Page 18 of The Bear's Heart

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Arthur threw water over his face noisily, then used a rough cloth, which served as a towel, to dry himself. He straightened, and I turned to him with a fixed smile that was feeling like a rictus grin by now, my whole being fixated on the tiny parcel beneath the bed, fighting the impulse to look straight at it.

Arthur smiled. “Our food awaits us, and I’m starving.” Taking my hand, he led me into the great hall.

*

I didn’t takethe powders that night. No opportunity arose, as I was never alone for a moment, and could hardly have sneaked out of bed in the middle of the night to seek hot water. The hall would have been full of snoring warriors who might have woken, not to mention the two guards on our door who should have been wide awake. So I spent a fitful night worrying through the situation.

I was pregnant– that much was painfully obvious. I’d never been late or missed a period; they were like clockwork every twenty-eight days. No variation, not even with the injections, and now I was nearly four days overdue.

Hidden underneath the bed lay a concoction of who knew what, that might or might not get rid of this baby while it was the cluster of cells I’d described to Maia. Or on the other hand, it might do to me what it had done to Ardena, whose death had scarcely touched me until this moment. Corann, her husband, was a much older man, she his second wife. He already had grown sons with families of their own. I had no idea why she’d wanted to terminate her pregnancy– maybe from the same fears I harbored, or maybe Corann hadn’t wanted the baby. But evidently she had got rid of it, with disastrous consequences. Officially, she’d died from blood loss after a miscarriage, but now I knew that for a lie.

However, the powders from Mother Nara had worked for Maia. She’d taken them in three draughts, and she’d got rid of the baby she hadn’t wanted. Or had that been going to happen anyway? Had she just believed it was the powders that had done it? I had a vague idea a fair number of pregnancies did end in early miscarriage. My friend Sian, from university, had suffered at least one before she’d had her baby. And my own mother had miscarried after she’d had my brother and me. It must be common.

So, I could risk my life and take these powders, or risk my life and carry on with a pregnancy which might end prematurely anyway. And if I did try to end it, and it worked, what was there to stop me getting pregnant again? Nothing. No contraception here. A sobering thought.

But then again, supposing I did nothing, and went ahead with this pregnancy, and the baby was born healthy, with me unharmed? What then? I’d have a baby, a little, dependent, mewling baby. All mine. I remembered going to see Sian in hospital and peering at the tiny pink thing lying sleeping in the glass-sided cot by her bed. I remembered thinking it was too much responsibility. Taking on the care of a new life in the safe twenty-first century had seemed a daunting task, but here, in the depths of the darkest period in Britain’s history, it felt insurmountable.

But was I just over-dramatizing? Was I looking on the black side of everything? Restless, I turned in bed and looked at Arthur. The glow of the brazier faintly illuminated his face, relaxed in sleep, his tousled dark hair falling across his eyes. A baby who would look like him, who might grow to resemble Llacheu, of whom I was very fond. Wouldn’t that be rather nice? Wouldn’t I like to have a baby with the man I loved?

I slid my hand to my stomach, but it was still washboard flat. It wouldn’t stay like that for long. Before I knew it, I’d have a belly like Morgawse’s had been before she’d given birth to Medraut. And look what that had done to Theodoric, her husband. He’d gone running off to brothels.

No. Strictly speaking that wasn’t what Theodoric had done in response to his wife’s pregnancy. He’d probably been doing that for a long time before she fell pregnant, before he even married her. I didn’t like Theodoric all that much and cared nothing for his attitude toward his wife. But was Arthur the same? I didn’t know.

There was a lot I didn’t know about Arthur, even after nearly three months in the fifth century, three quarters of that time married to him. I knew he’d kept a mistress here in Din Cadan, a beautiful mistress who was the mother of his only son, a child he’d fathered when he’d been little more than a boy himself. Tangwyn was still here, living in her own house not far from the great hall where I lived with Arthur, often eating in the Hall in the evening, watching him out of her slanting cat’s eyes, her expression saying clearly that it was only a matter of time before he was hers again. He’d kept away from her since we’d arrived back from Viroconium, but his son was everywhere, in and out of the Hall, at the practice grounds, in the classes Merlin taught to the younger boys. A constant reminder of his lovely mother.

A small part of me feared Arthur might be as fickle as his brother-in-law. A wife resembling a whale might well drive him back into Tangwyn’s slender arms, which was the last thing I wanted. He was mine now, and I intended to keep it that way. I wasn’t about to let Tangwyn into his life again.

Pushing thoughts of the little bag of powders under the bed into the back of my mind, I snuggled up close to him. He stirred a little and put his arm around me, drawing me nearer. I put my cheek against his chest, the hairs tickling my nose, and closed my eyes. But sleep was a long time coming.

*

The next morning,after sleeping in late, I woke to the renewed disappointment that my period still hadn’t arrived, something I’d been hoping would take away the necessity for those powders. I felt hungover and heavy lidded from my restless night, and my head throbbed painfully. Breakfast of congealed porridge stood cold on the table, so I downed the flagon of small beer but felt no better. If anything, I felt worse. Going without sleep for most of the night was not to be recommended when you were newly pregnant.

I lay back down on the bed for a while, and the cat came and sat on my chest, cleaning its paws in a companionable manner. But at last, I had to get up. I couldn’t lie in bed feeling depressed all morning. What I wanted was a ride, so the fresh air could blow the cobwebs away and with them my headache.

The great hall was empty, so, dressed in tunic and braccae, I stepped out into the cold winter daylight.

Arthur was busy with his men down on the practice field, so engrossed, he didn’t see me watching. The smaller boys had congregated in a corner with Cei and Gwalchmei, practicing with their stubby wooden swords. Which meant they weren’t being taught theory by Merlin today.

I set off in search of Merlin.

He was sitting on a log in Goff’s forge, watching the burly smith as he hammered away at a glowing piece of iron. When he saw me, he got to his feet and emerged into the daylight. Behind him, the ringing tones of the hammer on iron beat out an almost musical rhythm.

He made me a little bow in greeting.

I went straight to the point. “Could we go out riding? Arthur’s busy, and I’m longing for a gallop.” I managed a smile. “I’ve got a headache, and the fresh air would do me good.”

Tilting his head to one side, he narrowed his eyes as though trying to read my mind. Deliberately, I thought hard about Alezan and how nice it would be to take her for a gallop. Just in case. Whether or not he could read minds, he certainly had good intuition.

“Not on our own,” he said. “I’ll go and find us an escort.”

*

Half an hourlater, we rode down the cobbled road toward the plain, followed by half a dozen heavily armed warriors. Alezan, always lively, skipped and sidled beneath me, and for the first time ever, I felt a pang of nerves. Supposing I were to fall off? What would happen to the baby? It puzzled me that I should care about this when all I wanted was to be rid of it. An odd sensation.

We skirted the foot of the hill, following the road that threaded its way between the farmsteads. Washing fluttered on a line, chickens ran squawking to get out of our way, small, grubby children played in front of houses, and men sat on log stools beside their doors, sharpening swords or mending tools. Further out, on the open pasture lands, sheep browsed, watched over by the older boys and their brindled dogs. Where the land was wetter, shaggy cattle grazed knee-deep in the marshes.

We rode east. The cobbled road vanished, and we were soon on open rolling grasslands where the figures of a distant herd of grazing horses looked like toys.