#anwen

Oh, but she would never tell you so.

Many men have fallen at her feet over the years, begged her and her father on bended knee to let them carry her off as though she is little more than an insignificant jewel. She plays along, of course; flutters her lashes, speaks sweetly in their ears at banquets, teasingly runs her fingers down their chests late at night afore she retires, like a tantalising promise of what they vainly strive to receive.

But, once she is sequestered in her chambers – our chambers, really, though I am little more than her maid – she turns to me with a sharp, calculating grin and says, calm as anything, “Oh, Anwen, they have no chance. They're all as dull as dishwater and their brains are mashed marrows!” 

I can do little more than laugh, choked though it is by the way her hand lingers on my shoulder, stroking little circles on the silk of my gown. She always does that, the smoke of her laughter curling in my ears. It makes my chest tighten, my blood roar in my ears. She has never been shy about her carnal appetites. Why, she and Prince Cynon drifted in each other's orbits for years before Morfudd initiated the chase, wishing to tease him, prolonging the simmering tension which had budded between them for years, before plucking him off a stalk and devouring him the way she would a cherry. Ever since King Urien had betrothed them in the wake of her lady mother's – Lady Modron, the magnanimous matron, she who cares for mothers’ and maids’ alike – quitting of Yrechwydd after the disappearance of Prince Mabon, Cynon had followed her helplessly, drifting in her wake in the manner of a honeybee scenting nectar. Throughout it all, he was deaf to Prince Owain's japes, throwing his hands over his ears whenever the dark-haired prince started crooning his latest taunts. 

 Yet Morfudd finds it thrilling. She adores Cynon, I can see it. Not even a seer would be blind to their attraction!

Which makes it all the more egregious that King Urien, in his infinite wisdom, broke off said engagement three weeks past! In front of all manner of dignitaries, no less! He did not deign to give a reason why, although many wagging tongues have put forth their own. Eidyn – Cynon's father's kingdom – and Yrechwydd's relationship has been… tested, as of late. Eidyn wishes to govern freely. Yrechwydd demands homage. War has been threatened, whispered, skirted around these last few months.

Which, to me, would be all the more reason for the marriage to go ahead! Does it not make more sense that these two kingdoms’ be united by the so obvious love that my mistress and Prince Cynon share?! But, no! Instead Urien is hell-bent on war for his own purposes, dashing his daughter's dreams in the process! Gods, he's always been ignorant of matters outside his high-walled palisades! “For twenty years,” my mother used to hiss when I was but a quiet little thing, whenever we were mopping down the floors of the great hall before a feast, “he's brought us nothing but wrack and ruin! He'll follow in his grandfather's footsteps, you mark my words, girl!” 

And Urien's grandfather, Cynfarch, had the epithet Oer! Imagine! Your people crown you dismal! I'd expire on the spot, I think! 

But, then, I am not our lofty king. He who believes himself above all rationale. I think all good sense desserts him whenever he spies an opportunity to backstab. Either that, or Lady Tywanwedd's whisperings are denting his brain. Why, just last week his nephew (well, Lady Tywanwedd's nephew, really) Arthur, Dyfed's patrioclus, who is a bit of a prat himself, arrived, his men streaming behind him in crimson and gold, beseeching for aid and grain.

In his… imposing, godly grandeur (I call it big-headedness) our illustrious king almost turned him away! He would've succeeded if it were not for his nephew's own brashness as well as Arthur's newly-wedded wife's own pleas. She and Morfudd could be twins, I think. They have the same hair. Prince Owain's taken rather a shine to her, although it's probably just to rile his half-cousin. After all, he and Morfudd think the patrioclus to be as grandiose as their father. Forged from the same iron, I suppose. Jabbing fingers and issuing orders with an impertator's severity. No wonder my ancestors rebelled so many times! I daresay I can see the appeal if men such as these were their overlords, stomping about and hissing like bucking beasts. But my mother used to say that both we and Dyfed always had ambitions of expansion and destruction, no matter who barked commands from a poxy throne. 

Anyway, back to the matter at hand: Morfudd. She's become enamoured with her half-cousin's wife, enjoying tangling her tongue up to such an extent that I think it'll knot up. Sometimes, my lady makes our guest flush the most brilliant pink that it puts me in mind of sea thrift! Oftentimes, however, she delights in using her powers to play with her pretty head, to bank up the cauldron fire of her emotions until she goes as white as ash branches when all of it spills out of her. Her name is Gwyn, so my lady mentioned after she'd washed her feet the day she'd arrived. 

Morfudd teased then, too. I saw the way the lady – y brehines, I should say – shivered and sighed like in ecstasy. It was only by the frown marring her pretty face that I knew she was overwhelmed. ‘I bet,’ I sneered inwardly, for a kind of mad, roiling fume overcame me, the like of which set my teeth gnashing and my blood icing over, ‘she's never had a man touch her.’ 

Immediately after, I rebuked myself for it. She was a guest! And the rites for guests meant that the head woman of the household washed all weary travellers’ feet unless requested otherwise! Then they were under our house's protection, until they quit our halls once their errand was finished. 

‘Anwen,’ I heard my mam’s voice chide me. ‘You can't think the worst of every person your lady gets involved with!’

The thing was though, I only thought that because I wished for my lady to touch me the way she was touching the Rhosian lady. I didn't think that was a silly thing to get upset about. What's more was that she had touched me in the past, but pulled away after Tywanwedd hissed at her lest she “humiliate the court." After all, as our queen said, "Goodly maidens should not conduct themselves in such a slatternly sport.”

She's one to talk. 

But there. Morfudd's pulled away, glutted herself on a new summer crop. And I, beleaguered, broken-hearted, can’t do jot about it.