Page 301 of The Daughters of Avalon
We call, they call, the eight in chains.
Marcella’sWelsh lilt was a trace more apparent now as she sang. But it wasn’t only the diction of her words… the song was oddly familiar, leaving Rhiannon with an inexplicable note of dread…
When thy father went a-hunting,
A spear on his shoulder, a club in his hand,
He called the nimble hounds,
‘Giff, Gaff; catch, catch, fetch, fetch!’
“That song,” she said, trying to place it.
Marcella shifted her dark eyes. “‘Dinogad’s Shift,’” she said, and sang the verse again in their native tongue—far more eloquently than Rhiannon could ever have.
Pan elei dy dat ty e helya;
Llath ar y ysgwyd llory eny law.
Ef gelwi gwn gogyhwc.
Giff gaff. Dhaly dhaly dhwg dhwg.
The paladin smiled then, and for the first time since meeting Rhiannon, that smile lit her lovely green eyes. “My mother used to sing it to me when I was a girl,” she explained.
“Seems to me I’ve heard it before.”
“Aye, well… no doubt you have, Lady Blackwood. Your mother enjoyed it, too.”
Rhiannon tapped a finger to her breast. “Mymother?”
The paladin nodded, though it was impossible to imagine Morwen as a wee girl enjoying anything so achingly sweet as a lullaby.Thatwasnotthe woman Rhiannon knew, and if Morwen had ever even once sung Rhiannon a song, the memory was long overshadowed by all the atrocities she’d committed since.
Nay, indeed, there was nothing tender in her memories of Morwen. But Rhiannon supposed she still could have heard the song through Elspeth.
Of all her siblings, Ellie was the only one who’d ever really known their maternal grandmother, and for all that Rhiannon had received Morgan’s gifts, she’d never once met the good lady face to face—a fact she was sorely aggrieved by, if not for the blessing of a hug, then for the sake of her Craft.
There were few souls remaining who’d studied the Old Ways. People no longer believed infaefolk. Or even the wonder of ordinarymagik—the birthing of a babe, the life-giving warmth of the sun, the gathering of dew in the curve of a leaf, or in the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a moth.
Magik, in truth, was not so uncommon as people were accustomed to believing. All living creatures had some ability within them, be it a simple sense of knowing, or the ability to heal (far less extraordinary than people presumed). The minds of men, whether they knew it or not, were very attuned to theaether.
Rhiannon sighed heavily, only to find that Marcella was still watching her—always watching, as though she were a specimen under a philosopher’s glass.
All the while, Jack rode behind them, silent and thoughtful—as he had been since departing the brook.
Marcella turned for an instant to regard him, and then, after a moment, returned to her tale.
“The song was written about a warrior of the Britons led by Urien ap Cynfarch. Do you know him, perchance?”
Rhiannon gave the paladin an impish smile. “Alas, I never had him for tea,” she jested, and Marcella laughed, a nice sound that filled Rhiannon with something like joy.
It was the first time in all her life that she’d had a confidante besides one of her sisters, and she was beginning to discover that she liked it. Marcella was brusque betimes, but no more so than Rhiannon, and she was most definitely the sort of woman someone would want on their side—fierce, loyal and smart. “’Tis a widow’s lament?”
“Nay, nay… not so much a lament, as her praise. In the song, she fashions her babe a beautiful smock made of pelts that her husband hunted for her before his death.”
“Because, definitively, that is all a man should ever be remembered for,” quipped Jack at their back.
Ignoring the barb, Marcella continued. “When she discovered her husband had perished along with his lord and king, she offered the verse to his bard…” Marcella slid Rhiannon a meaningful glance. “Whose daughter also happened to be Urien’s widow.”
