Page 11 of The Bear's Heart
“Why?”
Her lips clamped together in a thin line of bitterness. For a moment, I didn’t think she was going to tell me, then she leaned forward and put her mouth to my ear, as though this was a secret so dark she couldn’t risk the air between us catching it. “I mourned my son.”
Realization began to dawn. “Whoareyou?” We were very close now and my voice made hardly any sound. No one could have overheard us from the other side of the door or even from inside the prison if they were more than a few feet away.
Her mouth worked soundlessly, as though getting out the words was the hardest thing in the world. Her throat convulsed with the effort, her eyes darted toward the door, and her bony hands balled up the loose material in the front of her gown. She opened her mouth to speak. “I am his mother.”
“You’re Melwas’s mother?” I repeated, shocked to the bone that she was so downtrodden and timid, that he or one of his followers had inflicted that burn on her arm, that she was the mother of the boy he’d boasted about killing.
She nodded.
No wonder she seemed familiar. Now that I knew I was looking at Melwas’s mother, I was no longer puzzled. She had a strong facial resemblance to him, with narrow features and a hooked nose; one day, when he was old, he would look much like her, except his eyes were black whereas hers were faded blue.
I licked suddenly dry lips. “Your son who you mourned. Did Melwas kill him? He told me he killed his brother when he was only ten years old, but I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.”
She nodded again, seeming to shrink in on herself as her memories flooded back. Tears sparkled unshed in the corners of her rheumy eyes.
This was something I needed to know, and maybe it was something she needed to say. Maybe there’d been no one here she could ever confide in, no one who cared. Maybe it would help her to tell me. “What happened?” I asked gently, taking her arm and steering her to the bed where the servant had left my gown spread over one end. We sat down side by side, and I put my arm around her bony, hunched shoulders.
The touch of my arm seemed to soften the tension in her body. She relaxed against me, so with my other hand I covered hers where they lay clasped in her lap. They felt like a bird’s fleshless feet, dry and scaly and bony. “Tell me your story,” I whispered.
She licked her lips, avoiding my gaze and looking down at our hands. “My husband was Vortimer, oldest son of Guorthegirn, who was king of Powys and High King of all Britain.” Somehow, telling this story in a whisper seemed to add weight to it. “After his father was killed and Ambrosius became High King, my husband was given Dinas Brent to rule. They’d been friends– brothers in arms– and Ambrosius didn’t want to punish him for his father’s sins. We had four strong sons. Melwas was the youngest.”
I held her close and she nestled into my body, like a kitten to its mother, her tongue loosened by the contact.
“My husband was a good man– a strong warrior, a wise king. Our oldest son was killed in a riding accident. He was out hunting with his father when the girth on his saddle snapped at a gallop, and he fell and hit his head. It took him three days to die. He was just thirteen.”
Was this the boy Melwas had boasted of killing when he was just ten years old himself? Could a child have interfered with the girth? Not a guaranteed death, but one that had worked well for him. Just two older brothers left between him and kingship.
“Our second son drowned while fishing with Melwas the following year. I began to have my suspicions, but he was only eleven. How could a child be evil enough to kill another child?” She heaved a deep sigh. “My child could. But I watched him after that.”
A noise outside the door made us both start, but the door remained firmly closed, and no one came in. Olwyn’s hands beneath mine clenched and unclenched convulsively.
“Go on,” I whispered. Had she ever spoken to anyone about these things before? Was I the first she could confide in?
“Five years passed. Melwas’s only remaining brother grew toward manhood. He was like his father– tall and strong and handsome, with my blue eyes. A son to be proud of.” A smile flitted across her face as she called back his shade, and I sensed he stood before her, forever a boy in her memory, preserved in the aspic of his youth.
And Melwas, the youngest, had grown long and sly with eyes as dark as coal, and a lust for the throne of his father that would one day be his brother’s by right of primogeniture. I didn’t need her to tell me.
“My husband grew old. He’d taken many wounds fighting for his father and Ambrosius, and he was tired and worn out. One day at dinner in our hall he got to his feet clutching his chest and fell dead onto the table in front of us.”
A heart attack perhaps. Would they even know what that was? Probably not.
“My third son was seventeen when he became king, and seventeen when he died in his bed, writhing in agony, just twelve days after his father.” She paused, her gaze faraway, and I guessed she saw her golden son once more, lying on his deathbed. “And Melwas became king.”
I swallowed. It seemed he’d killed his way to his kingdom with impunity. “And he did this to you,” I touched her arm, “when you mourned your son?”
She nodded. “I no longer had my husband to keep me safe. He said I could not mourn my son. I had to celebrate his own kingship.” She gave a little shudder. “When I said I could not, he took my arm and set my sleeve on fire with a burning torch. It was only the help of my faithful old manservant, Henwas, that saved my life. He rolled me in a rug to smother the flames. My son had his head lopped off and set on a spike outside the hall as warning to all those who might think to go against him. Melwas was just a boy of sixteen himself, but already the traits of his tyrant grandfather, Guorthegirn, were strong in him.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to this, but I was wishing she hadn’t told me, wishing I didn’t know the lengths to which Melwas was prepared to go. When I hadn’t known, bravery had been easy because I’d never met a man as ruthless as he was, and had never suspected the depths to which he might sink. Now, with the knowledge of what he’d done to his brothers and his own mother, fear coiled about me like a snake, making my heart beat faster and sweat spring out on my skin.
Tightening my arm about Olwyn’s shoulders, I swallowed my fear. “My husband will come for me,” I whispered into her ear. “And when he does, Melwas will be made to pay for all his wickedness.”
*
Three days passed,which I spent in Olwyn’s company, learning as much as possible about Melwas and his fortress. This wasn’t much, as we were only allowed to walk between the prison hut and the hall, or watch Melwas as he practiced sword fighting with his men, which he did daily. He was an expert swordsman.
In all that time, he didn’t touch me, although in the early evenings he forced me to sit beside him in his hall to eat my evening meal, while Olwyn sat at a lowly table with his men and their womenfolk. I had no appetite, for fear was my constant companion, and I was repelled by the proximity of my captor with his lank black hair, his wolfish yellow teeth and his air of self-satisfaction that he had me in his power. Every day I scanned the horizon from the rise where the hall stood, for any sign of Cadwy arriving to take me to Viroconium, or Arthur coming to demand my return.
