Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [157]
So she could and would feel the pain of jealousy, but it was a foolish, stupid woman who thought to take this from the heart of her man. As well to cut off what made him a man.
“I have seen no visions,” she said, patting the pallet, so that he finally sat beside her. “I cannot say for certain. But this is what I am sure of, based on what I know of Medraut and of my sister.” The memory of Medraut sitting beside her as she struggled with the haze of his potions made her feel like vomiting. “Medraut talked a great deal to me. Talked at me, that is—”
He interrupted her, cupping a hand to her cheek. “Don’t think about it,” he said urgently, and then kissed her. “As long as Arthur will be safe while we tarry a little—then tarry we will.” He kissed her again, this time, lingering, his hand straying from her cheek to her breast. “Now . . . let me drive his shadows from your heart.”
The fire rose between them again, and she lost herself in it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They lingered seven days. Seven days that would have been utterly blissful had they not been overshadowed by the knowledge that these days would come to an end, that they would have to return to Arthur and the Companions and pretend that nothing whatsoever had happened between them. If it were not for that, she would have been happier than she had ever been in her life.
Seven days, during which she was more completely herself than she had ever been since her childhood. Seven nights so full of love speech and lovemaking it seemed as if she were packing enough loving moments for a lifetime into those warm, honeyed nights. They confided secrets, revelations, history, and memories, and then between them, they made more.
She learned that he had been raised by one of the Ladies who said she was his guardian; he had no reason to doubt her, since there was not the slightest resemblance between her and him. She had him trained in all the arts of war, then sent him on his way with armor, sword, and horse, giving him directions to Celliwig, when he was twenty. There he became one of Arthur’s Companions; not the first, but soon the closest, for of all of the Companions, Lancelin’s education most closely matched Arthur’s, and they spoke the same language. He had remained the closest until the second Gwenhwyfar; then the estrangement began. And she could tell it hurt—hurt then, and still hurt. She did her best to soothe that hurt, but there was no denying that what she and he had was going to drive another wedge into the widening breech between him and the High King.
The most ordinary act took on weight and meaning when they shared it. She laughed more than she had in ten years. But at the end of the seventh day, he began packing up their things, and although her throat ached with sudden sorrow to see him do so, she did not protest. All things had to end; there was even a tiny leavening of relief that now the dread of ending was over. By now, Medraut knew he could not recapture her. By now, Gwenhwyfach must know she had escaped. Gwen and Lancelin needed to find out what both of them were doing and then put their own campaign into motion. If they were to have a life together, it would have to begin by giving each other up for a time. Even though she ached so much she felt as if she were bleeding from every pore.
So, at dawn on the eighth day, Lancelin saddled Idris and loaded him with their scant property. Wearing the looted shirt, breeches, and boots, Gwen helped him. And when everything was ready and they had led Idris out into the meadow, they turned back for a last look at the place that neither of them wanted to leave.
She felt a heavy weight of grief settle over her, and a lump formed in her throat. She fought back tears with every particle of will and determination that she had mastered over the years, but her heart felt as if it were going to burst with sorrow. The time ahead, when she must never look at him, never touch him, never give a sign of her love, stretched out like a road of ashes that she would never see the end