And that Gwenhwyfar was avoiding Bedwyr was as plain to Enid as it was to the man himself.
So it was, on the third day, that Enid suggested her guests ride to the ancient stronghold where once Geraint’s ancestors had held court. The day was pleasant, Bedwyr was enthusiastic. Gwenhwyfar had no choice to disagree without seeming churlish.
They took six men as escort. Geraint’s domain was safe territory, but Gwenhwyfar was still the anointed Queen; she rode nowhere without Ider and her guard. Many years ago, when she had assumed herself out of danger while in similar safety, her small guard had been attacked, herself injured by Amlawdd’s son. Arthur had been so furious at the careless lack of precaution. Never again had any of his Artoriani allowed their Lady to be placed in danger. Whenever, wherever, a guard escorted her.
They left the men and horses, under Ider’s watchful eye, at Maiden-Hill’s eastern gate and walked together up what would have been a busy trackway passing through the banks and ditches that reared one behind the other. A few young, green-shooted saplings were trying for a foothold along the lush grass of the first ditch, but wandering sheep and deer would not give much chance for them to survive.
Congenially, through panting breath, Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr debated theories of how the impressive pattern of gates would have been structured, the size and number of buildings that would have been inside the enclosure ahead. At the third bank, Bedwyr called a halt; stood, hands on his hips, catching his breath.
“This is some climb!” he panted. “No wonder Geraint’s ancestors thought themselves safe, tucked away up there.” He ducked his head behind him, indicating the rest of the steep incline.
Gwenhwyfar had her hand on her chest, taking great gasps of air. As fit as they were, the climb had winded them. “The Romans were too new here, then, for their threat to be understood.” Her breathing easing she studied the ground below and above. “They could not have defeated this stronghold without the sophistication of their fighting machinery.”
Holding out his hand to haul her upward, Bedwyr answered, “Family tradition, Geraint told me, relates his ancestor was killed outright by a ballista bolt between the eyes.” He winced. “Messy.” He received a nod from Gwenhwyfar by way of response, this last haul too steep for talking.
The wind from the coast caught them square on the face as they stepped out from the shelter of the track. Before them lay acres of sheep-cropped grass, securely enclosed by the top rampart bank. Gone was the palisade fencing, the wooden guard-towers, the round-houses, granaries, cattle pens, storage pits and sheds. Gone, the Hall, the heart of the community. Nothing, save the wind and the grass, and the remains of one square, stone-built building. They ignored it, for it was a tawdry Roman temple.
Leaping up the incline to the top of the last rampart, Gwenhwyfar shaded her eyes from the buffeting wind, her hair whipping away from loose hairpins, her cloak swirling around her legs. The stronghold was impressive. “This is magnificent!” She marvelled as her gaze roamed over the expanse of enclosed land and then outward. Was that the sea there in the distance? Clouds were gathering. Rain.
They walked around this top rampart, following where once the fencing and walkway would have strode, pointing out intricacies of the next gateway, a faded shadow where once a track had lain. Gwenhwyfar exclaimed at a hare set running almost from beneath their feet. Bedwyr cursed, he had no spear with him.
“Na,” Gwenhwyfar chided, “let the Goddess keep her fleet-footed messenger. There has been enough killing in this place.”
It took an hour or more to walk the entire circuit, by which time their cloaks were drawn tight against -the wind and their hair was as ragged as a wind-teased seed-head. The clouds had surged nearer, heaping higher and wilder. A few dithering spots of rain fell.
“Would there be shelter beneath the banks?” Gwenhwyfar queried, peering at the louring sky. Already she was cold, had not much inclination to become wet also in this late-summer storm.
“The temple would be better.” Bedwyr was already running, her hand clasped firmly in his, his head ducked against the sudden cloudburst. Boots slipping on the sudden-wet grass, they hurried through the door-less entrance, stood breathless, laughing together as they shook the rain from cloaks and hair.
It was not much of a building, half a roof, one wall cracked and bowed. One puff of wind from the right direction and surely it would be down. Roof tiles scattered on the floor among an accumulation of debris, leaves, grass, sheep droppings. The remains of a fire. Someone else had sheltered here, then. Bedwyr squatted down, began poking at the cold ashes, peered around for dry timber. “There may be enough for a fire if you are cold,” he offered, raising his eyes questioningly at Gwenhwyfar. She was standing by the door, her arms clutched around herself, watching the sheet of dark rain blanketing the expanse of desolate fortress that had once, so long, long ago, been active with the bustle of life.
She shook her head. “No,” she smiled, a sad half-complete expression. “No,” she repeated, “I am not cold now we are out of the wind.”
Bedwyr came to his feet, crossed the small space and stood before her; after a moment, put his fingers out to tuck away a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I love you,” he said. There was no laughter, no jesting. “I always have, ever since I was a boy.”
She dipped her head, not knowing how to answer him.
“I would never let anyone else take you as their own,” he added. Gwenhwyfar nodded, a small, slight movement. Aye, she knew that.
As if she were a fragile, terracotta-made doll, Bedwyr slid his arms around her, drew her to him, nestled her head into the dip of his shoulder, cradled her softness against his strength. His fingers stroked her hair, and his lips brushed her forehead. She made no response, but then, neither did she move away.
There was no intention for anything more, but they were a man and a woman, alone, sheltering from the rain. Both with their own, separate, need. It was nothing frenzied or passionate, their lovemaking, not the sweating, breathless coupling of the desperate. Rather, this was a shared giving and taking, the need to be loved, the wanting to give comfort and protection. Something gentle and immensely tender.
XXVI
Bedwyr must have drifted into sleep, for he awoke with a start, some abruptness in a dream grunting him alert; found the rain had stopped and Gwenhwyfar gone, though her perfume, the vague scent of summer flowers, lingered. Damp and chilled, he collected his cloak they had lain upon, shook away the dead grass, twigs and earth and fastened it around his shoulder; stepped outside.
Everything was fresh and gleaming, the grass sparkling as if some faery creature had wide-scattered handfuls of tiny diamonds. The sky, where the rain had passed, was a cloud-skeined cobalt blue. A flight of wild geese threaded past in their ponderous formation, their cries and beating wings eerie and mournful in the silence of this ghost-murmuring place. Gwenhwyfar stood on the top rampart, her back to him, facing the sea, the wind blustering at her loose-tossed hair and folds of her cloak. She stood, straight and still. Arms wrapped around herself, staring into the heavy weight of the past.
Beyond these deep ditches and high ramparts lay the rolling hills. Beyond them, the sea. Wind-whipped, white-tipped, sea-crested horses, prancing their wild dance with the tide. The Britannic Sea, over which he had sailed with his men. Over which he would never return.
“I miss him,” Gwenhwyfar spoke to the buffeting wind, her voice carrying to the spirits who must surely be watching, listening, aware. To his spirit? Did he hear? Was he there, trying to be near her? If he was, why could she not feel him, feel something of him – a whisper on the wind, a half-seen shadow? He had believed her dead, but surely he knew now… surely? Why did she never feel that if only she could turn around quick enough, she would see him standing there with that familiar smile? Why did she never see his face in her dreams or hear his voice? Imagine his touch? Why was there this nothingness for her, beyond the empty darkness of this desolate ache?
Did he
miss her? Were his tears as many, was his pain as searing? “I miss you!” she shouted again to the wind. “Miss you so much, but I am so, so very angry with you!” She looked up at the sky, her breath clamped tight in her chest, tears wet on her face. “So angry you went, that you’ll not be coming back to me. So angry you loved me, angry because I ought to hate you for hurting me like this!” She lifted her arms, her fists clenched. “Why did you go?” she cried. “Why? Tell me, why?” Her fingers went to her hair, combing through its loose thickness. “How could you do this to me, Arthur?”
Nothing, only the sigh of the wind as it toyed with her hair, the geese in the distance. No snarl of thunder, no great burst of light. No roar, no cry, no sound. There was nothing, no feeling of him nearby, no memory of his voice. He was not here, not with her. Gwenhwyfar was quite, quite alone. She let her arms drop, head and shoulders sag.
Watching, the pain tore at Bedwyr’s heart as if a sword were twisting there. She might bed with him, marry him, but he would never possess Gwenhwyfar. Not until Arthur’s spirit was laid. And how did you fight a ghost?
Uncertain whether to leave her to herself or go to her with some offer of comfort, Bedwyr walked slowly, hesitant, across the wide expanse of sheep-nibbled grass. His toe caught against something, the light nudging its rain-wet shine into a sparked gleam. He bent, picked up the object. It had once been bronze, gleaming, worn proudly.
Gwenhwyfar had turned, seen him, was wiping at her falling tears, attempting a smile.
“Is all well?” he called, almost carelessly, as if nothing of serious importance had occurred.
She nodded, sniffed loudly, a smile winning through. “Aye,” she said lifting her chin. And suddenly, she realised she was well, almost. “Aye,” a slight laugh. “I think I am. What’s that?” She came down the bank, her impulsion and the steepness making her run, girlish, lovely. She took the thing from Bedwyr’s outstretched hand – a buckle, a bronze baldric buckle, green and old, a few moss-bound garnets still decorated its hinge. She studied it a moment, solemnly handed it back.
While Bedwyr examined it, she looked across to where she had stood; up to the rain-washed, fresh-cleaned sky, then across to the ruined temple where not long ago she had willingly given herself to the touch of a man who was not Arthur.
“Everything has a start and a finish,” she said with a soft, resigned sigh, “but there is always something lurking unexpected to remind us of how it once was.” She placed her hand on Bedwyr’s arm. “I am searching for the thing that will help me forget, that is all.”
Her smile deepened as she stood on toe-tip to kiss his cheek. “I am well. He has gone, I must accept it. I must look to the future not the past, for it is a path of sad darkness. I must try to face into the sun again.” She patted his shoulder, a light, loving touch, walked away, heading for the gateway and the descent.
“Do I let it be known you are to be mine?” Bedwyr called to her departing back.
She kept walking, her heart churning, breath thrashing. She needed to take a husband, if only to protect herself against those who wanted her as wife. But did she want to love again? Could she face being so hurt again? Her voice, for all her jangling thoughts, came calm. “After Samhain,” she said. “After the night of the dead, then aye, you can let it be known. Give me until then.”
Your last chance, Arthur, she thought. Your last chance to come back to me.
Bedwyr watched her walk down the steep track before following, glanced over his shoulder at the temple. She might agree to be his, or somebody’s wife, but inside, she would always be Arthur’s. He knew that, for as he had loved with her it was another name she had murmured on the shadow of her breath.
Arthur.
XXVII
“Arthur!”
He heard his name called, half-checked, his head lifting fractionally, fingers pausing, then bent back to his work. The figure he was carving was of a woman. He would tell Morgaine it was of the Goddess. The wood was birch, smooth to the touch, pale, silvery, feminine. It was half-finished. The gown he had managed, the folds appearing easily beneath the blade of his knife, the feet and hands, perhaps, could have been a little more delicate. The face he would leave until last. Today he was shaping the head, working patiently, carving each separate curl down the long mass of loose hair. Later, he would find something he could use to darken it a little, make it redder. Morgaine would know it was an image of Gwenhwyfar, but she would not make comment, would take it, delightfully thank him, make much of setting it in place of honour on their dwelling-place shrine. She was always polite, accepting, smilingly quiet even when he shouted at her. She called again, her voice coming nearer. Arthur shifted uncomfortably, he was well hidden here beneath the trees unless she came up the path alongside the river. She did.
“There you are!” she beamed, fastidiously skipping across a scatter of rocks that served well as stepping stones, her hem held high above her knees to avoid the spray. The river ran fast here, making ready to descend in a series of waterfalls a little lower down. “Did you not hear me call?”
Arthur had not looked up. She cast herself down beside him in a flurry of bright-coloured swirled skirt and jangling bracelets. Still he did not look at her.
“Is it not a glorious day?” She sighed, lay back, stretching out, sharing the shade of his tree. Arthur, his back against the trunk, grunted a non-committed answer.
“Look at those clouds,” she persisted cheerfully, tucking her hands behind her head. “The gods riding their white chariots across the sky. I wonder what they think of us?”
“What a useless pile of dung we are, I expect.” He meant to be sarcastic but she giggled, thinking the comment amusing.
“I have left Medraut playing with his friends,” she said. “They are planning a running contest. I told him he has no chance of winning.”
Arthur only grunted again, concentrated on his carving.
“What’s that?” she asked, mildly curious.
“Nothing to concern you.”
“You have a gift for carving. That bowl you made me was lovely.”
“Anyone with an ounce of sense in his brain can turn a lump of wood into something worthwhile.”
“Well, I cannot.”
He made no answer.
Morgaine toyed with the curled shavings, heaping them, fingering their soft silkiness, wondered whether to collect them up for Medraut to play with later. Arthur was so hard to talk to, she could never entice him into conversation, tease him into even a smile let alone laughter. With the boy he was as distant – though he took interest in his upbringing and education, teaching him his letters and numbers, telling him the histories of Greece and Rome. He never showed feeling, though, seemed so aloof, remote. Not once had she seen Arthur embrace the lad, yet he cared for him, she knew. The time last year when Medraut had fallen from that tree, it was Arthur who had run to him, Arthur who had carefully set the broken leg in splints, carried him to the house-place. Arthur who had watched over him during those first few fevered nights of the lad’s discomfort and pain. Through eyes half-closed against the hot glare of the sun Morgaine studied the man sitting cross-legged beneath the shade of the trees, patiently carving the figure of a slender woman. She wished she could understand him. Wished she could do more to help him.
Wished she had the strength to let him go back into his own world.
She pushed herself to her feet, dusted down her skirt, her bangles jangling and clanging. “I called for I am about to set supper cooking. Will you be long?”
“Might be.”
“It will be ready for you when you come in.”
No, she would not wish for the last. She would rather they, all three of them, were dead rather than be without him.
September 471
XXVIII
Ecdicius of Gaul was too tired to dismount. He knew if he tried to drop to the ground his legs would buckle, he would crumple into an undignified, quivering heap. His body ached. Beneath his leather and iron-linked
armour he stank and itched from runnels of sweat, his face was dirtied and bloodied, bruises and welts would appear on his legs, arms and torso by the morrow. But by all the love of the good God, how wonderfully, exhilaratingly happy he felt! The grin beneath the loosened strap of his battered helmet was as wide as the Ligre river in full flood, and not all the shaking of his body was from exhaustion. Some of it was sheer excitement and incredulous disbelief.
They had done it, by God, he and a handful of men had defeated Euric’s rabble, had sent them running, tails tucked tight between their legs! They had done it! The siege of Augustonemtum was lifted – by no more than a mere eight and ten mounted men. Less number than he would invite to dine at his table!
Bodies, the enemy only, for not one of his own men had lost a life, lay fallen, sprawled in a grotesque trail across the plain. They had been brave, those of Euric’s men who had tried to make a stand of it to the rearward of their fleeing army, but God’s hand had most surely been cupped around Ecdicius and his cavalry this day! That first, unexpected, madly heroic charge had been responsible. From the cover of the hills, Ecdicius had led his men at the gallop, straight across the plain, straight through the milling crowds busy with their besieging, ferocious assault on the town.
From above the battered and blood-marked walls, the citizens had watched, open-mouthed, heart-held, as the horses thundered through, leaving bloodied chaos and panic in their churned wake, their riders not giving a single backward glance. Hooves, teeth, lances, swords. It must have seemed as though all the hounds of hell had been let loose!
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