Post by Tarq on Feb 17, 2007 0:20:10 GMT -5
The party was two days from Carlion when the royal messenger met them in the late morning, bright blue cloak flapping over his chain and boiled leather. His message, that the court had finally relocated to the new-built stronghold at Camelot, and that her Highness and her family were to present themselves there, was courteous and welcoming but insistent in that cheerful, feckless way unique to supreme rulers – charged with the assumption that his command would be followed, happily unmindful of any inconvenience. It was, of course, more than enough to send the Queen of Lothian into one of her royal rages.
"Camelot!" she spat, slim white hands gesticulating. "Is Carlion not grand enough a castle, then, that His Majesty must squander wealth and hours beyond counting on some monument to his tyranny and subjugation; that he should force a lonely woman of birth and breeding to scamper about the vastness of Britain like a chambermaid; that he should keep these four sad and frightened children on the road of this strange country, bereft of their beloved father, so as to remove them to a site that better suits the grandeur of his conquest? Fie on him, sir, and fie on you for bearing this ignoble message!"
She went on in this vein, describing the manifold flaws of the High King and his servants, bemoaning her fate and that of her children, eyes flashing, breasts heaving, red-gold hair loosing the confines of its coiffure. The messenger, a burly, balding Caledonian by the unfortunate name of Grumore MacGrummur, was entirely overmatched; he sat his horse helplessly, looking around at the score or so of Lothian warriors and bondsmen, all of whom studiously avoided meeting his gaze, speaking, or smiling. Sir Grumore turned his slightly desperate eyes on the four riders behind the Queen, who had gone into a huddle of green cloaks, flaming red hair, and burring whispers.
The Queen followed his gaze. "Look you, Sir Grumore, my poor Gareth is sick! He has taken a chill on the road, and we had looked for relief at Carlion – now he may well perish before ever we reach King Arthur's hospitality! Villainy, sir, villainy and perfidy! Have we not suffered already at the hands of the Pendragon, that you must take my sweet babe from me?" She grasped the reins of one docile, scrawny roan and pulled horse and rider from the circle, revealing a lean but sturdy-looking boy of eight or nine with an open face and a runny nose. "See how he suffers, my darling Gareth! Have you no heart, sir knight?!"
Privately, Sir Grumore believed that any boy of that age without a runny nose was cause for concern, clearly lacking for good outdoor living. He supposed, also, that he ought to say something in response to Queen Morgause's harsh words for the King, which bordered on treason. He did not feel it wise to express either of these views; in fact, he felt it wise to spur his horse and start riding, and stop when he reached Camelot. Or maybe London, or Cornwall. Anywhere that wasn't here, really.
He was saved when the tightened circle of princelings finally split, and the boy Gareth told his furious mother in a plaintive but reasonable voice "Please, Ma, there's naught to be done fir it. Let us have a big fire tonight, and get on to Camelot, and certain I'll be well there." One of his brothers, stocky, ruddy, and teetering on the edge of chubbiness, came to his side with a smile. "Aye, Mother, and the sooner we arrive, the sooner ye can tell the High King to his face, and be united with Father."
The oldest of the four, meanwhile, rode to the fore of the column. Grumore supposed, by his height and the red scruff of beard on his face, that this was Lot's heir Gawaine. His brogue was certainly thick enough. "Well, are ye tae gawp there all this day? God's wounds, hight ye men or cattle? Either gang down off yir horses and graze, or elsewise get this sad affair at moving!" There was a certain bantering tone to his peremptory commands, and the grumbling among the MacLuth house guard struck Sir Grumore as good-natured, with little resentment at being ordered about by a green boy.
The fourth prince, husky and downy-cheeked, rose to Grumore's side and awkwardly introduced himself as Prince Gaheris. "Did ye see battle at Bedegraine?" he wanted to know, sounding less a rebellious Orkneyman and more an adolescent as impressent with chivalry and paegantry as any lad from Strathmore or Rhegid.
Soon, Grumore was telling the burly boy expansively about how he and the King of the Long Lakes – "King Pellinore, you know, he's not quite bright in the head but brave as a lion" – had shattered King Aguisain's vanguard at Bedegraine, as the Lothian company moved on down the road. Queen Morgause had allowed herself to be chivvied along, alternately doting one son and fuming towards the commiserating other. None of them noticed her small smile at the deft way her sons handled the scene her theatrics had caused.
Once the horses were trotting steadily along, Gawaine fell in on Grumore's right and listened to him praise the diligent King Ban de Benuic, whose arrival from Brittany had assured Arthur's victory at Bedegraine; in an attempt at diplomacy, he then began complimenting the courage of King Lot and his allies. Gawaine, the Caledonian noted, was very tall, probably as tall as Sir Bedwyr, who towered over even Arthur and positively dwarfed most of the court. For that matter, Gaheris, who couldn't have been older than fourteen, was nearly as big as Grumore himself. Even Gareth seemed rather tall for his age. Between their height, their absurdly red hair, and their uniformly faded, faraway blue-gray eyes, it was all a little disconcerting.
But he liked them for all that, and answered the questions the two boys plied him with. He told them of Arthur, Ban and Bors; of Griflet, Lucan, Bedwyr and Kay; of Alfias and Brastis, Balin and Balan. When they made camp for the night, Gareth and the stocky boy – Agravaine, second in line after Gawaine – joined their brothers, and they had an animated conversation with the knight while voraciously attacking a stew one of Morgause's ladies had cooked. Even the Queen had recovered her temper sufficiently to ask him a few pointed questions about the court at Camelot, and the social situation, and even Merlin, upon which the entire camp fell into a superstitious silence and pretended not to listen as Grumore gave a few evasive answers. Eventually, Gareth asked him how strong Lucan the Butler really was and everyone began to breathe again.
The next day, the Queen was quite civil to Sir Grumore, and by nightfall she was positively warm. Perhaps the clearing of Gareth's chill had something to do with it. As they passed Carlion – now occupied only by fifty or so men-at-arms, a skeleton staff of servants, and the gloomy Sir Ulwes of Brittany – Morgaine observed that it did seem rather drafty and shabby; not that it wasn't a grand enough castle, but the surely the brave knights of England deserved the very best, a castle to shine above all others. Sir Grumore agreed readily, and that night, pondered what a fascinating, enchanting creature Queen Morgause really was – her lively conversation, her pointed and incisive observations, her deep and abiding love for her children, and of course the shine of her hair, the creamy smoothness of her skin, and the truly intriguing curves of her figure beneath her modest grey travelling dress. He wondered at some of the things he had heard of her household in Orkney, and of King Lot.
The next day, Grumore steered the conversation (with admirable subtlety, he felt) towards Lot MacLuth. The Queen, of course, loved and honored her husband deeply, rebel though he might be, and could not wait to be reuinted with him. But (and there was always a but), he could stand to be a little more steadfast, a little less swashbuckling. He had his chambermaids and his farm girls, and of course she did not grudge him that – after all, she had borne him four sons and was well past thirty, she was practically an old woman and nothing to keep a grown man's interest (a claim which Sir Grumore chivalrously contested, to be rewarded with a pretty blush) – but, well, sometimes it seemed like he paid more attention to his bedwarmers, heeded her counsel not enough.
In truth, she went on, she had advised him against this rebellion, knowing that this was not a fight that could be won, but he had his pride; it was what she loved him for, pride and valor and good Gaelic spirit. Well, the derring-do of Lothian was all well and good, but she could not help wishing her husband was a little more reliable. A solid man, with quiet courage, a dependable and devoted love – and here she sighed, and said it was foolish to hope for such things, and that any woman ought to be grateful for all that she had.
Sir Grumore said gruffly that he did not think it was such a foolish or unattainable wish, and then immediately excused himself, blushing beneath his short trim beard, to go to bed, where he thanked the benevolent God that had inspired Arthur to send him on this mission, and then went on to thoughts of a rather less religious nature that eventually became dreams.
The day after that, they spoke about their respective homes, and Morgause said thoughtfully that sleepy, bucolic Strathmore sounded a lovely place to visit. Sir Grumore wondered silently what kind of man Lot MacLuth must be, to condemn his lovely life to a lonely – and she was lonely, she let it slip – existence on the windswept shores of distant Orkney. He wondered a great many things, and that night after a particularly gallant compliment, concerning the relationship between the sheen of her hair and a summer sunset (a very close one, according to Sir Grumore), she kissed him on the cheek and then blushed all a-flame. All in all, he decided that night, this little trip about which he had grumbled had proved to be a marvelous change of pace, and offered possibilities of which he could never have dreamed.
Shortly before sunset, they made camp near Ambrosius's Wall, which marked them about two days from Camelot. "Sir Grumore," asked Morgause sweetly, "I hate to send you on a silly errand, but someone really ought to find my boys. If they're to return in time for dinner, they'd best start back now, and you know do know how growing lads eat." Grumore allowed that he did, and set off to locate the princelings, who had made it a habit to range away from the column several hours a day, seeing as how the countryside for a week's ride in any direction from Carlion (or Camelot now, perhaps) was famously free of danger. The knight did not find this an ignominous task; he chose to see it as a sign of her trust. Besides, he realized belatedly, the boys had been growing more reserved towards him even as their mother had warmed. Gawaine, at least, was old enough to sense the, well, the feeling between them, the certain connection. Grumore had their respect, certainly, but he wanted to have their affection as well. He would take this opportunity to explain things to them.
The princes were not far; they were resting beneath Ambrosius's Wall, their horses grazing in the shade. Sir Grumore, too, was in the shadow of the wall, and as it was a bright clear day, they did not see him coming. The knight stopped to consider how to begin, and their voices carried; he was not an eavesdropper by nature, but their being children (or at least not quite grown men), and his fatherly attitude, and the words that drifted to his ears, were, combined, enough to make him pause and listen.
Agravaine was the speaker, his voice urgent and impassioned, which brought out the Lothian in him. "Do no' make pretense at blindness, Gawaine, ye ken what I mean! Ye have seen it as well as I, ye can no' be that stupid." He was standing and gesturing furiously, an odd echo of his mother's royal fury, while Gawaine lounged against a fallen and mossy building stone, head sunk meditatively on his chest. Gareth sat on the rock, while Gaheris had retired to the shade to lay prone on his elbow. All of them were wearing their fine green cloaks and high black boots.
"Aye, I ken well what ye mean," replied Gawaine without looking up. His accent was always thick, and Grumore often wondered if he did it on purpose. "I ken also thit it isna business o' ours, and ye will be fir spoiling a fine day if ye clatter on at it."
The stocky boy sneered, recovering his speech somewhat. "Ah, well then, I suppose it is for the better that our mother is spoiled than your day, Gawaine."
Gawaine's only reply was a loud snort, and above him, Gareth snickered innocently. "I shid like to see the knight that ever could hope to despoil Ma. Maybe a Saxon ogre, aye?"
Agravaine turned on him, red-faced, and cuffed him across the ear rather harder than was necessary, knocking the child off his rock with a yelp of protest. "Hold yir tongue, bairn! I should'na think that ye ken even what a cock is fir, besides pissing! Speak when yir old enough to speak sense."
Gareth glared at him from the ground, and Gawaine tilted his head up. "Agravaine, I am fair comf'trable lying here, ye should ken; and I maun be truly wroth with the poor soul thit forces me tae be rising. So none o' that." There was a certain ominous edge to his tone, despite the weary humor of his words. Agravaine stepped away, and Gareth clambered back up to his rock.
"It is shameful," he grumbled, "that our mother, the Queen of Orkney and Lothian, should consort with that Cymrydullard!"
Gaheris spoke for the first time, aggrieved. "I like Sir Grumore. He is a bonny knight, and loyal – and a Scot besides! MacGrummur is his clan. I dinna see why ye have such quarrel with him."
The vehemence of Agravaine's reply brought the hypnotized Grumore back to himself. "Scot? He is southron made. 'Tis worse than southron born, a bedamned traitor! He is one of Pendragon's dogs, and ye ken what thit clad did tae Mother and Granddam! Aye, praise him as a bonny knight, ye maun say as well he is a good and loyal hound! If Mother is tae bed down with dogs, I wid rather see her lie wi' one of Father's wolfhounds – fir then at the least she'd be fucking a Lothian!" Grumore would have revealed himself then, angry for several reasons, but as Agravaine spat out that vile curse Gawaine came smoothly to his feet, towering over his sturdy brother by a head and more. One long arm lashed out, and Grumore wondered if they heard the crack of Gawaine's backhand across Agravaine's face back at the camp. The younger boy spun halfway around and fell instantly with a cry of pain.
There was a moment of silence, while Agravaine scrabbled in the dirt and Gaheris rose slowly and ambled over, and then Gawaine spoke. "Ye shall keep a civil tongue in yir head at regards tae air mother." Agravaine nodded sullenly, and the tall young man sighed. "'Vaine, I ken how it grieves ye, as it grieves us all. But Father is having his women, so why shouldna Mother have her men in turn? Sir Grumore, nae, he is'na Lothian – but it makes na matter, fir we shouldna concern ourselves wi' such. Mother could aye consort wi' Cymry, or Saxon, or even Frank, should she please, and we maun say aught elsewise. She is air mother." It seemed to Gawaine that that was all need be said. Gaheris and Gareth both relaxed, and Grumore detected a certain lessening of tension as Agravaine got to his feet. Brothers will fight, after all, he decided – or so he had heard.
"Camelot!" she spat, slim white hands gesticulating. "Is Carlion not grand enough a castle, then, that His Majesty must squander wealth and hours beyond counting on some monument to his tyranny and subjugation; that he should force a lonely woman of birth and breeding to scamper about the vastness of Britain like a chambermaid; that he should keep these four sad and frightened children on the road of this strange country, bereft of their beloved father, so as to remove them to a site that better suits the grandeur of his conquest? Fie on him, sir, and fie on you for bearing this ignoble message!"
She went on in this vein, describing the manifold flaws of the High King and his servants, bemoaning her fate and that of her children, eyes flashing, breasts heaving, red-gold hair loosing the confines of its coiffure. The messenger, a burly, balding Caledonian by the unfortunate name of Grumore MacGrummur, was entirely overmatched; he sat his horse helplessly, looking around at the score or so of Lothian warriors and bondsmen, all of whom studiously avoided meeting his gaze, speaking, or smiling. Sir Grumore turned his slightly desperate eyes on the four riders behind the Queen, who had gone into a huddle of green cloaks, flaming red hair, and burring whispers.
The Queen followed his gaze. "Look you, Sir Grumore, my poor Gareth is sick! He has taken a chill on the road, and we had looked for relief at Carlion – now he may well perish before ever we reach King Arthur's hospitality! Villainy, sir, villainy and perfidy! Have we not suffered already at the hands of the Pendragon, that you must take my sweet babe from me?" She grasped the reins of one docile, scrawny roan and pulled horse and rider from the circle, revealing a lean but sturdy-looking boy of eight or nine with an open face and a runny nose. "See how he suffers, my darling Gareth! Have you no heart, sir knight?!"
Privately, Sir Grumore believed that any boy of that age without a runny nose was cause for concern, clearly lacking for good outdoor living. He supposed, also, that he ought to say something in response to Queen Morgause's harsh words for the King, which bordered on treason. He did not feel it wise to express either of these views; in fact, he felt it wise to spur his horse and start riding, and stop when he reached Camelot. Or maybe London, or Cornwall. Anywhere that wasn't here, really.
He was saved when the tightened circle of princelings finally split, and the boy Gareth told his furious mother in a plaintive but reasonable voice "Please, Ma, there's naught to be done fir it. Let us have a big fire tonight, and get on to Camelot, and certain I'll be well there." One of his brothers, stocky, ruddy, and teetering on the edge of chubbiness, came to his side with a smile. "Aye, Mother, and the sooner we arrive, the sooner ye can tell the High King to his face, and be united with Father."
The oldest of the four, meanwhile, rode to the fore of the column. Grumore supposed, by his height and the red scruff of beard on his face, that this was Lot's heir Gawaine. His brogue was certainly thick enough. "Well, are ye tae gawp there all this day? God's wounds, hight ye men or cattle? Either gang down off yir horses and graze, or elsewise get this sad affair at moving!" There was a certain bantering tone to his peremptory commands, and the grumbling among the MacLuth house guard struck Sir Grumore as good-natured, with little resentment at being ordered about by a green boy.
The fourth prince, husky and downy-cheeked, rose to Grumore's side and awkwardly introduced himself as Prince Gaheris. "Did ye see battle at Bedegraine?" he wanted to know, sounding less a rebellious Orkneyman and more an adolescent as impressent with chivalry and paegantry as any lad from Strathmore or Rhegid.
Soon, Grumore was telling the burly boy expansively about how he and the King of the Long Lakes – "King Pellinore, you know, he's not quite bright in the head but brave as a lion" – had shattered King Aguisain's vanguard at Bedegraine, as the Lothian company moved on down the road. Queen Morgause had allowed herself to be chivvied along, alternately doting one son and fuming towards the commiserating other. None of them noticed her small smile at the deft way her sons handled the scene her theatrics had caused.
Once the horses were trotting steadily along, Gawaine fell in on Grumore's right and listened to him praise the diligent King Ban de Benuic, whose arrival from Brittany had assured Arthur's victory at Bedegraine; in an attempt at diplomacy, he then began complimenting the courage of King Lot and his allies. Gawaine, the Caledonian noted, was very tall, probably as tall as Sir Bedwyr, who towered over even Arthur and positively dwarfed most of the court. For that matter, Gaheris, who couldn't have been older than fourteen, was nearly as big as Grumore himself. Even Gareth seemed rather tall for his age. Between their height, their absurdly red hair, and their uniformly faded, faraway blue-gray eyes, it was all a little disconcerting.
But he liked them for all that, and answered the questions the two boys plied him with. He told them of Arthur, Ban and Bors; of Griflet, Lucan, Bedwyr and Kay; of Alfias and Brastis, Balin and Balan. When they made camp for the night, Gareth and the stocky boy – Agravaine, second in line after Gawaine – joined their brothers, and they had an animated conversation with the knight while voraciously attacking a stew one of Morgause's ladies had cooked. Even the Queen had recovered her temper sufficiently to ask him a few pointed questions about the court at Camelot, and the social situation, and even Merlin, upon which the entire camp fell into a superstitious silence and pretended not to listen as Grumore gave a few evasive answers. Eventually, Gareth asked him how strong Lucan the Butler really was and everyone began to breathe again.
The next day, the Queen was quite civil to Sir Grumore, and by nightfall she was positively warm. Perhaps the clearing of Gareth's chill had something to do with it. As they passed Carlion – now occupied only by fifty or so men-at-arms, a skeleton staff of servants, and the gloomy Sir Ulwes of Brittany – Morgaine observed that it did seem rather drafty and shabby; not that it wasn't a grand enough castle, but the surely the brave knights of England deserved the very best, a castle to shine above all others. Sir Grumore agreed readily, and that night, pondered what a fascinating, enchanting creature Queen Morgause really was – her lively conversation, her pointed and incisive observations, her deep and abiding love for her children, and of course the shine of her hair, the creamy smoothness of her skin, and the truly intriguing curves of her figure beneath her modest grey travelling dress. He wondered at some of the things he had heard of her household in Orkney, and of King Lot.
The next day, Grumore steered the conversation (with admirable subtlety, he felt) towards Lot MacLuth. The Queen, of course, loved and honored her husband deeply, rebel though he might be, and could not wait to be reuinted with him. But (and there was always a but), he could stand to be a little more steadfast, a little less swashbuckling. He had his chambermaids and his farm girls, and of course she did not grudge him that – after all, she had borne him four sons and was well past thirty, she was practically an old woman and nothing to keep a grown man's interest (a claim which Sir Grumore chivalrously contested, to be rewarded with a pretty blush) – but, well, sometimes it seemed like he paid more attention to his bedwarmers, heeded her counsel not enough.
In truth, she went on, she had advised him against this rebellion, knowing that this was not a fight that could be won, but he had his pride; it was what she loved him for, pride and valor and good Gaelic spirit. Well, the derring-do of Lothian was all well and good, but she could not help wishing her husband was a little more reliable. A solid man, with quiet courage, a dependable and devoted love – and here she sighed, and said it was foolish to hope for such things, and that any woman ought to be grateful for all that she had.
Sir Grumore said gruffly that he did not think it was such a foolish or unattainable wish, and then immediately excused himself, blushing beneath his short trim beard, to go to bed, where he thanked the benevolent God that had inspired Arthur to send him on this mission, and then went on to thoughts of a rather less religious nature that eventually became dreams.
The day after that, they spoke about their respective homes, and Morgause said thoughtfully that sleepy, bucolic Strathmore sounded a lovely place to visit. Sir Grumore wondered silently what kind of man Lot MacLuth must be, to condemn his lovely life to a lonely – and she was lonely, she let it slip – existence on the windswept shores of distant Orkney. He wondered a great many things, and that night after a particularly gallant compliment, concerning the relationship between the sheen of her hair and a summer sunset (a very close one, according to Sir Grumore), she kissed him on the cheek and then blushed all a-flame. All in all, he decided that night, this little trip about which he had grumbled had proved to be a marvelous change of pace, and offered possibilities of which he could never have dreamed.
Shortly before sunset, they made camp near Ambrosius's Wall, which marked them about two days from Camelot. "Sir Grumore," asked Morgause sweetly, "I hate to send you on a silly errand, but someone really ought to find my boys. If they're to return in time for dinner, they'd best start back now, and you know do know how growing lads eat." Grumore allowed that he did, and set off to locate the princelings, who had made it a habit to range away from the column several hours a day, seeing as how the countryside for a week's ride in any direction from Carlion (or Camelot now, perhaps) was famously free of danger. The knight did not find this an ignominous task; he chose to see it as a sign of her trust. Besides, he realized belatedly, the boys had been growing more reserved towards him even as their mother had warmed. Gawaine, at least, was old enough to sense the, well, the feeling between them, the certain connection. Grumore had their respect, certainly, but he wanted to have their affection as well. He would take this opportunity to explain things to them.
The princes were not far; they were resting beneath Ambrosius's Wall, their horses grazing in the shade. Sir Grumore, too, was in the shadow of the wall, and as it was a bright clear day, they did not see him coming. The knight stopped to consider how to begin, and their voices carried; he was not an eavesdropper by nature, but their being children (or at least not quite grown men), and his fatherly attitude, and the words that drifted to his ears, were, combined, enough to make him pause and listen.
Agravaine was the speaker, his voice urgent and impassioned, which brought out the Lothian in him. "Do no' make pretense at blindness, Gawaine, ye ken what I mean! Ye have seen it as well as I, ye can no' be that stupid." He was standing and gesturing furiously, an odd echo of his mother's royal fury, while Gawaine lounged against a fallen and mossy building stone, head sunk meditatively on his chest. Gareth sat on the rock, while Gaheris had retired to the shade to lay prone on his elbow. All of them were wearing their fine green cloaks and high black boots.
"Aye, I ken well what ye mean," replied Gawaine without looking up. His accent was always thick, and Grumore often wondered if he did it on purpose. "I ken also thit it isna business o' ours, and ye will be fir spoiling a fine day if ye clatter on at it."
The stocky boy sneered, recovering his speech somewhat. "Ah, well then, I suppose it is for the better that our mother is spoiled than your day, Gawaine."
Gawaine's only reply was a loud snort, and above him, Gareth snickered innocently. "I shid like to see the knight that ever could hope to despoil Ma. Maybe a Saxon ogre, aye?"
Agravaine turned on him, red-faced, and cuffed him across the ear rather harder than was necessary, knocking the child off his rock with a yelp of protest. "Hold yir tongue, bairn! I should'na think that ye ken even what a cock is fir, besides pissing! Speak when yir old enough to speak sense."
Gareth glared at him from the ground, and Gawaine tilted his head up. "Agravaine, I am fair comf'trable lying here, ye should ken; and I maun be truly wroth with the poor soul thit forces me tae be rising. So none o' that." There was a certain ominous edge to his tone, despite the weary humor of his words. Agravaine stepped away, and Gareth clambered back up to his rock.
"It is shameful," he grumbled, "that our mother, the Queen of Orkney and Lothian, should consort with that Cymrydullard!"
Gaheris spoke for the first time, aggrieved. "I like Sir Grumore. He is a bonny knight, and loyal – and a Scot besides! MacGrummur is his clan. I dinna see why ye have such quarrel with him."
The vehemence of Agravaine's reply brought the hypnotized Grumore back to himself. "Scot? He is southron made. 'Tis worse than southron born, a bedamned traitor! He is one of Pendragon's dogs, and ye ken what thit clad did tae Mother and Granddam! Aye, praise him as a bonny knight, ye maun say as well he is a good and loyal hound! If Mother is tae bed down with dogs, I wid rather see her lie wi' one of Father's wolfhounds – fir then at the least she'd be fucking a Lothian!" Grumore would have revealed himself then, angry for several reasons, but as Agravaine spat out that vile curse Gawaine came smoothly to his feet, towering over his sturdy brother by a head and more. One long arm lashed out, and Grumore wondered if they heard the crack of Gawaine's backhand across Agravaine's face back at the camp. The younger boy spun halfway around and fell instantly with a cry of pain.
There was a moment of silence, while Agravaine scrabbled in the dirt and Gaheris rose slowly and ambled over, and then Gawaine spoke. "Ye shall keep a civil tongue in yir head at regards tae air mother." Agravaine nodded sullenly, and the tall young man sighed. "'Vaine, I ken how it grieves ye, as it grieves us all. But Father is having his women, so why shouldna Mother have her men in turn? Sir Grumore, nae, he is'na Lothian – but it makes na matter, fir we shouldna concern ourselves wi' such. Mother could aye consort wi' Cymry, or Saxon, or even Frank, should she please, and we maun say aught elsewise. She is air mother." It seemed to Gawaine that that was all need be said. Gaheris and Gareth both relaxed, and Grumore detected a certain lessening of tension as Agravaine got to his feet. Brothers will fight, after all, he decided – or so he had heard.
Still juggling it.