Hawk of May

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “No, Lord,” I answered quietly. “I have come back only to say farewell. Tomorrow I will ride north, to see if I can return to the Orcades this winter.”

  Agravain drew in his breath with a hiss. “Gwalchmai, what do you…”

  “What are you saying?” demanded Arthur.

  “What do you think you are doing?” asked Cei angrily.

  “But the lord Arthur has said that he will accept you,” said Agravain. “You have earned it; you have won.”

  “Arthur will accept me because he has no other choice, in honor.” I looked at the High King steadily.

  He nodded, “I do not deny it. I used your sword, because I had to, and you were wounded in my service. What do you hope to gain by this talk?”

  “Nothing. Not now.” I wished that I could have told them in the morning.

  “You have earned acceptance a thousand times over,” said Agravain. “What are you saying, you’re going north?”

  “I do not wish to be accepted because Arthur is bound in honor to accept me,” I answered. “Call me too proud for it, if you wish.”

  “This I do not understand,” said Cei loudly, his voice high with indignation. “All summer you hang about, waiting for an offer from Arthur and turning down half the kings in Britain, and now that you have it, you will not accept it, like a falcon that goes to great trouble to catch a bird it will not eat. By the Hounds of Yffern, the Family is not to be turned aside so lightly!”

  “Do you wish me to join, then? If so, you are like that same falcon, trying all summer to make me leave, and then, when…”

  Cei glared. “You insult us all, and me most of all. I have a fair mind to…”

  “What would that solve?” I asked wearily. “If we fought on foot, you would win; if we fought on horseback, I would win. Everyone knows that, so it would prove nothing. And I have never intended to insult you. You are a noble and courageous man, and I’d be a fool to try.”

  Cei blinked as though I had struck him. “You are mad.”

  I shrugged. “In battle, yes. No man could think that I want to leave the Family to find a better warband. There are none.”

  “Then why will you go?” demanded Agravain.

  “What else, in honor, can I do?”

  “What do you hope to gain?” Arthur asked again. “Or have you gained it already? Will you return to the Orcades now, and tell your mother that the High King of Britain offered you a place, and you turned him down, like a farmer refusing bad eggs?” His voice was level, but edged with cold fury.

  I remembered all of his greatness, and his anger hurt. That, coupled with my pain and weariness, made me speak more plainly than I would have. “Lord,” I said slowly, “I am not the servant of the Queen of Darkness. I will go because I have acted as though I were, because I have divided your Family, on which the fate of Britain rests, even as Morgawse would wish. Lord, I cannot say that I understand these things, but I will not betray them or my lord the Light. It is simpler, Lord, if I go. You have offered now, and I have refused. No one can say that you have wronged me, for it is my own will. The Family will be healed.”

  “But you are the best horseman in the Family!” said Agravain. “You cannot go.”

  “I can, and will be the best horseman somewhere else.” I swallowed some more mead and rubbed my face with my free hand. “I will go, and that is all. Let us speak of something else.”

  Everyone sat silently for a long, long minute, staring at me. I began to eat, trying not to look back at them.

  Then the sound of a harp broke the silence. I looked up, and Taliesin smiled at me, then bent his head to his work, bringing the same pure, high notes like a silver thread across the air. It was CuChulainn’s song, I realized, and it was also the song in Lugh’s Hall, the strong, clear song of renunciation rising about the strains of battle. The rain fell down out of the night and hissed in the embers of the fire. I listened to the music, and, for the first time, understood it.

  The song gave me a strength which sustained me the next day when I saddled Ceincaled to ride on. The Family clustered about me, urging me not to go, wishing me a good journey, and giving me gifts. Arthur watched, his face unreadable. I had a pack horse which I loaded with supplies and the gifts, wrapped in a blanket. It hurt to look at the warriors, and there was a tightness in my throat as I knotted the pack on to the bay pack-mare and straightened, holding the lead rope.

  At this point, Gruffydd the surgeon came through the crowd, followed, to my surprise, by the woman of the previous night.

  “Doctors receive no farewells, is it?” he asked. “Or is it that you are afraid I will look at your leg and tell you to stay down for another week.”

  I smiled, dropped the lead rein, came over and took his hand. “Even if you told me to stay down, I would go.”

  “And your leg will give you trouble all the way to the Ynysoedd Erch,” he said, nodding. “Well, go berserk and you will not feel it.” He paused and added in a low tone, “Why are you going?”

  “Because I must.”

  The woman, who had been staring about her, said, “Great lord, I did not understand. Had I known who you were, I would not have stopped you.”

  I looked at her curiously, hoping that she did not have a wounded son.

  She drew herself up. “My clan is poor, Chieftain, but we have honor. We do not let those who do us kindnesses leave thankless and without reward.” She flushed “Payment I…you would not need. But you have my thanks, Gwalchmai of the Ynysoedd Erch, and the thanks of my clan.”

  “But I could not help your man,” I said, much moved.

  She shrugged, pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes a moment before replying. “You came, and you tried. It is much.”

  Gruffydd looked from her to me. “She came in just now asking for a dark warrior with a limp, who wore a red cloak and had a white stallion. I think I remember her from last night—isn’t her husband…”

  “He is dead now,” I said.

  “Spear through the lungs, she said. I remember now. And you tried to help? That was foolish. Even I could do no good with such a case as that.”

  “She didn’t tell me that; and there was a chance.” I turned to the woman. “You honor me over-much with your thanks, good woman. I did nothing, and your husband is dead.”

  She shrugged again, blinking very quickly. “You came,” she repeated quietly. “A blessing on your road, Chieftain.” She curtseyed awkwardly and turned, still blinking at the tears, and walked through the warriors without looking at them, beginning the long walk home.

  “What was all that?” asked Agravain.

  “You heard it.”

  “Just that? A beggarly fanner’s woman, and a farmer himself who was surely dead?”

  “She is an honorable woman,” Arthur said sharply, “to come miles into an armed camp to return thanks for an attempt at healing: a noble and brave woman!”

  Agravain stared at him in surprise. “My lord?” Then he put the woman from his mind altogether. “Gwalchmai. I do not understand it, but…by the sun.” He looked away. “Take care, my brother. Slán lead.”

  “God go with you,” said Bedwyr softly.

  “A blessing on your road,” said Gruffydd.

  I nodded to all of them, turned to Ceincaled. He bowed his proud head, blew at me softly, nibbled at my hair. It made me smile. I stroked his neck and caught up the reins.

  “No,” said Arthur suddenly, in a strained voice. “Wait.”

  I dropped the reins, turned back. The High King stood behind the others, his face pale. “Wait,” he repeated. I wondered if he would wish me a good journey as well.

  He shook his head violently as if to clear it. “Gwalchmai. I wish to speak to you a moment first. Alone.”

  I paused, staring at him, then handed Ceincaled’s reins to Agravain. Arthur had already set off fo
r his own tent, and I followed, again in complete confusion. I did not see what there could be to talk about. Perhaps he still felt that he was in honor bound to do something for me. Yes, that was likely.

  In the tent he caught up a jug of wine, slowly poured two glasses and offered me one. After a moment of hesitation I took it and stood with it in my hand, staring at him.

  “Be seated,” he said, waving to a chair at one side of the tent. I sat, and he himself sank on to his bed. He took a swallow of his wine, then met my eyes.

  “I am sorry,” he said, flatly and quietly.

  I stared at him in bewilderment. “Lord, there is no need to think that your honor binds you…”

  “Forget that,” he said sharply. “Ach, Yffern…” he stood, paced a few steps towards the door, stopped and turned to me again. “I have misjudged you. Badly. And if it can be that you still desire a place in my Family, it is yours.”

  I felt as though the sky were caving in. “I do not understand,” I said at last.

  “On the banks of the Wir, you asked me whether I was altogether in Darkness,” he replied quietly. “And I was. An old Darkness, and one which I cannot shake off, try as I will.” He turned and began to pace the floor of the tent, looking at nothing with a wide grey stare. “From the beginning, I fought with myself about you. I had heard of you, your reputation, and saw no surprising new reason to trust you, but that was not the thing which decided me against you. No: I knew that you had been close to my sister, deep in her secret counsels, and, by Heaven, you look like her. That was all that was needed. Everything which you did after that I twisted to fit in with my own ideas, twisted to keep you in the Darkness with my sister, and kept myself in the Darkness instead. For which now I say that I am sorry. And yet all of it, the killing, the way you are in battle, the division you caused, the horse which I thought you had captured by spells—all of it was secondary and mattered less to me than the single thought, ‘He knows.’ It was that that angered me, and filled me with such horror that I could not…”

  “But know what, Lord?”

  “Know about your brother, of course.”

  “Agravain? I don’t see. Why…”

  “Not Agravain; of course not. The other one. Medraut.”

  Our eyes met again, his hard and tortured, mine confused, and he stood suddenly still as the hardness ebbed out of his and they widened, a straight, grey stare of realization. Medraut’s stare.

  Arthur sank down on the bed again and began to laugh, horrible choking noises almost like sobs, then pressed his head into his hands. “You do not know. You never did. She never told you.”

  I felt coldness in the pit of my stomach, and a sudden black terror. Morgawse, Arthur’s sister, and Medraut who looked like Arthur (why hadn’t I seen it before?)—and then, laden with horror, the words of Morgawse’s curse returning to me: “May the earth swallow me, may the sky fall on me, may the sea overwhelm me if you do not die by your son’s hand!”

  “Oh, by the Light,” I said.

  Arthur straightened and stilled. “And now you do know.”

  I jumped to my feet. “My lord, how? I thought she must have touched you, somehow, but this…”

  “I consented to it,” he said in a harsh voice. Again we stared at each other for a long moment, and then he said, “I did not know, then, who my father was. I swear it by all that’s holy, I did not know she was my sister. She…she…” he stopped again. “She came to me, outside the feast Hall, when first I won fame in the warband of her father Uther. She was staying in Camlann while her husband, Lot, campaigned in the north of Britain. She had singled me out, before then, but then…I was drunk, and happy, and she was more beautiful than a goddess; I consented only to adultery, but I consented to it. And later, Uther asked me about my parentage. I had not talked about it; one doesn’t. But I told him, and he remembered my mother, and was pleased that I was his son. When he had gone to tell the others, I remembered her, rushed to warn her—and she…” He stood again, not looking at me, looking back in remembered agony and horror on the moment when he discovered that he had been seduced into incest. “She had known, all along she had known, and greeted me as Arthur ab Uther, and called me brother, and laughed, saying that she bore my child. And ever since I have not been able to so much as think of her without remembering that moment; and the thought that another knew, her son, and perhaps had planned with her—I could not endure it and felt that I must rid myself of you at any cost.”

  “My lord,” I said, still staring in horror and pity. “My lord.”

  “Oh, indeed. Only you were innocent, and did not even know.” He took another deep drink of the wine, and set the cup down. The grey eyes focused on me again. “You never knew, until I told you.”

  I went down on one knee to him. “My lord, I…I could not have guessed such a thing. I do not understand why you did not send me away forcibly; especially after I had divided the Family, and killed, and made your victories bitter for you. Forgive me, I…”

  “Forgive you? It is I who need forgiveness. Stand up. In God’s name, stand. Now…” he too stood again. “I should have seen months ago that you were not what I thought you to be. You endured everything which the war and I together could throw at you and did not complain. And you worked as a surgeon. I knew nothing about that until Gruffydd told me, and shouted at me for being unjust to you. He thinks very highly of you.” I stared at the king, startled. Of course. He was always busy the day after a battle, but saw the wounded in the night, when I was sleeping off the madness. “I should have seen enough, over the months you followed me, to make me realize; and I should have trusted Bedwyr’s judgement, since I knew myself to be bound by the Darkness. But I persisted in wronging you. And then, last night, you said that you left so as not to divide the Family, and spoke as though you meant it. I told myself you did it only for pride, but I could not convince myself. I knew, definitely knew then, that I was wrong; and yet I could not bring myself to admit it to myself. I could have argued myself out of it, but then, that woman…”

  “What?”

  “The woman with the husband who died. A noble, honorable woman, but low-born, not rich or powerful. No one who obeyed the Darkness would have looked at her twice, but you went out of your way on a cold night with a wound which must have been troubling you, to help a man whom you did not know and who could not be helped.”

  “I did not know he was so badly wounded when I went.”

  “Yet when you did know, you still tried to help. There would be no advantage from it for you, nothing to gain. It was pointless, but honorable and compassionate. There could be no doubt, after that. You were what you had claimed to be all along, and I had played the part of a fool and a tyrant.”

  He walked over to me and laid one hand on my shoulder, “I have said that I am sorry for it, and say it now again. Perhaps you no longer desire a place in my service. Yet I think, now that you have offered to go, there would be no further division when I asked you to remain. And you have disarmed Cei very thoroughly.” He grinned suddenly, if rather shakily, something of the light coming back into his face. “Insults he can cope with, but not being told that he is noble and courageous. I think he hopes that no one will find that out, if he is quarrelsome enough.” He became serious again. “Thus, if you should still desire to stay…” he sought for the word. “There is work enough and more than enough, and I would be very glad of you.”

  I was silent a moment, and Arthur watched me steadily, half-challenging, half-hoping, his hand still on my shoulder, almost testing.

  “My lord,” I said at last, “if someone should offer you Britain, with the Empire restored, and all Erin and Caledon and Less Britain besides, and the roads open to Rome—would you accept it?”

  He grinned slowly, then embraced me, clumsily, still almost testing, but I realized that it was not me he was testing now but himself. I returned the embrace, then knelt and kis
sed his hand, the signet ring he wore on his finger.

  “My lord,” I said, “I have desired to fight for you, for long and long, since I knew that you fight for the Light, and it would be better to die fighting against the Darkness than to live long winning victories to no purpose. How could I wish for more than this? From now on it will be victories only.”

  “God willing, even so, for I think we have had victories of a sort already. Come.” He helped me to my feet, embraced me again, then walked rapidly from the tent.

  The others were still waiting by Ceincaled and the laden pack-mare, discussing something which they refrained from abruptly when they saw Arthur and me coming. Arthur stopped, surveyed the horses, then announced calmly, “You can see that they are unloaded again. Gwalchmai ap Lot has agreed to stay, and to swear the oath to me, at my urging.”

  Agravain looked at Cei, then at Bedwyr, then at me. I nodded. He gave a whoop of delight. “Laus Deo, by the sun!” He embraced me, pounding me on the back, “I understand nothing of all this—you change your mind; Arthur changes his; you change yours—but I like it this way, so long as you do not begin it again,” he said, in Irish. “And now, indeed, we have won,” he added, in British, letting me go and glaring at Cei.

  Cei shrugged, eyeing me; then, suddenly smiled. “It is good news. You are a very devil of a fighter, cousin.”

  Bedwyr looked from me to Arthur, then, when Arthur also nodded, he smiled slowly, “I am glad.”

  “Very good,” said Arthur drily. “I am glad my decision meets with your approval. You three can be witnesses. Call the rest, and we will swear the oaths now.”

  It was still cold, and the wind sent the clouds scudding across the dark sky, and whispered in the bare branches of the trees. The Family was a splash of color and light on the barren landscape, gathered about in a circle to watch and bear witness. Arthur stood before his tent, tall and straight, the wind tugging at his purple cloak. Bedwyr stood on his right, Cei on his left with Agravain beside him. I stared at the picture, wishing to hold it for ever, then dropped to one knee, drawing Caledvwlch.