And it would have been better, Merlin always said, had she been drowned at birth.
The royal party hunted deer next day. Guinevere’s hounds brought down a pricket, a young male without antlers, though to hear Arthur praise the dogs you would have thought they had chased down the Wild Stag of Dyfed itself.
The bards sing of love and men and women yearn for it, but none knows what love is until, like a spear thrown from the dark, it strikes. Arthur could not take his eyes from Guinevere, though the Gods know he tried. In the days after the betrothal feast, when we were back at Caer Sws, he walked and talked with Ceinwyn, but he could not wait to see Guinevere and she, knowing just what game she played, tantalized him. Her betrothed, Valerin, was at the court and she would walk with her arm in Valerin’s arm, laughing, then cast a sudden, modest sidelong glance at Arthur for whom the world would suddenly stop in its turning. He burned for Guinevere.
Would it have made a difference if Bedwin had been there? I think not. Not even Merlin could have stopped what happened. A man might as well call on the rain to go back to the clouds or command a river to curl back to its source.
On the second night after the feast Guinevere came to Arthur’s hall in the dark and I, who was standing guard, heard the ring of their laughter and the murmur of their talk. All night they talked and maybe they did more than talk, I wouldn’t know, but talk they did, and that I do know for I was posted outside the room and could hardly help but listen. Sometimes the talk was too low to hear, but at other times I heard Arthur explaining and cajoling, pleading and urging. They must have spoken of love, but that I did not hear, instead I heard Arthur talk of Britain and of the dream that had brought him over the sea from Armorica. He spoke of the Saxons and how they were a plague that must be cured if the land was ever to be happy. He spoke of war, and of the terrible joy it was to ride an armoured horse into battle. He spoke as he had spoken to me on the ice-cold ramparts of Caer Cadarn, describing a land at peace in which the common folk did not fear the coming of spearmen in the dawn. He talked passionately, urgently, and Guinevere listened so willingly and assured him his dream was inspired. Arthur spun a future from his dream and Guinevere was deep inside the thread. Poor Ceinwyn, she had only her beauty and her youth, while Guinevere saw the loneliness in Arthur’s soul and promised to heal it. She left before the dawn, a dark figure gliding across Caer Sws with a sickle moon trapped in her tangling hair.
Next day, full of remorse, Arthur walked with Ceinwyn and her brother. Guinevere wore a new torque of heavy gold that day and some of us felt a sorrow for Ceinwyn, but Ceinwyn was a child, Guinevere was a woman and Arthur was helpless.
It was a madness that love. Mad as Pellinore. Mad enough to doom Arthur to the Isle of the Dead. Everything vanished for Arthur: Britain; the Saxons; the new alliance; all the great, careful, balanced structure of peace for which he had worked ever since he had sailed from Armorica, was set whirling into destruction for the possession of that penniless, landless, red-haired Princess. He knew what he was doing, but he could no more stop himself than he could stop the sun from rising. He was possessed, he thought about her, talked about her, dreamed of her, could not live without her, yet somehow, agonizingly, he kept up the pretence of his betrothal to Ceinwyn. The marriage arrangements were being made. As a mark of Tewdric’s contribution to the peace treaty the marriage was to be at Glevum and Arthur would travel there first and make his preparations. The wedding could not take place until the moon was waxing. It was now on the wane and no marriage could be risked in a time of such ill-omen, but in two weeks the auguries would be right and Ceinwyn would come south with flowers in her hair.