Gwenhwyfar (6 page)

Braith was indeed in the first race, and Gwen edged as near as she dared, watching her idol crooning to and soothing her team. They weren’t a matched team, like the king’s two; the left-hand one was a dark chestnut, the right-hand a dun. Braith combed her fingers through their coarse manes, ran her hands along their stocky necks, and whispered into their short, broad ears, standing between them as if she were a third horse in the traces. Gwen watched her with raw envy, her fingers itching and twitching with longing to touch those soft noses, scratch those warm necks. She wasn’t allowed near the warhorses, ever. “Too dangerous,” her father said. He didn’t mean dangerous for
her,
he meant dangerous for the horses. She might move suddenly, the wrong way, or do something else that would startle them, he said. They could sprain a muscle or make a misstep and hurt themselves some other way.

So Gwen could only watch from afar as the bettors circled the chariots, eyed the great beasts knowingly, and conversed in mutters.

Gwen thought that Braith looked exactly like her team; she was stocky, weather-beaten, rough. Her bright brown eyes peered out from under a kind of forelock of coarse, dark hair that looked as if she had hacked it off with her own knife in a fit of impatience. Her voice had the same intonation as a horse’s whinny, and when she laughed, it was loud and sudden and exactly like a neigh. Gwen adored her.

If there was anyone in the world she would have liked to grow up to be, it was Braith. Power? Braith
had
Power! If anyone doubted, all they had to do was see her with her horses! That was Epona’s Power, and if Epona was a lesser goddess, well, perhaps she was closer to those who served her.

The race was to begin at the sacred oak grove, and Gwen pressed herself against the bark of one of the great trees, hoping her brown gown would blend in with the bark, and yearned after Braith and her team with a passion she never felt for the gods.

Suddenly those bright brown eyes caught sight of Gwen and locked on her. As if pulled by their reins, her horses turned to look at what Braith was looking at, so now there were three pairs of eyes gazing thoughtfully at her. Slowly, Braith smiled. And Gwen felt a jolt of something that took her breath away.

Then she went back to whispering to her team. But now and again, she looked over at Gwen and smiled.

No one else seemed to notice—or if they noticed, care that Gwen was there. Her ability to be quiet and unobtrusive was working even in this crowd. So she was allowed to watch with the rest as the drivers got into their chariots, as the chariots maneuvered into a roughly straight line, and then, at the shout from the king, reins slapped on backs, whips snapped, and the teams plunged out onto the rough sward for the outward leg of the race.

Gwen would have swarmed up the tree, but she was wearing her one good gown, and she
knew
what her nurse
and
the queen would have to say about it if the garment was ruined before it was even dinner.

So she just ran to stand in front of the shouting, cheering men, who were now so focused on the race that they didn’t even notice her.

The hoofbeats didn’t sound anything like thunder—more like rocks tumbling down a cliff. Thunder wouldn’t make the ground shake; thunder didn’t make her heart pound or her throat dry with excitement. Four lines of rising dust followed the teams, but the colors painted on the chariots made it easy to tell which was which. What you could
not
tell, until they turned at the opposite end, was who was in the lead.

That was signaled by the servants at the end, who raised a pole with the owner’s pennant on it as soon as the chariot made the turn.

And the first pennant up was for Braith’s team. Gwen gave a squeal of glee, and jumped up and down, her hands clasped under her chin. She knew better than to pray to Epona, the goddess of horses, for Braith to win—that was
frivolous
use of prayer, which was important; the queen had made that very clear to all her daughters. If you pestered the gods with petitions all the time, they’d grow tired of hearing from you, and when you needed them to answer, the prayers would be ignored. But she could hope, and she could wish, and she wished with all her might.

But right behind Braith’s team was her father’s, a pair of handsome grays out of his warhorse herd. If the Romans had still been here, he’d have lost them for certain. The Romans would have whisked them away for tribute before you could say “knife.”

The other two teams were lost in the dust, but the king’s, and Braith’s, were so close that Gwen held her breath; it looked from here as if they were literally one team of four horses. The tension was incredible; she clasped her hands so tightly together that the knuckles hurt.

And then Braith did the unthinkable. She leaped out onto the pole and ran up between her pair, reins wrapped loosely around her wrist, to stand between them, an arm over each neck, shouting encouragement in their ears. Behind her, the empty chariot bounced and bucked; other horses might have shied, but her team paid it no heed. From some depth within them, they found new strength and surged ahead, crossing the finish line a full chariot-and-team length ahead of the King’s. The men roared approval at this daring move, even the king whooping and clapping. Gwen’s heart was beating so fast she felt faint.

They shot past as Braith ran back to the chariot and began, slowly, to rein her team in and turn them about.

When they pulled up again before the crowd, Gwen hung back to keep from being noticed, but Braith was having none of that. “Young Gwenhwyfar!” she called, beckoning to her. “Come ye here.”

Gwen started at the sound of her name, but at her age, she was supposed to obey any adult, and although her father looked surprised to see her there, he didn’t forbid it. She eased through the forest of towering men and came to the side of Braith’s chariot. The horses steamed, their sides moving strongly, although they were not heaving for breath. “Nah, my beauties have just run themselves to sweat, so what is it we do with them?” Braith asked, looking straight down at her.

“Walk them so they do not founder nor stiffen,” Gwen said promptly.

“And water?” Braith prompted.

“Only a mouthful at a time.” Gwen knew all this very well; on the rare occasions that the sisters could get their fat pony to work up a sweat, she was the one left to walk him cool. Not that she minded. She just wished he was a horse, but she was fond of him, and a pony, even a shared pony, was better than no horse at all.

“Here ye be then.” And to Gwen’s astonishment, as well as that of the rest of the crowd (including several adolescent boys who gaped at her with raw envy) Braith put the looped-up reins in her hands. “Be walking them cool, please ye.”

Gwen didn’t hesitate. She took the reins as the two horses bent to sniff the top of her head. Then, with her heart feeling so full of happiness she thought she would burst, she began walking toward the stream, the team ambling obediently behind her, with the chariot wheels rumbling and swishing through the grass. She let them have the allotted mouthful of water when they reached the stream, then turned and began walking them back. In the distance she could see Braith talking with the king and the rest of the men. The prize was already in her hands, a pair of beautiful bridles with bronze ornaments for the team, a silver torque for her. The team’s owner got a drinking horn bound in silver, with silver feet; he seemed well pleased.

Without being prompted, Gwen stopped short of the crowd, reached up under the nearest horse’s mane as high as she could, and felt the shoulder. He was still sweaty, so she turned back around and made another trip to the stream. Again, she let the horses have a mouthful of water, and she tried not to feel self-conscious as everyone but Braith seemed to be casting glances at her.

This time when she returned, the horses were cool. It had only been one race, after all; this was nothing to the exertion they would get in a battle. She waited politely until Braith “noticed” her, then held up the reins.

Braith checked the horses herself. “Well done, young Gwenhwyfar,” she said, gravely. “Now, will ye be doing me the kindness of stepping into my chariot?”

Now totally astonished, Gwen did as she had been asked.

“And now be running out on the pole and back.” Braith did not ask if she
could
do so, she simply acted as if it were just a matter of course that Gwen would be able.

Of course she could; it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been practicing just such a thing all summer. Not on a chariot with
horses
hitched to it, of course, but on an old one with a broken axle. She flexed her toes and then, fixing her eyes not on the pole but straight ahead, ran out along the limber pole, between the warm sides of the horses and back to the chariot.

“Ah, king,” sighed Braith. “It is a pity this is your daughter, for I’d be taking her back with me this day and leaving you the torque in her place.”

“And for what purpose, lady?” the King asked, with a chuckle.

“To make a charioteer of her, as I was.” Braith turned her head to the side and looked at the king from under her shag of hair. “And I tell you this: Be giving her a horse now, and not a pony, and of her own. A wise old warhorse, too old for battle; let the old horse teach the young rider. And be giving her training; now is the time to do it, while she’s fearless. Do that, and you’ll have a warrior out of her.”

The king pulled at his lip. “And the queen will have a Wise Lady out of her—”

Braith shook her head. “The mark of Epona is on this one; there’s two goddesses in this one, but Epona is the stronger. ’Tis a waste to make her go to the Ladies.” Braith shrugged. “But if it is your will to send her, still, give her the horse and as much of the training as she can get before she goes; I never heard it said that warrior training did a Lady any harm. She’s only nine summers. Maybe, when she is a woman, Epona will let her go. If not, be sure you will know. The Power won’t leave her in that time, and I never heard the Ladies say otherwise.”

“Nor I,” the king agreed, to Gwen’s joy and delight. “It will be done as you advise.”

She was going to get everything she had wanted! A horse, a real horse and not a pony! Training with bow and knife and sword! Oh, and lance as well, because a charioteer used the lance too! She felt dizzy with happiness, more dizzy than she had the time she’d filched someone’s forgotten cup of mead.

In her rush of happiness she did not forget her manners. “Thank you, Father,” she said, with a little bow. “And thank you, Warrior.” The king beamed down on her, his ruddy hair and beard glowing in the sunlight, his strong shoulders stretching the leather of his tunic, and the gleam of silver at his throat, wrists, and around his head.

She watched the rest of the morning races in a glow of happiness; none of them were as exciting as the first one. Braith won all the ones she cared to enter, but she held back a good deal of the time. The chariot races alternated with ridden races, to give all the horses a chance to rest. The king didn’t enter his horses that often either; Gwen had been given tacit approval to stay, so stay she did, at the king’s side, but not getting into the way, listening as hard as she ever could as the king and Braith and the king’s war leaders discussed the horses and their drivers. They talked not about the race itself but about how the teams might perform on a hill, maneuvering around other chariots, when encountering slippery grass or mud. They talked of the riders, of whether man and horse seemed of one mind, whether a horse was uncertain of his rider, or the rider of his horse; such uncertainty could mean balks and spills on the battlefield. They discussed whether the horses had been seasoned to the sounds of combat. It was then that she realized that these weren’t just races for the sake of the holiday; this was the opportunity for the king to see his war chiefs’ best drivers and pairs, the best riders and mounts, so that he would know where to put them in a battle.

Perhaps the only race that actually had been nothing but a race had been the one between his team and Braith’s. And even then—

“Your pair is steadier than last year,” the king said.

Braith nodded. “Last year I’d not have run out on the pole. They’ll go through fire and ice for me now. I reckon two more years, maybe three, before they start t’ slow, and five or six before I need be training a new pair, then another brace of years before the new pair will be ready.” She laughed. “And mebbe then ’twill be me that’s out t’pasture.”

The King laughed. “You are as ageless as the hills. No pasture for you!”

The rest of the war chiefs laughed and asked Braith’s opinion on this or that team. Gwen became aware that not only was Braith
her
hero, her opinion was held in high esteem by all of these men.

I want to be like that,
she thought, looking worshipfully up at the woman.
I want people to talk to me like that.

The sound of a horn warned them all that dinner was ready; this would not be a formal feast of the sort that was held in the Great Hall, but as Gwen knew from earlier years, she and her sisters, her mother and her chief ladies, the king’s particular guests and war chiefs, and the king himself would be seated at the trestle tables hauled outside and given the best. Everyone else would help themselves. There would be more than enough; anyone not competing in the afternoon games would probably be stuffed and dozy.

The press of people around the king was too great for her to walk beside him to the tables, and she had an idea that her mother would think it forward of her to do so. She eased herself away, and trotted back toward the open-air “kitchen” where the queen was supervising the last preparations. Before she got even that far, her eldest sister, Cataruna, spotted her, and rounded her up like a straying goose.

“Now you sit here—I put Little Gwen on the other side there, so unless she starts flinging things at you across mother and father, things should be quiet enough—” Her sister paused, and turned her around to look her up and down critically. “—I don’t believe it! No dirt, no leaves and grass in your hair, nothing torn—are you a changeling? Did someone make away with the real Gwen?”