Shadow of the King (48 page)

came of giving patronage to an imbecile.

Puzzled, not rising to Amlawdd’s attempt at angering him Cadwy stated,

again to his father, again ignoring Amlawdd, “I know nothing of Bedwyr plot-

ting against you, and Lady Gwenhwyfar is innocent in this charge.”

The sneer of contempt was triumphant on Amlawdd’s face. He slapped his

thigh with his hand, threw back his head. “Why, then, has Bedwyr so often been

absent from his command, has so often with that bitch-breed Gwenhwyfar?”

Cadwy irritatingly smiled. “I would suggest he has a personal interest that is

not to your liking.”

His lip curling, Amlawdd thrust, “You deny involvement with this

conspiracy, then?”

Vehemently came the answer. “I do!”

Clearly, Amlawdd did not believe it.

“I would suggest, Father,” Ragnall declared, giving a reassuring squeeze to

her husband’s shoulder, “you concentrate on the reality of the Saxon danger

and not look for treason where there is none.” Added with a courage that

Amlawdd had never before noticed, “Bedwyr has no time for rebellion. He

is preoccupied with convincing Lady Gwenhwyfar her place is legally, and

permanently, in his bed.” She dipped a reverence at Ambrosius. “I will give

instruction that we are to journey together.”

Ambrosius pushed himself to his feet. He was chuckling. “Talk your way

around that one, Amlawdd!” He slapped his hand on his shoulder. “Your

daughter seems to have more wit than either of us have given her credit for.”

He was laughing. Did not believe a word of it, for the rumours that Bedwyr

and Gwenhwyfar were involved in something of greater significance than the

matter of marriage were too strong.

And if they were not plotting his demise, what else could so determinedly be

occupying their attention?

Forty-One

The argument that erupted less than an hour after arriving

at Durnovaria was more explosive than even the fabled eruption of

Vesuvius. Amlawdd was ready to pick a fight, Bedwyr in a mood to oblige

him. Naturally, Bedwyr hotly denied the accusation of treasonable intent. As

naturally, Amlawdd loudly proclaimed he lied.

Ambrosius and Geraint between them managed with some difficulty to keep

the two men from each other’s throats. The urgent matter of the Saxons uniting

under one leader kept the quarrel reasonably at bay, although the growling and

snarling exchanged between the two, from their opposite sides of the table, was

more vehement than any Saxon war-cry.

“I will be needing commanders whom I can rely on without question,”

Ambrosius said pointedly to Bedwyr. “Can I rely on you to be where you are

meant to be when the Saex rise against us?”

Angry at the reiteration of the accusation, Bedwyr leapt to his feet, his stool

scraping on the timber floor of this, Geraint’s Hall. They were gathered at

the top end, where the lord’s table was permanently sited, before the largest

hearth-fire. Below, in the Hall proper, the tasks of daily life were dutifully

attended, with more than one surreptitious glance cast at the rise and fall of

voices. Several heads turned at Bedwyr’s abrupt movement, glances exchanged.

Word had spread quickly that a fight was imminent more tasks than usual

seemed to need urgent tending in the Hall this day.

“I tell you again, Lord Aurelianus, I am no traitor! If you seriously think I am,

then, damn it!” Bedwyr slammed the table with his fist. “Have my head now!”

Amlawdd growled something beneath his breath, the words not quite

discernible, the meaning plain.

Patient, Ambrosius repeated what he had already said. “I am satisfied you

have no intent against me, yet I must argue you leave your place of command

over often.” That was due to the lax way Arthur had run things. Letting his

2 9 0 H e l e n H o l l i c k

higher officers follow their own pursuits; Ambrosius would have none of it.

“Desertion, Bedwyr, I could well call it desertion!”

“Ask the men to stone me. See how many would agree to do it!”

“Christ God, you push your luck, boy!” Amlawdd was on his feet also, hands

spread flat on the table top. Geraint and several of the other gathered officers

groaned. “Back you, would they?” Amlawdd jeered. “And you say you do not

gather an army to your side!”

It was enough to push Bedwyr over the edge of patient reason. His dagger

was out as he leapt across the table, scattering papers and maps, his free hand

going for Amlawdd’s throat. The men met, tumbled to the floor, rolling over,

scuffling, breath rasping from exertion and anger. A confusion of dogs jumped

up barking and prancing around, two starting their own fight.

It lasted but moments, hands reaching instantly to clamp on both Bedwyr’s

and Amlawdd’s tunics, hauling them apart, to stand bent, breathless, glowering,

ready to start again if chance allowed.

From their private quarters the women had come, enticed by the sudden

clamour of noise, Ragnall with the babe still at her breast, Enid, several of their

maids. And Gwenhwyfar, storming into the Hall, her cloak flying behind like

the unfurled wings of a swooping bird. She grasped Bedwyr’s dagger, taking

it from him flung it aside. “Is this what we are brought to?” she rebuked.

Turning to Amlawdd, she removed his weapon in the same manner. “Grown

men behaving with no more dignity than dogs! Mithras! What makes that of

me? A bitch on heat?” Her eyes flashed between the two of them, the green

sparking with the gold flecks of her anger. Beneath, they were grey-bruised,

the rims red. She had been weeping. Weeping, it seemed, these past few years

with never-ending tears.

What had happened to them all? To her? Why was everything spiralling into

this whirl of chaos?

She did not need these two men snarling their endless squabble over who

should have her. She needed…What? What did she need? Needed to know, in

her own mind, in her own heart, whether Arthur would be coming home.

Amlawdd wanted to preen over her as his wife; Bedwyr wanted her as a

woman. Standing, her fists clenched, she made her decision. To do what she

wanted. To find Arthur, discover for herself why he had not returned.

Face it outright. If he preferred to stay with this other woman, then…She

would face the
then
when it came.

Decision.

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 2 9 1

“Neither of you will have further cause to bicker and squabble like infants

mewling over a broken toy.” She eased the taut breath, solemnly regarded each

man there in turn. Ambrosius Aurelianus, who had so wanted to return Britain

to the protective fold of Rome. A few years back, he might have succeeded,

but not now. It was too late, they were too far along the rock-strewn path of

independence and the Saex were too firm-entrenched. Geraint, a princeling

who wanted only to rule his own quiet corner in peace and prosperity but who

was, by the very nature of his position, drawn into a wider circle of events.

Amlawdd, who wanted to satisfy his greed for being the best, who could never

admit to falling so far short of his ambition. Cadwy, who was perhaps of them

all the only man there who thought with a clear head, who put his duty to

country and kindred above the scheming of personal worth.

She looked across at Ider and the lad, Gweir, who had come into the Hall as

she had, with the onset of disturbance. Two men who would willingly follow her

into the Otherworld if she asked it of them. At Enid. At Ragnall. Ragnall, who

had an hour past told her of the woman Morgaine and Arthur’s son, Medraut.

“I am going to Less Britain.”

Several eyes widened at her announcement. A spark of hope, of relief from

Bedwyr, Ider, and Geraint. They knew what she next said was veiled truth, a

feint to put the opponent off-guard. “Across the sea, I may find the peace, and

the answers I am looking for.”

Her glance met again with Ragnall, with her disfigured, misshapen face.

And their smiles met. “If I can find what I seek,” Gwenhwyfar said. “Then, by

chance, I can put an end to all this fighting.”

Forty-Two

June 472

The forest was dense, quiet, and enfolding, giving the impression that

she, Gwenhwyfar, was the last person left alive on this earth aside from

the old hermit striding ahead of her. She even had her doubts about him. He

was thin—lanky—and tall, far taller than any other man she had known, even

Ider who stood several fingers above six feet. His sun-browned bare arms and

legs protruding from beneath the faded grey of his robe were like sticks, bone

stretched beneath a taut cover of aged and worn skin; his hair was streaked

white like a badger’s pelt, gnarled hand clasping a staff, almost as tall as himself.

His stride was long, and Gwenhwyfar found she had to trot to keep up with

him as he threaded a way along the twisting, narrow, but well-trodden path.

Ider had wanted to come with her, but the old man had not allowed it. “No,”

he had said, the one word only, a man of little conversation, making one or

two simple sounds do for lengthy explanations. He stepped over a fallen trunk

with no effort, no scramble or difficulty. Gwenhwyfar had to hitch her gown,

scrabble over best she could, and quickly, for he was striding on, not waiting

for her. If he turned a twisting corner, she feared he would be gone, disappear

into the darkness beneath these trees. Less Britain was a large, formidable land,

these woods greater than the whole of the Summer Land of home. She had no

inclination to become lost within the silence of these crowding trees.

“I seek those who are of the Goddess, the women who call themselves

the Ladies,” she had said earlier when they had come to this place, to this

old, Christian man, living alone in his solitary hermitage. “I have heard that

such women live here, in these woods, though they may not be the Ladies

I seek.”

Sitting cross-legged, straight-backed outside his door, the Gospel resting

open on his lap, he had silently watched her men make camp, observed the

cooking of their meal, said nothing, made no acknowledgement. Did not move

until the sun began to slide downward into the purple-blue of evening.

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 2 9 3

Startled, Gwenhwyfar had looked up to see him at the entrance of her tent.

“It is to the heresy of the pagan you ask to go, but come, I will show you,” he

had said, and she had followed.

The sea-crossing had been uneventful, tedious. They had sailed from Llongborth

and had ran before a fresh wind across the Channel Straits, then down, around

the toe of Less Britain, encountering few other ships, no Saxons, no pirates.

Disembarked at the sheltered harbour town of Dariorigum, sought information,

were directed back along the coast to here, the old hermit who lived near the

Stones. Even the horses had travelled well, aye and Onager! Gwenhwyfar had

deliberated over bringing him, such a bad-tempered, unpredictable animal, on a

long sea-crossing. Arthur had left him behind for that reason, but then, Arthur

had transported several hundred horses: they had only their six riding animals and

three pack-ponies. Bad-tempered he might be, but he was a bold, strong horse,

could go for miles on little feed; his heart rode as high as his temper. And aye, she

had brought him for another reason. He was Arthur’s.

“How far do we go?” she called, lengthening her stride to keep up with the hermit.

For an old man, he was quick-paced. She expected no answer, received none.

Ahead, the trees were thinning. Through the tree shadow filtered the

rich gold of a sunset. The hermit gestured that she should step out ahead of

him into what seemed to be the lower end of a clearing. She went forward,

stopped, incredulous.

Stones. Row upon row of grey, lichen-mottled Stones. Upright, or toppled

over, varying in shape, wide or narrow, some squat, some taller than a man, others

small, like a child—rows of them, a hundred, hundred Standing Stones lined in

ranks stretching away along the clearing bordered so densely by the sentinel guard

of dark forest. A marching army, frozen into these timeless ranks of stone.

These were nothing like the ancient sacred circles and avenues that

Gwenhwyfar was familiar with—not even the Great Henge could rouse the

breath-held awe that this place generated. Tentative, reverent, she walked

forward, her fingers going out to touch the nearest time-weathered monument,

but she drew back, reluctant to make contact with its cold surface.

For the constructions in Britain—smaller, much smaller than this great

wonder—no one remembered who had erected them or why. Old beyond

ancient, holy, mystical, magical places. Nothing else. No reason, no use. They

were, that was all, just
were
. The forgotten. The ended, stretching away into

the distance of the past, back to the dawn when time itself was on the verge

of being. But they were places of peace, of welcome also. To wander around