Page 19 of Warrior Queen
His chest rose and fell in a sigh. “Do we need to talk about this now? I was nearly asleep.”
I tweaked his nipple in admonishment. Quite hard. “We do. I have a feeling it’s important.”
His arm tightened around me, telling me I had his attention, and he was no longer dozing off. “You and your feelings. You’re as bad as Merlin.”
“We women usually have good gut instincts.”
A little chuckle shook his body. “And men don’t?” His head moved and his breath warmed my scalp. “You and your feminine desire for superiority.”
I pinched him again. “Not superiority– equality.”
“Ouch, but you can do that again– I liked it.”
I stopped, of course. “How did you find out. You haven’t told me yet.”
His free hand snaked up my side and found my left breast. Now I’d woken him up, it seemed he had other things in mind than talking. “One of my men, Barra, is from Viroconium. He had news from home, from his sister who works in the palace. She told him, and he told me. Me in preference to Merlin. Barra was there last year when I fought Cadwy. He knows what Morgana did to Merlin. He didn’t think it wise to share the news with him.”
There was no doubting that what he was doing to my breast was distracting. I tried to concentrate. “Who told Merlin then?”
“I did.” He kissed my hair. “Do we need to talk about this now? I can think of something else I’d like to do.”
I wriggled. I could too, but I needed to know more about this baby. “Do you know what she’s called it?”
His hand migrated down my stomach and past my navel. “I can’t remember.” His voice had taken on the same huskiness it had held when we’d first retired to bed that evening.
“Well think,” I whispered. “Didn’t your informant happen to mention, for example, what she’s named her daughter?”
His fingers were now being most distracting, and a little gasp of pleasure forced its way between my lips. With no direction from me, my own left hand slid down his belly and found he was more than ready for what he had in mind.
“What’s her name?” I persisted.
He wriggled around, slipping me out from under his arm until he was leaning over me, his face close to mine, illuminated by the golden glow from the brazier like a man cast in bronze. His long hair tickled my skin. Without thinking, I slid my legs apart in invitation.
“I have it,” he whispered, mouth descending toward mine. “She’s called Nimuë.” Then he kissed me.
Chapter Seven
Nimuë. The nameof the Lady of the Lake, according to legend. Yet this was an ordinary human baby, even though her parents both had the Sight. Not that I believed in fairies or whatever the legendary Nimuë was meant to have been. This wasn’t some romantic fantasy. Far from it, considering the way that child had come to be born. In my baser moments, I wished very hard that Morgana had suffered a difficult birth as reward for the way she’d treated Merlin.
But here was yet another secret for me to keep. Although I hoped the coincidence of her name was just that, an awkward coincidence and nothing more, at the back of my mind lurked the nagging worry that it wasn’t. That one day, little Nimuë would have a part to play in the tragedy I feared was looming ever closer. My one consolation was that as many of the players were so young, that tragedy must lie far into the future.
Hugging my fears to myself during the long winter nights when I sat feeding Archfedd, watching my sleeping husband’s face, set a nasty nagging canker growing in my heart that I couldn’t excise. I loved Arthur so much it hurt. And yet one day, a day that would arrive much sooner than I could imagine, he’d be taken from me. Unless I could set in motion events that would change history. Change his life. Change the legend.
He surprised me one night, as I sat in bed silently crying over Archfedd’s downy head, the tears running unhindered down my cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” His gentle voice made me jump.
I wiped my eyes, sniffing to clear my nose. “Nothing.”
He sat up in bed, moving closer. “Rubbish. I can see there is.” By the soft candlelight he peered at our baby, milk-drunk and nearly sated, eyes only half open, my nipple slipping from her rosebud mouth. “Is it Archfedd? Is she sick?”
I shook my head and sniffed again. “She’s fine. Just asleep.”
He put out a finger and stroked her soft cheek. “Then what’s caused these tears? Has something happened to upset you?”
“No. Nothing.” My brain frantically scrabbled for a good excuse. He wouldn’t understand if I told him it was my hormones. Another of those “if you can’t see them, then they don’t exist”things.
His arm slipped around my shoulders. “Come here then.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Has someone said something to hurt you?”
