Now Mairidh smiled at him, savouring that admission of love—the all-consuming first love of adolescence. "Well, now you know it was a foolish fear, don't you?" she said.
"Do I? Would you have lain like that with me had you known who I truly was at the outset?"
"Of course I would! I did know who you truly were, Uther, and in the most important way of all for any woman: you were the one person in the world I most wanted to lie with me and take me as you did. Your name was the least significant thing in my mind."
He stood staring at her now, his hand lowering the peeled stick that spitted the hare so that the cooked carcass was in danger of sliding off the end of it. She nodded towards it.
"You're going to drop that into the fire, you know. Much better if you simply set it down, and we'll eat it. I'm starved."
The boy glanced towards the roasted hare, then moved it away from the flames, lowering the end of the spit to the grass as he looked back at her, his eyes searching hers for any sign of mockery.
"Do you mean that? You enjoyed . . . what we did?"
"Well, of course I enjoyed it! Come here, closer, over here . . ." She waited until he approached close enough for her to be able to reach out and touch his cheek. "Now look at me, look close into my eyes! I want you to read the truth there. Look at me and hear me . . . I loved every moment of it, and I have no regrets . . . none at all. Do you?"
His denial was immediate and emphatic, a wordless, negative head shake.
She smiled again and spoke more softly, caressing him with her tone. "Well, in truth, I do have one regret . . . I regret that we were interrupted so brutally, but that is the only regret I have. No, that's untrue, too . . . I also regret not knowing you would follow me and save me from those creatures. It would have been far easier had I known you would come for me." She paused, eyeing the hare again. "Are we going to eat that?"
He raised the stick again and withdrew it from the carcass, bracing the hot, smoking meat with a smaller stick until the main skewer came free and then laying the cooked meat on a large burdock leaf beside the fire. "I've no salt, though."
Mairidh laughed and allowed the robe to slip from her shoulders. "Let's eat it then, because I'm famished. If I need salt, I'll lick some sweat from your chest."
Later, when they lay temporarily sated with eating before the sun went down, Uther wanted to make love to her, but Mairidh demurred gently, pleading soreness and exhaustion and reminding him of all she had gone through the night before. Instantly abashed and embarrassed by his own thoughtlessness, he was profuse in his apologies, but she soothed him then and made him lie down beside her, and for a space they were quiet. But soon his awareness of her closeness stirred him afresh, and she took pity on him, relieving him with her hand in the space of a few heartbeats.
After that he slept for a short time, for he had had even less sleep than she the night before.
Later still, when his breathing changed sufficiently to tell her he was no longer asleep, she smoothed her hand up his flank as far as his hip bone, and felt him grow tense, anticipating more intimacy.
"How long will we stay here, Uther?"
"Hmm?" He was almost asleep, but he roused himself and looked around at the willow trees that stood silhouetted against the late-evening sky and screened their refuge from the rest of the world. "Tonight. We'll sleep here and head homeward in the morning. We'll be there by noon. They'll be looking for us by now, though. My father will be angry . . . Your husband will be too, I should think."
"Worried, certainly, and fretful. But not angry. He knows I would not simply run off. Had I wished to do that, I would have done it long since, and had I not wished to be here with him, I would not have come to Cambria. So he will be afraid I've come to harm, and hence he will be happy to see me returned safely by my rescuer. He will be very grateful . . . particularly when I have told him how heroic you were following me, alone and unarmed." She felt him go tense beside her. "What? Did I say something wrong?"
"What will you tell him? He'll know we were—"
She silenced him by laying her hand flat against his chest, gentling him with its steady pressure.
"Hush you! He will know only what I tell him. You were swimming and came running when you heard me scream. My attackers turned on you and beat you, then threw you into the river and stole all your possessions. But instead of drowning, you climbed back and followed them, killed them both and set me free. And then you brought me back with you. Most of that is true, save for the opening . . ."
He said nothing, and she lay silent for a spell. Then, "Was that the first time you ever killed someone?"
He turned his head away, and for a long time she thought he would not respond, but then he drew a deep breath. "It won't be the last." He kept his face averted, and she stroked the soft hairs at the nape of his neck.
"You sound very sure of that."
"I am. I am the King's son, and I'm of age. I'll be a warrior soon, and I must be a champion." His voice was very quiet.
"What do you mean by that, a champion?"
He turned back to her, wordlessly, his right hand moving in utter confidence now to her breast, the thumb brushing her nipple, stirring the smouldering fires in the depth of her so that her breath caught in her throat and she shuddered, reaching for him, yet turning her body so that his maleness thrust against her hip.
"Wait! Wait, not yet—"
He stopped, raising himself over her to peer down into her eyes, and she could see no sign of the callow, hesitant boy of the day before.
"Forgive me," he said. "I forgot, again. It shouldn't be possible for me to forget, I know, but when I am near to you like this, beside you—"
She silenced him by placing her fingertips against his lips. "Hush," she whispered, "you have done nothing wrong, and what you feel is only natural. I am the one who should feel regrets, and believe me, I do, for I want you as much as you want me . . . In fact . . . wait . . ." She moved her lower body, twisting sinuously yet carefully against him. "There now, see what you can achieve. But gently, gently . . ."
He moved delicately and with great gentleness, fitting himself to the contours of her body and lifting her cautiously with one supporting arm until he could sheathe himself, and they made love in silence, slowly and almost without moving.
When it was over, and they lay entwined, she turned her head and smiled at him. "That will improve," she whispered, "now that we have discovered how to do it without hurting any of my bruises." She moved her bottom, pushing it into the hollow of his lap. "Now, tell me what you meant earlier when you talked of being a champion rather than a warrior."
He pushed himself up on one elbow, looking down at her. "You don't know the difference?" She shook her head, gazing back at him, and he reached down beneath the coverings and hooked his other elbow gently beneath her knee, raising it and pulling it towards him, then insinuating himself into the space he had formed. For a long moment he remained there, staring into her eyes, and then, his voice thick with desire, he whispered, "Later . . . I'll tell you afterwards."
She shuddered and smiled, closing her eyes.
"Being a warrior means fighting at any time . . . But being a champion means winning all the time. It means defeating every enemy who challenges your championship, and doing it so thoroughly and so completely that he will never think to challenge you again . . . Being a warrior means fighting on command and lighting to survive. Being a champion means killing constantly in response to challenge and being challenged constantly."