The Road to Avalon

by Joan Wolf

  Bedwyr took a troop of light horse and galloped through the night. By daybreak he was at Clust. Once Meliagrance realized the alarm was raised, he had posted his men behind the ditch and wall that separated his land from the road. When Bedwyr and his men galloped up in the morning mist, the Verica archers raised their bows.

  Bedwyr pulled Sluan up at a distance of twenty feet from the wall. The road behind him was crowded with men and lathered horses. Bedwyr said in a voice that carried like a trumpet through the heavy morning air, “I have come for the queen. Put down your weapons or I will cut you to pieces.”

  The majority of Meliagrance’s archers had been with Bedwyr at Ambrosius’ wall when he had turned back the Saxons with just the cavalry. And here he was now, a massive figure on his huge black horse. They could see the brightness of his hair even through the heavy mist. “You have one minute to put down your weapons,” came that voice, and the first bow dropped to the ground.

  Bedwyr galloped through the gates followed by the company of light horse. The dirt courtyard was empty but there was a line of men massed in front of the house, swords drawn. Bedwyr pulled up Sluan. “Meliagrance!” he shouted, ignoring the Verica guard as if it did not exist. “Meliagrance, come out of there!”

  The courtyard was filled now with horses. Some of the Verica men before the house had been with Bedwyr at the wall; others were seeing him for the first time. All were quaking in their shoes. The prince dismounted and strode to the door of the villa; the guard fell away from him in white-faced terror. Not a man of them even thought of using his sword. Bedwyr wrenched open the door with such force that it came off its hinges. They could hear him in the hall shouting “Gwenhwyfar! Where are you?”

  They did not hear the queen’s breathless “Here.” Nor did they see Gwenhwyfar come running into the hall to throw herself into Bedwyr’s arms.

  “Bedwyr. Oh, Bedwyr.” Her voice was trembling. “Oh, thank God you have come.” She was shaking uncontrollably, and she clung to him tightly. He was so big. So safe.

  “Did he hurt you?” Through the storm of emotion racking her, she heard the words. Heard the tone, actually. She released her hold on him enough to allow her to look up into his face. He was white with fury. “Did he hurt you?” he repeated.

  “No.” She stared at him, fascinated. “No, Bedwyr. I managed to play for time. But if you had not come when you did . . . ” She moved closer to him again and pressed her face into his massive shoulder. His arms came around her at once, crushingly. Over her head she heard him speak. Two words only. “Find Meliagrance.”

  There were footsteps in the hallway. Then he said to her, “Come, Gwenhwyfar. Let us find someplace where we can talk. I want to know what happened.”

  “All right.” She hated to move away from the safety of his arms, but she forced herself to step back. “This way,” she said. “The bedroom he gave me.”

  “I told him I had got Olwen’s sickness,” she was saying fifteen minutes later, when there came a knock upon the bedroom door.

  Bedwyr called and the door opened. “We’ve found him, Prince,” the cavalryman who stood there said. “He was hiding in the cellar.”

  “The weasel,” said Bedwyr contemptuously. “Lock him up someplace secure.”

  “We have, my lord.”

  “And his men?”

  “They are all in the courtyard.” A look of scorn crossed the cavalryman’s fair Celtic face. “They are wetting their breeches, they’re so frightened.” He looked at Gwenhwyfar. “Beg pardon, my lady.”

  “I’ll come in a minute,” Bedwyr said. After the door had closed once more, he turned to the queen. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes.” She managed a wavering smile. “What . . . what will you do to him, Bedwyr?”

  “What I would like to do,” Bedwyr replied through his teeth, “is cut his heart out of his living body. But I can’t. I must wait for Arthur.”

  “Is Arthur coming too?” She sounded out of breath.

  “I’ve sent riders out to find him.” He looked down on her from his magnificent height. “Wait here. I won’t be long.”

  When he left, Gwenhwyfar went to the window and stared blindly out. It had begun to rain. Her bedroom was at the back of the house, so she could not see what was happening in the courtyard. It seemed to her that Bedwyr was gone for a very long time.

  Then there was a knock on the door and he was there. His shoulders filled the doorway. He smiled at her. “Everything is quite secure.”

  She smiled back and he came into the room. “Can you bear to spend another day in this house?” he asked. “It’s raining hard now. I don’t think you would enjoy riding for hours in this weather.”

  “I can stay,” she replied, “so long as you are with me.” He closed the door and stood there looking at her out of eyes that were intensely blue. “What would you have done,” she asked, “if Meliagrance had raped me?”

  “Killed him,” came the instant response.

  “Without waiting for Arthur?”

  “Without waiting for Arthur.”

  He began to walk toward her, filling the room with his huge masculinity. Both physically and emotionally, she was at the end of her tether, and when he put his arms around her she collapsed against him like a broken reed. He smoothed her hair, and, feeling his touch, she turned her face and put it against his hand. His other hand closed hard on her shoulder.

  His powerful body was taut against hers as he turned her face up. She had a glimpse of blazing blue eyes and then his mouth came down on hers. The kiss seared her to her soul. Gwenhwyfar closed her eyes, breathless and dazed. His whole enormous masculine strength bore down upon her and she gave way before it.

  All the emotions of the last two days seemed to her to have been leading up to this moment. Nothing mattered now except this intensity of physical passion that blazed up between them. She locked her arms around his neck, and when he lifted her to lay her on the bed, she made no sound of protest.

  Gwenhwyfar lay still and listened to the rain. It sounded so dreary, she thought. So desolate. She looked down at the tousled gilt head that was buried on her breast and it seemed that the desolation of the rain crept through into her soul.

  What had they done?

  Her hand moved, instinctively to touch his hair, but she stilled it. His great weight was pressing her back into the bed. Suddenly she was afraid to see his face. She did not want to see the look in his eyes. No one loved Arthur as much as Bedwyr. He would hate himself for this. He would hate her.

  The rain beat even harder against the roof. “Bedwyr,” she said tentatively. Then, when he still did not stir, “I don’t know how this happened . . . ”

  The gilt head finally moved, lifted, and he was looking down at her. Gwenhwyfar stared. His eyes were full of blue, lit-up laughter. “You don’t?” he said. “Gods. I have been wanting to do this ever since first I saw you, Gwenhwyfar. You must know that.”

  He had taken his weight off her, leaning it on the hands he had braced on either side of her. The great muscles in his bare shoulders and arms stood out clearly under the fair skin. She did not reply, only continued to look at him in astonishment. He smiled, a warm and tender look, lowered his head to kiss her gently, and said, “Don’t look so worried.”

  “But Bedwyr, what about Arthur?” She was completely bewildered.

  The laughter fled from his face, leaving it perfectly serious. “True. I had better not stay here any longer. Although”—his eyes devoured her— “I’d like to stay all day.”

  The thought flitted through Gwenhwyfar’s mind: Arthur can’t wait to leave me.

  She watched Bedwyr dress. When he had put on his belt he came back to the bed, bent, and gave her a lingering kiss. “Don’t worry about it,” he said again. His blue eyes commanded her. “If there is any blame in this, it is mine. You were in need of comfort, and I took advantage.” He straightened up and grinned. “I can’t say I regret one minute of it, however.” He moved to the door. “Yo
u would do best to stay in here, Gwenhwyfar. I’ll send Olwen to you in fifteen minutes.” He raised his golden brows. “Get dressed,” he commanded softly, and left.

  Gwenhwyfar watched the door close and sat still staring at it for several minutes, trying to understand what had just happened. One thing was certain, however. Bedwyr was not suffering from remorse for having gone to bed with his best friend’s wife. As for her . . . She was not sure what she felt. It had never even entered her mind as a possibility that this could happen. How was she to face Arthur?

  The door remained securely closed, but in her mind’s eye she saw Bedwyr’s figure once more. Bedwyr had got Elaine with child, she thought. Perhaps, perhaps . . . She lay back against her pillow and continued to stare at the door, her eyes wide with thought.

  Arthur rode into Clust just after dawn. Like Bedwyr the previous day, he had ridden through the night. The sound of horses in the courtyard did not awaken the queen, as her room was at the back of the house, but the sound of feet and voices in the hall did. Gwenhwyfar got out of bed and went to open the door of her room to listen.

  There was the deep rumble of male voices; then Arthur’s voice cut through, quite clearly. “Where is he?” the king was asking. Gwenhwyfar shut her door and went to crawl back into bed.

  He was here.

  How was she going to face him? Since last they had met, she had almost been raped by Meliagrance, and she and Bedwyr had . . . There was a lump like lead in the pit of her stomach and she curled into a ball under the blankets. She was shivering with cold and fear.

  He came half an hour later. She heard her door open and half-opened her eyes to see him slowly pressing it shut behind him. He was looking to see if she was awake. The room was still quite dark. She forced herself to sit up and say, “Come in.”

  He crossed the floor to the bed, moving with his distinctive fluid grace. He sat down on the side of the bed and looked at her gravely. His eyes were very light in his lean, unshaven face. “Bedwyr tells me you took no hurt,” he said.

  She shook her head. All her nerves were on end. “I told Meliagrance I was sick.”

  He was holding a candle and now he got up and lit the lamp that was on her bedside table. “Smart girl,” he said approvingly.

  “It was all my fault, Arthur,” she said in a rush as he sat back down beside her. “I was too nice to him. I should have had more sense.”

  “My dear, if you stopped speaking to all the men who fell in love with you, you’d soon find yourself with no one to talk to at all.”

  Her eyes fell away from that amused gray gaze. He knew perfectly well she had been more than merely polite to Meliagrance. She bit her Up.

  “Gwenhwyfar.” He leaned toward her. “Bedwyr says there was more to Meliagrance’s plot than his lust for you.”

  “Yes.” She nodded vigorously. “He had some mad notion of making himself high king, Arthur. For a few minutes he actually had me convinced that there was a Celtic conspiracy against you.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  He listened to her intently and when she had finished he got up off the bed and went to stand at the window. She watched him in silence. She knew the look of him so well, she thought: the set of his collarbone, the austerely beautiful cut of his mouth, the long sweep of lashes against the high bones of his cheek. He was so familiar—and so unfathomable.

  He had made up his mind. He turned to her and said, “Well, we must thank God for Gareth.”

  “Yes,” she replied fervently. “He didn’t want me to come to Clust, Arthur. But Meliagrance said you were hurt. What else could I have done?”

  He nodded absently, as if he were not thinking of what she was saying but of something quite different. “Meliagrance had this whole plot quite carefully thought out.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “It would seem so.”

  He came back to the bed and stood there looking down at her. “I am so very sorry you were frightened, my dear. But you proved yourself a queen indeed. You handled him brilliantly”

  There was a rare warmth in his voice. The tone, the words of praise, had their intended effect. Her whole face lighted. “What will you do to Meliagrance, Arthur?” she asked.

  “I’ll have to kill him.”

  “Kill him?”

  “Yes.” His black brows were drawn together in thought. “And it had better be done this morning. I want word to get out of his fate before the other Celtic leaders have a chance to think about his summons.”

  “They wouldn’t. Not against you! Not after all you have done for them.”

  His gray eyes were bleak. “I told you once, Gwenhwyfar, that peace has its own problems, and this is one of them. We no longer have the war against the Saxons to unite us. With a little encouragement, Britain would fall right back into its old pattern of tribal squabbling.”

  “Do you know, Arthur” she said, “I really think Meliagrance is a little mad.”

  “Well, mad or not,” came the grim reply, “by the time this morning is over, he is going to be dead.”

  “How?” she asked as he moved toward the door.

  “In the traditional fashion. Single combat.”

  “Will you choose a champion?” she asked breathlessly.

  “No. You are my wife. I’ll do it myself.” And he was gone.

  Chapter 28

  WITHIN an hour the courtyard at Clust was filled with spectators. Unmounted cavalrymen lined the right side of the courtyard while the exit to the road was blocked by a line of horse. Meliagrance’s men, unarmed in contrast to the troops from Camelot, were lined up silently on the left side of the courtyard. Among the Verica tribesmen was Meliagrance’s cousin Kile, heir to the chiefdom after Meliagrance.

  The faces of the tribesmen were sober but not bleak. If Meliagrance defeated the king in single combat, they would perhaps have a future. And Meliagrance was an exceptionally good swordsman.

  The rain had passed over and the sky was clear. The watching men stood in almost perfect silence, their eyes on the door of the villa. It opened at last and Meliagrance, followed by Gwynn, captain of the Light Horse, came out into the chill sunshine. Meliagrance was carrying a sword. They moved to the center of the courtyard, stopped, and waited.

  At the last minute, Gwenhwyfar and Olwen had run to one of the rooms with a window that faced on the courtyard, and they were just in time to see the king, accompanied by Bedwyr, come out the front door of the villa and move to join the two men in the center. Bedwyr appeared to be urging something on Arthur, but they could clearly see the king shake his head and motion the two extra men away. Bedwyr and Gwynn moved to join the cavalrymen on the sidelines, and Arthur and Meliagrance were left facing each other, alone in the center of the yard.

  Gwenhwyfar drew a deep, unsteady breath. She was almost certain that Bedwyr had wanted to fight Meliagrance for Arthur, and she wished that Arthur had let him do so. Bedwyr, she knew, was always victorious in the various training exercises the army indulged in. She had never seen Arthur wield a sword, but she was certain he could not be as good as Bedwyr. He had not Bedwyr’s size, for one thing. She looked now at Meliagrance, and fear shivered through her. The chief of the Verica was not much taller than Arthur, but he was considerably broader through the shoulders and chest. And he had those long, simian arms. A long reach was a distinct advantage in swordplay, as Gwenhwyfar well knew.

  “He should have let Bedwyr do this” she said. “He should not take a chance with his own life.”

  “He wants to avenge you himself, my lady,” Olwen said in response. Her dark gray eyes were glowing with the romance of it all. She seemed to have quite forgotten her cold.

  Gwenhwyfar threw her serving woman an impatient glance before concentrating once again on the scene before her.

  Meliagrance raised his sword first and began to circle around the king. He looked exactly like an ape, Gwenhwyfar thought, and shivered again.

  Arthur lifted his own sword, the ruby flashing in the sun, and stepped sid
eways to his right. He was two years older than Meliagrance, but from her post by the window Gwenhwyfar thought he looked no more than a boy, with his light, slender frame and his black hair blowing in the chill November wind. He moved like a boy too, lithe and graceful, his weight perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet.

  Meliagrance feinted, and Arthur moved away.

  “Meliagrance’s arms are too long,” Gwenhwyfar said despairingly. “The king cannot reach him.”

  Meliagrance had evidently come to the same conclusion, for he began to smile. He struck at Arthur, and the king parried, moving back away from the other sword, unable to get within its circle to go on the attack. He backed away further and Meliagrance followed, slashing again and again while Arthur parried.

  Gwenhwyfar’s nails cut into her palms. As she watched in helpless horror, Meliagrance’s attack pushed Arthur off balance, and the chief raised his sword for the final blow. With the full weight of his body, he drove it at the king.

  It did not bury itself in living flesh but landed instead on immovable steel. Then, with a movement that had nothing to do with weight and everything to do with the wrist, Arthur flicked Meliagrance’s sword aside and drove his own blade, one-handed, into the momentarily unprotected chest of the chief of the Verica. Meliagrance fell. Arthur pulled out his blade and stood looking down at the man lying crumpled at his feet. Then he looked up at the line of Verica tribesmen.

  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to Meliagrance’s fate. Arthur’s sword had driven straight at his heart.

  Inside her window, Gwenhwyfar began to shake. Olwen dragged her eyes away from the king long enough to ask her if she were cold. Gwenhwyfar shook her head and leaned a little forward to hear what was being said in the courtyard.

  One of the Verica men was bending over Meliagrance and he looked up from the chief’s body long enough to announce what everyone already knew. Meliagrance was dead.