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by Helen Hollick

  “I’ll not carry any more wood, I promise.”

  Enid nodded at the heap of logs. “No need now, is there? You’ve done it all.”

  Reluctant as she was to admit it, Gwenhwyfar was tired. She had slept fitfully last night, tossing beside Arthur who had barely stirred – the wine and ale had passed around the Hall several times too many last night. She eased herself into the wicker chair, a comfortable seat with arms and goose-down filled cushions, closed her eyes a moment.

  Enid shook her head, tutted a muttered admonishment and fetched her Lady a warming cup of herbal brew. “Drink this, it’ll be good for you and the babe.” As if she knew these things, added, “He’ll be here soon.”

  Gwenhwyfar smiled, sipped at the drink. No point arguing. The birth was not due for several weeks yet. She knew her dates, her monthly flow being as regular as the moon-cycle, but it was never any point arguing with Enid once she had decided on a thing. Although, for this, Gwenhwyfar hoped her maidservant was right.

  She tried to doze, but the restlessness that had been about her during the morning was reaching out to her again. There were tasks that needing seeing to; the washed laundry was spread to dry in the day’s rare sun over bushes and grass, it would need gathering and folding, and she ought to finish the tidying of her establishing herb garden. The frosts were still common at night and the more delicate plants needed their protective covering of manure straw replenished. Straggle-grown bushes cutting back, tying up. Then there were the herbs already gathered and drying among the low rafters of the small chamber adjoining this one, where the jars and pots and amphorae of preserves and oil were stored. Their harvested seed heads or petals would be dried now. Ready for using in healing remedies, for making sweet scented perfume pots, or for scattering among the floor rushes.

  Noise and laughter from outside, a horse neighing, men’s voices. Arthur was back from hunting then. He would come in a moment, tell her how it had gone, after he had seen to the horses. She ambled about the room, twitching a hanging tapestry straight, setting a bowl of dried fruits to the centre of a table, fiddling unnecessarily with unimportant things. Enid had disappeared, was hopefully ensuring the slaves were folding the laundry correctly. You had to stand over slaves, an idle lot, who would do very little if they could get away with it. Gwenhwyfar preferred free-born servants who had a pride in their work and loyalty. But then, could a slave be expected to have pride? Where was the pride in being a prisoner, bound to a lord’s whim and command?

  She walked to the door, stood in the weak afternoon sunlight slanting through the opening, the light catching her hair, turning its copper red to burning gold. Over by the stables Arthur saw her, waved, shouted something, she could not hear what. He looked happy, he was laughing with the men and Llacheu, pointing to a fine, fat buck being carried up the hill for the women to make ready for skinning and cooking. The hide would make a new pair of boots for Llacheu. He was growing so! As she thought of him, her son waved also; from his expression, he too had enjoyed the hunt.

  A dog was barking and jumping at the carcass, the clouds were thickening into billows of dark cumulus. Was snow coming? They had been lucky these past days, after the heavy snows of an early winter. Gwenhwyfar peered away down the hill, gasped as a sharp pain shot across her abdomen. She doubled, almost fell to her knees, her hands clutching at the pain that felt as though she were being ripped in two.

  Arthur clicked his tongue at his horse and with Llacheu beside him, began leading the animal into its stable. There were only a few stalls, most of the horses were kept at grass in the walled and fenced paddocks ranging around the foot of the Caer. Excited, Llacheu was reliving the hunt, his chatter retelling that first sighting of the buck and then its brave stand against the dogs. It had been a fine chase, a good run. But Arthur was only half listening. His laughter had died, a frown beginning to crease his face. He had glanced over his shoulder, his attention caught by a cry, saw Gwenhwyfar slump forward, fall. He pushed past the horse, ran across the courtyard. His boot slipping he fell to one knee but was up, running again, taking Gwenhwyfar in his arms as she gasped and fought the intense pain that clawed and tore at her.

  Arthur shouted for help, for someone to fetch Enid, as he lifted his wife and carried her inside to the bed, but Enid would be too late for there was blood trailing on the floor, on his arms; blood and water gushing from Gwenhwyfar. Arthur tore at her skirts, fumbling, ripping the material in his haste to free her clothing. She was sobbing now, clutching at her abdomen, her knees drawn up, tears falling as her face contorted in pain.

  The head was there, Arthur could see it, a mass of dark, wet hair – where the hell was Enid? He bellowed for someone to get her, saw the doorway crowded with the curious, the concerned. In three strides he was there, slamming it shut as he yelled, “Do something bloody useful! Fetch whatever it is a woman needs at a birthing. Move yourselves!” Then back to Gwenhwyfar, standing over her, stroking the sweat from her forehead and cheeks, clasping her hand as her fingers flailed to hold onto something. She was half sitting, pushing down, the gasping turning to panting. Her panic was easing, the pain not as intense now the head was nearly out.

  “Mithras,” Arthur declared, almost sobbing, “I don’t know how to birth a child.”

  The shoulders were out, one more push and it would be over.

  In the space it took for a breath, Gwenhwyfar half-laughed, “It seems you are about to learn then, husband.”

  Quickly, he fetched sufficient thread from Gwenhwyfar’s sewing basket ready for the cord – his mind jumping, unexpected, to the unsummoned memory of a woman with her head back, laughing.

  “I will have your sons!”

  He thrust the image of Morgause aside and the child was there. As he would have done with a foal he tied and cut the cord, lifted the child and wrapped it in one of his own linen under-tunics that he had snatched up. The door swung open in a flurry of running feet and panting breath, Enid. But there was nothing she could do, nothing. The tears streaking his face, Arthur showed her the boy, a minute old, cradled in his arms. The boy he had seen born, his son. And the tears came into Enid’s eyes. She put her hand to Arthur’s arm, her head giving the briefest, despairing shake and then she was gone to tend her mistress, and Arthur was pushing through the door, shouldering through the crowd and going to the nearest saddled horse. He mounted, rode at a canter, the bundle that would have been his son clutched tight to his aching chest, the tears falling and falling as he rode from the Caer.

  XXVIII

  The wind talked, up here on the summit of the Tor. Sometimes it whispered or crooned lovers’ talk, caressing and soothing. Or it could shout and bellow, its anger blasting and pummelling, but always, incessantly, in whatever voice, the wind talked. Murmuring through the grass, slamming against the largest standing Stone or moaning as it slipped past the height to race down and along the valley.

  Today, this late-winter afternoon, the wind prattled through the grass and tumbled around the solid, granite blackness of the man-high Stone against which Morgaine propped her back. She had been there since morning, huddled beneath a thick cloak, just sitting, staring out from this great height across the winter water, broken only by the drab trees and cast of muddied trackways.

  On a clear day the view went on forever, the ripple of sun-warmed or snow-mantled hills playing faerie tricks, their distance in the shape-changing light confusing the senses of perspective and location. The sun-shimmered glimpse of sea sparkled beyond meadows that danced with a glory of flowers, the grazing land kissed by a flutter of butterfly wings and choired by the joyous glory-singing of birds. And as the shout of summer colour turned to the brilliance of autumn reds and golds, the blue and silver of the water came again, spreading and creeping up and over the river banks, to lie silent and mysterious beneath the gilded wonder of a full moon. The water-lands, ghost-shadowed by the Tor and her sister hills, wreathed by the beauty of a low-lying, white-breathed mist. The sun would rise in all his proud sple
ndour from behind his evocative, night-dark, magical domain, to spread his warm, cupping hand of life. And the soft, gold moon would take her turn, bringing the gentle ease of sleep-silent peace. Yns Witrin, as it always had been and always would be. The centre, the heart, of the Old World, where even the ways of the new and the word of the Christ would never entirely silence the presence of the Goddess.

  To the south-east lay a ramble of low hills, and when there was no wind playing over them Morgaine would sometimes see the grey fuzz of smoke against the sky. Smoke from the cooking fires, hearth-fires, the blacksmith’s forge and the tavern and settlement of Caer Cadan, Arthur’s stronghold. Often she would sit up here on the solitary loneliness of the Tor with only the wind’s voice and the presence of the Goddess for company, sit and watch the slow drift of that vague blur of smoke.

  Eight months ago he had come, and he had not come again. It could all have been a dream, a fanciful wanting, his coming to her – but there were some things that showed beyond doubt that it had been reality.

  There was no smoke this day, the sky was too grey, the wind too sprightly. The Caer itself could not be seen, though she had tried. Standing and standing, she fixed her gaze on where she knew it to be, but could not see its ditches and ramparts, its wooden-built palisade and high gate towers. The hills behind rose higher than the mound that was the Caer, enclosing its presence against their overpowering greens and browns and greys. There was nothing, from up here on the Tor, to show that across the other side of the summer meadows or winter floods, there bustled a busy place of men and horses. Nothing to be seen of the man Morgaine loved beyond living.

  She had not sent word to her mother – let the hag find out from some other spiteful direction! She, Morgaine, would not betray this thing that was good and loving and beautiful to that evil bitch! The wind told her she knew, though. She could hear its persistent voice scuttling through the grasses, Morgause knows! Morgause knows!

  Several times, Morgaine had been tempted to leave the Tor, to seek sanctuary among the Christian women, once going as far as the gate passing through the brick-built wall that encompassed their holy place. But a bell had rung from the little wattle-built chapel dedicated to the Mother of Christ, and women had come from their cloisters and buildings, and courage had failed her. She had run, tears falling, heart pumping, back up the long hill and through the secret ways across the lying water, climbing up and up to the sanctuary height of the Tor.

  Dark was setting now, easing like a whisper from the eastern sky, the blue fading to the purple black of evening, the land below the Tor merging with the deepening star-speckled darkness. Nothing moved, nothing showed except dark against dark, but still Morgaine sat with her back against the Stone. Lights did not show from the Caer, it was too far away to see the glimmer of torch or cooking fire. He was too far away, distanced by the miles of the summer levels and the barrier of a life that held no place for her. He was a king, a soldier. He had a wife, men to command. And what had she? A childhood of fear and neglect had passed into a solitary loneliness that brought its own dreaded fears. She had nothing, nothing except this great, overwhelming, stomach-tightening love for a man she had seen only in glimpses, and known intimately for just one, brief-passed sharing of time.

  The cold made her move at last. Her body was stiff, bones and muscles cramped; it would be easier to follow the gentle slope along the crest of the long hill, wind around and then drop down, but quicker to go straight down, the steep way, slithering on the wet grass. Her small, neat-kept hut was beneath this steeper side. She was cold, tired and lonely, felt suddenly the need for her own hearth, the comfort of her bed and the company of her own-made things. She took the quicker way, sliding in places, walking side-step in others, going straight down the mass of the Tor and brought herself up sharp, a small gasp escaping her parted lips. A light glimmered from her hut, a horse stood tethered outside. How had someone come? How had she missed the signs? Her heart pounded, mind whirled. The birds – love of the Goddess, the birds! She had seen them rise, seen and ignored their natural warning, so deep had she been in the wallowing suffocation of self-pity!

  Cautious, she slithered the last few yards, drawing her dagger from her belt. It could be anyone who had come; a traveller wanting potions or healing, a Myrddin man, a Wise Man – there were still a few, the last remnants of the old Priesthood, the ones the Romans had called Druid, but she had heard of none travelling on this side of the Hafren River. Someone sent from Morgause? That, she was expecting. Her mother would not tolerate this silence from her daughter and the ignoring of sent messages. Or… With silent tread she inched towards the door, telling herself not to hope – but who else would ride such a well-fed, quality horse? Sounds came from within, the fire crackling, the ladle clanking against the cooking pot. The mouth-watering aroma of stew cooking. Who would have the impertinence to kindle a fire beneath her prepared supper? Quietly she lifted the greased latch, pushed open the door, dagger raised, heart hammering, throat dry, prepared to fight. She would not let a sly toad of Morgause’s take her without a fight!

  It was no one of Morgause’s sending. Morgaine stood, numb, disbelieving, the dagger forgotten; stood staring at him as he stared, as unexpectedly surprised, back at her.

  The baby, held in the crook of his arm, whimpered, jerking her senses back to reality. She stepped across the threshold into the warmth and light, closed the door, shutting out the judging mistrust of the night’s eyes. He was cradling the child awkwardly, the bundle balanced across his knees as he squatted before the fire, tending the flame. As naturally as if every day she found a distraught, dishevelled man with a young child making himself at home within her hut, Morgaine took the baby from Arthur and began to fold back the linen that swaddled it. He did not watch her, busied himself instead with stirring the stew. Nor did she say anything as she saw the deformity, the misshapen spine and the cruel stump of an unformed leg. Wordless, she wrapped the boy, only a few hours old – for he still had the birth blood on him – and offered him back to Arthur.

  The Pendragon remained squatting, shook his head, a single, negative movement. His voice was dry, choking grief, as he said, his eyes following the leap and flicker of hearth-flame, “I did not know what to do, where to go. I found myself here.” And then he looked up at her, looked beyond the bulge that was her own advanced pregnancy to the pale, sunken face and large, dark eyes that had swamped with the sharing of his great sorrow. “I could not just kill him, take a blade and slit his throat. Not my son. Not another son.” His voice broke and he turned away to hide his tears.

  Morgaine touched his shoulder, resting her fingers against the taut muscles of his neck, feeling his hair where it curled against his tunic collar. She said nothing, gave only the one reassuring, understanding touch, and was gone, back out into the night, up this steepest side of the Tor that rose and rose into the darkness. When she returned, and for all her bulk of childbearing, she was not gone long, she carried nothing. The boy was for the Goddess, in her wisdom, to take down into the Other World. It was not for mortal man to have the ending of something so new begun.

  She served the stew into bowls, but, for all its goodness, neither ate of it. An owl called from away up on the Tor, and somewhere a wolf announced its presence with a drawn, mournful cry. Once, Morgaine fancied she heard the distant, pitiful wail of a child, but the wind had its own tales to tell this night, and its voice was rising as if in welcome to the pale spill of moonlight that rose serenely from behind the black-shadowed Tor.

  Arthur wanted to get himself drunk, wanted to curse and shout, cry. She had poured him wine, but it was sweet stuff, not as palatable as the soldiers’ fermentations that he was used to. Her brew would only bring a churning stomach and retching sickness.

  She wanted to say so many things, to hold him, touch him. Love with him. Oh, for how many nights had she lain awake on her bed, dreaming and hoping of his coming again. In her imagination, had felt his arms around her, his lips against hers, thei
r bodies close in shared love. And now he was here she could only sit and feel his misery. Her own heart-leap of happiness at having him seated aside her fire, drinking her wine, was somehow obscene, unclean.

  Arthur sipped his drink, she knew he did not like it, though he was attempting to conceal the frown, the slight twist to his mouth. She had nothing else. Strong wine made her head dance, her eyes blur and her stomach heave. Only once had she become drunk, gulping mouthfuls of the heady stuff she had found in the other hut, drinking to drown the fear and enormous loneliness. That was when the last of the other women had died, the last of the old Ladies who had brought her up, taught her everything of the Goddess. She had held no love for those women, who had been as austere and hard as her mother had been – though not as cruel, no one could ever be as cruel as Morgause. Their deaths had been as nothing more than the passing of a goat or flower, a thing that happened except, when the last died, Morgaine had the facing of solitude. And even the crusty snarlings of an old woman were preferable to the nothingness of being alone. For three days she had lain ill after that wine. When the sickness finally ceased and the world stopped its crazy whirling, Morgaine had laid the last Lady in her hut, with all the amphorae and jugs and skins of wine and sent the lot to the goddess in a blaze of flame and billow of smoke. Nothing had passed her lips since, save the sweet taste of water or the lightly potent wine of her own making.

  The geese were restless, their squabbling harsh voices drifting up from the night-dark lake. She offered Arthur more food, he refused.

  There was a long silence, then he said, as casually as if he were enquiring the cost of wine, “Is the child mine?” He surprised himself, as much as her at that asking. Her babe could be any man’s.

  She met his eyes, nodded. “It is yours. With you, it was my first time. There has been no one else.” Nor will there be. She did not add that, for she did not want to explain how someone else’s touch would taint the memory of him, would defile her loving of him. How would a man understand that? A man such as she knew Arthur to be?