The Hundreth Tear: Part I

Who can escape them, who can know,
What things the ancients have laid on us?
A secret thing that one of us does,
Can be remembered and done again
By flesh that is not yet borne of our pain.
This darkened earth, the hollow in hills,
Invisible water that sings and fills
The deeps of air with silences-
Alert and watchful in unstirred trees-
Remember too: and they tell the most,
Without intercession of fetch or ghost
To those in whom the memory brings
The past and magic of all lost things.

"Merlin's Grave"
Scenes and Plays
Gordon Bottomley

When one of the servants told Gorfan they'd found another wounded man lying in the woods near the farm, she merely nodded and went about finding the things she would need. It was, of course, a time of war, and wounded men were not as uncommon about Glynebwy these days. The young woman gathered up her herbs and the clean linen she kept handy for bandaging and followed. Daned went out to the barn, stepping carefully around and over the puddles left by last night's wild storm. "So, Briton or Saxon?" she asked Daned.

"Eh, not Saxon, that's for certain. He's small and dark haired, but the few words he's said is no tongue I've yet heard. And the armor and clothes…well you'll see for yourself. He's a puzzle, this one is." They'd reached the barn door and the old man opened it for Gorfan, stepping aside to let her enter first. Bright sunlight flooded into the small space, light reflecting back at them off the armor of man lying in the stall just by the door. "Well, there he is. I'm not sure there is much you can do for him, lady. He's hurt bad."

"I'll do what I can. Run back to the house and fetch some hot water for me, will you, Daned? Mind that you don't spill any on yourself on the way back. We can't afford to have you scalded, can we?" She smiled at the man, then turned back look at her erstwhile patient. "Well, let's see what we can do for you, shall we?"

In the end, that turned out to be very little, as Daned had foretold. A spear had driven through the man's mail and the broken bits had been pushed deeper into the wound. Gorfan had by now treated more battle wounds than she cared to think about, and knew this wound in the chest had to be cleaned thoroughly if there was to be any chance for the man's survival. She prepared some herbs in a cup of wine as a sleeping draught, and held it to the strangers lips to help him drink. He was not a young man, a veteran by the older scars on him, but his eyes were filled with terror. Several times he spoke, his words unintelligible, but the tone unmistakable. Gorfan cleaned his face with a wet cloth and spoke soothingly as she would to an ill child until his eyes closed. Then she set about trying to save him.

But the spear had done more damage than she'd realized. Heavy bleeding began shortly after she'd removed a piece of metal, and even though she tried all she knew to stem it, the warrior died within a few hours. She and her serving-maid, Enfys, cleaned the body and repaired the clothes as best they could so that he would be presentable when Arianrhod claimed him. Then Daned hauled the body out to the meadow in his cart and buried him near the others who'd died here just outside of Glynebwy.

They kept the man's weapons and armor. These were hard days in Britain. They might have need of a spare sword for defense, or the goods it might bring in trade. Daned did what he could to repair the tear from the sword thrust, but the stranger's shield troubled them all. It was round, but in its center was some sort crystal. Enfys stared awestruck at it, enchanted by the way it sparkled in the light.

"That's enough, Enfys! Go start the stew, and not a word about that shield to the other servants, you hear me?" Gorfan motioned the girl away, and then turned back to exchange a worried glance with Daned. "Well? What shall we do with it, Danno? Have you ever seen the like?"

The old man shook his head and set aside the mail shirt. "No, lass, I have not. It's bound to be trouble, you know."

"Why, because it's some sort of magical thing?"

"Partly, but for other reasons as well. You can't bring it into town for trade. Folk will think we have more like it, and with his lordship away at Caerleon, someone might decide to raid the farm to find more like the shield. And then there's his lordship and what he might do with it."

Gorfan nodded in dismay. She loved Mael with all her heart, but she was not blind to her husband's failings. Mael had gone to Caerleon to see if he might win a place among Uther Pendragon's men. Having such a shield as this might bring him the prestige and wealth he needed to achieve such a prize, and Gorfan had her own reasons to hope against that. Her hand rested briefly on her stomach, then she looked sharply at Daned. The old man was a craft one. "What do you think we should do? You know that Enfys will blather the tale about no matter how much I tell her to keep quiet!"

"Let her. She's well known for flights of fancy, unlike you, my lady, who are well known for your level-headed practicality. So when you tell someone else, oh say, Olwydd, when next you see him at market, about the strange shield vanishing before your eyes, it will make it seem believable. Meanwhile, you should hide it someplace safe, where you can "find" it later after many years have passed and times are less perilous."

And so they buried the shield with the strange crystal beneath the barn floor.

But a few days later, when Daned was away in the fields with most of the staff sowing seed, Gorfan moved the shield to someplace only she knew.

She trusted Daned, but there was a limit to her trust.

It was many years before she saw or even spoke of the shield again.