“My wrist. I fell – it’s nothing.”
“Nothing be damned! I can see the swelling even in this poor light. Hie!” He shouted, attracting the attention of the two people approaching. “Here come your brothers.” Arthur ran forward, gesturing wildly as he explained the situation, urging Etern and Osmail to hurry.
The big man looked displeased at what he was sure would turn out to be a boy’s prank. Etern had babbled something about Branwen locking Gwenhwyfar up? What nonsense! But as he came upon his sister, raising the smoking torch high to see the clearer, his mild irritation became profound anger. Branwen had done this? His wife, the mother of his children had deliberately and callously done this?
Passing the torch for Etern to hold, he squatted before Gwenhwyfar and examined her wrist, asked a few direct questions. After brushing aside her tears with one finger, he lifted her and carrying her in his arms, strode back across the orchard tight-lipped, his expression grim.
Branwen had committed this disgrace. Aye, well, it would be her last. Push him to the limit, to that hurdle of endurance? He was over it, by God, over and spurring fast for manumission!
Etern exchanged a wry look with Arthur as Osmail walked away. “I have never seen my brother look so angry.” He laughed suddenly. ”By God! Am I glad not to be in Branwen’s boots this evening.”
Together the boys ambled across the orchard heading for the glow of torchlight streaming from the open doors of the Hall. The sound of tables being set up and women chattering drifted into the darkening stillness beneath the trees. A heavy dew had fallen, leaving a trail of silvered marks where the boys walked.
“Your sister,” Arthur said, placing an arm around Etern’s shoulders, “I like her.”
Removing his arm, he pushed his hands through his bracae belt and whistling, walked on ahead into the comforting welcome of Cunedda’s Hall.
X
Early afternoon. Etern poked his head round the door and grinned broadly. Gwenhwyfar, sitting cross-legged on the floor, tossed two wooden dice in the air and neatly caught them in her right hand. She grinned back at her brother.
“You are supposed to be in bed,” Etern chided. “Alone?” he added, searching the chamber with his eyes.
“They,” and Gwenhwyfar gave a little toss of her head indicating the beds that belonged to the other girls who shared this chamber, “have grown bored with gossip of Branwen’s disgrace, and as my injury is not fatal they have decided to leave me and follow more interesting pursuits.”
For most of the morning the girls had fussed around Gwenhwyfar, excited and curious, making a nuisance of themselves with their wittering and twittering – plumping pillows, tut-tutting and overemphasising sympathy, which was as shallow as a dried-up river ford. All this Gwenhwyfar suffered for the few scraps of information among the nonsense. Branwen had been ordered to her apartments by her outraged husband – and with the army’s departure Morgause had apparently raged and stormed at not being allowed to accompany Uthr. Gwenhwyfar had attempted to pursue this line of conversation, but those silly lily-brained creatures had gone off at a tangent about hairstyles and face paint.
Few women went with the menfolk to war these days – not decent women anyway. The patched whore wagons trundled after any hosting, making their way as best they could along the rutted, disintegrating roads, but women no longer joined in the fighting – as Cunedda had been at pains to point out to his daughter many times. Some British women still learnt to handle weapons to defend themselves and their children according to the old ways, yet Morgause was no traditionalist; she was Roman bred and born.
Gwenhwyfar rolled the dice to the floor and smiled triumphantly. “Venus!” She glanced up. “Are you coming in, or are you a doorstop?”
Etern ambled over and sat cross-legged next to her. “Four counts of six in a row?” he queried, claiming the dice and beginning to shake them vigorously in his closed fist. “You cheated.”
“I did not! I scored Venus fair. What would be the point of cheating myself?”
Throwing a total of five, Etern handed the dice to his sister. “Best of three throws?”
She nodded agreement and played her turn, then gave him the dice. Casually she asked, “Not with your friend today?”
“Who, Arthur? Na, he has been claimed by Morgause.” Etern wrinkled his nose in disgust at his low score. “You know, Gwen, I don’t much like the woman.” He shivered, as if a chill had crept down his spine.
As Gwenhwyfar tossed her last throw she said, “Neither does Arthur.”
Spreading his hands, Etern admitted defeat. “Canis to me, lowest score. Another go?”
“Na, I have had enough of dice.” Gwenhwyfar stretched lazily and, climbing to her feet wandered to the window. The chamber was on the first floor, built above storage rooms, its single square window overlooking a courtyard and, to the far right, a vegetable garden. It was all very well to be ordered to spend a day in bed, but it was so boring. She felt fine, beyond a dull throb in her wrist; would rather be out doing things.
“Osmail was with me earlier,” she said, watching three slaves tending the young spring growth. “Do you suppose he minds being left behind?” Then, as if on the same topic, “Cabbage for supper by the look of it.”
Etern, coming to stand behind her, laughed. “Remember the time too much salt was put in for the cooking? Aye, I think he minds, but one of our brothers must stay to watch over Gwynedd.”
“He has never professed to like the killing of men, our brother. All that Christian talk of love and turning the other cheek. Da despairs of Osmail, you know. He’s the eldest and has no stomach for war.” She had been leaning on the sill, looking out and down at the small empty courtyard below. “What does Morgause want with Arthur?”
Etern shook his head doubtfully. “She expects him to run errands for her, entertain her, I don’t know. Why ask me?”
“Don’t get cross.”
Glowering at his sister’s rebuke, Etern shuffled away from the window and plonked himself on the bed. “I’m bored,” he admitted with a heavy sigh. “Da and the others away, you confined in here, Arthur with her.” He nodded in the vague direction of Morgause’s chamber.
Still at the window, Gwenhwyfar knelt on the floor and shuffled herself into a more comfortable position. Morgause’s chamber was just visible, away across the vegetable plot and a little to the right. Gwenhwyfar fiddled with the bandage around her wrist, chewed her lips, watched a worm seeking blackbird hopping in the wake of the gardening slaves. “Why, I wonder, are her shutters closed?”
Lying back across the bed, Etern stretched his arms. “Whose shutters?”
“Surely the woman is not sleeping at this time of day?”
“What woman?” Etern sat up, irritated by the obtuse dialogue.
“Morgause.”
Her brother lost interest. “Oh, her.” He began lifting and bending his legs in some elaborate thigh exercise.
Gwenhwyfar rested her chin on her hands, mindful of the injury. She whistled a few bars of a tune plaguing her mind. Suddenly sat up straight and turned abruptly towards her brother. “Did you not say that Arthur was with her?”
“What is this?” Etern demanded. “I am not his keeper.”
Gwenhwyfar feigned indifference. She got up and moved vaguely around the room, touching this, tidying that. An uneasy feeling niggled, like an itch you could not reach.
Heading for the door, Etern stated, “I have a few things to see to. Call back later, shall I?”
Nodding at the other beds, Gwenhwyfar answered, “If the boneheads have not returned.”
As his retreating laugh faded she began dressing, awkward with the limited use of one hand. There was no logical reason for suspicion, no cause to doubt, yet her unease was becoming more insistent. All those things Arthur had said yesterday. Those confidences spoken, she was certain, through the need to ride the fear. It was the things he had not said that worried her. He was vulnerable to Morgause’s spiteful whims when
not protected by the Pendragon’s presence – and Uthr had gone.
Gwenhwyfar slipped quietly from her chamber, down the back stairs and across the courtyard, her leather sandals making barely a sound as she padded along the raised walkway running the length of the other wing. She stopped outside Morgause’s room and listened at the door. Shutters, firmly closed, blocked any view inside. She could hear voices within: Morgause’s penetrating lilt and Arthur’s sullen responses.
This wing was a single storey construction of timber and stone. Living chambers were ranged along the ground floor, with the limited space beneath the low eaves of the slate roof seldom used, for access was difficult and headroom low.
Jogging to the rear, Gwenhwyfar clambered up the ladder and with difficulty, lifted the trapdoor at its head. The thing was heavy, reluctant to move and hard to push with the use of only one hand. She found the need to climb higher, brace her shoulders against the unyielding door and heave. It fell back with a startling thump, scattering a cloud of choking dust and musty straw. For a moment Gwenhwyfar balanced on the top rung, coughing, and blinking her eyes. She sneezed, took a breath, and carefully pulled herself up into the diffused light of the cavern beyond.
Several slates were missing, and in places holes had worn through the plaster below the eaves, convenient for a number of nesting birds. Gwenhwyfar’s ears caught the fluffing and flurry of feathers as brooding mothers squatted over their young, anxious at this unexpected intrusion. She could see their tiny heads and bright black eyes peeping nervously at her over the nest rims, keeping so still. Feet pattered away from the broad shaft of light the open trapdoor let in, a squeaking of protest as mice scuttled to safety.
The place was empty save for a tumbled heap of wooden crates, several piles of discarded sacking, a few cracked amphorae and what looked like a battered saddle. Squirming through the layers of dust and sticky cobwebs, Gwenhwyfar crawled along to the far end that would be the ceiling of Morgause’s chamber. She had to keep her weight on the timber rafters, for the plaster between crumbled most fearfully when she put hand or knee on it. In places, the fragile stuff had already worn, and she caught tantalising glimpses into the chambers below; for a moment, she was tempted to turn about and investigate the opposite far end, to spy down on where Branwen had apparently shut herself. She heard Arthur’s voice, a sharp, “No!” With renewed determination she scurried forward.
The roof here sloped sharply down to the walls, and the narrow space was piled with collected dust and heaps of old leaves that had blown in through gaps in the tiling. Gwenhwyfar found she had to stretch out flat. Several small holes afforded a limited view of the chamber below. Spreading her weight along the rafters, she put her eye to the nearest and squinted down.
Morgause was talking in her low, singsong voice, husky and heavily slurred with over much wine. Gwenhwyfar, to her disgust, could see nothing save the worn pattern of the rather crudely laid mosaic floor. She made to shift position, saw to her horror a puff of plaster collapse and scatter downwards in a fluttering shower. The rafter beneath her right knee creaked, sounding as loud as thunder to her ears. Heart thumping, she lay rigid, not daring to move.
“You do want to please me, do you not, boy?” Morgause was saying in her precise Latin. “Is that not why Uthr brought you, so you might please me?”
“You know damn well why he brought me. I am almost a man grown, I need the experience.”
The woman laughed, a low, casual chuckle. Gwenhwyfar heard the sound of wine being poured, a jug clinking against a glass. Morgause’s sickly sweet answer: “Experience, yes.” The sound of movement, a rustling of silk garments and soft leather slippers. Morgause came into Gwenhwyfar’s limited view briefly, carrying a second goblet, which she handed to Arthur somewhere over to the left.
“It is time you became a man, boy.” Morgause again walked beneath Gwenhwyfar’s spyhole, carrying one goblet. Arthur must have taken the one offered.
“Do you find me beautiful?” The question was unexpected, floating upwards with the sun-swirled flitterings of dust. “Or are you too much Uthr’s boy?” Morgause’s wine-smooth voice changed to a harsh rasp as she commanded, “Come here.”
Arthur stayed where he was, did not move. He was standing pressed tight against the wall: it felt safer to have something solid at his back. He shook his head defiantly, wondering if he could make a run for the door. Three, four paces, draw back the bolt… He gulped the wine; it was strong but it steadied his quivering nerves – though he must not drink over much.
“You would do well to obey me, boy, to answer me.” Morgause sprang forward. Arthur yelped, an involuntary sound as her hand caught viciously at his arm. He dropped the goblet, the fine blue glass shattering on the tiled floor.
Pinning him against the wall, Morgause pressed her body close, the thin silk of her flame coloured gown sharply outlining the curves of her body beneath. She smelt of strong perfume, a rich, spiced scent. Her breath bore a hint of chewed mint clouded by red wine. There was no denying Morgause was beautiful.
Arthur swallowed, his attention drifting towards the inviting swell of her breasts. He knew nothing of women, but his body was on the verge of wanting to know, that confusing time suspended halfway between boy and man.
With a smile curving her mouth, Morgause recognised his reluctant interest. She adjusted her clothing, loosened the shoulder brooch, letting the folds of the bodice slip slightly. “These breasts should be suckling Uthr’s son but I have borne him only girl brats. Three – did you know that?” She moved a fraction away, the better to read his blank expression. “No, you could not. I was discreet with their bearing – remember my visits to kindred?”
He remembered well. Those glorious months of freedom from torment!
“I exposed them,” she said with a small, careless gesture, drifting, to Arthur’s small sigh of relief, further away. “I have no use for girls.”
She spun to face him, that soft seductive smile back again. “Do you wish to bed with me, Arthur?” She swayed her body, lithe and supple, so very sensuous. “Ygrainne bore Uthr two dead girls after the first boy died – did you know that also? Ah, I see you did not.” Her smile was arrogant, all knowing. “There is no maleness in Uthr’s seed.”
Arthur felt hot, and a little sick. The sweat trickled down his back. His throat dry as he stammered in a high, cracked voice, “Uthr had that one son.”
Her head lolling back, and with a scornful laugh, Morgause spread her arms. “His son? The thing died because it was not his.”
Gwenhwyfar squirmed forward, seeking another hole to see what was happening. The rafter creaked again, and another fragile cascade of dust spiralled down. She cursed silently under her breath.
Arthur’s hissed response to Morgause’s slander was shocked. “Lady Ygrainne would not do such a thing!” For all his dislike of her, he knew Ygrainne to be an honest woman. She would not kill a child or deceive her lord husband. Not now, not then. His heart was racing, his breathing coming shallow and fast; Morgause was standing so close, her breasts large beneath the loosely fitting bodice. He had never seen her naked. Curse the bitch! He hated her, wanted her dead, gone, anything. Wanted so much to reach out and touch.
Morgause knew, was goading him deliberately, her teasing subtle but intense. “Ygrainne has not always been such a blessed woman. She rutted with Uthr while still another man’s wife.” She ran her fingers lightly over Arthur’s cheek, across his mouth, feeling the slight prickle of hair above his lip.
Attempting to squirm away, Arthur spat an answer; “Everyone knows Ygrainne’s first husband was a brute twice her age, and a heel-hound of Vortigern’s at that.” His voice was rising in pitch, as Morgause pressed her body against his, pinning him against the wall. “None gave her blame when she divorced the bastard and took Uthr as husband.” He tried again to free himself, added with bravado, “Save you.”
Morgause’s lips were on his, her fingers searching beneath his tunic for the lacings of his bracae.
Arthur kicked, hard and she screeched, her hand lashing out to strike him. Again and again her hand beat at his face until Arthur crumpled to the floor, covering his head with his arms. She used her fists and feet, hitting and kicking at him.
Above in the rafters, Gwenhwyfar began to squirm backward. She must do something to stop this, fetch someone. Then the fury below ceased as abruptly as it began. Again she squinted through a hole.
Morgause was squatting over Arthur, holding his bloodied face tight between her pinching fingers. “Why is Uthr so fond of you?” Her angered features were distorted and grotesque, like some foul spirit’s mask. “You are his boy lover!”
To Arthur, the room was spinning; blood dribbled from his split lip, sparks and flashes shot before his eyes, but he answered, furious at the insult to his lord. “Your mind is tangled in a weed garden of jealousy. You think because I love Uthr there must be something sordid, something obscene, because that is what you are, a foul-minded bitch! You cannot bear Uthr giving affection to anyone but yourself, can you?”
Her palm cracked sharply against his cheek. This time he did not flinch or try to hide away. He looked straight at her, let her hit him. “I’m not afraid of you,” he said, though his voice shook. He was, desperately afraid, but anger had seized hold of him. “You are jealous of me,” he taunted, “jealous because Uthr thinks more of me, a bastard son of a serving girl, than of you, his ageing whore.”
Morgause drew a sharp breath and flashed back, “Then you do bed with him!”
Arthur laughed. “You poor slut. You have so little idea of what love can really be – no idea of respect and admiration, pride and hope.”
Her fist caught him a savage blow to the temple; he fell forward stunned, but the blows still came.
Gwenhwyfar moved back quickly, not wanting to see more, or hear. She had to put a stop to what was happening, had to fetch someone. The loose rafter creaked, groaned, then gave way. She screamed as the ceiling caved in.
Rafters, plaster and dust cascaded down. Nesting birds took sudden flight, whirring wings and squawking alarm. Gwenhwyfar landed in a heap and sprawl among the cloud of debris, coughing and spluttering. The training of weapon handling and riding saved her from injury, for she rolled with the fall and was instantly on her feet, winded and covered in grime, but unharmed.
The Kingmaking Page 8