“No,” Gawaine said, “it did not work. A man is more than the sum of such things.”
“I bet you never had a woman.”
“If I have or not, it is nothing I would boast to you about,” Gawaine said, more angrily than he meant.
Agravaine stood. “I have a sword, too.” His voice was sullen, like a child’s.
“You can have sword and whip and a hard hand. That still does not make you a man.” Gawaine sighed. “Go to bed, Agravaine.”
“Are you telling me man to child?” The voice was still sullen, and slightly dangerous, too. He was drunk on anger and years of being the second son.
“I am telling you brother to brother. Go to bed. We have another, longer ride tomorrow.” Gawaine stood as well, turned on his heel, and went over to the cloak that Hwyll had set out for him. Picking it up, he wrapped it around his body and lay down, sword at his side. He was rigid wi th anger, mostly at himself for getting into such a spat, like two farmwives over a fence.
Agravaine made some rude noises, but at last he, too, found a sleeping cloak.
Gawaine waited until he was certain his brothers were all snoring before he allowed himself to drift off, certain that Hwyll and the others would keep them from harm.
BY THE TIME they came within a day’s ride of Cadbury, none of the boys was on speaking terms.
Gawaine was at wits’ end. He had spoken hurriedly to Hwyll as they kitted up the horses that last morning.
“It is not just Agravaine, though he is the worst,” he said. Anger had made a pronounced line between his eyebrows, and his handsome face was almost ugly with it.
“Agravaine is a second son and feels the weight of it every day,” Hwyll said. “I know. I was a second son as well, though with much less riding on any inheritance.”
“That he is second to me is not my fault.” Gawaine gentled the sweet-faced brown gelding he’d given to Agravaine, as if by soothing the horse, he could soothe himself.
“Not your fault, no. But it is your duty to overrule him,” Hwyll said. “With a harder hand than his if necessary.”
“You do not understand...” The horse nuzzled at Gawaine’s neck and he pushed it away gently.
“I do not need to understand,” said Hwyll softly. “I need to speak for your mother. And she would tell you this: Agravaine only follows one rule.”
Gawaine waited, though he knew what Hwyll was going to say.
“Power.”
Gawaine nodded. He did not doubt that he could master Agravaine, but he did not want to. He just wanted to get to Cadbury and be shed of them all. The twins, too. For they had turned out to be whiners and complainers once the trip had gotten too long and rain in the valleys had broken into their sleep night after night.
Why, he thought, why am I cursed with such brothers? And then added to himself, And such a mother? But he did not say any of this aloud. To say it aloud would be dishonorable. If he prided himself on anything, it was his honor.
Turning to Hwyll, he said, “Arthur will sort him out.
“Agravaine will hardly listen to someone he considers a usurper.” Hwyll finished saddling the last horse, his back to Gawaine, but his shoulders were tense with their conversation.
Oh, by the gods! Gawaine thought. That old mother curse again. Hwyll is hers, not mine, if he things of Arthur in that way. I shall have to bend him to me. “Then why has Agravaine come?”
Hwyll turned and held up his hands, palms to the sky. His plain face, with its bicolored eyes, smiled at him. “Your mother sent him, my lord. How could he refuse?”
16
Hard Hands
THE ROAD SOUTH was rutted and ruined by recent spring rains. Only the Roman bridges still stood, strong testimony to the late masters of Britain. Every arch proclaimed that mastery.
The horses alternated trotting and walking, making swift time even on the awful roads. They moved best when given their heads, not reined in or pulled roughly about. Only Agravaine failed to understand that—or refused to listen—and so his poor horse was the slowest of all, and suffered many a kick because of it.
Finally Gawaine could stand no more of his brothers harsh treatment of the gelding. He stopped them all on the top of a small hillock, which was one deep valley from Cadbury.
“Time for a break,” he said. Then he got off his little mare and marched over to Agravaine. Before his brother could dismount on his own, Gawaine hauled him off his horse.
Agravaine fell onto his side with a loud thud that broke no bones but bruised his pride. He stood up slowly, grinding his teeth. His face was a map of feral fury.
“If you cannot ride without injuring your mount, you will walk,” Gawaine said.
“I will not,” Agravaine countered, and without warning, threw a hard punch that landed glancingly on Gawaine’s cheekbone, beneath the right eye.
The pain was excruciating, radiating up to the top of Gawaine’s head, and pulsating in his ear as well. He could not remember ever feeling such pain, and the embarrassment of the blow was as much of a shock as the blow itself.
Shaking his head to try to clear it of the pain, Gawaine barely kept from falling, and at the same time, he hit back, a strong right fueled by both anger and shame. As he had already warned Agravaine, he was bigger and stronger and had trained well under Arthur’s master of arms. But the pain in his face caused him to miss his target, which was his brothers nose.
Instead he hit Agravaine in the throat.
It was an awful blow and Agravaine staggered back, gasping and reeling, and finally falling down in a faint.
No one was more surprised than Gawaine. Or horrified. He knelt by his brother, shouting, “Breathe, you knave, breathe.” He was crying as he shouted, the tears coursing down his face, which would have embarrassed him even more had he realized it. “Breathe, Agravaine.”
At first, the twins had cheered the fight, calling out for Gawaine and Agravaine indiscriminately. But when they saw that Agravaine was really in trouble, they jumped from their horses and ran over to help, whereupon they simply got in the way.
It was Hwyll who sat Agravaine up, stuck his finger in the boy’s mouth, and hauled his tongue forward.
Agravaine took one small, then two very large breaths, and began to shake.
“Get me a cloak,” Hwyll shouted to the other servants.
Someone brought a sleeping cloak, someone else a wineskin. They wrapped Agravaine up well, gave him plenty to drink, then after a bit, stuck him back on his horse, where he slumped over like an old man, unable to keep his balance.
With Hwyll on one side of the horse and Gawaine on the other to hold Agravaine in place, they walked slowly across the last valley toward Cadbury.
BY THE TIME they spied the twin keeps and the blazing torches illuminating the high curtain walls, it was well into the night. Agravaine was snoring brokenly and Gawaine was sporting a shiny black eye.
The guards recognized Gawaine and opened the gate. The kings own physician was sent for. Food was brought into the Great Hall for those who could or would eat.
But Gawaine refused the food and the comfort. Instead he accompanied Agravaine to the infirmary—a series of dark cells off a long hall—and lay all night by his brother’s side.
As he lay listening to Agravaine’s stentorious snores, Gawaine tried to pray. He even got up once or twice and fell to his knees, speaking to the gods in Norse and English, in case any were within hearing. Speaking to his mother, too, for with her magic, she might also have taken notice of what had happened.
“I will not lose my temper again,” he promised aloud. “I will only seek the right. I will be kind to my brothers. I will treat all men as my brothers. And my brothers as good men. I will...” But at that point, exhausted and emotionally spent, he lost the thread of his prayer and only felt stupid, insignificant, and weak. “I promise I will follow Arthur’s will,” he ended.
Then he climbed back onto the pallet, turned over on his side so that he was back-to-back with A
gravaine, and fell into a stupor that was less like sleep and more like a little death.
HOWEVER, the twins were not exhausted at all. In fact, they actually seemed strengthened by the results of the fight. Finding the Great Hall, they sat at one of the long tables and talked to anyone who would listen about the fight. And plenty were willing, for fresh gossip was always in demand. Cadbury was really a small town.
“Gawaine hauled him off his horse,” Gaheris began.
Gareth interrupted, “The earth shook.”
“There were horns, I think,” Gaheris said.
“Hunting horns,” Gareth added.
“No, dragon horns.”
The men laughed.
“It was magic!” they breathed together.
By the time dried fruit, cheese, and black bread had been brought to the table—and several large flagons of wine had been consumed—that fight had grown to epic proportions. Suddenly it included a green knight, several evil swordsmen, a dragon, a chimera, a wizard, and a fair lady to be saved.
In the morning, too embarrassed to set things aright, Gawaine said nothing. Surely the twins’ version was preferable to the truth—that he had beaten his brother who now lay sick unto death in the infirmary.
MORGAUSE WAS SITTING at one of her long, narrow apothecary tables reading in the Book of Ancient & Diverse Magicks, when she felt pinpricks between her shoulder blades. She looked up.
It had to be one of her boys.
Standing, she went to the stone basin that sat atop a stone plinth. Carefully she poured water into it—water from a running stream, not something that had been sitting and stewing in its own weak juices.
Then she waited until the water settled, sprinkled a handful of spy-all into it, letting the ground leaves settle to the bottom. She popped a pinch of the same herb into her nose and breathed it in, careful not to sneeze. Scrying was a ticklish business.
Finally she leaned over the water and spoke a small spell.
With heavens eye, let me spy.
With heavens eye, let me fly.
Show all, and I will witness!
Slowly a picture shaped itself in the water, as if it were in a glass. Not a clear picture, of course. And it always had to be of one with whom the scryer had some sort of intimate connection: blood, lust, hate were good connectors, though a picture was only one-half of a truth. Scryers could see but could not eavesdrop. A real spy was needed for that.
In the picture she saw two of her boys—Gawaine and Agravaine—lying together in a bed.
“Humph,” she snorted, thinking that Arthur was so impoverished in his splendid Cadbury, he could not afford separate beds for each of them but had to sleep them together like merchants in a second-rate inn. It made her smile.
Still—why had she been called? There had been no mistaking the prickles on her back.
Agravaine had his back to her, but Gawaine was turned toward her. She leaned closer and saw his blackened eye.
“Well,” she said aloud, satisfied. “If they are being beaten, they will turn to their mother for comfort.” She thought of ways to comfort them. It was a short list.
17
Brothers
ARTHUR CAME to the infirmary for a visit at sunrise, and Gawaine stood, shifting from one leg to the other, trying to explain what had happened. It seemed to Arthur that the boy was trying hard not to actually darken his brothers reputation, as if family honor was suddenly more important than truth.
Arthur liked that about Gawaine. About the attempt. He really was not a very good liar.
“It was my temper, more than his. Really,” Gawaine said. “I did not mean to hurt him.”
Only the more he talked, the worse things sounded, and Arthur knew he had to intervene. “I broke Kay’s nose once, and though he has long forgiven me, I have never forgiven myself.”
“Really?” Gawaine’s face suddenly smoothed out.
“Really,” Arthur said, though the circumstances had been quite different, because he had been younger and smaller than Kay and had fought him over a sword they had both wanted. Kay won the battle simply by falling heavily on top of Arthur, blood spurting from his nose till Arthur had agreed to end the battle so Kay’s nose could be seen to.
“Thank you, my lord,” Gawaine said, falling to one knee and bowing his head. He reached over and took his sleeping brothers hand. Then he held that hand and his own up till Arthur took them both.
“I pledge my brother and myself to you, my liege.”
Arthur patted Gawaine’s head almost absentmindedly. “There, there,” he said. “The king pardons you.”
Gawaine sprang to his feet.
“And you know, do you not, that I cannot accept your brothers pledge till he gives it himself. Awake.” Arthur stared long into Gawaine’s eyes.
At last Gawaine looked down. “I know, sire,” he whispered. “But—”
“No buts. Now, how is your mother?” Subtlety was never one of Arthur’s virtues.
By the darkening of Gawaine’s face, Arthur guessed that all was not right at home, and for some reason that made him utterly happy. He liked Gawaine. It was impossible not to. He liked him and would have been terribly disappointed if Gawaine had been his mothers assassin.
“She is... well, sire,” Gawaine said.
“Good. Good.” Arthur looked down at Agravaine and smiled. “No more charging dragons and green knights, then. I wouldn’t want your mother mad at me.”
“Oh, she never could be that,” said Gawaine, and blushed as if he knew that Arthur knew it was a lie.
BACK ONE DAY and I have lied to my liege lord, Gawaine thought bitterly. Mother would be so proud. He went down to the kitchens to see if he could find some breakfast.
Desiring no company, he filled his plate with some slabs of bacon and fresh brown bread just out of the oven. Then he nodded at the cook, who called out to him, “Dost want more, laddie?”
Gawaine shook his head. Cook had always had a soft spot for him, ever since he arrived as a homesick boy named Gwalchmei and had hung about the kitchen for warmth and comfort. “No more just now,” he called back.
Cook nodded as if he understood.
I wish I understood, Gawaine thought. Not since that first homesick week had he been so uncomfortable at Cadbury. Is it my brothers only? he wondered. Am I afraid I will be judged by their actions ?
He took his plate up the stairs to a walkway and set it high up on a crenellation. The wind was soft here, not like the constant wuthering of the sea winds at home. He enjoyed the lambent air. Like the kitchen, it was warm and comforting.
Standing and eating, he looked over at the high tor, a quarter mile from the castle. He shuddered as he gazed at the place, that frightening, eerie site of magic, mystery, faerie that was slumped like a mages hat. It made him think of his mother.
It put him off his food.
No, he thought bitterly, my brothers are not what worries me, not what gripes at my bowels. As if in response, his stomach growled mightily. It is Mother. And her spy.
He spit over the side of the wall as if to get rid of the bad taste in his mouth, when another, even more awful, thought hit him.
What if she has bewitched me and I am her spy? Only I do not know it. He had no doubt she had the power to do such a thing, and he wondered if he should tell the king.
Or, scarier still, the kings mage.
AGRAVAINE SLEPT through the morning but woke soon after Gawaine returned. He seemed to have forgotten the fight entirely and instead looked about the room as chough he were wondering where he was and how he had gotten there. Then he licked his lips, as if he had a terrible thirst, and croaked something. Gawaine thought it was “Water.”
Gawaine pointed to a tray on which sat three cups of wine, indicating the middle one. “Try the mulled wine,” he said. “The infirmarer assured me that would soothe your throat the best.”
“An infirmarer?” Agravaine croaked. “Why should you be speaking to him? Who is ill?” The roughness of h
is own voice should have told him.
“You are,” said Gawaine, still smarting from guilt.
“Nonsense!” Agravaine retorted, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing in his bare feet. Made for someone smaller, the nightshirt barely reached his thighs. Gawaine was surprised to see how hairy his brother’s legs were.
Why, he is a man, Gawaine thought, and not a boy any longer.
Agravaine swayed a bit as if he had not yet gotten his land legs back, though they were more than two weeks from the sea. Gawaine put out a hand to him and Agravaine shoved it away roughly.
“Have I had the flux? Was it the sea voyage? I hate the sea!” Agravaines voice was hoarse and whiney.
A hairy boy, Gawaine corrected himself. “Do you’remember nothing?”
Agravaine put a hand to his head. “Not the sea. No. We were camping. I remember now. For days. No soft beds. No soft—” He got a hard look on his face, a mixture of anger and surprise. “You hit me.”
Remembering what Hwyll had said about Agravaine and power, Gawaine answered in a soft but stern voice, “And will do it again unless you climb back into that bed.”
Agravaine glared at him but sat down again on the bed, and Gawaine pulled the coverlet over him. “I will see that you are moved to a fine apartment with the twins and me shortly.”
“How shortly?”
“When you hold down your food and drink a full day,and the infirmarer gives you leave to go.” Gawaine turned and walked to the door. “I will get you something now.”
“Wait!” Agravaine cried out.
Gawaine turned back.
“When I am better...” Agravaine said.
“When you are better...”
“I will beat you, brother. Be minded that I will.”
Gawaine laughed. And here he thought he had tamed Agravaine. “I doubt it,” he said, all guilt forgiven. “I am still older and bigger than you.” He walked out the door, carrying one of the cups of mulled wine.