The Flower Maiden

The Mabinogion, a collection of Celtic stories found in the 14th century Red Book of Hergest and the 12th century White Book of Rhydderch, includes some of the oldest native British legends. The fourth story, of Math, Son of Mathonwy, includes the tale of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, most fortunate of heroes. Our tale here seeks to tell a part of his story from a different perspective, and deviates from the traditional narrative at several points. Purists are directed to the many online and published translations of the Mabinogion for the official and proper account.

This story contains some adult scenes and is not suitable for minors.

Pronunciation note: Blodeuwedd is pronounced “Blood-I-weath”, saying weath as in “weather”

***

I

e found the maiden in the cool of the evening, down by the tall withies at the edge of the lake; and he had never seen anything more beautiful.

          Tall she was, and slender like a willow, save for the swell of her bosom and the curve of her hips. Her hair was long and fair, garlanded with autumn flowers. She seemed to glide over the earth, and the very air shimmered as she passed by.

          And she was sad.

          Goronwy dropped into the rushes so as not to startle the woman. More, he didn’t want her to see him in case she might flee, or simply vanish from the Earth.

          And also, it was clear that she was here to bathe.

          He watched breathless as she undid her kirtle and slipped it to the ground, unbound her hair so it sprayed loose like fallen sunlight, then lifted her white linen shift above her head and cast it away.

          She was perfection. Her cloud of red-gold hair could not obscure the beauty of her flesh, blossom-pale skin almost translucent in the sunset’s light. He breasts were high and full, tipped with rose-hued nipples. Yet Goronwy realised with a shock that he was less aroused than awed.

          Now the maiden waded into the shallows, shivering for a moment at the chillness of the lake. This late in the autumn the ice-melt from the hills made Bala a chilly bathing place.

          So she was mortal, Goronwy realised, not some faerie vision. And yet she could have passed for the queen of May herself.

          The woman stepped out into the waters then plunged herself beneath. She rose again with a little gasp, her cheeks reddened by the chill, her lips parted as if to kiss the air.

          Who was she? What was she? Goronwy felt tawdry and heavy, a dull gross thing of clay and dirt compared to her light and air.

          Along the ridge of the lake, perched on the height to the north, stood a large timber hall. A thin stream of smoke twisted from its chimney. It was not too far for a lady to walk in the evening’s stillness to bathe alone.

          Was she then the wife of that manor’s lord? A daughter, ready for a husband? A slave taken as spoils of war to warm a conqueror’s bed? Goronwy entertained a hundred fantasies in which he rescued the grateful maiden, carried her safe away, far away. They all ended with her coming to his bed.

          Goronwy felt the weight of his sword at his hip. He could fight for the woman, take her off by force. He was considered a strong warrior, noted amongst the great. He had deeds enough to his name to please the ears of a lady who sought a glorious match. He was young, and tall, and other women had found it pleasant to lay beneath him.

          But this one…

          She was far out in the lake now, swimming like an otter, her white body flashing beneath the waves. She seemed lonely, such a small thing in the vast black pool, but she carried with her a serenity that entranced.

          Goronwy knew the old legends about how to catch a fairy maiden. He carefully moved through the rushes to the place where she’d stripped off her clothes. They were plain simple garments, but well spun. The clasps of her kirtle were gold. This was no slave.

          He bundled the clothing in his arms. It smelled of flowers and honeycomb. He hurried back to his hiding place with his spoils and waited for the maiden’s return.

          The woman was a long time in the water. When she returned the sun was half-hidden below the western hills and the shadows were very long. She rose from the water, rainbow drips cascading from her undulating form. She swept her wet hair behind her.

Goronwy reminded himself to breathe.

She paddled out of the lake and tracked through the rushes to the stone where she had laid her things. Then she found they were gone, and looked around her like a startled deer.

“Maiden!” Goronwy called, rising from the rushes.

She gave a tight cry and raced back into the water.

“Wait!” the warrior shouted. “I mean you no harm!”

She splashed out until she could sink up to the neck then turned round to face him, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment or anger. “Who are you, to so rudely come upon a lady so?” Her voice was sweet and melodic even though she spoke harshly.

“I shall tell you my name if you will tell me yours,” Goronwy offered.

“I owe nothing to a thief and a lecher!” the maiden replied. “Return my things and be on your way or it will be the worse for you!”

Goronwy stepped to the rock and laid her mantle and shift down. “Here they are. Take them if you wish.”

“Step away and turn aside, reaver.”

“Why should I do such courtesy to a woman who won’t even tell me her name?”

The maiden scowled at him like a summer storm. “An exchange of names, then, and you will go?”

“I am Goronwy Pebyr, Lord of Penllyn, a man of deeds. I am many things good and bad, but I am no thief.”

“You actions belie you, Goronwy Pebyr,” the woman answered angrily. “But you have given your name, so I will tell you who you have insulted. I am Blodeuwedd, and my lord is Lleu Llaw Gyffes, ‘the lion with the skilful hand’, son of Arianrhod of the Mysteries, of the great line of Don, and his fame is more than yours shall ever be.”

“An impressive introduction,” Goronwy admitted. “Arianrhod, the mistress of Caer Sidi, where the bards learn the secrets of the stars and the dead wait between incarnations and whisper their stories? I did not know she had a son.”

“Well she does, and he is my husband,” Bloduewedd answered defiantly.

Goronwy felt a stab through his heart. She was married.

“This Lleu Llaw Gyffes,” the warrior asked the maiden, “Do you love him?”

“He is my husband,” she replied; and again the sadness flickered across her face.

“Well then, I apologise for imposing upon you,” Goronwy Pebyr said. He turned aside and began to walk away from the lake. “I will await you on the path when you have dressed yourself to your satisfaction.”

He didn’t turn back, even when he heard the splashing of water and the quiet padding of lithe bare feet. It was a feat to match any heroic deed he had ever achieved.

***

he came to him at the crossroads, where the track went down to Lake Bala and away to the high hills of the west. Anything can happen at a crossroads.

          “Well met, Lady Blodeuwedd,” Goronwy bid her. He spoke her name as she did, pronouncing it Bluh-die-weth. It meant flower-face, and indeed she was as beautiful as any blossom.

          The woman was perfection even in her dishevelment. She had pulled her clothes on quickly and they clung to her damp body, emphasising her outline, doing little to conceal those perfect curves. Her hair hung loose in tangles down her back. She had not taken time to comb and braid it.

          “I do not call this kind of meeting well,” she answered with unconscious dignity. Her cheeks were still rosy and her eyes glittered like a hawk’s. “Are all your deeds as mighty as spying on a woman as she bathes?”

          “How was I to know you were a mortal of flesh?” Goronwy argued. “You might have been a faerie lass, mine for the catching, so beautiful you seemed to me when I saw you in the pool.”

          “I’m sure you had every opportunity to judge my mortal flesh,” Blodeuwedd told him. “Still, I thank you for turning aside at the last. You gave me a bad fright.”

          Goronwy bristled a little. “I do not need to take women by force,” he declared.

          “Really?” Blodeuwedd affected to be a little surprised, although she couldn’t help but glance at the handsome stranger with his clean-shaven face and long shining black hair.

          “Really. And since I am indeed a warrior of renown, and Lord of Penllyn, and since evening is drawing in, you should be inviting me back to your manor to greet your lord and to offer me the comfort of your hearth for the night.”

          The reddened spots on the maiden’s cheeks paled. “You may not come to Mur y Castell,” she said.

          “Then I shall not,” Goronwy replied. “But I shall speak ill of the hospitality of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who turns away travellers and has no welcome for a noble warrior at his gate.”

          “It’s not that!” Blodeuwedd protested. She darted out a hand to catch the turning stranger then quickly drew it back. “I would not for the world have my lord shamed so. Blame not his hospitality but mine.”

          Goronwy paused and looked over at the strong house on the ridge. “Your husband does not expect you to extend his hospitality and to be generous in his name as mistress of Mur y Castell?”

          “He does. But…”

          “But?”

          Blodeuwedd swallowed hard. “But my husband is not at Mur y Castell. Nobody is there, save I alone.”

          “Ah,” understood the Lord of Penllyn. “You fear for your virtue.”

          “I am my husbands property, and his alone,” the maiden said, casting her eyes down.

          “Have I not shown you that even in the face if considerable temptation I am no ravager?” Goronwy asked.

          “It would not be good for you to come to the house of Lleu Llaw Gyffes,” the maiden said.

          “Then you deny me the rights of any traveller in a far land, of shelter and board as the night draws in?”

          Blodeuwedd shuddered. “I cannot deny you the hospitality of Mur y Castell, for in all things my lord wishes to be open-handed and gracious, and it would ill become him for his wife to act so meanly as to turn aside a warrior needing shelter. But…”

          “Another but?” Goronwy smiled.

          “But I demand from you a vow, a sacred vow, that you will not ravish me or do me any harm, nor take from my lord any other thing that is his.”

          “I swear it on my father’s name and my mother’s virtue, by my right hand and my sword, and if I do wrong may I be split apart and my innards spread for the dogs,” the warrior swore.

          Blodeuwedd looked at him uncertainly. “You swear terrible things very easily,” she judged.

          “It is easy to make oaths when one has every intention of keeping them,” Goronwy assured her. “Take me to you hall, lady, for night is upon us.”

          And he followed her up the hill to Mur y Castell.

***

II

he meat was well done, lightly seasoned and stuffed with early chestnuts and parsley, and the wine was light and spicy with the promise of joy. Goronwy laid his trencher aside with a satisfied belch and lay back on his pallet. “It would have been quite tolerable for a woman as beautiful as you to be a poor housewife,” he told Blodeuwedd.

          The woman seemed to take no pleasure from the compliment. “I strive in all things to do what is pleasing for my lord.” She rose from table and gathered the dishes to wash.

          Goronwy watched her as she bent to the trough to scour the wooden plates and imagined what it would be like to have her as his wife. How could Lleu Llaw Gyffes bear to part from this paragon of women?

          “Of what birth are you?” he asked. Surely she was nobly born, a princess of the isles or some hero’s daughter. She drudged like a peasant, alone in her palace with no servant or serf, but she moved and spoke like a queen. “How is it I have never heard of the legendary beauty of the lady Blodeuwedd?”

          “Of no birth,” the woman answered. “Do you not know the story of Lleu Llaw Gyffes?”

          “Should I? Does it concern how he wooed and won you?”

          Blodeuwedd paused for a moment, her white hands in the washing bowl. “I was not wooed and won,” she said at last. “I was given.”

          “A generous gift, to bestow the most perfect of women,” Goronwy admired.

          “You should not speak to me like that!” Blodeuwedd snapped. “I am for Lleu, only Lleu. That is my destiny, it cannot be denied.”

          Goronwy was surprised by her outburst. He’d begun to conclude that there was duty but not much affection in this woman for her husband, but now she seemed stirred to passion in defence of her marriage. “There is much I don’t understand here, Blodeuwedd,” he admitted. “Tell me the story of Lleu Llaw Gyffes.”

           The maiden shrugged. “My lord’s fame is widespread.”

          “I’ve come a long way, hunting in the forests. Indulge me.”

          Blodeuwedd sat aside the cleaned dishes and sat beside the fire. In its warm light her skin glowed golden and her hair shone like copper. “You know at least of Arianrhod, the lady of the silver wheel who keeps the tower of Caer Sidi where poets are initiated. But when she was a girl she sought to become the sacred footholder of her uncle, the sorcerer-king Math Mathonwy. Such a girl must be the purest virgin.”

          “So they say,” Goronwy said dryly.

          “Math tested Arianrhod’s virtue. She had her step over his staff.”

          Goronwy smirked.

          “His magical staff,” Blodeuwedd blushed.

          “I’m sure it was. And then?”

          “Arianrhod failed the test of virtue, and she birthed two infants, Dylan and Lleu.”

          “Your lord Lleu Llaw Gyffes,” Goronwy noted.

          “Nobody knows their father. Some say it was Math’s revenge on Arianrhod’s brothers, his nephews, who had raped Math’s former footholder. Math can be cruel and his cunning knows no end. Others believe her brother, the druid-bard Gwydion was father to her twins. But Arianrhod was shamed, and Gwydion took the children when she abandoned them, and raised them in secret.”

          Blodeuwedd stared into the fire for a moment, considering the kind of world where revenge for the wrong to one woman might be inflicted on the sister of the ones who had caused the grief.

          “When Lleu was weaned, Gwydion took him to Arianrhod to be named,” she went on. “She denied the boy, and laid a curse that the child who had ruined her would never have a name save she gave it.”

          “That is… a powerful curse!”  breathed Goronwy. “Without a name the child could not gain fame, do deeds of renown, live in legend…”

          “That’s right. Then one day a cobbler sailed to shore at Caer Sidi and the Lady Arianrhod bade him make her some boots. The first were too large, the second too small, so at last she went to the cobbler’s boat that he might measure her feet and make a pair that fit. On the boat was a boy.”

          “A nameless boy?” Goronwy surmised.

          “When a wren perched on the mast of the ship, the boy seized up bow and arrow and with an amazing shot wounded the bird in the leg. Arianrhod gasped in amazement and cried…”

          “The lion with the skilful hand!” supplied Goronwy. “And thus the boy received a name from his mother!”

          “You have a quick mind,” Blodeuwedd admitted. “Yes, that was how my lord came to be named. The cobbler was his uncle Gwydion. But Arianrhod did not like being tricked, and so she laid a second curse. Lleu was never to bear arms save if he first received them from his mother herself.”

          “A cruel lady indeed,” Goronwy judged. “Although she may have been ill-used to sour her so.”

          Blodeuwedd glanced sharply at her guest. “Perhaps,” she conceded. “However it was, when it came time for Lleu to bear arms as a man, Gwydion disguised himself as a travelling bard and his ward as his apprentice, and they plied their trade in the hall of Caer Sidi.”

          Goronwy loved the distant look that came into Blodeuwedd’s face as she told stories and her imagination took flight. So hungry for wonders was she, and so confined.

          “Gwydion used his crafts to make it seem as though a mighty army was approaching, bent on war and destruction. When Arianrhod sought the bard’s counsel he bade the lady give him and his apprentice arms that they might fight.”

          “And so the mother girded her son, and he became a warrior,”  concluded Goronwy.

          “Yes,” agreed Blodeuwedd.

          “And the third curse? There are always three, aren’t there?”

          “So it seems. Arianrhod cursed her son to never have a wife of all the people of the earth.” The maiden paused and stared hard into the hearth-flames.

          “And yet here you are,” Goronwy prompted.

          “Here I am,” Blodeuwedd agreed. “Gwydion took Lleu to King Math, who is cunning and powerful and full of arts. Math agreed that since no woman born could be Lleu Llaw Gyffes’ wife then he would make a bride not of human descent.”

          Goronwy looked again at the blonde beauty huddled by the hearth. Her eyes glistened with the beginnings of tears.

          “Oak, meadowsweet, and broom, Math took,” Blodeuwedd whispered, “And cockle, bean, and nettle, chestnut, primrose, and hawthorn. And he fashioned them into the shape of a woman, just as Lleu demanded. Of such a height,” she said, touching the top of her head, “and what shape pleased him most. The perfect woman as he envisaged her. And woven into her garland form, Math Mathonwy knotted all the womanly arts, and song and story, and dance and delight, arts charitable and carnal, everything a man might want in a good and obedient wife.”

          “When first I saw you I could not believe you were a mortal maid,” Goronwy confessed. “Yet your tale is wonderful to me.”

          Blodeuwedd shrugged. “When I was just as Lleu required, Math breathed upon my lips and placed life in me. Leaf and petal became flesh, and I awoke fully grown to be given to my lord. So the last curse of Arianrhod was broken and I became wife to Lleu Llaw Gyffes.” She looked directly at Goronwy. “And that is why it is my destiny to be with him. Other women might say they were made for their husbands. I was.”

          “Yet you seem sad,” Goronwy said. “Do you love Lleu Llaw Gyffes?”

          “I was made to love him,” Blodeuwedd answered.

          “That’s not what I asked,” the warrior pressed. “Does he love you, flower maiden?”

          “I am very precious to him,” replied the lady. “A great lords needs these things: a sword and a horse and a hall and a wife, and a gallant hound to hunt with him. Lleu Llaw Gyffes is a great lord, and I am his wife.”

          Goronwy stared at her.

          “He would not give me up,” she declared. “I am his. His.”

          “He never wooed you,” the Lord of Penllyn repeated her words back to her. “Never won you. You were given to him.”

          Blodeuwedd said nothing. The fire seemed to fascinate her, or maybe she didn’t want to acknowledge that Goronwy was there.

          “Did he ever sing ballads in praise of the glory of your eyes? Pine for love in the shadow of your gaze?”

          “I was his bride on the day I was born. This is what I was made for.” Even Blodeuwedd was surprised how bitter that sounded said out loud.

          “Easily received is little valued,” Goronwy asserted. “Does he treasure you as he should, lady of the flowers?”

          “You should not speak to me like this,” Blodeuwedd frowned. She took a comb and began to tug at her water-tangled hair, subsuming her fury in her ruthless grooming. “You swore an oath…”

          “I’ll do you no harm,” Goronwy promised her. He caught her hand and took the comb and began to straighten her locks himself. “But every beautiful woman deserves to be wooed, even if they are already given. Your lord is a fool if he does not prize you above all else he possesses, and leaves you to drudge alone in your lonely hall.”

          Blodeuwedd tensed up as he touched her hair then relaxed as she felt the reassuring rake of the comb. But each time he lifted his arm again she winced anew.

          “When I saw you by the lake,” Goronwy told her, “for one happy moment I dreamed that you were some lord’s daughter that I might win for my own. Like a fool I had my whole campaign planned in an instant. How I would introduce myself to you and win your heart. How I would go before your father and speak of my deeds, describe my lineage and worth. How I would bid for your hand, fight for it if I had to against all other contestants, quest to creation’s end to meet the bride-price. How I would make you mine though all the world was against us.”

          “I am not some lord’s daughter,” Blodeuwedd said in a small sad voice. “I am Lleu’s wife. I am his property.”

          “It was a sweet dream, before I knew that,” Goronwy continued. “What a fool I was to ever think that I could win your heart and make you my blissful queen.”

          “I’m sorry, Goronwy Pebyr,” the maiden whispered. “I can not be your blissful queen.” She shifted her head and for one moment she was leaned into his embrace, then she forced herself to sit apart. “That’s enough brushing,” she said brusquely.

          “I am a fool indeed,” the Lord of Penllyn declared. “Enclosed here by night in this palace of love with the very epitome of womanhood, every man’s fantasy, but constrained by my oath to stay my hand.”

          “You promised,” Blodeuwedd cried, suddenly nervous again.

          “I promised,” Goronwy confirmed. He snorted and smiled ruefully. “It was much better in my fantasy, Blodeuwedd. That version went much better.”

          The flower-maiden couldn’t resist asking. “How… how so?” she wondered.

          “Why, there the beauteous maiden was properly wooed and fairly won,” the warrior told her. “And safe by the hearth, in the warm circle of firelight, I loosed her robes and saw again the perfection of her ivory skin. And first with eyes and then with fingers and lips and tongue, I explored…”

          “Enough!” Blodeuwedd blushed furiously. “You cannot say these things!”

          “You asked,” Goronwy shrugged. “Surely your husband must have talked in terms of love with you as you shared his lordly bed?”

          “What happens in my lord’s bed is not your concern.”

          “But he has laid you down, praising each part of your perfection as he uncovers it with hot and hungry hands?” the Lord of Penllyn demanded. “Searing your yearning flesh with kisses of fire that rouse the need in your belly, bringing you breathless and desperate to the peak of desire, moaning and pleading for his manhood to possess you?”

          Blodeuwedd tossed her head proudly. “Of course he has,” she declared. “Not that it is…”

          “But it is a concern of mine,” Goronwy told the maiden. “Because I do not think he has. Oh, I’m sure he has laid you on his mattress and rolled atop you and that you have given him the pleasure of your body. I’m sure that he has satisfied himself as any man might on such a joyous bed.”

          “Enough, Goronwy!” Blodeuwedd snapped. “This is…”

          “But easy wooed and won Blodeuwedd, has he ever given to you the same delight you rendered up to him? Has he made you scream with desire, clawing at him in abandoned bliss that could crack your soul with ecstasy? Has he?”

          “This is none of your concern. I am Lleu’s wife. I was made for him. I belong to him.”

          Answer this,” Goronwy demanded, pointing the hairbrush at the woman by the hearth. “Tell me that Lleu has made you feel like that, that he has transported you to the depths of delight as he has ridden you, satisfied you that you felt you could die in his arms. Tell me that and I’ll go now, into the night, and never return.”

          Blodeuwedd’s eyes narrowed on the stranger. “He…” she snarled defiantly. “He…”

          “Tell me,” commanded Goronwy. “Your tale of Lleu Llaw Gyffes was full of wonders and rare deeds, Blodeuwedd, but each of them was done for your lord by someone else. An uncle gained him his name and arms. King Math bestowed his lovely wife. What deed has Lleu Llaw Gyffes done to deserve your loyal devotion? What joy has he given to his perfect bride?”

          Blodeuwedd did not answer, but crystal tears trickled over her soft smooth cheeks.

          Goronwy cupped her chin and wiped the tears off with his fingertips. “A garland of beautiful flowers cannot be harvested and shut away in the dark, forgotten and neglected. Rare blooms must be nurtured and treasured, attended all the time so they can blossom into what they might become.”

          “I am chained by destiny, Goronwy,” Blodeuwedd sobbed. “I wish… If things were different, if I was not Lleu’s lady, not Math’s gift, not… Maybe then I could hear your words. Maybe then I could be in your dreams.” She clutched the warrior’s hand and wept on it.

          Goronwy Pebyr smoothed the lady’s golden hair; and he was lost.

          “Destiny can be defied,” he said. “Otherwise what are we all but puppets playing our parts?”

          “You are born of man,” Blodeuwedd replied. “Choice is your birthright, for good or ill. I am made of Math, a fantasy shaped and given breath and reason by art and cunning for one purpose only; to serve my lord and be his wife.”

          “You could be more,” Goronwy told her. “You could choose to be more. You could choose to be something else.”

          “What?” asked Blodeuwedd. “What could I choose to be?”

          “You could be my wife,” the Lord of Penllyn told her.

          Blodeuwedd smiled faintly though her tears. “That fantasy again? I never knew such a dreamer as you, Goronwy Pebyr.”

          “I never had a dream as good as this,” the warrior answered, folding his arms to comfort the weeping woman.

          “There is no choice for me, Goronwy. Lleu is a great lord. He will never let me go.”

          “I will fight him for you. Shall I?”

          “Lleu is protected by his uncles’ magics. Be you the finest warrior alive you cannot win against him.”

          “Then we shall run, to the ends of the world.”

          “Gwydion will find us, and if not him then Math.”

          “Then we shall stay here together and defy destiny.”

          Blodeuwedd shook her head, but did not struggle from Goronwy’s arms. “There is no future. Only destruction, if we took this path.”

          “I do not fear death, flower-maiden. I fear living until I am old and toothless and grey, yet never knowing the warmth of your kiss or the sigh of your delight,” the Lord of Penllyn told her. “I love you.”

          Blodeuwedd jerked in his arms as if she had been struck.

          “Lleu has told you that he loves you?” Gwydion pressed.

          “Of course he has,” the maiden said. “Many times. He must have.” She shivered a little. “He must have.”

          “And you, have you told him that you love him, your lord and husband, for whom you were created?”

          Blodeuwedd did not answer.

          “Do you love him?”

          Blodeuwedd shut her eyes. “He is my lord. I was content.”

          “You were sad when I saw you by the lake, like a lily frozen by the frost, dead in all its beauty,” Gwydion said. “But now I think you are thawing, and alive.”

          “Gwydion… no…”

          “Do you love me?”

          “Don’t make me…”

          “Do you? Can you? Will you?”

          “You promised…”

          “Nothing from you by force. Naught but you taken at all. Do you love me? Will you love me?”

          Blodeuwedd shivered from head to toe, clinging to the warrior who had set her life in turmoil. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear.

          Safe by the hearth, in the warm circle of firelight, Goronwy loosed her robes and saw again the perfection of her ivory skin. And first with eyes and then with fingers and lips and tongue, he explored her naked body.

          She shuddered as he pressed her down onto the pallet. He kissed her at last on those rose lips, exploring her mouth with a conquering tongue.

          “These lips are for Lleu Llaw Gyffes,” Blodeuwedd moaned, squirming beneath him.

          Goronwy cupped her breasts and kissed them, drawing their tips to hardness with his mouth, setting her trembling anew.

          “Those breasts are… for Lleu Llaw Gyffes too…” the flower woman whimpered, her heart pounding fit to burst. Her blush suffused her whole body now, and she felt alive for the first time.

          The warrior parted her legs and moved between them.

          “That… is also for…” Blodeuwedd whimpered.

          “It is yours,” Goronwy told her. “Give it to me.”

***

III

lodeuwedd woke beside a strange man in her husband’s bed, and remembered what she had done. She had betrayed Lleu.

          Goronwy Pebyr, Lord of Penllyn slept peacefully, one arm draped over her belly holding her to him. They were cupped together, him wrapped around her so she fit with her back to him in the hollow of his body.

          Blodeuwedd wondered what would happen when he awoke; what he might want and how she might respond. What if he wanted to make love to her again? What if he didn’t?

          She tried to remember what it was like to be held by Lleu Llaw Gyffes, but his embrace seemed like a distant memory from some other person. She had laid beneath him and received his seed and done all that he had asked of her, but there had always been a reserved part of her detached from their couplings. But last night…

          Blodeuwedd wondered why she was not sorer. She cringed as she remembered how abandoned she had been. She had shouted, screamed, demanded of Goronwy, just as he had said she would. She had lost all decency and dignity and joined with him like an animal.

          Even as Blodeuwedd reviled herself for her behaviour she found she was smiling at the memory of it.

          And there was the heart of her problem. She had become an adulteress, a betrayer, a thing she despised. And yet she had enjoyed her sins.

          She could smell Goronwy beside her, his thick masculine scent of leather and pine forests and honest healthy sweat. She liked how Goronwy smelled. She liked how he held her as if she was the most important thing in the world. She wished he would always hold her.

          I’ll have to tell Lleu, she thought to herself, biting her bottom lip unhappily. I’ll confess to him, and he will beat me, but perhaps he will not kill me. I deserve whatever punishment he gives me.

          But what about Goronwy? Another worried thought seared across the flower-maiden’s mind. To confess her guilt was to implicate the Lord of Penllyn too. She might deny Lleu her lover’s name, but surely his uncle could discern it through his cunning arts. Lleu would kill Goronwy for this. Lleu would make him die slowly.

          What then to do? Send Goronwy away and never speak of this? Pretend that nothing happened, and try and quench the fire in her stomach, the passion awoken in her soul? Go back to being Lleu’s perfect wife, his shadow woman, a possession like his other marks of rank?

          Perhaps Goronwy would leave her anyway, Blodeuwedd speculated. She knew that men made promises in the night to women they wished to love, but those fine words dissolved with the dawn. He had got what he desired, got it to the uttermost. Nothing had been reserved. For Blodeuwedd it had been another bridal night. But for Goronwy, who boasted that he did not need to force women to his bed, it may have been just one more clever conquest.

          Blodeuwedd wanted Goronwy to go, so that she could return to being what she was destined to be; but she hoped he cared for her enough to want to stay. Last night had been everything to the flower maiden. She hoped it meant something to the warrior more than a simple exchange of pleasures.

          I am hopelessly corrupted, Blodeuwedd told herself. I am a fallen woman, and I do not regret my fall. But now I must be sensible, or I will bring death to myself and to the man I…

          And there it was. Goronwy Pebyr was the man she loved. The flower maiden had made a choice.

          She lay in Goronwy’s arms and waited for morning and wept silent tears.

***

oronwy woke as the sun streamed through the shutters onto the floor of Lleu’s palace, Mur y Castell. He ran his hand over Blodeuwedd’s smooth stomach, across the curve of her breast, along her neck and onto her cheek. He found it wet with weeping.

          “What’s this?” he asked, still holding her to him. “Not remorse, my lady?”

          “I have betrayed my lord,” Blodeuwedd declared. “I am nothing.”

          “You are my love, from now to life’s end,” Goronwy told her, holding her tighter. The warmth of his body seared into her, driving away the shivers that were wracking her.

          Blodeuwedd heard the words but she was not prepared for the leap her heart gave to hear him say them. She was his love. He wanted her yet. She was an adulteress, but not a fool.

          “Goronwy, I cannot be your love. I belong to Lleu Llaw Gyffes. He is a man of great renown, a man of destiny. I am a part of his story. I cannot escape it.”

          “Blodeuwedd, I told you last night, and I tell you now:  but say the word and I will fight Lleu Llaw Gyffes, for all his magical protections. Or if you will it I’ll abandon all I own and flee with you wheresoever you will. But if you want to escape, I shall find a way to make it possible.”

          Blodeuwedd squirmed round so she could look her lover in the face. “I don’t want you to die. And all paths we could take now lead to death.”

          “If I die today it will have been worth it to hold you to me,” Goronwy promised. “But I would prefer to live with you than to die with you.”

          “That’s not possible. Lleu will return soon. Tomorrow or the day after. He is at Math’s court, but he will not be there for long.”

          Blodeuwedd tried to picture a future where she was not Lleu’s perfect wife but Goronwy’s true love, where the two of them lived free and happy together. She wondered for the first time if a woman crafted by cunning arts from flowers of the field could bear a child, Goronwy’s child, and what it might be like.

          She thought of Lleu possessing her again, of lying beneath him as he took his joy of her, but knowing now what joy she missed. She wondered if she could pretend so well that Lleu would not realise her disgust.

          “You can have a destiny of your own,” Goronwy Pebyr argued. “You began as flowers of the field. Mankind began as clay and dust. It is what we become that matters. You think and feel as does any woman born, and you love. I know you love. I felt the flames of your love scorching me as we joined together last night. It was more than just passion. It was love.”

          “I love you,” Blodeuwedd confessed, a surrender to the truth. “This time yesterday I did not know you, but today you are the sun in my sky. Yesterday I was sad because I did not know what today I know so well.”

          Goronwy kissed her, and she felt herself melt beneath him. She pressed herself into him, loving the firmness of his muscular frame, the sensual feeling of his skin rubbing hers.

          “I cannot leave you,” the warrior said. “Fight or flee, we must do one or the other. Which would you have it be?”

          “Neither will bring us aught but pain and death,” Blodeuwedd replied. “Our only hope is to part forever, and bear the secret of our shame silently in our hearts until we die.”

          “I cannot leave you,” Goronwy repeated. “And I will not leave you. A maiden so forlorn, trapped by her creation to be the chattel of a lord who cannot see her worth. A thing of beauty withering for want of light and care. Blodeuwedd, you chose to give yourself to me last night. Now you must choose what course your life will take.”

          “I have never had a choice,” the flower maiden said.

          “Until now,” the warrior replied. “Fight? Or flee?”

          Blodeuwedd shook her head. Her blonde locks fanned out across the pallet, glistening in the dawn. “Neither,” she replied at last. “There is always a third curse. A third course. Another way.”

          “What do you mean, Blodeuwedd?”

          The flower maiden screwed her courage up and made her choice. “Lleu Llaw Gyffes cannot be fought, and he cannot be escaped,” she told her lover. “But he can be slain.”

          “You said he had magical protections upon him to keep him from death,” Goronwy objected, “but if deeds of strength can bring him low, then I shall…”

          “Not deeds of strength,” Blodeuwedd answered, her perfect face shadowed for a moment as the sun hid behind a cloud. “Murder. My lord Lleu can be murdered. I do not yet know how it may be done, but he knows the manner of his predicted death. I shall discover it and you shall do it, Goronwy.”

          “I am no murderer,” the warrior protested. “Let me face him, and I shall..”

          “You said you loved me,” Blodeuwedd interrupted harshly. “You said it. Were those idle words spoken in a wench’s ear to part her legs on a cold autumn night, or did you mean what you said?”

          “I love you,” Goronwy vowed.

          “And you want to be with me? Then this is the only way. Believe me, Goronwy. Horrible as it is, it is the only way. If I am to have a destiny, then Lleu Llaw Gyffes must die.”

          “It is wrong,” declared the Lord of Penllyn.

          “Do you love me?” Blodeuwedd asked him, clinging about his neck and showering light swift kisses across his cheek and forehead. “Do you want me?” She caught his chin and pulled him round to cover his mouth with hers. “Will you have me?” she urged, when they finally broke for breath. “All you desire will be yours when Lleu Llaw Gyffes is dead. I will be free! And I can freely choose you.”

          She knew Goronwy’s passion was rising. She smoothed her hand over his hairy chest and down between his legs. She was seducing him now, as surely as he had beguiled her the night before.

          “Blodeuwedd…” he groaned as she pushed him down and climbed atop him.

          “Will you make me yours? Will you do anything for me? Will you help me be free? Will you murder Lleu Llaw Gyffes?”

          Goronwy tired to control himself, but his need was too urgent.

          “Yes!” he gasped. “Yes!”

          “Yes!” Blodeuwedd echoed fiercely. “Yes, yes, yes!”

***

leu Llaw Gyffes rolled off Blodeuwedd and reached out for the chicken leg he’d abandoned earlier. He tore a chunk from it and chewed it while his wife recovered from his attentions.

          Blodeuwedd remained laying on her back, staring at the timber roof above her. She was Lleu’s, she knew, but coming to his bed made her feel like an adulteress.

          She cringed inwardly at the thought. For three days and nights she had betrayed her lord with Goronwy Pebyr, abandoning herself to his excesses, touching and talking and loving. They had splashed together in Lake Bala, catching kisses between their play. The had walked to the high ridges overlooking the valley and had consummated their love beneath the wide blue sky. In the orchards he had decked her all in garlands and had laid her down on a bed of sweet herbs.

          Lleu had returned from his travels, cast aside his cloak and pulled her to the straw pallet, lifting her skirts and possessing her without ceremony or kind word. He had spoken of his journey, of the poor state of the road, of the coppice in the garden that needed to be trimmed. He needed no sweet speech to make use of his wife.

          And now Blodeuwedd lay with his sweat cooling on her breast and she felt dirty. Used. Not because she had given herself to Goronwy, but because she had been taken by Lleu.

          She felt like she had betrayed Goronwy.

          “Did you miss me?” she wondered. “When you were away?”

          “What?” her lord asked, turned to look at her. She hadn’t realised that she’d spoken the question out loud.

          “While you were at King Math’s court. Did you miss your wife?”

          “Of course,” Lleu Llaw Gyffes told her. “There are women there, of course, but none so fair or fine as you.”

          Blodeuwedd rolled over and reached for her shift. The lace was torn where Lleu had pulled it off. Her breasts were sore where had had clutched them.

          “It’s a den of thieves, rogues, and politicians though,” Lleu went on. He gestured for the woman to pour him a cup of sweet red wine. “That’s why I don’t take you, my Blodeuwedd. It’s no place for an inexperienced creature like yourself, that snake pit.”

          The flower-maiden obediently supplied her lord’s demand. “So you have explained,” she remembered. “I know the arts and courtesies of the court though I have never been taught them, but I do not understand the greed and evil in men’s hearts, nor their cruelties of the wiles.”

          “Exactly,” Lleu agreed. “That’s exactly it.”

          Blodeuwedd pulled on her white shift but Lleu caught her wrist. “Leave it off. I enjoy having you naked.”

          “As my lord requires,” she answered subserviently, stripping off her garment again so he could see her perfect body.

          Lleu eyed her as he took another bite of meat. “What about you?” he wondered. “Do you miss me when I’m gone? When you’re left here to care for my house and lands while I do my deeds of renown?”

          “I am often lonely,” Blodeuwedd answered honestly. “But I busy myself with my work. I spin and sew, I tend our garden and our orchards, I keep the bees and make the mead, I shape pots and tend the animals. In season I gather the herbs and forest fruits. And sometimes I swim in the lake, when the evening comes.”

          Lleu Llaw Gyffes smiled appreciatively at the blonde paragon kneeling at his hearth. “You’re a good girl, Blodeuwedd, for all your simple beginning. A good wife.”

          Blodeuwedd gripped the fire poker in her hand, but she only used it to rake the wood in the blazing hearth. “I… I do worry when my lord is abroad,” she confessed. “I fear that something will happen to you.”

          “I am Lleu Llaw Gyffes, nephew of Gwydion, great-nephew of Math Mathonwy himself. I am celebrated in song and lore, and mighty is my arm. Why then should you fear?”

          The flower-maiden forced a rueful smile. “I know, I’m very silly. I know your line is blessed, and your uncle has laid powerful geasa over you to protect you from all harm in your adventures. But still I fear. There are bad men in the world, my lord, bandits and assassins, who attack with the bow and the sudden knife…”

          “I have naught to fear from the bow or blade,” Lleu laughed. “Nothing at all.”

          “But you have enemies,” Blodeuwedd persisted. “All great men have them. Men who might use poison or sorcery against you to cause your doom.”

          “Poison cannot harm me, and magic will not slay me,” Lleu replied. “The means of my fall have already been discerned, and knowing my fatal weakness I know how to avoid it.”

          Blodeuwedd stared into the fire. “I am but a weak foolish woman,” she said.

          “Well yes, but no more than all of your sex,” Lleu Llaw Gyffes comforted her. “Your devotion to me creates phantoms in your mind, worries that will never happen. Shall I tell you then, the only means by which my downfall can be achieved?”

          “Tell me,” the flower-maiden asked; and her eyes were dark.

          Lleu hauled her from the hearth and pulled her to sit on his lap, cupping her breast in one hand to keep her in place. With the other he drank his wine. “It is foretold that I shall never suffer harm either inside a house or out of it,” he boasted. “Nor shall I suffer harm either in water or on dry land.”

          “That is… a powerful protection,” Blodeuwedd agreed.

          Her lord played idly with her body as he continued his lecture. “There’s even more, a third charm.”

          “There’s always three,” Blodeuwedd remembered.

          “It is foretold that I could only be harmed by an ash-spear which has been cut and turned on a Sunday alone, and then but when the priests make sacrifice as the dawning comes. And that spear must have been laboured on for a year and a day before ever it will harm me, and it must strike me neither in or out of house, neither on land or water.”

          “That is a powerful protection,” the maiden confessed, dismayed.

          “I told you,” Lleu Llaw Gyffes smirked. “You have naught to fear. None can harm me. I am ever victorious.” He regarded the beauty on his lap. “In love as well as war. Come, my beauty, let me claim your sweets again.”

          Blodeuwedd let herself be pressed down on her belly across the table and committed adultery with her lord again.

***

IV

 year had passed, and the crops had swelled and been harvested, the snows had come and passed, the leaves had come again green and new, and in the long summer the harvest had been sown. The wind carried the scent of nature’s ripeness, and everything was fair. In the meadow the birds were gathering again for their winter flight, and the air was sweet with their melodies. But the first shadows of winter were gathering, and the trees turned to russet and gold as the day grew shorter.

          Blodeuwedd, wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, padded down to the lake in the freshness of the first morning, before the sun had done much more than bring an azure glow to the skies to the east. Her husband had drunk much wine the night before, and was prone to sleep in late thereafter.

          The flower maiden went to the stone where she left her clothes and peeled them off one by one. She took special care as she stripped herself. This was a ritual, a promise. Everything she wore, everything she owned, was the property of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, even herself. She cast aside everything she could of his. Her body she would steal.

          When she was completely nude she glanced back up at the palace of Mur Y Castell which Gwydion had given to his nephew. It was her prison, but today she would escape her cage. She slipped into the water. It was freezing cold but she didn’t care. Her passion kept her warm.

          She swam the lake with bold, strong stokes, barely stirring the water as she passed through it. Her golden hair fanned behind her on the surface like a mane.

          Goronwy was waiting for her on the other shore, crouched in the thickets where the trees came down to the pool. It was an old trysting place of theirs, quiet and concealed, far from the forest paths. As Blodeuwedd rose from the lake, glistening and naked, he hurried to embrace her and to fold his cloak around her.

          “Well met, fair flower,” the lord of Penllyn greeted her.

          “I am come, Goronwy,” she declared, pressing herself into the warmth of his lean frame as if she could meld herself into him. “I am come.”

          Goronwy picked her up in his arms and carried her over the sharp shingles of the shore. “You’ve come,” he agreed. “Does that mean you’ve made your choice?”

          “My choice,” Blodeuwedd savoured the words. “Yes. I’ve chosen.”

          “What will you do?” Goronwy asked her. “Which destiny will you claim? Lleu’s wife or my love?”

          “I’m yours,” she told him. “You were the first choice I ever made that was mine. I have been a ghost in Lleu’s bed since first I lay with you. When he embraces me now it might as well be rape.”

          “So…” the Lord of Penllyn breathed. “Do I kill him? Do I set you free?”

          Bloduewedd kissed him, long and deep. And then she whispered. “Yes. Please kill him.”

          The new-made spear stood beside them in the turf as they joined together their love.

***

hat’s this?” Lleu Llaw Gyffes demanded as his wife pulled him from his bed. “Let me sleep, woman. My head’s throbbing.”

          “That’s because my lord ate and drank much and loved hard last night,” the flower-maiden told him. She was smiling, her hair garlanded, and she wore only her loose shift. “But I have the remedy, my husband,” she promised. “Come with me.”

          Lleu let her drag him to the door of the house. “I’m not plunging with you into that freezing lake,” he warned her. “You might still need water in your roots from old memory, but I’m of flesh and blood and need no dipping.”

          “Before winter comes,” Blodeuwedd told him, “everything gets cleansed, even the Lord of Mur y Castell. But look…” She showed him the bath she had prepared for him, there on the porch of the palace. Sheltered beneath the eaves, on the wooden step before the lintel, was a tub filled with water, scattered with petals.

          “What’s this?” Lleu demanded.

          “It is a bath, my lord,” the flower-maiden told him. “For you. I warmed the water from the kettle, and I have gathered sweet herbs to make the water tingle. Step in, my prince, and I will tend to you.”

          She slowly slipped her shift from her shoulders, stepping out of it and coming to him naked. Then she untied the furs that covered him until he stood ready for his bath. “This way,” she giggled, stroking him playfully as she coaxed him into the water. “Lie back, soak, and let me rub your body.”

          Lleu Llaw Gyffes was not displeased by his wife’s advances. He sank into the tub, spilling liquid over the sides. Blodeuwedd bent and kissed him, then took cloths and began to wipe his body.

          “You are the best of wives,” Lleu praised her as she worked upon his flesh, cleansing him them covering him with kisses. “Happy the man who has you as his chattel.”

          “Yes,” the flower-maiden agreed. She did not flinch to clean or kiss any part of her husband’s flesh. This too was a ritual. A farewell.

          Lleu Llaw Gyffes suddenly grabbed her and pulled her across him in the tub. “My lord!” she protested, squirmed as he held her. “This bath’s not big enough for two.”

          “You should not have woke my ardour then, sweet Blodeuwedd!” her husband growled. “Now you must leave off your housewifery for the bedmate’s part.”

          “As my lord commands,” the woman told him. “But not here. Come, my lord. Take me in your arms.”

          She rose from the water and he stood beside her, clutching her close, running his hands over her wet body. She raised her arms around his shoulders, pulling his mouth to her lips. Lleu stood there, one leg still in the bath, the other on the porch.

          “You know, my lord,” Blodeuwedd said to him. “It occurs to me that these are the conditions of your doom.”

          Lleu Llaw Gyffes pulled his face up from the maiden’s breasts and looked around him. “Hah! Yes, I suppose they could be. On the porch here I’m neither in the house nor out of it. Standing with one foot on land and one in water. It’s good thing there’s no special spear to threaten me, eh? But the only spear I see is aimed for you, my little dove! And what a long hard spear it is, ready to stab you deep and true!”

          “My lord,” Blodeuwedd asked, not denying him the freedom of her body, “Do you love me?”

          Lleu blinked. “Love you? Of course I love you.”

          “And would you let me go, if I asked it of you?”

          “Of course not. You are my wife, Blodeuwedd. You were made for me. You are mine.”

          “Then I am sorry.”

          Then Lleu Llaw Gyffes became aware that they were not alone. He tried to swing round but the flower-maiden was clinging to his neck, holding him tight.

          There was a warrior there, armed and deadly, wielding a new-made shaft of ash wood, sharpened at the tip, cunningly carved in many patient hours.

          “What?” exclaimed Lleu.

          Goronwy Pebyr did not speak as he drove the spear into Lleu’s side.

          Blodeuwedd released her husband as he stumbled back into the bath. The water stained bright red.

          “Blodeuwedd!” Lleu Llaw Gyffes gasped, reaching a hand out for his flower-bride.

          The woman’s arm twitched by reflex, but she did not come to him. She stood there, pale and beautiful except where she was stained by his blood. Her eyes were on his attacker, and she had never looked that way at Lleu.

          “She is not yours, Lleu Llaw Gyffes,” Goronwy spoke at last. “She is free.”

          The long lessons from Math, sorcerer king, and by Gwydion of the many shapes came back to Lleu at the last. He was dying, his mortal flesh torn apart. Only in some other form might he survive the wound. He cried wordlessly to the ancient powers of the world.

          Lleu had been given many gifts. Now he claimed the last.

          Suddenly he was no longer there. A blood-flecked eagle fluttered in his place. It let out a righteous scream, dived at Goronwy, then winged off with faltering strength out over Lake Bala. It turned into the sun and was gone.

          Blodeuwedd fell to her knees and sobbed. Lleu’s blood stained her hands and breasts, her belly and her loins.

          “It is done,” Goronwy Pebyr told her, holding her close. “Whatever wonders Lleu Llaw Gyffes possessed, he is gone. You are free.”

          The flower maiden wept for a long time, there beside the bath filled with her husband’s blood, neither in the house nor out of it, comforted by her lover’s embrace. But at last she spoke. “I do not want to be free, Goronwy of Penllyn.” She raised her perfect flower face to her lover’s kips. “I want to be yours.”

***

n the afterglow of love, Blodeuwedd and Goronwy lay beside each other, letting the perspiration of their labours cool in the night air. Their fingers touched and their heads were close together, but they needed no more physical contact than that. They were secure in their intimacy.

          “Why is it so different with you?” Blodeuwedd wondered.

          “I love you,” Goronwy told her. “More than life. More than honour. I would do anything for you. I have.”

          “If any knew what we had done…” the flower maiden worried. “I do not think the legends would be kind to us, Goronwy, the faithless wife and her treacherous lover. We have between us broken Lleu’s destiny, and he was a candidate for fame.”

          “Are you sorry that we murdered him?”

          “Sometimes,” Blodeuwedd confessed. “I still feel his blood upon my hands. But then you touch me, or speak to me, or smile at me, and I would do it a thousand times over. These months we have been together have been paradise.”

          It was half a year since Blodeuwedd had been set free, and the snows had come high and deep to confine the lovers in their happy bower. Now the last drifts were melting and the promise of a bright fresh spring hung in the balmy night.

          Goronwy Pebyr regarded the perfection laid down beside him. He could still feel the heat of her loins, the whisper of her kisses from their recent lovemaking. “I never thought to love like this,” he admitted in turn. “A love that makes me bereft of all decency, to kill a man and take his wife. But I too would do my sins again if I could win Blodeuwedd anew.”

          He rolled over and kissed his lover. They had made their choice.

          An axe blow shuddered the door of Mur y Castell.

          Goronwy sprang up, seeking for his sword. A second strike splintered the wood. A voice from without called “Blodeuwedd!”

          The flower maiden recognised the call. “Lleu!” she cried. “Lleu Llaw Gyffes!”

          “We killed him!” Goronwy said. A third axe-blow shattered the door and gave him the lie. “I stabbed him with the spear, according to the geasa. That was how he was to be killed.”

          “That was how I was to be harmed,” Lleu said, stepping over the threshold of his house, armed and deadly. “Nothing was guaranteed about my death.”

          “Blodeuwedd,” Goronwy shouted. “Run. Save yourself now. Flee.” He leaped forward and tackled Lleu Llaw Gyffes. “Go!”

          Such was the flower-maiden’s panic that she followed his instructions, taking to her heels, through the door and out into the night. Naked she ran, a white streak across the chilly turf, away down to the lake and then into its icy cold embrace.

          “There is no escape,” Lleu Llaw Gyffes declared, buffeting Goronwy away and kicking the warrior’s sword out of his grasp. “This is the hour of my revenge.”

          “Your revenge?” spat Goronwy. “Your uncles’ revenge, don’t you mean? For how could you survive the mortal wound I gave you save by their cunning arts?”

          “Grateful I am to Gwydion, for it was he who found me as you had made me,” Lleu admitted. “Searching for his missing kinsman, he came to a farm where the farmer complained of his sow. Each day the pig would rush from the pen into the forest, returning by night with blood upon her muzzle. Gwydion tracked the animal, and found it near Snowdon sitting beneath a tree where perched a wounded bird. Great gory blood-drops and gobbets of meat fell from the injured eagle, and these the sow devoured most eagerly.”

          Goronwy assessed his fighting chances. He was naked and unarmed against a hero of renown. His sword was cast now far from reach.

          “Discerning that I was the eagle, Gwydion called me down by three bardic songs, and by his arts released me from that shape. Then Math Mathonwy nursed me until the poison of my wound was all sucked out and I could face you and demand my due.”

          Goronwy raised his chin and did not quail. “What is your due? Blodeuwedd’s not yours. She has become more than her creation. She does not love you. She is free.”

          “You sought to murder me, there on my porch, as I stood with one foot in my bath and one on earth; to gut me with that spear that hangs there on the wall. Now I demand revenge, that you should stand as I did, where I did, and let me have my turn to cast the spear.”

          The Lord of Penllyn nodded at his fate. “If I survive, your vengeance will be done, on Blodeuwedd as on me?”

          “If you survive,” Lleu Llaw Gyffes agreed. “If that is destiny.”

          “I have no choice,” the warrior agreed.

          The preparations were quickly made, and Lleu took down the blood-stained spear and held it firmly. “This is not your story,” Lleu told Goronwy. “It is mine.”

          The lord of Penllyn stood on the porch, one foot wet, the other dry, and stared at Blodeuwedd’s husband. “It is yours because your uncles gave it to you,” he scorned. “You did not woo it nor win it, nor deserve it.”

          Lleu Llaw Gyffes vented a snort of rage and hurled the spear with all his wrath. It skewered Goronwy through the belly, tearing him apart. Lleu stepped over the dying warrior and dragged out his innards for the dogs.

          “It is mine.”

***

lodeuwedd splashed to the other side of the lake, scrabbling out of the water at her trysting place with Goronwy. The sharp pebbles cut her feet, the thorns tore her flesh, but in her panic she did not care.

          There was a sound behind her, the stealthy tread of a hunter stalking his prey. With a desperate cry the flower-maiden raced onward, pressing through the midnight forest, stumbling in the darkness.

          The hunter kept apace, now to her left, now to her right, sometimes so close she could hear his breath. Brokenly she ran, her pale white form flecked with scratches and dirt, her golden hair torn and tangled.

          An hour, then two, the chase continued, through stream bed and rocky mounds, along the old high track that led to the mountains under the stars, then into the thick undergrowth of the primal forest. Panting, weeping, screaming for breath, Blodeuwedd ran.

          And then there was nowhere else to go. The trees ahead formed an impenetrable cage of thorns. The weeds tangled her feet, tripping her so she could not rise.

          Gwydion fab Don, teacher and druid, Lleu’s uncle, perhaps Lleu’s father, strode out of the darkness to tower over her.

          “Goronwy Pebyr is dead,” he told her, and she felt her heart crack.

          “I am not Lleu’s,” she said. “I am not any man’s property.”

          “You were made for one purpose, Blodeuwedd,” Gwydion told her. “To be a handmaiden of Lleu’s destiny. To be his.”

          “I reject that destiny!” Blodeuwedd cried, her tears smearing down the dirt that caked her face. “I will not be his! I will not return to him. I will not yield my body to him. I will not be his slave.”

          “You are not fit to be his wife,” Gwydion judged her. “Adulteress, traitoress, murderess. You are not fit for life.”

          “Kill me then. You had me made from the plants of the field. Send me back. I was never aught but a flower to be stepped under Lleu Llaw Gyffes’ great heel.”

          Gwydion shook his head. “Death and oblivion are too kind an end for you, Blodeuwedd. You will live, with your grief, with your pain, you will live forever.” The druid raised his hands, his cunning hands, drawing signs and symbols that shimmered in the blackness. “You will haunt the night, screeching your remorse, lonely, feared, shunned, a killer in the dark.”

          Blodeuwedd braced herself as she heard her fate. So choice was to be taken from her again.

          “Yes,” Gwydion said, knowing her thoughts as well as she did. “Woman was not meant to think, or choose, only to serve. Let this be a lesson down the ages for all your sex.”

          “It is unfair, unjust, unmanly to do these things!” Blodeuwedd screamed as she felt the changes come upon her. Her body twisted, painfully. “A time will come,” she prophesied. “A time when destiny changes. A time when your words will be reviled, not I. When your choices will be hated. When love overcomes duty and where love is won not given. I can see it! I can see it! I can…”

          And then she spoke no more, but only in an owl’s screech; for Gwydion had made her into an owl, that night-bird of ill-omen most feared by men; lonely, shunned, a killer in the dark.

          Blodeuwedd flew at him and clawed his face. Then she span away, a night-ghost on swift wings, screaming her sorrows on the midnight breeze.

***

Copyright © 2005 reserved by Ian Watson. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

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