In Winter's Shadow (9 page)

Goronwy looked at me, suddenly, uneasily; then returned his eyes to Arthur with a look of bewilderment. Arthur leaned forward and caught his hand, clasping it. “Cousin,” he said, “again, you think of wild rumors. But think of what you yourself have done and seen, what you know. You know who and what I am, and you know Gwalchmai, and Bedwyr.”

Goronwy continued to look at him in bewilderment.

“Will you be reconciled with Lord Bedwyr?” Arthur asked, after a silence.

“With Bedwyr? Yes, damn his spear. If he takes back the name of liar.”

“He will do so. But you must not stir up your friends against him.”

“If you desire it so, my lord, I will keep silent about this quarrel.”

“I do so desire it. Excellent, my cousin. Sleep now.” Arthur set Goronwy’s hand down on the bed, where it clenched slowly and relaxed. My husband watched his warrior a moment, his face grim, then turned and left the room.

The neighboring room was Gruffydd’s kitchen, also where he prepared his drugs. Arthur leaned wearily against the heavy table while Gruffydd closed the adjoining door, then asked, “And Bedwyr is unharmed?”

“Entirely. It was he who brought Goronwy here. Nor is Goronwy hurt badly, besides the broken bone. He should mend quickly.”

Arthur nodded, then, in a low voice, said, “He is not to see the lord Medraut. Prevent him any way that you can: tell Medraut that he is asleep, or is then too weak to see visitors. But allow Bedwyr to visit him.”

“I will do that, lord. And I will keep Rhuawn away as well, and all the rest of Medraut’s faction, to give Goronwy a chance to regain his wits.” He met Arthur’s steady eyes for a long moment, then added, “It is what you wish, isn’t it, my lord?”

Arthur nodded. “It is. But do not be obvious in the doing of it.”

“Never fear. But I will work on him myself, and see if I can talk him out of his slanders.” As Arthur continued to fix him with his eyes, Gruffydd added defensively, “Gwalchmai is my friend, and it sits ill with me to hear him called a traitor by some golden weasel such as Medraut.”

“The whole business is very ill, but Goronwy is a good man despite it. Whatever you say, do not begin any more quarrels! We can only hope that this will wear itself out with time, and that someone will challenge Gwalchmai directly.” After another moment, Gruffydd nodded, and Arthur sighed, rubbing his mouth. “Good, if you need anything for Goronwy, or want him moved, the servants will have orders to help you. Gwynhwyfar, Bedwyr will be waiting at our house.”

***

Bedwyr was sitting on the edge of the desk, reading a book. He set it down quickly when we entered and stood still, waiting. There was blood on his tunic and cloak, Goronwy’s blood, and his face was hard and bitter.

Arthur crossed the room quickly and caught Bedwyr by the shoulders. “It was well done,” he said, the grimness falling away from him suddenly. “It was very well done, my brother. But do not risk yourself: I could afford to lose both Goronwy and Morfran more easily than I could afford to lose you.”

Bedwyr’s expression relaxed, and he clasped Arthur’s arm. “There was no other way to stop it,” he said. “If I had not intervened, Morfran would have fought Goronwy, and one of them would have been killed.”

Arthur nodded, shook him very slightly, then let him go and sat at the desk. “I have just told Goronwy that I trusted Gwalchmai above my left hand and you above my right, and I pray God that word of it gets around. And since it was you who fought Goronwy, perhaps that faction will begin to believe that their leader is attacking me, not Gwalchmai. But, God of Heaven! I trust nothing now. There is nothing that is beyond his powers to twist into something sinister.”

No one needed to ask who “he” was.

“It would have been just as bad if you had sent Gwalchmai back to Gaul,” I said. “He may not be the issue, but I think that Medraut hates him.”

Arthur nodded, heavily. “And no one has challenged Gwalchmai directly. He has been back for two weeks and courting trouble, and still no one has challenged him.”

Bedwyr shook his head. He pulled out a chair by the fire for me, then reseated himself on the edge of the desk.

“Rhuawn said some violent things to Gwalchmai two days ago,” I said. “But there was nothing that Gwalchmai could have appealed to us to refute. He would not say what they were, merely that he would have had to fight Rhuawn if he had taken note of them. So he twisted their meaning into a joke and excused himself.”

“This is still the old trouble, only more blatant, more immediate.” Arthur stood, walked over to the hearth and leaned against the wall, staring back into the dead ashes of the fire pit. “Yet there must be something more to it, or someone would have challenged Gwalchmai.”

“It will be easier for a few days now,” Bedwyr said.

Arthur did not stir. His wide gray stare fixed itself on nothing, and I knew, with a sudden rush of grief, what he was considering now.

“Perhaps you should send Gwalchmai somewhere,” I suggested, to distract him from the nightmare. “You could send him on an embassy, to Ebrauc—or, better still, to the Islands, with an escort of some of Medraut’s followers and some of his own friends. He might be able to resolve something then.”

Arthur shook his head, without looking at me. “No. If anyone did challenge him on the journey, he would be unable to appeal to us for judgment: he would have to fight. And if there were killing the rest of Medraut’s faction would be out for his blood—God forbid it, but there might even be full combat on the road. No. I do not like this reluctance to challenge Gwalchmai in anything that I might be judge of. It suggests that already they distrust my judgment. Perhaps…perhaps already they believe other rumors. It is working quickly now, this sickness. More quickly than I had believed. I must send Medraut away…in God’s name, where? I dare not send him on an embassy.”

“Send him to Gwynedd, to discuss the latest tribute problems with Maelgwn,” suggested Bedwyr. “He will not dare to deceive us in something we can check, like tribute, and he can hardly make Maelgwn more our enemy than he is already. Indeed, if he presses Maelgwn too hard, the king may begin to distrust him, and he will have one ally the less.”

Arthur’s hand, resting against the wall, clenched slowly. “If I send him to Maelgwn…He is ready to tell the secret, he will tell Maelgwn.” His stare went far beyond the gray heap of ashes, off into a deep darkness, and his face was lined, old. His voice had sunk to a whisper.

“My lord?” asked Bedwyr, also in a whisper, looking at Arthur intently. He did not know “the secret,” but he had known Arthur for many years, too long not to be aware of that shadow on him, or fail to recognize that stare into the blind dark.

Arthur looked up at him abruptly, bitterly. “My wife knows.”

I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap; at the purple glint in the amethyst of the signet ring I wore, the carving of the imperial dragon. I would not meet Bedwyr’s dark, questioning eyes. But I could feel it when he turned them back to Arthur.

“Now?” Arthur said, very softly, to himself, then, “You should know. You are my warleader.”

“I am your friend,” replied Bedwyr, very quietly. “And your servant.”

The two pairs of eyes met, held: Bedwyr’s solemn in a straightforward humility, contented with whatever Arthur might say to him; Arthur’s hard and cold, as he himself was cold, twisted with the pain of a memory.

Then Arthur sighed, opening his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You are my friend and brother. And I know that, even knowing this, you will follow me. But I tell you now that I do not think it just that you should. I will accept it because I must, but it is not justice, and it was not just of me to have so long concealed this. Medraut…” he stopped, caught a deep, sobbing breath, “Medraut is my son.”

Bedwyr stared at him. I watched the realization of what it meant creep over him slowly, first darkening his eyes with shock, then gradually draining the blood from his face. He rose, tried to speak; stopped, the fingertips of his one hand resting against the surface of the desk. “Your sister?” he asked, at last.

“Yes.” Arthur stood perfectly still, almost calm, only his eyes alive, brilliant and terrible. “Did you never notice that he resembles me?”

“I…he is your nephew. I thought that accounted for it.”

“He is my nephew, and my son. He is born of the incest I committed with my sister Morgawse. By all the traditions of the Church I am eternally damned.”

“He didn’t know!” I burst out, unable to be quiet longer. “He did not know who his father was. She planned this to destroy us.”

“Silence, silence,” Arthur said, half closing his eyes in pain, and then, turning on me with sudden ferocity, cried, “Do you think that makes a difference?”

The color returned to Bedwyr’s face all at once. “My lord, there is no reason to shout at the Lady Gwynhwyfar.”

Arthur nodded, then sat down abruptly by the fire, as though his strength had at last given out. He covered his face with his hands. I jumped up and went over to him, knelt beside him, held him, but he was motionless in my arms. Morgawse had wounded him more deeply than I could heal. Bedwyr stood by the desk, watching us, saying nothing.

After a long minute, Arthur lowered his hands and again met the eyes of his warleader. “So,” he said, his voice flat with exhaustion, “now I have told you. But the tale will be current soon. You ought to know that it is true. Ach, if you like, add to that knowledge this, which Gwynhwyfar told you: I did not know. It was…a long time ago.”

Bedwyr bowed his head in assent, a movement which began a deeper bow, for he sank to his knees, drawing his sword. He offered it, hilt first, to Arthur. “My lord,” he said, his tone as quiet and expressionless as Arthur’s, “I gave you this many years ago. Had I known then what you have told me, I would have done no differently.”

Arthur stared at him, then rose, pulling away from me, and touched the hilt of the sword. I thought he would help Bedwyr to his feet and embrace him, but he did not, only stood, looking at the warrior. “I thank you,” he said at last. “Sit down.”

He returned to his place beside me, and Bedwyr rose shakily, sheathed his sword, and sat down. Arthur took another deep breath and renewed the conference in a calm voice. “So you see: I fear that Medraut will begin to spread the story soon. Therefore I will not send him to Gwynedd, or to any king who, like Maelgwn, would be able to use such a tale as a weapon against us.”

“Medraut could tell Maelgwn himself, without leaving Camlann,” I said, into the silence. “By letter.”

Arthur turned his head and looked at me. His face was scarcely a foot from mine, but his eyes seemed to regard me from a great distance.

“Send him to Gwynedd,” I said. “My dear lord, some of the men will doubt him now. If he is absent, no matter where, his spell will wane. And if he tells the tale to Maelgwn it will do less damage than told to some king who is our friend.”

“But he will wish to go to Gwynedd. He has spoken with Maelgwn before; we know that. He would not trust a tale like that to a letter. He will want to tell it in his own fashion, preparing his way with hints and rumors, and ending with a pretense of injury to the king himself. Dear God, I can almost hear him.”

“My dearest…” I began again, reaching out to touch him.

But he jumped up, strode to the door, turned and looked back at me. The best thing would be for me to abdicate. No, be silent. If there were another man in my place, someone untainted by any of this, all would be well. And why should Camlann, and you, and all Britain, pay for my sin? Why should anyone suffer for it but me? It is because I am emperor, because I seized the purple, usurped it. If I could abdicate—”

“My lord!” exclaimed Bedwyr and I together.

He shook his head, angrily. “It would be best. But there is no one I could appoint to succeed me who would be accepted by all, and the end would be war, another war, and things would end as they were when I seized power, and no doubt I should seize power again.” He struck his hand against the wall, hard, then stopped, cradling it in the other hand. “There is nothing to do but go on.”

“Arthur!” I cried, rising from my stiff knees, pained to the heart because he would receive no comfort and no hope, and yet had set himself to struggle on.

“No! Gwynhwyfar, your pity is a reproach to me; can’t you see that? Must I speak so plainly? This is my fault, mine! Leave me be for a while. I will go riding—indeed, I will take Medraut and Rhuawn with me as escort, and try to see if I can gather anything of their plans. Bedwyr, you will have to visit Goronwy. Take back the name of liar which you gave him and he will be reconciled and keep silence about the quarrel. Should anything else come up, I will be back by dusk.” He opened the house door, then stopped, looking back once more. “Forgive me,” he said, very quietly, and was gone. Bedwyr and I looked at each other in the deep silence, and saw the desolation in each other’s eyes.

“You have known—how long?” Bedwyr asked at last.

“Just four years,” I replied.

“And no one else knows?”

I shook my head, looked about, and sat in the chair by the fire which Arthur had just left. It still held the warmth of his body, and I wanted him, suddenly and terribly. “Only Gwalchmai,” I said to Bedwyr. “Arthur told him before Gwalchmai swore him fealty. Arthur thought he knew already, and had treated him badly because of it.”