The Hallowed Isle Book Three (10 page)

Sister Julia started at the clatter, then returned her attention to the even strand that was feeding from the cloud of wool wrapped around her distaff onto her own. She had been Guendivar's constant companion for almost a year, when Petronilla, dazzled by the prospects implied by Queen Igierne's letter, had sent to the Isle of Glass for a nun to guard her daughter's chastity. Mother Maruret had offered them Julia, an orphan of good family who had not yet taken her final vows. She was plain enough to convince Guendivar's mother of her virtue, and at eighteen, young enough so that Guendivar would tolerate her company.

“How can you bear to spin in this weather?” Guendivar exclaimed, resting her hands on the railing and gazing out across the stubble of the hay-meadow. “If they could, I daresay even the sheep would be shedding their fleeces now. But then—” she turned back to Julia “—you always look so cool.”

Julia flushed a little, and Guendivar laughed. She had discovered very early that the young woman's fair skin showed every shift in emotion. She was clad, as always, in a gown of heavy undyed linen, and when Guendivar looked more closely, she saw a sheen of perspiration on Julia's brow.

“You
are
hot! Well, that settles it. We are going down to the stream to bathe!”

“But your mother—” Julia stopped her spinning.

“My mother will not be back from Lindinis until tonight, but why should she object? The war is over, and all the lust-crazed soldiers are on their way home!”

It was too bad, really—for all their fears, not one warrior, lusty or not, had come near. It would have brought a little excitement into what had been an anxious but boring summer. Guendivar sighed, knowing her mother would have told her to use the bathhouse attached to the villa, but she saw no reason to make more work for the slaves when what she really wanted was to get out into the woods once more.

Before Julia could protest further, Guendivar had dashed inside for her sandals and some towel cloths and a blanket, and was running down the path. In the next moment, she smiled as she heard the young nun hurrying after her. By now, she had found that within the limitations of her mother's rules, Julia was quite persuadable. Guendivar would even have been glad of her companionship if she could just, once in a while, have spent some time alone.

It had been months since she had had a glimpse of faerie radiance. Did growing up mean that one could no longer see them? But they had
promised
that she would stay the same! Guendivar clung to that knowledge in the lonely nights when she lay awake watching the moon pass her window and listening to Julia's quiet breathing from the other side of the room. Sometimes she thought about simply climbing out the window, but Julia was a light sleeper and would rouse the household to follow her.

But I
will
do it!
she promised herself as she reached the woods and slowed.
No one, not even the High King himself, will keep me locked in for long!

Julia gave her a reproachful glance as she caught up with her. She was breathing hard and sweating visibly. Guendivar suppressed an impulse of pity. It was Julia's own fault—she knew where Guendivar was going, after all.

But now she could hear the cheerful gurgle of the stream as it purled among the stones of the ford. Below the ford the ground had been cleared so the sheep and the cattle could come down to drink there, but above it, where a screen of alders shaded the water, her father had hollowed out a bathing pool.

Guendivar dropped her towel and stripped off her tunica in a single motion, and made a dash for the pool.

“Oh, it's delicious!” she cried as the coolness closed around her. She ducked beneath the surface and came up laughing, splashed Julia, who had folded her gown and was testing the water with one toe, and laughed again to see it sparkle in the sun. She leaned backward to let the water embrace her and floated, her bright hair raying out around her, her breasts bobbing like pale apples.

Carefully, Julia waded in. Standing, the water lapped her breasts, larger than Guendivar's, though the younger girl was taller, with rosy nipples, erect now in response to the water. Julia's face might be plain, reflected Guendivar, but her body was rounded and beautiful. It was a shame to hide that curving waist beneath a nun's shapeless robe.

She allowed herself to sink beneath the surface once more, turning, opening her legs so the cool water rushed between her thighs. She felt the pressure of the current against her side—or was it the spirit of the pool? Her spirit reached out in wordless longing, and she felt the current curl around her in an insubstantial embrace.

Too soon she had to come up for air, and the moment was gone. She could only be grateful that she was wet already, so Julia could not see her tears. She gathered up her hair and twisted it to wring out the water, then started for the shore.

“Do you want to go back now?” asked Julia. She was washing her hair, black now with moisture, like the delta of shadow between her thighs.

“I will rest awhile and let the air dry me.” Guendivar spread out the blanket where the old leaves lay thick beneath the trees and lay down.

Presently Julia joined her, sighing with content as she stretched out at Guendivar's side.

“What is it?” the other girl asked presently. “You look so sad. Is it something I have said or done?”

Damn
—thought Guendivar, wiping her eyes. “I used to range the hills like a wild pony! I hate being penned in the house like a mare being kept until the stallion comes. It's not your fault, Julia. You make it almost bearable!”

“Oh, my dear—” Julia reached out to touch her shoulder. “Don't you want to marry the king?”

“He doesn't even know me! Maybe it will come to nothing. Maybe this is all no more than my mother's dream. But if the High King doesn't want me, she will find someone else, and I will be in prison forevermore!”

“Guendivar, it's all right!” murmured Julia, drawing her close as she began to weep once more, holding her pillowed against her soft breast until she had cried herself out and was still.

It had been a long time, thought Guendivar in the peace that followed, since her mother had held her so. Julia's skin was as cool and smooth as her mother's silken gown. Dreamily, as if she were stroking her cat, she slid her fingers down that soft side. Again, and again, she stroked, exploring the contours of muscle and bone beneath the smooth skin, until her hand cupped the curve of the other woman's breast.

Julia gasped, and Guendivar, opening her eyes, saw the betraying flush, rosy as sunrise, beneath the fair skin. “Please—you should not—”

“Touch you? But why not?” asked Guendivar. “Your skin is lovely.” She squeezed gently, fingers circling until they found the pink nipple and felt it harden.

“I think . . . it is a sin.. . .” Julia took a quick breath and started to pull away, but Guendivar held her.

“My mother says it is a sin if I let a man touch my body, but you are not a man.” Guendivar smiled. “Look, our breasts are nestling together like doves.. . .” She moved closer, feeling a sweet fire begin to burn warm within her own body at the contact of skin on skin. She licked her lips, wondering if that skin would be as sweet to the taste as it was to touch. Julia made a small desperate sound and turned her head away.

“You like me, don't you?” Guendivar asked in sudden doubt. “It's not just because my mother makes you stay—”

“Oh Guendivar, my sweet child, I love you,” Julia whispered brokenly, “Didn't you know?” The stiffness went out of her body and she reached up to stroke Guendivar's hair.

“I don't know about love, but I know that you like holding me—” She smiled again and kissed Julia's lips. There was a last moment of resistance, and then the other girl's arms tightened around her.

Together they sank back down on the blanket, and she learned just how much Julia liked her as, clumsy as colts and sensuous as kittens, they discovered the pleasure touch could bring. And presently, lost in sensation, Guendivar forgot the future that prisoned her, and was free.

At Midwinter, the High King came to Lindinis. He was travelling from Londinium to visit Cataur in Isca Dumnoniorum, his message told them, and Lindinis would be a good place to break his journey. He would be there, he said, in time for the festival.

“He has not said he is coming to see
me,”
said Guendivar. Scrubbed and scented and swathed in Roman silks, she sat on the chest in her mother's bedchamber, kicking her heels against its carven side.

“He wrote to ask your father if you were spoken for,” answered Petronilla, peering into her mirror of polished bronze as she hung discs of gold filigree and garnets in her ears. “God knows how he knew that Leodagranus even
has
a daughter, but if he is coming here, it is you he wants to see. Perhaps he fears that if he marries into Demetia or Dumnonia, the others will be jealous, whereas an alliance with Lindinis will not upset the balance of power. But you come of the blood of the Durotrige princes, and your ancestry is as royal as any in Britannia. So you will be on your best behavior, my girl—” she turned to fix her daughter with a repressive glare “—and show yourself worthy to be Artor's bride.”

And why should I want to be a queen?
Guendivar wondered mutinously.
From all I have heard, they have even less freedom than other wives
—but she did not say so aloud. Her mother had explained quite clearly the advantages to her family, and threatened to send her back to the Isle of Glass with Julia if she refused.

“At least,” Petronilla continued as she settled the veil over her hair, “you are in blooming looks.”

Guendivar felt a betraying flush heat her cheeks and hoped her mother would put it down to maidenly modesty. It was Julia's care for her and the joy they had together that had made these past months bearable.

Sounds from the street below brought both of them to their feet, listening. Petronilla moved swiftly to the porch that overlooked the atrium and glanced down.

“They've come—quickly now, we must be ready to greet them—” She reached for her daughter's hand and towed her out of the room.

Guendivar's first thought was that Artor was old. After a second glance, she decided that perhaps he was merely very tired. He was tall and well-muscled, though rather thin, and his brown hair showed only a few threads of grey. He might even be rather good looking, if he ever relaxed. She wondered if she were judging him so harshly because he had hardly looked at her? Once they were all seated in the triclinium and the slaves began to bring in the food, the king had directed all his remarks to her father and brother.

Artor's nephew Gualchmai, an enormous young man who reminded her of a mastiff puppy her brother had once brought home, was doing his best to compensate.

“Those two louts who are swilling at the end of yon table are my brothers Gwyhir and Aggarban—” he said, gesturing broadly, the goblet of pale green glass seeming impossibly fragile in his big hand. “And there's two more at Dun Eidyn still to come.”

Guendivar lifted one eyebrow. Gwyhir, sitting beneath the garland of winter greenery that had been draped across the frescoed wall, was almost as tall as his brother, Aggarban shorter and more solid, but still a big man.

“And you go everywhere with the king?” she asked.

“We do, along with Betiver, that narrow dark lad yonder who is nephew to Riothamus in Gallia, and Cai, who was Artor's foster-brother.”

“He has formidable protectors.” She saw him blink as she smiled.

“Aye, well—we lost some good men at Mons Badonicus, but seemingly we'll have less need of them from now on.” Gualchmai looked as if he were trying to convince himself this was a good thing.

The slaves came in to clear the platters of venison and roast pork away and replace them with honeycakes and pies made from the apples of the vale. Soon the feast would be over. Would the men sit down to their drinking and send the women away? Guendivar no longer wished to avoid Artor; indeed, she had begun to think that if she did not arrange an encounter, she would have no chance to speak with him at all.

“I think my father is about to end the feasting—” she told Gualchmai. “You might tell your lord that even at midwinter I often walk in the atrium at night to breathe the fresh air.. . .”

“A good commander is always glad of information—” He grinned at her approvingly. “I will make certain that he knows.”

Well, at least
he
seemed to like her, she thought as she followed her mother out of the room. If Artor did not want her, perhaps she could marry Gualchmai.

It was late, and even the hooded cloak was no longer quite sufficient to keep off the chill, when Guendivar heard a man's step upon the stones. Shivering, she stood up, and saw him stop short, then move slowly forward until he stood before her. She thought for a moment that it might be Gualchmai, come to tell her that Artor would not be there. But those senses with which she had learned to see the folk of faerie identified not the king's appearance but his unique aura of power.

“I am sorry—” he said finally. “I have kept you waiting, and you are cold.” He shrugged off his crimson mantle and draped it around her shoulders. It still held the heat of his body and warmed her like a fire.

“But you will be cold—” she protested.

“I've campaigned in worse weather than this, in armor.
That
is cold!”

“I have never been cold without a way to get warm, never marched without food or panted from thirst, never done labor that I could not stop when I willed. Except for spinning, of course—” she added ruefully. He was surprisingly easy to talk to—perhaps it was because she could not see him. They were two spirits, speaking together in the dark.

“What
has
Gualchmai been telling you?” Artor said, on a breath of laughter. “I do not expect my queen to march with the army. I hope that in the next few years even
I
won't have to march with the army, at least not all the time.”