Page 21 of Warrior Queen
I thought of Caw and all Gildas’s many brothers. It seemed men from beyond the Wall were in the habit of getting themselves lots of sons. Maybe there was something in the water.
“If Dyfed’s Irish already,” I asked, “where are the Irish raiders raiding? Not their countrymen, surely?”
Merlin tapped the map with a long finger. “All along this south coast, most likely. They’ll have no reservations about attacking Agricola. He’s no longer Irish in their eyes, and his lands of Dyfed are rich pickings. In the hills he has gold mines. Dug by the Romans, but still producing some wealth for him.”
At my feet, Archfedd stuffed one of Amhar’s bricks into her mouth, dribble running down her chin from where a tooth was pushing through. An amiable baby, she didn’t seem all that bothered by anything. Her hair had come through lighter than Amhar’s, more like mine, but she’d inherited her father’s curls, which clustered about her head in a pretty profusion.
“Watch how big a tower I can build,” Amhar said, stacking bricks one on top of the other, while firmly holding the lower ones to stop his little sister sabotaging them.
“Excellent building skills,” I said, just before Archfedd managed to knock the tower down. He glared at her for a moment, then started again with a sigh, a bit further away. He’d probably forgotten she could crawl now, and even teeter a few steps on her own.
I bent back over my map. “These are mountains.” I sketched in the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains, the valleys of South Wales where one day coal would be mined, the smaller Preselis in Pembrokeshire, and the mountains of North Wales. I put a cross where I thought Snowdon lay. “And this is the highest point.”
Merlin knew a few places I didn’t, and by dint of careful detective work I managed to divine where they were meant to be and marked them on. Then I stepped back to admire my work, wondering where on this map Arthur was and if he was still safe. If I kept myself busy, I occasionally forgot to worry. In idleness all my fears came rushing back.
Merlin must have read my mind. “He won’t die,” he said as he removed the wooden bricks we’d used to hold the scroll down and rolled it up. “You’re worrying unnecessarily.”
I sat down on one of the chairs. “Easy for you to say that. I mean, I know you think you know, but experience has taught me that firstly you can’t always see things, and even if you do, it’s not always clearly. Then secondly, not being dead isn’t the same as being unharmed. Look how bad that wound he took beyond the Wall was. Did you see that coming?”
In an ambush by the wild Pictish Dogmen, Arthur had been targeted and stabbed in the thigh, a wound that had taken a long time to heal and even now gave him trouble. Naked, the slightly wasted muscles on that leg were apparent. He still walked with a limp when tired.
Merlin shook his head. “All I can tell you is he won’t die fighting against King Illan and his Irish raiders.”
If the stories I knew were right, I could have told him that.
Amhar was fishing in his toy chest and setting out the wooden animals Devin had carved for him. A few of them were of Merlin’s own making, all of them solid and easy for a child to grasp. Archfedd started across the fur rugs toward him in a fast crawl, an acquisitive expression on her face.
I huffed out a long breath. “That’s of little comfort to me as I sit here twiddling my thumbs all summer.”
He sat down on one of the other chairs. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”
In companionable silence, we watched the children play for a few more minutes. Amhar was big and sturdy now, and every time I looked at him, I was struck by his similarity to his father and Llacheu. A good thing, considering the doubts cast over his paternity by that evil king Melwas who’d tried to claim I’d slept with him while I’d been his prisoner. The very thought made me shiver with disgust even now.
Merlin tapped his fingers on his knee. Was something going through his mind that he wanted to say? I sat and waited. I didn’t mind. I never tired of watching my children play, which they mostly did very nicely. Unlike when Medraut intervened. He was such a trouble-making child, always wanting what the other children had. He’d even tried bossing Llacheu about on the few occasions all four of them had been together. Luckily, Llacheu was now a sensible eleven-year-old, and Medraut’s bad behavior slid off him almost unnoticed.
Merlin’s mind must have been running along the same lines as mine. “I’ve been watching Medraut,” he said, after a while. “Paying him close attention. Now he’s nearly five, he’s begun a few lessons. He’s a clever boy, and finds them easy. His teachers have to keep him working else he causes ructions with the others. Morgawse especially asked for him to begin early as he was bored at home– she said.”
I kept my eyes on my children. Amhar was setting out the animals for Archfedd to play with. “What do you think of him?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s hard to say of a child so young. Some boys are made to follow– a few to lead. Medraut seems to possess all the qualities of a leader, not a follower. He’s bossy, autocratic, intelligent, and has good ideas that often the other boys want to copy.” Llacheu had said something along these lines to me last year– only he hadn’t seemed to think Medraut would make an inspiring leader.
“Do the other boys like him?”
Merlin frowned. “I’m not sure.” He paused, the frown deepening. “If anything, I’d say they were afraid of him.”
Now, wasn’t that a strange thing to say of so young a child? But it matched more with Llacheu’s opinion of his cousin. A good leader doesn’t keep his men in line through fear. Arthur’s men loved him with a deep, admiring pride.
I chewed my bottom lip, thinking. “When I first met his mother, when she was in labor with him, and I had to help her, she told me Morgana had said her child was very special– important even. I can’t remember her exact words. She said Morgana had given her things– medicine maybe– for sickness and any aches and pains she had.”
Merlin’s eyes narrowed. He usually avoided all talk of Morgana, for obvious reasons. Not for the first time I wondered if he still nurtured a secret love for her. Who knew what her powers were. She could easily have used something on him to kindle a lasting devotion. Five years in the Dark Ages had left me ready to believe most things, and I couldn’t see any other way she could have caught as clever a man as Merlin.
“What are you saying?” he asked, his voice wary.
I hesitated. “Do you think…? Could she know something of what…of what frightens me?” I swallowed. “She has the Sight, the same as her mother, and just as you do. Have you ever… since I asked you, have you ever… been tempted to look and see what lies ahead of Medraut?”
A long silence stretched between us. The children played on, giggling together as Amhar made his animals climb a row of steps he’d built using his blocks to allow access into the wooden ark that went with the animals. “Two by two,” he sang to Archfedd. “The animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo. Hoppity skip. One, two, in you go.”
Eventually, Merlin heaved a deep sigh. “Yes,” he said. “I have been tempted.”
