Falls the Shadow Read Free Page B

my lip.”
    For a long moment, they regarded each other in silence. They were very unlike. Gruffydd’s hair was almost as red as the hearth flames, his eyes a clear cat-green, while Llelo’s coloring was dark. He had begun to assess the damage done, and now turned wide brown eyes upon Gruffydd’s face, eyes that showed sudden alarm. How could he have caused so much havoc with such good intentions?
    “Come here, lad,” Gruffydd said, and Llelo swallowed again, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic, then sat cautiously on the edge of the bed. To Gruffydd, he seemed like a wild bird poised for flight; he flinched as Gruffydd touched his arm.
    “Well, I’ll grant you this, Llelo. When you set out to wake a man, you take no half-measures.”
    Llelo’s eyes widened even farther. Still not fully convinced that he was to escape unscathed, he could not help grinning, nonetheless. “I am sorry about the broken flagon, Papa,” he said, and Gruffydd shrugged.
    “I expect it can be mended. But what of you? You took quite a tumble. Are you sure that you need no mending yourself?”
    Now, it was Llelo’s turn to shrug; he’d taken much sharper buffets from Owain. “Papa…do you remember your dream?”
    Gruffydd’s mouth tightened so noticeably that he’d have called the question back if only he could. He tensed, but then his father’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, I remember,” he said, so low that Llelo had to strain to catch his words. “But I’d rather not talk of it, Llelo. And I’d not have you talk of it, either. I want you to keep this night to yourself, lad. Will you do that for me?”
    Llelo stared at him, mouth ajar, eyes full of wonder that his father would ask when his was the right to command. For most of his life, Gruffydd had been a remote and forbidding figure, quick-tempered, not easy to please. And now, Llelo marveled, he needs my help! Now they shared a secret, a secret somehow shameful, one his father did not want known. “I’ll not tell a living soul, Papa! I swear by all the saints,” he vowed, and spat on the floor to seal the bargain.
    Gruffydd laughed, was surprised to find he could. Most often he was shaken for hours after one of the dreams, despairing of what he saw as base weakness, dreading the nightmare’s recurrence. “Good lad,” he said, and for the first time, he found he could look into his son’s dark eyes and see no ghosts, see beyond the boy’s disquieting resemblance to the man whose name he bore, the man who had given Gruffydd life and then taken away six years of it.
    “We ought to sweep up the chamber, Papa, ere Mama comes back,” Llelo suggested, an eager accomplice in this complicity of silence. But even as he spoke, they heard the footsteps upon the stairs.
    The door was shoved back; Senena and Owain burst into the room. “Gruffydd? A servant said he heard a fearful crash! Are you all right? Did you—Llelo?”
    Senena’s voice registered more than surprise, it registered disapproval. Owain was even more outspoken, saying accusingly, “What are you doing here, Llelo?”
    Llelo was accustomed to finding himself in the wrong. He said nothing, retreated into the stubborn silence that his parents and brother found so infuriating. But this night was to be different; he was to have a defender. As Senena frowned, started to speak, Gruffydd said, “He heard me cry out in my sleep, deserves no rebuke.”
    Owain’s face was easily read; his surprise was all too apparent. Senena’s eyes flew to her husband’s face, and Llelo was forgotten.
    “Was it your dream again, beloved?” She was meticulous in the keeping of her house, prized her possessions. But now she never even glanced at the broken crockery strewn about the floor, hastening toward the bed. “I should have been here for you! But that accursed storm, I could not sleep…” As she spoke, she was fluffing the pillow, smoothing the sheets, stroking her husband’s tousled hair. Llelo could not look away;