Free In Winter's Shadow by Gillian Bradshaw Page B

asked, staring at him. I could not imagine Bedwyr embroiled in a duel. Yet Medraut would not fabricate such a thing. He nodded now, still with that faint hint of a smile. Goronwy was one of his followers, his supposed friends; but he was pleased that there was bloodshed, if I judged him right, and did not mind whose the blood—though no doubt he would have preferred Bedwyr’s to Goronwy’s. “Where is Arthur?” I asked, suppressing my sudden loathing of him.
    “With Goronwy, at Gruffydd the surgeon’s house, noble queen. May I have the honor of attending you there?”
    “I thank you, no. Undoubtedly the lord Goronwy should not be disturbed by many visitors. Gwyn, leave that now. Lord Medraut, your pardon.” I gave him a slight curtsy, the politest way I knew of saying, “I want no more of your company,” and hurried from the room. Gwyn gave one frightened look at Medraut and ran after me.
    “You don’t have to come,” I told the boy as we hurried through the hot, sullen afternoon sun. “I won’t need you again this afternoon. You can go to weapons practice—or is it riding this afternoon?”
    “Riding, noble lady,” he said. He sounded utterly wretched.
    “Why, what’s the matter?” I asked him, registering his distress for the first time.
    He stopped, fixing me with his oddly dark eyes. I had grown very fond of him in the short time he had been at Camlann. He was a sweet-tempered boy, with a great deal of courage. He suffered the dislike or cruelty of the other boys at Camlann with patient persistence, and worked at his weapons with unflagging determination. I had once found him weeping in a corner of the stables, but he had at once dried his eyes and denied that he had cause to weep.
    “Noble lady…” he said, then, in a rush, “I know I am no one, no one at all, but you should not trust Lord Medraut. It is his fault that Bedwyr fought Goronwy.”
    I looked at him in surprise. “You seem very certain of that.”
    “Everyone knows it,” he replied. “Goronwy is the lord Medraut’s friend, and the lord Bedwyr is the lord Gwalchmai’s friend; why else would they fight?”
    I put my hand on his shoulder, feeling the bones through the plain tunic. He had learned very quickly. But he was an intelligent boy. “Why do you hate Medraut so?” I asked gently.
    “He…once he hit my mother.”
    “What? How could he? Was he on some expedition?”
    “It was at the convent, in Gwynedd. I had nightmares about it for years.”
    “But you said that your mother was at a convent in Elmet.”
    He blushed. “Oh.” He looked at his feet. “I didn’t want to say it was in Gwynedd because the monasteries there are so full of sedition. I was afraid you would not accept me here if I said I came from Gwynedd. Please, noble lady, don’t tell anyone that it is really Gwynedd. The others will say…you won’t tell them?”
    “Of course not. But what happened?”
    “He came to the convent, with some of his followers to…to take something which he had no right to. My mother tried to shame him out of it, but he hit her with the side of his sword and rode off without looking back. He hit her, and knocked her down, and she was bleeding. I saw that he had no honor and no shame, and I swore that one day I would become a warrior and challenge him. But when I came here, I found him, proud and powerful, and many of the warriors following after him like…like dogs looking for tidbits. And he does nothing but engender quarrels and slander his brother Gwalchmai. I have heard people talking…my lady, people talk in front of me because they think, ‘He is just a servant; he must be a fool.’ I know what Medraut says to his followers, and it is all lies. The lord Gwalchmai,” with a plain and desperate intensity, “the lord Gwalchmai is a great and good warrior. He is the best, the very greatest warrior in Camlann. If I could be like any of them I would like to be like him. You must not believe what the lord Medraut