“But, sir!” I exclaimed in outrage. “You did not tell me!”
Artos looked at me with eyebrows raised. “I have made no secret of her plans,” he said. “Her children are always clamoring for news of her.” Then his face hardened, and he turned to Caius. “Though I did not expect her here. She tries my patience.” He beckoned to Ginevra, and Caius explained the matter to her in low tones.
“I will not have her here,” I hissed. “I will not live in fear of her.”
“It is Christmas!” Artos returned. “What would you have me do, send her back into this cold?”
“She chose to come!”
Ginevra said, “We cannot send her away. But we can guard her. Artos, let her stay only until the weather breaks; and treat her as a prisoner. Her servants can sleep in the Great Hall, and Aquila can search her belongings for any poisons. We will give her a single room to her own use, but she will be watched always, never left alone. Will that ease your mind, Medraut?”
“Guard her servants as well,” I said hoarsely.
Artos nodded. “See to it, Caius.”
“Shall I bring her in, then?” Caius asked, and Artos nodded again. Suddenly suffocating in the heat of the room and the fur and wool I wore, I said, “I’ll go with you, Caius.” For I knew I must face you, and any wrath you bore me from our last parting, and I did not want to wait.
The night was fearfully cold. Your party huddled shivering in the courtyard beneath two or three guttering torches. A servant girl held your gloved hands nestled between her own, and rubbed them fiercely and frantically; but you pushed her aside when you saw me, to clutch at my jacket and press yourself against my chest, silent and shaking. In apprehension I put up a hand to thrust you away, mistrusting you, but stopped in wonder as my fingers brushed the icy tears across your cheek.
“Godmother?”
Still you said nothing, so I let you cling to me and quench your silent tears against my shoulder. I had never known you to weep at anything, ever. I said softly, “Godmother, speak to me.”
You raised your head and gazed at me with frightened eyes of darkling blue, the tear tracks glittering in the torchlight. “I did not think we could get this far. It is a week’s journey from Ratae Coritanorum, but it was warm when we left—the weather turned around midweek. I would never have attempted to come if I had known it would turn so cold. Oh, Medraut, Artos will not turn me away, will he? He must give me shelter tonight—I never meant to put myself at his mercy like this! I am so afraid—”
“You are not afraid of anything,” I said with a laugh. Your gloved hands tightened into fists against my chest.
“No!” you whispered, and buried your face beneath my chin. I was so well wrapped against the chill that I could not even feel your breath; it was as though there were no warmth in you at all. You whispered into my scarf, “But I am afraid now. I—I am no longer young, and I have no authority to speak of, and I do not want to freeze to death tonight.”
Then I saw that you clung to me for support as well as for comfort. I murmured, “You may stay, but Artos will treat you as a prisoner. Your things are to be searched, and you are to be guarded at all times. Will you submit to that?”
Your bent shoulders heaved as you wept soundlessly. “Yes. Damnation take my brother and his kingdom! Only let me be warm tonight.”
I looked up at Caius, who watched you with eyes of contempt and of sympathy. “Take her in,” he said. “I’ll see to her servants.”
Camlan spent the following day preparing for a shamelessly pagan festival. The Christian celebration was to be kept, more solemnly, on Christmas day, but now we fastened holly at the windows to ward off evil. The hearth in the center of the Great Hall was piled with faggots of slender birch logs bound with red ribbon and gold thread, and the villa was sweet with garlands of forced apple blossom. The day passed quickly, the shortest in the year. Once it was dark the household waited ready in restless excitement; the rhymers’ pageant would begin the revelry, but first we must perform from cottage to cottage throughout Elder Field. I sat and read as I waited for Caius to summon me to the rhyming, while your children and the twins sprawled on the warm floor of the atrium in their finest clothes. My small lamp cast myriad minute reflections against the frost on the old, intricate glass windowpanes. I pretended to be undisturbed by the expectant air of the young people sitting on the floor, but the night was already alive with magic, and my attention kept being diverted by Lleu’s clear, authoritative voice.
“What is this mosaic supposed to be?” Gareth asked. “Pass that taper here, Gaheris, so we can see it.” They all knelt on the floor around the central picture, and Gaheris and Goewin held candles as close as they dared in order to see without dripping wax on the glimmering tesserae. The stone and glass tiles glittered beneath the unsteady light. “These are different gods,” Lleu said. “I’m not sure what they mean. The bull stands for Mithras, and the lion for Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the sun god. Or perhaps the eagle is for him. The man is for the Christ.”
Ai, such ignorance. I could not let it pass. “‘And before the throne there is as it were a sea of glass, like crystal,’” I quoted aloud, though softly. “‘And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures: the first like a lion, the second like an ox, the third with the face of a man, and the fourth like a flying eagle.’”
They all turned to look at me. “What is that from?” Lleu asked.
“Your mother claims to raise you as a Christian,” I said. “Have you never heard that, or read it? It’s in a book called Revelation.”