But the most important thing that happened to me after the army left was unconnected with any of these. Morgawse taught me to read.
She came up one afternoon as I was throwing spears at a straw target, in the yard behind the Boys’ House. One moment I was staring at the target, spear in hand, and the next I felt her eyes on my back and turned.
She stood by the corner of the House, dark and pale in the gold of the afternoon sun. She wore a dress of dark red wool, caught tightly with a golden belt at the waist, low cut to reveal the line of her white neck. She wore a brooch of gold set with garnets, golden arm rings, and gold in the black hair that seemed to drink the light. I dropped the spear and stared at her. In that instant she did not seem like a mortal woman, but like one of the Sidhe, the people from the hollow hills.
Then she was crossing the yard, smiling, and the spell was broken.
“Gwalchmai!” she said. “I have seen little of you, my hawk, these past few months, so busy have I been with this planning for your father’s war.”
I started when she called me “hawk,” although my name, in her native tongue of British, means “Hawk of May.” The name is such a warrior-like one—“hawk” being a common poetic name for a warrior—that I always tried to forget its meaning. But when my mother used the name for me, I loved it and her.
“M-mother,” I stammered. “I…”
“You are sorry for the loss?” she asked. “So am I, my hawk.”
This could not be true, I knew. My mother had given me to a nursemaid immediately after giving birth to me, and had shown no great interest in me since. But I believed her, because she said it and I wanted to believe her.
“Yes, I am sorry,” I told her.
She smiled again, her deep, secret smile. “Well, we shall have to talk a bit, shall we not? I see that you are doing as your father wished and practicing with your weapons.” She eyed the pile of throwing spears beside me—had just withdrawn them from the target, or the ground about the target, and there was nothing to show the quality of my aim. “Will you show me how well you throw them?”
I picked up the spear I had dropped, looking at her, then turned to the target, determined to hit it. Perhaps because of this determination, the spear went in well, slightly to the left of the center, plowing completely through the straw. Mor-gawse raised her eyebrows in surprised pleasure. I picked up another spear and sent it through the target, this time a little raggedly, then threw the other five in succession. Only one missed the target, and one hit the center. I turned back to my mother, beaming.
She smiled at me again. “So, it seems that you are not so poor a warrior as Lot thinks, if not so fine a one as Agra vain. Well done, my falcon.”
I wanted to sing. I glanced down and murmured, “You bring me luck. I have to do everything well when you are here, Mother.”
She laughed. “My! So you have a way with words too, then? I think we should spend more time together, Gwalchmai.”
I swallowed and nodded. My mother was the wisest and most beautiful woman in all the islands of Britain and Erin. To be allowed to spend time near her was a gift from the gods.
“Listen, then,” she said. “I have been talking to Orlamh. He says that you are a fine harper, as good as many bardic students, but more interested in the stories and sweet tunes than in the knowledge involved. It seems to me that it would be a fine thing if you could learn the histories and genealogies without having to know the chants by heart. Would you like to learn to read?”
My jaw dropped. Reading was the rarest of all skills in the Orcades. The druids had their ogham script, but they taught it to no one but their initiates, and forbade its use for any purpose but memorial inscriptions, saying that what a man memorizes he has for ever, but what he writes down he may easily lose. To learn to read meant to learn Latin, which was spoken in parts of southern Britain, but used as a written language from Erin to Constantinople. In all the Orcades, I believe only my mother could read. The skill is common enough in Britain and, now, in Erin in the monasteries there, but in the Orcades it was regarded as a kind of magic. And now my mother was offering to share her power with me!
“Well?” asked Morgawse.
“I…Yes, yes, very much!” I choked out.
Morgawse gave a smile of satisfaction, almost, I thought for a moment, of triumph, and nodded. “When you are finished with weapons practice, then, I will give you your first lesson. Come to my room.”
“I’ll come right n…”
She shook her head. “Come after you have finished with these. Hit the target fifty times for me. The Latin will wait.”
I hurried with the spears until I realized that hasty throwing would not help me hit the target, and finally got my fifty hits. I raced to the Boys’ House, dropped the spears in their corner—I would have been whipped for leaving them in the yard where they could rust—and ran to my mother’s room.
The first lesson was a simple one, though it seemed hard to me. First my mother drew out the letters of the alphabet on a wax tablet with the sharp end of a stylus, explaining to me meanwhile what an alphabet was. Then she gave me the tablet and told me to copy the letters. I did this, several times, and she told me which sounds they made. Then she took back the tablet, criticized the way I had drawn the letters, and smoothed over the wax with the blunt end of the stylus, afterwards drawing the letters again. She smiled, then, and handed me the tablet and the stylus, telling me to memorize the letters and come back after weapons practice the next day.
I ran to Medraut and told him about it, showed him the letter forms, told him what Morgawse had said about my skill with weapons, and jumped for joy all over the stables.
The rest of the summer was wonderful. I continued my lessons in Latin, rising from the alphabet to groups of syllables to the words they composed, and finally to writing out sentences which my mother set for me. I improved with my weapons to a point where I could hold my own with the other boys and was no longer the butt of every joke. My twelfth birthday came in late May, and I began to dream of when I would be fourteen and able to take up arms, a dream which now I hoped to fulfill. I could become a warrior in my father’s warband, and he would be pleased. The war, though, seemed incredibly remote from the slowly passing summer days, with their long green twilights and the short nights when the stars were like silver shield rivets in the soft sky. But my mother listened tensely to the reports from Britain, and sent messages to Lot, advising him.
It was not as easy as my father had planned. At the very beginning, my father and our ally were surprised by a sudden attack from Urien, king of Rheged. Lot had counted on the marriage-tie holding Urien back for another month or so, and, even though the British king was defeated and forced to withdraw, my father and Gwlgawd were forced to cancel their plans for raiding Gwynedd immediately. Urien’s defeat confused the situation in other ways as well, for Vortipor of Dyfed was sufficiently impressed by it to declare himself the ally of Gododdin and the Orcadles, and commence raiding Powys, his neighbor, while March ap Meirchiawn of Strathclyde managed to win Urien’s support for his own claims to the High Kingship. Vortipor then changed his mind, wanted the High Kingship for himself, found allies and attacked Gwynedd. He was defeated; my father and his allies took advantage of the situation to attack Gwynedd themselves, and won a victory and a great deal of plunder, but, returning from this expedition, encountered Urien and March and their allies. There was a great battle.
It was nearly two weeks later before we heard, even with good winds and fast ships. Gwlgawd our ally was dead, though his son Mynyddog had succeeded him and renewed the alliance. But our enemies had prevailed, and the army had fled across Britain to Din Eidyn, leaving its supplies and the plunder from Gwynedd. My father was sending back as many ships as he could find men to man, and he asked for supplies. My mother found them ruthlessly and hurriedly, and sent them south with some advice. I thought at the time that she was troubled for Lot and Agravain and the rest; but I believe she was angry, angry wi
th Lot for losing the battle, and angry even more at the delay in her plans.
But the rest of the summer was passed in fruitless quarrelling and recrimination among the kings of Britain. March of Strathclyde and Urien of Rheged, recently allied, returned to their more usual dislike for one another, and Urien claimed the High Kingship for himself, which led to still more quarrels and scheming. Then it was harvest time, and the large armies which the kings had raised dissolved as the men went home to their farms, leaving only the kings and the royal warbands; and still nothing happened, while every king was afraid to raid, not knowing who his enemies were. In the south and east the Saxons were becoming very restless and beginning to raid their neighbors. Only the old royal warband, still led by my mother’s half-brother Arthur, prevented a large-scale invasion.
Towards the end of October Lot finally despaired of the war beginning again in earnest, and the army came home for the winter.
Every king took his own warband home to his own island. They settled like tired hawks in their hill-top fortresses and sighed with relief that it was over for the year and they had time to recover their strength and heal their wounds.
When Lot returned with his warband it was not a shining, stirring sight as before. It had been a bad war, an uncertain, nerve-straining war, and they were tired. Their shields were hacked, the bright colors chipped, their spears notched and dull, colorful cloaks tattered. Many bore wounds. Come spring, though, and they’d be thrusting up those hacked shields as proof of how bravely they had fought, flaunting their scars in each other’s faces, polishing their spears and eager to go again. But as they came into Dun Fionn, tramping stolidly through the pouring rain, it did not seem possible that they would ever boast.
Morgawse, Medraut and I stood at the gate, watching the warband come up. Morgawse wore a dark, striped dress, a silver brooch on her dark cloak. She wore the rain in her hair like jewels. Lot, riding at the head of the warband, straightened to see her, and urged his horse to a canter. He dismounted before her in a rush and swept her into his arms, burying his face in her neck, saying her name in a hoarse whisper. I saw her face over his shoulder, the still, cold disgust in her eyes mixed with a strange pride in her power.
“Welcome home, my lord,” she murmured, disengaging herself. “We are glad to see you home unharmed.”
Lot nodded, muttered, and looked towards the Hall and his chambers there.
“And where is Agravain, my son?” she asked, softly.
Lot recollected himself, took one arm from about her and turned to the warband, which was now pouring through the gate, talking and laughing with the gladness of coming home. “Agravain!” he shouted.
A blond head jerked up, and Agravain rode across to Lot. He was a little older, a little taller, much dirtier, and looked more like Lot, but I recognized at once that he was not much changed. He slid off his horse, smiling widely, delighted to be back.
“Greetings, Mother,” he said.
“A thousand welcomes,” said Morgawse. “There is a feast tonight for the both of you…but you will want to rest now.To sleep, my lord.” She smiled at Lot.
My father grinned, took her arm and hurried off.
Agravain watched them go, then turned to Medraut and me. “Well,” he said, then grinned hugely. “By the sun and the wind, it’s good to see you again!” and he hugged both of us hard. “What a summer!”
“I can get you some ale if you want to come into the Hall and talk,” I suggested, glad—in spite of everything, very glad—to have him home.
“A marvellous idea!” said Agravain. “Especially the ale.” He looked at Medraut, rumpled his hair. “Gwalchmai, I swear our brother’s grown inches since last I saw him. Even you’ve grown.”
“You too.”
“Have I?” he asked delightedly. “That’s wonderful! When I’m tall enough Father will give me a mail-coat. He promised.”
We walked over to the feast Hall, where I got him some ale and asked him about the war. He was near to bursting from eagerness to tell someone and told us for an hour and a half.
He had not, it seemed, actually fought as a warrior, but he had ridden in the middle of the warband, and in the great battle had thrown spears at the enemy.
“I think one of them may have hit someone,” he said hopefully. “But, of course, we couldn’t go back to see whether it had. We barely escaped alive at all!”
His manner was a little different from what it had been when he left. His energy, always overflowing, had found a channel. He enjoyed being a warrior. He had copied the speech and mannerisms of the older warriors so as to fit into their society. But underneath it I could tell he was exactly the same.
He was overjoyed to be back. The last months of the war had been especially unpleasant. A major blood feud had almost begun between two of Lot’s under-kings, and at one point there had been a threat of war with Gododdin as the warbands tried to ease their tension by sneering at foreigners. The peace and familiarity of home seemed, after this, marvelously attractive.
After talking himself out, Agravain yawned and decided to go to sleep. He stayed in the Hall to rest since he was officially a warrior, and I didn’t see him till late the next day.
Lot, after settling himself and the warband back into Dun Fionn, began to work towards the next season’s war. It would plainly be a war lasting several years, and such enterprises are costly. The plunder taken that summer would not pay for even the fighting that had acquired it, let alone buy new weapons, and the harvest had been a bad one. My father increased the amount of tribute he demanded from his subject kings by as much as he dared; the subject kings raised the taxes on their people; and the people grumbled. There had not been a war on this scale for nineteen years, and no one was used to it.
For a little while Agravain tried to help our father at the business of governing. He stayed, listening, while Lot flattered the embassies and cajoled the messengers of dissatisfied kings, and took one party to a blood feud off drinking or hunting while Lot persuaded the other, by threats and promises, to compromise and make peace. He attended while old men made endless complaints to Lot about the increased tribute and proclaimed their masters’ nobility and long support as reasons for not paying it, and he tried not to fall asleep while Lot issued warnings and blandishments in return. But presently Agravain found statecraft boring, and complaining that our father paid no attention to any of his ideas, turned once more to his weapons and his own friends. Lot was annoyed at first—Agravain had understood very little of what he had heard, and on the occasions he did suggest some course of action, it was invariably the wrong one—but Agravain was still the chosen heir to the kingship, and Lot was determined that he should know the chief men and clans of the kingdom, and how to deal with them. However, our father concluded that Agravain was still the chosen heir to the kingship, and Lot was determined that he should know the chief men and clans of the kingdom, and how to deal with them. However, our father concluded that Agravain was young, that the hunting was good that year, and it was excusable for a young man in such circumstances to tire of the talk of his elders. So he allowed Agravain to do as he pleased, knowing there would be many more chances for him to learn the art of government. For my part, I was not surprised that Agravain preferred his hunting trips. He needed action, quick and preferably violent, simply to keep himself occupied. Statecraft offers exercise for cunning, organization, eloquence and subtlety, rarely for direct action. My father was more cunning than a fox, and enjoyed the complicated processes by which he kept his subject kings obedient, kept them paying the tribute, prevented their wars and blood feuds while at the same time holding their favor and thus his own position. Agravain did not understand the delicate nature of Lot’s “game,” tired quickly, and ran off to seek entertainment. He went a-hunting, but he did not forget me.
A few weeks after the warband returned, towards the end of November, he came to the yard of the Boys’ House while I was at weapons practice. I was working with the throwing spear
s again. It is harder to throw a spear straight while running than it is to master a thrusting spear or a sword, but important to be able to do so. Thus, I spent most of my practice time hurling spears at a straw target, sometimes running towards it, sometimes standing still. I was standing this time.
Agravain walked up behind me and stood watching as I made three casts at the target. All of them hit, one in the center. Agravain frowned. “You’ve been working at these, this summer, haven’t you?”
I turned to him, flushing a little with pride. I had not yet shown off my new skill before my father and brother, and I was eager to. I nodded. “Yes, an hour a day with the throwing spears, and an hour with the thrusting spear or sword and shield, beyond the training time. I’m better than I used to be.”
He nodded, then scowled. “You’re better, and that’s good. But if you try to throw like that in a battle you’ll be run through…”
“Durrough says there’s no harm in standing like this, and he’s the trainer…”
“He doesn’t expect much from you. Put your left foot further back and your left arm closer to your body. You have to hold a shield, you know!”
“But…”
“Oh, by the sun, why are you arguing? I’m trying to help you.” He grinned.
Was he? The grin faded as I continued to stare at him, and he scowled again, fists clenching and unclenching restlessly. I took the stance he suggested and hurled the spear, nervously. I missed.
He shook his head. “By the sun and the wind, not like that! Hold the spear straight, may the Morrigan take you—not that a war-goddess would want someone who throws like that!”
I cringed, threw another spear. It, too, missed.
Hawk of May (Down the Long Way 1) Page 3