Free Clash of Kings by M. K. Hume

to bed, where she found Branwyn already asleep, her hair tousled and a little colour returned to her cheeks.
    On a pallet stuffed with lambs’ wool, under rugs of fine homespun and with a floor heated by a functioning hypocaust, Olwyn lay and listened to the sounds of the villa as it ground to a halt. Night had barely fallen, but the villa kept farm hours and the oil lamps were soon extinguished. Outside, a faint wind blew up the river valley so that a sound, almost like the sigh of a woman, tried to wind its way into the warm room. A night owl called and Olwyn’s blood cooled with superstition. A thousand creatures were waking to hunt in the darkness and Olwyn responded with overt sensitivity to the small scuffling of fear that seemed so close to the secure walls of the villa.
    One thing was certain in this mad world of change and peril. No demon would disturb her daughter’s sleep tonight, nor would any intruder threaten the peace that enveloped the child like one of Fillagh’s woven blankets. Olwyn had found sanctuary for them both; the goddess had finally decided to smile upon two of her suffering daughters.

CHAPTER IV
    AN INAUSPICIOUS BIRTH
    In far-away Tintagel, Lady Ygerne stared out at the many shades of grey that defined sea, sky and land as, in the grim room behind her, men decided her fate. Her father had ridden the weary miles from Lindinis to attend this meeting, but his grey eyes were now stark with concern for his only daughter. Her unnatural pallor and her long, poignant silences overrode his pride that his child was poised to become the queen of the Dumnonii tribe, and unconsciously he flexed the muscle that ran along the line of his jaw as he stared down at the documents of betrothal. Ygerne couldn’t see his distress from her position near the slit window, but she could feel the radiating waves of his concern.
    Beside Pridenow of Lindinis, Gorlois and his young nephew, Bors Major, looked down at a crude map and a messy sprawl of documents that lay on a bench, lit by a vile-smelling fish-oil lamp. The final agreement between the great tribes was coming to fruition and, in a dim corner, Gorlois’s scribe turned plain men’s speech into the eloquent, complex sentences of the betrothal agreement. Offers of land, gold, slaves and livestock were promised and formally accepted. Just beyond the light, a five-year-old boy, Bors Minor, watched the official rituals of betrothal with a child’s wide-eyed wonder. Meanwhile, the young Ygerne comforted herself with the knowledge that she was learning her true worth in the world’s wealth. Gorlois had made huge concessions in order to cement the marriage agreement, which was unusual in that, as the bridegroom, the king of the Dumnonii could ask for a fortune in gold from any prospective father-in-law.
    Ygerne had dwelt at Tintagel for two strange and confusing years. Ordinarily, the betrothal documents would have been signed before she left her father’s house, but Pridenow was a fond parent and Ygerne was a beauty although she was only ten years of age. Accompanied by a chaperon and servants, she had been delivered to Gorlois so that Pridenow could satisfy himself that his darling would be happy with the Boar of Cornwall.
    From their first meeting, Gorlois had been entranced and had re-discovered his boyhood in her presence. He had forgiven her strange fits of fancy as being part of her charm, and had proved to be a patient and an assiduous lover. Even Ygerne, frightened as she was by a life that was stern and hard, had found security in Gorlois’s strong arms and velvet brown eyes. While he remained more father than lover, she found that the secret parts of her heart were opening to the gentle person who dwelt within his hulking, muscular frame. And Gorlois had demanded nothing sexual of the child-woman, recognising that she was frightened of physical contact. A considerate man, Gorlois understood that patience would succeed where the assertion of his rights