The Road to Avalon (24 page)

He was standing on her father’s hearth, surrounded by smaller men, and she understood immediately Olwen’s desire for embellishment. Seeing him, one believed instantly every tale one had ever heard about him. He was the sort of man who could ride down an entire army.

He was walking toward her, her father by his side. When Maelgwyn finished speaking, she gave Bedwyr her hand. “Welcome to Dinas Emrys, Prince,” she said. And looked, with unmaidenly candor, into his face.

It was a handsome, arrogant face, with vividly blue eyes and a strong, sensual mouth. He was looking at her the way men always did and she slowly lowered her lashes to screen her long green eyes. He had forgotten to return her hand and she gently withdrew it from his enormous grasp.

“Thank you, Princess,” he answered her at last. His voice was very deep. She was a tall woman, but he towered over her. He cleared his throat. “The roads are muddy, but passable” he said. He was talking to her father now.

“Good,” said Maelgwyn. “We will be ready to leave within the week.”

The day before they were to leave for Venta, Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr went for a ride together. Maelgwyn’s stronghold might be a defended fort, but life in Wales was actually very peaceful. Outside the gates of Dinas Emrys there were extensive farmlands, worked by free farmers and Maelgwyn’s tenants. There were pastures, with sheep and cattle grazing placidly under the brightening spring sun. Two of Maelgwyn’s retainers rode behind their princess and the king’s man, but at a discreet enough distance so as not to impede conversation.

Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr had sat next to each other at dinner for the last four evenings, and thus far that was the extent of their acquaintance. Polite conversation, in the midst of a large roomful of people, had not given Gwenhwyfar the opportunity she craved to question Bedwyr about the king, and so she had engineered this quiet ride together through the Welsh countryside.

“Is the fighting really over?” was her first question as they walked their horses across a soft, muddy field just outside Dinas Emrys.

“It seems so,” he replied. “For the first time in my memory there is no war host outside the Saxon shore. And there has been no activity so far this spring that would indicate they intend a move. Arthur is hopeful of making a treaty with them.”

Bedwyr sounded regretful. Gwenhwyfar looked at him curiously. “The thought does not please you?” she asked.

He gave her a sideways blue glance. “If we have peace,” he answered, “I shall be bored to death.”

She regarded his profile and thought he was probably right. She said, “We have heard all about you, Prince Bedwyr. You are a great hero in Wales.” He looked amused, and that annoyed her. “The story of your famous escape from Cerdic has enlivened our hearths all winter,” she added, in a voice that was noticeably cooler.

He looked at her. “Culwych,” he said. “Am I right?”

“Yes, Culwych.”

He nodded. “He’s a good lad. A good fighter.”

“So he says.” Bedwyr’s mouth quirked with humor. A faint line creased Gwenhwyfar’s smooth brow. “One thing has always puzzled me, though.” She looked at him. “Where was the king? How could he have left you in so vulnerable a situation?”

She got the full force of his blue stare in response. “Well, now,” he said, and rubbed the back of his head. He raised a golden eyebrow. “Arthur was not happy with me about that particular escapade.”

She was astonished. “Why not?”

“It makes for a good winter’s tale around the fire, I grant you, but I never should have let myself get trapped like that in the first place. The truth is, Cerdic outgeneraled me, and I wound up losing a third of my men and my horses.”

“You were outnumbered ten to one,” Gwenhwyfar protested.

He shrugged. “It never would have happened to Arthur.”

She was silent, digesting this new information. She slid her hand up and down the rein, then said on a faint note of inquiry, “My brother Peredur says he is a very great general.”

“He is,” came the immediate reply. Bedwyr grinned at her, very blond and blue in the March sun. “I, on the contrary, am only a very great leader of cavalry.”

She smiled back. They rode on in silence for another few minutes before he said half-humorously, “Was that what you wanted to ask me?”

She was startled. “Ask you?” she repeated.

“I thought, when you arranged this little outing, that you must want to ask me something.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t looking at him now. “It wasn’t anything in particular,” she said a little breathlessly.

“Anything in general, then?”

At that she turned to him. His eyes were as brilliant a blue as the sky, and they looked sympathetic. She smiled ruefully. “In general,” she answered, “everything. It is not precisely easy, you see, having to marry a man you have never met. And when that man is the high king. . . well, it is almost intimidating.”

He nodded. She had the strangest feeling that she had known him for quite a long time, and it was that feeling that prompted her to say, “What will he think of me, Bedwyr?”

He looked surprised. “You have a mirror. What do men always think of you?”

“But the high king is different.”

“How do you know that, if you have never met him?”

“When people talk about him,” she answered, “their voices change.”

The blue eyes registered comprehension. They had left the open field and were riding around the perimeter of a stone-edged farm. “I don’t know if I can explain it to you,” he said.

“Try.”

Bedwyr frowned a little in concentration. “He is a king, Gwenhwyfar. He was a king when first I met him, when he was fifteen years old and an obscure fosterling of Merlin’s, with no parents and no position.” The frown smoothed out. “You could feel it in him, even then. He was nobody and I was a prince, and I pledged myself to him on that day.”

“I see,” she said.

He watched her face. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her cheekbones were high and perfectly sculptured, her mouth full and generous, her eyes like long green jewels. But the thing about her you saw first, and always remembered, was the color of her hair: not red, not gold, but a beautiful blend of both. Every time he saw her, he was stirred anew.

What in the name of all the gods was Arthur going to make of her? Not only was she beautiful, it seemed she was intuitive as well.

He wouldn’t like that at all, Bedwyr thought instantly. “He is a very private man,” he said. “That comes with being a king, I suppose.”

She thought about that for a minute before she brought up the other thing that had been worrying her. “He has taken a long time to marry. I have heard my father discussing it with the others.”

Bedwyr looked distinctly exasperated. “I know. It never seems to occur to anyone that Arthur was spending all his energy fighting the Saxons. He had neither time nor thought for anything else. And when you come down to it, the man is only twenty-six years old!”

Gwenhwyfar bestowed upon him an extraordinarily sweet smile. “You care for him a great deal, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Bedwyr. “I do.”

Chapter 20

I
T
took two weeks for Bedwyr to get the Princess Gwenhwyfar from Gwynedd to Venta. All the cushions and hangings and embroidered chairs had to be transported by litters, as it was still too muddy to get wagons over the mountain roads. Gwenhwyfar’s wedding party consisted of her father, her brother Peredur, an assortment of men who had at one time or another fought with Arthur, and four of her women. Olwen, Elaine, Cara, and Ruta traveled in litters. Gwenhwyfar had a litter as well, but she spent several hours each day in the saddle, riding next to Bedwyr. Bedwyr’s men were not accustomed to such slow going, but the prince showed none of his usual impatience.

“If I had the Princess Gwenhwyfar riding beside me, I wouldn’t be in any hurry either,” murmured Gwynn to Lionel as they paced decorously behind the women’s litters one gray afternoon.

Lionel gave his companion an expressive look. “One of the Welsh girls, the dark one, made a comment about that last night.”

Gwynn looked at him with raised brows and he continued, “She wondered if Arthur had been wise to send so splendid a man as Prince Bedwyr to escort the princess.”

Gwynn’s eyebrows dropped and he shrugged. “It’s not the princess I’m worried about.”

“Bedwyr?” Lionel shook his head. “Don’t worry about Bedwyr. He would never touch anything that belonged to the king.”

Gwynn looked impatient. “Of course he wouldn’t. I never meant to suggest such a thing. But you know the prince and women . . . and
that
is a woman, Lionel. After weeks of such noble restraint on his part, can you imagine what Bedwyr is likely to think up for us once we get back to Venta?”

Lionel groaned. “The king will be in residence,” he said after a minute. “That is our only hope. Arthur will pull the reins in on Bedwyr if he gets out of hand.”

“That’s true.” Gwynn sighed and looked ahead over the women’s litters to where a red and a gold head were riding side by side. “She is. . . ” He groped for a word.

“I know,” said Lionel.

“God,” said Gwynn. “Are they stopping already?”

It appeared that they were.

Gwenhwyfar enjoyed her hours with Bedwyr. He made her feel safe. It had to do, she thought, with his size, his lazy grin, the way his most casual command was instantly obeyed by his men. Even her father, who was a king and an older man, never challenged Bedwyr’s right to direct their journey. When she mentioned something of this to the prince, he had given her his beguiling grin and said, “After all, I’m accustomed to moving far larger parties than this one, Gwenhwyfar. And across far rougher ground.”

It crossed her mind, treacherously, that she would be happier by far if it were Bedwyr she was going to wed.

The closer they came to Venta, the more nervous she became. It was not a state with which she was familiar. She was Gwenhwyfar the fair, Gwenhwyfar the jewel of Gwynedd; men had been begging to marry her since she was thirteen years old. She had always rested secure in the knowledge of her own desirability.

But the king was different. He
is a
king, Bedwyr had said. Gwenhwyfar did not want to marry just a king; she wanted to marry a man. A man who wanted her. She looked once more at the shining gilt head and massive shoulders of the man riding beside her. If only her father had chosen Bedwyr!

It was midafternoon when they finally arrived in Venta. Gwenhwyfar had never seen a Roman city, and she looked with curiosity and wonder at the public bathhouse, at the forum, and then at the colonnaded front of the praetorium. Bedwyr smiled at her reassuringly and said, “I’m going to have you and your women taken to your private chambers. Then I will inform the king of your arrival.”

Gwenhwyfar smiled back gratefully. She did not wish to meet Arthur for the first time while she was wearing her travel-stained riding clothes.

An elderly woman conducted her to Igraine’s old rooms, which had obviously been put in order for her coming. There was fresh paint on the walls. The bronze of the lamps had been polished, and the mosaic floor was spotless. Another servant brought her heated water and Olwen helped her to wash and to change. She had a golden gown with an embroidered tunic ready for this very occasion. After it was on, Olwen brushed the road dust from her hair and dressed it with two golden combs. Then she was ready. She sat down in a high-backed chair by the window to wait.

The summons was brought by a very tall, broad-shouldered man who introduced himself as Cai. Gwenhwyfar recognized the name immediately. After Bedwyr, he was said to be the most important man in Britain. After Bedwyr and after the king. Of course.

Cai gave her a pleasant smile and said, “The king would like you to come to the audience hall, my
lady.”

“Certainly,” Gwenhwyfar replied. She fixed her most serene expression on her face as she placed her hand on the arm Cai offered her. He was almost as tall as Bedwyr, she thought as she walked with him down the hall, half-listening to what he was saying. They left the hallway and entered another. Finally they stopped in front of a door. Cai gave her an enigmatic look and threw it open.

“My lord king,” he said formally, “the Princess Gwenhwyfar is here.” She drew a deep, steadying breath and walked into the room. Bedwyr was there, standing a little behind the king, and she threw him a quick look before her eyes went to the slender black-haired figure of Arthur. He was wearing a simple white tunic of beautifully woven wool, and no jewelry. Even his dark hair was bare of any identifying gold circlet. It seemed to her he hesitated, and she walked steadily forward, across the mosaic floor, and stopped directly in front of him.

“My lord,” she said in her charmingly husky voice, bowed her head, then raised it and looked directly into his face.

He was dark, as her brother had said. And not overly tall; the top of her head was perhaps two inches below his. As her eyes scanned the still, reserved face of her future husband, she saw one other thing. Peredur had not been teasing after all when he said that Arthur was beautiful.

He was making her a friendly, courteous speech of welcome. The friendliness, however, was not reflected in his surprisingly light eyes. Nor did those eyes hold anything like the glow Gwenhwyfar was accustomed to see in the eyes of men when they looked at her.

He finished talking and she gave him her loveliest smile. “Thank you, my lord. It is good to be here.”

The guarded look in his eyes did not change, nor did he return her smile. “Come sit down and take some refreshment,” he said. He had a beautiful speaking voice. “You must be weary after such a long journey.” As she walked slowly toward the circle of chairs, she saw Bedwyr and Cai coming to join them. Arthur, it seemed, did not want to be alone with his future wife.

There was a great banquet in her honor that evening. She sat next to the king at the high table, with Bedwyr beside her and her father beside Arthur. The food was excellent, but she was not hungry. The king was unfailingly polite and pleasant. Most of the time she talked with Bedwyr.