Page 11 of Warrior Queen
I nodded. “Absolutely. If you lock things away inside your head, they stay there, festering. You need to get them out in the open, tell someone how you feel. It’ll help you work out how to move on.” If only I’d studied psychology instead of English at university. That might have been of some use. Conscious I was parroting things I’d heard in TV dramas, I closed my mouth.
“Maybe I don’t want to move on.” He looked away from me, at our escort riding just out of earshot. Four men behind, four in front.
A change of tack was required. “I tried to save you from her,” I said, feeling lame and inadequate. “Because you’re my friend, and I– Iloveyou.”
His head whipped around. For a moment something flashed across his face, an emotion I couldn’t name.
My face heating, I ploughed on. “You’re my best friend. My best friend who’s a man, that is.”
In the distance, the distinctive shape of the Tor reared out of the mist that so often surrounded it, as ethereal as its reputation. No wonder local people thought it the entrance to some sort of otherworld. Only they were right, and it was, wasn’t it? Because I’d come through a doorway on the summit, from a world other than this one. Who knew if that door might take me somewhere else entirely if I ever tried to go back through it, instead of to my old world. I’d considered that possibility a few times.
Merlin shrugged. “I can’t say the same about you, I’m afraid.”
I smiled. “I know. Arthur’s your best friend. He told me you were his. He’s worried about you– about his friend. His mentor. The man who taught him so much. The man on whom he relies for the soundest advice.”
His lips twitched. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “You don’t need to be sorry for anything, Merlin. None of this was your fault. She used whatever powers she has to fool you. She knew you loved her. All of us knew you did.”
His cheeks colored. “Was I so obvious?”
I tried another smile. “When someone’s in love, it’s nigh on impossible for them to hide it. Especially when they’re faced with the object of their love. I realized the way the wind was blowing the first time I laid eyes on her and saw the way you were looking at her– at Uthyr’s deathbed. Anyone who couldn’t see it written clearly on your face back then would have to have been blind.”
He stared ahead again, biting his lower lip. Maybe he’d thought he’d hidden it well. How like a man to be so unaware. Even men of magic had their weaknesses, it seemed.
Ahead, the forest had drawn closer as we talked, the dusty road dipping down into the trees and heading toward the lower-lying, marshy ground. This way would lead us to the lake village to take a boat across to the monk’s wharf, as Arthur and I had once done…a lifetime ago.
Alezan swished her tail, and I swatted flies away from my face. Although it was autumn and the nights already chilly, the still-warm daytime weather kept them far too numerous. “Morgana would have seen it too. A woman doesn’t miss a man in love with her.” I paused. “And some, like Morgana, would use it to their own ends. There are many women like that in the world.”
For a moment, the thought came to me that maybe Merlin, despite his age, was fairly ignorant of women. I’d never seen him with any woman at Din Cadan, nor heard whispers that he’d had any kind of liaison. At Caer Luit Coyt, when we’d stayed the night in what had turned out to be the next best thing to a brothel, he’d gone off with the men to the bath house, but had he partaken? He’d been the first to return, luckily for me. Maybe he was too innocent, and too naïve, to have ever guessed Morgana’s intentions when she’d come to Din Cadan this spring and told him she loved him.
This image of Merlin as an innocent abroad shocked me. Somehow it didn’t fit into the context of the fifth century, and yet it seemed to chime with what I knew of him.
“Women can be wicked creatures,” I said. “Me included. I’ve got secrets I keep even from Arthur. Things I can’t share, even if I wanted to.”
“I thought you had. Secrets about the future.” He shook his head. “But that’s not the same as what she did to me. How she lied. You’re just keeping things back. If he came out and asked you, you’d tell him, wouldn’t you?”
Would I? I swallowed. Now was not the time for honesty about my secrets. “Of course I would,” I said, not sure if it was the truth.
He seemed satisfied, and we rode on a little in a slightly more companionable silence. The lake village lay on the far side of the forest, and we’d be there before long.
Merlin broke the silence. “Do you think she has…hadany feelings for me?”
Oh dear. Love, unrequited love, is such a painful thing. I again weighed up being honest or not for a moment. The fact that he’d probably be honest with me if I asked him a question won. “No, I don’t think she ever did. Not the sort you’d want her to have, that is.”
He didn’t look surprised, thank goodness, although perhaps he’d been hoping I might have answered differently. “Never?”
“No. Never. I don’t think she’s a woman who’s ever loved anyone but herself. She tolerates Cadwy, but really, she despises him.” A small smile curved my lips. “To be honest, she’d fit in very well in my old world in the boardroom.”
“The boardroom?”
“It’s like the Council of Kings, but they have one to organize every business– type of work– and it’s very cutthroat.” I could see Morgana in a power suit with her raven locks scraped back in a tight bun from her beautiful but cold face. She’d have Louboutins on her feet and an expensive Hermès handbag on her arm, but explainingthatwould have been very hard. “Take it from me– there are ruthless women just like her in boardrooms all across Britain in my time.”
He sighed. “I’m very glad I don’t live in your time, then.”
Our road twisted between the trees, the sunlight dappling down through the gold-tinged, leafy branches. Our escort rode closer, making private conversation difficult.
I watched Merlin. How had he come to this, that love of a woman had brought him so low? My heart ached for him, but what could I do to stop him feeling this way? Nothing I could think of. Maybe he needed a woman in his life who would love him back– perhaps not quite in the way he craved, but someone uncomplicated and kind and good? Sharp contrast to that bitch Morgana.
