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by Helen Hollick

  Standing, and encircling her bulk with his arms, Arthur kissed her with a passion that revealed how he had missed her. “Everything is settled,” he said. “The Governor of Lindum is a prize ass. He could no more stem malicious rumours than he could return Britain to Roman rule.” He drew away, eyed her bulge and patted the swelling with pride, then seating himself, began to tug off his left boot.

  Gwenhwyfar kicked a scatter of wooden building bricks beneath the couch and as an afterthought kicked the spoilt wool to join them. She squatted, pulled at Arthur’s other boot. “The resentment against you here frightens me.”

  Arthur scratched at the itch of his beard. He needed to shave. “Would that statement have any connection with the dagger that greeted my return?”

  She tried to make light of the thing, waved her hands casually and shrugged. Retrieving the boot Arthur had tossed away, she stood it with its pair to the side of the couch. “I finally told a few plain truths this afternoon, that is all. The Governor’s wife did not much like hearing them.”

  “For that, you think murder at the opening of a door?” Arthur lay back, rested his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. It was good to be in the warm and dry. Good to feel a couch beneath your backside. He snorted at a passing thought: why did horsehair not feel as comfortable when it was still on the horse?

  Gwenhwyfar had made no answer. He opened one eye and saw her squatting still on the floor. He reached a hand forward, stroked the smoothness of her cheek.

  “Has it been that bad for you here, Cymraes?”

  She took his hand in her own, held it against her cheek, her eyes closing against threatening tears. It had been that bad.

  “Ah, beloved.” Arthur leant forward, placed a kiss on her forehead. “It took longer than I anticipated; Icel is a strong and determined man.” He again lay back. “It took a time to convince him I am the stronger, and more determined.”

  Picking up her fallen distaff, Gwenhwyfar regarded the spoilt wool a moment before ripping it from the wooden haft. She poked it with the rest beneath the couch, said, “You have ceded him territory. As you did with Hengest?”

  “Aye. And for the same valid reasons.”

  She flared. “Valid reasons? Valid reasons! You spend all these months fighting Icel, losing men, good men, to his spears, and then after gaining the victory you calmly give him the land he’s been after!” She was walking about the room, hands animated, the distaff waving as she moved. “Valid reason or no, Arthur, it makes no sense to me, nor,” she pointed the distaff in the direction of the window, “nor to the people out there. They too are frightened, and fear breeds anger.”

  Arthur was watching her from where he lay. How often had he listened to the same conversation? With Cei, with his officers. Not half an hour past with Lindum’s Governor.

  “I give, Cymraes. There is a difference between giving to a man to rule over as your subject, and him taking it by force to rule as his own lord. I give on my terms. Not theirs. Mine.”

  “Huh.”

  “There’s no “huh” about it.” He swung his legs to the floor, leant forward, one arm leaning across his thigh. “They will come anyway, the Saex. Far better for the inevitable outcome to be on my saying.”

  For a moment she remained silent letting the sudden eddy of anger flow from her. Calmer, for she knew him to be right, she said as he resettled himself, “I think there are those in this town who plan to kill you. I thought they were to make their start on the boys and myself.” She wiped aside an unexpected tear. “Foolish of me, but…”

  Arthur tugged his fingers through the tangle of his collar-length dark-brown hair, scratched at an itch on the nape of his neck. A haircut would not fall amiss. “Not so foolish. Half the country have such plans to make an end of me.”

  “You know?”

  Eyes shut. “Of course I know.”

  Gwenhwyfar still had the distaff in her hand. She lunged at Arthur, thwacked his shoulder with it.

  “Ow!” He opened his eyes, sat up. “What was that for?”

  “For taking over-many risks with your life, my life and the lives of our sons!” She hit him again, harder. He laughed, grabbed at her weapon and, holding it tight, pulled her closer.

  “You were safe enough.” He gave a sudden tug at the distaff, toppling her off balance. “They have not yet plucked the courage to defy their King, or his wife.”

  Falling across him, Gwenhwyfar swiped him with her hand.

  “However,” he glanced about the room, “I cannot say the same for myself, cannot guarantee your safety now.” He kissed her, his tongue probing her mouth, hands fumbling for the pins holding her shift.

  Attempting to squirm from his embrace Gwenhwyfar brushed her free hand over her huge figure. She wanted him so much, so very much, but said, “We cannot, not with this babe.”

  Diverting the subject she asked, “Have you eaten? We dined some hours since but I suspect I can fetch something.”

  Keeping firm hold of her, Arthur pulled her closer and nibbled her earlobe. “Not for weeks.”

  She smiled. “I meant food, you fool! Have you eaten food?”

  He narrowed his eyes, an idiotic grin smirking his expression. “A banquet of flesh will suffice.”

  Ignoring his expressive leer, Gwenhwyfar began to unfasten the lacings of his riding gear, her nose wrinkling with distaste at the smell of stale sweat. “You stink more of horse than the horse does.”

  “That is unquenched desire that you smell.”

  “I cannot cleanse you with this babe so large inside me.”

  “Not so,” Arthur muttered, fondling her enlarged breasts. He chuckled as he thought of his son’s innocent repetition of Gwenhwyfar’s words. “There are other ways of using a sword aside from thrusting straight in with the point.”

  They laughed together, Gwenhwyfar’s arms coiling around Arthur as he kissed her again. She had a passing thought as he stripped away the last garment of her clothing and began gently caressing her swollen body; they ought to bolt the door. But then, who would be fool enough to disturb the King and his wife after they had been so long apart?

  VI

  The lamps in the bed chamber were burning low, several had gutted out. Gwenhwyfar lay asleep, her head on Arthur’s chest, her copper-gold hair spread in a tangle over her face and his shoulder. She twitched occasionally as some dream infringed on sleep. Once, she murmured something.

  Arthur was awake, unable to sleep. He moved his arm, released a long sigh, puffing his cheeks with expelled air. The victory was his, Icel was undeniably beaten. But there would always be another Icel somewhere, other aspiring young men who would make a try for something more. At least there would be no more fighting in this flat, inhospitably windy part of Britain, not for a long while.

  He watched Gwenhwyfar breathing. Watched the steady rise and fall of her pregnancy-swollen breasts and the relaxed peace on her face. She was one and twenty, and he had loved her – known her – for the past nine years. With his finger he dabbed at the tip of her nose. She twitched, dreamily batted away the irritation with a limp hand.

  “Gwenhwyfar. I need to talk.”

  “Mm? Not now.” She shifted position. Slept.

  “Gwen.”

  “In…” yawn, “… the morning.”

  “It cannot wait until morning, Cymraes.”

  Gwenhwyfar groaned, opened her eyes. She wriggled from his arms and rolled out of the bed. “You toad. Was it necessary to wake me?”

  Padding across the semi-darkened room, she squatted over the chamber pot. “It’s not so much this bulk I have to carry, nor the pummelling against my ribs and spine as he stretches and kicks inside that makes me so loathe pregnancy,” she shivered and scuttled back to the warmth of bed, “but this damn need to pee so frequently!”

  “Gwenhwyfar?”

  She had been settling down to sleep again, opened her eyes suspicious. “I like it not when you say “Gwenhwyfar” like that.”

  Arthur toyed with
a strand of her hair. “I have an offer of permanent alliance that I cannot refuse.”

  She regarded him steadily. His fringe, falling away from a natural side parting, flopped forward over his eye. Gwenhwyfar brushed it back, slid her hand around his neck. The slight curl to his hair was the more noticeable here at the back where the length, when he was dressed, rested against his tunic neckband.

  There were the beginnings of shadowed lines to the corners of his eyes, light, like a little bird’s delicate track. His face was thin, the cheekbones quite prominent aside his chin and long, straight nose. He looked tired.

  In those dark eyes, Gwenhwyfar saw uncertainty and doubt. Arthur excelled at keeping his thoughts close, his features passive and unreadable. To Gwenhwyfar alone he occasionally dropped the guarded mask; trusting her enough to allow the show of reality.

  He was four and twenty and he carried a weight of worries and problems that would have cowed a man twice his age.

  “Have you slept?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  Gwenhwyfar hesitated, thinking. She knew she was not going to like this offer, whatever it was. She ought to say something encouraging, but this was like picking at the end of a loose thread. You knew that to pull at it would unravel more and more of the weave, that it ought to be left alone or sewed secure, but the irresistible urge was there, your fingers just had to pick at it.

  She said lightly, “Who from?”

  Arthur pulled a strand of her hair through his fingers, watched its subtle change of colour in the feeble light.

  “An English rival to Icel. He has a flourishing settlement along the Humbrenses river.” He scratched at his nose. “He joined battle with me and has made offer to secure a lasting alliance.”

  Gwenhwyfar shifted weight from her elbow, lay down on her back. “This leader of Saxons, is he a man of importance?” There, another few hand-spans of thread unravelled.

  “English, these are English people, Gwen.”

  Gwenhwyfar shrugged, unimpressed. “Saex, Angli, English, whatever. They are all foreigners and murdering sea-raiders.”

  “Cymraes,” Arthur plumped the pillow behind him, settled his back into it. “Not all of them, and aye, Winta is important. He wants lasting peace between us.”

  The thread was unravelling faster, the weave disappearing before her eyes. Gwenhwyfar ought to leave this conversation, go back to sleep, but the thread slid so easily between her fingers. “What! Peace? Is the Pendragon turning complacent now that he has the royal torque, for a while longer, safe around his throat?” Words spoken behind a weight of scorn.

  Arthur sat forward hugging his knees, hurting. “I have enough of that kind of talk from Cei and my uncle Emrys.”

  “Happen because Cei and Emrys and I have reason to talk so.” It was unreasonable for her to say that, but at this early hour of the morning and with great need to sleep, she was not feeling at all reasonable.

  For answer, he slammed the mattress with his fist, spoke through clenched teeth. “Why is it that people moan and wail and protest when I say we must fight – yet when I offer a sure way of avoiding the fighting, those same people complain I am becoming simple-minded? Can I not please anyone?”

  The weave was completely unravelled now. Gwenhwyfar sat up, moved a little away from him, her body straight, expression glaring. “You intend to set Winta as another Saex client king?” She spread her hands before her, emphatic and angry. “You gave Hengest the Cantii territory, and now Icel has his own portion of land instead of losing his head. Arthur, no more! The Council out there,” she flagged a hand in the direction of the closed door, “your Governors and Elders are plotting to be rid of you because you are systematically parcelling out this country into barbarian rule. You have been King almost three years, and now seem determined to give your kingdom away. Our son’s inheritance? Hah, there’ll be nothing left!”

  Arthur grasped her waving arms, fingers digging into her flesh. His straight brows descended into a deep frown. “I thought I would be able to talk to you about this. Thought you, at least, would understand what I am trying to do.” Disgusted, he threw her from him and swung his legs off the bed. He sat a while breathing heavily, the surge of anger thumping in his chest.

  Bringing his fingers over his eyes, and slowly down his cheeks, Arthur let his caught breath ease. With his face cupped between his hands said, “I fought to win supreme command and I intend to keep it. But I cannot hold these desolate coastal lands, Gwenhwyfar. For all my fine, brave Artoriani, I cannot. I have not the men or the finance. Where do I find men to patrol the run of rivers and the miles of seashore? Where do I, at the same moment, find other men to fight? Hengest, Icel, Winta – the many, many others of their kind – can call on ships to cross the sea to come and join them. Keel after keel of prime, young fighting men. What have I got? A few Turmae of loyal men, a handful of scattered militia who mostly do not know a pitchfork from a spear blade, and a pig-brained Council who harp on about how it was in the old days of Rome!”

  His shoulders slumped, head drooped. He laced his fingers, swivelled the heavy dragon-shaped ring on his left index finger. “Some of these English, men like Icel, are arrogant bastards who respect no word outside that of a war cry. A few, a very few, are like Winta, older and wiser men who can see the sense in avoiding the spilling of men’s blood – British or English – if the opportunity is given.”

  He brought one leg over the other, rested an elbow on his knee, spoke with a mixture of resignation and anger. “Bogs and quagmires trap my horses. Mud clings, tires, dispirits even the stoutest heart. I came over close to losing to Icel.” He looked at her, held her eyes with his own. “Another few weeks, Cymraes, and we would have been finished. I won because Fortuna smiled on me and Mithras, the soldiers’ god, took pity. I do not favour courting their combined benevolence again.” Was he getting through to her? Surely she understood? Surely! “Without amicable agreement, Winta will fight for what he wants, as did the others. Must I, then, fight him next? For what? A marsh running aside a muddy river that only he wants and that he will take in the end anyway?”

  Gwenhwyfar tossed her head. “That is fine, brave warlord talk!”

  “It’s sensible talk.”

  “Huh!” Gwenhwyfar folded her arms, glowering.

  “It makes sense to make agreement without bloodshed.”

  “Give in to him, you mean.”

  “No!” Arthur hurled himself from the bed, took a few quick paces, his fists clenching and unclenching. “I am not giving in! I am settling the inevitable on my terms. In a year, two, three, it could well be on his.” He stabbed a finger at her, emphatic. “And that advantage, woman, I do not intend to give him.”

  Briefly closing his eyes, Arthur ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it even further. Softer-toned added, “By giving Winta the right to rule over his people in my name, I get what I want.”

  Gwenhwyfar’s answer was laced with sarcasm. “What is that? You need the loyalty of your Council and Governors; you also need the blessing of our Christian church. Can some Saex barbarian give you that?” She was shouting, kneeling up on the bed, her fists clenched.

  Arthur shouted back at her. “I must keep control of my kingdom! By treating with Winta I ensure the crossing over the Abus river and the road up into Eboracum remains open to me. With the gold and silver I receive from Winta, I can pay my men. The cattle, sheep and swine that he will give to me will feed my men. For the privilege of being Lord under me, Winta will give cloth and weapons to clothe and arm my men. Damn it,” Arthur’s nostrils flared, “he will even give me the men, should I demand them!”

  He stepped towards Gwenhwyfar, stood over the bed, his arms resting to either side of her rigid body. He dropped the exclamation from his voice. “This will be the third wolf I invite near the fold – but the fold has strong walls and a solid gate. Fighting cannot be the only way. I have not yet enough loyal men behind me to fight for peace between English and British. Fighting takes t
ime and men’s lives. Negotiation takes courage and wisdom.” He chewed his lip; how to explain further? “I am clinging to this title of king by a thread. I do not have the power of men and gold to let me snap my fingers in defiance at those who oppose me. Do you not see?” He searched her expression, let her go, sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her. “Na, you do not. To keep my kingdom, Cymraes, one day I am going to have to fight our own British men. I need to know my back will not be exposed to the danger of the English.”

  His shoulders slumped, his chin tucked into his chest. “All right. What do I do then? Tell me.”

  As swiftly as it had risen, Gwenhwyfar’s anger passed. What he said was true. They had not the men to justify fighting over land that few wanted, save peasant folk and Saex. From behind, she slid her arms around him, snuggled as close as her bulk would permit. He was usually so sure, so firm-footed. Why the uncertainty this night? He obviously needed to discuss his worries; why had she let him down with her petty bickering? She laid her head on his back. A jagged scar, white against pink skin, snaked from his right shoulder to his spine. Her eyes closed. What she really wanted was to go back to sleep.

  She said, “I love you. I have more reason than any to wish for peace.” She let out a slow breath. “But Arthur, you could never settle for a life without battle, without a sword in your hand and the sound of war in your ears. The Morrigan, the Goddess of War, holds you too fast to her breast. It is my fear that I shall lose you to her one day.”

  He sat silent.

  “I scorn your talk of peace,” she continued, “because always will there be a battle, somewhere, to be fought.”

  He shuffled round on his buttocks and tipped her face up to his with one finger. Mithras, how he loved this woman! “The Morrigan may send her ravens flapping about my head, but by her triple guise of beauty, hag, or carrion bird, my heart beats glad that I have you as wife.” Arthur brushed her cheek with his thumb, a tinge of self-consciousness touching his beard-shadowed cheeks. It was not often he found the courage to speak these deep-held feelings of love.