Gwenhwyfar

by Mercedes Lackey

  “That would be Medraut himself, I think?” Lancelin’s face was quiet, and thoughtful. “I think he will find himself very much at odds with the queen.” He nodded decisively. “Thank you, warrior. You have given me a great deal to consider.”

  With that, they reached the camp and separated. She did not envy Lancelin, returning to a court that evidently contained a queen with an uncertain temper, and Medraut, as well as whatever other factions were simmering.

  Not in the least.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gwen returned to a life of work and solitude.

  There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that she was needed. There was no doubt in her mind that she was, as she had always wanted to be, respected. Her father’s men were accustomed to her now, and they took no more thought of her being female and looking strangely young than they did of her father’s gray hairs. It was only when they were among strangers that they seemed to realize it again; now that they were home again, everything went back to normal

  Which meant that Gwen sent her scouts out to patrol the borders, keeping their skills sharp. Any that had good reasons to bide, she found other work for and replaced them. And she herself served as Caradoc’s personal bodyguard when he went out to look over the lands or stood behind her father when he welcomed strangers. When she was not doing that, she was hunting, and when she was not hunting, she was training.

  On the whole, she preferred to wake early, work to exhaustion, and fall into bed at night. So long as she did that, she did not think too much about how narrow and solitary that bed was, nor how she had no fast friend among the men or the women either in whom she could confide.

  Rarely, very rarely, she would watch Cataruna and Gynath with their heads together over something and wonder what it would have been like if Little Gwen had been her friend instead of her enemy . . . after all, there was really no reason why they should have been rivals. They didn’t want the same things and really never had. But then she would shake that off and go on about her business; she had neither the time nor the energy to waste on fantasies. And the more she could put Little Gwen out of her mind, the happier she was. Presumably she was queening it at Lot’s table, since rumor put Morgana somewhere about Celliwig, and she would be the only woman of rank there now. With luck, that would be enough for her.

  Spring came and went with no sign of the Saxons making any more trouble, which was just as well since there was more than enough trouble in the South to make eyebrows rise.

  King March of Kerrow . . .

  It seemed that the Saxons were not the only ones who were interested in the High King’s obsession with his new wife (one could scarcely call her a “bride” at this point). Now, Lot was a sly snake and not to be trusted, but March was an entirely different cut altogether. If you were the sort—like King Lleudd—who held that fidelity to one’s oaths was of the highest importance, then March was as treacherous as they came. Not only did he seem to regard his oaths to the High King as of importance only so long as they were of benefit to him, he seemed to regard all oaths in the same light.

  Add to that, so far as Gwen could tell from the reports of others, the man was mad.

  He had a temper that he did not even try to govern. Not only had he slain messengers and even the High King’s Companions when a rage was on him, he had killed dozens of his own warriors.

  And now, for reasons best known only to him—or out of sheer insane spite—he had raised an army and was marching on Arthur. The fact that he was going to have to cross either lands holding fealty to Lleudd (who was not going to allow it) or Saxon holdings did not seem to matter to him.

  Gwen studied the maps alongside her father and his war chiefs. “I had rather that March wore himself out against the Saxons,” Lleudd growled. “A pox on the man! And a pox on whatever demon sired him! No sane man would act as he does.”

  Much to Gwen’s pleasure, on the other side of the table was Arthur’s Companion Lancelin. True to his prediction, he was staying far from the High King’s court at Celliwig to escape the jealous regard of the queen. Lleudd had welcomed him with his knowledge of warfare with pleasure, and his self-effacing nature ensured that the other war chiefs were not made to feel that they had been put aside. She regarded him with pleasure not only because she enjoyed his company but also because his respect for her reinforced her own position among even those who knew her. Perhaps she was finally overcoming those too youthful looks.

  Though without a doubt, wherever she was, Little Gwen was taking every advantage of the apparent youth they shared.

  “If that is truly what you want, my lord King,” Lancelin ventured, “I do not think that March can win against your men and especially not against your chariots. There are plenty of places along the way where the ground would be ideal for them.”

  “But the loss of a single man to that fool is one man too many,” Lleudd replied. “Be sure the Saxons are watching this with greedy pig eyes, still smarting from the last defeat we handed them. If we engage March, they will be on us when the battle is past and we are spent and exhausted.” He looked around the table, and his other war chiefs nodded.

  “He probably will not fight the Saxons,” Lancelin said, after staring at the maps a while longer. “He will probably bribe them to let him pass. It is what I would do.”

  Gwen smirked. She couldn’t help herself. “Perhaps we can find a way to trigger that famous temper,” she suggested. “Even if the Saxons accepted reparation rather than killing him themselves, they might ruin him with weregild.”

  The idea of March finding himself forced to pay a heavy weregild in addition to a bribe made the other war chiefs chuckle a little. But Gwen had more to say at this point.

  “I have a thought about keeping him from trying to cross our lands,” she continued. “Look here—” she pointed at the map. “This is where he will have to make the decision whether to bring his army through our land or to treat with the Saxons. We need to make the choice easier for him, but by not opposing him at all.”

  Lancelin looked at her quizzically. “Why would you say that?” he asked.

  She smirked. “Because March is—” She almost said “a man” but quickly modified it to “—like to a bull. Wave a red rag at it in the form of armed opposition, and he will rush at it. We have a choice ourselves; we can send him across Saxon lands, save our men and join our force with the High King’s, and the two will crush him. Or we can take the chance that he will defeat us, pillage our lands, then attack Arthur. So we do not present him with visible opposition but rather make it unprofitable for him to try to cross our land.”

  “Unprofitable?” Lleudd looked at his daughter in puzzlement.

  “See here?” She pointed at an area of flat land. “My dear brother-by-marriage is a bard and a Priest, and Cataruna is a trained Lady. I think that between them they can persuade the waters to rise here and make that a marsh for as long as we need it to be so. Faced with a swamp, I think March will take the Saxon road.”

  They all stared at the map. “It seems the coward’s way . . .” Peder said, doubtfully.

  “Not if, when we are sure of him, our army joins that of Arthur,” her father replied, decisively. “It is merely postponing the fight and choosing our ground. Only a fool fights a battle going up a hill.”

  Gwen nodded, grateful that he had thrown his support behind her.

  Lancelin studied the map, rubbing his chin, but he said nothing, neither for nor against the plan. That disappointed her a little, but in the end it was King Lleudd’s decision and no one else’s.

  Which meant, since this was her idea, she needed to have speech with Cataruna.

  Ifan and Cataruna had their own room, as did Gynath and Caradoc; two new rooms had been made by the simple expedient of partitioning off two spaces side by side at the end of the Great Hall where the entrance to the king’s solar and the room they had all shared as girls was. Now you passed through Gynath’s room to get to the door that led to what had been the
girls’ room, which now belonged to Cataruna. Gwen had the smaller space, not much bigger than the bed, but she didn’t need much space. Cataruna often sought privacy in that sanctuary while Bronwyn watched her children. But it was in the Great Hall that Gwen found her sister and brother-by-marriage .

  Cataruna was sewing, and when Gwen explained what she had in mind, her sister pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger and made a face. “I mislike meddling with the land—”

  “I mislike having King March’s men come across it, love,” said Ifan, as he put aside the tuning pegs he was carving. “I mislike seeing herds slaughtered and farms laid waste. March is unpredictable and not entirely sane. There is no telling what the King of Kerrow is like to do.”

  Cataruna’s brows furrowed for a moment, then her face cleared. “As Lady of the Fields, if I hear the Lord of the Forest urging protection for our people, I think it would be wise of me to heed his words.” They beamed at one another, and Gwen felt a twinge of envy as well as of relief.

  “But can you do this?” Gwen wanted to know. She hesitated. “The place is often marshy and soft. But—”

  “Alone, no, but with Ifan, Bronwyn, and Gynath, yes.” Cataruna smiled at her. “Well, find us some swift horses, and I’ll find Bronwyn. We will need them to get there before March’s army does.”

  Gwen grinned at Ifan. “I thought bards lived for epic battles to make songs about.”

  Ifan snorted but did not comment. Gwen left them making preparations and headed for the paddock.

  She would not be using Rhys or Pryderi. Both of them were ideal for scouting, with great endurance, agility, and intelligence, but not much speed. To get to the right place before King March and his army did, they needed only speed and endurance.

  They needed five horses out of the king’s herd used by his messengers. They were ugly as mongrel dogs, stupid as stones, and uncomfortable to ride; you would never dare to leave one unattended or it would run or wander off, and no few of them were as skittish as ferrets, but they had a ground-eating lope that they could hold from dawn to dusk with minimal rest.

  She picked out five with relatively even tempers and ordered them saddled and bridled, speeding things up by taking care of the fifth one herself.

  Ifan shook his head in dismay as he brought a small pack and traveling harp to the paddock where the five horses were tied up to the fence. “My back will curse you for this, Gwenhwyfar.”

  “Your back isn’t the part of you that I am worried about,” Gwen replied without thinking and then blushed as he roared out a laugh. “I meant your hands, brother!”

  “I’m sure you did.” He was still snickering when Cataruna and Bronwyn arrived, both looking resigned when they saw the horses awaiting them. Then he sobered. “However my back will complain, I will endure it.”

  It was not only Ifan’s back—and rump—that were complaining when they reached their goal. It was worth it, though. March’s army was not in sight. After a few hours of rest, Gwen took it on herself, while Ifan, Cataruna, and Bronwyn made their preparations, to ride out as fast and hard as she could to the west, taking two of their mounts with her in order to change them out and keep them all relatively fresh. March’s army was not within a day’s hard ride, which meant they were not within three to four days’ of the border yet.

  She and the horses were weary when she rode back to the campsite. She had carefully chosen a spot hidden away from casual view, like her old favorite nutting spot, in a copse tangled with nettles and raspberry bushes, and she had instructed Ifan on how to further conceal the camp. He had done a fairly good job—not nearly as good as she would shortly but not at all bad for someone who had only made hunting camps before this. If she had not known they were there, she probably would not have spotted them.

  There was just enough room in there for the horses, but since she now knew that March’s army was quite far off, it would be safe to move them and hobble them where they could browse. Her three were tired enough that they would probably not cause any trouble, at least, not for a while.

  She whistled the signal that they had all agreed on and was rewarded with the sight of Ifan popping out into the clear and waving at her.

  “How far?” he asked, when she was in hearing distance.

  “Far enough that we can finish the work and be gone,” she replied, dismounting with a wince. How the messengers weren’t crippled, riding these boneracks, she could not imagine. “How near are you three to being ready?”

  Ifan grinned and ran his hand over the top of his head. Gwen was struck, once again, by what an odd sort of fellow he was. He looked as if he had been put together from the gods’ leftovers. His hands seemed to be too long for the rest of him, and they were very graceful, which was at odds with the rest of his body, which was gangly and awkward, like an adolescent’s. His chin stuck out like the prow of a boat, his brow was almost too broad, his hair was so coarse and perpetually tangled it could have come from the mane of a wild pony, and even his eyes were strange, one blue, one brown. Yet those hands could charm the most amazing music from any instrument he picked up, and as for his ability to tell a tale or create a song, well, it left his listeners spellbound.

  “Cataruna can do anything if she puts her mind to it,” he said with admiration. “Of course, you chose the right place, she tells me.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Mind you, we’re going to be right miserable before she is finished.”

  Gwen was not certain she wanted to hear the rest, but Ifan told her anyway.

  “She’s calling the rains. They should be here soon. And now that you are here,” he added with a smirk, “We can call the waters.”

  Cataruna had spent the time while Gwen was gone in preparing her ground, creating a ritual circle by cutting into the turf and peeling it up, setting in a stone for an altar, and four more at cardinal points.

  As directed, Gwen took her place at the southernmost stone; Ifan and Cataruna took west and east respectively, leaving Bronwyn with the north. And from that moment on, once Cataruna cast the boundaries of the circle itself to seal the power in, it was unlike any ceremony Gwen had ever taken part in before.

  While Ifan played a small hand-drum, he and Cataruna chanted in a language that was nothing like anything that Gwen knew. The words sounded as if she ought to recognize them, but she didn’t; she did, however, get the sense that she knew the gist of what they were chanting without knowing the words.

  It was vaguely disconcerting. After a while, she decided that they must be using one of the secret languages of the Druids, a tongue much older than the one Gwen knew.

  As for the sense of what they were chanting—

  They were begging the waters to rise to the surface and cover the land here. Begging the gods to allow this to take place, and asking the waters to remain this way for two fortnights.

  This was not an exercise of power as such. This was more like going to an ally and asking for help.

  At least that was how it felt to Gwen.

  She began to lose herself in the chanting, and although it was broad daylight, she began to feel as if she were walking in a dream. A silvery mist crept over the valley, seeming to form from nothing and, in defiance of the bright sunlight, growing thicker by the moment. Soon it had closed in around them and rose to obscure the sky and the sun. Tiny sparks of glittering color hung suspended in it, winking gold and green. Each time she blinked, she got glimpses of . . . something else scuttling through the mist, just out of view. Something, or rather multiple things, just out of the corner of her eye, that vanished when she turned to look fully at them. She didn’t get enough of a look at any of these things to have said successfully what they were, but she did know that they weren’t, and had never been, human.

  And she started to feel things from them; not all of them were particularly friendly. They weren’t inimical to the four of them, but as Gwen listened to the chanting, she understood that Ifan and Cataruna were striking a bargain with these creatures:
For as long as the waters stood above the ground here, they were being given leave to do what they willed with any human (save the four of them) who tried to cross that they could catch and hold.

  She shuddered a little; at first there was no acknowledgment from the creatures, but then, between one moment and the next, the circle was surrounded by them.

  Their shapes faded in and out, ghostly and transparent at one moment, solid in the next. Nearest were the Gwragedd Annwn, the Ladies of the Lake, golden-haired and so fair of face that Gwen felt utterly coltish and rough hewn in their presence. Small wonder that they came; they were the guards and guardians of the Ladies at the Cauldron Well and were surely on speaking terms with Cataruna. They were tall, as tall as Ifan, and looking on them, Gwen suddenly wondered if the white-gold hair she shared with her sisters and Eleri had come not from Saxon blood but from these creatures. There were more of the Ladies than there were men of their kind, and bards were full of tales of love and marriages between their race and that of mortal men. They were said to live in their own villages at the bottoms of lakes and ponds, guarding some of the entrance points between the world of mortals and Annwn, the Otherworld. One of the High King’s two famous swords was said to have been given to him by them . . . though Eleri had always said, no, it was not the sword that had been given but the sheath, which was by far the more important of the two. The sword Caliburn signified only because it had been Uther’s, and been driven into a stone by the Merlin—only the lawful heir to Uther could pull it out. But the sheath—Caliburn’s sheath—was said to be able to heal any wound. And it would make a great deal of sense for such a thing to have come from the hand of one of the Gwragedd Annwn.

  Their faces were solemn, a little stern, and all their attention was on Cataruna and Ifan. Gwen was just as pleased. She did not want the attention of the Folk of any kind. Yet she could not help it, feeling an odd kinship with these creatures that only grew the more she was in their presence. If they felt it as well—