In Winter's Shadow (14 page)

“Of course,” I replied, “Medraut’s friends are angry enough that their leader is sent away without a trial. If he has been obviously well treated, he can claim less indignation from them and from the kings of Britain. And with you beside him, he cannot use the journey to further his intrigues.”

Cei grunted.

The two did indeed leave the next morning, with an escort of three others who would accompany them as far as Ebrauc, where Medraut and Cei would take ship for the Islands. I worried continuously until we heard that they had actually arrived: worried whether Medraut would start some trouble along the way; whether he would goad Cei into a fighting a duel; whether Cei would start a duel on his own—he was a lover of fighting—and, killing some northern nobleman, be killed by some northern king. But the journey passed apparently without incident, and a short note in Cei’s own laborious lettering informed us that the pair had reached Dun Fionn in the Islands. By then, though, I had other things to worry about.

The first few weeks after the attempted murder were even worse than the weeks before it. Arthur, though in public as attentive to me as ever, in private could not bring himself even to speak with me. Silence grew between us; at night in bed we lay side by side as though we had the full half of the world parting us. In the morning I would wake and find Arthur watching me with a set, haggard face, and when I sat down at my mirror I would find the answering expression of guilt and misery still fixed on me. I had to smooth it away carefully before I could face the world.

I hated the pretense of innocence, hated it more and more as the days went by and the wild speculations of the fortress gradually gave way to fresh affairs and new gossip. At first, of course, every possible explanation was put forward by someone or other: I had poisoned the cup, but Arthur was miraculously preserved; Medraut had poisoned the cup, to incriminate me, but Arthur either cunningly disposed of the poison or was miraculously—and so on; or the cup was unpoisoned, but I, or Medraut, had been deceived into thinking otherwise by Arthur, or Medraut, or some other party. Some people even believed our official explanation, that it was a joke with treasonous overtones. Some friends of Medraut’s even guessed the truth. And all the interpretations of what had happened were endlessly discussed and argued, while I went about my business, trying to appear unconscious of it all, as though nothing whatever had happened. At times I wanted to stand up in the Hall and shout the truth at them, simply to be free of the endless, unspoken questions. But eventually all possible explanations had been searched out and found, and the frenzied questioning calmed.

Medraut’s departure had lessened much of the tension. Without his presence there to inspire them, many of his former followers began to think for themselves, and to decide that he had gone beyond the limit. This became apparent when, despite all the initial questioning and arguing, there were no more duels, and fewer quarrels. I worked very hard at convincing some of Medraut’s waverers to distrust their exiled leader, and the more successful I was, the more I hated myself afterward. My life was a lie, like my smiles, and I wished heartily that I had never come to Camlann, but married instead some fat farmer in the North and died bearing him fat babies. The heroines of songs are fortunate, able to die from grief or shame. In reality one is able to bear much more misery and suffering than would seem even likely. When one cares nothing for life, when all the world seems one great, corrupting falsehood, and even love seems shallow and pointless—still the hours grind steadily on and one continues to arrange their details. The most I could manage was a fever.

***

We had heavy rains in July, but at the end of the month a period of hot, sunny weather, which filled the air with fevers. I came down with one, lay in bed for a day or so, then, feeling better, got up and tried to begin the preparations for the harvest. This, of course, brought the fever on again, and more fiercely, and I was forced to go back to bed. As soon as I was able I had Gwyn called and dictated letters and accounts to him—the harvest season takes no account of human infirmity. Near the end of the second week of August Bedwyr came, asking what supplies of grain would be available for feeding the cavalry horses that winter.

I had not spoken to him since that feast. I had learned from Gwalchmai that Bedwyr knew the true story. He had been close enough to notice Arthur’s trick with the cup, and had afterward spoken to Arthur about it. What Arthur had said to him and he to Arthur was something I did not like to think about: it made me ashamed before both of them. I wished, more than ever, to avoid Bedwyr, but as warleader his responsibilities overlapped with mine in many areas, and I could not avoid him forever.

At that time I was able to sit up in bed, and in fact felt recovered, though I did not dare go out for fear of bringing the fever on again. But I had dressed, and even had the bed moved so as to get the best light for reading. I was checking through some accounts Gwyn had left for me when I heard the muffled sound of a knock at the outer door. I called “Come in,” and, after the inevitable pause, “in here!” But I was surprised when it was Bedwyr who opened the inner door and stood in the threshold, pausing to allow his eyes to adjust to the light.

“Noble lord,” I said in greeting. Despite my desire to avoid him I was glad to see him standing there, looking as he always did, plain and somber. He looked away from my gaze, however, and at this I became embarrassed as well, tense, uncertain how to receive him.

He turned the sideways look to a bow an instant too late for it to be convincing, and closed the door behind him. “My lady. I am sorry to trouble you while you are ill, but no one else seems able to tell me how much grain we are likely to have this winter, or how many horses we can feed on it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh yes.” I fumbled through the accounts, hoping to find the answer and be rid of him, then realized that I did not have any of the necessary lists by me, and struggled to remember what they said.

Bedwyr noticed my confusion and added quickly, “It is not urgent. I need to know soon, for next week I wish to send the horses we will not keep here up to the winter pasturage. But I do not have to know today.”

“I think we will have enough for two thousand horses,” I told him. “Or a little more: say, three horses for each member of the warband. But I cannot be more specific than that just now. I can probably send you some slightly better estimate by tomorrow afternoon.”

He nodded, but, instead of taking his leave, stood looking at me. “God speed your recovery, my lady,” he said after a moment. “You are much missed.”

“I am nearly recovered now,” I said, trying to smile. But the smile was a failure. Bedwyr was not a stranger, not someone to be easily fooled by tensing a few muscles in the face. Indeed, it was easier to conceal a grief from Arthur than from his steady eyes. I felt worn and wretched, and I could see that he knew it, and felt my face growing hot for shame at my lies, my many lies. But I could not bear speaking with him honestly, tasting his anger and bitterness as well as Arthur’s. “I may be up and about tomorrow,” I finished hurriedly.

“Do not press yourself too hard, my lady. Much depends on you.”

There was another minute of silence while we looked at each other and I wished desperately that he would go and leave me to my misery. Then he added, deliberately, “Our lord Arthur misses your help.”

I looked away hastily. This gentleness where I had expected scorn confused me. “Does he?” I asked, trying for a tone of uninterested inquiry but sounding merely flat and bitter. This additional piece of stupidity, my lack of self-control, disgusted me. I bit my lip, having to blink at tears: they come far too easily after a sickness.

At this Bedwyr took two rapid strides toward me and caught my hand. “Lady Gwynhwyfar.” He dropped to his knees so as not to stoop over me, “Forgive my presumption in speaking thus to you, but I must speak. Your husband loves you deeply, even if now he is bitter against you. We have spoken together since Medraut’s exile, and it is as plain to see as the wide heavens. He longs for some words which would reconcile him to you again, but he does not know what to say. I beg you, my lady, do not grieve yourself so. Speak to him, make the reconciliation. You have more skill at such things then he does, and it will console you both.”

I pulled my hand away, biting my lip until I tasted blood.

“Why are you saying this to me? I have broken all the laws that you and Arthur live by in the name of your own goal, and thus betrayed you. And I can repent neither to Arthur nor even to God, because I still wish I had succeeded and that Medraut were safe in Hell. So how can I make a reconciliation with Arthur? And you, you must despise me as well. Do not lie to me, Bedwyr. I am sick of lies; I would prefer your hatred to more of them.”

He met my eyes a moment with an expression of shock, then bowed his head almost to the bed. “My lady,” he whispered, “how could I hate or despise you? If what you had done had been a hundred times worse, still your grace and goodness would force me to love you, even against my will, and…” he broke off abruptly, staring at the coverlet, his hand clenching among its folds. I touched his shoulder in wonder and he looked up, and my heart came into my throat at that look.

“Do not,” he resumed after a pause, “do not believe that your lord despises you. He is the more troubled because he so loves and honors you—and because he fears Medraut, and is himself ashamed because he begot Medraut and now wishes him dead. He is as bitter with himself as with you. Believe me, for I would not lie about this even to please you.”

I began to cry in earnest at this, and then sneezed and had a coughing fit, for my fever had left me with a cold. Bedwyr handed me one of the cloths by the bedside, sitting down on the bed as he did so. I wiped my face and blew my nose, managed to check the tears.

“I am sorry, Bedwyr. I always seem to cry when you are kind to me. If Arthur feels as you say he does, why doesn’t he tell me so himself? No, you said that he hopes for some miracle to reconcile us. To console us both. And I am to produce this reconciliation? Lord God of Heaven, must I really lie to him, and say that I repent when I have not, and tell him I am glad that Medraut lives?” I called on God, but I was looking at Bedwyr, at his dark, compassionate eyes.

“You need only say that it would have been wrong, my lady. That I know you do believe. He cares more to have you back than to prove the rights and wrongs of the case.”

I laughed bitterly, coughed, found another cloth. “Ah, is that all? And do you think it will be that simple, that I can simply say a few words and make all well again? No, I am sorry. Your advice is, as always, good, true, and difficult to follow. My friend, my heart, I thank you. But can you justify even to yourself this crime I have attempted—although you treat me with such kindness?”

His face was tense and strained, but his eyes were alight, intense, very warming to me after so much cold misery. “I do not much care for such justifications. You acted from excess of love, to protect the realm at all costs. How can I say you were wrong? To be sure, I know it is evil to poison a man. But to justify or to condemn you—that is beyond me. And the thing was not done. Moreover, it has been bitter to me to watch you, seeing you conceal your grief and knowing that it devours you within.” He reached out for my hand again, touched it to his lips. “Gwynhwyfar, I know that you have condemned yourself, but no one has the right to condemn but God, who alone can weigh the heart. Sweet lady, be merciful to yourself also.”

“Go on as though I had done nothing, as though it were unimportant, complacently awaiting the Last Judgment?”

“What else is there to do, except die? We must live with our sins. One chooses between evils and endures that choice. I…I once decided that it was evil to kill, even in battle. Arthur showed me that it can be evil not to act, when action might save something of value, even if the action includes killing. I agreed. But they are still there, all those deaths; I can clean the blood from my sword, but from my heart, never. All those men I have killed for the sake of the Empire, for the sake of the Light, are as dead as if I had killed only for hatred or to prove myself a better warrior than them. But you have never killed anyone.”

I shook my head, staring at him. His soberness was gone. For once the passion was on the surface, and with it the pain. He leaned forward, clutching my hand hard, leaning upon the stump of his shield hand. “It is easier than you would expect. It makes little impression, at the time. Afterward…afterward, one remembers it and feels differently about it. But the only alternative we have had is to allow others to be killed, and if that leaves no blood on a sword, it must leave more on the soul before God. What you have done—what you meant to do—must count for less in Heaven than the crimes I know I have committed, the deaths and the maimings and pain, the widows and children starving after their men’s deaths, the burned fields and plundered towns—all done with this hand.” He pulled it from my fingers and held it before me: his sword hand, calloused from the sword, the spear, and the reins, scarred on the back from practice matches and the hazards of war. He regarded it with a degree of pain and horror that tore my heart. I caught the hand and kissed it. He looked at me as though he had forgotten I was there, as though he had never seen me before. He drew his fingers along my lips, touched the tears that were still on my cheek, smoothed back my hair, caught hold of my shoulder. He leaned forward and kissed me.

I meant, at every moment of the next hour, to stop it: to say, “No more.” But I did not. It was sweet, so very sweet that I wished always just one more minute of it, before returning to the cold and the loneliness and the futile longing for Arthur, the shame and tension and approaching dark. No doubt Bedwyr meant to stop it, also, but he too said nothing. Neither of us said anything until it was over and we lay side by side, knowing we had betrayed Arthur and everything we lived for. Then I turned toward the wall and began to weep again.