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 it, too, and that’s enough for them. We’ll have our summer first.”
Brangwen looked up at the sky, a pure blue, glittering like a fiery reproach from the gods. Her hand groped for the dagger.
“Not yet!”
Gerraent caught her wrist, those heavy calloused hands circling it, mastering her, grabbing the dagger away. He sat up and threw it. It glittered through the air and plunged into the stream. Brangwen thought of protesting, but his beauty caught her, a cruel flaming beauty like the angry sun. He ran his hand down her body, then lay down beside her and kissed her. This time she felt her desire rise to match his, a bittersweet lust, born of despair.
When they rode home that evening, Brangwen was surprised that everyone treated them so normally and easily. She was expecting that everyone would see if not their dishonor then at least their coming death, as if death should cast a glow around them that could be seen for miles. But Brythu merely took their horses and bowed; the chamberlain came hurrying over to Gerraent with some tedious news from the village; Ludda met Brangwen and asked if she should set the kitchen maid to laying the table. The evening turned so normal that Brangwen wanted to scream.
After the meal, the servants settled in at their hearth and Gerraent, with a tankard in his hand, at his. The great hall was dark except for the crossed and battling glows from the two small fires. Brangwen watched her brother’s shadowed face and wondered if he was happy. She hardly knew what she felt. For the past year, she’d been readying herself for marriage, when she would swear an oath to her husband and bind herself under his will. Instead, she’d sworn a blood oath, giving up her will to a pledge of death. There was nothing left but to center herself on Gerraent, her first man, her brother, just as she’d planned to do with her prince. Until she let Gerraent slit her throat, she would serve him as her lord. The decision gave her a precarious peace, as if she had closed a door in her mind on the tragedy of the past. Galrion was gone, and all the promise he’d held out of a different kind of life.
“Gerro? What are you thinking about?”
“That rebellion. If there’s a war this summer, I won’t go, I promise you that—I’ll find a way out.”
Brangwen smiled, her heart bursting with love. He was making the biggest sacrifice a man like him could, giving up his glory to live with her in the summer and die with her in the fall.
Brangwen would have liked to have slept in his bed, as was her place, but it was of course far too risky with so many servants in the dun. If the priests in the village ever learned of their evil, they would come tear them apart. Often, over the next few weeks, they rode out together to lie down in the soft grass. Wrapped in his arms, Brangwen could think of Gerraent as her husband. Her calm continued, as fair as the weather, summer day after summer day slipping by, like water in a full stream, silent, smooth as glass, glistening. Nothing could disturb her calm, not even her occasional thought of Ysolla, whose betrothed she had taken away. At first, it seemed that Gerraent, too, was happy, but slowly his brooding and his rages returned.
Gerraent was growing more and more like their father, dark as a storm when he was idle, glowering into the fire and pacing restlessly around the ward. One evening, when Brythu brought him ale, the lad slipped and spilled it. Gerraent swung and slapped him so hard that the lad fell to his knees.
“You clumsy little bastard.”
As the lad cowered back, Gerraent’s hand went to his dagger almost of its own will. Brangwen threw herself in between them.
“Hold your hand, Gerro! You’ll be weeping with remorse not five minutes later if you hurt the lad.”
Sobbing, Brythu fled the hall. Brangwen saw the rest of the servants watching with pale faces and terrified eyes. She grabbed Gerraent by the shoulders and shook him hard.
“Oh, by the hells,” Gerraent said. “My thanks.”
Brangwen fetched him more ale herself, then went out to the stable, where, as she expected, she found Brythu weeping in the hay loft. She hung her candle lantern on a nail in the wall, then sat down and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. He was only twelve, a skinny little thing for his age.
“Here, here,” Brangwen said. “Let me have
