by Gawain (lit)
“A night’s fast won’t hurt us. Unless,” she added, struck by a sudden inspiration, “d’you think there are any fish in that stream?”
That caught his interest as she had known it would. He dismounted and helped Aislyn down, then hung Gringolet’s saddle on a branch and looped the reins over it. The stallion bent his head and began to pull at the thick grass as Gawain walked to the bank and crouched to peer into a pool. “Look at them all! If only I had a line . . .”
“We could use my shawl as a net,” Aislyn suggested. She hiked up her skirts, tucking them into her girdle, and chose a spot upstream from the pool where the water ran shallow, enjoying the feeling of it on her feet, cool enough to soothe but not so cold as to make her bones ache. “I’ll stand here and you can drive them toward me,” she said, spreading her shawl before her.
Gawain regarded her for a moment, no doubt reflecting on the improbability of catching anything by that method, but then he shrugged and snapped two leafy branches from the tree above his head. “Move to your left a bit,” he said, pulling off his boots.
Aislyn was pleased to see him grin as he waded barefoot into the brook. “Ready?”
She grasped the edges of her shawl. “Go on.”
His face was intent as he peered into the water, and slowly he began to move in her direction, sweeping the branches to either side. “There!” he cried, surprising her, and she pulled the shawl tight, lifting it into the air. The unexpected weight of it sent her reeling, but he ran to her and caught her before she fell.
“Are you all right?”
“Aye, I’m fine—and look!” She held the wriggling shawl aloft. “I got one!”
“So you did! Two, in fact.” He laughed as he took it from her. She laughed, as well, feeling a rush of pride when he said, “Well done!”
“Shall we try for another?”
“Are you up to it?”
“Oh, aye.”
By the time dusk gathered beneath the tree trunks, the fish were cleaned and Aislyn was washing her hands in the water. Up on the bank, Gawain was adding dry grass to the tiny blaze he’d kindled. His cheek was a bit red and his lip had begun to swell, but for all that, he looked happier than she had seen him since she arrived at court. She stood a moment, watching him plant two forked branches beside the fire, which would hold another branch upon which their three trout were impaled.
By the time she made her way up the slope, Gawain was stretched full length beside the fire, his expression pensive. “What are you thinking?” she asked, sitting down upon a boulder.
“About the bairn,” he said, surprising her. “Such a wee small thing . . .”
“Big enough,” Aislyn said, shuddering as she remembered the hours it had taken to bring her forth. “And sturdy, too. I think she’ll do well enough.”
“Aye.” Gawain smiled a little, but his gaze was wistful as he stared into the flames. “Gudrun is a fool.”
“That he is, but he’s a sorry fool tonight,” Aislyn said, but Gawain’s expression did not lighten.
“Do you have any faith, Ragnelle?” he asked after a moment, his eyes flicking up to her face.
“Yes,” she said, the answer slipping out before she stopped to think. “At least—well, for a long time I did not. I was brought up to believe one way, you see, and I kept all the rules as I was bidden. I felt I’d lived up to my side of the bargain, so when I needed help and it didn’t come for the asking, I gave up the whole business as a bad job. But now . . . well, now I think I didn’t quite understand. I still don’t,” she said honestly, “but I believe there is something . . . not a stern judge to fear, or a huckster who trades favors for obedience, but . . . something too beautiful to bear, just beyond our sight. I can feel it here,” she added, gesturing around the dusky clearing toward the stream, where a pearly mist hung over the singing water.
“Aye.” Gawain nodded. “Aye, I can, as well.” He sighed deeply, then smiled and sat up to hang the trout over the fire.
The fish were excellent. Only when the last morsel had been finished did Aislyn notice that her skirts were still clinging damply to her legs. She lowered herself from the rock where she’d been sitting with a groan.
“Are you all right?” he asked, putting out a hand to help her down.
“Just a bit creaky in the joints.” She leaned against a tree and rubbed her shoulder. “I hate being old,” she burst out, surprising both of them.
“You did too much,” he said. “I’m sorry—”
“No, no, it isn’t that. A few more aches don’t matter.”
“Then what is it?” he asked, stretching out on his side and propping his head on his hand. “Go on, I want to know.”
“You look at me and see a hideous old woman, but inside, in here—” She touched her heart. “—I’m still a lass.”
Gawain stirred the fire with a twig. “What were you like . . .”
“When I was young?” She laughed without humor. “You won’t believe it, but I was a beauty.”
“Oh, I believe it,” he said quietly. “I can see it in your eyes.”
She looked away, blinking hard.
“And I don’t think you’re hideous.” He touched her hand. “Truly.”
She let out a sound, half a sob and half a snort of disbelief. “You’re a good man, Gawain.”
His lips twisted in a smile. “Is that why you left me?”
Hope flared in her, so bright and sharp that it was close to pain. It wasn’t love he felt—not the sort that a man feels for a woman he desires—but it was something. Could it be enough to break Morgana’s spell?
“I wasn’t leaving you for good,” she said gently. “Just for a bit. I did not want to meet your mother.”
“Are you afraid of her?” he asked, surprised.
“I’d be a rare fool if I wasn’t! I thought that if I could meet her at the Midsummer Feast, it would be easier. So why don’t I go back to my little hut tomorrow, and—”
Gawain shook his head. “She’ll mind her tongue, I’ve seen to that. And you needn’t meet her if you’d rather not.”
“That’s kind of you to say, but I think it would be best if I just stayed away for a few days.”
“No,” he said decidedly, “I want you where I can keep an eye on you. And you must promise not to run off again without so much as a farewell.”
“It was wrong of me to do that,” she admitted. “But when I learned your mother had come to court I didn’t stop to think.”
“And that,” he said, “is why I should do the thinking for us both. You are coming back with me tomorrow. Now, don’t let’s quarrel,” he added, smiling and holding out his hand. “Come and see the nice bed I made for you.”
Aislyn knew when she was being managed, but when she saw Gawain’s cloak laid upon a thick mound of soft greenery, her resentment collapsed into a muddle of confusion.
“Where will you sleep?” she asked, lying down on the pallet, which smelled deliciously of fresh-cut grass.
“I’ll be fine here,” he said, sitting cross-legged by the fire and laying his sword within reach.
She wanted to protest, or at least offer to share the watch with him in turn, but she was asleep before she formed the words.
Chapter 27
GAWAIN wasn’t looking forward to telling Arthur what had happened with Sir Gudrun, but in the event, he never had the chance.
“What,” Arthur said by way of greeting, “were you thinking?”
The king sat behind the long table in his presence chamber, doing what he hated most. Parchments were piled all around him, his hair was awry, and the finger he tapped impatiently upon the table was stained with ink.
“You are speaking of Sir Gudrun, I presume?”
“None other. This—” Arthur plucked a parchment from the pile and waved it in the air. “—is from King Aesc. He wonders why my nephew—my heir—seems determined to wreck an alliance we have worked so long and hard to build—one that is in danger, as well you know, of
imminent collapse. An alliance,” he went on, his voice rising to a shout, “purchased at the cost of many brave men whose lives I believed—perhaps mistakenly—you valued as much as did their widows and their orphans. For their sakes, perhaps you would be so kind as to give me an answer I might pass on to our ally, and that he, in turn, might relate to those of his council who are demanding your head. Because I tell you, Gawain, I tell you in all honesty, I have no idea what to say to him.”
“Sir Gudrun was impertinent,” Gawain began.
Arthur drew in a sharp breath. “Impertinent? He had better have been a good deal more than that.”
“I didn’t kill the man!”
“No, you did worse. You shamed him. You know how these Saxons think, you’re not a fool. Gudrun is now your sworn enemy—you have all but driven him into the arms of his Wessex kin! He was one of the few voices on Aesc’s council we could trust to speak for us, and now—”
“Is he really such a half man that he would bring all his people to war simply because he cannot endure a beating? One he all but begged for, I might add, and one I was right pleased to give him.”
Arthur began to speak, checked himself, then bent his head, raking his ink-stained fingers through his hair. “Tell me what happened.”
“Sir Gudrun’s lady was on the way to meet her mother when her birth pangs overcame her. Her escort went in search of a woman to help her, and they came upon Dame Ragnelle. She delivered Sir Gudrun’s daughter—single-handed, in the depths of the forest—and when Sir Gudrun arrived on the scene, he began to abuse his lady for not giving him the son he had hoped for.”
Arthur nodded briefly. “Go on.”
“Ragnelle took him to task for it. You can say that it was foolish and I will not disagree, but she felt herself bound to defend the lady. Gudrun, being what he is, decided to vent his spleen on Ragnelle, and so I came upon them. I tried to withdraw peacefully, sire. On my word, I did all I could to take Ragnelle and leave. But Gudrun spoke such insults as could not in honor be ignored.”
“In short, Dame Ragnelle interfered in a private quarrel between a man and his wife, and you, for reasons known only to yourself, upheld her.”
“Had she been at fault, I would have been the first to chide her. But the Saxon lady, Gudrun’s bride—who is little more than a child, sire, and had just endured a terrible ordeal—did not merit such treatment at his hands.”
“I find it passing strange, Gawain, that you would concern yourself with a lady hitherto unknown to you—a Saxon lady, at that!”
“What has that to do with it? Is not the protection of all women the duty of all knights?”
“Of course it is, but—damn it, the lady is Gudrun’s wife! ’Tis only natural he would be disappointed, and at such a time any man might say things he would later regret.”
“Any man? Would you, sire?”
Arthur frowned. “What I would say is not the issue.”
“Gudrun drew back his hand to strike Ragnelle—he told me to take my bitch and begone. What would you have had me do?”
“I had not heard that,” Arthur admitted, “but from all you’ve said, he was sorely tried. Gawain, Dame Ragnelle is simply unendurable, and she has brought you naught but misfortune and unhappiness.”
“I thought you don’t approve of interfering between a man and his wife,” Gawain said evenly.
“I don’t. But when she endangers Britain, it becomes my concern. I am sorry, Gawain, but Dame Ragnelle must go. Send her to Lothian or Orkney—or if you do not want her so far, find a convent where she can live. But she cannot remain at court.”
“So all the blame is to fall on her?” Gawain demanded. “Is that what you mean to tell King Aesc? That Ragnelle is at fault, and has perforce been banished?”
“Yes,” Arthur said. “That is precisely what I mean to tell him.”
“But I—”
“You would oblige me very much, Gawain, if you would accept my decision without argument.”
Outside the long window, the sun was setting behind a heavy bank of clouds. Only a few shafts of golden light pierced the mist-laden air, lending the garden an unearthly beauty. Gawain remembered the eve of his knighting, when he and Arthur sat together on the low stone wall planning the future. He had agreed with Arthur then that the Saxon settlers were here to stay; the only way to a united Britain was to ally with them. What battles must be fought should be swift and decisive; not an end in themselves but a preface to the real work that would begin once Britain was at peace. He had lost sight of that goal when he allowed his personal feelings to intrude, but to break his word to Ragnelle and allow her to be punished for his fault would only compound his failure.
“Very well, sire,” he said. “Dame Ragnelle shall leave court for a time, while I go to King Aesc and apologize. And to Sir Gudrun, as well,” he added with an effort he hoped did not show, “formally, before all his kin.”
Arthur shook his head. “I have given this a good deal of thought, and I believe any apologies would only worsen matters.”
“But I must say something to King Aesc,” Gawain protested. “We are meant to meet in ten day’s time and discuss—”
“You will not be meeting with him. In fact,” Arthur said, rearranging the parchments before him, “I think it would be best if you stayed clear of the Saxon matter for a time.”
“I do not understand—”
“You’ve been under a good deal of strain of late, Gawain, even if you will not admit it. I don’t want you to concern yourself with anything; just leave it all to me.”
Not concern himself? This was Gawain’s work—more, it was his life. Did they count for nothing, then, all the nights lying on cold earth, the battles he had fought, the weeks—sometimes months—he had spent sweating over each clause of the treaties he negotiated once the battles had been won? He had ridden from one end of Britain to the other a dozen times at least, either in warfare or as the king’s emissary, and now, after one misstep, he was to be dismissed like an erring squire? And someone else was to—
Oh, no, he thought, I am wrong. Arthur would not—
“Who is to carry your message, then?” His voice seemed to come from very far away. “Who is to treat with them in your name?”
“Sir Lancelot.”
Gawain felt as though he had been dealt a solid blow between the eyes; numb, but with the certainty of pain to follow.
“He and Sir Gudrun have always been on good terms,” Arthur went on, “and I believe, given his reputation and his—well, his standing at court, that King Aesc will accept him.”
Gawain was on his feet with no memory of having risen from his seat, and once standing, he had no idea of where he meant to go. He had just reached the door when Arthur spoke again. “About Dame Ragnelle—”
“I shall see to it.”
“I only wanted to say that I am sorry.”
“Yes, sire. So am I,” Gawain said politely, and stepping into the corridor, he shut the door silently behind him.
Chapter 28
GAWAIN walked through the courtyard to the practice yard below. Not bothering to go round to the gate, he vaulted the fence around the enclosure where he had spent so many hours, first in learning and then in teaching the lads who flocked to court.
The yard was empty now. The boys Gawain had taught were long gone—some dead in battle, others to their own lands, a few up in the hall, which spilled light and laughter into the dusk. All that was left was the quintain, standing to attention like a forgotten soldier on a deserted battlefield.