Guinevere's Gamble, Page 4

  Elaine examined the embroidered belt Grannic had chosen to match her gown and tossed it aside. “I want the silver one. Didn’t you bring the silver one? Look harder. It must be there.”

  “Llyr can take care of himself,” Ailsa whispered. “The gates are shut for the night. I heard Lord Riall give the order. Please, Gwen, don’t risk it.”

  Guinevere glanced worriedly at the shuttered window. Perhaps Ailsa was right. There would be too much attention paid to them tonight, and if she was caught, Queen Alyse would never let her live down the disgrace. Tomorrow, in the lengthy bustle of leaving, it would be easier to slip off unnoticed and find Llyr. But she would have to be up early. If he was going to visit his family on Snow Mountain, he would start at dawn.

  “Very well,” she agreed as Ailsa pulled the gown down over her head. “I’ll go at first light. But you and Elaine will have to cover for me at breakfast.”

  It was still dark when Guinevere slipped unnoticed out the postern gate. Long years of practice with Elaine had made her expert at soundlessly lifting latches and sneaking past guards. The gate gave onto a steep-sided gulley leading north along the edge of a rise. She followed the gully until she was out of sight of the guards, then circled east around the horse lines. The cooking fires were banked for the night, and no one was about except for the posted guards. They were easy to find and evade. They were all men she knew.

  She found Zephyr easily enough and led her into the thin woodland behind the camp. Leaping onto the filly’s back, she headed through the trees and rode east toward the mountains. As the sky began to lighten, she found the rutted track leading north to the silver mines. She followed the track deeper into the foothills, stopping only to let Zephyr drink from a mountain stream.

  There was a dell here to one side of the track, a little open space carpeted in pine needles. Guinevere slid from the filly’s back and prodded at the pine needles with a twig. Her heart leaped as she uncovered the hidden remains of a small fire. The earth was still warm to the touch.

  An Old One had been here last night. Llyr himself had taught her how to search for the signs. The discovery of a few rope fibers caught in the bark of a maple tree and a set of pony prints, partially brushed over, near the edge of the stream convinced her that the Old One was Llyr. This was where Llyr had spent the night—in the foothills of Snow Mountain, not with King Pellinore’s men. That meant he had decided to go home.

  She had expected as much, but the fact that he had taken steps to go without her gave her pause. She did not want to barge into his reunion with his family without his permission. She decided she would follow his tracks for a little while longer. The Old Ones would learn of her presence on the mountain long before she saw any signs of them, and the message would be passed along. If Llyr accepted her coming, sooner or later one of the Old Ones would show himself and lead her to him.

  Guinevere remounted the filly and followed the pony tracks upstream.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Y Wyddfa

  Llyr climbed steadily up the mountain, following the main approach to the cave to make his intentions clear. He knew he was watched, although he never saw the watchers. He knew he had been watched all the way.

  Last evening, he had ridden into the foothills of Y Wyddfa as soon as the gates of Caer Narfon had closed. With Guinevere safe inside and under guard, he had gone straight into the hills. He knew the paths, and he knew the place he sought.

  When he reached the clearing on the western slope, he made an offering at the shrine in the oak tree above the spring, threw down some fodder for the pony, and slung his hammock between two maple trees. His snares yielded a rabbit, which he skinned and cooked over a small fire. By morning, word of his coming would spread throughout the clan. He had announced his presence in the traditional way by honoring the god of the spring, and in the modern way by lighting a fire. He had given the White Foot plenty of time to decide if and how they would receive him.

  He rose at dawn, muzzy-headed after a fitful sleep, and knelt to drink from the spring. Rinsing his face and hands in the cool, limpid water cleared his head. Feeling airy, light, and purified for action, he covered the traces of fire and footprints and led the pony uphill. In a greenwood where grass grew in patches between the trees, he hobbled the animal as Guinevere had taught him and left him to graze.

  Now he paused on an outcrop of rock and looked back the way he had come. Mists rose from the valley floor. Smoke from the breakfast fires of Caer Narfon drifted toward him on the sea breeze. A hawk floated gracefully above. No matter where he looked, everything was familiar to him and as welcome as the pure mountain air he breathed.

  He had been gone only two years, but in that time his life had changed completely. Since he had last seen his family, he had suffered a great disgrace and received an undeserved but overwhelming honor. Nothing, not even home, would ever be the same again.

  He still did not know what he would say to his father or to Alia. Returning to the past was impossible, and the White Foot, his own people, no longer figured in his future. What could he be to them, or they to him, but a memory? Or a nuisance. Would they think him foolish for coming back? Would they allow him past the greeting ground? Would Alia see past his mask of impassivity and discern the secret he had himself only just discovered?

  A shadow touched him, and he looked up to see a speckled hawk slide by in perfect silence overhead. The sight of the great bird made him smile. He had always been at home in the heights, where the air was light and clear and eagles soared beneath his feet. He preferred the open spaces of the heights to the closed-in leafiness of the valley forests, even though the rock was jagged and the way of going never straight. It saddened him to think that he would never again live on the slopes of Y Wyddfa, but his future lay among the valley folk. He might be able to come back and visit from time to time, if they let him….

  Soon he would know. In the space of a dozen heartbeats he would round the last rocky outcrop and descend into a little corrie made green by its ancient spring. There, before the wide mouth of a cave, on a long, flat ledge the White Foot called the greeting ground, the judgment for or against him would be made. If the clan had decided to welcome him, he would find them waiting on the ledge. If the ledge was empty … Llyr swallowed, nauseated by the thought. Some disgraces could not be forgiven by Earth’s Beloved. Still, whether he was rejected or received, he had been given a mission that transcended clanship. When it came to his destiny, the opinion of the White Foot did not really matter, except to him. Armored by this thought, he shut his mind against fear and went forward.

  A wall of people met him on the greeting ground. His father, Bran, was foremost, holding the leader’s staff. Llyr came to a halt before him and bent his head in greeting.

  “Bran of the White Foot, greetings. Llyr begs entrance.”

  For a moment there was no reaction from the rigid figure before him. The entire crowd of people he had grown up with and had known all his life stared at him voraciously, as they might at a stranger of whom they had heard fabulous tales … or an outcast condemned to be thrown off a cliff to his death.

  “Which Llyr begs entrance?” In the silence, Bran’s quiet voice reached every ear. “Llyr of the White Foot? Llyr of the Long Eyes? Or Llyr of Gwynedd?”

  Llyr held his father’s eyes. “None of those. It is Llyr who asks. Simply Llyr.”

  Whispers ran through the crowd, and the stiff lines around Bran’s mouth relaxed. He bent his head.

  “Greetings, Llyr. Welcome.”

  As if the leader’s words were the signal they had waited for, the people called out to Llyr and pushed closer to give him their personal greetings. Eventually, he was led into the cave and given the place of honor beside his father around the communal cooking fire. The clan elders, who formed the rest of the traditional circle, gave him the choicest morsels to break his fast and milk still warm from the goat. No one bothered him with questions. No one mentioned his great disgrace or his undeserved honor. For
the moment, they expressed nothing but pleasure at having him back among them.

  His mother hovered behind him, touching his shoulder, caressing his hair, as if she could not quite believe her eyes. Lydd and Leatha, his little brother and sister, stared at him from the edges of the standing throng beyond the seated circle. They were not the children he remembered. Leatha, almost nine, had discarded her child’s wrap for a long tunic of soft goatskin bound with a braided thong. A necklace of shells encircled her throat in the style of the older girls. Lydd, now eleven, had grown a handspan taller. Soon he would be ready for the rites of manhood. Llyr did not think it possible he could have changed as much as they had.

  After the public greeting and the meal, he was taken to his family’s chamber deeper within the cave, where the real talking, if there was to be any, would take place. Mats had already been set out on the cold stone floor and, without thinking, Llyr started forward to take his accustomed place, the firstborn’s place, next to his father. He stopped abruptly. Lydd had also come forward, and to the same place. The boy, uncertain, lifted his face to Llyr’s. Llyr stepped back at once, color rising to his cheeks. How could he have forgotten? He had no place here now; he did not belong to the White Foot anymore. It was a knowledge his family had lived with, for Lydd had approached the seat with the assurance of the firstborn—as now he was.

  Llyr swallowed. From the moment the Long Eyes had cast him out, he had ceased to exist as a member of any clan. In the eyes of Earth’s Beloved, that act had robbed him of any chance to follow in his father’s footsteps. He had known, in a general way, that Lydd would take his place in the family and among the White Foot. It was the custom whenever an eldest son died. But it shook him to see it.

  Bran, at his elbow, gestured to the guest mat, and Llyr sat down. Kinsmen filed in through the curtained opening and stood lined up against the walls. Llyr’s throat tightened. They were not treating him as the outcast he was. They were treating him as an honored guest.

  Hope rose in his breast, and he braced himself against it. He had to remember that, although they knew of the prophecy made at her birth, they had never seen the girl they called She With Hair of Light. He hoped they never would. To prevent that very thing, he had kept out of her sight during the journey so that she could not ask permission to come with him. He had hurried into the hills as soon as she was safely inside the stronghold. He had erased his tracks to make it difficult for her to follow. He was afraid that if they saw her, the White Foot, like the Long Eyes, would understand all too well why he did not deserve the honor he had been given. For which among them would not doubt the motives of her guardian once they had seen the girl he guarded?

  Two more people came into the chamber, and Llyr’s heart began to thud. Brith and Enna were not kinsmen. They were Alia’s parents. He held his breath as Alia herself followed Enna inside. For a moment, her great dark eyes met his. Llyr looked away. He could not help himself.

  Bran made a short speech of welcome on behalf of all the kinsmen. He asked after Llyr’s health and the health of the Long Eyes. Llyr responded formally and with equal courtesy. Bran plied him with questions about his life during the past year, especially about his degree of acquaintance with the king and queen of Gwynedd. This was not yet dangerous ground, and Llyr answered calmly. He understood their curiosity about the ways of the Others, who farmed the river valleys, built ships to sail the seas, raised horses instead of hunting them, and delighted in the killing of men.

  Llyr did his best to satisfy their curiosity. They stared at him as he spoke, their eyes examining him from head to foot. His hair, unlike theirs, was cut to shoulder length and evenly trimmed. He was not dressed, as they were, in skins and furs. He wore a tunic of dyed wool woven on a loom in the queen’s workroom, and beautifully stitched lightweight doeskin leggings. Guinevere herself had made his soft leather boots. He must look as strange to them as the king of Gwynedd himself.

  Next it was the kinsmen’s turn to ask him questions. Some, like Bran, were interested in the current political situation among the Others. They wanted to know which kings were friendly with the king of Gwynedd and which were not. Llyr told them what he knew, which was not much, but assured them he would soon find out. King Pellinore and his party were traveling east to attend a conference of kings, and the friendships and feuds between them would soon become common knowledge.

  Some were more curious about how the Others lived and wanted details of daily life inside a castle. Of this, Llyr could tell them little, for he did not live on castle grounds. When he told them about the tending and guarding of the king’s cattle and sheep, the Old Ones nodded in approval. When he described the stables and horse paddocks, they shook their heads and smiled. But when he revealed that King Pellinore had given him a pony of his own and that he could ride it anywhere he chose, they stared at him in astonishment.

  Lydd wanted to know if it was true that the Others raised hawks from the egg and taught them to fly on command. Llyr described how the king’s falconer rescued injured birds or fledglings pushed from the nest and trained them to hunt. Likewise, the king had a stablemaster to look after his horses and a kennelmaster to raise and train his hunting dogs.

  “But why don’t you live on the castle grounds?” asked Leatha, who wanted to know about the women’s gowns and slippers and ornaments, and whether it was true they wore colored ribbons in their hair.

  Without pausing to think, Llyr replied, “I don’t live in the castle because with distance comes perspective, and it is impossible to guard without perspective. Stay too close and you do not see the threat until it is upon you.”

  Too late, Llyr realized he had broached the subject he wanted most to avoid. He glanced quickly at Alia. Her face was stiff with the effort of control, but the fear in her eyes gave her away. Llyr paled. He had never before seen Alia frightened.

  “So,” Bran said quietly. “We come to She With Hair of Light. Tell us about her.”

  Llyr dropped his eyes to his lap but did not speak.

  “You saved her life, we heard.”

  “Before that, she saved mine.”

  His father nodded. “She is your friend?”

  The question hung in the air. Llyr could feel Alia’s eyes on his face and strove to keep his expression neutral. “Yes.”

  A stocky young man standing just behind Bran said, “She saved the Long Eyes from attack, we heard.”

  Llyr recognized Bilis, son of Mapon, leader of the Long Eyes, who served as Bran’s foster son, just as he himself had been Mapon’s foster son until last spring. He bowed politely to the young man. “That is so. She With Hair of Light is very brave.”

  “And very strange-looking,” someone else put in.

  “And very tall,” another added. “Especially for a female.” The abnormal size of the Others was, to Earth’s Beloved, one of the most fearsome things about them.

  Llyr almost smiled. “To us she may seem so. It is a matter of perspective.”

  It did not bother Llyr that Guinevere was his own height and growing taller. It would not bother him when she outgrew him. What he admired about her was difficult to put into words, but it had nothing to do with her height, or even her appearance. It was something so grand and all-encompassing that it altered the very air he breathed. Being with her was like stepping into a new world or a new skin. He no longer cared how he lived his life, provided he could share some part of it with her.

  “She is different,” his father agreed. “It is said that one day she will outshine all the Others. In their eyes, at least.”

  “She must be very beautiful.” It was Alia who spoke. She waited, standing straight as a spear with her hands locked into fists, braced for his reply.

  Llyr took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice normal. “That also is a matter of perspective,” he croaked.

  Alia paled. No one spoke. All eyes turned to her, as if this were a confrontation long expected. Tears brightened the girl’s eyes. She faced him for a breathless mom
ent, then turned and fled.

  The curtain of skins parted to let her pass as a boy darted into the chamber. He pushed forward to the seated circle and signaled to Bran, his eyes wide with excitement.

  “Mador sends a message, sir.”

  “Tell me.”

  “She With Hair of Light is on the mountain.” He looked around at the wide-eyed kinsmen. “She found the spring, but took the wrong turning in the wood. She is headed toward the shrine at the crossroads. Mador wants to know what to do.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Crossroads

  Guinevere brought the filly to a halt where two paths crossed in a piney wood. She looked carefully about her for landmarks. She was sure they had come to this crossroads twice before. They seemed to have been traveling in circles for hours. Unable to see the sky for the leaves overhead, she could not judge how long she had been lost. She did not like to think what would happen if she was not back by the time Queen Alyse looked for her. She might be made to ride in a litter, or worse, be sent home in disgrace. She had counted on the king’s party taking half the morning to get ready, as they had at home. They might take even longer today, with Sir Riall’s escort and baggage to be organized and added to the train. She had been sure that, in the resulting bustle, she would not be missed.

  But now, as she looked about the wood for the third time, deep misgivings assailed her. The morning was advancing. Queen Alyse was difficult to fool and liked to keep a close check on the girls. Both Ailsa and Elaine had promised to cover for her, but Queen Alyse could always tell when Elaine was dodging the truth, and Ailsa had been caught before fibbing on Guinevere’s behalf. Last night it had been easy to dismiss these doubts. Now they hovered like vultures, pressing closer with every step farther into the forest. If the queen had discovered her absence, there would be search parties out even now. If the search party should stumble across the White Foot—something she herself had been singularly unable to do—Llyr would find it hard to forgive her.