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Once Arthur had informed her of their cousin's recovery, Gwenhwyfar had done two things: plastered the most joyous smile on her face that she could muster, and, after their conversation ended, immediately sought out Owain to ascertain whether her husband was truthful. Of course, she could've sent her ladies to do so, for they were most adept at querying almost all of the knights, but this, she knew, would require a Queen's touch.
And, perhaps, her wrath.
“Owain!” She hailed him from across the field where he and Gwalchmai stood chatting companionably after their morning bout. “Is it true?”
“Is what true, your majesty?” he asked, his brow wrinkling. The wells of his eyes, dark as Annwfn, studied her intently, and Gwenhwyfar's resolve crumbled a little, the knife edge of it blunting.
Eyes swinging between the two men, she babbled, “Is it true Ge - that our cousin means to leave us? That he's recovered?”
His mouth hanging open like a panting hound's, Owain blinked at her owlishly. Words sputtered from the spigot of his lips, half-mumbled droplets of sound belying his astonishment, and she quickly turned to Gwalchmai instead. “Well?” she snapped.
A grimace twisted the Hawk of May's normally handsome visage, and he ran a gauntleted hand through his tawny curls, the autumnal sun flaming them to rust. “Ay,” he said wearily. “He means to leave in a few days, once winter is upon us. Morgan Tud decreed that he was well enough.”
‘Morgan Tud, of course, it would be his doing,’ she bitterly reflected, her hands curling into fists by her sides.
The urge to storm to the medical tent and screech at him until her throat grew raw stifled her, its inferno all-consuming. How dare he simply acquiesce to his wishes without a thought for what it might mean for Enid. For the despair and abuse, she would once again be forced to endure at his hands.
And how could he even countenance tearing Enid away from her queen’s embrace after all she'd suffered?
It felt akin to a sick joke. A taunt. Her cousin's flesh was made whole again, yes, only for him to immediately fracture the scant happiness his wife had found for herself hither.
God, she could've clawed his eyes out for that.
Once again, he would tear her away.
Once again, he would drag her over mountain and hill and mud, all to satisfy the suppurating wounds his teulu had inflicted all those moons ago.
But had Morgan not been made privy to the exploits of husband and wife the second he had laid eyes upon his battered body within the cloistered walls of the medical tent? Furthermore, how had he not been brought low by seething rage from all that had been recounted about their journey like the rest of the court?
Why, only a few nights ago Gwenhwyfar had watched as Peredur - normally the gentlest of knights - spat his name into the hissing flames of a brazier as mouth curved into a sneer. “May he rot,” he had said. “I thought he was an angel when I first saw him, a knight like all the others, but he's nothing more than a devil, black-hearted and cruel.”
His words rang true. That thin veneer of easy camaraderie which had come so naturally to her and G - and him had long since fallen away, replaced with horror.
‘He's not fit to be a knight anymore than he is her lord husband.' She gritted through her teeth, anger and despair warring within her at what she had put her dearest Enid through. ‘And I consented to their match.’
“G -” Owain caught her dagger-sharp glare just before he uttered his name. Clearing his throat, he rubbed the back of his rapidly reddening neck. “He seeks to ride again, though I know not where.”
Gwenhwyfar hummed. Blood roared in her ears.
Throughout the jumbled thoughts assaulting her came the urge to avenge herself upon him. It burned hotter, brighter, taunting her like the dawn star that hung in the sky just out of reach.
A tantalising vision, yes, but one she could not bring to boil.
Instead, her heart lurched violently within the confines of her chest. A lump rose in her throat and she could barely force herself to speak. “If that is what he has wished for, then we cannot deny him.”
Gwalchmai and Owain nodded in agreement. Both, however, appeared fairly disgusted, but she did not know whether it was because of her reaction or because of… his looming departure.
“You know as well as I,” Gwalchmai said at last, his green gaze meeting her grey one. “That Lady Enid-”
“Will accompany him. Yes. I am all too aware of that, cousin,” Gwenhwyfar choked out. Tears stung her eyes, but Owain's recriminating expression stung her more.
“He’ll drag her behind him,” he spat, his voice a venomous hiss. His eyes hardened to jet, and his chest heaved with such passion that Gwenhwyfar would’ve thought him in love with Enid if she did not know where his proclivities lay.
“I know,” she seethed, her body shuddering. Her fists tightened, whitened, and her nails bit into the meat of her palms until they stung. “I know.”
Those words hurt to say. Bile scorched her throat. Taking a shaky step forward, almost swooning, she pressed her lips together in an effort to keep the rapidly unravelling thread of her composure together.
Owain sighed lowly. The lingering tenseness in his shoulders softened a little in the face of her unspoken despondency. “I bore him love once, but I know his rage, Gwen. It’ll eat him alive.”
“Can you not beg him to cease? Or to soften his treatment of her, for the love of you still lingering within his heart-”
Owain's throat worked. His dark eyes caught the sun, sucking her down into their fathomless depths. “There is naught I can do,” said the erstwhile Lion Knight, his lips crumpling into a thin, apologetic line. “He has not listened to me since he squired. Doubtless, he will not bring himself to do so now.”
With a hollow laugh, she turned to Gwalchmai. Content to remain silent throughout her and Owain's exchange, he'd merely listened and divested himself of his gauntlets. Now, in the face of her questioning glance, he stiffened, straightening to his full, rather imposing height, and awaited her piece.
“Can you not implore him to stay longer?” she asked, slowly uncurling her fists and stretching her fingers. A prickle of pain followed, clearing her head. An odd numbness settled over her as she awaited his deliberation, although her heart still clamoured in her ears. Its frantic, uneasy thump matched the ‘thok-thok-thok!’ of Cai and Bedwyr's training swords echoing throughout the wood.
For a moment Gwalchmai ignored her, opting instead to regard the two men, her husband's most staunch companions. They were a little further down the wood, bare-chested and perspiring, within a makeshift ring of cutdown tree trunks, darting towards each other. Ginger and black blurs they were, while their gait carried nothing but light-footed ebullience.
Her mouth dried. The lump in her throat hardened. Tears blurred her vision, casting the world into a wash of colour.
‘Can't any of you do something? Won't you? You are his kin, his allies, his brothers-in-arms! You should be doing something!’
Their laughter rang out. It was a flicker of warmth amongst the otherwise steadily cooling breeze, and Arthur's booming chuckle soon joined them.
She watched as her husband, clad only in a dirtied crimson tunic and checkered trews, embraced them. His dark head bent towards Cai's ginger one and Bedwyr's mousy one while his lips moved rapidly. Then, they laughed again.
For a brief moment, Gwenhwyfar imagined that that was her and Enid, unbothered by all that had come and all that would soon be upon them.
But slowly, sorrowfully, she came back to herself. Mournfully, she remembered how she had left Enid slumbering in the warm womb of their tent that morn, with a quick kiss pressed to the tip of her nose, the way they'd done back when Gwenhwyfar was merely Queen of Rhos, and Enid her lady-in-waiting.
And now, they were to be rented asunder once more.
Her guts twisted, her stomach lurching. All she could do was stare, unseeing.
Once their chuckles ceased, Arthur threw his arms around his foster brothers and the three moved further off into the treeline. Gwenhwyfar had to squint to see them through the murk.
Soon, they were consumed by the forest's dark maw.
The rushing of a river scythed through the chilly air. Autumn's amber-tepidity would soon turn to winter's bitterness.
And, slinking with it, like a serpent amongst the grass, was Enid's departure.
Gwalchmai’s voice shattered her out of her reverie, “Gwen…”
Gwenhwyfar's eyes slid off the oak trees. Although she feared she knew his answer, she blinked away the burning salt of her tears and nodded hastily. “Ay?”
He did not speak. The pallid cast of his face was enough indication.
She swallowed down her remaining protestations. Squaring her shoulders, she nodded once and said, “I should go to her. She deserves to hear it from me.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched across the muddied field to her tent.
The tent was warm when Gwenhwyfar entered. Her ladies milled about, jokes and laughter on their lips as they sat around the smouldering brazier in the centre of the tent, although every so often their eyes would flick to the bed where Enid lay, still dozing, cocooned by a mountain of furs. Contentment emanated from her being. The darkness of her unbound hair spilled across the pillows and she huffed softly.
A fond smile settled on the queen's face. Turning to her ladies, she espied Luned’s brown head by the card table, half-clad by darkness. “How has she been?”
“She’s been asleep ever since this morning, Your Majesty,” came Luned's reply, her ice blue gaze affixed on her slumbering sister-in-law. Her heart-shaped face and plump build mirrored of her brother's and such a resemblance to him in that moment would've unnerved Gwenhwyfar - if she did not already know that their demeanours were as different as fire and sea.
“Good. That's good.” Once she'd unclasped her cloak, she collapsed into one of the seats clustered around the brazier and ran a hand through her windswept hair, detangling some of the knotted strands to distract herself. “Has she - Has she suffered any night terrors?”
Luned's eyes briefly flicked to Enid before she shook her head. “When it looked like she would, we calmed her. Angharad gave her Milk of the Poppy to make sure.”
Satisfied, Gwenhwyfar smiled before standing and making her way over to the bed. Sitting down on the edge of it gingerly, so as not to wake her beloved, she placed her hand atop the bedcovers, above Enid's heart.
Her lover's cheeks flushed a beguiling pink. Huffing again, a little discontented sound which made Gwenhwyfar and her ladies giggle quietly, her hand creeped across the covers, blindly searching for her lady's, while a furrow marred her brow.
Gwenhwyfar chuckled as Enid’s fingers finally brushed against her hand.
A delighted moan came from the sleeping woman’s lips. A dopey smile settled on her face. “Gwen…”
“Fy enaid, wake up,” she murmured against the shell of her ear once she'd leaned down, the curtain of her hair shielding them from the curious eyes of her ladies. “You can’t laze about all day. Whatever will the court think?”
Pouting, Enid cracked one bleary eye open and cupped Gwenhwyfar’s cheek. “You’d snarl at them until they stopped.”
Gwenhwyfar made a show of tutting. “Would I now?” Lowering her face so that their noses touched, she tried to banish the brass-bright amusement shooting through her words. “You seem rather certain of that, cariad. Shall I inform them of the Queen of Cornwall's tardiness and be privy to the gossip that wags their tongues?”
Enid held her gaze. There was a look of such fierce indignation on her rosy face that Gwenhwyfar had the sudden urge to laugh.
Oh, she hadn't seen that for quite a while. Not since…
The night before she'd left for Cornwall.
“Maybe,” her lover coyly replied. Her dark eyes smouldered like coals in the sun’s faint glaze Before Gwenhwyfar had even registered what was happening, Enid caught her hand and tugged her down the rest of the way, her lilting laughter pouring into Gwenhwyfar's ears. “But I'd much rather have my lady in my bed rather than with that prattling lot.”
Gwenhwyfar laughed despite the ache that embedded itself within her. Enid's scent - lush meadowsweet and castille soap - cloyed the air. The arrowhead of her gaze sharpened, narrowed to her lover, while the flint that had encased her heart was banished by the kindled fire of adoration, and grew more and more aflame when Enid kissed her, slow and sweet.
Gwenhwyfar responded, her kisses harsh and unyielding, while her hands reverently mapped Enid's curves. She had filled out these last few months to Gwenhwyfar and Morgan Tud's relief. No longer was she skin and bone, stick-thin and gaunt from the torturous months spent on the road. No longer did bruises darken the skin of her wrists and arms. Her eyes, too, were bright, as captivating as the dusk.
Gwenhwyfar sighed forlornly against her lover's lips. Drawing away, she swallowed down a scream.
Enid sat up, alarmed. “Gwen? What's wrong?”
Unable to bear the look of despair which would surely follow her words, she turned away, opting to stare at the glowing coals of the brazier. Her ladies glanced up at her with widened eyes, waiting.
“I received some… news,” she choked out, “this morning.”
Enid laughed. The furs and bedcovers rustled and the bed frame creaked. “And?”
The late afternoon light crept across the tent walls. A second later Gwenhwyfar jolted as a hand touched her shoulder.
She did not turn around. She could not acknowledge her. Not now. She must do her duty.
She must…
“And… Oh Enid, you mustn't think terribly of me! I couldn't bear -” her breath hitched. “I couldn't bear that!”
“I don't understand,” Enid quavered. “Why would I even think that of you? Gwen, fy annwyl, what's brought this on?”
Gwenhwyfar sighed. It trembled upon the too-silent air. Outside, the men were laughing gaily. Slowly, she turned back to face Enid. “The news I received has to do with your… with your husband.”
Her face crumpled. “God forgive me!” she sobbed, her head in her hands. “God forgive me, I didn't mean to wish for his death! I - I never thought-”
Gwenhwyfar burst out, "He isn't! He isn't dead, although I wish he were for all that he heaped upon you alone! No-” She took another deep, raspy breath, gritting her teeth so as to alleviate the fierce heat settling within her. “No. He lives.”
Enid sniffled, wiping her nose on the furs. She rubbed at her blotchy cheek and croaked, “Oh.”
Gwenhwyfar hummed as she sat on the bed again and drew Enid to her, nestling her in the crook of her shoulder. Her skin was soft, warm from weeping, and she pressed a kiss to her cheek, a dainty butterfly of a thing. “Ay." Shutting her eyes, she sent a prayer up to Heaven. “He is well enough to travel, or so the King informed me this morning. He wishes to depart in a few days.”
Enid sniffled. Her breaths grew shallow as she waited. Her mouth downturned.
“You are to go with him,” Gwenhwyfar whispered grimly, her entire being recoiling at the very idea. “Travel with him once more. He insisted.”
A wavering keen left Enid's lips. Throwing her arms about Gwenhwyfar's neck, she drew closer in an effort to muffle her screams, the line of her body crumbling into Gwenhwyfar’s.
“I know, I know, fy enaid,” Gwenhwyfar cradled her for a few moments while her ladies clustered about them, whispering soothing words and stroking Enid’s dark hair, sorrow stark on their faces. “If I had my way, then I would send him on alone and tuck you away in my breast so yyo'd be safe.”
“Can't you?” she wept into the curve of Gwenhwyfar's neck. “Won't you? I don't want to go!”
Gwenhwyfar swallowed, clutching her to her chest as if she were a precious trinket. Tears were falling down her face now, and the last levee of her regal composure threatened to shatter. “You know as well as I that my hands are tied, genethod melys. I cannot go against Arthur.”
“But he'll listen to you!”
“Not in this, I fear. He is eager to depart. We've tarried here too long, you see, and he pines for an end to the Cylch. He did not wish to move while you and Geraint -” she growled, aggrieved at her slip up - “your husband rested.”
A sharp whimper tore from Enid's lips. Her tear-filled eyes met Gwenhwyfar's and stared at her until she lowered her head demurely and eased herself from Gwenhwyfar's grip.
Gwenhwyfar let her go, watching as she sat back against the pillows and placed her hands in her lap, “I see," Enid said at last, wiping her red eyes.” Her chest heaved as she fought against her tears and Gwenhwyfar's heart twinged so viciously at the sight that she thought it would cleave in two.
“Enid-”
“Don't!”
She sighed, gingerly reaching to cup her lover's cheek, and smiled when she did not flinch. “Fy enaid, listen to me: I love you. I do. I know you must go-”
“You're making me!”
“I know." She pressed a kiss to Enid’s nose and smiled broadly at her lover’s answering giggle, despite the fierce look hardening her expression. “I know, and you are right to feel aggrieved. You should be. God knows, if it were me in your position then I would be so wrathful I would cleave his head from his shoulders with his own sword.”
Enid’s eyes glittered. “I wish you could.”
“As do I. The joy it would give me…” she breathed. “But, alas, we must be separated once more.”
Enid’s lips thinned. Fiddling with her bare ring finger in lieu of her wedding band she murmured bitterly, “I suppose I ought to be content.”
Claws of indignation dug into Gwenhwyfar’s heart, threatening to pluck it out as easily as the first summer berry off a stalk. “No,” she hissed before taking Enid into her arms once more and pressing a hard, wanting kiss to her lips. Enid followed her - as she always did, as she always would - melding her lips to hers, her body fitting against Gwenhwyfar's as easily as a ring upon a finger.
‘By God,’ Gwenhwyfar thought, her trembling hands wrapped around Enid's waist, as she lost herself to the yielding softness of her lover's lips. ‘I wish I had a ring to pledge to you.’
Her chest burned. Ached. Tears cascaded down her cheeks, searingly hot, and more dribbled over her fingers.
Enid sniffles shattered the all-encompassing silence. Her shoulders shook with repressed sobs, ones that Gwenhwyfar could not hope to quell with kisses no matter how desperately she tried.
A broken sob tore from Enid's lips. Her breath whispered across Gwenhwyfar's cheek. She could do naught but kiss her harder, until her lips burned.
Upon hearing the noise, her ladies turned their faces away to glance this way and that at the dark walls, each studiously avoiding the others' gazes. Out of the corner of her eye, Gwenhwyfar surveyed Luned leaning over to feed the brazier more coals.
All the while, Enid's moans thickened in the air and her ears. Each was the sweetest sound Gwenhwyfar had coaxed from her since they first kissed during her wedding two years past, and made all the more sweeter now that their long-feared parting was within sight.
Her skin was warm beneath Gwenhwyfar's hands, the honey-heaven scent of her intoxicating. Laughter warmed the distinctly icy air - a herald of winter’s coming - and Gwenhwyfar was not sure whether it was hers or Enid’s that gave her the greater amount of joy.
When they broke apart, Gwenhwyfar's head spun. A tiny ribbon of spit connected them. She wiped it away with the tip of her finger, admiring the raspberry flush unfurling across Enid’s cheek.
“You’re a covetous mistress,” came her lover’s watery reply, a dazed look slackening her face.
Gwenhwyfar smirked. “Indeed,” she replied before adorning her Enid’s forehead with kisses, tiny jewels of which causing her summon up a few frail giggles. She shuffled further onto the bed, careful not to hurt her dearest lover, before laying her head against the bolster and staring up at the ceiling.
The moonlight's grey gauze fuzzed through the silk, setting the rings on her hands to winking. The bloodstone of her engagement ring from Arthur smouldered with fire, as did the molten gold of her wedding ring. Another - blue sea glass flanked by creamy pearls - rippled with tiny waves on the pointer finger of her left hand. Meanwhile, the great dome of her coronation ring flashed upon her right ring finger, while a small ring of a silver moon and waves sat upon her porridge finger.
Surveying them the way her husband would his lands, she absentmindedly twiddled with them all for a moment just as Enid glumly said, “I suppose that was your goodbye?”
“Not for a few more days,” Gwenhwyfar refuted, sprawling out next to her. “We have time.”
Eyes glassy with tears, Enid’s throat worked. “Alright,” she said, before bowing her head once more.
The brazier crackled. Popped. Gwenhwyfar breathed deeply. Her mind was caught between consoling and crying, berating either Arthur or him. Her right hand ghosted over her left, twiddled with the ring on her left pointer finger. Carefully, reverently, she slipped it off. Then, she cleared her throat.
Flinching, Enid’s head snapped up.
“Take this,” Gwenhwyfar pressed the sea glass ring - Dylan's ring, given to her all those years ago - into her lover’ palm before she even had time to protest. “You’ll have something of mine then.” Scouring the room until she saw the dark of Luned’s head again, she continued, “Get me a chain, would you, Lun?”
Standing, Luned smirked, before striding over to the dressing table. Tinkling cut through the quiet blackness, and, quick as a flash, Luned reappeared. A fine silver chain gleamed in her hands like a ribbon of starlight. Gently she deposited it into Gwenhwyfar's hands thereafter sprawling out in her seat again.
“Will it do?” she drawled, sounding a little like her brother in the smoothness of her speech.
“It will.”
After she had strung it on, she placed it around Enid’s neck and clasped it. The ring hung between her breasts.
“I can’t have it,” Enid burst out, clutching at the ring like it scalded her. “I can’t! What if he sees it? He'll tear it off me, I know he will!”
“Between me and God, he will not!” Gwenhwyfar hissed, her anger bettering her. “It is yours. If he does so then he is more of a fool than I thought! Fy enaid, you're mine. If that fool - forgive me, Luned, for I know you have the unfortunate luck of being related to such a man - thinks he can dare covet what is mine then he will be sorely mistaken.”
With a hum of delight, Enid snuggled into her. Gwenhwyfar pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, and murmured, just as the first droplets of rain spattered onto the tent's roof: “Rest, Enid. I'll be here when you wake.”
To her great relief, Enid softened in her arms and slept.