I grow old. I grow dull. Perhaps this role of spy and traitor is all I am fit for anymore.
The forest thickened around him. The sound of his horse’s hooves became muffled by the unbroken carpet of leaves. The wind freshened and Harrik tried to catch a glimpse of sky between the leafy branches overhead. There might be rain before long, but without a clear view of sky there was no telling. The prospect of concluding his business in a downpour, further darkened his mood, but he rode on.
Up ahead, the road forked, one branch bearing west, the other continuing north. At their crux, a man tended a small fire. A great, pale horse was tethered nearby. Green trappings hung from its reins. A bay palfrey stood beside it, nuzzling a patch of fern. Its reins were also hung with green. The studded shield propped against a tree was covered in green as well.
The man himself was no longer a youth, but neither was he old. He was dark in hair and eye. His beard had been shaved clean off. His shoulders and arms were powerful. Here was a man who had not led an idle life. He could not be taken for anything but a Briton lord. He looked up at Harrik’s approach and raised a friendly hand.
‘God be with you this day, good sir.’
‘God be with you,’ Harrik answered. ‘I’d be glad of a rest. May I share your fire?’
‘You may,’ said the man. ‘If you can tell me my name.’
Harrik gave a show of consideration. ‘I think you are my Lord Gawain, captain of the Round Table and nephew to Arthur, the High King.’
Gawain smiled and got to his feet. ‘My Lord Harrik,’ he bowed deeply. ‘You are most welcome.’
‘And I am most honoured.’ Harrik dismounted and tethered his small hairy horse next to Gawain’s animals. ‘I was stunned to receive word Arthur would send his nephew to me.’
‘He means it as a token of his good will.’ Gawain opened one of his saddlebags which lay on the ground beside his shield. He pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. ‘As you will find written here.’ The document was sealed in red wax impressed with the dragon rampant that was Arthur’s sign.
‘You may assure His Majesty that I will read this with great attention.’ He tucked the document into his shirt.
‘But now you have other news for me?’ Gawain folded his legs and settled by the fire again.
‘I do.’ Harrik sat beside him. He watched the fire for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words he wanted would not come.
‘I have a son at Camelot,’ he said awkwardly. ‘My only boy. They have taken him well in hand there. I visited him not three months ago. He has been taught to read and write Latin. He can use a sword and ride better than I could at his age. He grows into a strong and reasoned man.’ He paused. A stick in the fire snapped in two. ‘Not a brute. Not a barbarian. Not like the men I knew when I was a boy, a world away from here.’
Gawain nodded. ‘I think you will find word of your boy in His Majesty’s letter. I believe my brother Geraint intends to take him as squire.’
Harrik touched his shirt. ‘I like this peace of Arthur’s. I like this land. I do not…’ He clenched his fist. ‘I will not see it die to feed Wolfget’s blood-lust.’
‘You too are a strong and reasoned man,’ said Gawain softly. ‘I ask you, of your courtesy, tell me what you have seen.’
Harrik spoke slowly, sketching the events of the council. Gawain listened attentively. When Harrik named each of the men he saw there, Gawain asked pointed questions about where their lands were, how many men they commanded, and who their allies were. Harrik could see the knight sketching a map of the treachery in his mind.
Then, Harrik told him of the woman and the raven.
Gawain’s eyebrows lifted. ‘That, friend, is an unwholesome thing.’
Harrik gave one short bark of a laugh. ‘Those are milder words than I would use, my lord.’
Gawain smiled. ‘You have not seen the inside of Merlin’s workroom. No,’ he held up his hand. ‘Pray do not ask me. I was a youth when I had my glimpse, and more of a fool than I knew.’
Harrik dismissed the suggestion with a wave. ‘I have no intention of questioning you. As it is, I know more of magic than I care to.’
‘That shows your wisdom as clearly as anything you have yet done,’ said Gawain soberly. ‘My Lord Harrik, it was my intention to linger in this land for a day or two to see what else I could learn, but what you have told me, both about Wulfweard and his nameless lady, shows me I must return to the High King without delay.’
Harrik stood. ‘Let me take my leave of you then.’
They clasped hands and each commended the other to God. Harrik rode away feeling moderately better. The High King’s letter crackled in his bosom. His old loyalties sold for new safety and peace, and his son’s life.
All at once, his horse stumbled. A curse slipped out of Harrik’s mouth. The animal recovered its gait, but not completely. It limped now, favouring its left foreleg.
‘God’s legs,’ muttered Harrik, as he halted the beast and climbed to the ground. He bent down and with a practised hand, coaxed the horse to lift its hoof and show him the bottom.
There, a round stone shoved deep into the soft frog of the hoof. Harrik retrieved the hoof pick from his pack and swearing in each of the three languages he knew, finally managed to pry it loose. There was no question of being able to ride any further, though. The animal was lamed. He would have to walk the rest of the way.
He let the horse drop its hoof and looked at the stone. It was a round-bottomed, sharp-edged chunk of flint that had done the damage.
How does such a thing come to be in a forest? This belongs on some low riverbank.
He drew his arm back to hurl the thing into the bushes.
But as he looked where he aimed, he saw a huge black raven sitting on the branch of a maple tree. The bird gave a rough, mocking croak and flew into the air.
Harrik’s fist closed around the stone. His heart grew chill and inside him a small quiet voice told him the horse’s lameness did not matter now. Harrik, Hullward’s son, would not reach home after all.
The evening meal was a mostly silent affair. Rhian, still disturbed by the events of the day, had no appetite. She could only force down a piece of bread sopped in gravy from the mutton, and for once her mother did not chide her for it. Father attended to his drinking and little else. At last, Rhian excused herself and fled the hall. Aeldra rose primly to follow her, but Rhian waved her maid back to her seat. She did not want that nosing, talkative presence now. She wanted to return to her chamber, to sit alone and try to regain some composure. But as she mounted the narrow, spiralling stairs she paused, one hand resting on the cool stone of the wall, and she remembered what her mother had told her.
She did not want to spy on her parents to find out what it should have been her right to know. But mother had spoken truthfully. If, after turning down five separate suitors, father had not told her what his reasoning was, he had left her with no choice but to gain that understanding by artifice.
At the top of the stairs, Rhian turned right instead of left and entered her mother’s sitting room.
The room was empty. All were still at board. The great embroidery frame with its partly completed scene of a lion and a unicorn kneeling before the Virgin waited for its mistress’s touch. Other tapestries, some completed by her mother’s hand, some by ladies gone before, hung about the room. Scenes of hunts, pastoral weddings and orchards blocked out the worst of the draughts and dressed the bare stone with