“My own heart,” I said, “you blame yourself overmuch. You committed no crime, and I did. And yet I love you, I loved you even when I was unfaithful. If you forgive me that is all I desire, and perhaps more than I deserve.”
He kissed my hand. “It requires forgiveness on both sides, I think. My white hart, the people might accept you back now, as Empress, if it were proved at another trial that you had been taken from Britain by force and kept as a prisoner.”
“It is not true.”
“So you said. But Bedwyr must die. You see that, don’t you? There is no way of avoiding it. Must you die as well? It would do no good, not to the kingdom, the Family, and least of all to me. We would all suffer for it. My heart, tell them that you were taken from Britain by force.”
“On trial? Under oath?”
“It is almost true. You would have prevented Bedwyr’s attack if you had known of it, and you never meant to go with him.”
“But it would not do any good to spare me, either. The people will spit on me, and say that I am a whore who ran off with her lover, caused a war, and was reinstated to the purple by a deceived and doting husband. They will say you are weak and corrupt. Medraut will use it.”
He winced. “We can bear that. But do not use such terms. Your cousin spoke so of you in his letter to me; he said that he accepted the charge of you and would see that you were fittingly punished. Why didn’t you tell me of him? I would never have sent you to his house had I known. But I do not see fit to yield to the opinions of such as he, nor to suit all my actions to Medraut’s judgment. I need you. Will you…not so much lie, as distort the truth, when you are retried? Then I could impose nothing more than the penance which the Church proscribes for adultery, and keep you with me.”
“You…you risk much.”
“You do not understand. I need you.”
I had gone with Bedwyr against my better judgment because he needed me. Now, although Arthur was calmer than Bedwyr had been, I could tell that he was no less serious. But if I were dead he might find another wife, one that might bear him children, and be a better lady for him than I had been. To lie under oath and make another bear the punishment for my fault seemed to me monstrous…though I knew that if Bedwyr had been there he would have advised me as Arthur did.
“Let me think,” I pleaded. “I was certain that I would die for my treachery if I came back. I never expected to be forgiven, I thought I would die honestly. Let me get used to the idea of living first.” After a moment in turmoil I asked, “When would you hold this trial?”
A messenger came in with a question of ransoms, interrupting. Arthur dealt with him, turned back to me. “It would be better if done at Camlann, after Bedwyr is taken or killed. I could send you back with the wounded tomorrow. Once in Britain you could begin the period of fasting and penance set by the Church, and also give me your opinion of the situation at home. This war should not last too much longer. I do not wish to follow Cei’s plan and wear Macsen out with extended raids. It would cause too much division in the Empire and I cannot afford to leave Britain that long, or leave Medraut in Camlann, even under surveillance. Perhaps the siege engines will work. Will you do as I ask?”
“I…I will think of it. Give me until you are back in Britain.”
“You mean you will, unless Bedwyr is taken prisoner,” he said, smiling slightly.
“I do not know what I mean. I do not want him blamed for my crime. Rhys thinks you should send Gwalchmai away with the other wounded.”
Arthur smiled slightly more. “I was planning to, if I can persuade him to go without overexciting him and making him ill. My heart, do think of it. If we can hold our own against Medraut there is no reason why we cannot outface the kings of Britain.”
If stars were silver nails, I thought, one could use them to shoe horses. But I loved Arthur. Perhaps I would be willing to do even this to make him happy. But if Bedwyr were before my eyes and suffering for my crime, I did not know that I could.
***
I left the next day with the wounded. Arthur did not like having men in his camp who could not travel quickly, who might be endangered if Macsen did manage to call up the rest of his forces and Arthur had to retreat hastily. Gwalchmai, however, insisted that he was recovering quickly and that there was no point in sending him back to Britain. I went to talk to him myself the morning I left. Arthur hoped I could persuade the warrior to leave.
He was in a tent of his own, being looked after by Rhys. He was lying very still when I came in, looking at the blank wall of the tent.
“Gwalchmai,” I said, and he looked over at me, then at Rhys who was standing just behind me. He said nothing.
“Does it hurt you very much?” I asked.
“No. Do not trouble yourself. I need nothing.”
Rhys let out his breath between his teeth, irritably. “My lord, the lady has come at the emperor’s request, to see if you will leave today.”
“I had thought as much. Do not trouble yourself, my lady. I shall be back on my feet in a few days—I would doubtless be able to ride back to the army before the wounded reach the ships, so there is no point in my leaving.”
Rhys snorted. “My lady, reason with him,” he muttered to me. “He should respect your opinion even now. I will go and pack.”
Gwalchmai watched Rhys leave, only his eyes moving. It was obviously painful to him to shift his head about.
“Rhys thinks the war is bad for you,” I said.
“Rhys is always meddling in things that are not his concern. He is supposed to be my servant, but he thinks himself my master.”
“I have never heard you tell him that.”
“What would be the point? Rhys means well.”
His dark stare troubled me. It was hard to see what he was looking at. I touched his forehead; it felt hot. “You have the fever,” I told him. “You would do better away from the army.”
“Why do you show such concern for me, my lady?”
“I have always felt great concern for you,” I said, after another moment of silence, “I have loved you as I would have loved a brother of my own blood.”
“All lies,” he muttered, so indistinctly that I barely caught the words.
I had been doubtful when Arthur asked me to talk to Gwalchmai, and I felt more than doubtful now, felt horror-stricken. “Have some water,” I said at last. “You will want it, with the fever.”
He laughed a little, bitterly, but took the cup of water I poured for him. “It is worse in the morning,” he told me. “But I am recovering…that is enough.”
“As you wish.” I looked at him closely, but he had leaned back into the pillow and looked past me at the low roof of the tent. “Gwalchmai, you do not really believe that I lie when I say that I am concerned for you?”
“You may feel concern. But what do feelings and intentions matter? You and Bedwyr may have intended no evil, but still, between you you killed my son.” His eyes turned from the tent pole and met my gaze. “Wasn’t it enough for you that I held my tongue when I knew of your relationship, that I did all I could to help you, that Gwyn went gallantly to your aid, but still you must kill him?”
“It was an accident,” I said, but the words sounded empty.
“It may have been carelessness, not intent. But what does that matter? It is done.” Gwalchmai sat up straight abruptly, then gasped in pain and slumped over, holding his head in his hands.
“Don’t!” I cried, trying to support him. “You will hurt yourself.”
“What does it matter?” he asked, speaking like a man I had never met, and not like the friend I had loved for many years. “What do I have to recover for? You and Rhys and the rest, they do not understand that. My lady, my lady, you had so much. You had a clan, and you were the jewel and the treasure of your father’s house. He would not marry you to anyone, for long and long, though many desired it, for he could not find anyone good enough until he found the emperor of all Britain. And then you became the crown of the Emp
ire, the lady whom all the kings and the peoples loved and admired—justly. I will admit that it was justly. Not content with your husband, you found a lover as well, a man worthy to be another emperor. And you destroyed them, for all that you did not intend to; and, not content with destroying what was yours, you and yours destroyed my son as well—my son, who was all my clan to me, and all that was left to me of my lover or wife. And you still say that you have concern for me. You would have shown it better by killing me and leaving my son alive.”
Perhaps I might have spoken in answer, but the empty words dried in my throat and choked me. “It grieves me,” I said at last.
He laughed the bitter laugh again. “It grieves me, as well. Far worse.”
“Would Bedwyr’s death, or mine, ease that grief?”
He sat looking at his feet. “No. But at least it would be justice. There would remain some justice in the world.”
“Tell me, then. Shall I tell the plain truth when I am tried, say that I left Britain willingly, and die, condemned for treason? Would that please you?”
“You would lie if you said that. You did not leave willingly, but against your will, to comfort Bedwyr. Oh no, you are innocent in intention, and no doubt Bedwyr is as well. Only that alters nothing. And I cannot even wish that you or he should die. I have still some…concern for you. There is no justice, even in the heart.” He looked up and through me, remote and inhuman. “Once I sailed to the Kingdom of Summer, the Otherworld. I thought then that the struggle between Light and Darkness is fought upon the earth, and that the intentions of our spirits reflect it, and bind Earth and the Otherworld. But now that world seems unconnected and remote from here, for even the best intentions of those devoted to Light can create Darkness. And so there is no justice, can be no justice. Perhaps we are wrong to act at all. Perhaps we are all damned perpetually to Yffern. Let me alone, my lady. Tell Arthur I will stay, unless he commands me otherwise.”
I nodded, left him, and went back to my own tent, shaking and trying not to weep. It was true. All he had said to me was true. Ah God, God, why should the Earth ever have been created?
The carts with the wounded left around noon. There were three of them, long, covered over with a canopy against the rain and the sun, walled and packed with straw for the comfort of the men, of whom there were some dozen in each cart. There was also an escort of twenty men who would go only to the harbor where we were to embark. I had my mare to ride, but spent some time in the carts as well. I had assisted surgeons before, and knew how to care for the sick. There was plenty for me to do.
The carts jolted badly on the road, though we traveled fairly slowly, trying to keep the pace smooth. We drove northeast for some days, then followed the coast road due east into the region dominated by the Franks. We found Arthur’s ships still secure in their Frankish harbor, and the harbor officials helped us to load the ship we were to use, trying to talk to us in bad Latin. They were delighted when they discovered that I spoke some Saxon—which differed only slightly from their own tongue—and attempted to inform me of various noxious remedies for wounds. When the ship was ready to sail they insisted upon providing a feast, for us and for the escort, which was to set out the next day on its return to Arthur. When the ship did set sail I wondered what Arthur’s united Empire would be like. There was no reason for enmity with the Saxons, if they would keep the law. But I was not certain now that any such Empire would survive.
We had a shorter voyage than the one I had suffered on the way to Less Britain, crossing directly from Gaul to the south coast of Britain, and sailing along that coast to the port of Caer Uisc, where we put in and unloaded the ship again. The journey from Car Aës had taken the better part of three weeks. Three of the wounded men had died on the journey, but the rest were recovering well.
The journey to Camlann took two days. The night we spent in a small hill fort along the road—a mere clan holding, the name of which I forget. The lord of the place treated us very strangely, seeming perpetually about to burst into speech and never doing so. I judged that he was uncertain of my status, and wondered again what I would do.
We arrived at Camlann on the afternoon of the second day, in the early dusk of winter. The green hill rose quiet from the drab fields and bare trees; smoke from the fortress drifted across the early stars, and we could see the glow of its fires against the dark east. Something within me began to sound “Home, home!” like a clear-toned bell, but I was too heartsick and weary to give it much notice.
The gates of the fortress were locked when we came up to them, which surprised me, until I thought that our ally Constantius must have seen fit to take precautions. One of the guards called from the tower, asking our names and business.
“We are bringing the wounded home from Gaul,” the surgeon shouted—he was officially in charge of the party. “You ought to have more torches here if you can’t recognize your own comrades!”
The gates were unbarred and the carts rolled through. I was riding my mare, and again noticed that the guards looked at us strangely. I recognized them as some of Medraut’s men. Two of them came from the guard tower and accompanied us up the hill.
The carts rumbled up to the Hall and there stopped. The guards who had come from the gate with us disappeared at once into the Hall and more warriors appeared to watch us as the surgeon went round the carts checking on the men, who were all sitting up and looking about, even the very sick ones. They laughed and joked about what they would do now that they were home. Soon a few more warriors came from the Hall, carrying torches.
“The Empress!” one of these men exclaimed, and at once the men at Camlann began babbling to each other, lifting their torches high so as to see me clearly.
“Why is she here? Has Macsen been defeated?” the first speaker asked the surgeon.
“Car Aës was still under siege when we left,” I said, and they all fell silent and stared at me. “I escaped from his fortress and came to my lord Arthur for my sentence. He has commanded me to come here and here await trial. Where is King Constantius? We have some wounded here who need care.”
Some of the men laughed and the rest were uneasily silent. “Where is King Constantius?” asked the first speaker. “The lady wishes to know where King Constantius is.”
“She had better ask the emperor—or the Church,” said another.
This mockery began to annoy me. “The emperor told me that Constantius was left in command here. Is that not so?”
“Constantius commands no one now. No one but worms.”
“No, the worms command him. They could command him to provide them a fine feast.”
“And, most noble lady, we have another emperor now, a better one.”
The realization of what they meant seemed to turn the world upside-down, and I saw suddenly what our host of the night before had meant to tell us, realized why the gates were locked, why the guards had come up the hill with us from the gate. And even as I realized it Medraut came out of the Hall, wearing a cloak of the imperial purple. He was smiling pleasantly.
“Welcome to Camlann,” Medraut said to our party, which had grown suddenly silent, motionless. “Your arrival is fortunate, for you now have a chance of joining our cause, a chance the tyrant Arthur the Bastard would have denied you. Those who will pledge themselves to follow me will be made welcome indeed, and can expect tokens of my gratitude. But how many of you are there?”
The surgeon, standing beside the foremost cart, only stared at him in bewilderment. Medraut strolled past the cart, looking at the men appraisingly. “No able-bodied warriors? A pity. Still, most of you are much recovered, are you not?” He addressed these words to one man in particular, a fine infantry fighter who had lost his right leg at the knee. The man flushed when he heard himself spoken to, slid off the cart, clinging to the rim so as to be able to stand.
“I would never be sick enough to fight for a traitor,” he told Medraut, then, calling out to his fellows, “see what this foreign bastard has done! He has use
d our lord’s generosity as opportunity to usurp the purple! The perjured, murdering…”
Medraut’s smile had vanished when the man first spoke, and he nodded now and stepped back. There was a flash, and the warrior suddenly coughed, bowed, and fell on his face, a spear jutting from his back. I cried out, leapt from my horse, and ran over to the man, turned him over. He was dead already, his eyes set in his head. I touched the line of blood beside his mouth in horror, then fell back as Medraut kicked my hand aside, kicked the body back onto its face.
“Lady Gwynhwyfar,” Medraut said in a low, cold voice. “How is it that you come here? I could scarcely believe the report. It is an honor I did not expect.”
I said nothing, only stared at Medraut. The cloak he wore was one of Arthur’s, and its rich purple hem trailed on the ground.
“She said she fled Macsen and returned to Arthur for her sentence,” one of Medraut’s warriors said.
“And we know what kind of sentence the emperor would give her,” Medraut returned, his eyes narrowing, beginning to smile again. “Ten minutes in his bed, and all would be forgiven!” His men laughed. “Get up, my lady murderess. Justice is in my hands now.” I remained kneeling by the dead warrior, seeing how the torchlight caught in Medraut’s hair, and on the gold of collar and cloak. His cold eyes glittered suddenly and he bent over, seized my arm, and dragged me to my feet; held my arm, struck me twice across the face, and threw me at a guard. Someone cried out.
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