Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [106]
I should talk to Bronwyn. Maybe Cataruna, too. Don’t the Ladies need servants, helpers? It couldn’t be impossible. Bah. If I have to, I’ll make them my own retainers. And if they’re the sort that are hot as cats in heat, I’ll get them money enough to go to a town and set themselves up as courtesans.
It would also enrage the Christ priests, she suspected, if they found out about it. Well, that was not her problem, and she would not make it the problem of the women. If she dealt with this properly, no one would ever know who her spies were. But she really liked the idea of the women as spies; women had the potential to go anywhere and listen to anything in the camp. She was probably not the first person to think of doing this, but it was a new idea to her, which meant it was likely to be a new idea to their enemies as well.
As for sabotage . . . well, she would think on that, as well.
Meanwhile, as the other war chiefs continued to talk, she was making mental notes. Nothing was decided tonight, of course. They would have to discover what March was doing. The High King would have to decide what he was going to do. Then he would have to ask for levies through Lancelin.
Would he ask Lot? Probably. And Lot would say “yes” and actually do nothing. But now all four of Lot’s sons were with the High King; whatever Medraut had told Arthur about how Anna Morgause had been murdered, all of it had been smoothed over somehow, for Lancelin had several times said that Gwalchmai, Agrwn, and Gwynfor were still Arthur’s Companions, and Gwalchafed was absent only because he had wedded recently and taken up life in his lady’s lands.
And Medraut is still at court as well. Gwen pondered that, as she pondered how the firelight made shadows on Lancelin’s face. From all that Lancelin had said, Medraut had made himself welcome there—although, like Lancelin himself, Medraut was no favorite of Arthur’s queen. Hardly surprising. She would be no favorite of Medraut’s either. Lancelin had said nothing about Medraut being Arthur’s son . . . perhaps Medraut himself had not made that openly known. But Arthur had made him one of the Companions, and from the little Lancelin said, he was giving a good account of himself among them.
Was it possible he could have . . . reformed, somehow?
A nice dream. A viper does not cease to be a viper because it smiles.
In the absence of concrete information, the talk had devolved to mere man-gossip. The mead had made them mellow and sleepy; even Lancelin, who had drunk but sparingly of it, looked heavy lidded. She slipped away.
Only to have her arm seized once she was away from the benches.
It was Bronwyn.
“You are not thinking of using the Folk of Annwn—” she whispered urgently, drawing Gwen into the shadows. Gwen was startled.
“No!” She shook her head. “No, I had rather stay well clear of them. They are unchancy. And unreliable as well, if you listen to the tales that Ifan sings. Too often those in stories call upon them only to be unanswered or not answered in time. Too often they flit off elsewhere or turn on you because you gave them some unintended slight. No. Let them dwell in the new marsh and leave us be, and I will be content.”
Bronwyn let out a deep sigh of relief. “I saw that you had that thinking look and—what were you thinking, then, that you did not tell the other chiefs?”
She was glad that the shadows hid her blushes, for she did not want to say that at least half the time she had been thinking about Lancelin. Instead, she explained her idea of using the camp followers among the Saxons and March’s army as spies. Bronwyn heard her out.
“It could work,” she said at last, “But better that we find some women among our people willing to go.”
Gwen blinked. That had not occurred to her. “But—would—I thought—”
“Leave that to me,” the old woman told her. “There are those we took from the Saxons who would dearly love a taste of revenge. There are those of the western lands who