A Blessing and a Curse by Tom Harper Hale
The clock stopped. Again.
“Gods dammit,” Arianrhod said, giving it a prod. “Stop, start, stop, start. Never working. According to you, every day there’s an opportunity to keep them safe.” She placed a hand over her stomach. “Chance would be a fine thing.”
Arianrhod ran a finger over the grooves etched into the golden clock, muttering as she touched each rune and screwing her nose as a faint smell like burnt bacon wafted from her fingers. A dim light licked her hands. But nothing happened. “I’m not so worried if I can’t power a simple mending charm,” she said, about to give the clock another prod when there was a knock at the open door.
A slight man leaned against the doorframe, his long red hair flowing behind his shoulders. Arianrhod rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Gwydion?”
“Can a brother not visit his dear, lonely sister?”
“I’m not lonely, and I’m not dear to anyone.”
“Come now, don’t be like that. King Math has summoned you to his court. Turns out he’s struggled begetting…well, it doesn’t matter why. He called, and you must come. Please, dear sister.”
“I’m happy on my island, far away from the likes of you and your handsy king. I thought he wanted nothing to do with his ‘bastard’?”
Gwydion’s shoulders tightened. “Well, yes, he didn’t behave well last we met. But dear sister, the King wants an heir, and you can give him that. Think of life in the castle—the gold-encrusted ceilings, comfortable rooms, and glittering trinkets.”
Arianrhod thought instead of life on the island; rationing, toiling, freezing—of barely making it through last winter. How would she manage with hungry mouths to feed? She glanced around her cottage—peeling paint, a worn table, and a single chair standing at odd angles. Arianrhod fought back tears and turned away from Gwydion, giving the clock another prod.
“It’s not broken, sister. Your little kairos contraption has stopped for a reason.”
Arianrhod kept prodding. “Glittering trinkets, indeed. What do you take me for? All that glitters is not gold, Gwydion,” she sighed. “But I’ll hear the king out—not for you, not for me, and certainly not for him. I’ll do it for the babes he put in my stomach.”
“Babes? With an ‘s’?”
Arianrhod grumbled and picked at a fleck of gold on the clock, revealing the silver steel underneath.
“You understand, dear sister, he would have you queen?” Gwydion asked, drawing a snarl from Arianrhod as her neck whipped around. “For the babes, as you said.”
“Of all people, the king knows I am no virgin. I cannot be queen, you fool.”
Gwydion laughed and danced from foot to foot. “We just need to trick some pampered nobles. It’ll be fun, and hardly beyond the necromancer of Cambria,” he said, bowing so low his nose touched his knees.
Necromancer, more like jester, Arianrhod thought. “Fine,” she said, and shrugged.
Arianrhod stood in the great hall of King Math’s court. The king sat on a throne in front of a glittering mosaic of the rising sun. Gwydion stood at his shoulder. The sweet aroma of incense crept from a thurible swinging above the silent crowd of nobles. A smaller throne sat empty to the king’s left.
“Arianrhod, daughter of Beli Mawr, sister to the necromancer of Cambria, lady of the island, stand before me. Do you agree to submit to me in all things, my lady?”
Pulling at her loose-fitting cloak, Arianrhod lowered to one knee, painfully aware of her bloating body, and glanced at the sequined dresses and chiselled smiles around the room. “I do, my lord.”
“Good. You don’t have to kneel, woman.” The king leaned back and spoke with Gwydion. He took a ragged rod from the necromancer and laid it in front of the empty throne. “Come forth, my lady. You must step over this rod to prove your chastity before the eyes of all gathered here today.”
Arianrhod looked to Gwydion, who nodded, lifted a hand in front of his chest, and moved his lips. She felt the caress of his incantation like light fingers across her stomach. Arianrhod thrust her shoulders back and stepped over the rod.
And Gwydion flicked his wrist.
A flash blinded everyone in the room. As their eyes adjusted, the sun mosaic glittered more than before. Arianrhod froze and swallowed the bile burning her throat. Two babies lay at her feet. Gasps broke the silence. Followed by whispered chatter. Then laughter.
Gwydion rushed forward and threw a blanket over a baby, grabbing it and scuttling to the edge of the dais.
The scene played out as if Arianrhod was watching from the rafters. She looked down at the second baby. His beautiful face and torso, so white and pure, merged into shimmering scales covering a fish’s tail.
“Take her,” the king said too quick, his words ringing hollow like rehearsed lines. “She is nothing but a notorious whore. Scourge her through the streets and banish her to that Gods forsaken island.”
“My lord…” Arianrhod said, but the king turned. “Gwydion… my baby. Gwydion…” She scooped her other child, tucking him into a fold in her cloak. He made small whimpering noises, opening and closing his tiny mouth like a fish gulping air.
“Gwydion!”
The crowd parted as Gwydion scampered away with the stolen baby.
Rough hands threw Arianrhod to the ground, her knees clattered against the cobbled street and a deep graze bit her hand, the other cradled her child. There was silence at first, then a rotten carrot hit the back of her head as shouting and jeering began. Blows rained down on her back. Boots kicked behind her knees every time she tried to stand. A fist hit her jaw—she heard the bone crack, her mouth hung open, and darkness crept around the edges of her vision.
Then she was somewhere else. She saw her stolen son grow faster than other boys. At four-years-old, he looked like he was eight. At eight, he looked sixteen. At sixteen, they placed a crown upon his head. He had his father’s ruthlessness, his mother’s magic. He held dominion over the sun. The night was banished, the crops grew tall as trees, and the people were forced to work without pause. King Math and Gwydion stood behind her son, backslapping and laughing and pulling strings.
A chamber pot clinked against the cobblestones. Its contents dripped down Arianrhod’s face, and the stench brought her back. Gravelly dirt coated her lips and pain blurred her vision, but her mind was sharp, weighing her options. She swallowed it all. The betrayal. The loss. The humiliation. And she saw a path to keep her son safe. Arianrhod’s jaw ached as she moved her lips, uttering dark words.
“Ni fydd gennych enw.” You shall have no name, my stolen child—unless I give it.
Years went by, the sun continued to rise and set, and Arianrhod saw nothing of her treacherous brother, or her stolen child. She longed to go to him, to take him under the cloak of night from King Math’s glittering halls, but she was bound to the island where she mothered her remaining son, Dylan, who was wild, and free, and would disappear into the sea for weeks on end.
Those were hard times for Arianrhod. She fished and she wove and she planned, she sat and she cried and she worried. Arianrhod knew without a name, her stolen son could never be king, but she also knew Gwydion would try everything to break the curse. Eventually, his tricks would bring him to her. Arianrhod would have her chance. So, she waited.
Arianrhod sat on a rock while Dylan swished his tail in the still shallows, the fresh scent of seawater drifting on the breeze. She heard a crack from the woods crowding the cottage, and saw a tall boy kill a wren with a stone.
“Llew llaw gyffes”, she said. The fair-haired one has a skilful hand.
“Good enough for me, dear sister,” Gwydion said, stepping from behind a tree. “Llew Llaw Gyffes is a fine name for a sun king.”
Arianrhod spat. “Sister? You have no sister, you fox.” She ran to Llew, grabbing his arm and hurrying him into the cottage. “Stay here, son. Please.” Arianrhod muttered dark words about “peace”, and “night”, and “my blessing”.
“Why bother, dear sister?” Gwydion said, leaning against the doorframe. “You know I will only deceive you into breaking the new curse.”
Arianrhod rushed across the room, her arm raised, and she almost laughed at the sight of Gwydion flinching under the expected blow. Instead, she grabbed the clock. Arianrhod drew on her love for Llew. The magic came fast and almost consumed her. Smoke billowed from her burning flesh. The stench was thick and rich. She pulled back, picking at the gold until it peeled off into long strands. The room glittered, not in a transitory way like the tinsels and trinkets of King Math’s court, but a glittering like the halls of the Gods, the walls of the cottage flickering translucent. Moonlight spilled from Arianrhod’s hands as she wove the clock’s golden strands into chains and fixed them around Llew. “Forgive me,” she said.
Pushing deeper into herself, mining the depths of her care, and resilience, and grace, Arianrhod worked at the clock, bending and prodding and melding the steel lying bare now the gold was gone. After seconds and aeons, Arianrhod held a wheel. She screamed for a lost child who returned only to be lost again, for her brother’s betrayal, and for the son she must leave behind. Flames licked the walls, the roof blew off the cottage, and Arianrhod threw the wheel into the sky. But rather than getting smaller as it rose, the wheel grew larger, locking around the world, turning and tilting.
Arianrhod lowered her gaze to Llew and took his hand. It was not the hand of a baby, but large and rough like a man’s, and pale against her charred skin. She smiled.
“Mother?”
A tear fell from Arianrhod’s nose, and she gripped Llew’s hand tighter. Doubt flashed across her face. “I bless you…” she stuttered, looking deep into Llew’s eyes. “I bless you with heat, and strength, and dominion over the sun.”
A golden, glittering glow enveloped Llew. The light traced his chains, melting them and binding him to the sun. The cottage flared like the first rays of sunrise. When it darkened, Llew was gone.
Arianrhod’s voice was low and steady when she spoke the words of Caer Sidi—Emania, the lunar land. Light poured from her, not golden but blue-white. This time, when it lifted, there remained only a dilapidated shack, and a worn cloak crumpled in the middle of the earthen floor.
Gwydion straightened in the doorway. His mouth hung open. He clapped like cracks of thunder in a storm.