Gwenhwyfar Read Free

anything that would have warranted this. If their positions had been reversed, had Gwenhwyfar been the youngest, there would be some cause for that resentment. But no, it had been Little Gwen who had usurped the position of “youngest” from her year-older sister, and she’d scarcely begun to toddle when she made her enmity known. From that day, Gwen’s life had been a struggle to avoid her clever sister’s tiny tortures.
    One thing she had learned early on: never strike back. Little Gwen was never caught, at least not by an adult, and retribution on Gwen’s part only brought down the wrath of an adult. Gwen was the older; logic said that when there was a quarrel, she was the aggressor, for why would a smaller child bully a larger? When Gwen displayed bruises, she was told that was what she deserved for picking on her younger sibling.
    Her older sisters knew what was going on, of course, but protests to an adult only got them told not to take sides.
    That was the other reason for having a Gwen on either side of the bed, with two sisters in between. It stopped the fighting.
    Well, mostly.
    “It’s all your fault,” Little Gwen whispered in the dark. “You got us sent to bed, Gwenhwyfar. We could still be there if not for you.”
    “Me? What did I do?” Gwen demanded as both her sisters sighed with exasperation.
    “You weren’t quiet enough. You made the queen look at you. You were fidgeting. You always fidget.” This, from the person that Mag always checked for fleas, since by the nursemaid’s way of thinking, anyone who squirmed that much must be harboring a host of fleas.
    “Did not!”
    “Did so!”
    “Did no such thing!”
    “Did so!”
    “Give over!” snapped Gynath, the eldest of them all. “Gwen did no more fidgeting than you, and she was a deal less obvious about wanting to hear every word about the Queen of the Orkneys. Now go to sleep!”
    “I can’t,” Little Gwen whined. “I’m cold. Gwen stole all the covers.”
    Since Gwen was barely covered by the drape of the blankets, this was obviously a lie. “Did not!”
    “Did so!”
    “Couldn’t have,” Gynath said smugly. “I tucked them under the featherbed on your side. You’re a liar, and that just proves you’re a changeling. I knew it! The Fair Folk took the real baby and left you in her place! No wonder you’re a little horror!”
    “Am not!” Little Gwen said, furiously. “And she stole the covers! Ow!”
    This last punctuated the thump on the head her older—and much larger—sister gave her.
    “Give over,” Gynath repeated. “Go to sleep, or I’ll tip you out and you can lie on the floor with the dogs all night.”
    “I’m lying with bitches now,” Little Gwen muttered, and Gynath thumped her again for her pains, and, at last, she subsided.
    Gwen turned on her side, her back to her sisters, and stared at the place where the curtains met. Stealthily—because if Little Gwen knew what she was doing there would be whining about letting the draft in—she parted the curtains with a finger and peered across the room at the light visible through the gaps between the door and doorframe, straining her ears to make out something besides the indecipherable muttering of voices. She had wanted to hear more too, but not about Anna Morgause.
    She wanted to hear about magic and the Power. Hearing about or watching someone working magic always gave her a shivery good feeling. She couldn’t wait until she came into her own Power.
    She wondered what it would be. Some, like Eleri, could do just about anything in reason. Some were just healers, some could command the weather, or see into the past or the future.
    She wanted to be able to do it all, though. Well, who wouldn’t? And she wanted something else. She wanted to be a chariot-driver, and a warrior. There had to be a way to keep the Power and still wield Cold Iron. Sometimes she felt torn in two, wanting both those things—
    But there was no doubt, no doubt at all, that when