Frighteningly Low Expectations

The ashes of the fire were cold and damp, like his dreams, like his fucking life. Llandred stalked across the lawn. The early morning mist billowed around his feet. It got up underneath his spectacular cloak and made his back itch.

Behind him, the broken towers of Caer Llandrel reared up into the grey morning drear. Most of the windows were long smashed, the peaked roofs were slighted. Mould hung down in great sheets inside several of the rooms. The tapestries were black with mildew.

High up, on the topmost tower, Mother was gazing Northward, a lonely star, looking for a home that she could never return to. A father who would nevermore love her. Her white hair stirred gently in the breeze. The leaves hung from the trees, wet and cold. The flowers were dying, soft brown petals, slippery with rot.

"Fen?" he called out, but there was no reply.

He plucked an apple from a tree and amused himself by tossing it high into the air, pulling it down into himself, then sending it high once again. This time, when he caught it, his thumb sank into a soft patch. The skin slid free, and he felt the sticky wetness of mould within.

"Fen!" he called again.

"I'm here," came a small voice. "Don't wake up the house. I don't want anyone to see me."

He found her sitting on a bench, surrounded by autumnal trees. She had put on a yellow ballgown with frills, and there was a hint of makeup, a touch of red to the lips and cheeks, a brush of darkness around the eyes.

"Going somewhere?" he asked, sitting down next to her.

"I couldn't sleep," she said. "I wanted something to do, so I got dressed up. It's stupid I know, it's not like there's anyone here to see me. I just wanted to walk a while and feel something. Something different. Maybe if I'd been prettier... I don't know."

Llandred draped his cloak around her shoulders. Her skin was icy cold, and she began to shiver right away.

"You should go inside," he said. "Gwynn has a fire burning."

"No. No, I just want to sit awhile. You can stay and talk with me, if you can manage to bear up beneath the existential horror of it all."

"It's alright, sis. It was fun, last night, until the last bit."

"You mean the bit where I hollered like a harpy, woke half the house, and scared away the only boy who's ever looked at me?"

"Yes, that was not your finest hour."

They sat in silence for a minute, watching the leaves fall.

"Will she close the gate?" Fen said at last.

"Mother knows you've been going out. I think she'll have to."

"I'll just leave if she does. I'll find another way."

He put his hand on her knee. "I know you will, sis; there's always another way."

"Do you think he'll come back, Llan?"

"Who, The boy with the butcher’s block for a face?"

"Don't be horrid, Llan."

"I'm sorry."

She sat very still, palms pressed together between her knees. Her mouth worked as though she were trying to say something, but the words were difficult.

"You know why Father rescued mother, don't you Llan?"

"What?"

"It's not like he loves her."

"Don't."

"Why does anyone rescue a princess? He wanted to marry her so he could be king one day."

"Don't talk like that sis."

Her thin shoulders started trembling, and Llandred realised she was sobbing - quietly, efficiently, without making a sound. He put his arm around her.

"I just liked having someone to talk to," she said. "Someone who isn't us, someone who doesn't want to catch me or murder me for wishes or throw me in the eternal flame to burn forever. It was nice."

"You have frighteningly low expectations, sis."

She giggled through her snot and wiped her face on his spectacular cloak. He tried not to mind.

"What do you think it will be like," she said, "When we die?"

"We're not going to die, sis."

"Grandfather will find us one day. We can't hide here forever, like little chicks in a nest. Nasnarieth will come."

"You shouldn't talk like this Fen."

"I expect it'll be quick for you," she continued, as though she hadn't heard him. "You'll run at him with your sword, and there'll be a battle, and he'll cut you down, and that'll be it, but it won't be like that for me, will it? He'll just bat my little knife away and laugh at me, then he'll tie me up and take me away. And then what will he do? I think about it all the time, Llan. I can't stand it."

"I won't let that happen."

"Promise me you'll kill me, Llan. We can't fight them. Promise you'll kill me before you die. Don't let him get me."

"That's not going to happen."

"Promise me!" there was an intensity about her, a little flash of fire. A heat around the hands.

"Alright, Alright, I'll promise if it'll make you shut up." There was silence between them for a minute.

"Thanks, Llan," she said at last. "You're a pal."

"And you're a permanent pain in my anus."

She held up a little fist and he bumped it with his own.

"Grandfather won't come, of course," she said, very prim. "I really don't know what you're so worried about. Honestly, Llan, it's like sometimes I have to do all the thinking for both of us."

"You are completely dreadful."

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"I know. Shall we get breakfast? I hear Gwynn has a fire burning." She held out her arm, and he took it. He pulled his cloak tight around them both, and together, they walked across the garden into the house.

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There was bacon sizzling on a black skillet over the stove, and the smell of new bread, soft and buttery, warmed the kitchen. Gwynn was fussing with the plates. She was a large, round woman, just a peasant with no light or seeming of her own.

Seskie, the old gardener was already seated at the table, her work-worn hands were freshly scrubbed, her overalls were patched and dusty.

"There you are," she said in her thick Mercian accent. "What you been doing with my trees? It were summer yesterday, now they're all brown and withered. I only cut the hedges yesterday."

"You can ask my sister about that," said Llandred.

"Aye, well, I'm sure she's got her reasons," said Seskie. "Growing girl and all that. Any of you seen the little lord Esten today?"

"We had a late night," said Llan. "I expect he's sleeping it off."

Gwynn waddled over with full plates of food. The bread was floury and soft, with butter melted into it, the bacon was black at the edges and so crisp it snapped when he bit into it. He helped himself to honey water from a jug in the middle of the kitchen table.

"looks like rain today," said Seskie. "Good time to get the bulbs in, though maybe it's autumn now. You don't make my job easy do you, oh dear me, no you don't."

The door opened quietly, and Mother glided in. The atmosphere in the room changed immediately. The servants became formal and precise. Fen glared down at the table furiously. Llan leaned back, trying to appear uninterested.

"Will you take tea, mam," said Gwynn, rising from a curtsey.

Mother walked very straight and tall. Each step was flawless, part of the Pattern. Her hair flowed behind her. She brushed each surface with her fingertips as she passed it: the doorframe, the chopping block, the corner of the table.

"Thank you Gwynn," she said, her voice perfectly clipped and modulated. "Please do pour for me."

Gwynn laid the tea cup out precisely on its saucer, a silver spoon positioned to the right, a napkin folded just so. She poured the tea in a smooth laminar stream without a single drip.

Fen was still glaring at the table as though she wanted to explode it. She chewed at her lower lip. She had her plate of food in front of her, and the sharp knife and fork. Llandred unconsciously edged away, just a little.

"We will not speak of last night," said Mother, shaking out the napkin. "Fen has learned her lesson. That is all that needs to be said."

"But Mother..." said Fen.

"Fssst," Mother held up her closed fist. "Am I not Llaneth, Illnevar of Erin? I said that those were all the words that would be spoken on the matter."

Mother speared a tiny piece of food and chewed it precisely.

"But Mother," said Fen. "The gate..."

"The gate will remain open, we are fugitives, not prisoners."

Out of the corner of his eye, Llan could see Fen grinning, then very quickly she launched herself at Mother, locking her arms around her middle. "Thank you," she said quietly, her ear pressed against the older woman's tummy.

Mother sat very stiffly, permitting herself to be held. "I do remember what it is like to be young," she said at last. "There were so many things that seemed ever so important, but with hindsight, they were not. I wish I had known this at the time. Perhaps we would not be here now."

Fen was still holding her around the middle. The Lady Llaneth reached down and gently brushed her daughter's hair with the tips of her fingers, smoothing it back into place.

She leaned in, pressing her face into the girl's hair. "No more going out now," she murmured. "The world is not safe for us yet. One day, but not yet."

"I love you, Mother."

"Fssst, you love me now because I let you keep your gate. Tomorrow, I will insist you study your tales, and you will hate me once more. This is the way of things with mothers and daughters I think. One day, you will be grown and have adventures, and I will sit in my tower worrying about you, but not today. Come, let us eat."

Fen sat up again and picked up her knife and fork. Gwynn laid more bacon on her plate.

"Do you remember what it was like to be young?" Llandred asked Gwynn. The fat old woman huffed and went back to cooking.

"She was the queen of the May," said Seskie, "Garlanded with flowers, ringed with sunshine. She shone like the dawn, and I loved her."

Gwynn huffed again, but Llandred could see her smiling.

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Llandred walked the gardens alone. The bacon was a hard lump in his stomach. Why did food not sit easily anymore? There had been a time when he had cared for nothing, but now he felt as though the trees themselves were watching him.

Fen was right, of course. Grandfather would come one day. There was nothing any of them could do about it but wait for the inevitable. What would he do against a coven of stilled? Even one would be enough. He imagined them tearing pieces off the Caer Llandrell, cracking open the roof to get to Mother, pouring her out like a yolk from an egg. He imagined the screaming, the begging, the slow breaking torture like a cat with a mouse, breaking the legs, breaking the back, crawling, then catching, then crawling away again. He imagined bright little Fen, gripped in an armoured fist, struggling to pull free. He imagined the flame, undarkn'd, licking around her legs.

"I am Dorin of Erinthrain," he announced to the trees, to the birds, to no one in particular. He kicked the bruised head off a flower, sending it tumbling.

And what will I do when death comes calling? Kill Fen? Kill mother? Kill little Esten to save him from a worse fate? Will I have the courage to kill myself? What of Gwynn and Seskie?

He pictured himself going from person to person, cutting and stabbing. He imagined Esten running from him, blood dripping down his face, Esten beating at the door, screaming for Mother. Mother holding Esten still while he finished the job.

"I am Dorin of Erinthrain for fuck's sake," he said again, but no one was listening.

He crouched down, leaning his back against a tree, surrounded by autumn leaves, slowly knocking the back of his head against the trunk. "I am fucking Dorin of Fucking Erinthrain," and yet here he was, no one and nothing. A coward, hiding in a ruin, waiting for the moment when he would have to murder his family.

There was a small movement amongst the leaves. A tiny little ripple. He watched it uncurl, then jerked his legs away. It was a snake, small and green with a triangular head and gold patches on its back. His blade fell into his hand. He scrambled away, wary of the little fangs.

"Hush," said the snake, its little forked tongue flickering.

Llandred knelt down again, bringing his face down to the snake's level.

"Were you listening to me?" he said, feeling suddenly foolish.

"Hush," is said again, there was a faint smell in the air. Old meat. A dead rat under the floorboards.

"I know you," said Llandred. "I know you from stories. I ought to kill you."

"And yet, you will hear what I have to say," said the snake. "They always do." Its voice was oil and bile, a salesman's voice, a reasonable voice, the voice of a trader selling spoiled goods for cheap. As it spoke, it coiled back and forth as though pacing, inspecting him from all angles.

Llan sat back on his heels and levelled his sword. The tip wavered in front of the snake's nose. "I do not speak with snakes," he said.

"Oh, but you haven't heard what I have to say yet."

"There's nothing you could offer me that would be worth the price."

"This is what they all say," said the snake. "But the situation is simple. You have problems. I have solutions. It is the common way of things, and you, oh mighty Dorin of all Erinthrain, have a great many problems."

"Are you mocking me, snake?"

"You mock yourself, hiding in the ruins while lesser men walk in the light and take what you are owed."

As it spoke, the smell grew stronger. Wet cloth left to fester in a pile. Burned hair. Sweet yellow puss dripping from a tooth. The weight of it pressed on him until it was all he could do to remain standing.

"This ruin bears your name," said the snake, weaving from side to side. "I was here when it was built. I was here when it fell. You are not the first king I have met, and yours are not the worst problems I have solved. Each has taken my bargain in the end, one way or another, and each has prospered - in their own way.

"You broke the worlds."

"Layonidel broke the worlds. I merely showed her how."

"What makes you think I will listen to you?"

The snake didn't reply. It didn't need to. He saw again in his mind the vision of him, pressing his white blade into Fen's slender neck. A spray of blood on the walls, on his hands. Mother screaming while Esten kicked and tried to get away.

"Tell me, boy," said the snake. "When death calls you by name, what will it name you? Will it name you high king over Erin? Perhaps it will name you the boy who hid while the shadows came for his sister? What are you Llandred? When death stands over you, what will you be thinking? What will you wish you had done differently?"

"I will not bargain with you, snake," he said again, but he no longer believed his own words.

"Your grandfather brings shadows across the great divide, for you, for your mother, for your sweet little sister, and what will you do boy, when they come? Will you fight them with your sword? Would you not rather ride out in glory? Would you not rather carry the fight to them?"

"No one can fight the flame," said Llandred, but suddenly he wasn't so certain.

"So sure of yourself. That is an admirable quality in a king."

"How would I fight him? What weapon would I use? There is no such weapon."

"And yet we stand in the ruins of Caer Llandrell, while the daughters of Layonidel live on the land. Tell me boy. Which is most powerful, the army camped around a city wall, or the sharpened point shoved through the heart of the general? Subtlety is stronger than steel. You know this is true. Subtlety will win you the prize."

"And you, what price is this weapon? What will it cost me?"

"Oh, you know better than to ask the price," hissed the snake. "But think on it, you have nothing now, nothing that will not soon be taken from you. What do you have to lose?"