Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [63]
No, it was nothing more than the same sort of talk and laughter that she had heard all her life; in a way, it gave her both comfort and melancholy. Comfort because it was so familiar. Melancholy because . . . she felt guilty. It seemed wrong not to go on mourning all the time, somehow disloyal.
And then, as the summer turned heavy and the first of the harvests began . . . the messenger from the High King arrived.
He brought with him news that the queen who shared Gwen’s name had given the High King not one, but two sons. Fortunately for his own safety, he had heard on his journey of Queen Eleri’s death, so the first words from him were not of Arthur’s good fortune but of condolence. Only after he had delivered a long—and to Gwen’s mind, suspiciously fulsome—speech on Arthur’s sorrow at hearing of this, did he deliver himself of his real purpose.
The king merely shook his head after a long moment of silence. “I wish the High King and his new sons well,” he said at last, not troubling to hide his bitterness. “All health and long life to them. I do not have rejoicing in me—but I wish them all well.” Then he dismissed the messenger with a small gift.
Bronwyn came and took him away to the women to be fed, and it was from Bronwyn that Gwen heard the thing that was both shocking and scandalous and almost not to be believed.
Bronwyn had made a habit since Eleri’s death and the departure of Little Gwen of making sops-in-wine for Gynath and Gwen before they went to bed. This was especially welcome to both of them, because both of them were laboring far longer than they had used to. Gwen found herself pouring for her father and then being summoned to the men’s fire to pour for one or another of her father’s chiefs until the last of them went to their beds. And Gynath was taking on the task of being the chief of the women far earlier than anyone had reckoned she would need to. Of course, it was Bronwyn that actually made most of the decisions, but Bronwyn was very careful to make it seem as if Gynath were the one doing so. Under Bronwyn’s eye and unobtrusive coaching, Gynath was doing almost everything that Eleri had.
Which meant both Gwen and Gynath were up at dawn and working long, long past sundown. They needed those sops-in-wine.
They also needed to hear what Bronwyn gleaned over the course of the day, carefully winnowing news and important details from mere gossip and speculation. Gwen had had no idea that Bronwyn had performed this service for Eleri until Bronwyn herself told them, over that first bowl of toasted bread covered with sweetened, spiced wine.
And she looked grim this night as she handed them the thick pottery bowls. “This is for no ears but yours,” she said quietly, as they settled down on their bed—a bed luxurious to the point of decadence now that only two of them shared it. “I would not have the king your father hear of this, or his loyalty to the High King might well be tested to breaking. But you should know.”
The bite Gwen was swallowing all but lodged in her throat; she swallowed it down with difficulty. Her stomach knotted with anxiety.
“This messenger was sent to spy on us,” Bronwyn continued, her jaw tight. “He sidled about and put his questions mingled in with other things a-plenty but I could tell what was important to him, and it was about babies. Who’d given birth of late, who had sons, and when? Strange thing for a King’s Messenger to be asking, I thought. And I liked it not at all. So I made sure to keep his cup full, and nothing loath was he to drink it. And that was when I heard the tale—”
She shook her head. Gwen waited, spoon resting in the bowl, no longer with any appetite.
“I don’t have the gift the queen had, the knowing, that she could say when a man was telling true, telling false, or telling nothing