Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [71]
Ah, but horsemen could go anywhere, regardless of the weather, so long as food for the horses could be found. And all villages within her father’s lands were required to put in hay and keep it for the use of the cavalry in winter. That had been another of Gwen’s suggestions, and she was unreasonably proud of it. It meant that the cavalry could get anywhere quickly, even in winter, unburdened by the need to bring fodder with them.
The villages were not doing badly by the policy. King Lleudd permitted the unused hay to be fed to local animals as soon as the snows melted, and until this year, that was what had generally happened. Gwen wondered, as she crouched on her tree branch, if the pressure that High King Arthur was putting on the Saxons in the east was making them concentrate on him, and they were not even taking her father’s reputation into consideration. Perhaps in concentrating on Arthur, they underestimated a “lesser” king, one who was old enough to be a grandfather to boot.
The tree Gwen was in, though leafless, hid her perfectly. Not that they ever looked up. But she, in her white furs and gray clothing, merely blended into the snow-covered branches and the haze of leafless twigs. She had mastered the art of holding absolutely still for as long as she needed to. And there was, of course, that subtle magic that was all her own, the ability to will herself unseen.
The ironic thing was that Arthur, by all accounts, would have been perfectly ready to accept the Saxon surrender and alliance, would honor their rulers and their customs as he honored those of his other allies, like Gwen’s father, and Lot of Orkney and Lothian, and the King of Gwynnedd. But they would have none of this. And so they fought him, lost, slunk back behind their shrinking borders, recovered, and fought him again. In more than fifteen years since her father had sent out his levies, they still had not learned that lesson.
This tree was not in the familiar hills that she had trained in and run over in her first years as a warrior. Over the last several years, Pengwen, Calchfynelld, and Caer Celemion had come into her father’s hands, and all peacefully.
First had been Pengwen; when those levies of so long ago had come home amid mingled rejoicing and grief, the young—very young—ruler of Pengwen had come with them, had seen Gynath, and within a day even a fool would have known that the lad had lost his heart. From that moment, the conclusion had been forgone. And because he was so young, his father fallen in that last battle, with the agreement of his own chiefs, he had given over governorship of his land to King Lleudd.
He could have taken his throne by now, but he was not the least interested in having it back. Quarrels among the chiefs bewildered and upset him as a youngling, and as an adult, they bewildered and exasperated him. He hated fighting, he hated having to judge men, and above all, he hated being looked to for answers. He was happier by far doing the work of a steward; he deeply understood the land and the farmers and herdsmen. He had an instinct for what would be a good year, and what would be a poor one; those who followed his advice prospered. And so, instead of ruling, he served as steward and seneschal for what had once been four kingdoms, adored his wife and his children, and was a blessing on King Lleudd’s house.
As for Calchfynelld, and Caer Celemion, the entire ruling household of the former had been taken by a rheumy plague one winter, and the latter’s king died within an hour of his son on yet another battlefield against the Saxons. Seeing how well and justly her father had dealt with Pengwen, the assembled chiefs of both lands had come to him and begged him to accept their fealty. From the time of Gwen’s second year in warrior training to now, the little Kingdom of Pywll had quadrupled in size.
Which was why Gwen was perched in a tree in the winter, just inside the border of what had been Caer Celemion, looking down on the evening camp