Free Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw Page B

Queen,” he muttered.
    â€œYou do not wish to know your Queen’s power?”
    He shook his head, shuddering.
    Morgawse stepped back, relaxed her hands. The darkness that had nestled there dissipated into the air. The coldness of the room suddenly vanished. I became aware that it was still July.
    â€œMention nothing of what I have said to anyone,” said Morgawse, “and you never will see that power. Leave here.”
    Connall fumbled, found the door-bolt, and fled. Just as he left the room, his eyes touched me and widened only a little.
    As the door closed and Morgawse sank once more on to the bed and began to laugh, I realized that I, too, was gaining a reputation for witchcraft.

Four
    The army came home, each king returning to his own island, and Lot and the warband returned to Dun Fionn.
    We rode down to the port when they arrived, and found them still at work beaching the war-curraghs, dragging the long round ships up on to the beach and securing them. We had brought horses and, when he had finished with the ships, Lot rode back with us and the warband to the fortress.
    He was very tired, that was plain. His bright energy was dimmed, and his hair had a few early strands of grey to dull its brightness. His eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles beneath them, and lines of bitterness curled about his mouth. He was very quiet.
    I was quiet too, riding behind and watching my father. It seemed incredible, unreal, that he had been defeated. It seemed wholly unbelievable that Agravain was a hostage. I wondered how it was for him, all alone in the court of Arthur. Hostages are never badly treated—my father had a hostage from each of his subject kings, and they all fought in the warband and had many of the rights of the other warriors—but the mere fact of being a hostage would be crushing to Agravain. I could see him, striking out at the foreigners who ringed him in and mocked him for his father and his defeat; see him struggling desperately to improve his poor British, miserable, alone in a strange land...
    I was no compensation for the loss of Agravain, that too was plain. Lot looked at me, at Morgawse, back to his own hands again and again, and always his mouth curled in pain. I wanted, for a while, to help: to try again as I had tried before to be what Lot wanted me to be. But I argued myself out of it, along with my pity for Agravain. I was my mother’s son. Though I had left the Boys’ House now, I had not taken up arms, to become a warrior and sleep in the Hall with the men. Instead, I stayed in one of the guest houses, or, if they were full, in the house of Orlamh, my father’s druid and chief bard. I had little in common with my own clan, a royal clan of warriors, and I was certainly no descendant of Light. And Lot and Agravain had wronged me.
    Morgawse, too, was silent, but her silence was that of scorn. She was furious with Lot for being defeated, and she showed him her contempt without words, showed him what she thought of his strength and valor and virility. I watched Lot’s hands tighten and loosen on his horse’s reins as he stared at her stiff back.
    The warband was in poor shape. There were not too many lost or maimed, for their fighting had been largely successful, until they met Arthur. But they had lost all their plunder and fine things to Arthur’s men, and returned to Gododdin by forced marches with inadequate supplies. It seemed that the new Pendragon was hungry for wealth and provisions. He would need them to support a large warband, and he would certainly need a large warband if he wished to protect Britain against the Saxons. But now we in the Orcades would pay for Arthur’s war, and rely on the next harvest alone for our lives.
    When we reached Dun Fionn, we stabled the horses in silence, and in silence the men went to rest. There was a gloomy feast that night, in which the warriors brooded over their mead and Lot sat grim as death at the high