Huw was forced to admit to himself that he had permitted Meradoc to treat him as a foolish boy, easily gulled. By following Meradoc's suggestions uncritically, Huw had unwittingly condoned the man's treatment of him, making himself appear foolish and justifying Meradoc's outrageous belief in his own rightness.
It was only when the young Chief had stopped short, gazing wide-eyed at the bloodied corpse of Meradoc, that he had felt the truth of that.
Huw was now making his way back to his own tent, his mood still swinging wildly from elation to consternation each time he remembered an important question he should have asked Uther but had forgotten. He felt the weight of responsibility that came with his vote, and a new feeling that one could never be certain about any man while the course of his life and the tests of his character still lay ahead of him.
He did not see the young woman who stood waiting for him until he had drawn level with her and heard her call his name, but then he swung towards her and his face broke into a great grin of welcome.
"Glynda! What are you doing out here? I thought this was your day to work with Balin, slaving over accounts and reckonings?"
"It is—I mean, it was—but he didn't want me there today. They're all too excited about the Choosing, so Lord Balin let me go free."
"You mean Balin admitted that there are some things more important than teaching my little sister to read and write? I find that difficult to believe."
"No you do not, you beast! You are simply being nasty because you have a mean and vicious nature and you cannot resist being deliberately cruel and unpleasant when you find someone who cannot stand up to you."
His sister's laughing eyes belied the apparent harshness of her words as she swung towards him, linking her arm with his and then pulling him into a spinning, dance-like turn that threatened harm to his dignity. For the space of two heartbeats Huw tried to resist, and then he threw back his head and laughed, taking her hands in his own and dancing with her, throwing himself into the spin and leaning back against the pull of her weight as he swung her around, hard. Five, six, seven times he swung her in a circle, faster and faster each time around, until her toes seemed barely to touch the wet ground and she was in as much danger of flying off her feet as he was of slipping on the treacherous wet earth. Huw nonetheless continued to swing her at hurtling speed for four more turns before slowing down gradually until he could safely release her. As soon as he did so, both of them checked themselves and laughingly attempted to stand erect, but dizziness sent them staggering helplessly until they fell to the muddy, rain-soaked grass and sobered rapidly with the shock of the cold earth.
"Huw, you oaf!" Glynda shrieked. "Help me up, quickly!"
Huw, however, was incapable of helping her. Twice he tried to struggle to his feet, only to fall back each time, laughing helplessly and spreading his hands to indicate his powerlessness to help his sister, whose disgust seemed to increase from moment to moment. He referred to her constantly as his "little" sister, but Glynda was, in fact, older, a half-sister, born to another of their father's wives, who had also borne a stillborn son a year and a half later, mere weeks before Huw's arrival. The two children, although born eighteen months apart to different mothers, had grown up together, because their mothers had become close friends during the common time of their pregnancy and that friendship had endured, with Huw's mother supporting Glynda's after the loss of her stillborn child and sharing her own newborn, Huw, with the other woman, easing her loss. As a result, the two children grew to be in each other's company almost constantly and to develop much closer bonds to each other than most of their true siblings had. Two members of an enormous number of the Chief's offspring, with Huw the eldest son, they had also benefited from the fact that their numerous siblings were grouped apart from them in age. Many of the girls were far older than "the two close ones," as their father called them, and a few brothers and sisters were much younger, born to their father Caerliss's last and youngest wife. Caerliss himself, half-brother to the mighty Ullic, War Chief and King of the Pendragon Federation, had been Ullic's youngest sibling and a potent, productive Chief of his own clan, fathering no fewer than twenty-seven children upon five wives.
Before Huw could catch his breath, Glynda was back on her feet, brushing at her clothing while she pretended to be angry.
"Look at me, I'm soaked through to the skin, and you're no better, Huw Pendragon! Have you no sense at all, knocking me off my feet like that to land in a puddle?"
Huw's mouth gaped. "Knocked you off—? I didn't knock you off your feet, you fleering little devil. You fell down with no help from me. You were the one who set about me, pulling me into your wild dance, and me with a Chief's matters to attend to." He pulled himself up to his full height, crossing his arms on his chest and thrusting his chin into the air. "Now behave yourself, woman, and guard your tongue."
She blinked at him. "Guard my tongue? Against what?"
"Against arrest. If you keep this up, you will force me to summon my guards and have you locked away where your nagging won't deeve me . . ."
Quite suddenly, however, the bantering mood had passed, and now Glynda was looking down at herself in dismay. "Look at me, Huw! Now I'll have to go and change everything before I can go to the Choosing. These clothes are destroyed."
"No, they are not. They're line—they'll dry out directly and you'll never be able to see they were wet."
She looked at him as if he were demented. "I can't be seen looking like this! What will people think?"
Huw was half laughing, looking slightly bewildered. "They'll think what they want to think, and who among us cares? If you do, it'll be for the first time ever. If anyone asks you what happened and how you got your back all wet, tell them it might have happened one of two ways: either you were rutting in the rain with a stranger, or you were dancing on the wet grass with your brother and you slipped. They think we're both mad enough, anyway, and they all love to be able to shudder in outrage at the antics of me, who should be a sober Chief always."
Glynda was standing almost on tiptoe now, pulling at the cold, wet material of her bodice where it clung to the shape of her waist and belly.
"What's he like, Huw? Is he lovely?"
"What's who like?" For a moment Huw had no idea what she was talking about.
"Uther! Uther Pendragon. He's to be King, after the Choosing, isn't he?"
"I can't tell you that, can I? The Choosing hasn't happened yet. The voting hasn't taken place."
"Phah!" The noise his sister generated between pursed lips was extremely vulgar. "There's a nonsense . . . Meradoc is dead, is he not? And Uther killed him. There were only two of them eligible for the Choosing, apart from you, and you are too young for it. Now there's only one of them eligible, so why do you even need to vote? A blind man could see that Uther will be the new King. But what is he like? That's what I want to know."
"Well, I still say I can't tell you that."
"Dia, and why not? You've been with him all morning! There must be something you can tell me."
"Something like what? Is he lovely? That's what you asked me, is it not? Men are not lovely, Glynda, not to other men, at least." He paused, hesitantly, then continued, grinning slightly. "Well, he is certainly not unpleasant to look at. Anyway, he is much too old and far too important to have time for you, dear Sister, so you'll have to wonder in vain."