Read Online Gwenhwyfar by Mercedes Lackey - Free Book Online Page A

reasoning with the menfolk; when she gets older and learns her Power, and make no mistake, she has Power, in her presence their eyes will glaze over and their reason fly out the window. The glamorie, that’s what she’s got, a true Power, make no mistake. Anna Morgause has it. I’ve seen her, and she’s but to bend a finger and nine men of ten will come to sniff at her hem. And they say that young Morgana has it too, though more subtle than Anna Morgause. So be wary of her, for once she’s woman grown, what she wants, she’ll have, and if someone else has it, she’ll take it, and the men will stand in line to get it for her.”
    A strange chill ran up Gwen’s back, and she shivered. It seemed absurd to look at Little Gwen lording it among the other small children and talk about her in the same breadth as Lot’s queen. And yet . . .
    She watched Little Gwen, and despite the absurdity of the crown and the troupe of little boys about her . . . there was no doubt. Her sister was more than just pretty. When you put aside what you knew about her, and just let your eyes follow her, she had something about her that made everything about her a little more. Both of them had white blond hair, but Little Gwen’s was glossier, and even when tousled, it looked pretty instead of messy. They both had blue-green eyes, but Little Gwen had a way of looking sideways out of them that made you think she was looking at you in particular. Her cheeks were the pink of wild roses, her chin adorably pointed. And that was now, as a little girl. What would happen when she got to be Cataruna’s age?
    She sipped her cider and wondered why Braith was telling her all this.
    “I tell you this because I had a sister like her. By the time we were twelve and eleven summers, she had the best in the house, and the rest of us got what she didn’t want or hadn’t a use for. ’Twas a rare good thing for me, she didn’t like the horses and they didn’t like her; every lad one of us fancied, she took, only to toss aside for the next. M’brothers, m’parents, they fair doted on her.” Braith shook her head. “When I got taken up by Chief Hydd’s horse tamer, no one even noticed I was going. Never went back, not even t’visit, but I’ve no doubt she made plenty’f mischief before fever took her. An’ she was only a farmer’s get. Reckon what mischief yon’ll make, bein’ the king’s.” Braith sipped thoughtfully at her mead. “So … best get ye gone from here, afore there’s summat ye hold dear that she comes t’fancy. Or be doin’ somethin’ she never will.”
    After that, Braith seemed to have nothing more to say, and they sat in silence. Gwen watched the dancing and listened to the music for a while, then when she looked up again, Braith was gone, leaving as quietly as she had come.
    By that time the long day and a full stomach were both catching up with her. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open, and she finally decided that going to bed was a better idea than nodding off and having someone have to put her to bed like an overtired baby.
    Besides, the queen and her women had just come back from the Working, and the queen had a strange, wild look about her. Gwen wasn’t sure she liked the way her mother looked right now: eyes as bright as someone a-fever, cheeks flushed, looking scarcely old enough to be the mother of one, much less a brood. If you didn’t know her, you’d take her for Cataruna’s sister, not her mother. And the way her father was looking back at her . . . made her very uncomfortable for reasons she really didn’t understand.
    So as the queen drew the king into the dancing, taking his hand and pulling him up from his seat as if he was light as a bit of down, then pressing close against him, Gwen picked herself up and turned her back on the fire and her face to the castle.
    The Great Hall was full of murmurings in the shadows; she took the straightest path through the middle of it and ignored what was going