Kingdom of Summer

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “‘Gwalchmai,’ she said, and something in her tone made me look back at her. Her eyes had become very large and dark in her face, a face grown pale and stricken as the whole world. Something in me twisted and grasped desperately at the edge of an inner abyss. ‘Gwalchmai, you didn’t kill him?’

  “I was quiet for a long instant, and then I was enraged, desperate. ‘Yes, I killed him,’ I shouted at her. ‘And every inch of the steel was deserved: he was a traitor and a rebel, a brute who would lock you up and part us and insult me, yes, and I did kill him!’

  “‘You perjured, murdering liar.’ Her voice was even and savagely cold. ‘You…sorcerer. You are just what Bran said you were. Oh, my brother, oh, Bran, Bran.’ She turned from me and walked abruptly to the wall and leaned her head against it, pressing one hand against her mouth. Her shoulders shook beneath the thin dress. In the stable beneath us the horses shifted in their stalls, and the doves cooed in the thatch. I stood in the middle of the room, and the light was black in my eyes.

  “‘Elidan,’ I said. She did not move. ‘Marry me.’ I had not till that moment thought to ask it, but as I did, I saw that I desired it with my heart’s blood.

  “She whirled on me, her face twisted, but her eyes bitterly cold, like Bran’s. ‘Marry you?’ she said. ‘Marry the man who murdered my brother, while the blood is still hot on his hands? Marry the perjurer, the liar…I wish I had died the day I saw you first! Leave me!’

  “I crossed the room in two strides and caught her by the shoulders. ‘Don’t command that. Tell me anything else. I swear the oath of my people, Elidan, anything else and I will do it.’

  “‘Go away! Let me mourn in peace. Go! I never want to see you living again. You warriors are all the same, all thinking of nothing but your own fame and glory. You care nothing for the pain you cause, if you get what you want and make a name in a song. Well, you won’t get me. For all your skill at murdering, and all your looks and your noble blood, you can find another whore to worship you; I’ve been whore enough…’

  “‘Don’t call yourself that!’

  “‘Go!’ she screamed, and tore one arm loose to strike me, then lashed out again with the same furious determination. I let go.

  “‘Go away,’ she repeated. ‘If you come near me again, I swear I will kill myself, and I do not break my oaths.’

  “I stood back and looked at her, and she stood still, straight and proud, her lips parted for breath, eyes too bright, face wet with tears. I felt that if my eyes parted from her, my soul would part from me as well. But in honor there was nothing else which I could do. So I did the hardest thing of all I have ever done, and walked back across the room and out of it, closing the door very quietly behind me. As I left the stable I heard her begin the keen for the dead and quickened my step. I have not seen her from that hour to this.”

  Gwalchmai stopped. I had ceased to scratch our dog’s ears, and she whined and nudged me several times hopefully, until I slapped her. Gwalchmai suddenly stretched out his hand and called her, and she came over, sniffed the hand politely, then settled at his feet while he began scratching her ears as I had.

  My father was frowning. “You did nothing more for the girl?”

  The warrior shrugged, “I sought out the old man, Hywel, and gave him all the money I had with me, and borrowed more from the other members of the Family, and told him to let her use it for whatever she wanted. I don’t imagine he told her where it came from, or she would not have accepted it, but I know she received it. I went to her half-brother Ergyriad, the new king, and virtually begged him to let her do all that she pleased. I had to give him presents; I borrowed from Arthur for that. When we left, I had someone watch to tell me what she did. It seems she left the city the same day we did, that afternoon. She took her brown mare, Hywel, and another servant and a mule laden with goods. No one knows where she went, except that she turned south. I had had a large enough share of the plunder in that campaign, so she could have bought some land, and had men to work it for her. I do not think she would go to another king, for she was not overfond of the court and its plottings.”

  “Then why are you looking for her?” my father asked. “Seeing that she is probably settled and happy?”

  “To ask her forgiveness. I did not even admit to her that I had done any wrong.”

  “In the middle of winter?” My father looked at him. “My lord, it’s a noble enough objective, and I can see how a man such as yourself might think it needful, but couldn’t you have sought her in the summer?”

  Gwalchmai smiled again, and began rubbing the dog’s ears with both hands. “There was never time. Before Baddon there was the war; since Baddon, I have been trying to get away from my lord for this task, and first he sent me to Deira, and then to Gwynedd, and then to Caledon. I was on my way back from my embassy to Aengus MacErc of the Dalriada up in Caledon when I stopped for the night at Caer Ebrauc. When I was seeing to my horse I began talking with one of the servants at the court, and this man said he thought that she had gone to eastern Gwynedd, away from the road in the Arfon mountains. I considered the matter, and decided that I would have time to look for her. I wrote my lord a letter, and sent it to Camlann with the man who was accompanying me, and myself set off for Gwynedd with the servant who had told me of it.”

  “I have heard that King Maelgwn Gwynedd is Arthur’s enemy,” my father pointed out.

  “It is true that Gwynedd is no friend to the Pendragon. But there was no reason to see Maelgwn the king, and I am not wholly helpless. But the servant from Caer Ebrauc was wrong: she was not there.”

  “Hmm. The man probably only wanted protection on his journey.”

  “It is possible. He needed protection, for he was from Gwynedd, but had killed his cousin years before and fled. His clan took him back when he appeared, though. But he had worked in the stable at Caer Ebrauc, and had heard one of her servants say that they rode to Gwynedd. And she did pass through Caer Legion, for I met a man there who remembered her. But in Arfon there was no trace of her. I looked, from near Castel Degannwy to the springs of the Saefern, and no one had seen or heard tell of any such person. So I returned to Caer Legion, and tried to discover where else she might have gone, and…well, I have been looking since.”

  “I do not see why it was so important,” said Morfudd. She had grown increasingly restless as Gwalchmai spoke, and now she gave Gwalchmai a smiling, light-hearted look. “So, this woman was offended at you; well, you provided for her. I don’t see why you should go running after her any longer, unless you still want to marry her.”

  Gwalchmai looked away from her. “It is possible,” he said. “Though I do not think she would. She is not a light-minded woman, but proud, willing to do all in love and no less serious in hate. But can you truly not see that this was a terrible thing?”

  “What was so very terrible about it?” asked Morfudd, tossing her hair. “You were in love. Oh, I’d be very angry if someone had killed Rhys here, or even Dafydd, but you did kill this Bran in battle, and he was a rebel, and had tried to kill you first. If Rhys had done all that, and had even shut me up in a stable for a week, I’d be perfectly willing to forgive you for killing him.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “It would do you good to be shut up in a stable.” But I muttered it.

  Gwalchmai did not smile, “I was a guest, an emissary, and I betrayed my host and my lord. I dishonored her, broke my word to her, and murdered her brother. I disobeyed my own lord and broke faith with God. By the Sun and the Wind! I deserve to die for it.” Gwalchmai’s hand was hard on his sword-hilt, suddenly, the knuckles white. “I have forfeited my own honor, and I must go to her, and admit as much. I have not acted for the Light, but I must at least deny Darkness or I will never be free of it. Even if she is justly angry, I must; and if she is angry, it is so much the better, for her anger is deserved.”

  “You are too fier
ce with yourself,” said my father levelly.

  “I cannot be.”

  Their eyes met. The dog whined and crept over to my father, seeking reassurance. “You are too fierce with yourself,” my father repeated. “It is the nature of men to commit sin, and it is only in God’s mercy that any are forgiven.” He crossed himself quickly and went on, “You killed a man in battle whom you should not have killed, but it was not murder: you did not creep up upon him, but killed in combat, in the heat of passion. Very few men would have done otherwise, and very many have done the same and lived peaceful lives after.”

  “That does not make it right.”

  “Your lord, from what you’ve said, does not see fit to blame you.”

  “That is my lord’s mercy.”

  “Your lord Arthur’s mercy, as I have heard the tale, extends only so far as is safe for Britain. I do not believe he would be so quick to trust you after this if you were so blameworthy as you think yourself. I wonder how serious his order not to kill Bran ap Caw was, and for whose sake he said it. You said that you deserved to die for what you had done. You didn’t, by any chance, think of administering that justice yourself, did you?”

  Gwalchmai flushed and raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness, suddenly smiling again. “You are a shrewd man, Sion ap Rhys. The night after she told me to go away I walked about the walls of the city all night and wished never to see the morning. But I know and knew that my life was owing to my lord and to Heaven, and if I could still be of use to either, it was not mine to escape so easily.”

  “Indeed. You might apply the same notion to your guilt. Do what you can to make reparation, and by all means go and ask the girl’s forgiveness, but do not make yourself sick with self-hatred over it, and travel in the winter. It will not do you, or her, or your lords one bit of good.”

  Gwalchmai smiled sadly, rubbing the palm of his hand again. “Perhaps.” He looked up, the lines of weariness, pain and tension for an instant leaving his face, as his eyes followed the smoke from the fire. “Perhaps.” Abruptly, “I would sell my sword to see her once more, Sion. She was like an aspen, standing caught in the brilliance of its shadowing leaves. I have thought of her so often since we defeated the Saxons at Baddon.”

  “Have you no knowledge where she might be now?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “There are a few roads I might ride down yet. But they are not truly possibilities, only safeguards.” He was silent another minute then said, softly, “It would be better for me to go back to Camlann now. My lord the High King has had no news of me since November, and he may need me. I know I will not find her on this journey; I will have to wait, and try again. Tomorrow I will leave for Camlann.”

  “Not for at least a week,” my father said. “Stay with us as long as you desire.”

  Gwalchmai again shook his head. “I am near well enough to travel now, and it is not far.”

  My father began to argue, and Gwalchmai argued back, eloquently and interspersing deep thanks to all of us. He and my father both stood up, the better to express themselves. My father seemed solid, his stocky frame unshakable. Gwalchmai was thin and dark and graceful and equally inflexible. The thought suddenly occurred to me, as I looked at the warrior, that it would not be intolerable to be his servant. When I had been younger, the idea of serving was the one thing that kept me from running off to join a warband, and when I had day-dreamed about it, I had always had to devise some improbable means of escape from that humiliation necessary to a farmer. But Gwalchmai had a kind of a humility, an outlook that saw nothing worthy of scorn in farming, or, I suspected, in service. If only…but why not? The thought chilled me. He might not want a servant, but I could offer to be one. It was possible; it actually was possible. I had only to speak a few slight words to him alone, and I might be off and away. Did I want it? It was absurd at my age, but…would Gwalchmai take me? Even if he didn’t, he might know someone at Camlann who would…should I?

  In spite of my tiredness, I lay awake a long time that night.

  FOUR

  My father persuaded our guest to remain for three more days and, for the same three days, contrived errands to keep me away from the householding. I was certain that he did it deliberately. He first sent me out to check on the sheep and, as soon as I had done with that, my mother sent me down to the river to fetch sand for the oven. When the sand had been fetched she found that she needed some clay, and so on and off away from the house, and I had no chance to talk to Gwalchmai. I wondered if my parents knew the question I kept rephrasing in my mind or if they were simply determined to restrain my talk of war and the affairs of Britain. As Gwalchmai had said, my father was a shrewd man.

  The rest of my family busied itself with Gwalchmai’s gear. My mother mended his cloak, and as much of the rest of his clothing that she considered worth mending. Some she simply tore apart and replaced from ours. She tried to make him accept some spare clothing and a new cloak as well, but he adamantly refused this with the warmest expressions of gratitude. My father and Goronwy set up a forge and Goronwy shod Gwalchmai’s stallion—and our mare, for good measure—and patched up the mail-shirt with a few flattened iron rings. The rest of the houses of our holding approved of the warrior and discussed him with great interest and curiosity, and recounted to me how courteous he was, how little the sort of man one would expect the Pendragon’s nephew to be.

  Gwalchmai himself was busy, cleaning and sharpening his weapons, and offering assistance with any work, his or ours. For myself, I slunk in and out of the house on my errands, and said barely five words to him in a day. And then it was the afternoon of the day before he was to leave, and the man had scarcely met me. I was horrified at it. Almost I decided not to talk to him after all—but I knew that I would have no second chance, if I let this one pass me by. I could stay with my clan, and perhaps be head of our house-holding after my father; I could marry, and would soon enough, no doubt, if I could find a girl to take me; I could farm the land by Mor Hafren, as though the world were as it had been in my grandfather’s time. As though Rome had not fallen, and in the time of my grandchildren all would be the same. As though all these things were life itself, and not just a way of life. I had to go. I knew that I had to go to Camlann, though why my heart had seized me thus I could not say, and to go to Camlann I had to talk to Gwalchmai. So, when I came back from one errand I did not even go into the house, but instead went down to the stable, hoping.

  He was there, cleaning his horse’s harness and singing in Irish. He had a fine singing voice, a strong, clear tenor, and sang well. But he stopped when I came in and stood quickly, catching up a rag and drying the soap from his hands.

  “Greetings to you, Rhys ap Sion,” he said politely, and waited for me to get what I wanted from the stable. I came over a little closer to him, looked at him, and felt my heart settle like a wine-skin with a puncture. I did not see how I, Rhys ap Sion ap Rhys, could ask him to take me. But I shuffled my feet, looked at the horse in the stall behind him, and blurted out, “There is a thing I wish to ask of you, Lord.”

  Without looking at him, I knew that he smiled. “That is well indeed! Any service I can render to your family, after the grace you have shown me, I will do most gladly.”

  I shuffled my feet again. The horse was fine-looking, and much easier to watch than this chieftain. “Lord,” I said again, and there was no hope for it, I had to go on, “I have had all my life a great hunger for…for the world of kings and emperors,” and finally I had to meet his eyes, “and I would like to go with you to Camlann.”

  He was shocked. The black brows contracted. “You do not know what you are saying,” he told me. I did not reply. “Ach, most boys want to be warriors, I think: yet it is not the way of life you may think it to be.”

  “I am not a boy,” I pointed out. “Farmers may not age as quickly as warriors do, but I’m twenty-one, and no silly child. And I thin
k, Lord, I can see what your life must be from the way it has used you. I still want to go.”

  He looked at me carefully, then leaned against the horse’s stall, shaking his head. After a moment he began to laugh quietly.

  At this I grew angry. “I’m not as ridiculous as that! I know how to ride, and how to look after horses, as well as other cattle. I can throw straight, so I think I could protect myself if you gave me a spear. I can’t read, but I know Latin as well as British, and no one’s ever got the better of me in a market place. I’m no fool, whatever you think.”

  “I did not think you were.” Gwalchmai was abruptly serious again. “Only…I am sure that you are an excellent farmer. But being a warrior is a hard task, and a bitter one, and I should think that serving warriors is worse still.”

  “But all warriors, especially when they go on embassies, have servants.”

  “I never have. And there is too much fighting I must do to take a servant with me, and if I travel more to look for her it will be worse.”

  “I can fight,” I said. “I’ve not been trained at it, but I can hold my own against any clansman from Baddon to Caer Gloeu.”

  Gwalchmai shook his head again. “Can you throw a spear?”

  I looked at the throwing spears that leaned against the wall with the rest of his gear, ready for the morning. They were made of light, straight ash wood with leaf-shaped heads of fine steel, the butt ends sheathed with bronze. They did not look particularly difficult to hurl, unless one was on horseback. I picked one up and hefted it: it weighed a bit more than I had expected, but it seemed well balanced for throwing. Gwalchmai considered me, then pointed to the wall of the barn.

  “That plank with the double knot-hole in the middle. Hit that,” he told me.

  I shifted my weight, brought my arm back and threw the spear. It wobbled unevenly through the air and struck near the base of a different plank, sticking out sideways. Gwalchmai said nothing. I picked up another spear, and threw that with no better results. I threw the third, then went and pulled all of them out and tried again.