Page 51 of The Dragon Ring
“Best come inside then, the lot o’ ye,” it mumbled, spraying spit at us. Who’d have thought dentistry would be one of the things I’d miss most about the twenty-first century?
We found ourselves in a large antechamber illuminated by oil lamps set at intervals in niches on the walls. A powerful smell of decay struck me. It hung in the still air so thickly I could taste it. There being so many of us, we rather filled it up. On the far side of the room stood another set of double doors. Underfoot, furs partially covered an elaborate black and white mosaic, and a faded fresco of ancient Greek mythology decorated the walls. Two ornately carved wooden bench seats were piled with cushions, a long low table standing between them. A small man with a closely shaven head sprawled snoring on one of the seats. Could he be the doctor?
The little old person was a woman, to judge by her clothing. Her sparse white hair grew in a soft halo about her wrinkled face, and she had a stoop most likely caused by osteoporosis.
Arthur stared at her in the lamplight, a look of recognition dawning on his face. “Breanna?” He released my hand.
The old woman’s withered apple face split into a smile, giving us a good view of her empty gums.
“Little Arthur,” she spluttered. “I can’t see so well now, and when the Seneschal said your name, I wasn’t sure ’e ’ad it right. I ’adn’t thought to see ye ’ere again afore I died.”
Arthur dropped to his knees in front of her. She was so bent and withered that even then she was barely on eye level with him. “Mother Breanna, I too never thought to see you again. I am indeed your Arthur, come back to you.” He put his arms around her fragile, birdlike body and held her gently to his heart.
Who was she? And what was he to her? She’d clearly known him as a child and he’d called her Mother, but I knew his mother was Eigr, and that she was in Tintagel. A nurse perhaps? But hadn’t Cottia been that?
Tears brimmed in her rheumy old eyes and ran down her corrugated cheeks. He held her as she cried, her face pressed to the rough links of his mail shirt, his unshaven cheek against her thin white hair.
She must have felt the chainmail on her skin. “But ye’re dressed for war, not the sick room. Take time to get this off ye, and then I’ll take ye in to see yer father. Cadwy sits with ’im now.”
Arthur stiffened at the mention of his brother, his dark brows knitting in the familiar frown. Gently he put her to one side and got back to his feet. “No,” he said firmly. “I’ll see him now. He’s a warrior king. He’ll not find fault with me for coming in my armor. I’ve come to see him, and I’ll not be delayed.” He glanced at his men. “I’ll go alone but for the Lady of the Ring.”
She might not be able to see very well, but the trepidation in Breanna’s face was clearly readable. She put out a skeletal bird’s foot hand, but he was turning away from her already, heading toward the far doors. He caught me by the wrist again and pulled me with him, taking long strides across the mosaic floor. I was going to have bruises.
At the doors he gave a great shove to both of them, and they swung wide open. He strode into the room beyond, me in his wake like a piece of flotsam tossed in the waves.
The first thing I noticed was that the smell was much stronger here, catching me in the back of the throat and making me want to vomit. The stench brought Arthur to a halt, his face a mask of shock and thinly veiled disgust. No mistaking the smell of death hanging over the bed that stood in the center of the room. Even if you’d never smelled it before, like me, you’d have known there was nothing else that could smell like that. And it was hot, swelteringly hot, with a brazier burning near the bed and the window shutters firmly closed.
A slight hump beneath the piled bedclothes marked where the High King of Britain lay gasping out his final hours. In the shadows, a woman stood, her hands clasped in front of her, head bowed as if in prayer. Beside the bed, a figure lurched to its feet and turned toward us. For the first time, I saw Cadwy, Arthur’s older brother.
Chapter Fourteen
Cadwy was nothinglike Arthur. Where Arthur was all whipcord strength, Cadwy was a bear. His wiry, dark hair, flecked with grey, grew in a bush about his head, merging into a thick black beard. This in turn merged into a mat of chest-hair trying to escape from the neck of his deep red tunic. His ears, his wrists and all his fingers were heavy with gold.
Having got to his feet, he didn’t come any closer, but stood like a bull preparing to charge, glaring from under bushy, grizzled brows.
I didn’t move. I was mostly obscured behind Arthur, and that was how I wanted to stay. I hadn’t been keen to meet Cadwy in the first place, and now that I’d seen him, he looked as though he embodied every worry I’d been nurturing.
The woman in the shadows turned her head and looked at Arthur out of wide, dark eyes, which held no surprise. Dark hair hung loose in a cascade down her back.
“Brother,” Cadwy growled. His voice matched his looks– deep and coarse and not at all friendly.
Arthur inclined his head infinitesimally. “Brother.” His voice was ice and steel.
The mound in the bed stirred. Another wave of fetid odor assaulted my nostrils. Whatever was wrong with the High King, it must be bad for him to smell like this. The woman pressed pale hands together but made no other move.
Disregarding Cadwy’s aggressive stance, Arthur took three steps closer to the bed to stand at its foot, looking down at the pathetically slight shape beneath the covers. I stayed as still as possible, dimly aware that the Seneschal and Breanna were in the open doorway behind me. Cadwy didn’t seem to have noticed me or them, staring as he was with such malevolent intensity at Arthur.
In the shadows, the woman turned her head toward me, her gaze running from my untidy plaited hair, through my travel-stained masculine clothing, to my booted feet. I shifted uneasily. She knew I was a woman. She knew I was the Lady of the Ring. I don’t know how I knew this; I just did.
The figure in the bed moved a hand as thin as Breanna’s on the covers. Blue veins stood out like knotted cords. His shrunken face was paper pale upon the pillows, his features so sunken his head had the appearance of skin stretched tight over a bony skull. What little hair he had was wispy, and white as thistledown. This was all that remained of Uthyr Pendragon.
Arthur stepped around the bed to its head, opposite Cadwy and the woman. He stood for a moment looking down at his father, as though in two minds what to do, and then he went down on one knee. Reaching out, he took the thin hand in his own lean, brown grip.
Uthyr Pendragon turned his head and looked at his younger son out of bloodshot eyes. “Arthur.” The word came out on a gasp, faint and barely audible. “You came.”
Arthur bowed his head. “I came.” He paused and swallowed. “Theodoric fetched me.” His voice was thick with emotion.
There was a long silence before Uthyr spoke again. His breath came in wheezing puffs as though he smoked sixty a day. “Your brother said you would not come.” The words were faint, but the silence in the room was total. The whispering voice of Uthyr Pendragon sibilated through the air.
