“But after five days of this, at the time we had set for our ride, she appeared with a set, chilled face and told me that she could not take her mare out that day. I argued with her, and she made excuses and left. I went out alone in the end, very angry, and rode at a full gallop until Ceincaled was sweating and eager to stop, and that is a long way. It was plain enough why she had not come. Bran had begun to suspect—not remarkably—that this riding together was not just courtesy; and he had spoken to Elidan, had warned her or commanded her against me. I told myself that I shouldn’t have asked her to come with me in the first place. It was madness to desire her, and to cherish the hopes I did. Her brother was very fond of her—and she was fond of Bran, if it came to that. Even if my interest had been in anything permanent, which it was not, still it would have been impossible. One cannot contract marriage alliances with one’s lord’s enemies. And if it were not a marriage, Bran would have good reasons in his rebellion. I owed it to my lord Arthur, to my honor as a guest and an emissary and her respect as a Christian noblewoman to leave the girl alone.
“I resolved to be no more than courteous, and I kept my resolve, too—for a week or so. But I held her at night in my dreams, and when I played the harp alone I found myself singing of her, and I began to wonder how we could fool Bran; and I could think of many ways. And then one day I saw her in a corridor in the palace, alone, and without thinking I seized her wrist and said, ‘I will be riding in Herfydd’s Wood tomorrow after lunch,’ very softly into her ear. I let her go and walked on, feeling her eyes on me as I went. I cursed myself afterwards for saying that, and resolved that I would not go to the wood the next day. But I went. I spent an hour or so riding about the wood, alone, then turned back in disgust—and met her near the wood’s edge. She had only one servant with her, an old man with half an ear missing, and he wore a look of great reluctance.
“I leapt from my horse and ran over to catch her mare’s bridle. ‘You came,’ I said: it was all I could say. She looked down at me gravely and nodded, then let go the reins, kicked one foot from the stirrup and jumped from her horse. I caught her as she jumped. The wind touched her hair, but her eyes were still, stiller than the sky and as deep. I felt as though the force that drives life itself had touched us, that we stood between earth and heaven. I could feel her heart beating through her ribs as I held her, like the heart of a wild swallow, and I was filled with the wonder of it. All was astonishment. We stood and looked at one another, and it was as though we looked into a gulf of light, a fire burning beyond the deep places of the world, or gazed at each other through the blur-edged reality of some vision. But she was there, and in my arms, a thin, strong body and solemn, blue eyes and straight, fair hair. ‘You came,’ I said again, and I kissed her.
“‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I came.’ She turned to the servant and said, ‘Hywel, could you stay here and watch the horses?’
“The old man nodded unhappily, and we walked off together into the green silence of the forest.”
Gwalchmai fell silent, and sat resting his head on his arms, leaning forward to stare at the low fire on the hearth. My father was motionless, his carving knife a still line of brightness in his hand. Only the wind still made its hollow sound in the thatch.
Morfudd stirred first. “I think that is beautiful,” she said dreamily. “Beautiful.”
Gwalchmai straightened abruptly, throwing his head up and giving her a fierce dark stare. “Beautiful! Och, King of Heaven, beautiful? Woman, it was a very terrible thing.”
“You loved her very badly,” said my mother matter-of-factly, beginning to sew again. “And it seems that she loved you. You were both young. Such things are terrible enough.”
“It was badly that I loved her,” he replied bitterly. “And the worse because she did love me, while I, what did I love? A beautiful feeling! Dear God, I didn’t care if it destroyed her, and, if it came out, it would. I took advantage of my position as a guest in Bran’s house, I betrayed my lord’s trust, I betrayed her and I betrayed my own honor. I treated a king’s sister like a common whore, and it was the worse because she loved me. Afterwards, that first time, she cried. She wouldn’t tell me why until much later, and then she said, ‘It was because I knew I loved you so much more than you loved me, and because of my honor.’ She risked everything for me, and I…beautiful! Lord of Light, have mercy.”
“You’re overstating it,” my father said.
“I wronged her greatly.”
“You wronged her, yes. But there was no need for her to come and meet you. Any girl would know what you meant, and any girl of sense would not have gone.”
Gwalchmai looked back at the fire, linking his hands together and only replying with silence.
“If you feel that way, why didn’t you marry her?” asked my mother.
A shrug. “Later I wanted to. Much later. Too much later. After I had killed her brother.”
“So there was a rebellion?” asked my father.
He looked up at us. “I thought all the world knew of that. Well, the north must be more aware of these things than Dumnonia.”
“I have heard that you killed Bran of Llys Ebrauc,” I volunteered. He gave me a questioning look. “There was a song,” I explained.
“Trust Rhys to listen to songs,” muttered my father. “Well, so Bran found out?”
Gwalchmai leaned forward again, his elbows on his knees. He still spoke carefully, anxious that we should see the worst of it. “No. The rebellion had nothing to do with it. We were very discreet. After the first time, we didn’t see one another for a while. I was angry with her for crying, and because the thing we had was so much more solid and mortal than the vision of it I had at the first. But, after a little while, when I had been thinking of it and of her for a time, I sent her a message through her servant Hywel, the old man. He had been with her since she was born, and didn’t like the business at all, but she’d told him she’d go alone if he didn’t come, and I gather he wished to protect her reputation as much as he was able to. She was accustomed to go riding with only one or two servants—Ebrauc is safe enough that a woman can do that, near the fortress—and we would ride out in different directions at different times, meet at a set place, and then return, again at different times. We were very careful. We spent most of the summer in this, until about the middle of July. Then one of Bran’s men successfully picked a quarrel with my companion Morfran. He is a fine man, brave and steady and quick with his tongue, but has no looks at all and is well-used to hearing of this, which is the reason I chose him for this mission: I knew he would not fight over every trivial slur. But some insult was offered which no nobleman could ignore, and there was a fight. Bran’s man was killed. Bran summoned me to see him—summoned me, as though I were his own man and sworn to obey him. He demanded reparation, and by that he meant not a blood-price, but Morfran’s life. I refused, of course, and Bran then had the excuse to command me to leave Ebrauc. He added to this command some Roman sentence of exile, by which I and my companions could be killed if we returned. I knew very well that, as soon as we had gone, he would summon his warband, equip it, and raise his army for a rebellion.
“I spent a great deal of time wondering whether I could have prevented it by closer attention to Morfran and the other. I had not precisely ignored them, but I hadn’t known of the fight until it was done with and Bran’s man was dead. There was nothing to say, ‘This you should have attended to; thus it could have been prevented,’ and yet I do not know, and cannot know, whether I could have managed it better if it had not been for Elidan. I was angry about Bran’s order, and angry with myself when I left. I was angry with Elidan on both accounts, and yet I longed to see her to say farewell. But our departure was hurried, and though I looked for her until I almost forgot discretion and went about asking for her, I could not find her, and rode out of Llys Ebrauc angrier than before. And I was thus angry when I met her on the road.
“She rode out of the wood beyond the wall, on her brown mare, with Hywel after her. She was wearing blue, and the wind caught at her hair so that she looked like a feather blown on a bright gale. My companions stared at her. I had not told them about her, afraid that they might make jokes, and that to the wrong people.
“She drew rein on the road, and her mare champed at the bit and sidled towards the bank. She patted its shoulder with one thin hand.
“‘So you are going,’ she said.
“‘I am going,’ I replied, angrier than ever because she was so beautiful and so daring. ‘By your brother’s order.’
“She looked down and fidgeted with the reins; looked up again. ‘God go with you, then, my falcon,’ she said.
“It hurt me that she should call me that. I had once asked her not to. Though my name means ‘hawk,’ my mother used to call me by it, and the memory of that is most bitter. She is very terrible and dreadful, my mother Morgawse. ‘God may well go with me,’ I said, ‘for certainly he will not stay with the injustice of Ebrauc.’
“At that, she too flushed with anger. Morfran looked at her and suggested that we take her hostage, which made her straighten and glare at all of us; but I shook my head.
“‘Oh, indeed,’ said Elidan, ‘I am not to be a hostage, by your mercy, my lord. Come, I know that there will be war, Gwalchmai ap Lot. My brother wants it. It would be better if I could, as a hostage, prevent it; but no one can prevent a warrior from killing. You care for blood too much.’ I did not know where such words came from, and I stared at her in astonishment. She urged her horse closer, and then leaned over to catch my hand and press it to her forehead. ‘But I love you, and I love my brother, Gwalchmai. Do not you fight him. Promise me that you won’t hurt him. Promise me that you will speak to your lord the Emperor about him, and tell Arthur that if Bran ap Caw swears a peace, he will keep it. But promise me that you won’t kill Bran, most of all promise me that.’
“I snatched my hand away. I was thoroughly enraged by this slavish pleading for her brother. ‘If your brother wishes to play the treacherous fool, that is his affair, and he must be prepared for whatever consequences my lord imposes,’ I said. ‘My lord knows far better than I how to deal with rebels.’ But when she turned white, and looked at me with a strange, chill look, I had to add, ‘But for my part, I will not kill him. I swear by the sun and the wind, I swear the oath of my people I will not. And…my lord Arthur is merciful.’
“She pressed one hand to her forehead, drawing the hair aside, as though her head ached, and she nodded. ‘God and his saints preserve you then, Gwalchmai.’ We looked at each other for another long moment, and I tried to find words that would make it a sweet parting, but I could think of none. So I nodded and urged Ceincaled on, and he started into a canter and left her there. At the first bend of the road I looked back at her, a quiet figure in blue on a quiet brown horse, and I thought of what it meant for a woman to hazard herself thus to say farewell, and wished I had been kinder.
“‘And what was all that?’ asked Morfran, driving his horse next to mine. I shook my head, and he smiled at me knowingly. ‘Her falcon, she calls you? The daughter of Caw, the king’s sister. Well, well, and that should be a thorn in the shoes of our friend Bran. You golden-tongued goshawk, why didn’t you tell us? I’d like to make a song for the beauty of it all. A song about the hospitality of King Bran of Ebrauc!’ And he began to make jokes about Elidan. I felt awkward, angry, and, after a while, I laughed.”
Gwalchmai had been playing with a piece of kindling: he threw this suddenly into the fire, and drove the heel of his hands against his eyes. My father set down the cup and his carving knife and stood, took a step towards our guest, then stopped again. “Lord Gwalchmai,” he said gently, “you need not tell us this tale.”
Gwalchmai looked up again. “It is well that I should tell it. It is right that the shame of it should be known.”
“Say nothing further tonight, then. It is late, and you are tired.”
“I am. And I thank you for your hospitality, Sion.”
“What we have, you are welcome to. Sleep well, my lord.”
“Sleep well.”
THREE
The next day my father again sent me out across the river, this time to cut down saplings to repair the cow byres. I did not think they needed repair, but I went, this time with my brother Dafydd. I thought about our guest and his tale all the day, and hardly glanced at the forest. I tried to picture this Elidan riding out of the wood, dressed in blue silk and looking like the Queen of the Fair Folk in the songs; and then I remembered that she was thin and a bit plain, and the nonsense became impossible to believe in. No, it was nonsense, the whole of it, and Gwalchmai was making a deal too much trouble over it all. My father had always said that, if a wrong action can be repaired, one should go about repairing it at once; if not, trust it to God. Gwalchmai seemed to be far too fierce about it either way. But warriors had to be fierce. I recalled all the tales I had heard about their violence, cruelty and licentiousness, and decided that our guest’s scruples were exaggerated and absurd for a man in his position, since that position doubtless included murder and pillage on a wide scale. I managed to feel fairly detached about his presence by the time I returned home, worn out and chilled to the marrow of my bones.
I went to the barn to look after the animals, and found Gwalchmai there. To my astonishment, he was rubbing down our mare. I stood frozen, pitchfork in hand, until he turned and smiled at me. Then I closed my gaping jaw, leaned the pitchfork against the wall and said, “You shouldn’t be doing that, my lord.”
“Och, I know well enough how to look after horses. I will not hurt yours. She is a fine little mare.”
“I didn’t mean that! You’re…well, you’re sick, and a guest.”
“This would be no trouble to a newly weaned child. But I cannot look after the bulls. You must do that; I know nothing about cattle. Well, perhaps a very little about sheep.” He turned back to the mare, humming softly to himself. She snorted and closed her eyes. His war stallion tossed his proud head and nickered, and his master laughed and spoke to him in Irish. After watching a minute or so, I picked up my pitchfork and went to look after the cattle. Gwalchmai’s scruples no longer seemed quite so absurd.
I was tired after supper, and my mother suggested that I go straight to bed, but I would have to be much more tired than a single day’s work could make me before I would do such a thing. I sat down at the right of the hearth and scratched the ears of our hound-bitch while the talk began. The dog occasionally grunted with delight, and licked me furiously every instant that I stopped.
“I’ve been thinking of what you said last night,” my father told Gwalchmai, “and I can see why you didn’t wish to tell the tale, and also why you did. Did you kill Bran, then?”
“I did. Deliberately, and when I might have spared him.” The warrior’s voice was very level.
“In battle?” asked my father, his voice equally level.
Gwalchmai nodded. “Yes, but I might have spared him just the same.”
“I’ve heard that you go mad in battle.”
Gwalchmai paused. “Yes. But I was not mad then; or at least, not mad as I usually am…I will tell you the rest, as I said I would.
“The rebellion did not begin until September. We had some hard fighting before that, not pitched battles, but ceaseless raiding. Raiding is a sad business, and hard on the horses—but my lord’s wars are always hard on the horses, since we must move at least twice as fast as our enemies. My lord gave me work, enough so that I had no time to think about Ebrauc and Elidan. Indeed, I did not think much at all, except to wonder when next I could rest.
“Then, in September, my lord called me aside for a private conference. We were at a holding near Gwyntolant on the Dyrwente, a clan headed by a man named Gogyrfan—yes, the Queen Gwynhwyfar�
�s father. The clan supported us, and we had used the holding as a hospital for most of the northern campaign, and the lady Gwynhwyfar had attended our wounded better than a doctor. Arthur married her before the campaign was out, but he never, for that, failed in his attention to the war.
“My lord called me to the private room he had been loaned, and sat down at the table. There was a map there—there always is, with Arthur—and he began checking over the roads. I wondered why it was that he always seemed to have more energy than I, when I knew that he worked harder.
“‘Bran of Ebrauc has rebelled,’ Arthur said, ‘or will do shortly.’
“I dropped into the chair opposite him, again wondering, out loud, if I could have prevented it.
“My lord looked back up from his map and told me, ‘Enough of that; it wasn’t your fault. The question is rather, how to stop Bran without the Saxons finding out that he’s rebelled. We’re a good hundred miles from Caer Ebrauc; still, with the south road we could do it in four days, or three if we pushed hard…though we’d be in no condition to fight then. Bran is still raising his armies now. He hoped to catch us off-guard by rebelling at the harvest season, but he has the disadvantage that it will take him longer to gather his forces, and they’ll disperse more quickly if the war is drawn out. He won’t have all his forces yet, and I think we could risk a pitched battle.’ I shifted in my seat, and Arthur grinned at me. ‘I could wish I was so eager for it. Very well, I plan to ride to Ebrauc tomorrow, force a battle, and be back north in two weeks, which shouldn’t give the Saxons time to do more than realize we were gone. We can leave King Urien to make some raids on his own to confuse them—but only if Bran hasn’t found too many allies. He’s been gathering supplies all summer, but allies…’ Arthur frowned at the map, and began discussing all the kingdoms that neighbor Ebrauc, asking me how the various kings and nobles were disposed towards Bran and towards himself—I had been ambassador to most of them by then. They none of them seemed to me the sorts to risk their crowns on an uncertain rebellion, though we’d have cause to worry if Bran had some success. There were other kings, of course, like Maelgwn Gwynedd, who would be only too eager to rebel, but they were far away from Ebrauc, and, if we moved quickly enough, should be unable to help.
Kingdom of Summer Page 4
