Gwenhwyfar (42 page)

That was not a voice she wished to hear.

She stiffened as Medraut strolled past the guards, a goblet held negligently in one hand. He took a sip of the contents as she stared at him, uncomprehending. Surely they were not hunting that far afield? And surely there was no need for Arthur to go visiting an ally in this weather—was there?

“Half a day—what does that mean?” she demanded, her stomach sinking with dread. Because there was
one
reason why they would all have left . . .

“Just what I said. He left this morning to join most of the Companions and the warriors. And his allies, of course.” Medraut smiled at her, evidently enjoying every moment of this.

“Warriors—allies—why?” No. Surely not. Surely Arthur would not have—

“The Saxons, of course. The moment they heard he’d married again, they decided to take advantage of it. Just like the last time, when they attacked in the winter. Evidently they did not learn the lesson. Or they heard that Arthur tamed the White Phantom, so now they believe it is safe to harass our border again.” His grin widened. “You’ve been carefully sheltered from all this terrible news so that you wouldn’t be upset by it. Arthur was only waiting until he was sure you were breeding to go take the field himself.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Wh—
breeding?
” Suddenly the conversation—or lack of it—they’d had last night all made sense. But not in the way that she’d assumed last night.

“Of course, we were all sympathy when we learned of your outburst. And we agreed that it was safe enough to leave you now—not to mention that it’s very unpleasant to be around a female when she is so . . . temperamental. Women do get so emotional and so irrational when they’re breeding.” Oh how she hated the snide smile on Medraut’s face! She wanted to smash it off . . . her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. How much of that nonsense he had just spouted had
he
poured into Arthur’s ear? Her jaw was clenched so hard that her teeth were actually beginning to hurt, and she forced herself to relax, but her fury at
both
of them did not abate one bit. Of course he had taken the field himself. He hadn’t wanted her in the first place. She was only now beginning to realize just how he thought of women in general—that he had never, even with the evidence in front of him, thought of her as a warrior. Certainly he had not thought of her as the equal of one of his Companions. Bronwyn was right; though he had first seen his first wife as a warrior, she had later shown herself to him as a woman, and he had buried the warrior beneath the woman in his mind. He was not a man who could see both. And in her case, he did not want to.

And Medraut? Medraut had encouraged him.

“Here. Drink this, dear sister,” Medraut said, handing her the goblet. She almost dashed the contents in his face. But instead, she swallowed them in two gulps, not even tasting them, except to recognize them vaguely as mead. She thrust the cup back at him. “Your women protested that it was too early to tell, but he only smiled, and said, ‘Well, whatever else would cause a lady to suddenly demand fletching supplies and sit in her solar to make arrows? I expect her next demands will be for pickled vegetables, and stewed dormice.’ And then he laughed and appointed Kai and myself to be in charge of the realm while he was at war.” Medraut chuckled. “Such a trusting man. I suppose he thinks he’s tacitly grooming me to take Kai’s place eventually. But then, he knows that Kai will take excellent care of his queen, given her condition. And I, of course, told him that I would be sure that you had my very particular attention.”

“He—
what?”
She was so enraged now that she was dizzy with it. “But I am the queen! I—” She groped blindly for the edge of the table to steady herself.
She
should have been the one left in charge, not Kai, and certainly not Medraut! That she had not—it was an insult past bearing.

“Exactly, dear sister.” He laughed. Oh, how she hated that laugh! “You are only the queen. Obviously he couldn’t leave a mere woman in charge. That is hardly the Roman way—but you look ill, dear sister.”

She held the table with both hands now, the room spinning around her.

“You see, you have exerted yourself entirely too much. Let me help you to your chambers—” He waved off the anxious guards. “No, no, it’s quite all right. I can carry her easily.”

And indeed, he bent a little and scooped her up as if she had been a child. He was much, much stronger than he looked. And by now, she couldn’t even push him away. Her arms and legs didn’t seem to want to work at all, and she was so dizzy that she couldn’t even get her eyes to focus.

Her head lolled against his shoulder, and she hated,
hated,
the foul, possessive way his arms tightened around her. She tried to speak, but nothing would come out.

Once more she crossed the end of the courtyard, but this time, even though she wanted to squirm out of Medraut’s arms and run away, she had to close her eyes against the way the heavens swung wildly about.

The chill air didn’t help, and the warmth that enveloped her once they got to her rooms only made things worse. She wanted to scream in protest as he invaded her very bedchamber, but her voice wouldn’t work. “Go get her women,” Medraut ordered the single servant, as he laid her down on her bed.

“That didn’t take long at all.”

That was a voice . . . a voice she should know. But it wasn’t one of her women. Gwen stared up at Medraut, and at the woman who had come to join him. A woman wearing
her
dress. A woman that was so like her, that Gwen seemed to be looking into a mirror. For a moment she thought,
magic.

And then her mind finally presented her with the right answer. “Hello, sister mine,” Gwenhwyfach said, and giggled, looking down at her. “What? No words of greeting?”

Gwen’s throat worked, but nothing came out.

“My potions have always been effective,” Medraut replied. “Because I take more care with them than my sister does.”

“But your sister has other talents.” Gwenhwyfach reached up with a proprietary hand and smoothed Medraut’s black hair, and for one moment, his eyes flashed annoyance. She was looking at Gwen, however, and didn’t see it. “I have the cart all ready, my love. We only need to roll her up in the blankets and have your man carry her out.”

“Good.” Medraut reached down and tilted Gwen’s chin so she was looking directly at him. “You see, dear sister, I could not take the chance that any woman the High King married actually
might
manage to breed Arthur an heir. I must have put together a dozen plans, depending on how important the woman was. The worst would have been one of the Ladies . . .” He made a sour face.

Gwenhwyfach laughed. “There is no chance one of them would have given up her Power to come here!”

“True enough.” Medraut looked down at Gwen, and she wanted to shudder at the expression in his eyes. “But when he decided to marry you, I knew I had the easiest and most elegant—and least risky—solution in my own two hands.
My
Gwen becomes the queen she has always wanted to be and makes sure Arthur dies childless.
You
will be taken away.”

His wife interrupted him, glancing with some concern between herself and Gwenwhyfar. “Do you think that anyone will notice that she was wearing those—things—and I am wearing her gown?”

Medraut shook his head. “Only the guards and the servant saw her. Besides, she can always say that she changed her clothing after her spell of illness. I dismissed the servant that dressed her to the kitchens, and no man ever remembers what a woman is wearing.”

“Only what she isn’t.” Gwenhwyfach said mockingly, and Gwen felt chilled to hear her own laugh coming from her sister’s throat. “Oh, I am looking forward to this. You may be sure I will well bewitch the High King, my love. Arthur will have such a greeting when he returns as will make him never want to leave my bed again. I will use every wile your mother ever taught me.”

“It would greatly please me if you managed to dispose of him there, my love,” Medraut smiled. Incredibly, he was not the least bit disturbed at hearing his own wife describe how she intended to seduce another man! Then again . . .

. . . he was certainly Lot’s son in spirit, if not in actuality.

“But if you do not, when the Saxons finally kill the old man, or the Ladies give up and let me spill his blood for the Land, the Old Stag will give way for the Young Stag, and I will be High King. Just as mother promised.” His eyes glittered, and inside her, she grew cold with fear. How had she never seen this before? How had she never seen how ruthless he was, how he would do anything, use any tool, to take the High King’s throne? Now, of course, it was far too late.

“I’m sure by now you are also wondering, ‘But what about the Druids?’ Since it was the Merlin who was so very eager to kill me in my cradle.” He laughed. “And of course, the Merlin managed to imprint his desires on the entire Druidic Council. I thought about that, too, well in advance of putting my plans in motion. I have been working at this for years. All of the Merlin’s cronies have tottered off to the Summer Lands, and I hold the young ones in the palm of my hand.” He spread his hands wide. “And now it all comes together. You, the High King’s queen, disposed of. The Druids, mine. The Ladies so concerned with fighting the encroachment of the Christ men that they ignore me. My wife in your place. All of it, building the stair that will take me to the highest place in the land.”

She was fighting hard now to even stay conscious. Her vision narrowed, darkened. There was a roaring in her ears. She couldn’t hear him anymore. Couldn’t see him.

So this is death,
she thought bitterly.

And then she had no more thoughts at all.

She hadn’t expected to wake, so when she did, it was with a shock as great as the blast of cold air that struck her in the face. She struggled to move, to open her eyes, and plunged into despair when she couldn’t. Wave after wave of nauseating emotions washed over her. Panic. Terror. A deeper despair. She tried to force calm on herself, tried to get control, only to have fear wrest it away from her. Her ears were still full of a roaring sound, but under that, she heard the clopping of hooves, and her body was bouncing on a hard, flat surface, and rolling about a bit. So she was in that cart Gwenhwyfach had mentioned. She’d been incompletely poisoned. But she still couldn’t move. She was being carted off, to be buried alive. The thought of the frozen clods falling on her face, the earth filling her throat, her lungs, choking her—

She thought she would be submersed in terror forever.

But even the terror wore itself out. It ebbed, slowly. And that was when she realized that she
could
open her eyes again. And she could—barely—move her fingers and toes.

When she forced her eyes open, she couldn’t see anything but light filtering through a coarse cloth that covered her face. And she was tied firmly hand and foot—tied, in fact, to a pole that ran past her head and feet, so she couldn’t bend or kick. But she was awake, and she could move. That counted for something.

And that was when she realized that even if her hands and feet were bound, her mouth was not.

“Help,” she croaked, weakly. Then, “Help!” she yelped, louder.
“Help! Help! He—”

The cart stopped. The cloth covering her face was pulled back, roughly.

“Now, now,” said Medraut, making no attempt to hide his gloating. “Surely you don’t want to leave my company so soon, Gwen?” He gave her no time to do more than gasp at seeing him. He reached down and wrenched her head back by the hair, stuffing one end of a horn into her mouth. “You’ll just need to go back to sleep for now. We have a way yet to go.” He let go of her hair and pinched her nose shut, then poured more of that cloyingly sweet mead down the horn. “Drink or drown, my love.”

She had no other choice. Choking, coughing, she drank. Some of it got into her lungs, where it burned terribly. As soon as he was sure the drugs were taking hold of her, he pulled the horn out of her mouth and smoothed her hair with a tender hand, wiping the tears of pain and rage from her eyes, and fastidiously cleaning some of the slopped mead from her mouth.

“There we are. That’s better, isn’t it.” His eyes were alight with a strange look of pleasure. “What? You thought I was going to kill you? I told you years ago that you were going to be mine; why would I want to kill you? I only married your sister because she was so like you.” He patted her cheek, while she shrank back inwardly in horror. “And now I have you all to myself. Your sister will be so concerned with keeping Arthur happy, she won’t have time to worry about what I am doing. Besides, she thinks I am going to throw you in a river or bury you, not that I am taking you off to—well, it doesn’t matter where. All that matters is that I prepared it for you years ago. Oh, you don’t like me now, I know. But you’ll learn to love me. I know you will. You won’t be able to help yourself.”