Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Oh yes you do, Cay. I've seen you, felt you, watching me and known what your thoughts were. I am no maiden, to run blushing at such thoughts. But I am sworn to your friend, his wife in fact as well as name, and neither you nor I could ever deceive him or betray him in such manner."

I swung away, mortified at my own transparency, but she caught hold of my sleeve and turned me back to face her.

"Look at me, Caius Merlyn, look at me!"

I looked, cringing inwardly, and saw no sign of censure in her eyes, which gazed at me steadfastly. And then she smiled again, sweetly and gently, a smile of utter friendship.

"Here am I talking to you of maidens' blushes, and you outshine them all. Think of it thus, Cay: I am a woman, not a child, and aware that you perceive me as a woman. And I am flattered, as a woman, that I can attract the man you are. But I am a warrior, too. Never lose sight of that. I am a warrior, with a warrior's skills and depths. I have trained and hunted with men throughout my life, lived among them, fought with them and heard them speak of men's desires and lusts at all hours of the day and night through peace and war. I have killed men. And I have lain with some. No woman—and few men, for that matter—can survive a battle among comrades and not be physically drawn to some of them. You are a warrior, too, a soldier; you know the kind of fellowship shared peril breeds."

She paused again, staring at me keenly. "Do you understand what I am telling you, Caius Merlyn? These feelings you have, which you have been so painfully determined to conceal, are not one-sided. I feel them, too. That is why they persist; because I have allowed them to. Had they been unwelcome, I would have stamped upon them long before now, in any of a hundred ways that you would have accepted without ever knowing of my awareness. Do you hear me?"

I nodded, slowly, wonderstruck but still incapable of speech.

"Hmm," she said, smiling slightly. "Good. Do you feel any better? You look as though you've been hit on the head."

Dumbly, I shook my head. She laughed and grasped my wrist, pulling me with her towards the chairs that she and I had occupied a few days earlier.

"Sit down, and let me put some wood upon the fire, then we will talk further. Is there anything to drink in here? Would you like some mead?"

I paused in the act of sitting, and straightened up again, forcing myself to swallow in the hope it might release my tongue. "No," I rasped, then cleared my throat loudly and captured a more natural tone of voice. "There's nothing in here, but I can call for some."

"Good, then do that, while I arrange this fire."

I cannot recall what thoughts went through my mind as I moved about the house thereafter. I know there were no servants to be found, and I ended up finding the mead myself and carrying it back to where she waited, and I know that as I entered, kicking the door shut behind me, and moved towards the fire, she sat watching me and smiling that small, friendly smile. I poured the mead and handed her a cup, then sat across from her, feeling the flames against my face and legs, and seeing the way her five, sheathed knives seemed to cling to her form, finding their own relaxed positions and each caressing her with intimate familiarity. She raised her cup to me and tipped it, spilling a small libation on the floor.

"Let us drink to ourselves, Caius Merlyn, to us and to our secrets: to the discussions we have had, the pair of us, and to our friendship, which will be permanent, I think, and spiced with innocent attraction and respect. I, too, may look, and lust inside with no harm done." She laughed, a lovely sound brim-full with mischief, then grew solemn. "We drink also to our friends and to our obligations, to the duties by which we are both almost gladly bound; and to your infant King, his destiny, and the families and lines from which he springs. What was it you called it? The great Dream of the Roman Eagles who founded Camulod.' Now there is a worthwhile litany of reasons why we should enjoy this mead. Will you not agree?"

"Aye," I said, feeling wondrously relieved. "And willingly, to all of them."

"And have you none to add? None of your own?"

I smiled easily now. "Aye, that I have, now you mention it. But we drink first to yours."

We touched the rims of our cups and sipped the fiery beverage they held, and I luxuriated in the honeyed glide of pleasure on my tongue.

She licked her lips and smacked them together. "Not as good as my own," she said. "But not trivial, either." She shifted in her seat and looked at me again. "Your turn; your list."

I took my time, enumerating and then refining the list of gratitudes I felt. Shelagh waited patiently.

"We will drink this time to us, once more, without constraint, and without regret: to this remarkable freedom from guilt you have granted me, and to the . . . obligation you have outlined in that granting. We drink to friendship, yours and mine, unorthodox as some might choose to see it, and that which we share with others. We drink also to Destiny and Duty, two fearsome taskmasters, as you have said, and to tomorrow . . . all tomorrows, in the hope and trust that they will bring fulfillment and contentment." I paused, and tipped the libation on the floor. "Will that suffice, think you?"

"For the gods, or for your list? I think both will be well." She raised her cup to mine again and we drank, then sat for a time in silence, gazing into the flames until I roused myself.

"What time of day is it, I wonder?"

"Around mid-morning." She spoke without looking at me. "Perhaps later, near the three-quarter point, but short of noon. Should you be elsewhere?"

"No, not until noon, but by then I must be dressed in formal parade gear. I still have time." I savoured the last mouthful of my mead.

"My sons—our sons, mine and Donuil's—will be companions to your infant King, you know. Had you thought of that?"

"No, I had not." I shook my head, ruefully. "But you may have daughters."

"Shame, Caius Merlyn! Do you doubt me now? I will have sons. I told you long ago when first we met; two of them, Gwin and Ghilleadh. And they will be companions to your ward, young Arthur. . . Cousins, too."

I shook my head, enjoying this sudden, novel feeling of relief from tension between myself and this delightful woman. "Come, Shelagh, you're not even yet with child."

She laughed. "Not even bedded, as a proper wife."

"No, but think what that means. Arthur is six months old and more, already. By the time your first son is born, even if Donuil were to come tonight and quicken you at once, there would be fifteen months between the two youngsters, and that means thirty months between your youngest and young Arthur. That is a vast gulf during childhood."

"Aye, but childhood is brief. Three years is nothing at all between young men. Look at yourself and Donuil; what is there, nine years between you? Besides, when two or three children grow up close together, age has little influence. Only when an elder child has other friends of his own age does difference emerge."

"But that will be the case, Shelagh! It seems there are children being born everywhere in Camulod today. Only last night, at dead of midnight, I met Lucanus on his way to a birthing. The child was born safely, to the young wife of one of our councilors. It was a boy. They'll call him Luke, Ludmilla told me earlier. So there's one more companion for the King."

"No, there will only be the three, Arthur and Gwin and Ghilleadh. Believe me." Her voice had altered somehow, and I felt a chill run over me, raising the small hairs on my neck and shoulders, but then she was speaking again in her normal tones, quite unaware, it seemed to me, of having said anything strange. "How long had you been standing there, behind me, before you spoke this morning?"