Shadow of the King (41 page)

and therefore justified to make loud and continuing protest against Bedwyr. He

was all hot air in pumped bellows, all words and mouth. Amlawdd would never

find the courage—or stupidity—to openly make a challenge for Gwenhwyfar’s

hand. Did the imbecile not realise the lady would never have him? Bedwyr let

the fool spit his venom and slander, allowed him to save face before others of

Ambrosius’s court. Time enough to deal with anything more serious, should it

arise, after the winter snows had fallen and melted again. Come spring, Bedwyr

would be a month or two blessed as Gwenhwyfar’s lawful husband; she could

even be carrying his child. What could Amlawdd do about losing her to the

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 2 4 7

better man then? It was said that empty amphorae made hollow noise. Hah!

Amlawdd was as empty as a dry, fire-baked, new pot!

Sliding his arm around Gwenhwyfar’s waist, Bedwyr brought her nearer,

enjoying the supple feel of her slender body against his, relishing the joy of

knowing what lay beneath her garments. Silk-smooth skin, long legs, and even

though she had borne children, firm breasts and a flat stomach. The anticipa-

tion of sharing her passion, her immodest need, was already rousing him, the

excess of drink doing little to dampen his eagerness. The Hall would be rising

soon, drink-filled men and women seeking their dwelling-places within the

settlement or, for the unmarried and the servants, beds within the protection

of this Hall.

Gwenhwyfar, for all Amlawdd’s protest and blustering, had emphasised she

was committed as Bedwyr’s lady, though they had not yet been blessed by

the priest and were not joined in legal marriage. They shared a need, and a

companionship, the warmth of a bed; the formal details could come later, after

Saturnalia. Gwenhwyfar had promised him that after the feasting they would

exchange vows, make the thing legal. They were already bound together in

companionship, she said, was that not enough for a while? In turn, Bedwyr

had a concern she was not going to consent to the formalities, for they were

supposed to have been wed two months past, on All Hallows Day, the day after

Samhain. She had balked, suggested Saturnalia instead. He was impatient to slip

the security of a marriage band on her finger, but, ah, surely he could wait until

she was ready? She was his woman, no one else’s—only that memory of Arthur

formed a rival. And he had no fear of the dead.

The professional acrobats were performing a fabulous, breath taking contor-

tion, earning themselves splendid applause. Slaves were distributing wine as if the

amphorae could never be emptied. Merrymaking, happiness. It was Saturnalia,

a season for enjoyment and pleasure. Gwenhwyfar twined her fingers tighter

into Bedwyr’s clasp, joined the enthusiasm. Pushed back the voice whispering

a name, a memory.

She would forget Arthur. She would! She had to. But that damned, persistent

voice would not let her.

Thirty

The night lay quiet, except for the normal sounds—the bark of a dog

fox, the call of an owl. No wind. With the temperature dropping, there

would come a frost. Bedwyr slept on his back, hair tousled, arm outstretched,

facial muscles twitching as his sleeping mind chased some dream. Beside him,

Gwenhwyfar lay awake, listening to the darkness outside their small, private

dwelling-place, her eyes watching the pale hearth-fire shadows creep across the

far wall. Archfedd was asleep in the other bed, curled safe and warm against her

nurse, a young lass of not more than ten and four, given to care for the child

by Enid. Beside the last warmth of the hearth, the dogs were piled, Bedwyr’s

three brindle hounds and Gwenhwyfar’s two, Blaidd and Cadarn. Both presents

from Arthur: Cadarn for herself, Blaidd for her son, Llacheu. She remembered

Arthur’s face as he had held the two squirming pups, both from the same litter,

his smile wide as he had dumped one in the boy’s lap, the other in hers. The

touch of his lips against her forehead as he had followed the giving with a light,

almost casual-given kiss. Llacheu, playing with them when they reached that

gangling, legs-longer-than-the-body stage…his wild shout of laughter as Blaidd

had stolen a boot, the resulting game around their room as he had attempted

to claim it back…Arthur’s extensive cursing one wet night when the dogs had

come in from outside and shaken their coats vigorously. Memories.

Bedwyr was more good-natured than Arthur, would shrug insults and

nuisances aside with an indifference that could so easily be taken as uncaring.

He believed more in the law, in the judicial intervention of right. Arthur

would never have trusted to such unreliable uncertainty. If something angered

or offended him, he would see to its sorting himself. Never would Arthur

have allowed Amlawdd’s tongue to have shouted the insults that had reached

their ears these last few weeks. If Arthur had heard those vile things Amlawdd

had called her, the man would have been dangling by his balls from his own

stronghold walls by now. Bedwyr had taken the man as a jest, had laughed, slid

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 2 4 9

his arm around her, and loudly proclaimed they had nothing to fear from the

jealous defeat of a toad-spawned, mannerless boor.

Nothing to fear? Happen not, but the words had stung. No woman liked to

be called harlot, whore, and slut. No woman cared to have her children cursed,

her honour tainted.

Bedwyr would be returning to his garrison soon, within the week before the

snows came he had said, as they were preparing for bed. His leave had finished,

three weeks taken; he could not reasonably extend the time away from duty.

“Oh,” was all she had answered.

“Are you to come with me this time?” he had asked, as he had blown out

the last lamp, scuttled beneath the fur-coverings. His place of command was

a wooden-palisaded fortress set above the marsh-spread valley of the Dolydd

River and command of two further outposts set at stages up the valley. Nothing

grand, he had said, a plain fortress. “We keep a weather eye on the coming and

going of the Saex as they bring their boats up the river to their little hovels.” He

had told her that when first he was posted there, oh, back into the new-end of

summer. An out-of-the-way place, where Ambrosius had hoped to keep him

apart from the likes of Geraint and Gwenhwyfar.

“I will come.”

She sighed, closed her eyes to try again for sleep that would not visit.
I will

go with you
, she thought, said soft, aloud, into the darkness, “but I will not wed

with you. Not yet.”

Amlawdd had called her a whore, and worse, for deceiving him. Amlawdd

had said she had promised herself to him, aye, promised, even before the

Pendragon was fool enough to get himself bloodily slaughtered. He was right,

she had, but as a trick, as a means to gain time for Arthur.

Bedwyr mumbled something in his sleep, shifted, lumbering his body

over onto his belly, taking most of the fur coverings with him as he turned.

Gwenhwyfar lay a moment, her feet and body growing cold. No use trying to

retrieve them, Bedwyr seemed to weigh as much as two oxen when he slept,

was as possessive of his bed-coverings as a cat was of a captured mouse. It was

being a soldier, she supposed. Arthur had been the same. He would roll himself

into the bed-furs, leaving little for her. The difference, Arthur had been easy to

wake. One prod, one mild kick. One kiss.

She sighed again, deeper, more drawn, left the bed to fumble in the dark for

her cloak, hunkered down beside the fire with the dogs, who flapped their tails

with a welcome, happily allowed her to wriggle into their heaped warmth.

2 5 0 H e l e n H o l l i c k

To gain time. Why was she stalling the deadline of marriage? Why would

she not consent to make this new-begun thing binding between them? She ate

with Bedwyr, laughed with him, slept with him. Had agreed this very night to

go with him as a commander’s lady. Why would she not go as his wife?

It was warm among the bundle of dogs, and comforting. She had her arms

around Blaidd, Cadarn was resting his old, grey-grizzled muzzle across her feet.

Warm and soothing. She slept.

P

A stranger trudged wearily along the lane that trundled steeply up the incline

between the ditches and ramparts. It was an hour after sun-up, but still the gates

at the top were closed; beyond, only a few thin wisps of hearth-place smoke

spiralled into the frost-blue air.

He hammered on the iron-studded oak-built timbers, shouted for entrance.

He had come a long way on foot. A long, weary trek, his heart as heavy as his

tired, blistered feet.

A face, grizzle-bearded, and sleep-riddled, peered over the top rampart of Caer

Cadan, demanded who made so much noise so early in the day? “I have come to

speak with Queen Gwenhwyfar. I have word for her, important word.”

“She ain’t here. She’s gone. No one’s here save us few.”

The man, a Saxon, though he had taken care to dress himself British-fashion

so as not to draw over-much attention, ran his fingers through his dank hair.

“To where has she gone?”

“Durnovaria. South of here.”

The Saxon almost wept. He had just come north from the South Saxon

Coast. He sat, desolate, tired, head in hands. For weeks now he had been living

like a beggar, walking the roads, sleeping in ditches and sheep folds, constantly

looking over his shoulder in case she had found his trail.

He had masked it as well he could, travelling through the great dark forests

of Gaul, first, working his way to the River Rhenus to put her off the scent,

before finding a ship to bring him across the sea to Britain. A waking night-

mare! He was the last alive, for she had dealt with the others, torturing them,

his companions, his friends, before ending their lives. Dealt with them as she

had dealt with their mistress.

Oh
ja
, it was known it had been her, Winifred, that half-British witch who

had been behind the murder of Lady Mathild. He did not believe the lies they

had said about that good woman. Not as most of them had! That she had tried

to kill her own son.

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 2 5 1

At least the boy was safe. Cerdic had proclaimed that, as the funeral pyre had

burnt high, taking Mathild’s spirit on her last journey to the gods. “Cynric is

my son,” he had said, “my son and hers. In him, her spirit shall live on!”
Ja
, it

had better or Cerdic would answer for it! There were those along the Elbe who

had never trusted Cerdic. He was not one of them by blood, for all his adoption

by the lord Leofric. Adoption was not blood-tied, not blood-bound kindred.

Cynric was of her blood. And his. Arthur’s, not Cerdic’s. Though that was their

private view, those men who had come with Mathild from Arthur’s camp, after

he had set them all lawfully free from the misery of slavery.

They had served Arthur with loyalty, repaying his asking of no questions

of whence and from whom they had come. Had served Mathild, as one of

their own, with loyalty even deeper. And now he was the only one left alive,

the only one who knew two things of importance. That Cynric might not

be Cerdic’s son. Oh, the dates, the calculations might be wrong, that was all

women’s matters and women’s words, but he knew this for certain: Mathild

had been as sick as a poisoned dog each morning on that journey from Gaul to

the settlement along the Elbe. It could have been the fear, the grief; the poor

food, the fast-set pace. Or it could have been for a woman’s reason.

And that the Pendragon might be alive, not dead as they were all meant to

believe. A secret Mathild had kept to herself, sharing it only with them, her

few trusted, loyal, personal guard. “Tell Gwenhwyfar,” she had commanded

of them. “If ever something should happen to me, tell Gwenhwyfar I believe

Arthur to be with the ladies of the Goddess in Gaul.”

He looked up at the bright sunlight, heaved himself to his feet. Durnovaria.

More than twenty miles. Ah, at least it was not raining.

Thirty-One

January 472

It had snowed overnight, although it only amounted to a light fall

of a few inches. The air was dry but the wind came direct from the east, bitter,

with a bite as raw and mean as a boar’s temper. The skin on Gwenhwyfar’s

cheeks felt as though it were being ripped apart by dozens of small knives. She

had ceased to feel her fingers curled around the leather reins, after five minutes

of riding. It did not help, trekking along this part of the valley that was open to

the full exposure of the wind, but the other track threading through the density

of trees, Bedwyr assured her, was an inadvisable route. “Impassable at times!”

he had explained heartily, his usual boyish grin decorating his face. “The earth

around here is mostly heavy clay—the Green Track is well named, bright green

grass in every hollow—God knows how many poor souls are at the bottom of