But at that same moment, someone far more important than Bronwyn appeared at the door to the solar.
It was the king.
Without a word, he strode into the room, picked up Little Gwen by the scruff of her neck, and shook her until her teeth rattled. Shocked into silence, her eyes gone round as river stones, when he let go of her, she fell in an unmoving heap on the floor.
“How dare you disturb the queen’s rest?” he snarled, staring down at Little Gwen. “How dare you trouble the mother of my son? How dare you, miserable changeling? Enough! More than enough!” He turned to Bronwyn. “See to it that she repacks all of Cataruna’s things with care, while my good Cataruna breaks her fast. Then see to it that when the top and the ribbons are found, they are given to some child of the village who deserves a reward.”
He turned his gaze down on Little Gwen again. “I would have thought you had learned your lesson by now, but I see that you have not. Perhaps your hands are too idle. Perhaps you need more work to do.”
Little Gwen stared up at the king, her face blank.
Bronwyn compressed her lips tight. “That may be so, my Lord King,” she said. “Perhaps some kitchen work?”
Little Gwen made a faint sound of protest. The king ignored her. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps she will learn that churlish manners lead to being set among the churls.”
Gwen winced. She knew that above all things, Little Gwen was proud. Being put with the lowest servants to do the most menial of tasks would be an agony to her.
The king turned to Cataruna and put gentle hands on her shoulders. “As for you, my daughter, go and break your fast well. We are pleased and proud that you are going to the Ladies; master your Blessing, become wise and true, and return to take your place at the queen’s right hand, first among your sisters. I shall be with you anon to bid you farewell.”
Cataruna’s lower lip trembled a trifle with emotion. “Thank you Father,” she said. “I will not fail you—”
The king chuckled slightly, and chucked her under the chin. “Now come, it is no more than a matter of lessons and learning, which we both know you excel at! You are not going off to battle but to something I think you will find a pleasure!” He gave her a gentle push in the direction of the hall. “Now go, for I am sure Bronwyn has managed something special from the cooks for you.”
Cataruna ducked her head in a quick curtsy and turned, whisking her skirts as she slipped under the door curtain. Gwen took the opportunity to follow her.
“What was that about?” she asked, as one of the maidservants intercepted Cataruna with a platter heaped with good things, obviously being saved for her.
“I knew there would be a pother last night,” Cataruna replied, as Gwen got a wooden platter and took bread and butter, cheese and carved cold meat from last night’s dinner. “You know how Little Brat hates it when a fuss is made over anyone but herself, and there was a double fuss after dinner. Mother asked me to sit beside her, and when they weren’t all talking about what I could expect to be learning from the Ladies, they were all talking about the baby. I could just see Little Gwen starting to get that look she gets when you know she’s going to do something.”
Gwen nodded; she knew that look all too well.
Cataruna shrugged. “I expected trouble from her last night, and I think perhaps Bronwyn did too. And maybe Mother. When we went to bed, Bronwyn gave us all possets to drink, and Little Gwen went straight to sleep. Bronwyn and I were able to pack my things in peace.”
“If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have slept outside,” Gwen said ruefully. “I wanted to think a while, and I didn’t want the brat poking and prodding at me.”
“Well, I wish Bronwyn hadn’t done that, because she was awake far too early, and the first thing she did was to tear into my packs.” Cataruna made a face. “Poor Gynath. You’re off with the squires all the time. Pretty soon you’ll all be made into a real warband, and you’ll all be doing everything together. It could even be that you’ll be out in the Great Hall with them, to sleep, and she’ll be the one left to deal with the Brat.” The eldest of the king’s daughters sighed and ate some bread dipped in honey. “I am not going to miss that.”
“Are you going to miss any of this?” Gwen asked curiously.
“Truthfully?” Cataruna nibbled pensively on her bread. “I don’t think so. I don’t make friends the way Gynath does, none of the boys here make me want to kiss them, I truly will be glad to see the last of the Brat, and until now there was nothing really special about me except I was the eldest.”
Gwen blinked, wondering obscurely if she ought to feel hurt by such a revelation. But she and Cataruna were too far apart in age to have been close—
“Until now, I never really had anything for myself,” Cataruna was continuing. “Oh, I had the Blessing, but from what I heard it was never as strong as yours. I’m not pretty, like Gynath and Little Gwen, and I would never want to be a warrior. Up until you got singled out by Braith, I was just—really, nothing special. You were the one that was going to the Ladies as soon as you ever could, and if I went, it would be only after you came back. And since everyone expected great things of you, I’d still be coming in your shadow.”
Something about Cataruna’s tone made Gwen feel obscurely guilty. And even gladder that she’d had Braith to send her in another direction.
“But now—” Cataruna finished the bread with a lift of her head and an air of satisfaction. “Now it’s me that’s going to the Ladies, and it’ll be me that will be the Maiden in the Circle when I get back. And the Ladies won’t know, or won’t care, what great things were expected of you. You’ve gone the path of Iron, and you’ll never be as strong in magic as me now. So when I come back, I’ll be me, Cataruna, with my own place and my own path, just as you’ll have your own place and your own path.” She turned her head to look at Gwen. “I’m really grateful to you, Gwen. That’s why I don’t think I’ll miss home too much. It’s not as if I won’t be coming back, but when I do, it will be as the Blessed Daughter. You’ll be the Warrior Daughter by then, and Gynath—” she chuckled a little “—Gynath will have half the war chiefs wanting her for a bride, and she’ll make Father some good alliance, and then she’ll make him a grandfather, if she hasn’t already by the time I get back. Who knows? Maybe she’ll even get a prince.”
She didn’t say anything about Little Gwen, and Gwen was not inclined to prompt her on that head.
“Did you really want to go to the Ladies that much?” she asked instead.
“As much as you wanted to be a warrior,” Cataruna said fiercely.
“Then I’m glad you’re going.” Gwen surprised her sister, and to an extent herself, by fiercely embracing her.
Cataruna returned the embrace. “And I’m glad you’re happy where you are.” She nodded. “We’re lucky.”
“We are.”
At that moment, Bronwyn made her way across the Great Hall, trailed by a servant with Cataruna’s two packs. Cataruna eyed them curiously.
“The king your father thought of several more things you should take with you,” Bronwyn said, with a glint in her eye, but her lips set in a severe line. “Little Gwen will be making do with made-over gowns for a time; I trust you will find moments to spare to make yourself suitable garments with the lengths in the bottom of the packs.”
Cataruna could not repress a gasp of pleasure; all the girls knew about the lengths of lambs’ wool and linen that had been reserved for Little Gwen. Gwen had been indifferent, since gowns were the last thing on her mind at the moment, but she suspected Cataruna and Gynath had suffered a pang or two of envy. “I shall find the time, somewhere,” she promised fervently. “Father is most gracious.”
Bronwyn looked as if she might say more, but in the end, she only nodded. “Come, it is time. Your escort is waiting.”
But it seemed that more than just the escort was waiting. The king himself came to see his daughter off, something else Cataruna had clearly not expected. He lif
ted her onto the horse himself, after kissing her on both cheeks. “We send nothing but our best to the Ladies,” he boomed, in a voice intended to carry. “And we know you will make us all proud.”
With her head high, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes shining, Cataruna bowed deeply to her father; then at a word from the king, she and the escort rode off at a brisk walk and were soon over the hill and out of sight.
Bronwyn remained staring after them long after everyone else had gone to their duties, one hand on Gwen’s shoulder, preventing her from leaving. When there was no one else within earshot, Bronwyn looked somberly down at her.
“I would not say this in Cataruna’s hearing, but it was a spiteful splash of venom from that unnatural child that caused the king to rethink her leave-taking. Why such a pother over the second best, she said. And in the next moment, she turned her eyes on the servant and had him doing the packing for her!” Bronwyn’s lips tightened. “I confess that I am sorely tried by that child. If I had not been the midwife myself, I would suspect her of being a changeling. I think it may be she has some different magic of her own, not out of her mother, of charm or glamorie, that she is only yet vaguely aware of. And this is why I decided to speak to you.”
“To me?” Gwen was astonished. “But—”
“If that child does have such a thing, the queen has armored the king against it, as she has armored him against any ill magics—which is why she could not sway his anger. But there are others that will have no such armoring, and they may be those with whom you must deal.” Bronwyn shook her graying head. “I wish to tell you to be wary of rousing the child’s envy. Try not to come between her and something she wants, at least until I have devised a means to deal with her, or discovered what it is that she has.” She looked up again, down the road that Cataruna was traveling. “I am very glad that Cataruna is well away. And Gynath, I think, is safe enough for now. But you have ever had her enmity, and it is best you stay out of her gaze.”
Well, that was easy enough to promise. “I will,” she said, and Bronwyn let her go.
But it was troubling. This was the second time that someone she trusted had warned her against Little Gwen, and in terms that suggested she was more than just a spiteful little girl.
Chapter Seven
“Gwen‚” hissed Madoc. “Gwen!”
She ignored him, working hard on her horse’s harness with a polishing cloth, a little oil, and talc, trying to get the brass bits to look like gold. The leather was already cleaned and oiled and as supple as a snake. Adara and Dai were groomed within an inch of their lives every day, their hooves oiled, their manes and tails braided and clubbed up to keep them from tangling. Midsummer was barely a week away now, and, as usual, many of her father’s war chiefs would be arriving for the festival and the rites. Braith was coming. There would be some abbreviated races—nothing like the ones in the autumn, since some of the mares had foals at heel and you wouldn’t race one of those, but there would be a maiden race for the pages and squires, since all of them had horses past breeding age or geldings. Gwen was riding and driving both, and she desperately wanted Braith to be proud of how far she had come. She wasn’t really concerned about winning the races—some of the others had horses much younger than hers, three of the boys about her age were, frankly, more skilled. But she did want Braith to see that her backing hadn’t been misplaced.
So she had gone over her gear twice now, cleaning and polishing, mending not only popped stitches, but stitches that only looked a little weak. The saddle, the harness, all looked new. But the brass bits still weren’t shiny enough.
“Gwen!”
They weren’t supposed to be talking. They were supposed to be tending to their gear. “What?” she growled out of the side of her mouth.
“Is he coming? Here? Is he really coming?” Madoc sounded breathless and nervous. Probably at least as nervous as she was about Braith coming.
“Is who coming?” she responded, her irritation growing. Peder glanced over in their direction; he’d clearly heard the hissing, though he hadn’t picked out who was talking yet. She bent her head down to her task. With luck, he wouldn’t notice. Maybe she had permission to end her chores of women’s work, but that didn’t mean an end to toil. If he felt she wasn’t paying sufficient attention to repairing her harness, he would probably set her to wood chopping, water carrying, paddock building, or even carrying stones for the many hearths abuilding.
“The Merlin!” Madoc asked excitedly. “Is the Merlin really coming?”
The Merlin! Whatever gave him that idea? The Merlin was the High King’s man. There was no reason for him to come here, of all places.
It was a title of course, not a name; the Merlin was the chief of all the Druids, as the Wren was chief of all the Bards. And his place was at the side of the High King, advising, working Men’s Magic. Not journeying weeks away. Especially not at Midsummer.
“How should I know?” she hissed back, making sure her head was ducked down over her work so Peder couldn’t see her mouth moving.
“You’re the king’s daughter! Don’t you hear everything?” Madoc might well have said more, except that Peder had picked out him as the chatterer.
“Madoc!” the older warrior snapped.
Madoc leaped to his feet. Gwen kept her head down. “Yes, lord!” he said, faintly.
“It’s rare for you to have any thought in your mind at all, much less one so burning a hole in it that you can’t leave it until later. Have you something you wish to share with us, Madoc?” Gwen kept her eyes on her work, furiously polishing, but she could hear the mockery in Peder’s voice. She also heard his footsteps coming up beside her. He was just behind her, out of her peripheral vision, but she could feel his presence, looming.
“I only wanted to know if the Merlin is coming to the Midsummer feast, my lord!” Madoc replied, his voice breaking a little on the last word.
“Did you now?” There was a long pause. “Well, as it happens, the Merlin is going to be one of the king’s honored guests. So don’t you think you should pay a little more attention to what you are supposed to be doing so you don’t shame yourself before him?”
“Yes, my lord!” Madoc squeaked.
“Then get back to it, boy!”
Madoc dropped back down to his work and began polishing the brass of his horse’s harness as furiously as Gwen was polishing hers. She heard Peder’s footsteps again and saw his two hairy feet in their old sandals stop beside her. His left big toenail was black, where his horse had stepped on it. She held her breath and continued to polish.
“Acceptable job, squire,” was all Peder said. Then he moved on.
Gwen breathed again.
But she could feel how the lot of them had come alive with the news of such an important visitor. Some of it was excitement, but more of it was fear. There had been fantastic tales told about the Merlin. That he had narrowly escaped being sacrificed by King Vortigern as a young boy, because he’d Seen the dragon coiled hidden beneath the base of Vortigern’s tower—a dragon that subsequently was released to battle another high in the sky above that tower. Some said that he was responsible for the great Stone Circle out on the plain—though that was unlikely for it had been there long before the Romans had come. But certainly, a Merlin had built it, which only showed the power that the Merlins held.
It was more likely true that when Arthur’s father Uther lusted for Queen Ygraine, he cast illusions over Uther to make Ygraine and her entire household believe that it was King Gorlois returned from war. That, so they said, was how Arthur was conceived in the first place.
Now Ygraine was—or had been—one of the Ladies. And the Blessing was strong in her line, since both Anna Morgause and Morgana were her daughters, and both were noted for their skill at magic. Some even said Ygraine was a generation or two out of Fae blood, which would not have been completely unlikely. There were Sea Fae of great Power who often chose to wed mortal men, and Tintagel was on a coastal cliff, high above the s
ea. So to deceive her would have taken a great deal of Power—and a great deal of courage as well. The Ladies were not prone to appreciate men, even Druids, even the chief Druid, meddling in the affairs of one of their own.
Of course, Gorlois had been killed that very night. And Uther did not personally have the Orkney king’s blood on his hands, since he’d been rather busy with Ygraine. And Ygraine had turned about and wedded him, so no one said much about the wrong or the right of it. Or at least not around Eleri’s hearth fire, where, although Anna Morgause was the subject of much headshaking, Queen Ygraine came in for no such censure. Gwen knew better than to ask; she would have been told that the affairs of the very great were of no concern to a mere squire.
But since the Merlin was coming here, it behooved her dig as much as she could manage up out of her memory. The Merlin, it was said, had known that Uther’s life was in danger, and he was the one that had spirited infant Arthur away and kept him safe until he could come into his own. Considering the number of rivals there were for the position of High King, that could not have been easy.
And it was certainly the Merlin, this Merlin, Uther’s Merlin, that put Arthur in the position to take back the throne that was his, first Uther’s own lands, then convincing all the other kings to make him the High King—or beating their armies so they were forced to accept him. There were a lot of stories about how the Merlin had a hand in that, too. Magic swords, mists that sprang up to hide Arthur’s movements, and Arthur and his men being in two places at once, two battles on the same day. The Merlin had done the almost unthinkable: he’d turned an unknown stripling, a mere squire, into the High King in three years. And that meant Power. However you looked at it, whether all of the stories were true or not, there was no doubt that the Merlin was a formidable man. And an ancient one, since he must have been a man when Arthur was born, and now Arthur himself was full grown.
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