Page 55 of Warrior Queen
Nothing.
Chapter Eighteen
For a longwhile, Ystradwel and I remained on the wall, in the rain, waiting. Eventually, the baker, taking his responsibilities to heart, persuaded us into one of the tower chambers. But we both paced between the rickety chairs around the central table and the windows that overlooked the battlefield, unable to rest with our menfolk not yet safely returned. We weren’t alone in our vigil– the tired townsfolk, the women, the children, the lame, still crowded the walls, cloaked, expectant, afraid. Just as we were.
At last, our men began to appear out of the misty rain in ghostly dribs and drabs. Trudging, mud covered, exhausted, but victorious. As they neared the gates, their shoulders straightened, and they stood taller, walking with the pride of men who have vanquished a savage foe. On the battlements, the waiting townspeople set up a ragged cheer.
Arthur’s men, unhorsed for some reason, might well have been amongst their number. Knowing that, I searched in vain for faces I knew, but they were unrecognizable. The shields slung across their backs were crevassed and filthy, and red-rimmed, exhausted eyes looked out from grimy faces. But when the townspeople ran out of the gates to offer help, the warriors refused. With ramrod straight backs, they marched into the city and up the Via Praetoria to find their billets.
The night had passed, and the first pale light of dawn was peeking over the eastern skyline, before Coel’s cavalry and Arthur’s combrogi returned on their exhausted horses. I heard their hoofbeats before I saw them. A long and winding column of riders trailed up the shadowy road, as dirty and wet as the men on foot had been, their horses slathered in mud and blood. Severed heads, hooked on by long yellow hair, hung from saddle horns, proof the Romans had not succeeded in extinguishing the old ways, even after three hundred and seventy years of occupation.
Where was Llamrei, with her easy to spot white coat?
Nowhere.
Leaving the baker sleeping propped against the wall in a corner of the tower, Ystradwel and I descended the wooden staircase to the lower level, emerging into the gateway recess as the first of the riders arrived. My anxious eyes roamed the ranks of warriors, still seeking Llamrei, but finding nothing, no glimpse of white amongst the muddy coats. Only dark horses, made darker still by the mud and the dried blood that had run down their flanks from the gory trophies hooked on their saddle horns.
I recoiled in shock. These were not the shining warriors who’d ridden so nobly across the plain in perfect wedge formation at the start of this day. These were creatures I couldn’t recognize, things from a fevered imagination’s worst nightmare. Not men I knew, but ferocious, unkempt warriors, savage as wild beasts, rank with sweat and the blood of the enemy. Scratch the surface of a Dark Age man, and this was what lurked beneath.
One of them slid down from his horse and turned toward me, as behind him, the rest of the riders filed silently past. He took off his helmet.
I stared.
His hair hung in filthy rats’ tails, his handsome face nearly hidden by dirt and blood and other things I couldn’t identify and didn’t want to. But out of that nightmare face, familiar dark eyes stared at me, holding my gaze for a long, pregnant minute. Then they slid past me to where Ystradwel stood, leaning against the gatehouse wall for support, as though her inner core of strength had finally given way.
Arthur shook his head at her in silent apology.
An anguished gasp escaped her lips. Her hand shot to her heart as she staggered under the blow, her other hand groping for the wall, fingernails scratching at the cold, uncaring stonework. In the flickering light of the torches, still burning smokily in the gateway recess, her face drained of all color. Age sagged her cheeks; despair bleached her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Arthur’s voice spoke out of that bloody, mud-covered face. Broken, desolate. “I couldn’t save him. I tried. He died a hero.”
Ystradwel’s legs collapsed under her. A little cry escaped her lips, and she sank to the cobbles like a broken marionette. “Oh God, no. No, no, no.”
I took an uncertain step toward her, hand outstretched, my gaze flicking between her and my husband, where he stood, staring out of eyes as anguished as hers.
The tower door crashed back on its hinges. Our baker emerged, his gaze flying from Arthur to Ystradwel to me, shock and horror written on his large and homely face. He must have overheard Arthur’s words.
I drew myself up straighter, a deep breath steadying my shattered nerves. “Good baker, the king,yourking, is dead. Please carry the queen back to the palace.”
Needing no other urging, and accepting that today a humble baker would be called upon to carry a queen, he bent and swept Ystradwel up into his arms, as though she were a child to be comforted. Her head lolled against his broad chest as tears ran down her stricken face. On sturdy, reliable legs, the stalwart baker set off up the Via Praetoria toward the palace, as the morning shadows shortened.
I turned back to Arthur.
Inside, unspoken, I was thanking everything– God, the gods in general, fate, my prayers, my luck– that it was Coel who’d died and not my husband. Heartbroken as I was for Ystradwel, relief that I wasn’t in her place swept over me. My heart rose as I gazed at Arthur. Regardless of the dirt that covered him, I wrapped my arms around his body, laying my face against the rough links of his mail shirt.
For a long moment he stood stiff and motionless, a statue of a man, before he at last lifted his own arms and laid them awkwardly across my back, as though this were an action alien to him.
“I love you,” I whispered into his mail shirt, too quietly for him to hear. “Thank you, God.”
*
The door intoour chamber closed, shutting out the servants, who, on my orders, had brought the bathtub and buckets of hot water to our room. Arthur still stood where he’d been since we’d come in from the stable yard. His face had a fixed, distant look, as though in his mind’s eye he were far away, reliving that dreadful battle.
Tired, no, exhausted as I was after twenty-four hours with no sleep and nothing to eat, I concentrated my whole being on him. I’d never seen him like this before. So utterly out of it, he didn’t seem to care about the state he was in.
I touched his hand, where it hung limply by his side. “Your bath’s ready.”
Nothing. No reaction.
