Part 11 (1/2)

And, of course, there he was. He was wearing all black: black cloak, black trews, black boots, black tunic. The only relief to the black was the silver penannular brooch holding the cloak closed at his throat. It was expensive, all that black. Black faded and needed to be redyed often. His was perfect. He was making sure he would be noticed. He invited her in, as his bodyguards stood one on either side of the tent entrance. The very idea of going into his tent made her want to turn and find her horse and ride as far away from him as she could. She demurred, politely, though. He was a Prince of Lothian and the Orkney Isles, and she was a Princess of Pywll. ”I would not inflict my person on you at this moment. I'm straight from the field, and I stink of horse, Prince Medraut. And blood,” she added, though she was rather sure that it wasn't the blood that would bother him.

Sure enough. ”You do smell of horse, a bit,” he said, wrinkling his nose. ”I wanted to tell you of the news from my court in a more private surrounding, but . . .” His flat gray eyes did not warm with humor, or with anything else. ”Well, everyone will learn this soon enough, from my servants if nothing else, so no harm if we're overheard, I suppose. First of all, my mother is dead.”

He announced this in the same matter-of-fact tone that she would have a.s.sociated with ”I've killed a deer,” or ”one of the watchdogs died,” so for a moment, she was so utterly taken aback that it took her a while to stammer out, ”My condolences, Prince-”

”Oh, don't bother, the cow got what she deserved,” he said, his eyes finally glinting with cruelty, which took her so by surprise that she actually lost her breath. ”Two of my brothers, Gwalchmai and Agrwn, found her with a lover. Somehow, they were all too thick to realize she's had more lovers than a queen bee, but this time they caught her in the middle of making the two-backed beast. They killed her and him.” He shrugged. ”He was the son of one of the High King's allies, so there will be trouble over it, I expect. But it was the price of stupidity, and she was getting more stupid every year. Eventually someone was going to catch her, and if it had not been my brothers, it would have been someone else that King Lot could not ignore. Even if it was him that was her pander more than half the time. She had the appet.i.te of a cat in season. My Aunt Morgana has more sense than the lot of them put together.”

Gwen was so shocked, all she could do was stare at him.

”But that's not why I'm here,” he continued. ”I'm going to my father's court to present myself to him now that she's gone, and you should hear that from me.”

She blinked, unable to understand. ”Haven't you just come from there?”

He curled his lip again, and gave her a look of disgust. ”Not Lot's court. My father's court. My blood father.” When she failed to understand, he heaved an exaggerated sigh. ”Arthur.”

Her jaw dropped. ”Arthur?” she repeated, stupidly.

He nodded with some satisfaction at her shock. ”And now that there're no little princes in the way, I expect my dear blood father will be pleased to see me. He has no obvious heir, after all. His other sons also seem to have had tragically short lives. So I need you to promise me some things. Morgana gave me some good advice, and I am going to take it. First, I don't want Arthur to know I'm wedded to your sister. At least, not just yet.”

Not that she was going to get anywhere near the High King to tell him, but-”Why not?” she managed.

”I'm trying to replace his sons. I'd rather he thought of me as a helpless little lad whose mother has just been rent from him. Someone in need of pity, comfort, and guidance from someone other than King Lot.” Somehow, in that moment, Medraut . . . changed. In an instant, his face seemed to grow rounder and softer, his eyes larger and brighter and infinitely sad. His lower lip quivered ever so slightly.

In the next moment, he was back to his normal self, as always, looking like a man far older than his years, with eyes that belonged in the hardened face of someone like Peder. If Peder had no conscience at all.

”You can see how being married would interfere with that,” he pointed out.

She nodded, finding herself agreeing with him, although she really did not want to.

”Second, don't tell anyone I have the Gifts.” His eyes bored into hers. ”That's something no one at the court needs to know. Ever. I don't want the Merlin to know, nor the Ladies. I've had good training at Morgana's hands, she has promised me more as I need it, and I don't feel as if I need to undergo it all over again.”

Again, she nodded.

”Good. Thank you, fair sister.” He smirked. ”Fair indeed. I hear they have taken to calling you 'White Ghost.' That you frighten the Saxons. That they think you are some uncanny creature out of the spirit world or the realms of the elves.”

She had felt so proud of that, but it felt so . . . foolish when she heard him say it. ”There's no accounting for what soldiers will say,” she replied harshly. ”The Saxons don't believe that a woman can be a warrior, so they have to have some foolish explanation about why and how I can best them. It doesn't matter to me what they think I am. I do my job, and I am good at it.”

”So you are,” he replied, somehow making it sound as if he meant the opposite. ”And, of course, there is nothing magical about you at all. Now remember. Keep my secrets.”

”I will,” she replied, and he turned and went rudely back into his pavilion, dismissing her as if she had been a churl and he- Well, he was a prince. Rather more than just any prince, if he hadn't been lying. Arthur's son . . .

She didn't put it past him to lie . . . but somehow she didn't think he had this time. She turned her her back on his tent and went off to her own tent and the single camp servant she shared with her troop, intending to get something to eat. Most of the men did their own cooking over their own fires; she had always found it better to forego some of the duties her servant would have done in order to make sure that everyone under her command was properly fed. And it was only as she was sitting with her troop, alternating bites of hard camp bread soaked in the gravy of the ever-present stew with bites of the stew itself, that many things she had already known suddenly fell together into a pattern. back on his tent and went off to her own tent and the single camp servant she shared with her troop, intending to get something to eat. Most of the men did their own cooking over their own fires; she had always found it better to forego some of the duties her servant would have done in order to make sure that everyone under her command was properly fed. And it was only as she was sitting with her troop, alternating bites of hard camp bread soaked in the gravy of the ever-present stew with bites of the stew itself, that many things she had already known suddenly fell together into a pattern.

That Medraut, as a baby, had looked as if he had been born before his time because he was was born before his time. That he should have been born at the same time as the High King's twin sons. born before his time. That he should have been born at the same time as the High King's twin sons.

At the same time as Eleri's son . . . she thought, and hastily shoved the thought away. she thought, and hastily shoved the thought away.

But . . . that meant he had been conceived at the time of the Great Rite. At the very wedding, the celebration that Lot and Anna Morgause had traveled to in order to pledge their fealty.

And that was when the world went to white about her, as it had not for many, many years. The bowl and bread fell from her nerveless fingers, and she heard, as if from a great distance, Owain and Aeron shouting, and felt hands catching her. But that was of no matter, because of what she was seeing . . .

Anna Morgause, alone in a luxurious tent, lit by a dozen candles, and much younger than when Gwen had last seen her, working . . . well, magic.

Some sort of magic.

Impossible to mistake it when the whole tent glowed with power, when there was a knife of white bone in her left hand and one of black flint in her right. When there was a tiny cauldron steaming over a charcoal brazier at her feet, and when there was a litter of small objects around that cauldron. Most of what she was doing was hidden by the woman's body. The woman's nude body. But when she turned, Gwen could see that she was written all over with signs and symbols in what could only be the blood of the black cat that lay dead on the floor of the tent beside her. And she had turned because a man had come into her tent.

He was tall, handsome, with a warrior's body. He was somewhere between dark and fair, with a young man's beard. He moved as if he was walking in his sleep. Anna Morgause smiled and drew him to her. The High King. It must be he, though Gwen had never seen him.

Then there was a moment of darkness. When it cleared, it was Anna Morgause surrounded by women, now in a stone-walled room, another brazier burning brightly, crying out in the throes of giving birth. And at the same time, overlaid onto Anna Morgause, Gwen saw another woman, a second woman, in another stone-walled room, fair-haired as Gwen herself, and even in the middle of her travail, beautiful, also giving birth . . .

Darkness pa.s.sed across her eyes again. Again it cleared.

And then . . . she saw a new scene, a single bright s.p.a.ce in the midst of the darkness. In the center of that, the same enormous serpent she had seen fighting the bear, striking at two handsome young man-boys, who must have been Medraut's age. They fell dead without a cry.

And then she found herself lying on the snow with men around her, anxiously looking her over for some sign of sickness or a hidden wound, patting her face, putting snow to her forehead. It was Aeron who saw the sense in her eyes.

”Thank the G.o.ds, you're back with us!” he exclaimed. And before he could say anything else or try to prevent it, she struggled herself into a sitting position.

”I won't say I'm all right, but I'm not ill, and I'm not injured,” she a.s.sured them. ”This is just-it's part of Epona's touch on me, I think. I See things. Not often, this is the first time in-in years. It's harmless enough-” She let Peder chaff her hands in his, because she was cold from lying in the snow. And she considered what she might say. ”It was something Prince Medraut said to me, the b.l.o.o.d.y news he brings to the High King. His mother's been kin-slain by his brothers. Anna Morgause is dead. I Saw it happen; I suppose Epona wished me to act as a sort of witness to such a terrible deed, in case a witness was needed.”

That was enough to shock them all into silence and take their minds off her for long enough for her to get to her feet. ”Let me get some drink and food into me, since I've managed to drop what I had.”

Peder came out of his shock first. ”Aye, lady, and I'll have someone put a hot stone in your bedroll, and when you've done with the food, you'll be going there. I know a little about these matters; when your sister does a Seeing, she needs rest after. You're no different, and you should do the same. Your father would have all our heads if summat was to happen to you. Do I need to find a Lady?” He looked so worried over her, she wanted to pat his head and tell him kindly not to be such an old hen. But she didn't. For one thing, she knew that, like her sisters, like Queen Eleri, she looked absurdly young, a fact that caused her much irritation when those who did not know her treated her as if she was merely Medraut's age and barely more than a squire. For another, her head really was still swimming, and for once, it was nice to be cosseted.

She shook her head. ”This will be something they already know, I think,” she said truthfully. The Ladies had ways of seeing these things that were more reliable than her own unpredictable visions. ”And I'll be fine. I just need to sleep.”

”Sleep you'll have. I'll make it right with our commander,” Peder promised. And then, when she had eaten what she could, he escorted her to her little tent himself and saw to it she was rolled up in the now-warmed furs and blankets. As she settled in, another unpleasant thought occurred to her. Those infants that Arthur-or the Merlin, through Arthur-had ordered murdered. What if the reason he had done such a terrible thing was that he had been trying to be rid of Medraut?

She could almost . . . almost . . . forgive him, if that was the case. Medraut as a child made her want to shove him down a well. Medraut as a boy-man made her want to run to some land where he could never, ever go. Or . . . shove him down a well and fill the well in after him. What would he be like as a man grown?

As the High King's son?

Well, it wouldn't matter. He was married to Little Gwen. He wouldn't bother her any more.

She honestly could not remember what she had felt like the first two times this had happened to her, but she had a killing headache now. It made it hard to think. She reached for the skin of mead that Gynath had insisted she take, not to drink for pleasure, but as medicine at need; it was her mother's special recipe, and Gwen reckoned that if it calmed anger, it might just calm a headache too.

She gulped down a good tankard full, and after a while the headache did ease, and she felt muzzy-headed and sleepy, and then, she slept, dreamlessly.

Chapter Thirteen.

The scouts Gwen's troop among them, had been ghosting about the Saxon army camp for a week. ”Ghosting” was the right word, too, because it had soon become clear that Gwen's trick with the Saxon they'd let go was bearing fruit past all expectations. No one ventured outside the bounds of the camp at night. Even by day, no one went alone. Three spies had been sent in under the guise of selling the Saxons grain; they came back out again with a cart full of loot that had been traded for the food and a much richer store of camp rumors. troop among them, had been ghosting about the Saxon army camp for a week. ”Ghosting” was the right word, too, because it had soon become clear that Gwen's trick with the Saxon they'd let go was bearing fruit past all expectations. No one ventured outside the bounds of the camp at night. Even by day, no one went alone. Three spies had been sent in under the guise of selling the Saxons grain; they came back out again with a cart full of loot that had been traded for the food and a much richer store of camp rumors.

As a consequence, all the scouts had taken to doing what they could to add to the rumors of the White Phantom. Cries and screams in the middle of the night, for instance-not too often, or the Saxons would get used to them. And nothing that was obviously masculine either. But there were a couple of lads whose voices hadn't broken yet who could manage a very convincing female laugh or sob, and young as they were, they were carefully shepherded to the edge of the Saxon lines to give their little serenades.

When Gwen herself got involved, the nights got even more interesting. Since she knew Saxon-and seemed to have exceptionally keen ears-she would linger around a particular section until she had picked up on someone's name. Then, in the middle of the night, she would utter a blood-curdling wail, ending in the words, ”Horsa”-or Ordulf, or Sidric, or whoever's name she had picked up-”Tomorrow I come for you.” you.”