“Hello.”
I looked down at the sound of a voice.
I hadn’t noticed the little boy who was standing watching them as well. He looked up at me out of large, dark eyes that peeped from under a mane of wild, curly hair.
“Are you the Lady of the Ring?”
I supposed I must be, so I nodded. “My name’s Gwen, what’s yours?”
“Llacheu.”
He looked about six years old. His build was sturdy and strong, and he wore a fine dark blue tunic over matching braccae, and a short cloak. Not the child of one of the servants.
“That’s a nice name.”
His brow creased. “So’s yours. It’s Guinevere really, isn’t it?”
I nodded. Did they all know about me? Down to the smallest child?
“Mine should be Llacheu Pendragon,” the child said. “But it can’t be, because my mother’s not wed to my father. So I’m baseborn. But I’m still from the dragon’s line.” He eyed me thoughtfully. “My mother says I would be a Pendragon if it weren’t for you.”
I blinked. Was this Arthur’s child? I wasn’t sure how to answer this pronouncement.
He kicked the toe of his ankle boot in the mud. “But I don’t mind. If I were a Pendragon I’d be his heir, and if I were that, I’d have to be a king one day, because he’s going to be a king. Now he’s got you and the prophecy is coming true, he’ll be the High King. And kings are never their own men. They can’t do just what they like. They can’t take off being a king at night like their cloaks. They have to be kings all the time. And I wouldn’t like that.”
“Who told you that?” It didn’t sound like a conclusion a six-year-old would have reached all by himself.
“My friend Merlin.”
Of course. The perpetrator of my problems. And this little boy’s as well. If Merlin hadn’t been promising the imminent arrival of the woman who would make him High King, Arthur might be married now to this child’s mother.
“Lucky escape, then,” I said, thinking I could do with a similar cop-out.
Llacheu grinned. “I want to be a warrior when I grow up and fight the Yellow Hairs and the Irish raiders and the Picts. Kings do get to do that. But I don’t want to have to do court stuff. Merlin says they have to be wise and good and-and give out justice, and that sounds boring. It’s hard being good all the time. I just want to do lots of fighting.”
He pushed back his cloak and drew a short wooden sword from a scabbard on his belt. “See? My father gave me this. He says I’ll be a great warrior, and they’ll sing about me in kings’ halls for years to come. I’d like that.”
I smiled my admiration for his sword. The horses had their heads down grazing again.
“Want to see my pony?” Llacheu asked suddenly. “Want to see me ride it?”
Why not? I liked children, and it would be good to get to know this frank little boy better.
“All right. Lead the way.”
He threaded his way through the network of pens to a small enclosure where a fat, grey pony was grazing by herself. He whistled, and she raised her head and started to walk toward us. She looked very much like the Welsh Mountain Pony I’d first learned to ride on when I, too, had been six. Llacheu unhooked a rope halter from one of the fence posts and slipping between the rails, stood on tiptoe to get the halter over his pony’s small ears. The pony dropped her head, and Llacheu led her up to me.
“Her name’s Seren,” he said, one small grubby hand buried in her mane, “because she’s so beautiful. Star. My father gave her to me on my last name day.”
“Lucky you,” I said, giving Seren’s forehead a rub. She had a good growth of thick winter coat on her, covered in dried mud. “Have you got any brushes so we can groom her?”
Llacheu looped the halter rope over the fence. “I’ll run and get them.”
While he was gone, I had a bit of a conversation with Seren, who was convinced I might have something edible hidden about my person and kept nudging me with her soft, grey muzzle and nibbling at my sleeves. By the time Llacheu returned, she and I were good friends. He’d brought another older boy with him, and this boy carried a small saddle and a bridle, while Llacheu had a couple of bristly brushes and a toothed metal tool that reminded me of a modern currycomb.
“This is Tulac,” Llacheu said, introducing the older boy. “Father gave him to me to be my body slave. He has to do what I say, but my mother keeps stealing him to do her chores. I had to go and get him back. I can’t carry the saddle by myself. It’s too heavy, and I trip over the girth.” He stood on tiptoes to brush the mud off Seren’s wide back. “But I’m growing fast. I couldn’t reach up here in the summer, and now I can.”
I took a brush and started on the other side of Seren while Tulac watched, still holding the saddle. He was a lanky, sandy-haired boy of about twelve, with a wide mouth and thick smattering of freckles. When the pony was clean enough, Llacheu took the bridle and managed to get it onto her without too much difficulty. Tulac put a checked rug and then the saddle on her broad back, and Llacheu did up the girth. The pony puffed herself out as he tried to get it tight, so when he’d finished, I too gave it a tug and got it much more securely fastened. Tulac grinned at me out of wide-spaced tombstone teeth that looked too big for his bony head. Evidently puffing herself out was Seren’s favorite trick.