Chapter Text
Late winter, 530 CE
Northern Cymru
Arthur glanced up from the muddy track toward the mountains in the distance. “Almost there.”
“Lying cub,” Bedwyr said behind him. “What I wouldn’t give to be a bird shifter just now.”
They knew five such folk, Arthur mused. Two magpies, two hawks, and an owl, his old mentor Philip. They were on this track thanks to Philip’s latest visit.
Back in deepest winter, he had brought them word that Arthur’s father had died. They’d been expecting it, but knowing it was coming and fully comprehending a world without his father in it had turned out to be two very different things. He’d spent several of the long, dark days walking alone in the forest that surrounded their refuge, trying to come to terms with it. With understanding that he and Cai and Mora were now the only physical evidence that their father had existed. That they were his legacy, for better or worse, and he wondered if his father had felt the same weight of responsibility after his own fathers had died.
Eventually, he emerged from the forest and his thoughts and rejoined winter life at the refuge. It was a time of rest for his men, and this winter a time of training for Medraut. And since Arthur had finally acknowledged Medraut as his son the previous autumn, that training had taken on a deeper dimension. He didn’t know if Medraut had felt the difference, but Arthur had, fed by an impulse to begin giving the lad something of what his father had given to him. He’d probably overdone it, keeping Medraut occupied between training sessions with tactical instruction and survival skills. More than once, the firm, warm weight of Bedwyr’s hand had come to rest on his shoulder, telling him without words that he could stop for the day. That the boy needed rest to allow his mind to work over what Arthur had tried to teach him. Then Bed had ensured that rest by dragging Arthur off to their own chamber and occupying him in closer pursuits.
All in all, it had been a good winter. He and his men had repaired what needed repairing. For once, they’d not run any missions for Rhys, but they hadn’t felt restless for it. Perhaps they’d all needed the rest.
Then, a few days ago, just as the snowdrops had broken through the mottled remains of snow cover, Philip had flown into the hall again. He’d accepted a hot cup of cider after he shifted, and a spot close to the fire pit to warm himself.
The cider, though, went mostly untouched. “Uthyr has asked me to summon you and Bedwyr to the mountains,” he said to Arthur.
“Only us?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m to tell you only that it’s imperative you come.”
“Is Mama well?”
Something flickered across Philip’s expression, but too quickly to interpret. His smile was genuine, though. “Yes, she’s well. I promise it.”
And so he and Bedwyr had packed supplies and set out for the village high in the mountains of Cymru where they’d grown up.
They hadn’t been back since they’d left, fifteen years before. He had no reason to feel nervous; their old friends and neighbors knew of the bond he shared with Bedwyr—Uthyr had long since revealed it to his people with his own support behind it. But Arthur hadn’t seen his mother in all those years, and though he was a man grown, with countless battles under his belt and the scars and ink to remember them by, the fact that she had never traveled down the mountains to the river lands to visit had him wondering how she might greet him now.
They trekked, he and Bed, and the land rose under them. The change was gentle at first, and the roads well-worn and broad enough to walk side by side. Rolling meadows became high hills, and the roads narrowed to tracks, and then there they were: the mountains of their boyhood, rugged and snow-capped in the distance. He looked over at Bed to find him grinning.
“Too long, eh?”
“Aye.”
Their pace picked up the nearer they got, and they began to recognize things. This south-facing slope that served as protected grazing even in inclement weather. This lake, awfully cold to swim in and thus excellent for private trysts. That ridge, the third one over, near the top of which was the small cave where his grandfathers were laid to rest.
The northeast watch tower.
The unassuming woodland that hid a favorite hot spring.
The shepherd’s hut.
He was tempted to suggest they spend a night in the tiny structure, enjoy what warmth they might find there—what heat they might rekindle on their own—and he could read the same thoughts in Bedwyr’s expression. But they were too close now and the draw of curiosity too strong.
Curiosity and something else. Something like home, though they’d made a solid home for themselves and their men at the refuge. Nothing would ever supplant the place that had raised them both to men, he supposed. He felt it beneath his boots, the ancient yet ageless stone of the mountain, and the power in it rose up his limbs to beat in his chest. He halted on the track and turned to Bed. Took his head in his hands and kissed him. Bedwyr gripped his hair, kissing him back fiercely, and then, after a brief resting of their brows against each other, they walked the last short distance over a saddle and down the other side into their village.
It was nearly dark when they arrived. Arthur had thought he might catch his mother in her smithy, working late as she’d often done, but all was quiet as they made their way toward the hall. As they neared it, the low din of voices grew, as did Arthur’s excitement. He would see his sister, Mora. And Tiro, who was bound to be telling a tale over the fire. And the men he and Bed had trained with when they were lads themselves. Smoke rose from the hole in the hall’s roof, drawing them even as it disappeared into a darkening sky.
Arthur took hold of the great door’s handle. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Arthur opened the door, and they entered Uthyr’s hall.
It was much as he remembered it. Full of people eating and drinking, talking and laughing. Children and hounds galloped about, dodging among the support posts in the usual sort of chases. Fur and other trophies hung from the walls and beams, and fire danced in the central pits. The last time he’d been in this place, he was being banished from it. It’d been the worst night of his life, as certain as he’d been that he’d never see his family again. Never see Bed again, or hear him or touch him. But that night felt as distant now as the river lands. As far off as the Orcades, or Constantinopolis.
There was Tiro, gesturing as he spoke, just as Arthur had imagined, with Philip seated beside him. Arthur scanned the hall, and there! There was Mora, nearly as tall as he was, her copper hair in a plait on her shoulder. There, Lord Uthyr, who had summoned them, sitting on his great chair.
Someone noticed them then, and a cry went up. They were swarmed by old friends, pressed with smiles and exuberant embraces. When Mora threw her arms around him, she squeezed so tightly, he thought his ribs might crack. He held her away from him. “When did you grow so tall?”
“While you were traipsing about the borderlands. But here, come greet Mama.”
Grabbing his hand, she hauled him not to one of the benches along the wall, where his mother had always sat during the fire but toward the center of the hall. Uthyr rose from his chair to meet them with back-pounding greetings. Then he stepped away, uncharacteristically subdued, and looked to the woman seated beside his chair. Arthur hadn’t noticed her in the hub-bub of their welcome, for she sat as still and solid as the mountain itself.
And because her hair was no longer the fiery red it had remained in his memory, but nearly as gray as the iron she forged.
She didn’t stand, and his steps faltered. In her lap, her hands gripped one another, hard enough to make her knuckles shine in the firelight. Her mouth was set in a twist, her brow in a frown, and Arthur understood suddenly that she looked uncertain.
Then Uthyr reached over and laid a hand to her hair. “Eigyr,” he said, and in that touch—in the intimacy of it—Arthur realized his mother was seated in a place that had always been reserved.
For Uthyr’s woman.
He looked at Bed, who appeared to have worked this out a few steps before him and was watching for his response.
Arthur turned back to his mother, to Uthyr, to his mother again.
“Seems you have a tale to tell,” he said.