< previous page page_445 next page >

Page 445
"I will not try to turn you from it," she assured him. I am not that foolish. But I must be near, Simon. I cannot stay at Angharad's Hall or Dinas Emrys. I must be near. I will stay where you tell me and will not add to your dangerso long as it be close enough that you can come to meor I to youwhen the battle is over, soon after the battle is over."
Simon burst out laughing. "Soon enough that I still desire to couple? Am I so worthless at other times?"
"Simon, it is no jest. When I am near, I am not afraid."
"I understand, eneit, believe me, I understand," he assured her, still smiling. "I will take you with me whenever I can, right into the camp. Was it that? Was that why you turned away from me? Or was it something I did? I must know, lest I drive you away again."
"No, that will never happen. I told you so many times that it was not you, but I who was at fault. You see, I never loved anyone except my mother and father and II only loved them as a child loves."
"I do not understand."
"It is so hard to make plain," she sighed. "A child thinks its elders are invulnerable. A child does not believe in death. When Gwydyon, my grandfather, died and I saw my mother's heart torn, I must have learned a dreadful fear, so dreadful that I closed off my own heart."
"I see. But then you agreed. What changed your mind after that?"
"I never really agreed. I was pretending to myself that if we did not marry, I would feel less. It is stupid to lie to oneself, but fear makes one stupid. As for what frightened me away altogetherI met your family."
"But they loved you, Rhiannon."
"I know it. I felt it. That was what frightened me so much. You see, they were all real people, not like my mother and father, whom I still saw with my child's eye and therefore never thought of as growing old or

 
< previous page page_445 next page >