Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [107]
Gwen giggled a little. “I leave it in your hands, then,” she said and was about to go to the room she now shared with no one when Bronwyn tugged again on her arm. “My girl, that Companion—I would give you good, sound advice.”
She froze.
“There are men, a very few, who could look on a warrior, see the woman within, and remember the warrior. He is not one.” Bronwyn’s voice was steady. “He will see you as a warrior and a comrade or as a woman. Never both. It will be up to you to choose which he sees. And when you make that choice, remember, he will treat you as you have chosen.”
Gwen went cold inside for a moment. Bronwyn was right. She knew that Bronwyn was right. It made her angry—at herself and at him. It made her sad with disappointment. It made her embarrassed. But that did not make it any less true.
She could go to her chest and dig out one of her gowns, let her hair loose, and go and act as Gynath had, back when they were younger. Make big eyes at him, hang on his words—yes, she could do all of that. And, yes, he would see her as a woman, and he might even find her attractive. And so he would treat her as a woman.
Even in her armor with her hair clubbed up, he would treat her as a woman.
And so would the other war chiefs.
All that she had worked for, all that she had built, would be gone. Her father would lose the war chief that she was becoming. Her sister would lose the steady guard and guardian for her own children. Caradoc would lose the captain she would be for him. And for what? So that she could play the fool over a man.
Or she could keep things as they were, and she would have the friendship and high regard of a man whose company she enjoyed. They would speak and act as equals. He would listen to her ideas with respect, criticize them if it was needed, teach her more of the ways of war.
It was only years of schooling herself, training herself, controlling herself, that kept her from raging, weeping or both. She knew that outside the tiny group of her family and Bronwyn, she was thought to be cold, unfeeling, and in no small part that was because she meant them to think of her in that way. In that first year of her training, when some of the older boys had bullied or snubbed her, and even some of the younger had sometimes tried to sabotage her with dirty tricks and things meant to put blame on her, she had pretended that there was no hurt, no loneliness, that nothing would mar the armor of her control. Now that was habit.
“I see,” she was able to say, slowly. “Thank you for the warning, Bronwyn. You are . . . entirely right.”
“I have lived a very long time, my dear,” Bronwyn said, a little sadly. “I have seen many a girl throw over what she held dear for the sake of a trifle.”
She patted Bronwyn’s arm, glad that the old woman could not see the expression on her face. “This one will not,” she said.
Then she went to her bed. She lay, staring into the darkness, angry at fate for making her female, angry at herself for being so foolish, grateful to Bronwyn for seeing what she had been blind to, yet angry with her too. There were bitter tears in the back of her throat that she would not shed. Not now. Not ever. After all, what was she weeping for? Nothing more important than that poppet that Gwenhwyfach had torn to bits all those years ago.
Gwenhwyfach—and what would she have done?
Put on the gown of, course, and thrown herself at Lancelin—
But she was not Gwenhwyfach, nor did she ever want to be. She was herself. And even if that was a cold and lonely thing, it was what she had wanted to be. Not “someone’s wife.” Not “someone’s mother.” Herself, with her own honor, her own place, and