Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [161]
“Wait—” Arthur stammered. “What—”
“Ask Abbot Gildas,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He managed to deduce the truth without even having a decent conversation with the bitch. Or ask Lancelin—ah, no, wait, you can’t, because you wanted to kill him, so to keep from harming so much as a hair on your head, he was forced to play the coward and flee. Because he knew you’d keep throwing yourself at him in a rage no matter what we said.”
Arthur was not a fool; she had taken him by surprise, but he recovered quickly. “What kind of idiot do you take me for with this farcical tale of a sister like enough to you to be your twin?” he began. “And married to Medraut? Lady, you strain the bounds of—”
There was a not-very-polite cough from behind her. “I presume that you will take my word as truth?” The Lady Aeronwen said, acerbically.
Arthur’s face took on a look of confusion again. Not because he was confused by what the Lady had said—no, it was surely because he was trying to find a diplomatic way to respond.
Aeronwen did not give him time. “I can bring a hundred direct witnesses from Pywll, nay, more,” she snapped. “Not to mention an equal number from Lothian. Gwenhwyfar of Pywll has always had a younger sister as like to her as a twin and separated from her by less than a year. So much like her that though the brat’s given name was Gwyneth, she got the name Gwenhwyfach, and her true name was almost forgotten.”
The number of dropping jaws around the tent far outnumbered those who could keep their countenance in the face of such information.
“Moreover,” Aeronwen continued, “The girl was fostered to Anna Morgause and schooled by her and by Morgana in magic. She grew to womanhood in Lot’s court and wedded Medraut.” She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Arthur. Your son by Anna Morgause wedded his foster sister, Gwenhwyfar’s near twin, who was schooled in the same kind of magic his mother wielded. The same kind of magic that drew you to Anna Morgause’s bed in the first place and brought about Medraut.” The Lady stepped up past Gwen and stood in nearly the same position. “As to whether she was the one in your bed the last several months, that I cannot say. But it seems logical.”
“And you might ask yourself—and your men—just where Medraut is now,” Gwen said angrily. “Where are his men? And you might ask yourself just what someone raised by Lot thought he was going to gain by putting his wife in your bed. And you might—”
But she got no chance to go further with that thought, for at that moment, there was a commotion outside the tent, and someone else shoved his way in through the tent flaps.
It was Gwalchmai, and beneath the beard and the dirt and blood, he was as white as snow. He clutched his shoulder, where red stained his armor and tunic. “The gods forgive me, Arthur—” he blurted, swaying where he stood. “Medraut—that misborn, misbegotten son of a witch and a demon—Medraut’s on the way at the head of a Saxon army.”
For one moment, there was no sound in that tent; it was as if the world had stopped dead in shock.
Except, perhaps, for Gwen. There was a part of her that had expected this moment, had known it was coming all along, and nodded in bitter recognition of that. That was why she recovered first and whirled, her gaze stabbing one of the two young warriors who had escorted her here. “You—” she snapped. “Get me armor to fit my frame. My armor, if someone brought it here. And a sword. And most importantly, a bow and a horse of my father’s breeding—my Rhys or Pryderi, if they are here.”
Her voice seemed to jar them all back to life. The young man gaped at her and looked at Arthur. She frowned back over her shoulder at him. “You are going to need every warrior you have, Arthur. I saw your camp; most of your warriors are not here,” she said, her tone clipped and precise. Maybe they were all doomed. Maybe they had been doomed from the beginning. But she would still fight right up to the moment that doom fell upon her. “Medraut must have been planning this for a long time. This is not