Free The Bloody Cup by M. K. Hume Page A

it.’
    ‘Well, whatever it was, it’s long gone!’ Gawayne turned away. He was accustomed to Galahad’s odd obsessions and was impatient with the prejudices that so easily blinded his son.
     
    That evening, Gawayne drank freely. The wines were sweetened with honey and were liberally poured during the meal. Afterwards, he had little recollection of the stumbled journey to the top of the tower and even less of the intense sex that took place on a pile of furs in the very centre of that looming, circular space. As he grunted and moaned over Miryll’s sweet young flesh, he imagined he heard the sounds of chanting in a strange tongue, but his mind was muddled by the needs of his body and the heady perfume of the moist loins below him. Puzzlingly, he found his erection remained painfully and stubbornly unsatisfied, no matter how often he spent himself inside the woman beneath him.
    Eventually, he found himself being led from the tower on trembling legs and taken to the luxury of Miryll’s soft bed. When his body permitted him to sink into an exhausted sleep, he dreamed of women who wound white arms around him and drove him painfully with the whips of their desire.
    When he reluctantly left the embrace of sleep, he looked at Miryll lying beside him, tousled and still endearingly beautiful. He scowled at the awkwardness his lust had caused. The girl had been virginal! This much his sluggish brain remembered. Well, I can’t marry her! She knows I have a wife over the Wall, Gawayne thought gratefully. So there shouldn’t be any tears. But she’ll want something - women always do!
    To punctuate his thoughts with some form of action, Gawayne planted a perfunctory kiss on the dishevelled black hair that fanned out over the pillow.
    Miryll opened sleepy eyes and watched the naked Gawayne climb from her sleeping couch. She stared at the softened belly and the sagging neck of her ageing lover but, other than a small grimace of distaste, she said nothing. Her eyes were flat and enigmatic as she stretched like a sleek kitten.
    ‘I imagine you’ll be eager to depart for Cadbury, Prince Gawayne.’ She smiled perfunctorily up at her guest. ‘You must forgive me if I’m still abed when you’re ready to depart. I’ve asked Gronw to oversee your passage back to the river bank.’
    Then Miryll stretched once more, folded her long, narrow hands under her pillow and went back to sleep with the ease of a small child.
    Gawayne had expected tears, arguments and angry demands from a forsaken young lover. He had been braced to cajole and to flatter, so his abrupt dismissal was both surprising and deflating. The prince had little option but to tiptoe back to his room, leaving Miryll to her careless slumbers. Fortunately, Galahad was still asleep.
    Gawayne felt manipulated and used. Ignoring the obvious truth that he had left a hundred women over the years with as little affection as Miryll was now displaying towards him, Gawayne indulged in a middle-aged sulk that lasted through a cursory meal, a silent journey from the island and the recovery of their mounts and provisions.
    Galahad pursed his flawless, chiselled lips in annoyance when his father swore vilely after dropping a pannier on one foot.
    ‘I trust you slept well last night, Father?’
    Gawayne grunted in reply.
    ‘You didn’t take your rest in our quarters,’ Galahad continued. ‘I hope Lady Miryll was worth the effort.’
    ‘What would you know, boy? And I don’t wish to speak of Salinae Minor any further. I’d lief pretend the place doesn’t exist.’
    Galahad had the impudence to laugh at his father’s discomfort. ‘Was the lady unappreciative of your charms? Could the great Gawayne be growing old?’
    Gawayne clouted his son as if he was till a fractious boy. Twin spots of colour mounted on Galahad’s cheeks and his eyes took on a distinctly unchristian glint of anger.
    ‘Shut your mouth, laddie, and treat your father with some respect. How I spend my nights are