The Hallowed Isle Book Three Page 10

  The doorway filled with faces, their laughter faltering as they saw her sitting there. For a moment she saw herself with their vision: eyes huge in her white face, mantled in shining hair.

  The crowd heaved as the men who were behind pushed forward, then moved aside to admit a figure that moved in a haze of gold, from the band around his brows to the embroidery on his mantle. But his face was in shadow, and though he was surrounded by a leaping, laughing crowd, his stillness matched her own.

  “The way is clear!” came Gualchmai’s shout. “Get in with you, man—I’ll cover you!”

  “Nay, it is Artor who will be covering his bride!” someone replied, and the hall rang with masculine laughter. They sounded like her brother and his friends when they had been drinking.

  “For shame, lads—give the man some privacy!” That came from Betiver.

  Morgause would have known how to command those boors to leave them. Guendivar recalled the Votadini queen’s words to her and felt her skin grow hot with remembered embarrassment—perhaps Artor’s sister would not have cared.

  Then Artor turned to face his tormentors. Their laughter faded, and she wondered what they were seeing in his eyes. He swung round, and a long stride carried him over the threshold. His arm swept out and the heavy door slammed behind him.

  The noise outside fell suddenly to a murmur; she thought they were singing and was glad she could not distinguish the words. Inside, the dark shape by the door seemed to gather silence around him until it was a palpable weight in the air. Guendivar drew the bedclothes closer, shivering. She had not expected her new husband to leap upon her, but why was he still standing there? Could he possibly be afraid?

  When the silence had become more disturbing than anything she could imagine him doing, she cleared her throat.

  “I do not know the etiquette of these things, but the priests assure me that you have a right to be here. Are you waiting for an invitation to lie down with me?”

  Some of the tension went out of him and he laughed. “Perhaps I am. I will confess to you, Guendivar, that I have more experience in ‘these things’ than you do, but not . . . much—” His voice cracked. “I have a son.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Before he was married my father got three, and for all I know, more afterward. Did you think I would be scandalized?”

  And yet it was strange that the High King could have a child that no one had heard of. Bastards begotten before marriage were not unusual, and for a man, no shame. If Morgause was to be believed, in Alba they were not shameful for a woman either, but this was hardly the moment to say so. For a moment she longed for the comfort of Julia’s warm arms, even though she knew that for every hour they had lain together the other girl had spent three on her knees. It had always seemed strange to Guendivar to do penance for something that gave the same simple pleasure as a cat arching to the stroke of a caress, but at least she understood what Julia wanted when she was in her arms.

  This male creature that radiated tension from the doorway was totally strange, but clearly, if she did not do something, he might well stand there until dawn.

  “I am told that you begin by taking off your clothes,” she said wryly. “Do you need help? It took three women to get me out of mine.”

  Artor laughed again, as if she had surprised him, and shook his head. But he did unbuckle his belt and then the brooch that held his mantle at the shoulder. The rustle of heavy silk seemed loud in the quiet of the room.

  “And what do you suggest I do next?” he asked when he was down to the twist of linen about his loins.

  Surely, she thought with an unexpected lift of the heart, that had been amusement she heard in his tone. But why should he need to ask? Did he really believe that one bastard had made him unfit to approach her?

  “Next, you get into the bed . . .”

  He drew a quick breath, and she had a sudden insight into how he must look before battle. She hoped he did not see her as an enemy. She twitched the covers aside and the leather straps of the bedstead creaked as he lay down. In the flicker of lamplight she could see the curves and planes of his body quite clearly. Except for his face and forearms, his skin was almost as fair as her own, scrolled here and there by the subtle pink or silvery tracery of old battle scars. She stared curiously. She had seen men’s bodies before, stripped for labor in the fields or exposed to piss against a tree, but never at such close quarters.

  After a moment she realized that Artor’s breathing was too controlled. What was wrong? He hadn’t been so tense when they talked at midwinter. Even this morning there had been open friendliness in his smile. This was not how she had imagined her wedding night would be.

  “You did not marry me for love but because you needed an heir,” Guendivar said finally. “So far as I know, there is only one way to get one. You may have a son, but he cannot inherit from you, so let us be about it. It would be a pity to disappoint all those people I hear making noise to encourage us out there!”

  Artor turned, raising himself on one elbow to look at her. “I have been misled—men always speak of women as if they were creatures of flight and fancy, but I see it is not so—” He took her hand, callused fingers tracing spirals across her palm.

  Guendivar drew a quick breath, all her senses focusing on his touch, from which warmth had begun to radiate in little bursts of sparks across her skin. The female animal desires the male . . . she told herself, so why should I be surprised? If they did not have love, lust was no bad foundation for a marriage, so long as it came linked with laughter. For surely there was nothing here to match the ecstasy she had found in the company of the faerie-folk, but she had not expected it.

  “If it were, how could you trust us to manage your homes and raise your children?” she asked tartly, and then, while she still had the courage, lifted his hand and pressed it to her breast.

  As his fingers tightened, the sparks became a flame that leaped from nipple to nipple and focused in a throbbing ache between her thighs. Her play with Julia had awakened her body, and since they began this wedding journey there had been no way for them to be alone. If Artor was surprised, his changed breathing told her that the fire had kindled him as well.

  She slid her hands from his shoulders down the hard muscle of his sides. Were men’s and women’s bodies so different? Heart pounding, she brushed upward across his nipples and heard him gasp. Guendivar smiled then, and reached down to tug at his clout. Artor tensed, but at least he did not pull away, and when she eased back down on the bed he came with her, his movement pushing her gown above her thighs.

  She could feel his male member hard against her and wished she could see it, but at last he was kissing her. Guendivar held him tightly, a part of her mind cataloguing the differences between his hard strength and Julia’s yielding softness, while the remainder was being consumed by an expanding flame.

  Artor pushed against her and she opened her thighs, trembling with mingled excitement and fear. This, certainly, was something she had not experienced with Julia! His hands tightened painfully on her shoulders and he thrust again. She felt a tearing pain, them the pressure abruptly eased. He continued to batter against her for a few moments longer, but it was with his body only—the part that had taken her maidenhead slid free, and she had not the art to arouse it again.

  Presently he stilled and collapsed onto the bed beside her, breathing hard.

  “Was it like this,” she said softly when he was still, “when you begot your son?”

  “I do not know . . . I do not remember . . .” he groaned, “but it cannot have been,” he added bitterly, “or there would have been no child . . .”

  Only then did she understand that the act had been incomplete for him as well.

  “Dear God!” He turned onto his back and she saw that he was weeping. “What have I done? What did she do to me?”

  Guendivar let out her breath in a long sigh. She would not, she gathered, come from this night with child. She sensed the pain in the man beside her
without understanding it.

  “It will be all right,” she said presently, “we have time.”

  Gradually the rasp of his breathing slowed. “Time . . .” he groaned. “Ten years . . .”

  Guendivar touched his shoulder, but he did not respond. After that, they were silent. Even the noise outside their door had ceased. The place between her thighs throbbed with a mingling of pleasure and pain. Presently she pulled the covers over her, and used her hand to release the tension Artor’s touch had aroused.

  Her husband lay very still beside her, and if he realized what she was doing, he made no sign.

  That night, while Artor’s Companions were finishing off the last of the Procurator’s wine, the mother of his son lay in the arms of a lusty guardsman in a union which, however unblessed, was considerably more rewarding. Igierne slept alone in the room she had once shared with Uthir, plagued by troubled dreams. But Merlin watched out the night at the top of the ancient guard tower, striving to understand the portents he glimpsed in the stars, and in the church where Guendivar had been married, Julia lay stretched upon the cold stones, wrestling with her soul in prayer.

  VI

  THE SACRED ROUND

  A.D. 497

  CAMALOT SMELLED OF RAW WOOD AND RANG WITH THE sound of hammers. It seemed to have grown every time the king’s household returned to it, the timber and stone ramparts raised higher, the framing of the great henge hall and the other buildings more solid against the spring sky. The hill had been part of Guendivar’s dowry, and if the past year had seen little progress in the intimate side of their marriage, externally, Artor had accomplished a great deal.

  From the timber guard tower above the southwest gate the queen saw small figures of men and horses climbing the road. That would be Matauc of Durnovaria—she recognized the standard. He was an old man now, and Artor had not been sure he would come. No doubt curiosity had brought him, as it had so many others—Britannia was full of tales about the new stronghold Artor was building in Leodagranus’ land.

  Most of the other princes were here already—the place was full of men and horses, and the clusters of hide tents and brushwood bothies that sheltered their escorts nestled close to the wall. According to Leodagranus, it had been a Durotrige fortress when the Romans came, destroyed in the years after Boudicca’s war, and then it had been the site of a pagan shrine. But Merlin said the Durotriges were only the latest of the peoples who had sheltered on the hill, tribes now so long gone that no one even remembered their names.

  Cai had laughed at him, for on first sight its tree-choked slopes seemed no different from any of the surrounding hills. But when they reached the summit, they found a roughly flattened oblong with a swell of earth around it, and three additional ramparts carved into the side of the hill. The trees they cut to clear the site had provided timber to brace the rubble wall and planks for the breastwork that topped it.

  Guendivar climbed the ladder from the sentry walk to the gatehouse often. Here, she could lean on the wickerwork railing and watch the bustle without being overwhelmed by it, and there was usually a breeze. Gazing out across the tree-clad hills she could almost imagine herself free.

  Below her, men were setting more stones into the rough facing of the rampart. Just because Artor had called a consilium did not mean work could cease. From here Camalot was a place of circles within circles: the ramparts that ringed the hill, and the huts within the wall, and in the space to the east of the more conventional rectangular building where Artor had his quarters, the great henge hall.

  In truth, it was not so much a hall as a shelter, for sections of its wickerwork walling could be removed to let in light and air. Its design had also been one of Merlin’s suggestion, neither a Roman basilica nor even a Celtic roundhouse, although it most resembled the latter. Merlin said it was another inspiration from ancient days. The thatched roof was supported on a triple henge of stout wooden pillars, its diameter so great that a hundred and fifty warriors could sit in a circle around the central fire. The old sorcerer still made Guendivar uneasy, but there was no denying his ideas were sometimes useful.

  She turned and saw the gate guard lifting an earthenware jug to his lips.

  “Is that wine?” she asked, feeling suddenly dry.

  The man blushed—surely he should have been accustomed to her by now. “Oh no, lady—’tis water only. My lord king would have my ears did I drink while on guard. But you’re welcome to share it—” he added, flushing again. He wiped the rim of the jug with the hem of his tunic and offered it to her.

  She eyed it a little dubiously, for his tunic was not over-clean, but she could not insult him by refusing it now. And the water was good, kept cold by the clay. She savored it, rolling it on her tongue, before swallowing. When she had drunk, she handed back the jug and smiled, a thirst that no water could ease fed by the admiration with which he gazed back at her. Tomorrow at the council she would see her beauty reflected in the gleam of other men’s eyes.

  A hail from below brought her around. She leaned over the railing and waved at Betiver, who had been sent to escort Matauc to the hill. The first gate had opened, and Betiver, preceding the horselitter in which the old man had travelled, was passing beneath the tower. Matauc would need some time to recover and refresh himself, but then Artor would no doubt be wanting her to extend an official welcome. It was time for her to go do so.

  Dark and light, shadowed and bright, the oblong of the doorway flickered as the princes of Britannia came into the new henge hall. The flare and glint of gold, abruptly extinguished, dazzled the eye, and Betiver, standing at his accustomed place at Artor’s shoulder, had to look away. After a moment his vision adjusted, and he began counting once more.

  Light coming in beneath the low eaves where the wicker screens had been removed lent the lower parts of the interior a diffuse illumination, and the fire in the center cast a warm glow; beneath the peak of the roof, all was shadow. Betiver suppressed a smile as he watched the princes and their followers attempting to figure out which were the most honorable benches when the seating was circular. That was exactly why Merlin had suggested that Artor build this round hall. In the end, the choice of seats became roughly geographical, as the little groups found places near their allies and neighbors.

  Matauc of Durnovaria had taken a seat beside Leodagranus, just down from Cataur of Dumnonia, who had brought his son Constantine. The Demetian contingent was dominated by Agricola, a war-leader from an old Roman family who made up in effectiveness for what he lacked in bloodlines. Being Roman, he did not call himself a prince, but Protector, though his powers were the same. He had also brought a son, called Vortipor. His northern neighbor was Catwallaun Longhand, still bearing the scars of his last campaign against the Irishmen of Laigin who had settled there under king Illan.

  There were other, more familiar faces: old Eleutherius from Eboracum and his son Peretur, Eldaul who ruled the area around Glevum, and Catraut, who kept a wary eye on the Saxons of the east from Verulamium. As his gaze moved around the circle it was the younger men who drew Betiver’s attention. They were the ones upon whose strength Artor would build Britannia, whose focus was on the future.

  But the silver hairs of age and experience were still much in evidence. Ridarchus had come down from Dun Breatann. He was as old as Leudonus, though he looked stronger. Men said he was married to a sister of Merlin. Betiver found it hard to imagine. Next to him was his half-brother Dumnoval, a grandson of the great Germanianus, who now held the Votadini lands south of the Tava under Leudonus, who had been too ill to come.

  Instead, young Cunobelinus was there to speak for the Votadini of Dun Eidyn. There had some discussion about that earlier, for Gualchmai was Leudonus’ named heir. But Gualchmai was sitting on Artor’s right hand, as Cai held the place on his left, and no one had dared to ask whether that meant the northerner had renounced his birthright to serve the High King, or was claiming a greater one, as Artor’s heir.

  It seemed unlikely, for although
in a year of marriage the queen had not kindled, she was young and healthy, and surely one day she would bear a child. As if the thought had been a summons, Betiver noted a change in the faces of the men across the circle and turned to see Guendivar herself, standing in a nimbus of light in the doorway.

  Old or young, men fell silent as the High Queen made her way around the circle, carrying the great silver krater by the handles at each side. This, thought Betiver, was not the laughing girl who had become his friend, but the High Queen, remote and perfect as an icon in a dalmatic of creamy damask set with pearls, the finest of linen veiling her hair beneath the diadem. As she came to each man, she offered the krater. As the wine flowed over the bright silver, it caught the light with a garnet-colored glow.

  “The blood of the grape is the blood of the land,” she said softly. “And you are its strong arms. Drink in peace, drink in unity, and be welcome in this hall . . .”

  “Lady, you lend us grace—” murmured Vortipor, and then flushed as he realized he had spoken aloud. But no one else seemed to notice—he was saying no more than what they all felt, after all.

  Guendivar completed the circle and brought the krater to Artor. “The blood of the grape is the blood of the land, and you, Pendragon, are its head—”

  Artor’s hands closed over hers on the krater, drawing her closer as he lifted it to his lips. His face bore an expression Betiver had never seen there before—he could not tell if it were joy or pain. Then he let go, looking up at her.

  “As you are its heart, my queen . . .” he murmured. For a moment his eyes closed. When he opened them again his features had regained their usual calm. Now it was Guendivar in whose eyes Betiver saw pain. For a moment the queen bowed her head, then she lifted the krater once more and with the same gliding gait bore it out of the hall.