Page 18 of Warrior Queen
As I sat with my daughter at my breast, an idea formed; one I could put into practice the next morning. One that didn’t require either Arthur or Merlin.
After the morning feed, I left the slumbering baby in Maia’s experienced hands, and, leaving by the side door, made my way across the courtyard to Cei and Coventina’s house, taking Amhar with me. Secure in the knowledge that Cei was away with Arthur, I knocked sharply on the silvered wood of the door.
After a moment, Keelia, Coventina’s maid, opened it with her latest baby firmly attached to her left breast. Seeing it was me, she made a hasty bow much hampered by the hefty baby. “Milady.” She stepped back to allow me inside.
Cei’s house, like most of the other dwellings, owed almost nothing to Roman influence and everything to the legacy of pre-Roman Britain, although instead of being round, it was rectangular in shape. Blackened beams sat on shoulder-high cob walls holding up a steeply angled reed-thatched roof. The smoke from the fire in the central hearth twisted up to filter between the reeds, pooling a little at the apex. As in all houses, the smell of damp soot hung heavily in the air.
Coventina’s little daughter Reaghan sat quite naked on a rush mat near the fire, playing with a stack of wooden bricks just like the ones I’d had made for Amhar. Her mother perched on a nearby stool, finishing off a bowl of porridge. She looked up as I came in, and her face broke into a welcoming smile.
Amhar yanked his hand out of mine and ran to join his cousin in her games. Big enough now to wear braccae instead of just a shirt, he seemed very much a little boy next to the chubby toddler.
“Excuse me bein’ still eatin’,” Coventina said, putting the empty bowl behind her on the table and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “It do take such a long time to get Reaghan up and fed of a morning, what with Keelia having her own new baby to care for too, I don’t know where the time goes.” She made to get up, but I waved her down. She still suffered some nerve pain that would probably never go away from the operation Donella the midwife had performed on her to save her and her baby, and I didn’t want to set it off.
I sat beside her on another stool, watching the two children play. Although Amhar was the older by nine months, there was none of the bossing about that happened when he played with Medraut. He seemed content to stack towers for Reaghan to knock down, laughing uproariously with her every time they crashed to the floor.
“They do get on well,” I said.
Coventina shifted a little on her stool, perhaps easing whatever pains she felt from her scar. “They do that. ’Tis a pleasure to watch ’em.”
I sat in silence for a while, wondering what I should say. At last, I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “Not like when Medraut joins in.” There, it was said.
Coventina shot me a sideways glance. “Not quite…” Wariness leant an edge to her voice.
Silence again. Clearly it was up to me to bring this into the open. “Do you feel anything is… different… about Medraut?” Probably I wasn’t phrasing myself properly.
She turned her head, puzzled. “Somethin’ different? Like what?”
Had I been imagining it because of what I knew about him? No, not what Iknew, because I couldn’t know for sure– more what IsuspectedI knew. “That he’s…different to the other children?”
“Like how?”
This was getting harder by the moment. She sounded as though she had no idea what I was talking about. I drew a deep breath. “He always wants everything Amhar has. It’s getting worse. Yesterday he pushed Amhar over and made him cry because he wanted to ride Seren.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Does he? I can’t say as I’ve ever noticed. He’s a very… bossy little boy, that’s for sure. But he’s three. Well, nigh on four, and children aren’t easy at that age. Rhiwallon were a demon, and Llacheu– I remember how naughty he could be. Although I didn’t see so much of him as I’d’ve liked. I always thought it were his mother what let him get away with things so much. Because of who he was. He’s turned out fine though, now he’s ten.” She smiled. “Don’t you think?”
I nodded. Llacheu was a lovely lad, and had been from the moment I’d first met him when he was only six. So like his father in almost every way– with more than his fair share of the Pendragon charm. I frowned. “But there’s something about Medraut that’s not like a normal naughty child.” Hadn’t I seen enough of them when I’d been a librarian? I knew a thing or two about badly behaved children, even though that time was long gone.
“I don’t see him enough to give you an opinion,” Coventina said, with a sigh. “I daresay you see him oftener than me, he and Amhar bein’ so close in age an’ both bein’ boys. But if he’s naughty, it’ll be because he’s overindulged at home. Morgawse needs another baby, like you and me. Then he’dhaveto behave himself.” She chuckled.
I sat back, staring past the playing children into the embers of the fire. Perhaps Coventina was right. Perhaps I was overly cautious because of what I thought I knew. Maybe Medraut was just that– a naughty, spoilt child. And maybe he’d grow out of it as Coventina seemed convinced he would.
*
Arthur was awayall summer, and, with a young baby to look after, I was left at Din Cadan, worrying. Having been away from Amhar for such a long time while he was so little, I didn’t want the same estrangement I’d felt from him repeated. But it was hard to remain at home, worrying about Arthur, and I was glad when autumn turned to winter and he returned, bearded, thinner, and with one or two fresh scars.
With him, he brought unwelcome news. Morgana had given birth to Merlin’s child in Viroconium last winter. A girl, as she’d predicted. When I asked him about it, he seemed unwilling to talk, but I pressed him anyway.
We were lying in bed while an early winter storm raged outside, buffeting the stout thatched roof of the great hall and rattling the shutters in our chamber. Inside, the brazier on its bare patch of flagstones belched out heat, and the rugs Maia had hung in front of the shutters shifted in the draft.
We were naked, in that languorous afterglow good sex can give you, tangled in one another’s limbs, my right cheek pressed against his chest, the curling dark hairs tickling my skin. Like any man after sex, he was dozing off. A good time to tackle him– with his guard down.
“Does Merlin know about the baby?” I asked, my fingers tracing his nipple with a deliberately light touch.
Arthur grunted. “He does.”
I didn’t need to look up to know his eyes had closed.
“How did you find out?”
