Page 57 of Warrior Queen
He turned anguished eyes on me. “Will it bring them back, then?” His words came out hard and accusing, as though he thought it my fault the dead were so.
What answer was there to that?
I shook my head, fear for my friends gripping me. I’d only seen the few warriors who’d been with him when he rode through the gate, and had eyes only for him. Until this moment I’d not even thought to ask– too concerned with the state he was in. But where were Merlin, Cei, Drustans, Rhiwallon and the other men I knew? “Who-who do you mean?” My own voice shook.
“The dead.” His voice came in a hoarse whisper. “The unquiet dead.”
A shiver ran through me, icy fingers tickling my skin. “Whois dead?” I had to ask. I had to know. Not Merlin, please. Not Cei. Don’t let my friends be dead. An ache of fear gripped my chest, and my breathing quickened. “Tell me.”
“Geraint.”
What? Who?
I stared at him. “Who is Geraint?” Not one of our men, that was for sure. But I knew the name from somewhere my terrified brain refused to let me access, my thoughts flicking everywhere, unable to settle.
A memory flitted past me. A story from Arthur’s boyhood recounted to me by Merlin. I grabbed it and held on tight.
When Arthur was a boy, his mentor had been his much older cousin– Prince Geraint, the man who’d then had command of Din Cadan. Arthur’s father, and the already adult Cadwy, had been absent in the west. When a messenger warning of Saxon raids in the south had arrived at Viroconium, Arthur, just a boy of thirteen, had led the remnants of his father’s men to Din Cadan to join with Geraint before the battle of Llongborth.
That same Cerdic of Caer Guinntguic who now sat on the Council of Kings, but at that time fighting alongside his mother’s people, had killed Geraint before Arthur’s eyes. And only some clever ruse of Merlin’s had snatched Arthur to safety, before he too could be killed. But that was fifteen years ago now.
“My cousin,” he whispered to me. “Those bastards killed my cousin.” He blinked away the tears. “And now they’ve killed my nephew too.”
I’d read in books when people said their blood ran cold and thought it fanciful. Now, I suddenly realized it wasn’t. A chill settled on my heart at his words, clenching around it in an iron fist and stifling its beats. “Rhiwallon?” I could hardly choke the single word out. A boy, a child, on his first campaign. No. It couldn’t be. He must be here, alive, somewhere.
Arthur nodded, and now the tears ran down his cheeks. He turned toward me, and I put my arms around him, nestling him against my breasts, holding him tight as he sobbed, his body wracked. It was a long time before he quieted, and I thought he might have gone to sleep.
He hadn’t. “I killed him,” he whispered against my shirt.
I tightened my hold, in a bid to reassure him and show him how much I loved him, a fruitless attempt to make him feel better. “You didn’t kill him. It wasn’t your fault he died. He was a warrior born.” The words came out in a rush, tumbling over themselves as I sought for words of comfort and no doubt failed abysmally. I wasn’t good at this. “No one could have kept a boy his age kicking his heels at Din Cadan any longer. Not when his friends were marching to war.” I remembered the conversation I’d had with Coventina, my heart heavy as a lump of lead in my chest. “If it was anyone’s fault that he was here, it was mine and his mother’s. We let him come.”
He shook his head, not raising it to look me in the eye. “You don’t understand.Ikilled him.” His hands began to shake again. He clasped them tight, and I covered them with one of mine, stroking them in an effort to calm the shake. I might as well not have bothered.
I had to ask the question, though. “What do you mean?”
For a long moment he remained silent, then his body went rigid. “A Saxon twice his size. The boy was fighting him. Outmatched.” His voice shook. “The man gutted him.”
My treacherous stomach heaved, and I struggled to prevent myself from retching. I’d seen enough dead and dying men now to know what that meant. Horror curdled in my heart.
“I killed the warrior, but I was too late to save Rhiwallon.” He shifted his head so he could look up into my eyes. “I cradled him in my arms as he lay dying.” The tears ran down his cheeks. “He was so frightened and so brave. He looked into my eyes and asked me to tell his father he loved him.” The words came choking out. “Then… then he asked me to end it for him.”
I stared into eyes that brimmed with self-disgust, words flown. Nothing would comfort him for this. In Vindolanda two years ago I’d administered an overdose of poppy syrup to end the suffering of a terribly injured child, but this was different. Rhiwallon was a boy I knew, a boy I’d seen grow to the cusp of manhood, a boy we both loved. Cei’s son. That icy hand renewed its hold. Did Cei know?
Arthur swallowed. “He-he could see his own entrails hanging out. He knew it was the end. The-the pain…” He hesitated. “I couldn’t let him suffer.”
I pulled him tighter against me, holding him as close as I could, my face against his, our tears mingling.
Rhiwallon, playing at being a warrior with Llacheu on the day I met them. Long legs dangling from a too small pony. Rhiwallon, disgusted by the sight of Merlin and Morgana kissing– thinking girls were awful. Rhiwallon, sitting around the campfire swigging cider from the skin being passed around. Rhiwallon, arm-in-arm with his new friends, off to the fleshpots of Caer Went to become a man.
Rhiwallon lying dead on a battlefield far from his home.
Coventina weeping for a son she’d never see again.
We cried ourselves to sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Iawoke alone.Arthur had gone, and the room felt sad and empty without him. I pushed myself up and blinked in the dim evening light, battling to pull myself together and unfog my mind. I felt as though I had a hangover.
