Gwenhwyfar (52 page)

Another blank came over her; this one was probably not as long as the last, for when it passed, Gildas was sitting beside her; he peered at her when she moved her head a little. “Ah,” he said. “You are back among us.”

She nodded and looked at the altar for the old queen. But she wasn’t there.

“Arthur?” she asked, her throat sore and dry, her voice coming out as a hoarse whisper.

“He is gone,” the Abbot said, simply. “And . . . so is your sister.” He shook his head. “When Arthur died, she went mad. She was like a wild thing. She railed at us, that we had not tried hard enough to save him, that we had stolen her crown and her king.” He blinked. “I can truly say that I have never seen such . . . such a strange and fearful sight. She was like one possessed.”

Numbly, she shook her head. “Only by her own selfishness.” He sighed. “She attacked my monks, clawing at them like a cat, in a frenzy. If she was not possessed, then surely she was mad.”

Gwen blinked. “But you said—she was dead—”

“We managed to repel her and drive her out of the chapel. We found her in the morning at the edge of the lake, drowned. She died within moments of him, we think.” He shook his head. “She must have fallen in at some deep point. She must have truly loved him to have been so frenzied.”

She decided not to disabuse him of his notion. “Yes,” she said slowly. “She did.”
Or at least, she loved his crown.

“Then we will bury them together.” He peered into her face. “Come. You should sleep.”

“But—”

“The old queen—we call her Sister Blessed now—will hold vigil over them. And we shall have them buried by your Ladies, here, though not in ground consecrated to Christian use. Come.” He took her hand and tugged at her. She stood.

And then there was another blank moment, and when she came out of this one, she was lying on a pallet, covered by a wool blanket, in a small wooden hut. The door stood open, and sunlight poured through it.

She was still numb, and her mind . . . wouldn’t work. It was almost as if she were under the influence of one of Medraut’s potions. Finally she just gave up trying to think at all. She let people lead her about, ate and drank what was put in her hands, did what she was told. She stood at the side of the grave as the monks laid Arthur and Little Gwen in it. That gave her a strange sense of dislocation—she felt a moment of utter terror as she looked at the dead face that was so like her own, could have been her own. For that moment, it seemed as if it were she, not Little Gwen, who was being covered over with earth . . .

But the moment passed, giving way again to numbness.

The numbness, the dullness, persisted. She spent days just sitting in the church or beside the lake, or at the Cauldron Well. If someone gave her something to eat, she ate it; if not, it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter; not only her heart was broken, so was her spirit, and she was nothing but a hollow shell where once there had been a warrior with her name.

And so the days passed.

And then, one day she woke, and woke fully, and her mind worked again. She sat up and dressed quickly, feeling almost as if she had been very sick, and now the fever had broken.

Yet once she had dressed, she was at a loss for what to do. She had no idea what was going on beyond the boundaries of the Abbey. Had the Saxons overrun the country at last? Was there any resistance to them at all? Was there anything out there, beyond the deceptive peace of this place, or was it all a chaos of warfare and blood?

At least she could find the old queen, maybe, or Abbot Gildas, or one of the Ladies, and ask some sensible questions.

She ventured out into the morning sunlight, and that was when she saw him riding in along the path that led to the Abbey, looking worn and weary and as broken as she.

“Lancelin?” she faltered.

And although he could not possibly have heard her, he looked up, straight at her.

But his expression did not change. And although he dismounted, tethered a horse that looked as beaten and weary as he, and walked toward her, there was nothing of joy and nothing of love, in his face.

“Gwen,” he said, stopping a little too far away from her to have taken her hand. “They told me you were here.”

And there it was. That love, if love it really had been, had burned bright and guttered out. When she tried to find it in herself, all she could sense were cinders and ashes and regret. She nodded. “I have been ill,” she said, and she released that dead love to fall to pieces in the aching void inside her. “I have heard of nothing since—”

“Ah.” The silence hung awkwardly between them. “They never sing of these things, in the tales. Never talk about what happens after everything is over.”

She swallowed. “And what does happen?” she asked.

His eyes held the wisdom of terrible sorrow. “Life goes on. Planting and harvest, birth and death, sun and rain. The world does not end for everyone. Just for a few.” He sighed. “But you don’t want to hear philosophy. The Saxons took a terrible beating, and no, they have not overrun the countryside. There is no High King, and things have broken down into squabbling among all the petty kings again. Most of the Companions are dead. Those that survived have retreated to their estates or taken places in the courts from which they came. Even Celliwig is mostly deserted, except for Kai and the few men that limped home from Camlann. Rumor says that you are dead, you are turned Christian and gone into retreat, or you have followed Arthur into Annwn, where you will both await a day that you are needed.” He shrugged. “I came to see if the fourth rumor was true, that you were here, and if you were, to say farewell.”

She stood awkwardly, hands dangling at her sides. Once she would not have been able to stop herself; she would have reached for him, begged him to take that farewell back. Now?

“Then do fare well, Lancelin,” she said.
He forgave us,
she wanted to say. But he probably would not believe that. He was the sort that flogged himself relentlessly with his faults. “What we did or did not do changed nothing. Medraut did not conjure up that army out of nothing. He had this planned—for years, I think. If it had not been now, it would have been soon.”

Lancelin’s lips thinned a moment; then, reluctantly, he nodded. He looked up at the stone tower on top of Yniswitrin. “Do you know,” he said at last, his tone too casual, “What it was that caused the fighting to break out?”

“I was too far away to see. Only, there was a shout, and I think someone drew a sword—”

“When your sister struck you, half the men were ready to charge. It only needed an excuse. Someone saw a snake and drew his sword to slay it.” He shook his head. “And someone saw the sword drawn and shouted treachery. That is what makes me think you are right. Nothing we did or did not do made any difference. This was a mighty storm, and we were but reeds in its path.” He looked back at her. “I am going away. I am not sure where, just yet. Somewhere I can find some peace, I hope.”

She closed her eyes against the pain in his. “I hope so too, Lancelin. Fare you well.”

She kept them closed for a moment as a single tear forced its way beneath the lid of her right eye and moved down her cheek. If there was still anything, any spark in those ashes, he would see that tear, and he would touch it, or kiss it away, and—

But there was no touch, not of finger nor of lips. And when she opened her eyes again, it was to see his figure riding away, back as straight as a staff, yet head bowed beneath burdens he would not let go. It seemed too cruel that he was haloed by the sunlight of a perfect, peaceful day.

She wiped the tear away herself and walked to the little dock. The mist eddied and billowed over the lake, now showing, now hiding, the farther shore.

“And what will you do now, fair cousin?”

Somehow she was not surprised to find Gwyn standing beside her, though she had heard no one approach.

And that was when she realized what made her feel so hollow and so lost inside, so empty, and so broken. For the first time in her life, she had no direction, no purpose, and no certainty. She was a boat adrift, with no paddle and no tiller. “I don’t know,” she replied, and she closed her eyes on grief. “There seems no place and no need for me now.”

He considered that in silence. “Have your hands lost their skill with blade and bow?” he said, finally.

“I don’t—I don’t think so.” Yes, she did have that. And in the chaos that would come now, there would surely be a use for such skills. “But who would take me? I betrayed Arthur—”

“Those who are well aware you did nothing of the sort?” Gwyn replied. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face inland. “Look there. That peaceful Abbey of the Christ followers. The Saxons too follow that path and will leave them in peace, but there are those who will not, who will hear tales of wealth and think it is the wealth of gold and silver, and not of wisdom. They will need a strong hand to help protect them. And look there.” He turned her a little, aiming her at that hidden place that held the School of the Ladies and the Cauldron Well. “The Old Ways will die unless someone finds a way to hide them among the New. And the old queen, who is now called Sister Blessed, she would do that if she knew it was needed, for it was the Ladies who welcomed her as well as the Abbot. Or—” And now he turned her to face the mist. “—Or you can join my folk in Annwn. You will not be the first to join us, nor the last. And there is use for you there, as well. Or you can go into the wilderness and make a hermitage for yourself. Or return to your father and serve him and your sisters. Many choices are yours, more than most have now.”

He turned her to face him. “You have work, cousin. But you will have to make it for yourself. You no longer serve anyone for the moment; you are your own master.”

So there it was.
Be careful what you ask for—it might be what you get.
Hadn’t she longed for just that in the days after she had escaped from Medraut? She was her own master.

Her mind stirred, moved again, turning like an old mill wheel too long left idle. Not her father; he had done well enough this long without her, and she could prove a liability, even a danger. There were men, like King March, who would hear of her being there and want to take and conquer her just to be known as the man who “owned” Gwenhwyfar. She would not bring that down on those she loved.

And not a hermitlike existence either. That would drive her mad.

But here . . .

Gwyn had said that he thought there was a purpose for her, past being a mere warrior. The Folk of Annwn had answered to her call. The Ladies themselves came out to defend her.

Abbot Gildas called her friend.

She
could
be the bridge between the old and new. She was, perhaps, the only one who had all the skills and all the friends, to do so. She could not make Arthur’s dream of one kingdom come true in this lifetime, but she could plant the seeds for it to grow when the time was right.

A lightness began to trickle into that emptiness inside her. “There is much that can be done here,” she said slowly.

Gwyn nodded. “Yes, there is.”

She took a deep breath and felt her spirit come back to life. “Then it is time to start doing it.”

I
think every fantasy writer decides at one point or another to tackle “the matter of Britain,” otherwise known as the legend of King Arthur. The genesis of my own stab at this came when I was looking into Welsh legends and came upon the curious Triad of “The Three Guineveres.” Triad 56 of the Trioedd Ynys Prydein, translated as “The Triads of the Island of Britain,” lists the “Three Great Queens” of Arthur’s court.

 

Three Great Queens of Arthur’s Court:

Gwennhwyfar daughter of Cywryd Gwent,

And Gwenhwyfar daughter of Gwythyr son of Greidawl,

And Gwenhwyfar daughter of (G)ogfran the Giant.

[Trans. By Rachel Bromwich]

 

Well that certainly piqued my curiosity, as did the mention of yet another “Guinevere,” the “False Guinevere” or Gwenhwyfach, translated as “Little” or “Lesser” Guinevere. She is often said to be the bastard daughter of King LLuedd Ogrfan Gawr, or Ogrfan the Giant, born on the same day as her sister.

Yet another triad, Triad 53, describes the “Three Harmful Blows” of Britain and states that the third was when Gwenhwyfach struck Gwenhwyfar and caused the battle of Camlann.

And last of all I found this extremely interesting item in my researches, three stanzas found by Jenny Rowland
: “in the margin of the Dingestow 8 copy of Ymddiddan Arthur a’r Eryr (Aberysywyth, National Library of Wales, MS 5268, p. 461).”