The Kingmaking

by Helen Hollick

  Arthur reached out and squeezed her hand. “I recognised it, knew it for what it was – I’d seen it often enough in Gwynedd, after all.”

  Was he still as she remembered him after all? He was older, battle wise, but, meeting his intense gaze, she recognised and welcomed with joy those qualities of understanding and empathy that had drawn them together as children.

  “You do remember, then?” she asked cautiously, scarcely daring to hope for a reply. “You have not forgotten how it was.”

  He relaxed, the skin wrinkling with laughter lines at the corners of his suddenly caring, expressive eyes. Very quietly, he said, “I shall never forget, Cymraes fach. Never.”

  Gwenhwyfar had never thought to hear him call her by that name again. Shyly, she leant forward, placed a quick, light kiss on his cheek. A sound came from the door as it opened, followed by the rustle of a gown.

  “I see you are recovering well, my husband.”

  Gwenhwyfar leapt away from the bed as if stung, her face flushing pink.

  “Winifred, how nice of you to take the trouble to come and see me,” Arthur drawled.

  “I have left my own bed only these past days, husband, plagued with a fever and other, women’s, troubles.” She swept past Gwenhwyfar, ignoring her. “But I have kept myself constantly informed of your well-being.” Placing a sensuous kiss on her husband’s lips, she sat on the bed, took his hand possessively in her own.

  “I have been desolate,” she said with convincing sorrow, “being so weak from the difficult birth and then the distress of the taking of one so young from us. And now this…” She patted his hand fondly, then dabbed at her eyes. “I so feared I should lose you also.”

  She settled herself the better beside him. “Thank God you are recovering and all my worry was for nought. Our child has gone, but there will be many chances for others.” She bent forward and gave him a second, more lingering kiss.

  The door closing broke her from the embrace to call, “Oh, Gwenhwyfar!”

  Reluctant, Gwenhwyfar re-entered the room.

  “My dear child.” Winifred shifted slightly so as to look at her. “I must thank you for your kindness to my injured husband. I understand you have nursed him well.” She clutched Arthur’s hand between her own, tight against her breasts. “You have so many other duties in addition to this, what with Lady Ygrainne ill and the seasonal festivities.” How sickly sweet that false smile of hers could be.

  “Now I am well I can take some of the burden from your shoulders.” Winifred turned back to Arthur, stroked hair from his eyes, an action he detested. “I shall care for my dear husband now.” A honey-sweet smile. Tainted with spite.

  Gwenhwyfar dipped a slight reverence, said, “It will please the household that you are now well enough to leave your room.”

  “Come back later, Gwen? I would be …” Arthur paused, searching for the right words with Winifred listening, “pleased at your company.”

  Clutching her dagger between her hands, Gwenhwyfar nodded once, made to leave, heard: “The blatant cheek of that girl, my dearest. They all talk of how she oversteps her position, you know. I am surprised your mother stood for it.”

  Closing the door, Gwenhwyfar did not wait to hear Arthur’s reply. If he had one.

  January 455

  XVII

  Sitting by the window of Arthur’s chamber, Gwenhwyfar stared out at the black night and the curtain of rain. It fell so thickly she could barely see the courtyard below. “There will be flooding by morning,” she said as a gust of wind battered heavy drops against the thick glass. She shivered.

  “Come away from the window if you are cold,” Arthur remarked, engrossed in the parchment he was reading.

  “I am not cold,” she retorted. All the same, she wandered over to a brazier, held her hands out to it.

  “It must please you Winifred is now able to nurse you,” she said, added to his derisive snort, “I had no idea she was so devout a Christian.”

  “Nor had I,” he answered drily, letting the parchment roll up on itself. “It ought not surprise me though – she has wit enough to know where to place a safe footing. And,” bitterly, “she is clever enough to snare the unsuspecting. Pay no heed to her, Gwen. I choose who I wish to have with me, not her.”

  Gwenhwyfar fingered the dagger sheathed safely at her side, its ivory handle proud against the wine red of her gown. She smiled to herself, recalling Winifred’s glare of outrage when she had noticed it there.

  It had happened while the family was being served with the second course of the celebrational dinner. The first course had been eaten with relish: olives, baked dormice sprinkled with honey and poppy seeds; spiced eggs and honeyed wine. Ygrainne portrayed her home as a humble residence, but when guests were to be entertained her kitchens were found to be well supplied, and her cooks of excellent ability.

  The servants had carried in roast sucking pig stuffed with pastry and honey and served with chicken livers, beets and wholemeal bread. Iawn had noticed the dagger, remarked on its craftsmanship and asked whence it had come.

  Politely, Gwenhwyfar had passed it to him, allowing him to inspect it more closely, saying, “It has been mine since my mother’s death,” adding, looking straight at Winifred, “and so it always shall be.”

  Gwenhwyfar had considered relating the scene to Arthur in the days between, but decided against. He might think she was prodding to hear how he had come by it.

  The Nativity gaiety, such as it had been, was past and a few flurries of snow had given way to incessant rain battered by a north-easterly wind that gusted around the villa and found every crack and gap to scurry through. Spring seemed a long way ahead.

  Arthur patted the bed. “Come sit beside me, I can barely see you in those shadows. It is not easy to hold a decent conversation by bellowing across the width of a room.”

  Timidly she came, sat perched on the edge like a bird ready for flight. She had been here in this room on four or five occasions since that evening when Winifred had swept in and underlined her position as Arthur’s wife. Had come this evening at Arthur’s express request because Winifred was safely tucked up in her apartment nursing another feverish head cold.

  “How does your leg feel?” she asked, for want of anything better to say.

  “Like a lead weight,” he answered.

  “Cynan tells me it heals well at last,” she could not resist teasing, “now you are resting, as you were first ordered.”

  “Cynan talks too much,” Arthur replied.

  With no warning, he leant forward and took her wrist holding it firmly, a little too tightly. “Be wary of Winifred, she has the tongue and bite of a viper.”

  Gwenhwyfar made a light-hearted attempt at parrying his sudden concern. “Then surely I ought not be in your bedchamber alone with you.” She attempted to retrieve her arm, to pull away from him.

  To her surprise he said, “Na, Cymraes, you ought not.” He let her go, lay back against the pillows, a hand covering his eyes.

  The pain of heartache gripped him as he said, “How can I lie here knowing you are moving around out there where I cannot see you? I want you to stay, talk a while.” He let his hand drop, his face sagging with defeat. His eyes were closed.

  For a moment, Gwenhwyfar hovered between staying where she was, perched on the edge of the bed, or leaving. Just as she decided to go, he opened his eyes, held his hand out for hers.

  Hesitant, she gave it to him.

  With his fingertips he stroked the satin smoothness of her skin, turned her hand over to examine the palm. “Your hands were rough, with torn nails, in Gwynedd.”

  “Horses and weapons are not kind to hands.”

  “Nor to men’s bones, it seems. Love of Mithras, Gwen, what can I do?”

  Withdrawing her hand, folding her fingers together in her lap, she deliberately misunderstood.

  “You can read, play board games with Bedwyr or tell him more of your outrageously exaggerated campaigns. There is plenty to amuse you
while you rest.” She got to her feet, fastidiously smoothing the place where she had sat.

  He plucked irritably at the bed cover beneath his hand. “I do not want to be amused, Gwenhwyfar. I want you.” There, he had said it.

  A few strides would take her to the door. Her fingers could be on the handle, she could be away in two beats of the heart. So why, in all that was wise, did she remain standing here like a fool beside his bed?

  She pretended not to have heard, but her voice came too shrill. “If you are bored, I could sing for you.” It was a fine excuse; without waiting for a reply she whisked away, intending to fetch her harp from her own room, feeling hot colour burning her cheek.

  Her chamber was quiet. She lit a single lamp that cast a flicker of shadow over the scant furniture. Gwenhwyfar opened the small chest standing at the foot of her bed, brought out a soft leather bag, slid from it her harp. It was a light instrument suited to a woman’s touch. Her father had sent it, knowing her love of the thing.

  Kneeling beside the open chest, she laid it on her lap, strummed her fingers over the strings. It needed tuning. Her harp was a link with home. Home. Absently she plucked at the strings, tightening or loosening. Satisfied, she drew her fingers, gently, with a butterfly touch, rippling a whisper that vibrated with velvet sound.

  She sang softly her voice low, the words reflecting her despair, and her tears began to fall. Tears of surrender to the loss of hope, the ache stabbing like a war spear, her tears spilling like blood from the wound. She covered her face with her hands, and she sobbed.

  Someone took the harp from her. Arms were about her shoulders, drawing her forward, enclosing her in a circle of loving protection. For a moment she clung, unaware, grateful for the solidness and the strength stopping her from sliding further into the cesspit of blackness that insatiably beckoned, that would not, would not leave her be. Her tears at last eased and she slumped exhausted, her head against his shoulder. Still he held her tight, not letting go.

  Her arms went around him pulling him to her, betraying her violent need to keep him close.

  “I thought you had forgotten me, thought you felt nothing for me.”

  Arthur stroked the damp hair from her forehead, his hand cool; crooned to her loving and gentling. “I have never forgotten you, Cymraes. Feel for you more than ever you could imagine.”

  She believed him, knew he spoke the truth.

  Self-conscious, Gwenhwyfar twitched her shoulders, shrugging herself free of his touch, and drew back from him a little. In the pouch hanging at her waist she found a cloth, blew her nose, rubbed fingers over puffed eyes.

  With one finger under her chin he tilted her face up to him. What had he caused her? So much grief, so much pain and hopeless loss. If he stayed here with her in this chamber, how much more grief and pain would streak her beautiful, wonderful face with tears?

  “I am in a web, and Winifred with her father sit in the middle like giant black spiders,” he said.

  “And you were lured into it like some unsuspecting fly?” The words burst from Gwenhwyfar before she could stop them. Her eyes flashed fire, the inner ring dark green around the gold-flecked iris. She stood, moved away from where he sat awkward on the floor.

  With great calm, Arthur shut the lid of the chest, used its solidity to haul himself upright. He sat on its closed lid, wincing at the pain coursing from his thigh. Blood of the Bull! Would this thing never stop throbbing? Folding the thin robe he wore tighter round his naked body, he said, “As you wish. I saw the web. Walked smack into it. Winifred was all you were not. That is why I wed her.” He had his back to Gwenhwyfar. It was easier to talk truth that way, without the need to look at her.

  “I agreed to the marriage when I heard you were betrothed to Melwas. By the time you fled Britain, it was too late; I was already trapped, with no bolthole save for Vortigern to use as an excuse to make an end of me.” He gave a wry smile, ducked his head to watch her over his shoulder. “And even for you, at that time my lovely, I had no wish to die.” Using his hands as a brace, he sought a more comfortable seated position. “I had already taken Winifred to my bed, that night of the King’s festival. But then, I suppose you knew that.”

  Gwenhwyfar shook her head. Wished he had not told her. She had no heart to hear the telling of detail.

  “Ah well, no matter, you know now.”

  She stood beside the single lamp across the room, its feeble light trickling shadows over her face and body, glowing through the unruly copper wisps of hair that always refused to stay bound.

  Strange, she had never studied a flame before now. The bob and dance of its yellow flicker calmed her chaotically spinning thoughts. How intricate its colours, how perfect its shape.

  Keeping, with difficulty, the discomfort from showing, Arthur limped to her side. Standing deliberately close, he drew her to him. His lips closed over hers, a brief touch. She put out her hands, one on each side of his chest, pressed him, unconvincingly, from her.

  “I don’t want…”

  “Are you afraid still?” he said, his voice low, searching. “Na, but…”

  “No buts, my Cymraes, no more buts, there is a time when it is best not to think, just do.”

  He kissed her again, more demanding, his tongue parting her lips, running along her teeth. His hands brushed across the smooth skin of her shoulders, bringing her nearer so that her body touched against his.

  Suddenly afraid, the wheel spinning over-fast she pushed him away. “What of Winifred?”

  Arthur released her, stood with head lowered, jaw set, fists clenched. What of Winifred? Ah, if only he knew the answer to that particular riddle. She, his wife, was beneath this same roof, was not some unbidden spirit of the imagination. Come dawn, she would still exist, not vanish with the morning mist. He felt no love for her. Felt nothing for her, not even hatred or contempt.

  Why had he accepted her? As he’d said, because she was everything his Gwenhwyfar was not: sour against sweet, rough against smooth, loud against quiet. Deceit against truth, and hate against love. And because he thought Gwenhwyfar was lost to him.

  “I care for you, Gwenhwyfar. I love you. Have always loved you.”

  Arthur reached for her hand, kissed the palm. There would be dangers, from Melwas, Vortigern and Winifred. Great danger, death even, but what appeal had a safe life if it meant parting?

  “At the first opportunity, I shall rid myself of her.”

  “Oh, Arthur, do you dwell so deeply in the land of faery dream?” She covered his hand with her own, her fingers curling within his. “You will never be rid of her.”

  They were standing close again; he could feel the contours of her body through his light robe.

  “I will.” His hand tightened around hers. Then he acknowledged, “Even if I cannot rid myself of her, she is nothing to me, a signed contract only. We were pledged with the vows of the Christian ceremony. I put more faith in the Old Ways.”

  He glanced at the warming glow of the charcoal brazier and gave a sudden smile. “This may not be your father’s hearth, but it will suffice for our needs.”

  Shaking her head bewildered, Gwenhwyfar let him lead her to it, stood where he placed her, opposite himself, the brazier between them, their hands clasped above its heat.

  Two ways lay before her. She could step forward on to either path, but having once set foot to it there would be no turning back. One way began rough, with great jagged stones to be clambered over; beyond lay flat land, easy walking, but a country of endless emptiness. The other way was steep, with rocky outcrops and plunging valleys full of uncertainty and storm.

  What to do? Which path to take? Her heart would surely break if she made him go, knowing he would never ever come back to her. But if she let him in, took him, what fears lay ahead then?

  She knew what he was asking of her. Bid him be gone, or commit herself. To what? This desperate loneliness?

  Of a sudden sure of her path she raised her head, said clear and confident the words of t
he Old Ways, the words spoken across a father’s hearth at the binding together of a man and a woman.

  “Your life is my life; your death, my death. I will follow where you lead, through water and fire, across earth and stone. My love for you shall burn until the very sun ceases to give us warmth and light; until the moon sinks behind the hills to rise no more. Your dreams are my dreams. Your destiny, my destiny. May the Mother of Earth bless our union.”

  He led her three times round the fire in the direction of the sun’s path, then took her to him, a little breathless, not believing this was actually happening. Mithras! Do not let me wake come morning to find this was all a dream.

  Gwenhwyfar stood trembling as he unfastened her shoulder brooches, let her gown fall. Beneath, she wore a tunic of fine linen. She raised her arms and he lifted it over her head, cast it aside. He fumbled slightly with the ties of her breast band, then let that too drop to the floor.

  For a moment he stood looking at her, savouring her, his lips parted. She stepped to him, her firm young breasts and curved hips pressing timidly against his own responding body.

  His thigh ached abominably, but then so did his need for her. He would have liked to lift her and carry her to the bed, but knew his limitations. Difficult enough to shuffle himself along! Instead, he steered her gently towards it, held his finger poised in the air a moment, went to the door and slid the bolt home.

  Winifred was abed, but who knew with Winifred?

  A catch of pain escaped as he came beside her, cast quickly aside as his nakedness touched hers. With pain forgotten he took time to claim her for his own, the ache in his thigh subdued by the intensity of need. He wanted to take things slowly, patiently; she was to enjoy this, her first experience of his – or any man’s – intimate love

  XVIII

  The old man stumbled through the great oak doors into Cunedda’s Hall as evening was fading into the chill darkness of a winter’s night. Tables clattered over, benches and stools scraped or tipped as men leapt to their feet, alarmed or concerned. Several ran to the man, propped his sagging and bloodied body with their arms, then half carried, half dragged him towards Cunedda, who had risen from his seat and was striding down the length of the Hall.