Two

My father sent out the call to the kings of the Orcades, telling them to gather their warbands, the rest of their men and their ships and supplies and come to Dun Fionn. Slowly they began arriving, tall men in brightly colored cloaks, warriors glittering with jewelry, their sharp long-bladed thrusting spears glinting, short throwing spears in quivers and swords on baldrics flashing by their sides. Their whitewashed shields were flung over their shoulders, and often painted or enamelled with bright colors. The kings and finest warriors wore chain mail, imported from northern Britain or from Gaul, shining like fish scales. Lesser men had leather jerkins sewn with metal. The warriors brought their war-hounds, great grey beasts whose collars shone with silver, and hawks sat on the shoulders of the kings, ruffling sharp-edged feathers and glaring with brilliant eyes. They came and encamped about Dun Fionn, a camp from each island that was subject to my father, and more from the Picts and Dalriada to the south as well as the men from our own tribe. All told, there were more than a thousand professional warriors, and some three thousand other men. Going southeast of Dun Fionn one could see their ships, row upon row of great twenty-oared curraghs, sails furled against their masts. There was a constant coming and going of these ships: going to fetch more supplies or to send messages from Dun Fionn to our allies in Gododdin; coming in with the supplies and messages and more men. About and within Dun Fionn itself was a great hustle and bustle as my father organized and planned and prepared, my mother always beside him. Not only did he have to feed his great host, but to mediate the quarrels between his various under-kings, prevent blood feuds between rival clans, and arrange details of the alliance with Gwlgawd king of Goddodin. I saw little of either him or Morgawse.

I hung about the fringe of things, staring and wondering. It was the first time I saw my father marshal his power, and I was astounded at the strength displayed before me. I understood, even then, that it could not be supported long in one place without a war. The cost was tremendous. But the bright colors, the splendor, the glitter of arms, the loud, laughing confidence of the warriors and their ready fellowship—these all impressed me immensely and filled me with vague yearnings I did my best to smother. I was no warrior whom any great lord would wish to have in his warband. And yet, and yet, and yet…

It was glorious. I sometimes wished fiercely, like any other boy on the island, that I was going too, to win honor and fame for myself, my clan and my lord.

Agravain had no doubts that he would do well in the war. He received his weapons with the other fourteen—and fifteen-year-olds, and strutted and boasted more and louder than any of them. He picked fights with me even more frequently than usual, being so stiff with tension and eagerness that his temper snapped, as they say, at a footfall.

In mid-March the army sailed for Gododdin. They would make their way about the coast of southern Pictland by sail or oar, as the wind held, then follow the estuary which halves Manau Gododdin, and beach their ships near Gododdin’s royal fortress, Din Eidyn, and fortify a camp there. My father had been sending letters to various of the kings, including those in alliance with Docmail of Gwynedd, the rival of our ally Gwlgawd in the contest for the High Kingship. As a result, one member of that alliance, Vortipor of Dyfed, was now wavering in his allegiance and likely to desert Docmail at any moment. But it was uncertain whether Vortipor would join my father or claim the Pendragonship for himself. Vortipor was more crafty than a fox, and could not be trusted any more than a viper. He was almost more trouble as an ally than as an enemy. Almost: Dyfed is a strong, rich land, and the men there learned their way of fighting from the Romans. Vortipor himself kept the title of “Protector,” to remind Britain of the days when his province had sheltered the whole island from Irish raiders. Vortipor was himself of Irish descent, but his ways were as Roman as his fighting, and he had support, too much to be ignored. My father and mother had debated for hours over what course he would take and what to do when he took it. From the Boys’ House I could see the light in my father’s room late at night. It was strange to see it dark when the army sailed and Dun Fionn was left with only a token guard. All the lights seemed to have gone with the army, leaving only some torn and yellow patches in the grass, and the black spots where the camp fires had burned.

Still, from my point of view, the time became a pleasant one. Without Agravain or my father about, I had more freedom than at any time in my life. In the Boys’ House, the training and competition became less rigorous and intense. There were no older boys to bully us, and no more late feasts for the men who trained us to ache from or quarrel about the next day. Most of the boys used the free time to play hurley. I occasionally joined them, but as I am a bad player, spent more of my time at Llyn Gwalch, or in riding about the island.

The Orcades are very beautiful islands, and gentle ones, despite their British name of Ynysoedd Erch, “Frightful Islands.” The climate is mild, varying only a little throughout the year: in winter it is warmer at Dun Fionn than at Camlann far to the south. The land rolls in low, stony hills covered with short grass and heather which provide pasture for sheep and cattle and a good living for farmers. The wide grey sea, full of fish, pounds eternally at the shore, which is rocky and steep, especially at the west coast of my home island, and sea-birds of all kinds nest in the cliffs. The sound of the sea is always present at Dun Fionn, so much so that it becomes a sound like the beating of one’s heart, too continual to notice. The puffins clamor on the cliff sides, and the gulls wail over the grey-green of the waves, calling to each other across their flashing white wings. The sound of their voices seems almost as beautiful, sometimes, as the voices of the skylarks inland, who on sunny days seem to drip music from the sky like honey from a comb. They say that the land one lives in when young becomes a part of one. I believe this, for even today, the sea and the mourning of the seagulls bring back to me Llyn Gwalch in the mist, with the mist wetness dripping from the heather.

That spring the islands were particularly beautiful.

I sometimes rode out with my younger brother Medraut beside me, sharing with him all my thoughts and telling him stories. He thought me a better story-teller than my father’s bard Orlamh and, though this was only because he was unused to the bardic style, it delighted me.

Medraut was seven at the time, a beautiful child. Whoever his father was, I was sure he must be noble. Medraut had fair hair of a paler shade than Lot’s, and wide grey eyes. His complexion was our mother’s, his features his unknown father’s. But his spirit was closer to Lot’s. He wanted to be a warrior, and had no doubts that he would be. His favorite tales were those of CuChulainn, the hero of Ulster. He was very brave, being altogether unafraid of tall horses and weapons and bulls and other such things most children fear. Once, when we were climbing down the cliff to look for gulls’ eggs, he slipped and hung by his hands from a narrow ledge until I could come and help him. When I asked him if he had not been afraid (and I was shaking with fear) he stared at me in surprise and answered no, why should he have been? He had known, he said, that I would save him. Not only was he brave (and generous as a High King and fierce as a wildcat: qualities of a great warrior) but he also loved and admired me. I could not understand both of these existing together, but I accepted them joyfully and gave to him all I had, save what would bewilder him. Though precocious, he was only seven, and that is too young to care for dreams properly.

At times, though, instead of playing at Llyn Gwalch or with Medraut or riding about the island, I practiced with my weapons on my own. Until that time I had been the despair of my teachers, who were all aging members of the royal clan, men who had fought for my father and for his father before him, and who could not understand why, when they had finished giving their set lessons to me and the other noble boys, I should spend my time playing the harp or disappearing into unknown parts of the island. I needed more practice, they told me; I ought to spend my time with spears, not harps and horses. And in the past I had always said nothing, and vanished as soon as their backs were turned. But now the sight of the great host had moved something in me, and I strove to improve myself in the arts of war. To my surprise, I discovered that I was doing better, and not only because I was practicing more. Without Agravain at my elbow with every spear I threw, without his friends and our cousins taunting me when I practiced with spear or sword, I could throw or thrust straighter and more strongly.

But the most important thing that happened to me after the army left was unconnected with any of these. Morgawse taught me to read.

She came up one afternoon as I was throwing spears at a straw target, in the yard behind the Boys’ House. One moment I was staring at the target, spear in hand, and the next I felt her eyes on my back and turned.

She stood by the corner of the House, dark and pale in the gold of the afternoon sun. She wore a dress of dark red wool, caught tightly with a golden belt at the waist, low cut to reveal the line of her white neck. She wore a brooch of gold set with garnets, golden arm rings, and gold in the black hair that seemed to drink the light. I dropped the spear and stared at her. In that instant she did not seem like a mortal woman, but like one of the Sidhe, the people from the hollow hills.

Then she was crossing the yard, smiling, and the spell was broken.

“Gwalchmai!” she said. “I have seen little of you, my hawk, these past few months, so busy have I been with this planning for your father’s war.”

I started when she called me “hawk,” although my name, in her native tongue of British, means “Hawk of May.” The name is such a warrior-like one—“hawk” being a common poetic name for a warrior—that I always tried to forget its meaning. But when my mother used the name for me, I loved it and her.

“M-mother,” I stammered. “I…”

“You are sorry for the loss?” she asked. “So am I, my hawk.”

This could not be true, I knew. My mother had given me to a nursemaid immediately after giving birth to me, and had shown no great interest in me since. But I believed her, because she said it and I wanted to believe her.

“Yes, I am sorry,” I told her.

She smiled again, her deep, secret smile. “Well, we shall have to talk a bit, shall we not? I see that you are doing as your father wished and practicing with your weapons.” She eyed the pile of throwing spears beside me—had just withdrawn them from the target, or the ground about the target, and there was nothing to show the quality of my aim. “Will you show me how well you throw them?”

I picked up the spear I had dropped, looking at her, then turned to the target, determined to hit it. Perhaps because of this determination, the spear went in well, slightly to the left of the center, plowing completely through the straw. Morgawse raised her eyebrows in surprised pleasure. I picked up another spear and sent it through the target, this time a little raggedly, then threw the other five in succession. Only one missed the target, and one hit the center. I turned back to my mother, beaming.

She smiled at me again. “So, it seems that you are not so poor a warrior as Lot thinks, if not so fine a one as Agra vain. Well done, my falcon.”

I wanted to sing. I glanced down and murmured, “You bring me luck. I have to do everything well when you are here, Mother.”

She laughed. “My! So you have a way with words too, then? I think we should spend more time together, Gwalchmai.”

I swallowed and nodded. My mother was the wisest and most beautiful woman in all the islands of Britain and Erin. To be allowed to spend time near her was a gift from the gods.

“Listen, then,” she said. “I have been talking to Orlamh. He says that you are a fine harper, as good as many bardic students, but more interested in the stories and sweet tunes than in the knowledge involved. It seems to me that it would be a fine thing if you could learn the histories and genealogies without having to know the chants by heart. Would you like to learn to read?”

My jaw dropped. Reading was the rarest of all skills in the Orcades. The druids had their ogham script, but they taught it to no one but their initiates, and forbade its use for any purpose but memorial inscriptions, saying that what a man memorizes he has for ever, but what he writes down he may easily lose. To learn to read meant to learn Latin, which was spoken in parts of southern Britain, but used as a written language from Erin to Constantinople. In all the Orcades, I believe only my mother could read. The skill is common enough in Britain and, now, in Erin in the monasteries there, but in the Orcades it was regarded as a kind of magic. And now my mother was offering to share her power with me!

“Well?” asked Morgawse.

“I…Yes, yes, very much!” I choked out.

Morgawse gave a smile of satisfaction, almost, I thought for a moment, of triumph, and nodded. “When you are finished with weapons practice, then, I will give you your first lesson. Come to my room.”

“I’ll come right n…”

She shook her head. “Come after you have finished with these. Hit the target fifty times for me. The Latin will wait.”

I hurried with the spears until I realized that hasty throwing would not help me hit the target, and finally got my fifty hits. I raced to the Boys’ House, dropped the spears in their corner—I would have been whipped for leaving them in the yard where they could rust—and ran to my mother’s room.

The first lesson was a simple one, though it seemed hard to me. First my mother drew out the letters of the alphabet on a wax tablet with the sharp end of a stylus, explaining to me meanwhile what an alphabet was. Then she gave me the tablet and told me to copy the letters. I did this, several times, and she told me which sounds they made. Then she took back the tablet, criticized the way I had drawn the letters, and smoothed over the wax with the blunt end of the stylus, afterwards drawing the letters again. She smiled, then, and handed me the tablet and the stylus, telling me to memorize the letters and come back after weapons practice the next day.

I ran to Medraut and told him about it, showed him the letter forms, told him what Morgawse had said about my skill with weapons, and jumped for joy all over the stables.

The rest of the summer was wonderful. I continued my lessons in Latin, rising from the alphabet to groups of syllables to the words they composed, and finally to writing out sentences which my mother set for me. I improved with my weapons to a point where I could hold my own with the other boys and was no longer the butt of every joke. My twelfth birthday came in late May, and I began to dream of when I would be fourteen and able to take up arms, a dream which now I hoped to fulfill. I could become a warrior in my father’s warband, and he would be pleased. The war, though, seemed incredibly remote from the slowly passing summer days, with their long green twilights and the short nights when the stars were like silver shield rivets in the soft sky. But my mother listened tensely to the reports from Britain, and sent messages to Lot, advising him.

It was not as easy as my father had planned. At the very beginning, my father and our ally were surprised by a sudden attack from Urien, king of Rheged. Lot had counted on the marriage-tie holding Urien back for another month or so, and, even though the British king was defeated and forced to withdraw, my father and Gwlgawd were forced to cancel their plans for raiding Gwynedd immediately. Urien’s defeat confused the situation in other ways as well, for Vortipor of Dyfed was sufficiently impressed by it to declare himself the ally of Gododdin and the Orcadles, and commence raiding Powys, his neighbor, while March ap Meirchiawn of Strathclyde managed to win Urien’s support for his own claims to the High Kingship. Vortipor then changed his mind, wanted the High Kingship for himself, found allies and attacked Gwynedd. He was defeated; my father and his allies took advantage of the situation to attack Gwynedd themselves, and won a victory and a great deal of plunder, but, returning from this expedition, encountered Urien and March and their allies. There was a great battle.

It was nearly two weeks later before we heard, even with good winds and fast ships. Gwlgawd our ally was dead, though his son Mynyddog had succeeded him and renewed the alliance. But our enemies had prevailed, and the army had fled across Britain to Din Eidyn, leaving its supplies and the plunder from Gwynedd. My father was sending back as many ships as he could find men to man, and he asked for supplies. My mother found them ruthlessly and hurriedly, and sent them south with some advice. I thought at the time that she was troubled for Lot and Agravain and the rest; but I believe she was angry, angry with Lot for losing the battle, and angry even more at the delay in her plans.

But the rest of the summer was passed in fruitless quarrelling and recrimination among the kings of Britain. March of Strathclyde and Urien of Rheged, recently allied, returned to their more usual dislike for one another, and Urien claimed the High Kingship for himself, which led to still more quarrels and scheming. Then it was harvest time, and the large armies which the kings had raised dissolved as the men went home to their farms, leaving only the kings and the royal warbands; and still nothing happened, while every king was afraid to raid, not knowing who his enemies were. In the south and east the Saxons were becoming very restless and beginning to raid their neighbors. Only the old royal warband, still led by my mother’s half-brother Arthur, prevented a large-scale invasion.

Towards the end of October Lot finally despaired of the war beginning again in earnest, and the army came home for the winter.

Every king took his own warband home to his own island. They settled like tired hawks in their hilltop fortresses and sighed with relief that it was over for the year and they had time to recover their strength and heal their wounds.

When Lot returned with his warband it was not a shining, stirring sight as before. It had been a bad war, an uncertain, nerve-straining war, and they were tired. Their shields were hacked, the bright colors chipped, their spears notched and dull, colorful cloaks tattered. Many bore wounds. Come spring, though, and they’d be thrusting up those hacked shields as proof of how bravely they had fought, flaunting their scars in each other’s faces, polishing their spears and eager to go again. But as they came into Dun Fionn, tramping stolidly through the pouring rain, it did not seem possible that they would ever boast.

Morgawse, Medraut and I stood at the gate, watching the warband come up. Morgawse wore a dark, striped dress, a silver brooch on her dark cloak. She wore the rain in her hair like jewels. Lot, riding at the head of the warband, straightened to see her, and urged his horse to a canter. He dismounted before her in a rush and swept her into his arms, burying his face in her neck, saying her name in a hoarse whisper. I saw her face over his shoulder, the still, cold disgust in her eyes mixed with a strange pride in her power.

“Welcome home, my lord,” she murmured, disengaging herself. “We are glad to see you home unharmed.”

Lot nodded, muttered, and looked towards the Hall and his chambers there.

“And where is Agravain, my son?” she asked, softly.

Lot recollected himself, took one arm from about her and turned to the warband, which was now pouring through the gate, talking and laughing with the gladness of coming home. “Agravain!” he shouted.

A blond head jerked up, and Agravain rode across to Lot. He was a little older, a little taller, much dirtier, and looked more like Lot, but I recognized at once that he was not much changed. He slid off his horse, smiling widely, delighted to be back.

“Greetings, Mother,” he said.

“A thousand welcomes,” said Morgawse. “There is a feast tonight for the both of you…but you will want to rest now.To sleep, my lord.” She smiled at Lot.

My father grinned, took her arm and hurried off.

Agravain watched them go, then turned to Medraut and me. “Well,” he said, then grinned hugely. “By the sun and the wind, it’s good to see you again!” and he hugged both of us hard. “What a summer!”

“I can get you some ale if you want to come into the Hall and talk,” I suggested, glad—in spite of everything, very glad—to have him home.

“A marvellous idea!” said Agravain. “Especially the ale.” He looked at Medraut, rumpled his hair. “Gwalchmai, I swear our brother’s grown inches since last I saw him. Even you’ve grown.”

“You too.”

“Have I?” he asked delightedly. “That’s wonderful! When I’m tall enough Father will give me a mail-coat. He promised.”

We walked over to the feast Hall, where I got him some ale and asked him about the war. He was near to bursting from eagerness to tell someone and told us for an hour and a half.

He had not, it seemed, actually fought as a warrior, but he had ridden in the middle of the warband, and in the great battle had thrown spears at the enemy.

“I think one of them may have hit someone,” he said hopefully. “But, of course, we couldn’t go back to see whether it had. We barely escaped alive at all!”

His manner was a little different from what it had been when he left. His energy, always overflowing, had found a channel. He enjoyed being a warrior. He had copied the speech and mannerisms of the older warriors so as to fit into their society. But underneath it I could tell he was exactly the same.

He was overjoyed to be back. The last months of the war had been especially unpleasant. A major blood feud had almost begun between two of Lot’s under-kings, and at one point there had been a threat of war with Gododdin as the warbands tried to ease their tension by sneering at foreigners. The peace and familiarity of home seemed, after this, marvelously attractive.

After talking himself out, Agravain yawned and decided to go to sleep. He stayed in the Hall to rest since he was officially a warrior, and I didn’t see him till late the next day.

Lot, after settling himself and the warband back into Dun Fionn, began to work towards the next season’s war. It would plainly be a war lasting several years, and such enterprises are costly. The plunder taken that summer would not pay for even the fighting that had acquired it, let alone buy new weapons, and the harvest had been a bad one. My father increased the amount of tribute he demanded from his subject kings by as much as he dared; the subject kings raised the taxes on their people; and the people grumbled. There had not been a war on this scale for nineteen years, and no one was used to it.

For a little while Agravain tried to help our father at the business of governing. He stayed, listening, while Lot flattered the embassies and cajoled the messengers of dissatisfied kings, and took one party to a blood feud off drinking or hunting while Lot persuaded the other, by threats and promises, to compromise and make peace. He attended while old men made endless complaints to Lot about the increased tribute and proclaimed their masters’ nobility and long support as reasons for not paying it, and he tried not to fall asleep while Lot issued warnings and blandishments in return. But presently Agravain found statecraft boring, and complaining that our father paid no attention to any of his ideas, turned once more to his weapons and his own friends. Lot was annoyed at first—Agravain had understood very little of what he had heard, and on the occasions he did suggest some course of action, it was invariably the wrong one—but Agravain was still the chosen heir to the kingship, and Lot was determined that he should know the chief men and clans of the kingdom, and how to deal with them. However, our father concluded that Agravain was still the chosen heir to the kingship, and Lot was determined that he should know the chief men and clans of the kingdom, and how to deal with them. However, our father concluded that Agravain was young, that the hunting was good that year, and it was excusable for a young man in such circumstances to tire of the talk of his elders. So he allowed Agravain to do as he pleased, knowing there would be many more chances for him to learn the art of government. For my part, I was not surprised that Agravain preferred his hunting trips. He needed action, quick and preferably violent, simply to keep himself occupied. Statecraft offers exercise for cunning, organization, eloquence and subtlety, rarely for direct action. My father was more cunning than a fox, and enjoyed the complicated processes by which he kept his subject kings obedient, kept them paying the tribute, prevented their wars and blood feuds while at the same time holding their favor and thus his own position. Agravain did not understand the delicate nature of Lot’s “game,” tired quickly, and ran off to seek entertainment. He went a-hunting, but he did not forget me.

A few weeks after the warband returned, towards the end of November, he came to the yard of the Boys’ House while I was at weapons practice. I was working with the throwing spears again. It is harder to throw a spear straight while running than it is to master a thrusting spear or a sword, but important to be able to do so. Thus, I spent most of my practice time hurling spears at a straw target, sometimes running towards it, sometimes standing still. I was standing this time.

Agravain walked up behind me and stood watching as I made three casts at the target. All of them hit, one in the center. Agravain frowned. “You’ve been working at these, this summer, haven’t you?”

I turned to him, flushing a little with pride. I had not yet shown off my new skill before my father and brother, and I was eager to. I nodded. “Yes, an hour a day with the throwing spears, and an hour with the thrusting spear or sword and shield, beyond the training time. I’m better than I used to be.”

He nodded, then scowled. “You’re better, and that’s good. But if you try to throw like that in a battle you’ll be run through…”

“Durrough says there’s no harm in standing like this, and he’s the trainer…”

“He doesn’t expect much from you. Put your left foot further back and your left arm closer to your body. You have to hold a shield, you know!”

“But…”

“Oh, by the sun, why are you arguing? I’m trying to help you.” He grinned.

Was he? The grin faded as I continued to stare at him, and he scowled again, fists clenching and unclenching restlessly. I took the stance he suggested and hurled the spear, nervously. I missed.

He shook his head. “By the sun and the wind, not like that! Hold the spear straight, may the Morrigan take you—not that a war-goddess would want someone who throws like that!”

I cringed, threw another spear. It, too, missed.

Agravain snorted. “You can’t see what I mean. Here, let me show you.” He stooped over, picked up my other spears and hurled them. All three hit the target squarely and cleanly. “That’s the way. Now you try.”

We went and fetched the spears. I stood, and Agravain corrected my stance. “Try again now,” he told me.

I looked at the spear in my hand, heavy, shafted with wood from the dark hills of Pictland, headed with dull iron. The weight of it in my hand was suddenly very great.

“Go on, Gwalchmai,” Agravain said impatiently. “You said that you were better. Show me! Or are you afraid of your own spear again? Not much of a hawk if you are.” Morgawse still called me “her falcon.” Hawk of May. It was such a fine, warrior-like name. It was what I wanted for myself.

I threw the spear, and it flew crooked. Agravain snorted and slapped his thigh. “You may have learned to throw better when you stand like a farmer plowing, but you had better learn to throw standing like a warrior if you want to be one. Or do you want to be a bard? A druid? A horse tamer?”

“No,” I whispered. “Agravain...”

“I’d wager you still spend most of your day on horseback,” he continued, oblivious. “But that’s no use. Horses are a luxury, and no more than that: the real fighting is always done on foot. Horses are like gold brooches and fine clothes, excellent for a warrior to own to show others that he is rich and important, but dispensable to the real business. For that you have to throw spears properly. Try again.”

“Agravain…” I repeated, gathering my courage.

“What’s the matter now? Are you afraid to throw? Stop being foolish.”

I felt foolish. I clutched the spear desperately. I would throw it standing my way. It was not the usual stance, but it did not leave me vulnerable, either. I put my left leg forward, dropped my left arm. I really am good, I told myself. I can hit the target this way. I have to now. I must.

I threw and missed.

Agravain nodded reasonably. “Now will you do it my way? If you want to be a man and a warrior you must listen to…”

“Stop it!” I shouted, furious.

Agravain stopped, astounded.

“You are not helping me. You aren’t trying to help, though you may think you are…”

“I am trying to help you. Are you calling me a liar?”

“No! But I don’t want your help. If I’m no warrior, let me fail in my own way, and don’t bother me with right ways and wrong ways. If I’m not a warrior, perhaps I will be a bard or a druid. Mother is teaching me to read so…”

“She is doing what?” demanded Agravain, aghast.

“Teaching me to read. She’s been doing it all summer, while you were gone…”

“Do you want to be a sorcerer?” Agravain’s eyes blazed and his bright hair glittered like the sun.

“No…I just want to read…” I was confused.

He slapped me across the face, so hard that I fell backwards. His face had gone red with anger. “You want to be better than us! Morgawse is a witch, everyone knows that, and you want to learn from her because you’re such a poor warrior. A word in the dark instead of a sword in the sunlight, that’s what you want. Power, the sort of power fit only for cowards, for traitors and kin-wrecked men and women and clan-murderers…”

“Agravain! I don’t! I only…”

“Stop lying to me!”

I scrambled to my feet, facing my brother. I felt a blind fury descend on me, cold as ice, cold as Morgawse’s eyes. “I am not a liar,” I said, hearing my voice cold and quiet, like someone else’s, “I do not dishonor my clan.”

He laughed at me. “You are always dishonoring our clan. Do you call it no dishonor that the king’s own son can’t throw a spear straight? That he can’t kill as much as a sparrow when hunting? That all he can do is ride horses and play the harp—play the harp! That you want to learn sorcery and the casting of curses so that you won’t have to fight…”

“It’s not true!” I screamed.

“Now you want to make me a liar!” yelled Agravain, and struck out at me.

It is good that I was not right by the spears: if I had been, I believe I would have used one. I jumped on my brother with a fury which surprised him, and struck as hard as I could. I felt cold, deathly cold, filled with a black sea. My fist hit Agravain’s face, contacted again. He grunted with pain, and I felt a thrill of exultation. I wanted to hurt him, to hurt everyone who hurt me, who hurt Morgawse, who hurt Medraut, who belonged to a world I could not enter, and hurt, and hurt, and kept on hurting.

Agravain flung me off and fought back, coolly, calmly, not even very excited any more. I realized that he had not really believed his own accusations, had only been angry at my doing something he could not…I tripped and sprawled on the grass. Agravain kicked me, jumped on top of me, and told me to yield.

I thought of Morgawse’s eyes; of Medraut’s, admiring. I thought of my father smiling and imagined praise, of warriors, bright weapons, and swift war-hounds. I tried to fight some more. Agravain became angry and hit harder. I scratched him. He cursed.

“Call you a hawk, but you fight like a woman! Like a witch! Yield, you little bastard—you’re no true brother of mine…”

I tried still, to fight, and was hurt worse. The black wave ebbed a little, taking with it the insane strength it had lent me. I was no warrior, I knew. Not really. I couldn’t fight Agravain. I was no true brother of his anyway, and had no real claim to the honor of our clan, so he and Lot, at least, must believe…I went limp.

“Yield?” asked Agravain. He was panting.

I felt sick. I had no choice. If I didn’t yield, he would only hit me some more, and call me names, and laugh at me.

“I yield.”

Agravain rose, dusted himself off. Two bruises were beginning to blotch his face, but he was otherwise unmarked. I rolled over, got on my hands and knees, stared at the packed earth under the grass of the practice yard, damp from winter rains. I was smeared with it and with blood.

“Remember this, little brother,” said Agravain “and forget about reading. Try to learn how to throw a spear straight, the right way, and maybe you’ll someday make a warrior. I’m willing to forget about this and come and help you some more tomorrow.”

I heard his footsteps going, striding, confident. A warrior, my brother, a sun-bright prince, first-born of a golden warrior king. But I remembered Morgawse, dark and more beautiful than anything on earth, who held Lot’s fate in her slim white hands. Morgawse, who hated. Hate. I realized that the black tide had not left me, but was coiled down within my being, waiting. It was hate, strong hate. I was my mother’s son.

Morgawse knew when she saw me. I had washed myself somewhat before coming to her, but I had clearly been in a fight and it needed no guessing with whom. She saw when I came into her room that I was ready, and she smiled, a slow, triumphant smile.

She said nothing of it at first. She poured me some of the imported wine from a private store, told me to sit on the bed, and spoke to me gently, compassionately, asking what had happened, and I told her of the quarrel with Agravain.

“He said that you were a witch,” I told her. “He accused me of wanting to fight my enemies with curses and magic in the dark of the moon, rather than with honest steel.”

“And you wanted no such thing,” she said.

“That is so. I wanted only…to be a warrior. To bring honor to our clan, to please Father…and even Agravain. Diuran, the warband, everyone. I wanted them not to think that I was worthless. I wanted…” I found my throat constricted, and it hurt with a sudden intensity that all my wants were vain. I sipped the wine, rolled it about my mouth, swallowed. The taste was dry and rich. It was red wine. In the shadows of Morgawse’s room it was dark as blood, not the ruby fire it had been that day with Lot when I heard that the Pendragon was dead.

“I don’t want those things any more,” I said. “I’m not a warrior.”

“Not of their sort,” said Morgawse. She sat beside me, close. She and the room both smelled of musk, of deep secrets. The pupils of her eyes had expanded, drinking all the light of the room into her sweet darkness.

I sipped the wine again. It was stronger than the ale I was used to. It was good.

“But I want to fight them,” I said. “With knowledge. With things they don’t understand because they are afraid to look at them. I want to show them who I am and make them know I am real.”

“Ah?”

“Is it true that you are a witch?”

“And if it were?” Her voice was soft, softer than an owl’s feathers in the darkness.

“If it were, I’d ask you to teach me…things.”

She smiled again, a secret smile just between the two of us. “There are many sorts of power in the world, Gwalchmai,” she said. “Many powers. They can be used by those who know how to use them, but each sort has its own dangers. Yes, the dangers of some are so great, my hawk, that you could not understand them. Yet the rewards also are great; the greater the power, the greater the reward.” She clutched my hand suddenly. Her grip was cold as winter, strong as hard steel. “Great rewards, my spring-tide falcon. I have paid certain prices…” she laughed. “There will be more to come. But mine is the greatest sort of power. I will gain…immortality. There are none living who can match me in magic now. I have power, my son! I have very great power. I have spoken to the leaders of the wild hunt, to the lord of Yffern, to the kelpies of the deep sea and the demons who dwell in the far keeps of the underworld. I am greater than they. I am a Queen, Gwalchmai, a Queen of a realm which Lot only suspects and is afraid of.

“And I have watched you, my hawk. There is power in you, and strength. Now, at last you have come and asked for teaching. You will receive it.”

I felt fear, but remembered Agravain’s contempt and ignored it. Morgawse spoke of serving Darkness, but what of that? She also spoke of ruling it.

“Then show me,” I said, my voice as low as hers.

“Not so quickly! You forget, I also spoke of dangers. I will teach you, Gwalchmai, but it will be long before you can control the power you seek. But you will learn to. Oh, learn it you will, my hawk, my son…”

Taking a knife from a hidden sheath she made a cut at her wrist, then held her arm so that the blood flowed into the cup of wine. She handed the knife to me and, without being told to, I did the same.

Morgawse took the cup and drank from it, lowered it, the red wine and red blood dark about her mouth. She handed it to me.

It was heavy in my hands, fine copper overlaid with gold, rich, cold, fine and beautiful. I thought of the winter sunlight outside, of Agravain, of the scorn of warriors. For a second the thought returned to me of Llyn Gwalch and the wide purity of the grey sea. No, I thought. That is a lie. I raised the cup slowly and drained it. It was thick, sweet and dark—darker than the deep heart of midnight.