Page 16 of The Bear's Heart
“No, he didn’t,” I said, trying to keep my voice level and calm. I didn’t want to think of those days of captivity, of the terror that had stalked my every waking moment, of those last minutes when I’d thought Melwas was about to slice off my nose.
He slid his hand up my left arm, making me wince as he touched my bruises. “And these? How did you get these? I noticed them when I undressed you last night.” There was a tiny hint of accusation in his voice. Did he think I was lying?
“He grabbed me when he was talking to Abbot Jerome.” I was aware this sounded like an excuse. “When he threatened me with his dagger, before Jerome persuaded him to let me go.” I wasn’t sure if Jerome had told him how Melwas had threatened to return me piece by piece, starting with my nose.
Arthur ran his hand up and down my arm. “And that was all? He left you alone apart from that? He made no… no suggestions to you?”
This made me bristle with annoyance. Maybe it was the fact that Melwas had held me prisoner for so many days, and that now I was home I wanted to forget the whole incident. Obviously, Arthur couldn’t. “Why don’t you just come out and say it?” I snapped, more harshly than I’d intended. “You want to know if he raped me, don’t you?”
He looked taken aback at my bluntness, but he didn’t shy away from it. His hand stopped moving and he looked me directly in the eyes. “Did he?”
I shook my head. “I thought he was going to.” It was painful having to think about those moments again. I didn’t want to, and he was forcing me to do it. “But I told him I was a priestess from Ynys Afallon, sent by Gwynn ap Nudd. He believed me, I think. I told him my power was only for you, not him, that he was nothing, no one.”
He let out a sigh of inheld breath, and relief showed in his face. “My brave girl, facing down that monster on your own.” I ignored this rather patronizing remark. It was a good thing I loved him. I let him take my hand in his.
This time he held onto it. “But why did you feel the need to bring his mother with you?”
“I couldn’t leave her with him,” I said, after a brief pause. “At Dinas Brent, she was the only person I could talk to. I couldn’t leave her to her son’s revenge, not after she’d shown me what he’d done to her.” I paused again. “What will you do? Will you stick to Jerome’s agreement?”
I badly wanted to see Melwas punished for what he’d done to me and for all his past evil: for the murders of his brothers, for his cruelty to his mother.
Arthur bit his lip in thought a moment or two before he answered. “Until he makes his next wrong move. Then I’ll strike. I won’t forget what he tried to do with you.”
Chapter Seven
Two weeks later,the non-arrival of my period brought me to the disconcerting conclusion that I was pregnant. For the last couple of years with Nathan, my modern-day boyfriend who was now my ex, I’d had the three-monthly contraceptive injection as it was considered safer than the pill and, of course, less fiddly than condoms.
I’d been due for a top up injection shortly before Christmas, but I’d been here in Din Cadan where injections didn’t exist. When I’d made my decision to stay with Arthur and not return through the time portal on top of Glastonbury Tor, the question of contraception hadn’t been at the forefront of my mind. If the thought had crossed my mind at all, I’d just have hoped the lasting effects from my two years of injections would keep me safe for at least twelve months– which was what advice on the Internet said. So, missing my period after not quite three months in the Dark Ages was a bit disturbing.
My first thought was that I’d miscounted the days. But the next day, with no sign of my period, I began to get nervous. On the third day, with still no sign, it started to dawn on me that maybe there was a reason for this, and it might have something to do with our vigorous love life.
Maia, my young maidservant, came across me that morning sitting on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands, wearing only my undershirt. She’d brought me breakfast on a tray– porridge with honey, and weak beer. She set it down on the table and approached me.
“Milady?” Her voice was tentative. When she got no response, she tried again. “Be ye all right?”
Heaving a sigh, I raised my head, sighed again and gave what I fancied was an eloquent shrug.
Her homely face creased in consternation. “Be ye ill? Should I find the king? Or Cottia?” Her default mode every time was to appeal to a higher authority.
“No.” My voice was emphatic. I didn’t want either of them to know of my suspicions, at least not until I’d come to terms with them myself.
“Then what can I do?” She sounded anxious now, overburdened with something she didn’t want to shoulder. She was, after all, a servant, used to being told what to do by others. Responsibility was not hers.
I gave another shrug. What could she do? It was too late for anything now. In my own world, I could probably have gone for an early termination, taken a few pills, and it would have been over. Here, in the fifth century, there was no such thing available. Or was there?
She stood in front of me, now nervously wringing her hands. They were reddened and rough with work. I looked up into her face, fixing her with a steady gaze. “I need your help.”
Her eyes widened, partly in surprise, and partly, I suspected, in fear of what I might be about to ask of her. “O’ course, Milady. I be yours. I’ll do whatever ye say.” She didn’t sound all that convinced.
I wetted my lips with the tip of my tongue, as nervous as she was. “Have you ever– have you ever been…pregnant?”
Her face reddened to match her hands. She looked down at them and wrung them some more. It appeared as though the answer might be yes. She was very young, but people in the fifth century seemed to mature every bit as early as they did in the twenty-first.
I pressed my advantage home. “What did you do?”
She kept her eyes down, two bright red spots burning on her soft cheeks. They made her seem even younger. “I– I went to Mother Nara.” The words came out in a whisper.
“Mother Nara? Who’s she?” I put a hand on Maia’s sleeve. She was trembling. “Where do I find her?”
