Gwenhwyfar (38 page)

And so there was more waiting.

Not with the tension that there had been, however. Her men, grateful for the fresh bread, something all too seldom seen by warriors in the field, went out hunting and fishing again, and they shared their catch with the monks, who in turn supplied another round of bread and honey. An interesting spirit of camaraderie sprang up between them; a spirit she encouraged. In the rest of the encampment, the sense of relief was palpable. It was one thing to go to war against the Saxons; they were the enemy. It was quite another to go to war against someone whose men you had recently fought beside.

There was no doubt that Gildas was going to do well out of this. He did not much care for Arthur, or so it was said by a few of the monks, but he cared even less for Christian to be fighting Christian. And he would likely exact some sort of price from Arthur as well as from Melwas for his services. Gwen could not fault him for any of this; actually, it only seemed fair. When he had agreed to negotiate,
he
knew nothing of Gwyn ap Nudd, had no assurances that Melwas would not kill him out of hand, nor that Gwyn himself could be trusted. Gwen might not like Gildas, but she could admire his courage.

Finally, just before sunset, the word came at last.

And shortly after the word, the lady who was the cause of it all.

A breeze—no doubt engineered by Gwyn ap Nudd—blew the mists off the lake as she came, rowed over in another boat. The setting sun touched her golden hair and made of it a crown and gilded her linen gown. She sat upright and proud in the stern of the boat, with no sign that she felt any guilt.

Gwen was not sure what her feelings were. Mostly relief that all of this was over. Some contempt, perhaps. And puzzlement, that the woman would be so foolish as to desert a man who engendered such passionate loyalty. It should have been obvious that very few of his allies would desert him and that the ruse that she had been carried off against her will could not have held up for very long.

Lust? Love? Ambition?

Not that it mattered in the long run.

When she alighted, she was surrounded immediately; the bodies of Companions and monks hid her from view, so it was impossible to tell if she was led off, taken off as a prisoner, or went under her own power and will. But off she went, heading for the High King’s tent, where Arthur and Gildas awaited. Melwas was gone. The queen would face her judgment alone.

Gwen shook her head and decided that today might be a good day to go hunting.

She returned, empty-handed, which didn’t really surprise her; with so many men hunting the same fields, the game was probably hunted out by now. And perhaps because of that very thing, she returned to find many of the allies already packing up to leave.

“Have we been dismissed?” she asked Afon ap Macsen, her second in command.

“Not yet. But there is no real reason to hold us here,” he pointed out, and looked uncomfortable. “A good fight, that’s one thing. But this—it isn’t the sort of thing a man likes to have witnesses to.”

Well, she could see that. The High King had been made a cuckold of in front of his allies, and his queen hadn’t looked in the least repentant. She wondered what Arthur would do.

It wouldn’t have been a question if he had been a follower of the Old Ways, as her father was. King Lleudd would have had an easy choice, since a woman, particularly a queen and a Lady,
did
have one irrefutable excuse for something like this.

Arthur was still childless and looked to remain so. And while he was still in fighting trim, his queen, if she had been a Lady, would have been bound to show herself fertile. And . . . well . . . this was his way to
prove
he was still worthy to represent the Land. If the Old Stag could not drive off or slay the Young Stag, then it was more than time for the Young to supplant the Old.

Even time for the Old Stag to shed his blood to renew the Land. Now, that had not yet happened with her father, in no small part because neither Ifan nor Caradoc were minded to make the challenge to King Lleudd. Besides, Cataruna was firmly Pywll’s Lady, and the vigorous and very, very virile Ifan was Lord to her Lady. There was no need for King Lleudd to be the Land King, for Cataruna had a consort, and all was well.

But Arthur—

Well, the Old Stag had conquered the Young, so no one would be pressing for him to be supplanted yet. And it was through no fault of his own that he had no heirs but Medraut.

Gwen sighed. “Tell the men to be ready to move out. You are right. I have no wish for the High King to have us present for this.”

The queen was a follower of the Christ, and there were no excuses for her behavior in their creed. She would have no allies there. Not even Gildas would support her now.

Gwen tried to think of what options were open to Arthur. This was treason, of course. But would he put her to death? Could he put her away by Christian law? If he tried to put her away from him, she was still going to be a source of contention for his throne. She could still attract another like Melwas, maybe more. She could still be a source of trouble.

It was a situation fraught with ugliness and difficulty, and one she was deeply grateful that she was not involved in.

There was one thing she might do, though; it would remind Arthur that the followers of the Old Ways had not wavered in their loyalty, and it would reflect well on her father.

She had come here with a gift of horses for himself and his Companions, but in anticipation of fighting, all of King Lleudd’s men had come with extra mounts. She herself had brought six—Rhys and Pryderi of course, but also four more, just in case something happened to her two main mounts. Now she pulled those four extras from the picket line, found a squire, and sent them off to the High King with the simple message that the horses were from King Lleudd Ogrfan Gawr.

The camp was uneasy that night and unsettled. This did not taste like victory, even though Arthur had won.

Talk around the fires was subdued, and no one had much appetite. Gwen was thinking very strongly of making use of that mead Cataruna had sent along to help her to sleep early, when she looked up to see one of Gildas’ monks peering around the circle of warriors at her fire. He finally whispered to the one nearest him, and to Gwen’s further surprise, the man stood up and conducted the monk courteously to her.

“If you would be so kind,” the monk said, diffidently, once he had given her the bow of respect, “Abbot Gildas would like to speak with you.”

She stood up immediately. “I would be honored,” she said honestly. Whatever the abbot wanted her for, he was clearly an important man. He was also a beloved man; however disagreeable he had seemed to
her,
he had to have earned that regard.

So, she would give him the courtesy that she hoped he would show her, and see what happened.

The monk conducted her quickly to the Abbey, and it was quite clear that the subdued mood in her camp was shared across the entire encampment.

Gildas was waiting for her at another fire, and he rose to greet her without the disagreeable expression he had worn before. She gave him the same bow of respect that she would have given the Merlin.

“Lady . . . I wish to thank you,” Gildas said awkwardly. “You were very kind to reassure my people.”

“Abbot Gildas, your people were extremely worried for you, and they deserved to have someone treat them with courtesy,” she replied. “The High King’s Companions would have done so if they themselves knew what I did about the Folk of Annwn. Since they did not, and what I knew could ease the hearts of your people and allow them to devote their attention to—to—”

“To prayer and their devotions,” Gildas supplied, with a little smile. “Yes. And again, I thank you. I also wish to apologize to you. Without knowing anything of you, I harbored ill thoughts of you. You, in turn, rather than doing the same to me, have given me a lesson in what should have been
Christian
charity. For this lesson, too, I thank you. I want you to know that despite our differences in belief, you may count me as a friend.”

She was for a moment taken aback, but she quickly recovered. “I am honored, and I would be more honored if you will accept the same from me.”

“I know that you are all curious as to what is to happen to the queen.” He sighed. “I should prefer, as you seem to not be prone to exaggeration, if you were to make it known that the High King and the queen will remain here for a time while I strive to make peace between them.”

She winced. “I do not envy you that task. This was . . . a sad and bitter thing.”

“I wish that I had hope of success.” A shadow passed over Gildas’ face. “But that will be as God wills it. I shall do my best. Arthur is a great man. I would that he were more a man of peace and less of war . . . for one of my brothers rebelled against him, you know, and met his death at Arthur’s hands.”

“Still I have forgiven him. And I know him to be a great, and great-hearted, man. And a good leader, of the sort that this land needs. He has a vision of this part of the world being united and strong, as the old empire of the Romans was. I hope that this does not harden his heart and make something terrible out of a good man.”

Something terrible . . . like the sort of man who could order the deaths of infants?
She said nothing, however, only nodded. She and Gildas exchanged a little more conversation, then he pleaded exhaustion, and she took her leave—making sure to stop with several war chiefs on the way back to her encampment to relate what Gildas had tacitly asked her to pass on.

And then she and her men followed the example of the rest, packed up, and returned, thankfully, to their homes.

Nevertheless, she was somehow not at all surprised to learn, about a month after their return, that Queen Gwenhwyfar had caught an unexpected chill, sickened, and died, and was buried on the grounds of the Abbey.

I
t was just
cool enough for a fire at the king’s hearth, but the light it cast gave very little aid in reading facial features. Gwen could not believe what she had just heard, and stared at their visitor in total disbelief. “If this is a jest, it is in very poor taste,” she finally managed.

But her father looked completely serious, as did the visitor, the Lady Aeronwen. “Lady” in the sense of “one of the Ladies.” The Lady looked outwardly no different from any other woman, and Gwen was not Gifted enough to sense the Power in her; her clothing was unusual only in that it was of plain, undyed white linen and wool, and her hair was unbound, signifying she was not a married woman. There was nothing whatsoever to mark her as a person of any importance at all, but she had been sent directly here from the great School, and Cataruna, who bowed to almost no one, practically groveled to her.

She did have the most piercing dark eyes that Gwen had ever seen; eyes that definitely looked far beneath the surface of everything around her. Her speech was clipped, her manners rather severe. That, of course, was probably very effective against the young women sent to the School, but it cowed Gwen not at all.

And her proposal was . . . well, on the surface of it, sheer insanity. Why in the name of every god and goddess should
she
become the High King’s third wife? She had never even laid eyes on him to her certain knowledge, and she doubted he had ever seen her. And she was twenty-seven. Even if she did look eighteen. Surely he would want a younger bride.

“The High King
must
have a queen. He dallied not at all after the death of his first, and there is no reason to wait this time, either. He drew up a pathetically short list of names that he indicated would be acceptable to himself and one or another of his advisors. The only other candidate that we will accept is Morgana,” said Aeronwen flatly, her eyes hard. “And leaving aside the little problem that she is also the High King’s half-sister, she is completely out of the question, because she is completely uncontrollable.”

“Oh. And you can control me,” Gwen replied dryly, raising one eyebrow. The tiny, dark woman flushed, disconcerted. Gwen sensed that she did not often find herself contradicted or her will thwarted.

“That is not what I mean, Gwenhwyfar.” The Lady’s glare could have put ice on a pond in summer. “I mean that you will work for the good of the land, for the good of the followers of the Old Ways, to protect the Folk of Annwn. You will think first of the good of others, not yourself. You have proven that, as a warrior. Morgana will work only on her own behalf, or Medraut’s.”

“And leaving aside whether or not Arthur will be remotely interested in a bride who has followed the warrior’s path, just how do you propose to get the High King to accept a third wife with the name ‘Gwenhwyfar’?” she asked. “I should think at this point he will regard that as very ill-omened.”

“Or he will hold by the common notion that the third time pays for all,” the Lady countered, and shrugged. “I confess, I am not in his confidence. I do not know what he will think, I only know that, like you, he considers first the good of his people. He needs an heir, the land needs a queen, and all else is secondary. He is getting no younger. He has no time to waste. We who have counseled him have made very, very sure that he understands this.”

“There is another factor; the High King wants my horses,” her father rumbled, nodding. “To get them, he will take you. It is a good bargain, as you know I do not part with them easily.”

Her cheeks flamed with suppressed anger. “So
that
is what this is about. I’m now the unwanted part of a horse trade!”

“Unwanted by the High King perhaps, but greatly desired by us!” the Lady snapped. “The King’s second wife did us great damage with her adherence to the Christ priests. The High King grows old; in the back of his mind, I suspect, is the fact that the Young Stag supplants the Old, and Lleu slays Goronwy. The land is not suffering—yet—but if it does, his age may be blamed, and the followers of the Old Ways may look for a Young Stag. The Christ priests do not demand that the High King sacrifice himself—ever. Except metaphorically, of course.”