In Winter's Shadow (24 page)

I smiled back, brushing it away from my face. “You know me too well, noble lord. What do you think Medraut hoped to gain just now?”

He smiled again, standing at the other side of the table with the cup in his hand but only looking at me. “Well guessed. I did think you would ask that. Ach, Gwynhwyfar, I do not know. I think for once he did simply lose his temper. He has as much cause to be tense as we have. He has failed to gain ground recently, now that the faction has become a plain matter of following him or following our lord the emperor.”

“But his following is far more dedicated now.”

“True. But it is smaller than he had hoped.”

“Yet he wanted…something. I do not trust his loss of temper. He is too skilled to do that.”

“Perhaps. But Gwyn troubles and angers him, more even than Arthur, though he hates our lord more. And Gwalchmai says that he is honest with him. He might well lose his temper.”

I sat down at the desk, sipped the wine. The room was warm, and it was comforting to speak, to be understood, not to be alone. “He might—yet now I am afraid for Gwyn. Ach, I know: Medraut cannot himself pick a quarrel with him, the law will not permit him to fight his own nephew. But he could persuade one of his followers to it. And Gwyn is hurt, and angry, and has been taunted with hiding behind his father. He could easily be provoked to fight. Does Medraut wish to destroy him? Does he fear the fact that Arthur favors him?”

Bedwyr shook his head. “The boy is not altogether helpless, my lady. He is already a match for many men, on horseback. Moreover, he is popular. Such a quarrel would do Medraut little good. And Gwalchmai has made it plain how he would view such a quarrel, and I do not think anyone would care to have Gwalchmai as a dedicated enemy. Rest assured: I do not think Gwyn is in danger. And, bird of my heart, if there is more to the matter you will not find it by this scratching in the sand.”

“No,” I said. I found myself studying him in the warm lamplight: the dark brown hair, still untouched by gray; the grave eyes under the level brows; the remnants of a smile snared at the corner of his mouth. Love was a solid thing, hard-edged and painful, cutting into my breast. We had both known that I had not come just to talk about the terrors of the world, and labyrinths of plots and politics. We both wanted to break free of those for a little while, to be in another world private to ourselves; now that other world was flowering around us. Bedwyr set down his untouched cup of wine, came forward and bent over, kissing my eyelids. He twisted my hair around his fingers, kissed me again. I set down my own wine cup and rose, pressing against him. One can lose oneself in love; forget identity, ties, responsibilities, everything. In love one can deny everything that one is and means, for everything else becomes nothing, another world, a dream. With Bedwyr I was simply Gwynhwyfar, not Lady or Empress, not old and trammelled with cares and bonds, and there was nothing outside the lamplit walls of his house. He loosened the laces of my gown and drew me down onto the bed.

And then our private world was broken into a thousand pieces.

The lamp and fire flared, leaping with a gust of sudden wind, and the cold smell of the night came in. There was a shout, more shouting; Bedwyr rolled off me and stood, seized his sword from beside the bed and crouched between me and the door. I sat up, trying to pull my dress straight, bewildered and hearing Medraut’s voice crying triumphantly, “She is here! Look!”

The light flickered madly. “What are you doing here?” demanded Bedwyr. “Get out! Or shall I kill you as I killed Ruadh?”

“Who is your woman?” yelled another voice, “Why are you hiding her?”

Footsteps surged forward; Bedwyr backed against the bed, shaking the sheath off his sword; the flaring firelight caught the steel and made it blaze like the sun. “Disarm him!” Medraut was shouting. “He is guilty of treason!”

“Murderer! Usurper! Traitor!” came other yells. Steel flashed.

I threw off the cover and stood, pushing past Bedwyr. The room suddenly went very silent. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and pulled my gown up.

There were about a dozen men crowding in through the door, with Medraut in front of them, his face flushed with triumph and his sword drawn. I let my eyes run over him to his witnesses, and saw Gwyn in the front rank, white-faced with horror, a horror which abruptly struck me also so that I wished to sink under the earth. When my eyes met Gwyn’s, he turned crimson, tried to back out through the press behind him, but was unable to. I looked away, saw a few more shocked, agonized faces in the crowd, men who had been my friends, who had honored me. Medraut had planned carefully. I had betrayed them, and now I could see it, I was so sick with shame that for a moment I could not speak. I looked back at Medraut.

“You challenged them that I would be here,” I said, and was amazed to find that I could hold my voice steady. “And your faction clamored of my guilt, and my friends of my innocence, until all agreed to put it to the test. And you proposed the test, as you had meant to, all along. Well, you have won. But,” looking to Gwyn and the others, “not all of it was true, for all of this, not all of it.”

The flush had begun to fade from Medraut’s face. He spat. “You lying, perjured whore!” he said. “Do you still pretend to innocence?”

Bedwyr moved beside me—just his sword arm, raising the weapon and angling it before himself, ready to attack. I caught his arm, pressed it. I felt his eyes on me, startled, but would not look at him. “I am guilty of adultery,” I declared, to all of them. “But before God, the Lord of Earth and Heaven, we are both innocent of the other treason with which rumor has charged us. We never wished any injury either to our lord Arthur, or to this Empire; and we never planned to gain power for ourselves. Now you may take us and punish us as you wish, for we deserve all that any of you would do to us, and I would not deny it. But, my friends, if ever you listened to me in your lives, listen now: Medraut ap Lot plans ruin for all of us, and if you distrusted him before, distrust him now even more. Now, let me out, to my house to await the judgment of my lord the emperor.”

Medraut tried to rush forward and strike me, and one of his friends held him back. The grace and contemptuous smile were gone: he was red-faced, angry, excited, and a stranger to me. “The liar, the adulterous traitress!” he hissed, spitting at us. “Both of them, caught in the very act, panting in each other’s arms and betraying their true lord, and still she reviles me!”

Medraut’s friends gave a yell and surged forward. I dropped Bedwyr’s arm and walked toward them. I did not dare look at Bedwyr. His passion had betrayed him again, and I knew he was eager to fight them, to die fighting them, no doubt. But that was the last thing we should do: we must stand trial, be convicted of what we had done, and let the fortress know the whole story so that they would know there was nothing more. I was myself again, what I was by nature, and also what chance and time and power had made me: I could think clearly. When I drew even with Medraut, his followers fell back a little, staring at me, hating me, but I knew that I could command and they would obey.

“I must become your prisoner,” I said, “as must the lord Bedwyr. Where is Cei?”

A murmur. “We take you prisoner!” insisted Medraut.

“Cei is the infantry commander, he is next in power after Bedwyr and myself, and now he is of necessity commander of this fortress, not you, Medraut ap Lot. Let him see to it that we are guarded—or do you think he is a traitor as well? Tell me, Medraut, am I sleeping with him as well? You have set so many lies around me that I cannot keep track of them.”

“You…arrogant, brazen…do you deny, can you deny what we have trapped you in?”

“I am guilty of one thing, one thing only. Or if there is more, that is for my lord to decide, and not for you. Let me go back to my own house, and wait for his return. I am willing to die, if he should desire it. But I swear again before you all that I never wished or hoped that any other should wear the purple in his place. I was weak, and desired comfort, which lord Bedwyr gave, and that was the whole of the matter. For now, you know as well as I that you may not judge us, or sentence us, of do anything but wait for the emperor’s return.” Behind me I heard a soft thud, and my knees almost gave with the relief: Bedwyr had thrown aside his sword. I went on more confidently, “You, Rhuawn, and you, Goronwy: you can come and guard me, to make certain that I do not hang myself in despair before morning, as Medraut no doubt fears. Will someone fetch Cei?”

“I…I will,” Gwyn said. “And I will fetch my father.” He turned, shoved his way through the rest, and was gone.

Medraut glared at me with passionate hatred. “Still you give orders? That will change soon enough.”

I said nothing, merely walked toward the line of men, and they gave way before me. “Gwynhwyfar,” Bedwyr said behind me. I looked back, saw him standing before the dark corner with the crumpled bed, his sword burning before his feet, his hand raised toward me, and a desperate horror in his eyes.

“We knew it would come,” I told him.

He nodded, lowering his hand. “Remember what I said,” he whispered. “It is my fault.”

I did not answer, but turned back toward the door. Rhuawn and Goronwy separated themselves from the others and followed me out. I had picked them carefully to represent either party, and so content both. But the clarity of mind, the exaltation of finally speaking honestly to Medraut, departed as I passed the door and left Bedwyr to await what guard Cei would set. Then the depth of shame, of humiliation, anguish and terror for the future swallowed me, and I wished that I would die that night, and never see Arthur or the day again.

***

I did not see Arthur when he first returned to Camlann and heard what had happened. Gwalchmai and Cei met him at the gates and told him the news. At first he refused to believe it. But when he saw that it was plain and certain, and denied by no one, he ordered everyone to leave him. When they reluctantly obeyed, he turned his horse about and rode away from Camlann at a gallop. He did not return until noon the following day. Then he went to Gwalchmai, still covered with the dust of his riding, and consulted him on the situation and how best to contain it. He then, with Gwalchmai, visited Bedwyr, who was being kept under guard at his own house.

It was Gwalchmai who told me of all this. He had come at once when Gwyn informed him of the discovery, and had said no word of reproach, but instead immediately discussed with me how best to combat Medraut’s allegations of treachery. He and Gwyn continued to visit me over the next week, informing me of events, helping me to plan for them, and bringing me accounts and papers I asked for—for I was determined to leave the affairs of the fortress in good order.

“Did Arthur speak with Bedwyr long?” I asked Gwalchmai anxiously.

The warrior shook his head. “No, Indeed, he hardly spoke at all. He came into the house, and Bedwyr fell on his knees before him and bowed his head. Arthur said only, ‘Tell me what happened, nothing more,’ and Bedwyr said, ‘It was my fault, my lord, and I am most bitterly grieved at it.’ Arthur said, ‘Only the tale.’”

“Was he angry?”

“Not angry. He looked at Bedwyr as though he had never seen him before. I have told you, my lady, how it is: he is like a man coming to himself after a great battle, stunned, knowing neither what he has done or what he will do. Bedwyr knelt before him with his fingers clenching in the dust of the floor, afraid to look up, and my lord Arthur merely watched him as he might watch an animal, trying to understand what it was and what it wished. Then Bedwyr told him that he had seduced you after…after you had made your attempt on my brother’s life, when you were ill and unhappy. He said that he had loved you for a long while before that. And he said that you had often tried to end your relationship, but that he had always pressed you to continue—is it true, my lady?”

“He exaggerates to blame himself. Oh, the time is true, and perhaps the form of things as well, but he twists it to exonerate me.”

Gwalchmai looked at me closely for a minute, then shrugged. “He told Arthur all of this without looking up. He did not look at him until the end. Then he raised his head, and they looked at each other for a long time. Then Bedwyr said, ‘But it was you that she loved. Only you asked more from her than anyone can give. No one can be always a ruler only, always strong, not even you or her. I pressed her to lean on me a little. That was my fault. Do not punish her for it. And, my lord, I have always been your servant in everything else, and this betrayal is bitter to me also.’ But Arthur said nothing, merely gestured to me to follow him, and left Bedwyr kneeling there.”

“Will Arthur come here as well?” I asked very quietly. I was afraid to raise my voice, afraid to find it twisted by hope or fear. I needed to remain calm.

Gwalchmai hesitated, then shook his head. “I do not know, but I do not think he means to. He is sleeping in my house now, and he wishes you to stay here until the trial. He has told no one what he thinks of this, or what he plans to do. But I do not think that he wishes to see you.”

And he did not see me, not until the trial itself. This was held about a week after the discovery. It took place in the Hall, before all the inhabitants of Camlann and many outsiders.

The morning of the trial I dressed myself more carefully than I would have to attend a great feast, partly from bravado, and partly to make a point to the onlookers. I tore off the purple fringes of my best gown, the white silk kirtle that had traveled the long trade road from Rome and beyond; the silk was hard to tear, and left rough trailing threads of purple and gold along the edges. I wore no jewelery, and took the signet ring from my finger, wrapping it up in the strips of gold and purple silk. Then I put up my hair with a chain of Roman glass beads which as a girl I had found beside the Roman Wall, and which I had worn when I rode south to Camlann. I was surprised when my face in the mirror looked much the same as it had ever done. A week before the purple had been almost a part of me, and now I was less than what I had been when first I came to Camlann. I had no hope of power, and no clan to return to; even my clothing belonged to the Empress I would never be again. I had nothing more than the flesh I stood in, and whatever my lord’s will would give me for a future.