In Winter's Shadow

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “What?” asked Arthur, breaking off a conversation with the emissary. The emissary looked confused, pugnaciously embarrassed, so I left off rubbing my temples, smiled, and raised my glass to the man.

  “You are indeed pale,” Arthur said to me in a low voice. “You have been overstrained lately, my heart. Go to bed now, if you wish; I will make your excuses.”

  “No, no,” I protested. “It will probably go away after a glass of wine, and we should do things twice as graciously if Macsen is ungracious.”

  He looked at me steadily a moment, then took my hand under the table, pressed it, and turned back to the emissary. I glanced at Bedwyr, who was still watching me with grave concern, then hastily and resolutely turned to the emissary as well.

  The Family was on edge from all the rumors, and many of the men were drinking too heavily while some remained sullen and sober. Medraut did not drink much. When I came to refill his glass the third time, I saw that he had barely touched the second cup I had poured for him. He smiled at me when I stared at it, a very knowing, bitter smile, the pupils of his eyes were contracted into points of hard, cold blackness. It frightened me, though I pretended to smile and passed on. His eyes followed me, still with that cold and knowing look.

  It was impossible, I told myself as I sat down again. He could not possibly know. Somehow I must rein in my leaping imagination. Somehow…I endeavored to laugh, felt as though for a very little I might begin to scream. If only the night would pass! Here I sat, waiting to murder a man who sat three places from me at the table, feeling the phial of hemlock burn icily into my ribs, while from time to time my intended victim gave me a cold and knowing smile. I could give up the intention…the wave of relief that swept me at the thought was greater than I had supposed possible. But no, no, I could not go back now. It was my imagination, I told myself again. And it was imagination that made the torches burn so redly, and made the half glass of wine I had drunk seem more intoxicating than the strongest mead, so that the room swam about my pounding head and I had to gasp for breath. I redoubled my efforts at witty gaiety, felt some of the edginess around me dissolve as I laughed and again poured the wine, but all the while I felt Medraut’s eyes watching me until I wished to fling myself from the Hall.

  At last the meal was finished and the singing began. Our chief poet, Taliesin, began by singing of some ancient battle, the conquests of the emperor Constantine, and the Hall fell silent, drinking its mead and listening. He paused when he had told how Constantine won the purple and was acclaimed emperor in Rome, and asked for wine. The emissary called for more mead at the high table. I rose and had another cask brought to the back of the Hall; when I filled my pitcher Taliesin was singing again, this time of a battle in our Saxon wars, a lament for Owein ab Urien, son of an allied king. It was one of Taliesin’s own songs and the Hall was silent as the snow, with everyone wrapped in it, the fast uneasy circles of melody, violent grief chained in words. The torches were low, as I had foreseen they would be. Medraut still was not drinking heavily, but I judged he had drunk enough. It was time.

  Beginning at the far end of the table I poured out the pungent yellow mead until there was only a cupful left in the pitcher, and then, standing out of the torchlight, I fumbled under my belt.

  “His spears were swifter than the wings of dawn,” sang Taliesin.

  The flask which had seemed so cold was warm under my fingers. I fumbled the stopper out and quickly poured the hemlock into the pitcher, then stopped the phial again and put it back in its place. I came forward with the music around me, smiling, and found that Medraut’s glass was empty.

  Taliesin was singing:

  For Owein to kill Fflamddwyn,

  Was easy as to sleep:

  Sleeps now the host of Lloegyr

  With the red dawn on their eyes

  And those who would not flee

  Were bolder than was wise…

  I filled Medraut’s cup, draining the last drop from the pitcher, then, as though in a dream, went back to the servants for more mead. I poured for the rest of the table quite carefully, not spilling a drop, but when I sat down again I found that I was trembling, and feared to pick up my cup lest it show how my hand shook. But Bedwyr was arguing philosophy with Gwalchmai, and Arthur was discussing politics with the emissary, and no one noticed. It remained only to wait. I felt as though I would burst into tears at any moment, and wished desperately that it was over, that it were already the morning, and that they were coming to tell us that Medraut was…

  “My lord,” said Medraut, standing and smiling at Arthur, the poisoned cup in his hand.

  Arthur looked up from his conversation with the emissary, then nodded to Taliesin. The music stopped, and the Hall, suddenly bereft of it, was very silent. I could hear the fires burning, the crackle of torches, and the dull pounding of the blood in my ears. I held the edge of the table, staring at Medraut, unable to feel much. Medraut stood straight and slender, the light glinting off his fair hair and beard, shadows caught in the folds of his purple-edged cloak. The cup he held was of bronze, inlaid with silver, and it seemed to burn in his hand, like the sun at noon.

  “My lord,” he repeated, still in the same easy tone, his clear voice carrying through the stillness of the Hall.

  “Lord Medraut,” responded Arthur, in the same tone, his voice deeper and rougher from the use it had had. “What do you wish to say?”

  Medraut smiled again. “Many things, in the course of my life, if it is allowed me. Ah, but surely, my lord, one of the best things would be to toast you, for your health, long life and long reign. But I would be reluctant to do so with this cup.” He raised it slightly. “Though I agree that to wish health and long life to the emperor is a fitting use for one’s last breath, it would not be fitting to drink to them in poison.”

  A gasp, a murmur ran around the Hall, stopped. I closed my eyes, aware how beside me Arthur went tense, feeling his gray stare fixing on Medraut, knowing the uncertainty and doubt leaping in his mind. Dear God, I thought, let me die now, here; do not let me see my disgrace…

  “I do not see the point of your joke,” Arthur said, his voice quiet but carrying. “The mead is not so bad as all that.”

  This brought a titter of nervous laughter, and abrupt silence again. My eyes opened of themselves, and I saw Medraut still standing, the cup still raised, and the bitterness growing in his face.

  “The mead, my lord, is excellent, but the hemlock has a bitter taste. It is hemlock, is it not, Lady Gwynhwyfar?”

  Arthur leapt to his feet, his hands braced against the table. “You are serious! What are you saying, man, to accuse the Empress in this way?”

  “She is trying to poison me!” Medraut shouted it. “She is a jealous, a scheming, faithless woman!” Slamming the cup down on the table, “A woman whose hand has been against me since first I came here, who has plotted against me with my mad brother. Look to yourself, Lord Pendragon, or she will plot with him against you as well! This cup is black with poison, which she with her own hand just now poured into it.”

  “By the King of Heaven, you lie,” Arthur said, not raising his voice, but using it like the edge of a sword, “I do not know whether what you say is slander or some madman’s joke, Medraut ap Lot, but I will have you know that it is treasonous, and I will hear none of it, nor will any here who know the kindness of the Empress.” There was a ragged cheer, my friends leaping to their feet; and in response shouts of anger. Arthur lifted his hand, standing above me, tall and coldly furious, and silence, imposed by the long habit of obedience, ebbed back. “You joke is in bad taste, Medraut: sit down and be silent.”

  “It is not a joke, my lord, it is a matter of murder. Look at the Empress, the most noble lady, the most kind and excellent Gwynhwyfar: look at her, if you doubt me! She knows that I speak the truth!”

  “Be silent!” shouted Arthur, and even Medraut flinched. “The Lady Gwynhwyfar has been ill all the evening, and what woman would not be shocked to hear herself sland
ered thus? Do you say that that cup is poisoned? Give it to me.”

  “My lord!” I croaked, finding no air, reaching up to catch at him.

  “It is no matter, my heart, I do not believe him,” he said, pushing me aside. “That is the cup, Medraut, ‘black with poison’?”

  “My lord,” said Medraut, now disconcerted and off balance, “do you mean to risk…”

  “I am taking no risk. Give it to me. As I am your lord and emperor, give it here.”

  Slowly, staring at him in amazement, Medraut gave him the cup. Arthur stood a moment holding it, his eyes terrifying, the amethyst on his finger burning deep purple against the bronze.

  “My lord,” I said again, trying to stop him. But his foot moved under the table and stepped on mine, hard, though he did not look at me.

  “Your cup of poison, Medraut,” he said, “is nothing but a cup of lies and cheap gossip. And I put no more credence in it than I do in any of the tales told here in Camlann, by which your brother is made to be a traitor, and I a weak fool led about by my scheming wife. So!” He set the cup to his lips. I tried to scream, found all sound frozen in my throat. Arthur drank slowly, his hand completely enveloping the bronze; he raised his other hand to the cup as well, as though he found it heavy, but he drained it and set it empty down on the table. I clutched the table’s edge until my fingers ached.

  “There is nothing whatever wrong, Medraut,” Arthur said in a level voice, smiling into Medraut’s fury and confusion, “neither with the mead nor with my wife’s honor. Your joke was savage and not at all amusing. You have my leave to go. Taliesin!” The chief poet bowed. “Some music. I do not care what, anything to keep these drunken fools quiet.”

  Taliesin struck his harp and Arthur resumed his seat, still watching Medraut with a cold smile. Medraut continued to stare back, pale with shock, for a moment—then began to laugh, loudly, over the music. Still laughing, he bowed low and left the Hall. Arthur snapped his fingers and handed the empty cup to a servant. “Some more mead,” he ordered, and the servant bowed and hurried off.

  “My lord,” I whispered.

  “Silence!” he hissed, under his breath.

  “Arthur, it was poisoned. I poisoned it. Get Gruffydd, quickly, and some emetics, it’s not too late…”

  “I didn’t drink it. Do you understand? I only swallowed a mouthful or so; the rest I poured up my sleeve. Look!” He turned his right arm over, under the table, and I saw that the inner sleeve of his tunic was soaked with the sweet mead. Then I remembered a trick he had showed me once, a way to avoid drunkenness at some other ruler’s feast: a trick of holding the cup high along the rim and pouring most of its contents over the palm and up one’s sleeve.

  I could feel the tears beginning, and I coughed to control them and the choking in my throat. “But…”

  “For God’s sake, smile, pretend it was only a vicious joke. Eternal God, you don’t want them to suspect, do you? Come, now pretend that you are giggling against my shoulder with relief…there.”

  I pressed against him. The mead on his tunic sleeve was soaking into my gown, and I made a mental note to check that it did not show before I stood. I knew that Arthur was smiling, but as I pressed by head against his shoulder I could feel the bitter rage in him, the anger at betrayal, and I had to fight even harder to control the waves of hysterical relief and of grief.

  I saw that the remains of the feast were disposed of before I went back to our house that evening. The feast went on till late, so it was very late when I returned to the house. Clouds skidded over the stars, and the fortress was very silent, except for the rustling of the wind in the thatch. The house was an oasis of lamplight: gold spilled over the swept hearth with its bright tiles, the smoke-stained wall; the inner door, then the bed with its yellow and white woolen coverlet, and the worn hanging oil lamp of red clay. Arthur was waiting, standing by the book rack, still wearing his purple cloak. The dragons worked onto its collar gleamed. His face was closed to me as it had never been closed before, and his eyes were bitterly cold.

  “Sit down,” he commanded, indicating the bed. I sat, too tired and grieved to speak. “You tried to murder my son.”

  I swallowed, swallowed again. I could not reply.

  “Was it hemlock?” he asked. “Where did you get it? Purchased from some townsman? Or did you brew it yourself?”

  “Gruffydd the surgeon keeps it to treat fevers,” I told him, finding my voice low and unexcited. “I stole some from him.”

  “Then he knows nothing of it? Good. Did you tell anyone else?”

  “No one.”

  Arthur sat down on the other end of the bed. I saw that he was shivering. I longed desperately to go to him and hold him, but I could not. Again, it was a question of sitting and waiting. “Good,” he repeated. “How he knew the cup was poisoned must be a mystery, then, for I would never have noticed the taste. At least he cannot produce anyone to confirm his story. We will not be publicly disgraced, and he has been made ridiculous. I can even send him away now. I could charge him with treason—but that would cause more problems that it would solve.” He stopped, stared at me again, and then the coldness broke and his face twisted with pain. “In God’s name, Gwynhwyfar, why?”

  “You know why!” I cried back, as though I were pleading with him. But I would not plead, I would not say, “I did it for you and for Camlann”—that would make it no less evil, and be shameless begging.

  “But it is infamous, it is tyrannical! It is the act of a coward, a sorcerer, a scheming woman; it dishonors all of us.”

  “It only dishonors me. And I am a woman, Arthur. I knew what I was doing, and what you would think of it. Perhaps I believe the same myself: nonetheless I thought it worth it, and still I wish I had succeeded.”

  Just for an instant something leapt behind his eyes, and I saw that I had misjudged his anger. It was not that he was angry that such a thing had been attempted in his Hall, but that he also wished it had succeeded, and the recognition of that wish in himself was a bitter shame to him. He saw that I saw, and we stared at each other for a long moment in complete, tortured understanding. Then Arthur stood again and drew his cloak more closely around him, still shivering. “You,” he said slowly, “you, a would-be murderess. A wicked stepmother. Oh, they will tell tales of this, to be sure.” His teeth began to chatter, and he struck the wall with his fist, then knocked over the pot of wild roses on the bedside table, spilling water and flowers onto the polished wood. He struck them, again and again, crushing the roses and driving their thorns into his hand. I watched, horrified, unable to speak. He stopped and looked back at me, his fingers tightening and loosening in the water on the desk top. “I almost drank it. I could not believe such a thing of you. Of anyone else, yes, but not of you. Oh, the devil take this chill!”

  I realized what the chill was and jumped up abruptly. “Arthur, it is the hemlock. How much did you drink?”

  “I told you. No more than one or two mouthfuls. Enough to feel the cold, but not enough to do harm…stay away.” I stopped in the middle of the floor. “I have had enough of your tender care for tonight, my lady.”

  “Arthur,” I said. The tears I had checked earlier leapt into my eyes; I could not stop them. “Arthur, forgive…I can’t ask that. I am sorry, I wish I had drunk that cup. You are cold; please let me help. Oh, it was evil, I know it was, only, please…you know I love you.”

  He did not answer. He turned away, cradling his bruised hand and still shivering. “Go to sleep,” he commanded in a harsh voice. “We must not give them one shred of confirmation of their tale. Medraut may hint that I did not drink it, but we will not give him any evidence. Go to bed. I wish to God I had drunk that cup. It would make the world very much easier to endure. Go to sleep! And for God’s sake, stop crying.”

  I undressed silently, swallowing the tears. Only when I had climbed into the bed did he turn back, put out the lamp, take off his boots and climb in beside me, still fully clothed. He lay with his back to me
, shivering, and I lay looking up at the thatch, trying not to cry. The night hours crept by more slowly than sails creep along the far horizon of the world; more slowly than a slug crawling across the petals of a rose.

  After an eternity of misery I judged by Arthur’s breathing that he was asleep, and slid close to him, putting my arms about him to warm him. In sleep he did not pull away, but moved his head against my shoulder. But when the gray dawn came in under the eaves, and I was at last beginning to drowse, Arthur woke, threw off my arms, and stamped off into the outer day. Then I curled up in the empty bed, with my head against my knees, and wept, wept bitterly because I had hurt Arthur where no one else could comfort him, forfeited my title to his love and my soul’s salvation, and had, after all of it, gained nothing at all.

  FOUR

  I was determined to act just as usual the day after the feast, since to do anything else would give an occasion for more rumors; I therefore kept to the schedule I had set, leaving the house at midmorning to speak with some freeholders of the fortress about the crops they were growing in the surrounding fields. I had Gwyn called to make notes of the amounts of grain the farmers expected. The boy was anxious, inattentive, and distressed throughout the interview, and I was probably not much better. I had a bitter headache all that day—it comes of too much weeping. But I had long years of experience behind me which Gwyn lacked: I did not have to think hard to ask all the appropriate questions and give all the appropriate congratulations and condolences. I may even have smiled at the farmers, though my heart was far away from any such mask-like smile.

  I finished the business with the freeholders and dismissed them and Gwyn as well, telling the boy to make a fair copy of the amount of grain expected that harvest and to put it in one of my account books. The farmers bowed and filed off, but Gwyn hesitated. He began to walk away, then turned and ran back. He dropped to his knees beside my chair and clasped my hand.