Winter's Blossom: The Seasons of Arthur

Chapter 35

Owain had kept sending me from Din Eidyn as a punishment before, but now he did so as though he were trying to cure an addiction by forcing abstinence on me. He could not keep me permanently from Din Eidyn though.

Owain began to relent on Agravaine accompanying my raids. Perhaps he believed that the closer I was with Agravaine, the less I would pine for his future wife. However, whenever in her presence still I found myself staring at her and blushing every time she turned her heart-breaking gaze upon me. I could picture her entire image from memory, from her eyes that were like soft shards of sapphire that glinted in the firelight, to the smooth pale skin that seemed to glow in the moonlight, to the long waves of red hair that framed her long face, matching her full red lips that opened up into the perfect set of small white teeth.

She haunted my dreams. I would wake up having visions of those long shapely legs wrapped around me, of how her buttocks moved as she walked. I would wake up with my loins swollen hard and I would have to find somewhere private to alleviate the painful ache. The girls I did find, be they in the brothels or the serving halls, I found myself imagining was Elaine, closing my eyes and picturing her. I had exchanged a score of sentences with her, and yet I was sure I could recount every freckle on her face.

But she was betrothed to Agravaine.

I would see them together, and they looked happy together. Agravaine was a serious young man, and he reminded me a lot of Owain but he had perhaps a softer heart than my naïve kinsman/ He also more of a sense of humour for Owain seemed to grow more serious with every day, and when he insisted that was because he was an adult, I suggested I must have been a child still for I still loved to joke about and take few things seriously.

I took Agravaine and Elaine seriously though, for their happiness was like a spear thrust deep into the pits of my soul. I had taken to walking the walls of Owain's hill fort, insisting to everyone and myself that the scenery was incredible, as it was when the mist rolled in from the sea not to far away, laying like a blanket across the land while the hills and mountains poked through the holes in the blanket. Somehow though, my gaze did not really linger on the scenery though, more often than not it was cast towards the hill fort where Lord Pellinore held his seat of governance, and I would wait all day for a glimpse at Elaine who I found liked to walk the walls as well daily, if not a couple of times a day, or taking her horse, a chestnut coloured mare on a ride in the surrounding country side followed by two warriors and my heart would race painfully as I watched her.

But often I would spy her walking the walls with the huge Agravaine beside her, or he would take his own horse and ride clumsily beside her own so that she would take his reins and, with a hand upon his knee, try to instruct him the way he was supposed to be riding his horse that frankly looked like it could be riding him for their sizes were so similar.

But Agravaine was annoyingly likeable. I tried to hate him. I really tried but I could not. What was worse was that he genuinely loved me as a brother.

"I am so pleased to be your friend." He told me every time we drank a little too much.

"I'm happy to be yours." I would answer and it was true, try as I might to dislike the man I could not. Neither could I blame Elaine for wanting to be his wife. I certainly would have if I was a woman.

We would have deep and meaningful conversations by the light of the campfire or over a tavern ale. We talk about the past and the different struggles we had faced. Agravaine had grown up with the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. His father had never been a particularly strong king, and from an early age he had had to deal with the constant expectations of him. He was expected to be the strongest man, the greatest warrior, the most intelligent and so he had had to strive to meet and surpass those expectations to ensure the survival of his kingdom and his people.