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Rhuawn or from any of…his party. But for the quarrel itself, it was no worse than the other quarrels.”
    “Well. And yet you look troubled, my lady, more than by the other quarrels.”
    I walked on a few steps before looking at him. His eyes were on my face, waiting, “I am troubled, yes,” I told him. “But it is a personal matter.”
    His expression cleared. “Your father. Forgive me. I should have remembered and kept silent.”
    “Even you cannot remember everything, noble lord. There is nothing to forgive.”
    “You have heard from your clan since?”
    He was trying to ease the grief of the death by reminding me that I had other family, trying to be kind, and I confused him when I stopped abruptly and clenched my hands together, struggling with myself. I was tired, I thought, or I would not weaken like this, not be so subject to my grief and anger. There had been too much to do in the past month, and the mood of the fortress had been so embittered that often I had been too tense to sleep.
    “My lady?” Bedwyr had stopped, facing me, and was watching me with concern.
    I waved him back. “I had a letter from my cousin Menw. He…we quarreled, years ago. He is now clan chieftain. He…” I stopped, because I was ashamed that Menw had demanded what he had, and ashamed to accuse him, my own cousin. I did not want to talk of that letter.
    Bedwyr’s jaw set. He turned and began to walk on, not looking at me, and I joined him. “You should not allow small-minded men to distress you, my lady,” he said.
    “More easily advised than done, Lord Bedwyr. Like most philosophic advice.”
    He looked at me again, not smiling, not distracted by my attempt to divert him. Half unwilling, I began to tell him about the letter.
    We arrived at my house before I finished. The spring sun was still high, although the afternoon was drawing on, and it fell warm and heavy upon our heads and sides. Inside the house someone was playing a harp, and the soft sound carried clear and liquid into the silence when we stopped and I hurriedly ended my account. Bedwyr and I looked at each other.
    “It was bravely done, lady,” he said softly. “It was no doubt a most bitter thing, to accept exile from your home, but it was bravely done. If there were time—but our lord is waiting.”
    Arthur was indeed waiting, sitting and staring into the fire with his feet propped against the grate. Lord Gwalchmai ap Lot, who was to be the emissary to Less Britain, was also there: it was he who had been playing the harp. Arthur could not play, for harping is a noble skill not taught at monasteries such as the one where he was raised—but he loved to listen. When Gwalchmai saw us, however, he at once set the harp down and stood to greet us, and Arthur straightened, took his feet off the grate, and waved to us to be seated.
    “My lady,” said Gwalchmai, bowing his head; then took my hand and smiled, at me, at Bedwyr. “And Bedwyr; we thought you must have ridden clear to Ynys Witrin, so long have you been in arriving.”
    “Lady Gwynhwyfar was resolving a quarrel between Rhuawn and Cei,” Bedwyr said quietly, taking his seat on Arthur’s right.
    The corners of Arthur’s mouth drew down in pain and he looked at me. “Another quarrel?”
    I nodded and settled wearily into my own place at the desk, opposite Arthur. Gwalchmai resumed his seat, all smiles gone, and stared at the fire. He knew whom the quarrel must have concerned. I watched him for a moment as he sat very dark and still in his crimson cloak with his jeweled sword, his black eyes seeming to look through the flames into another world, as they always did when he was troubled. He had lost weight recently. Part of that had been in traveling—he had returned from Less Britain only the week before, and neither that embassy nor the voyage had been an easy one. But the situation at Camlann must have been almost unbearable for him. I longed to reach past that withdrawal and unearthliness and ease