The Jo Fletcher Books Anthology

by Frank P. Ryan

  I have kept all of Taliesin’s writings with me here, but now that I grow old I have begun to think how best to dispose them so that they will remain safe. There are many who would destroy these writings if they could, and still others who would use them for their own ends. Therefore I must hide them all, until a better time comes. I give daily thanks to the Most High God for the brief fellowship of the lord Taliesin, whom I now believe to have been the wisest man alive in these troubled times. I pray that others may one day read what I have written, and understand, as I have done, the value of what is here.

  * Emperor

  ** Inspiration.

  John Matthews is an historian, folklorist and author, who has produced over ninety books on the Arthurian Legends and Grail Studies, as well as short stories and a volume of poetry. He has devoted much of the past thirty years to the study of Arthurian Traditions and myth in general. His best known and most widely read works are Pirates, The Grail, Quest for Eternal Life, The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom and The Winter Solstice which won the Benjamin Franklin Award for that year. John and his wife Caitlín Matthews recently completed and published The Fourth Gwenevere by the late John James, published by Jo Fletcher Books.

  The Three Gwenhwyfars • by Caitlín Matthews

  The Three Gwenhwyfars

  a story about Guinevere

  by Caitlín Matthews

  Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Cywrd Gwent;

  and Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Gwythyr, son of Greidiawl;

  and Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Gogfran the Giant.

  Triad 56, The Three Great Queens of Arthur’s Court,

  from The White Book of Rhydderch

  When they came for her, Gwenhwyfar was busily weaving the last leg of a warrior on horseback, determined to finish it to the last. After all, she had laboured long to get just the right shade of blue for his mantle, experimenting with ill-smelling woad, well-fixed with urine. She had spun and dyed the thread herself, and now the woven warrior she had framed from her solitary longing lacked but a pair of buckskin boots to complete his ensemble. Now Enid would have to finish him.

  Gwenhwyfar had dwelt within her mother’s bower so long, the long afternoons coloured only by embroidered people, that she now had to fight down a startled reluctance to discover what might lie outside these sheltered walls.

  ‘Where is the girl?’ she heard her father, Gwythyr ap Greidiawl, shouting from his seat in the hall, impatient to get the wedding party on its way. She took silent leave of the painted panels and woven hangings, reluctantly setting the shuttle down on the bench.

  The tangle of women in the next room were fussing over her bundled possessions, squealing and hitting each other out of the way with exasperated taps of the hand. Enid alone stood unmoving, despondent at the door, the comb and mirror thrust away from her, as if these rich and probably magical gifts – which the king had sent his future bride, from out of the country of his battle-woman, Morrigan – might scorch or bite.

  Neither Enid nor Gwenhwyfar liked to use these splendid articles, decorated as they were with otherworldly maidens and sea-nymphs. Whenever Enid had wielded the comb on her mistress’ locks, her arm became heavy and grew resistant, and an inescapable impression of being upon a curragh tossed upon a stormy sea accompanied her. As for Gwenhwyfar, whenever she gazed into the mirror’s silver depths, she saw the reflection of her lost mother, Creiddylad.

  Gwenhwyfar had ambiguous feelings towards her mother, whose beauty and virtues were said by poets to be mirrored in her daughter. For one thing, Creiddylad wasn’t decently dead, like other people’s mothers, but still alive and enjoying the embraces of Gwyn ap Nudd, by whom she had been, not unwillingly, abducted when Gwenhwyfar was a little girl. For another, she was as heartily sick of the bower-women’s gossip as she was of their attempts to replace Creiddylad in his affections. Despite this, and with one notable exception, Gwythyr had been faithful to the memory of his lovely wife, assiduous in her pursuit and in his implacable hatred of her abductor. None dared slander Creiddylad in the hearing of Gwythyr, but few were as careful around Gwenhwyfar herself. Thus, whenever she handled the otherworldly mirror, a sick blend of shame and hurt gripped her heart.

  She caught Enid’s frightened stare, ‘Oh, put the wretched things in the comb-bag!’ she called over the din. The men came to bear away the bundles, so the bower-women turned their attention to their motherless young mistress with tender-hearted solicitude. She allowed them to swathe her in a hideous, hooded riding cloak of dismal hue. This garment had been made at Gwythyr’s behest. It totally obliterated its wearer and her identity, making her appear no better than a fishwife or stout sempstress. Having lost one woman through lack of proper caution, Gwythyr was not going to lose another.

  Gwenhwyfar made no protest, well understanding her father’s intention that she should be safely consigned and delivered to her future husband, but this did not stop the escort sent by the king from exclaiming at the sight she made as she was ushered into the hall for the last time. Through the complicated ties and fastenings of the hood, Gwenhwyfar was astounded to see the very same knight over whose image she had laboured so long. He was tall, dark and blue-eyed with a blue mantle. He even had the boots of best cordovan leather that she had had no time to weave.

  The knight’s protests were polite and muted, and might have had no effect but for the fact that he bore the king’s dragon ensign. ‘Very well, very well, let the Lord Yder look upon my daughter if he must. It’s not as though we would send your sovereign lord a hen-wife after all!’ Gwythyr growled testily.

  Yder reached Gwenhwyfar before Enid could undo the hood. He came so close that Gwenhwyfar could feel his breath upon her face. For a heart-stopping moment he looked into her eyes while she drank him in. A handsome, intense face, full of secrets. He was older than she, but young enough to be the very image that her heart had dreamed of in the night. His mouth was thin, straight, yet sensual – a mouth made for skillful kisses. Under it, his beard curled ever so slightly and was flecked with red. Gwenhwyfar read his entire face before he dropped to one knee and kissed her hand, saying,

  ‘I greet thee, sovereign lady of this land,’ in a voice both deep and intimate.

  Charmed beyond measure, Gwenhwyfar took care to betray no emotion before her father, but acknowledged his salute with a womanly curve of the neck, docilely letting Enid do up the ridiculous hood.

  Gwythyr embraced his daughter and blessed her in his own fashion, which was not that of Rome. ‘Do your duty to your ancestors, child, and never shame your kin!’ He was reconciled to the fact that, in order to marry Arthur, Gwenhwyfar must become a Christian. The monk, Gildas, had been sent to instruct her in the rights of the matter, and stood ready to accompany her to Caerleon where she would be baptized by the Archbishop the night before her marriage. It was good for a woman to share the beliefs of her husband, after all. This instruction had been a novel interlude for the bower-bound girl; a pleasant distraction from the formlessness of her existence, to be briefly enjoyed before she lapsed into the suspension of another tapestry. It was also some kind of defence against the awful fate of her mother, for to be a Christian wife was to enter another league of women.

  Gwenhwyfar took polite and careful leave of Enid who had been her foster sister, and from whom she must now part. Enid’s mother had been Gwythyr’s only solace since Creiddylad’s departure and, in the opinion of Gildas, Gwenhwyfar’s instructor, Enid could not therefore be a fit companion to one who was about to attain not only the heights of Christian membership, but also the honour of queenship. Gwenhwyfar felt neither one way nor the other at this very moment since her eyes and thoughts were busy with Yder. Her whole life had been spent filling her idle hours profitably and harmlessly, her every desire gratified, her destined husband long predicted, that she had wasted little time wondering how others might feel. The distractions of her new life now crowded out any lingering
consideration for her foster sister and Gwenhwyfar brushed past her into the bright day.

  A large escort awaited her as Yder handed her out of the hall. The choice of a horse or a litter was offered her, and she permitted the first stirrings of warmth towards her future husband who had arranged such little matters as her comfort from the exalted heights of his throne. She flicked a glance at the company to see what was required of her, noting that the two ladies who were to attend her were both mounted. She saw too, with much loss of self-respect, that they wore their hair loosely braided and netted up beneath simple jewelled fillets, that their finely cut riding capes did not obscure their figures.

  ‘I will ride,’ she declared. Although she rode without flare due to her father’s constraints, she did not wish to appear so dispirited as to travel in a litter like an old woman. She mounted the pale, proffered beast, expecting to be jolted into motion, only to be agreeably surprised to discover that the beast was a palfrey, a walking horse, whose gait carried its rider evenly as though in a chair.

  On the threshold of his hall, Gwythyr struggled with deep emotions as he waved her off, ‘Do not forget your kin when you are queen, daughter.’

  With Yder at her side and a contingent of her father’s own household guard riding before and behind, Gwenhwyfar finally rode out of the valley she had never before left. Only when the last cow in the outermost pasture was out of sight, did she fight her way out of the cloak and hood with swift fingers, her hair spilling triumphantly in long dark coils over her shoulders as the laughter welled up in her like a song long suppressed.

  Yder caught her mood, grinning, ‘It is not far to ride, my sovereign lady. Keep tight hold of your reins.’ And with a whooping shout, he slapped her horse’s rump into a canter.

  What happened next was so sudden that Gwenhwyfar could not afterwards remember the order of events. The whole party shot ahead at a fine pace, leaving the foot-soldiers cursing and in disarray. With Yder at her side and the two women following close, Gwenhwyfar was unable to rein in without danger of tumbling off. At the very same moment, from the cover of the surrounding trees, a great number of men in black and yellow livery fell upon the escort. Yder drew his sword, calling commands and urging his steed on, seizing the bridle of Gwenhwyfar’s palfrey, forcing it into a gallop.

  Frightened beyond measure, Gwenhwyfar was outraged at his cowardice. How dare he ride off, leaving the embattled soldiers of her father’s household to be cut to pieces in the assault! It was her last thought as an ash-branch whipped across her body and threw her to the ground.

  *

  Gwythyr’s hall was in uproar. Brettawg, commander of the detachment that had accompanied Gwenhwyfar, knelt before his lord bleeding from ear and neck where a glancing sword had left him for dead. No woman dared touch his wounds until Gwythyr had heard the whole story.

  Brettawg’s tale was soon told. None of Yder’s forces had even attempted to counter the assault, but had rather augmented it. The Lady Gwenhwyfar had been . . . he had to say the word . . . abducted. He showed the strip of yellow and black cloth that he had torn from one of his assailants. Everyone in the hall gasped.

  ‘The colours of Gwyn ap Nudd,’ stammered the steward, unnecessarily.

  Gwythyr groaned horribly. Was ever man so unfortunate as himself, that lightening had dared to strike twice in the same place?

  ‘He said he came from Caerleon. He wore the livery of— bore the ensign of Arthur,’ shouted Gwythyr. ‘Who is he? Where did he spring from?’

  The household poet was summoned, he who knew the genealogy of every family of significance from Arthur down to the latest by-blow of his pig-keeper. ‘Yder is a Frankish name, by lord. In the language of the Romans, it is Eternus, but in our own British tongue, we would call this man Edern—’

  He stopped as Gwythyr clutched the arms of his carven chair in a contortion of agony.

  The steward, used to announcing things, said, ‘Taking into account the livery we have here, I would say that Edern, my lord, is the son of—’

  ‘Gwyn ap Nudd!’ Gwythyr spat the hated name through clenched teeth. And the steward retreated to the door.

  Ever since his wife had been abducted, Gwythyr had lived in hope that he would die of shame before he was able to find and bring her back to his hall. She was the talk of the cantrefs, though he loved her still. His honour had been restored only when Arthur Wledig, the High King himself, had chosen his daughter for wife. That had silenced the gossips!

  From outside the hall, a fresh clatter of hooves filled the silence. Gwythyr summoned the steward, ‘Well, fellow?’

  Cowering whey-faced before him, the steward began, ‘My lord . . . my lord, the guards report that the noble Cai is arrived from Caerleon and asks for the honour of accompanying your daughter to the High King.’

  Gwythyr covered his face with a fold of his cloak and wept.

  *

  Enid sat on the edge of the bed, overwhelmed by royal ceremony and very virgin apprehension. The welter of events had accelerated at such a pace, she was breathless.

  Last night, she had been made a Christian. Today she had been married to the High King. Tonight – in a very few moments – the king’s men would usher in their lord to her chamber and after the ribaldry and drinking would come the darkness and the descent into the unknown. But now, she was temporarily left alone by women and confessors to pray for her future felicity – a solitude that princesses seldom enjoyed, though she did not yet know this.

  In just a few short hours, so much had happened. Confronted with the immanent arrival of the wedding escort, Gwythyr had thought straight enough: Enid was like enough to his own daughter; she might indeed be his own blood, though her mother boasted with some pride of the night she’d spent with Lord Cwrwyd Gwent at the Lammas Night rites. Whatever the truth of the matter, Enid would pass for his daughter. By the time she had been baptised, she would indeed be called ‘Gwenhwyfar’ in all earnestness.

  They had detained Cai with some difficulty while the news of Gwythyr’s plan was broken to Enid herself. Gwythyr had been clever enough to stress family honour and loyalty to Gwenhwyfar as the pretext for this monstrous deception.

  ‘But I can’t, my lord!’

  ‘Why not? Think of it! You will be Queen.’

  ‘But I know nothing about Arthur, about being a lady—’

  ‘What woman knows the least thing about her husband till he’s bedded her?’ Gwythyr had blustered, ‘Besides, you’ve been brought up with your foster sister, you know how to embroider and make a caudle – what else does a woman need? You were with her when the monk came, so you’ll know how to bow your head and pray when they do.’

  ‘But – he will remember my face!’

  Gwythyr smiled a slow smile, ‘I doubt it! You had to attend him with veils over your heads! These muling monks aren’t allowed to look long upon a woman lest their manhood reminds them what a woman is for!’

  ‘But . . . what will they do to me when they find out?’ she had pleaded.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, and no one will ever find out. That monk said he was going to convert the savages in the Forest of Darkness: likely he’ll never return. Use your wits, girl, and get your things ready.’

  She’d gathered up the old gowns that Gwenhwyfar had left her and a few childhood treasures, but as she’d picked up the workbox, she’d discovered the magical comb. Surely she’d packed it in the comb-bag? How had it come to be left behind? For the very first time, and greatly daring, she pulled the ornate comb through her own hair and closed her eyes, strongly imagining help. Again, a sense of seasickness struck her. She thrust the unchancy thing back into her workbox and let the women pack it with her meagre belongings.

  When she’d come down shyly to accept the tall warrior’s blunt compliments, no one had thought her behaviour unqueenly, but merely modest. After all, it was well known how closely Gwythyr kept his
daughter. She had ridden to Caerleon with Cai’s escort without the slightest danger or disturbance. There was clearly no God to avert her fate!

  And so now, Enid sat alone in the bedchamber of the High King at Caerleon, expected to make her orisons on some brocaded prayer-bench over the other side of an immense chamber. Her feet could not make it that far. The bed was altogether safer – so far.

  Enid reviewed her situation. She had done well enough, though she knew that she had so far been shielded from disclosure by the trappings of ritual and ceremony, and that when the formal walls were down, she would be hard put to it to keep up the pretence.

  Arthur had been kind, attentive, but so unapproachable for a woman of her station that she had had to invent a story to help her sustain the role of queen. That was what she was – a concubine’s daughter playing at queen. It was a game, one which she had told herself many times in the lonely, miserable darkness of her bed after Gwenhwyfar had perpetrated some petty and unthinking unkindness. But in that game, the man involved had been some handsome, but minor, lordling – not the High King himself!

  She had no illusions that, when the news broke, as it surely would soon enough, she was for the fire or worse.

  *

  Gwenhwyfar woke for the second time, her limbs twined with those of Yder. An afternoon of exciting, frightening and informative passion had left them both deliciously tired. She traced the thin scar that snaked across Yder’s shoulder and marvelled that men’s flesh could be so different from women’s. Yder stirred once more and kissed her left nipple like a horse taking an apple from an outstretched hand.

  Gwenhwyfar giggled.

  Later, when Creiddylad entered with the guest cup, Gwenhwyfar felt no guilt, no shame at the sight of her mother, only interest at how young she still looked, and speculating at the preservative power of love.