For Camelot's Honor (23 page)

Geraint was successful in his efforts and brought back three silver trout. One they gave to Calonnau who tore into it greedily. The remainder they cleaned and gutted and roasted on a flat stone. They were dull without salt, but they were filling and made a decent meal rounded out with the last of the bread and beer, and such fruits as Elen had been able to find on the bushes growing nearby on the hillside.

But even as she sat beside the fire, and picked at the last of her own meal, Elen felt Calonnau swallow the raw fish guts and felt their warmth and the satisfaction of them that was greater than even her own pleasure at the cooked food before her. Elen shuddered again. She turned away when she saw Geraint watching her. She did not want to see the growing distaste in him for the feelings she could not govern.

I should never have told him how it was. I should never have tried him so far so soon.

It seemed, however, she had misjudged the thoughts in his mind. Instead of pulling away, he reached out and touched her hand. “It is not easy, having a part of yourself over which there is no control,” he said carefully. “My father was a good man, but he could be brutal in war. Cold mad, some said. When mother … left us, he was driven more and more into that part of himself, until it was not just in battle that he was so mad.” His gaze drifted toward the sky. Gauging the weather, or simply not wanting to look at her? “When I held my knife to that man, I felt my father's madness in myself. No matter whether he spoke or not, I wanted to cut him, I wanted him punished for my pain, and even more for yours.

“I do not take what you are lightly, Elen,” he said. “But nor am I ignorant of the power within to turn it aside.”

“You have none to blame for who you are,” she muttered. She was being churlish and she knew it. She did not wish to be so, but she was exhausted and frightened and she did not want to be either of those things either.

“Do I not?” murmured Geraint. “Had I neither father nor mother, nor brothers, nor aunt, nor uncle, what you say might be true. But I have all these things and more besides.”

“There is no one without blood or past, but I am under gaes, and I know not what compulsion may be laid on me next.” There was the root of the fear. There was what drove her to ask such a boon of him as she had in the morning. Was it only this morning?

“And yet even so, you freed yourself,” Geraint said gently. “Your heart that was taken from you is yours again. Your enemies are for the time confounded. No.” He stared straight ahead of him, remembering something long past. “I have heard the priests say otherwise, but I believe God always leaves a choice.” Then, very softly so that she barely heard him, he murmured. “I must believe.”

What does that mean, Geraint?
she wondered, but she let him lapse into his silence. This was hard for him. It was a hard way to give comfort, to show weakness and worry. It went against pride. Yet he did this for her, to show how he understood.

“It is the fear that is worst,” she whispered. Honesty for honesty. It was the only way to repay him for what he now offered her. “I fear for myself, but also for you. What will I do to you, or cause you to have to do? You have already faced death to save me.”

Now he smiled, and it was his true, quiet smile that was so new and so familiar at the same time. “All I have done, I have chosen to do, and I choose gladly.” His expression turned to mocking pride. “If nothing else, the story I will have to tell when next I sit at the Round Table will earn me a verse from the poets, and such a one as not even Gawain's name has been put to.” He put on a face of such stern and noble vanity that Elen laughed loud and long.

Elen watched him as he settled back into his attitude of calm and serious study. She tried to imagine life with this man. She tried to imagine the years stretching ahead, the work, the sharing, children … but it was beyond her power. She could not even imagine the shape tomorrow would take. That pained her. She wanted to see that future, to have that premonition singing in her stilled blood, but it would not come.

“I wish you could have known my mother, Geraint,” she said suddenly. “I believe she would have liked you.”

“From what I saw that night, I know I would have liked her.”

“Your mother is gone?” she asked curiously.

Pain flickered across his face. “Yes.”

“I am sorry for it.”

“So am I.”

“And your father?”

“He lives,” Geraint sighed. “Though perhaps he should not.”

I should not press. It may be too much yet. There are years ahead for us to know one another. And yet …
“What is his madness that you spoke of?”

“Many things, but the worst of it is murder.”

Elen's tongue froze.

He watched the way straight ahead of him, seeing past the dark meadow and grasses waving in the night breeze, the approaching edge of the wood, and the steeply rising land. What his eyes looked on was black and bitter, and he spoke haltingly. “I had a sister once. She … there was a man, and then there was to be a babe. When she would not name who was the father, our father threw her from the ramparts of Din Eityn.”

“I am sorry, Geraint.” The words felt feather light. They would blow away without touching him at all.

“This is the blood that runs in me and my brothers,” he went on grimly. “We each one of us fight it as we can. Gawain, he became so noble, so proud, that the blood rage could never touch him. Gareth … he's done it by denying our father, I think. He's seized on another to show him how to be a man. I hope he's been wise in his choice.” He shook his head. “And then, Agravain … He became cold and hard. I doubt not he'd take out his own heart if he could. But then, he's the one of us who must go back there. When father dies, he's the heir of Gododdin.”

Oh, husband.
“And what of Geraint? How do you fight it?”

“By silence,” he said.

The stars were coming out overhead. Elen watched them for a long moment. She saw the familiar patterns, and took heart. They could not be too far gone from the world if the stars above held their familiar courses.

“I hope you will not ask me to fight such a battle with such a weapon,” she said lightly, hoping to turn his thoughts.
We have heaviness enough between us.
“I'd lose in an instant.”

Geraint chuckled. “You are a woman. You have your own weapons.”

“Tch,” she clicked her tongue. “You'll call me shrew next.”

Now there was mischief in his eyes for all his voice was solemn. “Of all the names I'd call you, that is not one.”

Elen cocked her head, one hand on her hip in an imitation of impatience. “What are these names then?”

But Geraint fell silent, with only the smallest of smiles playing around his mouth, and Elen found she could laugh at that and be glad for a precious moment.

For awhile they sat with arms around each other, watching the stars and breathing in peace. When time came for sleep, Geraint took first watch. They slept in shifts that night. It was cold and dark but the moon was nearly full. Owls hooted in the forest and wolves gave tongue to their fellows, but nothing untoward came about and the stars wheeled overhead in good order.

Elen found breathing easier. Above her she saw the mother's white face, not yet turned away.
We are not alone,
she told herself.
Not even here.

In that thought Elen found strength enough to watch the night and wait for the morning.

When the morning came, they fished again to break their fast, then rode together down the rolling slopes toward the valley Calonnau had seen. Had it not been for their means of arrival, Elen would not have known it from any other part of the west lands. The tall mountains brooded blue and purple behind them, and if the land before them was rough, it was green. Thick dim forest of oak and alder alternated with meadows bright with summer flowers. The air was full of the scents of flowers, herbs and grass. The birds sang and called and warned. A fox yipped. In the distance, a stag crashed through the underbrush, startled and launched on some adventure of its own. Calonnau, her hunger sated by the fish, followed them, flying from tree to tree, circling occasionally overhead, untroubled by this new place. She saw prey for coming meals. She saw a fox that had blue eyes, and a quail that had golden feathers in its crest. That these things looked strange troubled her no more than the mice with their delicate hands did. They were food and the hunting of them was as it should be.

The day wore on, and they passed through meadow and wood, up gentle stony hills and down them again. The bread and beer were gone. They passed from noon into the afternoon without anything but water and tiny wild apples and a few currents the birds had missed.

They came to a strip of thick wood and had to dismount again and pick their way through the gloom and rattling bracken. The light slanted sharply through the trees. Evening was coming fast. They needed to find shelter or make camp soon.

She had just opened her mouth to say so, but Geraint held up his hand, stopping her. She listened, and she heard it, the thick, heavy sound of hoes striking earth. A faint shout rose over them, and another answered it.

Together, they waded into the underbrush, moving toward the welcome human sounds as quickly as the horses could be coaxed between the trees.

They emerged from the forest and found themselves in fields bright green with grain that rose as high as the horse's bellies. People, sun-browned and sturdy in loose, rough clothes, worked here and there among the wheat, chopping weeds with wooden hoes, or carrying out buckets of water to the workers. An old man herded geese into the rows to eat the insects and weeds. The scene was as familiar to Elen as her name and her throat ached to see such a homely place.

For all the fields appeared prosperous and long-established, the settlement beyond had a rough and wild look. Elen could not see one proper cottage, let alone a hall or great house. There was at least one long, windowless building with proper walls washed well in lime, but Elen could not imagine such a strange place as the high house.

A rutted lane ran from the woods to the village and they set themselves and their horses on it. Elen held Calonnau close, swallowing the hawk's anger. The bird's hunger was growing again. She'd find it a meal soon. Calonnau was not going to hunt in these fields.

A man straightened his back from his labor. He saw them coming and stopped to stare. Geraint raised his spear in salute. The man shouted something to his fellows. All halted their busy labors then, and all gaped as if stunned. Elen fought the urge to shrink near Geraint in the face of all these strangers watching her. It reminded her too much of the time at Urien's side with the hungry-eyed men measuring her for her worth.

While she pushed this thought aside, the fields burst into commotion. A gaggle of children broke from the field, racing to the village, calling out in shrill voices. Their elders all hurried to line the road.

“What do we do?” she asked, discomfited.

“We greet our hosts,” replied Geraint.

They rode at a gentle pace through the fields. As Geraint and Elen passed, every one of the serfs knelt and bowed their heads. Those who wore hoods or headcloths doffed them at once.

What is this?
Elen wondered. Outwardly, Geraint seemed to take it in his stride, bowing his head this way and that whenever someone risked a glance upward. It was only the small furrowing of his brow that told Elen he too was surprised.

When they reached the village, they found it was indeed a poor and dishevelled place. Hovels of mud and bark hunched beside an open walled pavilion of thatch and poles with the bark still on. Some dwellings were no more than tents of hide on frames of willow wands. The only buildings that looked dry and sound were the four long, windowless houses with their bright, white walls.

There were many pens full of fat animals — sheep and goats, a fine herd of shaggy cows, pigs, with even a white piglet wallowing among the others in the mud with their fat sow watching beneveloently. But while kettles hung on chains over open fires, and a few clay ovens smoked, Elen smelled only boiling pottage and vegetables. No scent of meat leavened these other fragrances.

A small cadre of old men waited nervously for them in the shade of the enormous chestnut tree that grew beside the broad well. Like the workers in the field, they knelt as Geraint and Elen approached, their hoods in their hands. Those hands were black with ancient dirt. Their tunics were rough and undyed. They were shod in bark-soled sandals. Their beards were untrimmed and uncombed. Elen stared from the fat, well-tended animals to their lean and filthy keepers and had to work to keep her jaw from falling open.

A boy wearing nothing but a loose and much-mended tunic ran forward to hold Geraint's horse while he dismounted. Elen watched Geraint's eyes and knew he saw all she did, but he held his face absolutely calm. He walked up to the man who seemed the oldest among those who kelt in their ragged line. His bald pate was bronzed, mottled and shining from all its time in the sun. His ragged-nailed hands shook as Geraint approached.

Geraint said something in a tongue Elen recognised as Latin, though she understood none of what he said. The head man just shook and made no reply. Geraint tried again, this time in a gutteral and less measured tongue. Still the man said nothing.

Geraint tried a third time, speaking in the tongue of the west lands that Elen knew.

“I thank you for this good welcome,” said Geraint gently. “My wife and I are in need of food and shelter for the night.”

“Wife?” exclaimed the man, his head jerking up. He stared for a breath at Elen sitting on her grey horse and wearing her grey cloak, and he dropped his gaze instantly. “I'm sorry, my lord. Of course, my lord,” he stammered. “It is no more than our duty.”

Elen frowned. Who were these who went poor in the midst of plenty? The accent was familiar to her. His tongue had learned to speak not far from Pont Cymryd. She thought of the man who had worn Geraint's armor. Was it that one they feared so much? Or were there others?