Arthur stared at him, then rose, pulling away from me, and touched the hilt of the sword. I thought he would help Bedwyr to his feet and embrace him, but he did not, only stood, looking at the warrior. “I thank you,” he said at last. “Sit down.”
He returned to his place beside me, and Bedwyr rose shakily, sheathed his sword, and sat down. Arthur took another deep breath and renewed the conference in a calm voice. “So you see: I fear that Medraut will begin to spread the story soon. Therefore I will not send him to Gwynedd, or to any king who, like Maelgwn, would be able to use such a tale as a weapon against us.”
“Medraut could tell Maelgwn himself, without leaving Camlann,” I said, into the silence. “By letter.”
Arthur turned his head and looked at me. His face was scarcely a foot from mine, but his eyes seemed to regard me from a great distance.
“Send him to Gwynedd,” I said. “My dear lord, some of the men will doubt him now. If he is absent, no matter where, his spell will wane. And if he tells the tale to Maelgwn it will do less damage than told to some king who is our friend.”
“But he will wish to go to Gwynedd. He has spoken with Maelgwn before; we know that. He would not trust a tale like that to a letter. He will want to tell it in his own fashion, preparing his way with hints and rumors, and ending with a pretense of injury to the king himself. Dear God, I can almost hear him.”
“My dearest…” I began again, reaching out to touch him.
But he jumped up, strode to the door, turned and looked back at me. The best thing would be for me to abdicate. No, be silent. If there were another man in my place, someone untainted by any of this, all would be well. And why should Camlann, and you, and all Britain, pay for my sin? Why should anyone suffer for it but me? It is because I am emperor, because I seized the purple, usurped it. If I could abdicate—”
“My lord!” exclaimed Bedwyr and I together.
He shook his head, angrily. “It would be best. But there is no one I could appoint to succeed me who would be accepted by all, and the end would be war, another war, and things would end as they were when I seized power, and no doubt I should seize power again.” He struck his hand against the wall, hard, then stopped, cradling it in the other hand. “There is nothing to do but go on.”
“Arthur!” I cried, rising from my stiff knees, pained to the heart because he would receive no comfort and no hope, and yet had set himself to struggle on.
“No! Gwynhwyfar, your pity is a reproach to me; can’t you see that? Must I speak so plainly? This is my fault, mine! Leave me be for a while. I will go riding—indeed, I will take Medraut and Rhuawn with me as escort, and try to see if I can gather anything of their plans. Bedwyr, you will have to visit Goronwy. Take back the name of liar which you gave him and he will be reconciled and keep silence about the quarrel. Should anything else come up, I will be back by dusk.” He opened the house door, then stopped, looking back once more. “Forgive me,” he said, very quietly, and was gone. Bedwyr and I looked at each other in the deep silence, and saw the desolation in each other’s eyes.
“You have known—how long?” Bedwyr asked at last.
“Just four years,” I replied.
“And no one else knows?”
I shook my head, looked about, and sat in the chair by the fire which Arthur had just left. It still held the warmth of his body, and I wanted him, suddenly and terribly. “Only Gwalchmai,” I said to Bedwyr. “Arthur told him before Gwalchmai swore him fealty. Arthur thought he knew already, and had treated him badly because of it.”
“So that was the reason.” Bedwyr traced the line of his sword’s hilt, then picked up a fold of his cloak, staring at the bloodstain on it. “If I had known…”
“What?”
He dropped the stained material. “Nothing. What could I have done? My lady, I would not fight for any man living but Arthur; I would have hung up my sword years ago, if I were called to serve any lord but him. What he has done is nothing less than a miracle. He has fought for the Light, when every other man fought for himself alone. No god would punish him for this thing he committed in ignorance; it is some work of Hell to weaken us all.”
“Gwalchmai,” I said tiredly, “thinks the Queen Morgawse was a kind of demon.”
“By Heaven, her heart must have been blacker than any mortal’s, to have done this thing. Does he really imagine that anyone could rule better than he does? Even now, even with him as emperor, we are scarcely able to hold to what the old Empire was; what would we do without him?”
I shook my head, my hand clenching, feeling the line of the signet ring against my palm, “I think that all we have done to this day has been to build a thorn brake against the wind,” I said, “and since the peace we have been trying to light a fire behind it. But I thought we had the substance of a fire to light the world, here in Camlann, given time. Only Medraut will tear our thorn brake down, if we let him. Arthur knows, and he thinks it his fault. By you are right, without him we have nothing but the darkness and the winds, the kings of Britain fighting among themselves over a purple cloak. He will not let that happen.”
“I pray God it does not.” Bedwyr looked at me again, then crossed to me, knelt before me, and took my hands clumsily. He kissed them. “Most noble lady…you do not need me to tell you that he loves you beyond any other. If anyone can comfort him, it is you.”
“I have tried. But he does not want comfort. He will hold the fortress, but he will punish himself for this, and I cannot stop him.”
“Try again, my lady.” His expression was earnest and tender. “You are no coward; I know you would fight on even if the fight were hopeless, and it is far from hopeless now.”
My longing, his kindness, Arthur’s pain: I was stunned with too much feeling, and could not feel. “I am…justly rebuked, lord,” I managed to say. “Very well. And for yourself, you deserve the trust he gives you, and deserve it as much from myself as from my lord, if I were to thank you as your kindness merits, I would never have done with thanking you.”
He looked at me earnestly a moment longer, then again, hurriedly, kissed my hands. He stood, looking at me, then bowed. “I must go and find Gwalchmai, and tell him what has happened. God keep you, my lady.”
“And you, noble lord.”
When he was gone, and I had the house to myself, I put my face in my hands and strove to calm myself. Be still, still…I could hear the breeze in the thatch and the hollow sound it made under the eaves; distant, indistinguishable voices shouting far off down the hill. There. My skin felt hot, and I stood up and went into the next room and found a pitcher of water. I splashed it against my forehead and cheeks. But calm eluded me. I felt as though a fire had begun below my heart in that web of grief and helplessness, and I could not extinguish it so easily. Though I was glad of Bedwyr; he had been kind…
I stopped, staring into the water pitcher. Bedwyr. What had I felt when he kissed my hands? What shape was it that he had made on the air before me, to draw my heart out after him, as Arthur did?
“Oh God,” I whispered, and the lips of my reflection moved in the water, horrified. Not this, not now, not when I had so much else to do! How had this danger crept up on me, that I had not even noticed it until now? I had been secure in my love for Arthur. Oh, to be sure, some men are attractive and the body finds them so, but that is a thing easily laughed away and not to be taken seriously. I had never loved any man but Arthur, never thought I could. There were many I counted as close friends, and Bedwyr had been among them, but now I was surprised, trapped into another feeling, one that bit more deeply into the heart.
I thought again of how he had looked at me, so tenderly and earnestly; of the hurried touch of his lips against my fingers…I could feel it still, like a ring of invisible gold. I clenched my hands to fists, pressed them against my eyes. The thought of that look in his eyes, of his rare, warm smile, melted my soul away within me. And it had struck him, it had trapped him as well, of that I was certain.
�
�Oh God,” I said again. My voice sounded strange to me.
I wiped my dripping hands on my gown and went back to the conference room. The book Bedwyr had been reading when I came into the house was still on the desk: I picked it up to put it away—anything, to distract myself from the turmoil within me. It was the Aeneid, and when I lifted it, it fell open at the beginning of book four:
At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni…
But meanwhile the queen, wounded with a heavy grief
Feeds the wound with her blood and is seized by a blind fire…
I threw the book down on the floor and stared at it. Unhappy Dido, in love with Aeneas, who was bound for Rome. In love, in love, in love. I had not noticed it coming, and now that I saw and understood it was too late: love seized me savagely, bittersweet, irresistible. And adulterous, treacherous, ruinous.
With trembling hands I picked the book up again. I smoothed the bent pages and set it back in its place in the bookcase, then stood a moment, my palms flat against the cool, scarred wood of the desk. “Very well,” I said, aloud, feeling the beat of blood in my ears. It had happened; I loved Bedwyr. But still, Arthur…I closed my eyes, thinking of my husband: the eyes that could enforce silence with a glance or glow with pure delight; the confident step, the strength of his hands; the passionate force of his vision. My husband, my own, and if sometimes, burdened with Empire, he would not hear me—well, I had always expected that. But Bedwyr—no, I would not feed this wound with my blood. Nor would I even speak to the warleader, unless circumstances demanded it.
I turned and staggered from the room, stopped in the doorway. The day had grown dark, and clouds spat a few small drops of rain. I must…I must speak to the servants, and see that a few of them knew what Arthur had said regarding Gwalchmai, so that the rumor of his words would spread quietly, naturally, together with the tale of the quarrel. Yes. And as for Bedwyr…
Best not to think of him at all.
THREE
I was finishing the inventory of wools with Gwyn the next morning when Gwalchmai came into the storeroom looking for me. He smiled when he saw us, nodded to Gwyn, and gave me a slight bow. “My lady, I would like to speak with you, if you are free.”
“Is it urgent?” I asked, with wearied anxiety.
“Indeed not. I can wait—when will you be done here?”
“We’re almost finished now. If you wish me to come to the Hall when I’m done, or to your house…”
“Do not trouble yourself. I will wait here, if I am not in the way. Can I be of any assistance?”
“None whatsoever.”
“A pity. I feel like a horse let out to pasture, with nothing to do but graze and watch his fellows working. I had not thought thirty so old as all that…Hai, Gwyn! How goes the riding?”
Gwyn, who had been watching Gwalchmai with shining eyes, stammered his reply eagerly. “I c-can hit the target from a gallop now, since you showed me, noble lord. But I can’t pick up the ring, and the others told me I should be able to. I tried it yesterday, and fell off, and the horse didn’t like it.”
Gwalchmai laughed. “You were riding that chestnut three-year-old again? The beast’s half pony and has no more withers than a mule, and less training. One cannot throw all one’s weight onto one side of a horse unless he is used to it. What did that one do when you leaned over his neck? Stop suddenly and look surprised?”
Gwyn laughed back. “Like a hen with her tail feathers plucked. He stopped as soon as I had my left leg round the cantle, and then I fell off. He sniffed at me when I was on the ground, and looked very puzzled. But the others had all told me I should try it.”
“They probably wanted to see you fall off—and with that beast, there’s nothing to hold to if you do begin to fall. But if you could accustom him to the action, and train him to keep running while you do it, you might repeat the move and surprise them.”
“That would be splendid! How do you…oh. I am sorry, my lady. It was three bales of green, wasn’t it?”
“Three green single-weight, two double-weight. Perhaps the lord Gwalchmai could teach you how to pick a ring up from the ground from horseback this afternoon. Whyever do you want to do such a thing anyway?”
“If one can do that, one can deal with an adversary who has fallen, or pick up a dropped sword,” Gwalchmai answered at once.
“And if you can ride entirely on one side of the horse,” Gwyn supplemented eagerly, “you can use the horse to shield you during a charge. The enemy may not even see you, or might not cast anyway, if he wants your horse.” He looked at Gwalchmai earnestly, received a nod of assent, then sobered and said, “But I could not trouble the lord Gwalchmai. Truly, noble lord, I know you have much greater matters of concern than that.”
“I have just told the Empress that I have no matters of concern, great or small. And I have a new roan mare that I wish to train for battle. I will take her onto the field behind the stables. Come, if you wish to—that is, if the lady Gwynhwyfar has nothing else for you too.”
“Nothing this afternoon,” I replied at once, pleased that Gwyn should learn riding from his hero. “I need that list of women who will be doing the weaving for us, and the quantities of each color that they want, but you can write that out for me tonight. Very well, Gwyn, three green single-weight, two double; and…” I counted quickly, “five black, natural, single-weight…”
Gwyn hastily scratched down the amounts with his stylus, self-consciously competent, carefully not looking at Gwalchmai. We finished the inventory, checked through the result, and I told Gwyn to make a fair copy of it and sent him off to do so. Gwalchmai watched him go, smiling.
“That is a clever boy,” he told me, “and a daring one.”
“He thinks very highly of you.”
That drew a quick glance. “Does he? He is in love with songs, I suppose. It was a brave deed to come here, and braver still to stay. Most of the other lads in the fortress are cruel to him, though I suppose it is only to be expected.”
“He bears up to it very well. They will tire of teasing him soon, and he will be able to make friends. But I am glad you will spend some time teaching him.”
“Och, that. That is a pleasure. I remember still what it is like to be despised by other children, and it atones for something, teaching him. Though Gwyn is a quicker learner than ever I was—but this is not what I wished to speak to you about.”
I gestured toward the door, and he opened it for me, following me out into the sunny morning air. “Cei is in my house, in a black temper,” Gwalchmai told me. “Shall we walk down to the walls again?”
We did so. It was a lovely day, the perfection of early June. The larks were singing above Camlann, and children played about the houses where women were hanging their washing on the thatch and discussing their neighbors’ affairs. We walked down the hill without speaking, for the day was too fine to burden it with cares so soon. When we climbed the wall and looked out over the fields, the land that had before been raw mud was green—silver with wheat, shimmering with the wind. Gwalchmai stopped, leaning on the battlements, and I stopped beside him. It seemed to me that the breeze must draw away the cramped and manifold care from my mind and scatter it over the rich land. It would not be so dreadful: the worst would not happen. Camlann had survived civil war and Saxon wars; endured poverty and enmity and envy, and it was strong. Its life continued, steady as a pulse-beat, through all the doubts and turmoils of its rulers. Whomever I loved or hated, it would always provide me with work to be done, and new, small cares to destroy the great ones. Perhaps—no, certainly—in the end it would save us.
“Yesterday I spoke with my brother Medraut,” Gwalchmai said without preamble.
My instant of peace vanished as suddenly as a trout does, glimpsed in the shadows of a calm pond. “You talked with him about Goronwy’s duel? You were alone with him?”
“We were alone, yes. And we talked about the duel and…other things. You, and me, and my
lord the High King.” Gwalchmai always said “High King” for “Emperor”: it was his Irish upbringing.
“Did he tell you much?”
“Very little. He reviled us.”
“Oh, indeed! Did you expect more?” I turned from him bitterly and leaned over the battlements.
“I suppose not. But I had to speak with him. I have long known what he meant to do, but it is truly beginning now; he has achieved bloodshed. So, I went to his and Rhuawn’s house, and when they returned from riding with my lord Arthur I greeted him and asked him what he intended to do next.” Gwalchmai shrugged. “Rhuawn protested and said certain angry words, but Medraut sent him away. Then he himself spoke to me, very bitterly.”
He looked down at the bank and ditch below the battlements, the green grasses bent in the wind. The feyness came over him, and I could tell that he did not see what was before his eyes, but looked into something deeper and stranger. “He has no joy of the Darkness he serves. He walks in a blind horror, like a man in a dark sea where there is neither foothold nor breathing space, but he does not care. He cares only to destroy what he hates, and he lives by hatred, alone.” He paused, then said, “He was different once. When we were both children…But this is no matter to concern you, my lady. When he had done cursing me and cursing the Family, he told me that he wishes to spread the story of his birth. He did not say as much, but I think he plans to whisper hints of it to emissaries of the kings of Britain, and, when the rumor is well established outside Camlann, answer the questions of his friends and followers with more hints. Moreover he is now devising slanders against Bedwyr as well, since it was Bedwyr who fought Goronwy. My lady, he must be stopped.”
“He told you all of this?”
He looked up at me, human again, and smiled apologetically. “He makes no pretense with me, my lady. We know each other too well, and have too much in common. And he hates me very badly, because he thinks that I betrayed him and our mother. He wished to taunt me with the names he has been trying to give me, the names of traitor and madman and matricide, and when he saw that these had no effect he fell to boasting of what he meant to destroy. My lady, I have urged this before, and now urge it again: he must be sent away.”
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