Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [82]
“I won’t say I’m all right, but I’m not ill, and I’m not injured,” she assured them. “This is just—it’s part of Epona’s touch on me, I think. I See things. Not often, this is the first time in—in years. It’s harmless enough—” She let Peder chaff her hands in his, because she was cold from lying in the snow. And she considered what she might say. “It was something Prince Medraut said to me, the bloody news he brings to the High King. His mother’s been kin-slain by his brothers. Anna Morgause is dead. I Saw it happen; I suppose Epona wished me to act as a sort of witness to such a terrible deed, in case a witness was needed.”
That was enough to shock them all into silence and take their minds off her for long enough for her to get to her feet. “Let me get some drink and food into me, since I’ve managed to drop what I had.”
Peder came out of his shock first. “Aye, lady, and I’ll have someone put a hot stone in your bedroll, and when you’ve done with the food, you’ll be going there. I know a little about these matters; when your sister does a Seeing, she needs rest after. You’re no different, and you should do the same. Your father would have all our heads if summat was to happen to you. Do I need to find a Lady?” He looked so worried over her, she wanted to pat his head and tell him kindly not to be such an old hen. But she didn’t. For one thing, she knew that, like her sisters, like Queen Eleri, she looked absurdly young, a fact that caused her much irritation when those who did not know her treated her as if she was merely Medraut’s age and barely more than a squire. For another, her head really was still swimming, and for once, it was nice to be cosseted.
She shook her head. “This will be something they already know, I think,” she said truthfully. The Ladies had ways of seeing these things that were more reliable than her own unpredictable visions. “And I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep.”
“Sleep you’ll have. I’ll make it right with our commander,” Peder promised. And then, when she had eaten what she could, he escorted her to her little tent himself and saw to it she was rolled up in the now-warmed furs and blankets. As she settled in, another unpleasant thought occurred to her. Those infants that Arthur—or the Merlin, through Arthur—had ordered murdered. What if the reason he had done such a terrible thing was that he had been trying to be rid of Medraut?
She could almost . . . almost . . . forgive him, if that was the case. Medraut as a child made her want to shove him down a well. Medraut as a boy-man made her want to run to some land where he could never, ever go. Or . . . shove him down a well and fill the well in after him. What would he be like as a man grown?
As the High King’s son?
Well, it wouldn’t matter. He was married to Little Gwen. He wouldn’t bother her any more.
She honestly could not remember what she had felt like the first two times this had happened to her, but she had a killing headache now. It made it hard to think. She reached for the skin of mead that Gynath had insisted she take, not to drink for pleasure, but as medicine at need; it was her mother’s special recipe, and Gwen reckoned that if it calmed anger, it might just calm a headache too.
She gulped down a good tankard full, and after a while the headache did ease, and she felt muzzy-headed and sleepy, and then, she slept, dreamlessly.
Chapter Thirteen
The scouts‚ Gwen’s troop among them, had been ghosting about the Saxon army camp for a week. “Ghosting” was the right word, too, because it had soon become clear that Gwen’s trick with the Saxon they’d let go was bearing fruit past all expectations. No one ventured outside the bounds of the camp at night. Even by day, no one went alone. Three spies had been sent in under the guise of selling the Saxons grain; they came back out again with a cart full of loot that had been traded for the food and a much richer store of camp rumors.
As a consequence, all the scouts had taken to doing what they could to