In Winter's Shadow (8 page)

“Noble lord?” I said, trying not to cough.

He strolled leisurely through the door, out of the sunlight, down the narrow building, and stopped before me. He gave a slight bow, then stood looking at me with Arthur’s gray stare and the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. He was, as always, impeccably dressed, his short beard neatly trimmed, graceful, controlled, invulnerable. “My lady,” he said, a dutiful concern in his soft, pleasant voice. “The lord Goronwy has been hurt in a duel, and the emperor wishes you to join him in attendance on him at once.”

“Oh God,” I said. I rubbed my filthy hands on the apron I was wearing, then pulled the thing off and tossed it onto one of the bales. Medraut glanced down, not quite quickly enough for me to miss the look of satisfaction in his eyes. “How badly hurt? Who was he fighting?”

“Most noble lady, how would I know how badly he is hurt? I was not there. I was told he has been taken to the house of Gruffydd the surgeon; I pray he is not much hurt, for he is my friend.” He paused another moment, then added, “The warleader, Lord Bedwyr, was the one that hurt him.”

“Bedwyr?” I asked, staring at him. I could not imagine Bedwyr embroiled in a duel. Yet Medraut would not fabricate such a thing. He nodded now, still with that faint hint of a smile. Goronwy was one of his followers, his supposed friends; but he was pleased that there was bloodshed, if I judged him right, and did not mind whose the blood—though no doubt he would have preferred Bedwyr’s to Goronwy’s. “Where is Arthur?” I asked, suppressing my sudden loathing of him.

“With Goronwy, at Gruffydd the surgeon’s house, noble queen. May I have the honor of attending you there?”

“I thank you, no. Undoubtedly the lord Goronwy should not be disturbed by many visitors. Gwyn, leave that now. Lord Medraut, your pardon.” I gave him a slight curtsy, the politest way I knew of saying, “I want no more of your company,” and hurried from the room. Gwyn gave one frightened look at Medraut and ran after me.

“You don’t have to come,” I told the boy as we hurried through the hot, sullen afternoon sun. “I won’t need you again this afternoon. You can go to weapons practice—or is it riding this afternoon?”

“Riding, noble lady,” he said. He sounded utterly wretched.

“Why, what’s the matter?” I asked him, registering his distress for the first time.

He stopped, fixing me with his oddly dark eyes. I had grown very fond of him in the short time he had been at Camlann. He was a sweet-tempered boy, with a great deal of courage. He suffered the dislike or cruelty of the other boys at Camlann with patient persistence, and worked at his weapons with unflagging determination. I had once found him weeping in a corner of the stables, but he had at once dried his eyes and denied that he had cause to weep.

“Noble lady…” he said, then, in a rush, “I know I am no one, no one at all, but you should not trust Lord Medraut. It is his fault that Bedwyr fought Goronwy.”

I looked at him in surprise. “You seem very certain of that.”

“Everyone knows it,” he replied. “Goronwy is the lord Medraut’s friend, and the lord Bedwyr is the lord Gwalchmai’s friend; why else would they fight?”

I put my hand on his shoulder, feeling the bones through the plain tunic. He had learned very quickly. But he was an intelligent boy. “Why do you hate Medraut so?” I asked gently.

“He…once he hit my mother.”

“What? How could he? Was he on some expedition?”

“It was at the convent, in Gwynedd. I had nightmares about it for years.”

“But you said that your mother was at a convent in Elmet.”

He blushed. “Oh.” He looked at his feet. “I didn’t want to say it was in Gwynedd because the monasteries there are so full of sedition. I was afraid you would not accept me here if I said I came from Gwynedd. Please, noble lady, don’t tell anyone that it is really Gwynedd. The others will say…you won’t tell them?”

“Of course not. But what happened?”

“He came to the convent, with some of his followers to…to take something which he had no right to. My mother tried to shame him out of it, but he hit her with the side of his sword and rode off without looking back. He hit her, and knocked her down, and she was bleeding. I saw that he had no honor and no shame, and I swore that one day I would become a warrior and challenge him. But when I came here, I found him, proud and powerful, and many of the warriors following after him like…like dogs looking for tidbits. And he does nothing but engender quarrels and slander his brother Gwalchmai. I have heard people talking…my lady, people talk in front of me because they think, ‘He is just a servant; he must be a fool.’ I know what Medraut says to his followers, and it is all lies. The lord Gwalchmai,” with a plain and desperate intensity, “the lord Gwalchmai is a great and good warrior. He is the best, the very greatest warrior in Camlann. If I could be like any of them I would like to be like him. You must not believe what the lord Medraut says of him. I know that I am only a nun’s bastard, as the lord Cei says, but please, please believe me, my lady. You must not trust Medraut.”

I thought over what Gwyn had said, and regretfully decided that there was nothing that would be useful. “Hush,” I told him. “We do not believe what Medraut says of Gwalchmai.” I turned and began to walk up the hill again.

“Then why do you let him stay here?” Gwyn cried out, running after me. “He says that you would send him away if what he says was false, and many people believe him. And he says that the emperor is set about with flatterers, and does not know whom to trust, and he says that you, most noble lady, are the worst of the flatterers—oh, forgive me! I did not mean…”

“I know what Medraut says, Gwyn,” I told him, without looking at him. “But you see, we cannot send him away. Rulers cannot send people away without charging them with some crime, and we have nothing to charge him with. And he has fought for Arthur for some years now. We must pretend to overlook him, and hope that we can weather whatever storm he manages to raise. But do not be afraid to tell me what Medraut says. If there is something important, I want you to tell me immediately. It would help me, and the emperor as well. And we can hope that Medraut will find nothing to confirm his accusations, and they will eventually fail for lack of evidence, so that men will see him for what he is. But do not tell anyone what I have just told you, Gwyn. Officially, Medraut is one of us and trusted, and I cannot be reported to have said differently or many people will think Medraut is right and that I am his cunning enemy.”

“Yes, my lady,” he whispered. “But the lord Gwalchmai…”

“No one who knows Gwalchmai at all well will believe Medraut’s accusations. But come, why do you so admire him, Gwyn? You can scarcely have met him.” I looked back at the boy, managing to smile.

The distraction worked. He flushed a little. “I always admired him—from the songs, you know. And I saw him once in Gwynedd. I thought he looked like an angel of God. He rode by on his horse, looking like the Word of God in the Apocalypse…there was a picture of that in a gospel I copied, my lady. But he is courteous, even to people like me, and he notices. The other day,”—the flush grew deeper—“he told me how to use a spear from horseback, and he showed me himself what I had been doing wrong, and was so kind! And he said I ride well.”

I smiled again, this time a real smile. I could imagine Gwyn seeing Gwalchmai, in Gwynedd: a small boy raised on songs and illuminated gospels transforming the great white stallion, the gold, crimson, and glitter of arms into wings of light, something as much greater than the world as his own hopes. Well, he could have chosen worse men for his hero-worship. It said much for Gwyn that he admired gentleness and courtesy as well as strength of arms. “Gereint the riding master says you ride well, also,” I told him. “And he thinks, as I do, that you will make an excellent warrior, if you continue to learn as quickly as you have done.”

“I…I thank you, most noble lady,” he stammered, his eyes shining. He was as transparent as spring water, that boy, and could not more hide his feelings than he could fly.

“Then go and practice riding, most noble warrior, and we will finish with the wool inventory tomorrow morning. Is it well?”

“Very well, my lady!” he replied and, seizing my hand, pressed it to his forehead before running off. I was able to smile again, really smile, as I hurried on to Gruffydd’s house.

The surgeon lived on the northwest side of the Hall, halfway down the hill. He was by birth a townsman from Caer Ebrauc, and had received some education there, and some training in surgery from those in that city who remembered the skills of the long-vanished Roman legions. On coming of age he had joined a monastery and learned some physic to supplement his knowledge of surgery, but had quarreled with his abbot and been forced to leave. He joined Arthur shortly after the death of the Emperor Uther, before Arthur himself claimed the purple. He was a sensible, hard-headed man who never had a good word or an unkind deed for anyone. When I entered his house he was pouring some sticky syrup into a cup of wine, scowling. Goronwy, the injured man, lay on a bed. His sword arm was bound across his bare chest and his side and shoulder were bandaged. His face above his black beard was pale and he was sweating.

Gruffydd nodded and grunted when he saw me, but did not greet me. He set the cup in Goronwy’s left, uninjured hand: the wine wavered as his hand shook. He swallowed some of the potion and made a face.

“Drink it all,” Gruffydd advised him. “It will dull the pain—no, here.”

“I can drink it by myself; I left my mother years ago. Why didn’t you give it to me before, if it dulls pain?”

“I did give you some before; I’m giving you more now. I wanted you to have some of your wits about you while I worked. It would be easy enough to cut through a nerve, cleaning a wound like that, and under a broken collar bone.
Gloria Deo!
Are you eager to lose the use of your arm? As if you hadn’t already given enough proof of your foolishness by dueling!”

“My lady,” said Arthur, emerging from the shadows beside the bed. I had not noticed him till that moment, and my heart leapt suddenly. He took my hands a moment and pressed them. The lines about his mouth and eyes were very pronounced.

“Medraut told me you were here, and wanted me,” I said.

He nodded, letting go of my hands. “I saw him on my way here, and sent him.”

“Medraut!” said Goronwy, trying to sit up. “He knows of this, then? Already?”

“I imagine half the fortress knows that you and the lord Bedwyr fought, Lord Goronwy,” I replied, keeping my voice even.

“Ah.” Goronwy fell back on the bed again. “Well. If you see him, tell him that I would welcome his company. It was for his sake that I fought, and, had he been present, he would himself have fought, so this matter concerns him.”

Gruffydd grunted. “It is for me to say whether or not you are well enough to see visitors. And I say that you will see none, not until tomorrow.”

Goronwy tried to sit up again, groaned and fell back. Gruffydd took the cup from him, poured some more wine, and added some more syrup. “Take it,” he ordered. “It will put you to sleep.” Goronwy took it without argument.

“Why did you fight the lord Bedwyr?” Arthur asked, as soon as the cup was empty. His voice; was quiet, calm. Only I, who knew him so well, could hear the tension in it.

Goronwy blinked at him. “My lord, he…damn his spear! He said I was a liar!”

“Did he so? Why?”

Goronwy blinked again. The drug was having its effect, as Arthur no doubt had calculated. “He said I…no, first we were talking about the lord Gwalchmai, my lord. Morfran ap Tegid, and Constans, and I. We were in the Hall. And I said that you did not send Gwalchmai back to Gaul because you suspected him of negotiating with King Macsen in bad faith. But Morfran said…he said, ‘By Heaven, it was false,’ and that you did not send Gwalchmai because he was ill. And Constans said that he could well believe that, and that Gwalchmai was indeed ill—in his wits, from killing his mother. He has a quick tongue, Constans! And Morfran went very quiet and shifty-eyed, and asked whether it was Medraut who said this; and Constans asked why he wished to know—and it was then that the lord Bedwyr came up—he had been sitting down the Hall from us—and said that Gwalchmai was not ill, but that you, my lord, wished him to rest, and that no one doubted his loyalty. And I said that that was false, for there are plenty that doubt it, and with reason; and he called me a liar. How can an honorable man endure it? I challenged him to fight me then and there. He said nothing, merely nodded, and we went out to the stable yards and saddled our horses and set to it. But damn his spear! On the very first attack, before I can get in one good blow, he jabs me under the arm and pushes me off my horse, so I am unfit to fight anyone for months. And, my lord, it is true that you distrust Gwalchmai, is it not?”

“I trust Gwalchmai above my own shield hand,” Arthur replied evenly. “And Bedwyr I trust above my sword hand. You have given too much belief to idle rumors, Goronwy.” He took the cup away from the warrior, gently. “Listen, cousin. This quarrel within my Family grieves me as deeply as your wound does you. I wish you to end it.”

Goronwy looked up at him, still blinking sleepily, his lower lip caught between his teeth. “But you would trust Gwalchmai, after all? To such a degree as that? He is a matricide!”

“Cousin, that too is false. Think a moment, of the form in which you first heard the tale of the death of Queen Morgawse of the Islands. At first, were not all agreed that she died at the hand of Lord Agravain? And you have heard why. Think also of Gwalchmai. You have known him as many years as I have, and fought beside him from here to Caledon. Think how often he has saved us in battle, and how well he has served us on embassies, and how slow he is to quarrel with anyone, even the lowest servant. Can you truly believe that he is mad, and worse, treacherous? And can you believe that I would not know or act if it were so? Am I a fool, Goronwy?”