The bluntness of the question unsettled me. “What does he say, Lady?” I asked instead of answering directly.
“He says' and her voice was even lower so that I could scarcely hear her words 'that his men were attacked and that in the confusion, she died. It was an accident, he says.” I glanced at the young girl playing the harp. The aunts were glaring at the two of us, but Helledd seemed unworried by our talking. Galahad was listening to the music, one arm around the sleeping Perddel. “I was on the Tor that day, Lady,” I said, turning back to Ceinwyn.
“And?”
I decided her bluntness deserved a blunt answer. “She knelt to him in welcome, Lady,” I said, 'and he ran his sword down her throat. I saw it done."
Her face hardened for a second. The glimmering rushlight burnished her pale skin and made soft shadows on her cheeks and under her lower lip. She was wearing a rich dress of pale blue linen that was trimmed with the black-flecked silver-white fur of a winter-stoat. A silver torque encircled her neck, silver rings were in her ears and I thought how well silver suited her bright hair. She gave a small sigh. “I feared to hear that truth,” she said, 'but being a princess means I must marry where it is most useful for me to do so and not where I might want to.“ She turned her head to the musician for a time, then leaned close to me again. ”My father,“ she said nervously, 'says this is a war about my honour. Is it?”
“For him, Lady, yes, though I can tell you Arthur regrets the hurt he did you.” She grimaced slightly. The subject was clearly painful, but she could not let it go, for Arthur's rejection had changed Ceinwyn's life much more subtly and sadly than it had ever changed his. Arthur had gone on to happiness and marriage while she had been left to suffer the long regrets and find the painful answers which, evidently, had not been found. “Do you understand him?” she asked after a while.
“I did not understand him back then, Lady,” I said. “I thought he was a fool. So did we all.”
“And now?” she asked, her blue eyes on mine.
I thought for a few seconds. “I think, Lady, that for once in his life Arthur was struck by a madness that he could not control.”
“Love?”
I looked at her and told myself that I was not in love with her and that her brooch was a talisman snatched randomly from chance. I told myself that she was a Princess and I the son of a slave. “Yes, Lady,” I said.
“Do you understand that madness?” she asked me.
I was aware of nothing in the room except Ceinwyn. The Princess Helledd, the sleeping Prince, Galahad, the aunts, the harpist, none of them existed for me, any more than did the woven wall hangings or the bronze rushlight holders. I was aware only of Ceinwyn's large sad eyes and of my own beating heart.
“I do understand that you can look into someone's eyes,” I heard myself saying, 'and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. Know that their voice can make your heart miss a beat and that their company is all your happiness can ever desire and that their absence will leave your soul alone, bereft and lost."
She said nothing for a while, but just looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression. “Has that ever happened to you, Lord Derfel?” she asked at last.
I hesitated. I knew the words my soul wanted to say and I knew the words my station should make me say, but then I told myself that a warrior did not thrive on timidity and I let my soul have government of my tongue. “It has never happened until this moment, Lady,” I said. It took more bravery to make that declaration than I had ever needed to break a shield-wall.
She immediately looked away and sat up, and I cursed myself for offending her with my stupid clumsiness. I stayed back on the couch, my face red and my soul hurting with embarrassment as Ceinwyn applauded the harpist by throwing some silver coins on to the rug beside the instrument. She asked for the Song of Rhiannon to be played.
“I thought you were not listening, Ceinwyn,” one of the aunts said cattily.
“I am, Tonwyn, I am, and I am taking a great pleasure in all I hear,” Ceinwyn said and I felt suddenly like a man feels when the enemy's shield-wall collapses. Except I dared not trust her words. I wanted to; I dared not. Love's madness, swinging from ecstasy to despair in one wild second. The music began again, its background the raucous cheers coming from the great hall where the warriors anticipated battle. I leaned all the way back on the cushions, my face still red as I tried to work out whether Ceinwyn's last words had referred to our conversation or to the music, and then Ceinwyn lay back and leaned close to me again. “I do not want a war fought over me,” she said.
“It seems inevitable, Lady.”
“My brother agrees with me.”
“But your father rules in Powys, Lady.”
“That he does,” she said flatly. She paused, frowning, then looked up at me. “If Arthur wins, who will he want me to marry?”
Once again the directness of her question surprised me, but I gave her the true answer. “He wants you to be Queen of Siluria, Lady,” I said.
She looked at me with sudden alarm. “Married to Gundleus?”
“To King Lancelot of Benoic, Lady,” I said, giving away Arthur's secret hope. I watched for her reaction. She gazed into my eyes, apparently trying to judge whether I had spoken the truth. “They say Lancelot is a great warrior,” she said after a while and with a lack of enthusiasm that warmed my heart.
“They do say that, Lady, yes,” I said.
She was silent again. She leaned on her elbow and watched the harpist's hands flicker across the strings, and I watched her. “Tell Arthur,” she said after a while and without looking at me, 'that I hold no grudge. And tell him something else." She stopped suddenly.
“Yes, Lady?” I encouraged her.
“Tell him that if he wins,” she said, then turned to me and reached a slender ringer across the gap between our couches to touch the back of my hand to show how important her words were, 'that if he wins,“ she said again, ”I shall beg for his protection."
“I shall tell him, Lady,” I said, then paused with my heart full. “And I swear you mine too, in all honour.” She kept her finger on my hand, her touch as light as the sleeping Prince's breath. “I might hold you to that oath, Lord Derfel,” she said, her eyes on mine.
“Till time ends and evermore, that oath will be true, Lady.” She smiled, took her hand away and sat up straight.
And that night I went to my bed in a daze of confusion, hope, stupidity, apprehension, fear and delight. For, just like Arthur, I had come to Caer Sws and been stricken by love.
PART FIVE
The Shield-Wall
“Oo it was her!” Igraine accused me. “The Princess Ceinwyn Owho turned your blood to smoke, Brother Derfel.”
“Yes, Lady, it was,” I confessed, and I confess now that there are tears in my eyes as I remember Ceinwyn. Or perhaps it is the weather that is making my eyes water, for autumn has come to Dinnewrac and a cold wind is stealing through my window. I must soon make a pause in this writing, for we shall have to be busy storing our foodstuffs for the winter and making the log pile that the blessed Saint Sansum will take pleasure in not burning so that we can share our dear Saviour's suffering.
“No wonder you hate Lancelot so much!” Igraine said. “You were rivals. Did he know how you felt for Ceinwyn?”
“In time,” I said, 'yes."
“So what happened?” she asked eagerly.
“Why don't we leave the story in its proper order, Lady?”
“Because I don't want to, of course.”
“Well I do,” I said, 'and I am the storyteller, not you."
“If I didn't like you so much, Brother Derfel, I would have your head cut off and your body fed to our hounds.” She frowned, thinking. She looks very pretty today in a cloak of grey wool edged with otter fur. She is not pregnant, so either the pessary of baby's faeces did not work or else Brochvael is spending too much time with Nwylle. “There was always talk in my husband's family about Great-aunt Ceinwyn,” she said, 'but no one ever really explained what the scandal was about."