Page 9 of Warrior Queen
Arthur was overjoyed. “A brother for Amhar. That’s what he needs. He loves to play with Medraut, but Morgawse might be going back to Caer Legeion with Theo for the winter.” He paused, counting the months on his fingers. “He’ll be born in the spring. A good time, when the animals are giving birth.”
Did I detect a note of relief in his voice– that this child was a baby no one could claim as theirs in order to spite him? As Melwas had done before he died.
I wasn’t quite so pleased. “I’m going to be huge and fat again.”
He grinned. “Not fat– beautiful.”
“Easy for you to say,” I retorted. “You don’t have to swell up like you’ve been inflated with a bicycle pump.”
“Like I’ve been what?”
I sighed. “From my old world. I don’t feel like explaining right now, but believe me, it’s not good.”
We were sitting on the wall-walk, legs dangling over the edge. Down in the practice area, the older boys were galloping their ponies at a line of targets, light lances tucked under their arms. Llacheu was easy to spot, astride his beautiful black cob, Saeth, charging with more ferocious gusto than any of the others each time his turn came.
Arthur tightened the arm he had around my shoulders. “But I do think you’re beautiful when you’re with child,” he said, his other hand taking mine. “How could any man not love his wife for giving him another son.”
I humphed. “This one might well be a girl.”
“I’ll ask Merlin–”
I stiffened and widened my eyes at him. He’d done this with Amhar which had annoyed me a lot. “No. That’s cheating. And he could easily be wrong, anyway. And besides which, I don’t want to know. Let it be a surprise.”
Arthur made a wry half-smile. “He probably wouldn’t tell me anyway. We’ve hardly spoken since we returned from Viroconium. He’s been keeping himself to himself. Not coming to the hall in the evenings to eat, even.”
I nodded. There wasn’t much I could say. Merlin had been avoiding me as well. He hardly emerged from his house except to ride out alone for hours at a time, shunning all offers of company. Llacheu had told me he’d offered to ride out with him, and been briskly brushed aside.
“You said you’d talk to him for me,” Arthur said, slight reproach in his voice.
I threaded my fingers through his, my thumb caressing the back of his suntanned hand, rubbing the scar from the wound he’d had the first time I met him. “I’ve tried. He’s so elusive. Whenever I’ve approached him, he finds an excuse to get away from me.” I paused. “He looks so sad, and he’s got so thin. I just want to give him a hug, but I think he’d have a fit if I tried that.”
“No hugging of other men, thank you. You’re mine.”
I poked him in the ribs. “Stop being silly. You’ve no need to feel jealous of Merlin. He’s like a brother to me.”
He chewed his bottom lip. “I can’t help it. If any man looks at you… since Melwas… I feel an urge to beat them to a pulp.” His hand in mine tightened. “I wish I’d done that to him, not killed him with a sword. It felt so good doing it to Cadwy.”
I heaved a sigh and rubbed his hand again. “It’s probably a good thing you beat Cadwy with your fists. If you’d not broken your sword, and you’d killed him, you might not be High King now.”
Arthur shrugged. “He meant to kill me. He needed me to draw the sword for him, but after that I’d have been of no further use. I’d have been dispensable. Maybe you as well.”
I shivered. “Don’t say that. I don’t want to think of what might have happened.” How safe would Amhar and I have been if Cadwy had defeated Arthur and taken the sword? My only way out of this world lay on Glastonbury Tor, and although only ten miles lay between Din Cadan and the Tor, over a hundred miles stretched between it and Viroconium.Ifthat doorway still functioned. For all I knew, the one time I’d tried to use it to return to my world had been the only time it would have worked. Maybe my decision not to go back had sealed it forever.
“Well ridden,” Arthur called to Llacheu, who’d just succeeded in knocking one of the targets flat with a smashing blow from his lance. As he trotted back to rejoin the queue waiting for another tilt at the targets, he waved his white-painted shield at us, a big grin on his face.
“I’ve been thinking about Gildas,” I said, at not quite the tangent Arthur would assume I’d take. “I thought maybe I’d ride over to Ynys Witrin to visit Abbot Jerome and see how his new pupil is getting on.”
Gildas was our hostage and the youngest son of the belligerent Caw of Alt Clut, held to secure his father’s peaceful cooperation beyond the Wall. Although how long that would work remained debatable. I’d befriended the lonely boy during our winter’s incarceration at Vindolanda and discovered he was glad to be away from his father. He didn’t want to become a warrior like his older brothers. Instead, his ambition was to become an educated man. In the Dark Ages that meant monasticism, so on our return to Din Cadan, we’d dispatched him over to the marsh-enclosed island of Ynys Witrin and the abbey, something that had pleased him immensely.
Arthur raised his eyebrows. “That surly boy? Really? I was glad to see the back of him. He’s safe enough on Ynys Writrin. No one there’ll show him the way out.”
“He’s hardly older than Llacheu,” I persisted. “And in my world, that’s a child. He’s far from home, even though he didn’t like it much when he was there, and now he’s been left with a bunch of men he doesn’t know. I’d have visited him sooner if we’d not had to go to Viroconium. I feel bad for abandoning him there.”
Now I’d put it into words, the enormity of what we’d done to Gildas sank in fully– in my old world it would have been a shocking thing to do to a vulnerable boy.
He shrugged. “I suppose you might as well go. But don’t expect me to join you. Other than his use as a hostage for his father’s good behavior, the boy holds no interest for me.”
I smiled to myself as the thought of the book Gildas would one day write leapt into my mind. From his lack of mentioning of Arthur in it, no doubt Gildas felt the same way about my husband.
