“Greetings, my lady,” Madoc said. “I’ve come to pay my respects to your father’s grave.”
After sending the servants to care for his men, Brangwen took Madoc into the hall and poured him ale with her own hands, then sat across from him at the honor table. Madoc pledged her with the tankard.
“My thanks, Brangwen. Truly, I wanted to see how you fared.”
“As well as I can, Your Grace.”
“And your brother?”
“He’s still mourning our father. I can only hope he’ll put his grief away soon.” Brangwen saw that he was truly worried, not merely being courteous, and his worry made her own flare. “Gerro hasn’t been himself of late. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Ah, I wondered. Well, here, you know that your brother and yourself are under my protection. If ever you need my aid, you send a page to me straightaway. That’s no idle courtesy, either. Sometimes when a man gets to brooding, he’s a bit much for his sister to handle, so send me a message, and I’ll ride by to cheer Gerro up a bit.”
“Oh, my thanks, truly, my thanks! That gladdens my heart, Your Grace.”
Soon Gerraent rode in from hunting, bringing a doe for the cook to clean and hang. Since the two men had important matters to discuss, Brangwen withdrew and went outside to look for Ludda. Out by the wall, Brythu was helping the cook dress the deer. They’d cut off the head and thrown it to the pack of dogs, who were growling and worrying it. Although she’d grown up seeing game cleaned, Brangwen felt sick. The velvet eyes looked up at her; then a dog dragged it away. Brangwen turned and ran back to the broch.
On the morrow, Madoc took leave of them early. As Brangwen and Gerraent were eating their noon meal, Gerraent told her a bit about His Grace’s talk. It looked as if there might be trouble out on the western border where a few clans still grumbled at the King’s rule.
“I’d hate to see you ride to another war so soon,” Brangwen said.
“Why?”
“You’re all I have in the world.”
Suddenly thoughtful, Gerraent nodded, then cut up a bit of the roast fowl on their trencher with his dagger. He picked up a tidbit and fed it to her with his fingers.
“Well, little sister. I try to be mindful of my duty to you.”
Although it was pleasantly said, Brangwen suddenly felt a cold chill down her back, as if something were trying to warn her of danger.
Yet when the danger finally came, she had no warning at all. On a sunny afternoon they rode out together into the wild meadowlands to the east, a vast stretch of rolling hills that neither the Falcon nor the Boar had men enough to till or defend. At a little stream they stopped to water their horses. When they were children, this stream had marked the limit of the land they were allowed to ride without an adult along. It was odd to think that now, when she could have ridden as far as she wanted, she had no desire to wander away from home. While Gerraent tended the horses, Brangwen sat down in the grass and looked for daisies, but she couldn’t bear to pluck those innocent symbols of a lass’s first love. She’d had her love and lost him, and she doubted if she’d ever find another—not merely a husband, but a love. Eventually Gerraent sat down beside her.
“Going to make a daisy chain?” he remarked.
“I’m not. It’s too late for things like that.”
Gerraent looked sharply away.
“Gwennie? There’s something I’d best ask you. It aches my heart to pry, but it’s going to matter someday if I have to bargain out your betrothal.”
Brangwen knew perfectly well what was on his mind.
“I didn’t bed him. Don’t trouble your heart over it for a minute.”
Gerraent smiled in such a fierce, gloating relief that all at once she saw him as the falcon, poised hovering on the wind, seemingly motionless although it fights to keep its place. Then he struck, catching her by the shoulders and kissing her before she could shove him away.
“Gerro!”
Although Brangwen tried to twist free, he was far too strong for her. He held her tight, kissed her, then pinned her down in the grass to give her a long greedy kiss that set her heart pounding only partly in fear. All at once, as silently as he’d caught her, he let her go and sat back on the grass with tears running down his face. Her shoulders ached from those greedy hands, her brother’s hands, as she sat up, watching him warily. Gerraent pulled his dagger and handed it to her hilt first.
“Take it and slit my throat. I’ll kneel here and let you do it.”
“Never.”
“Then I’ll do it myself. Go home. Get Ludda and ride to Madoc. By the time he rides back, I’ll be dead.”
Brangwen felt as if she were a bit of wire, being pulled between a jeweler’s tools until it’s as fine as a single hair. This last loss was too much to bear, her brother, her beloved brother, kneeling before her as a supplicant. If he did kill himself, no one would know the truth of it, thinking him mad over his mourning, not an unclean man who’d broken the laws of the gods. But she would know. And she would never see him again. The wire was being pulled tighter and tighter.
“Will you forgive me before I die?” Gerraent said.
She wanted to speak, but no words came. When he misread her silence, his eyes filled with tears.
“Done, then. It was too much to hope for.”
The wire broke. In a rush of tears, Brangwen flung herself against him.
“Gerro, Gerro, Gerro, you can’t die.”
Gerraent dropped the dagger and slowly, hesitantly, put his hands on her waist, as if to shove her away, then clasped her tight in his arms.
“Gerro, please, live for my sake.”
“How can I? What shall I do, live hating my blood-sworn friend if you marry Blaen? Every time you looked at me, I’d know you were remembering my fault.”
“But the clan! If you die, the clan dies with you. Ah, by the Goddess of the Moon, if you kill yourself, I might as well do the same. What else would be left for me?”
He held her a little ways away from him, and as they looked into each other’s eyes, she felt Death standing beside her, a palpable presence.
“Does my maidenhead mean so much to you?”
Gerraent shrugged, refusing to answer.
“Then you might as well take it. You wouldn’t force me for it, so I’ll give it to you.”
He stared at her like a drunken man. Brangwen wondered why he couldn’t see what was so clear to her: if they were doomed, they might as well live an hour longer in each other’s arms. She put her hands alongside his face and pulled him down to kiss her. His hands dug into her shoulders so tightly that it hurt, but she let him kiss her again. As his passion for her flared, it was frightening, wrapping her round, catching her up like a branch in a fire. When she let herself go limp in his arms, Brangwen felt more like a priestess in a rite than a lover. She felt nothing but the force of him, the solid weight of him, her mind so far away that she felt she was watching their love-making in a dream.
When they finished, he lay next to her and pillowed his head on her naked breasts, his mouth moving on her skin, a gentle, nuzzling kiss of gratitude. She ran her fingers through his hair and thought of the dagger lying ready for them. I never wanted to die a maid, she thought, and who better than Gerro? He raised his head and smiled at her, a soft drunken smile of pleasure and love.
“Are you going to kill me now?” Brangwen said.
“Why? Not yet, my love, not after this. There’ll be time enough later for the pair of us to die. I know we will, and the gods know