watered-down mead dripping from his beard onto his jerkin.
Such a beast! And her father not only suffered Vortigern and his boorish son, Vortipor, he even seemed to enjoy their company.
Men never had any sense.
To be fair, though, Natalenya realized that Vortipor was the real source of her loathing. Most of the others treated her with aloofness befitting the daughter of the magister, but not him. The rest just wanted their trenchers filled, while he seemed to want to fill his eyes with her every chance he could get. He’d even grabbed her twice by the sleeve and wouldn’t let go until she listened to his fermented utterances.
Her mother, the lonely female at the feast, sat at the head table next to Natalenya’s father, with Vortigern and Vortipor on his other side. Once, after Vortipor had accosted Natalenya, her mother’s eyes warned her to stay away. But her glory-fogged father would call her over to fill a bowl, clean a spill, or show off by answering a complicated question in Latin.
She found herself clenching her teeth so that a headache soon crept up her neck and settled behind her eyes. When would this night be over?
Then it got worse.
Vortigern rose unsteadily before the assembly. “Hear me! Warriors of Kembry, Kernow, Difnonia, and Gloui, warriors of Rheged, Elmekow, and Powys, and yes, even you softies of Lundnisow and Dubrae Cantii —”
Grunts of protest greeted this last barb, and Vortigern raised his voice to silence them. “Men of Britain, how do we show gratitude to our host, the good Tregeagle?”
All of them shouted, stomped their feet, or banged their