Kingdom of Summer

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “You can tell Goronwy what you want, and see.”

  Gwalchmai nodded, and we started back to the house. My father excused himself outside the barn and went to check on the cattle in the byres.

  “How did the spear break the mail?” I found myself asking, as we trudged up the hill. “I thought chain mail would keep a man safe.”

  “It was a thrusting spear.” I must have looked blank, because Gwalchmai suddenly smiled and explained. “Chain mail will keep off throwing spears, provided you’re not too close to the thrower of them, and it can turn the edge of a sword or knife if the blow is shallow. But a thrusting spear, or the point of a sword, or a hard, straight blow with a good sword, will cut mail like leather. You’d expect more of the stuff, knowing the price of it, wouldn’t you? Still, it’s a deal better than the next best.”

  “How much did you pay for yours?” I asked, curious.

  “I didn’t buy it. I took it from a Saxon chieftain.”

  After killing him, of course. A hard, straight blow with a good sword? I looked at the jeweled hilt of Gwalchmai’s sword, glowing against the gray of my second-best over-tunic. The gear of war has a beauty which had spun a glitter of steel and bronze and bright banners over all my thoughts of it, ever since I first saw a party of warriors ride down the south road from Caer Legion to Camlann one summer morning. But, after all, that gear and glitter were only the tools of a trade, and that trade was killing or being killed. Why should I consider it glorious? I was old enough to know better.

  The sword was still very beautiful.

  Gwalchmai ate somewhat more that evening than he had the night before. He thanked my mother for the meal, very courteously. The hoarseness was gone from his voice, but he still spoke softly. Morfudd, the elder of my sisters, was very quick to notice anything he might need, and watched him, demurely but with a glint in her eyes. I knew she would discuss him with my other sister later. I could see why a woman would. I suddenly thought of my own face in contrast. Not the sort, I feared, to inspire that kind of look from women. More the kind that evokes sisterly confidences, and from women other than my sisters. No, not ugly, but big-boned, red-headed and blue-eyed like my father, and irregularly freckled in summer. Everyone always observed that I looked honest. An honest farmer, of a reasonably prosperous clan, of an age to settle down with some honest wife and continue the clan. Gwalchmai’s face was fine-featured, with high cheek bones and dark eyes, his beard, now trimmed down close to the jaw, making his face look even narrower. He looked like what he was, a warrior and twice royal. Why should I feel that that was so much more than what I was? Britain could do without warriors more easily than without farmers, and kings and their clans come and go, while my clan had farmed the land around Mor Hafren before the Romans came.

  But with Britain as it was now, if the warriors had not fought, the only farmers about Mor Hafren would be Saxons, and I and my clan, if we lived and stayed free, would be looking for land among the mountains of Gwynedd, or across the sea in Less Britain. The Pendragon had saved us, and the man who sat across the table from me refusing the ale Morfudd was offering him, he had fought against the darkness…

  I was the one who ate only a little at that meal. My mother gave me a hard look as she took away my plate, a “come-and-tell-me-about-it-later” look. I wondered if I could. “Mother, when this warrior goes off again, I want to go with him. I want to see Camlann and Saxons and war; I want to abandon my family for the sort of thing this Gwalchmai has embittered himself with.” No, it would not do, It was a child’s plea, an absurdity, and it was impossible anyway. It was just as unlikely that Gwalchmai would be willing to take me as that my mother would be willing to let me go.

  We sat down by the hearth fire, and Gwalchmai asked my father polite questions about the householding and the clan, and the land around Mor Hafren, and the last harvest, and listened very attentively to the answers. It took my father a while to work the talk about to his own questions. He eventually did it, though.

  “…set them out to pasture when the snow isn’t too deep, even in the mid-winter. But now, well, too cold for anything of the kind, and they won’t leave the byre. Cleverer than humans that way. Or than some humans.”

  “I am not clever, then?” Gwalchmai looked serious, but his eyes were a trifle too bright.

  “You are traveling at a time when sensible men sit by the fire.”

  “I am sitting by the fire now.”

  “But what we had to do to put you there! Truly, lord Gwalchmai, when did you set out, and why?”

  “As to the when, at the beginning of November; as to the why—I am looking for a woman. She may have come this way, eight years ago, in the late autumn. A fair-haired woman, who rode a brown mare and was followed by two servants, one of them an old man with half an ear missing. She had blue eyes, may have worn blue, and spoke with a northern accent.”

  “A noblewoman?” asked my father. “No, I’ve not seen nor heard of such a woman. But why are you looking for her?”

  “I…owe her something. I have not had the opportunity of repaying her, while the war lasted, and now that we have peace in Britain, I am trying to find her again.”

  “In the middle of winter? Who is she?”

  Gwalchmai looked down. “Sion, it is a complicated tale, and a long one, and one not greatly to my credit.”

  My father shrugged, fumbled at the foot of his stool, and picked up a piece of wood he had been carving into a cup. “As you please. But, if the tale is long, we’ve this night and the next, and on till that wound of yours is healed, my lord.” He stopped, his eyes meeting Gwalchmai’s. “Why does it trouble you so?”

  Gwalchmai smiled. “Because it is a bitter memory.” We were quiet for a moment, and then he went on abruptly. “I loved that woman once, and wronged her.”

  My father eyed his cup, and began to whittle at the rim, studiously avoiding Gwalchmai’s eyes. “And you still love her?”

  “As God witnesses me, yes. But I must seek her forgiveness at the least. I did not ask it when we parted, and I had brought great suffering onto her.” There was another long silence. Gwalchmai looked at his hands, the long fingers twined together on his knees. “You’ve a right to hear the tale, Sion ap Rhys, if you wish it. I’ve no right to conceal the matter to save my pride, or to preserve an honor which I forfeited to her. And I also owe you a debt.”

  “Mm. Of trust,” said my father, beginning to carve properly. The knife made a soft chk-ing sound. “I should like to hear the tale.”

  Gwalchmai looked up and into the fire, as men do when they summon their memories of an event, and wonder how to set the words to it. He rubbed the palm of his sword hand against his knee, slowly, as though something clung to it.

  “I suppose, then, that it began in the spring, eight years ago,” he said. The wind rustled in the thatch, and my mother’s needle glinted as she sewed. Gwalchmai straightened and sat motionless, eyes still fixed on the fire. “Eight years ago, in the spring of the year, my lord Arthur sent me on an embassy to Caer Ebrauc. The old king, Caradoc, had died, and his nephew Bran ap Caw, the eldest of the twelve sons of Caw, succeeded him. All the sons of Caw were enemies of Arthur over some blood feud begun when my lord seized the High Kingship, so my lord feared that Bran might begin a rebellion. This was during our northern campaign against the Saxons of Deira and Bernicia and the other northern kingdoms. The campaign had till then gone well, and the Saxons were feeling the force of our raids, but to no greater degree than that which made them determined to have revenge on us. They were as much stronger than us as they ever were, especially when they leagued together, but we had moved about, striking where they least expected it, and raided until they had had to go hungry a bit that winter. It would take another year at least, though, before they would have to make and keep terms, and a rebellion by one of the British kingdoms at that point could be fatal to us.
My lord had to send an ambassador to Bran to try his mind, and to conciliate him. He chose me.”

  “You were fairly young at the time.” My father gave him a sharp look. “That was only a year after I met you.”

  “I was just eighteen.” Gwalchmai smiled. “But my lord had to send one of his best warriors, or Bran would be insulted. He couldn’t send Cei or Gereint or my brother Agravain, because they’d be liable to throw wine in Bran’s face the moment he hinted any insult to Arthur, which would hardly conciliate the man. He couldn’t send Bedwyr, because he is a Breton and only moderately well-born—though a nobler man never breathed upon the earth—and Bran could be insulted at that, if he chose to be. He told me all this when I pointed out that I was too young. He sent me.”

  “Gwalchmai the Golden-tongued,” murmured Morfudd coyly.

  He laughed, glancing at her. “Cei first called me that as a joke. Well, I set out for Caer Ebrauc from King Urien’s fortress in Rheged, I, and two others from Arthur’s Family. The roads were bad, and it took us some seven days, though we all had fine horses. The apple trees were beginning to blossom, though, and the woods were becoming green. My horse Ceincaled ran like the sun on the waves. I thought it very good to be alive, to be young, to be Arthur’s warrior—the last was still new to me. I had no great concern for Bran of Llys Ebrauc. I could not in my heart see how any man in Britain could oppose Arthur and his Family. There is no one like my lord Arthur the High King, and no war-leader so great in all Britain.

  “But, when we reached Caer Ebrauc, I began to see that Bran might be a danger after all. The city is one that the Romans built to keep their legions in, and it has a great wall, still strongly fortified, and a great deal of room for warriors, while the land about it is rich and well populated. The town behind the wall is more than half abandoned, like any other town this age, but it is prosperous enough. The king’s warband stays in one of the old Roman barracks, instead of in a feast hall or their own houses. It is a large warband. Mostly foot fighters, not cavalry, but still, some five hundred trained, well-armed warriors. And Ebrauc could also raise an army from the subject clans, while Arthur had to rely on his subject kings for that, and they are not easily to be relied upon. I rode into Caer Ebrauc with greater care than that with which I had ridden up to it.

  “Bran lived in the palace of some ancient Roman commander, which had last been repaired by some vicar of the north a century or so ago. I and the others would stay with him, as fitted our rank. We stopped in front of this palace, gave our horses to the grooms, and tried to see that our luggage was put somewhere safe before we went in to see Bran. While we were busy arguing with the servants, a girl came out of the palace and went over to the grooms to see that the horses were stabled.”

  He fell silent for a moment, then shook his head. “The sunlight was as clear as spring water over clean sand, and the doves were cooing on the broken tiles of the roof. She walked like the shadow of a bird on a clear stream. Her hair was the color of broom flowers. When she reached the horses, she felt my eyes on her, and turned around, and blushed when she saw me watching. Then, the servants had the luggage, and we were being shown in to the king.

  “I felt like a harp-string which has just been plucked. I wanted to make a song about the way she moved. I think my blood was singing. But I had to still myself to speak with Bran.”

  “Was she very beautiful?” asked Morfudd eagerly. My mother looked at her sharply. Gwalchmai stared a moment, then looked away and shrugged.

  “She seemed so to me. Others have told me, no.” He paused, and added harshly, “Her nose was too long, her teeth too big, and she was thin as a fence post.”

  “But you said…”

  “I said! Well, but there was the way she moved, the way she lifted her skirts to run a little, and turned her head, and the light that slid across her face when she smiled. Let her stand still, and you might call her plain; but when she moved, or spoke, she was like a skylark above the hills. She it was that made herself beautiful, not the beauty given by nature.”

  He looked back at the fire, clenching his fists, and spoke as though it caused pain—which, for a man such as he, it doubtless did. “And that was all. I wanted to see her again, and thought that I desired her, but I didn’t particularly care if I knew her name. It was the way we talk of such things. I had never…well, she made me feel a great thing, but I had no thought that she could feel, too. God forgive me, but I wanted to enjoy myself and give nothing.”

  Gwalchmai gave my father a straight, fierce look, then unclenched his hands, rubbed them together and went on. “I went and talked to Bran of Llys Ebrauc. It was a fine combat of words. He kept suggesting or hinting deadly insults, and I kept twisting them about into straightforward questions or harmless comments, and both of us hinted at the political implications unceasingly. In the end, Bran asked me how long I intended to stay. My lord had told me, ‘Stay there as long as the situation requires,’ and it was plain to me that the situation required me to watch Bran constantly. So I replied, ‘By your leave, I will stay until my lord enjoins my return.’ Bran didn’t like it. He knew that he couldn’t prepare any rebellion while I remained in Ebrauc, and he did not dare to order me killed, for fear of my lord’s vengeance. I could see him trying to think of some way he could say that I had insulted him, so that he could command me to leave; but he had no reasonable pretext. So he told me he would give a feast that night, to welcome me, and that all of his were mine for the using, and so on. I was glad to get away from him. But, when I lay down to rest before the feast, I thought again of the girl. It seemed to me that she must be one of Bran’s servants: she had been plainly dressed, and had seen to the horses. Bran had made an offer of hospitality, and I thought, ‘If we must stay a while, perhaps I will take him up on it.’ I fell asleep wondering what she would look like when she smiled.

  “She was, indeed, at the feast. She came in on the left side of the hall, to pour the wine for the high table, and she wore a dress of blue silk fastened with gold, and more gold in her hair. Bran smiled at her, and said, half-laughing, ‘Why, the moon is rising!’ and she smiled back and filled his glass. The man next to me whispered, ‘That is Elidan, daughter of Caw, the king’s sister.’

  “And that, I told myself, is that. I could spend my time with serving girls, if I pleased, but Elidan, daughter of Caw, the king’s sister, was not to be touched, and most especially not to be touched by her brother’s enemy.

  “She poured the wine, and sat down beside Bran, taking the queen’s part, since his own wife was dead in childbirth. After a little while, she rose again to refill the glasses, and when she came to pour for me, some of the wine spilled. She gave a little gasp and nearly dropped the jug. I caught the side of it to steady it, and my hand touched hers, my eyes meeting hers as I looked up. She blushed again, and I could feel the trembling in her hand. The wine shivered, light and dark rippling on its surface.

  “I let go the jug. After a moment, she filled my glass, curtseyed and went on down the table. I watched her as she went, and my blood was singing again.

  “We stayed at Ebrauc, and Bran and Bran’s people by and large ignored us. Some tried to quarrel, but both the men I had chosen to come with me knew how to pretend they hadn’t heard, or even that they didn’t care. Still, it was no pleasant place for us, and I wished fiercely to be back with my lord Arthur, fighting. I knew that the Family had been gathered, and had raised the standard and ridden off to war. They were all there, my brother Agravain, my friends Cei, Bedwyr and the rest; and I sat about at Llys Ebrauc, a dead weight on the earth. I knew that Arthur wanted me where I was, and that it was an honor to be trusted with such a task—but it was early May! I could have killed from sheer frustration.

  “And then I had a chance meeting with Elidan, and forgot all else.

  “About a week after my arrival, I went to the stables to see to my horse, and she was there, looking at t
he horse. I had not seen her since the feast. When I came up, she blushed again, and backed off from the stall.

  “‘You needn’t be afraid,’ I told her, ‘he won’t hurt you.’ She looked at me, gave a little bow with her head, and stood still. I went into the stall and caught Ceincaled’s halter, and he snorted and nuzzled my wrist. ‘See?’ I told the girl. ‘He is very gentle.’ Still she said nothing. ‘Would you like to come and see him?’

  “She edged closer slowly, coming into the stall on the opposite side of the horse. Very carefully, she put out a hand to pat his neck. He eyed her and flicked his ears forward, and she smiled. I thought it was the first time my eyes opened, when I saw her smile.

  “‘Is this Ceincaled?’ she asked, in a low voice like the sound of a soft note on the pipes. ‘Is it true that he is of no mortal breed?’

  “I told her yes, it was true, and, when she questioned me and smiled again, I told her the whole story. I am not in the habit of telling it, and certainly not as I told it then, to impress. But it had charm enough for her, and she listened with her eyes shining and her lips slightly parted.

  “‘So I am blessed with the finest of horses,’ I told her, when I finished the tale, and, before I myself knew what I was saying, I went on, ‘Though he needs exercising, as any other. Do you know of a good place to ride, my lady?’ ‘There’s Herfydd’s Wood,’ she replied. ‘A very lovely place. There are open meadows in it, too, where horses can run.’ And then she paused, and added, ‘I am taking my mare there this afternoon, if you wish me to point out the way.’ ‘I would indeed wish it, and would be grateful,’ I said. ‘And grateful also if you would show me this wood.’ She stammered an assent.

  “There was nothing in this beyond courtesy, nothing to make anyone suspect. She had her servants with her the while. But we could talk. It was a glorious ride. I have no recollection of what we spoke of, merely that I talked a great deal and made her laugh. Her laugh was like the flutter of a bird’s wing, and it set my mind flying. When we returned to Ebrauc, I asked her if she knew of other good places to ride in, for, though I had enjoyed Herfydd’s Wood, variety is a pleasure. She said yes, there was Bryn Nerth, which she could show me, if I wished. Thus we rode together the next day, and the next, and the next as well. The world seemed to me like the laughter of sunlight in the trees, all shimmer and light dancing.