Chapter 11
Gwen awoke with a fatigue that was becoming familiar. She had felt gradually heavier since she’d arrived, as if these lowlands wanted to somehow pull her even closer to the earth. Her work in the brothel tired her more than such effort should have done. Then had come a queasiness, most likely a product of a different diet, of sourer ale, of living in the brothel’s cloud of incense. She’d begged a handful of peppermint leaves from one of the cooks and was doling them out to herself each morning like a miser. Plucking one from the pouch at her belt, she chewed the cooling herb with determination. A passing ailment wasn’t going to keep her from being useful.
Or seeming to be, at least, for her meeting with Rhys. He’d made a habit of summoning her once a week. At first, she’d thought it a power play, the lordly host ordering her about because he could. She was beginning to suspect, though, that it was rooted in a true loyalty to her father and perhaps a promise to keep her safe.
Rhys’s guard nodded as she approached. “Gwenhwyfar.”
“Morien. Exciting morning?”
“Killed a would-be assassin. Stole his gold.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, then?”
He smiled at her, his teeth glinting. “Dull, really.”
“Why aren’t you on the border, keeping an eye on Saxons?”
“My duty is here.”
And so was hers, just now. She found Rhys at his table, inscribing a piece of vellum.
“Ah, Gwenhwyfar. How shines the sun this morning?”
“Low but bright, like a banked coal.”
He closed his eyes, as if calling the image to mind, and smiled.
“Perhaps you should step outside and see the weather for yourself.”
His eyes snapped open again. “It’s cold out there.”
“You grew up here.”
“Still cold.” He wrote a few more words, made his mark under them with a flourish and a jab, and then set his correspondence aside. Folding his fingers before him, he said in a mild voice, “Have you had enough of piss pots yet?”
Gwen hesitated, unsure how to answer. Was this a test? Would her response travel back to Caron on swift, silent feet and hushed whispers? “They’re not so bad.”
“The spunky sheets?”
“It’s only normal soil.”
“The special… instruments?”
All right, so she hadn’t expected those. Had been taken aback by the sheer variety of shapes and sizes, carved from wood and stone. She’d have been fascinated if she’d discovered them arrayed on a shelf, polished to a shine.
Instead, she had to collect them after use, glistening with every fluid imaginable, and carry them through no fewer than seven twisting passageways to their dedicated boiling pot outside, where she cleaned them.
Rhys snorted, and she realized she’d pulled a face.
“I’m sorry—”
Rhys chuckled. “Never apologize for honesty, partridge. It’s a rare and valuable trait.”
“An unwelcome one, sometimes.”
“Only for those too cowardly to face the truth.” He stood. “I have a special assignment for you today. Feel up to it?”
“Of course, my lord.” Had she given herself away with the tiredness?
“I ask because it’s a bit of a ride. Can you sit a horse?”
“Certainly.” Not that she ever had, but it couldn’t be that difficult.
“Good.” He folded the note he’d just written and sealed it. “You’ll deliver this to Lord Ban. He’s abed and unable to attend the midwinter council. This will keep him apprised.” He handed her the message. “Morien will accompany you.”
“Oh, he’ll be glad!”
“And why is that?”
Oh no. Well, it was good Rhys valued honesty. “It’ll be a change,” she said evenly.
“He finds me dull, does he?” Rhys shrugged. “Most sons do.”
When she stepped from the chamber, Morien frowned down at her. “Leaving?”
“Mmm-hmm. And so are you, son of Rhys.”
Morien’s eyes glinted. “Told you, did he?”
“Anything else I should know? Do you keep a stable of winged lions?”
“Only horses,” he said and gestured her to follow him. “Do you ride?”
“No,” she admitted.
He winked at her. “Easy as fucking.”
She shouldn’t be blushing—she was no virgin now—but her cheeks betrayed her.
His rich chuckle sounded just like his father’s.
Riding was easy enough, after a few wobbles. To her surprise, it did help to recall the whore she’d spied on that first day and the way she’d rolled her hips as she rode the man beneath her.
Of course, doing so had an effect she should have anticipated but didn’t, and she spent the duration of the ride hoping the color in her cheeks could be explained away by the frosty air.
They rode northwestward from Rhys’s for about an hour, over low, rolling hills. Even in the chill, she could smell the tang of sea air and hear the cries of gulls. So different from her mountains, though just now she couldn’t recall precisely how they’d smelled. The thought had her digging her fingers into her horse’s mane for purchase.
When they arrived, Morien handed her down from her mount. At Lord Ban’s long hall, a sour-faced servant introduced himself as the steward and accepted—barely—her credentials as envoy from Rhys. When she refused to give him the note, he led her grudgingly to Lord Ban’s bedchamber.
It was dark enough that she stopped to let her eyes become accustomed. The chamber smelled stale in the way of ill breaths and unwashed bedding. From across the way came a low cough followed by an impatient sound.
“Well, come forward with you.”
She approached the bed, and the man lying in it gradually took shape in the dim light. His gray hair was clipped close, his beard no more than silvery stubble. His skin sagged over facial bones that must have been strong features once and now looked too prominent. He looked yellowish in the lamplight, but his eyes watched her sharply as she dipped her chin in greeting. “Lord Ban.”
His gaze skipped over her features as if ticking off a list. “So you’re young Gwenhwyfar.”
“I am.”
“Why have you come, Gwenhwyfar?”
She began to say, I’ve a message from Lord Rhys, but some wild part of her brain took over. This was a chance, after all, to push herself. “I come on behalf of my father, Uthyr ap Emrys, lord of Eryri.”
“There’s only one Uthyr, child; I don’t require the pedigree. Too busy to make the journey himself, is he?”
“I was already at Lord Rhys’s. The mountain tracks are treacherous this time of year.”
“Thanks to your father, they’re treacherous any time of year.”
She stared at him.
“For Saxons, of course. What brings you to Rhys’s? Aren’t you recently wed?”
“I traveled there with Arthur.”
Ban watched her with his odd flat gaze, and she suddenly missed her father’s dark eyes. Even when he was angry with her they never left her feeling cold and speechless like this. How much did Ban know? Had word reached him of Arthur’s banishment? At length he said, “What a good wife you are.”
“My lord?”
“Braving those perilous roads to be with your husband. You must be very smitten.”
What game was he at?
“I hear he’s quite the warrior, your Arthur. Well, except for helping your brother rid himself of his sword hand.”
The nerve! “A Saxon took Bedwyr’s hand. Arthur is the one who helped him train back up, made it so he could fight again.”
“How noble.”
“Nobility had nothing to do with it,” she snapped. “Bedwyr needed to fight.”
When he said nothing, only watched her steadily, she felt her resolve crumble like stale bread.
“I’ve also brought you a message from Lord Rhys.” She gave over the letter, which he took with a hand steadier than hers.
“Why are you playing messenger?”
Playing. Heat crept up her cheeks. “I wish to be useful.”
The words seemed to surprise him as much as they had her. “Useful? Is our young Arthur not getting enough use out of you?”
Her cheeks burned hotter. “He’s on patrol. I was bored.”
To her surprise he laughed. It sent him into a coughing fit during which the steward ducked his head through the doorway to glare at her. Ban waved him away. When his breaths came more easily, he sank into his bedding. “Can’t say I’ve had many visitors hoping to relieve boredom.” He gestured at his recumbent state. “How am I doing?”
She bit back a smile.
Ban cracked the wax seal and held the note to the lamp at his bedside. Whatever it said couldn’t have been terribly interesting, for his expression didn’t change. After a moment he laid the vellum aside and considered her. “Still wish to make yourself useful?”
Something in the words pinned her to the ground. She wondered if Morien was yet outside. “In what way, my lord?”
“Do you read?”
Relief felt sweet, as if the curtains had been opened to allow fresh air inside. “I do. Latin, mostly.”
“Well, Latin I have. Heaps of it. I would very much like to get it in order.”
Before he died, he meant. “I’ll need to ask Lord Rhys if he can spare me. I’ve been earning my board cleaning.”
“You do that. Assure him it’s a temporary post.”
The dark humor made her smile. “Yes, my lord. I mean, I hope not.”
“One may hope, that’s true.” He lay back against his cushions. “Sometimes it’s all one has.”
~ ~ ~
The men sat around the fire pit, watching Agravain as he turned the seax over in his hands. They looked up as Bedwyr approached, their gazes heavy until he sat down on a log, then all eyes swung back to their leader and the novelty he held.
Bedwyr sat quietly as they spoke amongst themselves in their strange tongue. The dancing flames in the pit were all the excitement he needed just now. After a few minutes, someone took up the space beside him, someone slight, and he ignored the disappointment in his chest that it wasn’t Arthur.
“Bedwyr.”
“Gwalchmai.”
The lad nodded slightly toward the other men and said, softly, “Want to know what they’re saying?”
Just right now, one man seemed to be trying to convince Agravain to let him hold the seax. “I get the gist.” Bedwyr looked back to the fire.
Gwalchmai picked at the hem of his sleeve. “Would you care to know what they said while you were gone?”
Remembering their leaden stares when he’d rejoined them, he said, “I can guess.”
“Oh? What would you guess?”
Gods, he should have taken a fucking walk. He began to rise, but a light touch from Gwalchmai on his arm stopped him. He settled back onto the log and waited.
“They debated sending you and Arthur back to Rhys.”
“I wager they did.”
“After stealing all your armor first.”
“Of course.”
“One man offered to slit your throats.”
Bedwyr looked up in alarm, scanning the men around the fire pit. “Which one?”
Gwalchmai smiled. “Me.”
“You?” He fought the urge to shift away but checked the lad’s hands for a blade anyway.
“But then I pointed out such an act would only bring down the wrath of your father, and that quieted them down.” Gwalchmai nodded. “You’re welcome.”
Bold little shit.
“Are you like him, your father?”
Was he? He might have thought so once. “We look enough alike.”
“Does Arthur resemble his father?”
Bedwyr grunted. “Equally his father and mother, that one.”
“How so?”
“Got his height from his father, his hair from his mother.” He couldn’t imagine where the recklessness had come from. Gifted by the gods, maybe, just to twist Bedwyr into knots.
“I didn’t think your people were so tall.”
“We aren’t. Arthur’s folk came from Gaul.”
The lad nodded and was quiet for several minutes. Across the fire, Agravain had passed off the seax to Jorri, his second.
“I can keep watch,” Gwalchmai said then.
Bedwyr had noticed Agravain kept the lad near to do his bidding. He’d have to stand up for himself at some point if he wanted to be his own man. Bedwyr cocked his chin toward the group’s leader. “There’s the man to tell if you want a shift.”
Gwalchmai glanced at Agravain, but then back to Bedwyr, his gaze intent. “Not for him. For you.”
“For me?”
“And Arthur.”
“Why would…” he began, then realized he wasn’t certain what Gwalchmai was offering to stand watch for. “There’s nothing to guard.”
“Seems more important than nothing.”
Which didn’t answer the question in his mind. Was this some sort of trick? He studied the faces around the fire pit again, expecting to see wolves closing in for the kill, but the men were caught up in some joke one of them had just made. As they laughed, he turned back to Gwalchmai. “Say what you mean,” he muttered, “and be plain about it.”
“Agravain isn’t going to risk his men against the Saxons.”
The raiding, then. “How do you know?”
“Lot ordered him not to engage.”
Bedwyr sat back and looked around him. So Arthur’d had the right of it. These men had no interest in fighting. They might be fierce, had this been their own lands they guarded, but they were far from home. He was surprised they’d answered the call at all. They seemed content to sit around this fire all winter.
Weeks ago, that hadn’t sounded so bad. Now it wasn’t all that welcome a prospect.
“What do you want?” he asked Gwalchmai.
The lad hesitated, and Bedwyr wondered what his price would be. But then he said, “To be here for a purpose.”
Bedwyr stared at him, and a curl of sympathy wound around his chest. Wasn’t that what they all wanted, in the end? He’d found his in protecting Arthur, sometimes from enemies and sometimes, he thought with a smile, from the man himself.
But what about these northmen? And this one next to him—Bedwyr hardly knew him from a stray dog. “How do I know you aren’t laying a trap?”
Gwalchmai’s eyes met his, and they looked old. “Trap’s already occupied,” he said. “By me.”
Something snagged his attention, and his gaze skipped to one of the others. Agravain scowled, then nodded, and a cheer rose around them.
Gwalchmai stretched casually but leaned toward Bedwyr as he did so. “They’ve just talked Agravain into opening an ale cask tonight. Should you have something else you’d rather do.” He glanced at Bedwyr, then rose from the log and stepped away.
~
They’d been under the cover of the forest for so many nights Bedwyr longed to see the sky. He missed how close it seemed at home, standing on their mountains. Here, in the lowlands, in river country, he supposed it was just as large. But not the same.
He watched his boots as he stepped out of the trees, drawing out the anticipation for a few more seconds. The moon was a sliver, thin as a curl of wood shaved from a plank, so the stars would shine that much brighter. When he couldn’t wait any longer, he planted his feet and looked up. Took a deep breath and sighed it out in relief.
Just as big and nearly as close. The sky was filled with needlepricks of light, the great farmer’s scatter of seeds sown in a thick swathe from the horizon to some point behind him.
Soon, though, a few stars seemed to shine more brightly than the rest. They lay in the northern sky, forming two shapes he’d known since his father had helped him pick them out. The dragon and the bear, side by side.
A tall presence stepped up next to him. “Are they still there?”
“Still there.” Bed studied them. “I saw them that night and didn’t really think about it until everything had happened.”
“Which night?”
“The night you got word you’d fight for the first time.”
“Much has changed since then.”
“Yet there they are, standing side by side.” Bedwyr looked at Arthur. “Just as strong, I think.”
The glow of them shone in Arthur’s eyes. “Wonder if they ever wish they could face each other.”
“Perhaps. Don’t think they ever will.” Bedwyr turned and pulled him in. He brushed his lips over Arthur’s warm throat, felt his pulse there. “Too bad for them.”
Arthur’s arms tightened around him. “One small advantage over the gods, eh?”
“Not the only one, but I’ll take it for a start.”
“I’m sorry, Bed. It was reckless.”
“It was.”
“I won’t—”
Bedwyr pressed a thumb to his lips. “You won’t go without me,” he finished for him. “Next time.”
Arthur’s breath puffed against him.
“That’s my condition, cub. Where you go, I go.”
“Side by side.”
“Just so.”
Arthur was still, or so one might think if standing farther away. Close, under Bedwyr’s hand, his body thrummed. “Couldn’t do it without you there.” He blinked. “Couldn’t do much of anything out here.”
Out here. Outside their village, he meant. Their mountains. Their home. “You won’t have to.”
Arthur exhaled a long breath that drifted into the night. One hand slipped under Bedwyr’s cloak to twist in his shirt.
He wanted to wrap Arthur up, keep him safe, but he could only do so much. For now, he gripped the back of Arthur’s neck and pulled him down. Took his mouth in a deep kiss and did his best to make it a promise.
Overhead, the dragon and the bear held silent witness.